[✔️] March 20, 2024 Global Warming News | Tipping point kerfuffle, Heated Spring, Amanpour home insurance, Migration, Inaction consequences,

[Richard Pauli]

/*March*//*20, 2024*/

/[ more Tipping points rants - video criticism ]/
*Hansen and Doomers and Tipping Points, Oh My!*
Climate Casino
  Mar 19, 2024
Links for today's video:

    Will earth hit a climate tipping point? Here's why experts say this
    framework is problematic:
    https://www.salon.com/2024/03/18/will-earth-hit-a-climate-tipping-point-heres-why-experts-say-this-framework-is-problematic/

    How to talk about climate change and the problem with doomerism:
    https://www.resilience.org/stories/2024-03-19/how-to-talk-about-climate-change-and-the-problem-with-doomerism/

Contact: Twitter @EliotJacobson
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AeyC2pmBa-I



/[  serious Spring  - Inside Climate News ]/
*Earlier Springs Have Cascading Effects on Animals, Plants and Pastimes*
written by Kiley Price.
- -
Research has detailed the many ways that this early spring trend could 
throw plants, animals and seasonal pastimes out of whack. As today marks 
the actual first day of spring, I thought I’d point out some of the 
impacts of these early seasonal shifts that scientists have documented 
in the past few years.

Early-blooming blossoms: Starting around the end of each March, tourists 
flock to cities across Japan and the Tidal Basin of Washington, D.C., to 
see the same thing: blooming cherry blossom trees. The vibrant petals 
transform the trees into clouds of pink, but these cotton-candy flowers 
have been blooming earlier in the past few decades, research shows.

The main issue with this premature showing is if the warm weather does 
not stick. Warm and wet conditions can come early in the season, but a 
cold snap later on has the potential to wipe out amphibians’ eggs, Katy 
Greenwald, a biologist at Eastern Michigan University, told me over email.

“Many of our local amphibians have adapted to ‘boom or bust’ years of 
reproduction, and so from a population perspective they are generally OK 
if they have a bad year in terms of offspring survival,” she says. “It 
could certainly be a problem if there are a bunch of ‘bad years’ in a 
row, though.”

Amphibians aren’t the only animal species reacting to these seasonal 
changes; early springs are also messing with bird migrations and bear 
hibernations...
- -
“The general consensus is that climate change is causing phenological 
shifts,” or changes in the timing of breeding, in a lot of amphibians, 
Mark Kirk, an amphibian researcher at Allegheny College in Pennsylvania, 
told me over email in late February.

In 2019, Kirk and his colleagues published a study reviewing 23 years of 
annual survey data for the spotted salamanders during spring migrations 
to analyze the potential impacts of climate change on phenology. At the 
time, there was not a long-term pattern in these shifts, but he said 
“the past two years have been a very different story” as different parts 
of the country have experienced abnormal temperatures.

“I am expecting the timing patterns from these past two years to be much 
earlier arrival dates than our historic surveys” in northwestern 
Pennsylvania, he added.

I checked in with Kirk yesterday, and he told me the breeding season is 
currently “in full swing” and that the first arrival of spotted 
salamanders was 16 days earlier compared with 2023. Scientists are 
seeing similar trends with other native amphibians such as wood frogs.

The main issue with this premature showing is if the warm weather does 
not stick. Warm and wet conditions can come early in the season, but a 
cold snap later on has the potential to wipe out amphibians’ eggs, Katy 
Greenwald, a biologist at Eastern Michigan University, told me over email.

“Many of our local amphibians have adapted to ‘boom or bust’ years of 
reproduction, and so from a population perspective they are generally OK 
if they have a bad year in terms of offspring survival,” she says. “It 
could certainly be a problem if there are a bunch of ‘bad years’ in a 
row, though.”

Amphibians aren’t the only animal species reacting to these seasonal 
changes; early springs are also messing with bird migrations and bear 
hibernations.
https://mailchi.mp/insideclimatenews/the-domino-effect-of-earlier-spring?e=a5c7f20e91



/[ Amanpour&Co.  16 min video ]/
*Floods, Wildfires & Hurricanes: US Home Insurance Teeters on Financial 
Crisis | Amanpour and Company*
Amanpour and Company
  Mar 19, 2024  #amanpourpbs
Around the world, climate change is impacting the way we live. In the 
U.S., the housing crisis is being pushed to the brink as insurers 
struggle to cover homes impacted by natural disasters. Bloomberg 
reporter Leslie Kaufman joins Hari Sreenivasan to discuss her recent 
reporting on this very issue.
Originally aired on March 19, 2024
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7ldHDT6Soo



