[✔️] July 19, 2021 - Daily Global Warming News Digest
👀 Richard Pauli
richard at theclimate.vote
Mon Jul 19 09:17:20 EDT 2021
/*July 19, 2021*/
[Associated Press news]
*Huge Oregon blaze grows as wildfires burn across western US*
Bootleg Fire, largest wildfire in US and one of at least 70 wildfires,
torches more dry forest landscape in Oregon
July 18, 2021
The largest wildfire in the US torched more dry forest landscape in
Oregon on Sunday, one of dozens of major blazes burning across the west
as critically dangerous fire weather loomed in the coming days.
The destructive Bootleg Fire just north of the California border grew to
more than 476 sq miles (1,210 sq km), an area about the size of Los Angeles.
- -
Extremely dry conditions and heatwaves tied to climate change have swept
the region, making wildfires harder to fight. Climate change has made
the west much warmer and drier in the past 30 years and will continue to
make weather more extreme and wildfires more frequent and destructive.
- -
There were about 70 active large fires and complexes of multiple blazes
that have burned nearly 1,659 sq miles in the US, the National
Interagency Fire Center said. The US Forest Service said at least 16
major fires were burning in the Pacific north-west alone.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jul/18/the-largest-wildfire-in-the-us-has-torched-more-dry-forest-landscape
- -
[now 300,000 acres]
*Bootleg Fire Evacuation Map Klamath County, Oregon*
INCIWEB
Important Information
https://kcgis.maps.arcgis.com/apps/webappviewer/index.html?id=4bfb02b41eb7473ca95b04c3cbd1da21
[Important scientific overview, gives a clear understanding - 40 min video]
Or a brief digest - 9 min video -- https://youtu.be/HxzvL8goGOc
The full lecture is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HvD0TgE34HA
*The Anthropocene: Where on Earth are we Going? (Full)*
Apr 15, 2021
The Royal Society of Victoria
Human pressures on the planet as a whole – the ‘Earth System’ – have now
become so great that scientists have proposed that we have left the
Holocene, the 11,700-year geologic epoch that has been humanity’s
accommodating home, and have entered a new geologic epoch, the
Anthropocene, characterised by extremely rapid changes to the climate
system driven primarily by human emissions of greenhouse gases and
growing degradation of the planet’s biosphere, driven by a range of
direct and indirect human pressures.
Where is the Anthropocene headed? The current trajectory of the Earth
System is a rapid exit from the Holocene, accelerating towards a much
hotter climate system and a degraded, ill-functioning biosphere.
Perhaps most concerning is a possible ‘fork in the road’ beyond which
lies ‘Hothouse Earth’. The key element of this trajectory is a ‘tipping
cascade’, in which a series of interlinked tipping points – the melting
of polar ice, the conversion of forest biomes to grasslands or savannas,
changes in ocean and atmospheric circulation – take control of the
trajectory of the Earth System and move it to a much hotter,
biodiversity-impoverished, but stable state.
Professor Will Steffen (Climate Council of Australia, Australian
National University) argues that avoiding this possible tipping cascade
requires fundamental changes to human societies. These changes include
not only advances in technologies but also more fundamental changes in
societal structures and core values.
Presented with the support of the Inspiring Victoria program. Brief
digest available at https://youtu.be/HxzvL8goGOc.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HvD0TgE34HA
[Time for a Climate Jihad!]
*More warming a threat to the Hajj – and human habitation – in the
Middle East*
Projected increased warmth threatens annual Islamic pilgrimage to
Muslims’ most holy city; this year's July 17-22 Hajj may have dangerous
levels of heat stress.
by JEFF MASTERS and BOB HENSON - JULY 15, 2021
It’s not the heat, it’s the humidity. That simple phrase sums up a major
danger pilgrims face (in addition to COVID-19) during the coming week
during the Hajj, the annual Islamic pilgrimage to Mecca (Makkah), the
holiest city for Muslims. This year, the Hajj falls during the period
July 17-22, which is typically among the hottest weeks of the year;
levels of heat stress are predicted to approach the danger level on
several of the days.
Mecca is located approximately 45 miles inland from the Saudi city of
Jeddah, which lies on the coast of the Red Sea. Humid air from the Red
Sea often penetrates inland to Mecca when winds blow out of the west,
raising the heat stress to dangerous levels for the two million-plus
pilgrims who typically attend the five-day Hajj. (This year’s Hajj is
limited to just 60,000 participants because of the COVID-19 pandemic.)..
