Hot Air News Roundup February 14, 2019

Something to keep in mind…

Are we there yet? No. We need to go faster. Faster? How much faster? Faster than the unraveling. Unraveling? Yes, it’s accelerating. Accelerating? Yes, I just said that. It’s accelerating. It’s accelerating exponentially. At both ends and in the middle.

Climate Breakdown is accelerating at both of the poles and as the jet stream drunkenly wobbles north to south, pretty much everywhere. There may be time yet to do something. We need to accelerate our response to meet the challenge of Climate Breakdown. But to do this everyone must contribute to the level of their power and their previous negative impacts on the environment. Time is of the essence.

Five years of testing at sites across the Arctic tracked seasonal fluctuations and sources of climate pollutants that contributed to global warming and found that fossil fuels, not wild fires were the biggest source of Arctic black carbon.

 
HOT AIR NEWS ROUNDUP

Pioneering Black Scientist to Win Nobel Prize of Climate Change
Nexus Media 2-13-19

Warren Washington can trace at least one of the origins of his extraordinary scientific career—more than half a century of groundbreaking advances in computer climate modeling—to a youthful curiosity about the color of egg yolks.

…

There is no Nobel Prize for climate change, the world’s most pressing environmental problem. But if there were—and there is an ongoing campaign to establish one—Washington almost certainly would be on the short list. He will soon receive the next best thing, the Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement, often referred to as the environmental Nobel.

Finally, We Have Some Good News About Those Lakes in The Arctic
Science Alert 2-13-19

[A new study] shows that not all Arctic lakes are receiving carbon at the same speed as the dramatically thawing thermokarsts.

“We found that not all high-latitude lakes are big chimneys of carbon to the atmosphere, and that lakes in the region are not actively processing much permafrost or plant carbon from land,”

‘Historic’ storm hurls huge waves and 191-mph winds at Hawaii; rare snow hits Maui
The Washington Post 2-11-19

“We tend to get a gust maybe to 150 mph once a winter or so, but never 191 mph.”

…

Wave heights approached 40 feet just north of Kauai on Sunday. The National Weather Service had hoisted a high surf warning Thursday in anticipation of the event. It warned of “giant disorganized waves” that “could cause unprecedented coastal flooding.

Major northeastern snowstorms expected to continue with climate change
NCR UCR 1-23-19

The study finds that smaller snowstorms that drop a few inches will diminish greatly in number by late century. But the most damaging types of storms along the Eastern Seaboard, which strike every few years or so and cause widespread disruption, will remain about as frequent in a warming world.

Long informative article…

Highly Unusual Upward Trends in Rapidly Intensifying Atlantic Hurricanes Blamed on Global Warming
Category 6 2-13-19

for the Atlantic, there was a significant increase in the proportion of 24-hour intensification rates greater than 30 knots (35 mph) between 1982 and 2009. The greatest change was seen for the strongest 5% of storms, whose intensification rates increased by 3 – 4 knots per decade.

Australia Debates a Climate Strategy
USA Today 2-13-19

A verdict rendered in a Sydney courtroom last Friday underscores how climate change and the past several months of weather catastrophes across Australia are influencing opinion across this country. On Feb. 8, an Australian court for the first time invoked climate change as a reason to reject a proposed coal mine.

Another article on the same court decision…

Australian Judge Strikes Down Coal Mine in Part Because of Its Carbon Emissions
Common Dreams 2-10-19

In what is likely to be the first of many such rulings, an Australian court has ruled against a coal mine in part on grounds of the environmental damage that burning coal does by contributing to the climate emergency. Burning coal releases carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, a powerful greenhouse gas that keeps the sun’s heat from escaping into space once it has struck the earth.

Paul Beckwith Non-Intuitive Consequences of Rapid Melt in Greenland and Antarctica

Glaciers on Greenland and Antarctica are rapidly melting due to Abrupt Climate Change, and melt rates are doubling with a period of roughly 7 years.

This is exponential, after:

• 7 years melt rates are double (2x), after 14 years rates are 4x, after 21 years rates are 8x, etc.

In this video and the next I, discuss consequences that are rarely considered, like

• reduced gravitational pull near the glaciers, isostatic rebound, and reduction of vertical ocean mixing from surface freshwater lensing effects, leading to: increased basal ice sheet melting.

