[✔️] September 4, 2021 - Daily Global Warming News Digest

[👀 Richard Pauli]

/*September 4, 2021*/

[Let's not be surprised]
*Overlapping Disasters Expose Harsh Climate Reality: The U.S. Is Not Ready*
The deadly flooding in the Northeast, on the heels of destruction from 
Louisiana to California, shows the limits of adapting to climate change. 
Experts say it will only get worse.
Updated Sept. 3, 2021...
Disasters cascading across the country this summer have exposed a harsh 
reality: The United States is not ready for the extreme weather that is 
now becoming frequent as a result of a warming planet.

“These events tell us we’re not prepared,” said Alice Hill, who oversaw 
planning for climate risks on the National Security Council during the 
Obama administration. “We have built our cities, our communities, to a 
climate that no longer exists.”. ..
- -
Disasters cascading across the country this summer have exposed a harsh 
reality: The United States is not ready for the extreme weather that is 
now becoming frequent as a result of a warming planet.

“These events tell us we’re not prepared,” said Alice Hill, who oversaw 
planning for climate risks on the National Security Council during the 
Obama administration. “We have built our cities, our communities, to a 
climate that no longer exists.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/02/climate/new-york-rain-floods-climate-change.html



[a marvelous tweet two years ago]
Kate Marvel
@DrKateMarvel
Jun 3, 2019
*HUMANS PROBABLY WON'T GO EXTINCT BECAUSE OF CLIMATE CHANGE BUT WE 
SHOULD SHOOT FOR SOMETHING BETTER THAN "NOT EXTINCT" COME ON PEOPLE 
RAISE YOUR STANDARDS*
https://twitter.com/DrKateMarvel/status/1135637164467863553



[Polar Vortex is from climate destabilization]
*Linking Arctic variability and change with extreme winter weather in 
the United States*
JUDAH COHEN
Cold weather disruptions
Despite the rapid warming that is the cardinal signature of global 
climate change, especially in the Arctic, where temperatures are rising 
much more than elsewhere in the world, the United States and other 
regions of the Northern Hemisphere have experienced a conspicuous and 
increasingly frequent number of episodes of extremely cold winter 
weather over the past four decades. Cohen et al. combined observations 
and models to demonstrate that Arctic change is likely an important 
cause of a chain of processes involving what they call a stratospheric 
polar vortex disruption, which ultimately results in periods of extreme 
cold in northern midlatitudes (see the Perspective by Coumou). —HJS

    Abstract
    The Arctic is warming at a rate twice the global average and severe
    winter weather is reported to be increasing across many heavily
    populated mid-latitude regions, but there is no agreement on whether
    a physical link exists between the two phenomena. We use
    observational analysis to show that a lesser-known stratospheric
    polar vortex (SPV) disruption that involves wave reflection and
    stretching of the SPV is linked with extreme cold across parts of
    Asia and North America, including the recent February 2021 Texas
    cold wave, and has been increasing over the satellite era. We then
    use numerical modeling experiments forced with trends in autumn snow
    cover and Arctic sea ice to establish a physical link between Arctic
    change and SPV stretching and related surface impacts.

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abi9167



[sigh]
*EPA just detailed all the ways climate change will hit U.S. racial 
minorities the hardest. It’s a long list.*
If the planet warms 2 degrees Celsius, new report warns, Black people 
are 40 percent more likely than other groups to live in places where 
extreme temperatures will cause more deaths.
Racial minorities in the United States will bear a disproportionate 
burden of the negative health and environmental impacts from a warming 
planet, the Environmental Protection Agency said Thursday, including 
more deaths from extreme heat and property loss from flooding in the 
wake of sea-level rise.

The new analysis, which comes four days after Hurricane Ida destroyed 
homes of low-income and Black residents in Louisiana and Mississippi, 
examined the effects of the global temperature rising 2 degrees Celsius 
(3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) compared with preindustrial levels. It found 
that American Indians and Alaska Natives are 48 percent more likely than 
other groups to live in areas that will be inundated by flooding from 
sea-level rise under that scenario, Latinos are 43 percent more likely 
to live in communities that will lose work hours because of intense 
heat, and Black people will suffer significantly higher mortality rates.

The world has already warmed 1.1 degrees Celsius since the Industrial 
Revolution began, and is on track to warm by more than 1.5 degrees by 
the early 2030s...
- -
Black people 65 and older would probably be profoundly affected by poor 
air quality. They are 41 percent to 60 percent more likely to die as a 
result of fine-particle pollution, or soot, depending on how high 
temperatures rise.

In 49 cities analyzed for the study, from Seattle to Miami, Black people 
are 41 percent to 59 percent more likely to die as a result of poor air 
quality.

