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Our Fragile Infrastructure: Lessons From Hurricane Helene

Our Fragile Infrastructure: Lessons From Hurricane Helene

Posted on November 5, 2024 by Ellen Brown

Buncombe County North Carolina – damage after Hurricane Helene floods. NCDOTcommunications, CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Asheville, North Carolina, is known for its historic architecture, vibrant arts scene and as a gateway to the Blue Ridge Mountains. It was a favorite escape for “climate migrants” moving from California, Arizona, and other climate-challenged vicinities, until a “500 year flood” ravaged the city this fall. 

Hurricane Helene was a wakeup call not just for stricken North Carolina residents but for people across the country following their tragic stories in the media and in the podcasts now favored by young voters for news. “Preppers” well equipped with supplies watched in helpless disbelief as homes washed away in a wall of water and mud, taking emergency supplies in the storm. Streets turned into rivers, and many businesses and homes suffered extensive water damage if they were not lost altogether. 

The raging floods were triggered by unprecedented rainfall and winds, but a network of fragile dams also played a role. On Sept 27, when the floods hit, evacuation orders were issued to residents near a number of critical dams due to their reported “imminent failure” or “catastrophic collapse.” Flood waters were overtopping the dams to the point that in some cases the top of the dam structure could not be seen. 

The dams did not collapse, but to avoid that catastrophe, floodgates and spillways had to be opened, releasing huge amounts of water over a number of days. Spokesmen said the dams had “performed as designed,” but they were designed for an earlier era with more stable, predictable climates and no population buildup below the dams.

Five days after the floods hit in East Tennessee, half a million gallons of water were still being released per second from Douglas Dam, northwest of Asheville and upstream from Knoxville on the French Broad River. (Video clip of opened floodgates.) The Watauga Dam in Tennessee was also releasing record flows, surrounding nearby homes in water. WTVC NewsChannel 9 Chattanooga reported that Chickamauga Dam, upstream from Chattanooga, released approximately 566,118 gallons of water per second. 

The Nolichucky Dam, in Tennessee near the North Carolina border, was reported to have “withstood nearly twice the water flow of Niagara Falls.” (See dramatic videos on Fox Weather showing the overflow and the floodgate release continuing three weeks later, a similar clip from 11Alive adding the damage downstream, and overflow footage on WKYC Charlotte.) Other major dams in which the floodgates were opened included Cowans Ford Dam, north of Charlotte (see video clip of the floodgate release); and Waterville Dam (also called Walters Dam), upstream from Newport in Tennessee  (video). Homeowners accused Duke Energy of sacrificing poor neighborhoods for wealthier properties, but as one official said, the excess water had to go somewhere. It had to go downstream. They did what they had to do to avoid outright collapse of the dams, a much worse disaster.  

Upriver from Asheville, the auxiliary spillway of the North Forks Dam was activated. It too is said to have “performed as designed,” but the result was again significant flooding. Mandatory evacuation orders were put in place from the dam to Biltmore Village in Asheville, which suffered major damage. North Forks Dam is classified as a ”high-hazard potential dam,” meaning its failure could result in potential loss of life and serious property damage. 

One concerned Asheville podcaster complained that the city had known for 20 years that the North Forks Dam was inadequate and a lethal danger under flood conditions, but it hadn’t been repaired. The dam was put to the test in September, when residents were told there was no choice but for the flood gates to be opened to prevent the dam from breaking. The result was a 30 foot wall of water that swept homes and lives away, rushing so fast that people were found in the tops of trees. The podcaster’s suspicions were aroused because lithium worth billions of dollars is located in Western North Carolina, where a mining company has been trying to restart operations since 2021, over community protests. 

That was also true of the nearby town of Spruce Pine, downstream from the North Toe Dam, which was submerged under eight feet of water from the combination of torrential rain and the release of the dam’s floodgates. Spruce Pine is a major producer of high-quality quartz, a rare but necessary resource for many tech products. Mining companies have been attempting to double their operations in Spruce Pine, but they too have met resistance from local landowners. For some controversial details, see here. 

Asheville is also downstream from Lake Lure Dam, which was reported on Sept. 27 to be “at risk of imminent failure” as the river was overtopping the dam. Most heavily affected was Chimney Rock, the town immediately downstream from Lake Lure, known for both its rustic scenery and its lithium mines. The damage was extensive.

According to an Oct. 2 broadcast on WBTV News in Charlotte titled “Lake Lure Dam ‘high hazard’ and needed repairs at time Helene hit,” the dam, completed in 1926, does not meet current state safety requirements. Repairs were ongoing but unfinished. Lake Lure Dam is one of 1,581 dams across the state considered “high hazard,” and according to a 2022 report, North Carolina has 194 high-hazard dams in poor or unsatisfactory condition, meaning they “may require immediate or emergency remedial action.” 

Off the Top of My Head

Kamala Equals Pragmatism

by John Lawrence

Last night on the Town Hall Kamala made it clear that she is a pragmatist. This makes a lot of sense since the old political left right spectrum in and of itself doesn't make sense any more. Take the border for instance. There is a consensus that no one should be coming across the border illegally. Even if applying for amnesty there is a legal and an illegal way to do it. Enough resources need to be applied to the border to make sure that the only option for people wanting to come into the US is the legal option. On this both Democrats and Republicans finally agree. Pragmatism is the penultimate American value. As Kamala said she just wants to "get stuff done."  As to whether or not her administration would be "just a continuance of the Biden administration," what difference does it make? Joe Biden did more for the American economy since Franklin Roosevelt. Most of this was directed towards sorely needed infrastructure improvement. American infrastructure has not kept up with most of the rest of the developed world. Now with the weather disasters caused by climate change, it needs to be hardened and improved that much more. However, all a lot of Americans, including those who can most afford it, seem to be fixated on is the price of groceries.

As for fracking, even under the Biden administration, there has been a capitulation to the fossil fuel industry and a realization that the American people will not sacrifice their lifestyles in order to combat climate change. Therefore, not only fracking but every other concession to fossil fuels has been made in order to keep gas prices low. The fact is that renewable energy production has fallen far short insofar as providing all of our energy needs. The demand for energy has outstripped the increase in renewable energy production. Hence, Kamala, not to mention Joe Biden, is now for fracking. So climate change continues apace. Weather disasters will get worse. Instead of describing floods as "1000 year floods," we should now be describing them as "twice a year floods." Americans seem to accept these weather disasters as long as the Federal government provides the money to rebuild after the disaster takes place. The insurance market is a different story. Private insurance will no longer be available in many regions of the country. Perhaps people who want to relocate out of disaster prone areas should study the insurance maps to see where insurance is available and where it is not, and then make their choices.

Romans were bought off from thinking critically by "bread and circuses." Americans seem to be following the same pattern. Instead of being concerned about climate change and infrastructure development to mitigate against climate change, Americans complain about grocery prices while attending concerts where the ticket prices are in the thousands of dollars. In fact the ones who complain about grocery prices the most are those who can well afford them, those for whom grocery prices are a minimum part of their budgets. Americans have been trained to only think about their own personal economic situation and not about the good of the world, not about helping those whose economic situations are much worse. People is Gaza are starving. People in Sudan are starving. People in Cuba don't have any electricity. UNHCR most recently estimated that, by the end of 2023, for the first time in recorded history, the number of people forcibly displaced is now over 117.3 million, with over 31.6 million refugees under UNHCR's mandate and another 6 million Palestinian refugees. These people have far more to worry about than grocery prices and that's if even groceries are available at all.

As for Kamala, sure her administration would be a continuation of the Biden administration and that's a good thing. Part of Biden's Build Back Better plan was to expand Medicare to provide for in home caregivers. That part was stripped out of the infrastructure bill due to compromises with Republicans. Now this is part of what Kamala wants to do - to pick up pieces previously rejected by Republicans. Of course she can't say that. She will be branded an extreme leftist by Republicans just for wanting to help people and improve the lives of Americans. In the final analysis though, Kamala is a pragmatist just wanting to "get stuff done" while Repiublicans are still down the Qanon rabbit hole palavering about inconsequential things that have nothing to do with anything.

Off the Top of My Head

Hardening American Infrastructure

by John Lawrence

It's hard not to believe that, if power lines throughout the south had been undergrounded prior to Hurricane Helene, lights, heat, air conditioning and power would still be on. I believe that a massive infrastructure program should be undertaken to mitigate the effects of climate change. Certainly we have seen an increase of massive flash flooding not only from hurricanes but also from regular, everyday rain storms. Cell service could also be maintained if it were provided by satellites instead of ground networks the equivalent of telephone poles. This is even possible today with some cell phones which have an emergency provision that allows communication via satellite when out of cell phone range in emergencies. Well, climate change will bring one emergency after another. If power and communications were hardened, the effects of widespread devastation wrought by hurricanes such as Helene could be mitigated. Undergrounding the electricity grid would prevent the massive power outages that Helene caused.

On June 26, 2024 U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg announced $1.8 billion in awards from the Rebuilding American Infrastructure with Sustainability and Equity (RAISE) discretionary grant program for 148 projects across the country. [This] announcement brings the total amount of Biden-Harris Administration RAISE grants to more than $7.2 billion for over 550 projects across the country. ... “After decades of underinvestment, the condition of America’s infrastructure is now finally getting better instead of worse – and today we proudly announce our support for 148 more projects in communities of every size across the country,” said U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg. “Through President Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, we’re funding projects across the country to make roads safer, make it easier for people to move around their community, make transportation infrastructure more resilient to extreme weather, and improve supply chains to keep costs down for consumers.” This is a step in the right direction, but only a step. A much bigger effort is necessary to really harden America's infrastructure to mitigate climate change.

Problem is that many voters would resist an increase in their taxes that might be necessary to provide the money for all the work that needs to be done to underground utilities around the country. Americans would always prefer to have the money in their private pockets to spend as they choose rather than to provide the funds necessary for the government to improve infrastructure. That's why the US lags far behind other advanced countries in infrastructure such as high speed trains which are common in many other countries. Americans seem to be willing to rewire and repole electric lines after every storm rather than put the utilities underground so that that would no longer be necessary. Unfortunately, that procedure to "get the power back on" may be more trouble than its worth when the country is faced with massive storm after massive storm. A hardened electric and communications infrastructure would have facilitated relatives getting in touch with each other after Hurricane Helene rather than not knowing for days and even weeks whether or not their relatives were safe. Voters who will not vote to raise taxes to provide a safer and sounder and more advanced infrastructure are not doing themselves any favors in the long run, and the long run is almost here. In terms of climate change, it's already here.

Off the Top of My Head

Why Kamala Flip-Flopped on Fracking

by John Lawrence

Unfortunately, the increase in renewable energy is outpaced by the demand for energy so that under present conditions renewables will never be sufficient to replace fossil fuels. In fact production of fossil fuels will only increase as long as we, as a world, are committed to meeting the demand for energy. Therefore, Kamala, as well as Biden before her, realized that, unless they were going to preach austerity, fossil fuel production needed to be increased not decreased. Fracking produces natural gas which is considered a "cleaner" fossil fuel than coal. The problem is that the continued use of fossil fuels is devastating the environment. It is accelerating climate change. It is accelerating the devastating 1000 year floods which are occurring far more often than 1000 years. It is increasing shore line erosion. It is resulting in year around fire seasons. It is melting glaciers and increasing droughts.

So is there any way out of this dilemma? I think nuclear energy is the only possible way to meet the increasing needs for energy which the people of the earth seems to need and require. Bill Gates has invested in nuclear energy plants. He has broken ground on a novel nuclear power plant in Wyoming. The pilot Natrium nuclear power plant in Kemmerer will be the first of what TerraPower officials hope will be a worldwide fleet of new nuclear energy facilities.

“This reactor exists inside a virtual model, and it’s been working really well inside the computer,” Gates said light-heartedly, eliciting some laughter. “It’s a little bit harder to make it work out there. But that’s what we’re starting on today. This is a big step towards safe, abundant, zero-carbon energy.”

Technically, Gates and others marked the groundbreaking of a liquid sodium testing facility — a critical component of TerraPower’s Natrium nuclear power plant slated to begin operating here in 2030. The event marked what developers, which includes the U.S. Department of Energy, say is the “first advanced nuclear project in the Western Hemisphere to move from design to construction.”

Gates-backed TerraPower touts the Natrium design as part of the industry’s “next generation” strategy to deploy nuclear power throughout the nation and across the globe — a low-carbon alternative for stable electrical generation and a means to address planet-warming carbon dioxide emissions while meeting growing demand for electricity, according to the company.

Rather than the industry’s existing standard of massive nuclear power plants that consume a lot of water, Natrium is much smaller and will use liquid sodium to cool the reactor, which is designed to generate a consistent 345 megawatts of power — enough energy to power about 250,000 homes — with a capability of ramping up to 500 megawatts for short periods, according to the Bellevue, Washington-based TerraPower.

So what's the drawback? It takes money and time to build these nuclear plants. So far even one has barely got off the ground. It won't be operational till 2030!! It would take a massive commitment on a national, even a world wide, level to go this route to provide the energy needs of an increasingly demanding world. As the changing climate is already wreaking havoc all around the world, time is not on the side of human civilization.

Off the Top of My Head

Mud Slinging and Character Assassination: the Only Things Republicans Know How To Do

by John Lawrence

And then the pundits discuss the mud slinging by the hour. Calling people names. Making up stuff. What's this got to do with the future vision for the country? What I want to hear from Trump and Kamala is their vision for the future of our country. I could care less about what they seem to be all about - destroying their opponent. These are the ethics of a wrestling match - destroy your opponent. Kamala has to get specific about a few policies, namely, the border, taxation and abortion. She needs to co-opt Trump's issues. She needs to call for a tax cut for the middle class while raising taxes on the rich. On the border, she has to call for strengthening the border to the point that it is impregnable while calling for increased legal pathways for immigration and asylum. On the wars she has to demand a cease fire and hostage release in Gaza and a settlement in Ukraine that's basically a compromise instead of an all or nothing approach.

The overriding issue of our times is climate change. Nothing could be clearer than the differences between the two parties on this issue. The Democrats are very environmentally conscious. Republicans couldn't care less about the environment or climate change. All they care about is their plastic straws, gas guzzling vehicles, guns and meat. Don't ask them to change their way of life in order to save the planet for future generations. It's hard to imagine a worse ethical stance. They are against everything that is conducive to making the world a better place. It's the legacy of an ethic of selfishness as promulgated by Ronald Reagan, George W Bush and others including Ayn Rand who wrote The Virtue of Selfishness. The US has a very weak, to the point of nonexistence, communal ethic. Individualism and competition is the fabric of American character. There have been a few exceptions, namely, the Depression and World War II. Even in those cases there were many voices who called for not getting involved and just letting the chips fall where they may.

So Kamala, don't get caught up in the mudslinging, character assassination and name calling or responding to same. Express clearly where you are on the issues and where your policies will take America and the world. Vagueness is the enemy of clarity and decisiveness. Better to ignore Trump and his puerility. I want to see clarity about the border and clarity about taxation. As far as women's reproductive rights, Democrats own that issue. As for the rest, a continuation of Biden's policies in terms of infrastructure, the child tax credit, elder long term care and other aspects of Biden's Build Back Better program are important. Especially, the surge in mental awareness and acceptance of mutual responsibility for climate change and the environment is paramount regardless of Republican insistence on keeping their plastic straws, guns, meat and gas guzzlers. A change in the mentality of Americans has to occur or climate disasters will only get worse until many areas of the US, not to mention the world, will become uninhabitable in the very near future.

Home Insurers Cut Natural Disasters From Policies as Climate Risks Grow

Some of the largest U.S. insurance companies say extreme weather has led them to end certain coverages, exclude natural disaster protections and raise premiums

By Jacob Bogage

September 3, 2023 at 7:30 a.m. EDT

Hurricane Idalia caused flood and wind damage in Steinhatchee, Fla. (Thomas Simonetti for The Washington Post)

In the aftermath of extreme weather events, major insurers are increasingly no longer offering coverage that homeowners in areas vulnerable to those disasters need most.

At least five large U.S. property insurers — including Allstate, American Family, Nationwide, Erie Insurance Group and Berkshire Hathaway — have told regulators that extreme weather patterns caused by climate change have led them to stop writing coverages in some regions, exclude protections from various weather events and raise monthly premiums and deductibles.

Major insurers say they will cut out damage caused by hurricanes, wind and hail from policies underwriting property along coastlines and in wildfire country, according to a voluntary survey conducted by the National Association of Insurance Commissioners, a group of state officials who regulate rates and policy forms.

Insurance providers are also more willing to drop existing policies in some locales as they become more vulnerable to natural disasters. Most home insurance coverages are annual terms, so providers are not bound to them for more than one year.

That means individuals and families in places once considered safe from natural catastrophes could lose crucial insurance protections while their natural disaster exposure expands or intensifies as global temperatures rise.

“The same risks that are making insurance more important are making it harder to get,” Carolyn Kousky, associate vice president at the Environmental Defense Fund and nonresident scholar at the Insurance Information Institute, told The Washington Post.

The companies mentioned those policy changes as part of previously unreported responses to the regulatory group’s survey. The survey was distributed in 2022 by 15 states and received responses — some sent as recently as last month — from companies covering 80 percent of the U.S. insurance market.

Allstate said its climate risk mitigation strategy would include “limiting new [auto and property] business … in areas most exposed to hurricanes” and “implementing tropical cyclone and/or wind/hail deductibles or exclusions where appropriate.”

Nationwide has already pulled back in certain areas. The company said that in 2020, it “reduced exposure levels in some of the highest hazard wildland urban interface areas in California.”

In its response to the regulators’ survey, Nationwide said it no longer underwrites coverage for “properties within a certain distance to the coastline” because of hurricane potential.

Other changes will come. “More targeted hurricane risk mitigation actions are being finalized and will start by year-end 2023,” Nationwide told regulators.

Berkshire Hathaway, which also offers reinsurance — insurance policies for insurance providers — wrote that increased climate disasters mean “it is possible that policy terms and conditions could be updated or revised to reflect changes in such risk.”

U.S. homeowners have faced unprecedented disasters in recent weeks that have underscored the new challenges facing insurance markets.

Hurricane Idalia brought severe flooding to Georgia and the Carolinas, and tore through parts of Florida that had never experienced direct hits from a major storm. Tropical Storm Hilary caused $600 million in damage on the West Coast, according to Karen Clark & Co., a leading catastrophe modeling firm. The fires on the Hawaiian island of Maui, whose cause is still under investigation, led to $3.2 billion in property damage, the firm said.

Those catastrophes, insurance industry insiders said, show just how quickly claims costs are escalating in the face of climate change.

U.S. insurers have disbursed $295.8 billion in natural disaster claims over the past three years, according to international risk management firm Aon. That’s a record for a three-year period, according to the American Property Casualty Insurance Association.

Natural catastrophes in the first six months of 2023 year in the United States caused $40 billion in insured losses, the third costliest first-half on record, Aon found.

“There’s no place to hide from these severe natural disasters,” said David Sampson, president of the American Property Casualty Insurance Association. “They’re happening all over the country and so insurers are having to relook at their risk concentration.”

