[TheClimate.Vote] March 10, 2021 - Daily Global Warming News Digest.
Richard Pauli
richard at theclimate.vote
Wed Mar 10 08:03:00 EST 2021
/*March 10, 2021*/
[We know this]
*Predicting the Importance of Global Warming as a Voting Issue Among
Registered Voters in the United States*
Author Anthony Leiserowitz
George Mason University, Center for Climate Change Communication
Yale University, Yale Program on Climate Change Communication
Available online 5 March 2021.
Highlights
• Discussing global warming with family and friends is the only
predictor of both global warming's absolute and relative importance as a
voting issue
• Worry about global warming is a consistent predictor of global
warming's absolute importance as a voting issue
• The predictors of global warming's absolute importance to voters
overlap only partially with the predictors of its relative importance
• Global warming's importance as a voting issue may be dynamically
influenced by the state of political and social environments
*Abstract*
Limiting climate change requires effective policy solutions. In
democratic societies, voting for candidates who support climate
policy solutions is arguably the most important action citizens can
take. Therefore, understanding the dynamics of global warming as a
voting issue is crucial for building public and political will for
climate solutions. Using data from two nationally representative
surveys conducted in November 2019 and April 2020, this exploratory
study investigated the influences of cognitive, experiential,
socio-cultural, and sociodemographic factors on two measures of
perceived importance of global warming as a voting issue: absolute
importance (i.e., how important is it?) and relative importance
(i.e., is it the most important issue?). As expected, in both
surveys, Democrats were more likely than Republicans to perceive
global warming as an important voting issue. The perceived
importance of global warming as a voting issue was also positively
associated with certainty in belief that global warming is
happening, perceived risk, worry, positive social norms, and
discussing global warming with family and friends; in April 2020, it
was also negatively associated with exposure to conservative media
(The Fox News Channel). In both surveys, discussing global warming
with family and friends was positively associated with considering
global warming to be the most important voting issue, whereas
perceived personal experience and worry were significant predictors
in only one survey. These results suggest that global warming's
importance as a voting issue is influenced by a range of individual,
social, and media influences, and that the predictors of the issue's
absolute importance to voters overlap only partially with the
predictors of its relative importance.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2666622721000010
[Recent events in Texas]
*Texas Grid Came Close to Wrecking Itself*
Mar 9, 2021
greenmanbucket
Alison Silverstein is an independent energy consultant and former
strategic advisor for the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, also
known as FERC.
She spoke for a webinar sponsored by Conservative Texans for Energy
Innovation.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nIznov8xLFw
[ready for wildfire season]
*Forest Service has 18 large air tankers this year under contract*
Bill Gabbert - March 9, 2021
The dates they will first be on duty could change if the Forest Service
decides they need to come on early, but the scheduled 160-day “mandatory
availability periods” (MAP) which are different for every air tanker
specify that two will begin in March (11th and 17th) and most of the
rest will start in April and May. The MAPs end August 18 through
November 20 for the 18 aircraft, but those dates could be extended if
necessary...
- -
Since 2001 the four years with the highest number of total fire
detections in Washington, Oregon, and California have all occurred since
2015, according to satellite data processed by the New York Times in
September of last year...
[See the graph
https://fireaviation.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/Fire-detections-West-Coast-Oregon-Washington-California-New-York-Times.jpg
]
https://wildfiretoday.com/2021/03/09/forest-service-has-18-large-air-tankers-this-year-under-contract/
[long audio - Book promotion and a comfortable, interesting interview]
*Nobel Climate Scientist Michael Mann on Denier Tactics and Idiocy
(February 28, 2021)*
Feb 28, 2021
Al Franken
Mann Discusses his new book _The New Climate War._
https://youtu.be/yJSaIg0U6SE
[Food implies fossil fuels]
FOOD AND FARMING 8 March 2021
*Food systems responsible for ‘one third’ of human-caused emissions...*
The study, published in Nature Food, presents EDGAR-FOOD – the first
database to break down emissions from each stage of the food chain for
every year from 1990 to 2015. The database also unpacks emissions by
sector, greenhouse gas and country.
According to the study, 71% of food emissions in 2015 came from
agriculture and “associated land use and land-use change activities”
(LULUC).The rest stemmed from retail, transport, consumption, fuel
production, waste management, industrial processes and packaging.
The study finds that CO2 accounts for roughly half of food-related
emissions, while methane (CH4) makes up 35% – mainly from livestock
production, farming and waste treatment...
The research also shows that “food-system emissions permeate all
emissions sectors and include all major greenhouse gases”, he adds.
