Climate change issues, prevention, adaptation

Earth Hour tonight, March 25: we're invited to turn off lights 8:30-9:30 pm local time. Hopefully, this will be the year I remember!
https://www.earthhour.org/

Birds appreciate darkness at appropriate hours, and many species, of course, could use some respite from global warming.

Even Red-tailed Hawks are undergoing substantial changes in both migratory behavior and population size at least in part due to climate change,
with numbers down in south (not overwintering) and central/eastern Canada (possible decline in breeding population).

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Paprocki, N., Oleyar, D., Brandes, D. et al. 2017. Combining Migration and Wintering Counts to Enhance Understanding of Population Change in a Generalist Raptor Species, the North American Red-tailed Hawk. The Condor. http://www.bioone.org/doi/10.1650/CONDOR-16-132.1

ABSTRACT
An increasing body of scientific evidence supports the idea that many avian species are changing their migratory behavior as a result of climate change, land-use change, or both. We assessed Red-tailed Hawk (Buteo jamaicensis) population trends in 2 parts of the annual cycle (fall migration and winter) to better understand regional population trends and their relationship to changes in migration. We conducted 10 yr, 20 yr, and 30 yr trend analyses using pan–North American standardized fall migration counts and Christmas Bird Counts. We quantitatively compared trends in seasonal counts by latitude within the eastern and western migratory flyways. Our combined analysis of migration and wintering count data revealed flyway-specific patterns in count trends suggesting that Red-tailed Hawks are undergoing substantial changes in both migratory behavior and population size. Decreasing Red-tailed Hawk wintering and migration counts in southern regions and increasing winter counts in northern regions were consistent with other observations indicating changes in migratory strategy; an increasing number of Red-tailed Hawks do not migrate, or migrate shorter distances than they did in the past. Further, Red-tailed Hawk populations have been stable or increasing across much of North America. However, we found strong negative count trends at the northernmost migration sites on the eastern flyway, suggesting possible breeding-population declines in the central and eastern Canadian provinces. Our findings demonstrate the benefit of using appropriate data from multiple seasons of the annual cycle to provide insight into shifting avian migration strategies and population change.

EPA chief: Trump to undo Obama plan to curb global warming

...EPA chief Scott Pruitt said the executive order to be signed Tuesday will undo the Obama administration's Clean Power Plan, an environmental regulation that restricts greenhouse gas emissions at coal-fired power plants. The 2015 rule has been on hold since last year while a federal appeals court considers a challenge by coal-friendly Republican-led states and more than 100 companies...

https://apnews.com/d8c840e2f2f24a7d887743222caf095f?utm_campaign=SocialFlow&...

Thanks for starting this thread. I will follow closely, and many will no doubt appreciate I have little to nothing to add.

Well, if you listen to the some of most strident voices, they'll tell you we're already doomed. Here's a fellow I used to be in touch with: one rather controversial Professor Emeritus of conservation biology at the University of Arizona. I'm too much of a dyed-in-the-wool humanist to walk all the way with him, and his ideological rigidity can be off-putting, but he's certainly worth reading for anyone interested in the worst-case analysis.

https://guymcpherson.com/climate-chaos/climate-change-summary-and-update/

I don't buy that we're necessarily extinct, but I'm open to the possibility that civilization as we know it may not survive the rest of our lifetimes (in which event, of course, there would likely be implications for the length of some of our lifetimes). Keep in mind, too, that Guy is very much at the worst-case fringe. That said: Guy would take a look at the first extract, smirk, and remark wryly upon the OP paper's fixation with "charismatic megafauna."

Melting the polar caps and Greenland as rising global temperatures are doing is going to have some pretty nasty consequences. Just speaking from a North American viewpoint if and when sea level risings push major population centers inland--depending on how fast it happens the more strain it will have logistically on the rest of the country and that could easily turn into an insupportable situation. IMO there's a pretty decent chance that one day in the not too distant future we're going to have our very own man made major refugee crisis and we won't have the means to deal with it. The other thing about the coastline is that's where our nuclear power plants tend to be located and as we've seen with Fukushima radioactive material and sea water don't mix well together.

And we see with the Dakota pipeline just where the United States government's and its politicians priorities are-- they're with corporations and wealth entities. If forced to act--they will react too late and likely not do enough and they won't take the blame--they'll shift it somehow. That's the entire republican party and the major part of the democratic party.

Worth pairing with Guy's piece for perspective (though he'd not be pleased to hear me say it):
http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Guy_McPherson

And here's a good exchange of ideas with the Radio Ecoshock crowd, who are on the whole (slightly) less gloomy.
http://www.ecoshock.org/2014/09/near-term-human-extincton-making-case.html
http://www.ecoshock.org/2014/09/human-extinction-not-so-much.html

ETA: And don't miss this earlier piece for a very interesting dissection of some oil industry hanky-panky:
http://www.ecoshock.org/2013/06/will-humans-go-extinct-soon.html

I believe that the leading universities that teach the issues have pretty much convinced students that at the least we have reached the point where it is irreversible. I spoke with one such student last summer and his area of study is along the lines of what Iriley suggests is necessary, though more particular. For instance, he gave one prospective thing that indicates to what extend all changes. He spoke of airplane wheels, which will all have to withstand a wider range of temperatures, particularly warmer runways...(if I recall correctly--If i don't, it think that's enought anyway to suggest the enormity of the problem)

The White House calls climate change research a ‘waste.’ Actually, it’s required by law
Chris Mooney | March 21, 2017

...Despite White House budget director Mick Mulvaney’s assertion Friday that studying climate change is a “waste of your money,” federal scientists are required, by a 1990 law, to do just that — and are carrying on for now, even under the cloud of budgetary uncertainty created by the Trump administration.

It’s no easy task. Trump’s “skinny” budget proposes to slash many climate-related programs at agencies like NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration but often doesn’t go into specifics — raising doubts about the implications for climate science programs across 13 government agencies and the production of an exhaustive report about the impact of climate change in the U.S. that is required by law.

“For each of these programs, real people live on the other side of the budget line item,” said Ali Zaidi, a Stanford energy researcher who previously served in a key role in Obama’s Office of Management and Budget overseeing funding for climate and environmental programs. “Students, small business, and sources of economic growth for communities count on this data. Now you’ve got folks waiting by the phone to learn whether they’ll be going to work tomorrow or whether the data that informs their livelihoods will still be available.”...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2017/03/21/trumps-budg...

The determination of the oil and gas people to pollute is seconded by practically every single republican lawmaker and sadly by too many democratic ones as well. The process of natural gas fracking calls for the contamination of untold billions of gallons of water---and as well has led to the contamination of countless numbers of fresh water sources. Only two states have banned fracking. New York and Vermont. I think some of the Canadian provinces have as well. The Dakota pipeline is an inevitable disaster waiting to happen. All pipelines eventually leak. It's unconscionable what they're doing. The Obama administration should have done much more to stop it. The Trump administration has greenlighted it. Business trumps health and safety.

>9 lriley: 'The Obama administration should have done much more to stop it.' Why? That's not in their job description as they see it and as you point out at the beginning of your post.

I've borne witness to an interesting phenomenon here at LT near the end of the election run-up and in the first months after: an increasing intensity in Democrat infighting (and anti-Trump infighting, I shoud clarify because of course not all who 'failed' to vote Clinton were Democrats, but left of Democrat). It led to the disgusting phenomenon of Democrats bullying fecklessly (hah!); it led to Democrats acting undemocratically. If that is ever going to change as it should, those who voted happily for both Obama and then Clinton need to, I think, understand that they are as engaged in the oligarchic structure as any enormous pharmaceutical company, any insurance company, and arms producer, the 'defense' industry. That's not to say that there was no good reason to vote for Clinton, though I can only think of one--Planned Parenthood support/women's rights. But in the future Democrats have to stop allowing themselves the laziness necessary to support half-assed candidates who work for the same people and towards the same nefarious ends as the Republicans, who may range from insane to antihuman but can get along with any Democrat who supports, to use Iriley's example DAPL, as Obama obviously did.

One of the most troubling ideas about climate change just found new evidence in its favor

...Publishing in Nature Scientific Reports, Michael Mann of Pennsylvania State University and a group of colleagues at research institutes in the United States, Germany and the Netherlands find that at least in the spring and summer, the large scale flow of the atmosphere is indeed changing in such a way as to cause weather to get stuck more often.

The study, its authors write, “adds to the weight of evidence for a human influence on the occurrence of devastating events such as the 2003 European heat wave, the 2010 Pakistan flood and Russian heat wave, the 2011 Texas heat wave and recent floods in Europe.”...

...(John Fyfe of the Canadian Center for Climate Modeling and Analysis at Environment and Climate Change Canada), who testifies before Congress this week in a session that is expected to feature a rip-roaring debate about the severity of climate change, commented, “That’s going to be a fake debate. But this stuff is where the real debate is now.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2017/03/27/one-of-the-...

> 4 charismatic fauna

Don't think that I'd include Red-Tailed Hawk in this category--Polar Bear, Condor, Panda, Elephant, Rhinoceros, Great Apes, maybe even Bald Eagle, but not a generalist hawk, much as we all enjoy seeing it, I suspect. But correct me if you think I'm wrong.

An old colleague of mine, a Rhodes scholar, active in international environmental conferences--i.e., very, very green, Kermit green--once answered me that yes he would sacrifice a grandchild if it would save an endangered species, even an amoeba. I didn't believe him. The good thing is that often, if you can save "charismatic megafauna", you can save many lesser species that share parts of its its habitat, e.g., rewilding of Yellowstone by re-introduction of wolves, apparently a/the keystone predator in that ecosystem.

>12 margd: I agree in principle with the Rhodes feller. A scorpion is exotic to me. A red-tailed hawk is exotic. Both have charisma. I was raised in suburbs--non-human life is exotic. Weeds are exotic.

Though the forecast is not, it's heartening to see that US Geological Survey managed to post results of this modelling study. Interesting to see it appear the morning of The Donald's executive order on climate change programs:

Disappearing Beaches: Modeling Shoreline Change in Southern California

Using a newly-developed computer model called “CoSMoS-COAST” (Coastal Storm Modeling System – Coastal One-line Assimilated Simulation Tool) scientists predict that with limited human intervention, 31 to 67 percent of Southern California beaches may become completely eroded (up to existing coastal infrastructure or sea-cliffs) by the year 2100 under scenarios of sea-level rise of one to two meters.

“Beaches are perhaps the most iconic feature of California, and the potential for losing this identity is real. The effect of California losing its beaches is not just a matter of affecting the tourism economy. Losing the protecting swath of beach sand between us and the pounding surf exposes critical infrastructure, businesses and homes to damage. Beaches are natural resources, and it is likely that human management efforts must increase in order to preserve them,” said lead author of the study, Sean Vitousek, who was a post-doctoral fellow at the U.S. Geological Survey when he conducted this study. Vitousek is now a professor in the Department of Civil & Materials Engineering at the University of Illinois at Chicago...

https://www.usgs.gov/news/disappearing-beaches-modeling-shoreline-change-souther...

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Sean Vitousek et al. 2017. A model integrating longshore and cross-shore processes for predicting long-term shoreline response to climate change. Online. Journal of Geophysical Research. doi: 10.1002/2016JF004065 http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2016JF004065/epdf

Abstract
We present a shoreline change model for coastal hazard assessment and management planning. The model, CoSMoS-COAST (Coastal One-line Assimilated Simulation Tool), is a transect-based, one-line model that predicts short-term and long-term shoreline response to climate change in the 21st
century. The proposed model represents a novel, modular synthesis of process-based models of coastline evolution due to longshore and cross-shore
transport by waves and sea-level rise. Additionally, the model uses an extended Kalman filter for data assimilation of historical shoreline positions to improve estimates of model parameters and thereby improve confidence in long-term predictions. We apply CoSMoS-COAST to simulate sandy shoreline evolution along 500 km of coastline in Southern California, which hosts complex mixtures of beach settings variably backed by dunes, bluffs, cliffs, estuaries, river mouths, and urban infrastructure, providing applicability of the model to virtually any coastal setting. Aided by data assimilation, the model is able to reproduce the
observed signal of seasonal shoreline change for the hindcast period of 1995-2010, showing excellent agreement between modeled and observed beach states. The skill of the model during the hindcast period improves confidence in the model’s predictive capability when applied to the forecast period (2010-2100) driven by GCM-projected wave and sea-level conditions. Predictions of shoreline change with limited human intervention indicate that
31% to 67% of Southern California beaches may become completely eroded by 2100 under sea-level rise scenarios of 0.93 to 2.0 m.

Live-streamed 10 AM ET (edit: tomorrow) morning:

Climate Science: Assumptions, Policy Implications, and the Scientific Method
Full Committee | 2318 Rayburn House Office Building Washington, D.C. 20515 | Mar 29, 2017 10:00am to 12:00pm

Witnesses

Dr. Judith Curry, President, Climate Forecast Applications Network; Professor Emeritus, Georgia Institute of Technology

Dr. John Christy, Professor and Director, Earth System Science Center, NSSTC, University of Alabama at Huntsville; State Climatologist, Alabama

Dr. Michael Mann, Distinguished Professor of Atmospheric Science, Pennsylvania State University; Director, Earth System Science Center (ESSC), Pennsylvania State University

Dr. Roger Pielke Jr., Professor, Environmental Studies Department, University of Colorado

http://democrats.science.house.gov/hearing/climate-science-assumptions-policy-im...

White House Takes Aim at Obama Era Climate Policy in New Executive Order
Mar 28 2017 | by Ali Vitali

The White House took a major swipe at President Barack Obama's climate change legacy on Tuesday with the signing of an executive order on energy independence.

The order asks the Environmental Protection Agency to review Obama's Clean Power Plan, which sought to reduce carbon pollution from power plants and is considered one of the past administration's signature pieces of climate policy. The plan's implementation was already put on hold by the Supreme Court in February of 2016....

...announced an end to the moratorium on coal production...

...A cadre of attorney generals from California, New York, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Iowa, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Mexico, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, and the District of Columbia, and the chief legal officers from Boulder, Chicago, New York city, Philadelphia, South Miami and Broward County have all vowed to oppose the plan.

"We won't hesitate to protect those we serve — including by aggressively opposing in court President Trump's actions that ignore both the law and the critical importance of confronting the very real threat of climate change," the officials wrote in a joint statement on Tuesday...

http://www.utilitydive.com/news/breaking-trump-signs-executive-order-to-review-c...

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ETA:

Trump signs order to roll back Obama’s climate moves

...some immediate effects. The order stops Interior’s moratorium on new coal-mining leases on federal land, something Obama instituted to study how to charge coal companies for the climate impacts of the fuel they mine on federal property.

It also stops policies asking federal agencies to consider climate change in environmental reviews, a government-wide accounting method for climate change regulations called the “social cost of carbon” and Obama executive orders on climate, like one asking that infrastructure be built to withstand a future climate affected by global warming....

http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/326124-trump-signs-order-to-roll-ba...

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BBC take:

Trump signs order undoing Obama climate change policies
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-39415631

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Forbes analysis from a month ago:

Clean Power Plan Repeal Would Cost America $600 Billion, Cause 120,000 Premature Deaths
https://www.forbes.com/sites/energyinnovation/2017/02/23/clean-power-plan-repeal...

>17 RickHarsch:...and what do you want to bet that this is just the beginning? Let's see, got some pesky federal scientific information that proves my product is harmful...just call the Donald and presto-chango - no such information exists and my product is just great.

Excellent, succinct overview with graphs projecting CO2-equivalent emissions for each Obama policy under Trump.
States and NGOs: break out the lawyers... Expect black armbands and pitchforks on Earth Day this year?

Trump’s Executive Order Pushes the U.S. Climate Pledge Further Out of Reach
By NADJA POPOVICH MARCH 28, 2017

During his first two months in office, President Donald J. Trump has rolled back key Obama-era greenhouse gas regulations. Without these rules in place, the United States is set to fall far short of its 2015 Paris Agreement pledge: to lower emissions by at least 26 percent below 2005 levels by 2025.

Here is how some of President Barack Obama’s signature policies have fared so far under the Trump administration:

Cleaner power plants...
More efficient cars...
Fewer methane emissions...
Eco-friendlier appliances...
California: a climate battle brewing...

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/03/28/climate/trumps-executive-order-pu...

