[✔️] May 21, 2022 - Daily Global Warming News Digest -

[Richard Pauli]

/*May 21, 2022*/

/[   FEWS NET = Famine Early Warning Systems Network ]/
Today's global updates: May 21, 2022
Global | Global Weather Hazards
*Severe drought conditions are now present in the Horn and parts of 
Southern Africa*
https://fews.net/



/[ How does wealth directly affect global warming?  McKibben in The New 
Yorker ]/
*Could Google’s Carbon Emissions Have Effectively Doubled Overnight?*
A new report suggests the money that Big Tech companies keep in the 
banking system can do more climate damage than the products they sell.
By Bill McKibben - - May 20, 2022
- -
Temperatures in Chicago last week topped those in Death Valley. But, on 
Tuesday, three nonprofit environmental groups jointly released a report 
containing a different set of numbers that appear to be nearly as scary. 
They indicate that the world’s biggest companies—and, indeed, any 
company or individual with cash in the bank—have been inadvertently 
fuelling the climate crisis. Such cash, left in banks and other 
financial institutions that lend to the fossil-fuel industry, builds 
pipelines and funds oil exploration and, in the process, produces truly 
immense amounts of carbon. The report raises deep questions about the 
sanity of our financial system, but it also suggests a potential 
realignment of corporate players that could move decisively to change 
the balance of power which has so far thwarted rapid climate action.
- -
” The biggest banks, especially in the U.S., supply huge amounts of 
capital to keep the fossil-fuel industry expanding. According to Banking 
on Climate Chaos, an annual report from the Rainforest Action Network 
and other environmental organizations, JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, Bank 
of America, and Wells Fargo have together disbursed more than a trillion 
dollars to the industry in the years since the Paris climate accord was 
adopted, in December, 2015. This includes to companies developing new 
projects that scientists, Indigenous leaders, and climate activists have 
decried, from the Keystone and Dakota Access Pipelines and new fracking 
fields to drilling in areas of the newly melted Arctic.

The environmental groups point out that the companies singled out in the 
report shouldn’t be embarrassed by the numbers, which are not exactly 
their fault. Instead, they say, the numbers should empower them—and any 
other operation or individual who’s making money and storing it in the 
U.S. financial system—to insist that banks stop lending money to finance 
the expansion of the fossil-fuel system. And, if they leaned on them as 
effectively as they do on, say, aluminum suppliers, the results could be 
remarkable. Google, for instance, is one of the world’s largest 
purchasers of renewable energy. But, the report states, if it could 
reduce its “financial footprint by 43%, the emissions reduction would be 
equivalent to the carbon savings Alphabet has generated” with all that 
solar and wind power. And maybe it will—after all, when Google did the 
work on its aluminum casings, the company noted that its suppliers had 
agreed to make the recycled aluminum “available to the consumer 
electronics industry as a whole,” because “it’s a core Google principle 
to try to lift all boats.”...
- -
That’s true. New York City’s Amalgamated Bank, for instance, having 
committed to cutting its ties with the oil industry in 2016, is now 
among the nation’s few “fossil-free” banks. Although its loan portfolio 
still produces carbon (stemming from furnaces and appliances in the 
homes for which it provides mortgages, for example), that number is 
falling. So an individual could cut her carbon emissions by moving her 
accounts to Amalgamated’s vaults. But the bank’s total assets are about 
six billion dollars. Meanwhile, Apple generated more than twenty-eight 
billion dollars in the first quarter of this year alone. Taken together, 
the cash on hand of the four biggest tech companies would make them the 
fifth-largest bank in the country. If they want to bank green, they’re 
going to have to green their banks.

It’s worth asking if there’s a chance that the big banks will change. At 
Chase, Jamie Dimon said last year that “abandoning fossil fuels is not 
an option right now.” But even that declaration leaves a bit of wiggle 
room. He’s right that the flow of gas and oil cannot stop tomorrow; that 
would cause chaos. What does have to stop right now, scientists say, is 
the expansion of the fossil-fuel enterprise. As the International Energy 
Agency said last year, if the world plans on meeting the temperature 
goals that it set in Paris in 2015, “there are no new oil and gas fields 
approved for development in our pathway.” The Wall Street Journal 
summarized the I.E.A.’s dicta like this: “Investment in new fossil-fuel 
supply projects must immediately cease.”...
- -
As with any truly self-destructive behavior, an intervention is 
required. That is why the possibility of some of these big players 
performing that intervention with the banks seems so necessary. In a 
world of widening inequality, companies such as Apple or Amazon have 
emerged as almost cartoonishly rich and hence uniquely powerful in their 
ability to force change. We’re down to the last years when humans will 
have the leverage to really affect where the planet’s temperature 
settles. 2030 is just seven years and seven months away. Or, as they 
measure time at Google and Chase, thirty-one quarters.
https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/could-googles-carbon-emissions-have-effectively-doubled-overnight



/[  WAPO reports on a global campaign by Scientist Rebellion (SR) ] /
*The climate scientists are not alright*
Frustration, rage, terror, desperation: After decades of being ignored, 
scientists are resorting to more radical action to communicate the dire 
urgency of the climate crisis
By Casey Quackenbush - -  May 20, 2022
- -
As time runs out for the planet to avert a future of climate chaos, 
scientists around the world are throwing down the gauntlet. Climate 
change science has been settled for decades, yet policymakers have yet 
to take sweeping action, and greenhouse gas emissions continue to climb 
to record highs. Climate scientists began to publicly make policy 
recommendations based on their research in the late ’80s, and their 
warnings have become increasingly strident. In April, the U.N. 
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said emissions must peak by 
2025 to avoid catastrophic consequences.

