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<i><font size="+1"><b>June 3, 2020</b></font></i><br>
<br>
[it's all connected]<br>
<b>There Is No Climate Justice Without Defunding the Police</b><br>
Brian Kahn - June 2, 2020<br>
At the end of the day, adapting to the risks of climate change means
giving people the chance to be safe in the face and aftermath of a
storm, fire, or other unnatural disasters. Cops with rocket
launchers ain't it, especially for black and brown communities.<br>
<br>
Beyond that, defunding the police is another key step. A number of
groups have been calling for a divest-invest strategy where cities
pull money from the police and put it into community programs that
actually make those places better (groups are advancing a similar
policy for fossil fuels). In the context of climate change, that
could include everything from improving access to healthcare,
transit, and open streets. Ultimately, how that money is spent is a
decision that's best left to communities themselves.<br>
<br>
It's impossible to disentangle the various threads of environmental
racism and its ties with policing. The history of redlining and
police-enforced segregation has led to massive hotter neighborhoods
and more people with chronic health problems tied to air pollution.
Despite that, large parts of the climate movement have so far
remained silent about the current wave of protests and the role of
policing in climate policy. But without defunding the police, let
alone more direct ideas of abolishing them altogether, there can
never really be climate justice.<br>
<br>
Windmills may slow the globe from heating, and seawalls may keep at
least some neighborhoods dry when the next storm hits. If the same
violent policing system exists, however, there will still be only
more danger for the very people climate change will hit the hardest.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://earther.gizmodo.com/there-is-no-climate-justice-without-defunding-the-polic-1843833563">https://earther.gizmodo.com/there-is-no-climate-justice-without-defunding-the-polic-1843833563</a><br>
<p><br>
</p>
[We are the asteroid]<br>
<b>Sixth mass extinction of wildlife accelerating, scientists warn</b><br>
Analysis shows 500 species on brink of extinction – as many as were
lost over previous century<br>
The sixth mass extinction of wildlife on Earth is accelerating,
according to an analysis by scientists who warn it may be a tipping
point for the collapse of civilisation.<br>
<br>
More than 500 species of land animals were found to be on the brink
of extinction and likely to be lost within 20 years. In comparison,
the same number were lost over the whole of the last century.
Without the human destruction of nature, even this rate of loss
would have taken thousands of years, the scientists said.<br>
<br>
The land vertebrates on the verge of extinction, with fewer than
1,000 individuals left, include the Sumatran rhino, the Clarion
wren, the Espanola giant tortoise and the harlequin frog. Historic
data was available for 77 of the species and the scientists found
these had lost 94% of their populations...<br>
- - <br>
"When humanity exterminates other creatures, it is sawing off the
limb on which it is sitting, destroying working parts of our own
life-support system," said Prof Paul Ehrlich, of Stanford University
in the US, and one of the research team. "The conservation of
endangered species should be elevated to a global emergency for
governments and institutions, equal to the climate disruption to
which it is linked."...<br>
- - -<br>
"Action is important for many reasons, not least of which is that
directly and indirectly we rely on the rest of life on Earth for our
own health and wellbeing," she said. "Disrupting nature leads to
costly and often hard-to-reverse effects. Covid-19 is an extreme
present-day example, but there are many more."<br>
<br>
Mark Wright, the director of science at WWF, said: "The numbers in
this research are shocking. However, there is still hope. If we stop
the land-grabbing and devastating deforestation in countries such as
Brazil, we can start to bend the curve in biodiversity loss and
climate change. But we need global ambition to do that."<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jun/01/sixth-mass-extinction-of-wildlife-accelerating-scientists-warn">https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jun/01/sixth-mass-extinction-of-wildlife-accelerating-scientists-warn</a><br>
<p><br>
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<p><br>
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[Paying attention]<br>
<b>Why are investors not pricing in climate-change risk?</b><br>
Failing to account for it makes markets less efficient<br>
Jun 2nd 2020<br>
COMPANIES ARE often quick to tout their green credentials. So are
many of the sophisticated institutional investors who buy and sell
their shares. Yet when it comes to pricing the risk of climate
change, those investors may be falling short. New research suggests
that the risk of climatic disasters such as floods, storms and
wildfires are not reflected in the price of equities around the
world. What is more, when disasters do occur, the fall in share
prices is modest.<br>
<br>
Researchers at the IMF studied the impact of 6,000 large
climate-related disasters on stockmarkets in 68 developed and
emerging countries since 1980. They found that financial losses
related to such disasters have varied widely. Hurricane Katrina, in
