[✔️] July 10, 2021 - Daily Global Warming News Digest

[👀 Richard Pauli]

/*July 10, 2021*/

[“This is the hottest summer of my life,” Bart Simpson says in a meme 
that’s been making the rounds. Homer’s response: “This is the coldest 
summer of the rest of your life.”] *
*

*Death Valley soars to 130 degrees, matching Earth’s highest temperature 
in at least 90 years*
https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2021/07/09/death-valley-record-high-temperature/


[See the conditions]
*Death Valley National Park*
https://www.nps.gov/deva/planyourvisit/furnace-creek-campground.htm


[Activism]
*On climate policy, there's one main thing and then there's everything else*
Clean electrification is the entrée; everything else is a side.
- -
How can the US hit net-zero emissions by or before 2050, a goal shared 
by almost every Democrat and, at least rhetorically, by some Republicans?

The key is to immediately begin reducing emissions and maintain a rapid 
pace of reduction for the coming three decades. That is the only way we 
have a shot. If we wait another decade to start rapid reductions, the 
curve will simply be too steep. It has to start now.

So we can think of the work in two parts. Job One is to rapidly push 
fossil fuels out of the system using technologies and strategies that we 
have on hand, such that we reduce carbon emissions by around 50 percent 
by 2030. Job Two is to research and develop the technologies and 
strategies we will need to continue rapidly reducing emissions from 2030 
onward, such that we hit net-zero on or before 2050.

Job Two is important. But Job One is the main thing. Job One is the 
entrée. Without it, you don’t have a meal.

What does Job One consist of? This is important: while different climate 
models disagree about which policies and technologies will be needed to 
clean up remaining emissions after 2030, virtually all of them agree on 
what’s needed over the next decade. It’s clean electrification:  clean 
up the electricity grid by replacing fossil fuel power plants with 
renewable energy, batteries, and other zero-carbon resources; clean up 
transportation by replacing gasoline and diesel vehicles — passenger 
vehicles, delivery trucks and vans, semi-trucks, small planes, 
agricultural and mining equipment, etc. — with electric vehicles; and 
clean up buildings by replacing furnaces and other appliances that run 
on fossil fuels with electric equivalents.

Or as I summarize it: electrify everything!

Clean electrification is the entrée...
- -
Clean electrification is the entrée. If you decarbonize electricity, 
transportation, and buildings, you’ve taken out the three biggest 
sources of emissions in virtually every country. The technologies and 
policies we need to do it exist today, ready to deploy...
https://www.volts.wtf/p/on-climate-policy-theres-one-main



[Information battleground]
*What the Exxon Tapes Reveal About the American Petroleum Institute’s 
Lobbying Tactics on Oil Trains*
The top oil trade group, which a senior Exxon lobbyist recently 
described as one of the company’s “whipping boys,” used similar delay 
tactics to push back against oil-by-rail safety rules.
What the Exxon Tapes Reveal About the American Petroleum Institute’s 
Lobbying Tactics on Oil Trains
Justin Mikulkaon - - Jul 9, 2021
Senior ExxonMobil lobbyists were recently exposed by undercover 
reporting from UnEarthed, an investigative journalism project of 
Greenpeace, which captured footage of the employees explaining how the 
oil giant influences policy makers using trade associations like the 
American Petroleum Institute (API).

The undercover footage revealed Exxon lobbyists boasting about wins for 
the company under the Trump administration and admitting to continued 
efforts to sow doubt about climate change and undermine action to tackle 
the crisis.

The recordings also confirmed the findings of years of DeSmog research 
on API’s lobbying tactics. “Did we aggressively fight against some of 
the science? Yes. Did we hide our science? Absolutely not,” Keith McCoy, 
a senior director in ExxonMobil’s Washington, D.C. government affairs 
team, told the undercover reporter Lawrence Carter. “Did we join some of 
these ‘shadow groups’ to work against some of the early efforts? Yes, 
that’s true. But there’s nothing illegal about that. You know, we were 
looking out for our investments; we were looking out for our 
shareholders.”...
- -
After years of covering the regulatory process governing oil trains, one 
fact stood out: API was almost always leading the process. Even though 
the process was supposed to be about improving rail safety, the oil 
industry played the dominant role. Exxon representatives were rarely 
seen in the many public Congressional or regulatory agency hearings and 
did not take a public role in fighting the regulations. However, as 
DeSmog reported, Exxon was meeting in private with federal regulators 
and arguing against stronger regulations on oil trains...
- -
Much of my book Bomb Trains: How Industry Greed and Regulatory Failure 
Put the Public at Risk highlights how API successfully uses “The Hill” — 
i.e. Congress —  to stop regulation and describes the central role the 
organization plays, as noted in this passage in which National 
Transportation Safety Board Chair Deborah Hersman asks API 
representative Lee Johnson when safer rail tank cars could be expected:

In Congressional hearings, at rail industry conferences, and in funding 
supposedly independent studies of the issue, it was always API dictating 
what happened on “The Hill.”

As revealed by UnEarthed, Exxon lobbyist McCoy spelled out how it works 
in the recently released recordings:

“So you start to build out a coalition of associations. Now, companies 
feed into that privately where we have meetings, but the public face of 
it are the associations: they go to the Hill, they have these 
conversations.”

Exxon was rarely mentioned in the oil-by-rail regulatory process even 
though API was omnipresent. However, as McCoy noted, Exxon is directing 
API. On the tapes, he described how it worked, saying, “And so the API 
staff person who worked on that issue, We’d say, you know, ‘Hey Tom, you 
need to go to The Hill and you need to have a conversation with the 
committee.’”

This is similar to what Scott Sheffield, CEO of U.S. oil company Pioneer 
Resources, said in 2020 when he told CNBC that it was Exxon leading 
discussions on a possible industry bailout and that Exxon “controls the 
API.”
- -
In 2016, Suzanne Lemieux, a representative of the American Petroleum 
Institute, spoke at an energy-by-rail conference. She argued against the 
idea that the volatile oil being transported by rail needed to be 
regulated in a presentation titled, “Crude Oil Volatility: Myth vs. Fact.”

Her message was quite clear.

“I would say that all of these conversations about [how] Bakken is 
inherently more dangerous, it’s more volatile, etcetera, etcetera, those 
things from a chemical properties perspective just aren’t true. And so 
we in the oil and gas industry see this as a very dangerous conversation.”

Forty seven people died because of the oil industry’s dangerous product. 
However, API took the position that even discussing how to avoid a 
repeat of the oil train explosion at Lac-Megantic was too dangerous of a 
conversation to have.

And it worked.

DeSmog contacted Exxon and the American Petroleum Institute inquiring if 
the two coordinated efforts to influence oil-by-rail regulations.

“As a member-driven organization, we collaborate across our membership 
on a wide range of policy issues, from advancing smart and effective 
regulations and strong standards for rail safety to advocating for 
lower-carbon solutions to tackle climate change,” said API spokeswoman 
Bethany Aronhalt via email.  “We also continue to advocate for 
modernized pipeline infrastructure, which is the safest most efficient 
way to deliver the energy Americans rely on every single day.”

Exxon did not respond other than to ask for specific questions, which 
were provided, but not answered.

For much greater detail on how the oil-by-rail regulatory process 
unfolded, read Chapter 4, “Follow the Money,” of my book Bomb Trains, 
which dives into API’s role in the process.
https://www.desmog.com/2021/07/09/exxon-tapes-american-petroleum-institutes-lobbying-oil-trains/
- -
[Chapter 4 of Follow the Money - download]
https://www.desmog.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/Chapter-4-Follow-The-Money.pdf



[Media as information battleground]
*A Fox News Climate Disinformation Channel Is the Last Thing We Need*
The media giant is launching a 24-hour weather news channel.
CHRIS D’ANGELO - July 9, 2021
Americans have a big appetite for news about the weather, and climate 
change is making weather events more frequent and extreme. Now, Rupert 
Murdoch’s Fox Corporation, a media empire with a long history of 
peddling climate disinformation, is entering the world of 24-hour 
weather coverage.

The billionaire media mogul plans to launch Fox Weather later this year, 
with the intent that it will rival the popular Weather Channel. It has 
been poaching meteorologists from other networks, The New York Times 
reported this week.

