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<font size="+1"><i>October 2, 2018</i></font><br>
<b><br>
</b>[Gosh, I hope we get a sober judge]<b><br>
<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://westernlaw.org/lawsuit-challenges-trump-administration-gutting-methane-waste-rule/">Lawsuit
Challenges Trump Administration for Gutting Methane Waste Rule</a></b><br>
Twice Defeated, Zinke Makes Third Attempt to Allow More Gas
Pollution, Waste<br>
SAN FRANCISCO--A broad coalition of conservation and citizens'
groups sued the Trump administration late last Friday to challenge
the Bureau of Land Management for rescinding most provisions of its
2016 methane waste rule.<br>
The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court, notes Interior Secretary
Ryan Zinke's BLM illegally rescinded the rule, which requires oil
and gas companies operating on public lands to take reasonable
measures to prevent the waste of publicly owned natural gas. Such
measures significantly reduce pollution from methane, a dangerously
potent greenhouse gas.<br>
"Secretary Zinke's actions speak louder than his hollow claims to a
conservation ethic in the mold of Teddy Roosevelt. He gutted the
methane rule to give industry free rein to do what it wants, in
contempt of the public's unquestioned desire for strong methane
waste and pollution safeguards," said Erik Schlenker-Goodrich,
executive director of the Western Environmental Law Center. "Zinke
should leave the rule in place to safeguard the public interest and
to ensure that Americans receive their fair share of oil and gas
production royalties."<br>
In the legal challenge, the groups said the rescission violates
federal law by downplaying the significance of the rule's benefits
to public health, local communities and the climate. The lawsuit
also says BLM's cost-benefit analysis ignored global climate costs.
The original rule sought to improve public health by reducing
atmospheric methane, which is 80 times more potent than carbon
dioxide...<br>
<font size="-1"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://westernlaw.org/lawsuit-challenges-trump-administration-gutting-methane-waste-rule/">https://westernlaw.org/lawsuit-challenges-trump-administration-gutting-methane-waste-rule/</a></font><br>
<br>
<br>
[Insurance finds It's a hard, It's..]<br>
<b><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/kensilverstein/2018/10/01/a-hard-rains-a-gonna-fall-on-insurers-unless-they-address-climate-risks/#6314d0063312">A
'Hard Rain's A Gonna Fall' On Insurers Unless They Address
Climate Risks</a></b><br>
Ken Silverstein - Contributor<br>
- - - <br>
"The financial sector needs to speed up its action on climate change
within the next 36 months if we are to make the shift to a
low-carbon economy - and insurers are leading the way," UN
Environment Executive Director Erik Solheim said.<br>
- - - - <br>
Will insurance companies use their clout to bring about change?
While they may generally prefer fewer government regulations, they
may tacitly favor those that would limit CO2 releases and encourage
cleaner energies.<br>
<br>
"The insurance industry is supposed to protect us from catastrophic
risk, yet when it comes to climate change, they're adding fuel to
the fire through their investments and underwriting," Lindsey Allen,
Executive Director of the Rainforest Action Network said. "Our
communities are the ones who are paying the price -- through
catastrophic wildfires, massive flooding, increased premiums, and
denial of coverage."<br>
<br>
The good news is that the companies, generally, are responding to
consumer demands and are thus moving to limit their CO2 releases --
something that will continue no matter who controls the White House.
