[TheClimate.Vote] February11 , 2021 - Daily Global Warming News Digest

[Richard Pauli]

/*February 11, 2021*/

[Earthquakes and Climate Change threaten California dams]
*California’s aging dams face new perils, 50 years after Sylmar quake 
crisis*
It was a harrowing vision of the vulnerability of aging California dams 
— crews laboring feverishly to sandbag and drain the lower San Fernando 
Reservoir, as billions of gallons of Los Angeles drinking water lapped 
at the edge of a crumbling, earthquake-damaged embankment that 
threatened catastrophe on the neighborhoods below.

Although the 1971 San Fernando earthquake and the near failure of the 
Lower Van Norman Dam have given rise to construction improvements — the 
much newer Los Angeles Dam survived an equivalent shaking in the 1994 
Northridge quake — the overwhelming majority of California dams are 
decades past their design life span.

And while earthquakes still loom as the greatest threat to California’s 
massive collection of dams, experts warn that these aging structures 
will be challenged further by a new and emerging hazard: “whiplashing 
shifts” in extreme weather due to climate change.

“The biggest issue facing dam safety in California is aging 
infrastructure and lack of money to fund repairs and retrofits of dams,” 
said Sharon K. Tapia, who leads the Division of Safety of Dams at the 
California Department of Water Resources. “Many older dams were built 
using construction methods considered outdated by today’s standards.”..
- -
One of California’s worst disasters was the collapse of the St. Francis 
Dam in northern Los Angeles County on March 12, 1928. Its failure 
prompted the creation of the California Dam Safety Program.

A muddy wall of water as high as 70 feet carved a 70-mile path of 
destruction in a 5½-hour rampage from San Francisquito Canyon to the 
Pacific Ocean near Oxnard, killing more than 450 people.
- -
On Feb. 7, 2017, the concrete spillway of the 700-foot-tall dam fell 
apart during the release of water after heavy rains.

The erosion of its emergency spillway, which was basically a hill of 
dirt that federal engineers believed would rarely, if ever, be used, 
triggered the evacuation of more than 180,000 people.

The head of the California Water Resources Department, which operates 
the dam, was removed after an independent probe found the failure was 
the result of a lax safety culture.

“Emerging data of massive simulations of flooding suggest that existing 
flood control systems are a ticking time bomb,” said Brett Sanders, a 
professor of civil engineering at UC Irvine. “Southern California, in 
particular, is completely unprepared to deal with the consequences.”

“Once the water goes outside of the structures intended to rein it in, 
it will go everywhere,” he said, “and there will be little time to get 
out of its way.”

“Unfortunately, much of the ongoing research is focused on climate 
change and engineering strategies,” he added. “We ought to start 
spending more time studying the potential catastrophic risks to 
working-class communities in the floodplains.”
https://www.latimes.com/environment/story/2021-02-10/earthquakes-climate-change-threaten-california-dams


[climate heat, ice, water, gravity then lawyers]
*A looming climate disaster threatens the lives of 6,000 Peruvians*
The deadly Lake Palcacocha might burst through its dam.
By Philip Kiefer - Feb 9, 2021
For the past 25 years, Lake Palcacocha, perched above the Peruvian city 
of Huaraz high in the Andes, has been filling up with water. It sits 
just at the foot of a glacier, and as the glacier has retreated, the 
lake has flooded to six times its 1995 levels. It now covers an area the 
size of about 200 football fields and is nearly 300 feet deep in some 
places.

The lake is held back by a rim of glacial debris, reinforced by manmade 
structures. “You’ve got a very precarious situation,” says Gerard Roe, a 
glaciologist at the University of Washington. “Were an avalanche or 
rockslide to land in this lake, it would create a tsunami-like wave that 
would breach the boundary, and send a torrent of water down the valley.” 
Within an hour, it would hit the city as a mass of debris.

The last time such a flood occurred, in 1941, 1,800 people died. A 
similar incident in the present-day city could kill 6,000.

Now, research published in Nature Geoscience finds that the risk to all 
of those lives are directly attributable to climate change. That 
research is the latest step in the growing field of climate change 
attribution science, which connects day-to-day events like heat waves, 
floods, and superstorms to human-caused warming...
- -
To establish that climate change had directly caused the flood risk, the 
researchers had to link together three points. First, they needed to 
show exactly how much anthropogenic warming had shifted temperatures 
around Lake Palcacocha. Second, they had to prove that the glacier’s 
retreat was in fact due to those temperature changes. Finally, the flood 
risk at the lake had to be directly linked to that melting ice.

