[✔️] December 8, 2021 - Daily Global Warming News Digest
👀 Richard Pauli
richard at theclimate.vote
Wed Dec 8 08:28:13 EST 2021
/*December 8, 2021*/
/[ Children of Oil Executives interviewed ]/
*‘Your generation got us in this mess’: children of big oil employees
discuss the climate crisis with their parents*
Emma Pattee -- 7 Dec 2021
Two generations of energy workers discuss how their family has responded
to the climate emergency
*Did you guys feel uncomfortable when you were younger telling people
your parents worked in fossil fuels?**
**Liz: *I don’t remember feeling a sense of shame then. But I felt a
very strong pull when I was in college to go into a career where I could
reverse the effects of climate change. I studied environmental science
at the University of Washington. And it was also in college that I
learned about how long Exxon had known about climate change and had
covered it up. I felt strongly that I don’t want to purchase Exxon gas.
*James:* I was in high school at the time of the BP spill, the Deepwater
Horizon, and so being in Bellingham, which is such a liberal area,
obviously a lot of my peers were very upset about it. I was upset about
it. But at the same time, my mom was working for BP.
*[To Wendy]* You were wanting to defend your company. And so there were
a lot of words said: this could have happened to anyone, there was a
significant amount of risk getting taken in the Gulf at the time, a lot
of companies were cutting corners. But, you know, you still have to hold
people responsible for the choices that they make...
*Liz: *I was deeply disturbed by the incident, more so than maybe anyone
else in the family. What really aggrieved me was the fact that people
are still continuing to fill up their cars with gas every day. And maybe
they’re boycotting BP gas, but by continuing to consume, people are
contributing to the problem. And so there’s this awful hypocrisy in that
after each of these incidents. We can all play the blame game and yet
there hasn’t been any shift away from consuming gasoline and diesel....
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/dec/07/conversation-between-big-oil-employees-kids
/[ Hmm ... isn't The Fed made up of private money too? ] /
*John Kerry is counting on the private sector to help solve climate change*
By Maxine Joselow - with research by Alexandra Ellerbeck
- -
--“There are literally trillions of dollars under management,” Kerry
told CNBC at the Reuters Next conference. “There's a great deal of money
chasing good projects and good deals. I believe the private sector has
the ability to win this battle for us.”
--Kerry added that private sector funding could support technological
breakthroughs in areas such as battery storage, green hydrogen and
direct air carbon capture, which could be “game changers” for reaching
net-zero emissions...
- -
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/12/07/john-kerry-is-counting-private-sector-help-solve-climate-change/
/[ DW documentary on European energy crisis ...]
/*Energy crisis: Will a green transition throw the global economy into
recession? | Business Beyond*
Dec 6, 2021
DW News
Energy prices have surged this year as countries and households confront
shortages of oil, gas and coal. In this episode of Business Beyond we
look at some of the major factors behind the energy crunch, from the
role of green policies to Russian gas maneuvering to China. Who is to
blame? And how will the crisis impact plans to give up fossil fuels?
0:00 Intro
1:35 Pandemic demand bounceback
2:52 Green ambitions
4:22 China coal crisis
5:16 China's gas switch
7:18 Russian gas maneuvering
8:57 Nord Stream 2
10:28 Future of fossil fuel producers
12:17 Renewables to blame?
14:07 Fossil fuel redux
15:15 Outlook
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n0GT-oZD8nc/
/
/
/
/
/
/[ the biggest problem - deceit - text introduction to audio - start
15 min in ] /
*An investigative reporter details the effects of climate change
disinformation in public education*
DEC 2, 2021
BY John O'Brien
It may be tempting for some of us to think that a new generation — young
people brought up with existential concerns about the sustainability of
life on Earth in the face of climate change, eager to enact remedies —
will inspire the massive change necessary to protect the planet.
International figures such as Greta Thunberg and members of the Sunrise
Movement here in the U.S. demand and receive attention for their climate
activism. But many more young people aren’t learning the science of
climate change in school.