Part 1 [VIDEO]

Part 2 [VIDEO] 

Bank of America: Oil Demand Growth to Hit Zero Within a Decade, EVs the Culprit
Climate Change News 2-8-19

According to Bank of America Merrill Lynch, the annual increase in global oil consumption slows dramatically in the years ahead. By 2024 demand growth halves, falling to just 0.6 million barrels per day (mb/d), down from 1.2 mb/d this year.

But by 2030, demand growth zeros out as consumption hits a permanent peak, before falling

The End of Ice: Dahr Jamail on Climate Disruption from the Melting Himalayas to Insect Extinction
Democracy Now 2-12-19

[VIDEO]  

Norway’s Arctic islands at risk of ‘devastating’ warming: report
Reuters 2-4-19

Icy Arctic islands north of Norway are warming faster than almost anywhere on Earth and more avalanches, rain and mud may cause “devastating” changes by 2100, a Norwegian report said on Monday.

This Is the Green New Deal’s Biggest Problem
Mother Jones 2-11-19

The Green New Deal is ostensibly a jobs program, an environmental program, and a redistributive program. If it’s a jobs program, it must wrangle with spatial mismatch. If it’s an environmental program, it must tackle the fact that an all-electric fleet of cars is functionally, at this time, a pipe dream. And if it’s a redistributive program, it must grapple with how roads paved into suburban and exurban greenfield developments deepen, expand, and exacerbate segregation.

This is an extremely nerdy video but it is worth watching if you can persevere…

Shocking! Ice to the south of Novaya Zemlya is breaking up – IN WINTER!!
Seemorerocks 2-8-19

[VIDEO] 

Maybe not! They say a decrease in emission is not inconsistent with increased fossil fuel production…

Chevron Aligns Strategy With Paris Deal But Won’t Cap Output
Bloomberg 2-7-19

Even under the most aggressive climate scenarios, oil and natural gas will still underpin almost half of the world’s energy needs through 2040 and will require substantial new investment, Chevron said. The company’s oil production of 2.93 million barrels a day last year was a record and it expects as much as 7 percent growth this year.

“A decrease in overall fossil fuel emissions is not inconsistent with continued or increased fossil fuel production by the most efficient producers,” the company said. “Our strategy is to be among the most efficient producers.”

TVA Wants to Close a Costly, Unreliable Coal Plant. Trump and Kentucky Politicians Are Fighting It.
Climate Change News 2-13-19

The U.S. president has joined Kentucky’s governor and the coal state’s U.S. senators in trying to pressure the Tennessee Valley Authority to keep a 49-year-old coal-fired power plant operating, even though the nation’s largest public electric utility has concluded that the plant is unreliable, no longer needed, and too expensive to repair and operate.

 
PROTESTS • EXTINCTION REBELLION • RESISTANCE

Fridays For Future

Tomorrow, Friday the 15th will be a big day of Climate Breakdown protests. Many will be led by young women. There are numerous articles about this on the news. Read and be inspired…

A Huge Climate Change Movement Led By Teenage Girls Is Sweeping Europe. And It’s Coming To The US Next.
Buzz Feed 2-7-19

“We, as women leaders, have been pushed aside by men. We were told we can only be leaders [on women’s issues],” she said. Van der Heyden said that when she sees boys in the crowd shouting her daughter’s name at the rallies, “Every time I’m moved to tears.”

“The whole mansplaining mechanism has really disappeared in that generation,” she said.

Teen Girls Are Leading a Wave of Climate Activism in Europe and, Now, the US
Yahoo News 2-1-19

Jamie Margolin, the 17-year-old founder and executive director of Zero Hour — a youth-led climate action organization — told BuzzFeed News that she’s been working on a mass protest set to take place March 15, 2019, across the US. Margolin also said that climate activism is giving women a new voice.

Fury as headteachers BACK pupil strike that will see thousands of schoolchildren walk out of lessons next week in a protest over climate change
Daily Mail 2-10-19

A nationwide school strike over climate change has been ‘applauded’ by the head teachers’ union, leaving many furious. The mass walkout called UK Youth Strike 4 Climate currently has students in 38 cities and towns across the country planning to join them on Friday’s protest. It is expected thousands of pupils from places including Cardiff, Brighton, Exeter and Glasgow will down their books for three hours, reports the Sunday Express.