Scientists and watchdog groups are understandably wary of the new 
venture, anticipating that the network’s weather arm will prove just as 
skewed, politicized, and detached from reality as its cable news 
programming. Fox News commentators and their guests are constantly 
downplaying and denying the global threat of climate change, even amid 
historic and deadly heat waves, wildfires, hurricanes, and drought...
- -
Just this week Milloy, a Fox contributor and former member of the Trump 
administration’s Environmental Protection Agency transition team, 
appeared on Ingraham’s show to discuss the ”war on air conditioning” and 
bemoan smart electric meters and electric vehicles.

“Left uses climate change to control our lives,” read a chyron during 
the segment.

The new weather channel will be independent of Fox’s other networks, and 
a spokesperson told the Times that its “dedicated team of leading 
meteorologists and experts” will offer “in-depth reporting surrounding 
all weather conditions.”

John Morales, a meteorologist for NBC in Miami, is not as concerned 
about the channel’s unique potential for climate denial.

“Fox News weathercasters are reputable and some, like Maria Molina, have 
gone on to accomplished careers in atmospheric research,” he told 
HuffPost. “As science communicators, broadcast meteorologists should 
seek not just to deliver weather forecasts and warnings but to educate 
their audiences about our changing climate. Whether a Fox weather 
network would frown on that is yet to be seen. If so, they wouldn’t be 
the first news outlet failing to adequately cover the climate crisis. 
There is huge room for improvement across the cable and broadcast news 
spectrum.”

The links between human-induced climate change and extreme weather are 
undeniably clear. A study published Wednesday, for example, concluded 
that last week’s grueling and deadly heat wave across the Pacific 
Northwest and Canada would have been “virtually impossible” without 
climate change.

Ignoring, downplaying, or brushing off such connections would be a 
dangerous disservice—and come at a time when the nation and planet can 
least afford more disinformation and delay.

“We know that communication is effective when it consists of simple, 
clear messages repeated often by trusted sources. Fox News is nothing if 
they’re not good at that,” Hassol said. “Surveys find that Republicans 
trust Fox News more than any other major news network. We know we have a 
partisan gap on climate change, and this stands to only make that worse.”
https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2021/07/a-fox-news-climate-disinformation-channel-is-the-last-thing-we-need/




[Why?]
*Why are tornadoes spawned from hurricanes particularly dangerous?*
Tags: Tropical Storm Elsa, hurricanes, tropical storm
Posted July 7, 2021
By Elizabeth Gardner, WRAL meteorologist

Storms that move into North Carolina after a Gulf of Mexico or Florida 
panhandle landfall have the potential to be particularly devastating.

Wind damage and flooding aren’t the only threats from hurricanes. More 
than half of hurricanes also produce at least one tornado after making 
landfall. In 2020, Hurricane Isaias spawned 12 tornadoes in North 
Carolina. The strongest was an EF-3 in Bertie County that killed two people.

Sometimes, the United States sees 10% of its annual tornadoes in just 
one tropical system.

How do hurricanes and tropical storms spawn tornadoes?
When a hurricane’s outer rain bands move onshore, the friction from the 
land causes low-level winds to slow down – but the winds just above the 
ground remain quite strong. This effect is called a "wind shear." It 
causes a change in the wind speed – and sometimes direction.

When wind shear occurs, thunderstorms will begin to rotate, and 
tornadoes can form.

Keep in mind, sometimes the outer rain bands are hundreds of miles away 
from the center of the storm, so tornadoes are possible even when the 
center of circulation is well offshore.

Why are tropical systems from the Gulf of Mexico particularly dangerous?
Storms that form in the Gulf of Mexico can bring tornadoes to North 
Carolina. As the system moves northeast, areas east of the circulation 
have a threat for tornadoes.

Tornadoes within tropical systems are particularly dangerous because 
they tend to form really fast – sometimes in only one or two minutes.

They also move at a rapid pace – as quickly as 50 to 60mph!

However, they are usually short-lived, often just lasting a couple of 
minutes.

The fast development and movement make them fairly hard to track on 
radar, so any time there is a tropical system nearby, be sure to prepare 
for tornadoes, too.
https://www.wral.com/why-are-tornadoes-spawned-from-hurricanes-particularly-dangerous/19761465/


[DW 9 min video report]
*'Records can be broken by several degrees' - What’s behind the record 
shattering heat waves?*
Jul 8, 2021
DW News
Climate scientists have used models to confirm that burning fossil fuels 
made the extreme heat wave in parts of the US and Canada hotter and more 
likely.

