[✔️] February 11, 2022 - Daily Global Warming News Digest

[👀 Richard Pauli]

/*February  11, 2022*/

/[ suggest light cottons in the West //]/
*Forecasters eye a Super Bowl snowstorm for the East Coast and the 
hottest game ever*
The storm could bring up to 3 inches of snow from the mid-Atlantic to 
New England.
"Below-average readings are expected by Sunday and into early next week 
for the eastern U.S."
While the East shivers, the West Coast will see unusual warmth on 
Sunday, including Los Angeles, site of Super Bowl 56.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2022/02/10/super-bowl-sunday-snow-east-coast/6736280001/

- -

/[   Superbowl Sunday and what is GM saying?   video 30 sec ]/
*EV Meets Evil | #EVerybodyin*
Feb 9, 2022
General Motors
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OSEtu49xkqY

- -

/[ OK, "save the world first, then take over the world"  ]/
*‘Austin Powers’ villains fight climate change to promote GM’s new EVs 
in Super Bowl ad*
FEB 10 2022
GM’s Super Bowl 56 ad is using villains from the “Austin Powers” movie 
franchise to promote its new electric vehicles.
The ad stars actors Mike Myers, Rob Lowe and others, reclaiming roles 
from the spy comedy trilogy that ran from 1997 to 2002.
In 2021, the automaker resurrected the 1990 film “Edward Scissorhands” 
as a basis to promote its luxury Cadillac brand.
see the video https://youtu.be/uEuEBT0TWQE
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/02/10/super-bowl-ads-austin-powers-villains-fight-climate-change-.html



/[  Politico reports  ]/
*Dems face a sobering possibility: Build Back ... never*
Members of the majority party are confronting the uncomfortable 
possibility that they might have to entirely shelve efforts on their 
signature bill...
- -
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer vowed in December that the chamber 
will “vote on a revised version of the House-passed Build Back Better 
Act — and we will keep voting on it until we get something done.” That’s 
not the strategy at the moment.

Instead, the Senate is now in a long cooling-off period after the twin 
failures of “Build Back Better” and a push to change the Senate rules to 
pass elections bills. Democrats are turning to fixing the Postal 
Service, sexual misconduct reform, spending bills, a Supreme Court 
vacancy, the Violence Against Women Act and possibly changing the 
Electoral Count Act and sanctioning Russia...
https://www.politico.com/news/2022/02/10/democrats-social-spending-dreams-stuck-in-winter-purgatory-00007557

- -

/[  Politico -  same day -- " words, words, promises..."  ]/
*Gina McCarthy pledges to run 'faster and faster' to address climate change*
“We all understand that we have to do as much as humanly possible as 
quickly as we possibly can," McCarthy said at a POLITICO event.
By ZACK COLMAN  -- 2/10/2022
White House National Climate Adviser Gina McCarthy defended President 
Joe Biden’s climate change accomplishments on Thursday, but acknowledged 
rising criticism from the Democratic base that the administration had 
yet to deliver on its aggressive agenda.

“We understand people’s frustration. Would we all like to be running 
faster and faster? Yes, we would. And we fully intend to be running 
faster and faster,” McCarthy said during a POLITICO event...
- -
McCarthy, however, doubled down on the administration’s support for 
carbon capture and storage technology, which aims to trap emissions from 
fossil fuels before they escape into the atmosphere. While energy firms 
have touted the concept, pilot projects have shown little success at 
industrial scale without massive subsidies. And environmental justice 
groups oppose the technology that they say would allow fossil fuel 
production to continue to pollute water and air.

McCarthy said the administration would soon publish a guidance document 
to ensure proper management of carbon capture projects in hopes of 
limiting its environmental and public health consequences. She pitched 
the technology as a way to help U.S. industry operate more cleanly.

“But we have to have our eyes wide open to address the concerns of 
others so that we can make sure that we’re doing this right,” she said.
https://www.politico.com/news/2022/02/10/gina-mccarthy-touts-biden-climate-progress-00007913


/[ digging up black lumps from the PR battleground ]/
*Edelman promised to ditch coal clients. Then it took $3M from a coal 
group.*
Emily Atkin and Connor Gibson
Feb 2
A few weeks ago, HEATED reported that Edelman was breaking one of its 
oldest climate promises.

Today, we have a new story showing that the number one PR firm for 
fossil fuel companies is breaking yet another longstanding climate pledge.

This reporting raises timely questions about Edelman’s trustworthiness. 
Last month, in response to growing controversy over Edelman’s work for 
fossil fuel clients, CEO Richard Edelman released a new list of climate 
promises in an attempt to boost public trust in the company.

