[✔️] May 23, 2023- Global Warming News Digest | Hurricanes begin, Trees, Prizes, Nat Geo on Wildfires, Future of fuel, Bahamas sea level rise, book on Sea Level Rise, Pipeline heat, misleading

Tue May 23 09:29:11 EDT 2023

/*May*//*23, 2023*/

/[ CBS News ]/
*U.S.  National Hurricane Center monitors "disturbance" in the Atlantic 
as hurricane season looms*
BY ALIZA CHASAN
MAY 21, 2023

The National Hurricane Center began monitoring a large area of disturbed 
weather in the Atlantic on Sunday.

The disturbance extends a couple hundreds miles northeast of the 
Bahamas, according to NHC forecasters. It's expected to move generally 
north-northeastward over the southwestern Atlantic at 5 to 10 mph during 
the next couple of days.

The disturbance, which began a little more than a week before the start 
of Atlantic hurricane season, has just a 10% chance of becoming a 
formation in the next 48 hours, NHC experts said Sunday morning. 
Hurricane season runs from June 1 through Nov. 30.

In 2022, Agatha became the first hurricane of the season. It formed in 
late May, shortly before the official start of hurricane season.

The strength of the upcoming Atlantic hurricane season will depend on El 
Niño, a recurring climate pattern, experts from Colorado State 
University said in a report released in April. Researchers predicted in 
the report that there 13 named storms in the Atlantic region, including 
six hurricanes, two of which would be major, in the upcoming season.

The number of tropical storms and hurricanes could vary depending on how 
strong El Niño is, according to the Colorado State University report. 
Above-average temperatures in the Atlantic Ocean could also mean that 
"the potential still exists for a busy Atlantic hurricane season."
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/national-hurricane-center-monitors-disturbance-in-atlantic-hurricane-season/

/
/

/[ //The Control of Nature - in the New Yorker//- text and audio ]/
May 29, 2023 Issue
*What We Owe Our Trees*
Forests fed us, housed us, and made our way of life possible. But they 
can’t save us if we can’t save them.
By Jill Lepore
- -
Even if you haven’t been to the woods lately, you probably know that the 
forest is disappearing. In the past ten thousand years, the Earth has 
lost about a third of its forest, which wouldn’t be so worrying if it 
weren’t for the fact that almost all that loss has happened in the past 
three hundred years or so. As much forest has been lost in the past 
hundred years as in the nine thousand before. With the forest go the 
worlds within those woods, each habitat and dwelling place, a universe 
within each rotting log, a galaxy within a pine cone. And, unlike 
earlier losses of forests, owing to ice and fire, volcanoes, comets, and 
earthquakes—actuarially acts of God—nearly all the destruction in the 
past three centuries has been done deliberately, by people, actuarially 
at fault: cutting down trees to harvest wood, plant crops, and graze 
animals...
- -
At the height of the corporate tree-atonement era, a New Yorker cartoon 
showed a queue of businessmen waiting to see a guru, with one saying to 
another, “It’s great! You just tell him how much pollution your company 
is responsible for and he tells you how many trees you have to plant to 
atone for it.”

The notion that clear-cutting can be counteracted by the planting of 
trees is a political product of the timber industry. As Cohen shows, the 
phrase “tree farm” was coined by a publicist at a timber company, as was 
the motto “Timber Is a Crop.” And the notion hasn’t died. In 2020, the 
World Economic Forum announced its sponsorship of an initiative called 
1t, a corporate-funded plan to “conserve, restore, and grow” one 
trillion trees by the year 2030...

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/05/29/what-we-owe-our-trees?
//

/- -
/

/[ a related idea, safe a forest, claim a prize -- donate to XPRIZE]
/*END DESTRUCTIVE WILDFIRES*
$11,005,807
IN TOTAL PRIZE PURSE RAISED SO FAR
The $11M XPRIZE Wildfire is a 4-year competition to innovate 
firefighting technologies that will end destructive wildfires.