That relied in part on research by Roe and his colleagues at the 
University of Washington, who had recently developed a method for 
attributing glacial melts to climate change. “Glaciers are icons in the 
public and scientific imagination,” Roe says. “So it was one of those 
things that everybody knew, but hadn’t been officially demonstrated in 
the literature.”

“What we found was that in the absence of climate change, the observed 
retreat of the glacier would not have been possible,” Stuart-Smith says. 
Therefore, climate change was directly responsible for the threat that 
meltwater posed to the city.

Among the most surprising results, Roe says, is that human-induced 
climate change not only elevated the future risk of floods from Lake 
Palcacocha—it was responsible for the flooding in 1941. “That’s 
shockingly early in most people’s view of when anthropogenic climate 
change became an issue.”

“Glaciers end up being purer signals of climate change than … 
thermometers or pressure gauges,” Roe says, and humans have been warming 
the planet since the 1850s. “Therefore, the signal of climate change 
showed up quite early relative to other things we think about more 
commonly, like the temperature record.”

Although the research was conducted independently, it’s likely to have 
important implications for the suit against RWE.

The study provides firmer ground for climate litigation, says Aisha 
Saad, a fellow at Harvard Law School’s Program on Corporate Governance. 
(She collaborates with Stuart-Smith on other projects, but was not 
involved in the research.) That’s in part because the findings establish 
evidence in a way that the legal system can interpret.

“It could be it that the scientific evidence exists to support a legal 
claim,” she says “But it’s not being framed in that way.”

In past civil liability cases, especially those concerning cigarettes 
and tobacco, courts and scientists have figured out how to develop 
language in common. As climate lawsuits proceed across the United States 
and across the world, Saad says there are glimmerings of that emerging. 
One district court judge, William Alsup, invited climate scientists to 
give him a tutorial as he prepared for two suits filed by California 
cities against petrochemical companies. (He ended up ruling against the 
cities, although the case is still in appeals.)

Stuart-Smith has been involved in other research that began establishing 
a direct link between climate and human health, including a December 
paper in Health Affairs that outlined strategies for attributing heat 
wave deaths and hospitalizations, among other things, to climate change. 
The scientific tools exist, he says, to begin connecting emissions not 
only to physical events, but all the way through to the illness and 
death that those events can cause.
https://www.popsci.com/story/environment/climate-chane-lake-palcacocha-peru/
- -
[maps google]
https://www.google.com/maps/place/Lake+Palcacocha/@-9.4001192,-77.3875112,5471m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x91a91757c9b7db5d:0x2608dd744b3cb661!8m2!3d-9.396944!4d-77.379722



[Interview in NYT]
THE EZRA KLEIN SHOW
*Transcript: Ezra Klein Interviews Elizabeth Kolbert About Geoengineering*
Transcript for the Feb. 9 episode of “The Ezra Klein Show.”
Feb. 9, 2021
Every Tuesday and Friday, Ezra Klein invites you into a conversation 
about something that matters, like today’s episode about climate change 
and geoengineering with Elizabeth Kolbert. Listen and subscribe wherever 
you get your podcasts.

Transcripts of our episodes are made available as soon as possible. They 
are not fully edited for grammar or spelling.

EZRA KLEIN: I’m Ezra Klein, and this is “The Ezra Klein Show.”

So it’s only February, but I’m pretty sure Elizabeth Kolbert’s “Under a 
White Sky” is going to be on my best books of 2021 list. It’s a 
wonderful work. Kolbert is the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of “The 
Sixth Extinction,” which you may have read. She is a staff writer at The 
New Yorker and just one of the great science journalists of this time, 
and particularly one of the great climate journalists of this age...
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/09/podcasts/ezra-klein-podcast-elizabeth-kolbert-transcript.html

- -

[top climate textbook recommended by Elizabeth Colbert]
*Global Warming: the Complete Briefing* 5th Edition
by John Houghton (Author)
https://www.amazon.com/Global-Warming-Sir-John-Houghton/dp/1107463793/ref=sr_1_1



[Pogo - "We have met the enemy, and he is US!"]*
* *The scariest thing about climate change isn’t the weather—it’s us*
Rising temperatures will fuel more political turmoil of the kind we are 
seeing today.
BY JEREMY DEATON
Last year saw a raft of unprecedented extreme-weather events—the 
biggest-ever California wildfire, the most named storms in the Atlantic, 
the costliest thunderstorm in U.S. history. Experts said these disasters 
both highlight the current toll of climate change and provide a grim 
preview of what’s to come.