Black children 17 and younger would also suffer disproportionately, the 
study found. They are 34 percent to 40 percent more likely to be 
diagnosed with asthma depending on the range of temperature increases 
based on where they live.

Native Americans and Latinos are more likely to be affected by extreme 
temperatures where they work. Latinos would be 43 percent more likely 
than others to lose work hours and pay because it’s too hot, while 
American Indians and Alaskan Natives are 37 percent more likely to lose 
hours.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2021/09/02/ida-climate-change/



[Logically equal]
*Climate denial? Flat Earth? What's the difference?*
People who deny that climate change is happening have something in 
common with people who believe in a flat Earth.
By Tim Radford

LONDON, 30 August, 2021 − Dover, a town in the county of Kent in the 
United Kingdom, was during the 1960s rich in eccentrics: one of them was 
Mr Samuel Shenton, founder and secretary of the International Flat Earth 
Research Society.

He was regarded with affection and merriment by local and even national 
newspaper reporters, and so was solemnly consulted during the US Apollo 
programme, the race to the moon. In 1965 he refused to believe that a 
photograph of the curvature of the Earth, taken by astronauts on a 
Gemini mission, proved that the planet was a sphere. Or that it was 
moving in space at 30kms a second.

“If we were going at such a tremendous speed through space you wouldn’t 
be able to get out of your house,” he told a Guardian colleague, “and 
you’d see the effects on the clouds and the waterways.”

Reportedly at his death his society had no more than 100 members. Then 
it crossed the Atlantic, and something started to happen.

*Shared rejection*
By 2018, Lee McIntyre, a researcher at Boston University in 
Massachusetts, could attend a Flat Earth International Conference in 
Denver, Colorado and use it as a starting point for an enjoyable and 
even mildly sympathetic new book called How to Talk to a Science Denier 
(MIT Press, $24.95).

The event became his template for a study of that stubborn phenomenon 
known as science denial, the outright refusal to accept data, 
experimental evidence or patient explanation of findings that you have 
already decided to reject.

In the course of this reporter’s lifetime, such conspicuous refusals 
have included the link between smoking and cancer and other health 
conditions; the connection between HIV infection and illness and death 
from Aids; the value of vaccination as a protection against disease; and 
most conspicuously, the connection between human exploitation of fossil 
fuels and the swelling climate crisis.

And although each act of denial begins from an apparently different 
starting point, the machinery of resistance − that determination not to 
be persuaded − shares five common factors.

*“You cannot change someone’s beliefs against their will, nor can you 
usually get them to admit there is something they don’t already know”*
One is a refusal to accept aspects of the evidence that do not suit your 
beliefs, but seize upon those that might seem to. This is called 
cherry-picking: you just believe the bits you like and ignore the rest.

The second factor is a commitment to the notion of massive conspiracy: a 
global conspiracy if need be, to declare that Covid-19 isn’t a real 
disease; or alternatively that it is spread by radiation from 5G radio 
masts; or that all the world’s science academies, almost all the world’s 
meteorologists and even governments, are in some monstrous plot to 
pretend that the climate is changing dangerously, when it isn’t, or if 
it is, it’s because of natural causes.

The third factor is the denunciation of real experts and the reliance on 
self-appointed experts. The fourth factor almost always involves logical 
error (we have an example above from Mr Shenton). And the last and − the 
deniers seem to think − the most clinching tactic is to say: “But you 
cannot deliver 100% proof.”

In the chapters that follow, McIntyre explores the different forms that 
denial takes: he talks to coal-miners in Pennsylvania about climate 
change; he talks to activists and campaigners about the rejection of 
genetic engineering as a technique for improving crops; to people who 
reject vaccination as a protection against disease, and to climate 
deniers. In all cases, he identifies evidence of the five techniques 
deployed to resist argument.

*Selective acceptance*
However, not all forms of rejection are quite as uncompromising as faith 
in Flat Earth. His miners know about climate change, and yes, know the 
costs too, but they’re miners. Mining coal is what they do.

Those against genetically-modified crops may turn out to be more 
concerned about economics, or choice, or the growth of corporate power. 
People can be vaccine-hesitant (“Is it safe? How do you know?”) rather 
than flat-out deniers. In each case there are separate issues underlying 
the unease.

Greek astronomers worked out more than 2,000 years ago that they lived 
on an orb; to believe the Earth is a stationary disc supported on 
pillars, Flat Earthers must reject the physics, astronomy and radiation 
science of Copernicus, Galileo, Newton and Einstein, while at the same 
time using cellphones and the Internet, products of that science.

