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<font size="+1"><i>July 16, 2018</i></font><br>
<br>
[All American sport]<br>
<b><a moz-do-not-send="true" href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/">The
hot, stormy weather forecast for the MLB All-Star Game and
events leading up</a></b><br>
By Angela Fritz - July 13<br>
(The Washington Post - subscription)<br>
It's All-Star Weekend in Washington, and baseball fans are
overrunning the capital. A mini-heatwave is also moving in, with
temperatures in the 90s and a triple-digit heat index through
Tuesday<br>
<font size="-1"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/">https://www.washingtonpost.com/</a></font><br>
<br>
<br>
[Audio and text]<br>
<b><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://www.pri.org/stories/2018-07-15/global-corn-crop-vulnerable-effects-climate-change">The
global corn crop is vulnerable to the effects of climate change</a></b><br>
Living on Earth<br>
July 15, 2018 - Writer Adam Wernick<br>
<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://loe.org/audio/stream.m3u?file=/content/2018-06-29/loe_180629_b2_Crop%20Failures%20-Ozone8_03-01.mp3">stream/download</a>
this segment as an MP3 file<br>
Corn, also known as maize, is the world's most-produced food crop.
But it could be headed for trouble as the Earth warms.<br>
A new study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of
Sciences of the United States of America finds that climate change
will not only increase the risk of food shocks from world corn
production but that these crop failures could occur simultaneously.<br>
<br>
"Increased warming leads to global crop failures because plants are
not adapted to really high temperatures," explains Michelle
Tigchelaar, a research associate at the University of Washington.
"Most of our crops are really well-adapted for our current climate.
There is an optimum temperature at which they grow and beyond that
their yields decline. Extreme heat has really negative impacts
on…the flowering of crops and also increases their water usage."<br>
- - - -<br>
Farmers may be able to find ways to adapt to new conditions. For
example, Tigchelaar says her study did not look at the extent to
which growing regions could shift. "Already we see that wheat is
expanding northward," she explains. "So, we might be able to soon
grow corn in places we couldn't grow it before. Similarly, farmers
might decide to shift their planting dates to avoid the hottest time
of the year."<br>
Ultimately, however, if a four-degree-warmer world is our future,
the world will need crops that tolerate heat better, Tigchelaar
says. International maize and wheat organizations have worked for
decades at breeding crops more tolerant to heat, so far without
success.<br>
"This is a really difficult trait to breed into crops, and it should
be a major effort - but it's also a little disconcerting that they
haven't achieved that yet," Tigchelaar says...<br>
<font size="-1"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.pri.org/stories/2018-07-15/global-corn-crop-vulnerable-effects-climate-change">https://www.pri.org/stories/2018-07-15/global-corn-crop-vulnerable-effects-climate-change</a></font><br>
- - - - -<br>
[<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://www.pnas.org/content/115/26/6644/">Read the full
study here</a>]<br>
<b><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://www.pnas.org/content/115/26/6644/">Future warming
increases probability of globally synchronized maize production
shocks</a></b><br>
<b>Significance</b><br>
<blockquote>Climate-induced shocks in grain production are a major
contributor to global market volatility, which creates uncertainty
for cereal farmers and agribusiness and reduces food access for
poor consumers when production falls and prices spike. Our study,
by combining empirical models of maize production with future
warming scenarios, shows that in a warmer climate, maize yields
will decrease and become more variable. Because just a few
countries dominate global maize production and trade, simultaneous
production shocks in these countries can have tremendous impacts
on global markets. We show that such synchronous shocks are rare
now but will become much more likely if the climate continues to
warm. Our results underscore the need for continued investments in
breeding for heat tolerance.<br>
</blockquote>
Abstract<br>
<blockquote>Meeting the global food demand of roughly 10 billion
people by the middle of the 21st century will become increasingly
challenging as the Earth's climate continues to warm. Earlier
studies suggest that once the optimum growing temperature is
exceeded, mean crop yields decline and the variability of yield
increases even if interannual climate variability remains
unchanged. Here, we use global datasets of maize production and
climate variability combined with future temperature projections