The list sounds nice, but all PR does. The important question is: can 
Edelman’s promises be trusted? Or are they just as vague and meaningless 
as Exxon’s net zero plan? (Exxon, to be clear, is an Edelman client).

Today, we have a look at just one example of how Edelman walks after big 
climate talk. Then, we have a list of related Edelman news. If you find 
it all useful and want to hear more, smash that subscribe button below.
By Connor Gibson

In 2015, the PR firm Edelman pledged to stop working with coal industry 
clients, saying they “pose a threat to the company’s legitimacy and its 
bottom line.”

But from 2016 to 2020, the company took $3,061,861 in contract payments 
from the National Mining Association (NMA), one of the nation’s largest 
coal industry lobbying groups.

The NMA disclosed its payments to Edelman in its IRS tax filings. HEATED 
obtained the most recent filing directly from the NMA.

Edelman did not respond to requests to clarify the work it’s doing for 
the NMA, or explain how that work upholds its 2015 promise.

It’s possible Edelman doesn’t consider the NMA to technically be a coal 
industry client, because the trade association represents all sorts of 
mining corporations. But lobbying for more coal production is among the 
NMA’s top priorities. Its members include the largest U.S. coal mining 
companies, including Peabody, Arch, Alliance, and Drummond. The CEOs of 
each of these companies were all NMA directors as of 2020, and NMA’s 
current chairman is CONSOL Energy CEO Jimmy Brock.

Because of this, the NMA routinely misrepresents climate science, which 
states plainly that a safe climate cannot coexist with continued coal 
production. The organization’s most recent climate position statement 
claims to support climate solutions, yet says coal should remain a 
significant energy source. It also does not mention supporting net zero 
emissions, which is the bare minimum goal necessary for an effective 
climate solution.

The NMA has also participated in some of the most historically notable 
climate change disinformation campaigns, including creating anti-climate 
propaganda for school teachers. A 2016 NMA Crisis Communications 
document preserved by DeSmog instructed its members to emphasize the 
“natural phenomenon” of the greenhouse effect rather than discussing the 
unnatural impacts of fossil fuels.

The NMA’s coal lobbying has had real consequences for the climate. The 
group fought U.S. participation in the 2015 Paris Climate Accord, and 
lobbied numerous Trump administration officials to pull the U.S. out of 
the agreement, among other anti-climate priorities the former president 
swiftly accommodated.

It’s unclear what type of work Edelman is currently doing for the NMA. 
Before its 2015 pledge, Edelman was helping the NMA conduct polling for 
a campaign called “Minerals Make Life.” The Minerals Make Life website 
routinely promotes coal.

It is clear, however, that Edelman is still comfortable working with a 
group committed to keeping coal alive, consequences for the planet be 
damned. And that raises questions about why Edelman made its anti-coal 
pledge in the first place.

Edelman’s promise to ditch coal clients was not made solely out of the 
goodness of its corporate heart. The firm had been facing public 
pressure to drop its coal clients since 2013, when an Edelman employee 
working on promoting coal exports joked about having to deny climate change.

When Edelman finally caved in 2015, it told the Guardian that it would 
avoid taking on clients that promoted climate misinformation. “When you 
are trying in some way to obfuscate the truth or use misinformation and 
half-truths … that is something we would never propose [or] support our 
client doing,” a company executive said. “On climate denial and coal 
those are where we just said this is absolutely a no-go area.”

Since then, Edelman has strengthened its stated climate commitments. CEO 
Richard Edelman released a new list of climate principles for the 
company last month, calling climate change “the biggest problem facing 
society.” While he did not commit to dropping fossil fuel clients, 
Edelman did say that moving forward, the company would only accept 
clients that take "meaningful action" towards "credible net zero goals."

Whether Edelman’s work for the NMA continues will determine how 
meaningful those new principles really are.
Edelman promised to ditch coal clients. Then it took $3M from a coal 
industry group.
https://heated.world/p/edelman-promised-to-ditch-coal-then


/[ Food stresses ]/
*Co-occurring droughts could threaten global food security*
Date: February 9, 2022
Source: Washington State University
Summary: Droughts occurring at the same time across different regions of 
the planet could place an unprecedented strain on the global 
agricultural system and threaten the water security of millions of 
people, according to a new study...
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/02/220209093355.htm



/[ philosopher speaking video 50 min  ]/
*A New Philosophy of Nature: On Ecological Disconnect, Climate Despair, 
and Moving Forward*
Sep 30, 2021
Like Stories of Old
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SzxlSGulR84&



/[ simple fix, update data ]/
*An unexpected item is blocking cities' climate change prep: obsolete 
rainfall records*
February 9, 2022
LAUREN SOMMER
- -
*Extreme storms getting more extreme*
As temperatures get hotter, heavy storms are producing more rainfall 
because warmer air can hold more water vapor.