Climate deniers have the slightly more tricky challenge of acknowledging 
the value of science except when it’s climate science.

*Oil money**
*Each group believes in a massive, worldwide conspiracy to deceive. Two 
Flat Earthers told McIntyre that the conspiracy to foist the globalist 
view of the planet was the work of “the Adversary”, the Devil himself.

Climate deniers have the slightly harder task of persuading themselves 
that climate scientists − Chinese, British, American, Australian, 
Brazilian or from anywhere in the world − are all conspiring to issue a 
false message confected for some kind of pecuniary gain or political 
motive, or for the sake of a hoax, which is a bit more complicated.

There is another compounding factor addressed by this book: the big oil 
companies decided in 1998 to actually systematically challenge the 
science, with of course big money: altogether almost a billion dollars a 
year now flows into an organised climate change counter-movement.

In the US, climate science, like the Covid-19 pandemic itself, has 
become a party political issue. Nobody gets rich by denying that the 
Earth is round. Quite a few already very rich people will be yet richer 
because concerted global action on the climate emergency has been 
delayed, by systematic cherry-picking, conspiracy theorising, a small 
army of fake experts and some wilfully illogical reasoning. A very large 
number are likely to become miserably and even catastrophically poorer.

*Winning ways*
Meanwhile, how do you talk to a science denier? McIntyre’s suggested 
approach involves patience, courtesy, a willingness to listen, and to 
address the denier’s arguments directly.

“You cannot change someone’s beliefs against their will, nor can you 
usually get them to admit there is something they don’t already know. 
Harder still might be to get them to change their values or identity.

“But there is no easier path to take when dealing with science deniers. 
We must try to make them understand … But first we have to go out there, 
face-to-face, and begin to talk to them.” − Climate News Network
https://climatenewsnetwork.net/climate-denial-flat-earth-whats-the-difference/



[Activism tactics]
*Extinction Rebellion eyes shift in tactics as police crack down on 
protests*
Analysis: with latest action drawing smaller crowds and stunts quickly 
shut down, questions asked about how group can retain momentum
When police drew batons and scaled a vintage open-top bus in London 
Bridge on Tuesday, it symbolised a dramatic shift in the state’s 
approach to Extinction Rebellion.

Police officers smashed windows on the bus and wrestled with those 
onboard, putting activists in headlocks and throwing punches at them.

A line of yellow-jacketed police encircled the melee, shouting at 
another group of XR supporters arriving at the scene to stay back. 
Protesters booed and chanted: “We’re non-violent; how about you?”

It was a mark of the desperation in which XR now hold their cause that 
they labelled their latest two-week campaign of civil disobedience in 
London “the impossible rebellion”...
- -
But as the rebellion comes to a close, questions are being asked about 
whether XR has lost momentum. Numbers on protests have been fewer, media 
coverage has been far more critical and, save for the Green party, 
politicians have paid little attention.

It seemed even the most committed activists were fewer in number. As of 
Thursday evening, 483 people had been arrested in connection with the 
protests – compared with a total of 1,130 held during XR’s action in 
April 2019, and 1,768 the following October. For a movement that placed 
being arrested at the heart of its strategy, the drop seemed sobering.

XR’s latest protest campaign had been designed in two phases. First, a 
week of “crisis talks”: protesters would occupy busy areas where they 
could talk to passersby and discuss solutions to the climate crisis. 
Then the focus would move to the City of London, to disrupt the 
financial institutions they see as the key instigators of fossil fuel 
projects.

But as XR took to the streets, police were waiting. On the first Monday, 
a pink table installation activists hoped to hold for days in Covent 
Garden was isolated and removed by the next morning, foiling plans to 
make it a centrepiece for outreach. It was a similar story throughout 
the fortnight. XR would strike with a roadblock, installation or a 
theatrical direct action, and police would be hot on their heels.

Where cordoning off protests entirely could not work, as in the West End 
or Oxford Circus, officers would surround protest installations. Without 
activist support, protesters who had chained themselves in place were 
vulnerable; police could get removal teams in, cut them loose and arrest 
them. Dispersal orders would be issued and officers would begin by 
targeting XR’s drummers and music: kill the vibe, the strategy seemed to 
be, and the protest would melt away.
“[Police] seemed intent to limit the time and the opportunity for the 
public to witness our protests as early as they can, so essentially not 
enabling a protest installation or the centre of the protest to become 
the focus for the public to interact with,” said Richard Ecclestone, a 
former inspector with Devon and Cornwall police who is one of XR’s 
police liaisons. The apparent urgency of police interventions – as at 
London Bridge – had led to safety issues, he said, with many activists hurt.