Last year also saw unprecedented attacks on U.S. democracy—a president 
who refused to concede an election he lost, his allies who tried to 
overturn the results, his supporters who laid siege to the Capitol. 
Though few people would say so, these events also show what we might 
expect in a hotter, more turbulent world.

The public conversation around climate change is shaped by science, and 
science is focused on weather events that it can quantify and predict. 
It has less to say about the ways that climate change will impact our 
politics, which are harder to foresee. This limitation means that we 
scarcely discuss how rising temperatures will fuel more political 
turmoil of the kind we are seeing today. But the recent GOP power grab 
offers a glimpse of a world remade by climate change.

Certainly, climate models aren’t perfect. To make an accurate 
projection, scientists need good data about how the climate has behaved 
historically, and they need to make reasonable assumptions about how 
much we will pollute. But climate models are based on the immutable laws 
of physics, which are unfailing in their power of prediction. The models 
have a long track record of being highly precise and unnervingly accurate.

Models can tell you, for instance, that if we continue to burn fossil 
fuels with the same fatal enthusiasm, coastal waters will regularly 
flood much of Coney Island, Brooklyn. In one view, such predictions can 
be a source of comfort, as they appear to suggest that the rest of New 
York, those parts untouched by floods, will remain unchanged.

This is where the models come up short. If Coney Island is routinely 
flooding, then the rest of New York is unlikely to stay the same. It’s 
easy to imagine that the cost of flood insurance will skyrocket, and 
white-collar workers will retreat to the suburbs. Banks and tech 
companies will relocate to cities such as Buffalo or Chicago, which are 
better insulated against climate change. And those New Yorkers who 
remain, now facing a sagging economy and worsening crime, may come to 
support a populist authoritarian in the mold of Donald Trump.
Or maybe not. Science can’t tell us how this story ends.

Researchers have made some effort to predict how humans will respond to 
climate change. Studies find that, as the planet warms, people will 
become less productive and more violent. Rising seas will drive mass 
migration, and worsening droughts will lead to crop failures, economic 
downturns, and armed conflicts. Some research even finds that climate 
change will lead to more nationalism and authoritarianism. But none of 
these studies can say what, precisely, any of this means for the future 
of U.S. democracy.

Science can project sea-level rise down to the city block, but it cannot 
say where the rifts will appear in our social fabric as humans cope with 
more turbulence and deprivation. If there is a lesson in our recent 
political history, it’s that even small changes can have profound effects.

After Trump was elected, a new genre of political science research 
emerged that attempted to explain his unlikely rise to power. The 
results revealed an electorate more vulnerable to authoritarianism than 
we had previously understood.

Thomas B. Edsall, writing in The New York Times, chronicled how small, 
mostly white towns that saw small demographic shifts swung hard for 
Trump. In Elk County, Pennsylvania, home to a little more than 30,000 
people, the number of Hispanic residents went from 142 at the turn of 
the century to 244 in 2016. In 2008, 51 percent of Elk voters backed 
Barack Obama. In 2016, 69 percent backed Trump. Wrote Edsall, “The very 
white municipalities that voted so strongly for Trump believe that they 
have reason to worry about the racial stability of their neighborhoods.”

What happens in a world imperiled by climate change? By one estimate, 
worsening drought in Mexico will spur as many as 6.7 million people to 
emigrate to the United States. It’s possible that Americans will welcome 
these newcomers. It’s also possible that mass migration will lead to an 
authoritarian surge.

For a 2014 study, researchers at Stanford investigated how people make 
sense of the warning labels on prescription drugs. They found that when 
people see one serious side effect—a greater risk of developing 
cancer—alongside several smaller side effects—dizziness, asthma, tremor, 
insomnia—they rated the drug as relatively safe. But when people saw 
only the higher risk of cancer and nothing else, they rated the drug as 
more risky.

The warning label on climate change is sprawling. The list of side 
effects is so long—floods, heat waves, wildfires, hurricanes, drought, 
pestilence, locusts—that it can be numbing in its effect. If there were 
to be just one line on the warning label, it should be this: Humans are 
capricious. Our democracy is fragile. Climate change will do more than 
alter the weather.
https://www.fastcompany.com/90602632/the-scariest-thing-about-climate-change-isnt-the-weather-its-us


[Letter posted in Wildfire Today]
*USFS Forestry technician resigns, explains why in letter*
Bill Gabbert - February 10, 2021
Was a GS-5 in Washington state
A forestry technician whose primary duties were fighting fire resigned 
in November after a six-year fire management career in the Pacific 
Northwest, most recently on the Okanogan-Wenachee National Forest.