Insurers, too, are slowly getting on board. But their pace of
activism should pick up given that their financial exposure to
climate-related claims keeps worsening.<br>
<br>
Indeed -- as Bob Dylan writes -- A Hard Rain's a Gonna Fall on
insurers unless they step up.<br>
<font size="-1"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/kensilverstein/2018/10/01/a-hard-rains-a-gonna-fall-on-insurers-unless-they-address-climate-risks/#6314d0063312">https://www.forbes.com/sites/kensilverstein/2018/10/01/a-hard-rains-a-gonna-fall-on-insurers-unless-they-address-climate-risks/#6314d0063312</a></font><br>
- - - -<br>
[Possible anthem for our age of global warming]<br>
<b><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T5al0HmR4to">Bob Dylan - A
Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall (Audio) </a></b><br>
Music video by Bob Dylan performing A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall
(Audio). (C) 2016 Columbia Records, a division of Sony Music
Entertainment<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T5al0HmR4to">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T5al0HmR4to</a><br>
- - - -<br>
[Wikipedia]<br>
<b><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Hard_Rain%27s_a-Gonna_Fall">"A
Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall"</a></b><br>
Song by Bob Dylan from the album The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan<br>
Released May 27, 1963<br>
Recorded December 6, 1962<br>
Songwriter Bob Dylan<br>
The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan track listing<br>
"A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall" is a song written by Bob Dylan in the
summer of 1962 and recorded later that year for his second album,
The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan. Its lyrical structure is thematically
complex and modeled after the question and answer form of
traditional ballads such as "Lord Randall".<br>
The song is characterized by dark symbolist imagery and a message
communicating injustice, suffering, pollution, and warfare. Dylan
has stated that all of the lyrics were taken from the initial lines
of songs that "he thought he would never have time to write." Nat
Hentoff quoted Dylan as saying that he immediately wrote the song in
response to the Cuban Missile Crisis, although in his memoir,
Chronicles: Volume One, Dylan attributed his inspiration to the
feeling he got when reading microfiche newspapers in the New York
Public Library: "After a while you become aware of nothing but a
culture of feeling, of black days, of schism, evil for evil, the
common destiny of the human being getting thrown off course. It's
all one long funeral song.<br>
<font size="-1"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Hard_Rain%27s_a-Gonna_Fall">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Hard_Rain%27s_a-Gonna_Fall</a></font><br>
<br>
<br>
[Frozen Ocean]<br>
<b><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://www.hakaimagazine.com/videos-visuals/frozen-ocean/">A
photographic primer on the dynamics of marine ice.</a></b><br>
Authored by by Jennifer Kingsley <br>
September 24, 2018 - 1,300 words, <b>14 photos</b><br>
In the era of climate change, ice is a hot topic. It makes headlines
for calving, drifting, and melting in the polar regions at alarming
rates. But what is marine ice exactly?<br>
<br>
The ocean's ice comes from either the atmosphere or the sea itself.
Glacial ice (which can cover vast areas, including Antarctica)
originates from precipitation, while sea ice (also vast, depending
on the season) forms when the ocean freezes.<br>
<br>
Ice dominates both polar regions but in different ways. The Arctic
is a frozen ocean surrounded by land. Antarctica, by contrast, is a
frozen landmass surrounded by ocean. On a visit to either, your ship
might bump through sea ice, but you would likely take more
photographs of glacial ice because it's responsible for icebergs.
Sea ice, matte white and typically no thicker than the height of an
average person, is less glamorous--unless there's a polar bear
standing on it--but just as remarkable. It's a critical habitat for
a range of species, from single-celled organisms to whales. And its
dynamism is amazing; much of the world's sea ice disappears and then
re-forms every year...<br>
- - - <br>
Antarctica is the highest, in average elevation, of any continent on
Earth due in part to the ice sheet that blankets it with an average
thickness of two kilometers and a maximum thickness of almost five.
