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<font size="+2" face="Calibri"><i><b>January</b></i></font><font
size="+2" face="Calibri"><i><b> 4, 2024</b></i></font><font
face="Calibri"><br>
</font><br>
<i>[ "Use the force (of AI), Luke" -- audio report ]</i><br>
<b>4 ways AI can help with climate change, from detecting methane to
preventing fires</b><br>
JANUARY 2, 2024<br>
By Julia Simon<br>
Lots of industries have embraced artificial intelligence as a tool
this past year, including climate solutions companies. From
detecting pollution to wildfires, companies are finding AI can help
translate vast amounts of climate-related data faster and more
efficiently, says Sasha Luccioni, climate lead for AI company
Hugging Face.Luccioni notes it's important to be cautious about
whether AI is always necessary. Generative AI, which makes new
content, can use large amounts of energy and have a big carbon
footprint. But she says there are many applications for AI in the
green transition.Here are four ways companies, researchers and
governments are using AI for climate solutions.<br>
<br>
<b>Using AI to detect planet-heating methane</b><br>
Methane emissions, the second biggest contributor to global warming
after carbon dioxide, are climbing. The highly potent pollutant -
the main ingredient in natural gas - gets released by the energy
sector, as well as agriculture, and decomposing material in
landfills.<br>
Now researchers and companies are using AI to interpret huge
quantities of satellite images to track global methane emissions on
a daily basis.<br>
<br>
"Before we could mine satellite information with AI, we had no idea
where methane was coming from," says Antoine Halff, co-founder and
chief analyst at Kayrros, a climate analytics firm, "We understood
the climate risk that this represented. But there was no
understanding of the sources."<br>
<br>
When Kayrros began in 2016, Halff says the world knew about only a
handful of occurrences of large methane leaks and other releases. He
says now his team can detect dozens of them every week and thousands
per year. "For methane," Halff says, "AI really reveals things that
could not be known."<br>
<br>
Kayrros's AI-fueled data is being used by the United Nations to
verify that companies' reports on methane emissions are accurate.
Other governments are gearing up for more methane monitoring: the
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the European Union recently
passed new methane regulations...<br>
Because methane is so potent, targeting it through AI makes
strategic sense, Halff says. "If you eliminate methane emissions
today," he says, "you can very quickly have an impact on the curve
of global warming."<br>
<br>
<b>Using AI for early detection of forest fires</b><br>
Climate change is driving more frequent and intense wildfires, and
those burns are making up an increasing share of planet-heating
pollution.<br>
<br>
Now a Berlin-based startup is using AI with sensors in forests to
find small burns before they spread into megafires. Carsten
Brinkschulte, CEO of Dryad, uses AI to train sensors to detect the
specific gasses that get released when organic material burns.<br>
<br>
"They're basically like an electronic nose that we embed in the
forest," Brinkschulte says.<br>
The nose-like sensors can detect the fires early in the smoldering
stage, "when it's still easy or relatively easy to extinguish the
fire," he says.<br>
<br>
The company has 50 sensor installations from the Middle East to
California. Last month in Lebanon sensors reacted to a small fire
within 30 minutes, Brinkschulte says.<br>
<br>
<b>Using AI to prevent new wildfires</b><br>
Another way to stop megafires is to set "controlled burns" outside
of fire season to remove the excess brush and vegetation that become
fuel for fires.<br>
<br>
Typically, so-called burn managers–who are people from utilities,
the federal forest service or other entities–deploy teams to
designated areas to set controlled burns. (Native tribes have a long
history of making these controlled burns.)<br>
<br>
But to do the work safely, burn managers need lots of information to
know how the fire might behave so it doesn't spin out of control.
