[✔️] April 20, 2023- Global Warming News Digest | US heating faster than avg, billions on capture, climate laboratory, wild wx documentary, book review "No Miracles Needed", 2007 opinion

Thu Apr 20 08:56:50 EDT 2023

/*April*//*20, 2023*/

/[ nice explanations  PBS video ] /
*Why Is The U.S. Warming Faster Than Average?*
PBS Terra
Apr 19, 2023
Check out Weathering the Future by NOVA PBS:
    - 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n2udBaZJ22I&list=PLzkQfVIJun2J5q9CIXPAlL95FSb0tJul7&index=4&t=0s

We’ve all heard that we should keep global climate change under 2 
degrees of warming, but did you know that there are many places around 
the globe that have already surpassed that? Some places around the globe 
are experiencing extreme warming, while other places have actually seen 
some cooling. So what’s with all the variation?

In this episode of Weathered, we’ll talk with a couple climate 
scientists from NOAA to dive deep into the numbers, and we’ll call up a 
resident of the fastest warming county in the U.S. to see what it's like.

Weathered is a show hosted by weather expert Maiya May and produced by 
Balance Media that helps explain the most common natural disasters, what 
causes them, how they’re changing, and what we can do to prepare.

This episode of Weathered is licensed exclusively to YouTube.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kHGt9l6U5fM

/[ Reuters report ]/
*Facing brutal climate math, US bets billions on direct air capture*
By Susanna Twidale, Valerie Volcovici, Simon Jessop and Peter Henderson
April 18 (Reuters) - The world is failing to cut carbon emissions fast 
enough to avoid disastrous climate change, a dawning truth that is 
giving life to a technology that for years has been marginal – pulling 
carbon dioxide from the air.

Leading the charge, the U.S. government has offered $3.5 billion in 
grants to build the factories that will capture and permanently store 
the gas - the largest such effort globally to help halt climate change 
through Direct Air Capture (DAC) and expanded a tax credit to $180/tonne 
to bolster the burgeoning technology...

The sums involved dwarf funding available in other regions, such as 
Britain which has pledged up to 100 million pounds ($124 million) for 
DAC research and development. That compares with $12 billion in federal 
spending to drive demand for personal and commercial electric vehicles, 
Boston Consulting Group estimated.

While bids for the U.S. DAC hub funding were due on March 13, the 
government and some companies have yet to fully disclose details about 
the applications, many of which Reuters is reporting for the first time. 
The Energy Department expects to announce winning bids this summer.

Worsening climate change and inadequate efforts to cut emissions have 
thrust the issue known as carbon removal to the top of the agenda, and 
U.N. scientists now estimate billions of tonnes of carbon will need to 
be sucked out of the atmosphere annually to reach a goal of capping 
global warming at 1.5 degrees Celsius.
- -
The biggest plant to-date is capturing only 4,000 tonnes a year and 
costs are high, the talent pool is fledgling and corporate buyers for 
the credits largely remain on the sidelines. The role of oil companies 
in the space has also raised eyebrows and developers must muster support 
for hubs from communities that have often been damaged by big energy 
projects.

Plus, the CO2 must be stored permanently.

The U.S. government has said it wants to back four hubs, and interviews 
with more than 20 state, federal, company and investor sources show at 
least nine applications have been filed in a first round, with two major 
Occidental Petroleum (OXY.N) projects also seen as strong contenders...
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/facing-brutal-climate-math-us-bets-billions-direct-air-capture-2023-04-18/

/[ Opinion - guest essay NYTimes ----  a nation complains,  what about 
the individual? ]/
*My Continent Is Not Your Giant Climate Laboratory*
April 18, 2023,
By Chukwumerije Okereke
Dr. Okereke is director of the Center for Climate Change and Development 
at Alex Ekwueme Federal University in Nigeria.
Several environmentalists last year presented Africa’s leading climate 
negotiators with a bold idea: A technology called solar geoengineering 
could protect their countries from the worst effects of climate change, 
they said. While insisting they were impartial, representatives from the 
Carnegie Climate Governance Initiative said that these technologies, 
which claim to be able to re-engineer the climate itself, either by 
dimming the sun’s rays or reflecting sunlight away from the earth, could 
quickly and cheaply turn the tide of dangerously rising temperatures — 
and that poor countries might have the most to gain...
- -
Other proposed techniques include covering deserts with plastic; 
genetically engineering plants to have brighter, more reflective leaves; 
creating or making clouds whiter; and deploying millions of mirrors in 
space. The point of all of them is to counter warming by reducing the 
amount of sunlight reaching the planet and reflecting it back to the 
stratosphere.
- -
As a climate expert, I consider these environmental manipulation 
techniques extremely risky. And as an African climate expert, I strongly 
object to the idea that Africa should be turned into a testing ground 
for their use. Even if solar geoengineering can help deflect heat and 
improve weather conditions on the ground — a prospect that is unproven 
on any relevant scale — it’s not a long-term solution to climate change. 
It sends a message to the world that we can carry on over-consuming and 
polluting because we will be able to engineer our way out of the problem.

The solar engineering technology attracting the most attention would use 
balloons or aircraft to spray large quantities of aerosols — tiny 
particles of, for example, sulfur dioxide or engineered nanoparticles — 
into the stratosphere to dim the sunlight. It’s called solar radiation 
management and it’s highly speculative.Without using the whole earth as 
a laboratory, it’s impossible to know whether it would dim anything, let 
alone how it would affect ecosystems, people and the global climate...
- -
Africa is already suffering the effects of climate change, such as 
drought, floods and erratic weather. And while geoengineering advocates 
see these technologies as a solution to such problems, the technologies 
run the danger of upsetting local and regional weather patterns — 
intensifying drought or flooding, for example, or disrupting monsoon 
cycles. And the long-term impact on regional climate and seasons is 
still largely unknown. Millions, perhaps billions, of people’s 
livelihoods could be undermined.