The person asked us not to reveal their name and wants to be identified 
only by the initials, “BC”. The forestry tech had a permanent part-time 
appointment, guaranteed six months of work each year as a GS-5. They 
said they had good performance ratings from their supervisor who was 
hoping the person would come back to work the next season.

They sent us a copy what what was described as their resignation letter, 
saying, “I am sharing this with you in hopes to shine a brighter light 
on what I saw in my short time with the agency as shortfalls and areas 
for improvement.”

Reading the eight to ten issues that led the person to a life-changing 
decision can perhaps shine a light on conditions facing other federal 
fire personnel.

Here is the letter. Acronyms that have been replaced with text are in 
[brackets]:

    I will be resigning from the U.S. Forest Service effective
    immediately due to a multitude of factors including but not limited to-

    Lack of a living wage: leading to reliance on [hazard] and
    [overtime] pay and putting firefighters in dangerous situations when
    risks to environment is low.
    Lack of locality pay.
    Chronic prolonged exposure to cancer causing smoke and pollutants.
    Lengthening fire season/expectation of pay periods worked.
    Lack of financial compensation for being on call for over 6 months
    straight.
    Lack of financial incentive or legal backing for EMT’s such as
    myself working for Type 2 organizations. Apparently EMT’s on type 1
    crews are “worthy” while I’m not. If I’m important enough to be put
    on an [Incident Action Plan] as an EMT then I’m important enough to
    be backed by a medical director and paid for my skills.
    Minimum wage in Washington being higher than take home pay for GS-5
    wages.
    Lack of off season support from the Agency (mental health,
    healthcare, employment/job placement).
    I thoroughly appreciate the opportunities that this job and
    organization have afforded me. I have fought fire in places, and
    environments that I would have otherwise never seen. I have created
    bonds and memories that will last a lifetime. And for that I am
    thankful. However, this organization needs to have a serious moment
    of introspection; the bread and butter of our firefighting
    operations across this country are seasonal temporary employees —
    who are overworked and underpaid.

    Things need to change, and I can’t risk my physical, mental, and
    financial well-being  waiting for those changes to occur. My four
    years with the U.S. Forest Service has been very eye opening to say
    the least. In order to do what’s best for me and my life, I feel it
    is time for me to hang up the line gear and move on to more stable
    and financially rewarding work. I appreciate everyone that I worked
    with, and for, on the Entiat Ranger District.

    I am resigning effective immediately.

https://wildfiretoday.com/2021/02/10/usfs-forestry-technician-resigns-explains-why-in-letter/



[Digging back into the internet news archive]
*On this day in the history of global warming - February 11, 1988 *

February 11, 1988: In a speech on environmental and energy policy in 
Portsmouth, New Hampshire, Democratic presidential candidate Michael 
Dukakis declares: "We need someone in the White House who understands 
that America should be the leader on international environmental questions."
(29:33-29:50)
http://c-spanvideo.org/program/Energ

/-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------/


/Archive of Daily Global Warming News 
<https://pairlist10.pair.net/pipermail/theclimate.vote/2017-October/date.html> 
/
https://pairlist10.pair.net/pipermail/theclimate.vote

/To receive daily mailings - click to Subscribe 
<mailto:subscribe at theClimate.Vote?subject=Click%20SEND%20to%20process%20your%20request> 
to news digest./

*** Privacy and Security:*This mailing is text-only.  It does not carry 
images or attachments which may originate from remote servers.  A 
text-only message can provide greater privacy to the receiver and sender.
By regulation, the .VOTE top-level domain must be used for democratic 
and election purposes and cannot be used for commercial purposes. 
Messages have no tracking software.
To subscribe, email: contact at theclimate.vote 
<mailto:contact at theclimate.vote> with subject subscribe, To Unsubscribe, 
subject: unsubscribe
Also you may subscribe/unsubscribe at 
https://pairlist10.pair.net/mailman/listinfo/theclimate.vote
Links and headlines assembled and curated by Richard Pauli for 
http://TheClimate.Vote <http://TheClimate.Vote/> delivering succinct 
information for citizens and responsible governments of all levels. List 
membership is confidential and records are scrupulously restricted to 
this mailing list.


-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://pairlist10.pair.net/pipermail/theclimate.vote/attachments/20210211/d6cac461/attachment.html>