Why are Thousands of Students Striking From School?
Vice 2-12-19

All around the world students are ditching school to demand action on climate change. They know that we are facing a climate emergency, time is running out. i-D spoke to 8 youth activists from all over the globe, about why they’re taking drastic action.

School climate strike children’s brave stand has our support
The Guardian 2-14-19

We are inspired that our children, spurred on by the noble actions of Greta Thunberg and other striking students, are making their voices heard, say 224 academics

…

We, the undersigned academics, stand in solidarity with the children going on school climate strike on 15 February, and with all those taking a stand for the future of the planet.

Thousands of British Students Will Join Friday’s Global School Walkout Against Climate Change
Global Citizen 2-15-19

Now, the UK will now join the fray, with plans in place for Friday’s preliminary demonstration to build towards the global strike, too. The Independent reports that children as young as 5 years old will be leaving lessons to join the marches.

‘Why we’re walking out of school to save our world’
Socialist Worker 2-12-19

Walkouts were set to hit schools across Britain this Friday as students strike for climate justice. Action was planned in at least 38 towns and cities from Fort William to Swansea. It’s part of the worldwide #FridaysForFuture protests that have seen students organise walkouts to demand urgent action on climate change.

Because Society ‘Leaps Forward’ When People Take Action, UK Headteachers Union Backs Student #ClimateStrike
Common Dreams 2-12-19

As students across the United Kingdom prepare to join the global “climate strike” movement later this week by walking out of class, the nation’s union of headteachers—representing principals, headmasters, and other school leaders—has endorsed the coordinated actions as a demonstration to be “applauded.

 

Greta Thunberg

”We, the undersigned academics, stand in solidarity with the children going on school climate strike on 15 February, and with all those taking a stand for the future of the planet.”#SchoolStrike4Climate #climatestrike #FridaysForFuture https://t.co/jT5cDD0hn8

— Greta Thunberg (@GretaThunberg)

February 13, 2019

 

Extinction Rebellion

JOIN EX USA: on their website

Recap: Protesters SUPERGLUE themselves to benches in Gloucestershire County Council budget meeting
Gloucestershire Live 2-13-19

Councillors left the chamber, police were called and the lights were turned off.

The meeting was suspended for about an hour, with police eventually using cola to unstick the protesters from the public gallery.

Local Democracy Reporter Ligh Boobyer is covering the meeting, and said: “Climate change protest group Extinction Rebellion have halted the meeting against the council’s planning on air pollution.

Excellent article…

Extinction Rebellion actions in London
Independent Catholic News 2-11-19

There is a vitally important debate which is suppressed worldwide by a combination of business, mainstream media and politicians of almost all parties. I am speaking about the relationship between the global market economy and the destruction of the Earth, a destruction which includes climate breakdown. According to research by the World Wide Fund for Nature (1), we humans are now using the Earth as though we have access to 1.7 Earths.

Extinction Rebellion to “swarm” London Fashion Week
Morning Star 2-12-19

The industry “has the potential to transform itself to be a cultural and creative force that stops the trend of excessive consumption,” the letter said.

XR co-founder and fashion designer Clare Farrell said thought leaders and creators of culture need to be held accountable.

Good commentary…

Extinction Rebellion Is Calling You To Join The Nonviolent Civil Disobedience
Clean Technica 2-12-19

I’ve been watching news of Extinction Rebellion’s actions, disrupting 15 cities across the UK. The pictures of people taking up public space with die-ins, mock funerals, road-blocks, spray painting the facades of institutions that slow down climate action, even the symbolic planting of trees in otherwise neat British greens,

 
ADAPTION AND RESILIENCE

Ørsted Partners with Eversource on Northeast Offshore Wind
Climate Change News 2-13-19

Danish wind energy developer Ørsted announced late last week that it was entering into a partnership with New England’s largest energy company, Eversource, to develop key offshore wind assets in the Northeast of the United States, including two named offshore wind farms and two undeveloped New England lease areas.

Beyond Drought: 7 States Rebalance Their Colorado River Use as Global Warming Dries the Region
Inside Climate News 2-1-19

On Thursday night, Arizona joined other states that share the river basin in agreeing to voluntary water conservation plans. Its legislature approved a plan that helps balance the state’s competing water rights with of those of California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming, along with Native American tribes and Mexico. The states faced a Jan. 31 deadline for completing interstate contingency plans on water rights; without them, federal officials could order mandatory cuts later this year. Only a California water district had yet to agree.

