<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8">
</head>
<body text="#000000" bgcolor="#FFFFFF">
<font size="+1"><i>September 1, 2017</i></font><br>
<b><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://www.miamiherald.com/news/weather/hurricane/article170542417.html"><br>
Hurricane Irma strengthens to major Cat 3 storm</a></b><br>
Forecasters are monitoring the storm as it makes its way across the
Atlantic, but it's too early to tell where it might strike.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="http://www.miamiherald.com/news/weather/hurricane/article170542417.html">http://www.miamiherald.com/news/weather/hurricane/article170542417.html</a><br>
<br>
<br>
Climate Law Blog<b> <br>
<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://blogs.law.columbia.edu/climatechange/2017/08/31/climate-law-issues-related-to-hurricane-harvey/">Climate
law/policy issues raised by Harvey, will TX ever learn + change?</a></b><br>
Here, the team of lawyers at the Sabin Center offers a brief primer
on eleven key climate law issues highlighted by and likely to arise
due to Hurricane Harvey:<b><br>
1. Disaster Recovery Legislation:</b> As a presidentially-declared
disaster area, Harris County, Texas is eligible for several forms of
assistance pursuant to federal law. Federal disaster recovery
legislation takes two basic forms. The first divides disaster
mitigation and recovery responsibilities between the Federal
Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the Department of Housing and
Urban Development (HUD). The second is one-time appropriations that
fund recovery efforts in disaster areas. <br>
<b>2. Flood Insurance Reform: </b>The National Flood Insurance
Program (NFIP) is in a bad way. Even before Hurricane Harvey struck,
the Government Accountability Office identified the NFIP as being
"high risk" in fiscal terms because, since Hurricanes Katrina and
Rita struck in 2005, it has accrued debt to the Treasury—totaling
just under $25 billion in July 2017—faster than it has been able to
repay it. ...<br>
<b>3. Flood Maps:</b> As part of its nationwide Coastal Flooding
Risk Study Process, FEMA recently updated the Flood Insurance Rate
Maps (FIRMs) for large portions of Harris County. ...<br>
<b>4. Flood Protection for Federal Projects:</b> Ironically, just
ten days before Hurricane Harvey made landfall, President Trump
signed an executive order revoking the Federal Flood Risk Management
Standard (FFRMS). ...FFRMS was intended to ensure federally-funded
projects in and near floodplains are built to withstand the effects
of future flooding, taking into account climate change. ..<br>
<b>5. Controlling Air Emissions from Damaged Facilities:</b> The
regulations require states to impose limits on facility emissions of
covered pollutants during periods of startup, shutdown, and
malfunction..<br>
<b>6. Handling Toxic Pollutants and Discharges of Toxic Water
Pollution: </b>Flood-related discharges of toxic and conventional
pollutants into waters of the U.S. exceeding effluent standards
could violate facilities' National Pollutant Discharge Elimination
System permits and Section 402 of the Clean Water Act (CWA)...<br>
<b>7. Chemical Safety:</b> On August 31, an Arkema chemical plant in
Crosby, about 30 miles north of downtown Houston, suffered several
explosions. ..<br>
<b>8. Damage to Superfund Sites: </b>There are sixteen federal
Superfund sites in Harris County—more than any other county in
Texas—as well as numerous Superfund sites located in adjacent
counties and toxic waste sites managed under the state Superfund
program..<br>
<b>9. Zoning and Building Codes: </b>Even if Houston were not
located in the crosshairs of storms like Harvey, its largely
unregulated development would still make its population and assets
susceptible to floods. ..<br>
<b>10. Public utilities:</b> It is almost certain that much of the
utility equipment in the area affected by Harvey has been damaged or
destroyed, requiring enormous capital expenditures. ..<br>
<b>11. Climate Change Attribution and Hurricanes: </b>Numerous
scientists have suggested that Hurricane Harvey was fueled, at least
in part, by the warming climate. This raises the question of whether
greenhouse gas emitters or fossil fuel companies can be held liable
for their contribution to climate change and the corresponding
damages caused by Harvey. ..<br class="">
<div class=""><a
href="http://blogs.law.columbia.edu/climatechange/2017/08/31/climate-law-issues-related-to-hurricane-harvey/"
class="">http://blogs.law.columbia.edu/climatechange/2017/08/31/climate-law-issues-related-to-hurricane-harvey/</a></div>
<br>
<br>
<b><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://www.cnbc.com/2017/08/31/investing-power-vanguard-votes-against-exxon-mobil-on-climate-change.html">Exxon
Mobil loses support of a powerful voice in climate change policy</a></b><br>
- Proxy voting records released Thursday by Vanguard Group revealed
that for the first time it voted against Exxon Mobil management to
require a climate report of the oil and gas giant.<br>
- In recent years, Vanguard had been a laggard compared to BlackRock
and State Street Global Advisors in supporting shareholder
resolutions on climate change.<br>
- Vanguard came under attack last month by Walden Asset Management
for its own disclosure policy on climate, a battle it headed off by