Investigative reporter Katie Worth explores why that is in her new book
Miseducation: How Climate Change Is Taught in America. Her research led
her to build a database of science curriculum and textbook standards in
all fifty states.
She traveled around the country to find out firsthand what children are
learning and how teachers approach the subject. She reports that more
than a third of young adults believe that climate change is not man-made
and that four out of five Americans don’t think there is a scientific
consensus on global warming.
There are no nationwide curriculum standards in U.S. public schools, in
any concentration. States decide what is taught, and red-blue political
divides affect what version of science students learn.
Worth explored the groups invested in influencing science education: oil
corporations, state legislatures, school boards, libertarian think
tanks, conservative lobbyists, and textbook publishers.
She found that, just as the tobacco industry covered up facts about the
dangers of cigarette smoking, forces interested in keeping a lid on the
truth about climate change spread misinformation about its dangers,
perhaps most pointedly in public school classrooms in the United States.
Exceptional reporting undergirds the truly shocking facts in this book:
the fossil fuel industry is doing all that it can to undermine education
about climate change, which will be the most important fact in the
lifetimes of kids in school today. —Bill McKibben
/Katie Worth is an enterprise reporting fellow at Frontline PBS. She
talked about her findings with National Center for Science Education
deputy director Glenn Branch on November 22, 2021. Third Place Books
presented their talk. Author events manager Spencer Ruchti
introduced and moderated the program.//
If you have any feedback on this episode, you can email me at
jobrien at kuow.org/
https://kuow.org/stories/the-science-isn-t-complicated-an-investigative-reporter-details-the-effects-of-climate-change-disinformation-in-public-education
- -
/[ The book is about $16 ]/
*Miseducation: How Climate Change Is Taught in America Paperback –
November 16, 2021*
by Katie Worth (Author)
*Why are so many American children learning so much misinformation about
climate change?*
Investigative reporter Katie Worth reviewed scores of textbooks, built a
50-state database, and traveled to a dozen communities to talk to
children and teachers about what is being taught, and found a red-blue
divide in climate education. More than one-third of young adults believe
that climate change is not man-made, and science instructors are being
contradicted by history teachers who tell children not to worry about it.
Who has tried to influence what children learn, and how successful have
they been? Worth connects the dots on oil corporations, state
legislatures, school boards, libertarian thinktanks, conservative
lobbyists, and textbook publishers, all of whom have learned from the
fight over evolution and tobacco, and are now sowing uncertainty,
confusion, and distrust about climate science, with the result that four
in five Americans today don’t think there is a scientific consensus on
global warming. In the words of a top climate educator, “We are the only
country in the world that has had a multi-decade, multi-billion dollar
deny-delay-confuse campaign.” Miseducation is the alarming story of how
climate denialism was implanted in millions of school children.
https://www.amazon.com/Miseducation-Climate-Change-Taught-America/dp/1735913642/ref=sr_1_1
/[ Clips...OK, I'll keep looking...(why is there no international
discussion??)... ] /
*Fleeing global warming? ‘Climate havens’ aren’t ready for you yet.*
Climate migration is already underway. Here's how cities can prepare.
Kate Yoder -- Staff Writer-- Dec 7, 2021
Forget the palm trees and warm ocean breeze. The upper Midwest could
soon be the most sought-after living destination in the United States...
See the map
https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/temperature-suitability-change-colored-2.jpg
- -
*Step 1: Figure out what a ‘climate haven’ really is*
There is no escape from the effects of an overheating planet, even in a
so-called haven. The Great Lakes region is witnessing heavy flooding:
11,000 people in central Michigan evacuated last year as severe rains
overwhelmed dams. This summer, wildfire smoke from Canada blew into
Minnesota, bringing an unprecedented haze and making it hazardous to
breathe...