Off the Top of My Head

It's Not Biden's Job to Reduce Inflation. That's Jerome Powell's Job.

by John Lawrence

Republicans are so stupid. They blame Joe Biden for not doing something that's not his job to do. Furthermore, the way Powell is going about his job requires him to create more unemployment, to reduce economic activity. That's the traditional way to reduce inflation. So getting rid of inflation requires more economic pain not less. Then if there is a recession, they'll blame Joe Biden, not Jerome Powell, for that. As far as house prices being out of sight for more and more people, how about blaming the hedge funds and other entities that are bidding up asset prices. Eventually houses will be unaffordable for the masses of people which will turn the American people into renters and basically debtors. Is that Joe Biden's fault or the fault of hedge finds and other cash flush investors who are entering this market? In fact they are in the process of cornering this market. Higher interest rates are also hurting would be home owners and car buyers. Is that Joe Biden's fault or Jerome Powell's fault for raising interest rates? Joe Biden has no control over interest rates. The American consumer is all about me, me, me not what is best for the country as a whole.

Biden has done more than any President since Lyndon Johnson to improve the economy with the Chips Act, the Inflation Reduction Act, the American Rescue Plan and more. Nearly 11 million jobs have been created since President Biden took office – including 750,000 manufacturing jobs. It's the first time the US government has had an industrial policy. He kept the economy afloat during the COVID lock down. The US economy has been left to free enterprise for too long. With deregulation this has allowed corporate entities to pollute, to create dangerous products, to do nothing about carbon dioxide emissions.The government was just supposed to be hands off and let corporations run wild, all in the name of maximizing GDP. Well there are more important things than maximizing GDP like saving the planet from global warming. It is all ready too late to do that. It's only a question at this time of how bad it will get before some of the measures that are being taken today will kick in and save the planet, hopefully, from complete destruction. Each year heat waves and floods are getting more severe. Each year is hotter than the previous year. How important is it to maximize GDP under these conditions?

During World War II, the government made sure that the economy was completely focused on the war effort. Consumer consumption was kept low in order to support the war effort. Today with an even larger danger looming, the economy is going on its merry way with so many elements of it not focused on climate change. In fact I call it the Taylor Swiftization of the economy. Entertainment including professional athletics are very large components of GDP. Nero fiddling while Rome burned is nothing compared to what is happening today. Perhaps the energy going into these frivolous sectors should be refocused on climate change. But the American people don't even all agree that climate change is even a serious situation. They want more fossil fuels, more drilling, more pipelines, more gas production. Fortunately, some states like California are doing more like outlawing gas powered cars by 2035. However, 2035 is too late. Too little, too late is the story of the world's response to climate change. So major disasters will continue with the government's fiscal budget increasingly committed to bailing out these disasters. FEMA, by the way, is bankrupt, and insurance companies no longer want to insure.

A Record 15 Billion-Dollar Disasters Have Hit US So Far This Year: NOAA

The El Rico Pipe Yard remains submerged as Tulare Lake continues to expand in Corcoran, California on March 30, 2023. (Photo: Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)

The tally could rise with the Atlantic hurricane season set to pick up.

by Jessica Corbett, August 8, 2023, from Common Dreams

The United States has already endured 15 billion-dollar weather and climate disasters this year, underscoring the dangers of and need for humanity to combat the fossil fuel-driven planetary emergency. The record pace of pricey extreme weather was announced Tuesday as part of the findings in the latest monthly U.S. climate report from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

Since recordkeeping began in 1980, the U.S. has experienced 363 weather and climate disasters with damages hitting $1 billion, with a consumer price index (CPI) adjustment to 2023, according to NOAA's National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI). The total cost of those events topped $2.59 trillion.

As of Tuesday, there have been 15 confirmed events with losses exceeding $1 billion including "one flooding event, 13 severe storm events, and one winter storm event," NCEI's related webpage explains. "Overall, these events resulted in the deaths of 113 people and had significant economic effects on the areas impacted. The 1980-2022 annual average is 8.1 events (CPI-adjusted); the annual average for the most recent five years (2018-2022) is 18 events (CPI-adjusted)."

 

While the total damage for the 15 events neared $40 billion, the costliest disasters were early March storms in the South and East ($6.1 billion), a tornado outbreak March 31-April 1 ($5.4 billion), and California flooding ($4.6 billion).

Jonathan Erdman, a senior meteorologist with The Weather Channel, noted Tuesday that "2017 is the full-year record. There were 22 billion-dollar disasters in 2017, responsible for an estimated $383.7 billion in damage, both the most of any year since 1980. Hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and Maria were responsible for 86% of that damage tally in 2017."

While the Atlantic hurricane season officially begins in June, it tends to pick up in August—meaning this month could increase the billion-dollar disaster tally and put 2023 on track to break the 2017 record.

Florida Todayreported Monday that "there are now five tropical waves out there in the Atlantic the National Hurricane Center is keeping an eye on that are expected to bring some thunderstorms to the Lesser Antilles and the Caribbean this week, but no major tropical activity is expected over the next few days."

AccuWeather meteorologists in March forecast 11-15 named storms this season but last week updated that estimate to 13-17.

Erdman pointed out that "since 1980, America's costliest weather disasters have almost exclusively been hurricanes. For example, 2005's Hurricane Katrina's damage—adjusted for inflation to 2023—was $193.8 billion, almost five times the total of all 15 of 2023's disasters so far. Last year, Hurricane Ian inflicted an estimated $115.2 billion in damage."

In addition to the billion-dollar disasters, other key findings from NOAA's new report include that the year-to-date temperature for the contiguous U.S. was 53°F, or 1.7°F above average, with Florida seeing its warmest January-July period yet while Connecticut, Delaware, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Mississippi, and New Jersey saw their second-warmest periods.

For just last month, the average temperature across the contiguous U.S. was 75.7°F, or 2.1°F above average, making it the 11th-hottest July in the 129 years recorded. Four states—Arizona, Florida, Maine, and New Mexico—saw their hottest Julys on record.

The recent extreme heat has fueled fresh demands for action from Congress and the White House, with campaigners and even some policymakers pressuring President Joe Biden to stop approving fossil fuel projects and declare a climate emergency.

"We are experiencing extreme weather events across the globe. Heatwaves. Wildfires. Drought. Flooding," Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) said on social media Saturday. "President Biden must declare a climate emergency now!"

Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.

 

 

Jessica Corbett

Jessica Corbett is a senior editor and staff writer for Common Dreams.

Full Bio >

Off the Top of My Head

Barbie and Taylor Swift Prop Up US Economy

by John Lawrence

The Federal Reserve has credited Barbie and Taylor Swift with propping up the US economy. The Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia announced this month that Taylor Swift's tour helped boost travel and tourism in the region, a claim also made by several other U.S. cities regarding the musician's widely popular concerts. The US consumer is amusing itself to death. Meanwhile, the earth is burning up or in fact boiling. One would think that, if the climate situation were so dire, there would be an 'all hands on deck' effort to fight the war on climate change. But, nope, Americans are propping up the economy and in so doing are contributing even more fossil fuel emissions into the atmosphere thus hastening rather than retarding climate change. Even as some American cities - namely Phoenix, Las Vegas and Palm Springs - are sweltering under temperatures greater than 110 degrees Fahrenheit, even with the handwriting on the wall, Americans are dealing with this crisis by going to the movies and to Taylor Swift concerts. Taylor had better beware that she may get a container of coke thrown at her or even chicken nuggets while she struts about the stage. Cardi B got so mad when a "fan" threw her drink at her that she threw her microphone at the fan.

Newsflash: Americans attending Taylor Swift concerts aren't the same Americans who fought World War II. The era of Americans foregoing consumer delights in order to commit themselves to a long hard slog in the name of world peace, freedom and democracy is over. In fact, politically speaking, a major portion of Americans, not a majority hopefully, would rather be entertained by a clown like Trump than to have to ask themselves what they can do for their country as John F. Kennedy suggested. "Ask not what your country can do for you," Kennedy intoned. Well, that question has been answered. What this country can do for Americans is to provide them with entertainment like Barbie and Taylor Swift. And "what you can do for America" is to go to the movies and attend concerts spending your money in order to keep the economy afloat.

The U.N. chief issued a stark warning on climate change this week: “The era of global warming has ended; the era of global boiling has arrived,” António Guterres declared in a news briefing, as scientists confirmed that July is set to become Earth’s hottest month on record. But, boiling or not, most Americans just want to be entertained and to consume all the merchandise that goes with it. Taylor Swift and Beyoncé have been moving markets, quite literally. The Federal Reserve has tracked the striking effect of Taylor Swift's tour on host cities. One analysis estimates it could generate almost $5 billion in global revenue. When Beyoncé comes to town, hotels, hair stylists and bartenders all get a boost, according to Yelp. "Despite the slowing recovery in tourism in the region overall, one contact highlighted that May was the strongest month for hotel revenue in Philadelphia since the onset of the pandemic, in large part due to an influx of guests for the Taylor Swift concerts in the city," the [Federal] reserve wrote in the Beige Book, which is published by the regional banks to share information about the state of the economy.

Have Americans degenerated to the point that when given a choice between letting the earth boil and become unfit for human habitation and entertaining themselves, they would choose to entertain themselves. This is literally "amusing ourselves to death." Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business (1985) is a book by educator Neil Postman. Postman sees television's entertainment value as a present-day "soma", the fictitious pleasure drug in Brave New World, by means of which the citizens' rights are exchanged for consumers' entertainment. Postman was on to something. In the current scenario, though, citizens' responsibilities are being exchanged for consumers' entertainment. In America, as we have been promised, our only responsibility is to enjoy our freedom even if that means that we succumb to the future of a boiling earth.

We Underestimated the Speed and Scale of the Climate Crisis, Scientists Warn

A tree burns during a wildfire in the town of Palaiochori near Athens, Greece, on July 20, 2023.(Photo: Costas Baltas/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)

By Andy Rowell, July21, 2023

from Common Dreams

“We need to hold governments to start to act sensibly now and reduce emissions,” one expert said.

As leading climate scientists watch the devastating, breakneck speed of unfolding climate disasters unfolding across the globe—from record soaring temperatures to catastrophic flooding—many are aghast at how rapidly their worst predictions are being now being played out in real-time.

Some are also now admitting that they might well have underestimated the speed and scale of our impending climate crisis and how bad things could get.

This is deeply ironic because, for years, those scientists who sounded the alarm over climate change were attacked by the oil industry or their funded front groups for exaggerating or playing “chicken little.”

“The research community must be brutally honest. We are on a pathway to 2-3°C, and probably closer to the upper end of that range.”

But now some of the most senior climate scientists on the planet are speaking out about their concerns.

Speaking to the BBC Thursday morning, Sir Bob Watson, who is currently emeritus professor of the UK’s Tyndall Centre for Climate and former chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, said, “I am very concerned. None of the observed changes so far (at +1.2°C) are surprising. But they are more severe than we predicted. We probably underestimated the consequences.”

He added “The research community must be brutally honest. We are on a pathway to 2-3°C, and probably closer to the upper end of that range. We are likely to pass 1.5°C in the mid-2030’s and 2°C around 2060. Current pledges and the policies needed them are totally inadequate.”

As the BBC notes, although Watson’s “comments are candid on the state of action on climate change, many of his colleagues will agree with his conclusion that we are on course for a temperature rise of 2.5°C or more.”

And Watson’s colleagues do concur. Ellen Thomas, a Yale University scientist who studies climate change told TheGuardian “It’s not just the magnitude of change, it’s the rate of change that’s an issue.”

Thomas added: “We have highways and railroads that are set in place, our infrastructure can’t move. Almost all my colleagues have said that, in hindsight, we have underestimated the consequences. Things are moving faster than we thought, which is not good.”

Other leading scientists agree too:

Meanwhile, others are being candid that nothing will change until we reduce our use of fossil fuels. “I’ve been expecting this for 20 years,” Professor Camille Parmesan, from the National Center for Scientific Research and an Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report author, told Bloomberg. “This is just going to keep happening given that we’re not reducing emissions.”

Speaking to TheGuardian, James Hansen, often seen as the Godfather of climate science, warned we are hurtling towards a superheated climate because “we are damned fools” for not acting sooner. “We have to taste it to believe it.”

He told TheGuardian: “There’s a lot more in the pipeline, unless we reduce the greenhouse gas amounts. These superstorms are a taste of the storms of my grandchildren. We are headed wittingly into the new reality—we knew it was coming.”'

“The climate crisis is in the main a fossil fuel crisis.”

“This does not mean that the extreme heat at a particular place this year will recur and grow each year,” he continued. “Weather fluctuations move things around. But the global average temperature will go up and the climate dice will be more and more loaded, including more extreme events.”

In a so far unpeer-reviewed scientific paper, Hansen and colleagues said: “It seems that we are headed into a new frontier of global climate,” one not seen for millions of years.

They warn: “As long as more energy is coming in than going out, we must expect global warming to continue.”

Al Gore is another who is alarmed by what they are witnessing: “Everywhere you look in the world, the extremes have now seemingly reached a new level,” he told TheNew York Times in an interview. “The temperatures in the North Atlantic and the unprecedented decline of the Antarctic sea ice, both simultaneously. We see it in upstate New York, we see it in Vermont, we see it in southern Japan, we see it in India. We see it in the unprecedented drought in Uruguay and in Argentina.”

“The climate crisis is in the main a fossil fuel crisis,” Gore added. “If the world is not permitted to discuss the phasing down of fossil fuels because the fossil fuel companies don’t want the world to discuss it, that’s the sign of a very flawed process.”

But it’s not too late to act. As Watson said: “We need to hold governments to start to act sensibly now and reduce emissions.” And its not just governments. It’s the oil industry, too; as Gore points out, this is a fossil fuel crisis. Created by the fossil fuel industry. Because their decades-old public relations strategy of denying the evidence, spreading doubt, and delaying action is the reason our world is on fire right now.

 

© 2023 Oil Change International

 

 

Andy Rowell

Andy Rowell is a staff blogger for Oil Change International in addition to working as a freelance writer and investigative journalist who specializes in environmental, health and lobbying issues. He is a senior Research Fellow at the University of Bath and Director of the Tobacco Tactics team at the Tobacco Control Research Group, which is a partner in the global tobacco industry watchdog, STOP.

Full Bio >

Off the Top of My Head

"Everyone's Crying Peace on Earth Just as Soon as We Win This War" - Mose Allison

by John Lawrence

Note from the future: One of the last humans evacuating planet earth, Elon Musk, writing the last chapter of the human race from his space hut on the moon: "Well, I guess it's up to me to write the last chapter of human history. I personally was able to escape planet earth as temperatures soared into the 150s. People had been forced into caves deep in earth to escape the heat. However, the war in Ukraine still raged on. Each side was intent on winning that war. More and more resources were poured into weapons. The US defense budget soared into the trillions of dollars. Some of us more enlightened ones said, 'Wait, wouldn't it be more important to take that money and put it toward fighting climate change, our common enemy. Climate change is the enemy of both NATO and Russia. No, the power structure said, it's more important to win this war. As the fighters in that war were dying of heat exhaustion rather than enemy bullets, they were some of the last humans to hold out on the surface of earth. Air temperatures were buckling roads and railroads. Even tanks and drones were melting in front of their eyes. It came down to hand to hand combat as guns were useless in the severe heat. Soldiers got second degree burns just from touching anything metal. But the war raged on. Ukraine was promised a path to NATO membership at the end of the war, but the brush along that path was burning furiously. It's doubtful if Ukraine would have made it all the way along that path to NATO without burning up first."

Musk continued: "You know the human saga reminds me of the fairy tale about the frogs in a pan of water. The water temperature was gradually increasing, but frog A insisted on staying in the water until his frog army was able to defeat Frog B's army. He reassured baby frog that as soon as his side won, they would all jump out of the water and be safe. But first they had to win this war. But baby frog said, 'Aren't you devoting all your time and energy to winning the war when, if both sides cooperated instead, you could devote your resources to lowering the temperature of the water.' No, said Frog A. Frog B is despicable We want all this land. We're not going to cede any of it to Frog B's tribe. But baby frog insisted, 'Who cares who owns what land if the whole pan of water which is our collective habitat burns up while you guys are still fighting? Your budget for cooling the water is miniscule compared to your defense (offense?) budget. If you just got along with other frogs you wouldn't need such a large defense budget. You could devote that money to global water cooling. This is the only pan of water we've got!.' I assure you, Frog A said, that as soon as we win this war, we will devote all our resources to cooling this pan of water."

Musk continued, "Well the moral of the story is that the human race was not able to get its act together even when they faced a common enemy. Each year even after global temperatures reached 140 degrees in some parts of the world for 100 days at a time, neither side in the Ukraine war would stop fighting. In fact that war would have gone on for the next hundred years, but, unfortunately, earth would not have been inhabitable by humans for another hundred years. It was not more than a decade later when temperatures reached 150 degrees for days at a time in most parts of the world. All the glaciers had melted in Antarctica so sea levels had risen more than 10 feet inundating Miami, London, New York City, Tokyo and New Orleans not to mention many other less noteworthy cities. No one could get property insurance any more; the insurance companies all went bankrupt. FEMA had run out of money. Flash floods left hundreds of thousands homeless. Those who had bought those old missile silos in Montana were lucky. They were safely ensconced underground where the temperatures were cooler. People crowded into Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico and Mammoth Cave in Kentucky. After these caves reached capacity a detachment of former marines stationed at the entrance shot anyone trying to gain entrance. Survivalist skills were highly in demand."

"As the last fighter on the battlefield in Ukraine died of heat stroke, NATO and Russia declared the war was over. It was undetermined who actually won. The path to membership in NATO for Ukraine was littered with dead bodies, many of whom had died from heat exhaustion. Ukraine itself was littered with tanks and other metallic weapons of war which seared the flesh of anyone foolish enough to touch them."

When Climate Change Hits Home

Flooding in Stony Point, New York

By David Gelles

New York Times, July 11, 2023

Seth Harrison/USA Today Network/via Reuters

Even if you’ve been paying attention to climate change, it can sometimes feel very far away, distant in both space and time. But on Sunday night, as I was writing my first edition of this newsletter, it came roaring into my kitchen.

I was with my family at our 100-year-old cabin in the Hudson Valley, north of New York City. It had been pouring for fourteen hours, and our ceiling started leaking. Then, around midnight, a wall of water flooded the house.

Many of my neighbors fared even worse. One woman died and dozens had to be rescued as a slow-moving storm system produced widespread flooding in New York State and New England.

We know that man-made climate change is making extreme weather like this more severe. Warmer temperatures enable air to hold more moisture, which leads to more intense rainfall and flooding.

On Monday, the New York governor said such climate-fueled disasters were “the new normal.” In general, the United States is nowhere close to ready for the threat of catastrophic flooding, especially in areas far from rivers and coastlines.

On the other side of the country, much of the Southwest is baking under a heat dome. Major cities have been choking on smoke from Canadian wildfires for a month now. Off the coast of Florida, ocean temperatures are reaching into the mid-90s Fahrenheit.

