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<font size="+1"><i>October 4, 2017<br>
<br>
</i></font> <b><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://www.cnbc.com/2017/10/03/global-warming-catholic-groups-stop-investing-in-fossil-fuels.html">A
big-money Catholic group just said it's yanking all of its cash
out of fossil fuels</a></b><br>
A coalition of 40 Catholic institutions on Tuesday announced a
decision to pull their money from - or block future investment in -
fossil fuels. The Global Catholic Climate Movement called it the
biggest collective announcement of divestment by Catholic
organizations ever.<br>
The group comes from all over the world - they include financial
institutions such as Germany's Bank für Kirche und Caritas eG, and
the Episcopal Conference of Belgium, which is the policy arm of the
Catholic church in that country. Groups from the U.K., the United
States, Australia and Italy were also among those divesting.<br>
The Movement said that the Bank für Kirche und Caritas eG - which
translates as Bank for the Church and Caritas - was one of the first
Catholic banks to turn its back on fossil fuels. That entity, which
has a balance sheet of 4.5 billion euros ($5.3 billion), was
severing links with coal, tar sands crude, and oil shale.<br>
"As a Catholic Church bank, we feel strongly responsible to
participate in tackling the issue of climate change," Tommy
Piemonte, the bank's sustainability research officer, said in a
statement.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.cnbc.com/2017/10/03/global-warming-catholic-groups-stop-investing-in-fossil-fuels.html">https://www.cnbc.com/2017/10/03/global-warming-catholic-groups-stop-investing-in-fossil-fuels.html</a><br>
<br>
<br>
<b><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://phys.org/news/2017-10-global-doesnt-emissions.html">(reminder)
Global warming doesn't stop when the emissions stop</a></b><br>
Our climate is out of balance: Increasing accumulation of CO2 in the
atmosphere has caused the Earth's temperature to increase by 0.8
degrees C since the beginning of the industrial revolution.
According to a study by Thorsten Mauritsen from the Max Planck
Institute for Meteorology in Hamburg and Robert Pincus of the
University of Colorado, even if we stopped all emissions from fossil
fuels tomorrow, the Earth would still warm by a further 0.3 degrees
C. In this interview, Mauritsen explains why it will take millennia
for the Earth to get back into balance.<br>
<b>How did you determine the 'committed warming'?</b><br>
To do that, we needed to know two things. Firstly, we needed to find
out how sensitive the Earth's climate is, i.e. how sensitively it
reacts to an increase in atmospheric CO2 over a timescale of a
century (the transient climate sensitivity). This can be estimated
from data on previous temperature rises and ocean warming. We also
need to know how strong the effect of the disappearance of aerosols,
methane and nitrogen oxides will be. From there, we can estimate
warming through to the end of the century.<br>
<b>What do the results teach us? In the real world, stopping
emissions immediately is, unfortunately, impossible.</b><br>
We can see how far we are from the climate targets set out in the
Paris Agreement, which state that the Earth should not warm by more
than 1.5-2 degrees C. According to our study, there is a 13 percent
probability that we have already exceeded the 1.5 degrees C target.
We have also shown that, based on current emissions, we still have
30 years until the probability of staying under the 1.5 degrees C
target falls to 50 percent.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://phys.org/news/2017-10-global-doesnt-emissions.html">https://phys.org/news/2017-10-global-doesnt-emissions.html</a><br>
- see also<br>
<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://phys.org/news/2017-06-three-minute-story-years-climate-tail.html#nRlv">The
three-minute story of 800,000 years of climate change with a sting
in the tai</a>l<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://phys.org/news/2017-06-three-minute-story-years-climate-tail.html#nRlv">https://phys.org/news/2017-06-three-minute-story-years-climate-tail.html#nRlv</a><br>
<br>
<br>
<b><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://priceofoil.org/2017/10/03/dirty-energy-dominance-us-subsidies">Dirty
Energy Dominance: Dependent on Denial - How the U.S. Fossil Fuel
Industry Depends on Subsidies and Climate Denial</a></b><br>
A new report by Oil Change International reveals that U.S. taxpayers
continue to foot the bill for more than $20 billion in fossil fuel
subsidies each year. The analysis outlines tax incentives, credits,
low royalty rates, and other government measures benefiting the oil,
gas, and coal sectors.<br>
While the majority of Americans want stronger U.S. action on climate
change, policies at the state and federal level continue to
underwrite the ongoing exploration and production of fossil fuels.