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ETA: in 2007 Supreme Court opined on CO2 as pollutant, which EPA can regulate under the Clean Air Act.

MASSACHUSETTS v. EPA (No. 05-1120)
https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/05-1120.ZS.html

...Because greenhouse gases fit well within the (Clean Air) Act’s capacious definition of “air pollutant,” EPA has statutory authority to regulate emission of such gases from new motor vehicles. That definition—which includes “any air pollution agent … , including any physical, chemical, … substance … emitted into … the ambient air … ,” §7602(g) (emphasis added)—embraces all airborne compounds of whatever stripe. Moreover, carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases are undoubtedly “physical and chemical … substances.”...

https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/05-1120.ZS.html

>18 alco261: That's been going on a long time in a less sinister form. The opponents of the science, though, at least had to pay for their own science and fight it out to some degree.

>15 margd: Today's hearing: Climate Science: Assumptions, Policy Implications, and the Scientific Method
(Chairman of House Science Committee disputes objectivity of premier science journal.)

House panel hearing becomes climate change sparring session

...(Dr. Michael Mann, Distinguished Professor of Atmospheric Science, Pennsylvania State University; Director, Earth System Science Center (ESSC), Pennsylvania State University) sparred directly with (Rep Lamar Smith (R-TX) Chair of House Science Committee), highlighting a Friday article in Science magazine that criticized Smith for speaking at a conference for climate change skeptics. Science magazine is published by the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

“That is not known as an objective writer or magazine,” Smith said.

Mann replied, “Well, it is ‘Science’ magazine.”

http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/326336-members-researchers-spar-ove...

“That is not known as an objective writer or magazine,” Smith said.

Cretin.

Lamar Smith is a classic example of a Texas republican. Many of his biggest donors come from the oil and gas industry. I kind of look at him as a cretin too but there are rea$on$ he does the things that he does and says the things that he says. He's got a nice little setup for himself and that's all that really matters to him.

By the way he takes a lot of money from the alcohol industry too but is dead set against marijuana legalization. Christian values. If you have the wherewithal to buy him--he'll be your friend.

Drought and War Heighten Threat of Not Just 1 Famine, but 4
By JEFFREY GETTLEMANMARCH 27, 2017

...For the first time since anyone can remember, there is a very real possibility of four famines — in Somalia, South Sudan, Nigeria and Yemen — breaking out at once, endangering more than 20 million lives.

...Aid officials say all the needed food and water exist on this planet in abundance — even within these hard-hit countries. But armed conflict that is often created by personal rivalries between a few men turns life upside down for millions, destroying markets and making the price of necessities go berserk...

...Scientists have been saying for years that climate change will increase the frequency of droughts. The hardest-hit countries, though, produce almost none of the carbon emissions that are widely believed to cause climate change.

South Sudan and Somalia, for instance, have relatively few vehicles and almost no industry. But their fields are drying up and their pastureland is vanishing, scientists say, partly because of the global effects of pollution. People in these countries suffer from other people’s driving, other people’s manufacturing and other people’s attachment to things like flat-screen TVs and iPads that most Somalis and South Sudanese will touch only in their dreams.

...Many more Africans may soon need (help). Sweltering days and poor rains so far this year have left Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, Uganda, Ethiopia and Tanzania parched and on the edge of a major food crisis...

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/27/world/africa/famine-somalia-nigeria-south-sud...

//marker//

People in these countries suffer from other people’s driving, other people’s manufacturing and other people’s attachment to things like flat-screen TVs and iPads that most Somalis and South Sudanese will touch only in their dreams.

Ya, well, Prez Trump is gonna help them by burning a few more mountains of coal and getting rid of vegetation higher than turf.

Aid officials say all the needed food and water exist on this planet in abundance — even within these hard-hit countries. But armed conflict that is often created by personal rivalries between a few men turns life upside down for millions, destroying markets and making the price of necessities go berserk...

If China is truly buying up Africa, they must have some interest in policing it. I'd welcome the Chinese overlords.

There was a segment on the Daily Show just a few days back with Helene Cooper about her new book, Madame President: The Extraordinary Journey of Ellen Johnson Sirleaf. It highlighted just how much of Africa's problem are the men, the patriarchy--not that that's in any way unique to Africa.

But since nobody is going to listen to "let's get rid of men in government (at least for a while)", it's back again to the Chinese.

At least the Chinese are addressing climate change, which is at least partly responsible for the drought. And by investing in Africa, hopefully they are contributing to an economy that will foster stability. We can only press our government to do likewise. Oh--and help out through the World Food Program and similar emergency efforts... Sad!

Excellent overview of legal and procedural obstacles to Trump's war on climate action, including "courts have held that federal decisions can be disqualified if they were driven by regulators who have an “unalterably closed mind” on an issue...Given the recent history of courts using Trump’s tweets against him—and Trump’s long history of calling global warming a “hoax” and a “con”—it will be interesting to see how this plays out."

How Trump’s Environmental Policy Is a Total Joke, Explained
If you read this story, you will officially know far more about environmental policy than anyone in the Trump administration.
Charles C. Mann | March 30, 2017 6:03 pm
http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/03/donald-trump-environmental-policy-explain...

(Americans) Swallowed By the Sea

Rising sea levels are submerging two American island communities. Their residents now face a choice, said reporters Carolyn Beeler and Molly Peterson: Stay and fight the ocean, or move away.

To stay or to go. It’s a wrenching question low-lying coastal communities around the world are beginning to reckon with as climate change starts to push up global sea levels. But it’s not just happening in far-away places like Bangladesh or the Maldives. It’s happening right here in the U.S.

On Tangier Island, Va., in the southern Chesapeake Bay, residents are facing the inundation of a place some local families have called home since the 1600s. They are determined to stay. On Isle de Jean Charles on the Louisiana Gulf Coast, a disappearing Native American community has made the opposite decision. They are the first community to receive federal money to relocate because of climate change...

http://theweek.com/print/816/50938/article

>26 LolaWalser:. 'If China is truly buying up Africa, they must have some interest in policing it. I'd welcome the Chinese overlords.'

Yes, because Foreign Imperialism worked out so well for Africans in the past...

EPA Proposal Cuts Hundreds of Climate Change Employees
The budget blueprint also attempts to shift responsibility for many federal environmental laws to states
By Emily Holden, E&E News on April 4, 2017

A memo detailing how U.S. EPA would cut its budget by one-third shows that the agency would eliminate hundreds of employees working on climate change, including 20 lawyers who provide support for the Clean Power Plan...

...resident Trump has proposed halving the budget of EPA's Office of Research and Development. The memo shows that would mean eliminating $19.4 million of EPA's climate change research that is conducted in coordination with the U.S. Global Change Research Program and cutting 47 FTE. It would also mean getting rid of $10.6 million for the Science to Achieve Results grant program, which funds research at universities.

As previously reported, the proposal would eliminate the $69.7 million Climate Protection Program, which houses voluntary partnerships like Energy Star. It would cut 224 FTE from that program.

...In addition, the proposal would move money around at the Office of the General Counsel, nixing lawyers working on the Obama administration's climate standards for power plants, which Trump has moved to gut....

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/epa-proposal-cuts-hundreds-of-climate...

Global Temperature Spiral (see graphics at website)
http://www.climate-lab-book.ac.uk/spirals/

EPA News Release
Regulatory Reform Underway at EPA | 04/11/2017

As a vital step of EPA’s implementation of President Trump’s Executive Order, “Enforcing the Regulatory Reform Agenda,” EPA’s Regulatory Reform Task Force, led by the Office of Policy, submitted a Federal Register notice today to solicit public comments on EPA regulations...

https://www.epa.gov/newsreleases/regulatory-reform-underway-epa
_____________________________________________________________

Presidential Actions Related to Regulatory Reform

Executive Order 13777 (82 FR 12285, March 1, 2017) on Enforcing the Regulatory Reform Agenda directs federal agencies to establish a Regulatory Reform Task Force (Task Force). One of the duties of the Task Force is to evaluate existing regulations and make recommendations to the agency head regarding their repeal, replacement, or modification. The EO requires EPA to submit a progress report to the Administrator by mid-May, 2017.

Executive Order 13771 (82 FR 9339, February 3, 2017) on Reducing Regulation and Controlling Regulatory Costs directs all agencies to repeal two existing regulations for each new regulation issued in FY 2017 and thereafter. It further directs agencies that the “total incremental costs of all regulations should be no greater than zero” in FY 2017. For FY 2018 and beyond, the director of the Office of Management and Budget will provide agencies with a total amount of incremental costs that will be allowed.

Executive Order 13783 (82 FR 16093, March 31, 2017) on Promoting Energy Independence and Economic Growth, directs the EPA to review the Clean Power Plan, related rules and the NSPS for Oil and Gas, and all agencies to review existing regulations, orders, guidance documents and policies that potentially burden the development or use of domestically produced energy resources. The Administrator must submit a plan for the review of existing regulations to OMB by mid-May, 2017. The Administrator must also submit a draft report detailing actions taken under the EO by late July 2017 and finalize the report by late September 2017.

https://www.epa.gov/laws-regulations/regulatory-reform
______________________________________________________________

How to Comment (by May 15)

You may submit comments in writing, using Email, Docket or mail. Submit comments to:

Email: Laws-Regs@epa.gov (The docket number for public input is EPA-HQ-OA-2017-0190)

Docket: https://www.regulations.gov/document?D=EPA-HQ-OA-2017-0190

Mail: Office of Policy Regulatory Reform, Mail Code 1803A, 1200 Pennsylvania Ave NW, Washington, DC 20460 (The docket number for public input is EPA-HQ-OA-2017-0190)

Scott Pruitt's afraid of bunny-huggers? Lefties fomenting hatred? Reported hostility in the agency? Blades falling off wind turbines? Solar burns? Cyanobacteria?

Trump’s EPA is seeking a 24/7 security detail for its new leader
By Brady Dennis April 12, 2017

...Myron Ebell, who led the EPA transition for the Trump administration but has since returned to his role at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, told E&E News this year that it would make sense for Pruitt to receive increased protection.

“I think it’s prudent given the continuing activities by the left to foment hatred and the reported hostility within the agency from some unprofessional activists,” Ebell said at the time.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2017/04/12/as-epa-cuts...

Freshwater from melting glaciers on Greenland could disrupt the Gulf Stream, chilling Europe. It's already less salty, and some think that contributed to crash of cod in 1990s. Could be, too, that its failure could be last straw for juvenile European Eel, which depend on the Gulf Stream to sweep them from natal grounds in the Sargasso Sea. See map at

Young eels use magnetic ‘sixth sense’ to navigate
Ability explains how fish find ocean current
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/young-eels-use-magnetic-sixth-sense-navigate...

and

L.C. Naisbett-Jones et al. A magnetic map leads juvenile European eels to the Gulf Stream. Current Biology, April 13, 2017. doi: 10.1016/j.cub.2017.03.015.
http://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(17)30284-1 .

(OT, but interesting IMHO, American and European Eels' responses to earth's magnetic field may have contributed to speciation: "Given such sensitivity to magnetic map information, our results offer a plausible explanation for the complex migration ecology of North Atlantic Anguilla species, whereby juvenile European (Anguilla anguilla) and American (A. rostrata) eels arrive at rearing habitats on opposite sides of the Atlantic despite adults spawning in partial sympatry in the Sargasso Sea. Larvae of the two species could use magnetic maps to differentially orient swimming in the western Atlantic to position themselves in currents that favor transport toward either Europe or North America." )

>35 margd: i found the eel news interesting. As a kid a friend of mine had a small pond in his front yard that had eels maybe of 4 lbs and over 2 feet long - we were terrified of them & their teeth. Weirdly his pond was fed by a very tiny creek that nearly dried up at times with no real river for miles and we are over 175 miles from the ocean here in the USA

>36 DugsBooks: When young eels migrate into fresh water to mature, they can go overland if damp, I understand. For example, the "eel ladder" over the St Lawrence River's Moses Saunders Dam is a narrow trough lined with damp aquatic vegetation. The few eels (all female in the Great Lakes) that once made it to Lake Huron are thought to have slithered overland from Lake Simcoe, if I remember correctly. When I was a child on L Ontario, it was hard NOT to catch them on my worm, and my dad would be cross because they swallowed the worm so deeply that he'd have to cut the line to release the eel. We didn't eat them, thank goodness as they were probably chemically contaminated, or at least they were in following decades. They're rare/endangered now in Lake Ontario as they are in Europe and other waters. Too bad for today's kids... (You just reminded me of great children's book, Think of an Eel: Read and Wonder by Karen Wallace--thanks!)

>33 margd:

@rycalder 25m25 minutes ago
ScottPruitt asked America how best to gut @EPA. 547/548 submissions from livid Americans demanding more protection, not less.

@altNOAA 5h5 hours ago
And... we officially have Subtropical Depression One. Yes, we know... it's still April.

(NOAA's National Hurricane Center issuing advisories for the Atlantic on Subtropical Depression One...SUBTROPICAL DEPRESSION MOVING NORTHWARD OVER THE OPEN ATLANTIC... ...EXPECTED TO MOVE NORTHWESTWARD LATER TODAY... )
http://www.nhc.noaa.gov

Scientists have discovered vast systems of flowing water in Antarctica. And that worries them.
By Chelsea Harvey April 19

...rather than simply pooling where it melts in every case, liquid water may run for miles across the continent first — and that discovery comes with some worrying implications.

The major problem is that these drainage systems can carry meltwater from other parts of the ice sheet onto the continent’s vulnerable ice shelves. These are large, floating blocks of ice that jut out into the ocean from the edges of glaciers, helping to block and stabilize the flow of ice behind them. If these ice shelves weaken and break off, they can release a flood of ice into the ocean, raising sea levels in the process.

Now, the authors of the new research suggest that the transport of moving water onto and across Antarctica’s ice shelves could make them increasingly vulnerable to collapse as melt rates accelerate under future climate change.

When meltwater flows onto a shelf, it can run off into existing cracks in the ice, where it may freeze and expand, causing the cracks to widen, said Robin Bell, a glaciologist at Columbia University and co-author of the new research. Or the water might collect in a pool, where “it’s basically acting like an additional load on the ice shelf, which stresses it and causes it to fail,” she told The Washington Post....

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2017/04/19/the-surface...

Defense experts rightly consider climate change a threat to national security.

The Other Poison Gas Killing Syrians: Carbon Dioxide Emissions
If Trump and his cronies really cared about children killed by noxious gases, they wouldn’t be trying to spew ever more CO2 into the atmosphere.
Juan Cole | April 18, 2017

...The Syrian civil war has left more than 400,000 people dead, among them graveyards full of children and innocent noncombatants. About half the country’s 23 million people have been left homeless, and of those, 4 million have been driven abroad (some of them contributing to Europe’s refugee crisis and its consequent rightward political shift). The war occurred for many complex reasons, including social and political ones. The severest drought in recorded modern Syrian history in 2007–10, however, made its contribution.

The mega-drought drove 1.5 million farmers and farmworkers off the land to the seedy bidonvilles ringing cities such as Homs and Hama. In the northeast, 70 percent of the farm livestock died in those years. These displaced and dispossessed day laborers, who seldom found remunerative new work in Syria’s stagnant urban economy, joined in the demonstrations against the regime. Some were later drawn into the civil war as militiamen. Others in the end fled their country.

...A team of scientists writing in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences last year, however, found no natural explanation for how rapidly Syria has been drying out over the past century or for the withering severity of the latest drought. Human-caused climate change, which has raised the temperature of the planet 1.5 degrees Fahrenheit since 1880, they concluded, made this Frankendrought as much as three times more likely to happen than if our coal plants, factories, and automobiles had left Mother Nature alone.

A new paper by Professor Michael Mann of Penn State and colleagues comes to the alarming conclusion that human-caused climate change is messing with the jet stream, the thin band of powerful gales in the upper atmosphere that blow from west to east and sometimes loop north or south. Mann and his team found that as the earth has heated up, the jet stream sometimes gets stuck in a particular pattern, fixing weather extremes such as droughts in place for longer....

https://www.thenation.com/article/the-other-poison-gas-killing-syrians-carbon-di...

Louisiana is losing land to rising sea levels and hurricanes, made worse by "management" of water and wetlands. LA governor declares state of emergency and asks Trump to declare LA coastal erosion a national emergency... Good luck with that?