Michigan’s New Governor Puts Climate Change at Heart of Government
Inside Climate News 2-5-19

Whitmer is creating a new office of climate and energy that will coordinate efforts across state government to address climate change and will ensure that climate change is a consideration in the vetting of new policies.

She also signed an order to join the U.S. Climate Alliance, a group of governors who commit to upholding the principles of the Paris climate agreement. Michigan is the 20th governor to join.

In Afghanistan, Bhutan and Nepal, Off-Grid Renewables Bring Power to Remote Villages
World Resources Institute 2-6-19

Around 1 billion people worldwide do not have access to electricity, with a majority living in rural areas. Given that electricity is essential for economic development, education, health and poverty alleviation, efforts to expand access around the world are critical.

…

From mountain villages in Afghanistan and Bhutan to settlements perched on steep slopes in Nepal, small-scale solar and hydropower are bringing electricity to more and more communities.

Swedish shipping industry prepares to go fossil-free by 2045
Climate Home News 2-12-19

The Swedish Shipowners’ Association is developing a roadmap to net zero greenhouse gas emissions in partnership with Fossil-free Sweden, a government initiative.

China-made electric pickup could be yours for $5K
The Detroit News 1-28-19

The company is trying to win over cost-conscious buyers with stuff to haul and no need for a larger pickup such as Ford Motor Co.’s F-150, America’s best-selling model. The Pickman, with a top speed of 28 miles per hour, is suitable for farm owners, factory employees moving loads at their work sites, and commuters, Wang said.

Next-generation, wind-powered ocean drone to be launched from Newport Shipyard
The U of Rhode Island 1-30-19

“NOAA designed an ingenious, self-calibrating sensor that has been incredibly successful at measuring the seawater concentration of carbon dioxide from the hull of the Saildrone,” said Palter. “Another sensor on top of the drone measures carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Knowing the difference between the atmospheric and oceanic concentrations, along with the wind speed, also measured aboard the Saildrone, allows us to calculate the exchange of this gas between the ocean and atmosphere.”

 
WILDLIFE & THE ENVIRONMENT

Climate change may destroy tiger’s home
Science Daily 2-11-19

A scientist says the last coastal stronghold of an iconic predator, the endangered Bengal tiger, could be destroyed by climate change and rising sea levels over the next 50 years.

More bad news about insects…

Why are insects in decline, and can we do anything about it?
The Guardian 2-10-19

By some measures, the biodiversity crisis is even deeper than that of climate change. Since the dawn of civilisation, humanity has caused the loss of 83% of all wild mammals. In the last 50 years alone, the populations of all mammals, birds, reptiles and fish have fallen by an average of 60%.

How about insects?

The new global review says it’s even worse for bugs, with the proportion of insect species declining being double that for vertebrates.

Plummeting insect numbers ‘threaten collapse of nature’
The Guardian 2-10-19

More than 40% of insect species are declining and a third are endangered, the analysis found. The rate of extinction is eight times faster than that of mammals, birds and reptiles. The total mass of insects is falling by a precipitous 2.5% a year, according to the best data available, suggesting they could vanish within a century.

A long interesting editorial worth reading…
The Guardian view on the mass death of insects: this threatens us all
The Guardian 2-11-19

The chief driver of this catastrophe is unchecked human greed. For all our individual and even collective cleverness, we behave as a species with as little foresight as a colony of nematode worms that will consume everything it can reach until all is gone and it dies off naturally. The challenge of behaving more intelligently than creatures that have no brain at all will not be easy.

What polar bears in a Russian apartment block reveal about the climate crisis
The Guardian 2-11-19

In this small town in the Novaya Zemlya archipelago, authorities have declared a state of emergency (a reasonable precaution after spotting an unprecedented 52 polar bears). Fences have been erected around school playgrounds and locals have tried to drive them away with warning shots and explosions. All to no avail. Many residents are afraid to leave their homes. Workers are reportedly being bused to their offices in military vehicles.