advancing several proactive measures.<br>
- Overall, Vanguard showed a little more of a "dissident" streak in
its proxy votes this year over issues of gender, diversity,
environment and board directors.<br>
Eric Rosenbaum | @erprose<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.cnbc.com/2017/08/31/investing-power-vanguard-votes-against-exxon-mobil-on-climate-change.html">https://www.cnbc.com/2017/08/31/investing-power-vanguard-votes-against-exxon-mobil-on-climate-change.html</a><br>
<br>
<br>
Insurance Journal<br>
<b><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://www.insurancejournal.com/news/national/2017/08/31/462984.htm">Climate
Change and Hurricanes - The Worst Is Yet to Come</a></b><br>
The biggest impact multiplier in many storms won't be slowness and
stalling, as much as human decisions on the ground. Building a city
in a flood plain, for example, is just asking for it. "My hunch is
that signal would be greater than the anthropogenic signal of the
storm itself," he said. The 2015 study, however, didn't analyze any
changes in population or urbanization that, in the real world,
strongly influence hurricane damages.<br>
Lackman continues to test models that are useful in taking apart big
storms, and he said he expects to give close attention to Harvey—the
event itself and its many computer clones. But that'll take a year
or two, and this hurricane season isn't even over yet. In fact, the
letter "I" on the National Hurricane Center's 2017 naming list was
recently assigned: Tropical Storm Irma is on its way west.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="http://www.insurancejournal.com/news/national/2017/08/31/462984.htm">http://www.insurancejournal.com/news/national/2017/08/31/462984.htm</a><br>
<br>
<br>
<b><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://www.chron.com/business/columnists/tomlinson/article/Harvey-reveals-corporate-hubris-regarding-safety-12164662.php">Harvey
reveals corporate hubris regarding safety</a></b><br>
Richard Rennard, the president of Arkema, shrugged his shoulders
when asked what more his company could have done to prevent
chemicals from burning at his plant in Crosby.<br>
He rattled off the systems his company employed to chill the organic
peroxides: Grid power, back-up generators, nitrogen coolers and
ultimately refrigerated trailers. On Thursday the refrigerator
systems began shutting down and the peroxides began burning and
blowing the lids off their containers.<br>
After the disaster at the Fukushima nuclear power plant in Japan,
every facility with dangerous materials should know to keep back-up
generators above any potential flood line. Yet that precaution
escaped Arkema.<br>
Rennard's fatalism in the face of a natural disaster is
disingenuous. Experts identified the plant as high-risk, and Arkema
could have designed a more resilient facility. But it didn't, most
likely because management considered the risk too low and the costs
too high.<br>
We know this because the Houston Chronicle identified Arkema as a
potentially dangerous plant in an award-winning 2016 investigative
series called "Chemical Breakdown." In response to my colleague Matt
Dempsey's inquiries about safety, plant manager Wendal Turley
assured the newspaper that every precaution had been taken.<br>
"The safety of our workforce and community are paramount in
everything we do. We take our commitment to safe operations and
compliance with federal and state regulations very seriously,"
Turley wrote. "We regularly meet with our community and local
officials and strive to be a good neighbor at all times."<br>
Arkema executives told their neighbors to flee their homes this
week. No one is explaining why Arkema didn't simply dilute the
peroxides, which would have ruined them, but at least would have
prevented the fires and explosions.<br>
Let's be honest, Harvey is not causing accidents. The storm is
revealing the risks executives willingly took. No one has the right
to shrug their shoulders and say, "C'est la vie."<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="http://www.chron.com/business/columnists/tomlinson/article/Harvey-reveals-corporate-hubris-regarding-safety-12164662.php">http://www.chron.com/business/columnists/tomlinson/article/Harvey-reveals-corporate-hubris-regarding-safety-12164662.php</a><br>
<b><br>
<br>
</b><b><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=siladGzSKJI">(video)
George Monbiot: We Can't Be Silent on Climate Change or the
Unsustainability of Capitalist System</a></b><br>
While Houston continues to deal with the aftermath of Hurricane
Harvey, we look at the media silence on the human contribution to
the record-breaking storm. British journalist and author George
Monbiot wrote that despite 2016 being the hottest year on record,
the combined coverage during the evening and Sunday news programs on
the main television networks amounted to a total of 50 minutes in
all of last year. "Our greatest predicament, the issue that will
define our lives, has been blotted from the public's mind," he
wrote. The silence has been even more resounding on climate-related
disasters in areas of the world where populations are more
vulnerable—most recently, on the devastating floods across the
globe, from Niger to South Asia. Over the past month, more than
1,200 people have died amid flooding in Bangladesh, Nepal and India.
