Heat is Online

Discuss political news items / current events.
msfreeh
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http://www.climatecentral.org/what-we-d ... te-science" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

msfreeh
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How many climate change deniers
does it take to change a lightbulb.?



http://www.die-klimaschutz-baustelle.de ... jokes.html
Last edited by msfreeh on March 5th, 2017, 4:56 pm, edited 3 times in total.

msfreeh
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https://robertscribbler.com/2017/03/03/ ... g-machine/




https://robertscribbler.com/


Friday, March 3, 2017 Climate Change Open Discussion: Permafrost Decay, Ocean Acidification, Renewable Energy Advances, Trump Turning EPA into Fossil Fuel Vending Machine
Over the past week, it became clear that considerable changes were underway in the global climate system, in the realm of government policy, and in the world’s energy markets. This blog post will touch on as many of these issues as possible. More importantly, it will serve as an open forum for discussing these recent trends over the coming weekend.

52,000 Square Miles of Permafrost Decaying in Canada

This week, Inside Climate News produced a must-read report high-lighting the latest science on permafrost thaw. The report found that:

“Huge slabs of Arctic permafrost in northwest Canada are slumping and disintegrating, sending large amounts of carbon-rich mud and silt into streams and rivers. A new study that analyzed nearly a half-million square miles in northwest Canada found that this permafrost decay is affecting 52,000 square miles of that vast stretch of earth—an expanse the size of Alabama.”

The article linked various permafrost thaw studies and produced a broad overview of the many and wide-ranging local and regional impacts. It identified major geophysical changes due to permafrost subsidence and erosion along the Arctic coastline (which in places is losing as much as 70-80 feet per year). It covered large regions experiencing land deformation due to permafrost thaw — some of which were quite large. As an example, one permafrost thaw related sink hole in Russia was a quarter mile across and growing. And it also identified a threat to river and estuary health posed by soil outflows produced by the thaw:

According to researchers with the Northwest Territories Geological Survey, the permafrost collapse is intensifying and causing landslides into rivers and lakes that can choke off life downstream, all the way to where the rivers discharge into the Arctic Ocean.

But perhaps what is more concerning are the implications of the research highlighted by Inside Climate News. To this point, permafrost thaw isn’t just a local issue — it’s a geophysical change the produces global impacts.



(Carbon and albedo feedback produced by permafrost thaw is a serious concern. However, impacts produced by permafrost thaw are even more wide-ranging. Image source: Carbon Brief.)

Permafrost thaw can add amplifying feedback carbon emissions to the Earth System at a time when atmospheric carbon levels are already the highest we’ve seen in about 5-15 million years. Frozen permafrost is a carbon sink –taking in more atmospheric carbon than it produces. Active, thawed permafrost generates the opposite effect. Microbes coming alive in the soil produce methane and carbon dioxide that contribute to the growing pools of carbon in the atmosphere and the world ocean. And with so much permafrost thawing as the world warms, the issue is one that simply will not go away.

Such amplifying feedbacks are a serious concern due to the fact that they make the need for global carbon emissions cuts more immediate and urgent. Carbon budgets, for example, become considerably more constrained when you can expect 50, 100, 250 billion tons or more of additional carbon emission coming from the thawing permafrost over timeframes relevant to human civilizations.

In addition, soil flushed down streams and into estuaries eventually deposits carbon into the world ocean system. As a result, you end up with still more carbon hitting an ocean that is already reeling from acidification stresses. The nutrients in the soil also feed algae blooms that speed acidification and potentially rob the ocean surface regions of vital oxygen when they decay. Considerable and rapid permafrost thaw has the potential, therefore, to also add to the larger and ongoing damages to ocean health due to fossil fuel emissions and to push the world to warm at a more rapid rate. So the Inside Climate News report is important, not just for the various regional impacts that it highlights, but for the larger implications due to the wide-ranging permafrost thaw that the research currently identifies.

Advancing Ocean Acidification

Recently, we highlighted threats to the world’s corals and, in particular, to the Great Barrier Reef as a result of a big warm-up in the world’s ocean system. One that is now producing a global coral bleaching event that could last for decades.

But warming ocean waters aren’t the only threat to corals and other marine species produced by human-caused climate change. Ocean acidification and ocean anoxia (in which warming combines with algae blooms and other factors to rob the oceans of oxygen) represent two of the other major threats to oceans related to climate change. Of these, ocean acidification has received a good deal of attention in the scientific press recently. In particular, this comprehensive piece in DW this week highlighted growing scientific concerns over ocean acidification.

The DW report shined a light on a new study:

…in Nature Climate Change this week [that] says ocean acidification is spreading rapidly in the western Arctic Ocean in both area and depth. That means a much wider, deeper area than before is becoming so acidic that many marine organisms of key importance to the food chain will no longer be able to survive there.

The study found that the region in which the ocean is uptaking high levels of CO2 and coordinately increasing ocean acidification has enlarged and expanded northward by 5 degrees of latitude. In particular, the zone of ocean acidification in the Western Arctic Ocean has expanded considerably. As a result, the rate at which the Arctic Ocean is acidifying is increasing.



(As atmospheric CO2 levels increase, the oceans take up more carbon and become more acidic. Polar oceans become acidic first. Then acidified waters expand southward. With atmospheric CO2 levels hitting around 410 ppm this year [peak value] polar ocean species are now threatened by acidification. Eventually, at around 500 ppm CO2, levels of acidity are high enough to threaten key ocean species the world over. Image source: Threat to Coral Reefs From Ocean Acidification.)

The study sounds an alarm among ocean researchers and environmentalists concerned about key ocean species vulnerable to acidification. The threat to species posed by climate change in the Arctic is now expanding from walruses, whales, polar bears, puffins and various fishes to include calcareous creatures like star fish, mollusks, shrimps, sea snails, various crabs and others. Where warmth has robbed some species of habitats, acidification dissolves the shells that protect the bodies of these creatures or kills off the chief food source of other key ocean animals.

As the oceans take up more and more of the amazing overburden of carbon flooding into the atmosphere chiefly from fossil fuel emissions, the cooler polar waters acidify first. And that’s where ocean researchers are seeing the early warning signs of harm. But acidic waters at the poles don’t just stay there. They expand southward — bringing the damage they cause with them. In this way, the lower latitude corals that are already experiencing mass die-offs spurred by warming waters will soon face the threat of acidic oceans as well.

Renewable Energy — An Economic Force of Nature

Despite a rightward shift in various global economic dynamos like the U.S., the U.K, and Australia, the hope for rapidly transitioning away from fossil fuels and related carbon emissions remains alive as renewable energy becomes an ever more powerful economic and political force.

In the U.S., 23 cities, townships and counties have now pledged to run their economies on 100 percent renewable electricity and California has just introduced legislation aiming at achieving 50 percent of its electricity generation from renewable sources by 2025 and 100 percent by 2045. More good news also came from the auto sector as electric vehicle sales in the U.S. jumped 59 percent year on year during the month of January.



(In the US, the unsubsidized, levelized cost of wind and solar now beat out every other competing energy system. Image source: Clean Technica.)

Globally, even the Pope is going electric as solar cell production is expected to hit near 80 gigawatts in 2017 — another record year following 10 years of uninterrupted expansion. And wind energy is racing to catch up to solar by setting new record low prices near 5 cents per kilowatt hour at power purchase bids in India. At such low prices, wind and solar now boast the lowest levelized costs of all major power sources according to this research. Meanwhile, in a trend that’s fantastic enough to make even computer chip manufacturers jealous, clean energy prices just keep falling even as renewable energy capabilities keep on improving.

The good news continues in China where 110 gigawatts of solar energy capacity is expected to be installed by 2020 and where sales of zero oil electric buses are now exploding. The adds to clean tech are also contributing to China’s plans to cut coal burning by a further 30 percent in 2017. These cuts are helping to spur planned cuts of 1.8 million coal and steel jobs coordinate with a responsible (something republicans and Trump would never consider) 15 billion dollar effort to retrain and place these workers in the new, less dangerous, cleaner industries of the future.

Trump — the Chief Beneficiary of a Russian Cyberwarfare Campaign Against the U.S. Electoral System — is Trying to Turn EPA into a ‘Vending Machine for Fossil Fuel Companies’

All this great news on the renewable energy front is, of course, tempered by the terrible and rapidly deteriorating state of the global climate. In addition, the forces opposing responses to climate change and actively seeking to throw a wrench into the amazing works of the renewable energy revolution have taken power in the form of the corrupt and Russian-influenced Trump Administration in the U.S.

It’s worth noting that Donald Trump and his ilk in the form of republicans in the U.S. and various allied fossil fueled politicians around the world are unlikely to be able to completely sabotage the economic juggernaught that renewable energy has become unless they succeed in a campaign aimed at total political dominance. And as Trump and his Russian helpers have learned, total dominance in a country with considerable separation of powers, as in the U.S., is a very difficult thing to achieve. Especially when the opposition to the forces of that dominance are as invigorated and diverse as they are today.


(Scott Pruitt spent most of his career attacking the EPA. Now, under Trump, he heads it. It could well be said that the environmental version of Bizzaro superman now sits at the helm of the agency that, in the US, is responsible for protecting the environment. Video source: Youtube.)

Despite these difficulties, Trump and his allies can probably effectively slow the renewable energy revolution down — to the great harm of pretty much everything living on Earth. Despite this fact, it’s well worth noting that renewable energy grew up into the economic force it is today despite continued attempts to stymie its growth by fossil fuel special interest groups over at least the past half-century. The rise of Trump and of so many powerful fossil fuel connected politicians around the world today can well be seen as a reactionary outgrowth of the old and inherently autocratic economic power associated with fossil fuels. One that is arguably now suffering an existential crisis. For the threat to fossil fuels now posed by renewables has grown considerably. In the U.S. alone, renewables now account for 1 in 50 jobs. In other words, substantially rolling back the renewable industry at this time would be very harmful to the U.S. economy. The systemic forces now protecting renewables are stronger than ever before simply due to the fact that the U.S. economic system increasingly has come to rely and depend on them.

But this inherent system change hasn’t stopped the Trump administration and its allied republicans from trying to sabotage the very forces that threaten a big chunk of their power base. And their initial efforts to this end since the election have involved rolling back key environmental laws and practices (those helpful bits of government that republicans like to blanket-label ‘regulation’). An example of this is the recent removal of rules requiring fossil fuel companies to report methane emissions at the EPA. A move that Vera Pardee of the Center for Biological Diversity identified as an attempt to turn “the EPA into an oil industry vending machine.”

Where the Trump Administration isn’t withdrawing the EPA from its responsibilities to prevent environmental harms by applying publicly helpful government oversight to industry, it’s attempting to de-fund the EPA altogether. A recent budget proposal by Trump aimed at raising defense spending by 54 billion on the backs of cuts to domestic agencies would have slashed the EPA’s scientific workforce, removed funding for key protections like preventing lead from entering U.S. drinking water, and slashed the EPA climate change prevention program by 70 percent.

Thankfully, Trump’s draconian cuts to domestic spending, the EPA, and public health are unlikely to make it through even a republican controlled Congress. But his budget proposal is an excellent illustration of how a far-right government tries to govern in the US these days — leverage puffed up fears of outsiders and a hyper-focus on security and defense to force cuts in critical programs while always denying the necessity of actually raising revenues through taxation to fund beneficial public programs.

In a related reference, Steve Hanley, responding to Trump’s transport secretary’s cuts to electric rail funding succinctly noted today that:

Republicans hate high-speed rail. In fact, Republicans pretty much hate spending taxpayer dollars on anything that might benefit taxpayers. They would prefer to give the money to defense contractors, corporate executives, and Wall Street investment bankers. After all, those are the folks who paid to get them elected.

The same could be said for the Trump Admin overall which was a monstrosity that grew up out of Wall Street and that apparently got a huge assist from the Russian petrostate by hacking and cyber-warfaring their way to electoral success in the 2016 U.S. Presidential race. And to this final point it’s worth noting that the significant political headwinds those concerned about climate change now face issue from all the groups that have produced so much resistance to helpful climate action in the past. From corrupt smokestack industries and from even more corrupt petrostates headed by autocratic dictators with a penchant for funding right wing groups in an attempt destabilize the world’s democratic governments as apparently now happened (at least to some degree) to the Executive Branch in the United States.

