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<font size="+1"><i>October 13, 2017</i></font><br>
<br>
<b><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://www.wired.com/story/the-napa-fire-is-a-perfectly-normal-apocalypse/">THE
NAPA FIRE IS A PERFECTLY NORMAL APOCALYPSE</a></b><br>
<span class="lede" data-reactid="248" style="box-sizing: border-box;
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text-transform: uppercase; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">BLAME THE WIND,<span> </span></span>if
you want. In Southern California they call it the<font
color="#ffffff"><span> </span><a
href="https://scripps.ucsd.edu/programs/cnap/wp-content/uploads/sites/109/2017/02/GuzmanMorales2016_SantaAnaWinds.pdf"
target="_blank" data-reactid="250" style="box-sizing:
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cursor: pointer; outline: 0px none; background-color: rgb(180,
231, 248); box-shadow: 0px -4px 0px rgb(180, 231, 248) inset;">Santa
Ana</a>;</font> in the north, the Diablos. Every autumn, from
4,000 feet up in the Great Basin deserts of Nevada and Utah, air
drops down over the mountains and through the canyons. By the time
it gets near the coast it's hot, dry, and can gust as fast as a
hurricane.<br>
Or blame lightning, or carelessness, or downed power lines. No one
yet knows the cause of the more than a dozen fires ablaze around
California, but fires start where<span> </span><a
href="https://www.wired.com/story/wildfire-housing-crisis/"
data-reactid="254" style="box-sizing: border-box; border-width:
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box-shadow: 0px -4px 0px rgb(180, 231, 248) inset;">humans meet
the wild forests</a>, where people build for solitude or space or
beauty. Things go wrong in those liminal spaces, at the interface
between the wilds and the built.<br>
So blame sprawl, or civilization's cycling of wilderness into rural
into exurban into suburban-urban agglomerations with an
ever-expanding wavefront.<br>
Blame all of it. There's a reason the great Californian writer
Raymond Chandler called it the<span> </span><a
href="http://www.design.caltech.edu/erik/Misc/Red_Wind-Raymond_Chandler.pdf"
target="_blank" data-reactid="259" style="box-sizing: border-box;
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box-shadow: 0px -4px 0px rgb(180, 231, 248) inset;">Red Wind</a>-winds
<br>
"that come down through the mountain passes and curl your hair and
make your nerves jump and your skin itch." Those winds blast down
from the mountains and fan<span> </span><a
href="https://www.wired.com/tag/wildfires/" data-reactid="261"
style="box-sizing: border-box; border-width: 0px 0px 3px;
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inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit;
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inherit; text-decoration: none; transition: background 0.15s
cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1) 0s; overflow-wrap: break-word;
background-color: transparent; box-shadow: 0px -4px 0px rgb(180,
231, 248) inset;">small fires into infernos</a>, and sometimes
those infernos maim or kill a city. In 1991 it was in the<span> </span><a
href="http://www.ebparks.org/about/fire/fire_history"
target="_blank" data-reactid="263" style="box-sizing: border-box;
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box-shadow: 0px -4px 0px rgb(180, 231, 248) inset;">hills of
Oakland</a>. And this past weekend it was Napa and Sonoma, and the
town of Santa Rosa. At least 15 people are dead. More than 1,500
houses are gone. The<span> </span><a
href="https://www.wired.com/2015/08/stuart-palley-terra-flamma-hellish-beauty-california-wildfires-drought/"
data-reactid="265" style="box-sizing: border-box; border-width:
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box-shadow: 0px -4px 0px rgb(180, 231, 248) inset;">skies of the
West</a><span> </span>are full of dust and ash.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.wired.com/story/the-napa-fire-is-a-perfectly-normal-apocalypse/">https://www.wired.com/story/the-napa-fire-is-a-perfectly-normal-apocalypse/</a><br>
<br>
<br>
<b><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://www.dailyclimate.org/t/1195107355338417156">Hurricane
Maria: Three weeks after landfall, Puerto Rico is still dark,
dry, frustrated.</a></b><br>
While the metropolis of San Juan inches toward normalcy, much of the
rest of the island still awaits basic services. Washington Post. <br>
