[✔️] July 3, 2021 - Daily Global Warming News Digest
👀 Richard Pauli
richard at theclimate.vote
Sat Jul 3 10:01:07 EDT 2021
/*July 3, 2021*/
[worse than modeled]
*Canadian inferno: northern heat exceeds worst-case climate models*
Scientists fear heat domes in North America and Siberia indicate a new
dimension to the global crisis
Jonathan Watts - - Fri 2 Jul 2021
If you were drawing up a list of possible locations for hell on Earth
before this week, the small mountain village of Lytton in Canada would
probably not have entered your mind.
Few people outside British Columbia had heard of this community of 250
people. Those who had were more likely to think of it as bucolic.
Nestled by a confluence of rivers in the forested foothills of the
Lillooet and Botanie mountain ranges, the municipal website boasts:
“Lytton is the ideal location for nature lovers to connect with
incredible natural beauty and fresh air freedom.”
Over the past seven days, however, the village has made headlines around
the world for a freakishly prolonged and intense temperature spike that
turned the idyll into an inferno...
- -
After the insufferable heat came choking fire. First the forest burned,
then parts of the town. On Wednesday evening, the mayor, Jan Polderman,
issued the evacuation order. “It’s dire. The whole town is on fire,” he
said on TV. “It took, like, a whole 15 minutes from the first sign of
smoke to, all of a sudden, there being fire everywhere.” By Thursday,
satellite images showed an eruption of blazes around the village and a
widening smoke cloud across the region...
- -
Experts at the Potsdam Institute and elsewhere believe the rapid heating
in the Arctic and decline of sea ice is making the jet stream wiggle in
large, meandering patterns, so-called Rossby resonance waves, trapping
high- and low-pressure weather systems in one location for a longer time.
This theory remains contested, but Michael Mann, director of the Earth
System Science Center at Pennsylvania State University, said this week’s
unexpectedly fierce heat at Lytton and elsewhere should prompt
climatologists to consider additional impacts of human activity.
“We should take this event very seriously,” he wrote in an email. “You
warm up the planet, you’re going to see an increased incidence of heat
extremes. Climate models capture this effect very well and predict large
increases in heat extremes. But there is something else going on with
this heatwave, and indeed, with many of the very persistent weather
extremes we’ve seen in recent years in the US, Europe, Asia and
elsewhere, where the models aren’t quite capturing the impact of climate
change.”
Regardless of which interactions are to blame, scientists are agreed
that the simplest way to reduce the risk of further temperature jolts is
to cut fossil fuel emissions and halt deforestation.
“It appears that this heatwave is still a rare phenomenon in the current
climate, but whether it stays that way depends on our decisions,”
Friederike Otto, associate director of the Environmental Change
Institute at the University of Oxford, said. “If the world does not
rapidly eliminate fossil fuel use and other sources of greenhouse gas
emissions like deforestation, global temperatures will continue to rise
and deadly heatwaves such as these will become even more common.”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jul/02/canadian-inferno-northern-heat-exceeds-worst-case-climate-models
[Media blunder of the month -- public opinion forces a speedy back-track]
*BBC Lists ‘Positive’ Climate Change Impacts in Study Guide for Kids,
Immediately Regrets It*
Benefits of climate change could include, per the website, "new crops
such as oranges, grapes and peaches flourish[ing] in the UK."
Molly Taft -July 2, 2021
The BBC is getting widespread criticism for creating a study guide for
teens that includes arguments about how climate change could make our
world better, actually.
On Thursday, climate writer George Monbiot tweeted a link to a webpage
that lists “positive impacts” of climate change housed on the BBC’s
Bitesize. According to the site, it exists to provide “simple-to-follow
lessons and videos for pupils aged 4 to 14.” The copy in question was
part of a study guide on climate change, which was included in a section
of study guides for the GSCE exam, tests in different topic areas that
British teenagers take to qualify for university.
