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Climate Change

People Displaced By Climate Change Could Reach 1 Billion By 2050

September 2, 2017 Baher Kamal, www.towardfreedom.com , ,
By Baher Kamal for Think Progress - (IPS) – Imagine a world with as many as one billion people facing harsh climate change impacts resulting in devastating droughts and/or floods, extreme weather, destruction of natural resources, in particular lands, soils and water, and the consequence of severe livelihoods conditions, famine and starvation. Although not yet based on definite scientific projections, the proven speed with which the process of climate change has been taking place, might lead to such a scenario by 2050. If so, 1 in 9 human beings would be on the move by then. Currently, forecasts vary from 25 million to 1 billion environmental migrants by 2050, moving either within their countries or across borders, on a permanent or temporary basis, with 200 million being the most widely cited estimate, according to a 2015 study carried out by the Institute for Environment and Human Security of the United Nations University. “This figure equals the current estimate of international migrants worldwide.” Other specialised sources estimate that “every second, one person is displaced by disaster.” On this, the Oslo-based Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) reports that in 2015 only, more than 19.2 million people fled disasters in 113 countries.

Hurricane Harvey, Climate Change Denialists And The Right

September 1, 2017 Joshua Frank, www.counterpunch.org , , ,
By Joshua Frank for Counter Punch - What does Coulter believe then? That Harvey is nothing new? Actually, it is, no matter what Coulter tweets. Harvey is now the heaviest rainstorm in US history and was made worse by our warming climate. There’s little scientific doubt about it. As climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe and many others point out, as the world warms, evaporation of water increases, which means there is more water vapor in storms and more rain to dump compared to 70 years ago. In basic terms, warmer air is able to hold more water and hence more rainfall is likely to occur. Hurricane intensity in the future is predicted to increase as our climate warms. The Gulf of Mexico’s surface temp increased almost 5 degreesFahrenheit as Harvey was building last week. These waters, one of the warmest ocean surfaces on the planet at the time, along with warmer air temps, allowed Harvey to turn from a tropical storm into a cat 4 hurricane almost overnight. Even Coulter’s God couldn’t stop it. Coulter and her fans probably wouldn’t want the floods to dry up anyway, because when crisis hits there is money to be made and victims to rip off. As Ken Klippenstein first reported, a Best Buy in Cypress, an unincorporated suburb of Houston in Harris County, began selling packs of bottled water for $42.96.

It’s A Fact: Climate Change Made Hurricane Harvey More Deadly

August 29, 2017 Michael E Mann, www.theguardian.com , ,
By Michael E Mann for The Guardian - What can we say about the role of climate change in the unprecedented disaster that is unfolding in Houston with Hurricane Harvey? There are certain climate change-related factors that we can, with great confidence, say worsened the flooding. Sea level rise attributable to climate change – some of which is due to coastal subsidence caused by human disturbance such as oil drilling – is more than half a foot (15cm) over the past few decades (see here for a decent discussion). That means the storm surge was half a foot higher than it would have been just decades ago, meaning far more flooding and destruction. In addition to that, sea surface temperatures in the region have risen about 0.5C (close to 1F) over the past few decades from roughly 30C (86F) to 30.5C (87F), which contributed to the very warm sea surface temperatures (30.5-31C, or 87-88F). There is a simple thermodynamic relationship known as the Clausius-Clapeyron equation that tells us there is a roughly 3% increase in average atmospheric moisture content for each 0.5C of warming.

