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<font size="+1"><i>December 23, 2017<br>
</i></font> <br>
[Wildfire]<br>
<b><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/12/23/573125048/thomas-fire-is-now-californias-largest-wildfire-in-history">Thomas
Fire Is Now California's Largest Wildfire In History</a></b><br>
Officials say this year's fire season has been the most destructive
people in the state have ever seen.<br>
The Associated Press reports the Thomas fire took only 2 1/2 weeks
to burn its way into history books:<br>
"The Cedar fire had been recognized as the biggest California
wildfire in terms of acreage since 1932. Some fires before that date
undoubtedly were larger but records are unreliable, according to
state fire officials."<br>
The Thomas fire is about 65 percent contained.<font size="-1"><br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/12/23/573125048/thomas-fire-is-now-californias-largest-wildfire-in-history">https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/12/23/573125048/thomas-fire-is-now-californias-largest-wildfire-in-history</a></font><br>
<font size="-1">-<br>
</font><b><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://www.post-gazette.com/life/homes/2017/12/21/California-s-most-destructive-fire-season-has-sparked-a-debate-over-where-to-rebuild-homes/stories/201712210228">California's
most destructive fire season has sparked a debate over where to
rebuild homes</a></b><br>
With the frequency and cost of catastrophic wildfires climbing in
California, the idea of compensating property owners to not rebuild
- or using economic pressure to discourage them from building in the
first place - is gaining supporters among those searching for ways
to cut wildfire losses. ..<br>
Houses rebuilt there will soon be at risk again from a fire cycle
that experts say is shortening from decades to only years...<br>
"In determining how or why or when homes should be rebuilt after a
fire, it helps to have science on where homes should or shouldn't be
placed," said Alexandra Syphard, senior research scientist at the
nonprofit Conservation Biology Institute. "The science isn't fully
there yet."...<br>
Edmiston said he has tallied 531 proposed new housing units being
considered by the cities of Los Angeles and Calabasas in very high
fire hazard zones in the Santa Monica Mountains.<br>
"We're not talking about low income," Edmiston said. "We're talking
about $1.5-million-plus homes."<br>
He proposes a linkage between the right to build and the inevitable
cost of firefighting and recovery.<font size="-1"><br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="http://www.post-gazette.com/life/homes/2017/12/21/California-s-most-destructive-fire-season-has-sparked-a-debate-over-where-to-rebuild-homes/stories/201712210228">http://www.post-gazette.com/life/homes/2017/12/21/California-s-most-destructive-fire-season-has-sparked-a-debate-over-where-to-rebuild-homes/stories/201712210228</a></font><br>
<br>
<br>
[video]<br>
<b><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://www.cnbc.com/video/2017/12/22/hamilton-creator-using-musicals-west-end-arrival-to-fight-climate-change.html">'Hamilton'
creator using musical's West End arrival to fight climate change</a></b><br>
'Hamilton' creator, Lin-Manuel Miranda is using the record-breaking
musical's arrival in London to raise funds to fight global climate
change. Ahead of last night's West End premiere, fans were able to
make donations via online platform Prizeo, in exchange for
competition entries to win a trip to London to meet Miranda himself
and attend the gala...<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.cnbc.com/video/2017/12/22/hamilton-creator-using-musicals-west-end-arrival-to-fight-climate-change.html">https://www.cnbc.com/video/2017/12/22/hamilton-creator-using-musicals-west-end-arrival-to-fight-climate-change.html</a><br>
<br>
<br>
[NYTimes $]<br>
<b><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/21/climate/climate-refugees.html">Climate
Change Is Driving People From Home. So Why Don't They Count as
Refugees?</a></b><br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/21/climate/climate-refugees.html">https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/21/climate/climate-refugees.html</a><br>
<br>
<br>
[superfund]<br>
<b><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://wtop.com/national/2017/12/toxic-trouble-hundreds-of-superfund-sites-face-flood-risks-2/">AP
finds climate change risk for 327 toxic Superfund sites</a></b><br>
Nearly 2 million people in the U.S. live within a mile of 327
Superfund sites in areas prone to flooding or vulnerable to
sea-level rise caused by climate change. See photos.<br>
This year's historic hurricane season exposed a little-known public
health threat: Highly polluted sites that can be inundated by
floodwaters, potentially spreading toxic contamination.<br>
In Houston, more than a dozen Superfund sites were flooded by
Hurricane Harvey, with breaches reported at two. In the Southeast
and Puerto Rico, Superfund sites were battered by driving rains and
winds from Irma and Maria.<br>
The vulnerable sites highlighted by AP's review are scattered across
the nation, but Florida, New Jersey and California have the most,
and the most people living near them. They are in largely
low-income, heavily minority neighborhoods, the data show.<br>
Many of the 327 sites have had at least some work done to help
mitigate the threat to public health, including fencing them off and
covering them in plastic sheeting to help keep out rain water...<br>
Covering toxic waste is often a cheaper option than completely
removing the pollutants, but the installations are not always as
long-lasting as the chemicals buried beneath them, said Jeff
Cunningham, a civil engineering professor at the University of South
Florida.<br>
"As a long-term strategy, capping only works if the contaminants
degrade to safe levels before the capping system eventually fails.