"Throughout most of the country, big storms are happening more often," 
says Daniel Wright, assistant professor in civil and environmental 
engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. "There's every 
reason to expect that rainfall will continue to intensify in the future."

The Northeast and Midwestern U.S. have seen the biggest increases, with 
the heaviest storms producing 55% more rain today in the Northeast 
compared to 1958, according to the 2018 National Climate Assessment.

Outdated rainfall records don't reflect those changes. Wright and his 
colleagues looked at the Atlas 14 reports and found that in some places, 
extreme storms are happening twice as often as those reports predicted.

Under its current system, NOAA only updates the Atlas 14 information 
when states both request and pay for the reports. As a result, many 
states are using data from the early 2000s. The last update for the 
Pacific Northwest was in 1973.
- -
Nationwide studies like the 2018 National Climate Assessment show 
extreme precipitation will continue to get worse around the country as 
temperatures get hotter. A study last fall from the Northeast Regional 
Climate Center found extreme rainfall in New Jersey would likely 
increase by 20% by 2100, compared to 1999. Some counties could see a 50% 
increase.

But when cities look for climate-driven rainfall information tailored to 
their region, they're mostly out of luck since NOAA doesn't conduct that 
analysis.

"There's no book," says Anna Roche, project manager at the San Francisco 
Public Utilities Commission. "There haven't been plans that have been 
developed for any of this stuff. So every city in the United States is 
grappling with this."...
- -
Upsizing a city's entire stormwater system, with miles of underground 
pipes that would need to be dug up, is far too expensive for most 
cities. Instead, many are looking at using green infrastructure, where 
pavement is replaced with plants that allow rainwater to soak into the 
ground. The hope for many is that the infrastructure bill provides 
much-needed funding to make their systems climate-ready with both 
traditional and green projects.

"I do think it's like a cultural shift that we have to make in terms of 
how we plan for our future," says Nishant Parulekar, civil engineer with 
the city of Portland. "We'll have to be very adaptable in terms of how 
we plan and build."
https://www.npr.org/2022/02/09/1078261183/an-unexpected-item-is-blocking-cities-climate-change-prep-obsolete-rainfall-reco



/[   From the Journal Nature Feb 8, 2022  ] /
*Scientists raise alarm over ‘dangerously fast’ growth in atmospheric 
methane*
As global methane concentrations soar over 1,900 parts per billion, some 
researchers fear that global warming itself is behind the rapid rise.
Jeff Tollefson

Methane concentrations in the atmosphere raced past 1,900 parts per 
billion last year, nearly triple preindustrial levels, according to data 
released in January by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric 
Administration (NOAA). Scientists says the grim milestone underscores 
the importance of a pledge made at last year’s COP26 climate summit to 
curb emissions of methane, a greenhouse gas at least 28 times as potent 
as CO2.

The growth of methane emissions slowed around the turn of the 
millennium, but began a rapid and mysterious uptick around 2007. The 
spike has caused many researchers to worry that global warming is 
creating a feedback mechanism that will cause ever more methane to be 
released, making it even harder to rein in rising temperatures.

“Methane levels are growing dangerously fast,” says Euan Nisbet, an 
Earth scientist at Royal Holloway, University of London, in Egham, UK. 
The emissions, which seem to have accelerated in the past few years, are 
a major threat to the world’s goal of limiting global warming to 1.5–2 
°C over pre-industrial temperatures, he says.

https://media.nature.com/lw800/magazine-assets/d41586-022-00312-2/d41586-022-00312-2_20096438.jpg

*Enigmatic patterns*
For more than a decade, researchers have deployed aircraft, taken 
satellite measurements and run models in an effort to understand the 
drivers of the increase (see ‘A worrying trend’)1,2. Potential 
explanations range from the expanding exploitation of oil and natural 
gas and rising emissions from landfill to growing livestock herds and 
increasing activity by microbes in wetlands3.

“The causes of the methane trends have indeed proved rather enigmatic,” 
says Alex Turner, an atmospheric chemist at the University of Washington 
in Seattle. And despite a flurry of research, Turner says he is yet to 
see any conclusive answers emerge.