Every dollar spent subsidizing this industry takes us further away
from achieving internationally agreed emissions goals, and
maintaining a stable climate.<br>
<b>Key findings include:</b><br>
Fossil fuel subsidies have been defended by a Congress influenced by
$350 million in campaign contributions and lobbying expenditures by
the fossil fuel industry - which equates to a 8,200% return on
investment.<br>
The cost of annual federal fossil fuel production subsidies is
equivalent to the projected 2018 budget cuts from Trump's proposals
to slash 10 public programs and services that benefit some of the
nation's most vulnerable children and families.<br>
Government giveaways in the form of permanent tax breaks to the
fossil fuel industry - one of which is over a century old - are
seven times larger than those to the renewable energy sector.<br>
<strong style="font-weight: 700; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family:
sans-serif; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal;
font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal;
letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start;
text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal;
widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;
text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial;"><a
href="http://priceofoil.org/content/uploads/2017/10/OCI_US-Fossil-Fuel-Subs-2015-16_Final_Oct2017.pdf"
style="color: rgb(102, 153, 255); text-decoration: none;
outline: 0px;">Download the full report.</a></strong><br>
<b>The report recommends that climate champions in Congress,
statehouses, and governors' residences concerned about using
taxpayer dollars wisely can push back on Trump's fossil fuel
agenda by taking the following actions:</b><br>
Immediately repeal existing tax breaks for fossil fuel exploration
and production, and halt efforts to extend and expand tax credits
for unconventional fossil fuel production technologies, like carbon
capture and storage and enhanced oil recovery.<br>
Champion broader legislation that ends investment in fossil fuel
expansion, and funds a just transition for industry-dependent
workers and communities, while supporting a clean, renewable energy
economy.<br>
Break the cycle of dirty energy money, particularly by elected
officials at all levels of government pledging to refuse campaign
donations and other forms of support from the oil, gas, and coal
industries.<br>
<font size="-1">Website - <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="http://priceofoil.org/2017/10/03/dirty-energy-dominance-us-subsidies">http://priceofoil.org/2017/10/03/dirty-energy-dominance-us-subsidies</a><br>
Full Report - <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="http://priceofoil.org/content/uploads/2017/10/OCI_US-Fossil-Fuel-Subs-2015-16_Final_Oct2017.pdf">http://priceofoil.org/content/uploads/2017/10/OCI_US-Fossil-Fuel-Subs-2015-16_Final_Oct2017.pdf</a><br>
Blog - <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="http://priceofoil.org/2017/10/03/trumps-20-billion-a-year-ha">http://priceofoil.org/2017/10/03/trumps-20-billion-a-year-ha</a><br>
</font><br>
<br>
<b><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://www.yaleclimateconnections.org/2017/10/humans-experimenting-with-climates-playing-nice/">Humans
experimenting with climate's 'playing nice' </a><br>
How long will the remarkably, but inexplicably, 11,000 years of
global climatic stability last? Uncertainty abounds, but in
meantime the risky experiment continues.</b><br>
Take 5 minutes for this. <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://youtu.be/sKR3e0fhiKQ">https://youtu.be/sKR3e0fhiKQ</a><br>
Jorgen Peder Steffensen, of Denmark's Niels Bohr Institute, is one
of the most experienced experts in ice core analysis, in both
Greenland and Antarctica. Dr. Steffensen explained to videographer
Peter Sinclair his concerns about possible abrupt climate changes.<br>
Email to someoneShare on FacebookTweet about this on TwitterShare on
LinkedInPin on PinterestShare on RedditBy Peter SinclairTuesday,
October 3, 2017<br>
Like "rats inside the experiment," Neils Bohr Institute glaciology
professor Jorgen Peder Steffensen says of us humans when he
considers the risks of a sudden reconfiguration of global
circulation which could, among other things, cause long-term drying
across America's breadbasket states.<br>
"That's going to impact the entire world," Steffensen cautions in
recognizing that the 11,000 years of the interglacial period since
the last ice age "has been unreasonably stable. And we don't know
why" or how long that stability may persist.<br>
Steffensen, in exceptionally eloquent and straightforward language,
acknowledges that models consistently point to a gradual global
increase in temperatures as a result of the continue widespread
combustion of fossil fuels and increased emissions of carbon
dioxide. "But that's assuming the climate plays nice," he says.<br>
'The climate does not play nice all the time,' a glaciology
professor reminds us.<br>
"And we actually know from the ice cores that the climate does not
play nice all the time."<br>
Deeply involved in drilling of ice ores on the Greenland and
Antarctic ice sheets since 1980, Steffensen says in this month's
"This is not cool" video that changes in global heat flows have
"come about suddenly" in the past and "are reflected, as a mirror
image," in Antarctic ice cores.<br>
"You see that inside an ice age, the climate is extremely unstable.
