[✔️] February 1, 2022 - Daily Global Warming News Digest

[👀 Richard Pauli]

/*February 1, 2022*/

/[ keep enough to power ]/
*Home generator sales are booming with mass outages, climate change and 
COVID*
January 31, 2022
Jeff Brady
- -
Beyond snowstorms, he's also concerned about outages during the wildfire 
season. As in California, Oregon utilities sometimes turn off 
electricity so power lines don't spark fires....
- -
Portable generators cost as little as a few hundred dollars, but they 
come with limits. Most won't power an entire house, like a permanently 
mounted model will, so you have to choose what gets plugged in during an 
outage...
- -
You may want to store gasoline in case of an extended outage
Another thing to consider is how much gasoline needs to be stored to run 
a portable generator during an extended outage. Some burn up to 20 
gallons of gas a day. Hope says to make sure to store gas in approved 
containers and add fuel stabilizer to boost the life of the gas up to 
two years. If you still haven't used it by then, you can burn the gas in 
your car.

There are more climate-friendly alternatives
If you're thinking about buying a home generator, Hope says another 
consideration is climate change. Generators are "actually horrible 
fossil fuel-burning polluters that, of course, contribute to man-made 
climate change." And that, he says, fuels the same severe weather events 
that result in widespread power outages.

A cleaner but more expensive option is installing solar panels and 
batteries on a house. Those will keep the power on, like a generator, 
but only as long as there's enough sun to charge the batteries.

There also are portable power stations that cost at least $1,000 and are 
limited in how much power they provide.

"You can power a laptop or charge a cellphone, but you're really not 
going to be powering, you know, your refrigerator or anything for any 
great length of time," says Hope.

On the plus side, these power stations use rechargeable batteries, so 
they're quiet. And since they don't burn gas, they can be used safely 
indoors.
https://www.npr.org/2022/01/31/1076375363/home-generator-sales-boom-power-outages-climate-change



/[ kids get clean air indoors with a HEPA filter ]/
January 26, 2022
*Air pollution from planes, roads infiltrates schools and can be 
dramatically reduced with portable air filters*
Jake Ellison - UW News
What started as a University of Washington-led project to measure air 
pollution near Sea-Tac International Airport has led to schools in the 
area installing portable air filters to improve indoor air quality.

First, UW researchers found they were able to parse aircraft pollution 
from roadway pollution in the communities under Sea-Tac International 
Airport flight paths and map the air quality impacts of the ultrafine 
particles associated with planes. Then they discovered that the mix of 
ultrafine particle pollution, black carbon and other pollutants from 
both sources was infiltrating school buildings in the area.

Alerted that this pollution was getting into schools, community advisors 
to the study wondered if the UW crew could find a way to remove the 
pollution and protect children, teachers and workers in those buildings. 
They were concerned because evidence is emerging that suggests this 
pollution is bad for everyone’s health, particularly children and older 
adults. Poor indoor air quality may also lead to poor student 
performance and increased absenteeism from school.

“It wasn’t clear from the outset of the project that we could measure 
significant infiltration indoors,” said Elena Austin, assistant 
professor of environmental and occupational health sciences in the UW 
School of Public Health. “Not all particles act the same. They don’t 
behave the same in the brain or in the body, and they also don’t 
penetrate into buildings through the same routes. However, we did 
measure significant infiltration.”

In Phase One of their Healthy Air, Healthy Schools Project, funded 
primarily by the Washington State Legislature, the UW team discovered 
that portable air cleaners with HEPA, or High Efficiency Particulate 
Air, filters in classrooms reduced pollution levels dramatically.
In their recent report to the legislature, the researchers wrote that 
the filters reduced all ultrafine particles by 83%, aircraft-specific 
particles by 67% and heavy-duty truck particles by 73% over a two-day 
test period...
- -
“We have to consider outdoor air pollution when we’re thinking about 
healthy schools, and the answer to addressing outdoor air pollution is 
twofold: The first is reducing the emissions from their sources, but 
that is not always possible. So, when that is not possible, effective 
interventions are critical. This project demonstrates that HEPA filters 
can be a viable intervention,” Austin said.

The team’s data was so stark that community advisors encouraged school 
districts to use these filters in their buildings. In response, Austin 
said, the two school districts the UW team worked with, Federal Way 
Public Schools and Highline Public Schools, purchased air filters for 
most of their classrooms to improve indoor air quality and to combat the 
spread of the virus that causes COVID-19.