to quantify how yield variability will change in the world's major
maize-producing and -exporting countries under 2C and 4C of global
warming. We find that as the global mean temperature increases,
absent changes in temperature variability or breeding gains in
heat tolerance, the coefficient of variation (CV) of maize yields
increases almost everywhere to values much larger than present-day
values. This higher CV is due both to an increase in the SD of
yields and a decrease in mean yields. For the top four
maize-exporting countries, which account for 87% of global maize
exports, the probability that they have simultaneous production
losses greater than 10% in any given year is presently virtually
zero, but it increases to 7% under 2C warming and 86% under 4C
warming. Our results portend rising instability in global grain
trade and international grain prices, affecting especially the
∼800 million people living in extreme poverty who are most
vulnerable to food price spikes. They also underscore the urgency
of investments in breeding for heat tolerance.<br>
</blockquote>
<font size="-1"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="http://www.pnas.org/content/115/26/6644/">http://www.pnas.org/content/115/26/6644/</a><br>
<br>
</font><br>
[World Bank Study from 2013]<br>
<b><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://www.worldbank.org/en/news/feature/2013/08/19/coastal-cities-at-highest-risk-floods">Which
Coastal Cities Are at Highest Risk of Damaging Floods? New Study
Crunches the Numbers</a></b><br>
August 19, 2013<br>
- - - - -<br>
In terms of the overall cost of damage, the <b>cities at the
greatest risk are: 1) Guangzhou, 2) Miami, 3) New York, 4) New
Orleans, 5) Mumbai, 6) Nagoya, 7) Tampa, 8) Boston, 9) Shenzen,
and 10) Osaka. The top four cities alone account for 43% of the
forecast total global losses.</b><br>
<br>
However, developing-country cities move up the list when flood costs
are measured as a percentage of city gross domestic product (GDP).
Many of them are growing rapidly, have large populations, are poor,
and are exposed to tropical storms and sinking land. <br>
<br>
The study lists the <b>10 most vulnerable cities when measured as
percentage of GDP as: 1) Guangzhou; 2) New Orleans; 3) Guayaquil,
Ecuador; 4) Ho Chi Minh City; 5) Abidjan; 6) Zhanjing; 7) Mumbai;
8) Khulna, Bangladesh; 9) Palembang, Indonesia; and 10) Shenzen.</b><br>
<br>
In most of these cities, the poor are most at risk as rapid
urbanization has pushed them into the most vulnerable neighborhoods,
often in low-lying areas and along waterways prone to flooding... <br>
<font size="-1"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="http://www.worldbank.org/en/news/feature/2013/08/19/coastal-cities-at-highest-risk-floods">http://www.worldbank.org/en/news/feature/2013/08/19/coastal-cities-at-highest-risk-floods</a></font><br>
- - - - <br>
CLIMATE CHANGE WILL FORCE THE POOR FROM THEIR HOMES<br>
<b><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://www.citylab.com/equity/2018/07/the-reality-of-climate-gentrification/564152/">'Climate
Gentrification' Will Deepen Urban Inequality</a></b><br>
RICHARD FLORIDA JUL 5, 2018<br>
A new study investigates the intersection of climate change and real
estate, and finds that higher elevations bring higher values.<br>
It's no surprise that a list of places most at risk from climate
change and sea-level rise reads like a Who's Who of global cities,
since historically, many great cities have developed near oceans,
natural harbors, or other bodies of water. Miami ranks first, New
York comes second, and Tokyo, London, Shanghai, and Hong Kong all
number among the top 20 at-risk cities in terms of total projected
losses.<br>
<br>
Cities in the less developed and more rapidly urbanizing parts of
the world, such as Ho Chi Minh City and Mumbai, may experience even
more substantial losses as a percentage of their total economic
output. Looking out to 2050, annual losses from flooding related to
climate change and sea-level rise could increase to more than $60
billion a year.<br>
<br>
But global climate change poses another risk for cities: accelerated
gentrification. That's according to a new study by Jesse Keenan,
Thomas Hill, and Anurag Gumber, all of Harvard University, that
focuses on "climate gentrification." While still emerging and not
yet clearly defined, the theory of climate gentrification is based,
the authors write, "on a simple proposition: [C]limate change
impacts arguably make some property more or less valuable by virtue
of its capacity to accommodate a certain density of human settlement
and its associated infrastructure." The implication is that such
price volatility "is either a primary or a partial driver of the
patterns of urban development that lead to displacement (and
sometimes entrenchment) of existing populations consistent with
conventional framings of gentrification."<br>