Hat tips

Colorado Bob

Cate

Keith

Andy in San Diego

Ryan in New England

Redsky

Sean Redmond

Dave W

Mlparrish

Spike

Wharf Rat

Clean Technica

Gas2

DW

The Washington Post

The New York Times

The Huffington Post

Nature

msfreeh
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msfreeh
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https://robertscribbler.com/

So Far, 2017 is in the Running to be the 4th Consecutive Hottest Year on Record
We haven’t quite gotten to the global ‘year without a winter’ yet. But it sure looks like we’re heading in that direction –fast.

Due to the highest volume of heat-trapping gasses hitting the Earth’s atmosphere in all of the past 4-15 million years combining with a warming of Pacific Ocean surface waters, the period of 2014 through 2016 saw an unprecedented three consecutive record hot years. With Pacific Ocean waters cooling during late 2016, it appeared that 2017 would become ‘just’ the 2nd to 5th hottest year ever recorded. But that was before the waters off South America’s west coast began to blaze with unexpected heat during early 2017 even as temperatures at the poles climbed to surprisingly warm levels.



(Due to the combined effects of extremely high levels of heat trapping gasses in the Earth’s atmosphere and a switch to the warmer phase of natural variability, the global rate of temperature increase has rocketed over the past three years. 2017 was not expected to continue this trend. But it might. Image source: Karsten Haustein. Data Source: NASA GISS.)

These two sources of unexpected added heat have left their mark. And though it’s still early in the global warming game for 2017, there appears to be an odd, but not entirely outlandish, chance that this year could beat out 2016 as the hottest year ever recorded.

The month of January 2017 came in at 1.14 C hotter than 1880s averages. Meanwhile February measured 1.32 C hotter than this 19th Century benchmark. In total, the first two months of 2017 averaged about 1.23 C hotter than 1880s — which is a hair hotter than 2016’s never-before-seen by humans annual average temperature.


(Extreme warmth over parts of Siberia and the Arctic appear to have helped push March of 2017 into the range of second hottest on record. The first three months of 2017 currently appear to be running in a range that’s ahead of 2016 annual record hot average.)

Looking ahead, early indications are that March was also around 1.3 C hotter than 1880s. If a first or second hottest March on record pans out as indicated by early NCEP and GFS model reanalysis, then the first three months of 2017 will come in nearly 0.1 C hotter than all of last year.

During the present human-forced warming trend, it has tended to take about ten years for a global temperature increase of 0.15 degrees Celsius to occur. And that rate of warming is about 30 times faster than the warming that occurred at the end of the last ice age. Since 2013, the world has warmed 0.25 C — which could jump to 0.3 to 0.35 C in the period of 2013 to 2017 if the present trend for this year continues.

There are many months still to go in 2017. So this potential isn’t at all certain at this time. However, with the Pacific Ocean heating up again, it appears that 2017 is going to give 2016 a real run for its ‘hottest ever’ title.

Links:

NASA GISS

Karsten Haustein

NCAR Reanalysis by Moyhu

msfreeh
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Unprecedented Harm to Great Barrier Reef From Back-to-Back Bleaching Confirmed
It’s becoming more and more clear that the Great Barrier Reef has been pushed onto the ropes by human-caused climate change. That its very future is now in serious jeopardy. That only swift action by a responsible populace will now be able to save it.

During 2016 to 2017, the Great Barrier Reef experienced an unprecedented back-to-back bleaching event. In 2016, more than 60 percent of the corals of the reef’s northern section experienced bleaching. Ultimately, roughly 2/3 of the shallow water corals along this section of the reef perished.

In 2017, warmer than normal waters shifted south. As a result, the central section of the Great Barrier Reef is presently experiencing 60 percent or higher bleaching rates. Now, mass mortality in regions unaffected or minimally affected by last year’s record bleaching is expected.



(New composite bleaching maps show the extent of the 2016-2017 coral mortality event which now heralds a near-term threat to the continued existence of the reef itself. Image source: ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies.)

In other words, back-to-back torrents of warm water are walking from north-to-south down the reef, taking out corals as they go from year-to-year, like some merciless ocean blow-torch. And what’s happening is that ocean temperatures are now entering a range where this kind of heat-caused mortality event is becoming more and more likely to occur at frequent intervals.

Terry Hughes, in an inteview with The Guardian on Sunday stated:

“The significance of bleaching this year is that it’s back to back, so there’s been zero time for recovery. It’s too early yet to tell what the full death toll will be from this year’s bleaching, but clearly it will extend 500km south of last year’s bleaching.”

The 2017 bleaching is also odd in that it occurred during a time of ENSO-nuetral conditions and during a year when only a weak-to-moderate El Nino is expected. In the past, mass coral bleaching and mortality along the Great Barrier Reef has only happened during very strong El Nino years (1998 and 2016). Meanwhile, this year’s cyclone Debbie appears to have done little to relieve the bleaching stress even as it has driven powerful waves across otherwise healthy sections of the reef — further adding to coral mortality.

Reefs require from 10 to 15 years to recover from the effects of severe bleaching and mortality. They can only bounce back if nearby live corals that survived can regrow into previously denuded sections. But the back-to-back waves of annual heat are ruining that needed connectivity even as the warming ocean is slamming the window shut on the required respite periods.





(The Great Barrier Reef is now experiencing the fastest rate of ocean warming since it began to form about 20 million years ago. Image source: Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology.)

David Sugget, University of Technology Sydney’s lead reef researcher, notes:

“It’s that connection ultimately that will drive the rate and extent of recovery. So if bleaching events are moving around the [Great Barrier Reef] system on an annual basis, it does really undermine any potential resilience through connectivity between neighbouring reefs.”

Since 1900, sea surface temperatures in the region of the Great Barrier Reef during times when the reef is most vulnerable to bleaching — late austral summer and early austral autumn — have risen by 1.5 to 2 degrees Celsius. And the rate of rise during recent years is accelerating. The result is that the risk of multiple severe bleaching events hitting the reef within decadal timescales is now high. And the reef is likely to continue to receive multiple blows as bad or worse than those experienced in the 2016-2017 timeframe.

Some Australian politicians are now promising new laws to help reduce runoff that also stresses the reef. But these policies do not address the root cause of what is now a threat to the reef’s very existence. The bleaching that is killing the reef is caused by ocean warming. And that warming, in its turn, is caused by fossil fuel burning which dumps billions of tons of heat-trapping gasses into the atmosphere each year. According to reports from NOAA, the rate of greenhouse gas accumulation is presently 100 to 200 times faster than at the end of the last ice age. And if this rate of greenhouse gas accumulation continues, there is no chance that the Great Barrier Reef, and most of the other reefs of the world, will survive.

(UPDATED)

Links:

ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies

Great Barrier Reef at Terminal Stage — Scientists Despair

Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology

Cyclone Debbie Strikes Healthiest Part of Great Barrier Reef

Great Barrier Reef Hit By Bleaching For a Second Year in a Row

Australia’s Politicians Have Betrayed the Great Barrier Reef and Only the People Can Save it


todaysguestis / April 11, 2017
Scientists just uncovered some troubling news about Greenland’s most enormous glacier

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/ene ... 90ad285f87


Erik Frederiksen / April 11, 2017
Interesting, thanks, from your link: “Jakobshavn is undergoing a dangerous “marine ice sheet instability,” in which oceanfront glaciers that grow deeper further inland are prone to unstoppable retreat down what scientists call a “retrograde” slope.”

I think it was John Mercer back in 1968 who first proposed the idea of Marine Ice Sheet Instability in reference to the West Antarctic Ice Sheet.

“Forty-nine years ago, John Mercer (1968) speculated that warming due to ‘industrial pollution of the atmosphere’ could cause the ice shelves of West Antarctica to disintegrate, producing a catastrophic release of ice to the sea, thus causing a sea level rise of about 5 m during the course of a century.”

https://www.princeton.edu/step/people/f ... ley-04.pdf


Genomik / April 11, 2017
As a scuba diver I’m horrified at the pace and extent of this bleaching in the South Pacific. It is truly a massive ecosystem supporting billions of tons of marine life. It is akin to an entire mountain range such as the Andes or the Sierras literally dead from drought or heat (which has partly happened). But for most of humanity it appears to be an abstract thought. Or as my friend put it (who lost many trees on his property in the sierras), many of us do get it, it’s just psychologically easier to be an Ostrich and put your head in the sand.

The diving in the South Pacific is literally like being an astronaut and seeing aliens of every color and shape.

Maybe the new statement should be “corals in a coal mine” as a cautionary warning. Yet it appears few in Australia heed this warning. Soon nobody will want to go to Australia on vacation, it reminds me of Trump’s America with climate deniers everywhere even as they were bequeathed with an abundance of natural gifts that that, and the world, are squandering.


robertscribbler / April 11, 2017
I don’t know. I think that many people identify with the beauty, vibrancy, and life of the corals. I cannot count the number of children from my generation who were drawn by such love to wish for careers in fields such as marine biology. There were probably more aspirant marine biologists in my 5th grade class, for example, than aspirant astronauts.

Human beings have a deep connection to the ocean. We’ve always sought the water’s edge and the wonders and riches it offered. A huge subset of people realize that we’re losing something precious. That sacrificing the glorious and beautiful reefs to the awful and increasingly hungry gods of coal, oil, and gas, is a tragic injustice that cannot be condoned.


Erik Frederiksen / April 11, 2017
I was lucky to do a lot of diving on reefs in the 80s. They are/were magical places. It’s hard to imagine a world without them, without our remaining megafauna, etc.

I read of one oceanographer who was suffering from depression because she knew what she would see each time she went out to the reefs. More dead coral.


coloradobob / April 11, 2017
“corals in a coal mine”
Or the coal mine has come to the corals


Exposing the Big Game / April 11, 2017
Reblogged this on Exposing the Big Game.


Erik Frederiksen / April 11, 2017
As a sailor I spent a lot of the 80s diving on many beautiful reefs, sad to think that experience is going away, but there’s also this, “Reef fish and other critters are a significant source of protein for up to a billion people, especially those who live near reefs.”
http://coral.org/coral-reefs-101/why-ca ... eefs/food/

While fisheries decline, agriculture is following suit in some places in part due to drought and conflict related to drought. https://mobile.nytimes.com/reuters/2017 ... amine.html


coloradobob / April 11, 2017
Michael E. Mann’s rebuttal to a letter to the editor of the Santa Clarita Valley paper , truly amazing to see this .

Professor: Letter writer misleads readers about climate change
Michael E. Mann, Distinguished Professor, Department of Meteorology, Penn State University Director, Penn State Earth System Science Center

https://signalscv.com/2017/04/11/profes ... te-change/


Erik Frederiksen / April 11, 2017
As Groucho Marx once said, “Who are you going to believe? Me or your lying eyes?”

In Washington DC, the famous cherry blossoms are blossoming several weeks earlier than when I lived there in just the 90s.


robertscribbler / April 11, 2017
It’s 84 or 85 degrees here in Gaithersburg, MD on April 11. We’re set to have multiple days like that this week.


coloradobob / April 11, 2017
Here’s the letter in question , your standard Wing Nut Planet furball .

Bob Comer: Chill out, climate change worriers

https://signalscv.com/2017/04/11/bob-co ... orriers-2/


coloradobob / April 11, 2017
They banned me from the thread of Dr. Mann’s. one can call him a greedy liar, but calling comments from his detractors , ” Wing Nut Planet furballs ” is a bridge too far.


robertscribbler / April 11, 2017
Fantasticly done, Dr. Mann.


coloradobob / April 11, 2017
They reposted that letter today, I read it last week and commented then . I troll these small town papers op-eds and letters . I hate Zombie movies , and Zombie letters to the editor, and
Zombie op-eds.


Erik Frederiksen / April 11, 2017
“That only swift action by a responsible populace will now be able to save it.”

We’ve seen quite a bit of damage already. For example in 1998 in the Indian Ocean, in an area larger than North America and Europe, 80 percent of the corals bleached and a quarter of those died.