However, he notes that “the differentiation of emissions by food group”
is not included in the database, and tells Carbon Brief that this would
be a good next step for the research:
“Further disaggregating the emissions categories of EDGAR-FOOD into the
underlying food groups would have widened the usefulness of the database
for informing concrete and well-targeted mitigation policies for the
food system. Hopefully, adding this crucial detail is on the to-do list
for the next update.”
https://www.carbonbrief.org/food-systems-responsible-for-one-third-of-human-caused-emissions
- -
[Aspirations -- morality and bravery in giant metaphors]
*Engineering with Integrity: Episode 23: Vegan World 2026! - The
Moonshot of Our Generation*
March 9, 2021
Sailesh Rao
This episode is dedicated to Allan McDonald, the engineer who refused to
endorse the launch of Space Shuttle Challenger the day before it blew
up. He had evidence that the environmental conditions were too dangerous
for the launch to occur and he wasn't going to be bullied into signing
on to the launch. Of course, he was demoted by his employer, Morton
Thiokol, and the launch proceeded as planned. The rest is history and an
object lesson for today. Will the Biden administration listen to
engineers on how to solve climate change? Please stay tuned...
https://youtu.be/hkKVEWJe7VY?t=32
- -
*[clips from obit for NASA consultant who refused to approve the flight
of the Space Shuttle Challenger]*
Allan J. McDonald
Died March 6, 2021
Ogden, Utah
Allan J. McDonald (died March 6, 2021) was an engineer, aerospace
consultant, author and the director of the Space Shuttle Solid Rocket
Motor Project for Morton-Thiokol, a NASA subcontractor. He refused to
sign off on the launch of the Space Shuttle Challenger which broke apart
73 seconds into flight in the Challenger disaster in January 1986.
Deeply affected by the loss of the Challenger astronauts, McDonald
endeavored to reveal the truth about the pressures to stay on launch
schedule that led to the tragedy. He co-authored Truth, Lies, and
O-Rings: Inside the Space Shuttle Challenger Disaster.
- -
McDonald began working for Morton-Thiokol, Inc in 1959 and was first
part of the Minuteman missile programme, of which he assisted in
designing its external insulation, and was the group leader at Cape
Canaveral during its flight tests. Thiokol was contracted by NASA, and
McDonald was placed in charge of the space shuttle's solid rocket
booster program for two years, with the job often requiring him to
travel to the Kennedy Space Center to assess a shuttle's condition prior
to flight.
In the lead-up to the Challenger disaster, McDonald and fellow engineers
from Thiokol, including Bob Ebeling, Arnold Thompson and Roger Boisjoly
were concerned that frigid overnight temperatures would affect the
O-ring seals in the solid rocket booster joints. McDonald refused to
sign the official authorization form for a launch, saying "If anything
happens to this launch, I wouldn't want to be the person that has to
stand in front of a board of inquiry to explain why we launched". His
team concurred with the decision. NASA officials consulted other Thiokol
officials directly and exerted significant pressure on them; these
Thiokol personnel overruled their engineers.
The shuttle disintegrated during launch because of failure of the
booster rocket joints, killing all seven astronauts. Deeply traumatized
by the deaths of the Challenger crew, McDonald fought to hold those
responsible accountable and explain the reasons for the failure, saying
that pressure to meet launch schedules led to the loss. According to
McDonald, NASA engineers pressured Thiokol into agreeing to the launch
over the concerns expressed by Thiokol engineers, and later tried to
cover that up.
After testifying before the Presidential Commission on the Space Shuttle
Challenger Accident, also known as the Rogers Commission, McDonald was
demoted from his position at Thiokol. Members of Congress threatened to
prevent Thiokol from gaining future NASA work, leading the company to
back down. McDonald was promoted to vice president and put in charge of
the redesign and requalification of the solid rocket motors.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allan_J._McDonald
- -
[NPR audio and text]
*Remembering Allan McDonald: He Refused To Approve Challenger Launch,
Exposed Cover-Up*
March 7, 2021...
- -
"There are two ways in which [McDonald's] actions were heroic," recalls
Mark Maier, who directs a leadership program at Chapman University and
produced a documentary about the Challenger launch decision.
"One was on the night before the launch, refusing to sign off on the
launch authorization and continuing to argue against it," Maier says.
"And then afterwards in the aftermath, exposing the cover-up that NASA
was engaged in."
Twelve days after Challenger exploded, McDonald stood up in a closed
hearing of a presidential commission investigating the tragedy. He was
"in the cheap seats in the back" when he raised his hand and spoke. He
had just heard a NASA official completely gloss over a fundamental fact.
