[✔️] Dec 29, 2023- Global Warming News Digest | Hottest now, Grantham speaks, Bradbrook & Bendell, WaPo Mooney speed up, NYT summarizes, 2009 Klein

[Richard Pauli]

/*December 29*//*, 2023*/

/[ Records set - 3 minute listen ]/
*2023 will be the hottest year on record. Is this how it's going to be now?*
DECEMBER 28, 2023
HEARD ON MORNING EDITION
Lauren Sommer

As 2023 draws to a close, it's going out on top.

"It's looking virtually certain at this point that 2023 will be the 
hottest year on record," says Zeke Hausfather, climate scientist at 
Berkeley Earth, a non-profit that analyzes climate trends.

Though temperature records from December have yet to be finalized, 
climate scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric 
Administration have found there's a more than 99% chance that 2023 will 
have the hottest recorded global average temperature, beating out 2016, 
the previous leader.

The record-breaking year helped fuel climate-driven disasters around the 
globe – from extreme heat that plagued Arizona for weeks, to devastating 
floods in Libya, to record-hot oceans that caused corals to bleach off 
Florida. Scientists say the extreme temperatures are in line with 
forecasts for how the planet will continue to warm...
"If we don't change things, if we keep going on the trajectory that 
we're going, we will look back at 2023 and think of it as: remember that 
year that wasn't so bad?" says Tessa Hill, marine scientist at the 
University of California Davis.

Many months during 2023 topped the charts
2023's record-breaking status was largely fueled by extremely hot 
temperatures during the second half of the year. Every month from June 
to November was the hottest ever recorded globally.

The year will be the hottest in 174 years of record-keeping where humans 
have directly measured the temperature of the planet. It's also likely 
to be the hottest in the last 125,000 years, which scientists measure by 
reconstructing temperature records from physical evidence like tree 
rings and layers of polar ice that have grown over time.

The biggest driver of the heat is the buildup of greenhouse gasses in 
the atmosphere from burning fossil fuels.

"We know why this is happening," Hausfather says. "A year like this 
would not have occurred without the trillion tons of carbon we've put 
into the atmosphere over the last century."

The past eight years are already the hottest eight on record. Some 
scientists see evidence that the pace of climate change is accelerating, 
though others say not enough years have passed to confidently show that 
trend.
2024 could vie for the top spot
The hotter climate drove extremes around the world in 2023. Over the 
summer, Phoenix, Arizona baked for weeks, spending 31 days above 110 
degrees. More than 500 people died in the area from heat-related causes. 
But it wasn't alone – China, southern Europe and Mexico also saw intense 
heat.

"The major lesson is how unprepared we are," says Kristie Ebi, who 
studies the effects of heat at the University of Washington. "There are 
places with heat wave early warning and response systems. They certainly 
saved lives. They didn't save enough."

Heat waves hit the ocean as well. Off the coast of Florida, the water 
temperature reached 100 degrees Fahrenheit, the same conditions as a hot 
tub. Heat-sensitive corals can't survive prolonged heat, with many 
bleaching, turning a ghostly white color, or dying outright.

Even with the chart-topping heat this year, next year could be equally 
as hot. A strong El Niño has already begun, where ocean temperatures 
warm up in the eastern Pacific. El Niño years are typically hotter, 
because a large amount of heat that's stored in the ocean is released to 
the atmosphere.

Even if 2024 doesn't take the top spot, climate scientists say the years 
ahead will continue to rank highly, if humans keep burning fossil fuels 
at the current rate.

"There's absolutely still time to act," Hill says. "Everything we do to 
change course today will make things better in the future."
https://www.npr.org/2023/12/28/1221827923/2023-hottest-year-record-climate-change



/[ Billionaire gives free suggestions -- this is a fascinating 
conversation recorded Oct 24th, 2023)  ]/
*Jeremy Grantham: "Pollution, Population & Purpose" | The Great 
Simplification #99*
Nate Hagens
Nov 29, 2023  The Great Simplification - with Nate Hagens
On this episode, Nate is joined by co-founder of GMO Financial Holdings, 
Jeremy Grantham, to discuss how finance, human population, ecology, and 
pollution interact to shape current trends and what they could tell us 
about the future. Mr. Grantham unpacks why the expectations of perpetual 
growth - in the economy, standards of living, and finance - are not so 
likely and that when looking at the system holistically we should expect 
large paradigm shifts in the coming decades. What can the pattern of 
super (stock market) bubbles over the last century tell us about the 
larger resource bubble we find ourselves in? How will rapidly changing 
population demographics and fertility rates interact with the other 
global crises we face? How might endocrine disrupting chemicals impact 
these other trends? Where should investors be focusing energy and 
resources towards to make the largest and most positive impact on human 
and planetary futures?

