[✔️] August 19, 2022 - Global Warming News Digest

[Richard Pauli]

/*August 19, 2022*/

/[  Many reports and one video gushes over the climate bill ] /
*Optimism in the climate change fight*
So much is happening so quickly. With the climate bill now law, here's 
what you need to know.
Douglas FischerAugust 18, 2022
And video from the Vlogbrothers https://youtu.be/qw5zzrOpo2s
https://www.ehn.org/biden-climate-bill-2657879263/inflation-reduction-act-explained 




/[ meltwater revenue ]/
*Greenland's Indigenous population favors extracting and exporting sand 
from melting ice sheet*
by McGill University...
Climate change is leading to the deposition of substantial amounts of 
sand and gravel along the coasts of Greenland amid a rapidly growing 
global demand for these resources. This abundance of sand and gravel 
provides an opportunity for Greenland to become a global exporter of 
aggregates and respond to the increasing global demand for these 
resources, while at the same time potentially bringing prosperity to the 
country. However, until this research, no one had explored the public's 
opinion about this option.
https://phys.org/news/2022-08-greenland-indigenous-population-favors-exporting.html

- -

/[Academic blessing ]/
18 August 2022
*Opportunistic climate adaptation and public support for sand extraction 
in Greenland*
Mette Bendixen, Rasmus Leander Nielsen, Jane Lund Plesner & Kelton Minor
Nature Sustainability

    Abstract
    Climate change leads to the deposition of substantial amounts of
    sediment along the coasts of Kalaallit Nunaat (Greenland) amid
    rapidly growing global demand for these resources. Yet, little is
    known about what the predominantly Inuit population of Kalaallit
    Nunaat thinks about adaptation opportunities arising from the melt
    of the Greenland Ice Sheet. Here we conduct a nationally
    representative survey (N = 939) of Kalaallit (Greenlanders’) views
    on glacially derived sand extraction, finding that large majorities
    support extracting and exporting sand but oppose foreign
    involvement. This pattern of support persists at both the national
    and subnational levels. Public preferences largely align with
    Kalaallit Nunaat’s current mineral policy mandating environmental
    and economic impact assessments of new resource opportunities. In
    addition, those aware of human-caused climate change have
    significantly higher odds of both supporting sand extraction and
    prioritizing environmental impact assessment. Our results reveal
    broad support for domestically involved, environmentally assessed
    and economically appraised opportunistic adaptation to Greenland’s
    melting ice sheet and accumulating sand resources.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-022-00922-8



/[ significant justice  - text and audio ]/
*Kentucky coal company faces federal charges for faking coal dust tests*
By Justin Hicks
Mines are required to periodically submit coal dust levels to the Mine 
Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) to monitor particles that can 
cause the incurable black lung disease.

Inspection records show that in October 2020, government mine inspectors 
noticed that for two days in a row Black Diamond Coal submitted test 
results for mining machine operators in Floyd County, even though 
inspectors saw workers weren’t wearing a testing device those days. In 
the safety report, inspectors called the pattern an “unwarrantable 
failure” to comply with standards.

According to a federal indictment, Black Diamond’s dust sampling 
supervisor Walter Perkins told inspectors the testing machine was 
broken. Perkins claims he gave the machine to a miner to wear for the 
day, as regulations require, but took it out of service because “the 
miner man…hollered that the pump went off and said diagnosis failure.”
But federal prosecutors say that story was a lie: Perkins was knowingly 
trying to cover up the fact that he never gave the testing machine to 
the miner, according to the indictment.

Kim Redding is a former MSHA inspector who now consults with mining 
companies on compliance. He said if the company hadn’t submitted 
records, there might have just been a fine. But falsification of records 
dug the hole deeper.

“Why would you lie about it?” Redding said. “If you screwed up, you 
screwed up. That’s the thing – that’s how these guys get in trouble is 
they falsify something. Because their job is to make sure [safety] 
things are happening. And if they’re not, push to get it happening.”

Inspection records show Perkins left the testing device running in a 
first-aid building – not the mine. The report says the machine had no 
apparent failures that would have caused it to stop taking accurate 
measurements.

About a week after the inspection, MSHA records show a coal dust sample 
taken by the company on the continuous mining machine well above 
government limits.

After a citation in October 2020, it took until December for MSHA 
inspectors to affirm that Black Diamond Coal was back on track with 
taking and submitting valid coal dust tests.

If convicted, the company could incur steep fines and the dust sampling 
supervisor Walter Perkins faces fines and imprisonment. Both are 
mandated to appear in court in September.

The indictment comes amid a growing epidemic of the black lung disease 
in Central Appalachia.

Diagnoses of coal workers’ pneumoconiosis, commonly called black lung, 
have steadily increased in recent years. Research has tied the swell to 
a variety of factors–the ratio of rock-to-coal is different and miners 
increasingly encounter quartz, which produces lung-damaging silica dust.

Mining is more mechanized than it used to be, too. Coal companies 
increasingly use continuous mining machines, which grinds up coal and 
rock into a fine dust that burrows deep into the lungs.

