<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8">
</head>
<body text="#000000" bgcolor="#FFFFFF">
<p><i><font size="+1"><b>October 21, 2020</b></font></i></p>
[Headline issues in the 2020 elections]<br>
<b>Inside Climate News - Election 2020</b><br>
Our newsroom has closely followed the 2020 election and published an
informative series about key Senate races that will shape the future
of climate policy in the U.S...<br>
- -<br>
Senate 2020: In Mississippi, a Surprisingly Close Race For a
Trump-Tied Promoter of Fossil Fuels...<br>
- -<br>
Senate 2020: In Alaska, a Controversy Over an Embattled Mine Has
Tightened the Race...<br>
- -<br>
Climate Change Makes a (Very) Brief Appearance in Dueling Town Halls
Held by Trump and Biden...<br>
- -<br>
The Pence-Harris Showdown Came up Well Short of an Actual 'Debate'
on Climate Change...<br>
- -<br>
Anxiety Mounts Abroad About Climate Leadership and the Volatile U.S.
Election...<br>
- -<br>
Trump’s Pick for the Supreme Court Could Deepen the Risk for Its
Most Crucial Climate Change Ruling...<br>
more at - <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://insideclimatenews.org/tags/election-2020">https://insideclimatenews.org/tags/election-2020</a><br>
<br>
<p><br>
</p>
[Sacramento Bee follows the insurance money]<br>
<b>Insurance companies abandoning California at a faster rate, as
wildfires wreak havoc</b><br>
BY DALE KASLER - OCTOBER 19, 2020 <br>
. . .<br>
Carriers sent non-renewal notices to 42,088 homeowners in the
foothill counties in 2019, compared to 23,925 the year before,
Deputy Insurance Commissioner Bryant Henley announced Monday. Almost
every one of these homeowners had to buy replacement coverage from
the state's "insurer of last resort," the FAIR Plan, often at prices
double or triple what they were paying before...<br>
- -<br>
Insurers began dropping thousands of mostly rural Californians after
swallowing losses of $25 billion during the 2017 and 2018 wildfire
seasons, capped by the near-total destruction of Paradise in the
Camp Fire. Insurers did get compensated for about $11 billion in
losses by PG&E Corp., which has been held responsible for most
of the worst wildfires...<br>
- -<br>
Home hardening has emerged as an increasingly viable tool for
reducing wildfire risk. After the 2018 Camp Fire destroyed more than
12,000 homes in Paradise, a McClatchy investigation revealed that
homes were more likely to survive if they'd been built according to
a strict building code requiring fire-resilient roofing and siding
and other protective features.<br>
"Home hardening works," Henley said, as a chart outlining some of
McClatchy's findings flashed on the Zoom screen.<br>
<br>
Gov. Gavin Newsom's proposed state budget for this year originally
contained $100 million to help communities retrofit homes for
wildfire safety. But the funding was dropped after the COVID-19
pandemic and economic shutdown left the state with a $50 billion
deficit.<br>
<br>
Insurance companies say they'll work with Lara on home-hardening
standards -- but also argue that they must be allowed greater
flexibility to charge rates that match with the risks involved in
selling coverage in fire-prone communities.<br>
<br>
"We absolutely must retain financial strength to pay these claims,"
State Farm vice president Nicole Forziati said at Monday's hearing.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.sacbee.com/news/california/fires/article246561448.html"
moz-do-not-send="true">https://www.sacbee.com/news/california/fires/article246561448.html</a>
<p>- -</p>
[Insurance Journal]<br>
<b>California Pledges to Protect Homeowners from Insurer Withdrawals
Due to Wildfires</b><br>
California's insurance commissioner on Monday pledged to step up
efforts to protect the state's residents from wildfires and address
a pullback of private insurers from the state's riskiest areas.<br>
<br>
Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara convened a "virtual
investigatory hearing" on Monday to initiate a series of regulatory
actions that will protect residents from the increasing risk of
wildfires.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.insurancejournal.com/news/west/2020/10/19/587154.htm"
moz-do-not-send="true">https://www.insurancejournal.com/news/west/2020/10/19/587154.htm</a><br>
<p><br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
[CBS news gets it]<br>
<b>Colorado's record-breaking wildfires show "climate change is here
and now"</b><br>
BY JEFF BERARDELLI<br>
OCTOBER 20, 2020<br>
The Cameron Peak fire, a few miles west of Fort Collins, Colorado,
has engulfed over 200,000 acres and it's still growing. It has now
become the biggest wildlife in Colorado history. <br>
<br>
What's more astounding is that the Cameron Peak fire is the second
fire in 2020 to hold the title of largest wildfire in Colorado
history. The Pine Gulch fire near Grand Junction briefly held that
title, but for only 7 weeks, having burned 139,000 acres in late
summer.<br>
<br>
Looking at this in a vacuum, you might think of it as mere
coincidence. But zooming out, you need only look two states away in
California to find evidence of more unprecedented fires. Six of the
7 largest wildfires in California history have all burned in 2020,
and the largest, the August Complex fire, became the state's first
ever gigafire -- meaning it burned over 1 million acres, scorching
more acreage than the state of Rhode Island...<br>
This year Mother Nature has supplied us with smoking-gun evidence to
prove what climate scientists have been warning about for decades.