<font size="-1"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="http://www.dailyclimate.org/t/1195107355338417156">http://www.dailyclimate.org/t/1195107355338417156</a></font><br>
<br>
<br>
<b><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://phys.org/news/2017-10-seas-percent-hurricane-related-financial-loss.html">Warming
seas could lead to 70 percent increase in hurricane-related
financial loss</a></b><br>
Phys.Org<br>
If oceans warm at a rate predicted by the Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change, the United Nation-sponsored group that assesses
climate change research and issues periodic reports, expected
financial losses caused by hurricanes could increase more than 70
percent by 2100, according to a study just published in the journal
Sustainable and Resilient Infrastructure.<br>
Read more at:
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://phys.org/news/2017-10-seas-percent-hurricane-related-financial-loss.html#jCp">https://phys.org/news/2017-10-seas-percent-hurricane-related-financial-loss.html#jCp</a><br>
"What is today's worst case scenario will likely become more
probable in the IPCC's future reports if little action is taken to
slow the effects of climate change."<br>
The increasing severity of hurricanes will also affect hurricane
modeling, Rosowsky said, and consequent predictions of damage and
financial loss. In a postscript to the paper, which will also be
published as a chapter in a forthcoming book, Rosowsky cites the
three catastrophic storms of the current hurricane season, Harvey,
Irma and Maria, as examples of events so severe they will shift the
assumptions about the likelihood that such severe hurricanes will
occur in the future.<br>
<font size="-1"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://phys.org/news/2017-10-seas-percent-hurricane-related-financial-loss.html">https://phys.org/news/2017-10-seas-percent-hurricane-related-financial-loss.html</a></font><br>
<br>
<br>
<b><a href="https://youtu.be/G80v5a-7wlI?t=15s">(video music poem)
Bill Murray with Jan Vogler & Friends Perform 'Saint Säens:</a></b><br>
The honorable Bill Murray performs a poem, 'Blessing the Boats' by
Lucille Clifton, backed by his companions on the new album 'New
Worlds.'<font size="-1"> 2:15<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://youtu.be/G80v5a-7wlI?t=15s">https://youtu.be/G80v5a-7wlI?t=15s</a></font><br>
<b><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://www.climateliabilitynews.org/2017/10/12/climate-change-disasters-hurricane-wildfires-drought/">The
Climate Disasters of 2017 (So Far): By the Numbers</a></b><br>
Climate Liability News <br>
Here's a look at the crazy numbers of 2017's climate-related
disasters:<br>
<b>$300 billion-A preliminary estimate of the total damages caused
by hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria </b>- double the cumulative
cost of all the decade's previous hurricanes, according to the
Universal Ecological Fund. Official U.S. government estimates of
losses from the three hurricanes are still being assessed, and are
expected to be released by the end of the year, according to the
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. <br>
<b>10-Number of consecutive Atlantic storms</b> that have developed
into hurricanes, the first time that has happened since 1893. That
milestone was reached when Ophelia reached hurricane strength on
Wednesday, putting her on the list with Franklin, Gert, Harvey,
Irma, Jose, Katia, Lee, Maria and Nate. <br>
<b>$36.5 billion-Amount of disaster relief</b> in the package
proposed by House Republicans on Tuesday to help recovery and
rebuilding from the year's hurricanes, floods and wildfires.<br>
<b>$5 billion-Puerto Rico relief </b>designated in that package as
a loan that the territory must pay back, despite its already
staggering debt and the continuing devastation.<br>
<b>$567.5 million-Amount of that package earmarked for the U.S.
Forest Service to combat wildfires.</b><br>
<b>At least 20-The death toll of the Northern California wildfires
in Napa and Sonoma counties as of late Wednesday. </b>More than
240 people remain missing after hurricane-force winds blew the
blazes across wine country, destroying more than 2,000 buildings and
scorching over 122,000 acres.<br>
<b>8,502,805 acres-The total number of acres burned by wildfire in
the U.S. in 2017 through Oct. 10, </b>making the year's wildfire
season the second-worst of the decade in terms of land area burned.