XPRIZE Wildfire is offered in partnership with Co-Title Sponsors Gordon 
and Betty Moore Foundation and Pacific Gas & Electric, Presenting 
Sponsor Minderoo Foundation, Bonus Prize Sponsor Lockheed Martin and 
Supporting Sponsor Conrad N. Hilton Foundation, and individual benefactors.
*PRIZE CATEGORIES*
The competition is designed to synergistically transform how fires are 
managed and fought across two tracks:

$5M Autonomous Wildfire Response Track
$5M Space-Based Wildfire Detection and Intelligence Track

$1M Lockheed Martin Accurate Detection Intelligence Bonus Prize

*THE IMPACT*
XPRIZE Wildfire will spur innovation across a wide range of firefighting 
technologies, transforming the practices of a crucial industry that have 
not seen major change in a century. The resulting technology will 
dramatically improve the detection and suppression of destructive 
wildfires, enabling safe management of all high-risk fires.
https://www.xprize.org/prizes/wildfire/
/

/- -/

/[ Nat Geo video CLIMATE 101: WILDFIRES  BY CLAIRE WOLTERS]
/*Here's how wildfires get started—and how to stop them*
In the United States, fire season lasts from June through September. 
Here’s what you need to know as seasonal winds drive flames across the 
country.
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/article/wildfires/
/

/- -/

/[ Podcast ]/
*FUTURE OF FUEL*
May 16 2021
Converting carbon into fuel is the next exciting frontier in the ever 
changing energy landscape. For this week’s Future Positive podcast, we 
get the scoop on the future of fuel with two finalists of the $20M NRG 
COSIA CARBON XPRIZE who are now successfully turning carbon into fuels.

First, journalist Amelia Abraham interviews Brooklyn based Staff Sheehan 
of Air Company,  then she catches up with Jason Salfi of Dimensional 
Energy based in Ithaca, New York.

Staff Sheehan is the Chief Technology Officer at Air Company.  He is a 
scientist and entrepreneur in the Renewables & Environment industry. 
Skilled in green chemistry, electrochemistry, process chemistry, 
chemical engineering, heterogeneous catalysis, and carbon dioxide 
conversion.

Jason Salfi is the CEO and Co-founder of Dimensional Energy, he is also 
a board member of Scale for ClimateTech which is dedicated to helping 
companies navigate time-sensitive, critical decisions throughout the 
full manufacturing process.
Enjoy listening and if you like what you hear, please subscribe, rate 
and leave us a review on Apple or wherever you get your pods.

https://www.xprize.org/podcast/future-of-fuel

/
/

/[ Sea Levels rise, new book sees how  ]/
*Why rising sea levels pose existential threat to the Bahamas – extract*
In her new book, Christina Gerhardt explains why the Caribbean island 
group faces such huge risks from climate breakdown
Christina Gerhardt
Mon 22 May 202
- -
In the Caribbean, the Bahamas are the islands most at risk due to sea 
level rise for three reasons. First, the islands have a low elevation. 
Mount Alvernia is the highest point in the islands, at just 64 metres 
(210ft) elevation. Most of the islands rest just a few feet above sea level.

Second, they consist of limestone, the Swiss cheese of geology, which is 
extremely permeable and porous. It allows saltwater to intrude, and can 
even soak it up like a sponge.
As a result, when sea levels rise, the islands will be inundated not 
only at the shoreline from sea level rise but also from underground as 
water can percolate up through the porous material. The southern tip of 
neighbouring Florida in the US, just 50–60 miles (80–100 km) away, is 
also largely limestone, which has led to inundation in the Everglades 
and Miami.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/may/22/why-rising-sea-levels-pose-existential-threat-to-the-bahamas-extract-christina-gerhardt

- -

/[ check other book stores ]/

*Sea Change: An Atlas of Islands in a Rising Ocean*

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Sea+Change%3A+An+Atlas+of+Islands+in+a+Rising+Ocean&i=stripbooks&crid=10UKH188GZKTJ&sprefix=sea+change+an+atlas+of+islands+in+a+rising+ocean%2Cstripbooks%2C138&ref=nb_sb_noss_1

/[  Opinion from Daily KOS ]/
*Global Warming in the Pipeline*
James E. Hansen,1 Makiko Sato,1 Leon Simons,2
Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff 
prior to publication.)
Monday December 26, 2022

