[TheClimate.Vote] January 4, 2021 - Daily Global Warming News Digest

[Richard Pauli]

/*January 4, 2021*/

[uh oh, Greta discovers both beer and sarcasm]
Greta Thunberg @GretaThunberg
*Thank you so much for all the well-wishes on my 18th birthday!*
- -https://twitter.com/GretaThunberg/status/1345759558124384258/photo/1
Tonight you will find me down at the local pub exposing all the dark 
secrets behind the climate- and school strike conspiracy and my evil 
handlers who can no longer control me!
I am free at last!!
https://twitter.com/GretaThunberg/status/1345759558124384258


[Action item: Contact your Congress-person - ask for enthusiastic support]
H. RES. 5  [Aspirational House Rules for 117th Congress are now out]
ADOPTING THE RULES FOR THE 117th CONGRESS
*Select Committee on the Climate Crisis*. Subsection (d) reauthorizes 
the Select
Committee on the Climate Crisis. The subsection carries forward and 
makes modest
modifications to provisions from the 116th Congress. The investigative 
jurisdiction of the Select
Committee shall consist of policies, strategies, and innovations to 
achieve substantial and
permanent reductions in pollution and other activities that contribute 
to the climate crisis
which will honor our responsibility to be good stewards of the planet 
for future generations and
advance environmental justice. The Select Committee shall coordinate 
with and advise standing
committees with relevant jurisdiction with respect to such policies, 
strategies, and innovations.
Additionally, the Select Committee is authorized to receive any records 
transferred to it by a
standing committee if obtained pursuant to a subpoena or deposition 
recommended by the
Select Committee. The subsection requires that all policy 
recommendations be submitted to
committees by December 31, 2021, and that all reports be submitted to 
the House by
December 31, 2022.
https://rules.house.gov/sites/democrats.rules.house.gov/files/117-HRes5-SxS.pdf



[Associated Press - FEMA risky futures]
*Los Angeles is riskiest US county but New Yorkers should beware tornadoes*
New Fema index considers exposure to natural disasters
East coast more vulnerable to twister damage than Oklahoma
Jan 2 2021

Los Angeles county is the riskiest county in the US, according to a new 
Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema) index which considers 18 
kinds of natural disasters, from earthquakes, hurricanes and tornadoes 
to floods, volcanoes and tsunamis.

The National Risk Index spotlights places long known as danger spots, 
like Los Angeles, but some places highlighted run counter to expectations.

For instance, eastern cities such as New York and Philadelphia rank far 
higher on the risk for tornadoes than Oklahoma and Kansas, where 
twisters are part of local lore, while the county with the biggest 
coastal flooding risk is one in Washington state that is not on the 
ocean, although its river is tidal.

The index scores how often disasters strike, how many people and how 
much property are in harm’s way, how vulnerable the population is 
socially and how well the area is able to recover. That results in a 
high risk assessment for big cities with both lots of poor people and 
expensive property, ill-prepared for once-in-a-generation disasters.

The degree of risk isn’t just how often a type of natural disaster 
strikes a place but how bad the toll would be, said Fema official Mike 
Grimm.

Two New York City counties, Philadelphia, St Louis and Hudson county, 
New Jersey are therefore Fema’s top five riskiest counties for 
tornadoes. Oklahoma county, Oklahoma, which has seen more than 120 
tornadoes since 1950, including one that killed 36 in 1999, ranks 120th.
- -
Some Fema risk rankings seem obvious. Miami is the highest risk for 
hurricanes, lightning and river flooding. Hawaii county is top in 
volcano risk and Honolulu county for tsunamis, Dallas for hail, 
Philadelphia for heatwaves and Riverside, California for wildfires.

Himanshu Grover at the University of Washington called the Fema index “a 
good tool, a good start” but one with flaws, such as seeming to downplay 
disaster frequency.

Risks are changing because of climate change and the Fema index does not 
seem to address that, Ropeik said. Fema officials said climate change 
shows up in flooding calculations and will probably be incorporated in 
future updates.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jan/02/fema-national-risk-index-los-angeles-new-york-tornadoes 


- -[source material]

*National Risk Index (NRI)*
The National Risk Index is a new, online mapping application from FEMA 
that identifies communities most at risk to 18 natural hazards. This 
application visualizes natural hazard risk metrics and includes data 
about expected annual losses, social vulnerabilities and community 
resilience.

The National Risk Index's interactive web maps are at the county and 
census tract level and made available via geographic information system 
(GIS) feature services for custom analyses. With this data, you can 
discover a holistic view of community risk to natural hazards via online 
maps and data...

https://www.fema.gov/flood-maps/products-tools/national-risk-index...

How the National Risk Index Can Help
The Index is intended to help users better understand the natural hazard 
risk of their respective areas or communities. Intended users include 
planners and emergency managers at the local, regional, state and 
federal levels, as well as other decision makers and interested members 
of the general public. With improved understanding of natural hazard 
risk, communities can take action to reduce it.