Louisiana's Governor Declares State Of Emergency Over Disappearing Coastline
April 20, 2017 | Merrit Kennedy

...It's an effort to bring nationwide attention to the issue and speed up the federal permitting process for coastal restoration projects.

"Decades of saltwater intrusion, subsidence and rising sea levels have made the Louisiana coast the nation's most rapidly deteriorating shoreline," WWNO's Travis Lux tells our Newscast unit. "It loses the equivalent of one football field of land every hour."

More than half of the state's population lives on the coast, the declaration states. It adds that the pace of erosion is getting faster: "more than 1,800 square miles of land between 1932 and 2010, including 300 square miles of marshland between 2004 and 2008 alone."

(Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards) estimates that if no further action is taken, "2,250 square miles of coastal Louisiana is expected to be lost" in the next 50 years. He emphasized the importance of the land to industries such as energy, maritime transportation and trade.

...Now Edwards is asking President Trump to declare the erosion of Louisiana's coast a national emergency and "provide appropriate federal attention and cooperation" to assist the state. The emergency declaration also asks for Congress to "consider legislation to provide for means by which to expedite all federal permitting and environmental review."...

http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/04/20/524896256/louisianas-governor-...

___________________________________

As La. Coast Recedes, Battle Rages Over Who Should Pay
April 16, 2014 | Debbie Elliot 2010

Historian John Barry pushed a lawsuit alleging that oil and gas companies destroyed land that once served as a buffer protecting New Orleans from hurricanes.

...You can see the water encroaching in Delacroix in St. Bernard Parish, less than an hour southeast of New Orleans. Here, a narrow crescent of land known locally as the "end of the world" is where the road abruptly comes to a dead end; in the distance, you see the tops of now-submerged trees...

http://www.npr.org/2014/04/16/303367684/as-la-coast-recedes-battle-rages-over-wh...

>39 margd: And while it's expected to weaken, it's been upgraded to tropical storm. Say hello to Arlene everyone.

Excellent (but grim) talk by Col. Lawrence Wilkerson from February:
Colonel Wilkerson Keynote: National Security and Climate Change, Why They Are Connected
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=29UlR99ZQR8

Kids Suing Trump Hope the Courts Step Up on Climate Change

When the case does go to trial, Trump’s lawyers will face an interesting question: Deny science — which would mean misrepresenting facts before a judge — or accept the science the president himself rejects.

“It’s a losing case to argue against the science of climate change,” Burger says. From watching the Pruitt EPA’s early actions — including its decision, so far, not to undo the so-called endangerment finding, labeling climate change a public health threat — Burger suspects the Trump administration may already know this.

Conservatives are trolling Trump with climate change ads on Fox News and Morning Joe

see some of the ads in the article.

Arctic Sea Ice Keeps Scraping the Bottom of the Barrel
Brian Kahn | May 3, 2017

The astounding transformation of the Arctic before our very eyes continues. Yet another month has passed with record low sea ice.

This April merely tied April 2016 for the lowest extent on record, but it’s hardly reason to celebrate. The Arctic was missing 394,000 square miles of ice, with each day setting a record low or within 36,000 square miles of setting one.

That’s a sickly sign of the changes hitting the region. Temperatures averaged up to 14°F above normal in part of the Arctic last month, fueling the melt season. Scientists at the National Snow and Ice Data Center said the rate of ice loss was about average.

But after hitting a record low maximum in March, there’s simply less sea ice to melt. That means even in an average month, records are more likely to be set.

One of the biggest issues for sea ice is its increasingly youthful appearance. Young ice is more susceptible to the vagaries of weather, whether it be warm air or water or storms that knock it around and break it up.

Ice older than five years in age now only comprises 5 percent of the Arctic’s ice pack. It accounted for 30 percent of all Arctic sea ice in 1984, but relentless warmth driven by rising carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has slowly squeezed it out of existence.

Young ice has sprung up in its place and now accounts for nearly 70 percent of all Arctic ice, up from just 35 percent just three decades ago.

A group of researchers flying over the region to measure ice thickness got a first hand view of the young ice.

“The group noted that the ice was unusually broken up and reduced to rubble, with few large multi-year floes, forcing the pilots to land on refrozen leads that at times were only 70 centimeters (28 inches) thick,” NSIDC said in their announcement about the April data. “Pilots remarked that they had never seen the ice look like this.”

Looking at where the older and middle-aged ice is paints a grim picture for the Arctic. A trail of third-year ice sits huddled between Greenland and the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard. That location means it will likely ride ocean currents out of the Arctic, leaving the region with even less of an increasingly precious resource.

Maps at http://www.climatecentral.org/news/arctic-sea-ice-scraping-bottom-of-barrel-2141...

Russia brings out its big Arctic guns for show of strength
In its annual celebration of defeating Nazi Germany, Russia showcased military hardware designed for Arctic combat, as Moscow flexes its military muscle and vies for dominance in the North with Canada, the U.S. and Norway. Here’s a primer on what the Victory Day festivities mean

Associated Press and Reuters | May 09, 2017

... The Red Square Victory Day parade is a highly ritualized display and marked changes in its order are unusual

...One (change) was the first public showing of Tor and Pantsir mobile surface-to-air missiles that have been adapted for use in Russia’s Arctic forces, their white-and-black winter camouflage standing out amid the olive drab of other war machines...

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/russia-brings-out-its-big-arctic-guns-...

Thank you, Senators McCain, Collins, and Graham!

Republicans’ last-ditch effort to repeal Obama-era methane rule fails in the Senate
Sen. John McCain issues surprise vote against allowing resolution to move forward.
Mark Hand | May 10, 2017

The Senate failed to advance a resolution Wednesday morning that would have nullified a Bureau of Land Management methane waste prevention rule. Three Republicans — Sens. John McCain (AZ), Susan Collins (ME), and Lindsey Graham (SC) — sided with Democrats against allowing a vote on the resolution to proceed.

The vote marks a surprise defeat of congressional Republicans’ campaign to use the Congressional Review Act (CRA) to repeal a host of Obama-era regulations. The House passed a resolution in February to repeal the rule, but it was uncertain whether the Senate would approve the resolution before the deadline for using the CRA to repeal the rule expired.

...The vote represented a major defeat for the American Petroleum Institute (API), the powerful lobbying group for the oil and gas industries, which had strongly pushed for the repeal of the rule. The trade group called the BLM rule “redundant, technically flawed, and unnecessary.” The rule’s requirements “could impede U.S. energy production by shutting in a significant number of wells on federal lands,” the trade group said.

...The rule has widespread support in Colorado and across the West. In Colorado, 83% of residents supported the BLM rule, including a majority of support among Republican voters. Among seven Western states with significant amounts of public lands, the rule had overwhelming support among voters, according to a Colorado College poll.

...Between 2009 and 2015, oil and gas producers on public and Native American lands vented, flared, and leaked about 462 billion cubic feet of natural gas, the Bureau of Land Management said. The methane losses create many problems, including releasing harmful emissions, including methane, into the atmosphere, safety issues, if not properly handled, and waste of a valuable domestic energy resource, the agency said.

https://thinkprogress.org/senate-votes-to-save-blm-methane-rule-d2f0c9db71ce

FWIW there are already news articles on the Dakota Access Pipeline leaking and now we have the tunnel roof at the Hanford Site--quite possibly the most radioactive site in the United States--having collapsed. They just dumped a bunch of dirt down on top of it and our department of energy guru Mr. Perry says it's all under control.

>50 lriley: Externalize costs, ignore cumulative impacts, never invest for longterm--the tragedy of the commons, never precautionary approach. (To borrow some of the jargon...)

Donald Trump’s climate stance casts shadow over Arctic Council meeting
Timothy Gardner | May 11, 2017

...The Arctic Council, which includes the United States, Russia, Canada and five other countries, meets every two years to tackle problems in the region, which is warming at a faster pace than any other part of the world.

(U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson hosted foreign ministers from Arctic nations)...told the council that the Trump administration was reviewing how it will approach climate change but was not going to rush to make a decision. “We are appreciative that each of you has an important point of view,” said Tillerson, the former chief executive of Exxon Mobil. “We are going to make the right decision for the United States,” he said.

...Trump’s administration has already reversed Obama-era bans on offshore drilling in certain parts of the Arctic, a turn that could intensify competition for resources in the region with major oil producer Russia.

Russia has beefed up its military presence in the Arctic to levels not seen since the fall of the Soviet Union, as global interest in the region’s oil, gas and rare earth metals heats up.

http://globalnews.ca/news/3445047/donald-trumps-climate-arctic-council-meeting/

India and China ‘on track to exceed Paris climate pledges’
Karl Mathiesen | 15/05/2017

Coal plant cancellations mean the world’s two largest countries are cutting emissions faster than predicted a year ago, outweighing the effect of US policy rollbacks

...Under the Paris accord, countries pledged to reduce emissions by an amount chosen by their own national government. Only a handful of these voluntary pledges are in line with the ultimate goal of the agreement – to keep the world from warming more than 2C. Current submissions by India, China and the US are all ranked as insufficient by CAT.

But Dr Bill Hare, CEO of Climate Analytics, said the changes in China and India “if continued and accelerated” meant it would be possible to stop the world warming more than 1.5C – the most ambitious goal of the Paris agreement and one seen as essential to saving coral reefs and low lying island nations. The US would need to adopt similarly ambitious policies, he added.

Höhne said there was a great deal of uncertainty over the effect Trump’s policies would actually have on emissions. In many cases the market was already leading the US toward emissions reductions. In others, state laws would effectively replace federal regulations as they were stripped away.

http://www.climatechangenews.com/2017/05/15/india-china-track-exceed-paris-clima...

Check out Figure 3.4. Monthly change in the total mass (in Gigatonnes) of the Greenland ice sheet (April 2002 - April 2016).
http://www.arctic.noaa.gov/Report-Card/Report-Card-2016/ArtMID/5022/ArticleID/27...

Freshwater melt from Greenland threatens the Gulf Stream's North Atlantic Current said to moderate climate in Great Britain and northern Europe.
Apparently the change in salinity already could be detected (in 1990s?).

Trump wants to cut the Energy Star program – and, with it, billions in consumer savings
Jim Marston / March 8, 2017

...According to E&E News, Trump’s draft budget encourages the EPA to “begin developing legislative options and associated groundwork for transferring ownership and implementation of Energy Star to a non-governmental entity.”...

...the program has an 85 percent brand recognition rate PDF, a level most ad execs would kill for.

...One of the reasons it has worked so well is its credibility and objectivity.

...Over the years, being certified grew into a full-blown marketing advantage for companies with efficient products.

...Since its creation, Energy Star has saved consumers $430 billion PDF – $34 billion in 2015 alone – and prevented 2.7 billion metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions. Customers like it. Manufacturers like it. And it works.

...So what happens if they go ahead and kill Energy Star? We’ll see higher electric bills, less competitive manufacturing, wasted energy, more pollution and more sick kids. Is that making America great again?

https://www.edf.org/blog/2017/03/08/trump-wants-cut-energy-star-program-and-it-b...

Arctic ‘Doomsday’ Vault, Meant To Protect Against Disasters, Gets Flooded After Permafrost Melts
20 May 2017, 7:38 am EDT By Luan Chan

The Svalbard global seed vault has met its match in global warming. Arctic permafrost was thawed and flooded the vault after a series of heat waves. ( Crop Trust )

The Svalbard Global Seed Vault, more commonly known as the "Doomsday Vault," houses more than 800,000 important crop seeds, as well as several tree samples, that humanity would need in order to survive should a global natural or man-made disaster occur.

The vault itself is located 400 feet under the Arctic permafrost and is strong enough to survive even a nuclear holocaust, but the Norwegian government, who is in charge of the vault, did not take into consideration that the ice surrounding the stronghold would melt and flood the facility, which is exactly what just happened.

None of seeds stored in the vault seem to have been compromised...

...According to reports, the seeds within the Svalbard global seed vault have not been compromised. The water that flooded the vault from the thawed permafrost, however, froze inside the vault and workers had to be called in to pick at the ice.

Cary Fowler, who helped design the vault, said that some water from thawed permafrost enters the facility from the front entrance every year but it never comes close to the seed vault. This is because a 100-meter long tunnel, a downward slope, two pumping stations to remove water, and an uphill slope were constructed between the front entrance and the entrance to the seed vault.

"If there was a worst case scenario where there was so much water, or the pumping systems failed, that it made its way uphill to the seed vault, then it would encounter minus 18 degrees celsius and freeze again," Fowler explained.
Finding Solutions

As a result of this incident, the Norwegian government is taking action to ensure that it doesn't happen again and to further minimize the possibility of compromising the seeds stored in the vault, even against the effects of climate change....

http://www.techtimes.com/articles/207773/20170520/arctic-doomsday-vault-meant-to...

Twila Moon. 2017. Saying goodbye to glaciers (perspective). Science, 12 May 2017: Vol. 356, Issue 6338, pp. 580-581
DOI: 10.1126/science.aam9625 . http://science.sciencemag.org/content/356/6338/580.full

Summary

Global glacier volume is shrinking. This loss of Earth's land ice is of international concern. Rising seas, to which melting ice is a key contributor, are expected to displace millions of people within the lifetime of many of today's children. But the problems of glacier loss do not stop at sea level rise; glaciers are also crucial water sources, integral parts of Earth's air and water circulation systems, nutrient and shelter suppliers for flora and fauna, and unique landscapes for contemplation or exploration.
___________________________________________

(map)
What if all the ice on earth melted?
http://www.techtimes.com/articles/207191/20170512/what-if-all-ice-on-earth-melte...

Great Barrier Reef can no longer be saved, Australian experts concede
'In our lifetime and on our watch, substantial areas of the Great Barrier Reef and the surrounding ecosystems are experiencing major long-term damage'
Ian Johnston | May 29, 2017

...Like coral across the world, the reef has been severely damaged by the warming of the oceans with up to 95 per cent of areas surveyed in 2016 found to have been bleached.

Bleaching is not always fatal but a study last year found the “largest die-off of corals ever recorded” with about 67 per cent of shallow water coral found dead in a survey of a 700km stretch...

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/australasia/great-barrier-reef-dying-cor...

____________________________________________

Reef 2050 Plan
Independent Expert Panel Communique--May 5, 2017
(Australia, 2 p.)

http://www.environment.gov.au/system/files/pages/abff0d5e-b94d-4495-b79b-90dc522...

>57 margd: still waiting for someone to transplant those heat tolerant Red Sea algaes to somewhere else - unless that poses new hazards.

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2131313-corals-that-grow-faster-in-warm-wat...

Listening to Trump tout "American the cleanest; water, air and environment" as I type. Makes me think of a photo webpage of "Trump's clean water" etc. showing photos of the water run off from mines that is no longer quality monitored since he stopped that. All of this during his speech about pulling out of the international Paris agreement on retarding the increase in CO2 gases and global warming.

What a dunce, manufacturers of products will still have to comply with international laws on environmental standards that have been adopted.

Whilst Donald made his announcement:

Massive ice shelf poised to break from Antarctica to form large iceberg
Science 4 hours ago

A crack in the Larsen Ice Shelf grew 11 miles in under a week, leading scientists to conclude it won't be long before the expanse (the size of Delaware!) breaks away from Antarctica.

During the Trump era, the USA is going to be AWOL from the international scene except for the military actions it will be taking. Is that going to make a better world for the generations to come?

This is the one bit of hope I have for the US in the future: children understand environmental issues better than any other, so should their parents and teachers not droop under pressure an intelligent and fighting generation could develop.

#60--this has been coming for a long time. Major coastal cities should think about building up seawalls if they don't have them already. I don't know if the Paris Agreement is nothing more than a band aid to begin with but clearly there is a major problem on the way and the withdrawal here by this administration shows that it is about as tone deaf as it can be.

Too bad Fortress America can't fuck off somewhere else in space on Planet Pittsburgh.

The mayor of Planet Pittsburgh supports the Paris Agreement.

More, more, more of this!

Protesters Take to Streets in NYC, Enraged by Trump's Decision to Withdraw from Paris Climate Deal

No one else can save those sorry Ugly American asses.

Michael Bloomberg is offering to fund the US's share in the Paris agreement: https://www.dailydot.com/layer8/bloomberg-15-million-climate-accord/?fb=dd

“Americans will honor and fulfill the Paris Agreement by leading from the bottom up—and there isn’t anything Washington can do to stop us,” Bloomberg said, according to the Washington Examiner.