June heat in Phoenix. Temperatures are expected to be above 110 degrees Fahrenheit (or above 43 degrees Celsius) again this week.  Caitlin O'Hara/Getty Images

This is not just about millions of Americans, of course, but billions of people around the globe. Over the weekend, Delhi recorded its wettest July day in 40 years, Beijing residents flocked to underground air raid shelters to escape the heat, and floods carried away cars in Spain.

The planet is entering a multiyear period of exceptional warmth, scientists say. Greenhouse gas emissions, mostly from the burning of fossil fuels, have already heated the Earth by an average of 1.2 degrees Celsius (or 2.2 degrees Fahrenheit) compared with preindustrial levels. Now a powerful El Niño system in the Pacific Ocean is releasing a torrent of heat into the atmosphere. The warmest days in modern history occurred this month. That all sets the stage for more damaging heat waves, floods, droughts, wildfires and hurricanes.

Yesterday, as I spoke with climate scientists for a story about the storm that walloped my house, they all sounded the alarm about what was coming in the months ahead.

“We are going to see stuff happen this year around Earth that we have not seen in modern history,” one meteorologist told me. “It will be astonishing.”

Abnormal as the ‘new normal’

Each of these anomalies creates new risks, threatening human health and biodiversity. Yet with disasters piling up and headlines blurring together, there is another profoundly dangerous risk: apathy.

As temperature records break and extreme weather becomes commonplace, the abnormal can begin to seem ordinary. That’s an all-too human reaction to adversity. We’re masters of adaptation, and can learn to endure even the most uncomfortable situations.

But in this case, indifference would be the biggest disaster of them all. Growing inured to the signs of a planet on fire would do more than blind us to the damage we’ve already done. It would also delay critical action at a crucial juncture.

Because as bad as things are, there are still real causes for optimism.

After decades of inaction, a monumental effort is finally underway to confront climate change. Wind turbines and solar panels are rapidly displacing fossil fuels. Sales of electric vehicles, heat pumps and induction stoves are soaring. Across government, business and civil society, there is a concerted, coordinated push to reduce emissions, protect nature and help humans adapt to a hotter planet.

The grand project to decarbonize the world economy can be seen as the biggest collective action in human history. On the agenda is nothing less than the remaking of the world’s entire energy and transportation systems, not to mention vast overhauls of the building blocks of modern life. And it all needs to happen with a pants-on-fire urgency as the planet heats up.

That may seem daunting, and it is. Progress is not happening nearly fast enough, and many obstacles remain. But it’s also the opportunity of a lifetime. Should we succeed, we’ll be creating a world with better air quality, more green space, healthier ecosystems and less waste.

It’s a head-spinning moment, one that requires us to honor two seemingly contradictory truths at the same time.

Yes, the fragile ecosystem that sustains human life is in trouble.

And also yes, we have many of the tools needed to get ourselves out of this mess.

Your part of the story

It’s this tension — between hope and despair, between urgency and inertia, between a world remade and a stubborn status quo — that will animate this newsletter in the months and years ahead.

I won’t be doing it alone. Manuela Andreoni, my co-pilot for this newsletter, is based in Brazil and brings us an essential international perspective and a voracious curiosity about climate and the environment. You’ll also be hearing from the Times’ new weather team as well as other reporters from around the newsroom.

My colleague Somini Sengupta has been shepherding this newsletter, sharing her keen insights twice a week. From here on out, we’ll be arriving in your inbox on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and chiming in with additional rapid-fire analysis when news breaks.

And we want to hear from you. You can email the Climate Forward team and tell us what’s got you worried, what’s giving you hope and where we should be looking for the next big story.

A push to wean China from coal

President Joe Biden is trying to repair relations with China after months of increased tensions, and climate is among the top issues on the agenda. Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken and Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen both discussed climate issues in recent visits to Beijing. And climate envoy John Kerry is scheduled to arrive on Sunday.

The diplomatic push reflects an inescapable truth: The United States and China are the world’s industrial superpowers. And any chance at staving off the worst effects of climate change will require both of them moving in the same direction.

“The U.S. and China together make up about 40 percent of emissions,” said my colleague Lisa Friedman, who is following Kerry to Beijing. “They are also the two biggest investors in clean energy.”

China has more solar energy capacity than the rest of the world combined and is the biggest manufacturer and user of wind turbines — a major reason why clean energy has become so affordable for all countries in recent years.

But fossil fuels still make up the majority of China’s energy sources. It consumes over half of the world’s coal, and continues to approve new coal plants at a rapid pace. The Chinese government’s goal is to continue growing the economy while avoiding problems like the power failures the country faced during a heat wave last year that disrupted several supply chains.

China’s investments in renewable energy appear to be sufficient to enable it to reach peak carbon emissions by 2030, as it has pledged. But there are concerns about how high emissions will go before they start to decline.

U.S. officials are urging China to accelerate that energy transition and phase out coal. And after the Biden administration secured hundreds of billions of dollars to accelerate America’s transition to clean energy, they may finally have some leverage.

“What many analysts are saying is that the U.S. just did a big move on climate change,” Lisa said. “Now, it’s China’s turn.” — -Manuela Andreoni

Off the Top of My Head

The World Needs the Cooperation of Russia to Forestall Global Warming

by John Lawrence

Ultimately, geography will determine which countries win and which countries lose as global warming and sea level rise progress. Landlocked countries with little or no exposure to the oceans will win as countries with large shoreline exposures and major coastal cities go underwater. Russia has no major cities that are exposed to sea level rise. Its only ocean exposure is in the far north to the Arctic ocean and a little bit to the northern Pacific ocean. In addition Russia has an abundance of fossil fuels which it is eager to sell to the rest of the world. It has an incentive to increase global warming rather than to mitigate it.

As the Arctic region warms, Russia profits from its northernmost regions becoming more inhabitable. In addition sea routes in the Arctic become more navigable. So Russia is in a position to profit from global warming and to profit financially from hastening global warming by selling fossil fuels. Russia has no disincentive to curtail the sale of fossil fuels which are its major natural resource and source of income. It can undercut and undersell renewables if it wants to. Sanctions have had little or no effect on Russia's internal economy. The departure of Starbucks and McDonald's accomplished nothing. Russia reopened these chains under Russian control with the profits staying in Russia instead of returning to the US. Starbucks became Starubles and McDonald's became Inanov's presumably.

On the other hand consider the world's major cities that are located right on the oceans and are subject to being submerged by global warming. Such cities as New York City, Miami, London, Amsterdam, New Orleans, Venice, Savannah, GA, Tokyo, Shanghai, Mumbai, Kolkata, Osaka, Dhaka, San Francisco, Sydney, Boston, Lisbon, Vancouver, Copenhagen, Los Angeles, Dublin, Honolulu, Lagos, Charleston, Long Beach, Key West and many others in China, Africa, Vietnam, Bangladesh and east Asia. The US and its partners in Europe have major exposure to oceans for many major cities. Billions of dollars in real estate are at stake, not to mention that major trading routes will be disrupted and infrastructure destroyed. Particularly, the US east coast is exposed not only to sea level rise, but to increasingly virulent hurricanes and tornadoes.

So considering the fact that the US has relatively the most to lose from global warming and Russia has relatively the most to win, does it make any sense to make a pariah out of Russia? Regardless of the war in Ukraine, worsening relations with Russia only hasten the day when geography will determine the outcome of the war on climate change. China also has a long shoreline and plenty of major cities that are exposed to the ocean. It would be in China's interest to partner with the US to combat global warming. Yet the US is in the business of making a pariah out of Russia and starting a Cold War with China. So even if  the US wins its wars with Russia and China, it can still lose the war with respect to global warming. In the final analysis Russia and Mother Nature will win. It's all about geography.

Off the Top of My Head

Elon's Folly Contributing to Rocket Fuel Greenhouse Gas Emissions

by John Lawrence

The Starship that exploded soon after launch recently had a methane based fuel. Methane is 80 times more potent as a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. Whatever methane remained in the Starship after launch was fully released into the atmosphere after it exploded. Space tourism will cause even more greenhouse gasses released into the atmosphere. At a time when we should have all hands on deck to decrease greenhouse gas emissions, NASA is going full steam ahead with its space exploration program. The astronauts should be repurposed to fight greenhouse gas emissions not to ramp them up. In an article by Mark Piesing for the BBC, titled The pollution caused by rocket launches we find:

In television, and film, spaceflight is usually represented as having little or no impact on the environment. Yet it should be obvious that rocket engines spew out pollution into the atmosphere, like any form of combustion-driven propulsion.

Perhaps the black carbon, or soot, and other emissions didn't matter when only around 70 commercial rocket launches a year took place. Now that number has doubled; it is expected to increase significantly more over the next two decades due to the growth in demand for services like satellite internet services and space tourism.

At least three scientific research papers have already been published this year [2022] on the impact of rocket emissions on the atmosphere, temperatures, and the ozone layer.

So at a time when planet earth is in peril of remaining a habitable planet for the human species, why are we continuing a quest to fire off rocket ships so we can some day put humans on Mars, an uninhabitable planet? It seems like pure folly. By the time they get humans on Mars, the earth will have become an uninhabitable planet also at the rate we're going. The US government should not be contributing to global warming with its space program at a time when it is professing to be curtailing global warming. If we are to save this planet, much more needs to be done than simply making all cars electric by 2050. Many more power plants will have to be built by then to generate the electricity to power all those electric cars. What kind of fuel will they use for all these new power plants? If they don't have enough renewables by then, it will have to be fossil fuels so what has been gained? Nothing.

People have totally compartmentalized the global warming syndrome. On the one hand they are for eliminating fossil fuels. On the other they go ahead with all sorts of activities that increase their use because alternative green forms of energy are not yet available. I guess it's OK to sacrifice a few neighborhoods to tornadoes here and there as long as we can keep the economy humming. We must not sacrifice the American way of life. Too many people might get upset and vote for the other party. Similarly, we can't restrict assault rifles because too many people would get upset and vote for the other party. So Joe Biden is the perfect President for our times. He understands that he can rub his belly and whistle Dixie at the same time. However, the pace of change in energy creation is much too slow even to counteract the population increases. More people on the planet means more demand for energy, and the fossil fuel industry is only too happy to provide it until renewables can totally take over some time in the future, some time that will be too late for a desperate human species.

Off the Top of My Head

While Earthlings Argue Over Abortion, Planet Earth Is in the Process of Aborting the Whole Human Race

by John Lawrence

While we spend major amounts of energy going back and forth over abortion, books in libraries and who can use which bathrooms, the planet is warming beyond what humans as a species can endure. Floridians carefully labeled the recent flood in Fort Lauderdale a "1000 year flood" instead of a "global warming flood". People talk about rebuilding instead of getting the hell out of low lying regions. Disaster areas are declared right and left with the Federal government expected to send them billions of dollars. How stupid we earthlings are or put another way what tangled webs we weave. The Arctic permafrost is melting with the result that methane, a more potent greenouse gas than carbon dioxide, is bubbling up and going into the atmosphere. As the Arctic warms, methane that has been locked in permafrost for thousands of years escapes and can explode. Released methane that finds its way to the surface contributes to the greenhouse effect of climate change with even more heat retention capacity than carbon dioxide. Even igniting it doesn’t solve the problem, since that produces carbon dioxide as a byproduct. Tulare Lake reforms in California turning what once was productive farmland into a massive lake which will only get much bigger as snow in the Sierras melts. The Washington Post reports:

California’s historic snowpack has started to melt following its warmest days of the year so far, with the communities and valleys below the mountains bracing for the impact of any flooding as all that water makes its way downhill. The severity of any floods will depend on how quickly the snow melts, but as officials share the latest outlook, it’s clear the highest risk stems from the record snowpack in the southern Sierra Nevada.

An enormous volume of water is expected to flow into rivers and streams through the spring and summer. The epicenter of flood concerns lies in the San Joaquin Valley and the Tulare Basin to the west of the southern Sierra, as well as the valleys to the east of the mountain range.

Two rivers in the Tulare Lake region — the Tule and the Kern — are forecast to exceed 400 percent of their average runoff between April and July. The majority of the watersheds are forecast to reach peak water flow in May, though they’ll reach their highest flows at different times. A few rivers, including the San Joaquin River, will see sustained high flows through at least June because of prolonged snowmelt — much later than typical peak-flow timing of April or May for southern watersheds.

So, California, get ready for historic flooding as the snowpack in the Sierras exceeds 200% above normal. Just last year it was zip. People were praying for more snowpack in the Sierras which, if melting gradually, could fill California reservoirs and provide much needed water throughout the year. However, if it melts too fast, the result will be not more water for drinking and agriculture but historic flooding, and that's the more likely result as higher than normal temperatures start the snowpack melting sooner and faster. The year 2022 was the sixth warmest year since global records began in 1880 at 0.86°C (1.55°F) above the 20th century average of 13.9°C (57.0°F). This value is 0.13°C (0.23°F) less than the record set in 2016 and it is only 0.02°C (0.04°F) higher than the last year's (2021) value, which now ranks as the seventh highest. The 10 warmest years in the 143-year record have all occurred since 2010, with the last nine years (2014–2022) ranking as the nine warmest years on record. Of note, the year 2005, which was the first year to set a new global temperature record in the 21st century, currently ties with 2013 as the 11th-warmest year on record. The year 2010, which had surpassed 2005 at the time, now ranks as the 10th-warmest year on record.

So while Americans turn democracy into a travesty of itself with district judges setting national policies, and billionaires pollute the atmosphere with their mega yachts and private jets, the real problems affecting planet earth and human civilization are largely ignored at least partly in the pursuit of profits and a reluctance to give up any perceived privileges that have been established. Despite the large investments in climate change that the Biden administration was lucky enough to get through - not without a lot of resistance by certain segments, I might add - it is just not enough. Airplanes both civilian and military are adding immense quantities of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere, as are container ships, without a solution in sight, and, rather than working on a solution, we are pursuing a world war contained within one country at least for now. The human race can not get along even in the face of certain destruction unless an all out effort is made by all nations to get rid of those processes which are releasing gigatons of carbon dioxide and methane into the atmosphere.

Off the Top of My Head

The Government Should Buy Out Parts of Florida Rather Than providing Money to Rebuild

by John Lawrence

Owners of real estate on Florida's barrier islands should be bought out. Climate change will continue to provide hurricanes that will wipe out homes and businesses in these vulnerable areas. It doesn't make sense to rebuild there. Rebuilding there represents throwing good money after bad. If owners' investments in real estate can be made whole, then they can rebuild or buy in some other area which isn't prone to climate change induced disasters. 7 News reported:

"SANIBEL ISLAND, Fla. (AP) — When Hurricane Ian struck Florida’s Gulf Coast, it washed out the bottom level of David Muench’s home on the barrier island of Sanibel along with several cars, a Harley-Davidson and a boat.

His parents’ house was among those destroyed by the storm that killed at least two people there, and the lone bridge to the crescent-shaped island collapsed, cutting off access by car to the mainland for its 6,300 residents.

Hurricane Ian underscores the vulnerability of the nation’s barrier islands and the increasing costs of people living on the thin strips of land that parallel the coast. As hurricanes become more destructive, experts question whether such exposed communities can keep rebuilding in the face of climate change.

“This is a Hurricane Katrina-scale event, where you’re having to rebuild everything, including the infrastructure,” said Jesse M. Keenan, a real estate professor at Tulane University’s School of Architecture. “We can’t build back everything to what it was — we can’t afford that.”"

Actually, it would be cheaper to buy out this real estate rather than to rebuild it along with all the associated infrastructure. Buying or rebuilding in safer areas where the infrastructure is already present eliminates the costs of debris removal and infrastructure rebuilding. Insurance companies will either go bankrupt or be devastated along with the other natural devastation. FEMA's budget will be used up trying to compensate for all the billion dollar weather disasters that are surely coming. These are no "500 year storms." That is pure fiction. These are once or more a year storms.Much of Florida will be underwater eventually as oceans continue to rise. The only thing that makes sense is to move away from the coasts in the most expeditious and least costly manner. Government can expedite this process so that home and business owners aren't forced back onto vulnerable properties and will have somewhere else to go to without losing their real estate investments.

Off the Top of My Head

Republicans Hate Socialism ... Except When They Need Help Themselves

by John Lawrence

When Superstorm Sandy hit, then Congressman DeSantis voted against giving help to New York state. Now after the Hurricane Ian disaster, Governor DeSantis is asking the Federal government for every dollar he can possibly get. This is typical Republican behavior. After all socialism is about helping people. Republicans want every ounce of help they can get for themselves while denying it to others. All of a sudden DeSantis is Joe Biden's best friend. Joe wants to help people, but he should think twice about helping DeSantis. First of all a hard look should be given to rebuilding on hurricane prone barrier islands. DeSantis, of course, wants the increased economic activity that rebuilding will entail for construction companies especially if the Federal government pays for it. Building Back Better in hurricane prone areas is not good economic sense. And it will cost a fortune in an inflationary era while only adding to inflation as the Federal government injects more money into the economy.

Robert Reich wrote in a recent email:

"No Republican governor has been more vocal in his opposition to what he describes as “socialism” than Florida’s Governor Ron DeSantis. “I stand against socialism,” DeSantis thundered in Florida’s 2018 gubernatorial election. “Socialist policies have failed time and time again.” In June, DeSantis signed an education bill directing Florida’s Department of Education to develop a curriculum educating students on the evils of socialism (as well as communism)."

But now, when his state needs the money, DeSantis is either a full on socialist or a full on opportunist who, once he gets his, will be against anyone else getting theirs. In 2013 DeSantis said: "I sympathize with the victims of Hurricane Sandy and believe that those who purchased flood insurance should have their claims paid. At the same time, allowing the program to increase its debt by another $9.7 billion with no plan to offset the spending with cuts elsewhere is not fiscally responsible." So now after Hurricane Ian, which will run into the tens of billions, is giving the state of Florida the money DeSantis is requesting from the Federal government "fiscally responsible"? Reich poses the question: "So, would DeSantis call any form of government assistance to those in need “socialism?” Obviously, not when it's his ox that's being gored. DeSantis' hypocrisy is immense here, but it will probably work for him. He will take credit for "getting Florida and Floridians back to normal" as he enters the 2024 Presidential contest. Before Biden gives DeSantis all the money he wants, DeSantis should do a mea culpa, stating that he was wrong to vote against disaster relief for New York state after Superstorm Sandy.

DeSantis website headlines: "Governor Ron DeSantis Requests President Biden Approve Major Disaster Declaration and 100 Percent Federal Cost Share for 60 Days for Hurricane Ian" This isn't the first time that DeSantis has used Federal cash to tout his own agenda. Just prior to the fatal hurricane, DeSantis held a press conference in Jacksonville where he gave $1,000 checks to individual firefighters and law-enforcement officers that were being made available through this year’s state budget. Of course he didn't mention that this was cash the state of Florida got from the American Rescue Plan, Federal money which provided more than $8.8 billion to the state of Florida.DeSantis will likely continue to bash President Joe Biden and the Democrats for pushing policies that he says have caused inflation — which includes the massive spending included in the American Rescue Plan. I've got news for Gov. DeSantis: if he cared about inflation, he would take the money to recover from Hurricane Ian out of state taxes instead of letting the American taxpayer foot the bill while all the time giving Joe Biden no credit. He will take all that for himself.

