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<p><i><font size="+1"><b>June 16, 2021</b></font></i></p>
[from the Independent]<br>
<b>Farmers abandon crops, Utah residents asked to pray for rain amid
record hot weather in parts of US</b><br>
Some southwestern cities face searing temperatures of 110F or more<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.independent.co.uk/climate-change/news/us-weather-heatwave-arizona-california-b1865585.html">https://www.independent.co.uk/climate-change/news/us-weather-heatwave-arizona-california-b1865585.html</a><br>
<p>- -<br>
</p>
[predicted & arriving]<br>
<b>Dangerous heat wave underway in West, will shatter records</b><br>
Andrew Freedman<br>
A punishing mid-June heat wave is set to scorch much of the
Southwest and West this week, with Las Vegas potentially eclipsing
its highest temperature on record, which stands at 117°F.<br>
<br>
<b>Why it matters:</b> The heat will build in a region that is
experiencing a record drought, leading to dangerous fire weather
conditions, high power demands, and causing water supplies to
dwindle further. The heat itself could prove deadly...<br>
- -<br>
<b>Threat level: </b>The National Weather Service forecast office
in Las Vegas is warning of significant threats to life and
infrastructure from Monday through Saturday as the heat builds and
refuses to relent...<br>
- -<br>
<b>Of note: </b>The heat will raise power demand at a time of
decreased output at hydroelectric plants. It will also dry soils
further, expanding the area of "extreme" to "exceptional" drought,
the worst categories.<br>
<br>
Already, Lake Mead, the nation's largest reservoir by volume, has
hit its lowest level on record, and this heat wave is likely to
evaporate more water.<br>
Red flag warnings for hazardous fire weather are in effect in the
Sierra Nevada Mountains, which are normally still covered with snow
at this time of year.<br>
By the numbers: For Phoenix, the NWS is projecting a 55-75% chance
that the city would reach 115 degrees each day during the Tuesday
through Friday time period.<br>
<br>
<b>Context</b>: The heat wave and drought are working in tandem.
Given the antecedent drought conditions, more solar radiation can go
directly into heating the air, rather than evaporating moisture in
soils, lakes, and rivers. This boosts temperatures higher than they
might otherwise be...<br>
<br>
In addition, one of the most robust conclusions of climate science
is that heat waves are becoming more intense and longer-lasting as
the climate warms overall.<br>
In recent years, there has also been a trend toward stubborn and
sprawling areas of high pressure aloft, known as heat domes, that
block storm systems and keep hot weather locked in place for days at
a time.....<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.axios.com/dangerous-extended-heat-wave-break-records-southwest-d705bcd8-cc87-4b6b-b099-1306116450e9.html">https://www.axios.com/dangerous-extended-heat-wave-break-records-southwest-d705bcd8-cc87-4b6b-b099-1306116450e9.html</a><br>
<br>
<p><br>
</p>
[there's always mate' tea]<br>
<b>Climate crisis to hit Europe’s coffee and chocolate supplies</b><br>
Increasing droughts in producer nations will also make palm oil and
soya imports highly vulnerable, study finds<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jun/15/climate-crisis-to-hit-europes-coffee-and-chocolate-supplies">https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jun/15/climate-crisis-to-hit-europes-coffee-and-chocolate-supplies</a><br>
<p><br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
[aspirational intention]<br>
<b>THE LATEST TOOL IN FIGHTING WILDFIRES IS HOMES THAT WON’T BURN</b><br>
Building codes are on the frontlines of California’s fire fight<br>
By Justine Calma Jun 15, 2021<br>
WithWith wildfires raging more uncontrollably in the West than they
have in the past, experts say it’s time to change the way we fight
them. The battle now starts at home, where people live, before a
spark ever ignites a flame in a nearby forest or brush.<br>
<br>
Until recently, efforts to keep people and property safe have
largely focused on preventing and fighting off wildland blazes where
they start. That includes beefing up the firefighting force and
managing forests so that dry vegetation doesn’t become tinder for a
mega blaze. But that alone won’t be enough as climate change fuels
more intense fire seasons each year. Communities now need to adapt
to an unstoppable threat.<br>
<b><br>
</b><b>“THAT’S NO LONGER AN ASSUMPTION WE CAN SAFELY REST UPON”</b><br>
“We are nested in this belief and this assumption that we can
domesticate wildfires to the point where we will be safe from it.
