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<font size="+2" face="Calibri"><i><b>November 26</b></i></font><font
size="+2" face="Calibri"><i><b>, 2023</b></i></font><font
face="Calibri"><br>
</font> <br>
<font face="Calibri"><i>[ SALON addresses difficult subjects -
predictions, conjectures, big changes ahead ]</i></font><br>
<font face="Calibri"><b>Will climate change make our planet a
desert? Why "uninhabitable" may be the wrong climate framework</b><br>
Extreme heat and freak storms may make it harder to live on Earth,
but calling it a wasteland is counterproductive<br>
By MATTHEW ROZSA</font><br>
<font face="Calibri">As fall weather bleeds into winter, it can be
hard to remember that humanity just experienced its hottest summer
in recorded history. We now hear news of billion dollar climate
disasters on a regular basis, whether it's heatwaves or flash
floods or wildfires. Of course, all these things happened before
the Industrial Revolution, but the amount of heat we've added to
the planet has supercharged these natural events, making them more
destructive and more common.<br>
<br>
And things are just getting started. As humans continue to emit
greenhouse gases from fossil fuels into the atmosphere, extreme
weather events like heatwaves, floods and tropical storms will
become increasingly common, according to climate models that we
are sadly proving right.<br>
<br>
But does that mean the entire Earth will literally become
uninhabitable? Perhaps not, according to scientists who spoke with
Salon, but at the very least, large sections of the planet will
undergo radical, life-altering changes thanks to climate change.
Indeed, we are already seeing the beginning of a future where
highly populated regions are rendered — if not literally
uninhabitable — then at the very least far more challenging to
live in.<br>
</font><br>
<font face="Calibri">"Areas that are already experiencing
significant heat will likely become uninhabitable but these
locations will spread further north, such as into southern Europe
and southern U.S. states," Julienne C. Stroeve, professor of polar
observation and modelling at the University of Colorado Boulder,
told Salon by email. She described a talk during the World Climate
Research Programme meeting, "where scientists are looking at what
a heat wave would have been in a 1°C [34°F] colder or say a 4°C
[39°F] warmer world. And the example from Germany showed the heat
wave recently experienced would have risen from 40°C [104°F] to
47°C [117°F], which would lead to people likely dying."<br>
<br>
Jonathan R. Buzan, a postdoctoral climate researcher at the
University of Bern, Switzerland, elaborated on the implications of
rising heat, explaining that it is not easy to determine precisely
how different regions will be impacted. Some areas will be more
affected than others but we can begin to understand how using a
metric called "wet bulb temperature," which is temperature
measured by a wet thermometer in the shade as water evaporates off
it. This is a better way of measuring heat stress than a regular
thermostat. In some places not as used to extreme temperatures,
wet bulb conditions can quickly become lethal.</font><br>
<font face="Calibri">"Above 40°C (104°F), dry heat impacts humans
significantly, but below 40°C, high wet bulb temperatures can
dominate," Buzan explained, emphasizing that this makes it hard to
predict where will become uninhabitable. "The expected exposure to
moist heat (high wet bulb temperatures) is supposed to increase
exponentially relative to dry heat.<br>
</font><br>
<font face="Calibri">As a result, Buzan said, areas that will be
harder to live in due to heat include "monsoonal regions (such as
India/Pakistan/South East Asia) [that] have the highest
combinations of moist and dry heat, and are likely to become
physically straining first."<br>
</font><br>
<font face="Calibri">Bruce H. Raup from the National Snow and Ice
Data Center at the University of Colorado warned about another
factor that heavily bears on a region's inhabitability during
climate change, namely "that once a place dries significantly
(soil moisture drops and surface water evaporates), it can get a
lot hotter quickly. That's because the energy that was going into
evaporating water now goes into raising the temperature of the
surface and near-surface air."<br>
<br>
As all of these heat-related weather events build up one on top of
the other, humans will struggle to survive in ways that are
difficult to anticipate. Buzan drew attention to a recent study
from the Journal of Thermal Biology which shows a growing epidemic
of Chronic Kidney Disease in low latitude countries potentially
caused by increased heat, as well as a study from the Annals of
Medicine and Surgery which found an increase in disease outbreaks
in flood-ravaged Pakistan.<br>
<br>
"What I am wishing to highlight is that there are many unknown
consequences of climate change in association with heat exposure;
both short duration from heatwaves, but also long term exposure
from seasonal, and with enough climate change, yearly exposure,"
Buzan explained to Salon.</font><br>
<font face="Calibri">Heat waves aren't the only factor making large
regions of Earth harder to survive in. As Buzan also observed,
"island nations are the first to be impacted by sea level rise.