9 Eastern States Agree To Cut Power Plant Emissions An Extra 30%

August 26, 2017 Georgiana Gustin, www.insideclimatenews.org , ,
By Georgiana Gustin for Inside Climate News - Nine eastern states announced Wednesday that they have agreed on a proposal to cut global-warming pollution from the region's power plants an additional 30 percent between 2020 and 2030. The compact of Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic states known as the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) has worked for two years to hammer out the next step in their landmark emissions cap-and-trade program, which puts a price on carbon dioxide emissions from the production of electricity. The program has a track record of cutting emissions fairly painlessly across a densely populated section of the country. Advocacy groups and policy makers have been closely watching the outcome of the negotiations. The RGGI states' decision on how to move forward, which still must be finalized, is seen as a test case of states' commitment to cut greenhouse gas emissions as the Trump administration attempts to dismantle federal climate policies, including the Clean Power Plan that was the Obama administration's plan for controlling power plant emissions. The RGGI states—with five Republican governors and four Democratic governors—together represent the world's sixth largest economy, with $2.8 trillion in GDP. California, where the legislature recently voted to extend its own cap-and-trade program through 2030, falls just behind in GDP, at $2.5 trillion.

Court Rejects Pipeline Rubber-Stamp, Orders Climate Impact Review

August 24, 2017 Phil McKenna, www.insideclimatenews.org , ,
By Phil McKenna for Inside Climate News - An appeals court rejected federal regulators' approval of a $3.5 billion natural gas pipeline project on Tuesday over the issue of climate change. The United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled that the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) failed to fully consider the impact of greenhouse gas emissions from burning the fuel that would flow through the Southeast Market Pipelines Project when the commission approved the project in 2016. "FERC's environmental impact statement did not contain enough information on the greenhouse gas emissions that will result from burning the gas that the pipelines will carry," the judges wrote in a divided decision. "FERC must either quantify and consider the project's downstream carbon emissions or explain in more detail why it cannot do so." The 2-1 ruling ordered the commission to redo its environmental review for the project, which includes the approximately 500-mile Sabal Trail pipeline and two shorter, adjoining pipelines. With its first phase complete, the project is already pumping fracked gas from the Marcellus-Utica shale basins of Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia through Alabama, Georgia and Florida.

Hot, Dry And Worrisome: 2016 Was A Record-Breaking Year For Climate

August 12, 2017 Georgina Gustin, www.insideclimatenews.org ,
By Georgina Gustin for Inside Climate News - Global scientists relied on the typical superlatives to describe the state of the climate in 2016, but they might have come up with a few neologisms as well. It was not only the hottest year on record, but one of the droughtiest, high-tidiest and altogether worryingest. Driven by the inexorable warming brought on by record concentrations of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, and vaulted even higher into the record books by the effects of a powerful El Niño, the signals of climate change were unmistakeable and remarkably diverse, the authoritative annual review, State of the Climate in 2016, shows. Concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, the main blanket of gases warming the planet, increased by the largest year-to-year jump in the six decades of measurement and surpassed 400 parts per million for the first time as an annual average. Sea level rise has been accelerating over time and hit another record in 2016, according to the report. The global oceans have been going up an average of .13 inches a year for two decades and were, on average, 3.25 inches higher last year than in 1993. Sea surface temperatures also hit a record high in 2016.

Talking About A Revolution

August 11, 2017 Jim Naureckas, www.otherwords.org , ,
By Jim Naureckas for Other Words - Saving people and the planet means upending virtually every kind of business — starting with the media. It’s long been clear that if we want to avoid catastrophic climate disruption on a scale that threatens human civilization, we need to leave vast amounts of fossil fuels in the ground. Environmental writer Bill McKibben pointed out the math in a crucial 2012 article for Rolling Stone: To avoid disaster, 80 percent of the carbon already discovered by private and state-owned energy companies has to be left alone — to be treated as useless rock. The problem is, the energy companies are some of the richest, most powerful entities on Earth. Corporations are designed to act like organisms with a single goal: maximizing profits. And the fossil fuel industry’s future profits — roughly 80 percent of them — depend on extracting that carbon and burning it, climate and civilization be damned. They’ve been using and will continue to use their vast influence to thwart any effort to avert that disaster. Does humanity have the collective power to tell the current owners of carbon deposits that they don’t have the right to take them out of the ground and sell them as fuel? That the companies simply don’t own those assets anymore?