The continent has been at least partially covered in glacial ice for
40 million years, and the oldest ice that scientists have been able
to extract holds gases from the Earth's atmosphere 2.7 million years
ago. Antarctic ice is often described through monolithic metrics
like these, but that vast expanse of glacial ice began as flakes of
snow...<br>
Snow compressed by its own weight becomes ice, and when enough ice
accumulates in one place, it begins to slowly flow across the
landscape and becomes a glacier. If glaciers reach the ocean, they
float and may extend hundreds of kilometers out to sea as ice
shelves. Some ice shelves have calved dramatically in recent
years--an iceberg almost half the size of Prince Edward Island broke
off a shelf in Antarctica in 2017. Ice shelves can help stabilize
glaciers, keeping them on land; without them, land-based ice may
flow into the sea and deteriorate more quickly...<br>
- - - -<br>
Unlike freshwater ice, sea ice begins as a thin, malleable sheet
called frazil ice, which then progresses through a variety of stages
including shuga (spongy lumps a few centimeters across) and nilas (a
thin, elastic crust). The process starts when seawater reaches its
freezing point, which varies with salinity and is about -1.8 C in
the polar regions. Salt itself does not freeze; as the ice forms,
salt molecules are largely excluded from the crystals. As a result,
sea ice is not nearly as salty as the sea itself. Gravity helps pull
the discarded salt molecules down through the ice, leaving small,
vertical tunnels called brine channels.<br>
<br>
Before sea ice solidifies, it may become pancake ice, a beautiful
mosaic of circles ranging from the size of a Frisbee to a backyard
trampoline, with raised edges formed from the constant contact
between the pieces.<br>
<br>
Because sea ice is so varied and of such concern for ship traffic,
mariners have precise navigational terms to describe its different
forms, including young ice, gray ice, gray-white ice, thin first
year, and thick first year.<br>
<br>
Salt molecules extruded from sea ice form a dense, hyperchilled
brine that can sink rapidly through the water after trickling out of
the ice. Because the brine is colder, the subsurface seawater it
comes in contact with sometimes freezes upon contact, creating an
underwater icicle--or brinicle--that extends toward the seafloor
like a slow-growing lightning bolt. Anything the icicle touches can
freeze to death, including these unfortunate sea stars and giant
Antarctic isopod.<br>
- - - -<br>
First-year sea ice makes up most of the sea ice in the world, both
north and south. Enough forms around Antarctica each fall to almost
double the surface area of the continent, yet the majority of it
melts the following summer.<br>
<br>
In the Arctic, multiyear ice is more common; the Arctic Ocean always
remains partially frozen. In early autumn, the region reaches its
annual sea ice minimum. For the past 20 to 30 years, that minimum
has decreased by an average of 45,000 square kilometers worth of ice
each year. Sea ice is the defining feature of the Arctic Ocean, yet
as more of it disappears, the ocean is transforming from a solid to
a liquid...<br>
- - - <br>
If all the glacial ice in Antarctica were to melt, it would raise
the global sea level by 60 meters--high enough to submerge a
20-story building. In the Arctic, the Greenland ice sheet holds
enough water for six meters of sea level rise.<br>
<font size="-1"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.hakaimagazine.com/videos-visuals/frozen-ocean/">https://www.hakaimagazine.com/videos-visuals/frozen-ocean/</a></font><br>
- - - -<br>
[For November 2018 publication]<br>
Earth and Planetary Science Letters<br>
<b><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0012821X18305156?via%3Dihub">Massive
destabilization of an Arctic ice cap</a></b><br>
Highlights<br>
Ice advanced 8 km, accelerated to 25 m/day and thinned at a rate of
about 0.3 m/day.<br>
Bedrock below ice cap is mostly above sea level.<br>
Ice is likely mostly frozen to the bedrock.<br>
This type of ice cap has not been seen to behave this way before.<br>
Ramifications for other polar ice caps and glaciers.<br>
Abstract<br>
<blockquote>Ice caps that are mostly frozen at the bedrock-ice
interface are thought to be stable and respond slowly to changes
in climate. We use remote sensing to measure velocity and
thickness changes that occur when the margin of the largely
