[TheClimate.Vote] March 3, 2021 - Daily Global Warming News Digest
Richard Pauli
richard at theclimate.vote
Wed Mar 3 09:16:41 EST 2021
/*March 3, 2021*/
[Follow the food]
*Global Warming Poses Threat to Food Chains – “Impact Could Be Severe”*
Rising temperatures could reduce the efficiency of food chains and
threaten the survival of larger animals, new research shows.
Scientists measured the transfer of energy from single-celled algae
(phytoplankton) to small animals that eat them (zooplankton).
The study — by the University of Exeter and Queen Mary University of
London, and published in the journal Nature — found that 4°C of warming
reduced energy transfer in the plankton food webs by up to 56%.
Warmer conditions increase the metabolic cost of growth, leading to less
efficient energy flow through the food chain and ultimately to a
reduction in overall biomass.
“These findings shine a light on an under-appreciated consequence of
global warming,” said Professor Gabriel Yvon-Durocher, of the
Environment and Sustainability Institute on Exeter’s Penryn Campus in
Cornwall.
“Phytoplankton and zooplankton are the foundation of food webs that
support freshwater and marine ecosystems that humans depend on.
“Our study is the first direct evidence that the cost of growth
increases in higher temperatures, limiting the transfer of energy up a
food chain.”
Professor Mark Trimmer, of Queen Mary University of London, said: “If
the effects we find in this experiment are evident in natural
ecosystems, the consequences could be profound.
“The impact on larger animals at the top of food chains — which depend
on energy passed up from lower down the food chain — could be severe.
More research is needed.”
“In general, about 10% of energy produced on one level of a food web
makes it up to the next level,” said Dr. Diego Barneche, of the
Australian Institute of Marine Science and the Oceans Institute at the
University of Western Australia.
“This happens because organisms expend a lot of energy on a variety of
functions over a lifetime, and only a small fraction of the energy they
consume is retained in biomass that ends up being eaten by predators.
“Warmer temperatures can cause metabolic rates to accelerate faster than
growth rates, which reduces the energy available to predators in the
next level up the food web.”
The study measured nitrogen transfer efficiency (a proxy for overall
energy transfer) in freshwater plankton that had been exposed to a
seven-year-long outdoor warming experiment in the UK.
Reference: “Warming impairs trophic transfer efficiency in a long-term
field experiment” by Diego R. Barneche, Chris J. Hulatt, Matteo Dossena,
Daniel Padfield, Guy Woodward, Mark Trimmer and Gabriel Yvon-Durocher, 1
March 2021, Nature.
DOI: 10.1038/s41586-021-03352-2
https://scitechdaily.com/global-warming-poses-threat-to-food-chains-impact-could-be-severe/
[Brookings - following the money]
*Blueprints to advance climate change mitigation and resilience*
Samantha Gross and Adie Tomer -- March 1, 2021
Editor's Note: This brief introduces the Climate and Resilience section
of the Brookings Blueprints for American Renewal & Prosperity project.
-- online event discussing climate and resilience.
https://youtu.be/E9UBeZ-Ai_I
*INTRODUCTION*
The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated many existing problems in the
American economy and created new ones. Now, as a new presidential
administration and Congress take office amid compounding historic
challenges, Brookings’s Blueprints for American Renewal & Prosperity
provides a series of innovative, implementable federal policy proposals.
In the essays discussing climate and resilience, Brookings scholars lay
out policies that respond to the climate crisis both domestically and
abroad.
*BACKGROUND*
Climate change is one of those rare issues that touches every aspect of
our economic, social, and physical security. The United States continues
to be one of the planet’s highest-emitting countries, reflecting high
fossil fuel use, inefficient land development, and unsustainable
agriculture practices. Extreme weather events from wildfires in the west
to hurricanes in the east grow in frequency each year, while more
gradual challenges such as natural ecosystem loss, urban heat islands,
and persistent droughts are only intensifying. The net effect is a
population facing deep financial risks, unchecked environmental
injustice, and profound uncertainty about how to manage future growth.