Hear, hear!

Attaboy! (Remember Independent Bloomberg's address at Democratic Convention: ~Trump says he'll apply his business skills to governing--God help us all! Really pissed off Donald as I recall.)

Michael Bloomberg: I'll make sure UN gets $15 million it needs for Paris agreement
by Jackie Wattles @jackiewattles June 2, 2017
http://money.cnn.com/2017/06/02/news/michael-bloomberg-trump-paris-climate/index...

ETA______________________________

US does not need Trump to fulfil Paris Accord, says ex-NY mayor Bloomberg to Macron
2017-06-03

U.S. cities, states and businesses can fulfil commitments made by the United States under the Paris climate change agreement even though the U.S. has withdrawn from the pact, former New York mayor Michael Bloomberg said in Paris.

...Bloomberg, who is the U.N. Secretary-General's special envoy for Cities and Climate Change, ... said he would notify the U.N. Secretary General and the climate change secretariat that U.S. cities, states, businesses and others will aim to meet the United States' commitment to reducing emissions 26 percent below the 2005 levels by 2025.

"We are already halfway there and we can accelerate our process further even without any support from Washington," Bloomberg said.

He said his own foundation will help coordinate the U.S. effort, which will be called America's Pledge, and it will help submit "nationally determined contributions" like other nations.

The foundation will provide the $15 million commitment the U.N. climate change secretariat will lose from Washington to ensure there is no disruption in their work, he said. It will also help fulfil the Paris agreement reporting requirements so that the world can track the United States' progress.

(French President) Macron, in a joint news conference with Bloomberg and (Paris Mayor) Hidalgo, said the Paris climate pact is irreversible despite U.S. President Donald Trump's decision to withdraw from it.

..."Yesterday, the government of a great nation renounced its climate obligations, but a nation is not only its government," Macron said. "Other actors -- political and economical and civil -- have stood up, and thousands of promising initiatives are being taken. We will support them and fight on their side."

http://www.france24.com/en/20170603-american-people-committed-paris-deal-says-ex...

Disney has already pulled out of Trump's advisory panel on climate change. If Apple, Microsoft, Ford, Chrysler, Google, McDonalds, Coca-Cola, et al, decide to commit to Paris, and more governors and mayors follow suit, then the sulky orange toddler will become more and more isolated.

Besides, it turns out he can't actually pull the US out until 2019, and it would formally happen in 2020.

it turns out he can't actually pull the US out until 2019, and it would formally happen in 2020.

"Actually pulling out" means nothing, the accord isn't legally binding and there's nothing anyone can do to prevent or punish non-compliance. Which Trump and his cohort certainly mean to be: non-compliant. And damn the formalities.

The idea that a single man can compensate monetarily for a country's dues seems to me more distressing than cheering (admittedly, I'm the "glass half empty" person these days). It shows how paltry the burden on the US had been, and what a disgusting plutocracy it is, in case anyone missed it in the last century. Perhaps Jeff Bezos would double the sum for instant canonisation?

Of course, money isn't everything. In fact, we may be reaching (or have passed) the point where money is nothing. Considering how little the US did on this front BEFORE Trump, how cravenly it protected its polluter businesses and lifestyle at literally any cost--to others--necessary, there would have been some way to go before it reached the basic willingness and effort shown by many smaller, never-will-be-"world leader" countries even if it had honoured the accord. Now that all brakes are off, it's a question what Bloomberg's money can do that would offset the damage certain to arise in the wake of this decision.

Seems that Energy Transfer Partners the oil/gas company behind DAPL employed Tiger Swan a paramilitary firm of military contractors to do its security and that it coordinated with the Justice Dept., the FBI, the US Marshall Service and the Bureau of Indian Affairs along with local and state police forces (in fact several state police forces) and others in the use of surveillance and tactical crowd (protest) control measures to undermine the Native American protest at Standing Rock:

https://theintercept.com/2017/05/27/leaked-documents-reveal-security-firms-count...

Massive craters formed by methane blow-outs from the Arctic sea floor
June 1, 2017

...Some 2000 metres of ice loaded what now is ocean floor with heavy weight. Under the ice, methane gas from deeper hydrocarbon reservoirs moved upward, but could not escape. It was stored as gas hydrate in the sediment, constantly fed by gas from below, creating over-pressured conditions.

"As the ice sheet rapidly retreated, the hydrates concentrated in mounds, and eventually started to melt, expand and cause over-pressure. The principle is the same as in a pressure cooker: if you do not control the release of the pressure, it will continue to build up until there is a disaster in your kitchen. These mounds were over-pressured for thousands of years, and then the lid came off. They just collapsed releasing methane into the water column" says Andreassen.

Similar processes are ongoing under ice sheets today...

https://phys.org/news/2017-06-massive-craters-methane-blow-outs-arctic.html#jCp

K. Andreassen el al., "Massive blow-out craters formed by hydrate-controlled methane expulsion from the Arctic seafloor," Science (2017). science.sciencemag.org/cgi/doi/10.1126/science.aal4500

________________________________

Ice sheets may be hiding vast reservoirs of powerful greenhouse gas
January 13, 2016
https://phys.org/news/2016-01-ice-sheets-vast-reservoirs-powerful.html#jCp

Alexey Portnov et al. Ice-sheet-driven methane storage and release in the Arctic, Nature Communications (2016). DOI: 10.1038/ncomms10314

>70 LolaWalser:

I still think that US corporations - acting more or less in unison and harmony (obviously I exclude the fossil fuel energy giants) - could commit to or even exceed Paris. I remember when Greenpeace were upset about certain components which Apple were still using over 10 years ago : Apple cleaned up their act as a result. That's just one example I admit, but Apple are now one of top few international corporations; what they do today, Microsoft and Google will do, or even try to exceed, tomorrow.

>73 Tid: If only consumers, with words and purchases, can convince auto companies to stick with MPG goals...

Carbon Dioxide Set an All-Time Monthly High (May 2017)
Brian Kahn | June 2, 2017

...Carbon dioxide peaked at 409.65 parts per million for the year, according to data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration...

...Mauna Loa Observatory crossed the 410 ppm threshold for the first time in recorded history in April.

The reading from May is well above the 407.7 ppm reading from May 2016. And it’s far above the 317.5 ppm on record for May 1958, the first May measurement on record for Mauna Loa, the gold standard for carbon dioxide measurements. Prior to the Industrial Revolution, carbon dioxide stood at roughly 280 ppm....

http://www.climatecentral.org/news/carbon-dioxide-all-time-monthly-high-21507?ut...

Courtesy of Disruptor Donald: slippery slope to Oceania, Eur/asia and Eastasia? Fuelled by CO2--hopefully not nukes--and ignorance.

Paris Disagreement Donald Trump's Triumph of Stupidity

German Chancellor Angela Merkel and other G-7 leaders did all they could to convince Trump to remain part of the Paris Agreement. But he didn't listen. Instead, he evoked deep-seated nationalism and plunged the West into a conflict deeper than any since World War II.

SPIEGEL Staff | June 2, 2017

...Moscow is gleefully scoffing at the losers in Europe. Mariya Sakharova, the Foreign Ministry's brash spokeswoman, gloated openly Tuesday on Vladimir Solovyov's popular Russian talk show.

If Europe is going to have to take its fate into its own hands, as Merkel says, that just shows how different things used to be when the Continent simply followed the marching orders given by Washington, she said. "We always thought that the Europeans had united in the European Union -- but they were really just standing at attention," she sneered to the approving giggles of her host.

The open government gloating is indicative of the mood currently prevailing in the Russian capital. For Vladimir Putin, a dream appears to have come true in recent days; Trump could prove to be a godsend. For some time, Moscow has been trying to drive a wedge between the trans-Atlantic alliance. But now it looks as though the American president is doing that job for him.

In the past, the Americans guaranteed Europe's security with their nuclear and conventional capabilities. Russia would stand to profit the most from a loosening or possible breakup of the trans-Atlantic relationship. If that were to happen, Putin will have been successful in his strategy of undermining the cohesion of liberal Western democracies.

The fact that the process of disintegration would go so fast has surprised even the Russians. "The trans-Atlantic frictions had been obvious for months. But I didn't expect Merkel to say that Europe needs to free itself from its dependency on the United States," says Konstantin Kosachev, who chairs the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Federal Council, the upper chamber of Russia's parliament.

In Brussels, Berlin and many other European capitals, pro-European forces are hoping that Moscow is premature with its celebratory mood. They believe the Trump factor could have the reverse effect and actually serve as a magnet to pull the quarreling Europeans back together...

...the Trump factor appears to be having an aphrodisiac effect on European defense cooperation efforts. What had seemed nearly impossible only a short time ago has now become plausible. France and Germany have long been pushing for closer military cooperation in Europe the Trump factor appears to be having an aphrodisiac effect on European defense cooperation efforts. What had seemed nearly impossible only a short time ago has now become plausible. France and Germany have long been pushing for closer military cooperation in Europe...Merkel...Macron...

...what about China? The major Asian power is standing in the wings, ready to take over the role of the world's leading nation, which America appears to be abandoning. At the World Economic Forum in Davos in January, President Xi Jinping sought to present himself as the most powerful advocate of global free trade. Now China also wants to become the leading nation when it comes to climate protection...

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/trump-pulls-out-of-climate-deal-wester...

>72 margd: In an oceanography course way back in the 1970's my prof explained some people speculated that the solid to gas explosions from deep seabeds might be responsible for "Bermuda Triangle " ship disappearances. Ships can't float on a bunch of bubbles.

> 76 Huh, interesting. I think of bubbles blurping from floor of shallow, warm pond, only magnitudes more. What more will we learn to our dismay as earth heats up?

In this short mapping video, European Space Agency (ESA) teases out the components of sea level rise worldwide:

Contributors to sea-level rise
05/06/2017
00:02:58

The physical processes causing global sea-level rise are highlighted in the animation. The main causes are thermal expansion of oceans, as they accumulate the excess heat caused by greenhouse gas emissions, the melting of ice from the ice sheets and glaciers, as well as changes in land water storage such as lakes. Regionally, sea level changes vary quite dramatically. The reasons for this are different to the global causes of sea-level changes and include changes to sea water density, influenced by salinity and temperature.

http://www.esa.int/spaceinvideos/Videos/2017/06/Contributors_to_sea-level_rise

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2017/6/2/1668087/-The-Fate-of-Mar-A-Lago

Even more interesting than the story itself is some of the commentary on the story below. For instance Sea Strike's comments on what rising sea levels might mean for our fisheries.

The President is focusing on infrastructure this week, but likely not moving communities at risk of flooding due to climate change. Below is story of two such small communities--in Louisiana and Alaska. Without rapid and effective action on greenhouse gases, we will see many needing to move from coastal areas--in US and the world.

In my neck of the woods, Lake Ontario saw record flood levels. The water may not recede significantly before August, which means some marinas, beaches, and other businesses will lose $$ this summer, their busy, sometimes only, season. Sounds like Seaway shipping will be curtailed at times this summer to allow discharge of more water downstream: $$$. (At times water velocity will be too great for ships to navigate.)

Not all homeowners have insurance for "surface flooding", and Ontario has not declared ours an emergency area. Only primary residences, and not summer places would be helped anyway. One retired couple on our island may lose their dream home, built just last year. On the US side, NY is providing a bit more help to homeowners. As might be expected, angry owners are looking to assign blame, and not always rational in their assessment.

I'm afraid L Ontario is experiencing just a taste of what's to come for the coasts: the new normal...

A TALE OF TWO TOWNS
The US is relocating an entire town because of climate change. And this is just the beginning
Neha Thirani Bagri | June 05, 2017
https://qz.com/994459/the-us-is-relocating-an-entire-town-because-of-climate-cha...

Anyone who has a dream of one day owning a beach house should forget it right now. Find another dream. Older folks thinking of retiring to Florida might want to think that one over again too. Not a lot of hills--sea levels rising and major storms are going to have much greater impact. One of these days half of Florida might wash away and New Orleans might as well be the capital of the lost continent of Atlantis. it's probably going to go just like Atlantis so for folks that want to do a Mardi Gras at least once before they pass on from this mortal coil best to get that off your bucket list in the next couple three years.

Eventually the science is going to catch up with the people who don't believe in it or believe in it enough---that includes our present day POTUS.

To bring Larry Wilkerson up again--Colin Powell's ex-cheif of staff. He's given speeches on how climate change already is having a major impact on national security. Yeah---they can be kind of boring but when he talks about the airbase in Norfolk Va. very often having 16" or so of water on the runways so that planes can't take off and the region around Norfolk is maybe the most important for the military on the east coast. I can only assume one of two things: 1. that Trump's military advisers aren't telling him about that or 2. Trump's not listening when they do.

...The more extreme the heat wave, the more likely the event can be attributed to global warming. However, even the impact of climate change on "moderate" heat waves (i.e. 1-in-3 year events) is dramatic, with a 75 percent share of such heat events now attributed to climate change...

http://www.climatesignals.org/climate-signals/increased-extreme-heat-and-heat-wa...

(Original report, p 90-- https://www.nap.edu/read/21852/chapter/6#90)

Scientists Saw A Nearly Unheard Of Antarctic Meltdown
Brian Kahn | June 17th, 2017

Antarctica is unfreezing. In the past few months alone, researchers have chronicled a seasonal waterfall, widespread networks of rivers and melt ponds and an iceberg the size of Delaware on the brink of breaking away from the thawing landscape.

A new study published in Nature Communications only adds to the disturbing trend of change afoot in Antarctica. Researchers have documented rain on a continent more known for snow and widespread surface melt in West Antarctica last summer, one of the most unstable parts of a continent that’s already being eaten away by warm waters below the ice...

http://www.climatecentral.org/news/unprecedented-west-antarctic-meltdown-21553

Climate Change Pushing Tropical Diseases Toward Arctic
Temperature changes around the globe are pushing human pathogens of all kinds into unexpected new areas, raising many new risks for people.
Craig Welch | June 14, 2017

...It's no secret that climate change can spread illnesses such as West Nile virus, Zika, and malaria, as rising temperatures push disease-carrying mosquitoes into new places, from the highlands of Ethiopia to the United States. But warm temperatures and shifting weather patterns work in subtle ways, too. Changes in precipitation, wind, or heat are shifting the threat posed by other human illnesses, from cholera to a rare freshwater brain-eating amoeba to rodent-driven infections like hantavirus. And the importance of all these changes are only growing more significant...

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2017/06/vibrio-zika-west-nile-malaria-disease...

Half of World Could See Deadly Heat Waves By 2100
Andrea Thompson | June 19th, 2017

Even with drastic cuts to the emissions of greenhouse gases that are driving up Earth’s temperature, more than half of the world’s population could be exposed to deadly heat waves by century’s end.

If emissions continue on their current path, that proportion will jump to three-quarters of the world’s residents, due to both rising temperatures and humidity, a new study detailed Monday in the journal Nature Climate Change, finds...

http://www.climatecentral.org/news/half-world-deadly-heat-waves-2100-21554

____________________________________________________

Camilo Moro et al. 2017. Global Risk of Deadly Heat (Letter). Nature Climate Change. Published online June 19, 2017. DOI: 10.1038/NCLIMATE3322
https://www.nature.com/articles/nclimate3322.epdf

Climate change can increase the risk of conditions that exceed human thermoregulatory capacity. Although numerous studies report increased mortality associated with extreme heat events, quantifying the global risk of heat-related mortality remains challenging due to a lack of comparable data on heat-related deaths. Here we conducted a global analysis of documented lethal heat events to identify the climatic conditions associated with human death and then quantified the current and projected occurrence of such deadly climatic conditions worldwide. We reviewed papers published between 1980 and 2014, and found 783 cases of excess human mortality associated with heat from 164 cities in 36 countries. Based on the climatic conditions of those lethal heat events, we identified a global threshold beyond which daily mean surface air temperature and relative humidity become deadly. Around 30% of the world’s population is currently exposed to climatic conditions exceeding this deadly threshold for at least 20 days a year. By 2100, this percentage is projected to increase to ∼48% under a scenario with drastic reductions of greenhouse gas emissions and ∼74% under a scenario of growing emissions. An increasing threat to human life from excess heat now seems almost inevitable, but will be greatly aggravated if greenhouse gases are not considerably reduced.