*Specifically, the National Risk Index can help with: *

  -- Enhancing hazard mitigation plans

  -- Identifying the need for more refined risk assessments

  -- Encouraging community-level risk communication and engagement

  -- Developing codes and standards

  -- Informing long-term community recovery

  -- Prioritizing and allocating resources

  -- Updating emergency operations

  -- Informing the insurance and mortgage industries

  -- Educating new homeowners and renters

https://www.fema.gov/flood-maps/products-tools/national-risk-index/overview


[“All things are ready, if our minds be so.”  Shakespeare  'Henry V' - 
first line by Henry after his St Cripins Day speech]
*Group Interventions for Climate Change Distress*
December 10, 2020
Beth Mark, MD , Janet Lewis, MD

 From disasters and social disruptions to existential concerns, climate 
distress groups may not only provide much-needed support to patients but 
may also help psychiatry’s public health responses.
"Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much.”--Helen Keller

The climate crisis presents unique and complex challenges to the mental 
health and wellness of individuals and communities.1,2 The need for 
interventions at a global scale increasingly leads mental health 
providers to look toward large group interventions. This article 
outlines a number of the more popular group approaches. It informs 
psychiatrists about the climate distress groups that our patients may 
access and advances our understanding of these groups’ methods, which 
may help psychiatry’s own public health response.

We can anticipate an increasing number of population-wide climate 
events, from disasters and social disruptions to existential concerns. 
Within disaster psychiatry, it is now suggested that3:

Beyond contemporary approaches of diagnosing and treating 
illness...there should be a transition to early screening and delivery 
of public health interventions that are evidence-based, cost-effective, 
readily accessible and community-focused with the goal of reducing 
distress, enhancing well-being and functioning, reducing the rate of 
progression to psychological disorders and, ultimately, improving the 
overall trajectory….
https://www.psychiatrictimes.com/view/group-interventions-climate-change-distress 


- -

[One new emerging organization]
*Good Grief Network*
10-Steps to Personal Resilience & Empowerment in a Chaotic Climate
Our unique 10-Step Program helps individuals and communities build 
resilience by creating spaces where people can lean into their painful 
feelings about the state of the world and reorient their lives toward 
meaningful action.
https://www.goodgriefnetwork.org/

- -

[Climate Psychology Alliance UK Zoom meeting]
*NEXT EVENT: 9TH JANUARY 2021*
An online workshop about how we can attend with others to the difficult 
feelings associated with Covid-19 and the Climate Emergency.
About this Event
*THROUGH THE DOOR: a therapeutic practice for the commons*

An online workshop about how we can attend with others to the troubles 
of Covid-19 and the Climate Emergency

CPA is running a series of workshops aimed at developing a shared 
practice that draws on therapeutic skills to meet the urgent needs of 
the climate emergency.

In these experiential workshops we will explore issues such as what 
happens when:

collective anxiety leads to dysfunctional activations
symptoms such as helplessness, grief and resentment are widespread but 
denied
the articulation, witnessing and validation of such feelings is difficult
boundaries and permissions for therapeutic comment are ambiguous
This can happen with chance encounters of those interested in climate 
and Covid-19 matters or through the intentional convening of climate 
cafés and other specific groups, whether through Zoom or not. While we 
may be trained to stay with the client’s difficulties and attend to 
unconscious process, the very different context of more public events 
requires an unlearning of expectable therapy transactions and an opening 
to new opportunities to be with the process.

‘Going through the door’ evokes the liminal space of transiting a 
cultural threshold, a passage through the uncertainty that requires 
relinquishing the ‘normal’ and being open to another reality. Our 
training and practice may have allowed us to tolerate the anxiety that 
goes with this transition and hence we can be containers and even 
catalysts for transformation. The workshop intends to give a taste of 
this and also encourage practical explorations such as with Climate 
Cafés where such skills can be brought to fruition.

During the day we hope to:
manage our own anxiety and name underlying dynamics and process
create an open, fertile space that is contained and safe enough for sharing
make a place for feelings such as confusion, helplessness, rage and despair
make links with participants’ experience of being with other-than-human 
nature
draw on the creative imagination of the group to face the challenges of 
deep adaptation to an unknown future
explore possibilities for the deployment of participants’ therapeutic 
skills in new and different contexts
Online Workshop 9 January, 10.00am-4.30pm

Facilitators are:
Rebecca Nestor, CPA Board member, facilitator, organisational consultant 
and doctoral researcher at the Tavistock Clinic on the experience of 
leaders in climate change organisations

Chris Robertson: Ex. CPA Chair, co-founder of Re-Vision and co-editor of 
Transformation in Troubled Times. https://www.culture-crisis.net

This is a professional workshop that has continued to be developed since 
2018. Fees are:

Non-members: £60; Members: £40

Discounted/Bursary (20% of participants): £25; Student: £15

Places limited to 18 persons.

