[✔️] July 13, 2021 - Daily Global Warming News Digest
👀 Richard Pauli
richard at theclimate.vote
Tue Jul 13 10:15:55 EDT 2021
/*July13 , 2021*/
[asked and answered]
*US heatwave: Could US and Canada see the worst wildfires yet?*
By Reality Check team
BBC News - July 12, 2021
There are warnings that this season could be another highly destructive
one, so we've looked at why that might be.
Experts told us the potential for a record-breaking wildfire season is
significant.
Dr Mike Flannigan, professor of wildland fires at the University of
Alberta, said that fires need three ingredients:
1 vegetation or fuel
2 ignition (caused by humans or lightning)
3 hot, dry and windy weather
Dr Flannigan added: "It really depends on the day-to-day weather, but
the potential is sky-high for parts of Canada and the American west as
they are in a multi-year drought. "
The US drought monitor - a partnership between the Department of
Agriculture and other expert organisations - says half the nation is
under some form of drought, with the most severe in western states.
- -
Is climate change leading to more fires?
In the western US and Canada, lightning rather than human activity is
increasingly the main immediate cause of wildfires.
Scientists believe that climate change is a factor contributing to more
intense, and longer-lasting wildfire seasons because of warmer, drier
conditions.
Dr Flannigan says: "Warm temperatures means more lightning, longer fire
seasons and drier fuel, so on average we are going to see a lot more
fire, and we are going to have to learn to live with fire."
Linking any single event to global warming is complicated - but a study
by climate researchers said the heat that scorched western Canada and
the US at the end of June was "virtually impossible" without climate change.
https://www.bbc.com/news/57770728
[Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists]
*Big Oil’s lies about climate change—a climate scientist’s take*
By Adam Sobel | July 9, 2021
- -
But the moral case, at least, is clear.
We know now that fossil fuel company researchers understood early on,
from their own work as well as that of academic and government
researchers, that warming due to human emissions of greenhouse gases
posed risks at the planetary scale.
If a company were to dump toxic waste in your back yard, making the air
you breathe and water you drink hazardous, they’d be liable for the harm
they caused you. (Of course, fossil fuel companies have done exactly
this also, in many places around the world, and often faced little
consequence, particularly when the victims are from poor and
marginalized communities.)
Increasing carbon dioxide concentrations globally doesn’t poison us, but
it’s still broadly analogous to this backyard example—except on the
scale of the entire planet. Instead of giving us cancer or heart
disease, the increase in carbon dioxide emissions is making essentially
irreversible changes in the environments in which we all live, such that
they deviate from those to which our civilization is adapted.
We’ve known for some time that that’s exceedingly dangerous. We know it
even better now, as we see unprecedented heat waves and wildfire seasons
coming ever more frequently and sea level rise lapping at coastal
cities. The scale of the harm is difficult, perhaps even impossible to
calculate; for example, how do you account for a small probability of
true global catastrophe due to unpredictable tipping points? Economists
try to calculate it nonetheless, but it’s almost certain that they—and
consequently also politicians—have historically grossly underestimated
the sheer scale of the harm, because economics as a discipline is based
on assumptions that don’t fit global-scale environmental crises...
- -
So while fossil fuel executives may have understood the potential harm
to which they were exposing all of us, one could argue that they have
worked within the legal system while extracting and selling fossil
fuels. They have also been fulfilling their fiduciary duty to maximize
shareholder value. In a sting video recently released by Greenpeace, a
top Exxon executive, speaking with a frankness we never see in public
from such people, made exactly these arguments. Are those arguments not
fair? Haven’t the fossil fuel execs just been doing their jobs?
No, because of the lying. With all the resources at their disposal,
these companies have systematically, cynically misrepresented and
suppressed the facts. Their jobs didn’t require them to do this. But
they did, and in such a way as to hide the fact that they were doing it:
sponsoring outside groups to spread doubt and confusion, and even
supporting bogus research to create the appearance of dissent among
scientists. All this is well documented and widely known by now. And
they’re still doing it: perhaps not all of them, and perhaps in some
cases with different tactics, but fossil fuel companies are still
funding denial groups and politicians who act on the denial agenda...
- -
This is just the beginning. The Earth has only warmed by around a degree
or two so far and is on track for several more degrees of warming. And
yet the severe imbalances we’re now experiencing in extreme weather are
only going to get worse with each passing year if rapid reductions in
greenhouse gas emissions can’t be achieved. The heat extremes we’re
seeing now will become the baseline—regular events—punctuated by even
more extreme high temperatures as the planet warms further and weather
patterns are increasingly disrupted.