I have issues with poorly sited wind turbines, e.g., in migration flyways, near populations vulnerable to infrasound (~22% of humans are), but good to see Iowa push back against Donald's peddling of coal:

Trump’s putdown of wind energy whips up a backlash in Iowa
Ryan J. Foley |  June 22, 2017
ETA: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/paloma/the-energy-202/2017/06/22/t...

or http://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/politics/2017/06/22/donald-trump-win...

>86 margd: Page not found. :-(

Try this: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/paloma/the-energy-202/2017/06/22/t...

or this version: http://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/politics/2017/06/22/donald-trump-win...

Got that, thanks. :)

Carbon in Atmosphere Is Rising, Even as Emissions Stabilize

"In essence, these natural sponges (ocean and land surfaces) were doing humanity a huge service by disposing of much of its gaseous waste. But as emissions have risen higher and higher, it has been unclear how much longer the natural sponges will be able to keep up."

And we continue to remove trees and poison the ocean.

>90 2wonderY: This is getting SCARY! Meanwhile, our leaders are doing little more than rearranging deck chairs... Last sentence of abstract advises urgent coastal preparations for the deluge!

Melting Greenland ice now source of 25% of sea level rise, researchers say
AFP | Jun 27, 2017

PARIS – Ocean levels rose 50 percent faster in 2014 than in 1993, with meltwater from the Greenland ice sheet now supplying 25 percent of total sea level increase compared with just 5 percent 20 years earlier...

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2017/06/27/world/science-health-world/melting-g...

____________________________________

Xianyao Chen et al. 2017. The increasing rate of global mean sea-level rise during 1993–2014. Nature Climate Change (2017). doi:10.1038/nclimate3325 . https://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nclimate3325.html

Global mean sea level (GMSL) has been rising at a faster rate during the satellite altimetry period (1993–2014) than previous decades, and is expected to accelerate further over the coming century1. However, the accelerations observed over century and longer periods2 have not been clearly detected in altimeter data spanning the past two decades3, 4, 5. Here we show that the rise, from the sum of all observed contributions to GMSL, increases from 2.2 ± 0.3 mm yr−1 in 1993 to 3.3 ± 0.3 mm yr−1 in 2014. This is in approximate agreement with observed increase in GMSL rise, 2.4 ± 0.2 mm yr−1 (1993) to 2.9 ± 0.3 mm yr−1 (2014), from satellite observations that have been adjusted for small systematic drift, particularly affecting the first decade of satellite observations6. The mass contributions to GMSL increase from about 50% in 1993 to 70% in 2014 with the largest, and statistically significant, increase coming from the contribution from the Greenland ice sheet, which is less than 5% of the GMSL rate during 1993 but more than 25% during 2014. The suggested acceleration and improved closure of the sea-level budget highlights the importance and urgency of mitigating climate change and formulating coastal adaption plans to mitigate the impacts of ongoing sea-level rise.

>91 margd:

"Meanwhile, our leaders are doing little more than rearranging deck chairs..."

"Iceberg? What iceberg? FAKE NEWS"

I use to think that if I won the lottery I'd buy a beach house along the ocean somewhere. I don't think that's a good idea anymore. What I think now is it's a matter of time before homes like that are underwater. Maybe if you were to buy a house next to the ocean but way up on a cliff--kind of with the idea of letting the water rise to you. Realistically the logistics are against that too. When it comes to forced migrations of massive amounts of population a whole lot of peripheral infrastructure shit goes to hell right along with it and the likelihood is you'd be left to fend on your own. The interiors of countries will get to absorb the catastrophe when it finally hits.

Iranian city soars to record 129 degrees: Near hottest on Earth in modern measurements
Jason Samenow | June 29, 2017

...A study published in the journal Nature Climate Change in 2015 cautioned that by the end of the century, due to climate change, temperatures in the Middle East may become too hot for human survival.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/capital-weather-gang/wp/2017/06/29/iran-city...

>94 margd: In a city of over 1 million--that's frightening.

Why planes can’t fly when it’s too hot, and other ways our civilization can’t take the heat
June 21, 2017

Miles O'Brien: ...if it weren’t for the snow and ice, the winter would be the perfect time to fly, because a wing achieves flight, it derives lift based on the number of air molecules that surround it.

And, as the temperature heat up, those molecules command. We know that, when you warm things up, things expand generally. So there are fewer air molecules, so it takes greater amount of speed for that aircraft to fly. And if the runway isn’t long enough to support that — in other words, if the temperature is so high that there are so few molecules there to lift the wing that you don’t have enough runway to get going fast enough, you’re grounded...

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/planes-cant-fly-hot-ways-civilization-cant-take-h...

Washington State Office of the Attorney General:

AG Ferguson (and 12 AG counterparts) pledges lawsuit in response to EPA Clean Air Act violation
Jun 29 2017

Trump Administration’s refusal to reign in oil and gas facilities’ emissions violates the Clean Air Act

OLYMPIA — Attorney General Bob Ferguson sent a letter today to U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) head Scott Pruitt, pledging legal action if the EPA continues violating the Clean Air Act.

...In 2016, the EPA adopted a rule limiting emissions of methane and other pollutants from new and modified oil and gas extraction and pipeline facilities. At the same time, the agency began developing the guidelines for limiting emissions of those same pollutants from existing facilities, as required by law.

Without explanation, on March 2 Pruitt abruptly ordered the EPA to halt the process for establishing guidelines for existing oil and gas facilities.

In the letter to Pruitt, Ferguson argues the EPA had no lawful basis for this action. The EPA violated its obligation under the Clean Air Act by terminating its process without notice or opportunity for comment.

The letter also emphasizes the importance of the guidelines in reducing greenhouse gas emissions...

http://www.atg.wa.gov/news/news-releases/ag-ferguson-pledges-lawsuit-response-ep...

97 contd.

Federal court blocks Trump EPA on air pollution
Juliet Eilperin and Steven Mufson | July 3, 2017

...a decision that could set back the Trump administration’s broad legal strategy for rolling back Obama-era rules.

In a 2-to-1 ruling, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit concluded that the EPA had the right to reconsider a 2016 rule limiting methane and smog-forming pollutants emitted by oil and gas wells but could not delay the effective date while it sought to rewrite the regulation.

...Richard Lazarus, an environmental-law professor at Harvard Law School, said ...“The D.C. Circuit’s ruling today makes clear that neither the president nor his EPA administrator, Scott Pruitt, can by fiat unilaterally and instantaneously repeal or otherwise stay the effectiveness of the environmental protection rules put into place during the Obama administration” ... “Changing the rules midstream can occur only after a thorough administrative review, including public notice and opportunity to comment, that ensures that there are good reasons for the change, backed up by sound policy and science.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/federal-court-blocks-trump-epa-on-air-po...

Roman recipe for concrete stands test of time--useful discovery since we'll no doubt be building more breakwalls in near future...
(OTOH, our descendants could end up with heaps of our no-longer-needed, unsightly monstrosities...)

Public Release: 3-Jul-2017
New studies of ancient concrete could teach us to do as the Romans did
Berkeley Lab, UC Berkeley experiments show how natural chemistry strengthened ancient concrete
https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2017-07/dbnl-nso063017.php

How seawater strengthens Roman concrete (00:59)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ikH6Vmb0pog

Hope venison gets a pass!

Studies Show Link Between Red Meat and Climate Change
Bobby Magill | April20, 2016

Shifting diets away from meat could slash in half per capita greenhouse gas emissions related to eating habits worldwide and ward off additional deforestation — a major contributor to climate change, according to scientific findings published this week.

The consequences of land use change stemming from expanding agricultural production were the focus of a paper published Wednesday by the World Resources Institute. It showed that reducing heavy red meat consumption — primarily beef and lamb — would lead to a per capita food and land use-related greenhouse gas emissions reduction of between 15 and 35 percent by 2050. Going vegetarian could reduce those per capita emissions by half.

A second paper, published Tuesday in Nature Communications, analyzed about 500 different food consumption and production scenarios worldwide and found that nearly 300 of them could feed the global population without cutting down more forests. The biggest contributing factor to food-related deforestation is eating meat, the study says.

“Both (papers) highlight that dietary changes are very, very important — one for climate change impacts through greenhouse gas emissions, and the other purely through agricultural expansion,” said Oxford University Future of Food Program researcher Marco Springmann, who is unaffiliated with the studies...

http://www.climatecentral.org/news/studies-link-red-meat-and-climate-change-2026...
___________________________________________

Sustainable Diets: What You Need to Know in 12 Charts
Janet Ranganathan and Richard Waite - April 20, 2016
http://www.wri.org/blog/2016/04/sustainable-diets-what-you-need-know-12-charts

How it feels to be a climate scientist today...

I'm a climate scientist and I'm not letting trickle down ignorance win
Ben Santer | July 5, 2017

...Imagine, if you will, that you spend your entire professional life trying to do one thing to the best of your ability. In my case, that one thing is to study the nature and causes of climate change. You put in a long apprenticeship. You spend years learning about the climate system, computer models of climate and climate observations. You start filling a tool kit with the statistical and mathematical methods you’ll need for analyzing complex data sets. You are taught how electrical engineers detect signals embedded in noisy data. You apply those engineering insights to the detection of a human-caused warming signal buried in the natural “noise” of Earth’s climate. Eventually, you learn that human activities are warming Earth’s surface, and you publish this finding in peer-reviewed literature.

You participate in rigorous national and international assessments of climate science. You try to put aside all personal filters, to be objective, to accommodate a diversity of scientific opinions held by your peers, by industry stakeholders and by governments. These assessments are like nothing you’ve ever done before: They are peer review on steroids, eating up years of your life.

The bottom-line finding of the assessments is cautious at first. In 1995, the conclusion is this: “The balance of evidence suggests a discernible human influence on global climate.” These 12 words are part of a chapter on which you are first author. The 12 words change your life. You spend years defending the “discernible human influence” conclusion. You encounter valid scientific criticism. You also encounter nonscientific criticism from powerful forces of unreason, who harbor no personal animus toward you, but don’t like what you’ve learned and published — it’s bad for their business.

You go back to the drawing board. You address the criticism that if there really is a human-caused signal, we should see it in many attributes of the climate system — not just in surface thermometer records. You look at temperature from the top of the atmosphere to the depths of the oceans. You examine water vapor and the height of the lowest layer of the atmosphere. Your colleagues search for human fingerprints in rainfall, clouds, sea level, river runoff, snow and ice extent, atmospheric circulation patterns and the behavior of extreme events. You find human-caused climate fingerprints everywhere you look.

Your peers are your fiercest critics. They are constantly kicking the tires. Show us that your “discernible human influence” results aren’t due to changes in the Sun, or volcanic activity, or internal cycles in the climate system. Show us that your results aren’t due to some combination of these natural factors. Convince us that detection of a human fingerprint isn’t sensitive to uncertainties in models, data or the statistical methods in your tool kit. Explain the causes of each and every wiggle in temperature records. Respond to every claim contradicting your findings.

So you jump through hoops. You do due diligence. You go down every blind alley, every rabbit hole. Over time, the evidence for a discernible human influence on global climate becomes overwhelming. The evidence is internally and physically consistent. It’s in climate measurements made from the ground, from weather balloons, and from space — measurements of dozens of different climate variables made by hundreds of different research groups around the world. You write more papers, examine more uncertainties, and participate in more scientific assessments. You tell others what you’ve done, what you’ve learned, and what the climatic “shape of things to come” might look like if we do nothing to reduce emissions of heat-trapping greenhouse gases. You speak not only to your scientific peers, but also a wide variety of audiences, some of whom are skeptical about you and everything you do. You enter the public arena, and make yourself accountable.

After decades of seeking to advance scientific understanding, reality suddenly shifts, and you are back in the cold darkness of ignorance. The ignorance starts with President Trump. It starts with untruths and alternative facts. The untruth that climate change is a “hoax” engineered by the Chinese. The alternative fact that “nobody really knows” the causes of climate change. These untruths and alternative facts are repeated again and again. They serve as talking points for other members of the administration. From the Environment Protection Agency administrator, who has spent his career fighting against climate change science, we learn the alternative fact that satellite data show “leveling off of warming” over the past two decades. The energy secretary tells us the fairy tale that climate change is due to “ocean waters, and this environment in which we live.” Ignorance trickles down from the president to members of his administration, eventually filtering into the public’s consciousness...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/posteverything/wp/2017/07/05/im-a-climate-sc...

If We Stopped Emitting Greenhouse Gases Right Now, Would We Stop Climate Change?
Here's what you need to know.
RICHARD B. ROOD | 5 JUL 2017

...As a professor of climate and space sciences, I teach my students they need to plan for a world 4°C warmer. A 2011 report from the International Energy Agency states that if we don't get off our current path, then we're looking at an Earth 6°C warmer.

Even now after the Paris Agreement, the trajectory is essentially the same.

It's hard to say we're on a new path until we see a peak and then a downturn in carbon emissions. With the approximately 1°C of warming we've already seen, the observed changes are already disturbing.

There are many reasons we need to eliminate our carbon dioxide emissions. The climate is changing rapidly; if that pace is slowed, the affairs of nature and human beings can adapt more readily.

The total amount of change, including sea-level rise, can be limited. The further we get away from the climate that we've known, the more unreliable the guidance from our models and the less likely we will be able to prepare.

It's possible that even as emissions decrease, the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere will continue to increase. The warmer the planet gets, the less carbon dioxide the ocean can absorb.

Rising temperatures in the polar regions make it more likely that carbon dioxide and methane, another greenhouse gas that warms the planet, will be released from storage in the frozen land and ocean reservoirs, adding to the problem.

If we stop our emissions today, we won't go back to the past. The Earth will warm.

And since the response to warming is more warming through feedbacks associated with melting ice and increased atmospheric water vapour, our job becomes one of limiting the warming.

If greenhouse gas emissions are eliminated quickly enough, within a small number of decades, it will keep the warming manageable. It will slow the change – and allow us to adapt.

Rather than trying to recover the past, we need to be thinking about best possible futures.

--Richard B. Rood, Professor of Climate and Space Sciences and Engineering, University of Michigan

http://www.sciencealert.com/if-we-stopped-emitting-greenhouse-gases-right-now-wo...

>102 margd:

You'll like this - Melania and Ivanka have been organised by Angela Merckel to go on a visit to Germany's leading computer centre, where they will be given a guided tour demonstrating how the centre is a world leader in processing climate change data.

Apparently Melania didn't make it--something about protesters? :D

>104 margd: Grrrrr

Higher seas to flood dozens of US cities, study says; is yours one of them?
Jennifer Gray | July 12, 2017

..."Between 165 and 180 chronically inundated communities in just the next 15 to 20 years; between 270 and 360 in roughly 40 years, depending on the pace of sea level rise; and 490 by end of century with a moderate sea level rise scenario," co-author and senior climate analyst for UCS, Erika Spanger-Seigfried said. "With a higher sea level rise scenario, that number rises to about 670; that's about half of all of the oceanfront communities in the lower 48."

Ninety communities are considered "inundated today," mostly in Louisiana and Maryland, where seas are rising and the land is sinking.

"This study highlights something it's really important for people to understand. Sea level rise means sharp growth in coastal flooding. In fact, most coastal floods today are already driven by human-caused sea level rise," Strauss said.

The cities expected to be inundated by 2035 aren't too surprising; they include places along the Jersey Shore and in parts of North Carolina, south Louisiana and neighboring areas that have been known as vulnerable for years.

By 2060, the list grows to hundreds of coastal communities, large and small: cities like Galveston, Texas; Sanibel Island, Florida; Hilton Head, South Carolina; Ocean City, Maryland; and many cities along the Jersey Shore.

By the end of the century, the list says, more than 50 cities with populations of more than 100,000 could be affected. Cities like Boston; Fort Lauderdale, Florida; and four of the five boroughs of New York will be considered inundated. Although the West Coast seems to be spared the brunt of inundation over the next few decades, even places like San Francisco and Los Angeles will be on the list by 2100.

Is it too late to protect these coastal cities? ...

http://www.cnn.com/2017/07/12/us/weather-cities-inundated-climate-change/index.h...