<br>
The study, published in Environmental Research Letters, advances a
simple "elevation hypothesis," arguing that real estate at higher
elevations in cities at risk for climate change and sea-level rise
appreciates at a higher rate than elsewhere...<font size="-1"><br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.citylab.com/equity/2018/07/the-reality-of-climate-gentrification/564152/">https://www.citylab.com/equity/2018/07/the-reality-of-climate-gentrification/564152/</a></font><br>
- - - - <br>
[Environmental Research Letters]<br>
<b><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/aabb32">Climate
gentrification: from theory to empiricism in Miami-Dade County,
Florida</a></b><br>
Abstract<br>
<blockquote>This article provides a conceptual model for the
pathways by which climate change could operate to impact
geographies and property markets whose inferior or superior
qualities for supporting the built environment are subject to a
descriptive theory known as 'Climate Gentrification.' The article
utilizes Miami-Dade County, Florida (MDC) as a case study to
explore the market mechanisms that speak to the operations and
processes inherent in the theory. This article tests the
hypothesis that the rate of price appreciation of single-family
properties in MDC is positively related to and correlated with
incremental measures of higher elevation (the 'Elevation
Hypothesis'). As a reflection of an increase in observed nuisance
flooding and relative SLR, the second hypothesis is that the rates
of price appreciation in lowest the elevation cohorts have not
kept up with the rates of appreciation of higher elevation cohorts
since approximately 2000 (the 'Nuisance Hypothesis'). The findings
support a validation of both hypotheses and suggest the potential
existence of consumer preferences that are based, in part, on
perceptions of flood risk and/or observations of flooding. These
preferences and perceptions are anticipated to be amplified by
climate change in a manner that reinforces the proposition that
climate change impacts will affect the marketability and valuation
of property with varying degrees of environmental exposure and
resilience functionality. Uncovering these empirical relationships
is a critical first step for understanding the occurrence and
parameters of Climate Gentrification.<br>
</blockquote>
<font size="-1"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/aabb32">http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/aabb32</a></font><br>
<br>
<br>
[a new field of study]<br>
<b><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://climateandcapitalism.com/2018/07/15/studying-the-health-impacts-of-global-environmental-change/">Studying
the health impacts of global environmental change</a></b><br>
Posted on July 15, 2018<br>
Planetary Health, a new field of scientific research, focuses on the
human health impacts of the growing disruption of Earth's metabolic
systems<br>
The growing global crisis poses immediate and long-term threats to
human health and well-being. This article, first published in
Environmental Health Perspectives, provides important background on
the efforts of scientists to understand and respond to those
threats.<br>
<b>DOWN TO EARTH: THE EMERGING FIELD OF PLANETARY HEALTH</b><br>
by Nate Seltenrich<br>
Nate Seltenrich is an award-winning freelance journalist based in
the San Francisco Bay Area, whose work covers science, energy, and
the environment.<br>
<br>
Human impacts on our planet have become so profound that many
researchers now favor a new name for the current epoch: the
Anthropocene. The underlying premise of this term is that
essentially every Earth system, from the deep oceans to the upper
atmosphere, has been significantly modified by human activity.<br>
<br>
This idea, and related concepts like the great acceleration,
planetary boundaries, and tipping points may be of interest, even
grave concern, to ecologists, biologists, and climatologists. Yet
viewed through an environmental health lens-which recognizes the
critical links between human health and the food we eat, the water
we drink, and the air we breathe-humans' growing influence on the
planet threatens the very long-term survival of our species.<br>
<br>
"There's a bit of a paradox that we're seeing for the last 100 to
150 years," says Michael Myers, managing director for health at the
Rockefeller Foundation. "Exploitation of the environment has
contributed to human health. By exploiting Earth resources we have a
more comfortable existence, and our life spans have increased
considerably. But we're now at a tipping point in which the
exploitation of the environment is beginning to have a negative
impact on human health." The same natural systems that have
benefited us for so long, he says, are now beginning to collapse.<br>
<br>
From this realization has come another new term: planetary health.