This year's monsoon season has brought torrential downpours that
have submerged wide swaths of South Asia, destroying tens of
thousands of homes, schools and hospitals. Meanwhile, in Niger, West
Africa, thousands of people have been ordered to leave their homes
in the capital Niamey after several days of heavy downpours. We
speak with Monbiot, columnist at The Guardian. His book, "Out of the
Wreckage: A New Politics for an Age of Crisis," will be out this
week.<br>
<font size="-1" color="#666666"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=siladGzSKJI">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=siladGzSKJI</a></font><br>
<b>Transcript <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.democracynow.org/2017/8/31/george_monbiot_we_cant_be_silent">https://www.democracynow.org/2017/8/31/george_monbiot_we_cant_be_silent</a></b><br>
We go now to Oxford in Britain to speak to George Monbiot. He's a
columnist with The Guardian. His book, Out of the Wreckage: A New
Politics for an Age of Crisis, is out this week. His latest article
for The Guardian is headlined "Why are the crucial questions about
Hurricane Harvey not being asked?"<br>
George Monbiot, welcome back to Democracy Now! Well, answer your
question:<br>
<b>GEORGE MONBIOT: </b>Well, because to ask those questions is to
challenge everything. It's to challenge not just Donald Trump, not
just current environmental policy. It's to challenge the entire
political and economic system. And it is to recognize that the
system which we tell ourselves is the best system you could possibly
have, of neoliberal capitalism, which will deliver the optimum
outcomes and the best of all possible worlds, actually is destined
to push us towards catastrophe, and unless we replace that system
with a better one, with something really quite different, then it
will destroy us. Instead of making us more prosperous, more
comfortable, it will rip apart everything that makes our lives worth
living, and result in the deaths of very large numbers of people.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.democracynow.org/2017/8/31/george_monbiot_we_cant_be_silent">https://www.democracynow.org/2017/8/31/george_monbiot_we_cant_be_silent</a><br>
<br>
<br>
<div><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://medium.com/@huntercutting/harvey-rainfall-and-climate-change-c7032dbef0e1"><b>Harvey,
Rainfall, and Climate Change</b></a></div>
<div>What We Know..All of the available evidence, and there is
plenty of it, clearly points to a very strong role for climate
change, driven by carbon pollution, in helping to fuel the
unprecedented rainfall delivered by Hurricane Harvey. When, and
if, a formal modeling study is done, we will learn more then.</div>
<div><a
href="https://medium.com/@huntercutting/harvey-rainfall-and-climate-change-c7032dbef0e1">https://medium.com/@huntercutting/harvey-rainfall-and-climate-change-c7032dbef0e1</a></div>
<br>
<br>
<b><a
href="https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2017/8/28/16213268/harvey-climate-change">Climate
change did not "cause" Harvey, but it's a huge part of the story</a></b><br>
9 things we can say about Harvey and climate.<br>
Updated by David Roberts @drvox <a
class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:david@vox.com">david@vox.com</a>
<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2017/8/28/16213268/harvey-climate-change">https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2017/8/28/16213268/harvey-climate-change</a><br>
<br>
<br>
<b><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://oregonstate.edu/ua/ncs/archives/2017/aug/study-methane-tundra-ocean-floor-didn%E2%80%99t-spike-during-previous-natural-warming-peri">Study:
Methane from tundra, ocean floor didn't spike during previous
natural warming period</a></b><br>
CORVALLIS, Ore. - Scientists concerned that global warming may
release huge stores of methane from reservoirs beneath Arctic tundra
and deposits of marine hydrates - a theory known as the "clathrate
gun" hypothesis - have turned to geologic history to search for
evidence of significant methane release during past warming events.<br>
A new study published this week in the journal Nature suggests,
however, that the last ice age transition to a warmer climate some
11,500 years ago did not include massive methane flux from marine
sediments or the tundra. Instead, the likely source of rising levels
of atmospheric methane was from tropical wetlands, authors of the
new study say.<br>
While this certainly is good news, the study also points at a larger
role of humans in the recent methane rise, noted Edward Brook, an
Oregon State University paleoclimatologist and co-author on the
study<br>
"Our findings show that natural geologic emissions of methane - for
example, leakage from oil seeps or gas deposits in the ground - are
much smaller than previously thought," Brook said. "That means that
a greater percentage of the methane in the atmosphere today is due
to human activities, including oil drilling, and the extraction and
transport of natural gas."<br>
The study suggests that human emissions of geologic methane may be
as much as 25 percent higher than previous estimates. Although not
as abundant as carbon dioxide, methane is a much more powerful
greenhouse gas and therefore the rising levels are an important
contributor to global warming.<br>
"This means we have even more potential to fight global warming by
curbing methane emissions from our fossil fuel use," said Vasilii
Petrenko, an associate professor of earth and environmental sciences
at the University of Rochester, and lead author on the study.<br>
Anthropogenic methane emissions are the second largest contributor
to global warming after carbon dioxide, but there has been
uncertainty as to the source of that methane and whether it has
changed over time, Brook noted. The new study sheds light on the
issue by analyzing levels of atmospheric methane from the last
deglaciation in air bubbles that have been trapped in pristine ice
cores from Antarctica's Taylor Glacier.<br>
The researchers were able to estimate the magnitude of methane
emissions from roughly 11,500 years ago by measuring radioactive
carbon isotopes in methane, (carbon-14, also known as 14C or
radiocarbon), which decay fairly rapidly. Methane released from
those marine hydrates and permafrost is old enough that any 14C
originally present has now decayed away.<br>
They found that amount of methane from ancient "14C-free sources"
was very low - less than 10 percent of the total methane - during
the entire range of sampling, from 11,800 to 11,300 years ago.<br>
"A lot of people have painted the Arctic as a methane time bomb,"
Brook said, "but this shows that it may be more stable than we
thought. Past performance isn't always a predictor of the future,
but it is a good analog. We should be more concerned about
anthropogenic sources of methane into the atmosphere, which continue
to increase."<br>
The levels of 14C in the ice cores suggest that the increase in
methane during the last deglaciation had another source - likely
from tropical wetlands, said Christo Buizert, an Oregon State
University researcher and co-author on the paper.<br>
"Methane is not stored in the tropics for long periods of time, but
produced every day by microbial activity in wetlands," Buizert said.