“They would charge into action, almost like going over the top from the 
trenches, and acting just so unsafely and then inevitably they use force 
– disproportionately, in my view – against non-violent protesters. And I 
think that’s a significant escalation.”

Challenged over claims of unreasonable force in the policing of XR’s 
demonstrations, the Met’s deputy assistant commissioner Matt Twist told 
the Today programme on Radio 4 on Friday that groups “have absolutely 
the right to protest and the right to assemble” but no right “to cause 
very serious disruption to the public”.

“Of course again, this [the climate crisis] is a hugely important 
cause,” Twist said. “But the police can’t take a view on the importance 
of the cause, we have to deal with this without fear or favour, we have 
to be impartial.”

As much as the police’s tactics had changed, so had XR’s. In 2019, the 
group seized control of major junctions and bridges, establishing 
campsites in the heart of London. This time actions were designed to be 
more fluid. Broadcasts issued via Telegram channels told supporters 
where to go each morning, with marches coalescing at pop-up occupations 
intended to catch police – who were no longer given advance warning of 
actions – off guard.

But without semi-permanent protest sites, XR could not draw passing 
crowds as it had previously. Committed activists could get involved, but 
fewer casual visitors could find a way to take part.

“It’s not the same as holding a space and really feeling like you are 
blocking and causing civil disruption,” said Jayne Forbes, 65, from 
north London, as she walked with a small protest march past Downing 
Street on Wednesday.

Forbes, a former chair of the Green party, felt the message – and the 
media coverage – was still getting out, and she still believed XR was 
crucial. But, she added: “It’s interesting how we are going to progress 
it now. I do think we will have to go to another level to get the 
government to notice.”

The XR protests have been heavily criticised by some commentators, but 
Sara Vestergren, a social psychologist at Keele University who 
specialises in protests, said: “Regardless of what you think about the 
tactics, I don’t think anyone can deny that they’ve done a fantastic job 
in raising awareness. If we didn’t have any active groups fighting for 
the environment, God knows where we’d be.”
She agreed with accusations the protests may alienate some: “But I don’t 
know if those people would be interested in environmentalism in general.”

Leo Barasi, a campaign consultant and author of The Climate Majority: 
 From Apathy to Action, agreed XR had transformed the debate around the 
environment. “But they’re running into diminishing returns,” he said. 
“Climate change is already the second-top priority for the UK public, 
ahead of the economy, immigration and crime. Media coverage of climate 
change is more widespread than it was before the 2019 protests, and what 
XR are doing isn’t so novel now.”
There are also significant questions about how much XR has been able to 
influence real policy. Currently, as one protest speaker pointed out 
this week, the most significant XR-inspired piece of legislation making 
its way through parliament is a bill to severely curtail protest.

XR’s activists know change is needed. “There’s definitely been a 
contraction in XR,” Gail Bradbrook, the movement’s co-founder, told the 
Guardian. “But I see it stabilising and getting stronger.”

Support for the group remains strong in other ways. XR point out that 
ahead of the latest actions, they raised £100,000 from supporters in 
just 24 hours. A recent poll showed 81% of people in the now UK regard 
the ecological situation as a “global emergency” – the highest 
proportion the world.

Bradbrook sees XR as undergoing a shift in emphasis. “A really important 
pivot that we have done this year is from talking about there is an 
emergency and sounding the alarm to talking about why there is not an 
emergency response, that that pivot has been about focusing on the 
political economy,” she said.

Now it was time to get out into communities, she added. In the social 
interregnum of the Covid pandemic, local XR groups had morphed into 
mutual aid networks. “It’s what we build from that,” Bradbrook said. 
“What do you do that’s part of the change you want to see?”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/sep/03/extinction-rebellion-tactics-police-crack-down-on-protests 




[The news archive - looking back]
*On this day in the history of global warming September  4, 2001*

In the Boston Globe, Theodore Roosevelt IV--the great-grandson of 
President Theodore Roosevelt--declares:

"We Americans are heading into a carbon-constrained, ecologically 
fragile future for which we are ill prepared. Under the present 
leadership we are dragging our feet, willing to sacrifice vital natural 
resources instead of making real investments in current efficiency and 
future energy technologies. This is hardly a conservative agenda.

"Moderate Republicans, and I am one, are distressed that an 
administration that strenuously claims to be conservative is instead 
intent on maintaining undisciplined and wasteful consumption. This is 
unsustainable public policy, and I doubt that it will go far in 
achieving victory in the midterm elections. Bad public policy and bad 
politics are a lethal combination."

http://web.archive.org/web/20020619223452/http://www.commondreams.org/views01/0904-01.htm


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