The scorched-earth impacts of climate change have arrived.<br>
<br>
In a letter the editor published in the journal Global Change
Biology, two of the world's foremost experts on wildfires conclude
that the "[r]ecord-setting climate enabled the extraordinary 2020
fire season in the western United States." <br>
"Our 2020 wildfire season is showing us that climate change is here
and now in Colorado. Warming is setting the stage for a lot of
burning across an extended fire season," says Dr. Jennifer Balch,
professor of fire ecology and director of Earth Lab at the
University of Colorado Boulder.<br>
<br>
According to Balch, Colorado in the 2010s saw a tripling of average
burned area in the month of October, compared to the prior three
decades of the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s. "We do see fall fire events
in Colorado, related to fast, downslope winds. But to see multiple
events start this late, in the middle of October, is very, very
rare."<br>
Perhaps it's rare, but as of Monday 10 notable fires are burning
across the state. The Cameron Peak fire's eastern extent is just 5
miles from Fort Collins and Loveland.<br>
Two of the most concerning new fires are burning in Boulder County
and forcing evacuations. The CalWood fire -- the largest fire ever
in Boulder County -- and the Lefthand fire have both exhibited
extreme fire behavior, shocking even seasoned climate scientists.<br>
<br>
"Even as a scientist studying extreme weather & wildfire in a
warming climate, I was shocked by how fast #CalwoodFire roared down
the Colorado Front Range foothills," Daniel Swain, a climate
scientist at UCLA, wrote on Twitter, posting video of a swirling
vortex of smoke.<br>
<br>
Examining all the evidence, it's clear why conditions are
extraordinarily flammable this fall. It's a compound issue of
short-term natural climate variability layered on top of fundamental
changes to the long-term climate from global warming. <br>
"This year was shocking"<br>
While you can't completely separate short-term variability from
longer-term climate trends, as they are intertwined, a region's most
recent weather conditions are a big factor in how extreme a fire
season is.<br>
<br>
According to the Colorado Climate Center at Colorado State
University, for the first time since 2013 all of Colorado is
experiencing drought. This is no run-of-the-mill dry spell -- 97% of
the state is in the "exceptional," "extreme," or "severe" drought
categories. And it's not just Colorado; much of the Southwest is
bone dry.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://cbsnews1.cbsistatic.com/hub/i/r/2020/10/19/8782f592-871a-4be5-81a4-a2b426b73469/thumbnail/620x502/727d30e3e6603dbbdddebb68041f07a2/current-drought-west.jpg"
moz-do-not-send="true">https://cbsnews1.cbsistatic.com/hub/i/r/2020/10/19/8782f592-871a-4be5-81a4-a2b426b73469/thumbnail/620x502/727d30e3e6603dbbdddebb68041f07a2/current-drought-west.jpg</a><br>
Brad Udall, the senior water and climate research scientist at the
Colorado Water Institute at Colorado State University, said 2020
started out promising. <br>
<br>
"This year was shocking because we had a decent winter and on April
1 we had 100% of snowpack," he said. But things quickly turned
disappointing. "With 100% of snowpack, you'd expect a decent runoff