The reality is that with climate change and the scale, the pace, and
the severity with which wildfires are currently burning, that’s no
longer an assumption we can safely rest upon,” says Kimiko Barrett,
lead wildfire researcher at the nonprofit Headwaters Economics.<br>
<br>
Fifteen of the 20 most destructive fires in the state’s history have
taken place since just 2015. Last year alone, blazes tore through a
shocking 4 million acres of the Golden State, smashing the previous
record of roughly 2 million acres scorched in a single fire season.<br>
<br>
“These fires are just reaching a magnitude where we can’t just say
we’ll treat the forest and we’ll be okay,” Barrett says. “You have
to start bringing the human dimension to this now. What, as a
society should we be doing differently in terms of where and how we
build?”<br>
<br>
California has already rebuilt itself in response to another type of
disaster: earthquakes. The 6.7 magnitude Northridge earthquake was
the most recent wake-up call in 1994. It sparked a rush to change
building codes and upgrade existing structures. Buildings and
freeway bridges were reinforced. Los Angeles mandated retrofits.<br>
<br>
Now, there’s a call to do something similar for fires. It’s getting
louder, especially as more people spread out into more rural areas
within what’s called the Wildland Urban Interface. While there’s
been some finger-pointing at people who decide to live closer to
where wildfires burn, some experts warn against blaming those most
vulnerable. Housing in cities like San Francisco and Los Angeles,
and even in their surrounding suburbs, is becoming increasingly
unaffordable. That forces people out of city centers and closer to
where wildfires burn.<br>
<br>
“We have a housing crisis,” says Crystal Kolden, a former
firefighter who is now an assistant professor at the School of
Engineering at the University of California, Merced. For her, asking
residents to move to less fire-prone areas is unfair and
unrealistic. “We don’t do that for other natural hazards.”<br>
<br>
<b>“WE HAVE A HOUSING CRISIS.”</b><br>
“All the people that are saying, ‘Well, why do people live in these
rural fire prone areas?’ are the ones that are sitting on a massive
earthquake fault,” she says. “They are the beneficiaries of massive
federal and state infrastructure upgrade projects that made those
cities less vulnerable to earthquakes.”<br>
<br>
California is already ahead of other states when it comes to
implementing building standards for fire safety, but there’s a lot
of work left to do. Back in 2008, California created a new building
code requiring fire-resistant construction. That proved to be a
success when the most destructive wildfire in California’s history,
the Camp Fire, tore through Butte County in 2018. Over half of the
homes built after 2008 stayed standing, according to a McClatchy
analysis. But most of the homes in the area are older. Of those, far
fewer — just 18 percent — were spared from the blaze.<br>
<br>
In the absence of state-wide mandates for older structures, it’s
largely been up to individuals to harden their homes against blazes
(although there are stricter standards in some of the most
fire-prone areas). Some homeowners have made headlines, like an
engineer in Sonoma County who took 15 years working to fireproof his
home — filling his walls and covering his windows with
flame-resistant materials. His house was put to the test during the
2019 Kincade Fire that destroyed 374 structures nearby. His home
survived.<br>
<br>
Beyond using materials that don’t easily catch fire (especially for
rooftops), property owners can also take care to prevent embers from
finding their way inside by replacing vents. Creating a “defensible
space” around a home is also crucial; homeowners should have a
buffer zone around their home that’s free from vegetation or other
materials that could become dry fuel, according to experts.<br>
<br>
Those changes are most effective when they’re widespread. “It cannot
be one home alone. It has to be ubiquitous across the neighborhood,”
Barrett says. “Voluntary measures don’t work. You could have five
neighbors that agreed to mitigate their property but you’ve had that
one neighbor [that’s] centrally located and they don’t believe they
need to do anything. So, he exposes the rest of his neighborhood to
wildfire.”<br>
<br>
While some might choose not to make fire-minded improvements, other
households might not be able to afford the retrofits needed to keep
their home and community safe. “There’s just not the resources to do
a lot of the work that we know is effective in reducing wildfire
hazards,” Kolden says. “But it is a societal problem, not an
individual problem, and that’s why it’s a social justice issue.”<br>
<br>
<b>“IT CANNOT BE ONE HOME ALONE.”</b><br>
That makes a state-wide strategy for updating older homes all the
more important. State agencies announced in February that they will
come up with new standards for homes and communities to “harden”
themselves against fire, part of a broader effort to make it easier
to insure homes. And a $536 million wildfire prevention bill signed
by Gov. Gavin Newsom in April provides some financial assistance to
residents to start that work on their properties.<br>
<br>
There still might not be enough funding to reach everyone and keep
costs from racking up for lower-income households. In May, Newsom
proposed an unprecedented $2 billion for wildfire preparedness. But
most of the money would still go toward firefighting and forest
management. Of that, $40 million is earmarked for retrofitting
existing homes. (There’s another $250 million chunk for making
communities more resilient to disasters, including wildfires,
earthquakes, droughts, and coastal flooding.) In comparison, a
wildfire planning strategy outlined in a recent Stanford white paper
calls for $1 billion a year for home hardening.<br>
<br>
“I believe state government has recognized the need to incentivize
or subsidize or help support communities engaged in retrofitting for
safety,” says J. Keith Gilless, dean emeritus of the University of
California, Berkeley’s College of Natural Resources and chair of the
California Board of Forestry and Fire Protection. “Although, you
know, the total magnitude of the problem is huge.”<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.theverge.com/2021/6/15/22534039/wildfire-prevention-home-hardening-california">https://www.theverge.com/2021/6/15/22534039/wildfire-prevention-home-hardening-california</a><br>
<p>- -<br>
</p>
[because the globe is heating]<br>
<b>Opinion: Here’s why the old playbook for fighting wildfires
doesn’t work anymore</b><br>
One of their key proposals is to rethink the use of full-time
federal firefighters. Traditionally, these workers divided the year
between fire prevention — tasks that include managing planned fires
in cooler months to clean the forest floor of dead and dried
branches and leaves — and then suppression during the warmer months.