About Jeremy Grantham:
Jeremy Grantham co-founded GMO in 1977 and is a member of GMO’s Asset 
Allocation team, serving as the firm’s long-term investment strategist. 
He is a member of the GMO Board of Directors, a partner of the firm, and 
has also served on the investment boards of several non-profit 
organizations. Prior to GMO’s founding, Mr. Grantham was co-founder of 
Batterymarch Financial Management in 1969 where he recommended 
commercial indexing in 1971, one of several claims to being first. He 
began his investment career as an economist with Royal Dutch Shell. Mr. 
Grantham earned his undergraduate degree from the University of 
Sheffield (U.K.) and an MBA from Harvard Business School. He is a member 
of the Academy of Arts and Sciences, holds a CBE from the UK and is a 
recipient of the Carnegie Medal for Philanthropy.
For Show Notes and More visit: 
https://www.thegreatsimplification.com/episode/99-jeremy-grantham
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cTvN9iFJ0fY


/[ Collapse Q & A before wise activists -- video meme text on facing 
disruption ]/
*Collapse chat with Gail Bradbrook, Jem Bendell, Indra Donfrancesco, 
Rachel Donald & Amisha Ghadiali*
Jem Bendell
Dec 26, 2023  GLASTONBURY
During 2023, the small English town of Glastonbury hosted (sometimes 
controversial) discussions about the environment and society. One 
conference explored how we might become more 'collapse ready' in 
emotional, practical, and political ways. This 'deep adaptation' event 
was organised by local residents and included an afternoon panel with 
the Green Party Mayor of Glastonbury, Indra Donfrancesco, the co-founder 
of Extinction Rebellion, Gail Bradbrook, the host of Planet Critical, 
Rachel Donald, the host of All That We Are, Amisha Ghadiali, and author 
of 'Breaking Together', Professor Jem Bendell. Joining them midway was 
Shambo, the Chihuahua.

Discussions ranged from the science and politics of climate change, to 
caring for loved ones, to whether localisation needs a complementary 
effort at international political influence. It demonstrated what a 
wide, compassionate and creative agenda can emerge from accepting the 
gravity of our ecological crisis.

The video was filmed and edited by Kevin Redpath and made possible by 
proceeds from sales of the book that was launched on the day. You can 
read a review of #BreakingTogether from Indra in the Morning Star:
https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/c/it-takes-village
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sEkntfQCc44



/[ Washington Post on current science and future risks ]/
*Is climate change speeding up? Here’s what the science says.*
This year’s record temperatures have some scientists concerned that the 
pace of warming may be accelerating. But not everyone agrees.
By Chris Mooney and Shannon Osaka
December 26, 2023
For the past several years, a small group of scientists has warned that 
sometime early this century, the rate of global warming — which has 
remained largely steady for decades — might accelerate. Temperatures 
could rise higher, faster. The drumbeat of weather disasters may become 
more insistent.

And now, after what is poised to be the hottest year in recorded 
history, the same experts believe that it is already happening.

In a paper published last month, climate scientist James E. Hansen and a 
group of colleagues argued that the pace of global warming is poised to 
increase by 50 percent in the coming decades, with an accompanying 
escalation of impacts.

According to the scientists, an increased amount of heat energy trapped 
within the planet’s system — known as the planet’s “energy imbalance” — 
will accelerate warming. “If there’s more energy coming in than going 
out, you get warmer, and if you double that imbalance, you’re going to 
get warmer faster,” Hansen said in a phone interview.
Zeke Hausfather, a climate scientist with Berkeley Earth, has similarly 
called the last few months of temperatures “absolutely gobsmackingly 
bananas” and noted, “there is increasing evidence that global warming 
has accelerated over the past 15 years.”

But not everyone agrees. University of Pennsylvania climate scientist 
Michael Mann has argued that no acceleration is visible yet: “The truth 
is bad enough,” he wrote in a blog post. Many other researchers also 
remain skeptical, saying that while such an increase may be predicted in 
some climate simulations, they don’t see it clearly in the data from the 
planet itself. At least not yet.