Imagine you went camping in N American or Europe in July and when you woke up in the morning for as far as you could see 80 percent of the trees had dropped their leaves and were standing there naked.

When you got home you heard that that had happened to all the trees in N American and Europe. And then a few weeks later you read a quarter of them died.

With global warming still in the beginning stages, no matter what we do because of the momentum in the planet’s energy system and climate, these reefs are going to subjected to more severe bleaching events, in fact ocean temperatures may get hot enough so that every year they suffer bleaching.


robertscribbler / April 11, 2017
If the reef is going to have any chance at all, it will be by the rapid reduction of fossil fuel burning and by efforts to remove excess greenhouse gasses from the atmosphere.


Erik Frederiksen / April 11, 2017
Yes. Despite the extent of damages which we may have already baked in to the system we could make things worse so we need to decarbonize energy production as rapidly has possible.


Christina MacPherson / April 11, 2017
Reblogged this on Antinuclear.


coloradobob / April 11, 2017
The march of the small things ……..

Alarm raised as mystery pest destroys Mississippi Delta marsh

Eric Newman speeds through the maze of bayous at the Mississippi River ‘s mouth with the confidence of someone who’s done this for decades. He points to prime spots to catch redfish, where crabbers go for blues and the grassy channel where his grandfather had a fishing camp.

Suddenly, he slows his boat. The intimately familiar has just become alarmingly unfamiliar. “Two months ago, this was beautiful,” he said, easing past mud flats that had been lush with eight-foot-tall marsh grass. Clumps of blackened roots are all that’s left. “Looking at it now, it just blows me away. I don’t even know how to navigate it.”

Roseau cane , a wetland grass considered vital to the health of Louisiana’s precarious coast, is dying at an unprecedented rate in south Plaquemines Parish . Since fall, thousands of acres of cane across about 50 miles of the lower Mississippi Delta have gone from green to brown. Many areas, such as the

msfreeh
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Renewable Energy Technology is Now Powerful Enough to Significantly Soften the Climate Crisis
In order for the world to begin to solve the climate crisis, one critical thing has to happen. Global carbon emissions need to start falling. And they need to start falling soon before the serious impacts that we are already seeing considerably worsen and begin to overwhelm us.

Carbon Emissions Plateau For Last Three Years

Over the past three years, countries around the world have been engaged in a major switch away from the biggest carbon emitter — coal. China is shutting down hundreds of its worst polluting coal plants, India is following suit, the U.S. is shuttering many of its own facilities, and in Europe the trend is much the same. Around the world, investment in new coal fired plants continues to fall even as the old plants are pressured more and more to halt operations.



(It’s starting to look like cheap renewable energy and the drive to reduce pollution and to solve the climate crisis are a stronger factor in the present carbon emissions plateau than a cyclical switch to natural gas fired power generation. Image source: The International Energy Agency.)

In many places, coal generation is being replaced by natural gas. This fuel emits about 30-50 percent less carbon than coal, but it’s still a big source. In the past, a switch to natural gas due to lower prices has driven a cyclical but temporary reduction in global carbon emissions. And falling coal prices have often driven a price-forced switch back to coal and a return to rising emissions rates. But after years of rock-bottom coal prices due to continuously falling demand this, today, is not the case.

Low-Cost, More Desirable Renewable Energy Blocks a Cyclical Switch back to Coal

And the primary reason for this break in traditional energy cycling is that renewable energy in the form of wind and solar are now less expensive than coal and gas fired power generation in many places. Add that wind and solar are considerably more desirable due to the fact that they produce practically zero negative health impacts from pollution and that such zero-emitting sources are critical to solving an ever-worsening climate crisis and you end up with something seldom seen in markets anywhere. A rare synergy between a public interest based drive for a more moral energy industry and a, typically callous to such concerns, market-based profit motive.



(In Western Europe basic economics and a desire for cleaner power sources has resulted in both wind and solar overtaking coal fired power generation capacity. Image source: Bloomberg.)

Consider the fact that now, in Western Europe, both solar and wind energy have higher installed capacities than coal. Combined, the two sources have more than double the present energy producing capacity of this dirty fuel. Coal just can’t compete any longer. And an increasing glut of low-cost, non-polluting renewable energy is forcing even the largest, most economically viable, coal fired power plants such as the 2.2 gigawatt facility in Voerde, Germany to shut down.

In Australia, despite the mad-hatter attempts by coal cheerleader politicians to supply more of this dirty carbon to a dwindling world market, renewable energy just keeps on advancing. This week, Queensland announced a new solar + storage project that would at first supply 350 megawatts of renewable energy and would ultimately expand to 800 megawatts. The drive for the project comes as solar prices in Australia are now beating out gas fired power generation. Meanwhile, market analysts are saying that solar+storage will soon be in the same position. And, even more ironically, many of the new solar and battery storage promoters in Queensland are past coal industry investors.

Simple Technologies Leverage Economies of Scale

The technologies driving this fundamental energy market transformation — wind, solar, batteries — are not new silver bullet advances. They are older technologies that are simple and easy to reproduce, improve, and that readily benefit from increasing economies of scale. This combination of simplicity, improvability and scaling is a very powerful transformational force. It enables companies like Tesla to spin core products like mass produced batteries into multiple offerings like electrical automobiles, trucks, and residential, commercial and industry scale energy storage systems. A new capability and advantage that is now beginning to significantly disrupt traditional fossil fuel based markets world-wide.

A fact that was underscored by the shockwaves sent through combustion engine manufacturers recently after Tesla’s simple announcement that it would begin producing electric long-haul trucks.


The announcement almost immediately prompted downgrades in conventional truck engine manufacturer stock values. In the past, competition by electric vehicle manufacturers like Tesla have forced traditional, fossil fuel based vehicle and engine manufacturers to produce their own electric products in order to protect market share. But since these companies are heavily invested in older, more polluting technology it is more difficult for them to produce electric vehicles at a profit than it is for pure electric manufacturers like Tesla.

Renewable Energy Technology Capable of Removing Lion’s Share of Global Carbon Emissions

In light of these positive trends, we should consider the larger goals of the energy transition with regards to climate change.

To slow and plateau the rate of carbon emissions increases.
To begin to reduce global carbon emissions on an annual basis.
To bring carbon emissions to net zero globally.
To bring carbon emission to net negative globally.
By itself, market based energy switches to renewable energy systems can cut global carbon emissions from their present rate of approximately 33 billion tons of CO2 each year to 1-5 billion tons of CO2 each year through full removal of fossil fuels from thermal, power, fuel, manufacturing, materials production and other uses. In other words, by itself, this now rapidly scaling set of technologies is capable of removing the lion’s share of the human carbon emission problem. And given the rapid cost reductions and increasing competitiveness of these systems, these kinds of needed reductions in emissions are now possible on much shorter timescales than previously envisioned.

(UPDATED)

Links:

Europe’s Coal Power is Going up in Smoke — Fast

The International Energy Agency

Plans Laid for 800 MW Solar + Storage Facility in Queensland

Tesla Semi Announcement Causes Analysts to Start Downgrading Traditional Truck Stocks

Coal Plants are in Decline

Hat tip to Phil

Hat tip to Spike

Hat tip to Brian

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29 COMMENTS by ROBERTSCRIBBLER on APRIL 19, 2017 • PERMALINK
Posted in CLIMATE CHANGE
Tagged BATTERIES, CLIMATE CHANGE, COAL, ENERGY TRANSITION, ENVIRONMENT, EXTREME WEATHER, GLOBAL WARMING, RENEWABLE ENERGY, SCIENCE, SOLAR, TESLA, WEATHER, WIND
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29 Comments

wili / April 19, 2017
Thanks for this. Things are moving so fast on the renewable energy front, it’s hard to keep up!


robertscribbler / April 19, 2017
They are indeed. It’s kind of ironic in that conservative politicians are confronted with a market force and are attempting to use government powers to stifle it. It’s pretty ironic, also, that traditionally liberal renewable energy advocates are resorting to attempting to compel markets to act in a moral, rational fashion through market-focused policies like divestment. So it’s not just moving fast, it’s all topsy-turvy.


phil s / April 19, 2017
This trend that you point to, where conservatives are increasingly relying on government regulations while liberals are seeing market forces turn in their favour is important. Not only does it show that those with the (old) power will hold onto it any way they can (and always have relied heavily on subsidies and regulations), it illustrates an acceptance and normalising of what was once considered alternative energy. A similar process is occurring in the regenerative agriculture and food sovereignty movements. We talk about gaining a “thick” legitimacy, i.e. valuable on many levels, and ditching the alternative tag.

Thanks for the hat tip Robert, nice to contribute


utoutback / April 19, 2017
Off topic – but an excellent radio show on coral bleaching, and climate change.
Still, no link to CO2 or call to end carbon fuels use, mostly because the panel were all oceanographers and marine biologists.

http://the1a.org/shows/2017-04-19/the-s ... -save-them


robertscribbler / April 19, 2017
Thanks for this, UT.


utoutback / April 19, 2017
My bad – there was a statement of the need to end carbon loading.


utoutback / April 19, 2017
After listening to the entire program – there are actually several clear statements and a call for people to attend this weekend’s March for Science.


Bob / April 19, 2017
NOAA article on the increase of increasing levels of CO2 in the atmosphere. http://www.noaa.gov/news/carbon-dioxide ... aight-year
If carbon emissions really have plateaued then where is the carbon coming from? An enigma. Whatever it is, it means that carbon sequestration better start being economical and efficient very soon because even if we slow emissions another, or several, runaway feedback mechanism may already be in play that add to our emissions.


robertscribbler / April 19, 2017
So let’s be very clear, Bob. The global carbon emissions are at record high levels on the decadal scale. And that’s what matters when it comes to average rates of atmospheric CO2 increase. We should also be clear that we are not off the BAU path yet. It’s just that we now have the opportunity for an early out.

The rate of atmospheric CO2 gain, though very high now, would have been still higher if the human fossil fuel emission had not plateaued when it did. And, as we’ve said before here many times, we will need to see years in which human emissions consistently decline in order to even begin to see a drop off in atmospheric rates of accumulation.


robertscribbler / April 19, 2017
In other words, we can expect atmospheric CO2 accumulation in the average range of 2.2 to 2.5 ppm per year to continue for at least another decade (without significant Earth System feedbacks added) even if human CO2 emissions start to fall by 2-3 percent per year, for example.

The present spike is largely driven by record high rates of emissions on the decadal timescale (which a plateau does not presently mitigate) and by a considerable warming of ocean surfaces which has inhibited the ability of the ocean to take down atmospheric carbon over the past two years. The ocean surface warming is driven at least in part by the cyclical ENSO and PDO cycles. We should expect 2017 atmospheric carbon dioxide increases to slow somewhat as the slack draws down a bit in this cycling and as the Equator has cooled and the trades have reasserted (despite a potential for a weak El Nino this summer).


Brian / April 19, 2017
“And they need to start falling soon before some seriously catastrophic impacts start to overwhelm us.”

I think a stronger way to word this would be to say that: ‘And they need to start falling quickly before we’re overwhelmed by some of the seriously-catastrophic impacts we are starting to experience.’

I think there’s a need to state the obvious that these catastrophic impacts have already started, and that we need to get on top of things before it’s too late to stop them, whereas your statement implies there’s still some time before we start seeing bad impacts.

It’s good news on the energy front for sure, as money is one of the great motivators of our society (I’m not saying it should be, just that it is), and that hopefully this will bring about a change.


robertscribbler / April 19, 2017
We’re starting to see some impacts now. But these are the early, easier impacts. I’ll look at it and see if I can clarify the statement to include both nuances.


newgrammaroflife / April 19, 2017
Some hope in a gloomy world. Pl write on carbon capture technologies. Thanks.


robertscribbler / April 19, 2017
Carbon capture, due to its expense, is likely able to help at the margins. That said, we will probably need atmospheric carbon capture to produce the net negative carbon rates needed to bring the world back into balance with Holocene norms. And it’s likely that these endeavors will need to last for very long time-scales.


