[✔️] August 30, 2021 - Daily Global Warming News Digest
👀 Richard Pauli
richard at theclimate.vote
Mon Aug 30 09:41:39 EDT 2021
/*August 30, 2021*/
[New future]
*What We Know About Climate Change and Hurricanes*
Scientists are confident that the warming of the planet is changing the
way storms behave. Here’s how...
- -
Global warming is changing storms...
- -
*1. Higher winds...*
“Potential intensity is going up,” said Kerry Emanuel, a professor of
atmospheric science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “We
predicted it would go up 30 years ago, and the observations show it
going up.”
Stronger winds mean downed power lines, damaged roofs and, when paired
with rising sea levels, worse coastal flooding.
*2. More rain*
Warming also increases the amount of water vapor that the atmosphere can
hold. In fact, every degree Celsius of warming allows the air to hold
about 7 percent more water.
That means we can expect future storms to unleash higher amounts of
rainfall.
*3. Slower storms*
Researchers do not yet know why storms are moving more slowly, but they
are. Some say a slowdown in global atmospheric circulation, or global
winds, could be partly to blame.
In a 2018 paper, Dr. Kossin found that hurricanes over the United States
had slowed 17 percent since 1947. Combined with the increase in rain
rates, storms are causing a 25 percent increase in local rainfall in the
United States, he said.
Slower, wetter storms also worsen flooding. Dr. Kossin likened the
problem to walking around your back yard while using a hose to spray
water on the ground. If you walk fast, the water won’t have a chance to
start pooling. But if you walk slowly, he said, “you’ll get a lot of
rain below you.”
*
**4. Wider-ranging storms*
Because warmer water helps fuel hurricanes, climate change is enlarging
the zone where hurricanes can form.
There’s a “migration of tropical cyclones out of the tropics and toward
subtropics and middle latitudes,” Dr. Kossin said. That could mean more
storms making landfall in higher latitudes, like in the United States or
Japan.
*
**5. More volatility*
As the climate warms, researchers also say they expect storms to
intensify more rapidly. Researchers are still unsure why it’s happening,
but the trend appears to be clear.
In a 2017 paper based on climate and hurricane models, Dr. Emanuel found
that storms that intensify rapidly — the ones that increase their wind
speed by 70 miles per hour or more in the 24 hours before landfall —
were rare in the period from 1976 through 2005. On average, he
estimated, their likelihood in those years was equal to about once per
century.
By the end of the 21st century, he found, those storms might form once
every five or 10 years.
“It’s a forecaster’s nightmare,” Dr. Emanuel said. If a tropical storm
or Category 1 hurricane develops into a Category 4 hurricane overnight,
he said, “there’s no time to evacuate people.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/29/climate/climate-change-hurricanes.html
- -
[Meteorology]
*Catastrophic damage likely at key oil industry hub*
Ida’s eye scored a direct hit on Port Fourchon, a critical hub for the
U.S. oil industry. According to the Port Fourchon website:
https://portfourchon.com/seaport/port-facts/
Over 250 companies utilize Port Fourchon as a base of operation.
In addition to its huge domestic hydrocarbon significance, Port
Fourchon is land base for LOOP (Louisiana Offshore Oil Port), which
handles 10-15% of the nation’s domestic oil, 10-15% of the nation’s
foreign oil, and is connected to 50% of US refining capacity. LOOP
is the only US deep water port capable of offloading VLCCs (Very
Large Crude Carriers) and ULCCs (Ultra Large Crude Carriers).
Port Fourchon currently services over 90% of the Gulf of Mexico’s
deep water oil production.
Overall, Port Fourchon plays a strategic role in furnishing this
country with about 18% of its entire oil supply.
Over 400 large supply vessels traverse the port’s channels each day.
Approximately 15,000 people per month are flown to offshore
locations supported by Port Fourchon.
Truck traffic studies have shown that up to 1,200 trucks per day
travel in and out of Port Fourchon.
