[✔️] December 29, 2022 - Global Warming News Digest

Richard Pauli Richard at CredoandScreed.com
Thu Dec 29 08:24:32 EST 2022 

/*December 29, 2022*/

/[ Snow-copalypse knows no boundaries, like Godzilla ] /
*Japan freezes! Ice apocalypse has stopped life! The snow is endless*
Vulnerability
Dec 29, 2022  ЯПОНИЯ
Natural disaster 29 December 2022...
Heavy snow in large swaths of Japan injured more than 90 people and left 
hundreds of homes without power, disaster management officials said Monday.
Powerful winter fronts have dumped heavy snow in northern regions since 
last week, stranding hundreds of vehicles on highways.

Municipal offices in the snow-hit regions urged residents to use caution 
during snow removal activity and not to work alone.
Many parts of northeastern Japan reported three times their average 
snowfall for the season...
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Watch the most current news about natural disasters on our channel. 
https://www.youtube.com/@VulnerabilityVaucherie/videos
- -
The channel lists such natural disasters as:
1) Geological emergencies: Earthquake, Volcanic eruption, Mud, 
Landslide, Landslide, Avalanche;
2) Hydrological emergencies: Flood, Tsunami, Limnological disaster, 
Flood, Flood;
3) Fires: Forest fire, Peat fire;
4) Meteorological emergencies: Tornado, Cyclone, Blizzard, Hail, 
Drought, Tornado, Hail, Hurricane, Tsunami, Storm, Thunderstorm, Tempest.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6DgVUpa4Tz8

- -

/[ from Financial Times and Carbon Brief Daily ]/
*Japan approves nuclear energy U-turn to avert crisis*
Eri Sugiura and Kana Inagaki, Financial Times
Japan has approved a plan to revive the use of nuclear energy, reports 
the Financial Times, “redrafting an energy policy that has been 
paralysed since the 2011 Fukushima crisis to address a serious 
electricity shortage”. The paper continues: “...
Under a new policy outlined by an advisory panel for the government 
[yesterday], the country would ‘maximise the use of existing nuclear 
reactors’ by accelerating restarts in a reversal of a post-Fukushima 
plan to phase out the use of nuclear power plants. It would also extend 
the lifespan of nuclear reactors beyond 60 years and develop advanced 
reactors to replace those that are decommissioned.” Japan sourced about 
a third of its energy from 54 nuclear reactors before the Fukushima 
disaster, the paper says, but, “now, only nine are operational, forcing 
the country to burn additional coal, natural gas and fuel oil despite 
pledges to achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2050”...
ABC News‘s numbers are slightly different, noting that “utility 
companies have applied for restarts at 27 reactors in the past decade. 
Seventeen have passed safety checks and only 10 have resumed 
operations”. The Associated Press writes: “According the paper laying 
out the new policy, nuclear power serves 'an important role as a 
carbon-free baseload energy source in achieving supply stability and 
carbon neutrality’ and pledged to ‘sustain use of nuclear power into the 
future’... Deutsche Welle, Nikkei Asia and Bangkok Post also have the story.
https://www.ft.com/content/721b66c6-fd73-432f-aef9-fe59befba2cf?utm_campaign=Carbon%20Brief%20Daily%20Briefing&utm_content=20221223&utm_medium=email&utm_source=Revue%20Daily



/[ US textbooks lacking - says British paper The Guardian ]/
*US college biology textbooks failing to address climate crisis, study says*
Coverage of climate crisis solutions is slim in textbooks, with many 
references moving to the back pages
Aliya Uteuova
Wed 21 Dec 2022
US college-level biology textbooks miss the mark on offering solutions 
to the climate crisis, according to a new analysis of books over the 
last 50 years.

Fewer than three pages in a typical 1,000-page biology textbook from 
recent decades address climate change, according to the new study, 
despite experts warning it is humankind’s biggest problem.

While the coverage of the topic has expanded since the 1970s, and 
sentences focused on climate solutions peaked in the 1990s, that 
emphasis declined by 80% in recent decades.

The average coverage of climate change in biology textbooks from the 
past decade was 67 sentences, a step up from 51 sentences in the 2000s.

Researchers said that was not enough given the scale of the crisis.
“Climate change is affecting life all over the globe,” said Jennifer 
Landin, author of the study and an associate professor of biology at 
North Carolina State University. “And we are not covering it to nearly 
the degree it needs to be.”

The researchers analyzed a total of 57 US college biology textbooks 
published between 1970s to 2019 for the new study, published in the 
Public Library of Science journal, Plos One.

In that span, the placements of material about solutions to the climate 
crisis migrated further back in the books, from the last 15% to the last 
2.5% of the pages.

“People tend to move through books from beginning to end,” Landin said, 
“and of course, everybody sort of runs out of time, so if you have 
something at the very end, the odds are that that’s going to be either 
covered quickly or not at all.”

In their analysis of sentences that cover solutions, national or 
international responsibility came up over four times that of individual 
or local solutions. No textbook mentioned actions related to dietary 
choices, with only eight books addressing transportation as means to 
lower greenhouse emissions.

“I was never really taught about climate change, maybe a day or two but 
nothing in depth,” said Rabiya Arif Ansari, co-author of the paper who 
started researching these textbooks in her second year of college. “A 
lot of my peers lacked information regarding climate change so I was 
very curious about how people are learning it.”