They need to know things like the wind conditions and amount of
moisture in the vegetation, says Yolanda Gil, director for strategic
AI and data science initiatives at the Information Sciences
Institute at the University of Southern California.<br>
After interviewing fire scientists, Gil and their team used AI to
create a so-called intelligent or smart assistant – like Apple's
Siri or Amazon's Alexa – that can access vast data sets and complex
models. Burn managers can use these Siri-like assistants to decide
where and when to make controlled burns. "It's kind of like Siri,
but for burn managers," Gil says.<br>
<p>Gil says burn managers can ask the smart assistant about a
particular area. The assistant can take information about the
topography, the vegetation, weather patterns and recommend a
potential burn model – a way to make a safe controlled burn, Gil
says. The goal, they say, is to make these assistants widely
available for utilities, the forest service and others doing
controlled burns to make them more safe and plentiful.</p>
<p>They plan to send out the first prototypes of the smart
assistants in the coming months.</p>
<b>Using AI in green tech mining</b><br>
Climate solutions from solar panels to electric vehicles require
immense amounts of minerals like cobalt, lithium, and copper. But
current supplies are not enough to meet growing demand. By 2030,
projected lithium demand will be five times the current global
supply, according to the International Energy Agency.<br>
<br>
Now governments, researchers and companies are using AI to explore
for critical minerals. Colin Williams, mineral resources program
coordinator for the U.S. Geological Survey writes in an email that
his team is using AI to analyze data to figure out which areas in
the U.S. have the best potential for mining critical metals. He adds
that using AI means "dramatic time savings."<br>
<br>
There is a lot of data out there about what it looks like under the
surface of the earth. Using AI to sift through all this data helps
minimize uncertainty, Williams says. Because mining operations spend
billions of dollars trying to find profitable areas to exploit,
companies say using AI can help save a lot of time and money in
locating minerals.<br>
Companies all over the world – from Australian SensOre to
California-based KoBold Metals – are now using AI to explore for
minerals on several continents.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.npr.org/2024/01/02/1218677963/ai-climate-change-solutions-fires-lithium-methane">https://www.npr.org/2024/01/02/1218677963/ai-climate-change-solutions-fires-lithium-methane</a><br>
<p><br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<i>[ A new phrase for our language - a Weather Whiplash ]</i><br>
<b>Increase in Weather Whiplashing Across the North Atlantic Ocean
from Greenland to Europe</b><br>
Paul Beckwith<br>
Jan 1, 2024<br>
Many moons ago, I first coined the phrase “weather whiplashing” to
describe wrenching changes from one weather extreme to another, and
then often a return to the original state. Time scales for these
shifts can be one year to the next, or one month to another, or even
shorter.<br>
<br>
For example, one summer we can have torrential rains over the
Mississippi River regions leading to record flood levels and
disruption of shipping and breaches of flood walls leading to
extensive regional flooding. The next summer, we then have record
setting widespread drought, and river levels so low that the US Army
Corps of Engineers blasts rocks on the river floor to keep some
commercial barge traffic operating. The third year, we again have
torrential rains leading to new record high river levels and massive
flooding exceeding that of the previous record flooding. That’s
weather whiplashing on a year-to-year timeframe.<br>
<br>
Alternately, we can have a record heat wave in early Spring causing
all the buds to come out on plants. Then, a record cold snap can
occur, killing all the buds. Rinse and repeat.<br>
<br>
These weather whiplashing events are very destructive and cause huge
economic losses to societies, and they are occurring more and more
often.<br>
<br>
A few years ago, Jennifer Francis and her colleagues studied what
they called Weather Whiplashing Events (WWEs) over North America.<br>
<br>
In this new paper that I chat about, they examine WWEs spanning
between Greenland, the North Atlantic Ocean, and Europe.<br>
<br>
As global warming continues to accelerate, the scientific analysis