- -
Observations from the Mecca weather station indicate a significant rise
in average TW during the past 30 years – nearly 2 degrees Celsius
(3.6°F). This increase is well above the global average, and can be
largely attributed to human-caused global warming. High heat stress
events are common when the Hajj occurs during summer; over the 30‐year
period 1984-2013, the danger threshold (TW of 24.6 degrees Celsius) was
exceeded in 58% of years. However, the “Extreme Danger” threshold of
29.1 degrees Celsius was not reached...
- -
*Elderly Hajj participants at high risk of heat-related illness*
- -
*Future summer Hajj events at high risk of dangerous heat*
The Hajj occurs every year on the same days of the Muslim calendar,
which follows the lunar cycle. Since the lunar year is shorter than the
solar year by about 11 days, the Hajj shifts about 11 days earlier every
year, and cycles back to the same date in the solar calendar after about
33 years. The danger of extreme heat during Hajj will wane this decade
as the dates transition from July to June and then May. But during the
years 2045-2053, and again in 2079-2086, Hajj will fall during
August-October. These are the months when wet bulb temperatures peak in
Mecca, as a result of the combination of extreme heat and prevailing
westerly winds that bring humid air from the Red Sea.
A 2019 paper by MIT scientist Suchul Kang and colleagues, “Future Heat
Stress During Muslim Pilgrimage (Hajj) Projected to Exceed Extreme
Danger Levels,” painted a very concerning picture for future Hajj events
in a warming climate. The researchers showed that under a moderate
global warming scenario, the maximum wet bulb temperature could be
expected to exceed the “Extreme Danger” threshold of 29.1 degrees
Celsius 15% of the time during Hajj in the years 2045-2053, and exceed
the “Danger” threshold 91% of the time...
- -
Along similar lines, a 2021 paper led by Fahad Saeed (Climate Analytics)
and colleagues, “From Paris to Makkah: heat stress risks for Muslim
pilgrims at 1.5 °C and 2 °C,” warns that the odds of exceeding the
“danger” threshold at Mecca increase substantially for global warming of
1.5°C and 2°C – levels that are likely to be exceeded this century in
the moderate scenario discussed above – and that the “Extreme Danger”
threshold may be surpassed during summer months.
*Deadly Hajj stampedes may be more likely during extreme heat*
The two deadliest stampedes during Hajj both occurred during days with
extreme heat and humidity, when the maximum wet bulb temperature
exceeded the 24.6 degrees Celsius “Danger” threshold. On July 2, 1990,
1,426 pilgrims died in a stampede when the maximum temperature (Tmax)
reached 41.7 degrees Celsius (107°F) and wet‐bulb temperature (TWmax)
hit 25.1 degrees Celsius (77.8 °F). Similarly, on September 24, 2015,
more than 2,000 pilgrims died in a stampede when Tmax and TWmax reached
48.3 degrees Celsius (118.9°F) and 27.3 degrees Celsius (81.1°F),
respectively. The exact cause of these stampedes is unknown, but extreme
heat is known to increase aggressive human behavior...
- -
*The data point to a logical conclusion: *It would be strongly in the
interest of the nations of Southwest Asia, and of other regions, to
support aggressive efforts to reign in climate change to protect the
Hajj … and the future of human habitability in their countries.
https://yaleclimateconnections.org/2021/07/more-warming-a-threat-to-the-hajj-and-human-habitation-in-the-middle-east/
[positive news]
*Solid State Batteries - Autumn 2021 mass production in Japan. Is it
FINALLY happening?*
Jul 18, 2021
Just Have a Think
Solid state batteries are the long-promised Holy Grail of battery
technology. They're smaller and better than existing Lithium Ion
batteries. They charge more quickly and last much longer. What's not to
like? Trouble is, no-one's managed to mass produce one at any useful
scale yet. Turns out it's quite tricky to make them reliable! Now
though, two major Japanese companies are finally firing up their full
production lines. So will 2021 be the year?
Video Transcripts available at our website
http://www.justhaveathink.com
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fdSqibMhBwg
[Sea level rise]
*Building infrastructure to stop sea level rise can have an unfortunate
consequence*
Solutions that block water entirely just push the flooding into other
areas. A real solution is coasts that can absorb rising waters.