“When many of the school districts we’re working with saw the results 
and heard concerns from parents, teachers and unions about air quality, 
they went ahead and used federal funds to purchase HEPA filters for 
their classrooms,” Austin said.
https://www.washington.edu/news/2022/01/26/air-pollution-from-planes-roads-infiltrates-schools-and-can-be-dramatically-reduced-with-portable-air-filters/



/[ permafrost may be a tipping point, but it is certainly not fully 
measured or understood ]/
31 January 2022
*Have tipping points already been passed for critical climate systems? 
(6) Permafrost: Beyond the models*
by David Spratt
Sixth in a series.
As previously noted (in part 1 of this series), University of NSW 
researchers point out that: “We do not know exactly how close we are to 
a tipping point, or even whether we have already passed it… There are 
tipping points that while not yet triggered may already be fully 
committed to.”

As permafrost thaws, soil microbes awaken and feast on the warming 
biomass, creating heat as they do so: a positive feedback that drives 
more defrosting. Russian permafrost scientist Trofim Maximov describes 
the global feedback: thawing permafrost releases greenhouse gases which 
cause warmer temperatures, melting the permafrost further: “It’s a 
natural process… which means that, unlike purely anthropogenic 
processes, once it starts, you can’t really stop it.”

A 2018 study estimated that stabilisation of the climate at 2°C may 
eventually result in release of 225–345 gigatonnes (GtC) of thawed 
permafrost carbon. That is equivalent to two-to-three decades of human 
emissions at the current rate. Some scientists consider that 1.5°C 
appears to be something of a "tipping point” for extensive permafrost thaw.

The US government's National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration 
Produces an annual Arctic Report Card. In 2019, it concluded that 
permafrost ecosystems could be releasing as much as 1.1 to 2.2 billion 
tons of carbon dioxide per year. The Washington Post quoted Prof. Ted 
Schuur:

“These observations signify that the feedback to accelerating climate 
change may already be underway… Together [the studies] really paint the 
picture [that] we’ve turned this corner for Arctic carbon… Together they 
complement each other nicely and really in my mind are a smoking gun for 
this change already taking place.”

Like other cryosphere systems, permafrost emissions are not well 
incorporated into climate models, especially emissions from deep 
permafrost, a problem exacerbated by evidence of abrupt thawing. 
Unusually warm summers, such as the record-breaking 2020 heatwave in 
Siberia and Svalbard, are happening more often, causing Arctic 
permafrost to thaw in some northern regions almost a century earlier 
than some climate models projected. Subsea permafrost is not included in 
models.

Abrupt thaw could shift the entire northern hemisphere peatland carbon 
sink into a net source of warming, dominated by methane, lasting several 
centuries. Arctic wildfires rapidly expand the layer of permafrost 
subject to thawing, and these remote, uncontrolled blazes are projected 
to increase 130 to 350 percent by mid-century, releasing more and more 
permafrost carbon.

Evidence is emerging that sub-sea methane clathrates are being released 
over a large area of the continental slope off the East Siberian coast, 
but there is not yet sufficient evidence on which to assess the system 
dynamics of the process.

Prof. Merritt Turetsky says that “permafrost is thawing much more 
quickly than models have predicted, with unknown consequences for 
greenhouse-gas release. Across the Arctic and Boreal regions, permafrost 
is collapsing suddenly as pockets of ice within it melt. Instead of a 
few centimetres of soil thawing each year, several metres of soil can 
become destabilized within days or weeks… Around 20% of frozen lands 
have features that increase the likelihood of abrupt thawing… the 
impacts of thawing permafrost on Earth’s climate could be twice that 
expected from current models.”

Permafrost carbon emissions and the dangerous climate feedback loops 
they will set off are not accounted for in most Earth system models or 
integrated assessment models, including those which informed the IPCC’s 
special report on global warming of 1.5°C, nor are they fully accounted 
for in global emissions budgets.

  If carbon-cycle feedbacks are accounted for, "such as tipping points 
in forest ecosystems and abrupt permafrost thaw, the estimated remaining 
budget could disappear altogether”.