*ABSTRACT*

    Improved knowledge of glacial-to-interglacial global temperature
    change implies that fastfeedback equilibrium climate sensitivity is
    at least ~4°C for doubled CO2 (2×CO2), with likely range 3.5-5.5°C.
    Greenhouse gas (GHG) climate forcing is 4.1 W/m2
    larger in 2021 than in1750, equivalent to 2×CO2 forcing. Global
    warming in the pipeline is greater than prior
    estimates. Eventual global warming due to today’s GHG forcing alone
    – after slow feedbacks
    operate – is about 10°C. Human-made aerosols are a major climate
    forcing, mainly via their
    effect on clouds. We infer from paleoclimate data that aerosol
    cooling offset GHG warming for
    several millennia as civilization developed. A hinge-point in global
    warming occurred in 1970
    as increased GHG warming outpaced aerosol cooling, leading to global
    warming of 0.18°C per
    decade. Aerosol cooling is larger than estimated in the current IPCC
    report, but it has declined
    since 2010 because of aerosol reductions in China and shipping.
    Without unprecedented global
    actions to reduce GHG growth, 2010 could be another hinge point,
    with global warming in
    following decades 50-100% greater than in the prior 40 years. The
    enormity of consequences of
    warming in the pipeline demands a new approach addressing legacy and
    future emissions. The
    essential requirement to "save" young people and future generations
    is return to Holocene-level
    global temperature. Three urgently required actions are: 1) a global
    increasing price on GHG
    emissions, 2) purposeful intervention to rapidly phase down present
    massive geoengineering of
    Earth’s climate, and 3) renewed East-West cooperation in a way that
    accommodates developing
    world needs.

https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/2212/2212.04474.pdf

/[The news archive - looking back -- disinformation warning - almost 
everything said is incorrect or misleading ]/
/*May 23, 2006*/
May 23, 2006: In perhaps the most hilariously demented attack on "An 
Inconvenient Truth," former Delaware Congressman and Governor Pete Du 
Pont declares in a Wall Street Journal op-ed that we don't need to 
reduce C02 emissions because C02 is "vital for plant growth."

    *Don't Be Very Worried*
    The truth about "global warming" is much less dire than Al Gore
    wants you to think.

    BY PETE DU PONT
    Tuesday, May 23, 2006

    Since 1970, the year of the first Earth Day, America's population
    has increased by 42%, the country's inflation-adjusted gross
    domestic product has grown 195%, the number of cars and trucks in
    the United States has more than doubled, and the total number of
    miles driven has increased by 178%.

    But during these 35 years of growing population, employment, and
    industrial production, the Environmental Protection Agency reports,
    the environment has substantially improved. Emissions of the six
    principal air pollutants have decreased by 53%. Carbon monoxide
    emissions have dropped from 197 million tons per year to 89 million;
    nitrogen oxides from 27 million tons to 19 million, and sulfur
    dioxide from 31 million to 15 million. Particulates are down 80%,
    and lead emissions have declined by more than 98%.

    When it comes to visible environmental improvements, America is also
    making substantial progress:

    • The number of days the city of Los Angeles exceeded the one-hour
    ozone standard has declined from just under 200 a year in the late
    1970s to 27 in 2004.

    • The Pacific Research Institute's Index of Leading Environmental
    Indicators shows that "U.S. forests expanded by 9.5 million acres
    between 1990 and 2000."

    • While wetlands were declining at the rate of 500,000 acres a year
    at midcentury, they "have shown a net gain of about 26,000 acres per
    year in the past five years," according to the institute.

    • Also according to the institute, "bald eagles, down to fewer than
    500 nesting pairs in 1965, are now estimated to number more than
    7,500 nesting pairs."

    Environmentally speaking, America has had a very good third of a
    century; the economy has grown and pollutants and their impacts upon
    society are substantially down.

    But now comes the carbon dioxide alarm. CO2 is not a
    pollutant--indeed it is vital for plant growth--but the annual
    amount released into the atmosphere has increased 40% since 1970.
    This increase is blamed by global warming alarmists for a great many
    evil things. The Web site for Al Gore's new film, "An Inconvenient
    Truth," claims that because of CO2's impact on our atmosphere, sea
    levels may rise by 20 feet, the Arctic and Antarctic ice will likely
    melt, heat waves will be "more frequent and more intense," and
    "deaths from global warming will double in just 25 years--to 300,000
    people a year."