And you have this sequence of abrupt climate changes that happen,
basically, from one year to the next." He says each cycle lasts
"about a couple thousand years…. We had that 26 times in the last
ice age."<br>
Such "whipsaw" climate change have been missing during the past
11,000 years while human civilization has been arising. "So we are
assuming that this is standard. Our collective memory refers to this
as normal."<br>
But he is concerned that human activities could be "tipping the
climate into an intermediate period of climate changes…. We can face
a climate change that happens just as fast as the financial crisis,"
Steffensen says. In that case, agricultural activity worldwide could
be adversely affected … "the weather will change, and it will not
change back" quickly.<br>
"We don't know where the threshold is," Steffensen says of the
ongoing human "experiment" with climate change. "But we are rats
inside the experiment."<br>
<font size="-1"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://climatecrocks.com/2017/10/03/new-video-inside-the-experiment-the-climate-does-not-always-play-nice/">https://climatecrocks.com/2017/10/03/new-video-inside-the-experiment-the-climate-does-not-always-play-nice/</a><br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.yaleclimateconnections.org/2017/10/humans-experimenting-with-climates-playing-nice/">https://www.yaleclimateconnections.org/2017/10/humans-experimenting-with-climates-playing-nice/</a></font><br>
<br>
<br>
<b><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/10/and-the-mountains-should-crumble-to-the-sea/541659/">Will
Climate Change Make Rockslides Worse?</a></b><br>
The Atlantic How a warming world could affect rockfalls like
Yosemite's<br>
Last Wednesday and Thursday, there were two major rockfall events at
Yosemite's El Capitan, a rock formation extremely popular with
climbers. Wednesday's rockslide killed one person, the first
rockfall-related fatality in the park since 1999. Thursday's
released a volume of rock larger than 10,000 cubic meters, about
four Olympic swimming pools' worth of rock.<br>
Rockfalls are par for the course at Yosemite, where the National
Park Service estimates 80 events happen every year. But despite
their frequency, there is a possibility that warming temperatures
and an unstable climate could cause even more rockfalls at Yosemite
and worldwide.<br>
Like sticky wood doors in the summer, rock expands ever so slightly
when it's heated. The more the temperature rises and falls between
day and night, or summer and winter, the more rock will expand and
then contract, causing cracks to propagate through it. As
temperatures rise worldwide, those hot, sunny days will become more
frequent, which could mean more rockslides.<br>
Rising global temperatures are also melting the glaciers and
permafrost that support rock formations.<br>
"I would say the impact of climate change on rockslides in
Yosemite is currently rather small, but could increase slightly with
time if freeze-thaw and wetting-drying cycles become more common and
diurnal temperature changes become greater," he said. "But this
embodies several assumptions."<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/10/and-the-mountains-should-crumble-to-the-sea/541659/">https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/10/and-the-mountains-should-crumble-to-the-sea/541659/</a><br>
<br>
<br>
<b><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/10/ex-fema-director-rebuilding-puerto-rico-requires-acknowledging-climate-change/">Ex-FEMA
Director: Rebuilding Puerto Rico Requires Acknowledging Climate
Change</a></b><br>
Obama instructed FEMA to consider climate change in responding to
Superstorm Sandy. The Trump administration's response has been
different.<br>
The former Federal Emergency Management Agency chief has some advice
for the Trump administration after back-to-back hurricanes in the
past month: You have to look at climate change science if you want
smarter disaster relief.<br>
Drawing on eight years of experience leading FEMA under President
Barack Obama, Craig Fugate warned on Tuesday that flood-prone areas
can't simply "rebuild to the past" using historical data on 100-year
flood risk. Instead, he said at an event at the liberal Center for
American Progress, the country needs to "build to future risk."<br>
The situation is especially critical now that Congress will be
appropriating billions in aid to Texas, Florida, Puerto Rico, and
the Virgin Islands. Climate change is helping make these disasters
bigger and nastier, but Fugate said they are only natural hazards
that "become natural disasters when we're pricing risk too low.