Now this inaction is driving some scientists to engage in civil 
disobedience, while others are striking against the IPCC, calling for a 
halt of further reports until governments mobilize. It’s a dire 
situation that’s taking a toll on the mental health of scientists, and 
raising the question of what climate advocacy scientists should engage 
in as politicians imperil the planet.

“It’s the job of us in the science community and climate scientists to 
communicate what we understand about future projections and the current 
climate pledges as forcefully as possible,” Abramoff said of her civil 
disobedience. “It is not only necessary, but it’s right.”...
- -
“There’s a broader recognition among professional scientists that the 
data won’t carry the day,” said David S. Meyer, a sociology professor at 
University of California at Irvine. “Deep down most scientists operate 
with this religious belief that getting the truth out is what matters. 
It’s harder and harder to hold onto that belief. What do you do when you 
realize that you need to package the truth with something else in order 
to save the world?”...
- -
“The research is clear. We know we’re f-----,” said Kyle Topfer, 29, an 
environmental scientist based in Germany and full-time organizer with SR 
who was arrested on the bridge. “Civil disobedience is an incredibly 
powerful way of reconnecting society that doesn’t connect with the 
truth.”...
- -
“We are indoctrinated with this sense that we have to stay neutral,” 
Abramoff added. “That causes us to reject our humanity and suppress what 
we’re thinking and feeling about our research. It’s not healthy and it’s 
not fair.”...
- -
As world leaders continue to stall in the midst of more extreme summer 
fires and drought, scientists will “absolutely” engage in further 
disruption, Abramoff predicted.

“As you see an escalation in climate activism over time, I think you’re 
going to see an escalation of SR (Scientist Rebellion) over time,” she 
said. “Projecting is my specialty.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/05/20/climate-change-scientists-protests/


/[ heating in the deep ]/
*Deep ocean warming as climate changes*
by University of Exeter
MAY 17, 2022
Oceans have absorbed about 90% of warming caused by humans. The study 
found that in the subtropical North Atlantic (25°N), 62% of the warming 
from 1850-2018 is held in the deep ocean.

The researchers—from the University of Exeter and the University of 
Brest—estimate that the deep ocean will warm by a further 0.2°C in the 
next 50 years.

Ocean warming can have a range of consequences including sea-level rise, 
changing ecosystems, currents and chemistry, and deoxygenation.

"As our planet warms, it's vital to understand how the excess heat taken 
up by the ocean is redistributed in the ocean interior all the way from 
the surface to the bottom, and it is important to take into account the 
deep ocean to assess the growth of Earth's 'energy imbalance'," said Dr. 
Marie-José Messias, from the University of Exeter.

"As well as finding that the deep ocean is holding much of this excess 
heat, our research shows how ocean currents redistribute heat to 
different regions.

"We found that this redistribution was a key driver of warming in the 
North Atlantic."...
https://phys.org/news/2022-05-deep-ocean-climate.html

- -

/[ deeply geeky classroom instruction on how we try to plot the future ]/
*An introduction to numerical weather prediction and climate model 
uncertainly*
Dec 11, 2017  Speaker: Adrian Tompkins (ESP, ICTP, Italy)
Advanced School and Workshop on Subseasonal to Seasonal (S2S) Prediction 
and Application to Drought Prediction | (smr 2714)
2015_11_23-11_30-smr2714
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DYPqo16oOts



/[   REPEAT = Rapid Energy Policy Evaluation and Analysis Toolkit ] /
*Summary Report: The Climate Impact of **Congressional Infrastructure 
and Budget Bills*
This report describes the national-scale impacts of the Infrastructure 
Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA, H.R. 3684), which was signed into law in 
November 2021, and the Build Back Better Act (BBBA, H.R. 5376), which 
passed the House of Representatives on November 19, 2021 but remains 
stalled in the Senate. To track the impacts of
Congressional negotiations, we also model the original version of the 
Build Back Better Act introduced in September 2021 (H.R. 5376, H. Rept. 
117-130).

The report also presents two ‘benchmark’ scenarios: Frozen Policies, 
which captures the impacts of federal policies and regulations as of the 
start of the 117th Congress and inauguration of President Biden in 
January 2021; and Net-Zero Pathway, a cost-optimized pathway to reduce 
economy-wide U.S. greenhouse gas emissions 50%
below 2005 levels by 2030 and to net-zero by 2050.