2005, killed 2,000 people and affected half a million. It also had
the largest absolute economic impact of any event in the
researchers' sample, costing 1% of American GDP. Yet the American
stockmarket scarcely budged. Floods in Thailand in 2011, which
killed 813 people and affected 9.5m, had the biggest relative
economic effect, inundating South-East Asia's biggest carmaking
industry and costing 10% of Thai GDP. The Bangkok stockmarket
collapsed by 30%...<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2020/06/02/why-are-investors-not-pricing-in-climate-change-risk">https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2020/06/02/why-are-investors-not-pricing-in-climate-change-risk</a><br>
<br>
<br>
[new concept: Green Swan event]<br>
<b>What is a green swan?</b><br>
Climate change is a swan of a different color: a green one. Green
swans are risks we humans create for ourselves by pumping
contaminants into our air and water, destroying our ecosystems, and
destabilizing our climate. ... "Climate catastrophes are even more
serious than most systemic financial crises," the authors write.<br>
<br>
<b>What is a green swan event?</b><br>
Green swan events may force central banks to intervene as "climate
rescuers of last resort" and buy large sets of devalued assets, to
save the financial system once more.<br>
- - -<br>
"Climate change is a swan of a different color: a green one. Green
swans are risks we humans create for ourselves by pumping
contaminants into our air and water, destroying our ecosystems, and
destabilizing our climate. They're different from black swans in
that their inevitability increases predictably, even as the specific
outcomes become less predictable and more dangerous." <br>
- - <br>
Climate change is a swan of a different color: a green one. Green
swans are risks we humans create for ourselves by pumping
contaminants into our air and water, destroying our ecosystems, and
destabilizing our climate. They're different from black swans in
that their inevitability increases predictably, even as the specific
outcomes become less predictable and more dangerous.<br>
<br>
The concept has been around for a while, but last week [January
2020] the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) published an
e-book called "The Green Swan: Central Banking and Financial
Stability in the Age of Climate Change," which summarizes the
thinking to-date and tries to offer ways that central banks can help
address the risk (short answer: they can't).<br>
<br>
Published...[in January], the 115-page book offers a detailed but
surprisingly readable summary of both physical risks
(climate-induced unnatural disasters or the spread of disease) and
transition risk (mass bankruptcies of companies that failed to
adapt) as well as the ways banks have traditionally assessed both.
It's not for the faint of heart.<br>
<br>
"Climate catastrophes are even more serious than most systemic
financial crises," the authors write. "They could pose an
existential threat to humanity, as increasingly emphasized by
climate scientists."<br>
- - <br>
Black Swans gunk up the financial system because banks and insurance
companies use historical data to calculate risks, and historical
data doesn't account for the new variable.<br>
<br>
"As a result, the standard approach to modeling financial risk
consisting in extrapolating historical values…is no longer valid in
a world that is fundamentally reshaped by climate change," the
authors write. "In other words, green swan events cannot be captured
by traditional risk management."<br>
<br>
Risk managers, of course, aren't stupid. Most have moved beyond
historical modeling and begun incorporating more forward-looking
scenarios into their planning. This, however, involves trying to
figure out how complex systems like society are going to respond to
other complex systems like an upended global ecology. There are just
too many places where projections can run amok, as a 2015 paper
called "Global non-linear effect of temperature on economic
production" made clear. The authors, nonetheless, took a stab at it
and concluded that the global economy will probably shrink by 23
percent in the next 80 years if we don't fix the climate mess.<br>
- - -<br>
We didn't listen, and in January the World Economic Forum's 15th
Global Risks Report identified environmental degradation as the
single greatest threat to global prosperity.<br>
<br>
If one theme is clear in all of these analyses, it's that adaptation
is not an option. The only way to confidently address the climate
challenge is to reverse it, and quickly. Every penny we spend now
will amount to a fortune saved for our children.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.ecosystemmarketplace.com/articles/coronavirus-is-dangerous-but-the-green-swan-is-worse/">https://www.ecosystemmarketplace.com/articles/coronavirus-is-dangerous-but-the-green-swan-is-worse/</a><br>
- - -<br>
[Jan 2020 paper]<br>
<b>The green swan</b><br>
Central banking and financial stability in the age of climate change<br>
Abstract<br>
<blockquote>Climate change poses new challenges to central banks,
regulators and supervisors. This book reviews ways<br>
of addressing these new risks within central banks' financial
stability mandate. However, integrating<br>
climate-related risk analysis into financial stability monitoring
is particularly challenging because of the<br>
radical uncertainty associated with a physical, social and
economic phenomenon that is constantly<br>
changing and involves complex dynamics and chain reactions.