- -
“Basically, the water has to flow somewhere,” says Anne Guerry, chief
strategy officer and lead scientist at Stanford University’s Natural
Capital Project. Guerry is also coauthor of a new paper in the journal
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that models how seawalls
in the Bay Area could lead to unintended impacts. “What we found is that
it ends up flowing into other communities, making their flooding much
worse,” she says...
- -
In some locations along the shoreline, a seawall might not cause major
problems elsewhere. An individual project might also not seem to have
significant impact. But without modeling the effects and understanding
how they interact with multiple other projects in an area, it’s hard to
know where heavily engineered protection makes sense. Cities will have
to work together to plan infrastructure, something that isn’t happening
now. It’s critical for equity: In many areas, both in the U.S. and
around the world, low-income communities are already living in areas
that are more likely to flood. If richer neighborhoods can afford to
build seawalls nearby, the situation could get even more dire. “In some
cases, building a seawall might directly protect wealthier communities
while leaving poor neighboring communities at higher risk of flooding,”
Guerry says.
“Every community around the Bay is hydrologically connected,” she says.
“So it makes sense for our adaptation plans to be connected as well.”
https://www.fastcompany.com/90655332/building-infrastructure-to-stop-sea-level-rise-has-an-unfortunate-consequence
[quite large infrastructure for the future]
*DOE Quietly Backs Plan for Carbon Capture Network Larger Than Entire
Oil Pipeline System*
Obama Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz and major labor group AFL-CIO are
behind the “blueprint” for a multi-billion dollar system to transport
captured CO2 — and offer a lifeline to fossil fuel plants.
DOE Quietly Backs Plan for Carbon Capture Network Larger Than Entire Oil
Pipeline System
Sharon Kelly -- Jul 18, 2021
An organization run by former Obama-era Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz,
with the backing of the AFL-CIO, a federation of 56 labor unions, has
created a policy “blueprint” to build a nationwide pipeline network
capable of carrying a gigaton of captured carbon dioxide (CO2).
The “Building to Net-Zero” blueprint appears to be quietly gaining
momentum within the Energy Department, where a top official has
discussed ways to put elements into action using the agency’s existing
powers.
The pipeline network would be twice the size of the current U.S. oil
pipeline network by volume, according to the blueprint, released by a
recently formed group calling itself the Labor Energy Partnership.
Backers say the proposed pipeline network — including CO2 “hubs” in the
Gulf Coast, the Ohio River Valley, and Wyoming — would help reduce
climate-changing pollution by transporting captured carbon dioxide to
either the oil industry, which would undo some of the climate benefits
by using the CO2 to revive aging oilfields, or to as-yet unbuilt
facilities for underground storage.
- -
Proponents of carbon capture, usage, and sequestration (CCUS) often
highlight ways that it could be used for sectors like steel and cement
whose carbon pollution is generally considered “hard to abate.” Yet, the
pipeline network envisioned by Moniz would be capable of carrying over
10 times as much carbon dioxide as the steel and cement industries emit
in total nationwide, according to U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
(EPA) data from 2019. In fact, it could transport more CO2 than the
entire industrial sector emits in the U.S., leaving the rest of the
pipeline network’s capacity available for carbon from fossil fuel-fired
power plants or from “direct air capture” technologies that would remove
ambient CO2 but don’t currently exist at a commercial level. ..
- -
A day before the blueprint launch event, the White House Council on
Environmental Quality (CEQ) sent a report to Congress on carbon capture
and its associated infrastructure.
“CO2 pipelines are critical to the future nationwide deployment of
CCUS,” the CEQ wrote, leaving open the question of just how large of a
CO2 pipeline network the White House supports.
The report calls carbon capture “especially important for decarbonizing
the industrial sector, where high-temperature heat can be difficult and
expensive to electrify” and carbon pollution difficult to avoid. The CEQ
was less sure about the role carbon capture should play in electricity
generation, writing that it “may also play an important role in
decarbonizing the global power sector.” It also highlights the
possibility that future technologies that could draw carbon dioxide from
the air might use the same kinds of underground storage infrastructure...
- -
Even before the full effects of the pandemic unfolded in the U.S., the
DOE itself warned that carbon capture projects aren’t financially
competitive. “Additionally, as is the case for the [Petra Nova] Project,
the economics of large-scale carbon capture facilities are challenging,”
DOE wrote in a March 31, 2020 final scientific and technical report on
Petra Nova.