When a heat wave began to scorch Canada and the US in late June — 
killing elderly people alone in their homes and fueling wildfires that 
wiped out an entire village — scientists said burning fossil fuels had 
changed the climate enough to make the temperature extremes worse. 
Global warming made the hottest day of the North American heat wave 150 
times more likely and 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit) hotter, 
according to a rapid attribution study released Thursday by an 
international team of 27 scientists from the World Weather Attribution 
initiative (WWA). Temperatures broke records in Oregon and Washington, 
in the US, and in British Columbia, in Canada. They reached a high of 
49.6 C (121 F) that researchers say would have been "virtually 
impossible" without climate change.

The study, which has not yet been published in a peer-reviewed journal, 
is the latest example of scientists using models to swiftly assess the 
role of greenhouse gas emissions in exacerbating extreme weather. Its 
findings dispel a myth prevalent in rich countries that climate change 
only hurts people far away from them or in the distant future. "We are 
entering uncharted territory," said study co-author Sonia Seneviratne, 
from the Institute for Atmospheric and Climate Science at ETH Zurich in 
Switzerland. "Much higher temperature records will be reached if we 
don't manage to stop greenhouse gas emissions and halt global warming."
Previous heat records were "pulverized" by such large margins that 
"something else must be going on," said Stefan Rahmstorf, head of Earth 
System Analysis at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in 
Germany, who was not involved in the study. "The study is valid and 
state of the art."

Climate change has made heat waves hotter, longer and more common. By 
burning fossil fuels — which release gases that trap the sun's heat like 
a greenhouse — humans have warmed the planet by about 1.1 C above 
preindustrial levels. This raises the chance of record-breaking 
temperatures.

Lytton, a village in the Canadian province of British Columbia, broke 
the country's heat record on July 2 when temperatures shot almost 5 C 
above the previous record of 45 C.

The next day it was destroyed by a wildfire.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4b-ykVLQyCA



[no climate, no deal - do it before August]
*WA Gov. Jay Inslee: 'You Can’t Run From Climate Change'*
Jul 3, 2021
NowThis Earth
‘You can’t run from climate change, you have to challenge it and defeat 
it’ — Washington Gov. Jay Inslee says the record-breaking Pacific 
Northwest heat wave shows just how unavoidable the climate crisis really is.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D3oKvCi-GjM




[new climate]
*Most buildings were designed for an earlier climate – here’s what will 
happen as global warming accelerates*
July 2, 2021
Climate change will affect every aspect of our lives – including the 
buildings we live and work in. Most people in the US, for example, spend 
about 90% of their time indoors. Climate change is fundamentally 
altering the environmental conditions in which these buildings are 
designed to function.

Architects and engineers design buildings and other structures, like 
bridges, to operate within the parameters of the local climate. They’re 
built using materials and following design standards that can withstand 
the range of temperatures, rainfall, snow and wind that are expected, 
plus any geological issues such as earthquakes, subsidence and ground 
water levels.

When any of those parameters are exceeded, chances are some aspect of 
the building will fail. If there are high winds, some roof tiles may be 
ripped off. If, after days of heavy rain, the water table rises, the 
basement might flood. This is normal, and these problems cannot be 
designed out entirely. After the event has passed, the damage can be 
repaired and additional measures can reduce the risk of it happening again.

But climate change will breed conditions where these parameters are 
exceeded more often and to a far greater degree. Some changes, like 
higher average air temperatures and humidity, will become permanent. 
What were previously considered once in a century floods may become a 
regular occurrence.

Some of these impacts are fairly obvious. Houses will be more prone to 
overheating, putting the lives of residents at risk, which is what has 
happened during the recent “heat dome” over North America. Flooding will 
happen more often and inundate greater areas, to the point that some 
places might have to be abandoned. The village of Fairbourne in Wales 
has already been identified as a likely candidate. Failure to act on 
both of these threats in the UK was highlighted in a recent report by 
the Climate Change Committee.