cold-based Vavilov Ice Cap in the Russian High Arctic advances
over weak marine sediments. We show that cold-based to polythermal
glacier systems with no previous history of surging may evolve
with unexpected and unprecedented speed when their basal boundary
conditions change, resulting in very large dynamic ice mass losses
(an increase in annual mass loss by a factor of ∼100) over a few
years. We question the future long-term stability of cold and
polythermal polar ice caps, many of which terminate in marine
waters as the climate becomes warmer and wetter in the polar
regions.<br>
</blockquote>
<font size="-1"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0012821X18305156?via%3Dihub">https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0012821X18305156?via%3Dihub</a></font><br>
<br>
<br>
[Climate Psychology]<br>
<b><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://www.newsecuritybeat.org/2017/01/building-locus-control-protecting-climate-trauma/">Building
a Locus of Control: Protecting Yourself From "Climate Trauma"</a></b><br>
January 23, 2017 By Lynae Bresser<br>
With countries declaring drought emergencies and islands facing
inundation, it can be difficult to turn away from the big picture
when it comes to climate change. If we are to build a
climate-resilient society, though, we must look to resilience at its
origins, says one group of experts: the individual.<br>
<br>
The impact that climate change can have on psychological health is
emerging as a concern for some mental health professionals, disaster
response officials, educators, and faith leaders. In November 2016,
more than 100 people gathered in Washington, DC, for the first-ever
conference on strengthening personal resilience to climate change,
sponsored by the International Transformational Resilience
Coalition. The changing environment is leading to the breakdown of
communities in some places and deteriorating mental health in
others, said experts. "Climate trauma" can occur when either acute
or long-term climate impacts cause loss of life or property. The
phenomenon is anticipated by the National Wildlife Foundation to
impact tens of millions globally in the coming years.<br>
<br>
To combat these effects, some are calling for more attention to
"psychosocial resilience," or the ability of an individual to
withstand both the psychological and social aspects of stress.<br>
<b><br>
</b><b>Losing a Sense of Place - and Future</b><br>
Climate change can lead to disasters and disasters lead to stress.
But a unique component of climate change is the feeling that it is
inexorable, that there is no escape.<br>
<br>
A study published in the International Journal of Circumpolar Health
of the Sami indigenous people of northern Sweden found that young
Sami reindeer-herders were three times more likely to attempt
suicide than other Swedes. Reporting by STAT tells the story of
29-year-old Gustu Marainen who took his own life after watching his
herd suffer under the pressures of extreme weather and unpredictable
temperatures and telling his family he did not see a bright future.<br>
<br>
In another study, when asked what is required to live a healthy and
good life, 93 percent of Inuit women responded that the ice, water,
and land they live on is critical. Record low levels of Arctic sea
ice and temperatures soaring 20 degrees above average are upending
these ecosystems and the very future of the Inuit way of life in
every respect.<br>
<br>
These effects are not unique to Arctic peoples, who face a more
rapidly changing climate than the rest of the world. A broad survey
of evidence published in Epidemiologic Reviews details how floods
prompt rises in disorders like anxiety, depression, and
post-traumatic stress as they threaten livelihoods around the world.<br>
<br>
A study published by researchers from Murdoch University found a
similar "sense of place" was a crucial determinant of mental
wellbeing for farmers in western Australia. They observed a strong
connection between homesteads suffering from chronic drought in the
region, where winter rainfall has decreased 20 percent since the
1970s, and heightened risk of anxiety and depression in farmers
caused by despair for the future.<br>
<br>
The uncertainty and apprehension dominating the political
conversation around climate change has also proven to be an
extraordinary mental stressor for those working in the field.