The problem is that with fires burning year-round, Duncan’s group
says, it makes more sense to hire more full-time firefighters, with
some dedicated to prevention and others to suppression.<br>
<br>
This two-front approach would make it easier to tame overgrown
forests and, with that, give fires less “fuel,” as vegetation is
known in the business, to burn.<br>
<br>
Homeowners also have to do their part. With more and more Americans
building houses close to fire-prone wildlands, it’s unrealistic to
expect firefighters to save structures when lives are at stake.
Those of us who live on the edges of forests can help by building
vegetation-free zones between the wildlands and our homes. But the
essential thing is to be ready to flee and leave it all behind when
a wildfire is barreling your way. That’s necessary to save your own
life and to save firefighters from risking their lives to rescue
you.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/06/14/heres-why-old-playbook-fighting-wildfires-doesnt-work-anymore/">https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/06/14/heres-why-old-playbook-fighting-wildfires-doesnt-work-anymore/</a><br>
<p><br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
[What happened?]<br>
<b>“Back to normal” puts us back on the path to climate catastrophe</b><br>
The data is in: The pandemic did nothing to slow climate change.<br>
By Rebecca Leber Jun 15, 2021<br>
- -<br>
“We ultimately need cuts that are much larger and sustained longer
than the Covid-related shutdowns of 2020,” said Ralph Keeling, a
geochemist who measures carbon pollution at Mauna Loa.<br>
<br>
As the Covid-19 pandemic continues to rage globally but starts to
abate in the US, here are four ways to understand the new “normal”
of the climate crisis.<br>
<br>
<b>1. Climate change is accelerating despite the pandemic</b><br>
While emissions dropped last year, carbon and methane concentrations
in the atmosphere just reached their highest-known level in millions
of years. Think of it as filling a plugged bathtub with water: Even
if you turn down the faucet for a little while, the water will keep
rising...<br>
- -<br>
<b>2. Fossil fuels still rule the economy</b><br>
In 2020, renewable energy overtook coal consumption in the United
States, and electric vehicle purchases soared 43 percent over their
2019 level. But fossil fuels still reign in transportation and the
power sector, the world’s two biggest pollution sources...<br>
- - <br>
<b>3. The global target of 1.5 degrees Celsius is almost out of
reach</b><br>
One of the key developments of the 2015 Paris climate agreement was
a new target for containing climate change: restricting warming to
1.5°C, and “far under” the more disastrous 2°C.<br>
<br>
In that effort, “normal” won’t cut it. The return to flying,
driving, and commuting carves away from a limited global budget of
pollution, which represents everything the atmosphere can afford
before the 1.5°C target is reached. A United Nations agency, the
World Meteorological Organization, updated its analysis in May and
underscored that we’re essentially out of time. It found a fairly
good chance — 44 percent — that the Earth will hit 1.5°C of warming
in one of the next five years. That’s double the odds from just one
year ago...<br>
- -<br>
<b>4. Public opinion hasn’t changed either, which is surprisingly
good news</b><br>
A return to normal doesn’t have to mean climate change careens out
of control. It’s a path governments choose if they continue to
subsidize fossil fuels and fail to meet the challenge of investing
in renewable infrastructure.<br>
<br>
The pandemic hasn’t diminished people’s appetite for action on
climate change, argues Anthony Leiserowitz, the director of the Yale
Program on Climate Change Communication who has studied American
opinions on climate change. “Public opinion about climate change
hasn’t changed at all. It actually picked up a little bit,”
Leiserowitz said. “I don’t see any evidence that people’s views have
changed dramatically, either because of the pandemic or the economic
crisis.”...<br>
- -<br>
“A majority of Americans actually think that taking action to deal
with climate change will grow the economy and increase the number of
jobs,” he said.<br>
<br>
Most Americans don’t think there has to be a zero-sum trade-off
between climate change and economic growth. The Biden administration
has capitalized on that view, making the case for “building back
better” and trying to boost the economy with a climate-focused
infrastructure package. But this can’t happen without large-scale
political action. The US may savor a returning sense of normalcy —
but the whole world need to remember that normal was never good
enough.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.vox.com/22522791/climate-emissions-post-covid">https://www.vox.com/22522791/climate-emissions-post-covid</a><br>
<p><br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