____________________________________________

Erika Spanger-Siegfried. 2017. When Rising Seas Hit Home: Hard Choices Ahead for Hundreds of US Coastal Communities. Union of Concerned Scientists. 64 p. http://www.ucsusa.org/sites/default/files/attach/2017/07/when-rising-seas-hit-ho...

_____________________________________________

Interactive maps, etc. at http://www.ucsusa.org/global-warming/global-warming-impacts/when-rising-seas-hit... , e.g.,

Key findings

By 2035, about 170 communities—roughly twice as many as today—will face chronic inundation and possible retreat from affected areas under the intermediate or high scenarios, with more than 100 seeing at least a quarter of their land chronically flooded.

By 2060, about 270 communities will face chronic inundation with intermediate sea level rise. This number jumps to 360 under the high scenario. About 40 percent of chronically inundated communities in either scenario would see at least half of their land flooded.

By 2100, about 490 communities—including roughly 40 percent of all oceanfront communities on the East and Gulf Coasts—will face chronic inundation and possible retreat with intermediate sea level rise, with nearly 300 seeing at least a quarter of their land chronically flooded. The number of communities jumps to about 670—including roughly 60 percent of all oceanfront communities on the East and Gulf Coasts—under the high scenario.

If we act today to achieve the temperature and emissions reductions goals outlined in the Paris Climate Agreement, and succeed in slowing the acceleration of sea level rise, about 380 communities could avoid chronic inundation this century.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2017/04/19/most-polluted-cities-calif...

California again leads list with 6 of the top 10 most polluted U.S. cities

California's smoggy reputation appears to be deserved: Six of the USA's 10 cities with the worst air pollution are in the Golden State, according to a new report.

In addition to the worst spikes of short-term pollution — led by Bakersfield — the report also lists the cities with the worst overall year-round pollution — led by Visala/Hanford, Calif.— and the worst ozone pollution, led by the Los Angeles/Long Beach area.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/maps-and-graphics/most-polluted-countries/

Delhi is in a league of its own, as this reporter can attest to; half an hour of sightseeing is enough to leave you with a sore throat. According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), the average concentration of PM 2.5 particles in the Indian city is 150 micrograms per cubic metre of air. PM 2.5 refers to fine particles (2.5 micrometres or smaller in diameter) produced by combustion, including motor vehicles, power plants, forest fires, and some industrial processes. By comparison, London's average is 16.

But what of the most polluted countries? Pinpointing them is a little more problematic. The WHO tracks air quality at 1,622 locations in 92 countries - but all are urban areas. So while Pakistan, Egypt and Mongolia are among the most polluted countries according to the map below, this only refers to pollution in its cities. Air quality in the Karakoram mountain range or the Gobi Desert will, of course, be pristine. Similarly, Russia appears to be among the worst performing countries - but its ranking is based only on air quality in Moscow.

Pakistan's urban areas are, on average, the world's most polluted, followed by Qatar and Afghanistan. Europe's most polluted cities are found in Turkey, Bulgaria and Serbia.

Of the 92 countries to feature, Australia has the least polluted urban areas, followed by Brunei and New Zealand. Estonia is Europe's top performing nation, followed by Finland and Iceland. The UK just misses out on the top 20, coming 21st.

https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/07/is-the-earth-really-that-doo...

It’s into that morass that this week’s New York magazine walks. In a widely shared article, David Wallace-Wells sketches the bleakest possible scenario for global warming. He warns of a planet so awash in greenhouse gas that Brooklyn’s heat waves will rival Bahrain’s. The breadbaskets of China and the United States will enter a debilitating and everlasting drought, he says. And millions of brains will so lack oxygen that they’ll slip into a carbon-induced confusion.

Unless we take aggressive action, “parts of the Earth will likely become close to uninhabitable, and other parts horrifically inhospitable, as soon as the end of this century,” he writes. “No matter how well-informed you are, you are surely not alarmed enough.”

It’s a scary vision—which is okay, because climate change is scary. It is also an unusually specific and severe depiction of what global warming will do to the planet. And though Wallace-Wells makes it clear that he’s not predicting the future, only trying to spin out the consequences of the best available science today, it’s fair to ask: Is it realistic? Will this heat-wracked doomsday come to pass?

Many climate scientists and professional science communicators say no. Wallace-Wells’s article, they say, often flies beyond the realm of what researchers think is likely. I have to agree with them.

At key points in his piece, Wallace-Wells posits facts that mainstream climate science cannot support. In the introduction, he suggests that the world’s permafrost will belch all of its methane into the atmosphere as it melts, accelerating the planet’s warming in the decades to come. We don’t know everything about methane yet, but the picture does not seem this bleak. Melting permafrost will emit methane, and methane is an ultra-potent greenhouse gas, but scientists do not think so much it will escape in the coming century.

“The science on this is much more nuanced and doesn’t support the notion of a game-changing, planet-melting methane bomb,” writes Michael Mann, a climate scientist at Penn State, in a Facebook post. “It is unclear that much of this frozen methane can be readily mobilized by projected warming.”

Satellite data does not show that the world has warmed twice as fast as scientists thought, as he says; rather, the observed warming has tracked pretty close to what the models predicted

And many of them, too, think that a climate-changed world will look less like a starved wasteland and more like our current home—just more unequal and more impoverished.

I don’t think journalists should frame the truth to better inspire people—that’s not our job.

“Through combo of exaggeration and hopelessness, the NYMag piece turns away those in the middle we need to persuade. It makes action harder,” tweeted Ramez Naam, a technologist and novelist. “We’ve made huge climate strides. Business-as-usual used to mean six or seven degrees Celsius or warming. Now it looks like three to four, and it’s trending down.”

Fleeing the Paris Accord Makes Scientific Sense

Tom Hartsfield - June 2, 2017

President Trump’s announcement of the United States’ withdrawal from the Paris Accord climate agreement is a bombshell news story. His declaration has met with widespread condemnation in the press and scientific outlets. These critics raise some good points.

Piecing together a broad international agreement that extracts concessions from hundreds of nations is a Herculean effort. There’s no guarantee that if this accord falls apart a future agreement could be reached again—if it should be deemed necessary. If human activity truly bears out as a great threat to society and the current climatic cycles of our planet, we may lose crucial time in combatting it. If we buy into the slippery stock of international good will, this decision will not earn us dividends.

Still, there are scientifically valid arguments for fleeing Paris.

The IPCC paints a gripping watercolor of Earth's future. Oceans rise to swallow up coastal cities and submerge low-lying islands. Imagine New York City becoming an archipelago! (Perhaps the media would be less concerned if parts of, say, Kansas or Idaho were to return to the sea.) However, these predictions arise from climate models that extrapolate a century or more into the future. In 2016, a broad study showed that our climate forecast models did a poor job of predicting just one decade of sea level change!

Another pillar of the Paris Accord is its reliance on predictions of global temperatures over the next century. Surprisingly, climate models aren't so hot at predicting global average temperatures either. Even the advocates of climate science, publishing in the most respected scientific journal in existence, will admit that they utterly failed to predict just the past 20 years. Over that period there was far less warming than predicted.

Failed climate predictions litter the troposphere, as I have detailed before here at RealClearScience. Sea ice at the arctic pole floats on. Claims of horrific hurricane seasons have been widely debunked. The burning of climate heretics at the stake has not stopped all dissent.

I am not an expert on climate science. But when I see models that fail so badly in their predictions, it triggers my basic trained instincts as a scientist. Something is wrong. We need to stop, calm down, and think.

The actions called for in the Paris Agreement are founded upon the predictions of models that have a poor track record of success. That’s not a failure of scientists or computers. Earth’s climate is so incomprehensibly complex and hard to fully understand that no computer ever built could model its vastness and detail. You’ve heard of the ‘butterfly effect.’ This is its most grand expression. No empirical model could successfully predict the climate in more than weak detail for an extended period before succumbing to chaos.

Yet, we are planning our future based on the these terribly oversold predictions. We might not fare much better trusting the divining of Miss Cleo.

Finally, the issue of climate science brings us to a moral question. How can we balance the predicted possible good of our civilization 100 years from today with the economic livelihood and prosperity of our economy tomorrow and every year up to that time? How can we fairly devise such a massive regulatory scheme on billions of souls? I don’t pretend to know the answer. But I think it’s very clear that there are two moral and ethical viewpoints at odds here. Science doesn’t rule and dictate the realm of morals, economics, and livelihood. Regardless of who is right, both sides have a point, and we ought to respect that. Scientists can build models and test predictions, but we shouldn’t be in the business of telling the public how to live their lives. (The public isn't stupid. They don't like this either.) That should be decided by the will of the people, expressed through elections. "Elections have consequences," someone said bluntly.

There are some good scientific arguments for US participation in the Paris Agreements. However, there are legitimate scientific, ethical, and even moral arguments against it as well. The science isn’t strong enough, and its rule does not extend so far into the realm of our daily lives and ethical values. Our withdrawal is, emphatically, not the end of the world.

Dr. Tom Hartsfield is Associate Editor at RealClearScience. He holds a PhD in physics from the University of Texas and is currently conducting research in Los Alamos, NM.

http://www.rigzone.com/news/article.asp?hpf=1&a_id=150983
India Wants $300 Billion in Oil Spending to Meet Growing Demand

India wants $300 billion in investments over the next 10 years to satisfy accelerating demand in the world’s fastest-growing oil market.

The South Asian nation needs investments to boost the production of natural gas and crude oil, and to refine, transport and distribute the fuel to households, Oil Minister Dharmendra Pradhan said in an interview in Istanbul. He is confident both overseas companies and those at home will put in the required money as the government frames policies to encourage spending, he said on July 11.

“India is the place where there is incremental demand,” Pradhan said. “Our per capita energy consumption is one-fourth of the world. In India, there is an emerging middle class and they are aspirational. Per capita energy consumption is going to increase. So, we need energy. There is no shortcut around that.”

The oil industry is pinning its hopes on India and China, together home to four of every 10 people in the world, as demand elsewhere remains weak while production stays high, keeping prices low.

>111 barney67:

Except that China is fast emerging as a world leader in alternative sources for fuel.

Rising carbon dioxide is making the world’s plants more water-wise
July 24, 2017

Land plants are absorbing 17% more carbon dioxide from the atmosphere now than 30 years ago. Equally extraordinarily, our study also shows that the vegetation is hardly using any extra water to do it, suggesting that global change is causing the world’s plants to grow in a more water-efficient way....a rare piece of good news when it comes to the consequences of global environmental change. It will strengthen plants’ vital role as global carbon sinks, improve food production, and might boost water availability for the well-being of society and the natural world...almost everywhere, whether in dry places or wet ones.

...It’s not all good news...Some studies have suggested that the water savings could also lead to increased runoff and therefore excess water availability... For dry Australia, ... more than half (64%) of the rainfall returning to the atmosphere does not go through vegetation, but through direct soil evaporation. This reduces the potential benefit from increased vegetation water use efficiency and the possibility for more water flowing to rivers and reservoirs. In fact, a recent study shows that while semi-arid regions in Australia are greening, they are also consuming more water, causing river flows to fall by 24-28%.

Our research confirms that plants all over the world are likely to benefit from these increased water savings. However, the question of whether this will translate to more water availability for conservation or for human consumption is much less clear, and will probably vary widely from region to region.

https://theconversation.com/rising-carbon-dioxide-is-making-the-worlds-plants-mo...
_________________________________________

Lei Cheng et al. 2017. Recent increases in terrestrial carbon uptake at little cost to the water cycle. Nature Communications 8, Article number: 110 (2017) doi:10.1038/s41467-017-00114-5 . https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-017-00114-5

Abstract. Quantifying the responses of the coupled carbon and water cycles to current global warming and rising atmospheric CO2 concentration is crucial for predicting and adapting to climate changes. Here we show that terrestrial carbon uptake (i.e. gross primary production) increased significantly from 1982 to 2011 using a combination of ground-based and remotely sensed land and atmospheric observations. Importantly, we find that the terrestrial carbon uptake increase is not accompanied by a proportional increase in water use (i.e. evapotranspiration) but is largely (about 90%) driven by increased carbon uptake per unit of water use, i.e. water use efficiency. The increased water use efficiency is positively related to rising CO2 concentration and increased canopy leaf area index, and negatively influenced by increased vapour pressure deficits. Our findings suggest that rising atmospheric CO2 concentration has caused a shift in terrestrial water economics of carbon uptake.

Near top of article, Bloomberg maps areas in world with C tax/markets:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-07-19/a-canadian-province-has-a-sur...

Salt water flooding, killing coastal forests

“Ghost forests”: What they are and why they’re becoming more common
August 1, 2017

...It is happening around the world, but researchers say new ghost forests are particularly apparent in North America, with hundreds of thousands of acres of salt-killed trees stretching from Canada down the East Coast, around Florida and over to Texas.

The intruding salt water changes coastal ecosystems, creating marshes where forests used to be. This has numerous effects on the environment, though many scientists caution against viewing them in terms of "good" or "bad." What benefits one species or ecosystem might harm another one, they say.

For instance, migratory birds that rely on coastal forests have less habitat. And the death of the trees makes soil microbes release nitrogen, which adds to nitrogen already occurring from other sources, including agricultural runoff, to contribute to algae blooms and reduced oxygen that can sicken or kill fish.

But the conversion of forest into marshland produces "extremely productive" wetlands that feed and shelter fish and shellfish.

The Atlantic croaker fish, for instance, was rare 15 years ago in southern New Jersey waters but now is abundant, said Ken Able, a Rutgers University professor.

"There is a lot of change going on," said Greg Noe, a research ecologist with the U.S. Geological Survey. "It's dramatic and it's changing faster than it has before in human history."...

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/ghost-forests-what-they-are-why-theyre-becoming-more...

ETA__________________________________________

Family lore is that an ancestor of mine came ashore at French Fortress of Louisbourg in Nova Scotia, though almost certainly not buried there:

Centuries-old graves being dug up near Louisbourg before they're lost
Students from UNB are helping Parks Canada save skeletal remains at risk of being washed away
Joan Weeks | Jul 27, 2017
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/graves-archaeology-fortress-of-louisbo...

Parts of Asia May Be Too Hot for People by 2100
Unless carbon emissions are curtailed, climate change may expose 1.5 billion people in South Asia to potentially lethal heat and humidity in the near future.
Stephen Leahy | August 2, 2017

...The study shows that on the current business-as-usual trajectory of carbon emissions these deadly heat waves could hit the region within a few decades with potentially devastating impacts on the fertile Indus and Ganges River Basins that produce much of the region's food supply.

However, cuts in carbon emissions as pledged under the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement dramatically reduces the risk to the region.

“Emission cuts will make a big difference in the lives of the most vulnerable people in the region. This is not an abstract concept,” said Eltahir.

The study, published Wednesday in Science Advances, used state-of-the-art climate models to project potential future heat and humidity in South Asia, already one of the warmest regions of the world. Hot weather's most deadly effects result from a combination of high temperature and high humidity, called a wet-bulb temperature. A temperature of 94 degrees Fahrenheit (34.4 degrees Celsius) and 80% humidity produces a wet-bulb or “feels like” temperature of 129 degrees Fahrenheit (53.9 degrees Celsius) on the NOAA National Weather Service Heat Index. This is considered extremely dangerous without some way to cool down...

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2017/08/south-asia-heat-waves-temperature-ris...

11 species threatened by climate change

While world leaders fret over how best to combat climate change, many animals and plants are already feeling the effects. Here are 11 species, as chosen by the International Union For Conservation of Nature’s climate change specialist group, which are under threat from global warming....

1. Ivory Gull--Arctic
2. Lemuroid Ringtail Possum--Australia, white-tail version especially vulnerable
3. Ringed Seal--Arctic
4. Lungless Frog--Borneo
5. Quiver Tree--South Africa
6. Golden Bowerbird
7. Haleakalā silversword plant--Hawaii
8. Adelie Penguin--Antarctic
9. Elegant Frog--Australia
10. African Lungfish
11. Polar Bears

http://www.cbsnews.com/pictures/

D Wuebbles, D Fahey, K Hibbard et al. 2017. US Global Change Research Program Climate Science Special Report. Third Order Draft. 543 p. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/08/07/climate/document-Draft-of-the-Cli...
____________________________________________________

Government Report Finds Drastic Impact of Climate Change on U.S.
LISA FRIEDMAN | AUG. 7, 2017

...The draft report by scientists from 13 federal agencies, which has not yet been made public, concludes that Americans are feeling the effects of climate change right now. It directly contradicts claims by President Trump and members of his cabinet who say that the human contribution to climate change is uncertain, and that the ability to predict the effects is limited...