year. Instead, we ended up with 52% of what is normal."<br>
<br>
The amount of water that runs off from snow cover, and the pace at
which it melts, is important because it determines water
availability for soil and vegetation in summer.<br>
<br>
Udall says much of the poor runoff is a result of increased
evaporation due to a very warm and dry spring and summer. Over the
past few months there have been a number of significant heat waves
in the West, two of which were of historic proportions. The extra
added heat energy vaporizes spring snow cover, and the lack of new
moisture provides nothing to buffer the loss. <br>
<br>
In the Southwestern states, June through August rainfall was the
lowest since 1895 and temperatures were the highest since 1895,
according to NOAA. In Colorado so far, this year is the eighth
warmest and second driest on record. Denver has experienced more
90-degree days than any year in its history.<br>
<br>
"We've had next to no moisture over the last 3 months which is
highly unusual. The Arizona monsoon often carries moisture to
Colorado but this year it was a complete bust," said Udall.<br>
<br>
The below map illustrates just how "off the charts" the atmosphere's
demand for evaporation is. The more the atmosphere pulls moisture
from the land, the drier and more flammable the trees, grass and
brush become.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EkeObqvVcAEodj4?format=jpg&name=small"
moz-do-not-send="true">https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EkeObqvVcAEodj4?format=jpg&name=small</a><br>
Udall says that while most of the droughts of the 20th century were
caused by lack of rainfall, today's droughts are mainly caused by
increased evaporation due to warmer weather. But drought is usually
referred to as a short-term issue, and what's happening in Colorado
is not temporary. He prefers the term aridification, because climate
change, due to the burning of fossil fuels and the buildup of a
heat-trapping carbon pollution blanket overhead, is systematically
drying out the landscape. <br>
<br>
To be sure, climate is not the only factor driving the explosion in
burned area. Excess fuel buildup due to increased fire suppression
in recent decades as well as increasing ignitions due to more human
activity in forested areas do play a role. But experts say the
marked increase can not be explained without longer-term warming and
drying. <br>
<br>
<b>Climate change and "the recipe for large forest fires"</b><br>
If you look back over the past century, parts of Colorado have been
warming faster than anywhere else in the nation. According to data
from NOAA and an analysis by the Washington Post, western and
northern Colorado are warming at twice the average rate of the
globe, having warmed about 3 to 5 degrees Fahrenheit since 1895.<br>
<br>
A study published in September found that the frequency of combined
heat waves and droughts -- which are more impactful when they occur
in unison -- has increased significantly, especially in the western
U.S. For example, the type of hot-dry event that would have been
expected once every 25 years in 1950, now occurs five to 10 times
every 25 years. <br>
<br>
"Episodes of extreme dryness and heat are the recipe for large
forest fires," said Mojtaba Sadegh, the senior author of the study.