However, the climate crisis also offers opportunities for a new growth
model. Transitioning to a net-zero-emission economy by 2050—a stated
goal of President Joe Biden and many global peers—will require new
economic architecture to support it, including infrastructure,
education, financial instruments, and regulation. New career
opportunities will emerge, new financial instruments will be introduced,
and new products and services will be invented. If managed successfully,
our transition to a clean economy can also build a more just, inclusive,
and entrepreneurial society.
The United States cannot respond to this crisis alone. Climate change is
the ultimate global issue, with emissions anywhere affecting the climate
everywhere. The United States has a moral responsibility to work
alongside our global peers, and the planet will benefit if American
innovators can design new solutions for emerging problems. Meanwhile,
our people will benefit from using international products and services
that can reduce our destructive footprint at home. Global engagement
also has the benefit of promoting democracy abroad, since those norms
are still the most effective way to broker compromise and hold one
another accountable. The planet needs the United States to be part of
productive climate action.
Brookings’s climate and resilience Blueprints focus on these fundamental
structural and international issues. They draw from expertise throughout
the Institution to suggest federal policies to help the United States
achieve its emission reduction goals, strengthen our resilience to the
inevitable changes in climate that will occur, and reinvigorate our
international efforts to encourage greater climate ambition and learn
from our global partners.
*REDUCING FEDERAL CLIMATE RISK*
The federal government is far more than the country’s
regulator-in-chief. Together, its various agencies and departments
function as one of the country’s largest land managers, building owners,
and financial investors. The federal government is also a giant
insurance company, protecting everything from its military bases to our
private homes. Solving the climate crisis can start by better managing
the federal government’s own exposure to climate-related risks.
To advance resilient outcomes within the federal government, Joseph W.
Kane, Jenny Schuetz, Shalini Vajjhala, and Adie Tomer suggest we first
focus on the built environment and our need to address unsustainable
land use systems. They recommend establishing a Climate Planning Unit
within the White House Office of Management and Budget to focus on
reducing the fiscal impacts of climate change. Such an office could take
a whole-of-government view to climate risk mitigation, focusing on both
quick wins and opportunities for long-term structural change—doing right
by the environment, the people, and the federal budget in the process.
The office would be focused on cost savings and partially funded through
recovered costs. Its work would also focus on lower-income households
and communities of color, which are impacted most by climate change and
often overlooked in existing programs.
*PREPARING STUDENTS AND WORKERS*
For too long, the United States has spent too much time debating the
existence of climate change and spent too little time educating students
about our changing environment and preparing workers for the emerging
jobs that will be central to humanity’s response. The federal government
can play a central role in making up for lost ground.
Christina Kwauk and Joseph W. Kane propose a new kind of student and
worker agenda to meet our climate goals. Achieving a net-zero economy is
not just a technical challenge requiring technical solutions, but also a
societal problem that requires a population educated to address it.
However, such education and skills are lacking today, especially among
underrepresented and marginalized people. And the federal departments
most involved in education and workforce training—the departments of
Education and Labor—do not have programs to provide the knowledge and
skills needed in our changing economy.
The authors recommend empowering the United States Global Change
Research Program—which is already devoted to providing federal
leadership and interagency coordination on climate—to take on an
education role as well. Programs would provide green learning across the
whole of society, from K-12 through higher education, career and
technical education, and teacher training.
*INCENTIVIZING RESILIENT BUSINESS*
Two more papers focus on funding the green transition in light of the
deep but uneven economic recession the country faces as a result of the
COVID-19 pandemic.
Sanjay Patnaik, Siddhi Doshi, and Kelly Kennedy focus on the
similarities between the COVID-19 crisis and climate change, noting that
both are economy-wide risk management challenges. As the federal
government mounts a huge spending push to overcome the pandemic’s
economic impacts, the authors argue that we should not miss the
opportunity to make the economy more climate resilient in the process.