I think I know better now than to try to do physical labor during
extreme heat. But many workers have little or no ability to avoid these
risks: farmworkers, construction workers, laborers of all kinds who are
exposed to increasingly severe conditions and are often not informed
about the risks or offered protections from them. More people are going
to get sick; more are going to die from climate threats. Try not to be
one of them, and do what you can to get our politicians to acknowledge
and work to reduce these risks.
https://thebulletin.org/2021/07/big-oils-lies-about-climate-change-a-climate-scientists-take/
[Start with the new]
*Our climate change turning point is right here, right now*
Rebecca Solnit
People are dying. Aquatic animals are baking in their shells. Fruit is
being cooked on the tree. It’s time to act
12 Jul 2021
Human beings crave clarity, immediacy, landmark events. We seek turning
points, because our minds are good at recognizing the specific – this
time, this place, this sudden event, this tangible change. This is why
we were never very good, most of us, at comprehending climate change in
the first place. The climate was an overarching, underlying condition of
our lives and planet, and the change was incremental and intricate and
hard to recognize if you weren’t keeping track of this species or that
temperature record. Climate catastrophe is a slow shattering of the
stable patterns that governed the weather, the seasons, the species and
migrations, all the beautifully orchestrated systems of the holocene era
we exited when we manufactured the anthropocene through a couple of
centuries of increasingly wanton greenhouse gas emissions and forest
destruction...
- -
The phrase “the choices societies make” is a clear demand for a turning
point, a turning away from fossil fuel and toward protection of the
ecosystems that protect us.
Every week I temper the terrible news from catastrophes such as
wildfires and from scientists measuring the chaos by trying to put them
in the context of positive technological milestones and legislative
shifts and their consequences. You could call each of them a turning
point: The point last week at which Oregon passed the bill setting the
most aggressive clean electricity standards in the US, 100% clean by
2040. The point at which Scotland began getting more electricity from
renewables than it could use. The point at which New York State banned
fracking. The Paris Climate Treaty in 2015. Of course, as with the
climate itself, many of the changes were incremental: the stunning drop
in cost and rise in efficiency of solar panels over the past four
decades, the myriad solar and wind farms that have been installed worldwide.
The rise in public engagement with the climate crisis is harder to
measure. It’s definitely growing, both as an increasingly powerful
movement and as a matter of individual consciousness. Yet something
about the scale and danger of the crisis still seems to challenge human
psychology. Along with the fossil fuel industry, our own habits of mind
are something we must overcome.
Rebecca Solnit is a Guardian US columnist. She is also the author of Men
Explain Things to Me and The Mother of All Questions. Her most recent
book is Recollections of My Nonexistence
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/jul/12/our-climate-change-turning-point-is-right-here-right-now
[video about off shore wind power]
*Deep Ocean Floating Wind Turbines. How do they do that?*
Jul 11, 2021
Just Have a Think
Offshore wind turbines powered almost 40% of all the UK's homes in 2020.
The International Energy Agency says there's enough potential accessible
energy out there to power all of Europe, the US and Japan several times
over. But to get at all of it, developers will have to go out into the
very deep waters of the open oceans and find a way to make their
turbines float safely and securely in all weather conditions. So how on
earth are they going to do that?
Video Transcripts available at our website
http://www.justhaveathink.com
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tfz5zcAcJNk
[from article in 2020 *How dangerous heat waves can kill]*
*ONE CLIMATE CHANGE SYMPTOM REVEALS THE DEADLIEST FLAW IN HUMAN EVOLUTION*
We can take the heat — usually.
William H. Calvin - - 7.10.2021 HEATWAVES ARE THE leading cause of
weather-related deaths in the United States, surpassing both windstorms
and floods.
And hotter summers as a result of climate change are causing concerns
over new dangers to people living throughout the country...
- -
To spot heatstroke, check for confusion
What can overwhelm a person is a heat source that you can neither escape
nor counter. Overheated people suffer from painful involuntary muscle
spasms and heat exhaustion. One of the criteria for when these are
advancing to the potentially fatal heatstroke is when someone is no
longer thinking normally. They look flushed and their conversation
becomes incoherent.
What should you do if you think someone is overheated? Test for
confusion about time or place. Ask “Where are you? When did you come
here? Who did you come with?” If you get incoherent answers, treat it as
an emergency.
Take charge. After directing someone to phone for help, arrange
bystanders so they cast shade over the victim. Shielding the person’s
billfold and phone, then pour bottled water to soak the clothing and
hair. If the victim can sit up and drink, provide water but don’t insist.
Heat waves can kill via the dehydration caused by heavy sweating; the
altered sodium and potassium concentrations in the blood confuse both
heart and nerve cells, and so breathing or heartbeat may suddenly stop.
The other major route to a fatal outcome is that prolonged overheating
can create widespread inflammation, not just a flushed face. The
dilation of so many small blood vessels means that much venous blood
pools, failing to return to the heart. Recovery can take two to 12 months.