"These extremes are intensifying and extending at unprecedented
spatial scales, allowing current wildfires to burn across the entire
U.S. West Coast."<br>
Colorado's state climatologist Russ Schumacher agrees, telling
Colorado Public Radio this is pretty well in line with climate
predictions, "What we're seeing here is indicative of the fact that
when the hot, dry years come around, they're hotter... I think the
frequency of these kinds of summers where we get in these hot, dry
conditions is probably going to increase." <br>
<br>
Udall agrees, and warns we should get used to what he calls "the new
abnormal." "The climate system has a really good memory and the
cycle of heat and dryness is hard to break," he said. <br>
<br>
Since 2000, the drought in the Western states has become so
monumental that scientists are using the term "megadrought" to
describe it. This spring climate scientists released a
groundbreaking study saying that this is the beginning of the second
worst drought in the past 1,200 years, with a "large contribution
from human-caused climate change."<br>
<br>
The graph below from drought.gov shows that over the past 20 years
drought has become a regular and potentially permanent part of
Colorado's climate. Darker shades mean drier conditions, with D2
representing "severe drought, D3 "extreme drought" and D4
"exceptional drought."<br>
<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://cbsnews3.cbsistatic.com/hub/i/r/2020/10/19/e9f4dd9d-c616-4d88-a43e-e43ec766ccb9/thumbnail/620x346/5e08a1e44a8f95fbe546f1e817720c1c/co-drought-since-2000.jpg"
moz-do-not-send="true">https://cbsnews3.cbsistatic.com/hub/i/r/2020/10/19/e9f4dd9d-c616-4d88-a43e-e43ec766ccb9/thumbnail/620x346/5e08a1e44a8f95fbe546f1e817720c1c/co-drought-since-2000.jpg</a><br>
The effects on the Colorado environment are apparent. Since the
1930s the water available from Colorado snowpack has decreased by
30%. As a result streamflow in the Colorado River has decreased
markedly. In a 2018 study, Udall and co-authors found that 50% of
the river runoff decline was due to higher temperatures. <br>
<br>
And this more arid climate has huge impacts, with larger wildfires
and a longer fire season. In fact, wildfire season in the West is
now two to three months longer than it was in the 1970s. And since
1984, human-caused climate change has led to a doubling of the area
burned in the Western states, with about 50%of the increase being
attributed to increases in the dryness of fuel. <br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://cbsnews3.cbsistatic.com/hub/i/r/2020/10/19/054132fa-1e3c-4982-a691-f2c5bfffea71/thumbnail/620x349/5aaac938d2a34d56dd5eff5f15d34d0a/acres-burned-new.png"
moz-do-not-send="true">https://cbsnews3.cbsistatic.com/hub/i/r/2020/10/19/054132fa-1e3c-4982-a691-f2c5bfffea71/thumbnail/620x349/5aaac938d2a34d56dd5eff5f15d34d0a/acres-burned-new.png</a><br>
A 2015 study on wildfires in the Colorado Front Range Corridor found
that the expansion of the wildland-urban Interface -- more people
living on the edge of forests -- and climate change were both to
blame in explaining the changing fire trends, but that climate
change had a "stronger influence."<br>
<br>
Balch says that our inability to square the needs of our modern
society with a rapidly changing climate is a dangerous proposition.
<br>
<br>
"Ignoring the link between warming and wildfires only puts lives and
homes at risk," she said. "In the contiguous U.S. 1 million homes
sat within the boundaries of wildfires in the last 24 years. Nearly
59 million more homes in the wildland-urban interface lay within a
kilometer of fires." <br>
<br>
The unprecedented wildfires of the past few years have certainly
illuminated just how vulnerable we are to a climate which no longer
plays by the rules our parents and grandparents took for granted.
And considering the warming and drying projected in the coming
decades, scientists say the rules will just keep on changing, making
it "unlikely that the records from 2020 will stand for long." <br>
Jeff Berardelli is CBS News meteorologist and climate specialist.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/climate-change-wildfires-record-breaking-colorado/"
moz-do-not-send="true">https://www.cbsnews.com/news/climate-change-wildfires-record-breaking-colorado/</a><br>
- - <br>
[Drought.gov data]<br>
<b>Advancing Drought Science and Preparedness across the Nation</b><br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.drought.gov/drought/" moz-do-not-send="true">https://www.drought.gov/drought/</a><br>
<br>
<p><br>
</p>
[proving what we suspect]<br>
<b>Climate activism and its effects</b><br>
WIREs Climate Change<br>
A new "focus article" aims to understand the outcomes of climate
activism and the climate movement. The study provides "an overview
of climate-related activism as a form of civic engagement" and pays
"particular attention to the targets of this activism and its
environmental outcomes in terms of greenhouse gas emissions
reductions". The paper also focuses on school strikes and discusses
"how the coronavirus pandemic has changed the climate movement with
much activism moving online".<br>
<blockquote>Abstract<br>
As activism including climate strikes have become a common
occurrence around the world, it is important to consider the