This report contains macro-energy system modeling results including 
impact on carbon dioxide emissions, clean energy and electric vehicle 
deployment, fossil energy use, and more, along with estimated impacts on 
U.S. energy expenditures, capital investment in energy supply 
infrastructure, energy supply-related employment changes and 
improvements in air pollution and public health.

https://repeatproject.org/docs/REPEAT_Summary_Report_022822.pdf
repeatproject.org


/[ Clips from New Creation News -- opinion by Margaret Swedish ] /
*Habitual Mind and the Cost of Alienation*
Wednesday, May 18, 2022...
- -
What I mean is that, in our world, with the rapidity of change amid 
rising tensions, contradictions, collapses, real wars, culture wars, 
hyper-individualism tearing the social fabric apart, the physical and 
psychological impacts of raging climate change, all of that and more, we 
need to start seriously building the capacity inside and out to live 
with and through the rough times ahead of us. They are not only not 
going away or going to be resolved somehow, they are going to get worse. 
We are only at the beginning of the Age of Collapse, the end of a 
centuries-long spell in which we believed rational mind and thought, 
human ingenuity, engineering, technology, and science would solve all 
our problems. They haven't. And in some cases they have made things worse...
- -
Disconnect from the natural world (which is an impossibility) is 
dangerous indeed. When we can't read accurately the signs that nature 
sends us about the times in which we live, we lose touch with a great 
deal of reality. We live on in an unreal world that satisfies us more - 
our wants, desires, comforts, and false assurances that, despite the 
chaos and destruction, everything will be okay.

*Is it okay yet?*

This mind trick that allows us those reassurances is becoming 
increasingly dangerous now. It amazes me that the mind can be more 
powerful than the power of actual events. The dust storm in Nebraska 
last week, the record-breaking fires in record-breaking heat in the 
southwest, the mega-drought in the west (worst in 1200 years!!), the 
killer heat in India and Pakistan, the CO2 levels in the atmosphere 
higher than in millions of years, the melting ice at both poles, the 
melting glaciers and sea level rise - you know, I could go on. YOU could 
go on. We could keep adding on to pages and pages of destructive 
changes, any single one of them of such greater significance than our 
wants and desires, and yet our brains are not open enough to SEE them 
and understand what they are, why they are, and what this means for us 
NOW, not in the future, though in the future all these things will get 
worse.

How can the small nature of the economic mind embedded in the culture of 
hyper-individualism be in so strong a cocoon of denialism that it cannot 
see past that smallness to the full scope of these changes happening all 
around us and because of us? But we are learning that the "habitual 
mind" is one powerful force in our brains, like the worst of addictive 
drugs. But in this case, we don't have to keep trying to figure out how 
and where to get our next fix. All we have to do is get out of bed in 
the morning and here we are swimming in the economic narcotic of our 
consumer culture. We don't even notice what it has done to us or our 
ability to be IN life...
- -
This is how we live in our separate bubbles, without feeling, sensing, 
this undeniable interconnectedness with all that is. If you have a 
social justice orientation (and I hope you do), it's even harder to 
separate conscience from how we live, increasing the pain and the 
tension of living in this economic culture.
What would be the impact on the living communities of this planet if we 
were aware at all times of the impacts of our actions, our consumer 
choices, our "standards" of living in relation to the rest of the world? 
Would it change anything? Would developers still build developments in 
the canyons of our mountain forests? I mean, we know what the tobacco 
industry did when it discovered that smoking could kill people. It 
covered up the truth and kept manufacturing cigarettes. And we know what 
Big Oil did when its own scientists found out that emissions from 
burning oil would cook the atmosphere. But these were corporations 
greedy for profits. What about those consuming their products? What is 
our role in sustaining this toxic, unjust, capitalist system that is 
wreaking havoc on all the living communities of our planet?

We cannot yet escape some participation in this destructive economic 
system, but we can reset our priorities for living in it

There has always been the best and worst in us. And that's the choice we 
have to make now. I mean, we have always needed to make that choice, but 
now the stakes are just incredibly high. We can feel burdened by these 
moral choices, sad, unhappy, even miserable (so tune it out!), or we can 
feel empowered by it because we can begin to see the role we might play 
in a "turning" world, a transitioning world, moving away from ways of 
life that have caused so much harm to lives that might contribute to 
healing or restoring the planet's living communities - including the 
human ones.
~ Margaret Swedish
https://www.centerfornewcreation.org/new-creation-news


/[The news archive - looking back -]/
/*May 21, 2013*/
Rebecca Leber of Think Progress mocks New Jersey Governor Chris 
Christie's claim that climate change had nothing to do with Superstorm 
Sandy:

    "Of course, this isn’t about whether Sandy was 'caused' by climate
    change. It’s about whether climate change and sea level rise are
    making such storms more frequent and much more destructive...and
    that is something we can plan for...

    "What Christie fails to grasp is the impact climate change is having
    on his constituents today, including coastal flooding, powerful
    storms, sea level rise, and drought. Extreme weather has also cost
    taxpayers $136 billion in the last three years, with Sandy’s toll
    alone at $60 billion."

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2013/05/21/2039811/christie-climate-change-sandy/ 



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