An unbroken series of nights, when it is too hot to sleep, poses a major
threat. Should a sleepy caregiver become confused or exhausted, and no
longer provide water and wet towels for children or seniors every hour,
they may die...
- -
What should you do if you think someone is overheated? Test for
confusion about time or place. Ask:
Where are you?
When did you come here?
Who did you come with?
If you get incoherent answers, treat it as an emergency.
Take charge. After directing someone to phone for help, arrange
bystanders so they cast shade over the victim. Shield the person’s
wallet and phone, then pour bottled water to soak their clothing and hair.
If the victim can sit up and drink, provide water but don’t insist.
Heatwaves can kill via the dehydration caused by heavy sweating; the
altered sodium and potassium concentrations in the blood confuse both
heart and nerve cells, and so breathing or heartbeat may suddenly stop.
The other major route to a fatal outcome is that prolonged overheating
can create widespread inflammation, not just a flushed face. The
dilation of so many small blood vessels means that much venous blood
pools, failing to return to the heart. Recovery can take two to 12 months.
An unbroken series of nights, when it is too hot to sleep, poses a major
threat. Should a sleepy caregiver become confused or exhausted, and no
longer provide water and wet towels for children or seniors every hour,
they may die...
*HOW TO PREPARE FOR A HEATWAVE*
When an unbroken series of hot nights are forecast, opening cooling
centers is not enough.
These further steps could help us better prepare for a heatwave:
- Neighbors should organize in advance to regularly check up on the
less able and testing for heatstroke with questions that might
reveal confusion.
-- Phone before visiting so that you can ask, “When was the last
time the phone rang?”
-- Leave behind chilled six-packs of bottled water and snacks for
bedside consumption.
In the meantime, remind your elected officials that they must prepare
for more big heat waves. They also need to address the cause with big
projects that quickly remove excess carbon dioxide from the atmosphere
to cool us off.
We must now back out of the danger zone for even worse extreme weather.
As we have already seen, it can take big steps as it worsens, even
though overheating itself merely creeps up.
This article was originally published on The Conversation by William H.
Calvin at the University of Washington. Read the original article here--
- -
*Organizing for a heat wave*
When an unbroken series of hot nights are forecast, opening cooling
centers is not enough. Neighbors should organize in advance, so that the
able regularly check up on the less able, testing for heatstroke with
questions that might reveal confusion. Phone before visiting so that you
can ask, “When was the last time the phone rang?” Leave behind cool
six-packs of bottled water and snacks for bedside consumption.
In the meantime, remind your elected officials that they must prepare
for more big heat waves. They also need to address the cause with big
projects that quickly remove excess carbon dioxide from the atmosphere
to cool us off. We must now back out of the danger zone for even worse
extreme weather. As we have already seen, it can take big steps as it
worsens, even though overheating itself merely creeps up.
https://theconversation.com/how-dangerous-heat-waves-can-kill-121727
- -
[Read the book online]
https://onedrive.live.com/?authkey=%21AOD7gtPMX6Qjsgc&cid=5661AEDA4E86E984&id=5661AEDA4E86E984%21147554&parId=5661AEDA4E86E984%21117278&o=OneUp
[from the Barents Observer]
*The great Arctic greenwash*
They are among the world's biggest climate gas emitters. And they are
trying to justify their huge new oil and gas projects in the remotest
part of the planet.
Atle Staalesen -- July 09, 2021
Russian oil companies have no plans whatsoever to reduce drilling in the
far north in order to ease pressure on environment and fight climate
change. On the contrary, they have a big number of new Arctic projects
in the pipeline.
The great advance into the vast and vulnerable region comes as Russia is
incorporating the Paris Climate Agreement and as a major energy shift is
making headway across the planet...
- -
Russian oil companies have no plans whatsoever to reduce drilling in the
far north in order to ease pressure on environment and fight climate
change. On the contrary, they have a big number of new Arctic projects
in the pipeline.
The great advance into the vast and vulnerable region comes as Russia is
incorporating the Paris Climate Agreement and as a major energy shift is
making headway across the planet.
It takes place on the backdrop of dramatic climate change that is about
to spin out of control. Even the International Energy Agency in its
latest flagship report calls on energy companies to transform in order
to halt global warming and meet new realities.
- -
Russia’s powerful oil and gas sector is increasingly feeling the
pressure. But the industry leaders have no intention to cut drilling and
battle climate change. Instead, they call for ‘climate adaptation’ and
argue that new grand projects in the Arctic are developed in a “green”
and environmentally friendly manner.
In his keynote speech delivered in the conference, Rosneft leader Igor
Sechin stressed that oil from the company’s grand new Arctic project,
the Vostok Oil, has a uniquely low sulfur content of only 0.01-0.04% and
that the company applies “advanced technologies for environmental
protection.”
According to Sechin, the “carbon footprint” of the project will be 75
percent lower than that of other major new oil projects in the world.