Traditional backward-looking risk<br>
assessments and existing climate-economic models cannot anticipate
accurately enough the form that<br>
climate-related risks will take. These include what we call "green
swan" risks: potentially extremely<br>
financially disruptive events that could be behind the next
systemic financial crisis. Central banks have a<br>
role to play in avoiding such an outcome, including by seeking to
improve their understanding of climaterelated risks through the
development of forward-looking scenario-based analysis. But
central banks alone<br>
cannot mitigate climate change. This complex collective action
problem requires coordinating actions<br>
among many players including governments, the private sector,
civil society and the international<br>
community. Central banks can therefore have an additional role to
play in helping coordinate the measures<br>
to fight climate change. Those include climate mitigation policies
such as carbon pricing, the integration<br>
of sustainability into financial practices and accounting
frameworks, the search for appropriate policy<br>
mixes, and the development of new financial mechanisms at the
international level. All these actions will<br>
be complex to coordinate and could have significant redistributive
consequences that should be<br>
adequately handled, yet they are essential to preserve long-term
financial (and price) stability in the age<br>
of climate change...<br>
</blockquote>
- -<br>
In the worst case scenario, central banks may have to confront a
situation where they are called<br>
upon by their local constituencies to intervene as climate rescuers
of last resort For example, a new<br>
financial crisis caused by green swan events severely affecting the
financial health of the banking and<br>
insurance sectors could force central banks to intervene and buy a
large set of carbon-intensive assets<br>
and/or assets stricken by physical impacts.<br>
But there is a key difference between green swan and black swan
events: since the accumulation<br>
of atmospheric CO2 beyond certain thresholds can lead to
irreversible impacts, the biophysical causes of<br>
the crisis will be difficult, if not impossible, to undo at a later
stage. Similarly, in the case of a crisis triggered<br>
by a rapid transition to a low-carbon economy, there would be little
ground for central banks to rescue<br>
the holders of assets in carbon-intensive companies. While banks in
financial distress in an ordinary crisis<br>
can be resolved, this will be far more difficult in the case of
economies that are no longer viable because<br>
of climate change. Intervening as climate rescuers of last resort
could therefore affect central bank's<br>
credibility and crudely expose the limited substitutability between
financial and natural capital... <br>
- - -<br>
Acknowledging the limitations of risk-based approaches and embracing
the deep uncertainty at stake<br>
suggests that central banks may inevitably be led into uncharted
waters in the age of climate change...<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.bis.org/publ/othp31.pdf">https://www.bis.org/publ/othp31.pdf</a><br>
<p><br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
[a political action item for today]<br>
<b>Obama's Recovery Act breathed life into renewables. Now they need
rescuing.</b><br>
By Shannon Osaka on Jun 1, 2020<br>
It was the beginning of 2009, and the U.S. economy was hemorrhaging
more than half a million jobs every month. The housing bubble had
burst and set off the worst financial crisis since the Great
Depression. In February, a few weeks after being sworn in, President
Barack Obama signed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, an
$800-billion stimulus package designed to reinvigorate the economy
and save millions from losing their houses and jobs.<br>
<br>
Hidden in the Recovery Act was something that largely escaped notice
at the time -- $90 billion earmarked for clean energy generation,
electric vehicles, transit, and training for green jobs. By many
accounts, that 10 percent chunk of the stimulus bill changed the
trajectory of renewables in America. Now, 12 years later, with 36
million Americans out of work amid the economic fallout from the
coronavirus, it could also serve as a model for stimulus measures to
come...<br>
- -<br>
The massive $2 trillion rescue package passed by Congress in March
didn't include any climate-friendly provisions; in fact, some media
outlets have reported that fossil fuel companies have recently
received millions of dollars in loans intended for small businesses.<br>
<br>
The bill President Obama signed back in February 2009 still stands
out as an example of what could be possible -- the first green
stimulus of its kind. Browner said that it's hard to imagine where
the clean energy industry would be today without the government's
help. "I'm not sure that renewables would have made it," she said.<br>
more at -
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://grist.org/energy/obamas-recovery-act-breathed-life-into-renewables-now-they-need-rescuing/">https://grist.org/energy/obamas-recovery-act-breathed-life-into-renewables-now-they-need-rescuing/</a><br>
<p><br>
</p>
<p><br>
[Storms]<br>
<b>Why Atlantic Hurricane Season Got Such a Rapid Start</b><br>
Brian Kahn<br>
June 2nd 2020<br>
Tropical Storm Cristobal spun up on Tuesday in the Gulf of Mexico.