Over 1.5 million barrels of crude oil per day are transported via
pipelines through the port.
Ida is likely to cause catastrophic damage to the port, and leave it cut
off from the rest of the state as a result of storm surge flooding of
Highway 1. Potential serious oil spills in Port Fourchon are also a
concern given its numerous tank farms.
https://yaleclimateconnections.org/2021/08/catastrophic-hurricane-ida-hits-louisiana-with-150-mph-winds/
[Books]
*Penguin Classics Launches “New Canon” of Environmental Literature*
“This series feels like a collective expression of love and grief for
the living world.”
https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2021/08/penguin-classics-launches-new-canon-environmental-literature-books/
["survival migrant" interview https://youtu.be/sweXVUuPhYY]
*Alice Hill | Adaptation Critical To Our Global Climate Preparedness
Strategy*
Aug 30, 2021
Nick Breeze
In this episode of Shaping The Future, I am speaking with Alice Hill who
was Special Assistant to President Obama at the White House and Senior
Director for Resilience Policy at the National Security Council, working
on climate change and pandemic preparedness.
Timestamps based on interview questions:
01:20 Most of the narrative around our climate change response at
the moment is very focussed on mitigation and debate rages on,
regarding whether we are doing enough, fast enough. Your book is a
very pragmatic and, in many ways reassuring, breakdown of what we
need to do to adapt to climate impacts. Can you start by giving us
some background on what led you to write a book that is essentially
a global climate preparedness strategy?
03:16 Early on in the book you refer to failures of imagination that
mean we cannot prepare effectively. Can you elaborate on what this
means and the tools that will need to be developed and deployed in
order to fill the imagination gap?
06:40 We are getting strong signals now of what extreme
climate-driven impacts look like. You discuss preparedness for
concurrent and consecutive disasters. Can you give an example of
this kind of scenario and the resilience that would be needed?
09:00 If you take the US, or Europe, for example, we don’t seem to
hear much talk about preparation for adaptation, compared to places
like Bangladesh, despite the impacts becoming more severe and
widespread. Why is it so hard for developed nations to get ahead on
this?
14:10 You outline some excellent examples of leadership success and
leadership failures, making the point that leadership matters.
Looking at how countries have responded to the pandemic, there are
obvious winners and losers but, generally, are you seeing the
leadership qualities we need to steer us through the critical
resilience building years ahead?
15:40 Another major theme you highlight is the borderless nature of
climate change and how our response should be equally borderless. If
you take a country like the UK and even the US, it seems that we
have an unhelpful obsession with borders. How does greater
resilience relate to greater cross-border cooperation?
*Include water sharing (17:25).
19:10 You use the term ‘survival migrants’ in the book - what are
these and how do they fit into the landscape of global change we are
entering?
20:05 Is this one issue perhaps a great test of our empathy and
humanity?
28:00 How close are we to the point where insurers (and re-insurers)
stop insuring?
31:25 In a press conference a few days ago with an agricultural
producer in the US I asked how much of their climate strategy was
allocated towards adaptation. The answer came back that the focus
was purely on mitigation. Can you end by summarising why adaptation
planning and mitigation strategies must be treated with equal
seriousness right now?
[END]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sweXVUuPhYY
[Elizabeth Kolbert is the queen of climate reporting]
*The U.N.’s Terrifying Climate Report*
Scientists predict hotter heat waves and worse flooding in the decades
ahead, but the catastrophe is evident everywhere this summer.
By Elizabeth Kolbert
August 15, 2021
In 1988, the World Meteorological Organization teamed up with the United
Nations Environment Programme to form a body with an even more
cumbersome title, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or, as
it quickly became known, the I.P.C.C. The I.P.C.C.’s structure was every
bit as ungainly as its name. Any report that the group issued had to be
approved not just by the researchers who collaborated on it but also by
the governments of the member countries, which today number a hundred
and ninety-five. The process seemed guaranteed to produce gridlock, and,
by many accounts, that was the point of it. (One of the architects of
the I.P.C.C. was the Reagan Administration.) Indeed, when the scientists
drew up their first report, in 1990, the diplomats tried so hard to
water down their conclusions that the whole enterprise nearly collapsed.