[heat melts ice]<br>
<b>Polar concerns rise as ice now melts ever faster</b><br>
June 15th, 2021, by Tim Radford<br>
- -<br>
“We may not have the luxury of waiting for slow changes on Pine
Island; things could actually go much quicker than expected,” said
Ian Joughin, of the University of Washington in the US.<br>
<br>
“The processes we’d been studying in this region were leading to an
irreversible collapse, but at a fairly measured pace. Things could
be much more abrupt if we lose the rest of that ice shelf.”<br>
<br>
He and his colleagues report in the journal Science Advances that
the Pine Island glacier has already become Antarctica’s biggest
contributor to sea level rise. The pace of flow remained fairly
steady from 2009 to 2017, but they found that data from Europe’s
Copernicus Sentinel satellite system showed an acceleration of 12%
in the past three years.<br>
<br>
The Pine Island glacier contains roughly 180 trillion tonnes of ice,
enough to raise global sea levels by 0.5 metres. Researchers had
calculated that it might take a century or more for slowly-warming
polar waters to thin the ice shelves to the point where they could
no longer stem the glacier flow. But it now seems that the big
player in the shelf ice collapse is the glacier itself, as the flow
rate increases.<br>
<br>
“The loss of Pine Island’s ice shelf now looks possibly like it
could occur in the next decade or two, as opposed to the melt-driven
sub-surface change playing out over more than 100 or more years,”
said Pierre Dutrieux of the British Antarctic Survey, a co-author.
“So it’s a potentially much more rapid and abrupt change.”...<br>
- -<br>
<b>Snow fall dwindles</b><br>
Abrupt change, too, may be on the way in the Arctic Ocean. British
researchers used a new computer simulation to explore measurements
from Europe’s CryoSat-2 satellite. The scientists report in the
journal The Cryosphere that the thinning of ice in the Laptev and
Kara Seas north of Siberia, and the Chukchi Sea between Siberia and
Alaska, has stepped up by 70%, 98% and 110% respectively.<br>
<br>
Sea ice diminishes each summer and forms again each winter; each
successive summer reveals an ever-greater loss, as the ice itself
thins and the area covered by ice dwindles.<br>
<br>
Calculations of ice thickness have always allowed for the falls of
fresh winter snow. But since the formation of sea ice has been later
every year, there has been less time for the snow to accumulate.
Such things make a difference.<br>
<br>
“The thickness of the sea ice is a sensitive indicator of the health
of the Arctic,” said Robbie Mallett, of University College London.<br>
<br>
“It is important as thicker ice acts as an insulating blanket,
stopping the ocean from warming up the atmosphere in winter, and
protecting the ocean from sunshine in summer. Thinner ice is also
less likely to survive the summer melt.” − Climate News Network<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://climatenewsnetwork.net/polar-concerns-rise-as-ice-now-melts-ever-faster/">https://climatenewsnetwork.net/polar-concerns-rise-as-ice-now-melts-ever-faster/</a><br>
<br>
<p><br>
</p>
<p><b>Climate Anxiety text from a few months ago</b><br>
"We are in a climate emergency. And you were born at just the
right moment to help change everything."<br>
"Climate anxiety without climate justice is a gateway to
ecofascism."<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://thephoenix.substack.com/p/its-ok-to-have-climate-anxiety">https://thephoenix.substack.com/p/its-ok-to-have-climate-anxiety</a>
(white text on a black screen is more comfortable to read)<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://gendread.substack.com/p/sarah-jaquette-ray-on-the-unbearable">https://gendread.substack.com/p/sarah-jaquette-ray-on-the-unbearable</a><br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-unbearable-whiteness-of-climate-anxiety/">https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-unbearable-whiteness-of-climate-anxiety/</a><br>
<br>
</p>
<br>
<br>
[The news archive - looking back]<br>
<font size="+1"><b>On this day in the history of global warming June
16 ,</b></font><br>
<p>June 16, 2009: The 2009 National Climate Assessment Report is
released.<br>
<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wze6RMK90vw">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wze6RMK90vw</a> <br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.climatesciencewatch.org/2009/06/24/global-climate-change-impacts-in-the-united-states-%E2%80%93-report-overview-part-1-of-a-series/">http://www.climatesciencewatch.org/2009/06/24/global-climate-change-impacts-in-the-united-states-%E2%80%93-report-overview-part-1-of-a-series/</a>
<br>
</p>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<p>/-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------/</p>
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