It's the third tropical cyclone of the Atlantic hurricane season
that only officially began on Monday, and marks the earliest third
storm on record.<br>
<br>
Forecasts called for this to be a busy season, and it's clearly
off to a roaring start. The conditions in the ocean and the
atmosphere right now are ripe for storms. While the quick start
doesn't guarantee the rapid pace of storms will continue, it's
nevertheless a worrying sign in a world full of stress.<br>
<br>
While Cristobal's precursors were fairly wimpy and short-lived,
the new storm has already caused serious damage. It traversed from
the Pacific, where it was Tropical Storm Amanda, dropping heavy
rain in El Salvador and Guatemala that caused floods and killed at
least 15 people. Rechristened as Cristobal, the storm continues to
rake the Mexican states of Tabasco, Veracruz, and Capeche with up
to 25 inches of rain and tropical storm-force winds as it
basically does a lazy loop through the end of the week.<br>
<br>
By the weekend, the storm should finally cruise over the open
waters of the Gulf. By early next week, it's slated to potentially
make landfall along the Gulf Coast. It is way too early to talk
about impacts on the U.S. so for the moment, it's wait-and-see
territory.<br>
<br>
But what is striking is Cristobal's formation itself. The storm
follows Arthur and Bertha as the third tropical storm of the
Atlantic hurricane season. The season nominally starts on June 1,
but this is the sixth year in a row of the first named storm
forming before that official date. Tropical Storm Arthur formed in
mid-May, and Tropical Storm Bertha formed last week and
immediately made landfall in South Carolina. Cristobal makes three
tropical storms to kick things off.<br>
<br>
There are two main ingredients for a tropical storm, broadly
speaking: warm oceans and a relatively calm atmosphere. Both have
been in plentiful supply in the Atlantic basin, helping to
kickstart the hurricane season early.<br>
<br>
Tropical storms generally spin up when winds stay calm in the
upper atmosphere. A lot of wind moving in multiple
directions--something meteorologists call wind shear--can
essentially rip tropical storms apart or stop them from forming in
the first place. There are a number of natural factors that can
drive shear, particularly El Nino. But that periodic warming of
tropical Pacific is nowhere to be seen right now, opening the door
to more spinning storms.<br>
<br>
"Vertical shear along the East Coast of the U.S. has generally
been lower than normal...during the second half of May," Phil
Klotzbach, a hurricane expert at Colorado State University, told
Earther in an email.<br>
<br>
Then there's the oceans side of it. When oceans are hot, more
water can evaporate and act as fuel to power up storms. Bernadette
Woods Placky, the chief meteorologist at Climate Central (and
someone I used to work with there), told Earther in an email that
with "both the Gulf of Mexico and western Atlantic running very
warm," the oceans are definitely helping generate storms. Large
parts of the basin are anywhere from 1.8 to 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit
(1-2 degrees Celsius) above normal. The area where Cristobal is
currently spinning is one of the hot spots, which is helping fuel
the copious rainfall piling up in Mexico.<br>
<br>
Woods Placky noted that there's been a trend in the satellite era
that started in the 1970s where more storms get named earlier in
the season. Going further back, the data gets more murky, since
observations systems in, say, 1903 weren't quite as sophisticated
as those available today. That means it's not quite as simple as
saying there's a clear climate change link to more early season
storms. It's still an area of active research, though warmer
oceans being one of the hallmarks of climate change feels like it
could make that connection more likely.<br>
<br>
The early season run of storms is likely to slow down, and
Klotzbach said the storms themselves are not a predictor of future
activity. But nevertheless the forecast he puts out, as well as
forecasts from other agencies, all point toward an active
hurricane season, which is bad news in the midst of a pandemic.<br>
<br>
"The next 10 days look very active in the Gulf," he said. "And I'm
certainly on board for an active season."<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://earther.gizmodo.com/why-atlantic-hurricane-season-got-such-a-rapid-start-1843862346">https://earther.gizmodo.com/why-atlantic-hurricane-season-got-such-a-rapid-start-1843862346</a><br>
<br>
<br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
[new data display - lightning strikes]<br>
<b>Network for Lightning and Thunderstorms in Real Time</b><br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://en.blitzortung.org/live_lightning_maps.php">http://en.blitzortung.org/live_lightning_maps.php</a><br>
<p><br>
</p>
<br>
[Digging back into the internet news archive]<br>
<font size="+1"><b>On this day in the history of global warming -
June 3, 1977 </b></font><br>
The New York Times reports, <br>
<blockquote>"To avoid accumulation in the air of sufficient carbon
dioxide to cause major climate changes, it may ultimately be
necessary to restrict the burning of coal and other fossil fuels,
according to Dr. William D. Nordhaus of the President's Council of
Economic Advisers."<br>
</blockquote>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F30E15FC355D167493C1A9178DD85F438785F9">http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F30E15FC355D167493C1A9178DD85F438785F9</a><br>
<br>
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