Every five or six years since then, the group has updated its findings,
using the same procedure.
It’s in this context that the latest I.P.C.C. effort, released last
week, has to be read—or, more likely, not read. Even the shortest and
snappiest version of the report, the so-called Summary for Policymakers,
which, at forty-one pages, is just one per cent of the length of the
full document, is, in its mix of the technical and the turgid, pretty
much impenetrable. Still, it manages to terrify. Owing to humans, the
report states, the world has warmed by more than one degree
Celsius—nearly two degrees Fahrenheit. Global temperatures are now
higher than at any other time in the past hundred and twenty-five
thousand years. Anthropogenic warming, the report observes, is already
producing fiercer heat waves, heavier rainstorms, and more violent
cyclones. In the coming decades, still hotter heat waves and worse
flooding are to be expected, as events that are now considered extreme
become commonplace. On Twitter, the climate activist Greta Thunberg
described the I.P.C.C. report as a “solid (but cautious) summary of the
current best available science.” The U.N. Secretary-General, António
Guterres, called it a “code red for humanity.”
Of course, these days, you don’t need to be a climate scientist to know
which way the smoke is blowing. As Corinne Le Quéré, a climate modeller
at the University of East Anglia and one of the authors of the I.P.C.C.
report, told the Washington Post, “It’s now become actually quite
obvious to people what is happening, because we see it with our own
eyes.” Just before the report came out, the Dixie Fire, burning
northeast of Sacramento, became the largest single fire on record in
California. (Last summer’s August Complex Fire is still the largest over
all, but it was made up of multiple fires that started separately.) On
Wednesday, the National Weather Service warned, “Stifling summer heat to
stretch from coast-to-coast.” That day, about two hundred million
Americans were under some kind of heat advisory.
Elsewhere in the world last week, the situation was similarly grim. The
city of Siracusa, in Sicily, set what appears to be a new European
temperature record of 119.8 degrees. More than sixty people were killed
by wildfires in Algeria, which was also experiencing intense heat.
Wildfires in Greece prompted the country’s Prime Minister to declare a
“natural disaster of unprecedented dimensions,” and in the Chinese
province of Sichuan more than eighty thousand people were evacuated
because of flooding caused by torrential rains.
As the world fried and boiled, Washington continued to do what it does
best, which is argue. On Tuesday, the Senate approved its much touted
bipartisan infrastructure package. It allocates billions of dollars for
climate-related projects, such as upgrading the electrical grid and
improving public transportation. But the level of funding falls far
short of what is needed, and key provisions—including standards that
would compel utilities to move away from fossil fuels—are missing.
Meanwhile, the bill contains a great deal of spending that’s likely to
increase carbon emissions. Senate Democrats have promised to do better
in their $3.5-trillion budget-reconciliation bill, the broad outlines of
which they approved last week, on a party-line vote. The reconciliation
bill is supposed to include, among many other climate-related measures,
incentives for utilities to switch to cleaner energy sources, and
penalties for those that fail to. But, in an awkward twist, drafting the
details of this program will fall to the Senate’s Energy and Natural
Resources Committee, which is headed by the fossil-fuel-friendly Joe
Manchin, Democrat of West Virginia. In the House, progressive
representatives have pressed Speaker Nancy Pelosi not to schedule a vote
on the infrastructure package until the final budget-reconciliation bill
has been approved by the Senate. Moderates have countered by threatening
that they won’t vote for the resolution that would begin the budget
process in the House until there is a vote on the infrastructure package.