Agreements to relocate populations are already in effect. There is
work towards development island rising to offset the effects of
sea level change. But this isn’t to say that coastal areas are not
impacted. Miami spends enormous amounts of money on pumping water
out of the city due to sea level rise."</font><br>
<font face="Calibri">According to Walt Meier, a Senior Research
Scientist at the CIRES/University of Colorado National Snow and
Ice Data Center, sea level rise (SLR) will not be uniform around
the world. There are global averages given in projections, but
they can vary regionally "depending on local sea level and land
subsidence or uplift."</font><br>
<br>
<font face="Calibri">Meier added that he would prefer the term "less
inhabitable" rather than "uninhabitable," since humans could adapt
to some of the changes they experience. Yet the questions remains
of whether it is worth it to, for example, build levees and raise
coastal elevation for areas that experience regular flooding due
to sea level rise.<br>
<br>
"These are very high cost adaptations," Meier wrote to Salon. "Is
it just less expensive to abandon inhospitable environments? In
many cases, probably yes."<br>
<br>
Climate change will also pound regions of the Earth with
intensified storms. Raup shared an analogy that "if you raised the
floor of a basketball court by 4 inches, you'd expect more slam
dunks. You expected some before, but now you expect more because
the hoop is within easier reach of more players. Similarly,
raising the average temperature of the atmosphere and the surface
waters in the ocean provides a boost of energy to weather systems,
and allows more water vapor to be in the atmosphere."</font><br>
<font face="Calibri">While Buzan said it is "extremely difficult" to
anticipate which regions will become uninhabitable due to
intensified storms, he observed that "hurricanes are likely the
type of storms that will cause consistent problems. However, as
we’ve seen with extreme rainfall recently in Pakistan or in
Germany, one can have extreme rainfall that causes widespread
damage, but that does not mean that it will happen again or
frequently."...<br>
</font><br>
<font face="Calibri">He added, "The connection to extreme rain and
disease, however, should not be overlooked. Water that is not
cleared efficiently can quickly become a breeding ground for
disease and parasites."<br>
<br>
While these sobering developments could trigger climate despair,
the experts who commented for this article insisted that
"uninhabitability" is a potentially damaging framework through
which to view the question of climate change. Instead of
"uninhabitable," it may instead be useful to think of the world as
being "harder to inhabit."<br>
<br>
"A strictly climate determinism perspective is limiting and
distorts reality," Matthew Huber, Professor of Geography in the
Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse
University, wrote to Salon. "From the perspective of severe
weather/climate or drought, Northern Canada and Las Vegas are
uninhabitable. Most of the Netherlands is below sea level, so it
is uninhabitable by simple sea level metrics. But people can build
the necessary infrastructure to make a region inhabitable."</font><br>
<font face="Calibri">According to Huber, the more important question
is, "Do the regions that are negatively impacted by climate change
have the resources (money, technology, institutions, culture,
political will) necessary to keep regions habitable and will they
make the decision to do so?"<br>
<br>
While he acknowledged that in some cases a place like an island
nation may literally become uninhabitable, Huber said use of the
term is generally harmful because it can lead to writing off large
parts of the globe.<br>
<br>
"Once one has labelled a region as such, it leads to a cognitive
switch in which many people will start blaming the people who live
there for living in a region that 'everyone knows' is
uninhabitable," Huber said. "This becomes a blame-the-victim
situation which simultaneously erases the responsibility of those
who can afford to provide the necessary resources to maintain
habitability and agency of those who would attempt it."</font><br>
<font face="Calibri"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.salon.com/2023/11/25/will-climate-change-make-our-planet-a-desert-why-uninhabitable-may-be-the-climate-framework/">https://www.salon.com/2023/11/25/will-climate-change-make-our-planet-a-desert-why-uninhabitable-may-be-the-climate-framework/</a><br>
</font>
<p><font face="Calibri"><br>
</font></p>
<br>
<font face="Calibri"><i>[ Climate change makes for revenue anxiety
]</i></font><br>
<font face="Calibri"><b>Red Flag: Sea level rise may wash away
property values, tax revenues</b></font><br>
<font face="Calibri">By Colin A. Young </font><br>
<font face="Calibri">State House News Service </font><br>
<font face="Calibri">Nov 18, 2023 </font><br>
<br>
<font face="Calibri">BOSTON — Climate change is here and its impacts
are affecting more people than ever. and with the release of the
fifth National Climate Assessment on Tuesday, the White House is
hoping to give Americans some detailed and practical information