Speaking Truth To Power On Climate Change: Why The Report Leaked

August 10, 2017 Jack Cushman, www.insideclimatenews.org ,
By Jack Cushman for Inside News Climate - None of this should come as any surprise—the report is basically a synthesis of the current climate science consensus. Indeed, its gist had been known for months. An early draft was releasedfor public comment a month before President Obama left office. It was reviewed in detail by an expert panel at the National Academy of Sciences, the gold standard for peer review, which gave its imprimatur in April. But now, the final draft—the fifth revision, approaching 700 pages—is ready for final approval by the Trump Administration, which includes environmental, energy and other regulatory agencies run by people deeply opposed to the mainstream scientific views that run through this report, chapter and verse. Would the Trump Administration deep-six the report? Some scientists involved in the process reportedly were worried about that. So someone arranged to get it published on the website of The New York Times—a leak that broke protocol but ensured that no last-minute blue pencils could be surreptitiously applied by anyone politically inspired to meddle with the opus, a part of a long formal process that by law produces a National Climate Assessment every four years.

Sugar Shack Protesters Block Construction For Public Safety

August 10, 2017 Sugar Shack Alliance, www.popularresistance.org , , ,
By the Sugar Shack Alliance. Massachusetts - In an early morning action carried out yesterday at the site of the Kinder Morgan/TGP Connecticut Expansion Pipeline Project, 21 members of the Sugar Shack Alliance successfully blocked construction traffic for almost 3 hours in 2 directions on Cold Spring Road in Sandisfield MA, hindering access to work zones for employees, and, for a short time, disrupting ongoing pipeline construction. The day’s action—undertaken by Sugar Shack Alliance members in the interest of public safety—resulted in the arrest of 10 activists. One major safety concern for the Sugar Shack Alliance and their allies is the apparent lack of an evacuation plan in the event of a potentially catastrophic accident. In 1981, as many Sandisfield residents may recall, during construction of a second of two pipelines, workers accidentally ruptured an existing “live” pipeline, resulting in a serious threat of a gas leak and requiring the evacuation of many townspeople.

Occupy Sonoma County Holds Climate Change Summit

August 10, 2017 Occupy Sonoma County, www.occupysonomacounty.org , ,
By Occupy Sonoma County. On July 31, Occupy Sonoma County hosted a gathering of local climate change activists at the Peace & Justice Center in Santa Rosa. Over 70 people, representing 25 different organizations, attended. Climate change activists are working together in Sonoma County. Every group is also involved in educating the public and empowering people to take action. We ended the evening with a plan to meet again at the Peace & Justice Center on October 30th at 7:00 pm to form action plans and coordinate our efforts. “It was extremely gratifying to see all the climate change groups taking this important step towards coordinating our efforts. Sonoma County climate change activists have their act together! This dynamic group of experienced activists combined with fresh, new energy from the many youth who attended, gives me hope that we can work together to stop climate change,” said Stefana Morales, Occupy activist.

Federal Scientists’ Startling Climate Report Released Before Trump Can Bury It

August 9, 2017 Chris D’Angelo, www.huffingtonpost.com ,
By Chris D’Angelo for THe Huffington Post - WASHINGTON — Government scientists agree that, contrary to President Donald Trumpand his team’s repeated claims, climate change is already having a dramatic effect in the U.S., according to a new report. The New York Times published an unreleased draft of the report Monday. The 543-page report was written by scientists from 13 federal agencies, including the Environmental Protection Agency and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. It concludes that temperatures in the U.S. have risen sharply, by 1.6 degrees Fahrenheit, over the last 150 years and that it is “extremely likely that most of the global mean temperature increase since 1951 was caused by human influence on climate.” “Evidence for a changing climate abounds, from the top of the atmosphere to the depths of the oceans,” the report states. “Thousands of studies conducted by tens of thousands of scientists around the world have documented changes in surface, atmospheric, and oceanic temperatures; melting glaciers; disappearing snow cover; shrinking sea ice; rising sea level; and an increase in atmospheric water vapor.