Every delay matters. Three decades have passed since the I.P.C.C.
released its first report. During that time, annual global emissions
have nearly doubled, and the amount of carbon in the atmosphere put
there by humans has more than doubled. As a result, the world is rapidly
approaching thresholds that no sane person would want to cross. The goal
of the Paris Agreement, approved in 2015, was to hold “the increase in
the global average temperature to well below” two degrees Celsius and to
try to limit the increase to 1.5 degrees.
The I.P.C.C. considered five possible futures. Under one scenario—the
most optimistic, though by no means the most realistic—carbon emissions w
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/08/23/the-uns-terrifying-climate-report
[Lies and ethics]
MARCH 2, 2021
*Liars - Falsehoods and Free Speech in an Age of Deception*
Harvard Law Professor Cass Sunstein offered his thoughts on how to limit
false information in the public forum while protecting free speech. This
virtual program was hosted by the National Archives in Washington, D.C.
[transcript available on page ]
https://www.c-span.org/video/?509533-1/liars-falsehoods-free-speech-age-deception
- -
[his book]
*Liars: Falsehoods and Free Speech in an Age of Deception (INALIENABLE
RIGHTS) 1st Edition*
by Cass R. Sunstein
Editorial Reviews
Review
"A passionate and forceful argument from America's pre-eminent legal
scholar that our law ought to do more to protect the public from the
harms of falsehood." -- Robert Post, Sterling Professor of Law, Yale Law
School
"An increasing amount of what we hear and read is demonstrably factually
false, and the acceptance of falsity has grave consequences for
democratic decision-making. Drawing on legal doctrine, psychological
research, and an impressive command of the dynamics of modern media,
Cass Sunstein offers a
sobering explanation of why factual falsity is increasingly prevalent in
contemporary public discourse and why American free speech doctrine may
do more to exacerbate than alleviate the problem. This book is essential
reading in the modern political and media environment." -- Frederick
Schauer,
David and Mary Harrison Distinguished Professor of Law, University of
Virginia
"An insightful, balanced, and readable book, by one of America's leading
legal scholars ― whether you ultimately agree with its suggestions or
not, you will learn much from its analysis." -- Eugene Volokh, Gary T.
Schwartz Professor of Law, UCLA School of Law
About the Author
Cass R. Sunstein is the Robert Walmsley University Professor at Harvard
University. From 2009 to 2012, he was Administrator of the White House
Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs. In 2018, he received the
Holberg Prize from the Government of Norway, often described as the
equivalent of the
Nobel Prize for law and humanities. Founder and director of the Program
on Behavioral Economics and Public Policy at Harvard Law School, he has
been involved in law reform activities in nations all over the world. He
is the author of many articles and books, including Nudge, How Change
Happens, and
Too Much Information.
https://www.amazon.com/Liars-Falsehoods-Speech-Deception-INALIENABLE/dp/0197545114
[Disinformation sadism]
*As denying climate change becomes impossible, fossil-fuel interests
pivot to 'carbon shaming'*
Aylin Woodward - -Aug 28, 2021
Fossil-fuel interests no longer bother denying that climate change is real.
So they've pivoted to new tactics, including painting climate advocates
as hypocrites.
Drawing attention to advocates' non-eco-friendly habits undermines their
credibility and distracts from policy changes.
After Prince Harry told Oprah Winfrey that climate change and mental
health are two of the "most important issues facing the world today,"
the New York Post threw the words back at him. In a story earlier this
week, the Post reported that the "double-talking dilettante" had taken a
private plane from Colorado to California.
Sky News and The Times too, have lambasted Harry's carbon-intensive
jetsetting. All three publications are tied to Rupert Murdoch's News
Corporation, which previously denied the science of climate change.
Murdoch is on the advisory board of Genie Energy, an energy company that
invests in oil and gas projects.
London mayor Sadiq Khan, an anti-pollution advocate, got similar
treatment from The Sun, another Murdoch-owned publication, for flying
32,000 miles between 2016 and 2019 and purchasing 4.3 million paper
towels in a year.