clearly shows associated increases in frequency and severity of
Weather Whiplashing Events...<br>
<p><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mehuhfqsyKk">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mehuhfqsyKk</a></p>
<p>- -</p>
<i>[ A new weather phrase for your TV forecaster -- Wikipedia
article for Weather Whiplash ]</i><br>
<b>Weather whiplash</b><br>
- -<br>
Weather whiplash was observed amid the 2022 European heat waves,
which parched France in one of its worst ever recorded droughts and
caused the driest July for decades in England, then broke with heavy
rain and flooding,[6] and rains the same summer during the
Southwestern North American megadrought.[3] In late 2022 and early
2023, the phenomenon again struck North America as record cold
around Christmas receded into record heat in January,[7] which in
early February became even more extreme cold across the Northeastern
United States.[8] In the US state of California weather events swung
from an extreme drought to flooding caused by atmospheric rivers.[1]<br>
<br>
Weather whiplash can also bring false springs, or winter warm spells
that conceal a freeze following them, and freak snowstorms early in
the season; both can disrupt agriculture and the electrical
grid.[9][10]<br>
<br>
A study in 2018 found a likelihood both extremes of precipitation
would increase in California, increasing the chances of very wet
years following very dry years and vice versa.[5]<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weather_whiplash">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weather_whiplash</a><br>
<p><br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<i>[ Where is happiness now? Big question. Audio lecture includes
Harvard's Professor Dan Gilbert ]</i><br>
<b>Why Our Brains Don't Fear Climate Change Enough | The Happiness
Lab | Dr. Laurie Santos</b><br>
Dr. Laurie Santos<br>
Jan 2, 2024 The Happiness Lab with Dr. Laurie Santos<br>
Humans are great at reacting to mortal danger... but only sometimes.
Unfortunately, some risks to our safety and wellbeing don't set off
alarm bells in our brains. Climate change falls into that category.
Why is that?<br>
<br>
Harvard psychologist Dan Gilbert explains how some dangers trigger
us, and some don't. In discussion with Dr Laurie Santos, he also
outlines ways in which we can be made to care more about threats to
the planet and maybe react to them in more positive,
happiness-inducing ways. <br>
#podcast #happiness #howtobehappy #climatechange <br>
<br>
ABOUT DR. LAURIE SANTOS<br>
Dr. Laurie Santos is Professor of Psychology and Head of Silliman
College at Yale University. Professor and podcast host Dr. Laurie
Santos is an expert on human cognition and the cognitive biases that
impede better choices. Her course, “Psychology and the Good Life,”
teaches students what the science of psychology says about how to
make wiser choices and live a life that’s happier and more
fulfilling. The class is Yale’s most popular course in over 300
years and has been adapted into a free Coursera program that has
been taken by over 3.3 million people to date. Dr. Santos has been
featured in numerous news outlets including the New York Times, NBC
Nightly News, The Today Show, CBS This Morning, NPR, GQ Magazine,
Slate, CNN and O, The Oprah Magazine. Dr. Santos is a winner of
numerous awards both for her science and teaching from institutions
such as Yale and the American Psychological Association. She has
been featured as one of Popular Science’s “Brilliant 10” young minds
and was named TIME’s “Leading Campus Celebrity.” Dr. Laurie Santos
is the podcast host for The Happiness Lab, which launched in 2019
has over 35 million downloads.<br>
<br>
ABOUT THE HAPPINESS LAB PODCAST<br>
You might think you know what it takes to lead a happier life… more
money, a better job, or Instagram-worthy vacations. You’re dead
wrong. Yale professor Dr. Laurie Santos has studied the science of
happiness and found that many of us do the exact opposite of what
will truly make our lives better. Based on the psychology course she
teaches at Yale — the most popular class in the university’s
300-year history — The Happiness Lab with Dr. Laurie Santos will
take you through the latest scientific research and share some
surprising and inspiring stories that will change the way you think
about happiness.<br>
<br>
ABOUT PUSHKIN INDUSTRIES<br>
Pushkin Industries is an audio production company dedicated to
creating premium content in a collaborative environment. Co-founded