Climate Change Nihilism

August 8, 2017 Eleanor Goldfield, www.occupy.com ,
By Eleanor Goldfield for Occupy - According to Professor Guy McPherson, we have 10 years or less to live on this planet. His specific brand of doomsday-ism is couched in the theory that no other climate scientists are recognizing the complete picture - taking all the ills together, from permafrost melt to ocean acidification. While it’s odd that no other climate scientists are lining up behind that theory, this segment is less about the time argument and more about how you spend that time. McPherson suggests that because of this limited window of life we have left, we should all pursue “a life of excellence.” Stopping short of actually explaining what that means, McPherson suggests that we let go of hope, live with death in mind but also try to enjoy life as much as we can. Well, I call bullshit on this specific brand of nihilistic doomsdayerism. Fighting for a better world is not just about 70 years from now. It’s about today - and however much time we have left, regardless of climate change or whether we die tomorrow in a freak boating accident. Dissecting doomsday-ism and inspiring the fight on Act Out!

U.S. Submits Formal Notice Of Withdrawal From Paris Climate Pact

August 8, 2017 Valerie Volcovici, www.reuters.com , ,
By Valerie Volcovici for Reuters - WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. State Department has officially informed the United Nations it will withdraw from the Paris Climate Agreement in a document issued on Friday, but left the door open to re-engaging if the terms improved for the United States. The State Department said in a press release the United States would continue to participate in United Nations climate change meetings during the withdrawal process, which is expected to take at least three years. "The United States supports a balanced approach to climate policy that lowers emissions while promoting economic growth and ensuring energy security," the department said in the release. President Donald Trump announced his decision to withdraw from the Paris deal in June, saying the accord would have cost America trillions of dollars, killed jobs, and hindered the oil, gas, coal and manufacturing industries. But he also, at the time, said he would be open to renegotiating the deal, which was agreed by nearly 200 nations over the course of years - drawing ridicule from world and business leaders who said that would be impossible. During a visit last month to Paris to meet French President Emmanuel Macron, the two discussed the deal and Trump told reporters "Something could happen with respect to the Paris accords, let's see what happens."

Talking About A Revolution

August 4, 2017 Jim Naureckas, www.fair.org , ,
By Jim Naureckas for FAIR - It’s long been clear that if we want to avoid catastrophic climate disruption on a scale that threatens human civilization, we need to leave vast amounts of fossil fuels in the ground. Environmental writer Bill McKibben pointed out the math in a crucial 2012 article for Rolling Stone: To avoid disaster, 80 percent of the carbon already discovered by private and state-owned energy companies has to be left alone—to be treated as useless rock, not precious resources. The problem is, the energy companies are some of the richest, most powerful entities on Earth. Corporations are designed to act like organisms with a single goal, maximizing profits. And the fossil fuel industry’s future profits—roughly 80 percent of them—depend on extracting that carbon and burning it, climate and civilization be damned. They have been using and will continue to use their vast influence to thwart any effort to avert that disaster. Does humanity have the collective power to tell the current owners of carbon deposits that they no longer own them—that they don’t have the right to take them out of the ground and sell them as fuel? That’s the $640 trillion question. Doing so is essential to our future as a species—but a massive transfer of wealth of that kind isn’t like a revolution, it is a revolution, and a revolution on a scale history hasn’t seen before.

FERC Quorum Restored In Night Vote After Protests

August 4, 2017 Staff, www.popularresistance.org , , ,
By Staff for Popular Resistance. Washington, DC - On Thursday, August 3, climate protectors and New York residents occupied Senator Chuck Schumer's office to shut it down in protest of the upcoming senate vote to confirm Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) commissioners. The FERC has not had a quorum, and thus has not been able to issue permits, since the inauguration in January. Protesters stated that they would "not leave until he [Schumer] opposes Trump's nominations to #FERC and vows to fight the #DirtyEnergyBill, which if passed, would give FERC more power. FERC has been working as an arm of the oil and gas industry to rubber stamp unneeded and harmful fossil fuel infrastructure for decades. The #Senate must take steps to replace FERC with an agency dedicated to a just transition off fossil fuels."
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