To some extent, these impacts will be localised and containable, with 
fairly simple remedies. For example, overheating can be reduced by 
shading windows with awnings or blinds, good insulation, and ample 
ventilation. Perhaps more worrying are the insidious effects of climate 
change which gradually undermine the core functions of a building in 
less obvious ways.

*Termites and melting asphalt*
More intense wind and rain will cause external cladding to deteriorate 
more rapidly and leak more often. Higher temperatures will expand the 
regions where some insects can live. That includes timber-eating 
termites that can cause major structural damage, or malaria-carrying 
mosquitoes which living spaces must be redesigned to protect us from.

A wooden window frame being decomposed by termites.
Termite damage on a wooden window frame. Attapon Thana/Shutterstock
Materials expand as they get hotter, especially metals, which can cause 
them to buckle once their designed tolerance is exceeded. For one 
skyscraper in Shenzhen, China, high temperatures were partially blamed 
for causing the structure to shake, forcing its evacuation, as the steel 
frame stretched in the heat. Extreme temperatures can even cause 
materials to melt, resulting in roads “bleeding” as the surface layer of 
bitumen softens.

Subsidence – when the ground below a structure gives way, causing it to 
crack or collapse – is also expected to happen more often in a warmer 
world. Buildings with foundations in clay soils are particularly 
vulnerable, as the soils swell when they absorb water, then harden and 
shrink as they dry out. Changing rainfall patterns will exacerbate this. 
Over the next 50 years, for example, more than 10% of properties in 
Britain will be affected by subsidence.
*
**Concrete cancer*
Perhaps the biggest concern is how climate change will affect reinforced 
concrete, one of the most widely used materials on Earth. Used in 
everything from skyscrapers and bridges to the lintels above windows in 
homes, reinforced concrete is made by placing steel rods within a mould 
and pouring wet concrete in. Once dry, this produces incredibly strong 
structures.

But a warmer wetter climate will play havoc with the durability of this 
material. When the steel inside the concrete gets wet it rusts and 
expands, cracking the concrete and weakening the structure in a process 
sometimes referred to as “concrete cancer”.

Buildings in coastal areas are especially susceptible as the chloride in 
salt water accelerates rusting. Rising sea levels will raise the water 
table and make it saltier, affecting building foundations, while 
salt-spray will spread further on stronger winds.

At the same time, the concrete is affected by carbonation, a process 
where carbon dioxide from the air reacts with the cement to form a 
different chemical element, calcium carbonate. This lowers the pH of the 
concrete, making the steel even more prone to corrosion. Since the 
1950s, global CO₂ levels have increased from about 300 parts per million 
in the atmosphere to well over 400. More CO₂ means more carbonation.

The tragic recent collapse of an apartment building in Miami in the US 
may be an early warning of this process gaining speed. While the exact 
cause of the collapse is still being investigated, some are suggesting 
it might be linked to climate change.

The local mayor, Charles Burkett, summed up the bewilderment many felt:

It just doesn’t happen. You don’t see buildings falling down in America.

Whether or not the link to climate change proves to be true, it is 
nevertheless a wake up call to the fragility of our buildings. It should 
also be seen as a clear demonstration of a critical point: wealth does 
not protect against the effects of climate change. Rich nations have the 
financial clout to adapt more rapidly and to mitigate these impacts, but 
they can’t stop them at the border. Climate change is indiscriminate. 
Buildings are vulnerable to these impacts no matter where in the world 
they are, and if anything, the modern buildings of developed countries 
have more things in them that can go wrong than simpler traditional 
structures.

The only option is to begin adapting buildings to meet the changing 
parameters in which they are operating. The sooner we begin retrofitting 
existing buildings and constructing new ones that can withstand climate 
change, the better.
https://theconversation.com/most-buildings-were-designed-for-an-earlier-climate-heres-what-will-happen-as-global-warming-accelerates-163672




[The news archive - looking back]
*On this day in the history of global warming July 10, 2007*
July 10, 2007: On MSNBC's "Countdown with Keith Olbermann," Air America 
host Rachel Maddow points out the mainstream media's fetish for false 
balance, specifically citing climate coverage.
http://youtu.be/vcMFwuu_UlA



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


/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. This is a hobby production curated by Richard Pauli
By regulation, the .VOTE top-level domain 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/20210710/dca40e05/attachment.htm>