Their plan suggests that larger businesses receiving aid should be
required to disclose their climate-related risks. Such businesses would
also be subject to discounted interest rates on the aid if they use an
internal carbon price in their decisionmaking. Additionally, aid for the
automobile and airline sectors should be predicated on better
environmental performance, and no more aid should be distributed to the
fossil fuel industry.
Since the forced shutdowns in March 2020, small businesses have felt
some of the most acute economic pain. This has had outsized impacts on
American entrepreneurs and the nearly 50% of the U.S. labor force that
works in small business establishments. Yet even before COVID-19, small
businesses faced headwinds in making low-carbon investments, especially
due to a lack of access to financial capital. If the U.S. marketplace
does not figure out how to get small businesses back on their feet and
help them prepare for a greener economy, then the net effect could be
hollowed-out local economies, increased market power for large firms,
and worsened income equality. Addisu Lashitew’s piece recommends the
creation of a $30 billion Small Business Opportunity Fund to fund
grants, loans, and bonds for green investments in small businesses. The
loan and bond components of the Fund could be channeled through
intermediary financial institutions, building on the experiences of the
CARES Act’s Paycheck Protection Program and Main Street Lending Program.
*REENGAGING THE GLOBAL COMMUNITY*
The Trump administration’s distaste for multilateralism represented the
reversal of roughly a century of American global leadership. Climate
policy was not spared, embodied by President Donald Trump’s departure
from the Paris Agreement. Now, with the Biden administration reversing
course, the United States must find a way to rebuild trust on the world
stage as we reengage the global community during a crucial year for the
climate.
In their piece, Nathan Hultman and Samantha Gross discuss steps the
United States can take to return to credible leadership on climate. All
countries in the Paris Agreement are obliged to submit new emissions
reduction pledges in advance of a key global meeting in November. The
United States must make an ambitious but achievable pledge and assist
other countries in doing the same. Subnational actors have led U.S.
efforts over the last four years, and they can share their skills and
ambition with their counterparts abroad. Finally, the United States can
lead through its outsized role in the global financial sector,
strengthening its climate change reporting rules and supporting efforts
to finance emissions reduction and climate adaptation projects in the
developing world.
*CONCLUSION*
Each of these recommendations addresses portions of the government-wide
effort that will be needed to achieve a zero-emissions economy by
midcentury. But all of them—or other essential ideas such as energy grid
modernization, green infrastructure standards, and improved vehicle fuel
efficiency—will confront a polarized political climate. Even though a
clear majority of Americans now recognize the scientific validity of
climate change and the need to collectively respond, federal progress
has lagged behind our global peers. Overcoming political friction
demands finding common interests such as a robust small business sector
and growth in good-paying jobs, and then ensuring our climate-focused
policies deliver on those shared goals. The path is difficult, but the
stakes couldn’t be higher.
https://www.brookings.edu/research/blueprints-to-advance-climate-change-mitigation-and-resilience/
- -
["This is an investment risk issue" -- 1 hour YouTube video "Climate
change touches everything"]
*A conversation about climate change mitigation and resilience*
Mar 2, 2021
Brookings Institution
On Tuesday, March 2, Brookings hosted the final event in the Blueprints
series, focused on addressing climate change mitigation and resilience.
A panel of scholars discussed ideas from Blueprints briefs related to
preparing students and workers for emerging job fields, incentivizing
resilient businesses, reducing federal climate risk, and managing the
federal government’s own exposure to climate-related risks. Underpinning
all of these related topics is the imperative to reengage and lead the
global community.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E9UBeZ-Ai_I&feature=emb_logo
[political barrier]
*Rep. Tim Ryan: “Denial Makes it Difficult to Work with the GOP” |
Amanpour and Company*
Mar 2, 2021
Amanpour and Company
A $1.9 trillion stimulus package to help those hit hardest by the
pandemic has passed the House of Representatives. President Biden has
stated it is his top priority to see the bill enacted into law.