One clue is in the isotopic signature of methane molecules. The majority 
of carbon is carbon-12, but methane molecules sometimes also contain the 
heavier isotope carbon-13. Methane generated by microbes — after they 
consume carbon in the mud of a wetland or in the gut of a cow, for 
instance — contains less 13C than does methane generated by heat and 
pressure inside Earth, which is released during fossil-fuel extraction.

Scientists have sought to understand the source of the mystery methane 
by comparing this knowledge about the production of the gas with what is 
observed in the atmosphere.

By studying methane trapped decades or centuries ago in ice cores and 
accumulated snow, as well as gas in the atmosphere, they have been able 
to show that for two centuries after the start of the Industrial 
Revolution the proportion of methane containing 13C increased4. But 
since 2007, when methane levels began to rise more rapidly again, the 
proportion of methane containing 13C began to fall (see ‘The rise and 
fall of methane’). Some researchers believe that this suggests that much 
of the increase in the past 15 years might be due to microbial sources, 
rather than the extraction of fossil fuels.

The rise and fall of methane: Line chart showing the proportion of 
methane containing the isotope carbon-13.
Source: Sylvia Michel, University of Colorado Institute of Arctic and 
Alpine Research

https://media.nature.com/lw800/magazine-assets/d41586-022-00312-2/d41586-022-00312-2_20096434.jpg

*Back to the source*
“It’s a powerful signal,” says Xin Lan, an atmospheric scientist at 
NOAA’s Global Monitoring Laboratory in Boulder, Colorado, and it 
suggests that human activities alone are not responsible for the 
increase. Lan’s team has used the atmospheric 13C data to estimate that 
microbes are responsible for around 85% of the growth in emissions since 
2007, with fossil-fuel extraction accounting for the remainder5.

The next — and most challenging — step is to try to pin down the 
relative contributions of microbes from various systems, such as natural 
wetlands or human-raised livestock and landfills. This may help 
determine whether warming itself is contributing to the increase, 
potentially via mechanisms such as increasing the productivity of 
tropical wetlands. To provide answers, Lan and her team are running 
atmospheric models to trace methane back to its source.

“Is warming feeding the warming? It’s an incredibly important question,” 
says Nisbet. “As yet, no answer, but it very much looks that way.”

Regardless of how this mystery plays out, humans are not off the hook. 
Based on their latest analysis of the isotopic trends, Lan’s team 
estimates that anthropogenic sources such as livestock, agricultural 
waste, landfill and fossil-fuel extraction accounted for about 62% of 
total methane emissions since from 2007 to 2016 (see ‘Where is methane 
coming from?’)...
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-00312-2



/[  Sure, why not?  ] /
*To Counter Global Warming, Focus Far More on Methane, a New Study 
Recommends*
Scientists at Stanford have concluded that the EPA has radically 
undervalued the climate impact of methane, a “short-lived climate 
pollutant,” by focusing on a 100-year metric for quantifying global warming.
By Phil McKenna
February 9, 2022
The Environmental Protection Agency is drastically undervaluing the 
potency of methane as a greenhouse gas when the agency compares 
methane’s climate impact to that of carbon dioxide, a new study concludes.

The EPA’s climate accounting for methane is “arbitrary and unjustified” 
and three times too low to meet the goals set in the Paris climate 
agreement, the research report, published Wednesday in the journal 
Environmental Research Letters, found...
- -
The EPA’s current global warming potential figure for methane is too low 
not only because it uses a 100-year time frame but also because the 
figure relies on outdated science, Hamburg said.

IPCC reports released in 2014 and 2021 placed the 100-year climate 
impact of methane at 28, while the EPA still relies on a 2007 IPCC 
report which calculated a slightly lower value of 25.

“At a minimum, they should update the numbers,” Hamburg said.

Gillespie, the EPA spokeswoman, said the agency will begin using a value 
of 28 for methane, a 12 percent increase in methane’s climate impact, in 
2024, in line with the UNFCCC international guidelines.