- -
“From a purely economic perspective, [carbon capture and sequestration]
does not make sense,” the Center for International Environmental Law
wrote in a recent report. “The simpler, surer, and cheaper solution is
to end this and similar subsidies for the fossil fuel economy and invest
the savings in accelerating the transition to clean energy.”
“What they’re ignoring in this report are the massive risks that are
entailed in dramatically expanding pipeline infrastructure,” Muffett
told DeSmog, describing both the physical risks borne by people living
near CO2 pipelines and the financial risks of investing in carbon
capture rather than renewable energy. “These are communities that have
dealt with the impacts of environmental injustice and environmental
racism for decades and that’s laid the foundations that leads to them
being targeted for the build-out of these pipelines.”
“At its heart, the conversation about CCUS has never been about
addressing the climate crisis or about reducing CO2 emissions,” Muffett
added. “At its heart, the thing that has always driven this conversation
is how do we deal with the problem of stranded assets, what can we do to
go on burning coal, natural gas, and oil into the indefinite future?”
https://www.desmog.com/2021/07/18/doe-moniz-blueprint-carbon-capture-pipelines/
[The news archive - looking back]
*On this day in the history of global warming July 19, 2001*
Proving that the wish is the father to the thought, White House adviser
Karen Hughes tells CNN, "The whole issue of global climate change is
something our administration is serious about."
McEDWARDS: All right. Now, the administration has been
criticized for arriving again in Europe a second time without a
strategy on global warming. Can you respond to that?
HUGHES: Well, Colleen, that's clearly an issue that President
Bush takes very seriously. The whole issue of global climate
change is something our administration is serious about. And our
Cabinet- level review is ongoing into that issue.
I think that some in Europe had hoped that the president would
support a treaty that, frankly, just didn't have any support in
the United States of America. It was -- when the United States
Senate was asked to express its opinion, 95 to nothing it said
that the Kyoto Treaty was not -- was a flawed treaty. That was
not the way for the United States of America to go.
Now, here in Europe, there are some nations who get a lot of
their energy from alternative sources of power such as nuclear
power, such as wind. And President Bush wants to explore those
alternatives in the United States of America. But it is not
realistic to expect that the United States of America can get,
at this moment, 80 percent of its energy from nuclear power --
as France does, for example -- or 30 percent of its energy from
wind sources, as other countries her in Europe do.
So President Bush is -- takes this issue seriously and wants to
continue to discuss it with our friends and allies here in Europe.
McEDWARDS: And you know how controversial the issue has been in
Europe. I mean, is there anything going on behind the scenes now
to reach a compromise on this issue?
HUGHES: Well, we have representatives attending the climate
change on -- in Bonn as we speak. As the president is here in
Europe, we also have representatives of our government attending
the Bonn summit on climate change.
And so, again, President Bush will once again assure our allies
and friends here in Europe that this is an issue we take very
seriously. However, he is committed to protecting America's
interests and will not take any action that exempts -- the Kyoto
treaty, as you recall, exempts many -- much of the developing
world from its requirements. And, therefore, we feel it puts an
unfair burden on the United States of America, yet does not
address the problem in a truly global way.
McEDWARDS: Ms. Hughes, the Senate's top Democrat, Tom Daschle,
has said that he thinks the administration is eroding the United
States leadership in the world.
Let me quote from him. He says that the U.S. is isolating itself
and minimizing itself. I mean, do you think that U.S. positions
on issues like global warming and missile defense in any way
contribute to that perception?
HUGHES: Well, I think a couple of things about that, Colleen.
First of all, I think it's a very unseemly departure from
tradition for the Senate majority leader to engage in that kind
of partisanship when the United States president is carrying our
country's message abroad.
There's a longstanding bipartisan tradition for support for
American foreign policy, particularly when the president is
representing our country and our citizens in a foreign nation,
as he is on this trip, and at a major international summit. So I
hope that that's just the sign that the Senate majority leader
is still learning the ropes of his new job. Still, there's
really no excuse. And I don't think the American people will
look very kindly on that type of unseemly departure from this
longstanding bipartisan tradition.
http://web.archive.org/web/20140427081627/http://edition.cnn.com/2001/US/07/19/hughes.access.cnna/
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