There is significant overlap between planetary health and
traditional environmental health; both examine the relationship
between human health and conditions and exposures originating
outside the body, be they extreme temperatures, chemicals and
biological agents, vector-borne diseases, or any number of other
potential factors. However, planetary health, by definition,
explicitly accounts for the importance of natural systems in terms
of averted cases of disease and the potential harm that comes from
human-caused perturbations of these systems-a consideration that has
not necessarily factored into environmental health research to
date...<br>
- - - - -<br>
"We're seeing young people who combine the insights of different
fields very fluidly, and that's exactly what we'll need in this
field in coming years."<br>
To achieve its goals, adds Osofsky, the field will also need to play
an active and deliberate role in shaping policy and decision-making.
For example, he recommends formally including public health
considerations in environmental impact assessments for major
development projects.<br>
"When we think about large infrastructure projects like a dam on the
Mekong, and millions of people are depending on fisheries for
micronutrients and protein, that's really important-and yet we don't
do robust public health impact assessments," says Osofsky. "If
you're building a highway through the Amazon, you need to
methodically look at what that means for vector-borne disease. And
today, we don't do that. We have to look at the pros and cons of
these actions in terms of economic impact, social impact,
environmental impact, and public health impact."<br>
Raffaella Bosurgi, editor of The Lancet Planetary Health, agrees
that the field is inherently political. "We need to build the
scientific evidence, and then once we build it, it must help us
strengthen the case for policy action," she says. "In that way, we
can revise and practically change the way we interact with the
environment."<br>
Ultimately, Osofsky says, the field of planetary health is an
optimistic one. It makes the case that complex relationships between
human modification of the environment and human health outcomes can
be understood and thus more thoughtfully and proactively addressed.
"If you measure something, then you can really hold
people-ourselves-accountable," he says. "The planetary health
message gives one prospect for hope."<br>
<font size="-1"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="http://climateandcapitalism.com/2018/07/15/studying-the-health-impacts-of-global-environmental-change/">http://climateandcapitalism.com/2018/07/15/studying-the-health-impacts-of-global-environmental-change/</a></font><br>
<br>
<br>
[Media competence]<br>
<b><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-stokes-heat-wave-media-climate-change-20180715-story.html">Climate
change is behind the global heat wave. Why won't the media say
it?</a></b><br>
By LEAH C. STOKES<br>
JUL 15, 2018<br>
<b>Climate change is behind the global heat wave. Why won't the
media say it?</b><br>
Last week's heat wave brought record temperatures to Southern
California. Hot winds blew fire into my community in Santa Barbara
County, ripping through a dozen homes and threatening hundreds more.<br>
I tuned into the local news channel, where reporters reminded
viewers that we had just finished a record-breaking fire season.
They strained to list all the fires we'd had over the past decade.
