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<font size="+2"><i><b>December 12, 2022</b></i></font><br>
<br>
<i>[ clips from Inside Climate News...produced in partnership with
the Pulitzer Center. ] </i><br>
<b>Climate Change is Driving Millions to the Precipice of a ‘Raging
Food Catastrophe’</b><br>
In the Horn of Africa, a climate change-induced drought is exposing
cracks in the global food system and pushing humanitarian aid to a
breaking point.<br>
By Georgina Gustin<br>
December 11, 2022<br>
TORICHA, Kenya—If there’s a ring around the sun, it will rain. If
the gude bird sings in descending notes, the skies will open. If
vultures gather, the showers will begin...<br>
- -<br>
The government has drilled boreholes, but there aren’t enough of
them. Herders have to travel long distances to reach the water and
then equally long distances to find any remaining pasture. Where
there’s water, there’s no pasture and where there’s even the
scantest bit of uneaten pasture left, there’s no water. On the trek
between one place and the other, animals crumple from exhaustion and
die.<br>
- -<br>
Near the village shop, relief workers from a local aid group called
PACIDA distribute corn, beans, cooking oil, salt and sugar. A water
truck is scheduled to come soon, too, but international aid has
lapsed, so it will be the last for a long time.<br>
<br>
“Even with this they won’t get a meal every day,” says Adano Salesa,
a program officer with the group who is in charge of distributing
the food to each eligible person. Only the most vulnerable get a
share. <br>
<br>
“If there is no more help,” he says, methodically consulting a
checklist, “people will die.”...<br>
- -<br>
<b>A System Ill Prepared for Shocks</b><br>
Nearly 26 million people in the Horn of Africa are facing extreme
hunger, with some areas already reaching catastrophic famine levels,
according to the United Nations. The situation here is unfolding as
a food crisis threatens a record number of people around the world,
with nearly 345 million at acute levels of hunger and nearly 50
million people on the brink of famine.<br>
<br>
“We are on the way to a raging food catastrophe,” U.N. Secretary
General António Guterres tweeted recently...<br>
- -<br>
“This is unprecedented,” said Rupsha Banerjee, a drought and
livestock expert with the International Livestock Research Institute
in Nairobi. <br>
<br>
In Kenya, home to two of the world’s largest refugee camps, people
fleeing countries to its northern region are taxing resources in the
communities where the camps are situated, sparking conflicts over
already stretched resources. In some areas, farmers are fighting
with herders who are encroaching on their land in search of pasture
for their animals. Grisly revenge killings of both people and
livestock are becoming a regular occurrence...<br>
- -<br>
The situation here, experts say, is a microcosm of what happens when
climate change shifts patterns that humans, animals and plants have
relied on for centuries and millennia. <br>
<br>
“In the Horn of Africa, you have a triple whammy,” said Tim Benton,
who leads the environment and society program at the London-based
think tank Chatham House. “Another year of bad weather, high food
prices and the high costs of shipping, and high prices mean less
food aid.” <br>
<br>
“All of that has the potential to destabilize the region, with
greater migrant flows and more pressure on neighboring countries,”
he said. “It’s not just starving people in Africa we should be
worried about, it’s the consequences for conflict.”<br>
<br>
For Ali and millions like her, the forces behind her suffering are
abstract and distant notions. But for officials overseeing aid to
refugees, there is a direct line between the behaviors of rich
countries, which are largely to blame for climate change, and her
family’s misfortunes.<br>
<br>
“These are communities that have contributed nothing to climate
change, but they’re the ones staring, literally, into the face of
the climate crisis,” said Gemma Connell, who heads the southern and
eastern Africa regional office of the U.N’.s Office for the
Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. “It’s just devastating to see
people who’ve done nothing go through this.”<br>
<br>
All anyone talks about here in Marsabit County is the lack of rain.