More land - about 8.8 million acres - burned in 2012 than any other
year this decade. Over the previous decade, 2006-2016, an average of
6 million acres burned annually, according to the National
Interagency Fire Center.<br>
<b>$5.1 billion-Total losses from U.S. wildfires in the decade
leading up to the 2017 wildfire season, </b>according to Verisk
Insurance Solutions. The firm also estimates that 4.5 million homes
in the U.S. are it high or extreme risk of wildfire.<br>
<b>$2 billion-NOAA's estimate of the losses from all of the West's
wildfires burning during July and August.</b> The year's
devastating wildfires were fueled by extreme drought in the Pacific
Northwest.<br>
<b>$2.5 billion-NOAA's estimate of the losses from the North Dakota,
South Dakota and Montana drought,</b> which devastated agriculture
and fed wildfires between March and September.<br>
<b>15-Number of weather and climate events with at least $1 billion
in damages so far in 2017</b>, according to NOAA.<br>
<b>6.9 million people-The number of people living in an area around
Houston that received or 30 or more inches of rainfall,</b>
submerging much of the city beneath floodwaters high enough to
submerge traffic lights.<br>
<b>2.7 to 7.2 degrees Fahrenheit-Degrees above normal the water of
the Gulf of Mexico registered as Hurricane Harvey approached </b>Houston,
fueling the amount of water the storm could hold. The stretch of the
Atlantic Ocean that Irma traveled over was up to 2 degrees warmer,
according to the National Center for Atmospheric Research.<br>
<b>60.58 inches-Total rainfall from Hurricane Harvey recorded in
Nederland, Texas. </b>National Weather Service meteorologist
Nikki Hathaway said that rainfall amounts are still being verified,
and the agency is still determining whether that rainfall total
represents a precipitation record for the continental U.S. A
previously reported Harvey rainfall total of 51.88 inches in Cedar
Bayou, Texas, was found to be incorrect.<br>
<b>70 percent-Amount of damage from Harvey estimated to be covered
by no form of insurance</b>.<br>
<b>37 Hours-Total time Hurricane Irma maintained an intensity of 165
knots or greater,</b> with winds reaching 185 mph or greater,
possibly breaking a global record for duration of tropical cyclone
intensity. Phil Klotzbach, a research scientist who forecasts
hurricanes at Colorado State University, said his research of global
cyclone data found that only Typhoon Haiyan, which devastated the
Philippines in 2013, came close to being so intense for so long.
Haiyan maintained 165-knot or greater intensity for 24 hours.<br>
<b>50-Days remaining in Atlantic hurricane season.</b><br>
<font size="-1"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.climateliabilitynews.org/2017/10/12/climate-change-disasters-hurricane-wildfires-drought/">https://www.climateliabilitynews.org/2017/10/12/climate-change-disasters-hurricane-wildfires-drought/</a></font><br>
<br>
<br>
<b><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://www.downtoearth.org.in/news/world-needs-a-collective-strategy-to-deal-with-us-at-bonn-climate-conference-58864">(opinion)
World needs a collective strategy to deal with US at Bonn
climate conference</a></b><br>
US move to repeal Clean Power Plan proves that naming and shaming
has not worked, nor are the statements to stand united on Paris
Agreements enough.<br>
Repercussions of Trump's climate denial:<br>
Trump's antagonism on climate change has turned out to have at least
three major repercussions: Trump has been branded irresponsible for
not standing up to the need of addressing climate change despite the
US being the largest contributor. Secondly, even though, it was
thought that <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://www.downtoearth.org.in/blog/us-states-push-for-climate-change-action-despite-country-s-exit-from-paris-deal-58189">city-level
and sub-national actions</a> should be the new focus of climate
agenda, the federal-level actions have greatly undermined those
actions and positive mood as well. Thirdly, and most importantly,
the US has set a bad precedence to other countries by making it
clear that it is not necessary to fulfill even the domestic climate
targets.<br>
Trump has hinted at being open to re-negotiation of Paris Agreement
to secure American interests. This has invited questions and
suspicions as to how the US would behave from now on in climate
negotiations as it would still remain part of the official
negotiations for three years, as per the process.<br>
With Paris Agreement being voluntary in nature and lacking strong
compliance mechanisms, the question of how to deal with rogue
players such as the US becomes a crucial one. The world cannot
continue to stay hostage to US' irresponsible actions. It is
important to check its regressive steps and enable it to join in the
global efforts to cut emissions and switch to cleaner energy
sources. The nature of climate diplomacy does not warrant coercive
diplomacy, but imposing restrictions in select sectors could be one
option. Diplomatic isolation of such players is definitely needed to
send a loud and clear message on the need for adopting ambitious
climate actions and deter other countries from following the US
policy.<br>
The lead climate negotiator from Fiji has demanded a strong
political statement in the UN Climate Change Conference in Bonn this
November. It reflects political will, but it cannot be restricted to
that. A collective strategy to respond to and deal with the US is
the need of the hour.<br>
<font size="-1"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="http://www.downtoearth.org.in/news/world-needs-a-collective-strategy-to-deal-with-us-at-bonn-climate-conference-58864">http://www.downtoearth.org.in/news/world-needs-a-collective-strategy-to-deal-with-us-at-bonn-climate-conference-58864</a></font><br>
<br>
<br>
<b><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://phys.org/news/2017-10-geologic-evidence-forerunner-ominous-prospects.html">Geologic
evidence is the forerunner of ominous prospects for a warming
earth</a></b><br>
Phys.Org<br>