What if it takes centuries for some of these contaminants to degrade
to safe levels?" ...<br>
"Burying things rarely helps. And if you've got a chemical that is
that toxic … I think you need to find a way to reuse, recycle and
remove (it), to a place where it's not going to contaminate
groundwater," ...<br>
<font size="-1"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://wtop.com/national/2017/12/toxic-trouble-hundreds-of-superfund-sites-face-flood-risks-2/">https://wtop.com/national/2017/12/toxic-trouble-hundreds-of-superfund-sites-face-flood-risks-2/</a></font><br>
<br>
<br>
[video]<br>
<a moz-do-not-send="true" href="https://youtu.be/K4a7WQ55QTs">Antarctica
Snow and Ice Patterns</a><br>
In 2017, NASA's Operation IceBridge flew for the ninth year over
Antarctica to map the ice. This video features photographs of land
ice and sea ice, shot with a handheld camera and with the Digital
Mapping System (DMS), during IceBridge flights in November 2017. <a
class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/icebridge/index.html">https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/icebridge/index.html</a><br>
Music in this video version is by W.O.W. Sound<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="http://climatestate.com/2017/12/22/antarctica-snow-and-ice-patterns/">http://climatestate.com/2017/12/22/antarctica-snow-and-ice-patterns/</a><br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://youtu.be/K4a7WQ55QTs">https://youtu.be/K4a7WQ55QTs</a><br>
<br>
<br>
[new words]<br>
<b><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://grist.org/article/from-hotumn-to-meatmares-the-words-that-defined-our-planet-this-year/">From
hotumn to meatmares: The words that defined our planet this year</a></b><br>
Every December, dictionary editors declare their picks for "Word of
the Year," expressions that encapsulate the year's defining spirit,
its zeitgeist. The choices so far reflect 2017's biggest stories:
Donald Trump and sexual misconduct, with a complementary ray of
hope. Dictionary.com selected complicit. Merriam-Webster picked
feminism. Oxford Dictionaries introduced us to youthquake - "a
significant cultural, political, or social change arising from the
actions or influence of young people." By Kate Yoder on Dec 22,
2017 <br>
<blockquote><b>500-year flood (n.)</b> A flood event that has a 1 in
500 chance of occurring in a given year. The phrase comes from
flood-risk maps used for disaster preparedness.<br>
<br>
<b>Antevernals (n.)</b> Spring flowers that bloom uncannily early
in the year.<br>
The United States experienced its second warmest February on
record in 2017. East of the Rockies, temperatures averaged as much
as 11 degrees Fahrenheit above normal.<br>
<br>
<b>Category 6 (adj.</b>) An unofficial category given to a
hurricane so powerful that it breaks the scale.<br>
The widely used Saffir-Simpson measure of hurricane strength goes
from Category 1 (very dangerous winds) to Category 5 (widespread
catastrophic damage). So, there's no such thing as a Category 6
hurricane. ... Hurricane Irma's intense wind speed would have put
it at a Category 6. With intense hurricanes happening more
frequently. <br>
<br>
<b>Climate dismissive (n.) </b>A person who dismissesany evidence
of climate change.<br>
...Katharine Hayhoe called for a new name for climate deniers, one
that's more accurate and less likely to immediately end a
conversation. For these folks, "dismissing the reality of climate
change and the necessity for action is such a core part of their
identity," she said. .. A climate dismissive took over the White
House at the start of the year, and, well, we've seen the
consequences.<br>
<br>
<b>Climate tourism (n.) </b>Hurried travel to landscapes that are
expected to melt or disappear. An offshoot of "disaster tourism."<br>
<br>
<b>Ecoanxiety (n.) </b>Anxiety or worry provoked by the unfolding
damage from climate change and other ecological threats.<br>
This spring, the American Psychological Association warned that
climate change is beginning to trigger a mental health crisis on a
vast scale. Climate change directly affects the mental and
physical health of people at the frontlines of disasters, as in
the case of post-Hurricane Maria Puerto Rico. But ecoanxiety - a
cousin of climate anxiety and climate grief - can also afflict
people at a distance, those who feel helpless watching such
disasters unfold. A Gallup poll this year found that 45 percent of
Americans "worry a great deal" about global warming.<br>
<br>
<b>Hotumn (n.) </b>A swelteringly hot fall that's too
unseasonable to call "autumn."<br>
This fall, New England saw record-breaking temperatures.