McDonald and his team of Thiokol engineers had strenuously opposed the
launch, arguing that freezing overnight temperatures, as low as 18
degrees F, meant that the O-rings at the booster rocket joints would
likely stiffen and fail to contain the explosive fuel burning inside the
rockets. They presented data showing that O-rings had lost elasticity at
a much warmer temperature, 53 degrees F, during an earlier launch.
"I was sitting there thinking that's about as deceiving as anything I
ever heard," McDonald recalled. "So ... I said I think this presidential
commission should know that Morton Thiokol was so concerned, we
recommended not launching below 53 degrees Fahrenheit. And we put that
in writing and sent that to NASA."
Former Secretary of State William Rogers chaired the commission and
stared into the auditorium, squinting in the direction of the voice.
"I'll never forget Chairman Rogers said, 'Would you please come down
here on the floor and repeat what I think I heard?' " McDonald said.
The focus of the commission's investigation shifted to the booster
rocket O-rings, the efforts of McDonald and his colleagues to stop the
launch and the failure of NASA officials to listen.
Morton Thiokol executives were not happy that McDonald spoke up, and
they demoted him.
That alarmed members of the presidential commission and members of
Congress. Rep. Edward Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat, introduced a
joint resolution in the House that threatened to forbid Thiokol from
getting future NASA contracts given the company's punishment of McDonald
and any other Thiokol engineers who spoke freely.
The company relented, and McDonald was promoted to vice president and
put in charge of the effort to redesign the booster rocket joints that
failed during the Challenger launch.
In 1988, the redesigned joints worked successfully as shuttle flights
resumed.
McDonald continued to work at Thiokol until 2001 and retired after 42
years. He later co-authored one of the most definitive accounts of the
Challenger disaster — Truth, Lies, and O-Rings: Inside the Space Shuttle
Challenger Disaster.
In retirement, McDonald became a fierce advocate of ethical
decision-making and spoke to hundreds of engineering students, engineers
and managers. He and Chapman University's Maier held leadership and
ethics seminars for corporations and government agencies, including U.S.
Space Command.
Maier says that one of McDonald's key moments in his talks helps explain
his ability to reconcile his brush with history.
"What we should remember about Al McDonald [is] he would often stress
his laws of the seven R's," Maier says. "It was always, always do the
right thing for the right reason at the right time with the right
people. [And] you will have no regrets for the rest of your life."
"It's really that simple if you just keep it focused that way," McDonald
told me in 2016.
Challenger: Reporting a Disaster's Cold, Hard Facts Jan. 28, 2006
He also framed regret another way, paraphrasing a favorite quote from
the late journalist Sydney J. Harris.
"Regret for things we did is tempered by time," McDonald said, his
expression firm. "But regret for things we did not do is inconsolable."
McDonald then paused and added, "That's absolutely true."
https://www.npr.org/2021/03/07/974534021/remembering-allan-mcdonald-he-refused-to-approve-challenger-launch-exposed-cover
[we were informed in 1990]
*Is this the end of forests as we've known them?*
Trees lost to drought and wildfires are not returning. Climate change is
taking a toll on the world’s forests - and radically changing the
environment before our eyes
- -
The possibility of worldwide mass forest mortality linked to climate
change was flagged in the first Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change assessments in 1990. But today, many researchers are expressing
particular concern about the tree mortality crisis building in
California and other parts of the west.
- -
“It was a really impressive period, the last two years, because so far
I’d only known large-scale mortality events from the literature,” said
Henrik Hartmann, co-author of a study on the die-off and an organizer of
the International Tree Mortality Network. “And now it is actually here
in a very temperate region where nobody would expect it.”
A great irony of this shift is that trees are dying just as we
understand them better than ever. It has become clear that far from
being inert and silent, and little more than a backdrop for wildlife,
trees are able to communicate with one another and even share resources.
Forests also absorb around one-quarter of all human carbon emissions
annually, and increasingly there are worries that if forests die back
they will switch from storing carbon to emitting it, because dead trees
will release all the carbon they have accumulated. This helps explain
why much-touted proposals to plant millions of trees to suck up carbon
and ameliorate the climate crisis are encountering skepticism; they
won’t work if conditions on Earth don’t allow for forests to reproduce
and thrive.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/mar/10/is-this-the-end-of-forests-as-weve-known-them
[Digging back into the internet news archive]
*On this day in the history of global warming - March 10, 2014 *
On MSNBC's "The Ed Show," Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne and
Sierra Club Executive Director Michael Brune discuss Sen. Rand Paul
(R-KY) and his devotion to drilling.
http://www.msnbc.com/the-ed-show/watch/rand-pauls-america-involves-lots-of-oil-190503491516
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/11/us/politics/26-democrats-plan-a-senate-all-nighter-on-climate-change.html
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2014/mar/14/senators-speak-up4-climate-change
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