In conclusion: are permafrost and methane clathrates the "carbon bomb" 
that could drive the the "Hothouse Earth" scenario? Yes.  Do we know 
that the feedbacks have already driven these systems to a tipping point? 
No. But when risks are existential, focus must be given to the high-end 
possibilities, and what needs to be done to prevent them being realised.
http://www.climatecodered.org/2022/01/have-tipping-points-already-been-passed_31.html




/[ Talk by Bill Rees is a Club-of-Rome explanation for our human 
condition.   How can one possibly know where to go, if we don't know 
where we are?   And once we know, we have a baseline to know our human 
condition.   It is a long video,on "Overshoot" - suffused with meaning 
for me -- and it is worthy of sharing.  Most everything Rees describes I 
have read in other places. //https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YnEXEIp5vB8 ]/

*Too clever by half, but not nearly smart enough - Bill Rees to the 
Canadian Club of Rome*
May 12, 2021

Canadian Association for the Club of Rome
Abstract

    Humans pride themselves as being the most ‘intelligent’ species on
    Earth yet, despite a half century of stark warnings by many of our
    best scientists, the human enterprise remains in a state of
    potentially fatal ‘overshoot’.  The human enterprise is exploiting
    ecosystems far beyond nature’s regenerative and waste assimilative
    capacities; we are growing by liquidating the biophysical basis of
    our own existence.  Remarkably, the global community shows little
    sign of taking the corrective action necessary to avoid potential
    disaster.  I argue here that this seeming paradox is perfectly
    natural, that H. sapiens is inherently – and even predictably –
    unsustainable. The human ecological predicament is the product of
    base human nature reinforced by an ingrained, increasingly global,
    but radically maladaptive growth-based cultural narrative. Modern
    techno-industrial (MTI) society cannot be ‘reformed’ to mesh
    harmoniously with biophysical reality.  Hubris, born of humanity’s
    clever success in manipulating the material world, blinds us to
    symptoms of impending systemic collapse. The behaviour of
    politicians and ordinary people often springs from wilful ignorance
    or deep denial, papered over by unwarranted confidence in
    technological solutions.  Aspirations to high intelligence aside, H.
    sapiens is not primarily a rational species – but there is a way
    forward.

Bio note:
William Rees, PhD, FRSC
Dr. William Rees is a population ecologist, ecological economist, 
Professor Emeritus and former Director of the University of British 
Columbia’s School of Community and Regional Planning. His academic 
research focuses on the biophysical prerequisites for sustainability. 
This focus led to co-development (with his graduate students) of 
‘ecological footprint analysis, a quantitative tool that shows 
definitively that the human enterprise is in dysfunctional overshoot.  
(We would need five Earth-like planets to support just the present world 
population sustainably with existing technologies at North American 
material standards.) Frustrated by political unresponsiveness to 
worsening indicators, Dr. Rees also studies the biological and 
psycho-cognitive barriers to environmentally rational behavior and 
policies.  He has authored hundreds of peer reviewed and popular 
articles on these topics.

Prof Rees is a Fellow of Royal Society of Canada and also a Fellow of 
the Post-Carbon Institute; a founding member and former President of the 
Canadian Society for Ecological Economics; a founding Director of the 
OneEarth Initiative; and a Director of The Real Green New Deal. He was a 
full member of the Club of Rome from 2013 until 2018.  His international 
awards include the Boulding Memorial Award in Ecological Economics, the 
Herman Daly Award in Ecological Economics and a Blue Planet Prize 
(jointly with his former student, Dr Mathis Wackernagel).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YnEXEIp5vB8

- -

/[ a 12 year old video -- worth viewing for a foundational understanding 
of our current condition  ]/
*The Club of Rome and Limits To Growth: Achieving the Best Possible Future*
Apr 10, 2012
Santa Fe Institute
Dennis Meadows, former Director of the Institute for Policy and Social 
Science Research at the University of New Hampshire
July 13, 2010
It is now too late to prevent serious effects for our society from 
climate change and fossil fuel depletion. But there are still many ways 
to prepare for future problems, and thereby achieve the best possible 
future.