- -
*Step 2: Put people first*
Cities that want to attract climate migrants emphasize the opportunities
that come with people moving in, like economic growth and attracting
new, skilled workers. But it’s important to remember that “migrants are
not a tool to an end” and that they get the support they need, said
Susan Ekoh, an adaptation fellow at the America Society of Adaptation
Professionals, an organization preparing towns in the Great Lakes for
the expected waves of future inhabitants....
- -
*Step 3: Build smart*
The next step is to make the city an appealing place to live while
trimming emissions, using resources wisely, and keeping the dangers of
climate change at bay...
- -
The Midwest is already prone to flooding, and climate change is expected
to make it worse. So building in floodplains is not ideal, nor is
covering everything in impermeable pavement. Cities should also find
ways to beat the heat — parks keep things cool, while highways make it
hot. Nothing here should come as a surprise to city planners. “I mean,
it’s not rocket science,” Shandas said. “We’ve been doing this for a while.”
Shandas said he’s heard people in Midwest cities get pretty excited
about their future. “I was in a couple of meetings with a group of folks
in the Great Lakes, and they were just like, ‘We are the climate haven —
we are going to be the best place in the country and people are gonna
flock to us,’” he said. While that kind of enthusiasm is “fantastic,”
Shandas said, if cities don’t start preparing for the actual reality of
thousands of people moving in, “it’s going to be a hard sell.”
https://grist.org/migration/fleeing-global-warming-climate-havens-arent-ready-for-you-yet/
/[ Carbon plus life forms made our geology - video ]/
*Ancient Life Helped Build Mountains on Earth For Billions of Years*
Anton Petrov
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7WZmVxz4B/Lo/
- -
/[ academic paper ]/
*Study reveals how explosion in ocean life built the first mountains*
23 November 2021
University of Aberdeen
An unprecedented abundance of oceanic life played a crucial role in the
creation of Earth's mountains, a landmark study led by scientists at the
University of Aberdeen has revealed.
While the formation of mountains is usually associated with the
collision of tectonic plates causing huge slabs of rock to be thrust
skywards, the study has shown that this was triggered by an abundance of
nutrients in the oceans 2 billion years ago which caused an explosion in
planktonic life.
When the plankton died, they fell to the ocean floor, eventually forming
graphite which played a crucial role in lubricating the breakage of
rocks into slabs, enabling them to stack on top of each other to make
mountains.
Research has revealed that the amount of planktonic life was unusually
high in this period, thus creating the necessary conditions that were
crucial to the emergence of mountains over millions of years.
Professor John Parnell, from the University’s School of Geosciences, led
the research, which was funded by The Natural Environment Research
Council (NERC) and has been published in the Nature journal
Communications Earth and Environment.
He commented: “Mountains are an essential part of the landscape, but big
mountain chains only formed half-way through Earth’s history, about two
billion years ago...
- -
“It’s interesting to think that this two-billion-year-old event which
was responsible for shaping our natural world now has the potential to
play a key role in its preservation for future generations.”
Professor Parnell added: “Ultimately what our research has shown is that
the key to the formation of mountains was life, demonstrating that the
Earth and its biosphere are intimately linked in ways not previously
understood.”
https://www.abdn.ac.uk/news/15579/
- -
/[ Oops. Carbon is core to our existence ]/
*Increased biomass and carbon burial 2 billion years ago triggered
mountain building*
John Parnell & Connor Brolly
Communications Earth & Environment volume 2, Article number: 238 (2021)
Abstract
The geological record following the c. 2.3 billion years old Great
Oxidation Event includes evidence for anomalously high burial of
organic carbon and the emergence of widespread mountain building.