Bob / April 19, 2017
Thanks for your article and feedback Robert. Your breadth of knowledge is impressive.
From the Saxifrage article I conclude. that the decadal increase of CO2 in the atmosphere has been; 1966 to 1976- 1.0 ppm; 1976 to 1986-1.5 ppm; 1986 to 1996-1.5 ppm; 2006 to 2016- 2.3 ppm; 2012-2017-2.6 ppm and 2015-2017-3.0 ppm. This not a linear increase and has had several el nino years within the timeframe. The explanation for the change is complex and not clear at this time. At least to me anyway. The Saxifrage article i referenced previously suggests some of the unknowns. The bottom line though is that atmospheric CO2 is increasing while anthropogenic emissions may be levelling off. El Nino may explain part of the cause at least in the last two years.
We will not know how much feedback mechanisms are contributing until well after they are underway and probably irreversible. Is that bleak? Yes.
I have not counted how many possible feedback mechanisms have been identified but there are some very nasty and worrisome ones in the wings. My reading suggests that the data base on most of them is limited and open to interpretation as to impact and timeframe.


coloradobob / April 19, 2017
RS –
A blue pencil idea , when you post a new thread , At the foot old one .

Say this ,,,,,,,,,, Please join us on our new thread…….. Then the link and title.

That way, old fools like me can keep up.


coloradobob / April 19, 2017
That way, old fools like me can keep up.


coloradobob / April 19, 2017
To be old and alone. You have no idea , What is coming,
This is for all of you.

You don’t die like some 17 th century painting. Your going to crap in your bed. Then over the next 6 hours , you slowly release your grip on life.

Trust me, I did this twice. , I cleaned all the crap in the bed.

Life is a lot is a lot harder than we ever dreamed.


coloradobob / April 19, 2017
I was sitting on pile of railroad ties 50 years ago in Clovis , I was broke ,and alone.
There I learned what ” broke ,and alone ” means ,


coloradobob / April 19, 2017
Screw all you.


coloradobob / April 19, 2017
I am now insane


coloradobob / April 19, 2017
Ain”t gonna hurt no one, Ever


coloradobob / April 19, 2017
Ihttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3XV7mxfIIr0


coloradobob / April 19, 2017
The world flies off it’s axis,


utoutback / April 19, 2017
Flowing water in Antarctica – from Wapo
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/ene ... 1#comments


coloradobob / April 19, 2017
We beat Mr. Trump , like a government mule.


oldmoses / April 20, 2017
Bob, you are not alone, & I always appreciate your contributions here.


Dan in Oz / April 20, 2017
It can be so demoralising and depressing working in this area and being active in trying to keep up to date with climate change and broader sustainability issues and news. It is a very welcome article to read, Robert. It is a rare, but fundemental and wide reaching, positive development that could mean that my kids grow up in a world that isn’t a threat to their existence.

Let’s hope so.


Andy_in_SD / April 20, 2017
The Nightmare Scenario for Florida’s Coastal Homeowners

Demand and financing could collapse before the sea consumes a single house.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features ... homeowners

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see link for full story


https://www.wunderground.com/cat6/barro ... d-counting


Barrow, Alaska: 16 Months Above Normal and Counting

Christopher C. Burt · April 27, 2017, 10:36 AM



Above: An aerial image of Barrow (Utqiagvik), Alaska. Barrow is located at a latitude of 71°17’26”, about 300 miles north of the Arctic Circle. Every month since December 2015 the temperature has averaged above normal here and, in addition, no daily record low has been set for almost 10 years now. As is obvious from the image, the unusual warmth that has occurred in recent years cannot be attributed to the “urban heat-island effect” nor to a climate cycle of some kind, at least for the city’s period of record since 1920. Image credit: Wikipedia.
It was snowing and 10°F today on Tuesday, April 25, in Barrow, Alaska (officially known as Utqiagvik). Hard to believe, but this is close to what the normal temperature should be for this time of year at this frigid outpost on the shores of the Arctic Ocean. Nevertheless, this month (April 2017) is on course to close out as the 16 consecutive month with above-average temperatures at the site.

The last time that Barrow experienced a month that averaged below normal (temperature-wise) was December 2015. Here is the list of monthly departures since then:

Barrow Monthly Temperature Departure from Normal, Dec. 2015-April 2017

Apr 2017: +5.0°F (as of April 24)
Mar 2017: +5.3°F (1 daily record high)
Feb 2017: +8.0°F (1 daily record high)
Jan 2017: +13.1°F (3 daily record highs) (highest January temperature on record tied with 36°F on Jan. 1)
Dec 2016: +7.9°F
Nov 2016: +12.6°F
Oct 2016: +12.9°F (5 daily record highs) (warmest October on record) (highest October temperature on record of 44°F on Oct. 10)
Sep 2016: +1.9°F (2 daily record highs)
Aug 2016: +0.8°F
Jul 2016: +2.8°F
Jun 2016: +1.9°F (2 daily record highs)
May 2016: +7.6°F (5 daily record highs)(warmest May on record)
Apr 2016: +8.5°F
Mar 2016: +5.4°F
Feb 2016: +10.1°F
Jan 2016: +13.1°F
Dec 2015: –2.7°F

During the time frame of January 2016-April 2017 a total of 19 daily record highs have been set versus zero (0) daily record lows. All of the daily record highs have actually occurred in just the past twelve months (since May 2016). In fact, the last time Barrow set a daily record low was almost 10 years ago on December 21, 2007, when a reading of -42°F was achieved. The POR (period of record) for Barrow began in November 1920. With a POR of 96 years, Barrow should expect to see an average of 4 daily record highs and 4 daily record lows established each year. So for the POR of 2008-2017 (April) of 9.3 years, there should have been a total of about 37 daily record highs and 37 daily record lows if the climate were in perfect equilibrium. In fact, the total number of daily record highs set in this span has been 65 versus (as mentioned) zero daily record lows. Yes: 65 to 0 over the past nine years!

The year 2016 was the warmest year on record for Barrow, with an annual average temperature of 18.9°F, or 7.1°F above the annual normal of 11.8°F. (Note: a 19.8°F average for 1929 in the National Weather Service NOWData archive is missing the temperature data for December of that year). The previous warmest year was 1998 with a 17.0°F average. The last year to average below normal in Barrow was 23 years ago: 1994. Eight of the ten warmest years have occurred in just the past ten years (since 2007).

Top 10 Warmest Years on Record for Barrow, Alaska (POR 1921-2016

1. 18.9°F, 2016
2. 17.0°F, 1998
3. 15.3°F, 2007
4. 14.9°F, 2014
5. 14.4°F, 2013
6. 14.3°F, 2010
7. 14.1°F, 2015
8. 14.0°F, 2011
9. 13.9°F, 1940
10. 13.4°F, 2009

Table of climatological statistics for Barrow, Alaska
Figure 1. Table of climatological statistics for Barrow. The average temperatures are based upon the latest 30-year POR of 1981-2010. The departures from normal outlined in the list I made above (for the months of December 2015-April 2017) are based upon this POR. Image credit: Wikipedia.
It was not just Barrow that experienced its warmest year on record in 2016. Alaska as a whole also observed such, with most towns and cities registering their warmest year ever observed.

The amazing persistence of above-normal temperatures during the year 2016 can be seen in Figure 3 below.

Map of Alaska showing locations with record temperatures in 2016

Figure 2. Although Barrow saw the greatest departure from normal for the year 2016, other cities also saw record warmth as illustrated in the map above. Image credit: NOAA/NWS.

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https://robertscribbler.com/


India to Fight Airpocalypse by Making Every Car Electric by 2030
Stricken by air pollution, tired of paying so much for fuel imports, fearful of climate change, and looking to cut vehicle ownership costs, India now plans to have all new cars purchased in the country be electric-powered by 2030.

A Crisis Brought on by Fossil Fuel Dependence

If you thought air pollution in China was bad, you haven’t really taken a good look at India.

According to a 2015 ‘Airpocalypse’ report from Greenpeace, the massive country sees 1.2 million people die from toxic air pollution every year. This number, according to the report, was only slightly less than total deaths attributed to tobacco use.



(Smoke, dust, and industrial pollution choke India’s skies in this 2012 NASA Satellite Photo. During recent years, air quality decline in India has been attributed both to increasing air pollution and to rising instances of wildfire ignition spurred by human-caused climate change.)

Over recent years India’s air pollution death rate, according to Greenpeace, has been steadily ticking upward. And in 2015, the country surpassed China’s annual loss of life due to bad air. In places like the capital city of Dehli, the amount of harmful particulate pollution now often rises to 13 times the maximum safe level recommended by the World Health Organization.

A large share of the pollution that causes these deaths comes from automobile emissions. Add in the worsening instances of heat and drought caused by fossil-fuel-emissions-based climate change — which are already hitting India’s farmers and water security hard — and the incentive to move to clean energy sources couldn’t be higher. Facing multiple and worsening but related crises, it is now the goal of the country’s energy minister — Piyush Goyal — to begin a massive vehicle electrification program that first targets the country’s most heavily polluted population centers and then aims to encompass the entire nation.

100 Percent Electric Vehicles by 2030

The program would both add electrical vehicle charging infrastructure even as it incentivizes India’s citizens to purchase zero emissions vehicles. Individuals would be offered electrical vehicles for zero money down and then would pay back the price of purchase in installments from money saved due to far lower fuel costs. The plan would ramp up in 2020, leverage subsidies of around 4.3 billion dollars equivalent value per year, and would aim to build demand for between 4-7 million electrical vehicles annually.

Goyal says that the goal is to have 100 percent of all new cars sold as electrical vehicles by 2030. And it’s a goal that not only aims to reduce harmful pollution — but also to significantly lower fuel imports which presently stand at around 4.5 million barrels of oil per day even as it tamps down the overall cost of running a vehicle. As an added benefit, the program would spur rapid growth in the country’s automotive sector which, if successful, has the potential to leap-frog the country into a far more competitive economic position vis-a-vis the rest of the world. Especially considering the backward energy and climate policies of western heads of state like Donald J. Trump which threaten to put countries like the U.S. behind the energy transition curve.



(Are electrical vehicles about to hit an S-Curve type adoption rate? Policies in India and in other nations and cities around the world seem set to help enable an electrical vehicle and renewable energy based transition away from fossil fuels. Image source: Solar Feeds.)

India’s clean energy ambitions do not start or end with electrical vehicles, however. The country is also involved in major efforts to promote wind and solar energy. India’s solar bid process has been very successful in both lowering costs and spurring mass adoption of clean energy sources. This year the program will help to add fully 10 gigawatts of solar power capacity to the country’s electricity sector. A recent wind energy bid program now appears set to achieve similar gains — with another 6 gigawatts of capacity from that clean energy source on tap in 2017. So it’s likely that these new electrical vehicles will be powered more and more by renewable sources even in previously coal-dependent India.

India is among a growing group of nations announcing ambitions to switch entire vehicle fleets over to electric and renewables. The Netherlands is mulling over a ban on petroleum and diesel based vehicles by 2025. Sweden, Norway and Belgium are planning similar bans by 2025 through 2030. And these countries join an expanding number of major cities around the world like Athens, Paris, Mexico City and Madrid who have announced bans on pollution-causing fossil fuel based cars by 2025.

Links:

India Eyes All-Electric Car Fleet by 2030

India to Make Every Single Car Electric by 2030

Airpocalypse

NASA

India Expects to Add 10 Gigawatts of Solar Power in 2017

Wind Power Passes Inflection Point in India

Diesel Controls at Critical Technological Junction in Transport

Solar Feeds

Duration of Indian Hot Season Nearly Doubles

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https://robertscribbler.com/2017/05/03/ ... e-to-heat/


Early Season Russia-Siberia Wildfire Outbreak Expands Due to Heat
An early Siberian and Asian wildfire outbreak that became apparent last week has continued to flare just south of the swiftly retreating freeze line. And while wildfires near Lake Baikal and further south and east toward the Russia-China border continue to flicker, a considerable outbreak has now flared up in Western Russian and Siberia along a zone straddling the Urals and just south of the Yamal Peninsula.



(Wildfires and hotspots run west to east across Russia and Siberia in this May 3 NASA satellite shot. Note the storm system near Lake Baikal which has recently suppressed early season wildfire activity there. Image source: LANCE MODIS.)