On a recent federal holiday, newscasters and pundits lamented that
there was little to celebrate, given that 4 million people in 23 of
the country’s 47 counties were on the brink of starvation. <br>
<br>
In Marsabit, Kenya’s largest county, one in five people is going
hungry.<br>
<br>
“My greatest fear is the loss of life in the coming days and
months,” says Immaculate Mutua, the county’s nutrition coordinator,
sitting at a chipped conference table in the county health
department. “We’re just hanging on a cliff. Starvation is already
happening. It’s not a worry for tomorrow. It is here.”...<br>
- -<br>
Across Turkana County, especially in the north, closer to the border
with Ethiopia and South Sudan, the story is repeated in village
after village. The animals are dead. The water points produce water
that’s too salty or dirty to drink. <br>
<br>
“The livestock are finished,” says Margaret Nanok, holding up a
plastic bottle filled with coffee-colored water. “And we’re just
scooping water from undug shallow wells.”<br>
<br>
Nanok explains that she and the other women have to walk nine miles,
to the base of a nearby hill, to collect water. “The whole day is
wasted,” she says. “We have to leave the infants and children
behind."...<br>
- -<br>
<b>A Step Too Late</b><br>
Two thousand miles to the north, in the Egyptian resort town of
Sharm el-Sheikh, government officials and negotiators from around
the world gathered last month at the United Nations 27th Conference
of the Parties, known as COP27, to gauge the world’s promises to cut
greenhouse gas emissions. And there, as record-high hunger levels
gripped the continent, discussions about food security inched closer
to the forefront of the proceedings.<br>
<br>
With 200 events focused on food systems and agriculture, four major
pavilions devoted to food and one day dedicated to agriculture, some
dubbed it the “Food COP.” The “implementation plan” that emerged
from the conference prominently acknowledges food for the first
time, noting “the fundamental priority of safeguarding food security
and ending hunger, and the particular vulnerabilities of food
production systems to the adverse impacts of climate change.”<br>
<br>
Globally, food systems and farming contribute roughly one-third of
the world’s total climate-warming gases yet at the same time are
under serious duress from the effects of a changing climate. This
year alone was a striking case in point, with droughts and floods
across many countries, including the U.S., where drought in the
Southwest and central Plains cut crop yields and forced ranchers to
sell off livestock. <br>
<br>
The COP discussions on agriculture focused on reducing its
contributions to climate-warming gases, especially methane. More
countries signed on to a year-old pledge to reduce methane,
promising to devote more funding to helping farmers limit emissions
of that potent greenhouse gas.<br>
<br>
But, with millions on the verge of famine, food security experts and
advocacy groups used the talks as a platform to call for a broader
and more fundamental overhaul.<br>
<br>
“The food security crisis, the repercussions of the drought in East
Africa, are putting a very sharp point on the fact that our food
systems are broken,” said Sara Farley, a vice president with the
Rockefeller Foundation, which operated one of the food-focused
pavilions at the COP meeting. “The food system can’t respond
effectively to the crisis, and they won’t be able to respond to
future crises if we’re doing business as usual.”<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/11122022/kenya-somalia-africa-famine-hunger-climate-change/">https://insideclimatenews.org/news/11122022/kenya-somalia-africa-famine-hunger-climate-change/</a><br>
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</p>
<i>[ Keystone spill in Kansas, icky, icky. ]</i><br>
<b>Kansas residents hold their noses as crews mop up massive U.S.