Both carbon burial and orogeny occurred globally over the period 2.1
to 1.8 billion years ago. Prolific cyanobacteria were preserved as
peak black shale sedimentation and abundant graphite. In numerous
orogens, the exceptionally carbonaceous sediments were strongly
deformed by thrusting, folding, and shearing. Here an assessment of
the timing of Palaeoproterozoic carbon burial and peak
deformation/metamorphism in 20 orogens shows that orogeny
consistently occurred less than 200 million years after
sedimentation, in a time frame comparable to that of orogens through
the Phanerozoic. This implies that the high carbon burial played a
critical role in reducing frictional strength and lubricating
compressive deformation, which allowed crustal thickening to build
Palaeoproterozoic mountain belts. Further, this episode left a
legacy of weakening and deformation in 2 billion year-old crust
which has supported subsequent orogenies up to the building of the
Himalayas today. The link between Palaeoproterozoic biomass and
long-term deformation of the Earth’s crust demonstrates the integral
relationship between biosphere and lithosphere.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s43247-021-00313-5
- -
/[ OK see the animations ]/
*Plate Tectonics*
Sample Learning Goals
Describe the differences between oceanic and continental crust,
including their respective properties of density, composition,
temperature and thickness...
https://phet.colorado.edu/en/simulations/plate-tectonics
- -
/[ some advanced geology ]/
*Reduction of friction on geological faults by weak-phase smearing*
Abstract
Most common crustal rock types display friction coefficients of 0.6
or higher, but some faults must be frictionally weak as they slip
when the stress state is unfavourably-oriented (i.e. the resolved
shear stress is low for a given normal stress across the fault
surface). A role for low-friction minerals and high pore fluid
pressures, either separately or in combination, is frequently
invoked to explain such slip, but volume fractions of dispersed weak
phases often seem to be present in fault gouge in amounts too small
to produce significant mechanical weakening. By means of mechanical
tests on synthetic fault gouge and microstructural study of run
products, we show that the effective area of an embedded weak phase
(graphite) on a slip plane can be substantially increased by
mechanical smearing, and that the enlarged area of the weak phase on
the slip plane follows a linear mixing law. This allows a relatively
small volume fraction of the initially dispersed weak phase to have
a disproportionately large effect, provided the smearing is
concentrated into a narrow planar slip zone or into an
interconnected network of them.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0191814113000485
/[The news archive - looking back]/
*On this day in the history of global warming December 8, 2014 *
December 8, 2014 -- The Washington Post reports:
"Oil, gas and coal interests that spent millions to help elect
Republicans this year are moving to take advantage of expanded GOP power
in Washington and state capitals to thwart Obama administration
environmental rules.
"Industry lobbyists made their pitch in private meetings last week with
dozens of state legislators at a summit of the American Legislative
Exchange Council (ALEC), an industry-financed conservative state policy
group.
"The lobbyists and legislators considered several model bills to be
introduced across the country next year, designed to give states more
power to block or delay new Obama administration environmental
standards, including new limits on power-plant emissions.
"The industry’s strategy aims to combat a renewed push by President
Obama to carve out climate change as a top priority for his final two
years in office. The White House has vowed to continue using executive
authority to enact more environmental limits, and the issue is shaping
up to be a major flash point heading into the 2016 presidential election.
"With support from industry lobbyists, many Republicans are planning to
make the Environmental Protection Agency a primary political target,
presenting it as a symbol of the kind of big-government philosophy they
think can unify social and economic conservatives in opposition."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/fossil-fuel-lobbyists-bolstered-by-gop-wins-work-to-curb-environmental-rules/2014/12/07/3ef05bc0-79b9-11e4-9a27-6fdbc612bff8_story.html
-- Think Progress reports:
"On Monday, the Supreme Court rejected BP’s attempt at appealing its own
settlement with businesses and individuals that lost money due to the
massive 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill. The court’s refusal to hear the
appeal means BP will have to make payments to those that it argues
cannot tie their losses to the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon
platform and drilling rig, which killed 11 people and spilled an
estimated 4.9 million barrels of oil into the Gulf. The Supreme Court
justices did not comment on the case in their refusal to hear it."
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/12/08/3600671/supreme-court-rejects-bp-appeal-for-settlement/
-- In the Huffington Post, Michael Mann responds to the suggestion that
climate change had nothing to do with the 2014 California drought.
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/climate-change-and-the-re_b_6288402
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