/[ Migration by force or by choice - migration nations serious 
discussions ]/
*Day 2 - Climate Change and Human Migration: An Earth Systems Science 
Perspective*
National Academies -
March 18, 2024
Climate change and associated impacts (e.g., sustained droughts, 
repeated and severe flooding, increased frequency and intensity of 
hurricanes and cyclones, saltwater intrusion into coastal aquifers, 
increased risks of wildfire), affect people, and these impacts 
potentially lead to temporary or permanent displacement within regions. 
This workshop will consider how an Earth systems science approach could 
be used to address climate change impacts, as discussed in the 2021 
National Academies’ report, Next Generation Earth Systems Science at the 
National Science Foundation, and their influence on human migration.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gJuls4Y8GGg


/[  DW consistently delivers trusted and powerful video reports ]/
*Many parts of the world soon uninhabitable if we don't act on climate 
crisis faster | DW News*
DW News
Mar 19, 2024  #ClimateCrisis #Oceans #GlobalWarming
Records in global temperatures, greenhouse gas emissions, and ocean heat 
were broken last year – according to a new report from the UN's World 
Meteorological Organization. This led to 90 percent of the world's ocean 
experiencing heatwaves last year - and one impact of those heatwaves is 
coral bleaching. It devastates marine ecosystems and leads to economic 
losses in coastal communities. Volunteers in the Indian coastal region 
of Goa are now trying different ways to give heat-stressed corals a new 
lease of life.

For more on this, we talk to Henna Hundal. She is a delegate to the UN 
Climate Change Conferences, and a climate and policy researcher at 
Stanford University in California.

And we talk to our Climate Correspondent Louise Osborne.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ANK8dwtFSUM



/[ The news archive - worth knowing of the political snark  ]/
/*March 20, 2015 */
March 20, 2015: The New York Times reports:

    *McConnell Urges States to Help Thwart Obama’s ‘War on Coal’*
    By Coral Davenport
    March 19, 2015
    WASHINGTON — Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky has begun an
    aggressive campaign to block President Obama’s climate change agenda
    in statehouses and courtrooms across the country, arenas far beyond
    Mr. McConnell’s official reach and authority.

    The campaign of Mr. McConnell, the Senate majority leader, is aimed
    at stopping a set of Environmental Protection Agency regulations
    requiring states to reduce carbon pollution from coal-fired power
    plants, the nation’s largest source of greenhouse gas emissions.

    Once enacted, the rules could shutter hundreds of coal-fired plants
    in what Mr. Obama has promoted as a transformation of the nation’s
    energy economy away from fossil fuels and toward sources like wind
    and solar power. Mr. McConnell, whose home state is one of the
    nation’s largest coal producers, has vowed to fight the rules.

    Since Mr. McConnell is limited in how he can use his role in the
    Senate to block regulations, he has taken the unusual step of
    reaching out to governors with a legal blueprint for them to follow
    to stop the rules in their states. Mr. McConnell’s Senate staff, led
    by his longtime senior energy adviser, Neil Chatterjee, is
    coordinating with lawyers and lobbying firms to try to ensure that
    the state plans are tangled up in legal delays.
    On Thursday, Mr. McConnell sent a detailed letter to every governor
    in the United States laying out a carefully researched legal
    argument as to why states should not comply with Mr. Obama’s
    regulations. In the letter, Mr. McConnell wrote that the president
    was “allowing the E.P.A. to wrest control of a state’s energy policy.”

    To make his case, Mr. McConnell is also relying on a network of
    powerful allies with national influence and roots in Kentucky or the
    coal industry. Within that network is Laurence H. Tribe, a highly
    regarded scholar of constitutional law at Harvard Law School and a
    former mentor of Mr. Obama’s. Mr. Tribe caught Mr. McConnell’s
    attention last winter when he was retained to write a legal brief
    for Peabody Energy, the nation’s largest coal producer, in a lawsuit
    against the climate rules.

    In the brief, Mr. Tribe argued that Mr. Obama’s use of the existing
    Clean Air Act to put forth the climate change regulations was
    unconstitutional. He then echoed that position in an op-ed article
    in The Wall Street Journal. He argued that in requiring states to
    cut carbon emissions, and thus to change their energy supply from
    fossil fuels to renewable sources, the agency is asserting executive
    power far beyond its lawful authority.
    Peabody Energy has been the fourth-largest contributor to Mr.
    McConnell’s election campaigns over the course of his political
    career, and his office maintains close and frequent communication
    with the company.

    In addition to stopping state-level enactment of the climate rules,
    Mr. McConnell’s strategy is intended to undercut Mr. Obama’s
    position internationally as he tries to negotiate a global climate
    change treaty to be signed in Paris in December. The idea is to
    create uncertainty in the minds of other world leaders as to whether
    the United States can follow through on its pledges to cut emissions.
    “We’ve seen modern lobbying strategies that become a very large
    campaign, coordinated with states and localities, but we’ve never
    seen a Senate majority leader or House speaker in front of it,” said
    James Thurber, director of the Center for Congressional and
    Presidential Studies at American University in Washington. “It’s
    quite clever. It’s sophisticated and unusual.”