 

Off the Top of My Head

A 500 Year Event, Gov. DeSantis, or a Once a Year Occurrence?

by John Lawrence

Gov. DeSantis has said repeatedly, "This is a 500 year event" as if once we get the damage cleaned up from Hurricane Ian, we can relax because this kind of devastation won't happen again for another 500 years. I've got news for you, Gov. Desantis. An event like Ian will probably happen again within 5 years, and it will be even worse as the Caribbean warms more making hurricanes even more ferocious. Floridians experienced the deadly, devastating consequences of back-to-back major hurricanes—Irma in 2017 and Michael in 2018—along with near-misses by Matthew in 2016 and Dorian in 2019. They don't sound like 500 year events to me. Let's be honest with each other, Gov. DeSantis. The wreckage from Ian won't even be fully cleaned up before the next major hurricane hits Florida. Thank God, DeSantis is not a climate change denier. However, he is not given high marks for taking action to mitigate the effects of climate change. “I am not in the pews of the church of the global warming leftists,” DeSantis told reporters at one 2018 campaign stop. “I am not a global warming person. I don’t want that label on me.” Forget about labels, Gov. DeSantis, you have a major problem on your hands. You better get down on your knees and start worshiping at the church of climate change.

Inside Climate News reports:

"Florida’s climate challenges are among the biggest in the country. Beyond those related to hurricanes intensified by climate change, they include sea level rise, extreme heat, drought and increasing health threats from mosquito-borne diseases. Florida is the most hurricane-prone state, and hurricanes are not only getting more powerful, they are bringing much more rainfall. 

Sunny day flooding is a regular occurrence in some communities because of sea level rise. Some face several feet of sea level rise by the end of the century. 

By its own numbers, the DeSantis administration predicts that with sea level rise, $26 billion in residential property statewide will be at risk of chronic flooding by 2045."

OK, Ian will probably result in more than $26 billion to clean up, and that's not "by 2045". That's this year - 2022. As insurance companies refuse to insure Florida residential property, Florida residents better hope that the Federal government takes up the slack. By the way that's the Federal government that this Republican state tells to stay out of its business. It's always about states' rights until there's some disaster. Then they come running to the Federal government for help. Private flood insurance will soon be a thing of the past. Nearly 80,000 Florida homeowners will have to find new insurance, after Southern Fidelity declared bankruptcy. The Tallahassee based company is the fourth insurer to declare insolvency recently.

The hardest hit by Ian, of course, were retirees and poor people living in mobile homes. Mobile homes should be outlawed in most parts of Florida. They cannot withstand the powerful hurricanes that are only going to get more powerful as climate change accelerates. Even structurally sound homes will still suffer from water damage and the loss of services like power, water, cell phone towers and more. There will be more water damage from storm surges and fresh water flooding as major storms drop 24 inches or more of water on neighborhoods. All utilities need to be undergrounded, or they will be on the ground more than they will be functional. It will be a full time job just getting water, power, sewer and communications back online, not to mention getting roads cleared of debris and rebuilding bridges and washed out roads. Massive climate disasters are only going to get worse, and we're still putting about 34 million tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere each year. There's no way that we can survive without a full on effort by all countries of the world to get off fossil fuels ASAP. Yet countries of the world continue to fight, bicker and compete with each other instead of COOPERATING.

Off the Top of My Head

The Problem With Climate and Gun Disasters: They're One Offs

by John Lawrence

Instead of attributing a climate disaster to global warming, victims will say, "I've never seen anything like this, and I've lived here all my life. Gun disaster victims will say, "I didn't think it could ever happen here." If they said instead, when interviewed, "I think guns should be gotten off the streets" or "Climate change destroyed my house and we're not doing enough to deal with it", then maybe there would be a general awareness growing among the population. There is not enough of a groundswell among the public to change anything because most of the public is not affected by any particular incident. If a particular climate or gun disaster raised the price of gas, then maybe something would be done of a preventative measure. The latest gun legislation is a total joke. It will do nothing to prevent mass shootings. One off climate disasters will do nothing to raise the national consciousness especially among conservatives who don't even believe in global warming. Instead they will call a flood a 500 year event, one that will only occur every 500 years. But then it occurs again tomorrow. Floods and fires are an almost daily occurrence somewhere in the world. If they happen outside the country, no attention at all is paid to the event although climate change is a problem for the whole world not just for any particular nation. It is not just restricted to national borders. Gun violence, on the other hand, is just restricted pretty much to the US. Every other country has sane gun laws.

Politicians, especially Republicans, are in it for the money and not necessarily to do any good for the general public which can't pay for lobbyists to bombard them with their point of view backed up with generous campaign contributions. The more a country is run by politicians profiting by virtue of their positions, the less democratic it is because they are representing their own interests which often means catering to the interests of lobbyists and not catering to the interests of the general public, not to mention the interests of nature or the environment. Many politicians, especially the Republican party as it's constituted today, are guided only by self interest in the same way as corporations are required by law to maximize profits for their shareholders singlemindedly without any other considerations like taking into account what is equitable ao far as society is concerned. The only way to defeat this pernicious aspect of democracy is to take the money out of politics and provide incentives in such a way that a politician finds it in his best interests to represent the interests of his or her constituents and not the interests of the entity which is lobbying him or her. Perhaps an advocate for the people should be paid for out of tax money.

Obviously, it's not in the interests of the victims of gum violence to have the proliferation of guns especially assault rifles on the streets. However, since those that have not been affected by gun violence don't see it as a problem, nothing major is being done. As far as they're concerned, it's a problem that only happens to other people. Unless they identify strongly with the victims of gun violence or start to think that it is something that very likely might happen to them, nothing will be done since it only affects a minority of people and democracies supposedly are run by the majority of the people. Since empathy is a relatively weak emotion compared to self-interest, especially in the US where people have been groomed to seek their self-interest regardless of the effect it has on others, seriously restricting the use and proliferation of guns goes out the window.

What is happening to the human race as a result of climate change is happening at such a slow pace that most people would rather maximize their profits now rather than setting aside some of them because they might benefit people in the future when they might not even be an inhabitant of the planet at that time. Again the manifestation of climate change so far has been one offs only affecting a small group in any one incidence of a natural disaster. When climate change gets to the point where sea level rise is affecting a large number of major cities in the world simultaneously, then something might be done only it will be too late. At that point the only thing will be to react defensively rather than having taken action in the past that would have forestalled the present event. People would rather eat their cake right now rather than saving it for the future when they might not even be around to eat it.

Off the Top of My Head

Sea Levels to Rise by 200 Feet if Poles Melt

by John Lawrence

Based on 410 ppm which is the concentration of carbon dioxide right now in the atmosphere, the ice on the poles will go completely away albeit at a glacial pace. Concentrations of carbon dioxide have varied between 100 ppm and 300 ppm for hundreds of millions of years, and earth has gone through hot periods in which there was no polar ice and at least one period where the entire earth was encased in ice. Reliable predictions by scientists show that 410 ppm will guarantee the disappearance of ice from the poles and a 200 foot sea level rise which will wipe out most of the east coast including a total disappearance of the state of Florida. The concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is continuing to increase. It will continue to increase way above the current 410 ppm. Humans are still pouring billions of tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere year after year. There has been no diminution of this trend. In fact it is accelerating. The world emits about 43 billion tons of CO2 a year. So already there is enough carbon dioxide in the atmosphere to guarantee that the poles will melt, and the earth will become very hot. And we're still making it worse year after year.

As the oceans warm and the polar ice melts, we are seeing more extreme weather events due to increased water evaporation from the oceans. That increased amount of water in the atmosphere is released in the form of torrential downpours which cause flooding and weather events such as hurricanes. Higher temperatures are also causing droughts and forest fires. Although these events are tragedies for those directly affected, geological history has shown that life can adapt. One of the first major catastrophes the human race will be faced with is the loss of major cities situated close to oceans such as New York, London, Tokyo, Shanghai, Miami and New Orleans. However, humans can adapt to this by just moving further back from the shore lines as sea levels rise wiping out most low lying areas. Of course this will increase anti-immigrant sentiment due to the the number or refugees in the world as humans crowd onto remaining habitable areas. At this stage we will still be better off than Venus which has a runaway greenhouse gas effect and a surface air temperature of 800 degrees F. Its atmosphere is mostly carbon dioxide.

The lesson here is that it is to the advantage of the human race to stop putting carbon dioxide into the atmosphere as quickly as possible. This means major changes to our civilization which human beings are reluctant to make especially in democracies which are governed by the will of the people. While most will give lip service to preserving the planet for future generations, in fact they don't want to do anything that will change their lifestyles or inconvenience themselves in any way. Only when war and pestilence force humans to diminish their numbers on the planet will the human footprint get down to a certain size which, along with the adoption of renewable energy systems, will allow the planet to sustain enough habitable land mass for the furtherance of human life at least for some people. How fast we proceed with changing the human ecosystem in terms of greenhouse gas reduction will determine what kind of a planet future generations will be forced to live on. At the very least it will resemble a hot house earth, similar to conditions which existed millennia ago in which the polar regions were tropical swamps.

Off the Top of My Head

What Mass Shootings and Global Warming Have in Common

by John Lawrence

Even if sales of AK-15s were banned today, there would still be enough AK-15s on the streets for mass shootings to continue for decades. Even if no more carbon dioxide goes into the atmosphere starting today, there is enough already there to provide weather disasters for decades. Meanwhile, gun sales and carbon dioxide generation are continuing apace. There will be no diminution of gun violence nor will there be any diminution of carbon dioxide entering the atmosphere. If there were zero gun sales tomorrow and zero carbon dioxide generation tomorrow, there might be a chance for recovery from both travesties, but, no, those travesties will continue along predictable lines. There will be even more mass shootings and assorted other gun violence while gas powered vehicles and power generating plants will continue to pump out carbon dioxide using the atmosphere as a waste dump. Plastic will continue to pollute the oceans. Chemical fertilizer and pest control chemicals will continue to pollute waterways. People pursuing the American Dream will continue consuming products to the point of commercial gluttony and beyond.

The production of steel and cement produces large amounts of carbon dioxide that goes directly into the atmosphere. It's a matter of sheer chemistry. Steelmaking is one of the most carbon emission intensive industries in the world. As of 2020, steelmaking is estimated to be responsible for 7 to 9 per cent of all direct fossil fuel greenhouse gas emissions. In order to mitigate global warming, the industry will need to find reductions in emissions. In 2020, McKinsey identified a number of technologies for decarbonization including hydrogen usage, carbon capture and reuse, and maximizing use of electric arc furnaces powered by clean energy. A Swedish company has developed a way of making carbon dioxide emission free steel. The Guardian reported:

The world’s first customer delivery of “green steel” produced without using coal is taking place in Sweden, according to its manufacturer.

The Swedish venture Hybrit said it was delivering the steel to truck-maker Volvo AB as a trial run before full commercial production in 2026. Volvo has said it will start production in 2021 of prototype vehicles and components from the green steel.

Steel production using coal accounts for around 8% of global greenhouse gas emissions. Hybrit started test operations at its pilot plant for green steel in Lulea, northern Sweden, a year ago. It aims to replace coking coal, traditionally needed for ore-based steel making, with renewable electricity and hydrogen. Hydrogen is a key part of the EU’s plan to reach net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.

So the chemistry is being changed so that water H₂O is produced as a by product instead of carbon dioxide, CO².

CNBC reported:

Cars and electricity get a lot of attention in conversations about decarbonization, and they should. But building materials like cement and steel also need to be scrutinized.

The production of cement is responsible for about 8% of global carbon dioxide emissions and 5.5% of total global greenhouse gas emissions.

On [April 28, 2022], Breakthrough Energy Ventures, Bill Gates’ climate finance firm, and DCVC, a Silicon Valley venture capital firm, announced they led a $55 million funding round in Brimstone Energy, a start-up aiming to commercialize carbon-negative cement.

“We need to recognize that cement is a massive problem for climate and that nobody has figured out how to address it at scale without dramatically increasing costs or moving away from the regulated materials that the construction industry knows and loves,” Breakthrough partner Carmichael Roberts told CNBC.

So it is not enough to get gas guzzlers off the roads. Gas prices going up is a good thing. It will guarantee that more new car purchases will be hybrid or all electric vehicles. But the world is not changing over to non-polluting forms of energy quick enough. Major climate related disasters are already occurring and will continue to occur. Since we are still adding carbon dioxide to the atmosphere, these disasters will only get worse as time goes by. Meanwhile, all kinds of other ecological disasters are taking place including the insane and greedy pursuit of insatiable profits in the gun production industry and the buildup of military hardware. In 2019, a report released by Durham and Lancaster University found the US military to be “one of the largest climate polluters in history, consuming more liquid fuels and emitting more CO2e (carbon-dioxide equivalent) than most countries”. In addition to climate pollution the military is responsible for the development of assault rifles like the AR-15 which was first developed for combat operations. Very conveniently, it is now a profit center for US gun corporations, and in addition to killing combatants on the field of battle, it has brought war time slaughter into children's schools, people's super markets and night clubs. We've come full circle. And in addition the production of steel weapons results in increased carbon emissions.

Off the Top of My Head

If the Planet Goes Down, It Will Be Irrelevant Whether a Woman Has the Right to Choose or Not

by John Lawrence

Democrats will fail at codifying Roe vs Wade, but Republicans will succeed in codifying anti-abortion rights if a Republican President is elected in 2024. But that's the least important thing that will happen. If Republicans take over the House and Senate in 2022, and a Republican President is elected in 2024, forget the US and the world doing anything about climate change. It will be full steam ahead for fossil fuels, and full steam ahead for the death of the planet. We don't have that much time any more to prevent irreversible change due to global warming. All the deadlines here have past or soon will be past. The relevant headline is Greenhouse Gases Must Begin to Fall by 2025, Says U.N. Climate Report. We are continually being bombarded with political and cultural trivia when the giant in the room is climate change. The prevailing attitude is we'll get around to that eventually, but eventually is almost here, folks. If not much is happening before 2025, we might as well forget it and spend our few remaining years enjoying the human past times of war and trivial pursuits. Eos reported:

"The first Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) assessment report on climate mitigation since the Paris Agreement was released today. This is likely the IPCC’s last word before the window of opportunity to stop warming at 1.5°C disappears, after which scientists said life-threatening climate consequences and feedbacks will intensify.

"Led by hundreds of scientists convened by the United Nations Environmental Programme and the World Meteorological Organization, the summary of the report was approved by 195 governments after 16 days of discussions and one 40-hour marathon session that stretched into Sunday night.

"The report gives the world a failing grade. International policies implemented by the end of 2020 will miss the Paris Agreement goal of limiting warming well below 2°C. Current trends suggest that by 2100, the world will warm 3.2°C compared to preindustrial average temperature, with a spread of 2.2°C to 3.5°C possible.

"“Reaching 3.2°C will be nightmarish,” said Andrea Simonelli, a political scientist at Virginia Commonwealth University who was not involved in the report. “The threshold for habitable is already being pushed to the limit in many places.”"

Despite these dire warnings the human species is still on a binge of colossal pettiness. This means that wars and in particular resource wars will become more severe and common. Already the whole world is in a food crisis due to drought and lack of water for crop irrigation. War also plays a part. Russia and Ukraine together supply more than a quarter of the world’s wheat, and coming disruptions could fuel higher food prices and social unrest. When people start fighting over food, wars will take on proportions that will make the war in Ukraine seem like a minor aberration. Russia and Ukraine together export more than a quarter of the world’s wheat, feeding billions of people in the form of bread, pasta and packaged foods. The countries are also key suppliers of barley, sunflower seed oil and corn, among other products. Food prices have already risen globally as a result of pandemic-related shipping disruptions, rising costs for farmers and adverse weather, and wheat is no exception. Between April 2020 and December 2021, the price of wheat increased 80 percent, according to data from the International Monetary Fund. That was on a par with rising costs for corn and higher than increases for soybeans or coffee.

Now we're talking some serious stuff, not just the future of NATO. The brunt of the food crisis just like the brunt of climate change in general will be felt most by the poorer nations. As a consequence, whatever immigration crisis that is being felt today will be magnified 1000 times at least as starving people seek to come across borders not only in the US but all over the world where prosperous nations border on poverty stricken ones. So crises based on real world problems, rather than on national borders between Russia and Ukraine, will become more severe. Already in California, the water supply for crop irrigation is likely to be turned off by 2025 as Lake Mead and Lake Powell go dry. California supplies about a quarter of the US' fruits and vegetables so the American diet is shortly to be seriously affected and not just by supply chain issues. Recently, a fire in Laguna Niguel destroyed 20 multi-million dollar homes on a day that was not particularly windy or hot. One 10,000 square foot mansion recently was on the market for almost $10 million.

They say that Nero fiddled while Rome burned. Now the human species is fiddling while the whole damn planet is about to go up in smoke. Oh well, it was a nice planet while it lasted. Scientists assure us that there are trillions of other habitable planets out there, but they're so far away.

Off the Top of My Head

According to Biden's BBB Plan, Buyers of Electric Vehicles Would Receive up to $12,500 in Tax Credits

by John Lawrence

So where is this incentive to buy electric vehicles now that gas (in CA) is about $6 a gallon? Now is the time when we need this subsidy, but, alas, the Democrats couldn't even stick together to pass this and other incentives and measures to get off fossil fuels. How about this as an incentive: preventing daily tornadoes in the heartland of the US? As extreme weather gets more extreme, Congress can't even pass programs to combat global warming and the consequent damage that's being done to people's lives and the economy in general. Not to mention the fact that major portions of the population will not be able to get property insurance which is happening right now and will only get worse. If you have a lot of brush around your house, you're an insurance liability. If you live in a flood plain, you're an insurance liability. We are told by people who know that we only have a few years to do something before we can expect catastrophic consequences from climate change and global warming. Yet we are taking our time getting off fossil fuels. There is even regret that we didn't go ahead with the Keystone pipeline.

The New York Times reported:

"In the coming decades, as global temperatures continue to rise, hundreds of millions of people could struggle against floods, deadly heat waves and water scarcity from severe drought, the report said. Mosquitoes carrying diseases like dengue and malaria will spread to new parts of the globe. Crop failures could become more widespread, putting families in places like Africa and Asia at far greater risk of hunger and malnutrition. People unable to adapt to the enormous environmental shifts will end up suffering unavoidable loss or fleeing their homes, creating dislocation on a global scale,[according to a recent UN report]."

We do know the things we need to be doing. It's just that we're not doing them or doing them at such a slow pace that we will still experience the worst effects of climate change. If you think the refugee problem is bad now, climate change will exacerbate and accelerate the refugee problem. People will be fleeing their homes and homelands when it becomes apparent that they can't make a living there. They will be coming to parts of the world where countries are wealthy enough to mitigate the worst effects of climate change. Basically, that means that people will flee poor countries and attempt at all costs to enter rich countries. That's why the US, as the richest country in the world, should be going full speed ahead to transition away from fossil fuels and into a new era that consists of renewable energy production and more environment friendly lifestyles. Instead, Americans are determined to lead lifestyles of maximum consumption right up to the hilt of their financial resources and beyond in a last gasp of over consumption.