oil spill</b><br>
December 11, 2022<br>
By Erwin Seba and Nia Williams<br>
Investigators, cleanup crews begin scouring oil pipeline spill in
Kansas<br>
<br>
WASHINGTON, Kan., Dec 10 (Reuters) - Residents near the site of the
worst U.S. oil pipeline leak in a decade took the commotion and
smell in stride as cleanup crews labored in near-freezing
temperatures, and investigators searched for clues to what caused
the spill.<br>
<br>
A heavy odor of oil hung in the air as tractor trailers ferried
generators, lighting and ground mats to a muddy site on the
outskirts of this farming community, where a breach in the Keystone
pipeline discovered on Wednesday spewed 14,000 barrels of oil.<br>
<br>
Pipeline operator TC Energy (TRP.TO) said on Friday it was
evaluating plans to restart the line, which carries 622,000 barrels
per day of Canadian oil to U.S. refineries and export hubs.<br>
<br>
"We could smell it first thing in the morning; it was bad," said
Washington resident Dana Cecrle, 56. He shrugged off the disruption:
"Stuff breaks. Pipelines break, oil trains derail."<br>
<br>
TC Energy did not provide details of the breach or say when a
restart on the broken segment could begin. Officials are scheduled
on Monday to receive a briefing on the pipeline breach and cleanup,
said Washington County's emergency preparedness coordinator, Randy
Hubbard, on Saturday.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.reuters.com/world/us/residents-hold-their-nose-crews-mop-up-huge-us-oil-spill-2022-12-10/">https://www.reuters.com/world/us/residents-hold-their-nose-crews-mop-up-huge-us-oil-spill-2022-12-10/</a><br>
<br>
<p><br>
</p>
<i>[ This American Life -- NPR radio segment ]</i><br>
<b>762: Apocalypse Creep Act One: Apocalypse Now-ish</b><br>
Producer Alix Spiegel reports on the city of Pacifica, California. A
huge fight erupted there after it was asked to start planning for
sea level rise. Some in town think it’s time to face the future,
others say it’s far too early. (37 minutes)<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.thisamericanlife.org/762/apocalypse-creep/act-one-8">https://www.thisamericanlife.org/762/apocalypse-creep/act-one-8</a><br>
<p><br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<i>[ ABC news report on rising seas -- video ]</i><br>
<b>How climate change, rising sea levels are transforming coastlines
around the world l ABCNL</b><br>
ABC News<br>
13.9M subscribers<br>
26,832 views Nov 22, 2022<br>
ABC News’ chief meteorologist Ginger Zee reports on how long-term
erosion and strong storms are chipping away at the shore.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j9d6n_uUfFo">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j9d6n_uUfFo</a><br>
<p><br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<i>[ models, conjectures and prediction - collapse of the AMOC Gulf
Stream in a few years -- video ]</i><br>
<b>Abrupt global ocean circulation collapse. Time to start prepping?</b><br>
Just Have a Think<br>
29,321 views Dec 11, 2022<br>
An abrupt collapse of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning
Circulation, or AMOC, was the plotline for the 2004 hit movie 'The
Day After Tomorrow'. Thankfully the apocalyptic scenes depicted in
that film are not going to happen, but the AMOC system has been
weakening for decades and it is likely to grind to a halt at some
point in the not too distant future, with profound effects on our
planetary systems. So, can we do anything about it?<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2ETr6X1lOk">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2ETr6X1lOk</a><br>
<p><br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<i>[ Down Under is already up to it... ]</i><br>
<b>Australia already at “worst case” climate scenarios for 2030</b><br>
Data analysis by climate expert Professor David Karoly shows
concerning trend.<br>
12 December 2022 / Matthew Agius<br>
Australia appears to be already experiencing the worst-case climate
scenarios that were projected to occur eight years from now.<br>
<br>
It’s a sobering finding, revealed by world-renowned climate
scientist David Karoly’s analysis of how closely projections
released in 2015 by the Bureau of Meteorology and CSIRO align to
actual temperatures and rainfall experienced by 12 major Australian
cities, including the capitals.<br>
<br>
He presented his data titled “Evaluation of near-term climate change
projections for selected Australian cities using recent
observations” at the recent Australian Meteorological and
Oceanographic Society conference.<br>
<br>
“Unfortunately, things like temperature extremes – days over 35 and
40 degrees Celsius – and decline in rainfall in southern Australia…
were tracking at or above what was projected for the 2030s,”
Professor Karoly tells Cosmos.<br>
<br>
Cities further north were also seen to experience climate changes
consistent with 2030 projections, though not worst-case rainfall
scenarios.<br>
- -<br>
<b>So, how do these climate models project possible futures?</b><br>
Climate models simulate plausible climate futures.<br>
<br>
They are the most accurate and useful tools available to anticipate
and estimate the Earth’s future climate, and extend the calculations
used by meteorologists to predict short-term weather. In this way,