“Therefore, we have every reason to state that this project will yield
“green barrels” of oil,” the powerful company leader underlined...
https://thebarentsobserver.com/en/industry-and-energy/2021/07/great-arctic-greenwash
[video - harbinger]
*Canada heatwave cooks up to one billion shellfish alive | DW News*
Jul 11, 2021
DW News
The Canadian province of British Columbia registered all-time record
temperatures this summer. Hundreds of people died in connection with the
extreme heat. And the impact on ecosystems was devastating: Scientists
say up to a billion shellfish may have perished.
Bays in Western Canada are normally ideal for shellfish. They thrive in
the secluded, nutrient-rich waters. But mussels and clams don't do well
in extreme heat. And the region's recent heatwave has literally cooked
them alive:
British Columbia's aquaculture industry depends largely on the region's
mild climate. That is changing. Farming families who have thrived here
for generations are now worried about the future.
The mass die-off illustrates the impact of climate change - here and
now. Climatologists have concluded it's virtually impossible the
scorching temperatures could have occurred without global warming.
And Western Canada's record-breaking June may be a harbinger of things
to come. Threatening a way of life in the bays of British Columbia.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hVetsyssi2M
[Bloomberg hosting this opinion- audio and text]
*Steve Keen Says Economists Get Everything Wrong (Especially About
Climate Change)*
The whole profession needs to start over, he says
By Joe Weisenthal and Tracy Alloway
July 8, 2021,
Joe Weisenthal and Tracy Alloway analyze the weird patterns, the complex
issues and the newest market crazes. Join the conversation every Monday
and Thursday for interviews with the most interesting minds in finance,
economics and markets.
https://cms.megaphone.fm/channel/BLM2009837477?selected=HSW9459289019
Bloomberg's Joe Weisenthal and Tracy Alloway analyze the weird
patterns, the complex issues and the newest market crazes. Join the
conversation every Monday and Thursday for interviews with the most
interesting minds in finance, economics and markets.
Mainstream economics has come under attack lately. People have begun
questioning its understanding of things like inflation, monetary policy,
deficits, and how best to get out of a downturn. Steve Keen, an
independent renegade economist, has been preaching this for a long time.
And he believes the whole profession needs to be chucked. On this
episode, we talk about some of the big failures he sees in economist
thinking, and how he is particularly energized by the subject of climate
change. He also deplores the economic consensus, and says the way to
think about it needs a total rethink, resulting in much more dramatic
action than what is currently being proposed by the mainstream.
https://cms.megaphone.fm/channel/BLM2009837477?selected=HSW9459289019
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-07-08/steve-keen-says-economists-get-everything-wrong-especially-about-climate-change
- -
[Transcript $]
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-07-09/transcript-steve-keen-on-what-economists-get-wrong-about-everything
- -
[3 min video briefing]
*Economists' climate change forecasts severely underestimate the true
damage, says professor*
May 20, 2021
CNBC International TV
University College London research fellow Steve Keen says even
economists' most severe climate change forecasts trivially underestimate
the true damage we can expect, adding "we are toying with forces far in
excess of ones we can actually address."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nLdUzIEmQjg
- -
[thoughtful and important economics]
*When Meritocracy Breeds Greed*
Jul 18, 2018
New Economic Thinking
Journalist Steven Brill discusses how the U.S. lost sight of the common
good.
When people use their success to only help themselves and not the common
good, is meritocracy failing?
According to journalist Steven Brill, that is cause and consequence of
much of what ails American society today. Joined by INET President Rob
Johnson and Better Markets President and CEO Dennis Kelleher, Brill
discusses his new book Tailspin: The People and Forces Behind America's
Fifty-Year Fall--and Those Fighting to Reverse It (Knopf, 2018).
Brill chronicles the erosion of the common good in American society.
Congressional representatives are more in touch with their donors than
their constituents. The executives who caused the financial crisis have
avoided any criminal responsibility. And the middle class dream—that our
children will be better off than us—is, in Brill’s words, “just not
happening.” But, Brill also offers a hopeful look at the resilience of
people who are speaking truth to power and challenging the economic,
political, and social institutions that have fragmented the U.S.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2DXsPeBiIQY
- -
*Tailspin: The People and Forces Behind America's Fifty-Year Fall--and
Those Fighting to Reverse It (Knopf, 2018).*
[The news archive - looking back]
*On this day in the history of global warming July 13, 2006*
July 13, 2006: On CNN's "Lou Dobbs Tonight," climate scientists Michael
Mann, Gavin Schmidt and Alan Robock discuss the hazards of, and
solutions to, human-caused climate change.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PRc33Ow2di0
http://www.desmogblog.com/news-alert-cnns-lou-dobbs-says-discussion-is-over-get-on-with-solutions
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