    If it all sounds familiar, think back to the 1970s. After the first
    Earth Day the New York Times predicted "intolerable deterioration
    and possible extinction" for the human race as the result of
    pollution. Harvard biologist George Wald predicted that unless we
    took immediate action "civilization will end within 15 to 30 years,"
    and environmental doomsayer Paul Ehrlich predicted that four billion
    people--including 65 million American--would perish from famine in
    the 1980s.

    So what is the reality about global warming and its impact on the
    world? A new study released this week by the National Center for
    Policy Analysis, "Climate Science: Climate Change and Its Impacts"
    (www.ncpa.org/pub/st/st285) looks at a wide variety of climate
    matters, from global warming and hurricanes to rain and drought, sea
    levels, arctic temperatures and solar radiation. It concludes that
    "the science does not support claims of drastic increases in global
    temperatures over the 21rst century, nor does it support claims of
    human influence on weather events and other secondary effects of
    climate change."

    There are substantial differences in climate models--some 30 of them
    looked at by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
    Change--but the Climate Science study concludes that "computer
    models consistently project a rise in temperatures over the past
    century that is more than twice as high as the measured increase."
    The National Center for Atmospheric Research's prediction of 1.8
    degrees Fahrenheit warming is more accurate. In short, the world is
    not warming as much as environmentalists think it is.

    What warming there is turns out to be caused by solar radiation
    rather than human pollution. The Climate Change study concluded
    "half the observed 20th century warming occurred before 1940 and
    cannot be attributed to human causes," and changes in solar
    radiation can "account for 71 percent of the variation in global
    surface air temperature from 1880 to 1993."

    As for hurricanes, 2005 saw several severe ones--Katrina and Rita
    both had winds of 150 knots--hitting New Orleans, the Gulf Coast and
    Florida. But there is little evidence linking them to global
    warming. A team of National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
    scientists concluded that the increased Atlantic hurricane activity
    since 1995 "is not related to greenhouse warming" but instead to
    natural tropical climate cycles.

    Regarding Arctic temperature changes, the Study found the coastal
    stations in Greenland had actually experienced a cooling trend: The
    "average summer air temperatures at the summit of the Greenland Ice
    Sheet, have decreased at the rate of 4 degrees F per decade since
    measurements began in 1987." Add in Russian and Alaskan temperature
    data and "Arctic air temperatures were warmest in the 1930s and near
    the coolest for the period of recorded observations (since at least
    1920) in the late 1980s."

    As for sea ice, it is not melting excessively. Canada's Department
    of Fisheries and Oceans concluded that "global warming appears to
    play a minor role in changes to Arctic sea ice." The U.N.'s IPCC
    Third Assessment Report concluded that the rate of sea level rise
    has not accelerated during the last century, which is supported by
    U.S. coastal sea level experience. In California sea levels have
    risen between zero and seven millimeters a year and between 2.1 and
    2.8 millimeters a year in North and South Carolina.

    Finally come the polar bears--a species thought by global warming
    proponents to be seriously at risk from the increasing temperature.
    According to the World Wildlife Fund, among the distinct polar bear
    populations, two are growing--and in areas where temperatures have
    risen; ten are stable; and two are decreasing. But those two are in
    areas such as Baffin Bay where air temperatures have actually fallen.

    The Climate Science study concludes that projections of global
    warming over the next century "have decreased significantly since
    early modeling efforts," and that global air temperatures should
    increase by 2.5 degrees and the United States by about 1 degree
    Fahrenheit over the next hundred years. The environmental pessimists
    tell us, as in Time magazine's recent global warming issue, to "Be
    Worried. Be Very Worried," but the truth is that our environmental
    progress has been substantially improving, and we should be very
    pleased.

    Mr. du Pont, a former governor of Delaware, is chairman of the
    Dallas-based National Center for Policy Analysis. His column appears
    once a month.

http://web.archive.org/web/20060602003144/http://www.opinionjournal.com/columnists/pdupont/?id=110008416

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