[✔️] September 17, 2022 - Global Warming News Digest

[Richard Pauli]

/*September 17, 2022*//
/


/[ "Oh Max!  Where can we go?"  serious Real Estate issue ]/
*With Colorado “getting strange,” Michigan may be the place to be as 
climate changes*
Southeast and West are at higher risk of disruptions due to changing 
weather patterns, futurist says
ALDO SVALDI  -- asvaldi at denverpost.com -- The Denver Post
September 16, 2022
People who relocated during the pandemic favored areas at higher risk of 
disruption due to climate change, but they may come to regret those 
moves over the long term, futurist Greg Lindsay told a gathering of the 
Denver Metro Commercial Association of Realtors on Thursday morning.

“Americans are moving in the wrong direction,” Lindsay said of migration 
patterns during the pandemic, and even before. “Markets are underpricing 
climate risk.”

Wrong as in moving from cooler northern coastal areas and the upper 
Midwest to the Sunbelt. Wrong as in moving to Arizona and Nevada, 
popular states that suffer from ever-increasing temperatures and 
worsening drought. Wrong as in flocking in large numbers to coastal 
Florida and Miami, where rising water levels could submerge vast swaths 
of land in coming decades if powerful hurricanes don’t scrape them first.

Texas and Florida were the top inbound states for those relocating 
during the pandemic, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago. 
Speaking generally, the southeast and the western U.S., including 
Colorado, are much more vulnerable to the impacts of climate change than 
other parts of the country, according to Climate Alpha, a startup where 
Lindsay is chief communications officer.

But climate impacts can be very specific. Climate Alpha uses artificial 
intelligence to determine a “climate resilience” score for more than 
40,000 ZIP codes. It then applies those risk scores to determine future 
real estate values under different scenarios.

Custer County, for example, was a popular landing spot during the 
pandemic in Colorado. But it also has one of the highest drought risk 
scores in the country, Lindsay said.

A higher altitude shields Colorado from the extreme temperatures seen in 
states further south, but not from drought. The northern Front Range 
will likely struggle with water shortages that limit future growth as 
the region dries out, he said.

“Even in Colorado, things are getting strange,” Lindsay said. Strange as 
in the Marshall fire, where 100-mph-plus winds fanned flames in late 
December that quickly destroyed more than 1,000 homes deep in the 
populated suburbs of Boulder County, including homes of climate 
scientists working at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Where should people who want to provide their children and grandchildren 
with a more secure future look to move?
Lindsay suggests that the great migration to the Sunbelt may reverse, 
replaced by a migration to the Great Lakes region. Buffalo, New York, 
could become the new “cool” place. Some investors are buying up land in 
Ohio and others are targeting purchases in Canada. Lindsay told the 
audience he relocated to Montreal.

The Great Lakes region has developed infrastructure, lower real estate 
prices and the potential to provide a strong return for those who get in 
early, he said. Bonus points if more manufacturing comes back to U.S. 
shores.

But there are a lot of other factors that go into the decision to move, 
such as quality of life and connectivity, or the ability to travel to 
other areas. Part of the problem is that people relocating often don’t 
have a good grasp of the climate risks involved in a new place. Redfin, 
the real estate brokerage, found that when people are provided with 
flood risk scores, they were much more likely to choose safer areas.

“We now have definitive evidence that the risks posed by climate change 
are affecting where Americans choose to live. Before Redfin’s 
experiment, that was just a hypothesis,” said Redfin chief economist 
Daryl Fairweather in a news release earlier this month. “Equipping 
people with flood-risk information helps them make more informed 
decisions. Some will opt to move out of risky areas altogether, while 
others will stay put but invest in making their homes more resilient to 
disaster.”