Common Dreams reported:

In the wake of a United Nations report that activists said showed the "bleak and brutal truth" about the climate emergency, a leading economist on Friday highlighted a step that supporters argue could be incredibly effective at combating the global crisis: nationalizing the U.S. fossil fuel industry.

Writing for The American Prospect, Robert Pollin, an economics professor and co-director of the Political Economy Research Institute at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, noted the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and high gas prices exacerbated by Russia's war on Ukraine.

"If we are finally going to start taking the IPCC's findings seriously," Pollin wrote, "it follows that we must begin advancing far more aggressive climate stabilization solutions than anything that has been undertaken thus far, both within the U.S. and globally. Within the U.S., such measures should include at least putting on the table the idea of nationalizing the U.S. fossil fuel industry."

Asserting that "at least in the U.S., the private oil companies stand as the single greatest obstacle to successfully implementing" a viable climate stabilization program, Pollin made the case that fossil fuel giants should not make any more money from wrecking the planet, nationalization would not be an unprecedented move in the United States, and doing so could help build clean energy infrastructure at the pace that scientists warn is necessary.

The expert proposed starting with "the federal government purchasing controlling ownership of at least the three dominant U.S. oil and gas corporations: ExxonMobil, Chevron, and ConocoPhillips."

"They are far larger and more powerful than all the U.S. coal companies combined, as well as all of the smaller U.S. oil and gas companies," he wrote. "The cost to the government to purchase majority ownership of these three oil giants would be about $420 billion at current stock market prices."

So for roughly half of the defense budget, the US taxpayers could own the oil industry and phase it out at the speed required to save the planet from the worst effects of global warming. Instead we're treated to the Big Oil CEO's defiance that they are not price gouging because prices are set by the world market. Does anyone question why prices have to be set by the world market? No. Obviously, the world market exists to serve the interests of the oil producers, not oil consumers. Maybe the US should get off the world market because we produce enough oil to meet all current consumer demands. So why do we even need the world market? The world market exists to serve the interests of the OPEC nations who won't even open their spigots in a time of crisis, and it exists to serve the interests of the western Big Oil corporations like ExxonMobil, Chevron and Shell.

Americans would like to have one more blast of consumption rather than buckle down and do what's necessary to combat climate change, an effort that would be at least as great as the effort and sacrifice put forth to fight World War II. Billionaire's would rather blast off into space than use their money to fight climate change. Their lifestyles are major contributors to the emission of greenhouse gasses. They don't want to be told that they can't overconsume with numerous 27,000 square foot mansions and a fleet of luxury cars. That's the American Dream, or is it. It's soon going to turn into the American Nightmare but probably not for them. They have the resources to escape the worst effects of global warming. Instead the nightmare will be mostly visited on the least among us as well as randomly due to tornadoes, floods and fires.

Off the Top of My Head

Almost as Many Have Died During the Covid Pandemic as in All American Wars

by John Lawrence

Maybe we should have invested more in public health than we have in the military. Compared to the trillions spent on the military, only a pittance has been spent on public health, let alone on promoting peace in the world. 1.1 million have died in all American wars since the founding of the republic. About 927,000 and counting have died from the current pandemic even though a revolutionary mRNA vaccine is available. 675,000 died during the Spanish flu pandemic of 1918 sans vaccine. So many more people have died from pandemics in the US than have been killed in wars. Yet war and the preparations for war are pursued relentlessly while efforts for peace languish. This is not only dumb; it's sick. It goes to show that homo sapiens is one of the stupidest and least empathetic species that has ever evolved. Nero fiddled while Rome burned, but the human race is right on course fiddling while the earth burns due to climate change. We will continue to fiddle and equivocate playing one upsmanship with each other as the earth deteriorates into an uninhabitable planet. No wonder the billionaires are making plans to get off.

Of course the power structure doesn't really care what happens on planet earth after they die. They will miss by virtue of their own natural deaths the worst of it. They will have lived the American Dream while bequeathing to their grandchildren the American Nightmare. As we continue to pour billions of tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, we are more concerned about the economy that we are about human survival and what sacrifices that will mean. In November, researchers at the Global Carbon Project estimated that global carbon-dioxide emissions from energy and industry rose 4.9 percent in 2021, after a 5.4 percent decline in 2020. China, India and the European Union all had major increases, suggesting that any climate effect from the pandemic was fleeting. So not even a worldwide pandemic can significantly alter the relentless pursuit of economic growth which produces mega tons of carbon dioxide. Residents of planet earth refuse to change their lifestyles and their aspirations for what they conceive to be a "better life."

In the US consumerism is force fed through advertising just like in France ducks are forced fed to produce foie gras. Facebook makes billions of dollars not selling a product but selling advertising. Amazon at least provides products and the service of delivering those products. The advertising industry is the equivalent of the forced feeding of ducks only the ducks are American consumers who would rather not change their lifestyles of accumulation even if it means that their grandchildren will die a miserable death on a burned out planet. Meanwhile, nations exacerbate tensions among each other and foment wars, the preparations for which cost trillions of dollars which, therefore, are not spent on climate mitigation.

Lifestyles not only of the rich but of the middle class would have to change if the earth is to survive climate change. The production of steel and concrete by current methods produce tons of carbon dioxide. The generation of electricity by coal and gas produces tons of carbon dioxide. Agriculture, mainly cow farts, produces tons of methane. As the earth warms sea levels rise, the Arctic thaws and even more methane is released. It's so anthropogenic! We would be better off going back to the horse and buggy days. The American fetish for progress has produced an ecological disaster. The American lifestyle is an environmental disaster. Meanwhile, the power structure in the US and elsewhere seems bound and determined to accelerate the process of environmental destruction while extreme weather events are passed off as "seen nothing like it but vowing to rebuild." That's the American can-do spirit!

Off the Top of My Head

Why Coal is So Hard to Get Rid Of

by John Lawrence

To forestall climate change we must get rid of coal yet coal is the cheapest and most abundant source of energy for power generating plants worldwide. China is building coal fired generating plants in India as India develops into a middle class country. As COP26 aims to banish coal. Asia is building hundreds of power plants to burn it. Millions of tons of coal each year will be imported to fuel a giant power plant that will burn the fuel for at least 30 years to generate power for the more than 70 million people that live in India's Tamil Nadu state. This plant is one of nearly 200 coal-fired power stations under construction in Asia, including 95 in China, 28 in India and 23 in Indonesia, according to data from U.S. nonprofit Global Energy Monitor (GEM). While the US is primarily responsible for the billions of tons of carbon dioxide already present in the atmosphere, developing countries don't want to hinder their emerging development since they aren't the ones that contributed most of the CO₂ so far. Asia is home to 60% of the world's population and about half of global manufacturing, and coal's use is growing rather than shrinking as rapidly developing countries seek to meet booming demand for power.

Reuters reported:

"In 2020, more than 35% of the world's power came from coal, according to the BP Statistical Review of World Energy. Roughly 25% came from natural gas, 16% from hydro dams, 10% from nuclear and 12% from renewables like solar and wind. This year, coal demand is set for a new record, driving prices to all-time highs and contributing to a worldwide scramble for fuel.

"Record coal demand is contributing to a rapid rise in emissions in 2021 after a fall last year, when restrictions on movement for billions of people to slow the pandemic caused fuel use to plummet. While some of the new coal plants under construction will replace older, more polluting stations, together they will add to total emissions. "The completion of the capacity that is already under construction in these countries will drive up coal demand and emissions," said Lauri Myllyvirta, lead analyst with the Centre for Research on Energy and Clear Air.

"The carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from the new plants alone will be close to 28 billion tonnes over their 30-year lifespans, according to GEM."

While India will continue to pollute with coal, their emissions will be dwarfed by China, the top global coal miner, consumer and emitter, whose leader, President Xi Jinping, is not expected to attend COP26. More than 1,000 coal plants are in operation, almost 240 planned or already under construction. Together, coal plants in the world's second-largest economy will emit 170 billion tons of carbon in their lifetime - more than all global CO₂ emissions between 2016 and 2020.

The solution is that the advanced countries like the US have to spend the money to rapidly convert Asia's fossil fuel energy plants to non polluters. Wind and solar are not enough to fill the bill. In order to get off fossil fuels quickly, nuclear power is the only feasible solution, and these plants must be funded and constructed in Asia by the US and the European Union. Bill Gates had plans to build an advanced digital nuclear test plant in China which were nixed by the Trump administration which was a global warming denier. What the rest of the developed world worries about is whether or not Trumpism will come back in the next election. If the earth is not to burn up from global warming, cooperation between the US and China is paramount. Yet the Pentagon continues to advocate for a Cold War with China, and even Biden's administration is ready to cast doubts warily on China. Yet there is no other way. We need to take resources away from the US military establishment which wants to keep itself in business by creating the pretext for war with China while turning China and Russia into pariahs and enemies of the western world. This is a huge mistake if we want our grandchildren to live on a habitable and sustainable planet.

US Breaks Summer Heat Record Set During Dust Bowl in 1936: NOAA

The United States in June, July, and August was the hottest since records began, including the Dust Bowl summer of 1936. The combination of high temperatures with drought in some regions and high precipitation in others, led to a summer of weather extremes all closely tied to global warming and the climate emergency. (Photo: iStock/Getty)

 

"I wondered if I would live to see one of America's most iconic weather records fall—the record for hottest summer, set in the great Dust Bowl of 1936," said one meteorologist. "Finally, in 2021, the record has fallen."

 

Jon Queally

September 10, 2021

The United States just experienced the hottest summer ever, breaking the record set in 1936 when the Dust Bowl Era took hold amid extreme heat, drought, crop failures that upended the country.

According to data and new analysis released Thursday by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA):

During meteorological summer (June-August), the average temperature for the Lower 48 was 74.0°F, 2.6°F above average, nominally eclipsing the extreme heat of the Dust Bowl in 1936 by nearly 0.01°F and essentially tying 1936 for the warmest summer on record. A record 18.4 percent of the contiguous U.S. experienced record-warm temperatures for this season. For August, the contiguous U.S. average temperature was also 74.0°F, 1.9°F above the 20th-century average and ranked as the 14th-warmest August on record. For the year to date, the contiguous U.S. temperature was 55.6°F, 1.8°F above the 20th-century average, ranking 13th warmest in the January-August record.

With temperatures extreme in the U.S. in June, July, and August, precipitation was also high. The NOAA data revealed that the total rainfall across the lower 48 states "was 9.48 inches, 1.16 inches above average, ranking eighth wettest in the historical record. The August precipitation total for the contiguous U.S. was 3.09 inches, 0.47 inch above average, ranking 14th wettest in the 127-year period of record."

The combination of high temperatures with drought in some regions and high precipitation in others led to a summer of weather extremes all closely tied to global warming and the climate emergency. As the agency's report notes:

Devastating flash flooding and fatalities resulted from multiple events during August including Tropical Storm Fred in western North Carolina, convective flooding from a complex of storms across middle Tennessee, Hurricane Ida across Louisiana and portions of the Northeast in early September and from Tropical Storm Henri, also across parts of the Northeast. With 35 fatalities accounted for during August*, it was the deadliest month for flooding across the U.S. since Hurricane Harvey in 2017.

Wildfires continued to spread across the western U.S. during August as the Dixie Fire in north-central California became the second-largest fire in the state’s history. The Caldor Fire also in California grew rapidly during August, threatening South Lake Tahoe communities. Air quality remained a concern across the U.S. as ash and fine particulates from the many wildfires obscured the skies.

Meteorologist and climate expert Jeff Masters expressed awe at the record-setting heat documented in NOAA's latest findings.

"When I began my career as a meteorologist 40 years ago," Masters tweeted Thursday, "I wondered if I would live to see one of America's most iconic weather records fall—the record for hottest summer, set in the great Dust Bowl of 1936. Finally, in 2021, the record has fallen."

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Off the Top of My Head

Good on President Biden for Using His Visit to the Flood Zones to Give a Tutorial on Climate Change

by John Lawrence

Previously, after a natural disaster no one mentioned climate change. There was much bemoaning and commiserating, but Biden took a different tack. He lectured the American people about climate change and how it contributed to the disasters that had befallen the unfortunate. What's more he said they would continue and get worse unless we undertake to do something about it. No more attributing the disasters to one in 500 year events. That language is totally out the window. No more statements like "I've never seen anything like this my entire life." Get used to it. People are going to see a lot more of these climate disasters from now on. As President Biden said, we can't prevent these disasters from happening on a regular basis, but we can do something about them getting a lot worse. Meanwhile the fossil fuel industry is running ads on TV about how wonderful the oil and gas industry is, and they are lobbying their evil little hearts out to get politicians on their side.

“The nation and the world are in peril,” President Biden said after touring storm damage in New York and Jersey. “And that’s not hyperbole. That is a fact.”

"Folks — and we have to take some bold action now to tackle the accelerating effects of climate. If we don’t act — now I’m going to be heading, as Chuck knows, as the senator knows, I’m going to be heading from here to Glasgow, Scotland, for the COP meeting [United Nations Climate Change Conference], which is all the nations of the world getting together to decide what we are going to do about climate change. And John Kerry, the former secretary of state, is leading our effort, putting it together.

"We are determined, we are determined that we are going to deal with climate change and have zero emissions, net emissions by 2050. By 2020 [sic] (he meant 2030), make sure all our electricity is zero emissions. We’re going to be able to do these things. But we’ve got to move. We’ve got to move. And we’ve got to move the rest of the world. It’s not just the United States of America.

"And so, folks, this summer alone, communities with over 100 million Americans — 100 million Americans call home — have been struck by extreme weather. One in every three Americans has been victimized by severe weather. The hurricanes along the Gulf, the East Coast, up through this community. And I saw the human and physical cost firsthand, as I said, in Louisiana.

"And, folks, the evidence is clear. Climate change poses an existential threat to our lives, to our economy, and the threat is here, it’s not going to get any better. The question: Can it get worse? We can stop it from getting worse.

"And when I talk about building back better — and Chuck is fighting for my program, for our program on the Hill — when I talk about building back better, I mean you can’t build to what it was before this last storm. You got to build better so that if the storm occurred again, there would be no damage. There would be.

"But that’s not going to stop us, though, because if we just do that, it’s just going to get worse and worse and worse. Because the storms are going to get worse and worse and worse. And so, folks, we’ve got to listen to the scientists and the economists and the national security experts. They all tell us this is code red.

"The nation and the world are in peril. And that’s not hyperbole. That is a fact. They’ve been warning us the extreme weather would get more extreme over the decade, and we’re living in it real time now."

Biden is telling it like it is. The American people are in for a lot more of these climate disasters, and we can't stop them immediately. It's going to take decades to get this problem under control, and that's only if we go full steam ahead by taking measures to get it under control. Meanwhile, there are measures which can be taken to mitigate the costs both human and financial from these climate disasters. People must move out of flood plains and areas prone to forest fires. We must underground utilities so that the power doesn't go out during hurricanes and wildfires. That goes for cell phones and cable TV too. People have to have secure means of communication even during a climate disaster. Building codes need to be upgraded. Water management needs to improve so that torrential rains do not just become runoff that turns into floods. That water is precious and needs to be transported to parts of the country that are in more or less perpetual drought. The power grid needs to be hardened. Transportation needs to be electrified. Power generation needs to use renewable sources, and advanced nuclear needs to be developed. Ways of making steel and concrete need to be developed that don't use fossil fuels and the methods of doing so need to be scaled up and spread throughout the whole world. Agriculture needs to be made organic and factory farms eliminated. It's not enough for the US and the developed world to do the right things. Green infrastructure must be developed and spread to the whole world. We must partner with China in a Green Belt and Road Initiative. They are very advanced in building infrastructure throughout the world. While the US has been fighting needless wars, China has been building infrastructure albeit not green infrastructure. From now on coal fired power plants in India and China need to be eliminated and replaced with renewable energy and advanced nuclear power generation.

Severe Drought Threatens Hoover Dam Reservoir – And Water for US West

The wellspring of Lake Mead created by the dam’s blocking of the Colorado River has plummeted to an historic low as states in the west face hefty cuts in their water supplies

by Oliver Milman at Hoover dam

from the Guardian

 

Had the formidable white arc of the Hoover dam never held back the Colorado River, the US west would probably have no Los Angeles or Las Vegas as we know them today. No sprawling food bowl of wheat, alfalfa and corn. No dreams of relocating to live in a tamed desert. The river, and dam, made the west; now the climate crisis threatens to break it.

The situation here is emblematic of a planet slowly, inexorably overheating. And the catastrophic consequences of the extreme weather this brings.

Hoover dam is the height of a 60-story building and is 45ft thick at the top and 660ft at the bottom. Its construction, in the teeth of the Great Depression, was a source of such national pride that thousands of people journeyed through the hostile desert to witness the arrival of what has become an enduring monument to collective effort for the public good.

The engineering might of Hoover dam undoubtably reshaped America’s story, harnessing a raucous river to help carve huge cities and vast fields of crops into unforgiving terrain. But the wellspring of Lake Mead, created by the dam’s blocking of the Colorado River and with the capacity to hold enough water to cover the entire state of Connecticut 10ft deep, has now plummeted to an historic low. The states of the west, primarily Arizona and Nevada, now face hefty cuts in their water supplies amid a two-decade drought fiercer than anything seen in a millennium.

“We bent nature to suit our own needs,” said Brad Udall, a climate and water expert at Colorado State University. “And now nature is going to bend us.”

Surveying the dam’s sloping face from its curved parapet, Michael Bernardo, river operations manager at the US Bureau of Reclamation, admits the scarcity of water is out of bounds with historical norms. While there is no “average” year on the Colorado River, Bernardo and his colleagues were always able to estimate its flow within a certain range.

But since 2000, scientists say the river’s flow has dwindled by 20% compared to the previous century’s average. This year is the second driest on record, with the flow into Lake Mead just a quarter of what would be considered normal.

“These are scenarios that aren’t necessarily where we expect to be in our models,” said Bernardo, whose work helps deliver a reliable level of water to thirsty western states. Nearly 40 million people, including dozens of tribes, depend on the river’s water. “We’re getting those years that are at the extreme ends of the bell curve. We’ve seen extremes we haven’t seen before, we now have scenarios that are very, very dry.”

In June, the level of Lake Mead plunged below 1,075ft, a point that will trigger, for the first time, federally mandated cuts in water allocations next year. The Bureau of Reclamation (the government agency originally tasked with “reclaiming” this arid place for a new utopia of farmland and a booming western population), expects this historic low to spiral further, dropping to about 1,048ft by the end of 2022, a shallowness unprecedented since Lake Mead started filling up in the 1930s following Hoover dam’s completion. This will provoke a second, harsher, round of cuts.

“We’ve known this point will arrive because we’ve continued to use more water than the river provides for years,” said Kathryn Sorensen, a water policy expert at Arizona State University. “Things look pretty grim. Humans have always been good at moving water around but right now everyone will need to do what it takes to prevent the system from crashing.”

Seven states – California, Utah, Arizona, Colorado, Wyoming, New Mexico and Nevada – and Mexico are bound by agreements that parcel out the river’s water but those considered “junior” partners in this arrangement will be hit first.