If yo have booked your place on the workshop but have not received 
details of how to join, please first check your spam filter and if that 
doesn't help, contact cpaeventbrite at gmail.com.
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/through-the-door-a-therapeutic-practice-for-the-commons-tickets-124075869265



[high risk - Frontiers in Climate ORIGINAL RESEARCH ARTICLE]
*Climate Extreme Seeds a New Domoic Acid Hotspot on the US West Coast*
14 December 2020

    A heatwave that blanketed the northeast Pacific Ocean in 2013–2015
    had severe impacts on the marine ecosystem through altered species
    composition and survival. A direct result of this marine heatwave
    was a sustained, record-setting harmful algal bloom (HAB), caused by
    the toxigenic diatom, Pseudo-nitzschia, that led to an unprecedented
    delay in harvest opportunity for commercial Dungeness crab
    (Metacarcinus magister) and closure of other recreational,
    commercial and tribal shellfish harvest, including razor clams.
    Samples collected during a cruise in summer 2015, showed the
    appearance of a highly toxic “hotspot” between Cape Mendocino, CA
    and Cape Blanco, OR that was observed again during cruises in the
    summers of 2016–2018. The transport of toxic cells from this
    retentive site northward during wind relaxations or reversals
    associated with storms resulted in economically debilitating delay
    or closure of Dungeness crab harvest in both northern California and
    Oregon in 2015–2019. Analyses of historic large-scale
    Pseudo-nitzschia HABs have shown that these events occur during warm
    periods such as El Niño, positive phases of the Pacific Decadal
    Oscillation, or the record-setting marine heatwave. In order to
    reduce the impacts of large-scale HABs along the west coast of North
    America, early warning systems have been developed to forewarn
    coastal managers. These early warning systems include the Pacific
    Northwest and California HAB Bulletins, both of which have
    documented elevated domoic acid and increased risk associated with
    the northern California hotspot. These early warnings enable
    mitigative actions such as selective opening of safe harvest zones,
    increased harvest limits during low risk periods, and early harvest
    in anticipation of impending HAB events. The aims of this study are
    to show trends in nearshore domoic acid along the US west coast in
    recent years, including the recent establishment of a new seed bed
    of highly-toxic Pseudo-nitzschia, and to explore how early warning
    systems are a useful tool to mitigate the human and environmental
    health and economic impacts associated with harmful algal blooms.

https://doi.org/10.3389/fclim.2020.571836



[Digging back into the internet news archive]
*On this day in the history of global warming - January 4, 1996 *

The New York Times reports:

    "The earth's average surface temperature climbed to a record high last
    year, according to preliminary figures, bolstering scientists' sense
    that the burning of fossil fuels is warming the climate.

    "Spells of cold, snow and ice like the ones this winter in the
    northeastern United States come and go in one region or another, as do
    periods of unusual warmth. But the net result globally made 1995 the
    warmest year since records first were kept in 1856, says a provisional
    report issued by the British Meteorological Office and the University
    of East Anglia.

    "The average temperature was 58.72 degrees Fahrenheit, according to
    the British data, seven-hundredths of a degree higher than the
    previous record, established in 1990.

    "The British figures, based on land and sea measurements around the
    world, are one of two sets of long-term data by which surface
    temperature trends are being tracked.

    "The other, maintained by the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies
    in New York, shows the average 1995 temperature at 59.7 degrees,
    slightly ahead of 1990 as the warmest year since record-keeping began
    in 1866. But the difference is within the margin of sampling error,
    and the two years essentially finished neck and neck.

    "The preliminary Goddard figures differ from the British ones because
    they are based on a somewhat different combination of observations
    around the world.

    "One year does not a trend make, but the British figures show the
    years 1991 through 1995 to be warmer than any similar five-year
    period, including the two half-decades of the 1980's, the warmest
    decade on record.

    "This is so even though a sun-reflecting haze cast aloft by the 1991
    eruption of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines cooled the earth
    substantially for about two years. Despite the post-Pinatubo cooling,
    the Goddard data show the early 1990's to have been nearly as warm as
    the late 1980's, which Goddard says was the warmest half-decade on
    record.

    "Dr. James E. Hansen, the director of the Goddard center, predicted
    last year that a new global record would be reached before 2000, and
    yesterday he said he now expected that 'we will still get at least a
    couple more' by then.

    "Dr. Hansen has been one of only a few scientists to maintain
    steadfastly that a century-long global warming trend is being caused
    mostly by human influence, a belief he reiterated yesterday."

http://www.nytimes.com/1996/01/04/world/95-is-hottest-year-on-record-as-the-global-trend-resumes.html?pagewanted=print


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