More discussion on Denverpost.com
https://www.denverpost.com/2022/09/16/climate-change-wildfire-floods-migration-colorado-water-pandemic/ 


//

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/[  fired for seeking shelter in a storm? ]/
*Cori Bush to Amazon: “Shut Up and Work” Is Not a Climate Disaster Plan*
A new bill would set workers’ health ahead of the bald guy’s space fetish.
When Amazon wouldn’t let a team of warehouse workers pause their shifts 
in a deadly storm, the results were predictable—and it wasn’t the first 
time. Rep. Cori Bush (D-Mo.) wants to make it the last.
EMILY HOFSTAEDTER - - SEPTEMBER 15, 2022
Bush, a House freshman whose district stretches across the St. Louis 
area, is introducing a climate-focused worker protection bill motivated 
by a December tornado that killed two constituents. They were among six 
workers killed in the collapse of an Illinois Amazon warehouse where, 
according to a lawsuit filed by one of their families, managers told 
employees they would be fired if they fled. Investigators with the 
Occupational Health and Safety Administration found other issues with 
the facility and its tornado plan, but didn’t find the company liable 
for the deaths, nor impose any kind of penalty. There’s no federal law 
or regulation that meant the warehouse had to close, or that the company 
couldn’t fire staff who left to find shelter. Bush’s bill would make a 
dent in that, guaranteeing workers job protection and paid emergency 
leave during a wide range of climate disasters.

Amazon facilities’ serious injury rate is 40 percent higher than an 
average American warehouse. (Its contract drivers also get hurt and die 
disproportionately often.) Current and former employees have criticized 
the company’s handling of workers’ compensation claims, many 
characterizing the process as a runaround or alleging retaliation after 
filing injury claims. The legislation, titled the Worker Safety in 
Climate Disasters Act, bars employers from firing workers who walk off 
during life-threatening climate events.

The tornadoes that prompted the bill were part of a storm system that 
swept the Midwest last year. Its 90 victims included both the six 
Illinois Amazon workers and another eight at a Kentucky factory run by a 
different company. As tornado sirens rang out, and despite the weak 
protection both buildings offered, all were allegedly told they’d be 
fired if they didn’t keep working. An OSHA investigation of the Amazon 
warehouse identified multiple risk factors, but found no legal 
violations and imposed no penalty.

Bush’s bill guarantees two weeks’ paid leave for those unable to work in 
the wake of a climate disaster, whether injured, forced to relocate, 
facing school closures, or caring for relatives who have been affected. 
Employers would be penalized for refusing to pay staff who left or 
missed work in a disaster.

Any climate-related event with potential for great loss of life would 
meet the bill’s criteria, including earthquakes, floods, heat waves, 
hurricanes, severe blizzards, tornadoes, tsunamis, utility failures, and 
wildfires. It fines violators under the Fair Labor Standards Act, 
applying the existing penalty for wage theft: a $10,000 fine, small 
change even to a corporation a fraction Amazon’s size.

That might not seem like a big deterrent—it isn’t—but guaranteed pay 
protections, together with some legal accountability, could save the 
lives and incomes of millions of Americans. As I’ve reported, the 
climate crisis is making many of our jobs deadlier, across all kinds of 
industries, and agencies like OSHA have been largely denied (or stripped 
of) the powers that would let them protect workers from its most 
dangerous consequences.

Amazon, in particular, has a documented history of throwing workers in 
Mother Nature’s way for tiny gains to its bottom line. In 2018, two of 
its employees were killed in Baltimore when a tornado collapsed a 
warehouse wall. Workers had to drive to and work at its New York City 
facilities as tropical depression Ida took 14 lives, sparking large 
protests. Less than a month ago, a New Jersey Amazon worker died in a 
heat wave while racing to fulfill its Prime Day rush. (Amazon blamed a 
“personal medical condition” and passed out water and snacks.)

“Currently there are no protections that support job security,” Bush 
told the Intercept, “nor paid time off due to missed work because of a 
climate disaster.” Her new bill, she said, “would ensure that as climate 
disasters become more and more frequent, workers’ safety is not impeded 
by their bosses.”
https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2022/09/congress-to-amazon-shut-up-and-work-is-not-a-climate-disaster-plan/
//

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/[ enthalpy of water - making ice is more difficult than melting ]/
*Earth is heading for a tipping point as Antarctic ice sheets melt*
By Alison Bosman  Sept 9, 2022
Earth.com staff writer...
- -
The link between CO2, sea-surface temperatures and the amount of ice on 
Antarctica is clearly evidenced in the study’s data from the last 45 
million years. But one surprising finding was that ocean cooling did not 
always correspond to increases in Antarctic ice. This applies 
specifically to a period of 1 million years of ocean cooling that 
occurred between 25 and 24 million years ago. “We show that this is 
likely related to tectonic subsidence and the influx of relatively warm 
ocean water in the Ross Sea region,” said Dr. Bendle.