A trough dipping through Central Russia and Siberia has brought rain and cooler conditions — which has suppressed some of the previously extensive wildfire activity near and to the north of Lake Baikal. But temperatures in the range of 5-15 C above average along both the Russia-China border and in Western Russia have combined with warm, southerly winds to spur wildfire activity throughout these regions. In these zones, temperatures have been flaring into the 60s, 70s, and even lower 80s F (16-27 C) through sections. And such abnormal heat has helped to generate a high prevalence of newly-flaring early May wildfires.

Though wildfires in the east along the Russia-China border are still small and lack intensity, the region near the Urals is showing some significant flare-ups. Just west of the Urals near 56 north latitude burn scars as large as ten miles long by five miles wide appeared in the satellite imagery as fires ripped through the area on April 29 through May 3. These fires blanketed the region with 100 to 200 mile long smoke plumes even as the blazes steadily march northward.

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https://robertscribbler.com/2017/05/04/ ... ern-ocean/




New Crack Found in Delaware-Sized Chunk of Larsen C Ice Shelf as it Heads Toward Southern Ocean
A 2,000 square mile section of the Larsen C Ice Shelf is hanging by a thread as it continues to drift toward the Weddell Sea.

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City of Chicago website rescues EPA climate change page
City of Chicago posts deleted EPA climate change information on website

Abc7chicago.com, May 9, 2017

The city of Chicago's website includes deleted information from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) climate change page.

The "Climate Change is Real" (www.cityofchicago.org/climatechangeisreal) website includes information that the Trump administration removed from the EPA website on April 29. Federal officials said the EPA website was being updated to "reflect the approach of new leadership."

EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt has expressed doubt about the cause of climate change and skepticism of the role carbon dioxide plays.

"The Trump administration can attempt to erase decades of work from scientists and federal employees on the reality of climate change, but burying your head in the sand doesn't erase the problem," Mayor Rahm Emanuel said in a statement Sunday.

Emanuel urged other U.S. mayors to do the same thing.

According to the Emanuel's office, the new website "includes information on the basic science behind climate change, the different ways in which weather is impacted from increased greenhouse had emissions, and actions the federal government has taken to reduce the impact."

The Department of Innovation and Technology's released a new tool that allows users to save, archive and preserve open data from public data portals, such as the EPA site.

Emanuel also used the EPA website announcement to tout Chicago's environmental record, including reducing carbon emissions by 7 percent from 2010 to 2015, while the region's economy grew 12 percent.

On April 9, the mayor announced that by 2025 all of Chicago's public buildings will be powered by 100 percent renewable energy.

http://abc7chicago.com/science/city-of- ... e/1969616/

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“Too Huge to Manage” — New Studies Highlight Danger in Failing to Rapidly Cut Carbon Emissions Now

“If we continue burning coal and oil the way we do today and regret our inaction later, the amounts of greenhouse gas we would need to take out of the atmosphere in order to stabilize the climate would be too huge to manage,” — Lena Boysen from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) in Phys.org.

******

When it comes to dealing with global warming and human-forced climate change, the best options for response have always been rapid carbon emissions cuts and an equally rapid energy transition away from fossil fuel burning. And while swiftly transitioning energy systems away from fossil fuel burning, cutting carbon-based consumption, and aggressively increasing energy efficiency may all be seen as difficult or unsavory to the vocal and powerful special interests invested in continued burning of oil, gas, and coal, such cuts and transformations remain the safest path forward.

At issue is the fact that the two other chief climate change response ‘options’ are either inadequate on their own or, worse, can simply amount to so much reckless and harmful flailing about. Atmospheric geo-engineering and rapid removal of carbon from the Earth System — are either costly, difficult to scale to the level needed to remove carbon from the atmosphere fast enough to prevent serious harms under continuing fossil fuel burning, or, in the case of the solar radiation management version of geo-engineering, flat-out dangerous.

(New scientific studies highlight the fact that there is no substitute for a rapid halt to fossil fuel burning when it comes to preventing the worst impacts of human-caused climate change. Image source: The Sierra Club.)

Some of these basic facts were highlighted this week by a new study in the journal Science. The study — Rightsizing Carbon Dioxide Removal — found that under worst-case carbon emissions scenarios, there is practically not enough forested land area to grow the amount of switch grass and other biomass needed to recapture even half of the projected carbon emission. It also found that land mass dedicated to biomass production would need to equal roughly 1/3 of all forested lands under present emissions cuts goals under the Paris Climate Summit in order to prevent 2 C warming. A level of land use that would likely put global food security at risk.

Study Authors Katherine March and Christopher Field note that:

“The models generating possible trajectories of climate change mitigation bet on planetary-scale carbon removal in the second half of the century. For policymakers trying to limit the worst damages from climate change, that bet is reckless. This puts climate change mitigation, global food security and biodiversity protection on a collision course with no easy off-ramps.”

Only the most ambitious cuts to emissions combined with a moderate assist through considerable advances in atmospheric carbon capture provide a reasonable path to avoiding 2 C warming, according to the study.

A separate but similar study also published in May provides some confirmation to the Stanford study’s results. The co-author of that study, entitled The Limits to Global Warming Mitigation by Terrestrial Carbon Removal,Wolfgang Lucht from PIK notes in Phys.org:

“As scientists we are looking at all possible futures, not just the positive ones. What happens in the worst case, a widespread disruption and failure of mitigation policies? Would plants allow us to still stabilize climate in emergency mode? The answer is: no. There is no alternative for successful mitigation [cutting carbon emissions]. In that scenario plants can potentially play a limited, but important role, if managed well. [Emphasis Added]”

The issue is the fact that while methods like planting trees, changing the way we manage farmland, or even adding various carbon capturing biofuel plants and enhanced weathering materials to capture more carbon from the air is likely only capable of drawing down a fraction of the carbon we presently emit each year (and an even smaller fraction of carbon if emissions keep growing). At best, under practical considerations, we might be able to take down 1-3 billion tons of carbon every year compared to a present emission in excess of 10 billion tons and a BAU emission that could hit 20 billion tons of carbon per year or more.



(This graphic, produced by Greenpeace, provides a good illustration of basic carbon math. However, given the fact that warming will tend to push more carbon into the atmosphere from the Earth System and keep it there for a longer period, it’s likely that some assist by enhanced atmospheric carbon capture will be necessary even if carbon emissions are rapidly cut to zero. That said, atmospheric carbon capture at best provides an avenue for moderately enhancing atmospheric carbon draw-down. New studies warn that atmospheric carbon capture by itself and without coordinate rapid cuts to fossil fuel burning is not a practical solution. Image source: Greenpeace.)

Such levels of carbon capture, even if they were achieved in as short a time as two decades, would not be enough to prevent 2 C warming under anything but the most modest future emissions pathways. As a result, the primary climate change response strategy should continue to focus on increasing and rapidly scaling the size of planned emissions cuts. Meanwhile, atmospheric carbon capture is a good potential option as a follow-on to rapid emissions cuts to zero as soon as possible — providing a means eventually, over many decades, to possibly start to claw atmospheric greenhouse gases down from very dangerous and harmful levels. But such an option alone should not be viewed as something that will magically swoop in to save us from climate destruction if we continue to burn fossil fuels willy-nilly.

Chris Field — professor of biology & Earth System science and director of the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment provides this urgent observation following his study’s publication:

“For any temperature limit, we’ve got a finite budget of how much heat-trapping gases we can put into the atmosphere. Relying on big future deployments of carbon removal technologies is like eating lots of dessert today, with great hopes for liposuction tomorrow.”

With the caveat being that eating lots of dessert today is likely to have far more limited and less disastrous consequences than continuing to burn oil, gas and coal.

Links:

Rightsizing Carbon Dioxide Removal

The Limits to Global Warming Mitigation by Terrestrial Carbon Removal

Assuming Easy Carbon Removal is High-Stakes Gamble

Planting Trees Cannot Replace Carbon Emissions Cuts

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Record Heat Predicted for Fort McMurray Wednesday as Fire Danger Spikes
Just a little more than one year after freakish global warming-spurred wildfires forced a near complete evacuation of the tar sands production town of Fort McMurray, Alberta, record heat and extreme fire hazard are again settling in over this subarctic region.



(Subarctic sections of Alberta are expected to experience temperatures in the upper 80s and lower 90s [F] tomorrow. Such heat is expected to spike fire dangers throughout the region. Image source: Earth Nullschool.)

The weather forecast for Wednesday, May 31, 2017 tells a story of predicted extreme heat for a typically cool region of Northwest Canada. High temperatures for the day are expected to range from 86 to 90 F (30 to 32 C). That’s a hot day anywhere. But it’s particularly impressive for a region that shares a common climate with places like historically cold Alaska and Hudson Bay.

Average high temperatures for Fort McMurray in Alberta, Canada for this time of year typically top out at a rather cool 64 degrees Fahrenheit (18 C) — closer to the expected Wednesday morning low of 62 F (17 C). Wednesday’s forecast high, meanwhile, is quite considerably outside the normal range and exceeds 30 year averages by fully 22 to 26 degrees F. If such heat does emerge, it will tie or break the 2007 all-time record for May 31 of 86 F (30 C). Such record heat is now predicted to occur after today’s expected, well above average, high of 80 F (26 C).



(A spike in fire hazard early this week coincides with predicted record temperatures across Alberta. Image source: Alberta Fire.)

Unseasonable warmth — which deepened over the weekend and is expected to peak by Wednesday — is presently resulting in spiking fire dangers for the region. According to the government of Alberta, fire risk for Fort McMurray is now listed as very high through Wednesday due to above average to near record high temperatures and low humidity. Fire hazard for a large swath of Northern Alberta is now also rated very-high-to-extreme.

It is worth noting that the overall fire situation for Canada to-date is presently much-improved from 2016. Last year, extreme warmth combined with high winds and dry conditions to fuel an unusually large fire outbreak over Central and Northwestern Canada during mid-to-late May. This year, wetter than normal conditions have suppressed fire activity over much of Canada over the same seasonal period. And we have some regions in British Columbia that are now experiencing evacuations due flooding rivers.



(Wildfires are flaring over British Columbia even as rapidly rising temperatures are causing large snow packs to melt far more swiftly than normal. Such heat and rapid melt is producing a dual threat of flood and fire at the same time. Image source: BC Wildfire Service.)

Rising fire risks coinciding with hot and dry conditions are coming at the same time that this year’s moisture-engorged snow packs are melting at far faster than normal rates. Large fires are thus breaking out in British Columbia and along the Alberta border as heat and dryness spread northward even as creek and lake levels in places like Okanagan, BC are facing the highest flood stages ever recorded.

Overall, despite 2017’s rainy spring weather, the tale is still one of unusual warmth. May temperatures have ranged from 2 to 6 degrees Celsius above average over Northern and Central Canada during 2017. Such departures are in keeping with the ongoing trend of rapid warming in the upper Latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere. A trend that has considerably worsened overall fire hazard by lengthening the fire season, by adding new fuels for fires, and by increasing the number of lightning strikes which help to provide ignition sources for wildfires. A warming that is directly caused by ongoing human fossil fuel burning and by related activities such as the tar sands extraction that continues unabated in Alberta.

Links:

Earth Nullschool

Fort McMurray Weather

Weather Underground: Fort McMurray Climate

Alberta Fire

BC Wildfire Service

Thousands Forced to Evacuate Fort McMurray Due to Wildfires

Wildfires, Rising Water Levels Hamper Okanagan

Earth Observatory

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https://www.theguardian.com/business/20 ... arm-norway


World's first floating windfarm to take shape off coast of Scotland
Turbines for £200m Hywind project will be towed from Norway across North Sea and moored to seabed off north-east Scotland

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https://robertscribbler.com/2017/07/13/ ... -critique/

Facing Down Climate Doom — Wallace-Wells’ Appropriate Alarm Earns Michael Mann’s Necessary Critiques
“Fear will NOT save us; however, fear is a prime motivator to promote new thinking and different action; to change an unsustainable status quo.” — unknown source.

“There are many things that motivate us. But the most powerful motivator of all is FEAR. “– Psychology Today.

“Both hope and fear are great motivators, and they both have the capacity to promote growth in us, but hope creates space in the mind and heart. Fear, more often than not, restricts it.” — Joyce McFadden.