Should second tier cuts occur, Arizona will lose nearly a fifth of the water it gets from the Colorado River. Nevada’s first-round cut of 21,000 acre-ft (an acre-ft is an acre of water, one foot deep) is smaller, but its share is already diminutive due to an archaic allotment drawn up a century ago when the state was sparsely populated.

The latest era of cooperation between states that rely upon the Colorado River has now entered the “realm of lose-lose”, according to Colby Pellegrino, deputy general manager of resources for the Southern Nevada Water Authority. “Everyone’s going to have to do more with less, and that’s really going to be challenging for people,” she said. “‘Drought’ suggests to a lot of people something temporary we have to respond to, but this could permanently be the type of flows we see.”

The decline of Lake Mead is apparent even at a cursory glance. The US’s largest reservoir is now barely a third full, the dark basalt rock of its canyon walls blanched by a distinctive white calcium ring where the water level once was. This level has plunged by about 130ft in the past 20 years and is currently receding by about a foot a week as farms hit their peak irrigation period.

Guardian graphic | Source: Elevation data from Bureau of Reclamation Records for Lower Colorado River Operations.

The pace of change has been jarring to the millions of people who regularly boat, fish and swim on the lake, with the National Park Service recently laying down new steel platforms to extend launch ramps that no longer reach the water. Some marinas have been wrenched from their moorings and moved because they have been left marooned in baking sediment.

Seen from above in time lapse over the years, Lake Mead looks like a spindly puddle withering away in the Mojave Desert, as nearby Las Vegas, which gets almost all of its water from the lake and went a record 240 days last year without rain, balloons in size. The west’s ambitions have crunched into the searing reality of the Anthropocene.

The Colorado River rises in the lofty Rocky Mountains, before tumbling through 1,450 miles of mountains, canyons and deserts until it reaches the Sea of Cortez in Mexico. Seasonally melting snow has traditionally replenished the river but snowpack on mountaintops in the west has declined by an average of 19% since the 1950s, while soaring temperatures have dried out soils and caused more water to evaporate.

This morphing climate, plus the rampant extraction of water for everything from golf courses in Phoenix to vegetables growing in California to gardens in Denver, means the Colorado fizzles out in dry riverbed before it even reaches its Mexican delta.

Only 1.8% of the west is not in some level of drought, with California, Arizona and New Mexico all experiencing their lowest rainfalls on record over the previous 12 months. Lakes in Arizona are now so low they can’t be used to fight the fires themselves spurred by drought, while the retreat of Lake Folsom in California uncovered the wreckage of a plane that crashed 56 years ago. The governor of Utah has resorted to asking people to pray for rain.

The heat has been otherworldly, with Phoenix recently enduring a record six straight days above 115F (46.1C). A “heat dome” that settled over the usually mild Pacific north-west pushed temperatures to reach a record 108F (42.2C) in Seattle and caused power lines to melt and roads to buckle in Portland. A few hundred miles north, a fast-moving wildfire incinerated the town of Lytton in British Columbia the day after it set a Canadian temperature record of 121F (49.4C). Barely into summer, hundreds of people have already died from the heat along the west coast.

The west has gone through periods like this “megadrought” , with only occasional respite, for the past two decades. But scientists have made clear the current conditions would be virtually impossible without human-caused climate change, pointing to a longer-term “aridification” of the region. All of the water conservation efforts that have kept shortages at bay until now risk being surpassed by the rising heat.

“The amount of water now available across the US west is well below that of any time in modern civilization,” said Park Williams, a hydroclimatologist at Columbia University. Research by Williams and colleagues last year analyzed tree rings to discover the current dry period is rivaled only by a spell in the late 1500s in a history of drought that reaches back to around 800, with the climate crisis doubling the severity of the modern-day drought.

“As the globe warms up, the west will dry out,” said Williams. “The past two years have been shocking to me, I never thought I would see downtown LA reach 111F as it’s so close to the ocean, but we have some of the driest conditions in 1,200 years so the dice are loaded for more heatwaves and fires. This could be the tip of the iceberg, we may well see much longer, tougher droughts.”

In the guts of the Hoover dam, down bronze-clad elevators and through terrazzo corridors, a line of enormous turbines help funnel water out downstream, creating hydro-power electricity for more than 1m households in the process. Five of the 17 turbines, each weighing the same as seven blue whales, have been replaced in recent years with new fittings more suited to operating in lower lake levels.

Even with these adaptions, however, the decline of Lake Mead has caused the amount of hydro power generated by the dam to drop by around 25%. The drought is expected to cause the hydro facility at Lake Oroville, California, to completely shut down, prompting a warning from the United States Energy Association that a “megadrought-induced electricity shortage could be catastrophic, affecting everything from food production to industrial manufacturing”. The association added that such a scenario could even force people to move east, in what it called a “reverse Dust Bowl exodus”.

Bernardo said a similar shutdown of the Hoover dam would require more than 100ft in further water level retreat, which is not anticipated, although he finds himself constantly hoping for the rains that would ease the tightening shortages.

“We all want the nice weather but we need those good storms to build everything back up,” he said.

“We’d need three or four above average years, back to back, to restore the lake. Your guess is as good as mine whether we’ll get that. I’ll continue to watch the weather, every day.”

Off the Top of My Head

Why Joe Manchin is Crucial to Biden's Climate Plan

by John Lawrence, January27, 2021

Joe Manchin is a conservative Democrat from West Virginia, probably the most conservative Democrat in the Senate. So why would Joe, who has already signaled his opposition to getting rid of the filibuster, and represents a coal mining state, go along with Biden's climate plan? The answer is that Biden's plan for converting to renewable energy will create a helluva lot of jobs in West Virginia transitioning all those coal related jobs to renewable energy jobs. Make no mistake. Joe Manchin will become a team player after these assurances of massive job creation in West Virginia. Similarly, Biden will target other fossil fuel generating states and communities with massive renewable energy projects so that workers in the fossil fuel industry will be placated and mollified. They will become his biggest fans as millions of good paying, union jobs are created for them. The oil industry's attempts to push back will be futile. They can save money by not lobbying because it won't get them anywhere. Joe Biden holds all the cards.

The genius of going all out for climate change is that Biden is making it an issue of job creation. Not that climate change in and of itself is not the main issue of paramount importance. It's just that reframing it as a jobs issue will take the air out of the oil industry profiteers who are making millions off of the status quo. They like things just the way they are despite the global warming catastrophe that awaits us if we don't act post haste. Joe Biden: "When I think of climate change, I think of jobs." Making John Kerry a Climate Change Envoy to the rest of the world is important because climate change cannot be forestalled within the borders of the US alone. There must be a coordinated, cooperative effort, and, in particular, China, Russia and India must be brought into the deal. What, you mean we can't afford to have any more enemies? We must make friends out of enemies using diplomacy rather than the bullying tactics of the Trump administration if we and the rest of the planet are to survive. Yes and it will nullify the ratinale of the bloated military-industrial complex. Instead of defunding the police, we should defund or reduce the funding of it to help pay for the Green New Deal.

So how are we going to pay for it? That seems to be the outstanding question. Thankfully, we have a former Chairman of the Federal Reserve as Treasury Secretary, Janet Yellin. She knows where the bodies are buried, so to speak, at the Fed. She knows that taxes do not have to be raised to pay or it, at least taxes on the poor and middle class. Taxes on the rich need to be raised, but more to reduce inequality than to pay for the response to climate change. Modern Monetary Theory has demonstrated that the US can never run out of money because it is a sovereign currency issuer. The Fed, as Janet Yellin well knows, can just create the money with a few keystrokes on a computer. This power, however, cannot be used irresponsibly. Inflation must be dealt with, and there are a number of arrows in the Fed's quiver to do this as was done during the build-up to WW II. As Stephanie Kelton has pointed out in her book The Deficit Myth, deficits don't matter. They are simply an accounting entry on the Fed's balance sheet. An unlimited amount of money was available when the banking crisis that caused the Great Recession in 2008 occurred. The Fed doesn't need tax receipts in order to create money which can then be transferred to the Treasury's account at the Fed. However, such transfers do have to be authorized by congress whereas the bank bail-outs did not require such authorization since the Fed is the loaner of last resort to the banks. The Fed can provide liquidity to the banking system whenever it thinks that that is prudent.

In the How to Pay for the Green New Deal the authors write: "Further, in what follows we do not assume that we need to raise taxes simply because government spending rises. The position we take is that taxes should be raised to fight inflation that would result from excess demands on resources. We would not raise taxes merely to balance spending with tax revenue. If more spending does not generate inflationary pressure, we do not need to raise taxes. In any event, we argue below that tax hikes are not necessarily the best way to counteract inflationary pressures should they arise." So tax increases are not necessary to fund a Green New Deal except possibly if the increased government spending would cause increased inflation, but there are other tools available to deal with inflation. Tax increases on the rich, however, are necessary in order that inequality doesn't get even worse than it is now. A recent report showed: "At $4.1 trillion, the total wealth of America’s 660 billionaires is two-thirds higher than the $2.4 trillion in total wealth held by the bottom half of the population, 165 million Americans." Creating new jobs to fight global warming ill help to mitigate both the climate crisis and the inequality crisis, but taxes on the rich will both decrease the need for money creation by the Fed and help to fund a Green New Deal.

Off the Top of My Head

Democrats: Don't Let Republican Narratives Define You

by John Lawrence, November 9, 2020

Labels and sloganeering are not important. Global warming is not a question of Left and Right. It's a question of Smart and Dumb. If science shows that we have to get to net zero carbon emissions by 2035, then we have to do whatever it takes to get there. It's not enough to compromise to get half way there. Half way is not good enough. Half way means that the destruction of the earth is a certainty. This is not a political football. It's something that needs to be done post haste. That's why it's important to force the appropriate legislation through Congress based on the power to do so. If Democrats win the 2 Senate runoff races in Georgia, they will have the power to do so. If not Republicans will still control Congress, and all bets are off.

Republicans are adept at defining people and issues with labels, and then getting us to fight over the labels even defining the labels as too far left or too far right or meeting in the middle. How is a Green New Deal too far left if it saves the planet from global warming? It is not constructive to fight over this label. We just have to do what needs to be done. Already we are seeing the destructive power of nature caused by global warming with intense and widespread wild fires all over the world and relentless, destructive hurricanes and flooding in the Gulf states and elsewhere. This year alone several powerful hurricanes have hit the Gulf states, and they are still coming. They are coming so frequently that people have not recovered from ones 3 hurricanes ago. We have to go full steam ahead on attacking global warming not half speed ahead. Call it a Green New Deal or a Biden Green Deal or whatever you want to call it. The label is unimportant. The action taken is.

What put Trump over the top in 2016 was his appeal to working class voters. Trump's support of the fossil fuel industry appealed to all the workers in that industry especially in Pennsylvania and Texas. Let's be clear. Workers in this industry are not wedded to that industry; they are wedded to their jobs. They don't want their jobs to go away. If Joe Biden and the Democrats guarantee fossil fuel workers jobs in the renewable energy industry at higher wages, they will abandon whatever allegiance they had to fossil fuels in a heartbeat. This needs to be the message. And with it will come a flip of Texas from red to blue. Pennsylvania will stay squarely in the Democratic column. Republicans know this so they will do whatever they can to obfuscate, confuse, demonize and obstruct a transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy. That's why it's so important for Democrats to control the Senate. Otherwise, Mitch McConnell will block any progressive legislation including legislation designed to get us to net zero carbon emissions by 2035.

Republicans obviously don't care about the issue of global warming. Their tactic is to demonize the label: "Green New Deal." That's how they operate. They have money at stake in fossil fuels. They could care less about the workers. They care about the investors and the financial class that's invested in fossil fuels. The Democratic strategy should be to care about the workers by guaranteeing them jobs in the renewable energy field and let the investing class fend for themselves. Once they see the profits to be made in renewable energy they also will flip in a minute and abandon fossil fuels investments. Already many of them are divesting. When humans discovered the efficacy of metals they left the stone age and left the remaining stones in the ground. We need to do the same thing with fossil fuels: leave them in the ground.

Joe Biden has been very careful about the slogan: Defund the Police. Republicans are trying to hang that label around the Democrats' necks also. Nobody in his right mind wants to defund the police. Allocate more funds to social workers who may be better able to deescalate mental health situations? Of course. So nuance is important, but Republicans don't deal in nuance; they deal in labels and in particular the use of labels to demonize the other side. Joe Biden has threaded the needle very agilely. Also Republicans have not demonized Joe like they did Hillary for 25 years or more. That's why Joe is considered "more likable." In the final analysis labels are not important. The label - socialism - is not important. What is important is to make contructive - I will not even say progressive - change in this country, first to save the earth from global warming, and, secondly, to put the US on a more constructive track with regard to a host of other issues. Let Smart win over Dumb!

Off the Top of My Head

All Cars Sold in CA after 2035 Must Be Zero Emission Vehicles

by John Lawrence, September 25, 2020

California's Governor Newsom has issued an executive order mandating that all new car sales by 2035 will be zero emission vehicles. That is they will either be all electric or hydrogen cells. A mandate is one thing. However, the implementation is quite another. He has given this job to the California Air Resources Board. The devil is in the details. The best implementation would be a state ordered straight line reduction starting in 2021 and ending in 2035 which would decrease gas powered car sales in accordance with that line year after year. Otherwise, the whole thing wouldn't amount to much especially if there was no government ordered mandate to reduce cars systematically year over year. More than 1.63 million new cars and trucks are expected to be sold in the state in 2020, according to the California New Car Dealers Association. This makes California one of the world's largest car markets.

The Governor also called on the legislature to ban fracking. Fracking contributes to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions as much as oil products since the natural gas the wells produce is 90% methane. Methane is a 40 times more powerful GHG than carbon dioxide. Fracking is only marginally profitable, and many fracking operations go bankrupt with the consequence that the fracking wells are abandoned without proper stoppage. Methane continues to leak from them. The reduction of regulations by the Trump administration has only accelerated this practice so that the fracking operations are not accountable for leakage from their wells. In New Mexico the San Juan Basin was considered a plentiful resource for fracking. But the boom and bust economy has contributed to the fact that many wells are being abandoned. Capital and Main reported:

Right now, there are over 30,000 wells in the San Juan Basin, but only about 20,000 remain active.

“You’re in danger of orphaned and abandoned wells at every level: Your first concern is the small producer who just ducks out, that goes off and abandons their well or takes bankruptcy,” Schreiber said. The BLM and the state of New Mexico require companies to secure bonds to guarantee they’ll comply with regulations, including safely plugging wells once they’re no longer producing.

But Schreiber said the bonds are “wholly inadequate.” They represent just a fraction of what it costs to properly plug and abandon a well, which includes rehabilitating the well site, the road and any pipelines or other infrastructure.

Adrienne Sandoval, director of New Mexico’s Oil Conservation Division, agreed that the downturn comes with certain risks. “Companies on the margins of going out of business may be forced to make decisions that put compliance on the backburner,” she said. “We need to be as diligent as possible to make sure our regulations are being followed and we’re protecting human health and the environment.”

In the age of Trump, deregulation is the watchword and many companies don't do the right thing. The consequence is methane leaking from abandoned wells and contributing to global warming as GHGs build up in the atmosphere. The further consequence is destructive wildfires all over the world from California to Australia to Siberia which experienced 100 degree temperatures above the Arctic circle this year!

"In the next 15 years we will eliminate in the state of California the sales of internal combustion engines," Newsom said at a news conference in Sacramento before signing the order. "If you want to reduce asthma, if you want to mitigate the rise of sea level, if you want to mitigate the loss of ice sheets around the globe, then this is a policy for other states to follow." Newsom's executive order calls ending the sale of new gasoline-powered cars by 2035 a "goal," but it also orders the Air Resources Board to immediately begin drafting regulations to achieve it by that year.

Now it is up to the California legislature to put some teeth in Governor Newsom's "mandate." It's got to be full steam ahead for eliminating GHGs on a systematic basis, and everybody has to get on board this train. So far since the Paris accords in 2015 more, not less, GHGs have gone into the atmosphere every year. It will be interesting to see if 2020 will be any different due to the coronavirus pandemic. If the nations of the world don't put aside their petty grievances and get on the same page to drastically reduce GHGs, we can expect more and more destructive wildfires as well as sea level rise leading to destructive floods and hurricanes.

You know it's not just about making America great again, it's about making the world great. It's about making the world great by creating a sustainable and inhabitable planet powered by renewable energy. It's about doing something about the 80 million refugees in the world that America helped create. It's about doing something about the 40% of the world's population that does not even have clean water or adequate sanitation systems. Americans need to not be so self centered, get off their carcasses and make the earth great again.

Off the Top of My Head

The Relationship Between Poverty and Pandemic

by John Lawrence, July 20, 2020

Some people think these are 2 independent phenomena that have nothing to do with each other. In fact they're interrelated. The viruses spill over from animal host reservoirs into human beings when humans are in close contact with animals. As farms, villages, agricultural and mining operations encroach on animal habitat, spillover is not far behind. Many poor people get their only protein from 'bush meat', that is wild animals of all sorts. Especially in China but elsewhere as well people eat all kinds of exotic species. This makes it more likely that there will be a transfer of animal viruses to humans. The virus probably originated from a bat in Wutan's so-called 'wet market' where they sell all kinds of animals both wild caught and farm raised.

Sanitation in many parts of the world leaves a lot to be desired. Diseases of all kinds are rampant. Some of these are confined to local areas, but some like COVID-19 can spread to the rest of the world and cause a pandemic. An estimated 2.5 billion people, more than 35% of the world’s population, lack access to adequate sanitation. Disease started in these areas can spread to the rest of the world in a pandemic so the more the developed world can do to improve these conditions in poor areas of the world, the more the developed world is protecting itself from potential future pandemics. Unsafe drinking water, inadequate availability of water for hygiene, and lack of access to sanitation together contribute to about 88% of deaths from diarrheal diseases.

Water, sanitation and hygiene has the potential to prevent at least 9.1% of the global disease burden and 6.3% of all deaths. The impact of clean water technologies on public health in the U.S. is estimated to have had a rate of return of 23 to 1 for investments in water filtration and chlorination during the first half of the 20th century. Over half of the global population or 4.2 billion people lack safely managed sanitation services. (WHO/UNICEF 2019).

Furthermore, the strain on the world's potable water supply is being exacerbated by climate change. Glaciers store about 70% of the world's fresh water. They release this water gradually during summer months as the glaciers melt. Since the climate is getting warmer, glaciers are releasing water earlier in the year and much of it is just running off never to be productively used. Then when water is really needed later on, the glaciers are spent for the year. Glaciers are receding because of climate warming so that they are containing less and less fresh water each year in the first place. The cold season in which glaciers add more ice to the glaciers is getting shorter each year so there is less ice to begin with. More than 1.4 billion people depend on water from the rivers of the Himalaya. The main rivers are the Indus, the Brahmaputra, the Ganges and the Yellow River. The first 3 drain through India, the last through China.