“We can see that ice in Antarctica is currently changing, not least with 
the loss of some ice-shelves and cracks appearing recently in the 
Thwaites Glacier, one of the largest glaciers in the region. This new 
study of Earth’s past is one of the clearest indications yet that humans 
continue to produce CO2 levels for which we can expect major ice loss at 
the Antarctic margins, and global sea-level rise over the coming decades 
and centuries.”

In fact, the researchers say their results suggest we are nearing a 
‘tipping point’ where ocean warming, caused by atmospheric CO2, will 
lead to catastrophic rises in sea levels because of melting ice sheets. 
They plan to continue to apply biomarker and machine learning approaches 
to reconstruct the climatic evolution of Antarctica and understand the 
implications for future warming and sea-level rise...
https://www.earth.com/news/earth-is-heading-for-a-tipping-point-as-antarctic-ice-sheets-melt/



[  important to know why video opinion ]
*Why the horrific heatwave in China matters to you*
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rx2yS2iIVSk



[ Not one glacier, but every one of the glaciers ]
*Please Stop Calling It the 'Doomsday Glacier'*
Losing Thwaites Glacier would be troubling, but the overly alarming 
nickname might do more harm than good.
Jackson Ryan  -- Sept. 6, 2022...
- -
The doom-and-gloom narrative feeds into a sense that we've already 
passed the point of no return, that Thwaites is already lost, which can, 
more broadly, lead to inaction. The moniker gives us the wrong idea...
We don't know for sure how Thwaites' disintegration would change sea 
levels in the short term. The glacier itself locks up about 25 inches of 
sea level rise, but most stories use the three- to 10-feet range. This 
is actually referring to the entire West Antarctic Ice Sheet being lost...
- -
The doom-and-gloom narrative feeds into a sense that we've already 
passed the point of no return, that Thwaites is already lost, which can, 
more broadly, lead to inaction. The moniker gives us the wrong idea.  ...

- -

And though extensive research shows Thwaites is in trouble, it's not the 
scientists or glaciologists or polar experts that are throwing around 
the nickname. I spoke with a number of experts associated with 
glaciology and polar research who all highlighted the fate of Thwaites 
is increasingly concerning. However, most had mixed feelings about the 
doomsday moniker, with many averse to using the title at all.

"I discourage the use of the term 'Doomsday Glacier' to refer to 
Thwaites Glacier," said Ted Scambos, a glaciologist at the University of 
Colorado, Boulder and member of the Thwaites Glacier Collaboration. 
Scambos suggested "wild card glacier" or "riskiest glacier" might be 
used in its place.

One of the chief reasons scientists feel uneasy about the phrase is that 
it suggests we're already doomed. "We are not," said Eric Rignot, an 
Earth scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The doom-and-gloom 
narrative feeds into a sense that we've already passed the point of no 
return, that Thwaites is already lost, which can, more broadly, lead to 
inaction. The moniker gives us the wrong idea.

"It's kind of too alarmist," noted Helen Fricker, a glaciologist at the 
Scripps Institution of Oceanography.
Rignot said we could still slow the retreat of Thwaites if we take 
proper action on climate, but "time is running out." That's a little 
less severe than doomsday, of course.

Another reason "doomsday" might not be a great moniker is because it 
obscures the larger problem facing the Earth's frozen areas: the 
"cryosphere." Human-induced climate change and the burning of fossil 
fuels has caused glacial retreat across the planet.

"On the one hand, it is a wakeup call, aka take these things seriously," 
Rignot said. "On the other hand, it summarizes the situation as if there 
was only one bad glacier out there."

Rignot explains that there are glaciers across the world — in East 
Antarctica and Greenland, for instance — that lock up far more water. If 
those were to disintegrate and disappear, sea level rise could be an 
order of magnitude greater than what we might see with Thwaites.

A study this week in Nature Geoscience, led by marine geophysicist 
Alastair Graham and co-authored by glaciologist Robert Larter at the 
British Antarctic Survey, shows how precarious the situation is and how 
much faster than expected Thwaites might retreat. But even Larter shies 
away from using the word "doomsday."

That's not to say Thwaites isn't important.

"Thwaites is obviously not the only glacier that matters, but it is 
objectively the most concerning glacier on Earth in terms of its 
potential to generate large amounts of sea level rise in the future," 
said Andrew Mackintosh, a glaciologist at Monash University.

So should we keep using "Doomsday Glacier"?
The coronavirus scenario is an interesting comparison. By the time the 
doomsday headlines began circulating, the World Health Organization was 
already suggesting that C.1.2 was not a variant of concern. That meant 
it was easy to drop the alarmist name.

For Thwaites, things are a little different. Scientists are concerned 
about its future. Things are getting worse. Doomsday, in this instance, 
helps bring attention to the plight of the glacier and may aid in 
understanding how problematic things have become. And perhaps it's 
already too late to change course and rename it. Even the first line of 
Thwaites Glacier's Wikipedia page says it's also known as the Doomsday 
Glacier.

"There is no getting ahead of the label," said Scambos. "On the plus 
side, the public is now aware of the area because of the power of the 
nickname."

So, though scientists might not feel all that great about it, we might 
just be stuck with it. We just can't let that hide the fact that there 
are many glaciers under threat and the threat is us: If we don't wean 
ourselves off fossil fuels, we'll continue to increase carbon dioxide in 
the atmosphere and bring about Thwaites' demise.

And the real doomsday won't be the loss of Thwaites. It will be when we 
disturb areas like East Antarctica, which locks away meters of sea 
level. If that sheet is lost, it would dramatically change the face of 
the Earth. Fricker says that's not a future that will come to pass 
anytime soon, but if we begin to see dramatic changes in that ice sheet, 
then that's when we're in real trouble.

"That's doomsday," she said
https://www.cnet.com/science/climate/please-stop-calling-it-the-doomsday-glacier/



/[ how fast can sea-waters fill an empty space? ]/
*Mediterranean Sea filled in less than two years: study*
The Mediterranean Sea was mostly filled in less than two years in a 
dramatic flood around 5.33 million years ago in which water poured in 
from the Atlantic, according to a study published Wednesday....
- -
About 5.6 million years ago the Mediterranean Sea had became 
disconnected from the world's oceans and mostly dried up by evaporation 
with its largely saline surface between 1,500 and 2,700 metres below sea 
level, the study said.

"The Atlantic waters found a way through the present Gibraltar Strait 
and rapidly refilled the Mediterranean 5.33 million years ago in an 
event known as the Zanclean flood," it said.

"Although the flood started at low water discharges that may have lasted 
for up to several thousand years, our results suggest that 90 percent of 
the water was transferred in a short period ranging from a few months to 
two years."

Previous studies have suggested that it could have taken between 10 and 
several thousands of years to fill the Mediterranean, according to the 
depth of the Gilbraltar strait.

Scientists led by Daniel Garcia-Castellanos from Barcelona's Institute 
of Earth Sciences Jaume Almera used borehole and seismic data to reveal 
a 200-kilometre-long (125-mile) channel across the Gibraltar strait that 
was carved out by the floodwaters, Nature said...
https://phys.org/news/2009-12-mediterranean-sea-years.html



/[The news archive - looking back]/
/*September 17, 2011*/
September 17, 2011:

The Occupy Wall Street movement begins in New York City. Writer Naomi 
Klein would later credit OWS for prompting a delay of the Obama 
administration's final decision on the Keystone XL pipeline.

http://youtu.be/MJ8CoxnjjZg


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