Psychiatrist Lise Van Susteren told Esquire that many climate
scientists and activists are suffering from "pre-traumatic stress
disorder," caused by the mental preparation for the worst. "So many
of us are exhibiting all the signs and symptoms of post-traumatic
disorder," she said, "the anger, the panic, the obsessive intrusive
thoughts." Meanwhile Judith Curry, a prominent critic of climate
science, recently retired from Georgia Tech citing the "craziness"
of the scientific and political debate.<br>
<br>
<b>Prioritizing the Individual</b><br>
Building resilience to the psychosocial effects of climate change is
not impossible though, said experts at the Conference on Building
Human Resilience for Climate Change.<br>
<br>
University of California Berkeley Psychologist Rick Hanson said that
the way individuals deal with both positive and negative experiences
has lasting impacts on neural structure and function. Because our
brains have a built-in "negativity bias," which prompts us to
over-focus on and over-react to stressful, harmful experiences,
learning to train our brains proactively is especially valuable. By
consciously sensitizing the brain to the positive - to see the glass
half full more often - we allow for the growth of inner resources,
such as intelligence and courage, and the building of personal
resilience, Hanson explained. Doing so can even change the brain
permanently, re-wiring neural pathways to think differently.<br>
<br>
Making sure individuals have the knowledge to be able to prepare for
and respond to a disaster is another important factor in building
resilience, said Anita Chandra of the RAND Organization. Knowing
what is within our power to change and what is not can aid the
development of an "internal locus of control," which strengthens
personal resilience. While physical climate impacts are, for the
most part, out of the individual's control, taking control of how
those impacts affect us can turn adversity into an opportunity
rather than a setback.<br>
<br>
These ideas have been codified into a sort of doctrine called the
Resilient Growth Model, said Bob Doppelt, director of The Resource
Innovation Group. By teaching individuals to use simple methods such
as identifying the values they want to live by in the midst of
adversity, their workshops encourage "values-based decision-making"
and "adversity-based growth" in the face of climate change.<br>
<br>
Joining support groups is one way people are dealing with the
stresses of climate change. Although no clinical diagnoses of
"climate grief" or "climate trauma" exist, Good Grief, a small NGO
based in Salt Lake City, is working to boost community involvement
and give people confidence that they can prepare for and mitigate
climate change through peer support. "You've vented and gotten some
worries off your chest, and now you have a better understanding of
what you can do as an individual," Laura Schmidt, founder of Good
Grief, told Yale Climate Connections. "When things got really
depressing for them, they could take a break and let their community
care for them for a bit - and then go back out and fight or talk
about climate change."<br>
<br>
<b>A Two-Way Street</b><br>
Mental health issues generally are among the most widely neglected
in the world. In Ethiopia, there are only 50 psychiatrists for 86
million people, leaving about 90 percent of the population without
adequate treatment.<br>
<br>
In the United States, more than half of Americans who claim climate
change is personally important to them rarely or never discuss the
topic with family or friends, according to a survey by the Yale
Program on Climate Change Communication. The researchers dubbed the
phenomenon a "spiral of silence."<br>
<br>
The good news with so little attention being paid to mental health
is that improvements should theoretically be easy. For many
Americans, simply discussing climate change would likely be a
positive change.<br>
<br>
Adopting a trauma sensitive community framework can change the way
we think, explained Trudy Townsend, former coordinator of Creating
Sanctuary in the Dalles, at the conference. In turn, these changes
can shift communities from "trauma-organized" to "trauma-informed,"
in which individuals have the knowledge to prepare for and respond
to disasters and neighbors feel they can rely on one another.<br>
<br>
As individuals within a society build inner resilience, it becomes
harder for them to be manipulated by fear, anger, and "us" versus
"them" mentalities generally, said Hanson. As individuals contribute
to societal resilience, it's likely you will see fewer symptoms of
community-level trauma, including damaged social networks, the
elevation of destructive social norms, and a low sense of political
and social efficacy.<br>
<br>
The optimal result, said Doppelt, is that we are not only better
prepared, mentally and physically, to deal with climate change, but
that climate-related adversities can be transformational catalysts
for communities. After 95 percent of homes were destroyed by a
tornado in the small town of Greensburg, Kansas, in 2007, for
example, people banded together and rebuilt the town to run
completely on renewable energy. Such a response is not only a sign
of a healthy, resilient community, but of healthy, resilient
individuals.<br>
<font size="-1"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.newsecuritybeat.org/2017/01/building-locus-control-protecting-climate-trauma/">https://www.newsecuritybeat.org/2017/01/building-locus-control-protecting-climate-trauma/</a></font><br>
<br>
<br>
<font size="+1"><b><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://youtu.be/5qhox5P_jCg">This Day in Climate History
- October 2, 2008</a> - from D.R. Tucker</b></font><br>
October 2, 2008: Vice-presidential candidates Joe Biden and Sarah
Palin spar over climate and energy issues in their lone debate,
moderated by Gwen Ifill.<br>
<font size="-1"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="http://youtu.be/5qhox5P_jCg">http://youtu.be/5qhox5P_jCg</a></font><br>
<br>
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