As earth's population increases there are not only more mouths to feed, there is a greater need for fresh water the supply of which is diminishing. This leads to less crop production, starvation and even worse sanitation and personal hygiene. There is more pressure to trap and eat bush meat which can contain deadly viruses which can spread to the rest of the world as the current pandemic did. Therefore, if we want to live in a safe, habitable world we need to start thinking about sustainable water and food supplies for everyone on the planet and better hygiene and sanitation for all the world's people, not just the few in developed countries. It is more important to spread the knowledge of safe water and sanitation systems as well as sustainable agricultural practices. Population control in one form or other is also necessary because the planet can only support a limited number of people especially if they are all living middle class lifestyles. We need to rethink what a sustainable lifestyle is and not consume a disproportionate percentage of earth's resources.

The Solutions to the Climate Crisis No One is Talking About

by Robert Reich

Wednesday, April 22, 2020

Both our economy and the environment are in crisis. Wealth is concentrated in the hands of a few while the majority of Americans struggle to get by. The climate crisis is worsening inequality, as those who are most economically vulnerable bear the brunt of flooding, fires, and disruptions of supplies of food, water, and power.

At the same time, environmental degradation and climate change are themselves byproducts of widening inequality. The political power of wealthy fossil fuel corporations has stymied action on climate change for decades. Focused only on maximizing their short-term interests, those corporations are becoming even richer and more powerful — while sidelining workers, limiting green innovation, preventing sustainable development, and blocking direct action on our dire climate crisis.

Make no mistake: the simultaneous crisis of inequality and climate is no fluke. Both are the result of decades of deliberate choices made, and policies enacted, by ultra-wealthy and powerful corporations.

We can address both crises by doing four things:

First, create green jobs. Investing in renewable energy could create millions of family sustaining, union jobs and build the infrastructure we need for marginalized communities to access clean water and air. The transition to a renewable energy-powered economy can add 550,000 jobs each year while saving the US economy $78 billion through 2050. In other words, a Green New Deal could turn the climate crisis into an opportunity - one that both addresses the climate emergency and creates a fairer and more equitable society.

Second, stop dirty energy. A massive investment in renewable energy jobs isn’t enough to combat the climate crisis. If we are going to avoid the worst impacts of climate change, we must tackle the problem at its source: Stop digging up and burning more oil, gas, and coal.

The potential carbon emissions from these fossil fuels in the world’s currently developed fields and mines would take us well beyond the 1.5°C increased warming that Nobel Prize winning global scientists tell us the planet can afford. Given this, it’s absurd to allow fossil fuel corporations to start new dirty energy projects.

Even as fossil fuel companies claim to be pivoting toward clean energy, they are planning to invest trillions of dollars in new oil and gas projects that are inconsistent with global commitments to limit climate change. And over half of the industry’s expansion is projected to happen in the United States. Allowing these projects means locking ourselves into carbon emissions we can’t afford now, let alone in the decades to come.

Even if the U.S. were to transition to 100 percent renewable energy today, continuing to dig fossil fuels out of the ground will lead us further into climate crisis. If the U.S. doesn’t stop now, whatever we extract will simply be exported and burned overseas. We will all be affected, but the poorest and most vulnerable among us will bear the brunt of the devastating impacts of climate change.

Third, kick fossil fuel companies out of our politics. For decades, companies like Exxon, Chevron, Shell, and BP have been polluting our democracy by pouring billions of dollars into our politics and bankrolling elected officials to enact policies that protect their profits. The oil and gas industry spent over $103 million on the 2016 federal elections alone. And that’s just what they were required to report: that number doesn’t include the untold amounts of “dark money” they’ve been using to buy-off politicians and corrupt our democracy. The most conservative estimates still put their spending at 10 times that of environmental groups and the renewable energy industry.

As a result, American taxpayers are shelling out $20 billion a year to bankroll oil and gas projects – a huge transfer of wealth to the top. And that doesn’t even include hundreds of billions of dollars of indirect subsidies that cost every United States citizen roughly $2,000 a year. This has to stop.

And we’ve got to stop giving away public lands for oil and gas drilling. In 2018, under Trump, the Interior Department made $1.1 billion selling public land leases to oil and gas companies, an all-time record – triple the previous 2008 record, totaling more than 1.5 million acres for drilling alone, threatening multiple cultural sites and countless wildlife. As recently as last September, the Trump administration opened 1.56 million acres of Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling, threatening Indigenous cultural heritage and hundreds of species that call it home.

That’s not all. The ban on exporting crude oil should be reintroduced and extended to other fossil fuels. The ban, in place for 40 years, was lifted in 2015, just days after the signing of the Paris Climate Agreement. After years of campaigning by oil executives, industry heads, and their army of lobbyists, the fossil fuel industry finally got its way.

We can’t wait for these changes to be introduced in 5 or 10 years time — we need them now.

Fourth, require the fossil fuel companies that have profited from environmental injustice compensate the communities they’ve harmed.

As if buying-off our democracy wasn’t enough, these corporations have also deliberately misled the public for years on the amount of damage their products have been causing. 

For instance, as early as 1977, Exxon’s own scientists were warning managers that fossil fuel use would warm the planet and cause irreparable damage. In the 1980s, Exxon shut down its internal climate research program and shifted to funding a network of advocacy groups, lobbying arms, and think tanks whose sole purpose was to cloud public discourse and block action on the climate crisis. The five largest oil companies now spend about $197 million a year on ad campaigns claiming they care about the climate — all the while massively increasing their spending on oil and gas extraction.

Meanwhile, millions of Americans, especially poor, Black, Brown, and Indigenous communities, already have to fight to drink clean water and breathe clean air as their communities are devastated by climate-fueled hurricanes, floods, and fires. As of 2015, nearly 21 million people relied on community water systems that violated health-based quality standards. 

Going by population, that’s essentially 200 Flint, Michigans, happening all at once. If we continue on our current path, many more communities run the risk of becoming “sacrifice zones,” where citizens are left to survive the toxic aftermath of industrial activity with little, if any, help from the entities responsible for creating it.

Climate denial and rampant pollution are not victimless crimes. Fossil fuel corporations must be held accountable, and be forced to pay for the damage they’ve wrought.

If these solutions sound drastic to you, it’s because they are. They have to be if we have any hope of keeping our planet habitable. The climate crisis is not a far-off apocalyptic nightmare — it is our present day.

Australia’s bushfires wiped out a billion animals, California’s fire season wreaks more havoc every year, and record-setting storms are tearing through our communities like never before. 

Scientists tell us we have 10 years left to dramatically reduce emissions. We have no room for meek half-measures wrapped up inside giant handouts to the fossil fuel industry. 

We deserve a world without fossil fuels. A world in which workers and communities thrive and our shared climate comes before industry profits. Working together, I know we can make it happen. We have no time to waste.

As Climate Crisis-Fueled Fires Rage, Fears Grow of an 'Uninhabitable' California

Published on

Wednesday, October 30, 2019

by

Common Dreams

As activist Bill McKibben put it, "We've simply got to slow down the climate crisis."

by

Jon Queally, staff writer, Jessica Corbett, staff writer

 0 Comments

Fire is seen near Getty Center in Los Angeles, the United States, Oct. 28, 2019. Thousands of residents were forced to evacuate their homes after a fast-moving wildfire erupted early Monday morning near the famous Getty Center in Los Angeles in the western U.S. state of California. (Photo: Qian Weizhong/Xinhua via Getty)

With wildfires raging across California on Wednesday—and with portions of the state living under an unprecedented "Extreme Red Flag Warning" issued by the National Weather Service due to the severe conditions—some climate experts are openly wondering if this kind of harrowing "new normal" brought on by the climate crisis could make vast regions of the country entirely unihabitable.

Lack of rain coupled with powerful Santa Ana winds in the state, some gusting with hurricane-level force, have left officials warning residents in many communities that the worst is yet to come even as firefighters already report being stretched to the max.

In an ominous new warning, the National Weather Service issued a rare “extreme red flag warning” for Southern California through Thursday evening, saying winds could top 80 mph and be the strongest in more than a decade https://t.co/LQt1VjzQdE

— Los Angeles Times (@latimes) October 29, 2019

Reflecting on the current and recent devastating fires in California, climate activist Bill McKibben wrote in an op-ed for The Guardian Tuesday that what the state has been experiencing "starts to feel like the new, and impossible, normal" for both residents and victims as well as those witnessing the destruction from afar.

Citing an article in the San Francisco Chronicle published Tuesday—which described how the fires had "intensified fears that parts of California had become almost too dangerous to inhabit"—McKibben wrote: "Read that again: the local paper is on record stating that part of the state is now so risky that its citizens might have to leave."

Writing for The Atlantic, journalist Annie Lowery detailed the dynamics leading increasing numbers of people to believe the state has become "unlivable":

Wildfires and lack of affordable housing—these are two of the most visible and urgent crises facing California, raising the question of whether the country’s dreamiest, most optimistic state is fast becoming unlivable. Climate change is turning it into a tinderbox; the soaring cost of living is forcing even wealthy families into financial precarity. And, in some ways, the two crises are one: The housing crunch in urban centers has pushed construction to cheaper, more peripheral areas, where wildfire risk is greater.

The state's "housing crisis has exacerbated its wildfire crisis, and its wildfire crisis has exacerbated its housing crisis," explained Lowery, and that "vicious cycle is nowhere near ending."

 

For many critics, the state's largest utility PG&E remains a chief corporate culprit in the mess. As Common Dreams has reported, the company's failure to adequately respond to the increased fire dangers—choosing to reward investors and seek profits instead of making the kind of changes and safety investments that communities and experts have demanded.

Meanwhile, as the following Now This video details, the scenes created by the California wildfires in recent weeks depict a hellscape fueled by the climate crisis—the scale and destruction of which fulfill some of the dire warnings scientists have been making for years:

The devastating California wildfires are exactly what climate scientists warned us about pic.twitter.com/NZqWSRydbC

— NowThis (@nowthisnews) October 30, 2019

In response to the video, climate activist group Friends of the Earth declared: "Thanks to the climate crisis, this is the new normal in California. To save lives, communities and wildlife, we must #ActOnClimate."

After a new fire broke out in Simi Valley on Wednesday, fire crews spent the day protecting—among other homes and structures—the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library.

"The progress is so extraordinary. This is why they called it an extreme fire danger."

.@mattgutmanABC reports on the California wildfires near the Reagan Presidential Library and is forced to flee the scene as conditions worsen. https://t.co/BN4CDfQHyD pic.twitter.com/tHSl20ANuo

— ABC News Live (@ABCNewsLive) October 30, 2019

Speaking to Democracy Now! on Tuesday, Leah Stokes, assistant professor of political science at the University of California, Santa Barbara criticized the corporate media for ignoring the role of the climate crisis in the fires and explained that the scientific research about what's happening in California is crystal clear.

"There is research that says that fires have gotten 500% more risky as a result of climate change and that two times more area has burned because of climate change," Stokes explained. "We know that the drought that California has recently come out of was also caused by climate change. And yet some of these deeper stories about what is happening in California, what is happening across the United States with climate change, are not told by the media."

In California, the threat to residents and wildlife as well as the loss of property has been devastating. As The New York Times reported Tuesday:

California's catastrophic wildfires have not discriminated between rich and poor. In recent years tens of thousands of people lost their homes, from trailer parks to mansions. But the aftermath of the fires has produced a spectrum of misery and recovery, ranging from the wealthy, who with insurance money rebuilt houses sometimes worth more than the ones that burned, to those who lost everything and years later still have nothing.

Like access to quality education and clean water, natural disasters are another prism through which California's vast income inequalities can be viewed.

A lawyerly knowledge of the peculiarities of the insurance industry, a pool of savings to fall back on, and the time and grit to deal with the state's labyrinthine regulations have helped some in California bounce back from the infernos. Others have not been so lucky.

For example,  44-year-old Gina Wheeler, "lost her uninsured trailer that she rented on family land" in the Camp Fire that devastated Paradise, California and the surrounding area late last year.

"Every place I've ever set foot in has been touched by fire," Wheeler told the Times. "I don't think anybody that's not gone through this will ever, ever understand what it's like to lose your entire community."

"I can't even describe the empty feeling that we have," she said. "I talk friends and family members out of suicide, and they talk me out of it."

Jenn Wilcox, who worked at residential care facility in Paradise and lost the uninsured cabin where she lived, has also struggled in the year since the fire. "I'm a refugee," she said. "I'm broke."

This week, PBS aired its one-hour documentary, titled "Fire in Paradise," which details what happened on November 8 of last year as the flames ripped through the California town. While the community was not unfamiliar with the threat of wildfires—and having done more than most, local officials claimed, to prepare for such an emergency—the episode details just how quickly the strength of the fire overwhelmed detailed evacuation plans and made fighting the flames an impossible task.

Watch the trailer:

At the conclusion of the film, Capt. Matt McKenzie, a member of California Fire Station 36, offers an ominous warning in the context of what the people of Paradise suffered that day and what scientists say are conditions across the country that will make wildfires more frequent and more ferocious in the decades ahead.

"Everything was perfect that day for a massive, destructive incident to do what it did and it's in place everywhere—everywhere in California, Arizona, Nevada, Washington Oregon," McKenzie says. "And you don't even wanna think about what's next. Can it be worse than that? And the answer is: Yes."

In his his op-ed, McKibben said the idea that California may one day be a place where fewer and fewer people can live should come "as no real surprise" to anyone who has been paying attention to global trends and the warnings of scientists.

"My most recent book, Falter, centered on the notion that the climate crisis was making large swaths of the world increasingly off-limits to humans," McKibben wrote. "Cities in Asia and the Middle East where the temperature now reaches the upper 120s—levels so high that the human body can't really cool itself; island nations (and Florida beaches) where each high tide washes through the living room or the streets; Arctic villages relocating because, with sea ice vanished, the ocean erodes the shore."

Speaking with USA Today, Beth Fulton, a resident of Sebastopol who was evacuated this week from her town as the Kincade Fire approached, said more and more people are decided to leave the area and never come back.

"People are naturally resilient, but to deal with this year after year can be traumatizing," Fulton said. She explained that several people who lost their homes in previous fires moved off to New Mexico and Oregon.

"This seems like it'll be a yearly thing," she said, "and some people say, 'I've had enough.'"

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Bill Gates's Experimental Nuclear Power Plant Halts Construction in China

from Popular Mechanics

By David Grossman
Jan 2, 2019

Gates cites the Trump Administration's aggressive stance for having to pull out

At least for now, Microsoft founder and philanthropist Bill Gates is pulling back on nuclear power. He hasn't changed his mind on the science—he puts his blame on the Trump Administration's bitter relationship with China.

Gates invested in TerraPower in 2011 with the hope of helping to prove the company's core concept: a so-called traveling-wave reactor (TWR) which would run on depleted uranium, as opposed to the enriched uranium commonly used in nuclear plants. The concept is appealing on several levels—not only would its small design lower the currently rising price of nuclear energy, it would actually consume the trash pumped out by today's modern reactors.

In 2015, the company signed a deal with the Chinese government to be a small demonstration plant to be constructed by 2022. Since then, it has remained relatively low-profile. In 2017, Gates gave a speech at Peking University saying he was developing nuclear energy that was "dramatically safer and substantially cheaper" than what the world has previously known.

From trade to security to environmentalism, the Trump administration has taken an aggressive stance toward the Chinese government. In October 2018, U.S. Secretary of Energy Rick Perry said that the United States "cannot ignore the national security implications of China’s efforts to obtain nuclear technology outside of established processes of U.S.–China civil nuclear cooperation.”

The Department of Energy then announced it would deny any new licenses from U.S. companies wishing to work with the Chinese government, and current licenses would not be given extensions. The department cited the indictment of the Chinese state-owned nuclear corporation in 2017 alongside Taiwanese-American Allen Ho, who was eventually jailed for assisting the Chinese state on nuclear issues.

In his year-end letter for 2018, Gates notes that "we had hoped to build a pilot project in China, but recent policy changes here in the U.S. have made that unlikely."

Pulling out of the project leaves TerraPower's future uncertain. According to company CEO Chris Levesque, speaking to the Wall Street Journal, the price of a demonstration reactor is around $1 billion. Having to cancel a project worth such an extraordinary amount would likely be the death knell for most new players in any field. Most new players, however, aren't funded by Bill Gates—still valued by Forbes to have a fortune north of $93 billion.

In his letter, Gates notes that the company "may be able to build ... in the United States" under certain funding and regulatory conditions. He also announced that he would be taking up the mantle of nuclear energy in a more public way this year in actions unaffiliated with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

"Nuclear is ideal for dealing with climate change," Gates says in his letter, "because it is the only carbon-free, scalable energy source that’s available 24 hours a day." He adds that "problems with today’s reactors, such as the risk of accidents, can be solved through innovation."

For now, though, TerraPower's technology looks like it may have to start from scratch.

Source: Wall Street Journal

Death, blackouts, melting asphalt: ways the climate crisis will change how we live

from the Guardian

by Pam Radtke Russell

From power cuts to infrastructure failure, the impact of climate change on US cities will be huge – but many are already innovating to adapt

Between record heat and rain, this summer’s weather patterns have indicated, once again, that the climate is changing.

US cities, where more than 80% of the nation’s population lives, are disproportionately hit by these changes, not only because of their huge populations but because of their existing – often inadequate – infrastructure.

In urban areas, heatwaves are exacerbated by vehicles, industrial processes and the presence of heat-retaining concrete and asphalt. And it is in cities – especially in low-lying poorer areas – where record rainfall often accumulates.

“People are coming into urban areas and they cannot be stopped,” says Chandana Mitra, an associate professor of geosciences at Auburn University, who studies the impact of heat on cities. Mitra has experienced the impact of climate change in her hometown of Kolkata, India, and is now observing it in Auburn, Alabama, and nearby Birmingham. “Everyone aspires to be in an urban area and there is chaos.”

While the impacts of climate change are fundamentally local, experts say heat is one of the most concerning, especially in cities.

“From a disaster perspective, [heat] is invisible,” says Kurt Shickman, executive director of the Global Cool Cities Alliance. Mitra likens the problem to having a finger in a pan of water while someone gradually turns up the heat. “Maybe in 50 or 60 years, living in some cities will be unbearable. There could be a tipping point of no return.”

A study by the University of Maryland published this year predicts that by 2080, Denver will be as hot and wet as Borger, Texas, about 50 miles (80km) north of Amarillo; Philadelphia will feel warmer and drier – more like Memphis, Tennessee, and New York City will be up to 9F (5C) warmer, with a climate similar to Jonesboro, Arkansas. The study, which accompanies a tool that allows US users to find what their city will be like by 2080, shows that if emissions continue at the current pace residents in cities around the nation will:

• Experience an average temperature increase of 8.2F (4.5C)

• Live in climates similar to the current climates of cities 528 miles (850kms) south of their hometowns

Increasing heat, either now or in the future, is an issue cities are beginning to understand better, says Shickman who started the Global Cool Cities Alliance in 2011. Since that time, there’s been a huge increase in awareness of heat and urban heat islands, he says. “The issue now is, ‘OK, this is a uniquely challenging problem, and how do we develop policy and implement solutions’.”