on how they can expect their communities to change and adapt.</font><br>
<br>
<font face="Calibri">“It is the most up-to-date and comprehensive
assessment of how climate change is affecting all of us here in
the United States. It is your guide to climate change in the U.S,”
Allison Crimmins, the director of the first National Climate
Assessment update since 2018, told reporters Monday.</font><br>
<br>
<font face="Calibri">“The assessment shows that more and more people
across the US are experiencing climate change right now, right
outside their window. and a lot of them are experiencing it
through extreme weather events. In the 1980s, the country
experienced on average a $1 billion disaster every four months.
Now we see one every three weeks.”</font><br>
<br>
<font face="Calibri">The new report does not make specific policy
recommendations, but rather considers how climate change is
already playing out across the country, what more might be
expected in the coming decades, and what the federal government,
states, municipalities, nonprofits, homeowners and others can do
to prepare for greater impacts and respond to extreme weather
events.</font><br>
<br>
<font face="Calibri">Crimmins said she hopes the report “will not
just be a book on a shelf gathering dust” and that people around
the country will use the interactive atlas being released
alongside the report to drill down on the ways that climate change
is affecting their neighborhoods.</font><br>
<br>
<font face="Calibri">“This is a guide or a tool that we want people
to use to inform climate decisions,” she said.</font><br>
<br>
<font face="Calibri">“A water utility manager in Chicago can
understand the extreme rainfall that’s coming so that they can
design sewers that don’t overflow. Or an urban planner in Texas
can tell where to locate cooling centers to give people refuge
from the extreme heat. Or a hospital manager in the southeast can
get ahead of the diseases that ticks and mosquitoes are bringing
into their region,” Arati Prabhakar, director of the White House
Office of Science and Technology Policy, said. “This is how people
across America can prepare for and respond to the climate crisis.”</font><br>
<br>
<font face="Calibri">David Reidmiller, an author of the climate
assessment’s northeast chapter, said the most pressing threats to
this part of the country are “heavy precipitation and flooding,
followed by sea level rise and coastal inundation, given how
concentrated so much of our economies and livelihoods are in the
coastal zone in the Northeast.”</font><br>
<br>
<font face="Calibri">The threats that climate change, particularly
sea level rise, poses to coastal communities and economies was
highlighted at the state’s annual Investor Conference earlier this
month.</font><br>
<br>
<font face="Calibri">Michael Goodman, the former head of the UMass
Dartmouth Public Policy Center who is now senior advisor to the
chancellor on economic development and strategic initiatives, said
as part of his presentation on the Massachusetts economy that
while population and labor force growth are expected to be slow
statewide over the rest of this decade, growth rates for both are
projected to be stronger in coastal areas.</font><br>
<br>
<font face="Calibri">That will make coastal resilience essential,
Goodman said. He included a chart from a 2020 study that
considered how sea level rise will decrease property tax revenues
in Massachusetts coastal communities. The researchers chose
Massachusetts to study because of the state’s “high exposure” to
sea level rise (SLR) and the budgetary reliance on property taxes
for municipalities – property taxes constitute 41% of local
revenues in Massachusetts, but an average of 60% of local revenues
among coastal municipalities.</font><br>
<br>
<font face="Calibri">“In absolute terms, 3 ft of SLR threatens 1.4%
($104 million) of current property taxes of 89 coastal
municipalities by chronically inundating over 15,000 taxable acres
currently valued at $8.89 billion,” the report said. “Six feet of
SLR threatens 12.5% ($946 million) of current property taxes of 99
coastal municipalities by chronically inundating almost 37,000
taxable acres valued at $64.4 billion.”</font><br>
<br>
<font face="Calibri">Sea level rise could affect almost half of all
Massachusetts residents in coming decades. Already about 43
percent of the state’s population lives in coastal communities,
and the populations in most of those cities and towns are expected
to increase.</font><br>
<br>
<font face="Calibri">Massachusetts state government recently
undertook its own exercise of considering how more-frequent
extreme weather will impact the Bay State and what government can
do to prepare and respond.</font><br>
<br>
<font face="Calibri">The state’s updated (and federally-mandated)
Statewide Hazard Mitigation and Climate Adaptation Plan identified
flooding from precipitation, coastal flooding and erosion due to
sea level rise as the most significant hazards to Massachusetts.</font><br>
<br>
<font face="Calibri">Massachusetts is planning for sea level rise of
up to 2.5 feet by 2050 and 4.3 feet by 2070 (both compared to 2008
sea level) if global emissions are not significantly curtailed.