Democratic Congressman Tim Ryan voted for the plan and speaks with
Michel Martin about his role in investigating the Capitol riot and the
challenges ahead in getting the COVID relief bill through the Senate.
Originally aired on March 2, 2021.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1lcgMaqmPtU
[video on the calculations- EV vs Gasoline]
*The Dirty Truth about Combustion Engine Vehicles | An 'Open Source'
Animation*
Mar 2, 2021
Fully Charged Show
Robert was delighted to be asked to do the voiceover for this incredible
animation by Mark Linthicum looking at the truth behind which pollutes
more - combustion engine vehicles or electric vehicles? Spoiler alert:
It's not EVs!
We are delighted to share this with you as it is another tool to expose
the truth behind vehicle pollution, as well as asking what we can all do
to help combat this.
This is an open source project which means anyone can post this but
please contact Mark via us at communications at fullycharged.show to get
permission first. Let's get this shared far and wide!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mk-LnUYEXuM
[fundamentals of light -- lessons from 2014]
*How quantum mechanics explains global warming - Lieven Scheire*
TED-Ed - Jul 17, 2014
You've probably heard that carbon dioxide is warming the Earth. But how
exactly is it doing it? Lieven Scheire uses a rainbow, a light bulb and
a bit of quantum physics to describe the science behind global warming.
Lesson by Lieven Scheire, animation by STK Films.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-EJOO3xAjTk
[If you’re a journalist, or curious]
*The Basics: Climate Science 101*
https://www.coveringclimatenow.org/resources-stories/the-basics-climate-science-101
[Leaving Texas, Vogue opinion]
*We Survived the Disaster in Texas, But Climate Change Makes Me Wonder
If I Can Live Here Anymore*
BY CAMERON DEZEN HAMMON
March 2, 2021
A few days before the power, and then the water, went out in our Houston
town house during what’s been called a thousand-year winter storm, I was
having a glass of wine with my neighbor in her garden. “Next time you
want to evacuate, evacuate here,” she said, slightly joking. Laura
gestured toward her newly renovated kitchen, on the other side of double
glass doors. Laura has many pets, and a generator, and she’s a native
Texan. She never evacuates. I moved to Texas from Brooklyn almost 19
years ago, and despite my tenure, I never stay. Hurricane season in
Texas is blistering, and the inevitability of losing power is not
something I’m willing to risk. I made a mental note to text Laura in
June when storm season starts and walked the half block home in the damp
cold.
The weather went from cold to bone-chilling to record-breaking in days,
bottoming out in the teens, and ERCOT, Texas’s mysterious,
illuminati-like nonprofit power-regulation organization, forced
blackouts throughout the state in a bid to avoid irreparably crashing
the grid. We woke up to cars, mailboxes, and patio furniture—because
February in Texas is ideal patio weather—covered in sparkling snow. My
dog ran into our backyard and then trotted quickly back inside, ice
crystals already forming on her white fur.
Schools shut down, so the many children who live on our block, from
kindergarteners to teenagers, poured out of their homes, dragging boogie
boards and pool floats to use as makeshift sleds. I could hear their
laughter from my kitchen. My own teenage daughter stayed in her room,
unused to the cold weather, until I coaxed her out for a walk around the
block. We inhaled the icy air and felt alive in a way we perhaps haven’t
since quarantine began almost a year ago. It’s snowed in Texas before,
but as long as I’ve lived here, it’s never been more than a dusting. It
was cold, but the sun was shining, and the world looked transformed,
new. Hopeful. A few hours later the power went out, and the wonderland
went dark.
My tendency to flee every time a weather crisis occurs is a joke among
my friends and neighbors. I play along; I’m not ashamed. When deadly
weather is on the forecast, I don’t mind dragging my family to Dallas or
College Station, only for the hurricane or tropical storm to make a
last-minute turn and miss us entirely. But this time, evacuating wasn’t
an option. The roads were iced over throughout the entire state of
Texas. There was nowhere to go. For the first time since moving here, I
had to ride it out.