How the climate crisis will impact US cities

 

With a string of subsequent record hot years and increasing flooding, cities are already dealing with the impacts of a changing climate:

Deaths. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, an average of 658 people die every year from heat-related causes. From 1999 to 2010, 8,081 heat-related deaths were reported in the United States and occurred more commonly among older, younger and poorer populations. Urban heat islands retain heat overnight, preventing people from sleeping well and leading to even more health problems, says Lucy Hutyra, an associate professor of earth and environment at Boston University. Air pollution is often worst on hot days, and when people leaven windows open for air flow, the quality of the air can cause respiratory problems. Warmer, moister conditions also mean that heavy rainfall and subsequent flooding is on the rise; so far this year 78 people have died as a result, according to the National Weather Service.

Power outages. As experienced by New Yorkers this year, excessive heat in conjunction with excess demand for electricity for air conditioning can cause the grid – or portions of it – to fail. “Energy demand is going to go up,” says Shickman. “It’s a substantial and nonlinear reaction. Our grid is going to be taxed in ways I don’t think we are prepared for.” Shickman says that going from an 80F day to a 90F day would require an additional 20-25% power. Going to 95F requires almost 40% more power. Excess heat can also evaporate water needed to cool power plants, forcing some out of commission.

Infrastructure failures. In addition to electricity grid problems, asphalt can melt in excess temperatures; rail tracks expand; and can even affect airports – currently some airplanes can’t take off from Phoenix airport, for example, when the temperature exceeds 118F because the air is too thin. Heat is a problem for all areas of city governance, said Shickman. “If you ask any sort of department head what is your biggest challenge, heat is probably not number one, but I guarantee you it’s somewhere between number two and number five.” But, he says, unfortunately there are no “heat czars” to manage the issue. Flooding, too, can wreak havoc on a city’s infrastructure, from blowing out bridges and roads to inundating water treatment plants.

Economic Impact. According to a 2018 study by Texas A&M University: “The growing number of extreme rainfall events that produce intense precipitation are resulting in –and will continue to result in – increased urban flooding unless steps are taken to mitigate their impacts.” The 2017 National Climate Assessment concluded: “Heavy downpours are increasing nationally, especially over the last three to five decades …[and that] … increases in the frequency and intensity of extreme precipitation events are projected for all U.S. regions.” Between 2007 and 2011 alone, urban flooding in Cook County, Illinois, resulted in over 176,000 claims or flood losses at a cost of $660m (£545m).

How US cities are trying to respond

Becoming aware of the threat of heat and other climate changes is one thing. But doing something about it is difficult with limited budgets and multiple priorities, and “there is no one solution,” says Shickman. With that in mind, here are some of the ways cities are addressing heat and extreme precipitation.

Communication. In New York City, home health aides are being trained to recognize the signs of heat stress with their clients. In Auburn and Birmingham, Mitra talks to churches, service groups and individuals about urban heat islands, individual carbon footprints and solutions. One of her students is developing an app around the issue, while another group is working on an Alabama specific YouTube channel to communicate about climate breakdown-related problems and solutions. “Many people in Alabama have yet to realize the rate at which things have been changing,” Mitra says. The Texas A&M study recommends better communication and coordination between federal, state and local agencies to address the problem of urban flooding.

Trees, plants and green infrastructure. Trees not only offer shade, but they cool the air by evaporating water. Adding more plants and trees, like New York City has done with its million tree program, can reduce the temperature of a city as well as soak up excess stormwater. Hutyra says such an approach won’t work everywhere – Los Angeles had numerous problems with its one million tree program in part, because of the city’s water scarcity. But areas of the northeast with plenty of water can fill empty tree wells and better develop parks and greenways to mitigate the heat. One of Mitra’s favorite solutions is urban gardens. She points to Atlanta, which is working to develop a seven acre food forest that will also help reduce carbon footprint. Restoring or widening waterways, as is being done with Houston’s Brays Bayou, can provide cooler greenspaces, as well as capacity for excess stormwater.

Cool roofs and pavement. “At a minimum all roofs should be white with the exception of solar and green roofs,” says Shickman, whose Global Cool Cities Alliance has launched the One Million Cool Roofs Challenge. White or light colored roofs reflect heat and can lower the overall temperature in a city as well as making individual buildings and homes cooler. According to one study, significant lightening of roofs and pavements could reduce temperatures in Chicago by 2.7F (1.5C). After Louisville, Kentucky, was identified as one of the fastest heating cities, local government began offering rebates for cool roofs in low income communities. San Antonio offers help for low-income residents to replace older roofs with lighter colored shingles and a thermal barrier, providing up to $1,000 per household a year in energy savings, Shickman says. He adds that in terms of infrastructure changes, Los Angeles is leading efforts on cool pavements, testing reflective coating on 17 blocks of the city and helping to refine pavement products.

How US cities are scrambling to protect people from extreme heat

Air conditioning.

While the least optimal solution, air conditioning is the most realistic one to beat the heat, says Hutyra. Air conditioning can raise the temperatures within cities through its waste heat and, when powered by fossil fuels, can contribute to the problem of climate change. But Hutyra says a more distributed electricity grid with energy from renewable sources could help alleviate some of those concerns.

Cities in the future, Hutyra says, won’t be unliveable, “They just will be different. I think how we play and live and move in cities today isn’t how we did 20 years ago. I think in the face of these large changes in climate coming our way ... I think it will reshape what our cities look like and how we live in them.”

Pam Radtke Russell is a senior editor at Engineering News-Record, in New Orleans and a specialist on climate adaptation

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Off the Top of My Head

Most of US' Major Rivers Drain Through Nation's Midsection: That's a Problem

by John Lawrence, May 31, 2019

Is it any wonder that global warming produces major flooding in the nation's midsection? The Arkansas, the Missouri, the Ohio - all drain into the Mississippi and from there into the Gulf of Mexico. The east coast and west coast have fewer and shorter rivers like the Hudson, the Connecticut, the Columbia, the Sacramento. These rivers are relatively benign. One of the phenomena of global warming is that more water evaporates from the oceans into the atmosphere. That water eventually falls back to earth. When huge amounts of water evaporate, huge amounts fall back to earth producing severe flooding like we've seen over the last few weeks. Tornados are sort of a sideshow, an added bonus for the news department which profits from the spectaculasr. Flooding is too slow moving for the news to get excited about. However, the major and most widespread damage is due to flooding. While tornado strikes are spectacular, they are not as widespread as flooding which ruins and degrades much more real estate.

The news media just plays up the spectacular like tornado strikes. They rarely if ever mention the reality that all the damage is due to global warming and that the situation will only get worse in coming years. That's because despite some people running around with their hair on fire yelling Paul Revere's equivalent of "The British are coming," more greenhouse gasses than ever are still being pumped into the atmosphere. But the media is only interested in comments like. "Well,sir, I've lived here for 70 years and I ain't never seen anything like this." They won't interview someone who would say, "We better do something about global warming." That's a taboo subject.

Welcome to the new normal! More and more powerful storms, tornados and hurricanes. Hurricane season is just starting. And it's not just the US that is experiencing severe weather. All over the world flooding and extreme heat is ruining crops and producing more and more climate refugees. Honduran coffee farmers are giving up and heading to the US. The New York Tines reported:

But farmers, agricultural scientists and industry officials say a new threat has been ruining harvests, upending lives and adding to the surge of families migrating to the United States: climate change.

And their worries are increasingly shared by climate scientists as well.

Gradually rising temperatures, more extreme weather events and increasingly unpredictable patterns — like rain not falling when it should, or pouring when it shouldn’t — have disrupted growing cycles and promoted the relentless spread of pests.

The obstacles have cut crop production or wiped out entire harvests, leaving already poor families destitute.

Central America is among the regions most vulnerable to climate change, scientists say. And because agriculture employs much of the labor force — about 28 percent in Honduras alone, according to the World Bank — the livelihoods of millions of people are at stake.

Last year, the bank reported that climate change could lead at least 1.4 million people to flee their homes in Mexico and Central America and migrate during the next three decades.

But you have to hand it to the Republicans. They know how to divert the nation's attention away from subjects that really matter and get us all concerned with Trump's latest ridiculous tweet or some personal insult hurled by one politician at another. Their latest brilliant stroke is to get us all marching over abortion, a subject that was settled by the Supreme Court many years ago. What's next - revisiting Brown vs Board of Education? We should be discussing global warming and what we're going to do about it, the nation's crumbling infrastructure, the fact that a handful of billionaires have more wealth than half the nation's people, a humane health care system with affordably priced pharmaceuticals, reducing the nation's insanely high military and military-industrial complex budget - stuff like that. Instead, we discuss the trivial and the frivolous.

It's, all about what we spend our time and energy on. Will we be concerned about the real issues the US and the world faces or will we be distracted by the superficial, the petty, the inane? Will we, like Nero, fiddle while not just Rome but the whole earth burns?

California wildfires: Camp fire becomes state's deadliest with 42 people killed

 From the Guardian:

 

As more than 8,000 fire crews battle the Camp and Woolsey fires and hotels fill in Chico, residents find refuge in unofficial shelters

Play Video

0:55

 California wildfires: rescuers search for victims as winds fuel flames – video

 The Camp fire has become the most destructive wildfire in California history, incinerating the town of Paradise in the northern part of the state. It is also among the deadliest, with at least 29 killed, and it has displaced more than 50,000 people.

The California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection said on Monday the fire had grown by three sq miles to 177 sq miles and was 25% contained.

Two people have also died in the Woolsey fire, a major blaze around Los Angeles, bringing total deaths in the state to 31. On Monday officials said that fire had burned 91,572 acres and destroyed 370 structures. It was 20% contained. On Sunday evening, some neighborhoods allowed evacuees back in and the US 101 highway west of LA was reopened.

Statewide, 150,000 people have been displaced and more than 8,000 fire crews are deployed. Authorities have said 228 people are unaccounted for. High winds and dry conditions threaten more areas through the rest of the week, fire officials warned.

Around Paradise, about 1,300 people have found refuge at evacuation shelters, according to a Cal Fire spokesman, Steve Kaufman, a total which includes several shelters in Butte county and some in Sutter, Glenn and Plumas counties. But that’s only a fraction of the total displaced from Paradise, Magalia, Concow and other towns in the Sierra foothills.

Many converged on Chico, a city of about 90,000 just 20 minutes from Paradise. Hotels in Chico are at capacity with fire evacuees and some, but not all, shelters are full. Others stayed with friends and family or even in their cars, eager to remain close enough to return home at a moment’s notice, even though that could be months away.

A Walmart in Chico has become an unofficial refugee camp for those displaced by the blaze. On Sunday, more than a dozen tents lined an empty field next to the store, while the parking lot was filled day and night with trailers and cars stuffed with belongings – toys, pillows and family photos.

Though without some of the comforts of a traditional shelter, the fire refugees in the parking lot were not forgotten. Local food truck owners were there to provide free food and church groups from around the state cooked and distributed meals. Chico residents provided clothes, toys and gear, free of charge.

Evacuees said they couldn’t find space at a nearby shelter, didn’t want to part from their animals or didn’t feel comfortable at a shelter.

At this unofficial evacuation center, tales of generosity by those most affected emerged. Tammy Mezera and her friend Daryl Merritt spent three nights sleeping in a tent outside the store after the fire forced them to run for their lives. When they found out a neighbor, Matthew Flanagan, had slept under a taco truck, they gave him the extra space in their tent.

“It’s like an instant family,” Mezera said, petting her dog. “We’re all taking care of each other.”

The three made friends with strangers like Andrew Duran, who sleeps just outside their tent in a sleeping bag. And despite the darkness and loss, they showed endless generosity toward one another. Eating breakfast together on Sunday morning, they shared a few laughs, dancing to Bill Withers’ Lean on Me.

It’s the kind of coming together the community will need, Mezera said, after more than 6,400 homes were lost.

Meanwhile, as firefighters and law enforcement seek to protect the town and its citizens from the deadly blaze, they faced the loss of their own homes. The fire destroyed the homes of 17 Paradise police officers, Chief Eric Reinbold said. None of the officers missed a day of work since the fire began, he added.

At least 38 firefighters battling the blaze lost their homes, said Tim Aboudara, the International Association of Fire Fighters state service representative. That number was expected to grow.

The association was working with the CDF Firefighters Benevolent Foundation and the California Professional Firefighters and to assist those firefighters and their families. Several had already been placed into temporary housing, Aboudara said.

Along with the loss of their own homes, many firefighters are devastated they were unable to stop the rapid spread of the fire before it overtook the town of Paradise, Aboudara said.

“Our job is to put the fire out and we couldn’t stop that,” Aboudara said. “There was nothing we could do.”

No long-term plans to house evacuees, who may not be allowed to return home for months, have been announced, but Congressman Doug LaMalfa said on Sunday he expects a federal disaster declaration from the White House within the coming days, the subject of appeals by the governor, Jerry Brown.

“This is truly a tragedy that all Californians can understand and respond to,” Brown told reporters on Sunday. “It’s a time to pull together and work through these tragedies.”

Once federal aid is approved, Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema) will come to the area to begin working with local residents and business owners on recovery.

Fires Destroy Lives and Property in Tony California Neighborhoods

Devastation in Paradise A fast-moving wildfire ravaged Paradise, a Northern California community of 27,000 people. Officials said at least nine people died and more than 6,700 homes and commercial buildings were lost — making it the most destructive fire to property in state history. Los Angeles Times

Watch out: this is the destruction global warming causes. It will only get worse until the world leaders start taking it seriously and doing something about it.

California's Destructive Summer Brings Blunt Talk About Climate Change

From the LA Times:

by RONG-GONG LIN II and JAVIER PANZAR, AUG 05, 2018

Facing temperatures in the 90s, Guillermo Salazar of Reseda takes a break from mountain biking at San Vicente Mountain Park in Los Angeles last month. (Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

At Scripps Pier in San Diego, the surface water reached the highest temperature in 102 years of records, 78.8 degrees.

Palm Springs had its warmest July on record, with an average of 97.4 degrees. Death Valley experienced its hottest month on record, with the average temperature hitting 108.1. Park rangers said the heat was too much for some typically hardy birds that died in the broiling conditions.

Across California, the nighttime brought little relief, recording the highest minimum temperature statewide of any month since 1895, rising to 64.9.

California has been getting hotter for some time, but July was in a league of its own. The intense heat fueled fires across the state, from San Diego County to Redding, that have burned more than 1,000 homes and killed eight. It brought heat waves that overwhelmed electrical systems, leaving swaths of Los Angeles without power for days.

Moreover, the extreme conditions — capping years of trends heading in this direction — have caused scientists and policymakers to speak more openly and emphatically about what is causing this dramatic shift.

A decade ago, some scientists would warn against making broad conclusions linking an extraordinary heat wave to global warming. But the pace of heat records being broken in California in recent years is leading more scientists here to assertively link climate change to unrelenting heat that is only expected to worsen as humans continue putting greenhouse gases in the air.

“In the past, it would just be kind of once in a while — the odd year where you be really warm,” state climatologist Michael Anderson said.

But the last five years have been among the hottest in 124 years of record keeping, Anderson said.

“That’s definitely an indication that the world is warming, and things are starting to change,” said Anderson, who manages the California Department of Water Resources’ state climate program. “We’re starting to see things where it’s different. It’s setting the narrative of climate change.”

California Fires Directly Linked to Climate Change

From the LA Times:

Where There’s Heat, There’s Fire
In the past, scientists have been reluctant to cite climate change as a major factor in California’s worsening wildfires. Not anymore. Experts in the field say the connection between rising temperatures in California and tinder-dry vegetation is becoming impossible to ignore. “The temperatures have just been almost inexorably warmer all the time,” says UCLA climate scientist Daniel Swain, and fires “burn more intensely if the fuels are extremely dry.” The death and destruction this month has only added to California’s worst wildfire year on record, which has left dozens dead since October and more than 10,000 structures lost. Here is the latest.

 

Devastating Weather Events Demonstrate Reality of Climate Change

Friends of the Earth is the U.S. voice of the world's largest grassroots environmental network, with member groups in 77 countries. Since 1969, Friends of the Earth has fought to create a more healthy, just world.

July 24, 2018

WASHINGTON - Simultaneous climate disasters taking place around the world, as this summer's heatwave continues:

- Wildfires in Greece killed at least 60 people
- Hundreds dead or missing after flash floods in Laos collapse dam
- Japan declares its heatwave a natural disaster, after 65 deaths in a week.
- Forest fires in Sweden are burning inside the Arctic Circle.

Record breaking temperatures have been recorded across the world over the last month, including Ottawa, Canada; Southern California; Ouargla, Algeria; Tibilisi, Georgia; Tokyo, Japan; Sydney, Australia.

Scotland has been impacted with the highest ever temperature recorded in Glasgow earlier this month, and private water supplies drying up in Moray.

Commenting on the crises, Friends of the Earth Scotland Climate Campaigner Caroline Rance said:

“There is no doubt that the prolonged extreme temperatures and floods we are witnessing around the world right now are a result of climate change. Temperature records are being broken across the UK and globally, exactly as climate science has long warned, and with devastating consequences.

“We can no longer ignore the impacts of our changing climate, as wildfires rage in the Arctic circle and kill dozens in Greece, flash floods displace thousands in Laos, and Japan suffers from an extended heatwave. Increased global warming means that events like these will become much more powerful and more frequent in future, and nowhere, including Scotland, will be immune from the impacts.

“Both these headline-grabbing events and the slow motion disasters, such as droughts leading to crop failures, show that we have no time to waste in cutting climate emissions. We cannot afford to delay or pretend that ‘business as usual’ is still an option, decisions must be made today to significantly cut our emissions within the next decade.

“The Scottish Government’s recent proposals for a new climate law do almost nothing to increase action within the next ten years, despite this being the most crucial time for climate action. MSPs from across the Parliament must strengthen the new law, and take action now for a rapid and just transition to a zero carbon economy."

###

Morning Report: The Lilac Fire's Terrible — and Terribly Random — Destruction

Lisa Halverstadt

December 9, 2017,  From Voice of San Diego

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A San Diego Fire Department helicopter drops water to contain the Lilac Fire near the Rancho Monserate Country Club. / Photo by Adriana Heldiz

The Lilac Fire surrounded skateboarder Tony Hawk’s former hillside property on all four sides, burned a tree in the driveway, singed a potted plant by the backdoor, but spared the house and outbuildings.

“It’s unbelievable, it really is a miracle,” said Angela Murphy, who now lives in house along Highway 76 with her husband, Sean.

But two houses just up the hill and another house below burned to the ground.

Such was the terrible and terribly random nature of the Lilac Fire, which began Thursday morning in Bonsall, burned 4,100 acres and 85 structures, and injured six people, including two firefighters.

By Friday morning, firefighters from across the state – aided by a jet airplane dropping fire retardant and a swarm of helicopters dropping water – had halted the fire’s spread. By Friday evening, Cal Fire began lifting the evacuation orders that had displaced thousands in North County.

During the day, firefighters roamed Highway 76, putting out hot spots along the road and marching up hills to create firebreaks.

Amateur firefighters did their part, too.

One of them was Barry Farley, who worked to protect the home of his friend, artist Judy Dy’ans. Her house, just down the hill from the Murphys, was also spared, though the fire burned some of the steps on her walkway. But a home next door burned to the ground.

With smoke everywhere and small bits of flame occasionally shooting up from the ground, