[✔️] December 28, 2022 - Global Warming News Digest

[Richard Pauli]

/*December 28 , 2022 */extra

/[ Cold air trends interview by Peter Sinclair - 5 min video ]/
*Weather Whiplash, Climate and Cold Air Outbreaks*
greenmanbucket
2.59K subscribers
Dec 27, 2022
Martha Shulski PhD, State Climatologist for Nebraska, and Judah Cohen 
PhD of MIT, interviewed separately, both mentioned, even in the overall 
warming of winter months in North America,  the increased incidence of 
cold air outbreaks, especially during the second half of February, such 
as caused the deadly Texas power debacle of February 2021.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c-zJ1TSHyxI
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/[ 50 min audio podcast --  Setting pathways and setting roots for 
change -- but doing little to cool or immeidaltly halt CO2 emissions - 
this is combining many efforts -- Democrats set policy and define some 
admirable aspirations - doing something Congress should have done 
decades ago.  (We need global physical changes by Tuesday.) ]/
*Reflecting on the work of the soon-to-retire House climate committee*
A conversation with Rep. Kathy Castor, the chair of the House Select 
Committee on the Climate Crisis.
DEC 28
David Roberts
In 2019, in the wake of Democrats’ congressional victories, House 
Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced that she would be re-forming the Select 
Committee on the Climate Crisis, which had been disbanded by Republicans 
in the previous session. She appointed Florida Representative Kathy 
Castor as chair.

At the time, the decision caused considerable controversy in the climate 
community. Climate activists were pushing for a more ambitious 
committee, with the power to write a full Green New Deal legislative 
package. Instead, the committee was to be an advisory body only, meant 
to do research and develop policy suggestions.

History is littered with congressional committees that busily produce 
reports and whitepapers that no one reads. But the climate committee 
proved much more potent than that.

Castor set about gathering testimony from hundreds of witnesses — 
scientists, policy wonks, and average citizens alike — and putting her 
expert staff to work translating their testimony into policy 
recommendations. But the recommendations did not simply decorate 
reports. The Democrats on the committee, and the Democrats educated by 
the committee's work, took those recommendations back to their own 
committees, where they found their way into a wide variety of bills. The 
bipartisan infrastructure bill, the CHIPS Act, and the Inflation 
Reduction Act contained numerous policies that originated in the climate 
committee.

Altogether, hundreds of the recommendations made by the committee found 
their way into law — a crazy-high success rate for a committee with no 
real power. As the committee prepares to sunset — of course Republicans 
are disbanding it again — it has put out a final report, summarizing all 
its achievements and pointing to the work that remains to be done.

I called Rep. Castor to get her thoughts on the committee's work, the 
achievements she is most proud of, and what progress she thinks can be 
made in the next two years.
https://www.volts.wtf/p/reflecting-on-the-work-of-the-soon?utm_source=podcast-email%2Csubstack&publication_id=193024&post_id=92217677&utm_medium=email#details/
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/[ time to look back at the year 2022 ]/
*Biggest climate toll in year of ‘devastating’ disasters revealed*
Most expensive storm cost $100bn while deadliest floods killed 1,700 and 
displaced 7 million, report finds
PA Media
Tue 27 Dec 2022
The 10 most expensive storms, floods and droughts in 2022 each cost at 
least $3bn (£2.5bn) in a “devastating” year on the frontline of the 
climate crisis, a report shows.

Christian Aid has highlighted the worst climate-related disasters of the 
year asmore intense storms, heavy downpours and droughts are driven by 
rising global temperatures as a result of human activity.

They include storms and drought in the UK and Europe, along with major 
events on every inhabited continent.

Hurricane Ian caused the biggest financial impact – $100bn – when it hit 
the US and Cuba in September.

The toll included 130 deaths and the displacement of more than 40,000 
people, a report from the aid agency said.

The biggest impact in terms of human costs were the Pakistan floods in 
June to September, which scientists found were significantly more likely 
because of the climate crisis, causing 1,739 deaths and displacing 7 
million people.

The financial costs were $5.6bn – though that was only insured losses, 
and the true cost of the floods was estimated to be more than $30bn, 
Christian Aid said.

Alongside the 10 most costly events, the report from the charity 
highlights other noteworthy climate-related incidents that also caused 
deaths, displacement, devastation and environmental damage...
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Hugely expensive floods also hit China this year.

Christian Aid’s chief executive, Patrick Watt, said: “Having 10 separate 
climate disasters in the last year that each cost more than $3bn points 
to the financial cost of inaction on the climate crisis.

“But behind the dollar figures lie millions of stories of human loss and 
suffering. Without major cuts in greenhouse gas emissions, this human 
and financial toll will only increase.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/dec/27/biggest-climate-toll-in-year-of-devastating-disasters-revealed



/[ call it carefully selection of climate tools  ]/
*Climate change is forcing cities to rethink their tree mix*
by Alex Brown, Stateline.org
DECEMBER 27, 2022
Cities need to plant more trees. But not just any trees.
As communities prepare for a massive influx of federal funding to 
support urban forestry, their leaders say the tree canopy that grows to 
maturity 50 years from now will need to be painted with a different 
palette than the one that exists today.
"You need a tree that's going to survive the weather of today and the 
climate of the future," said Pete Smith, urban forestry program manager 
with the Arbor Day Foundation, a Nebraska-based nonprofit that supports 
tree planting and care.

Forestry experts say trees are critical infrastructure that can help 
cities withstand the effects of climate change by providing shade, 
absorbing stormwater and filtering air pollution. But to do that, the 
trees themselves need to be resilient.

"We're developing planting lists that are diverse, that look at 
tolerance to drought, storm events and flooding, heat, changes to the 
highs and lows," said Kevin Sayers, urban forestry coordinator with the 
Michigan Department of Natural Resources. "The extremes in the weather 
are really going to limit us."...
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While arborists look for trees that will thrive in the climate 
conditions they're likely to face in the coming decades, scientists say 
they can't simply count on a handful of climate "winners." Many cities, 
for example, have lost vast amounts of their tree canopy because they 
relied too heavily on one tree type that was later wiped out by a 
pathogen or pest, such as Dutch elm disease or the emerald ash borer.

"Unless we start diversifying the urban forest, we're going to end up 
losing quite a bit of it again," said John Ball, South Dakota State 
University Extension forestry specialist and South Dakota Department of 
Agriculture specialist on forest health....
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In Seattle, many of the city's bigleaf maples and western red cedars are 
struggling in urbanized areas. Foresters are now careful to plant them 
in favorable microclimates, with conditions such as good soil moisture 
and north-facing slopes that remain cooler.

"We're being a little more picky about where we put them on the 
landscape," said Michael Yadrick Jr., plant ecologist with Seattle Parks 
and Recreation.

Meanwhile, the city is planting more Pacific madrone and Garry oaks that 
tolerate hotter, drier conditions. And within individual tree species, 
it's adding trees grown from seeds taken from further south in their 
range, with the goal of adding resilient genotypes to the mix...
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Scientists at the University of Florida are working to determine which 
trees best withstand high winds. They're hoping to expand an existing 
Florida-based classification system by looking at research from 
hurricane-prone communities worldwide.

"We'd like to see this list used to target wind-resistant species in 
areas where a tree falling over could damage property or harm people or 
infrastructure," said Allyson Salisbury, a researcher at the university.

Foresters say their preparations won't result in a complete makeover of 
the trees they plant. They emphasize that such decisions are an inexact 
science that could carry unintended consequences.

"People say we should bring species up from Southern locations," said 
Lydia Scott, director of the Chicago Region Trees Initiative, a 
partnership of organizations and agencies dedicated to improving the 
area's urban canopy. "That's fine until we get a two-week cold snap in 
the winter that kills off all those trees that are not adapted to the 
cold."...
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Above all, experts say that diversity is the best way to ensure that 
many trees survive the changes that are coming, rather than pinning all 
their hopes on guesstimates of which trees might thrive. In most 
communities, the existing tree canopy is far from that goal.
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Elm trees once were among the most prominent trees in America's urban 
forests. When Dutch elm disease wiped out many of those trees, many 
cities replanted with ash. Now they're taking down millions of trees 
that have been ravaged by the emerald ash borer. Today, maples 
proliferate in cities, and foresters are casting a wary eye toward any 
threats to those trees.

"You could plant elm and ash anywhere on any soil and grow them," said 
Ball, the South Dakota forestry specialist. "Now we're done with the 
easy trees. You better know what your soils are like. You've got to 
understand the micro-environments in your community and fine-tune your 
plantings."

Urban forestry leaders say they want to plant a greater diversity of 
trees, but getting the seedlings they need has proven to be challenging.

"Nurseries have a shortage of the species diversity we're looking for, 
and that's tough to crack because it's the private sector," said Keith 
Wood, a contractor with the National Association of State Foresters who 
staffs the group's committee on urban and community forestry.

Arborists cite a feedback loop wherein nurseries grow only what sells, 
and cities buy only what's available. Some have gotten around that loop 
by contracting with nurseries in advance to grow the seedlings they'll 
need in the coming years. The Chicago Region Trees Initiative plants 54 
tree species, some of which it pays for over a five-year period as 
nurseries grow them.

"We're getting the species we want, the sizes we want, the numbers we 
want, all when we want them," said Scott, the Chicago-area leader.

Some cities are reluctant to contract for trees years in advance, 
unwilling to take on inflexible cost obligations amid unpredictable 
budget cycles.

But nurseries need some certainty if they're going to grow 
less-marketable and harder-to-cultivate species on a large scale, said 
Nancy Buley, communications director with J. Frank Schmidt & Son Co., a 
large nursery in Oregon that supplies many urban planting efforts.

"For the cities and nonprofits to get the more unusual trees to meet 
their species diversity goals," she said, "they're really going to need 
to contract in some way."
https://phys.org/news/2022-12-climate-cities-rethink-tree.html



/[ NPR report ] /
*Climate activists are fuming as Germany turns to coal to replace 
Russian gas*
December 26, 2022...
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Germany, Europe's largest economy, is racing to replace Russian natural 
gas after Moscow cut off a key pipeline over the summer. At odds with 
the government's climate protection promises, German Chancellor Olaf 
Scholz's governing coalition is investing more in fossil fuels, not 
less. It's firing up old coal power plants and investing in an entirely 
new liquefied natural gas infrastructure to fill the void left by the 
now-defunct Nord Stream 1 gas pipeline.
As a result, climate activists like Johnsen are carrying out 
increasingly disruptive protests on an almost daily basis. Some days 
it's on a major city thoroughfare; on others, the runway at Munich or 
Berlin airports...
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Burning fossil fuels is speeding up climate change that's already 
causing catastrophic consequences in the world, and scientists warn it 
will worsen as nations fail to make dramatic cuts to harmful gas emissions.

"If we would compare the situation to a war, we wouldn't go on as 
normal," Schnarr says. "And we are in a desperate situation. So we also 
should act like it and implement an emergency economy. This is one of 
the things that the German government should do."...
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"Germany's constitutional court has already ruled that the previous 
government's lack of action on climate change was unconstitutional," 
Bals says, referring to a decision in 2021. "So the same court may well 
view these protests as legitimate because they aim to protect greater 
interests, namely the fundamental rights of future generations."
As exchanges become curt, it's clear that a sense of urgency and 
frustration is shared by all.
https://www.npr.org/2022/12/26/1144709223/climate-activists-are-fuming-as-germany-turns-to-coal-to-replace-russian-gas/
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/[  Michael Dowd - video https://youtu.be/cLBJjBcSSnY ]/*/
/**Living Fully in an Age of Decline (Sanity 101: Cliff Notes) Essential 
Wisdom for Hard Times*
thegreatstory
Dec 27, 2022
This 30-min "CLIFF NOTES" version of "Sanity 101: Living Fully in an Age 
of Decline - Essential Wisdom for Hard Times" gives voice to a decade of 
research into (1) the unstoppable nature of denial regarding biospheric 
and civilizational collapse, and (2) how we can live fully and 
contribute meaningfully even in the worst circumstances.

DESCRIPTION: No one needs convincing that we are living in hard times 
and in an age of chaos and breakdowns. Even those with no understanding 
of the runaway nature of biospheric and civilizational decline feel the 
stress. Just to read or watch today’s propaganda, formerly known as “the 
news”, is a sobering (or un-sobering!) experience. So... How do we 
cope?  How can we stay positive? And, perhaps most importantly, how can 
we be of support to others who are confused, angry, depressed, or filled 
with fear, blame, or guilt? That's what this "basic training" in living 
life fully and loving the life you live even in the worst of times is 
all about.

THESIS: The stability of the biosphere has been in decline for centuries 
and in runaway (unstoppable) collapse for decades. This “Great 
Acceleration” of technology- and market-driven ecocide is an easily 
verifiable fact. The scientific evidence is overwhelming. Evidence is 
also compelling that the vast majority of people will deny this, 
especially those still benefitting from the existing order, those 
legitimately concerned about the consequences of collapse, those who 
fear that accepting reality means “giving up”. The history of 80+ 
previous boom and bust societies clearly reveals how and why Homo 
colossus (industrial civilization) is in terminal decline and destined 
for near-term extinction. Paradoxically, acceptance of collapse and its 
inevitable consequences may be the single most important thing any of us 
can do to live fully, fearlessly, and inspiringly in this Age of 
Decline: at TEOTWAWKI (The-End-Of-The-World-As-We-Know-It).

    00:00:00 Introduction, Overview, Thesis
    00:05:22 Trust / Stages / Overshoot
    00:17:31 Denial / Universal Human Needs
    00:09:35 Collapse and Civiizations
    00:14:18 False Solutions / Hopium
    00:16:17 4 Drivers of Collapse, Ecocide, NTHE
    00:16:57 Calm Gratitude at TEOTWAWKI?
    00:17:38 Naming Reality for good or evil
    00:20:22 Acceptance, Trust, Post-doom No-gloom
    00:21:49 It's NOT too late... / It IS too late...
    00:22:32 Cultivating Calm Gratitude
    00:23:16 Benefits of Acceptance, Trust
    00:26:22 Final note of encouragement
    00:27:17 Feelings of acceptance and denial
    WEBSITE: https://postdoom.com

RESOURCES: https://postdoom.com/resources/
CONVERSATIONS: https://postdoom.com/conversations/
GALLOWS HUMOR, COPING, DISCUSSIONS: https://postdoom.com/discussions/

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/[ More from Michael Dowd  - YouTube channel ]/
*thegreatstory*
https://www.youtube.com/@thegreatstory/featured
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/[ Dave Roberts famous talk - with some music added - his words and 
graphics remain - 10 years ago ]/
*Climate Change Is Simple - David Roberts Remix*
Ryan Cooper
76,317 views  Oct 15, 2012
This video is to promote general awareness of the science of climate 
change. It features David Roberts of Grist, and short clips from around 
the web. Edited by @ryanlcooper. Find more of my stuff at 
http://www.ryanlouiscooper.com. Find David at 
http://grist.org/author/david-roberts/ and @drgrist, and documentation 
on the talk at 
https://grist.org/climate-change/climate-change-is-simple-we-do-something-or-were-screwed/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pznsPkJy2x8/
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/[ Inside Climate News is one of the most respected news outlets ]/
*Why the Language of Climate Change Matters*
New and borrowed words from the worlds of art, academia and activism can 
help us to better “imagine how to adapt and flourish” amid the 
challenges of the climate crisis.
By Kiley Bense
December 24, 2022
In a 1920 edition of a local Pennsylvania newspaper, a brief article 
appeared with a simple title: “The Chestnut.” Although this was a story 
about a species of tree, it read more like an obituary for a beloved 
relative. “All hope is abandoned of saving the American chestnut from 
the blight,” the writer declared, predicting that soon, the majestic and 
vital American chestnut would become nothing more than a memory. The 
article ended with a lament for what had been lost: “Schoolboys of the 
future will ask, ‘What is a chestnut tree?’ and ‘What is a chestnut?’”

The American chestnut once dominated vast stretches of Eastern forests, 
including Pennsylvania’s. That changed beginning in 1904, when a fungus, 
unwittingly imported from Asia, killed hundreds of millions of trees in 
a few short decades. Today, the species is classified as functionally 
extinct.

Before I learned its tragic history, the American chestnut was like a 
mythical creature to me, encountered only in Christmas song lyrics and 
on the grids of city maps. But the more I read about the chestnut, the 
more I mourned its passing. I paged through photographs of dying and 
dead American chestnuts in Valley Forge National Park, where I spent so 
many barefoot summers as a kid. I saw huge stands of diseased trees, 
their bark blistered with blight-inflicted cankers.
It didn’t matter, somehow, that I didn’t have any memories of gathering 
chestnuts at the first frost, climbing a chestnut’s leafy limbs or 
eating sweet roasted chestnuts from a street cart. The sight of those 
doomed trees filled me with a particular sorrow I couldn’t explain 
except as grief for something that came and went before I was born. If 
there was an English word for this feeling, I didn’t know it.