climate projections look beyond this week, this month and even this
year.<br>
<br>
Models use complex data inputs and mathematical calculations to
simulate possible climate outcomes. To give a sense of the effort to
ensure accuracy, hundreds of scientists and substantial supporting
resources are required to build a model.<br>
<br>
From Alabama to Australia: One American’s Hurricane-inspired journey
to climate science down under<br>
<br>
Not all models are the same, but each use mathematical equations to
represent complex processes and interactions in the atmosphere,
oceans and land surface.<br>
<br>
Basically, lots of time, money and brain power go towards making
these incredibly useful models.<br>
<br>
“There are multiple representations of those ‘plausible futures’,
and typically the projections don’t look at just one – they look at
range of plausible futures,” Karoly says.<br>
<br>
“Coordinated experiments have been run with these global models to
evaluate their performance and to allow their results to be combined
for future climate projections.”<br>
<br>
To determine their precision, climate models are run over historical
periods to see how closely their simulations align with past weather
records.<br>
<br>
The closer the alignment, the greater confidence in the model’s
ability to simulate future scenarios.<br>
- -<br>
<p>Climate futures are uncertain, and scientists are quick to
emphasise there are many variables that will influence the
climate. But these uncertainties are small, and have become
smaller and smaller as the reliability of climate models has
improved.</p>
<p>Once models are verified, they’re then used to project forward
scenarios.In simple terms, this process is repeated by climate
scientists around the world to inform decision-makers, businesses
and individuals on what changes might look like years into the
future...</p>
<b>- -</b><b><br>
</b><b>“In the most recent decade, it’s hitting us faster and
harder.”</b><br>
Farmers are one group particularly interested in the changing
climate.<br>
<br>
They rely on having accurate data to inform their operations – when
and what to plant – based on expected temperature, rainfall, storm
activity and more.<br>
<br>
And it was discussions with farmers that prompted Karoly to look
back on how accurate the Bureau of Meteorology and CSIRO’s past
climate projections were.<br>
<br>
These farmers and others who rely on accurate weather had noticed
their climate expectations hadn’t married up with reality.<br>
<br>
“I thought I’d better evaluate,” Karoly says.<br>
<br>
“For many people, they’ve been noticing climate and weather changing
around them.”<br>
<br>
Karoly’s findings are troubling: already, 12 Australian cities are
experiencing climate conditions that were projected to occur a
decade from now. While specific to these locations, the findings
could be considered broad indicators for the rest of the nation.<br>
<br>
“Many businesses and many people who are looking at climate impacts
tend to look at the mid-range projections for the future,” Karoly
says.<br>
<br>
“What I’ve been finding is that the mid-range climate projections
for 2030 already significantly underestimate the magnitude of the
likely climate impacts in terms of extreme temperatures.”<br>
<br>
“These sorts of events that were projected to be much worse in the
2030s, and 2050s, are happening already. What we’re experiencing in
some sense, for many parts of Australia, is the weather of the
2030s, or the worst case of the 2030s, now.”<br>
<br>
One thing that Karoly did not review was extreme short-term
rainfall, making it difficult to consider recent events like the
recent triple La Nina, which incidentally saw 2022 become the
wettest Sydney year on record.<br>
<br>
Karoly says his results may mean experts need to revise their use of
climate models. At the very least, he says, worst-case scenarios
using existing simulations need to be given greater consideration.<br>
<br>
“Maybe the issue is we haven’t actually got high resolution, or high
enough resolution to represent some important [climate] processes,”
he says.<br>
<br>
“It’s potentially a risk with using coarser models… using a simple
downscaling approach. We’re usually tracking within the full range,
but experiencing the worst case.”<br>
Originally published by Cosmos as Australia already at “worst case”
climate scenarios for 2030<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://cosmosmagazine.com/earth/australia-climate-at-worst-case-2030-scenarios/">https://cosmosmagazine.com/earth/australia-climate-at-worst-case-2030-scenarios/</a><br>
<p><br>
</p>
<br>
<i>[The news archive - here is an official report on politics
attacking science - this is a very interesting video from a
Republican pollster ]</i><br>
<font size="+2"><i><b>December 12, 2007</b></i></font> <br>
December 12, 2007: <br>
The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform releases the
report "Political Interference with Climate Change Science under the
Bush Administration."<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="http://mark-bowen.com/images/downloads/house_oversight_committee-rept_1207.pdf">http://mark-bowen.com/images/downloads/house_oversight_committee-rept_1207.pdf</a>
<br>
<br>
<br>
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