The BBC has since edited the copy out, but you can see a version here,
courtesy of the Wayback Machine. The section is titled “Positive and
negative impacts of climate change,” and gives a list of possibilities
of what’s going to happen as fossil fuels keep warping our planet. A lot
of it is familiar to anyone keeping track of the eco-apocalypse,
including rising seas, extreme weather, desertification, and widespread
disease. But those familiar catastrophic scenarios are accompanied with
neat bullet lists of “positives” that feel like they were lifted from
the Heartland Institute’s website. Here’s bullet list of the joys of
climate change, according to the BBC:
- warmer temperatures and increased CO2 levels, leading to more
vigorous plant growth
- some animals and plants could benefit and flourish in a changing
climate
- new shipping routes, such as the Northwest passage, would become
available
- more resources, such as oil, becoming available in places such as
Alaska and Siberia when the ice melts
- energy consumption decreasing due to a warmer climate
- longer growing season leading to a higher yields in current
farming areas
- frozen regions, such as Canada and Siberia, could be able to grow
crops
- new tourist destinations becoming available
For the UK, the BBC writes that “positive” impacts could be:
- higher year-round temperatures and longer growing seasons could
mean that new crops such as oranges, grapes and peaches flourish in
the UK
- higher yields of many outdoor crops such as cereals, potatoes and
sugar beet due to a longer growing season and higher temperatures
- warmer temperatures would reduce winter heating costs
- accidents on the roads in winter could be less likely to occur
- warmer temperatures could lead to healthier outdoor lifestyles
- some plant and animal species would thrive and be able to grow and
survive further north and at higher altitudes
- growth in the UK tourist industry, particularly seaside resorts,
with warmer, drier summers
Grapes and peaches?? In the UK??? Totally seems worth all that other
stuff. Sign me up.
In response to Monbiot’s tweet, the official Bitesize account said that
it “passed this on to the relevant team and are assessing the guides in
relation to the latest ed specs from the relevant exam boards.” On
Thursday, the BBC said it had “reviewed the page and [is] amending the
content to be in line with current curricula.”
This isn’t the Beeb’s first brush with getting too cozy with climate
denial. The broadcasting network has come under fire in the past for
granting airtime to climate deniers, particularly Lord Nigel Lawson, a
member of the Conservative party who served as Margarate Thatcher’s
Secretary for State Energy. The network has had on multiple times, and
Lawson falsely claimed that global temperatures have fallen in the past
10 years. In a review, the network admitted it did not challenge him on
his viewpoints enough in a 2017 interview.
In 2018, the BBC sent guidance to journalists on writing about climate
change, including what top brass said was the news organization’s
“editorial policy” and “position” on the issue. Copies of the documents
were obtained and posted by Carbon Brief.
“Climate change has been a difficult subject for the BBC, and we get
coverage of it wrong too often,” the editorial policy begins, adding
that journalists “do not need a ‘denier’ to balance the debate”.
However, it doesn’t totally rule out including them altogether: “There
are occasions where contrarians and sceptics should be included within
climate change and sustainability debates,” the editors write. “These
may include, for instance, debating the speed and intensity of what will
happen in the future, or what policies government should adopt.”
The overwhelming body of literature shows that the world’s current
policies of delay are putting it on a collision course with disaster.
We’ve already seen the horrors of climate change through events such as
the Pacific Northwest heat wave this week, and those impacts will only
worsen the longer we delay action.
The forces behind climate denial aren’t stagnant; they’re evolving and
changing course as more people wake up to the reality we need to end
fossil fuel use. Fossil-fuel-funded organizations and oil and gas
companies themselves have shifted tactics in recent years, pivoting away
from flat-out denial to more insidious forms of it. That includes
creating false equivalences like the very Bitesize page the BBC has now
taken down. I’d like to think that a 15- or 16-year-old reading this
list would be able to recognize that growing new crops in their town
isn’t exactly worth the cost of melting our planet. But you can never be
too careful.
https://gizmodo.com/bbc-lists-positive-climate-change-impacts-in-study-gu-1847218954
- -
[See for yourself in the Internet Archive - text only saved]
*The BBC has now removed the "positives" of climate change but they can
still be found (albeit with poor page formatting) through the Internet
Wayback Machine:*
https://web.archive.org/web/20210603180522/https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/guides/zcn6k7h/revision/5
[Bloomberg reporter needs a microphone - video]
*The Western U.S. Might be Heading Towards a Semi-Permanent State of
Dryness*
Jun 27, 2021
Bloomberg Quicktake: Now
Drought is back. The U.S. is facing another summer of parched farmland,
dwindling water supplies and the potential for another record wildfire
season.
Nearly 90% of the land across 11 western states is withered and brittle
from a lack of rain and snow. And while there have been years and months
of respite, the decades since the start of the current century haven’t
been kind to the western U.S. Egged on by climate change, facing rising
demands from a growing population, the U.S. West continues to march
toward a potentially semi-permanent state of dryness.