Dennis Meadows, co-author of the 1972 report, Limits to Growth, will 
summarize some recent research on the timing and the magnitude of future 
growth limits, and he will sketch out some initiatives that can usefully 
be taken now at the state and regional level.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pc3SWj-hjTE&t=24s
- -
/[ more from Meadows ]/
*5. Dennis Meadows - Perspectives on the Limits of Growth: It is too 
late for sustainable development*
Dennis Meadows
It Is Too Late for Sustainable Development
My formal remarks will have three goals: explain the essential and still 
unique contribution of our 1972 report to the Club of Rome, describe how 
my own understanding about the interaction of limits with physical 
growth on the planet has changed over the past 40 years, and justify my 
proposal that humanity's focus should now be more on resilience than on 
sustainability. It is far too late to achieve sustainable development, 
as that term is commonly understood. A precipitous decline in resource 
and energy use is coming in the next decades, and the most important 
goal now is to adopt policies that will reduce its negative impacts on 
the values that are most important to us.
Dennis Meadows was appointed to the MIT faculty in 1969. In 1970 he 
assembled a team of 16 scientists to conduct a two-year, computer-model 
based study on the long-term causes and consequences of physical growth 
on the planet Earth. That project was funded by the Club of
Rome and lead to 3 reports, one of which, The Limits to Growth, was 
presented for the first time to the public in the Smithsonian 
Institution Castle in March 1972. The book was eventually translated 
into about 35 languages, and it was selected as one of the most 
influential environmental books of the 20th century. He worked 
subsequently with Jørgen Randers and with Donella Meadows, senior author 
of Limits to Growth, to produce a second edition in 1994 and a third 
edition in 2004. Before becoming Professor Emeritus of Policy Systems in 
2004, Dennis Meadows was a professor for 35 years at MIT, Dartmouth 
College, and the University of New
Hampshire earning tenure in schools of engineering, management, and the 
social sciences. He has received numerous honorary doctorates in the US 
and Europe for his contributions to environmental education. His many 
awards include the 2009 Japan Prize. He has co-authored 10 books and 
designed numerous computer-based strategic planning games that are used 
in many
nations to teach principles of sustainable resource use. He remains very 
active, especially in Europe and Japan, speaking, writing, and advising 
corporate and government leaders on issues related to growth.
https://youtu.be/f2oyU0RusiA?t=346
Books
*Limits to Growth: The 30-Year Update Paperback – Illustrated, June 1, 2004*
https://www.amazon.com/Limits-Growth-Donella-H-Meadows/dp/193149858X/ref=asc_df_193149858X/? 


- -

/[ high ratio of book cover to content understanding -- read the cover, 
save $30]/
*Overshoot: The Ecological Basis of Revolutionary Change Paperback –*
https://www.amazon.com/Overshoot-Ecological-Basis-Revolutionary-Change/dp/0252009886/ref=pd_sbs_1/131-9867290-0511253


/[   very serious scientist -- hour long video - question 3 mins in  ]/
*Physicist Tim Garrett - There Is No Way Out... Something Has to Give*
May 27, 2020
The Poetry of Predicament
In this interview with Sam Mitchell of Collapse Chronicles, Professor 
Tim Garrett, is surprisingly open with his projections about the future 
of human endeavors on Earth.

Surprisingly, because Sam was fully expecting Garrett to be very 
conservative in his reporting of his findings in his research on the 
impacts of human industry on our shared biosphere. Sam gets about three 
minutes in to the interview and Garrett takes off into an in-depth 
detailing of his projections and findings - that all point to the 
absolute unsustainability of our Business as Usual Human Operating System.

He goes further to explain how many, if not all, of our possible 
'solutions' are destined to do nothing but further aggravate our situation.

I would put Tim Garrett's work up there with The Limits to Growth, The 
Population Bomb, The End of Ice, and Uninhabitable Earth... as a core 
text for the collapse-aware among us.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SZOO5omIF1g/
/

/
/

//

/[  Time to see the famous Key West fishing decline historic photos ]/
*FISHERY CONSERVATION & SMALLER FISH SIZE*
A researcher's analysis of five decades of vacationing anglers' 
snapshots shows that in Key West, the game fish species are getting 
smaller — a finding pointing to the decline of global fisheries.
JULIA GRIFFIN -- JUN 14, 2017ORIGINAL:MAR 2, 2009
- -
*M-M: Any bright spots?*

*LM:**Uh … actually none are really coming to mind.* It’s kind of a 
depressing line of work when you’re looking at declines (laughs). … I 
think one of the things I say when I try to put an optimistic spin on it 
is that it provides a view of what things could be like. Yes, over the 
course of 300 years I found declines that probably aren’t fixable, but 
over the course of 50 years, it’s not so long that we couldn’t fix it if 
we wanted to. But I would say most of the bright spots don’t come from 
my work, they come from research looking at effects of protecting areas. 
... My job is just to show how bad things have gotten and hopefully we 
can swing things around. But (my results) do provide baselines for 
restoration — if the desire is there to do that.
https://psmag.com/environment/fish-stories-the-ones-that-got-away-3914



/[The news archive - looking back]/
*On this day in the history of global warming February 1, 2007*
February 1, 2007:
The Guardian reports on a bizarre effort by the American Enterprise 
Institute to attack the credibility of the Fourth IPCC report, due to be 
released the next day.