I thought about this nameless emotion when I read about the Collins 
Dictionary 2022 selection for the Word of the Year, “permacrisis,” 
chosen to reflect what it means to live through “an extended period of 
instability and insecurity” because of multiple, overlapping and 
incessant crises or “catastrophic events.” “Permacrisis” is one more 
entry in the ongoing effort to better name the cultural, technological, 
psychological and meteorological effects of climate change and its 
environmental and political fallout.

“Permacrisis” joins kindred words like “polycrisis,” “ecoanxiety,” 
“hopium” and the related “copium” and “doomerism,” a lexicon created or 
borrowed to capture the shifting complexities of a planetary emergency. 
There’s also “Anthropocene,” coined in 2000 and under consideration for 
official adoption as a geologic epoch; the poetic “solastalgia” and the 
legal “ecocide”; and “global heating” and “climate crisis,” both meant 
to more forcefully telegraph urgency.

Why does the vocabulary of climate change matter? “It’s pretty 
established that the words we use reflect the reality that we inhabit, 
not just the material reality, but the cultural and social and political 
worlds that we inhabit,” said Matthew Schneider-Mayerson, the co-editor 
of “An Ecotopian Lexicon,” a collection of 30 “ecologically productive” 
terms meant to aid in processing and adjusting to the uncertainties of 
climate change. “It’s often been hypothesized that language also affects 
the way that we think and perceive the world,” he said. “And as a result 
of that, to some extent, the way that we act on the world.”

This is the concept of linguistic relativity, also known as the 
Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, which posits that the language we speak informs 
and influences our perception of reality. Naming a novel concept or 
object can be a powerful act, “crystallizing” and sharpening our 
understanding of the new as well as “establishing” that behavior or 
feeling as normal–as a collective experience rather than an individual 
one. “Things that might have seemed embarrassing can become intelligible 
and acceptable,” Schneider-Mayerson said, giving the examples of 
“selfie” and “binge-watch.”

“An Ecotopian Lexicon” offers its neologisms and loanwords, which come 
from other languages as well as subcultures like science fiction and 
activism, as “conceptual tools to help us imagine how to adapt and 
flourish in the face of socioecological adversity.” The Ancient Mayan 
salutation of “in lak’ech,” a greeting meaning “I’m another you” that is 
answered with “a la k’in,” meaning “you’re another me” opens a window 
into what a wholesale reimagining of the English language in light of 
the climate crisis might look like. “I like it because greetings are 
things we use without thinking twice,” Schneider-Mayerson said. “And 
this is one that establishes radical interdependence and empathy as a 
basis for human interaction.”

In part because of projects like “An Ecotopian Lexicon,” the language of 
climate, like English as a whole, is constantly evolving. “Anthropocene” 
may be on the verge of more formal acceptance, but it’s fallen out of 
favor with some activists and scholars. “It’s seen as universalizing 
both responsibility and vulnerability” of climate change, 
Schneider-Mayerson said. Some prefer “Capitalocene,” specifying 
capitalism as the catalyst and cause. You can also call our era the 
“Plantationocene,” the “Urbanocene” or the “Eremocene,” the Age of 
Loneliness.

“It’s quite possible that we need to keep changing the terms, just so 
the problem stays fresh in our mind,” Schneider-Mayerson said. “It’s 
quite possible that in five years we will be inured to ‘climate 
emergency.’ And we might need another term that can speak anew to the 
gravity of the situation.”
Another project seeking to meet that need is the Bureau of Linguistical 
Reality, founded in 2014 by Heidi Quante and Alicia Escott as a “public 
participatory artwork…focused on creating new language as an innovative 
way to better understand our rapidly changing world due to manmade 
climate change.” The Bureau invites people to submit their own 
neologisms to express nebulous ideas like “shadowtime,” defined as “a 
parallel timescale that follows one around throughout day-to-day 
experience of regular time,” a simultaneous awareness of the already 
unstable present and the potential for a “drastically different” future.

The Bureau of Linguistical Reality inspired me to take a stab at coining 
a term for my chestnut tree-shaped heartache. I tried out a few 
combinations of Ancient Greek roots connoting “sadness” and “past,” 
landing on “propenthos,” a compound made of “pro,” meaning “before,” and 
“penthos,” meaning “sorrow” or “mourning,” which also carries a sense of 
repentance for sin. Penthos is not “despair” or “self-pity”; it’s a 
grief of contrition, a “pricking of conscience” that can lead to 
spiritual restoration.

This seemed apt, especially in the context of environmental loss caused 
by human beings, and I felt like I had arrived at a clearer 
understanding of my own hazy emotions.  Whether or not anyone else ever 
uses my word is beside the point. In defining and delineating the 
feeling, it became easier to hold.

Kiley Bense is a writer and journalist whose work has previously been 
published in the New York Times, the Atlantic, the Believer, and elsewhere.
Inside Climate News
Pulitzer Prize-winning, nonpartisan reporting on the biggest crisis 
facing our planet.
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/24122022/warming-trends-climate-language/

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/[ found the word Ennuipocalypse ] /
*The Bureau of Linguistical Reality*
The Bureau of Linguistical Reality is a public participatory artwork by 
Heidi Quante and Alicia Escott focused on creating new language as an 
innovative way to better understand our rapidly changing world due to 
manmade climate change and other Anthropocenic events. The vision of the 
artwork is to provide new words to express what people are feeling and 
experiencing as our world changes as climate change accelerates. We will 
be using these new words to facilitate conversations about the greater 
experiences these words are seeking to express with the view to 
facilitate a greater cultural shift around climate change.

This project was inspired by moments that both Heidi and Alicia had 
where they literally were at a loss for words to describe emotions, 
ideas or situations they found themselves experiencing because of 
climate change.

Heidi and Alicia discovered they were not alone – friends, colleagues 
and people they met in their respective professions were also 
experiencing this loss for words.

For centuries philosophers, linguists, psychologists and others have 
noted the power of words to influence people’s thoughts and actions and 
vice versa. A principal called linguistic relativity (also known as the 
Sapir-Whorf hypothesis), holds that language affects the very ways in 
which its respective speakers conceptualize their entire world, in short 
their cognitive processes which often inform their actions. It is from 
the term, linguistic relativity, that The Bureau of Linguistical Reality 
takes its name.

We reference this term playfully but believe sincerely that until we 
have the language to describe the changing world around us, we will not 
be able to fully grasp what is happening.

Here are some examples of the power of words:
The word genocide was created by the lawyer Raphael Lemkin in the 1940s 
to describe “the destruction of a nation or an ethnic group.” He created 
the word by combining Greek genos γένος, “race, people” and Latin cīdere 
“to kill”.   Once this word was created a phenomena became real. When 
people now hear this word, they call up a whole understanding of this 
tragic human phenomena. They are able to use the word in conversations 
and debates and those who hear it understand it to be a real thing.

In 2002 at a meeting of geologists, Paul Crutzen a Nobel Prize winning 
Atmospheric Chemist, was fed up with people using the word Holocene to 
describe present times. He introduced the neologism Anthropocene. 
Anthropocene is a new geologic chronological term for the proposed epoch 
that began when human activities had a significant global impact on the 
Earth’s ecosystems, many cite the Anthropocene era as beginning with the 
industrial revolution, others with the advent of farming. Anthropocene 
is now widely used in academia and the art world and is making its way 
into press articles.

Our words need to reflect our current realities, to help us codify 
things we are experiencing, such as a world that is rapidly changing due 
to climate change.

We appreciate that not all the words generated via this creative 
endeavor will make it into global lexicons. That’s ok. Our goal is to 
spark deep conversations and reflections about how our cultures can 
better reflect our new global reality. To inspire cultural shifts to 
better tackle a world rapidly changing due to climate change.
To submit a new word 
https://bureauoflinguisticalreality.com/submit-a-new-word/
https://bureauoflinguisticalreality.com/



/[ in the //_Daily Hampshire Gazette_//how one community decides to act ]/
*Leading by example: Northampton’s climate change mitigation work years 
in the making*
By BRIAN STEELE and ALEXANDER MACDOUGALL
Staff Writers
Published: 12/26/2022
NORTHAMPTON — As the region continues to rack up new temperature 
records, the city’s far-reaching, all-hands-on-deck approach to battling 
climate change has altered streetscapes and citizens’ daily routines, as 
well as the scope and role of government.

To fight what they believe is an existential threat to the planet, city 
leaders have worked for years to lower carbon emissions by diversifying 
transportation options and infrastructure, reducing the carbon impact of 
existing buildings and new construction, planting and maintaining trees, 
improving stormwater and flood control, and a long list of other 
priorities that involve every arm of local government.
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The targets set by Northampton are more ambitious than the state’s 
goals, as is made clear in a series of documents that lay out a path to 
total carbon neutrality in the city by 2050, the date that Massachusetts 
is seeking neutrality only for the building sector. Those city plans, 
however, were developed under previous Mayor David Narkewicz and 
incumbent Mayor Gina-Louise Sciarra has chosen to aim for full carbon 
neutrality by 2030 instead.

“We heard from the public that the goals we were setting weren’t 
aggressive enough,” said Sarah LaValley, the assistant director at the 
Planning & Sustainability office for the city. “They wanted to be carbon 
neutral even sooner.”

Carbon neutrality means that any carbon dioxide emissions are offset by 
reductions elsewhere, such as through planting trees that will remove 
carbon dioxide from the air and store it. According to the Environmental 
Protection Agency, carbon dioxide accounted for about 79% of all U.S. 
greenhouse gas emissions from human activities in 2020.

Thinking holistically
In an interview in her City Hall office, Sciarra said the local 
government is “working really hard to just have a citywide conversation 
about this and have us all be doing all of our work through that lens” 
of climate change mitigation.

She said city leaders and department heads are “trying to think more 
holistically. For example, some of these projects, maybe people wouldn’t 
automatically connect it to how it helps meet our energy goals, but 
there are connections (like) doing sidewalk repairs.”
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The 2021 Northampton Climate Resilience & Regeneration Plan — one 
element of the broader Sustainable Northampton Comprehensive Plan — 
urged 2030 as the carbon neutrality target date.

“More frequent higher temperatures, storm intensity, drought risk, and 
flooding will increasingly take a toll on our infrastructure, 
ecosystems, agriculture, and health,” the plan reads. “Northampton needs 
to move forward as aggressively as we can, as we collectively work 
towards limiting global climate warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above 
preindustrial levels (the accepted target used by the Intergovernmental 
Panel on Climate Change, 2018, and others).”

With an average temperature of 62.4 degrees Fahrenheit, September 2022 
was the 25th warmest month on record dating back 128 years, according to 
the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association. Of the top 10 warmest 
Septembers on record, eight were in the past two decades.

The average temperature in August was 74.1 degrees, the warmest on 
record and 6.5 degrees warmer than the average monthly temperature.
- -
“As a result of climate change, Northampton is experiencing increasing 
mean temperatures and more intense storms,” the climate plan states. 
“These changes are taking a toll on our infrastructure, ecosystems, and 
health, including more frequent flood events, wear and tear on our 
roads, spread of new invasive species, disruptions to farming, and 
increasing vector-borne disease.”

Local resources
But the plan acknowledges its own limited impact on a global problem and 
the city’s reliance on policy decisions from state and federal 
officials. It also calls for strategies like more cooling centers and 
the creation of a Community Resilience Hub that, among other functions, 
would help people get through high-temperature days and climate 
emergencies like flooding and ice storms during the winter months.

“Our region has definitely seen more ice storms rather than snow, and 
increasing power outages,” said LaValley. “There’s definitely more 
flooding potential, not only from really big storms focused on the 
Connecticut River, but also more localized street flooding that could 
present issues as well.”

After months of searching, a Community Resilience Hub seems to have 
finally found its home – the former First Baptist Church located at 289 
Main St. The city executed an option to purchase the building at the 
beginning of December, for a price of $3.3 million. The city held a 
first reading of a financial order to appropriate $1 million from the 
Northampton’s general fund to help purchase the property, and is 
scheduled to vote on whether to approve the order on its next meeting on 
Jan. 5.

As she crafts her latest Capital Improvement Program — a five-year 
proposal for physical projects and items that cost more than $10,000 and 
can be funded by available cash or through borrowing — Sciarra has 
instructed all department heads to submit spending requests that lower, 
offset or eliminate the use of greenhouse gases.
- -
The City Council authorizes spending for each project individually and 
the plan is updated every year as work is completed and new proposals 
are submitted. Sciarra unveiled the first iteration last year, asking 
for new hybrid and electric city vehicles along with money to finish an 
ongoing net-zero emissions planning study of every government building 
and school.

Net-zero emission means that no greenhouse gases are burned, keeping 
them out of the atmosphere altogether.

Northampton is a member of the Global Covenant of Mayors for Climate & 
Energy, which describes itself as “the largest global alliance for city 
climate leadership, built upon the commitment of over 11,500 cities and 
local governments” representing more than 1 billion people. According to 
the organization, 70% of Northampton’s greenhouse gas emissions come 
from its buildings, 26% come from transportation and 4% come from waste 
management.

An April report from the Central Services department analyzed seven city 
buildings and recommended creating a centralized geothermal system for 
City Hall, Memorial Hall, the Academy of Music and the Puchalski 
Municipal Building. More studies are planned on buildings including 
public schools.

A geothermal system should be installed at City Hall, the Central 
Services report found, to avoid the need to replace the boiler. The 
Puchalski building behind City Hall, according to the report, is “highly 
problematic and may be worth replacing.”

Sciarra said she wants to be “very aggressive” in addressing the city’s 
goals, but as the steward of a $126 million budget, she needs to make 
“smart choices” about prioritizing large, expensive projects.

Smith College, which is not a city entity, is in the midst of installing 
a geothermal system. A $200 million project to replace heating and 
cooling systems campus-wide is designed to lower carbon emissions by 90% 
and make the college carbon neutral by 2030.

Central Services also suggested modifications to Forbes Library and the 
fire and police departments. In total, the improvements to the seven 
buildings would cost $13.38 million and reduce the aggregate carbon 
output by about 86% over 30 years. In recent years, a new Police 
Department headquarters and Senior Center were built to high standards 
of energy efficiency.
  - -
The City Council in October authorized Sciarra to ask the state for 
special legislation that would require all new construction or 
substantial remodeling in the city to be done without the use of fossil 
fuels. At this point, there is no indication when such a bill could be 
drafted or considered.

Sciarra said that planning is intricately entwined with climate change 
mitigation and the relevant city department “is called ‘planning and 
sustainability’ for a reason.” Officials in the Department of Planning 
and Sustainability, led by Carolyn Misch and LaValley, are “the 
long-term thinkers,” she said, about the city’s future.

“Northampton alone is not going to be able to reverse the climate crisis 
in this country or the world, but, one, we all have to do absolutely 
everything we possibly can, no matter where we are, and two, we should 
lead by example,” Sciarra said. “If we all do that, we can start turning 
the ship around.”

Alexander MacDougall can be reached at amacdougall at gazettenet.com.
https://www.gazettenet.com/Northampton-s-holistic-all-hands-climate-change-response-aims-for-ambitious-target-48465748



[ A video interview from July of this year -- should be repeated ]
*Expert Warns of Rise in “Mass Casualty” Events as a Result of Climate 
Change | Amanpour and Company*
Amanpour and Company
128,900 views  Jul 1, 2022  #amanpourpbs
The Supreme Court has voted to curb the Environmental Protection 
Agency’s ability to regulate carbon emissions. This comes amid a period 
of increasingly extreme weather around the world. More than 40 million 
Americans were under heat advisory last week. Kristie Ebi has been 
researching the health risks of climate change for decades, and she 
tells Hari Sreenivasan that death rates will increase unless response 
systems are improved. Their conversation is part of the ongoing public 
media initiative Peril and Promise, on the challenges and the solutions 
to climate change.
Originally aired on July 1, 2022

    "I encourage people to look sub-nationally at all the cities that
    have set their
    goals for adaptation and for mitigation all that's going on so
    nationally all
    that's going on in our businesses.  There is so much change positive
    change
    going on and to pay attention to that positive change and contribute
    to it.
    (It) is going to help move our politicians at the national level
    further forward."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e8Np-fg8hnY



/[The news archive - looking back at the creation of an impossible goal  
-  we are now 419 ppm ]/
/*December 28, 2007*/
December 28, 2007: In a Washington Post op-ed, Bill McKibben, citing a 
recent speech by NASA scientist James Hansen, states that the worldwide 
CO2 level must remain below 350 parts per million to avoid catastrophic 
global warming. Further, McKibben writes: "Hansen [has] called for an 
immediate ban on new coal-fired power plants that don't capture carbon, 
the phaseout of old coal-fired generators, and a tax on carbon high 
enough to make sure that we leave tar sands and oil shale in the ground. 
To use the medical analogy, we're not talking statins to drop your 
cholesterol; we're talking huge changes in every aspect of your daily life."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/27/AR2007122701942.html


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