Everyone who has lived in Houston for any amount of time knows their
weather crisis personality. Do you hunker down when the forecast turns
menacing—following the mayor’s and county judge’s orders to stock up on
staples like water, batteries, and nonperishable food, maybe even
breaking out the Cointreau because no one ever said you can’t prepare
and have a margarita at the same time. Or do you volunteer? Are you one
of those people who run toward catastrophe, filling your car with those
staples and hand delivering them to communities in need? Or do you
evacuate—which is arguably an option only for the most privileged among
us? I have a credit card that isn’t maxed out. I’ve put many emergency
Airbnbs and hotel rooms on credit cards during Texas weather events. I
have debt, but it’s worth it to me. And I’ve also had the good fortune
to have hospitable friends and family within driving distance. My
70-something aunt and uncle took in my family this summer when Hurricane
Laura had Houston in its crosshairs, despite the pandemic. We spent
almost a week piled into their guest room trying to keep six feet of
distance from them, and trying to keep our high-strung rescue dog away
from their expensive Maine Coon cat.
But we don’t have any such experience with cold-weather catastrophes.
Texas doesn’t have those. My 14-year-old daughter is not happy when I
make her evacuate for a hurricane, but when I tell her to wear her coat
in the house because we’ve lost power and the dishwater in the sink is
starting to freeze, she blinks at me. Our climate catastrophe personas
don’t function in this new kind of crisis. I was too scared to cry, so I
drank large glasses of wine. When the water pressure bottomed out and
then failed, and the toilets stopped filling, we braved the roads and
made it to the only grocery store in our area that still had bottled
water. A handmade sign pasted above the already overpriced alkalized
water instructed customers to limit themselves to two bottles of water
each. Just two. So, I grabbed armfuls of weird vitamin water and mini
cans of Sprite. When I got into the car with my packages, my husband, an
economics teacher, remarked, “At least they aren’t price gouging,” and
shrugged his shoulders. You’ve got to count the small victories. Later
that day, I sent an Instagram message to a friend in Austin who lost
water after we did, and I was happy I could help her with the wisdom our
few hours of lead time afforded me. I told her to collect buckets of
snow to melt to use to flush the toilets. She replied, “That sentence is
below the Cameron I know.”
Ultimately, we were lucky. Our power was only out for seven hours,
though many friends and family members, including my parents-in-law,
also in their 70s, were shut down on and off for four days. Our family
is fortunate to not need electricity to power lifesaving medical
devices, like 75-year-old Vietnam veteran Carrol Anderson, who died in
his pickup truck searching for his last oxygen tank after the power went
out. Dozens in Texas lost their lives, including 11-year-old Cristian
Pavon, who, according to the Houston Chronicle, died in his bed in a
house without heat, hours after playing in the snow for the first time.
Though we went five days without potable water, we were able to fill a
water jug we bought in 2008 before Hurricane Ike from the trickle in the
sink to boil and cool enough water to brush our teeth with, cook with,
and drink.
As a transplanted New Yorker, Houston has been good to me. It’s the most
diverse city in America, and it’s affordable, if you don’t count what
one local writer called the trauma tax. I left New York after 9/11, not
because of any loss of love, but because I thought it might be easier to
live in Houston, and in many ways it has been. But like so many in
regions where the effects of climate change are becoming frightening
faster than we imagined, we’re left wondering if the city’s unofficial
marketing slogan—Houston. It’s Worth It.—holds up. Though climate change
is coming for us all, it might be time for our family to think about
finding somewhere to live where its effects are less immediate, less
terrifying. My neighbor and I have promised to schedule our next glass
of wine once we’ve both come down from the anxiety of last week. It
might take longer than we think.