growth in climate change‐focused activism and participation in
social movements as a specific type of civic engagement. Although
studies have analyzed climate activism and the climate movement,
there is limited research that integrates it into the broader
literature on civic engagement and which considers how these forms
of engagement are related to specific climate outcomes. Here, we
take a first step in understanding the material outcomes of these
efforts. Specifically, we provide an overview of climate‐related
activism as a form of civic engagement, paying particular
attention to the targets of this activism and its environmental
outcomes in terms of greenhouse gas emissions reductions. Then, we
focus on one of the most common tactics to gain momentum in recent
years: the school strike, which has mobilized a growing number of
participants around the world. We discuss how the Coronavirus
pandemic has changed the climate movement with much activism
moving online. We conclude by discussing the overall state of the
knowledge about the outcomes of climate activism, as well as
highlighting the need for careful research to measure its effects
across scale.<br>
</blockquote>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/wcc.683"
moz-do-not-send="true">https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/wcc.683</a><br>
<br>
<p><br>
</p>
[Digging back into the internet news archive]<br>
<font size="+1"><b>On this day in the history of global warming -
October 21, 1984 </b></font><br>
<p>In the second presidential debate between President Ronald Reagan
and Democratic challenger Walter Mondale, Reagan is asked by
panelist Marvin Kalb:<br>
<br>
"Mr. President, perhaps the other side of the coin, a related
question, sir. Since World War II, the vital interests of the
United States have always been defined by treaty commitments and
by Presidential proclamations. Aside from what is obvious, such as
NATO, for example, which countries, which regions in the world do
you regard as vital national interests of this country, meaning
that you would send American troops to fight there if they were in
danger?"<br>
<br>
Reagan responds:<br>
<br>
"Ah, well, now you've added a hypothetical there at the end, Mr.
Kalb, about where we would send troops in to fight. I am not going
to make the decision as to what the tactics could be, but
obviously there are a number of areas in the world that are of
importance to us. One is the Middle East, and that is of interest
to the whole Western World and the industrialized nations, because
of the great supply of energy upon which so many depend there."<br>
<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EF73k5-Hiqg"
moz-do-not-send="true">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EF73k5-Hiqg</a>
- (15:00-15:52) </p>
<p><br>
</p>
/-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------/<br>
<br>
/Archive of Daily Global Warming News <a
class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E"
href="https://pairlist10.pair.net/pipermail/theclimate.vote/2017-October/date.html"
moz-do-not-send="true"><https://pairlist10.pair.net/pipermail/theclimate.vote/2017-October/date.html></a>
/<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://pairlist10.pair.net/pipermail/theclimate.vote"
moz-do-not-send="true">https://pairlist10.pair.net/pipermail/theclimate.vote</a><br>
<br>
/To receive daily mailings - click to Subscribe <a
class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E"
href="mailto:subscribe@theClimate.Vote?subject=Click%20SEND%20to%20process%20your%20request"
moz-do-not-send="true"><mailto:subscribe@theClimate.Vote?subject=Click%20SEND%20to%20process%20your%20request></a>
to news digest./<br>
<br>
*** Privacy and Security:*This mailing is text-only. It does not
carry images or attachments which may originate from remote
servers. A text-only message can provide greater privacy to the
receiver and sender.<br>
By regulation, the .VOTE top-level domain must be used for
democratic and election purposes and cannot be used for commercial
purposes. Messages have no tracking software.<br>
To subscribe, email: <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated"
href="mailto:contact@theclimate.vote" moz-do-not-send="true">contact@theclimate.vote</a>
<a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E"
href="mailto:contact@theclimate.vote" moz-do-not-send="true"><mailto:contact@theclimate.vote></a>
with subject subscribe, To Unsubscribe, subject: unsubscribe<br>
Also you may subscribe/unsubscribe at <a
class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://pairlist10.pair.net/mailman/listinfo/theclimate.vote"
moz-do-not-send="true">https://pairlist10.pair.net/mailman/listinfo/theclimate.vote</a><br>
Links and headlines assembled and curated by Richard Pauli for <a
class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://TheClimate.Vote"
moz-do-not-send="true">http://TheClimate.Vote</a> <a
class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="http://TheClimate.Vote/"
moz-do-not-send="true"><http://TheClimate.Vote/></a>
delivering succinct information for citizens and responsible
governments of all levels. List membership is confidential and
records are scrupulously restricted to this mailing list.<br>
<br>
<br>
</body>
</html>