******

When two parties seeking a good end passionately disagree over a crucial issue it is sometimes the case that one side is flat out right and the other side is dead wrong. But what is more often the case in an honest dialogue is that both sides are expressing a part of the truth and it is the duty of us, as observers, not to take sides, but to open our ears and learn as the necessary conflict unfolds.

Valid Warnings Against a Dark Future

This week, David Wallace Wells painted a scientifically imperfect, but truthful in broad-brush, picture of a bleak potential worst case scenario if human beings continue burning fossil fuels while dumping such massive volumes of carbon into the atmosphere.

Wells’ New York Magazine article was accurate in broad brush in that it depicted a possible worst case climate scenario where the atmosphere becomes choking and poisonous, heat becomes so great that it’s deadly to venture outside even in New York City, disease vectors multiply, breadbaskets are crushed by heat and extreme weather, and wars over dwindling resources escalate. In the larger scope, if missing the mark on a number of details, David Wallace Wells and NYMag get it right. If we don’t stop burning fossil fuels, this is basically what our future looks like. BAU fossil fuel burning ultimately looks so incredibly grim it is difficult to fathom or even talk about.

msfreeh
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https://robertscribbler.com/2017/07/26/ ... ed-for-it/


100 Fossil Fuel Companies Responsible for 71 Percent of Carbon Emissions Since 1988 — And They’re Being Sued For it
According to research from the Carbon Disclosure Project, since 1988, 100 fossil fuel producers have been responsible for 635 billion tons of greenhouse gas emissions. This total represents 71 percent of human carbon emissions that have occurred over the past 29 years.

Companies involved in this massive carbon emission included such giants as ExxonMobil, Shell, BHP Billiton and Gazprom. The report also found that these 100 companies were responsible for fully 52 percent of all emissions since the industrial revolution began in 1751.

Report authors went on to point out that this relatively small group of companies is likely to have an outsized influence on responses to climate change — hopefully adding that positive action by such corporations could produce significant positive change. However, historically, such companies have tended to fight against global climate treaties, misinform the public on dangers related to human-caused climate change, and work to delay responses to climate change within their host nations. Due to this past bad-economic-actor behavior combined with rising climate change related damages, these corporations also are exposed to what may well be a historic and unprecedented corporate liability.



(If you were born in 2015, the estimate for your lifetime lost wealth from climate change, according to DEMOS, is between 581,000 and 764,000 dollars. With 100 companies responsible for 50 percent of that loss, it’s pretty obvious that liability will become a more and more serious impact as climate harms ramp up throughout the coming decades.)

A far-reaching liability that could well include various harms related to climate change coming from such diverse dangers as sea level rise, loss of water and food security, loss of habitability due to heat, and damage to valuable natural resources like forests, glaciers and reefs.

Already, a number of lawsuits are testing the legal waters in this regard. For example, in California this week, Imperial Beach, San Mateo and Marin counties are filing lawsuits to get some of the world’s largest fossil fuel producers to pay for sea level rise related damages. And if Imperial Beach and the two counties prevail, large corporations like Chevron, ExxonMobil, ConocoPhillips, BP and Royal Dutch Shell could be liable for billions of dollars in mitigation costs and punitive damages in coming decades even as direct damages from climate change ramp up.

According to the San Diego Union Tribune:

Attorneys for the plaintiffs said they modeled their legal tactics after past efforts to hold accountable cigarette businesses, makers of cancer-causing agents and gas and chemical companies that used methyl tertiary butyl ether (MTBE), a gasoline additive that has contaminated groundwater across the country.

And though not all liability related lawsuits against major tobacco and chemical companies were successful, those that stuck resulted in major awards even as the lawsuits themselves produced a very harmful public relations impact for the companies involved.

on JULY 26, 2017

msfreeh
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http://www.climatecentral.org/news/spec ... -duo-21654


Published: July 29th, 2017
By Damian Carrington, The Guardian

Invasions by alien species and global warming form a “deadly duo”, scientists have warned, with the march of Argentine ants in the UK a new example. The public are being asked to be on alert for invaders such as the raccoon dog and Asian hornet, as eradication can be near impossible after a species becomes established.

As trade and human travel has become globalised many thousands of species have crossed oceans or mountain ranges and become established in new regions, with some causing “invasional meltdown” and over a trillion of dollars of damage a year.

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http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politic ... -1.3416910

President Trump disbands business councils after numerous CEOs depart
BY DAN GOOD
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS Updated: Wednesday, August 16, 2017, 1:28 PM






http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politic ... -1.3414933

How to cope with President Trump Stress Disorder


Wednesday, August 16, 2017, 4:06 AM


So many Americans are suffering from political anxiety that doctors have coined a term for their distress — President Trump Stress Disorder.

Patients are turning up in therapists' offices across the country reporting symptoms including insomnia, hypervigilance, and the inability to pull themselves away from the 24-hour news cycle.

Therapists report that their practices are more robust than ever. Deborah Cooper, a California-based therapist said she can hardly accommodate all of her patients. "I have people I have not seen in literally 30 years that have called me to come back in because of trauma," she said. "I am more than full. I am overworking."

She cited Trump's lackluster condemnation of the white supremacist rally in Charlottesville as one in a string of anxiety-inducing events that are "coming too fast and furious" for her patients — and her practice — to handle.

Full transcript: Trump’s eye-popping Charlottesville comments
Clinical psychologist Scott Christnelly said President Trump's remarks Tuesday serve as confirmation that his patients' anxiety is well founded. "This is more evidence they should be anxious. There is evidence the anxiety is real, and it's not just something they are making up," he said.

Worry over America's future under Trump spans the country. It's so pervasive that therapists say most of their clients have brought it up in session.

"I don't think I have a patient that has never mentioned it. It's remarkable," said Sue Elias, a New

An American Psychology Association study conducted after Trump was elected showed that 66% of adults, including Democrats and Republicans, said the future of the nation was causing them significant stress. Fifty-seven percent of adults identified the current political climate as a significant source of stress.

The APA reports that stress has, over the past 10 years, been trending downward among American adults. But stress levels spiked for the first time in January 2017, when Trump's inauguration took place.

Talkspace, an online therapy service, also reported three times more traffic than usual in January. Demand for its services remains about one and a half times higher than usual, its founder and CEO Oren Frank told the Daily News.

America defeated Nazis before — yet President Trump doesn't care
It's important, though, to distinguish between Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and President Trump-induced anxiety.

President Trump responded to the criticism of his initial statement about the Charlottesville violence on Aug. 15 but was met with further backlash. Trump said the group protesting against white supremacists in Charlottesville, Virginia, were "also very violent." He went onto say there is "blame on both sides" after the deadly violence over the weekend. "You had some very bad people in that group. You also had some very fine people on both sides," he told the media in the lobby of Trump Tower in New York.
57 PHOTOS
VIEW GALLERY
Donald Trump in the White House
The Anxiety and Depression Association of America defines PTSD as a potentially debilitating condition occurring in people who have witnessed a life-threatening or traumatic event.

For the most part, political anxiety is less severe.

It is, however, chronic. "You can't go a week without anything. Every week there is something else," Cooper said.

Trump takes aim at Amazon in wake of Charlottesville controversy
And so psychotherapists have devised coping techniques.

Five ways to overcome Trump trauma

1. Unplug

As hard as it might be to tear oneself away from the news, or from Trump's Twitter account, therapists recommend disconnecting from electronic and social media for at least a few hours a day.

sending on spec
The President’s response to Saturday’s deadly violence in Charlottesville was not a welcome one for those suffering from Trump burnout. (GO NAKAMURA/NEW YORK DAILY NEWS)
"Turn off Twitter, turn off the news. By 10 o'clock at night you should get rid of the electronic media, it's just too agitating if you are anxious," said Dr. Marlin S. Potash, a New York-based psychologist.

Another therapist advised taking an extended break from the news. "Shut it off for a couple days and don't feel like you are putting yourself in danger. If there is something incredibly important, you are going to hear it," Elias said.

This advice extends to participation in political conversations. "It's important to stay informed and also important to know your limits and give yourself a break from social media, mainstream news and political discussions," said Vaile




Blink Tank

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=FyzSLgpWbgg


https://vimeo.com/22027387

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titicut_Follies




https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/201 ... -profiling

How black women's bodies are violated as soon as they enter school
In the final part of our series on policing in America, writer Andrea J Ritchie documents how girls of color as young as five are exposed to routine humiliation by police


Wednesday 16 August 2017 10.37 EDT Last modified on Wednesday 16 August 2017 10.55 EDT

Pulled over at a traffic stop and beaten by the side of the road. Placed in a banned chokehold by a New York City police officer. Violently taken into police custody, never to come out alive. Shot first, questions asked later.

The stories and images that immediately leap to mind in connection with these scenes are those of black men – Rodney King, Eric Garner, Freddie Gray, Philando Castile.

But these are also the stories of black women.

Women like Sandra Antor, pulled over and brutalized on Interstate 95 in 1996 by a South Carolina state trooper in an incident captured on video five years after images of Rodney King’s beating sparked a national uprising.


Women like Rosann Miller, placed in a chokehold in 2014 by a New York City police officer when she was seven months pregnant, just weeks after police choked Eric Garner to death on camera using one.

Women like Alesia Thomas, repeatedly kicked and beaten by a Los Angeles police officer in 2012 while handcuffed in the back of a police cruiser. Like Freddie Gray’s, the injuries she sustained in police custody proved fatal.

Women like Mya Hall, a black trans woman shot dead by police after making a wrong turn onto a National Security Agency property outside of Baltimore, just weeks before Freddie Gray’s case rocked the city and the nation.

Yet black women’s experiences of profiling and often deadly force remain largely invisible in ongoing conversations about the epidemic of racial profiling, police violence and mass incarceration in the US.

A five-year-old in handcuffs


I had been documenting police violence against adult women of color for almost a decade when I learned about the case of Jaisha Aikins, in 2005. Jaisha, a five-year-old black girl, was handcuffed and arrested at her St Petersburg, Florida, school for essentially throwing a temper tantrum – as every five-year-old has done at some point.

The school’s administrators and some media commentators justified putting a five-year-old in handcuffs on the grounds that she “punched” the school’s vice principal, as if the little girl had hauled back and clocked her, rather than flailing at her with tiny hands while in the throes of a tantrum, with the force of a child.

It was clear from video taken of the incident that the vice principal was not hurt and that Jaisha eventually calmed down. In fact, Jaisha was sitting calmly in a chair when police arrived in response to the vice principal’s call to arrest an unruly student.

Even after discovering the student was a kindergartener, three white armed officers nevertheless proceeded to pull the little girl’s hands behind her back to put them in handcuffs as she cried and begged them not to. Jaisha was taken to the police station in a patrol car, but released to her mother’s custody when prosecutors refused to file charges against her.

Invisible No More
Invisible No More, by Andrea J Ritchie, is out now. Photograph: Beacon Press
Jaisha’s story illustrates just how deeply entrenched controlling narratives of black women and girls are – no matter how young and small they are. The video of the incident was also one of the first depicting police violence against a black girl to be widely broadcast and generate outrage across the country.

In her groundbreaking book Pushout: The Criminalization of Black Girls in Schools, Monique Morris tells the stories of several other black girls as young as six and seven arrested in school in similar incidents over subsequent years, some as recently as 2013. In some cases, the little girls were held in police cars and stations for extended periods of time after arrest.

Policing of girls extends beyond instances where officers are summoned by school administrators. Police are increasingly stationed inside schools, leading to increased police contact with girls, and increased police violence as officers enforce school rules.



For instance, the New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU) reported several cases where young women of color were slammed against the wall, thrown to the floor and arrested by officers stationed in their schools for leaving class a few minutes late (“roaming the hallways”), asking for return of a confiscated cell phone (“threatening an officer”), or cursing in the hallway (“disorderly conduct”).

What happens behind school doors often mirrors what happens on the streets in the context of broken windows and gang policing in the community.

In 2010, I represented three young black women pulled off a New York City subway train by officers who believed they had gotten on without paying – a classic broken windows offense that was the number-one arrest charge in New York City in 2015. In fact, as part of an after-school program, they had entered as a group with the stationmaster’s permission. The officers also acted on the assumption that the young women were involved in a purportedly gang-related fight on a completely different platform.