by Malcolm Gladwell and Jacob Weisberg in 2018, Pushkin has launched
seven new shows into the top 10 on Apple Podcasts (Against the
Rules, The Happiness Lab, Solvable, Cautionary Tales, Deep Cover,
The Last Archive, and Lost Hills), in addition to producing the
hugely successful Revisionist History. Pushkin’s growing audiobook
catalogue includes includes the innovative works from Malcolm
Gladwell, Michael Lewis, Florence Williams, Michael Specter, Noah
Feldman, Joshua Cohen, and more. Pushkin is dedicated to producing
audio in any format that challenges listeners and inspires curiosity
and joy.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B_MApcLUB8w">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B_MApcLUB8w</a><br>
<p><br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<i>[ List gathered by Planetizen ]</i><br>
<b>20 Major US Cities Most and Least Threatened by Climate Change</b><br>
By 2050, climate change will have the biggest negative impact on
urban areas located in the Sun Belt.<br>
<br>
January 1, 2024<br>
<br>
By Mary Hammon<br>
Online insurance marketplace Policygenius evaluated the 50 largest
U.S. cities to determine which will be most and least impacted by
climate change by 2050. The factors analyzed included heat and
humidity, flooding and sea level rise, air quality, and frequency of
natural disasters such as hurricanes, tornadoes, wildfires, social
vulnerability, and community resilience.<br>
<b>Least Impacted:</b><br>
<blockquote>San Francisco, California<br>
Seattle, Washington<br>
Columbus, Ohio<br>
Minneapolis, Minnesota<br>
Baltimore, Maryland<br>
Milwaukee, Wisconsin<br>
Portland, Oregon<br>
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania<br>
Richmond, Virginia<br>
Denver, Colorado<br>
</blockquote>
<b>Most Impacted:</b><br>
<blockquote>Houson, Texas<br>
Miami, Florida<br>
Tampa, Florida<br>
Jacksonville, Florida<br>
Orlando, Florida<br>
New Orleans, Louisiana<br>
Los Angeles, California<br>
Memphis, Tennessee<br>
Riverside, California<br>
Virginia Beach, Virginia<br>
</blockquote>
Of the cities ranked most at risk, all are located in the Sunbelt,
which often tops lists of the best places to move or retire. Eight
of those are located in the South, which was the only region that
drew net new residents from other states in 2023, according to data
from the U.S. Census Bureau. Experts are concerned this trend will
leave an increasing number of people, particularly Black communities
and communities of color, vulnerable to the negative impacts of
climate change.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.planetizen.com/news/2024/01/126892-20-major-us-cities-most-and-least-threatened-climate-change">https://www.planetizen.com/news/2024/01/126892-20-major-us-cities-most-and-least-threatened-climate-change</a><br>
<br>
- - <br>
[ FULL STORY: Best & worst cities for climate change ]<br>
<b>Best & worst cities for climate change</b><br>
The climate is changing, and it’s happening faster and with more
dangerous consequences in some cities.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.policygenius.com/homeowners-insurance/best-and-worst-cities-climate-change/#methodology">https://www.policygenius.com/homeowners-insurance/best-and-worst-cities-climate-change/#methodology</a><br>
<br>
<p><br>
</p>
[ 2 popular doomerists in video conversation -- start about 25 min
in ]<br>
<b>Collapse Chronicles 2024 Kicks Off With a Conversation Between
Eliot Jacobson and Sam Mitchell</b><br>
Collapse Chronicles<br>
Jan 1, 2024 SANTA BARBARA<br>
Ahhh, it's so great to be back in the Doomer saddle again after
spending a few weeks in Never Never Lan<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VbB6m9RL-dI">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VbB6m9RL-dI</a><br>
<p><br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<i>[ A classic documentary ]</i><br>
<b>The End of Suburbia - 52 minute documentary on peak oil</b><br>
endofsuburbia<br>
Oct 26, 2006<br>
"We're literally stuck up a cul-de-sac in a cement SUV without a
fill-up" - James Howard Kunstler<br>
<br>
Global oil peak and the inevitable decline of fossil fuels are upon
us now, Are today's suburbs destined to become the slums of the
future? This is a short version of "The End of Suburbia: Oil
Depletion and the Collapse of The American Dream", a documentary
about the end of the age of cheap oil.<br>
<br>
The complete 78-minute version of The End of Suburbia is available
on DVD at <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated"