Phil McKenna is a Boston-based reporter for Inside Climate News. Before 
joining ICN in 2016, he was a freelance writer covering energy and the 
environment for publications including The New York Times, Smithsonian, 
Audubon and WIRED. Uprising, a story he wrote about gas leaks under U.S. 
cities, won the AAAS Kavli Science Journalism Award and the 2014 NASW 
Science in Society Award. Phil has a master’s degree in science writing 
from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and was an Environmental 
Journalism Fellow at Middlebury College.
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/09022022/methane-global-warming-study/
- -
[ Measuring danger ]
*Global temperature goals should determine the time horizons for 
greenhouse gas emission metrics*
Sam Abernethy and Robert B Jackson

Published 9 February 2022  © 2022 The Author(s). Published by IOP 
Publishing Ltd
Environmental Research Letters, Volume 17, Number 2
Citation Sam Abernethy and Robert B Jackson 2022 Environ. Res. Lett. 17 
024019
*Abstract*

    Emission metrics, a crucial tool in setting effective exchange rates
    between greenhouse gases, currently require an arbitrary choice of
    time horizon. Here, we propose a novel framework to calculate the
    time horizon that aligns with scenarios achieving a specific
    temperature goal. We analyze the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
    Change Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5 °C Scenario Database
    to find that time horizons aligning with the 1.5 °C and 2 °C global
    warming goals of the Paris Agreement are 24 [90% prediction
    interval: 7, 41] and 58 [90% PI: 41, 74] years, respectively. We
    then use these time horizons to quantify time-dependent emission
    metrics for methane. We find that the Global Warming Potential (GWP)
    values that align with the 1.5 °C and 2 °C goals are GWP1.5 °C = 75
    [90% PI: 54, 107] and GWP2 °C = 42 [90% PI: 35, 54]. For the Global
    Temperature change Potential (GTP) they are GTP1.5 °C = 41 [90% PI:
    16, 102] and GTP2 °C = 9 [90% PI: 7, 16]. The most commonly used
    time horizon, 100 years, underestimates methane's GWP and GTP by 34%
    and 38%, respectively, relative to the values we calculate that
    align with the 2 °C goal and by 63% and 87%, respectively, relative
    to the 1.5 °C goal. To best align emission metrics with the Paris
    Agreement 1.5 °C goal, we recommend a 24 year time horizon, using
    2045 as the endpoint time, with its associated GWP1.5 °C = 75 and
    GTP1.5 °C

https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ac4940



/[  well, duh.  ]/
*How Billions in Infrastructure Funding Could Worsen Global Warming*
Highway expansions tend to bring more greenhouse gas emissions. A few 
states are trying to change that dynamic, but it won’t be easy.

A Western frontier state with an affinity for the open road and Subaru 
Outbacks, Colorado’s traditional answer to traffic congestion could be 
summed up in two words: more asphalt.

But widening highways and paving new roads often just spurs people to 
drive more, research shows. And as concerns grow about how tailpipe 
emissions are heating the planet, Colorado is among a handful of 
car-dominated states that are rethinking road building.

In December, Colorado adopted a first-of-its-kind climate change 
regulation that will push transportation planners to redirect funding 
away from highway expansions and toward projects that cut vehicle 
pollution, such as buses and bike lanes...
- -
“This is a major blind spot for politicians who say they care about 
climate change,” said Kevin DeGood, director of infrastructure policy at 
the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank. “Everyone gets 
that oil pipelines are carbon infrastructure. But new highways are 
carbon infrastructure, too. Both lock in place 40 to 50 years of emissions.”

The core problem, environmentalists say, is a phenomenon known as 
“induced traffic demand.” When states build new roads or add lanes to 
congested highways, instead of reducing traffic, more cars show up to 
fill the available space...
- -
“There’s lots of money for transit, but if new transit lines are 
surrounded by hundreds of newly expanded highways, how do we think that 
will work out for the climate?” said Beth Osborne, director of 
Transportation for America, a transit advocacy group. “The status quo is 
going to win unless everything aligns to change it.”

Brad Plumer is a climate reporter specializing in policy and technology 
efforts to cut carbon dioxide emissions. At The Times, he has also 
covered international climate talks and the changing energy landscape in 
the United States. @bradplumer
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/10/climate/highways-climate-change-traffic.html



/[The news archive - looking back]/
*On this day in the history of global warming February  11, 2015*
  The New York Times reports:
"With the planet facing potentially severe impacts from global
warmingin coming decades, a government-sponsored scientific panel on
Tuesday called for more research on geoengineering — technologies to
deliberately intervene in nature to counter climate change.

"The panel said the research could include small-scale outdoor
experiments, which many scientists say are necessary to better
understand whether and how geoengineering would work.

"Some environmental groups and others say that such projects could
have unintended damaging effects, and could set society on an
unstoppable path to full-scale deployment of the technologies.

"But the National Academy of Sciences panel said that with proper
governance, which it said needed to be developed, and other
safeguards, such experiments should pose no significant risk."
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/11/science/panel-urges-more-research-on-geoengineering-as-a-tool-against-climate-change.html


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