We're putting vulnerable populations and your tax dollars at risk."
<br>
<font size="-1"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/10/ex-fema-director-rebuilding-puerto-rico-requires-acknowledging-climate-change/">http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/10/ex-fema-director-rebuilding-puerto-rico-requires-acknowledging-climate-change/</a></font><br>
<br>
<br>
<b><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2017/10/the-arctic-is-changing-the-jet-stream-why-this-is-important.html">The
Arctic is Changing the Jet Stream - Why This Is Important</a></b><br>
By Sam Carana, with contributions by Jennifer Francis<br>
Global warming is increasing the strength of hurricanes. A warmer
atmosphere holds more water vapor and sea surface temperatures are
rising. Both of these changes strengthen hurricanes. Steering winds
may also be changing, causing unusual hurricane tracks such as
Sandy's left turn into the mid-Atlantic seaboard and Harvey's
stagnation over Houston. Is rapid Arctic warming playing a role?<br>
Jennifer Francis has long been warning that global warming is
increasing the likelihood of wavier jet stream patterns and more
frequent blocking events, both of which have been observed. The
Arctic is warming more rapidly than the rest of the world. The
narrowing temperature difference between the Arctic and lower
latitudes is weakening the speed at which the jet stream
circumnavigates Earth and may be making the jet stream more wavy. In
a 2012 study, Jennifer Francis and Stephen Vavrus warned that this
makes atmospheric blocking events in the Northern Hemisphere more
likely, aggravating extreme weather events related to stagnant
weather conditions, such as drought, flooding, cold spells, and heat
waves.<br>
The danger was highlighted later that year, when a strong block
associated with a deep jet stream trough helped steer Hurricane
Sandy toward New York. In 2017, Hurricane Harvey hovered over
Houston and dumped record-breaking rains (over 50 inches in some
locations!), again highlighting this danger.<br>
The jet stream separates cold air in the Arctic from warmer air
farther south. A wavier jet stream transports more heat and moisture
into the Arctic. This speeds up warming of the Arctic in a number of
ways. In addition to warming caused by the extra heat, the added
water vapor is a potent greenhouse gas, trapping more heat in the
atmosphere over the Arctic, while it also causes more clouds to form
that also are effective heat trappers.<br>
As the Arctic keeps warming, the jet stream is expected to become
more distorted, bringing ever more heat and moisture into the
Arctic. This constitutes a self-reinforcing feedback loop that keeps
making the situation worse. In conclusion, it's high time for more
comprehensive and effective action to reduce the underlying culprit:
global warming.<br>
<font size="-1"><i>Jennifer Francis is Research Professor at the
Institute of Marine and Coastal Sciences at Rutgers University,
where she studies Arctic climate change and the link between the
Arctic and global climates.</i><i><br>
</i><i>Jennifer has received funding from the National Science
Foundation and NASA. She is a member of the American
Meteorological Society, American Geophysical Union, Association
for Women in Science and the Union of Concerned Scientists.</i><br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="http://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2017/10/the-arctic-is-changing-the-jet-stream-why-this-is-important.html">http://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2017/10/the-arctic-is-changing-the-jet-stream-why-this-is-important.html</a></font><br>
<br>
<br>
<font size="+1"><b><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/04/opinion/gail-collins-the-walrus-and-the-politicians.html">This
Day in Climate History October 4, 2014 </a> - from D.R.
Tucker</b></font><br>
October 4, 2014: New York Times columnist Gail Collins observes:<br>
"There was a time when Republicans were leaders in the fight to slow<br>
climate change — particularly for the concept called 'cap and
trade,'<br>
which had a marketplace-friendly tilt. Among the co-sponsors of a<br>
cap-and-trade bill in 2007 was Senator Lisa Murkowski, a Republican
of<br>
Alaska. Murkoswki had to run for re-election as an independent in<br>
2010, having lost her party’s nomination to a Tea Party favorite who<br>
complains about 'climate-change alarmists.'<br>
"These days, it takes courage for a Republican to acknowledge that<br>
human beings have anything to do with climate change at all."<br>
<font size="-1"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/04/opinion/gail-collins-the-walrus-and-the-politicians.html">http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/04/opinion/gail-collins-the-walrus-and-the-politicians.html</a><br>
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