According to Michael Mann, an atmospheric science professor at
Pennsylvania State University, these types of stories are part of a
larger strategy: Groups that support the continued use of fossil fuels
have increasingly begun to point out climate advocates' seemingly
hypocritical behavior, rather than denying that climate change is real.
It's one of many new strategies the fossil-fuel industry has adopted,
according to Mann's latest book "The New Climate War."
Mann told Insider that in his view, "2009-2010 was the last hurrah for
good old fashioned climate-change denialism." By 2019, 62% of Americans
agreed that climate change was affecting their day-to-day lives.
"It's beyond not being able to deny the science," he said. "It's now a
matter of having to deny reality."
Hurricane delta flooding louisiana car street baker
A car moves through a flooded street as Hurricane Delta approaches, in
Baker, Louisiana, October 9, 2020. Marco Bello/Reuters
So instead of hammering the "climate change isn't happening" message,
the fossil-fuel industry now seems to be fostering finger-pointing and
infighting among environmentalists. That siphons time and attention away
from efforts to bring about systemic changes to cut emissions — policies
like carbon taxes, incentives for renewable energy, or restrictions on
fossil-fuel infrastructure.
"What better way to discredit thought leaders and key messengers than to
tar them as hypocrites based on accusations that they don't walk the
walk?" Mann said.
'Mr. Global Warming?'
Leonardo DiCaprio, Al Gore, and Barack Obama have all been targets of
this "climate hypocrisy" line of attack.
DiCaprio started a multi-million dollar environmental conservation fund
and used his 2016 Oscars speech to talk about the climate crisis. But
when he flew from France to New York in a private jet to accept an
environmental award later that year, the headlines followed.
"Hollywood hypocrite's global warming sermon," the Herald Sun's read.
(The Herald Sun also belongs to Murdoch's news empire.) The New York
Post called DiCaprio a "megapolluter" and "Mr. Global Warming," and
suggested that the actor's flight "expanded his carbon footprint by
8,000 miles in about 24 hours."
Gore, meanwhile, is known for the 2006 documentary "An Inconvenient
Truth." But after he starred in a sequel to the film in 2017, an op-ed
in The Daily Caller suggested that Gore's home devoured 34 times more
energy than the average US household. The Daily Caller, founded by
Tucker Carlson, received $3.5 million in funding from the Koch Family
Foundations and the Charles Koch Institute in the last decade. According
to Greenpeace, the Koch brothers spent $15 million to finance 90 groups
that attacked climate science and policy between 1997 and 2018.
The Daily Caller piece was written by Drew Johnson, founder of the
Beacon Center of Tennessee, a libertarian think tank. Johnson was, for
the most part, doubling down on a tactic that had worked for him a
decade earlier.
"He tells other people how to live and he's not following his own
rules," Johnsen told ABC in 2007, after the center published a report
describing how Gore's 20-room home used 20 times as much electricity as
the average American house.
The criticism of Obama came in 2019, when an op-ed in the Hill blasted
him for buying a house in Martha's Vineyard. Purchasing ocean-front
property, the piece argued, suggests one isn't actually worried about
sea-level rise. The article was written by Katie Pavlich, an alumna of
the Young Americans' Foundation — an outreach organization of the
conservative movement with financial ties to the Koch Brothers.
"If the former president is truly concerned about sea levels rising as a
result of climate change," Pavlich wrote, "his latest real estate
purchase places doubts on his sincerity."
That type of argument, Mann said, directs attention away from the
companies emitting the carbon that contributes to sea-level rise.
"It would be funny if it weren't so pernicious," he added.
'Carbon shaming'
Shaz Attari, a climate-communications researcher at Indiana University
Bloomington, thinks this new tactic is working. Her research suggests
that scientists and communicators with large carbon footprints have less
credibility than those with reduced carbon consumption, and that people
are more likely to support policies or recommendations if the leader
promoting them has a small carbon footprint.