    As he campaigned across Kentucky’s economically ravaged coal towns
    last fall, Mr. McConnell frequently declared that he would do
    everything in his power to battle what he calls Mr. Obama’s “war on
    coal.”

    Although Republicans now control both chambers of Congress and could
    summon a simple majority of votes for legislation to block or delay
    the climate regulations, they do not have the majorities necessary
    to override a Democratic filibuster or a presidential veto. Blocking
    Mr. Obama’s climate policies is also difficult for lawmakers because
    the regulations largely sidestepped Congress.
    Using its existing authority, the E.P.A. will require each state to
    submit an individual plan for cutting emissions from power plants.
    Ultimately, the success or failure of the plan will depend on how —
    and if — states comply with the rules. It will also depend on the
    courts. Coal-dependent states and coal mining companies are already
    planning legal challenges to the regulations.
    Those coal-dependent states are where Mr. McConnell has trained his
    fire.

    Mr. McConnell opened his campaign on March 3 with an op-ed article
    published in The Lexington Herald-Leader in Kentucky with the
    headline, “States should reject Obama mandate for clean-power
    regulations.” Mr. McConnell urged governors to refuse to submit
    climate change compliance plans to the E.P.A., citing the arguments
    of Mr. Tribe.

    Mr. McConnell contends that the Obama administration has bypassed
    Congress and stretched the boundaries of existing law to impose
    climate change regulations — and that he intends to step outside of
    Congress and use creative legal methods to push back.

    “The E.P.A. is bypassing Congress and the American people by
    unilaterally proposing these crippling regulations that would wreak
    havoc on our economy and are clearly unprecedented,” he said. “I
    have used and will continue to use all of the tools available to
    protect families and jobs, whether that be in Congress, or outside
    of the legislative process.”

    Advocates of Mr. Obama’s climate change agenda called Mr.
    McConnell’s actions nearly unprecedented, and a spokesman for the
    White House assailed Mr. McConnell’s moves.

    “Climate change is one of the most pressing challenges that we face,
    and instead of offering solutions, Senator McConnell’s alternative
    is an inappropriate and unfounded attempt to dictate state
    decisions,” said Frank Benenati, the spokesman. “E.P.A. is following
    the law by proposing clean-air standards to tackle the largest
    sources of carbon pollution — the power sector,” he said.
    While some governors oppose the climate change plan, others are
    preparing to comply. On Thursday, the National Governors Association
    announced that four states — Michigan, Missouri, Pennsylvania and
    Utah — would take part in a program to prepare to meet the
    climate-change regulations.

    But longtime experts in the field of climate change law and policy
    say that Mr. McConnell’s unconventional efforts could prove formidable.

    “The majority leader is a master tactician,” said Scott Segal, a
    lobbyist with the law firm Bracewell & Giuliani and the director of
    the Electric Reliability Coordinating Council, which represents
    power companies. “He understands the legal vulnerabilities, and he’s
    acutely aware that not all solutions go through traditional
    legislative channels.”

    Over the coming weeks and months, Mr. McConnell’s office intends to
    continue to push to undermine the climate regulations, using a host
    of legal, lobbying and legislative tools.

    Less than a week after Mr. McConnell’s op-ed article citing Mr.
    Tribe, Mr. McConnell’s friend and fellow Republican, Representative
    Ed Whitfield of Kentucky, was the chairman of a House hearing
    designed to highlight the legal challenges to the climate change
    law. Mr. Whitfield called as his star witness Mr. Tribe — who in
    testimony likened Mr. Obama’s climate change rules to “burning the
    Constitution.”
    In April, Mr. Tribe, representing Peabody Energy, is set to deliver
    oral arguments in the first federal court case about Mr. Obama’s
    climate change rules.

    Mr. McConnell’s efforts come on top of an initial groundswell of
    efforts by Republican governors from coal-dependent states to push
    back at the rules. Twelve states have already filed suit against the
    rules.

    In Washington, a coalition of nearly 200 industry and lobbying
    groups, led by the Chamber of Commerce and the National Association
    of Manufacturers, has been working together for months on a set of
    legal and legislative tactics, both in Washington and the states, to
    block the rules.
    https://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/20/us/politics/mitch-mcconnell-urges-states-to-help-thwart-obamas-war-on-coal.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/20/us/politics/mitch-mcconnell-urges-states-to-help-thwart-obamas-war-on-coal.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=first-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=1


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