The Washington Post used a data set from NASA to analyze global average 
surface temperatures from 1880 to 2023.

The record shows that the pace of warming clearly sped up around the 
year 1970. Scientists have long known that this acceleration stems from 
a steep increase in greenhouse gas emissions, combined with efforts in 
many countries to reduce the amount of sun-reflecting pollution in the 
air. But the data is much more uncertain on whether a second 
acceleration is underway...
The increased rate of global warming
Values are relative to the 1951-1980 global mean temperature, in degrees
Between 1880 and 1969, the planet warmed slowly — at a rate of around 
0.04 degrees Celsius (0.07 Fahrenheit) per decade. But starting around 
the early 1970s, warming accelerated — reaching 0.19 C (0.34 F) per 
decade between 1970 and 2023.

That acceleration isn’t controversial. Prior to the 1970s and 1980s, 
humans were burning fossil fuels — but also were releasing huge amounts 
of air pollution, or aerosols. Sulfate aerosols are lightly colored 
particles that have the ability to temporarily offset part of the 
warming caused by fossil fuels. They reflect sunlight back to space 
themselves, and also influence the formation of reflective clouds.

The more aerosols in the air, the slower the planet will heat up: a 
trade-off that Hansen calls a “Faustian bargain.” The idea is that 
because the aerosol pollutants have dangerous health effects on people, 
eventually societies decide to clean them up — causing dramatic warming 
to reveal itself in the process.
In the early and mid-20th century, developed countries were so heavily 
polluted that the world was warming slowly. “This was the era of the 
London fogs and of very extreme pollution in the U.S.,” said Gabi 
Hegerl, a climatologist at the University of Edinburgh. A recent study 
in the Journal of Advances in Modeling Earth Systems, for instance, 
found that in the 1980s these particles offset approximately 80 percent 
of climate warming.

Since the 1970s and 80s, however, the influence of aerosol pollution has 
leveled off, thanks in part to policies like the U.S. Clean Air Act 
Amendments of 1990. As the figure above shows, at the same time, 
greenhouse gas emissions have climbed — leaving aerosols unable to keep 
up. The result is a planet that is warming much faster now than in the 
first half of the 20th century.

But the data is murkier when it comes to whether the pace of warming 
over the past few decades has quickened even more — an increase that 
could accelerate the wildfires, floods, heat waves and other impacts 
around the globe. It may require more years of evidence to clear the 
statistical hurdles that climate science demands.
“I think we probably need maybe three or four more years" of data, said 
Chris Smith, a climate scientist at the University of Leeds. “It’s just 
a bit too early right now.”
Scientists are wary, in part, because some had reached the opposite 
conclusion roughly a decade ago. Back then, a few scientists and many 
political commentators suggested that the rate of climate change had 
stalled or was slowing down. The case for what some called a warming 
“hiatus” was never especially strong — and in retrospect it does not 
appear that the rate of warming substantially changed — but it serves as 
a cautionary note about declarations that warming is getting faster or 
slower.

To see why matters are currently ambiguous, consider the following 
“trend of trends” figure, based on an analysis by Mark Richardson, a 
climate scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory who published a 
statistics paper last year that found that an acceleration of warming is 
not yet clearly detectable.

Richardson looked at each 30-year trend in the NASA temperature record, 
starting with the period from 1880 to 1909 and ending with the period 
from 1994 to 2023. Higher values indicate higher rates of global 
warming. Here, we show the result from the period between 1941 and 1970 
onward, to better tease out how the rate of warming changed in the 
second half of the 20th century, and whether it is still changing...
While there is a hint of an increasing warming rate at the very end of 
the record, it is nowhere nearly as pronounced as the shift since 1970. 
This helps explain why many scientists are remaining noncommittal, for 
now, on acceleration.

“The temperature near the Earth is only a thin layer, and it’s easy for 
the temperatures to swing about a lot,” Richardson said. For this 
reason, it takes longer for scientists to be sure that a change is 
outside what you would normally expect, he said.

But some scientists believe that the temperature data is simply not yet 
showing an impending acceleration.

Hansen argues that recent changes in aerosols will cause a strong 
increase in the warming rate in just the next few years. In 2020, the 
International Maritime Organization instituted a rule requiring a 
substantial reduction in the sulfur content of fuel oil. Sulfate aerosol 
pollution from ocean shipping plunged.