Bloomberg Quicktake brings you live global news and original shows
spanning business, technology, politics and culture. Make sense of the
stories changing your business and your world.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=enWyS2uUs1k
- -
[DW video report]
*Western US in grips of hottest, driest summer in 1000 years? | DW News*
Jun 21, 2021
DW News
It may be the first day of summer in the Northern Hemisphere, but for
some 50 million people in the US summer has arrived early and hotter
than ever before. In just the last week, high temperature records have
been shattered all across the western half of the US.
Salt Lake City, Utah, just saw its hottest day since record keeping
began in 1870. 107 degrees Fahrenheit. 42 degrees Celsius. Wyoming also
saw new records. In Nevada, Las Vegas continues to flirt with its
all-time high of 47 degrees Celsius. But the US city melting most is
Phoenix, Arizona, which just set an all-time record of five consecutive
days of 115 degrees or higher. That is 46 degrees Celsius.
The heat is making severe droughts across the western US go from bad to
worse. The federal government is already planning to declare an official
water shortage at Lake Mead in August. Lake Mead's waters power Hoover
Dam. As of last week, Lake Mead's water level is at a record low, and
there is n .relief in sight.
The Western US is in what scientists describe as a climate-change
induced megadrought. Some even say this summer could be the hottest and
driest in a millennium. And less water means more fire.
2020 saw a record number of wildfires in California, Oregon and
Washington. 2021 is expected to be worse.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FLBc_PXDaOE
[A Nick Breeze video - a great philosophical discussion - tremendously
relevant]
*[Books] Plastic - An Autobiography | Allison Cobb discusses facing
existential threats*
Jun 15, 2021
Nick Breeze
Visit: https://genn.cc
Cambridge Climate Series: https://climateseries.com/climate-cha...
In this episode of Shaping The Future, I speak with the author, Allison
Cobb, about her new book titled ‘Plastic - An Autobiography’.
With poetic sensitivity, Allison explores the complexity of how plastic
has become part of our lives and how this material, which can endure for
generations, has been wilfully categorised as a ‘single use’ disposable
product becoming as ubiquitous as food with a highly toxic indigestible
after-life.
This autobiography is also personal, linking the horrendous WW2 invasion
of Poland with her ancestors who also worked at the Los Alamos National
Laboratory on the now infamous Manhattan Project to create the first
atomic bomb.
This is a story about complexity, personal journey and the plasticity of
of all life as we venture forth into the next big existential challenge
of preventing climate and ecological collapse.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gVqu6QWgETc
[plastic is made from petroleum]
*We Now Know How Exxon Secretly Fights Crackdowns on Plastic Pollution*
In a sting operation by Greenpeace UK, a top Exxon official admits
Exxon's producing PFAS products and lobbying against anti-plastic laws.
Dharna Noor - July 2, 2021
A senior Exxon lobbyist was caught on tape admitting that the company
has been running a behind-the-scenes campaign to combat regulation on
plastics and PFAS, a video released Thursday shows. The tape is the
second installment of an undercover investigation conducted by
Unearthed, the investigative arm of Greenpeace UK, and it confirms
environmentalists’ worst fears...
- -
“We think if word got out that ExxonMobil manufactured those chemicals,
that ExxonMobil uses those chemicals, it’s a talking point. You know, it
becomes ‘the ExxonMobil chemical,’ and that is just going to hurt the
effort,” he said.
When Judith Enck, former Environmental Protection Agency regional
administrator and founder of advocacy group Beyond Plastics, saw the
tape, she said, “holy cannoli.” But though the footage was shocking, she
said she felt no one should have been surprised.
“I’m happy that the public gets a glimpse behind the curtain,” she said.
“But it ultimately just confirms what we’ve known for years, which is
that Exxon and other fossil fuel companies are deceiving the public.
They want to see more production of plastics despite all of the
environmental and public health harm that goes along with it. So the
revelations were not surprising to me, but it’s still startling to hear
their playbook.”
Enck has spent years raising the alarm about how as nations eschew oil
and gas in favor of renewables and encourage electric vehicles, energy
majors are increasing plastic production in an attempt to secure a
substitute market. That’s a primary reason, she said, that the U.S. rate
of plastic production is increasing so rapidly. American production of
the most common plastic, polyethylene, is on track to increase more than
40% by 2028, according to one estimate. And a recent report found that
Exxon is the single biggest contributor to the world’s plastic waste.