New research has directly tied silica dust to black lung disease, but 
federal regulators continue to use old standards that don’t directly 
address its contributions.

According to a 2018 study from the National Institute for Occupational 
Safety and Health, one out of five coal miners will develop black lung. 
One in 20 will develop progressive massive fibrosis, the most severe 
form of the disease, which is linked to silica dust.
https://ohiovalleyresource.org/2022/08/18/kentucky-coal-company-faces-federal-charges-for-faking-coal-dust-tests/



/[  World Economic Forum report ]/
*More children are having to migrate because of climate change: Here are 
9 principles the UN proposes for protecting them*
Aug 15, 2022
Millions of children have already been forced to migrate because of 
climate change.
Half the world’s young people now live in regions at high risk from the 
impacts of global warming, the United Nations says.
The UN has released a set of 9 principles to help protect children 
displaced in this way.
In May 2002, Kofi Annan, the late Secretary-General of the United 
Nations, presided over the first General Assembly special session on 
children, insisting that the UN discuss the “future we’re preparing with 
them, not for them”.

Two decades on, many children are facing uncertain futures as climate 
change uproots people around the world.

Nearly 10 million children were displaced as a result of weather-related 
events in 2020, and half the world’s young people now live in regions at 
high risk from the impacts of climate change, the UN says.

Protecting children displaced by climate change
This has prompted UNICEF, the International Organization for Migration 
(IOM), Georgetown University and the United Nations University to 
release a set of nine core principles to protect children as they cross 
international borders because of climate change.

“Migrant children are particularly vulnerable when moving in the context 
of climate change, yet their needs and aspirations are still overlooked 
in policy debates,” says IOM Director General António Vitorino. “With 
these guiding principles, we aim to ensure visibility to their needs and 
rights.”
*The UN’s 9 principles*
The principles laid out by the UN are:

    1: A rights-based approach

    2: Best interests of the child

    3: Accountability

    4: Awareness and participation in decision-making

    5: Family unity

    6: Protection, safety and security

    7: Access to education, healthcare and social services

    8: Non-discrimination

    9: Nationality

The first guideline focuses on rights in enshrined by the UN in the 
Rights of the Child Bill. This was instigated in 1989 as a “legally 
binding international agreement setting out the civil, political, 
economic, social and cultural rights of every child, regardless of their 
race, religion or abilities.”
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2022/08/children-climate-change-migration/?



/[ winds and currents cause change ]/
12 August 2022
*World’s largest ice sheet threatened by warm water surge*
Shifting winds and ocean currents are pushing warm waters into East 
Antarctica, contributing to ice loss, an analysis finds.
Clare Watson
Westerly winds are thrusting warm waters towards the East Antarctic ice 
sheet, and have thinned the region’s ice masses at alarming rates over 
recent decades, a study has found.

Scientists say that the research, published in Nature Climate Change1 on 
2 August, also helps to resolve one of the largest uncertainties in 
projections of future sea-level rise: how vulnerable the East Antarctic 
Ice Sheet, the world’s largest, is to ocean warming.

Ice shelves float on the ocean, extending from and buttressing 
continental glaciers that amass to form ice sheets. Unlike ice masses in 
West Antarctica, which are melting at a staggering rate, the East 
Antarctic ice sheet was thought to be sheltered from ocean warming by 
cold, dense seawater that forms on the continental shelf, near ice shelves.

But over the past ten years, data and observations have shown that the 
East Antarctic ice sheet, too, is under increasing threat from warm 
salty water, which is melting ice shelves from beneath. Yet past studies 
have struggled to measure the extent of the warming and pinpoint the 
processes driving it...
- -
  “What matters for ice-shelf melting is the temperature right at the 
ice-shelf front,” Nakayama says. Collecting more observations of ocean 
conditions near ice shelves, and testing whether existing data fit with 
simulations generated by ocean models7, would help oceanographers to 
understand “what is really happening”, he adds.

The consequences of warmer waters lapping the continental shelf would be 
severe. If warm water is able to penetrate the continental shelf and 
heat glacial ice, which currently sits on bedrock below sea level, “then 
the ice melt would be almost unstoppable”, says Herraiz-Borreguero.
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-02168-y



/[The news archive - looking back]/
/*August 19, 2015*/
August 19, 2015:
The New York Times reports:

    "A little-noted portion of the chain of pipelines and equipment that
    brings natural gas from the field into power plants and homes is
    responsible for a surprising amount of methane emissions, according
    to a study on Tuesday.

    "Natural-gas gathering facilities, which collect from multiple
    wells, lose about 100 billion cubic feet of natural gas a year,
    about eight times as much as estimates used by the Environmental
    Protection Agency, according to the study, which appeared in the
    journal Environmental Science and Technology.

    "The newly discovered leaks, if counted in the E.P.A. inventory,
    would increase its entire systemwide estimate by about 25 percent,
    said the Environmental Defense Fund, which sponsored the research as
    part of methane emissions studies it organized."

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/19/science/methane-leaks-in-natural-gas-supply-chain-far-exceed-estimates-study-says.html?mwrsm=Email 



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