A new analysis published in Marine Geology shows that the limestone
islands of the Bahamas and Bermuda experienced climate changes that
were even more extreme than historical events.<br>
...It demonstrates that during a global climate transition in the
late last ... These events occurred at a time of only slightly
warmer global climate and CO2 ...<br>
During the last interglacial, sea levels were about 3-9 meters
higher than they are now. The geologic evidence indicates that the
higher sea-levels were accompanied by intense "superstorms," which
deposited giant wave-transported boulders at the top of cliffed
coastlines, formed chevron-shaped, storm beach ridges in lowland
areas, and left wave runup deposits on older dunes more than 30
meters above sea level. These events occurred at a time of only
slightly warmer global climate and CO2 (about 275 ppm) was much
lower than today.<br>
The authors emphasize "the LIG record reveals that strong climate
forcing is not required to yield major impacts on the ocean and ice
caps." In our industrial world, rapidly increasing atmospheric CO2
has surpassed 400 ppm, levels not achieved since the Pliocene era
about 3 million years ago, while global temperature has increased
nearly 1 degree C since the 1870s. Today, ice sheets are melting,
sea level is rising, oceans are warming, and weather events are
becoming more extreme...<br>
Drs. Hearty and Tormey conclude that with the greatly increased
anthropogenic CO2 forcing at rates unmatched in nature, except
perhaps during global extinction events, dramatic change is certain.
They caution that, "Our global society is producing a climate system
that is racing forward out of humanity's control into an uncertain
future. If we seek to understand the non-anthropogenic events of the
last interglaciation, some of the consequences of our unchecked
forward speed may come more clearly into focus...a message from the
past; a glimpse into the future."<br>
<font size="-1"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://phys.org/news/2017-10-geologic-evidence-forerunner-ominous-prospects.html">https://phys.org/news/2017-10-geologic-evidence-forerunner-ominous-prospects.html</a></font><br>
<br>
<br>
<b><a
href="https://news.mongabay.com/2017/10/conserving-habitat-not-enough-to-help-species-cope-with-climate-change/">Conserving
habitat not enough to help species cope with climate change</a></b><br>
New research finds that habitat-based conservation strategies don't
adequately compensate for the range that species in three groups
stand to lose due to climate change.<br>
The team of scientists based in Austria looked at the effects of
climate change on 51 species of grasshoppers, butterflies and
vascular plants living in central Europe.<br>
Habitat-based conservation can provide a lifeline, but their model
predicts that it won't be enough to prevent some species from
regional extinction.<br>
The researchers also found that certain strategies in their model
were more effective than others. Managing protected areas such as
parks and reserves and the creation of corridors to connect habitats
did a better job of providing the species with suitable homes than
did the piecemeal restoration of fragmented habitats, which they
referred to as "matrix improvement."<br>
"However, none of the conservation strategies evaluated could fully
compensate the negative impact of climate change for vascular
plants, butterflies or grasshoppers in central Europe," the authors
write.<br>
Alpine species - those living in mountain habitats - can face a
particularly tough road to survival in the face of climate change,
according to the research. In part that's because few of them can
survive in tree-heavy environments, the authors state, so in order
to create viable habitats for them, we would have to take the
counter-intuitive - and carbon-releasing - step of getting rid of
largely natural forests.<br>
Critically, habitat conservation didn't prevent some lowland and
alpine species from disappearing completely from the region.<br>
"For those species that went extinct, we observed a slight delay
(due to an increase in their range compared to business-as-usual
scenario) but no reversal of the deadly trend," Wessely said. "One
implication is that it is very important to identify species that
are threatened to develop particular conservation strategies for
them."<font size="-1"><br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://news.mongabay.com/2017/10/conserving-habitat-not-enough-to-help-species-cope-with-climate-change/">https://news.mongabay.com/2017/10/conserving-habitat-not-enough-to-help-species-cope-with-climate-change/</a></font><br>
<br>
<br>
<b>Bill McKibben</b><br>
<b><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l0jOymmkpGQ">(YouTube
video) Chubb Fellowship Lecture : "Simply Too Hot: the Desperate
Science and Politics of Climate"</a></b><br>
Yale University Oct 10, 2017<br>
This Chubb Fellowship Lecture will feature Bill McKibben, an author
and environmentalist who in 2014 was awarded the Right Livelihood
Prize, sometimes called the "alternative Nobel." He is a founder of
350.org. <br>
More about Bill McKibben and the Chubb Fellowship at: <a
class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://chubbfellowship.org">http://chubbfellowship.org</a><br>
<font size="-1"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l0jOymmkpGQ">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l0jOymmkpGQ</a>
starts 19 minutes in</font><br>
<br>
<br>
<b><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://www.architectmagazine.com/design/editorial/a-brief-climate-change-reading-list_o">A
Brief Climate Change Reading List</a></b><br>
Six books that present the truths and consequences of our global
addiction to fossil fuels.<br>
The fossil fuel industry and its allies have fueled a massive
disinformation campaign on the subject of climate change. If you're
looking for honest reporting and informed opinion on the subject,
check out the following six books:<br>
<b>Climate Change: What Everyone Needs to Know,</b> by Joseph Romm
(Oxford University Press, 2015) Lost in a sea of data and jargon?