One of the possible reasons for the downward shift in solutions coverage 
that the paper points to might be stemming from textbook authors. In the 
1990s, there were many authors focused on science education and science 
communication, while in recent decades the field saw an increase in the 
number of authors who specialize in cellular or molecular biology. 
Another possible reason that the paper discusses is the societal 
backlash against not only acceptance and action on climate change, but 
also conservation issues overall.

The researchers conclude that the proportion of biology textbooks that 
cover climate change solutions don’t reflect the severity of the 
problem. And such a trend is not unique to biology.

A 2019 study of top 11 best-selling introductory sociology textbooks 
show a similar pattern of relegating pages on environmental issues and 
climate toward the end of the books.

“What troubles me a lot is that sociology rarely talks about climate 
change,” says John Chung-En Liu, associate professor of sociology at 
National Taiwan University. “Which is very ironic because climate change 
is a problem of our society, especially social inequality, not to 
mention the justice dimension.”...
Liu points to the role of the publication industry, with college 
textbooks known for not keeping up to date with the changes. Most 
textbooks are updated only every three or four years, with the structure 
remaining more or less the same.

“Very often textbooks are 10 years behind in terms of how the research 
has progressed,” Liu says...
He hopes to see an increase in page space devoted to the climate crisis, 
and shifting of that content from the end of the book to the center. 
Landin notes that biology textbooks tend to go from small-scale to 
large-scale, with the environmental issues and ecology appearing only in 
the end.

“I think that students learn best when we start from what they know and 
then expand into the unknown,” Landin says, proposing the reversal of 
the order from large-scale organisms to small-scale topics of cellular 
and molecular biology.

Another issue is that traditional textbook use is declining, which 
Landin views as an opportunity to look at what comes next and what needs 
to be emphasized to better help students.
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2022/dec/21/us-college-textbooks-not-addressing-climate-crisis-study

- -

/[ Study done - see the data for yourself ]/
*Coverage of climate change in introductory biology textbooks, 1970–2019*
Rabiya Arif Ansari ,Jennifer M. Landin
Published: December 21, 2022
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0278532

    Abstract
    Climate change is a potent threat to human society, biodiversity,
    and ecosystem stability. Yet a 2021 Gallup poll found that only 43%
    of Americans see climate change as a serious threat over their
    lifetimes. In this study, we analyze college biology textbook
    coverage of climate change from 1970 to 2019. We focus on four
    aspects for content analysis: 1) the amount of coverage, determined
    by counting the number of sentences within the climate change
    passage, 2) the start location of the passage in the book, 3) the
    categorization of sentences as addressing a description of the
    greenhouse effect, impacts of global warming, or actions to
    ameliorate climate change, and 4) the presentation of data in
    figures. We analyzed 57 textbooks. Our findings show that coverage
    of climate change has continually increased, although the greatest
    increase occurred during the 1990s despite the growing threats of
    climate change. The position of the climate change passage moved
    further back in the book, from the last 15% to the last 2.5% of
    pages. Over time, coverage shifted from a description of the
    greenhouse effect to focus mostly on effects of climate change; the
    most addressed impact was shifting ecosystems. Sentences dedicated
    to actionable solutions to climate change peaked in the 1990s at
    over 15% of the passage, then decreased in recent decades to 3%.
    Data figures present only global temperatures and CO2 levels prior
    to the year 2000, then include photographic evidence and changes to
    species distributions after 2000. We hope this study will alert
    curriculum designers and instructors to consider implicit messages
    communicated in climate change lessons.

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0278532


/[ a famous ice storm in Montreal 1998   YouTube 40 min video ]/
*The Worst Natural Disaster in Canadian History (Ice Storm 1998)*
Discover Montréal
Premiered Feb 5, 2022
In January 1998, Montreal and the region surrounding it was hit by the 
most disastrous ice storm ever recorded: more than four inches of ice 
entombed an area larger than the State of Florida, causing trees and 
power lines to collapse on an unprecedented scale, leaving millions in 
the dark without heat (some for up to four weeks). 35 people died and 
damages totalled more than $5 billion making it the worst natural 
disaster in Canadian history.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ccTzHBUsYQ



/[The news archive - looking back more than a decade at a brief moment 
of insight that needs to be revived ]/
/*December 29, 2009*/
December 29, 2009: Washington Post writer Ezra Klein excoriates members 
of the US Senate who have developed cold feet about addressing global 
warming:

    "Amidst all this, conservative Senate Democrats are waving off the
    idea of serious action in 2010. But not because they're opposed. Oh,
    heavens no! It's because of abstract concerns over the political
    difficulties the problem presents. Sen. Kent Conrad (D-N.D.), for
    instance, avers that 'climate change in an election year has very poor
    prospects.' That's undoubtedly true, though it is odd to say that the
    American system of governance can only solve problems every other
    year. Sen. Evan Bayh (D-Ind.) says that 'we need to deal with the
    phenomena of global warming,' but wants to wait until the economy is
    fixed.

    "Rather than commenting abstractly on the difficulty of doing this,
    Conrad and Bayh and others could make it easier by saying things like
    'we simply have to do this, it's our moral obligation as legislators,'
    and trying to persuade reporters to write stories about how even
    moderates such as Conrad and Byah are determined to do this. They
    could schedule meetings with other senators begging them to take this
    seriously, leveraging the credibility and goodwill built over decades
    in the Senate. They could spend money on TV ads in their state,
    talking directly into the camera, explaining to their constituents
    that they don't like having to face this problem, but see no choice.
    That effort might fail -- probably will, in fact -- but it's got a
    better chance of success than not trying. And this is, well, pretty
    important."

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2009/12/climate_change_is_bad_but_the.html


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