...The report was completed this year and is a special science section of the National Climate Assessment, which is congressionally mandated every four years. The National Academy of Sciences has signed off on the draft report, and the authors are awaiting permission from the Trump administration to release it...

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/07/climate/climate-change-drastic-warming-trump....

___________________________________________________

Federal Scientists' Startling Climate Report Released Before Trump Can Bury It
“Evidence for a changing climate abounds."
Chris D'Angelo | 08/07/2017

...The New York Times published an unreleased draft of the report Monday. The 543-page report was written by scientists from 13 federal agencies, including the Environmental Protection Agency and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. It concludes that temperatures in the U.S. have risen sharply, by 1.6 degrees Fahrenheit, over the last 150 years and that it is “extremely likely that most of the global mean temperature increase since 1951 was caused by human influence on climate.”

“Evidence for a changing climate abounds, from the top of the atmosphere to the depths of the oceans,” the report states. “Thousands of studies conducted by tens of thousands of scientists around the world have documented changes in surface, atmospheric, and oceanic temperatures; melting glaciers; disappearing snow cover; shrinking sea ice; rising sea level; and an increase in atmospheric water vapor. Many lines of evidence demonstrate that human activities, especially emissions of greenhouse (heat-trapping) gases, are primarily responsible for recent observed climate changes.”

The report, completed this year and part of the National Climate Assessment, has already been approved by the National Academy of Sciences, according to the Times. Its release hinges on the Trump administration’s approval, and one scientist who worked on the report told the Times that he and others feared the president would withhold it.

...How the Trump administration decides to handle the report remains to be seen. The EPA and 12 other agencies have until Aug. 18 to approve the report, the Times reported...

http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/entry/climate-change-report-draft-nyt_us_598907ece4...

10-page executive summary of American Meteorological Association's "State of the Climate 2016",
an easy read with maps and figures showing conditions throughout the globe:

...Owing to the combination of strong El Niño conditions early in the year and a long-term upward trend, Earth’s surface observed record warmth for a third consecutive year, with the 2016 annual global surface temperature surpassing the previous record of 2015, albeit by a much slimmer margin than that by which the 2015 record was set. Above Earth’s surface, the globally averaged lower troposphere temperature was also record high according to all datasets analyzed, while the lower stratospheric temperature was record low according to most of the in situ and satellite datasets.

The global warmth was associated with extensive drought, surpassing most years in the post-1950 record and strongly influenced by the El Niño. For any given month during 2016, 12% or more of global land was experiencing at least severe drought conditions, the longest such stretch in the record...

http://www.ametsoc.net/sotc2016/ExecSummary.pdf
in https://www.ametsoc.org/ams/index.cfm/publications/bulletin-of-the-american-mete...

Trump to Speed Up Public-Works Permits, Drop Climate Order
Mark Niquette and Christopher Flavelle | August 15, 2017,

....Tuesday’s order revokes a previous one that Obama signed in January 2015, requiring federal agencies to account for future flood risk when spending money on infrastructure projects, a restriction that would extend to homes with federally backed mortgages as well. That order, which was still being implemented through regulations, would have caused some federal projects to be moved to different areas, built to higher standards or canceled altogether.

Rolling back that provision won’t prohibit state and local agencies from using more stringent standards if they choose, the White House said.

Opponents of Obama’s order, including the National Association of Home Builders, had argued that by requiring homes in flood plains to be built higher than before, it would increase construction costs.

“This action by President Trump will provide much-needed regulatory relief for the housing community and help American home buyers,” association Chairman Granger MacDonald said in a statement.

Supporters, such as insurers and consumer-safety advocates, said (Obama 2015 order) would protect lives and reduce federal spending after floods and other natural disasters.

Revoking the 2015 order “is a fiscally irresponsible decision that is a disaster for taxpayers,” said Eli Lehrer, president of the R Street Institute, which advocates for free-market solutions to climate change. “We are going to be spending and wasting taxpayer dollars to build stuff in areas where it simply shouldn’t be built.”...

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-08-15/trump-said-to-be-signing-orde...

HOW CLEAN IS MY REGION’S ELECTRICITY?

Enter your ZIP code to:
Compare the renewable energy mix in your region to the national average
Find out if your power company has supported the Clean Power Plan in court

http://utility.inconvenientsequel.com/

http://www.instituteforenergyresearch.org/analysis/will-solar-power-fault-next-e...

Solar panel waste will become a major issue in the coming decades as old solar panels reach the ends of their useful lifespans and require disposal. Last November, Japan’s Environment Ministry issued a warning that the amount of solar panel waste Japan produces each year is likely to increase from 10,000 to 800,000 tons by 2040, and the country has no plan for safely disposing of it.i China has more solar power plants than any other country, operating roughly twice as many solar panels as the United States and also has no plan for the disposal of the old panels. In China, there could be 20 million metric tons of solar panel waste, or 2,000 times the weight of the Eiffel Tower, by 2050.ii California, another world leader in deploying solar panels, likewise has no plan for disposal, despite its boasts of environmental consciousness. Only Europe requires solar panel manufacturers to collect and dispose of solar waste at the end of their useful lives.

My first slide was a quotation from William Happer, Professor of Physics, Princeton University: “I believe that the increase of CO2 is not a cause for alarm and will be good for mankind.”

Happer is focused on the carbon dioxide fertilization effect. Hardly controversial, a New York Times piece earlier this year titled “A Global Greening” explained how plant growth has dramatically increased from CO2-induced photosynthesis. A young tree just planted, I told the students, would grow noticeably faster today than if it had been planted a century or two ago, largely as a byproduct of fossil fuel usage since that time.

What about the enhanced greenhouse effect of higher CO2 atmospheric concentrations acting as a blanket, blocking some of the incoming sun radiation from escaping back into space? I argued that this blanket is more like a bed sheet than a down comforter. The global lukewarming school disputes the catastrophic warming predicted by some climate models.

Climate scientists such as Judith Curry have documented how climate models have overpredicted actual warming, a gap that continues to widen. In fact, the warming “pause” since the late 1990s is actively debated in the peer-reviewed literature.

Climate economics has a role in the debate, I also explained to students. Nature is not taken as optimal; economists see benefits, not only costs, from the human influence on climate. A moderate increase in warming and precipitation (they go together) are positive; higher sea level is not. But recorded sea level increases have been modest, and recent predictions have been for slower increases.

Overall, I painted a very different picture from that expounded in Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth (2006) and in An Inconvenient Sequel: Speaking Truth to Power (2017).

Study both sides of the issue. Good intentions are not enough. Decide if the climate issue, on one side or the other, or another issue completely, is worth devoting your personal energy and resources to.

http://www.instituteforenergyresearch.org/analysis/climate-optimism-energy-reali...

Trump disbands advisory group that develops concrete guidance for infrastructure based on National Climate Assessment (#118):

The Trump administration just disbanded a federal advisory committee on climate change
Juliet Eilperin | August 20

...The charter for the 15-person Advisory Committee for the Sustained National Climate Assessment — which includes academics as well as local officials and corporate representatives — expires Sunday.

...The committee was established to help translate findings from the National Climate Assessment into concrete guidance for both public and private-sector officials. Its members have been writing a report to inform federal officials on the data sets and approaches that would best be included, and chair Richard Moss said in an interview Saturday that ending the group’s work was shortsighted.

...While many state and local officials have pressed the federal government for more concrete guidance on how to factor climate change into future infrastructure, President Trump has moved in the opposite direction.

Last week, the president signed an executive order on infrastructure that included language overturning a federal requirement that projects built in coastal floodplains and receiving federal aid take projected sea-level rise into account.

...The committee was established in 2015, but its members were not appointed until last summer. They convened their first meeting in the fall. Moss said members of the group intend to keep working on their report, which is due out next spring, even though it now will lack the official imprimatur of the federal government. “It won’t have the same weight as if we were issuing it as a federal advisory committee,” he said...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2017/08/20/the-trump-a...

ETA____________________________________

Ah, so the plan is to control HOW the science of the National Climate Assessment is conveyed, so no application in real world?

Trump administration dismisses climate change advisory panel
Rene Marsh | August 21, 2017

...email sent from acting National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration head Benjamin Friedman.

"On behalf of the Department of Commerce and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), I am writing to inform you that per the terms of the charter the Federal Advisory Committee for the Sustained National Climate Assessment (Committee) will expire on August 20, 2017," the email read. "The Department of Commerce and NOAA appreciate the efforts of the Committee and offer sincere thanks to each of the Committee members for their service."

...The White House did not explain the decision to do away with the panel, but told CNN in an email that "the Federal Advisory Committee for the Sustained National Climate Assessment was chartered in 2015 to provide advice on sustained assessment activities and products. Per the terms of the charter, the committee expired on August 20, 2017. The National Climate Assessment 4, which is coming out next year, is not affected by this change."

The experts who sat on the now-defunct committee warn that without their advice and guidance, the release of the federal climate report could be the equivalent of a large scientific data dump absent of useful context for a public that lacks scientific expertise...

http://www.cnn.com/2017/08/21/politics/white-house-climate-change-committee-dism...

Why didn't Trump send out an order that there may not after all be an eclipse, as scientists can't be relied on to predict anything?

>126 Tid: He had to see for himself.

Liberals protested the eclipse because Trump didn't do anything to stop it. After all, the moon is white. Need I say more?

>128 barney67: Yes, as you point out, the moon is white. Ha ha. You're not the first to present that sterling insight.
http://www.salon.com/2016/10/25/meet-moon-man-the-alt-rights-new-racist-rap-sens...

Please don't tell me you've suffered a total eclipse of the heart...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lcOxhH8N3Bo

By the way: how are your eyes?
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2017/aug/21/solar-eclipse-eye-damage

Trump Administration Takes Key Step To Rolling Back Auto Fuel Standards
Sonari Glinton | August 14, 2017

...The Environmental Protection Agency and the Transportation Department have opened the public comment period on the rewriting of standards for greenhouse gas emissions for cars and light trucks for model years 2022-2025...

http://www.npr.org/2017/08/14/543474251/trump-administration-takes-key-step-to-r...

_________________________________________________

Comments must be received on or before October 5, 2017.
Comments may be submitted at www.regulations.gov to Docket EPA-HQ-OAR-2015-0827.
https://www.epa.gov/regulations-emissions-vehicles-and-engines/midterm-evaluatio...

EPA Press Release:
https://www.epa.gov/newsreleases/epa-dot-open-comment-period-reconsideration-ghg...

Geoffrey Supran and Naomi Oreskes 2017. Assessing ExxonMobil’s climate change communications (1977–2014). 017 Environ. Res. Lett. 12 084019. Aug 23, 2017. 19 p. (http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/12/8/084019)
http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/aa815f/pdf

Abstract. This paper assesses whether ExxonMobil Corporation has in the past misled the general public about climate change. We present an empirical document-by-document textual content analysis and comparison of 187 climate change communications from ExxonMobil, including peer-reviewed and non-peer-reviewed publications, internal company documents, and paid, editorial-style advertisements ('advertorials') in The New York Times. We examine whether these communications sent consistent messages about the state of climate science and its implications—specifically, we compare their positions on climate change as real, human-caused, serious, and solvable. In all four cases, we find that as documents become more publicly accessible, they increasingly communicate doubt. This discrepancy is most pronounced between advertorials and all other documents. For example, accounting for expressions of reasonable doubt, 83% of peer-reviewed papers and 80% of internal documents acknowledge that climate change is real and human-caused, yet only 12% of advertorials do so, with 81% instead expressing doubt. We conclude that ExxonMobil contributed to advancing climate science—by way of its scientists' academic publications—but promoted doubt about it in advertorials. Given this discrepancy, we conclude that ExxonMobil misled the public. Our content analysis also examines ExxonMobil's discussion of the risks of stranded fossil fuel assets(*). We find the topic discussed and sometimes quantified in 24 documents of various types, but absent from advertorials. Finally, based on the available documents, we outline ExxonMobil's strategic approach to climate change research and communication, which helps to contextualize our findings.

...5. Conclusion

Available documents show a discrepancy between what ExxonMobil's scientists and executives discussed about climate change privately and in academic circles and what it presented to the general public. The company's peer-reviewed, non-peer-reviewed, and internal communications consistently tracked evolving climate science: broadly acknowledging that AGW is real, human-caused, serious, and solvable, while identifying reasonable uncertainties that most climate scientists readily acknowledged at that time. In contrast, ExxonMobil's advertorials in the NYT overwhelmingly emphasized only the uncertainties, promoting a narrative inconsistent with the views of most climate scientists, including ExxonMobil's own. This is characteristic of what Freudenberg et al term the Scientific Certainty Argumentation Method (SCAM)—a tactic for undermining public understanding of scientific knowledge 57, 58. Likewise, the company's peer-reviewed, non-peer-reviewed, and internal documents acknowledge the risks of stranded assets, whereas their advertorials do not. In light of these findings, we judge that ExxonMobil's AGW communications were misleading; we are not in a position to judge whether they violated any laws.

(* Wikipedia: (Stranded assets are) assets that have suffered from unanticipated or premature write-downs, ... Coal and other hydrocarbon resources may have the potential to become stranded as the world engages in a fossil fuel phase out.)

"There's a massive amount of carbon that's in the ground, that's built up slowly over thousands and thousands of years. It's been in a freezer, and that freezer is now turning into a refrigerator."


— Max Holmes, deputy director of the Woods Hole Research Center, on the thawing permafrost in Alaska.

See figure for relative contributions of coal, nukes, gas, and renewables over past decade: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-08-24/perry-lays-groundwork-for-res...

Natural gas (cheap), wind and solar (subsidized and increasingly cheap) are giving coal and nukes a run for money. Solar and especially wind energy don't always generate electricity when needed, so need back-up. (That said, grid managers kept grid running through the eclipse!)

Nuke emissions are C-free, but they can't ramp up and down quickly to compensate for renewable variability--similar to hydropower. Subsidies to nuclear plants can keep ageing, expensive-to-maintain nuclear plants online perhaps past their shelf date. Ageing plants that can meet regulatory requirement every seven years can continue on. (I say this with chagrin as someone downwind, downstream, and cross-border from 1970s nuke under expensive, dicey management in recent years that was resurrected by subsidies originally intended for clean renewables--nukes near population centers were NOT offered subsidies. )

Dirty coal can ramp up, but then so can cleaner, cheaper natural gas.

Demand has stabilized, and can be managed further with little inconvenience to consumers.

Money might be better spent in modernizing the grid to accept many, local sources (e.g., rooftop solar), and to resist hacking.

As I understand it, anyway.

____________________________________________________________

Rick Perry gets his electricity grid study. The coal and mining industries like it.
Catherine Traywick and Jim Polson | August 23, 24, 2017

Report on electic grid touts value of coal-fired power
Calls for ways to compensate reliability of coal, nuclear

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-08-24/perry-lays-groundwork-for-res...

Did Climate Change Intensify Hurricane Harvey?
“The human contribution can be up to 30 percent or so of the total rainfall coming out of the storm.”
Robinson Meyer | Aug 27, 2017

...Harvey benefited from unusually toasty waters in the Gulf of Mexico. As the storm roared toward Houston last week, sea-surface waters near Texas rose to between 2.7 and 7.2 degrees Fahrenheit above average. These waters were some of the hottest spots of ocean surface in the world. The tropical storm, feeding off this unusual warmth, was able to progress from a tropical depression to a category-four hurricane in roughly 48 hours.

...This also suggests an explanation for one of Harvey’s strangest and scariest behaviors. The storm intensified up until the moment of landfall, achieving category-four strength hours before it slammed into the Texas coast. This is not only rare for tropical cyclones in the western Gulf of Mexico: It may be unique. In the past 30 years of records, no storms west of Florida have intensified in the last 12 hours before landfall.

Why do storms normally weaken—and why didn’t Harvey? As mentioned above, hurricanes feed and grow on warm ocean surface waters. But as they grow, their strong winds often pick up seawater, churning the oceans and moving the warmest waters deep below the surface. The same winds also bring newer, colder water closer to the atmosphere, which usually serves to drain energy and weaken the storm.