These technologies would also theoretically need to be deployed 
essentially forever to keep warming at bay. Stopping would unleash the 
suppressed warming of the carbon dioxide still accumulating in the 
atmosphere in a temperature spike known as “termination shock.” One 
study found that the temperature change after ending solar radiation 
management could be up to four times as large as what’s being caused by 
climate change itself.

The other risk is that geoengineering will divert attention and 
investments from building renewable energy and other climate solutions 
in Africa. The continent has received only 2 percent of global 
investments in renewable energy in the last two decades, and the lack of 
access to capital is perhaps the biggest obstacle for countries that 
would like to cut down on fossil fuels.
- -
But should we even be studying geoengineering at all? More than 400 
senior climate scientists and scholars from around the world have called 
for an International Non-Use Agreement on Solar Geoengineering. If it 
goes before the United Nations, it could result in a ban on real-world 
research on this technology.
- -
A striking example of rogue solar geoengineering is the case of the 
American start-up Make Sunsets, which recently launched balloons from 
Mexico to inject sulfur into the atmosphere with the claim this would 
offset carbon emissions. Data on the balloons’ final location, what 
happened with the released particles and any impact on warming were 
never made public.

The Mexican government was unaware of the exercise until after the fact, 
at which point officials swiftly announced a ban on solar geoengineering 
activities. The decision to test the technology without permission or 
notice was reckless, and the decision to do it in Latin America echoed 
some of the worst aspects of colonialism.

African nations should strongly resist letting their territories be used 
for experimental exercises like this. And they must join efforts to 
strengthen the de facto moratorium (under the United Nations Convention 
on Biological Diversity) on the development and deployment of these 
technologies. The technologies are potentially dangerous, and a major 
distraction from the real change that we all know wealthier nations need 
to make if we have a hope of outrunning climate devastation.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/18/opinion/geoengineering-climate-change-technology-africa.html

/[ superb documentary 2:51.11  - suitable for young scientists of any age ]/
*How Does Weather Actually Work? | Richard Hammond's Wild Weather 
Compilation | Earth Stories*
Earth Stories - Climate Disaster Documentaries
Mar 18, 2023  #richardhammond #weather #temperature
Weather is one of the most astonishing forces on earth.  With 
devastating power and spectacular beauty, no matter where on this planet 
you live.  But for most of us, how it actually works is a mystery. To 
really understand the science behind weather, Richard Hammond takes on 
some ambitious and brave experiments to show us weather like we’ve never 
seen before.
Starting with how wind actually originates, Hammond visits one of the 
windiest places on the planet, Mount Washington, New Hampshire.  He 
walks into the centre of a man-made tornado and creates a 10-metre high 
whirlwind - made of fire!  He then investigates the crucial role of 
water and tries to weigh a cloud, finds out how rain could crush a car 
and gets involved in starting an avalanche before finally finishing with 
the crucial role temperature plays in the role of weather and natural 
disasters alike.

    Wind: 00:00-56:53
    Water: 56:54- 1:43:44
    Temperature: 1:43:45-2:51:11

Subscribe to Earth Stories to watch more documentaries: 
http://bit.ly/3iUO7th
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pWe_aTPbRwE

/[ from Yale Climate Connections - book review " No Miracles Needed" ]/
*In ‘No Miracles Needed,’ the technical solutions to climate change are 
clear. The political ones? Not so much.*
In his new book, Mark Jacobson tackles the problems of climate change, 
air pollution, and energy security head-on, offering a hopeful vision of 
a future powered by renewable energy sources.
by DONALD WRIGHT
APRIL 18, 2023
- -
Mark Jacobson is a rock star in climate science, policy, and politics. 
After all, not every professor of civil and environmental engineering 
has nearly 40,000 followers on Twitter, and not every professor of 
engineering knows Leonardo DiCaprio, or can call him Leo...
- -
It was with much anticipation, then, that I read No Miracles Needed. The 
title alone is worth the price of admission. We don’t need a miracle, 
because the solutions to climate change, air pollution, and energy 
security already exist. According to Jacobson, 100% renewable energy is 
not the stuff of wishful thinking. It’s already here, because wind, 
water, and solar – or WWS for short – have the potential to 
revolutionize the world’s energy, transportation, and industrial sectors...

https://yaleclimateconnections.org/2023/04/in-no-miracles-needed-the-technical-solutions-to-climate-change-are-clear-the-political-ones-not-so-much/ 

/[ looking back at tiny moments of exhilarating progress ]/
/*April 20, 2007*/
April 20, 2007: The Washington Post reports:

    "A third of Americans say global warming ranks as the world's single
    largest environmental problem, double the number who gave it top
    ranking last year, a nationwide poll shows.

    "In the new poll, conducted jointly by The Washington Post, ABC News
    and Stanford University, most of those surveyed said that climate
    change is real and that they want the federal government to do more
    about it. But the survey also shows there is little public agreement
    about the policies the United States should adopt to address it.

    "The findings come weeks after the Supreme Court ruled that the
    federal government has the right to regulate carbon dioxide, the
    largest contributor to human-caused warming. Congress is pressing to
    enact limits on all greenhouse-gas emissions linked to climate
    change, but it remains unclear how soon the House or the Senate
    could pass such legislation."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/19/AR2007041902527_pf.html

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