The current annual average damage to coastal buildings in
Massachusetts is about $185 million, but the new report projected
that amount will nearly double by 2030 due to changes in sea level
and storm surge.</font><br>
<font face="Calibri"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.gloucestertimes.com/news/red-flag-sea-level-rise-may-wash-away-property-values-tax-revenues/article_237a074b-0890-58e7-8fe7-e45493af8e1d.html">https://www.gloucestertimes.com/news/red-flag-sea-level-rise-may-wash-away-property-values-tax-revenues/article_237a074b-0890-58e7-8fe7-e45493af8e1d.html</a></font><br>
<p><font face="Calibri"><br>
</font></p>
<p><font face="Calibri"><br>
</font></p>
<font face="Calibri"><i>[ follow the money ]</i><br>
</font><font face="Calibri"><b>Economic models buckle under strain
of climate reality</b><br>
By Mark John<br>
November 22, 2023</font><br>
<font face="Calibri"><b>Summary</b></font><br>
<font face="Calibri">-- Critics say economic models not fit for
purpose</font><br>
<font face="Calibri">-- Economists urged to take broader,
cross-discipline view</font><br>
<font face="Calibri">-- COP28 climate talks start in Dubai on Nov.
30</font><br>
<font face="Calibri">Nov 22 (Reuters) - Ahead of international
climate talks in Dubai this month, economists are updating
estimates of the impact of global warming on the world economy,
sometimes calculating down to a decimal place the hit to output in
decades to come.<br>
<br>
But detractors say those numbers are the product of economic
models that are not fit to capture the full extent of climate
damage. As such, they can provide an alibi for policy inaction...<br>
</font><font face="Calibri"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.reuters.com/business/environment/economic-models-buckle-under-strain-climate-reality-2023-11-22/">https://www.reuters.com/business/environment/economic-models-buckle-under-strain-climate-reality-2023-11-22/</a></font>
<p><font face="Calibri"><br>
</font></p>
<font face="Calibri"><br>
</font><font face="Calibri"> <i>[The news archive "I'll be back.."
calling out Senator Inhofe ]</i></font><br>
<font face="Calibri"> <font size="+2"><i><b>November 26, 2006 </b></i></font>
</font><br>
<font face="Calibri"> </font> <font face="Calibri">November 26,
2006: In an appearance on NBC's "Meet the Press," Gov. Arnold
Schwarzenegger (R-CA) notes that fellow Republican Sen. James
Inhofe of Oklahoma is someone who has his "thinking in the Stone
Age" on climate.<br>
<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://youtu.be/gcZ7DWMeyQA">http://youtu.be/gcZ7DWMeyQA</a><br>
</font> <br>
<p><font face="Calibri"> <br>
</font> <font face="Calibri"><br>
=== Other climate news sources
===========================================<br>
</font> <font face="Calibri"><b>*Inside Climate News</b><br>
Newsletters<br>
We deliver climate news to your inbox like nobody else. Every
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top headlines deliver the full story, for free.<br>
</font> <font face="Calibri"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://insideclimatenews.org/">https://insideclimatenews.org/</a><br>
--------------------------------------- <br>
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