"When it comes to message uptake, advocates are judged for inconsistency
between their behavior and advocacy," Attari told Insider. "This
judgement is dominated by flying or home energy consumption."
Attari said she even once gave a talk in New York City about reducing
personal energy use, and someone in the audience asked: "Hey, you flew
to this meeting — why should I listen to what you say?"
"The tactic of carbon shaming is quite an effective way of inciting
infighting among climate advocates," Mann said. "There are armies of
bots and trolls deployed to generate these arguments online of, 'Why do
you fly?' 'Why aren't you a vegan?'"
'Climate sadism'
Mark Maslin, an Earth science researcher at the University College
London, told Insider that "attacking the messenger has always been part
and parcel" of fossil-fuel interests' strategy to counter environmental
movements.
What's changed, he said, is the tenor of these attacks, which Maslin
says have escalated into a vicious pageantry of "climate sadism."
Take, for example, the backlash against Greta Thunberg. The teenage
activist is a difficult target for the hypocrisy argument, since she
doesn't eat meat or fly. One staff member at the Heartland Institute, a
Koch-funded think tank, did point out that the boat Thunberg once used
to cross the Atlantic was made of plastic, but for the most part,
conservatives and anti-environmentalists have chosen to target
Thunberg's personality instead.
Swedish environmental activist Greta Thunberg speaks at the 'Friday
Strike For Climate' on March 6, 2020, in Brussels, Belgium. Thierry
Monasse/Getty Images
Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro called her a "little brat" in 2019.
Donald Trump said she had an "anger management problem."
Conservative commentator Michael Knowles called Thunberg, who has
Asperger's syndrome, "a mentally ill Swedish child" on Fox News. Fox
host Laura Ingraham, meanwhile, compared the Thunberg's youth climate
movement to a murderous cult of children from a Stephen King novel.
"The blowback is directly related to the impact you're having," Kim
Cobb, a climate scientist from Georgia Tech, told Insider. Thunberg's
movement, she added, was "striking a nerve with every single human on
the planet at that point."
The Heartland Institute even briefly worked with the German
anti-environmental group EIKE to hire a German teenager, Naomi Seibt, to
fashion herself as an antithesis to Thunberg.
"Many people believe I'm being pushed as an 'Anti-Greta,'" Seibt told
Insider last year.
"It's wrong to look up to her as a climate puppet and symbol," Seibt
said of Thunberg, adding, "I don't want people to panic about the world
ending."
Over the course of four months, for a monthly salary of $2,000, Seibt
produced videos for the institute like "Naomi Seibt vs. Greta Thunberg:
Whom should we trust?" and spoke at the 2020 Conservative Political
Action Conference. Seibt quietly parted ways with Heartland in April 2020.
"The Anti-Greta just shows how cynical they are," Mann said, adding,
"they think it's all a shell game about distraction and deception —
that's what they've got left."
In Prince Harry's case, reports about his plane flights do seem to have
discredited the prince's climate agenda. A recent Newsweek poll in the
UK found that 66% of respondents viewed the prince as "hypocritical on
air travel." But the number most stories about Harry's trip left out is
the US's total emissions from fossil fuels: 4,853 million metric tons of
carbon in 2019 alone.
Harry's private flight from Aspen to Santa Barbara, meanwhile, emitted
at most 9 metric tons of carbon dioxide.
https://www.businessinsider.com/fossil-fuel-interests-target-climate-advocates-personally-2021-8
[The news archive - looking back]
*On this day in the history of global warming August 30, 2005*
In an essay published in the Boston Globe, and republished the next day
in the New York Times, Ross Gelbspan writes:
"The hurricane that struck Louisiana yesterday was nicknamed Katrina by
the National Weather Service. Its real name is global warming."
http://web.archive.org/web/20130618033413/http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0830-22.htm
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