That didn’t happen with Harvey. The hurricane churned up water 100 or even 200 meters below the surface, said (Kevin Trenberth, a senior scientist at the U.S. National Center for Atmospheric Research), but this water was still warm—meaning that the storm could keep growing and strengthening. “Harvey was not in a good position to intensify the way it did, because it was so close to land. It’s amazing it was able to do that,” he told me.

https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/08/did-climate-change-intensify...

Harvey Is What Climate Change Looks Like
It’s time to open our eyes and prepare for the world that’s coming.
ERIC HOLTHAUS | August 28, 2017

http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/08/28/climate-change-hurricane-harve...

...On a lesser scale, climate change also looks like historic spring flooding in Lake Ontario and St. Lawrence River, only now approaching anything like normal, though some sandbagged coasts are still at risk when wind blows up waves...

Epic Floods — Not Just In Texas — Are A Challenge For Aid Groups
Malaka Gharib | August 29, 2017

...With a reported 50 inches of rainfall, flash flooding and high, murky waters, Hurricane Harvey in Houston has gripped America's attention. But halfway around the world, another flood has wreaked havoc on historic levels. Two weeks ago, record monsoon rains hit parts of Bangladesh, India and Nepal, bringing the worst floods the region has seen in years. Over 1,200 people have been killed and 24 million affected...

http://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2017/08/29/547002884/epic-floods-not-ju...

__________________________________________________

As floods in the Himalayan neighbourhood increase in fury, time for nations to unite, not fight
Jagannath Adhikari | Aug 30, 2017

...India, China, and Nepal accusing each other of shortsighted and self-interested politics. Without region-wide organisations to effectively share information and coordinate disaster relief, many more people have suffered.

...the Himalayas urgently need institutions with a region-wide perspective, rather than country-specific remits. These organisations can efficiently share information on weather patterns, take action to reduce the overall impact of floods, and consult each other while developing infrastructures that could have trans-boundary consequences.

Human interference and myopic political action have intensified the impact of these floods....

https://qz.com/1065409/as-floods-in-the-himalayan-neighbourhood-increase-in-fury...

Rush Limbaugh is a big, fat idiot by Al Franken

Rush Limbaugh’s dangerous suggestion that Hurricane Irma is fake news
Callum Borchers | September 6, 2017

...“These storms, once they actually hit, are never as strong as they're reported,” Limbaugh claimed on his syndicated radio show. He added that “the graphics have been created to make it look like the ocean's having an exorcism, just getting rid of the devil here in the form of this hurricane, this bright red stuff.”

Why would the media exaggerate the threat of a hurricane? Here's Limbaugh's theory:

There is symbiotic relationship between retailers and local media, and it’s related to money. It revolves around money. You have major, major industries and businesses which prosper during times of crisis and panic, such as a hurricane, which could destroy or greatly damage people’s homes, and it could interrupt the flow of water and electricity. So what happens?

Well, the TV stations begin reporting this and the panic begins to increase. And then people end up going to various stores to stock up on water and whatever they might need for home repairs and batteries and all this that they’re advised to get, and a vicious circle is created. You have these various retail outlets who spend a lot of advertising dollars with the local media.

The local media, in turn, reports in such a way as to create the panic way far out, which sends people into these stores to fill up with water and to fill up with batteries, and it becomes a never-ending repeated cycle. And the two coexist. So the media benefits with the panic with increased eyeballs, and the retailers benefit from the panic with increased sales, and the TV companies benefit because they’re getting advertising dollars from the businesses that are seeing all this attention from customers...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2017/09/06/rush-limbaughs-dangero...
__________________________________________________

Climate, Power, Money And Sorrow: Lessons Of Hurricane Harvey
Adam Frank | September 6, 2017

...in the wake of Hurricane Harvey we can now see what climate change is really about. It was never about clever arguments but, instead, something much more elemental: power, money and human suffering...

http://www.npr.org/sections/13.7/2017/09/06/548658019/climate-power-money-and-so...
__________________________________________________

Did climate change make recent extreme storms worse?
August 30, 2017

...MARSHALL SHEPHERD, (professor of geography and atmospheric sciences) University of Georgia: I’m very uncomfortable talking about causation of one particular storm, in the same way that I can’t identify what particular home run was hit by a baseball player because of steroid use...I think that we know that steroid use likely increases the probability or chance that there will be more home runs in baseball. But can I conclusively say that that particular player hit that particular home run because of steroid use? I don’t know that for a fact...

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/climate-change-make-recent-extreme-storms-worse/

>137 margd: and the retailers benefit from the panic with increased sales

This just shows his ignorance about "panic shopping". Other than a few items like bottled water, a large part of the "extra" things people are buying "just in case" are things people would have bought at some time in the future. Depending on just how bad things get for someone, these will be items that people now have on hand and won't have to buy in the future if they don't actually need to use them.

Yes, in areas that are hard hit this will be "increased" sales as people will still have to do their "normal" shopping for their regular needs after it's all over, but for those who come thru in better shape, they'll have less shopping to do in the future. Depending on the actual aftermath, stores in some areas will likely see BELOW normal sales in the week or two afterwards. It's what we refer to in retail as "displaced shopping".

I've been in the supermarket biz for 33 years now and have seen this going on before a "major" storm is due to hit, especially in the winter. The thing that's really amazing tho is just what people may actually be buying. There may be the possibility of power outages, and people will be stocking up on perishables like milk and meat. Good luck with keeping those stored properly if you haven't been able to stock up on ice too!

I don't understand the logic of bottled water. If you are staying in place, one should have containers already filled with potable water. And then for washing, put some trash cans outside to catch the rainwater. Weigh them down or wedge them in place.

>139 2wonderY: Marketing, 2wy. It's called marketing.

Scott Pruitt, Administrator of the EPA, says that it is "very insensitive" to the people of Florida to talk about climate change right now.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/09/07/politics/scott-pruitt-hurricanes-climate-change-in...

While I agree that people in the storm's path have very immediate needs I think that delaying talking or thinking about the causes of these more and more devastating events should not be postponed.

Crossposting from the Irma thread:

With respect to rebuilding: I hope consideration is given to 1) storm surge inundation zones, and 2) reinforced concrete shell construction. http://www.tornadoproofhouses.com/

The technology for designing and building tornado-resistant houses has been around since 1963 — half a century. It was first developed in America, not in continental North America, but instead in the American protectorate territory of the Marianas islands, primarily on the island of Guam. It utilizes the principle of "box-rigid-frame," a type of reinforced concrete shell design. This approach is described in an article titled "Disaster-Resistant Shell Houses" PDF, http://www.concreteinternational.com/pages/GetArticle.asp?PublicationID=19783 in the American Concrete Institute's Concrete International magazine, published in May 2008. The article discusses in detail the sterling performance of reinforced concrete shell houses over the past half century impacted with numerous strong typhoons and powerful earthquakes on the islands in the region. For over 50 years, without knowledge of the Guam technology, builders in North America have continued to construct homes that cost the loss of lives and property every year in disastrous tornadoes.

In 1962, Typhoon Karen roared across the island of Guam with recorded wind gusts up to 207 mph, cleaning the island of most of the conventionally constructed houses. Following an appeal to the U. S. government by the Guam governor, President John F. Kennedy directed the development of typhoon-resistant houses. The Guam Rehabilitation Act of 1963 authorizing $85,000,000 was passed by the U. S. Congress. A subsequent authorization of an additional $45,000,000 was appropriated. PDF, http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/STATUTE-77/pdf/STATUTE-77-Pg302-2.pdf

In this effort, the president enlisted the help of Henry J. Kaiser of Kaiser Hospital fame. At the time he also was CEO of Kaiser Permanente Cement Company as well as a homebuilder in Hawaii. Mr. Kaiser retained Dr. Alfred A. Yee, a world-respected structural engineer and author of a number of articles for various technical magazines, to develop the structural design for the first typhoon-resistant house. It was quickly done and thousands of these houses have been subsequently built around the island including on the military reservations. And they are still being built.

The original houses used precast concrete walls which were fabricated at the building sites and tilted into position. The roofs utilized cast-in-place reinforced concrete. All of the elements of a house, floors, walls and roofs, were intimately connected with steel reinforcing bars in order to create a box, or shell. Instead of building storm shelters inside a house as is usually done in North America, the entire house becomes a storm shelter, a practice that was not used until the Guam typhoon-resistant reinforced concrete shell house concept was developed.

The concrete shells on Guam have performed without damage for fifty years....

(http://www.tornadoproofhouses.com/lessons.php#isitpossible)

They don't look so bad, either.
"It is quite possible to make the exterior appearance of an attractive concrete house architecturally indistinguishable from that of a wood framed house. (Non-insulated home on the island of Guam)"

http://www.tornadoproofhouses.com/shells.php#archappear

I read somewhere that the sand suitable for concrete and glass is the resource in second greatest demand, just behind water. Unhappily, the sand in deserts is not suitable.

>143 2wonderY: I had no idea of the wide-spread impact of sand mining:

http://www.rawstory.com/2017/09/the-world-is-facing-a-global-sand-crisis/

>141 Taphophile13: Finally, can we look for pushback on climate-deniers?

Climate deniers play politics with looming natural disasters
David Horsey | Sept 11. 2017

...in Florida, where, in the not-too-distant future, beach communities will be inundated by the ocean, developers are allowed to continue building along doomed shorelines while the governor has ordered state officials and researchers not to use the terms global warming and climate change. And, in the nation’s capital, the Trump administration is very busy killing an array of federal programs that either gather scientific data about the global warming phenomenon or make plans to deal with the looming problems that the climate shift will bring.

That is what it means to politicize an issue.

http://www.latimes.com/opinion/topoftheticket/la-na-tt-looming-disasters-2017091...

Here's the cone for Tropical Storm Irma

I heard on the television coverage yesterday that Irma gave Atlanta its first Tropical Storm Warning.
====================================================================
CUBA: Death toll of 10 at this point. https://twitter.com/Reuters/status/907221938942210048

COFFEE--surely that's something we can all agree needs protecting??

Biggest producer of coffee could see bean-growing land shrink nearly 90% by 2050
Erik Stokstad | Sep. 11, 2017 , 3:00 PM

The news isn’t getting any better for the future of coffee. Several studies have already predicted that climate change could halve the amount of farmland worldwide suitable for growing coffee by 2050, mainly because of increasing temperatures. Now, an ecological model of Latin America, the biggest producer, suggests even greater declines: Habitat for coffee could shrink by 88%, with particularly large losses in the lowlands of Nicaragua, Honduras, and Venezuela. The researchers also examined how future climate will impact the domesticated honey bee and 38 other bee species that pollinate coffee plants and boost yields. Although conditions will improve for pollinators on up to 22% of the future growing area for coffee—generally higher elevation areas, such as in Mexico—as much as 51% of the coffee-growing area will have fewer bee species, and that will likely dent yields, the researchers report today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. What can growers do? The study suggests they may need to cater to their bee populations by minimizing use of pesticides and keeping a diversity of native plants to provide other food for bees.

http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/09/biggest-producer-coffee-could-see-bean-gr...

>147 margd: Coffee? Sorry, no. The mere odor makes me ill.

But Mexico also provides habitat for something I have always loved:

http://www.rawstory.com/2017/09/death-of-a-dynasty-west-north-america-lost-over-...

The great nutrient collapse
The atmosphere is literally changing the food we eat, for the worse. And almost nobody is paying attention.
HELENA BOTTEMILLER EVICH | 09/13/2017

...As best scientists can tell, this is what happens: Rising CO2 revs up photosynthesis, the process that helps plants transform sunlight to food. This makes plants grow, but it also leads them to pack in more carbohydrates like glucose at the expense of other nutrients that we depend on, like protein, iron and zinc.

...Earlier this summer, a group of researchers published the first studies attempting to estimate what these shifts could mean for the global population. Plants are a crucial source of protein for people in the developing world, and by 2050, they estimate, 150 million people could be put at risk of protein deficiency, particularly in countries like India and Bangladesh. Researchers found a loss of zinc, which is particularly essential for maternal and infant health, could put 138 million people at risk. They also estimated that more than 1 billion mothers and 354 million children live in countries where dietary iron is projected to drop significantly, which could exacerbate the already widespread public health problem of anemia.

There aren’t any projections for the United States, where we for the most part enjoy a diverse diet with no shortage of protein, but some researchers look at the growing proportion of sugars in plants and hypothesize that a systemic shift in plants could further contribute to our already alarming rates of obesity and cardiovascular disease.

...Goldenrod, a wildflower many consider a weed, is extremely important to bees. It flowers late in the season, and its pollen provides an important source of protein for bees as they head into the harshness of winter. Since goldenrod is wild and humans haven’t bred it into new strains, it hasn’t changed over time as much as, say, corn or wheat. And the Smithsonian Institution also happens to have hundreds of samples of goldenrod, dating back to 1842, in its massive historical archive—which gave ( Lewis Ziska, a plant physiologist with the U.S. Department of Agriculture) and his colleagues are conducting experiments to find out how rising carbon dioxide levels affect the nutrient profile of plants. Plant physiologist Julie Wolf harvests peppers to study changes in vitamin C, lower right.

They found that the protein content of goldenrod pollen has declined by a third since the industrial revolution—and the change closely tracks with the rise in CO2. Scientists have been trying to figure out why bee populations around the world have been in decline, which threatens many crops that rely on bees for pollination. Ziska’s paper suggested that a decline in protein prior to winter could be an additional factor making it hard for bees to survive other stressors...

http://www.politico.com/agenda/story/2017/09/13/food-nutrients-carbon-dioxide-00...

Is Trump Admin looking for fig leaf--"pro-America terms"--to stay in Paris Agreement?

Is US Withdrawing from Paris Agreement?
VOA | Sept 17, 2017

...WSJ reporter Emre Peker wrote that "multiple officials" at the global warming summit had corroborated the seeming about-face by the U.S. officials attending the summit.

The WSJ account said the U.S. officials in Montreal "...led by White House senior adviser Everett Eissenstat, broached revising U.S. climate-change goals, two participants said, signaling a compromise that would keep the U.S. at the table even if it meant weakening the international effort."

The newspaper said "Multiple participants at the Montreal gathering said Mr. Eissenstat's approach, though it is likely to entail a significant reduction in the U.S.'s ambition to curb greenhouse-gas emissions, fueled optimism among proponents of the Paris deal."

After the summit, Miguel Arias Canete, European Commissioner for Climate Action and Energy said "The U.S. has stated that they will not renegotiate the Paris accord, but they will try to review the terms on which they could be engaged under this agreement."

However, White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders tweeted a different message shortly after Canete's statement was released. "Our position on the Paris agreement has not changed.," she said. "@POTUS has been clear, US withdrawing unless we get pro-America terms."...

https://www.voanews.com/a/is-us-withdrawing-from-paris-agreement/4032322.html

As best scientists can tell

seeming about-face

There aren’t any projections for the United States

in the not-too-distant future, beach communities will be inundated by the ocean

fueled optimism among proponents

Scientists have been trying to figure out

Ziska’s paper suggested

the Trump administration is very busy killing

The study suggests they may need to cater to their bee populations

tornado-resistant houses

I heard on the television

Multiple participants

a group of researchers published the first studies attempting to estimate what these shifts could mean

Habitat for coffee could shrink by 88%, with particularly large losses in the lowlands of Nicaragua, Honduras, and Venezuela

Habitat for coffee

countries like India and Bangladesh.

Nicaragua, Honduras, and Venezuela

looming problems

Rising CO2 revs up photosynthesi

revs up

extremely important to bees.

The newspaper said

doomed shorelines

The news isn’t getting any better

The concrete shells on Guam

I read somewhere that the sand suitable for concrete and glass is the resource in second greatest demand, just behind water.

Finally, can we look for pushback

The great nutrient collapse

There aren’t any projections for the United States, where we for the most part enjoy a diverse diet with no shortage of protein,

They don't look so bad

in the wake of Hurricane Harvey we can now see what climate change is really about.

as much as 51% of the coffee-growing area will have fewer bee species,

Several studies have already predicted

some researchers look at

I don't understand the logic of bottled water.

The determination of the oil and gas people to pollute is seconded by practically every single republican lawmaker

Human interference

a type of reinforced concrete shell design.

authors of the new research suggest

California again leads list with 6 of the top 10 most polluted U.S. cities

>149 margd: That is astonishing data.