One officer yelled at one 17-year-old girl to “get the @#$%! off the train, &!@$#!” Even though she was complying, he grabbed her by the neck and slammed her down onto a bench, choking her.

As her twin approached, alarmed, she too was thrown down and hit her head and face on the floor as an officer began striking her. Officers slammed the third young woman, the twins’ friend, to the ground and pepper-sprayed her in the face before handcuffing her. Afterward, they left her in a cell for 30 minutes with no means of removing the burning spray from her eyes, despite her desperate pleas for relief.

Throughout the violent encounter, the officers referred to the young women as “&!@$#” and “Shaniquah”, making explicit the racially gendered perceptions driving their violent behavior within the broader framework of broken windows and gang policing.

Teenagers shocked by Tasers
The presence of law enforcement officers in schools has driven increased student referrals to police and arrests in schools, often “for actions that would not otherwise be viewed as criminal ... such as refusing to present identification, using profanity with a school administrator, or ‘misbehaving.’”

One study found that the rate at which students are referred for lower-level offenses more than doubles when a school has regular contact with a “school resource officer”.

The result is a “net-widening” effect expanding surveillance of youth of color and infusing policing and prison culture into schools across the country, with predictable effects.

Kathleen Nolan, a former New York public school teacher, describes “considerable subjectivity in determining whether a behavior was actually a violation of the law”, and notes that everyday items – box cutters used for after-school jobs, razors used to style hair, Mace or pepper spray carried by young women for protection – were met with “zero tolerance” in a school populated by youth of color.

Indeed, a 2005 report issued by the Advancement Project concluded: “Across the board, the data shows that black and Latino students are more likely than their white peers to be arrested in school . . . [despite the lack of] evidence that black and Latino students misbehave more than their white peers.”

#SayHerName Vigil in remembrance of black women and girls killed by police.
#SayHerName Vigil in remembrance of black women and girls killed by police. Photograph: Tim Knox for the Guardian
Black students are “punished more severely for less seriously and more subjectively defined infractions” such as “disturbing school” or “disorderly conduct”.

A 2011 Texas study found that, after controlling for 80 other variables, race remained a reliable predictor of discipline for subjective violations like disruption. In South Carolina, black students like Niya and Shakara are nearly four times as likely to be charged with “disturbing school” as white students.

Today, black girls make up approximately 33% of girls referred to law enforcement or arrested on school grounds but only 16% of the female student population. Yet the discourse around the policing of youth and the “school-to-prison pipeline” continues to focus nearly exclusively on boys and young men.

Alarmingly, among the violent policing tactics that have migrated from the streets to schools is indiscriminate use of Tasers, which are used to subdue people by firing barbs into them that deliver a jolt of electricity.

While researching a 2006 report on the US government’s failure to comply with the UN Convention Against Torture, I discovered a 2004 case in which a Miami-Dade police officer used a Taser against a 12-year-old girl, shocking her with 50,000 volts of electricity – for skipping school.

Between late 2003 and early 2005, at least 24 Central Florida students, some as young as 12, were shocked with Tasers by police officers in public schools. A typical scenario involved officers wading in through a crowd to break up a fight and using Tasers to “get them to move”.

As of 2005, 32% of police departments interviewed by the weapon’s manufacturer, Taser International, had used Tasers in schools. An August 2016 Huffington Post investigation uncovered at least 84 incidents of Taser use against students since 2011.

Beyond the discriminatory arrests and excessive force, police sexual harassment and violence also takes place inside the schoolhouse gate. Inappropriate commentary about young women’s bodies and appearance by police officers stationed in or near schools is commonplace.

At one New York City school, “school safety agents ... would degrade students with comments like ‘That girl has no @#$.’” I witness similar harassment on a daily basis as young women travel back and forth on my Brooklyn street to attend one of three schools on my block. Daily pat-downs and mandatory passage through metal detectors before entering schools are also experienced by young women as violative and degrading, especially when conducted by male officers.

After forcing one child to squat, a male officer repeatedly traced his handheld metal detector up her inner thigh
Jacquia Bolds, a Syracuse, New York, high school student, testified to a UN committee in 2008: “It is more uncomfortable for girls because sometimes they check you around your most private areas.” The New York Civil Liberties Union reports that in New York City schools in the 2000s:

After being pushed against the wall for frisking, many girls were ordered to squat for intrusive searches with handheld metal detectors. After forcing one child to squat, a male officer repeatedly traced his handheld metal detector up her inner thigh until it beeped on the button of her jeans. “Is there something in your pants?” he asked repeatedly. The frightened girl repeated that there was not, but the officer kept at it, making her fear a cavity search, until he finally let her go.

The girl’s fears were not baseless: “routine” frisks and scans can quickly escalate to strip searches. Girls whose underwire bras set off metal detectors have been forced to lift up their shirts or unbuckle or unzip their pants to prove that they are not concealing weapons, or cell phones.

One 14-year-old Chinese girl who was interviewed in New York City stated: “The security guard accused me of having a knife ... They took me to a room and made me take off my shirt and pants to check my bra. They didn’t call my parents or let me talk to a teacher I know. I didn’t have a knife just like I told them.”

Maksuda, a 17-year-old South Asian high school student, stated: “School safety agents pick on those they perceive to be religious, particularly those who wear scarves and hijab.”

A Muslim youth, 16-year-old Fariha, explains in a video made by grassroots group Girls for Gender Equity: “For some of us it’s about you’re not covered up enough; for us it’s like you’re covered up too much.”

The searches these girls were subjected to appear to have been motivated at least in part by controlling narratives framing Asian women as knife-wielding assassins, Latinos and black girls as drug “mules”, and Muslim women as potential terrorists. They also often produce racially gendered humiliation, as officers rifling through young women’s belongings find tampons, birth control pills and condoms.

Manny Yusuf, a 14-year-old Bangladeshi youth leader at Drum, testified about being stopped and frisked on her way home from school. She believed she was singled out from a group of friends because she had the darkest skin. On another occasion, an officer called her over to his car to ask her for her number. She asked city council members: “How do you think it feels to be stopped and searched by an officer when all you are doing is going home from school?”

Another 14-year-old girl described being stopped with a cousin and two friends and frisked because officers thought they had weed on them – which is not sufficient legal justification for a frisk, and certainly not for a male officer to frisk a 14-year-old girl.

Ultimately, young women of color experience every form and context of police violence discussed in this book, and their stories – a







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http://www.latimes.com/world/la-fg-phil ... story.html

Philippine police say 32 drug suspects killed in one day — the deadliest yet in Duterte's crackdown






https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... ottesville

No, Mr Trump, we're not the same as the neo-Nazis
Emily Gorcenski


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/okl ... 19336162fd

Family Says Man Charged In FBI Right-Wing Terror Sting Is Mentally Ill, Incapable Of Attack
Jerry Drake Varnell’s family says the FBI “should not have aided and abetted a paranoid schizophrenic to commit this act.”





http://dfw.cbslocal.com/video/category/ ... allas-fbi/

Pair Arrested Outside Dallas FBI Office
The FBI would not say why the men were taken into custody or if the vehicle searched belonged to them.
Program: CBS 11 News Evening
Categories: News Crime KTVTTV




http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/que ... -1.3416637

Queens jail officers hit with federal bribery charges in drug smuggling scheme


BY VICTORIA BEKIEMPIS
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS Wednesday, August 16, 2017, 11:32 AM



http://www.nydailynews.com/news/nationa ... -1.3415078

Georgia judge suspended for comparing protesters who pulled down Confederate statues to ISIS
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS Tuesday, August 15, 2017, 11:05 PM




http://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/o ... -1.3413240





http://www.openculture.com/2017/03/matt ... ience.html

Matt Damon Reads Howard Zinn's "The Problem is Civil Obedience," a Call for Americans to Take Action | Open Culture
Open Culture › 2017/03 › matt-damon-r...
Mar 15, 2017 - Say, for example, that a gang of obscenely rich mercenaries with questionable ties and histories had taken power with the intent to destroy institutions so they could loot the country, further impoverish ...







http://archive.boston.com/ae/celebrity/ ... o_pay.html

Matt Damon among many who pay tribute to Zinn




Over 250 friends and family gathered Saturday at the Arlington Street Church to pay tribute to the late Howard Zinn, the longtime BU political science professor and author of the influential book, "A People's History of the United States." Zinn, who died in January at the age of 87, was more than once referred to as "Howie" by a crowd of admirers that included familiar faces from the fields of academia and entertainment. Actor Matt Damon, a former neighbor of Zinn's, was with his mom, Nancy Carlsson-Paige, and his wife Luciana and daughter Alexa. Also there were Chris Moore, producer of "The People Speak," the movie based on Zinn's bestselling book, and actor Benjamin Bratt, who appears in the film. Others in attendance included "Democracy Now" host Amy Goodman, scholar Noam Chomsky, civil libertarian Harvey Silverglate and his wife, photographer, Elsa Dorfman, writer Jonathan Kozol, poets Marge Piercy and Martin Espada, Phoenix Media exec David Bieber, editor Anthony Arnove, peace activist Staughton Lynd, comedian Jimmy Tingle, "Here and Now" host Robin Young, Robert Meeropol, the son of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg, actor Harris Yulin, Zinn aid Janice Tumonis, composer Bernice Johnson Reagon, feminist Lydia Sargent, and Zinn's son, Jeff, and daughter, Myla Kabat-Zinn. Hardly a somber affair, the service easily included as many laughs as tears. Damon said one of the last times he spent with Zinn was at the Toronto Film Festival, for a screening of "The People Speak." While the film's focus is on everyday Americans, a ticket to the screening cost $800. With a smile, Damon said Zinn could not resist pointing out the irony.




https://zinnedproject.org/support/donors/

Why We Support
the Zinn Education Project
Thanks to all our donors—individuals like you—who make it possible for the Zinn Education Project to promote the teaching of people’s history. We are pleased to highlight some of the stories and endorsements that donors have shared with us.




https://robertscribbler.com/2017/08/16/ ... -going-on/

No El Nino, But July of 2017 was the Hottest on Record. So What the Hell is Going on?
by robertscribbler
According to NASA's GISS global temperature monitoring service, July of 2017 was 0.83 C hotter than the NASA 20th Century baseline (1.05 C hotter than 1880s). That's the hottest July ever recorded in the 137 year global climate record.

In the Pacific, ENSO conditions remain neutral. And since 2014-2016 featured one of the strongest El Ninos on record, you'd expect global temperatures to back off a bit from what should have been a big spike in the larger warming trend. So what happened?





(Top image shows July of 2017 global temperature anomalies compared to July of 2016 global temperature anomalies. July of 2016 was cooling into a weak La Nina relative to one of the strongest El Ninos on record. This year, ENSO neutral conditions prevail coordinate with rather strong polar amplification in the Southern Hemisphere. Images provided by NASA GISS.)

During July of 2016, the world was backing away from a very strong El Nino and heading into the mild global temperature trough of a weak La Nina. Cooler conditions in the Equatorial Pacific were starting to put a bit of a damper on the extreme global temperature departures that, earlier in the year, hit as high as 1.55 C above 1880s averages during February.

The La Nina lag during July of 2016 was enough to pull global surface temperatures down to 1.04 C above 1880s averages. However, the added heat pumped out into the system by both fossil fuel produced greenhouse gasses and the shift to strong El Nino appears to have generated a step change in the global temperature regime. So despite a weak La Nina dominating during fall of 2016, global temperatures remained in a range of 1.06 to 1.21 C above 1880s averages.

2017 Still Trending Toward Second Hottest on Record

Moving into 2017, overall global temperatures have backed off from the extreme heat seen during 2016. But only a little.

Adding in the record hot July at 1.05 C above 1880s averages, we find that 2017, so far is 1.16 C hotter than 1880s overall for the first seven months. That's just 0.05 C shy of the record global heat that appeared in 2016. Not really much of a back-off at all.