"We know from other studies that rainfall increased in the tropics
during the last warming period, and that likely created more
wetlands that produced the additional methane."<br>
Atmospheric methane has increased from 750 parts per billion in the
year 1750 to more than 1,800 parts per billion today - mostly from
anthropogenic sources, especially leakage from fossil fuel
production, the creation of rice paddies, and cattle ranching, the
researchers say.<br>
"All of the natural gas that we mine is very old and leaking
inevitably occurs during that process," Brook said. "Natural gas is
considered a cleaner energy source than coal, but it can be a
significant problem depending on how much of the methane is leaking
out."<br>
The key to documenting the source of atmospheric methane is the
pristine ice cores of Taylor Glacier in Antarctica, where dry, windy
conditions have allowed this ancient ice to be slowly brought to the
surface. One reason scientists had yet to pin down the sources of
methane during the last ice age is that the amount of 14C is so
small, it takes enormous amounts of ice to get enough air to measure
the isotope.<br>
In fact, it takes some 2,000 pounds of ice, running a melting
instrument over three days, to get enough air to produce one sample
of measurable 14C. Drilling down in the center of the ice sheet to
find that much ice from the end of the last ice age would be
prohibitively costly and labor-intensive, but the unique conditions
at Taylor Glacier - pushing that old ice toward the surface - made
it possible.<br>
Brook and Buizert are on the faculty of OSU's College of Earth,
Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences<br>
<font size="-1" color="#666666"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="http://oregonstate.edu/ua/ncs/archives/2017/aug/study-methane-tundra-ocean-floor-didn%E2%80%99t-spike-during-previous-natural-warming-peri">http://oregonstate.edu/ua/ncs/archives/2017/aug/study-methane-tundra-ocean-floor-didn%E2%80%99t-spike-during-previous-natural-warming-peri</a><br>
</font><br>
<br>
<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://sdg.iisd.org/news/world-toilet-day-resources-launched/">World
Toilet Day Resources Launched</a><br>
26 August 2017: The website and resources for outreach during World
Toilet Day, which is celebrated annually on 19 November, have been
released. The theme for World Toilet Day 2017 - wastewater -
coordinates with the theme selected for World Water Day 2017, which
is celebrated annually on 22 March. <br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="http://sdg.iisd.org/news/world-toilet-day-resources-launched/">http://sdg.iisd.org/news/world-toilet-day-resources-launched/</a><br>
<br>
<b><br>
</b><b><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://www.iflscience.com/environment/nuclear-war-climate-change-and-trump-named-as-worlds-biggest-threats-by-nobel-laureates/all/">Nuclear
War, Climate Change, And Trump Named As World's Biggest Threats
By Nobel Laureates</a></b><br>
According to a poll of 50 Nobel laureates - the world's leading
figures in science in their field - the biggest threats facing the
world today include environmental issues, the threat of nuclear war,
and leaders like Donald Trump. ..<br>
The survey was conducted by Time Higher Education, the body that
puts together the world university rankings, ahead of its World
Academic Summit held in London this week. They surveyed 50 of the
world's Nobel prize winners for science, medicine, and economics -
that's one in five of the living laureates - on their views on a
range of topics, from university funding to the biggest threats
facing mankind today...<br>
Many actually name-checked Donald Trump in reference to populist
leaders choosing to ignore evidence provided by the scientific
community and purposely distorting the truth to mislead people.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="http://www.iflscience.com/environment/nuclear-war-climate-change-and-trump-named-as-worlds-biggest-threats-by-nobel-laureates/all/">http://www.iflscience.com/environment/nuclear-war-climate-change-and-trump-named-as-worlds-biggest-threats-by-nobel-laureates/all/</a><br>
<br>
<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://www.cbsnews.com/videos/evening-news-online-090108/"><br>
</a><font size="+1"><b><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://www.cbsnews.com/videos/evening-news-online-090108/">This
Day in Climate History September 1, 2008</a> - from D.R.
Tucker</b></font><br>
September 1, 2008: Hurricane Gustav strikes the United States.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.cbsnews.com/videos/evening-news-online-090108/">http://www.cbsnews.com/videos/evening-news-online-090108/</a><br>
<br>
<font size="+1"><i>------------------------------------------------------------------------------------<br>
</i></font><font size="+1"><i> </i></font><font
size="+1"><i> You are encouraged to forward this email </i></font>
<blockquote>
<blockquote><small>. </small><small><b>** Privacy and Security: </b>
This is a text-only mailing that carries no images which may
originate from remote servers. </small><small> Text-only
messages provide greater privacy to the receiver and sender.
</small><small> </small><br>
<small> By regulation, the .VOTE top-level domain must be used
for democratic and election purposes and cannot be used for
commercial purposes. </small><br>
<small>To subscribe, email: <a
class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated"
href="mailto:contact@theclimate.vote">contact@theclimate.vote</a>
with subject: subscribe, To Unsubscribe, subject:
unsubscribe</small><br>
<small> Also you</small><font size="-1"> may
subscribe/unsubscribe at <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://pairlist10.pair.net/mailman/listinfo/theclimate.vote">https://pairlist10.pair.net/mailman/listinfo/theclimate.vote</a></font><small>
</small><br>
<small> </small><small>Links and headlines assembled and
curated by Richard Pauli</small><small> for <a
class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://TheClimate.Vote">http://TheClimate.Vote</a>
delivering succinct information for citizens and responsible
governments of all levels.</small><small> L</small><small>ist
membership is confidential and records are scrupulously
restricted to this mailing list. <br>
</small></blockquote>
</blockquote>
</body>
</html>