href="http://www.endofsuburbia.com">www.endofsuburbia.com</a>. If
you own the DVD, you are welcome to screen it to live audiences
without permission, as long as it is not for profit.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q3uvzcY2Xug">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q3uvzcY2Xug</a>
<p><br>
</p>
<font face="Calibri"><br>
</font><font face="Calibri"> <i>[The news archive - pretty smart
for 1966 ]</i></font><br>
<font face="Calibri"> <font size="+2"><i><b>January 4, 1996 </b></i></font>
</font><br>
<font face="Calibri"> </font> January 4, 1996: The New York Times
reports:<br>
"The earth's average surface temperature climbed to a record high
last year, according to preliminary figures, bolstering scientists'
sense that the burning of fossil fuels is warming the climate.<br>
<br>
"Spells of cold, snow and ice like the ones this winter in the
northeastern United States come and go in one region or another, as
do periods of unusual warmth. But the net result globally made 1995
the warmest year since records first were kept in 1856, says a
provisional report issued by the British Meteorological Office and
the University of East Anglia.<br>
<br>
"The average temperature was 58.72 degrees Fahrenheit, according to
the British data, seven-hundredths of a degree higher than the
previous record, established in 1990.<br>
<br>
"The British figures, based on land and sea measurements around the
world, are one of two sets of long-term data by which surface
temperature trends are being tracked.<br>
<br>
"The other, maintained by the NASA Goddard Institute for Space
Studies in New York, shows the average 1995 temperature at 59.7
degrees, slightly ahead of 1990 as the warmest year since
record-keeping began in 1866. But the difference is within the
margin of sampling error, and the two years essentially finished
neck and neck.<br>
<br>
"The preliminary Goddard figures differ from the British ones
because they are based on a somewhat different combination of
observations around the world.<br>
<br>
"One year does not a trend make, but the British figures show the
years 1991 through 1995 to be warmer than any similar five-year
period, including the two half-decades of the 1980's, the warmest
decade on record.<br>
<br>
"This is so even though a sun-reflecting haze cast aloft by the 1991
eruption of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines cooled the earth
substantially for about two years. Despite the post-Pinatubo
cooling, the Goddard data show the early 1990's to have been nearly
as warm as the late 1980's, which Goddard says was the warmest
half-decade on record.<br>
<br>
"Dr. James E. Hansen, the director of the Goddard center, predicted
last year that a new global record would be reached before 2000, and
yesterday he said he now expected that 'we will still get at least a
couple more' by then.<br>
<br>
"Dr. Hansen has been one of only a few scientists to maintain
steadfastly that a century-long global warming trend is being caused
mostly by human influence, a belief he reiterated yesterday."<br>
<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="http://www.nytimes.com/1996/01/04/world/95-is-hottest-year-on-record-as-the-global-trend-resumes.html?pagewanted=print">http://www.nytimes.com/1996/01/04/world/95-is-hottest-year-on-record-as-the-global-trend-resumes.html?pagewanted=print</a><br>
<br>
<p><br>
</p>
<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
day or once a week, our original stories and digest of the web’s
top headlines deliver the full story, for free.<br>
</font> <font face="Calibri"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
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--------------------------------------- <br>
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<br>
Delivered straight to your inbox every morning, Hot News
summarizes the most important climate and energy news of the
day, delivering an unmatched aggregation of timely, relevant
reporting. It also provides original reporting and commentary on
climate denial and pro-polluter activity that would otherwise
remain largely unexposed. 5 weekday <br>
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Every weekday morning, in time for your morning coffee, Carbon
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and energy, as well as our pick of the key studies published in
the peer-reviewed journals. <br>
more at <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
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