Romm's scientific primer answers essential questions such as "What
is the difference between weather and climate?" and "What will the
impacts of sea-level rise be?"<br>
<b>Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed</b>, by Jared
Diamond (Penguin Books, 2005) Easter Island, Angkor, Copán: We've
been down this road before. That's the message Diamond sends with
Collapse, through eye-opening case studies of self-inflicted
environmental catastrophe throughout history.<br>
<b>The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History,</b> by Elizabeth
Kolbert (Henry Holt & Co., 2014) Farewell, Golden Toad:
Amphibians are going extinct at 45,000 times the historical
background rate. The New Yorker's Kolbert documents the tragic
evidence of mass species loss due to human activity.<br>
<b>This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate,</b> by Naomi
Klein (Simon & Schuster, 2014) Perhaps the most challenging of
the books on the list, This Changes Everything exposes the often
terrible socio-environmental costs of privatization, deregulation,
and other tenets of neoliberal economics.<br>
<b>Drawdown: The Most Comprehensive Plan Ever Proposed to Reverse
Global Warming, </b>edited by Paul Hawken (Penguin Books, 2017)
For those who fear all is lost, Hawken provides an antidote-dozens
of them, actually. Drawdown compiles proven methods to reduce CO2
emissions and increase efficiency, in arenas from agriculture to
architecture.<br>
<b>Eaarth: Making a Life on a Tough New Planet</b>, by Bill McKibben
(Henry Holt & Co., 2010) McKibben, writing during the Great
Recession, characterizes the society and systems we need to build in
response to climate change: slower, smaller, more durable,
decentralized, and, possibly, more rewarding.<font size="-1"><br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="http://www.architectmagazine.com/design/editorial/a-brief-climate-change-reading-list_o">http://www.architectmagazine.com/design/editorial/a-brief-climate-change-reading-list_o</a></font><br>
<br>
<br>
<b><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/d7edgk/governments-wasted-trillions-on-fossil-fuels-without-even-noticing-because-of-bad-math">(classic)
The World Wasted Trillions of Dollars on Fossil Fuels Because of
Bad Math</a></b><br>
The global measurement of fossil fuel subsidies is most likely
wrong.<br>
Government subsidies for fossil fuels over the last three decades
have been far larger than anyone previously thought, according to a
<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://www.policyschool.ca/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/fossil-fuels-stefanski.pdf">new
study</a> published by the University of Calgary's School of
Public Policy in March.<br>
A fossil fuel subsidy is <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://priceofoil.org/fossil-fuel-subsidies/">any government
policy</a> that lowers the cost of fossil fuel production, raises
prices received by producers, or lowers prices paid by consumers:
they can consist of tax breaks and direct funding for fossil fuel
companies. But subsidies can also consist of loans, price controls,
or giveaways in the form of land or water at below market-rates, and
many other actions.<br>
So what's the damage? It's pretty colossal. For the last year in his
model, 2010, Stefanski found that the total global direct and
indirect financial costs of all fossil fuel subsidies was $1.82
trillion, or 3.8 percent of global GDP. He also found that the
subsidies meant much higher carbon emissions released into our
atmosphere.<br>
Policymakers looking for a quick fix for environmental, energy and
economic problems would do well to heed Stefanski's final words of
advice:<br>
"Any government looking to ease strained budgets and make a
significant (and cheap) contribution to the fight against climate
change must consider slashing fossil fuel subsidies."<br>
<font size="-1"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/d7edgk/governments-wasted-trillions-on-fossil-fuels-without-even-noticing-because-of-bad-math">https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/d7edgk/governments-wasted-trillions-on-fossil-fuels-without-even-noticing-because-of-bad-math</a><br>
</font><br>
<br>
<br>
<font size="+1"><b>This Day in Climate History October 13, - from
D.R. Tucker</b></font><br>
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