[✔️] July 18, 2021 - Daily Global Warming News Digest

Sun Jul 18 09:58:21 EDT 2021

/*July 18, 2021*/

[Hot news]
*‘No One Is Safe’: Extreme Weather Batters the Wealthy World*
Floods swept Germany, fires ravaged the American West and another heat 
wave loomed, driving home the reality that the world’s richest nations 
remain unprepared for the intensifying consequences of climate change.
- -
The extreme weather disasters across Europe and North America have 
driven home two essential facts of science and history: The world as a 
whole is neither prepared to slow down climate change, nor live with it. 
The week’s events have now ravaged some of the world’s wealthiest 
nations, whose affluence has been enabled by more than a century of 
burning coal, oil and gas — activities that pumped the greenhouse gases 
into the atmosphere that are warming the world.
- -
That message clearly hasn’t sunk in among policymakers, and perhaps the 
public as well, particularly in the developed world, which has 
maintained a sense of invulnerability.

The result is a lack of preparation, even in countries with resources. 
In the United States, flooding has killed more than 1,000 people since 
2010 alone, according to federal data. In the Southwest, heat deaths 
have spiked in recent years.

Sometimes that is because governments have scrambled to respond to 
disasters they haven’t experienced before, like the heat wave in Western 
Canada last month, according to Jean Slick, head of the disaster and 
emergency management program at Royal Roads University in British 
Columbia. “You can have a plan, but you don’t know that it will work,” 
Ms. Slick said.

Other times, it’s because there aren’t political incentives to spend 
money on adaptation.

“By the time they build new flood infrastructure in their community, 
they’re probably not going to be in office anymore,” said Samantha 
Montano, a professor of emergency management at the Massachusetts 
Maritime Academy. “But they are going to have to justify millions, 
billions of dollars being spent.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/17/climate/heatwave-weather-hot.html

[more difficult to stay safe]
*At least 70 large wildfires burning in US west as fears mount over 
conditions*
Bootleg is now the largest US forest fire at 281,208 acres and just 22% 
contained as ‘excessive heat’ forecast
Victoria Bekiempis --  17 Jul 2021
At least 70 large wildfires are burning across the US west and nearby 
states – engulfing more than 1m acres in flames – as fears mount that 
shifting conditions can worsen an already dire situation. Significant 
areas of these states are in the grips of drought conditions that are 
considered “extreme” and “exceptional” – the most severe categories.

Authorities in Oregon have said that these arid, windy and unstable 
conditions will continue fueling the 281,208-acre Bootleg fire, which is 
just 22% contained, according to National Interagency Fire Center and 
InciWeb. The smoke and heat have spurred giant “fire clouds”, which are 
dangerous columns of ash and smoke that can spiral up to six miles skyward.

At least 2,106 firefighting personnel are battling Bootleg, which is now 
the largest US forest fire. Officials have also worried that this 
inferno might merge with the nearby Log fire, which totals at least 
4,830 acres...
- -
The extremely hot, dry conditions fanning these fires are linked to 
human-caused climate change. The US west has grown much drier and warmer 
over the past three decades and is expected to grow more extreme which, 
in turn, is poised to create more frequent and destructive wildfires.

According to the National Interagency Fire Center, there have been 
34,596 wildfires tallied from 1 January to 16 July, affecting 2,364,643 
acres. Over the same period of 2020, there were 28,423 wildfires 
affecting 1,778,583 acres.

The Associated Press contributed to this report
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jul/17/us-west-wildfires-bootleg-fire-oregon

[BBC reports - we must reduce carbon 7% per year]
*Catastrophic flooding across western Europe as politicians blame 
climate change - BBC News*
Jul 16, 2021- BBC News
More than 120 people have died and hundreds are still missing after 
record rainfall caused the worst flooding in parts of Western Europe for 
many decades.

In Germany dozens of people were unaccounted for, with the Chancellor 
Angela Merkel describing the floods as a catastrophe.

Torrential rain has also devastated parts of Belgium, the Netherlands 
and Luxembourg.

Survivors have described the terrifying speed at which water levels rose.

Some politicians in Germany say the extreme weather is the result of 
global warming and they're calling for more urgent action to counter 
climate change.