July's own record wasn't a very impressive warm departure from 2016 -- beating it by just 0.01 C. But what it does reveal is that there is an extraordinary amount of heat roaming the surface airs and waters of our world. And since all that extra heat will tend to resist cooling into Northern Hemisphere winter as it transfers poleward, we can probably expect that relative temperature anomalies will again rise as we move away from Northern Hemisphere summer. With departures likely continuing to exceed 1.05 or even 1.1 C above 1880s for most months going forward.

Already, early GFS model runs indicate that August of 2017 will likely be warmer than July. And this month might even come close to challenging the 1.21 C above 1880s averages achieved during 2016. However, using GFS global averages as an indicator is not a perfect oracle. So we wait on the August numbers from GISS and NOAA a month from now for final confirmation.

Prediction for 2017 annual mean in GISTEMP w/Jul data in, 77% chance of a top 2 year. pic.twitter.com/zwZVnEXit3

— Gavin Schmidt (@ClimateOfGavin) August 15, 2017

Furthermore, we do have a relatively weak cool Kelvin wave rippling along beneath the Equatorial Pacific at this time. This wave should shift the ENSO pattern to the cool side of neutral by Northern Hemisphere fall. A pattern that should also tend to nudge overall global temperatures downward. Recent falls in the north, though, have tended to exhibit very extreme polar warming. And a similar trend this year would tend to offset any Pacific Equatorial cooling. Lastly, the cooler ENSO neutral pattern is likely to still be a warmer general forcing than the weak La Nina that appeared during late 2016. So there is at least some potential that some months during fall of 2017 will be warmer than those during fall of 2016.

Considering these trends, the best available predictive analysis from NASA shows that 2017 is likely to be about 1.1 C warmer than 1880s or the second hottest year on record globally overall. NASA's Gavin Schmidt gives this range a 77 percent likelihood of bearing out. But note the error bar in Gavin Schmidt's above tweet. In other words, the presently far more unstable climate appears to be quite capable of serving up some relatively nasty surprises.

Links:

NASA GISS

NOAA ENSO Forecast and Analysis

Global and Regional Climate Anomalies

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Harvey’s Approach Brings Potential Severe 5-Day Rain Event For Texas and Louisiana
For the third time in less than one month, powerful thunderstorms have dropped torrential rains in excess of 6 inches over Kansas City, Missouri. In the most recent event, a frontal system dropping down over the U.S. midsection encountered a very heavy load of atmospheric moisture streaming in off a much warmer than normal Gulf of Mexico. The result for Kansas City was the production of a towering boomer that dropped 10 inches in just one night.

Such an intense downpour turned roads into rivers and forced numerous residents to take refuge on rooftops as the waters rose once again. By morning, more than 130 water rescues had been called in across the city.



(NOAA predicts heavy rainfall for Texas and Louisiana over the coming week. Image source: NOAA.)

But this particular extreme event may be a simple prelude for what’s to come as the remnants of Harvey sets its sights on the Texas and Louisiana Gulf Coasts. Harvey is expected to strengthen into a tropical storm or weak hurricane over a very warm and moist Gulf of Mexico within the next 48 hours. Models then predict that it will combine its substantial moisture load with that of the frontal system responsible for such severe flooding in Missouri last night.

Already NOAA is predicting some very significant rainfall amounts over the coming days for the Texas and Louisiana coastal regions (see image above). And Harvey represents a considerable rainfall potential given the fact that it is expected to stall over Texas and Louisiana for the better part of 5 days. With regards to NOAA rainfall predictions, it is worth noting that extreme local precipitation values have significantly exceeded NOAA predictions recently in the case of the most severe thunderstorms.



(2 PM EST assessment of Harvey’s path and potential for restrengthening. Image source: The National Hurricane Center.)

One possible spoiler for Harvey reforming is an upper level low swirling just southeast of Texas. This low could rip Harvey apart. But if this happens, that system would tend to also direct Harvey’s moisture toward Texas, Louisiana and Alabama. In which case, strong rainfall potentials are also likely. However, the National Hurricane Center expects this upper level low and associated squalls to move toward the north and west — generating rainy conditions for Texas and Louisiana ahead of Harvey and creating space for a more powerful and heavily moisture laden storm to form.

Lower than normal precipitation totals in the region of Coastal Texas during the past couple of months may help to alleviate flood potential if the rains from Harvey remain on the somewhat lighter side (2-4 inches) and if the system continues to be disorganized. A more organized system would tend to bring heavier precipitation totals. However, it is worth noting that during recent years, much warmer than normal sea surface temperatures have combined with a warmer atmosphere to spike heavy rainfall totals. A result of human-forced climate change due to ongoing rampant fossil fuel burni
The National Hurricane Center

Historic Flooding Leaves One Dead

Over 130 Calls Made to Kansas City Fire Department Amid Life Threatening Flooding Overnight

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Harvey’s Mammoth Deluge Potential: Some Models Are Showing Storm Could Produce Five Feet of Rain
Media and Gulf Coast residents take note: the thing to be most concerned about with regards to Harvey is not its admittedly life-threatening storm surge and strong winds, but what is shaping up to be a potentially historic rainfall event.

*****

The latest update from the National Hurricane Center shows that Harvey is just shy of major hurricane status. Packing 110 mph winds and a 947 mb minimum central pressure, the storm is certainly powerful. And NHC expects that storm to peak at around 120 mph maximum sustained winds just prior to landfall late tonight or early tomorrow.

But with this storm, the main issue we are facing is not the usual and notably dangerous high winds and storm surge flooding that go along with a category 2 or 3 storm. The main issue is the flooding rains that will have the potential to cause damage and disruption for not just months but for years to come.

A Devastating Rainfall Potential


(Houston has never seen 60 inches of rainfall from a tropical system. But that potential exists with Harvey.)

Consensus models now predict that peak rainfall totals will be around 35 inches in association with Harvey. This is due to the dual facts that Harvey is currently a very moisture-rich storm and that the storm is expected to inexplicably stall for between 5 and 6 days following landfall. The storm is predicted to hover along the coastline, drawing in an unusually intense flow of moisture from a much warmer than normal Gulf, and to generate severe thunderstorms hour after hour, day after day. And this kind of rain event, if it emerges, could produce a disaster of historic proportions for Texas.

It’s worth noting that rainfall totals could also exceed the consensus forecast. Some models are now predicting upwards of 50 or 60 inches of rainfall by the time Harvey leaves the Texas area later next week (see top image above). The highest rainfall amounts ever produced by a tropical cyclone, in our records, for Texas is 48 inches. But there’s at least some possibility, with the perfect rainstorm that appears to be shaping up in Harvey, that these ultimate rainfall totals will be exceeded and a disaster of unprecedented proportions could emerge. But even if this worst-case doesn’t emerge, a 35 inch rainfall event would wreck untold destruction upon Texas’s coastal cities.



(Highest rainfall totals for a tropical cyclone state-by-state. Image source: Commons.)

Normally soft-spoken forecasters like Bob Henson and Eric Holthaus are not mincing words over the potential severity of the present situation. Last night, Bob Henson on twitter asked people: “Please don’t fixate on whether Harvey arrives as a Cat 2, 3, or 4. It’s the mammoth rainfall amounts (up to 35″) that will affect millions.” Meanwhile, Eric Holthaus warned: “This is scary. I have never seen a rainfall forecast like this in my entire career. Texas will be recovering from #Harvey for years.”

Of course, we could dodge a bullet and rainfall totals could be lower for Harvey. It’s just that this event is currently trending toward a worst case or near worst case deluge-type storm that produces very heavy rains over the same region of nearly a week-long period.

Conditions in Context — This is Not Your Father’s Atmosphere



(The number of record rainfall events has increased dramatically during recent years. An observation attributed to human-forced climate change. Image source: Increased Record-Breaking Precipitation Events Under Global Warming.)

During recent years, a warmer than normal atmosphere has been producing more and more intense rain storms. The number of record daily rainfall instances around the world has been rising precipitously. This is, in large part, due to the fact that human-forced warming amps up the hydrological cycle — producing more intense rain storms and more intense droughts. In other words, the climate dice are loaded for extreme rainfall and droughts in the present atmosphere. And it is in this atmosphere that Harvey has emerged. So we shouldn’t at all discount the fact that Harvey’s potential worst impacts from rainfall are now higher than they would have been even just a few decades ago. And this is one of the major reasons why we are seeing such a historic potential out of Harvey.

Links:

National Hurricane Center

Increased Record-Breaking Precipitation Events Under Global Warming

Greg Carbin

Eric Holthaus

Bob Henson

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Half a World Away From Harvey, Global Warming Fueled Deluges Now Impact 42 Million People
Rising sea surface temperatures in South Asia led to more moisture in the atmosphere, providing this year’s monsoon with its ammunition for torrential rainfall. — The Pacific Standard

While flooding is common in the region, climate change has spurred dramatic weather patterns, greatly exacerbating the damage. As sea temperatures warm, moisture increases, a dynamic also at play in the record-setting rainfall in Texas. — Think Progress

******

With Harvey delivering its own hammer blow of worst-ever-seen rainfall to Texas, 42 million people are now impacted by record flooding half a world away. The one thing that links these two disparate disasters? Climate Change.

A Worsening Flood Disaster in South Asia

As Harvey was setting its sights on the Texas Coast this time last week, another major rainfall disaster was already ongoing. Thousands of miles away, South Asia was experiencing historic flooding that seven days ago had impacted 24 million people.

At the time, two tropical weather systems were developing over a very warm Pacific. They were angling in toward a considerably pumped up monsoonal moisture flow. And they appeared bound and determined to unleash yet more misery on an already suffering region.


As of Monday, the remnants of tropical cyclone Hato had entered the monsoonal flow and was unleashing its heavy rains upon Nepal. The most recent in a long chain of systems that just keeps looping more storms in over the region to disgorge they water loads on submerged lands.

By Wednesday, the number of people suffering from flooding in India, Bangladesh and Nepal had jumped by 18 million in just one week to more than 42 million. With 32 million impacted in India, 8.6 million in Bangladesh, and 1.7 million in Nepal. More tragically, 1,200 people have perished due to both landslides and floods as thousands of square miles have been submerged and whole regions have been crippled with roads, bridges, and airports washing out. Adding to this harsh toll are an estimated 3.5 million homes that have been damaged or destroyed in Bangladesh alone.

Worst impacts are likely to focus on Bangladesh which is down-stream of flooded regions in Nepal and India. As of last week, 1/3 of this low-lying country had been submerged by rising water. With intense rains persisting during recent days, this coverage is likely to have expanded.

Hundreds of thousands of people have now funneled into the country’s growing disaster shelters. A massive international aid effort is underway as food and water supplies are cut off and fears of disease are growing. The international Red Cross and Red Crescent and other relief agencies have deployed over 2,000 medical teams to the region. Meanwhile, calls for increased assistance are growing.

Warmer Oceans Fuel Tropical Climate Extremes

As with Harvey, this year’s South Asia floods have been fueled by much warmer than normal ocean surface temperatures. These warmer than normal ocean surfaces are evaporating copious amounts of moisture into the tropical atmosphere. This moisture, in turn, is intensifying the monsoonal rains.



(Very warm ocean surface temperatures related to global warming are contributing to catastrophic South Asian flooding in which 42 million people are now impacted. Image source: Earth Nullschool.)

In the Bay of Bengal, ocean surfaces have recently hit about 3 C above the three decade average. But ocean waters have been warming now for more than a Century following the initiation of widespread fossil fuel burning. So even the present baseline is above 20th Century temperature norms. At this point, such high levels of ocean heat are clearly having an impact on tropical weather.

In an interview with CNN, Reaz Ahmed, the director-general of Bangladesh’s Department of Disaster Management noted last week that:

“This is not normal. Floods this year were bigger and more intense than the previous years.”

Further exacerbating the situation is that fact that glaciers are melting and temperatures are rising in the Himalayas. This increases water flow into rivers during monsoon season even as glacial melt flow into rivers is reduced during the dry season. It’s kind of a flood-drought whammy in which the dry season is growing hotter and drier for places like India, but the wet season is conversely getting pushed toward worsening flood extremes.

Links:

The Pacific Standard

Think Progress

Earth Nullschool

Nepal, India, Bangladesh Floods Impact Millions

NASA Worldview

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