“The fossil fuel industry is losing their transportation fuel market and
they’re losing their electricity market, so they have shifted to plastic
production in a big way,” she said.
McCoy said that Exxon has been working closely with the American
Chemistry Council to create model legislation on issues related to its
plastics business. One successful strategy Exxon has used, McCoy said,
has been to push for a government study of the health impacts of PFAS to
delay legislation.
“Lo and behold we got a study, we got it passed, and that completely
lowered the temperature, there’s been very little talk about PFAS,” he said.
McCoy didn’t say exactly what study he was referring to, but Enck
recognized the strategy immediately. “The American Chemistry Council was
very involved in getting a new law on the books called the Save Our Seas
Act at the federal level,” she said, referring to a piece of legislation
signed into law last year. “The name sounds good, but what did the Save
Our Seas bill actually do? Propose as a study to delay legislative action.”
Among the worst provisions in the Save Our Seas law was one directing
the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine to
investigate chemical recycling, a misleading term that actually refers
to the toxic process of converting plastic to fossil fuels through
gasification or pyrolysis (the application of intense heat). In the
Unearthed video, McCoy said that the company was “very, very focused on”
expanding chemical recycling, specifically mentioning a gasification
facility at Exxon’s Baytown, Texas plant. Thirteen state legislatures
have also passed legislation to boost chemical recycling. McCoy’s
admissions raise questions about the origin of those bills.
Plastic production and disposal both emit hundreds of millions of tons
of greenhouse gases, which contribute to climate change, and wreak havoc
on public health. Every minute, one dump-truck load’s worth of plastic
also ends up in the ocean, where it kills wildlife, carries diseases,
and releases carcinogens.
World leaders have given oil companies a seat at the table in crafting
climate policy, even welcoming them into international climate talks.
The Unearthed report indicates that Exxon has pushed to receive the same
treatment when it comes to plastic regulations and that their lobbying
has seen successes. As the world grapples with what to do about plastic
production and pollution, policymakers should be on high alert for
Exxon’s bullshit and shut them out of negotiations.
“I just think this segment should be a wake-up call for lawmakers,” said
Enck. “It’s not a surprise that Exxon wants to continue to perpetuate
more production of plastic ... but elected officials and regulators need
to look behind the curtain when dealing with trade groups and ask whose
interests they’re really representing. The answer is, certainly not the
public’s.”
https://gizmodo.com/we-now-know-how-exxon-secretly-fights-crackdowns-on-pla-1847220288
[video report from ITVNews]
*Lake Mead: The devastating impact of drought on America's largest
reservoir | ITV News*
Jun 21, 2021
ITV News
The Western US states are bracing themselves for one of their worst-ever
summer heatwaves.
Temperatures are surging, reaching a blistering 53 degrees Celsius in
California's Death Valley - that's 128 Fahrenheit.
The heat, and a lack of rainfall, has led to unprecedented water shortages.
Including at America's largest reservoir - Lake Mead, in Nevada, which
powers the mighty Hoover Dam.
And the probable reason for these temperature extremes is, say many
experts, devastatingly simple. Climate change.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cuZ2tbgAqbA
[Military leader speaks on video 14 min]*
* *Climate As A Driver Of Conflict | Former Pakistani Defence Minister
General Ghazi (Ret)*
July 1, 2021
Nick Breeze
https://patreon.com/genncc
This episode features an interview with former Pakistani Defence
Minister General Ghazi. I recorded this at COP25 in Madrid and am
replaying here because General Ghazi identifies with great clarity, a
stage process that can lead a nation or region into conflict.
General Ghazi also outlines the critical role of the military as first
responders, when climate extremes create society-wide suffering. The
question is here, what more can we learn from experts in risk that can
help us build societal resilience and promote cooperation as opposed to
conflict in the face of a challenging future?
General Ghazi is a member of the Global Military Advisory Council On
Climate Change (GMACCC).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZvc4e18ASw
[The news archive - looking back]
*On this day in the history of global warming July 3, 2009*
Alaska Governor Sarah Palin announces her resignation from office;
shortly thereafter, she sets herself up as a right-wing crusader against
federal climate legislation.
http://youtu.be/kM0ZbNA8_ro
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2009/jul/20/sarah-palin/palin-flips-her-support-cap-and-trade/
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