Their chips are down: New Zealand seagulls under threat after ‘unbelievable declines’
The Guardian 2-13-19

The threats against seagulls are three-fold. Plunging fish stocks due to changing marine conditions and intensive fishing have meant less food for chicks. Coastal grounds converted to livestock and agriculture has threatened their natural breeding grounds, and introduced pests such as stoats and rats eating their young has further decimated an already vulnerable population.

 
CLIMATE STUDIES

New Discovery Boosts Performance of Perovskite-based Solar Cells
Green Optimistic 2-12-19

Perovskite-based solar cells are very attractive. They are quite cheap to produce. Their flexibility allows for a wide range of cool devices or installation methods. And last but not least, their efficiency is getting closer and closer to silicon-based cells

…

[The team] discovered that adding alkali metals, such as cesium and rubidium, to a mixed bromine and iodine lead perovskite, improves the performance and stability of the solar cells. The reason why this special chemical cocktail works, is because when adding cesium and rubidium, bromine and iodine mix together better. This improves the conversion efficiency, and makes the solar cells operate at their best.

Atlantic Hurricanes Are Becoming Stronger Faster, Largely Due to Climate Change
Climate Change News 2-9-19

It took Hurricane Michael just 24 hours to intensify from a Category 1 storm to a Category 4 before slamming into Florida’s Gulf Coast last October. Similarly, Hurricane Harvey in 2017 went from a Category 2 to a Category 4 in less than a day. This trend of rapid intensification is becoming more common among tropical storms in the Atlantic Ocean, largely due to climate change.

Another new study on disappearing glaciers…

Ice volume calculated anew
Science Daily 2-122-19

Researchers have provided a new estimate for the glacier ice volume all around the world, excluding the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets. Their conclusion: previous calculations overestimated the volume of the glaciers in High Mountain Asia.

Motherboard 2-12-19

Both the IPPR report and the GND resolution frame progressive social and economic goals as an essential part of environmental policy. They also reverse a long tradition of shaping environmental policy to reflect what is feasible for the economy by instead suggesting that economic policy should be shaped based on what is feasible for the environment.

Recent increases in tropical cyclone intensification rates
Nature Communications 2-7-19

Our results suggest a detectable increase of Atlantic intensification rates with a positive contribution from anthropogenic forcing and reveal a need for more reliable data before detecting a robust trend at the global scale.

Drought, deluge turned stable landslide into disaster
NASA 2-7-19

“Stable landslide” sounds like a contradiction in terms, but there are indeed places on Earth where land has been creeping downhill slowly, stably and harmlessly for as long as a century. But stability doesn’t necessarily last forever. For the first time, researchers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, and collaborating institutions have documented the transition of a stable, slow-moving landslide into catastrophic collapse, showing how drought and extreme rains likely destabilized the slide.

Interesting article…

America colonisation ‘cooled Earth’s climate’
BBC News 1-31-19

“The Great Dying of the Indigenous Peoples of the Americas led to the abandonment of enough cleared land that the resulting terrestrial carbon uptake had a detectable impact on both atmospheric CO₂ and global surface air temperatures,”

Study: Climate change reshaping how heat moves around globe
EurekAlert! 1-28-19

This is the first study to examine current changes in heat transfer and to conclude that warming temperatures are driving increased heat transfer in the atmosphere, which is compensated by a reduced heat transfer in the ocean. Additionally, the researchers concluded that the excess oceanic heat is trapped in the Southern Ocean around the Antarctic.

Global Warnings

Paul Beckwith: “I declare a global climate change emergency to claw back up the rock face to attempt to regain system stability, or face an untenable calamity of biblical proportions.”

Kevin Hester: “There is no past analogue for the rapidity of what we are baring witness to. There has been a flood of articles … 2C is no longer attainable and that we are heading for dangerous climate change”

Guy McPherson: “The recent and near-future rises in temperature are occurring and will occur at least an order of magnitude faster than the worst of all prior Mass Extinctions. Habitat for human animals is disappearing throughout the world, and abrupt climate change has barely begun.”

Magi Amma: We need to turn on a dime at mach nine!

…
Equivalencies:
• 1 gigatonne = 1 billion tons
• 1 gigatonne Carbon = 3.67 gigatonnes CO2
• 1 part per million (ppm) of atmospheric CO2 = 7.81 gigatonnes CO2
• 1 part per million of atmospheric carbon = 2.13 gigatonnes of carbon