Cameron Dezen Hammon is the author of This Is My Body: A Memoir of
Religious and Romantic Obsession, winner of the 2019 Nonfiction
Discovery Prize from the Writers’ League of Texas.
https://www.vogue.com/article/texas-storm-climate-change-personal-essay
[Digging back into the internet news archive - about the disinformation
horrors of Frank Luntz]
*On this day in the history of global warming - March 3, 2003 *
March 3, 2003: The Guardian reports on GOP operative Frank Luntz's
infamous memo urging Republicans to place renewed emphasis on alleged
"uncertainties" in climate science, to dull public support for efforts
to stem carbon pollution.
*Memo exposes Bush's new green strategy*
The US Republican party is changing tactics on the environment,
avoiding "frightening" phrases such as global warming, after a
confidential party memo warned that it is the domestic issue on
which George Bush is most vulnerable.
The memo, by the leading Republican consultant Frank Luntz,
concedes the party has "lost the environmental communications
battle" and urges its politicians to encourage the public in the
view that there is no scientific consensus on the dangers of
greenhouse gases.
"The scientific debate is closing [against us] but not yet
closed. There is still a window of opportunity to challenge the
science," Mr Luntz writes in the memo, obtained by the
Environmental Working Group, a Washington-based campaigning
organisation.
"Voters believe that there is no consensus about global warming
within the scientific community. Should the public come to
believe that the scientific issues are settled, their views
about global warming will change accordingly.
"Therefore, you need to continue to make the lack of scientific
certainty a primary issue in the debate."
The phrase "global warming" should be abandoned in favour of
"climate change", Mr Luntz says, and the party should describe
its policies as "conservationist" instead of "environmentalist",
because "most people" think environmentalists are "extremists"
who indulge in "some pretty bizarre behaviour... that turns off
many voters".
Words such as "common sense" should be used, with pro-business
arguments avoided wherever possible.
The environment, the memo says, "is probably the single issue on
which Republicans in general - and President Bush in particular
- are most vulnerable".
A Republican source, speaking on condition of anonymity, said
party strategists agreed with Mr Luntz's conclusion that "many
Americans believe Republicans do not care about the environment".
The popular image is that they are "in the pockets of corporate
fat cats who rub their hands together and chuckle manically
[sic] as they plot to pollute America for fun and profit", Mr
Luntz adds.
The phrase "global warming" appeared frequently in President
Bush's speeches in 2001, but decreased to almost nothing during
2002, when the memo was produced.
Environmentalists have accused the party and oil companies of
helping to promulgate the view that serious doubt remains about
the effects of global warming.
Last week, a panel of experts appointed at the Bush
administration's request to analyse the president's climate
change strategy found that it lacked "vision, executable goals,
clear timetables and criteria for measuring progress".
"Rather than focusing on the things we don't know, it's almost
as if parts of the plan were written by people who are totally
unfamiliar with where ecosystems science is coming from," panel
member William Schlesinger told the Guardian.
Mr Luntz urges Republicans to "emphasise the importance of
'acting only with all the facts in hand'", in line with the
White House position that mandatory restrictions on emissions,
as required by the Kyoto protocol, should not be countenanced
until further research is undertaken.
The memo singles out as a major strategic failure the incoming
Bush administration's response to Bill Clinton's last-minute
executive order reducing the permitted level of arsenic in
drinking water from 50 parts per billion to 10 parts per billion.
The new administration put the plan on hold, prompting "the
biggest public relations misfire of President Bush's first year
in office", Mr Luntz writes. The perception was that Mr Bush
"was actively putting in more arsenic in the water".
"A compelling story, even if factually inaccurate, can be more
emotionally compelling than a dry recitation of the truth," Mr
Luntz notes in the memo.
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2003/mar/04/usnews.climatechange
*FRONTLINE "Hot Politics" at pbs.org/frontline/*
http://youtu.be/hPdCkUiHCg4
*Frank Luntz in the Denial Machine (CBC - Fifth Estate)*
http://youtu.be/_WiTVL9iT1w
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