Clive Myrie presents BBC News at Ten reporting - from Jenny Hill in 
Erftstadt, Germany - Anna Holligan in the Dutch town of Valkenberg -  
and chief environment correspondent Justin Rowlatt on the threat posed 
by climate change.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8A65JzDltY4

[is that from Monty Python? ]
*Not dead yet: How Senate Democrats aim to pass climate policy without 
Republicans*
Senate Democrats announced some of the climate measures in their $3.5 
trillion reconciliation plan.
- -
And it’s worth noting that the CES isn’t the only climate measure under 
consideration. Democrats are also hoping to include funding for a 
“Civilian Climate Corps,” similar to Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s 
Civilian Conservation Corps but for jobs in climate resiliency, 
conservation, and other green industries. They may try to tie in money 
to expand existing clean energy and electric vehicle tax credits, 
funding to weatherize and electrify buildings, and more. In the House, 
where Democrats have a wider majority, progressives will likely try to 
tack on more climate-related amendments.
- -
“We’re probably still only about a fifth of the way through this 
process, but one of the most important thresholds was what’s the top 
line and what’s the commitment to climate?” Democratic Senator Brian 
Schatz from Hawaii told reporters on Wednesday. “And I feel very good.”
https://grist.org/politics/not-dead-yet-how-senate-democrats-aim-to-pass-climate-policy-without-republicans/

- -

[Gallows Humor - video clip 48 seconds]
*Monty Python Not Dead Yet clip*
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uBxMPqxJGqI

[Opinion]
*It Seems Odd That We Would Just Let the World Burn*
July 15, 2021By Ezra Klein
Opinion Columnist
The good news is that the worst of the climate crisis seems less and 
less likely. We are on track for 3 degrees of warming, measured in 
Celsius, not 4 or 5. But 3 degrees is still a catastrophe of truly 
incomprehensible proportions, visited primarily upon the world’s poor by 
the world’s rich. We are engineering a world that is so much worse than 
it need be and that will be lethal for untold millions.
“I suspect that human beings will not go extinct from climate change, 
but I have higher standards than that,” Kate Marvel, a climate scientist 
at Columbia University, once told me. “I don’t want to just not go 
extinct. And for me, there’s almost an abdicating of responsibility by 
saying, ‘Well, we’re not going to do anything about climate change 
unless it’s going to kill every last one of us.’ Because the things 
that, for me, are really frightening about climate change are the 
consequences for human social systems.”

Humanity has spent thousands of years building the social organizations 
and technological mastery to insulate itself from the whims of nature. 
We are spending down that inheritance, turning back the clock. I don’t 
believe this reveals our true preference for the world our descendants 
will inhabit. I believe it reveals our deeply human inability to take 
the future as seriously as we take the present.
https://static01.nyt.com/images/2021/07/15/opinion/15klein-lead/merlin_176070078_add6add6-d1e8-4299-950c-f55e597422d8-superJumbo.jpg?quality=90&auto=webp
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/15/opinion/climate-change-energy-infrastructure.html

[cartoon]
*Why do we care about wet bulb temperature and could they have given it 
a better name?*
First Dog on the Moon
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/jul/16/why-do-we-care-about-wet-bulb-temperature-and-could-they-have-given-it-a-better-name

[Tamino returns]
*Northwest Heat Wave*
July 16, 2021
- -
When extreme heat gripped the Pacific northwest recently, people 
noticed. They noticed in Seattle, Washington, where they set an all-time 
record high of 104°F on June 27th, only to break it the next day at 
108°F. They noticed in Portland, Oregon, where they set the all-time 
record high of 112°F on June 27th, only to break it the next day at 
116°F. They noticed in Lytton, Canada, where they set the all-time 
record high for all of Canada at 121°F, only to burn to the ground the 
following day.
- -
Naturally this has led to speculation about the relationship of this 
particular heat wave to man-made climate change (global warming). One of 
the reasons we expect global warming to increase extreme heat, is 
illustrated in this graph: 
https://tamino.files.wordpress.com/2021/07/currydistribution.jpg
https://tamino.wordpress.com/2021/07/16/northwest-heat-wave/

[The news archive - looking back]
*On this day in the history of global warming July 18, 2002*
USA Today reports:

    "Democratic attorneys general from 11 states accused the Bush
    administration Wednesday of ignoring global warming and favoring
    energy policies that will boost greenhouse gas emissions.

    "White House spokesman Scott McClellan responded by saying the
    president was working on a 'bipartisan, commonsense approach to
    address climate change.'

    "In their letter to Bush, the attorneys general denounced the
    administration's climate change policy, arguing that states have
    been left to address a global problem with a patchwork of
    inconsistent regulations. They said Bush has failed to create a
    national plan to curb carbon dioxide emissions from automobiles and
    power plants."

http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/science/climate/2002-07-18-states-climate.htm 

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