    *Scientists offered cash to dispute climate study*
    Ian Sample, science correspondent
    Fri 2 Feb 2007
    Scientists and economists have been offered $10,000 each by a lobby
    group funded by one of the world's largest oil companies to
    undermine a major climate change report due to be published today.

    Letters sent by the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), an
    ExxonMobil-funded thinktank with close links to the Bush
    administration, offered the payments for articles that emphasise the
    shortcomings of a report from the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on
    Climate Change (IPCC).

    Travel expenses and additional payments were also offered.

    The UN report was written by international experts and is widely
    regarded as the most comprehensive review yet of climate change
    science. It will underpin international negotiations on new
    emissions targets to succeed the Kyoto agreement, the first phase of
    which expires in 2012. World governments were given a draft last
    year and invited to comment.

    The AEI has received more than $1.6m from ExxonMobil and more than
    20 of its staff have worked as consultants to the Bush
    administration. Lee Raymond, a former head of ExxonMobil, is the
    vice-chairman of AEI's board of trustees.

    The letters, sent to scientists in Britain, the US and elsewhere,
    attack the UN's panel as "resistant to reasonable criticism and
    dissent and prone to summary conclusions that are poorly supported
    by the analytical work" and ask for essays that "thoughtfully
    explore the limitations of climate model outputs".

    Climate scientists described the move yesterday as an attempt to
    cast doubt over the "overwhelming scientific evidence" on global
    warming. "It's a desperate attempt by an organisation who wants to
    distort science for their own political aims," said David Viner of
    the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia.

    "The IPCC process is probably the most thorough and open review
    undertaken in any discipline. This undermines the confidence of the
    public in the scientific community and the ability of governments to
    take on sound scientific advice," he said.

    The letters were sent by Kenneth Green, a visiting scholar at AEI,
    who confirmed that the organisation had approached scientists,
    economists and policy analysts to write articles for an independent
    review that would highlight the strengths and weaknesses of the IPCC
    report.

    "Right now, the whole debate is polarised," he said. "One group says
    that anyone with any doubts whatsoever are deniers and the other
    group is saying that anyone who wants to take action is alarmist. We
    don't think that approach has a lot of utility for intelligent policy."

    One American scientist turned down the offer, citing fears that the
    report could easily be misused for political gain. "You wouldn't
    know if some of the other authors might say nothing's going to
    happen, that we should ignore it, or that it's not our fault," said
    Steve Schroeder, a professor at Texas A&M university.

    The contents of the IPCC report have been an open secret since the
    Bush administration posted its draft copy on the internet in April.
    It says there is a 90% chance that human activity is warming the
    planet, and that global average temperatures will rise by another
    1.5 to 5.8C this century, depending on emissions.

    Lord Rees of Ludlow, the president of the Royal Society, Britain's
    most prestigious scientific institute, said: "The IPCC is the
    world's leading authority on climate change and its latest report
    will provide a comprehensive picture of the latest scientific
    understanding on the issue. It is expected to stress, more
    convincingly than ever before, that our planet is already warming
    due to human actions, and that 'business as usual' would lead to
    unacceptable risks, underscoring the urgent need for concerted
    international action to reduce the worst impacts of climate change.
    However, yet again, there will be a vocal minority with their own
    agendas who will try to suggest otherwise."

    Ben Stewart of Greenpeace said: "The AEI is more than just a
    thinktank, it functions as the Bush administration's intellectual
    Cosa Nostra. They are White House surrogates in the last throes of
    their campaign of climate change denial. They lost on the science;
    they lost on the moral case for action. All they've got left is a
    suitcase full of cash."

    On Monday, another Exxon-funded organisation based in Canada will
    launch a review in London which casts doubt on the IPCC report.
    Among its authors are Tad Murty, a former scientist who believes
    human activity makes no contribution to global warming. Confirmed
    VIPs attending include Nigel Lawson and David Bellamy, who believes
    there is no link between burning fossil fuels and global warming.

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2007/feb/02/frontpagenews.climatechange 



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