...Climate models project we'll be basking under the hotumn sun
more and more frequently.<br>
<br>
<b>Meatmare (n.) </b>A nightmare in which a vegetarian or vegan
dreams about accidentally eating meat, then wakes up feeling
guilty about it.<br>
<br>
<b>Medicane (n.) </b>Short for "Mediterranean hurricane," a rare
weather system with the characteristics of a subtropical cyclone
in the Mediterranean Sea.<br>
A medicane caused deadly flooding in Greece this year. Last year,
one struck Malta. ...warmer Mediterranean waters could fuel
stronger medicanes going forward.<br>
<br>
<b>New Arctic (n.) </b>The new name for the Arctic, which has
become so altered by human-caused climate change that it's well on
its way to becoming ice-free.<br>
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration coined the
term in a recent report on the Arctic's health. Basically, the
Arctic as we knew it is already gone, so scientists decided the
melting region needed a new name. The loss of sea ice is
disrupting cycles that have occurred for millennia and altering
global weather patterns.<br>
<br>
<b>Weather extremes (n.)</b> A euphemism for climate change.<br>
In August, the Guardian reported that Trump administration
officials had instructed staff at the U.S. Department of
Agriculture to avoid using the term "climate change" in their
work. Instead, they were to say "weather extremes." An NPR report
found that scientists have begun ... using alternative phrases
like extreme weather instead.<br>
</blockquote>
<font size="-1">
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://grist.org/article/from-hotumn-to-meatmares-the-words-that-defined-our-planet-this-year/">https://grist.org/article/from-hotumn-to-meatmares-the-words-that-defined-our-planet-this-year/</a></font><br>
<br>
<br>
[Fargo weather]<br>
<b><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://www.westfargopioneer.com/news/weather/4376733-weather-talk-wheres-your-global-warming-now-please-dont-ask">Weather
Talk: Where's your global warming now? Please don't ask</a></b><br>
By John Wheeler on Dec 20, 2017<br>
<blockquote>"So where's your global warming now?"<br>
<br>
If you find yourself thinking this in light of the sudden change
to colder weather, please just stop. Whichever side of the pro or
con politics of climate change you are on, this particular line of
reasoning can only demonstrate a complete misunderstanding of
climate and weather.<br>
<br>
From a climate perspective, the warming of the Earth's atmosphere
does not mean it never gets cold anymore. The fact that this cold
seems unusual is a better argument for warming because only six of
the past 36 months have delivered a colder than average mean
temperature to Fargo-Moorhead. Cold weather seems unusual because
it has not been happening as much the past few years.<br>
<br>
From a weather perspective, it has been extremely warm over Alaska
the past few weeks. The cold weather moving in has had to avoid
the Alaska region and get here from central Siberia by coming
directly over the North Pole, a far less traveled route.<br>
</blockquote>
<font size="-1"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="http://www.westfargopioneer.com/news/weather/4376733-weather-talk-wheres-your-global-warming-now-please-dont-ask">http://www.westfargopioneer.com/news/weather/4376733-weather-talk-wheres-your-global-warming-now-please-dont-ask</a></font><br>
<br>
<b><br>
</b>[Naomi Klein]<b><br>
<a
href="https://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/2018-1-january-february/feature/hope-trumps-nope-blueprint-for-resistance">Hope
Trumps Nope: A Blueprint for Resistance</a><br>
</b>To build the world we want, we must dare to dream big and out
loud<br>
When the politics of climate change go wrong-and they are very, very
wrong right now-we don't get to try again in four years. Because in
four years, Earth will have been radically changed by all the gases
emitted in the interim, and our chances of averting an irreversible
catastrophe will have shrunk.<br>
<blockquote>This may sound alarmist, but I have interviewed the
leading scientists in the world on this question, and their
research shows that it's simply a neutral description of reality.
The window during which there is time to lower emissions
sufficiently to avoid truly catastrophic warming is closing
rapidly. Lots of social movements have adopted Samuel Beckett's
famous line "Try again. Fail again. Fail better" as a lighthearted
motto. I've always liked the attitude; we can't be perfect, we
won't always win, but we should strive to improve. The trouble is,
Beckett's dictum doesn't work for climate-not at this stage in the
game. If we keep failing to lower emissions, if we keep failing to
kick-start the transition in earnest away from fossil fuels and to
an economy based on renewables, if we keep dodging the question of
wasteful consumption and the quest for more and more and bigger
and bigger, there won't be more opportunities to fail better.
Nearly everything is moving faster than the climate change
modeling projected, including Arctic sea-ice loss, ice sheet
collapse, ocean warming, sea level rise, and coral bleaching. The
next time voters in countries around the world go to the polls,
more sea ice will have melted, more coastal land will have been
lost, more species will have disappeared for good. The chance for
us to keep temperatures below what it would take for island
nations such as, say, Tuvalu or the Maldives to be saved from
drowning becomes that much slimmer. These are irreversible
changes-we don't get a do-over on a drowned country.<br>
</blockquote>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/2018-1-january-february/feature/hope-trumps-nope-blueprint-for-resistance">https://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/2018-1-january-february/feature/hope-trumps-nope-blueprint-for-resistance</a><b><br>
</b><br>
<br>
<font size="+1"><b><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A20998-2004Dec22.html">This
Day in Climate History December 23, 2004 </a> - from D.R.
Tucker</b></font><br>
December 23, 2004: Proving that climate-change deniers always stick<br>
together, syndicated columnist George Will praises Michael
Crichton's<br>
novel "State of Fear."<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A20998-2004Dec22.html">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A20998-2004Dec22.html</a><br>
<br>
<br>
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