Much of the current debate over whether warming is getting faster turns 
on the consequences of these maritime changes, which have the potential 
to affect how much heat is being absorbed over enormous stretches of the 
world’s oceans. Hansen and his co-authors argue that the change in ship 
emissions is contributing to a major increase in the Earth’s energy 
imbalance — the extra amount of heat that is staying within the Earth 
system rather than escaping to space. But not all scientists agree that 
the pollution regulations for oceangoing vessels have had such an 
outsize impact.
“There won’t be any argument [by] late next spring, we’ll be way off the 
trend line,” Hansen said.

Some climate models also predict an acceleration of warming in the years 
to come, as aerosols decline. “While there is increasing evidence of an 
acceleration of warming, it’s not necessarily ‘worse than we thought’ 
because scientists largely expected something like this,” said Hausfather.

Most agree that it’s too early to tell if the second acceleration is 
underway. “Trying to estimate the underlying rate of warming from a 
short time period is really hard,” said Andrew Dessler, a climate 
scientist at Texas A&M University.

“Just because you get a trend that looks like it’s really rapid — that 
doesn’t tell you what the underlying rate of warming is.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2023/12/26/global-warming-accelerating-climate-change/



/[ clips from NYT agree with heat news ]/
*Earth Was Due for Another Year of Record Warmth. But This Warm?
*Scientists are already busy trying to understand whether 2023’s 
off-the-charts heat is a sign that global warming is accelerating...
- -
December’s temperatures have largely remained above normal: Much of the 
Northeastern United States is expecting springlike conditions this week...
- -
As extreme as this year’s temperatures were, they did not catch 
researchers off guard. Scientists’ computational models offer a range of 
projected temperatures, and 2023’s heat is still broadly within this 
range, albeit on the high end...
- -
For much of the past 174 years, humans have been filling the skies with 
both greenhouse gases and aerosols, or tiny particles from smokestacks, 
tailpipes and other sources. These particles are harmful to the lungs 
when inhaled. But in the atmosphere, they reflect solar radiation, 
partly offsetting the heat-trapping effect of carbon dioxide.

In recent decades, however, governments have begun reducing aerosol 
pollution for public-health reasons. This has already caused temperature 
increases to speed up since 2000, scientists estimate...
- -
Fifty-six million years ago, for instance, geologic turmoil added carbon 
dioxide to the atmosphere in quantities comparable to what humans are 
adding today. Temperatures jumped. The oceans grew acidic. Species died 
en masse.

“The difference is that it took about 3,000 to 5,000 years to get there” 
back then, Dr. Hönisch said, compared with a few centuries today.

It then took Earth even longer to neutralize that excess carbon dioxide: 
about 150,000 years.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/26/climate/global-warming-accelerating.html?unlocked_article_code=1.JE0.KGNt.srLSeeWWC_DD&smid=url-share



/[The news archive - Ezra Klein spoke up in 2009 ]/
/*December 29, 2009*/
December 29, 2009: Washington Post writer Ezra Klein excoriates members 
of the US Senate who have developed cold feet about addressing global 
warming:

    "Amidst all this, conservative Senate Democrats are waving off the
    idea of serious action in 2010. But not because they're opposed. Oh,
    heavens no! It's because of abstract concerns over the political
    difficulties the problem presents. Sen. Kent Conrad (D-N.D.), for
    instance, avers that 'climate change in an election year has very
    poor prospects.' That's undoubtedly true, though it is odd to say
    that the American system of governance can only solve problems every
    other year. Sen. Evan Bayh (D-Ind.) says that 'we need to deal with
    the phenomena of global warming,' but wants to wait until the
    economy is fixed.

    "Rather than commenting abstractly on the difficulty of doing this,
    Conrad and Bayh and others could make it easier by saying things
    like 'we simply have to do this, it's our moral obligation as
    legislators,' and trying to persuade reporters to write stories
    about how even moderates such as Conrad and Byah are determined to
    do this. They could schedule meetings with other senators begging
    them to take this seriously, leveraging the credibility and goodwill
    built over decades in the Senate. They could spend money on TV ads
    in their state, talking directly into the camera, explaining to
    their constituents that they don't like having to face this problem,
    but see no choice. That effort might fail -- probably will, in fact
    -- but it's got a better chance of success than not trying. And this
    is, well, pretty important."

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2009/12/climate_change_is_bad_but_the.html



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