There were too many to recall.<br>
Fires are happening a lot more often across California. You can't
accurately call it a fire "season" anymore. The season is
year-round.<br>
But journalists who report on the fires or heat waves rarely
acknowledge this reality. Last week, the local newscasters in my
area never did, even though it has a very familiar name: climate
change.<br>
The same is true of the media at large. Although it reports on each
fresh disaster - every fire, every hurricane, every flood - it tends
to stop short of linking extreme weather events to global warming,
as though the subject were the exclusive province of reporters on
the climate beat.<br>
The science is clear. Journalists need to start using it.<br>
<b><br>
</b><b>As a result, we're missing what is arguably the biggest story
of all: The climate we knew is no more. We've already warmed the
planet, whether we deny it or not.</b><br>
<br>
It's not hard to spot global warming in the news. If you're looking,
its marks are everywhere. Right now, southern Japan is flooded. Two
months' worth of rain fell in five days, a day's worth in an hour.
Mudslides followed. More than 200 are dead, more are missing,
millions are displaced.<br>
But to get the larger story about extreme weather events, you have
to read between the headlines.<br>
There is no sound justification for this. Not anymore. Scientists
have been churning out evidence of human-caused climate change for
more than a century. Some are figuring out exactly how much to blame
global warming for any given weather event. They're getting really
good at it.<br>
<br>
We can now link many recent disasters and weather events to climate
change. We know, for instance, that more than three-quarters of
moderate heat waves are connected to warming. We also know that,
were it not for climate change, fires in the West would have burned
half as much land since the 1980s. Scientists have been documenting
the increase in extreme rain events in Japan since the early 1990s.<br>
There are reasons they haven't. Reporters are trained to distinguish
weather from climate. They are also conditioned to avoid the
appearance of political bias, and a decades-long campaign to sow
doubt about global warming has cast a partisan aura on the facts.<br>
<br>
But with a bit of nuance, journalists can carefully identify the
pattern. Any weather event has multiple causes. More and more,
climate change is one of them, and its share of blame is growing.<br>
<br>
The public is not entirely in the dark. In fact, research by Peter
D. Howe, a geographer at Utah State University, shows that 60% of
people in 89 countries correctly perceive that temperatures where
they live have warmed over time. According to a study by the
political scientists Matto Mildenberger and Dustin Tingley, most
Americans underestimate how many people share their belief that
climate change is real. Most of us know this is not a drill, and
most of us want our government to do more.<br>
<br>
We all need to do more. Countries around the world need to go beyond
the commitments made in Paris. We need more wind and solar energy.
We need states to keep nuclear plants open when they are safe,
because they already produce clean energy. We need to stop rolling
back renewable energy laws, as my research has documented in Ohio,
Texas and Arizona.<br>
<br>
But we won't do any of this until we can see what's happening.
Journalists play a critical role in helping the public to make these
connections. They need to start telling the whole story.<br>
<font size="-1">Leah C. Stokes (@leahstokes) is an assistant
professor of environmental politics at UC Santa Barbara.</font><br>
<br>
<br>
<font size="+1"><b><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/27161-1">This Day in
Climate History - July 16, 1992</a>- from D.R. Tucker</b></font><br>
July 16, 1992: At the 1992 Democratic National Convention, Senator
and Vice-Presidential nominee Al Gore notes:<br>
<blockquote>"I've spent much of my career working to protect the
environment, not only because it is vital to the future of my
State of Tennessee, our country and our earth, but because I
believe there is a fundamental link between our current
relationship to the earth and the attitudes that stand in the way
of human progress. For generations we have believed that we could
abuse the earth because we were somehow not really connected to
it, but now we must face the truth. The task of saving the earth's
environment must and will become the central organizing principle
of the post-Cold War world.<br>
<br>
"And just as the false assumption that we are not connected to the
earth has led to the ecological crisis, so the equally false
assumption that we are not connected to each other has led to our
social crisis."<br>
</blockquote>
He also declares that President George H. W. Bush and Vice President
Dan Quayle "embarrassed our nation when the whole world was asking
for American leadership in confronting the environmental crisis. It
is time for them to go."<br>
<font size="-1"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/27161-1">http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/27161-1</a><br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="http://www.speeches-usa.com/Transcripts/al_gore-1992dnc.htm">http://www.speeches-usa.com/Transcripts/al_gore-1992dnc.htm</a></font><br>
<br>
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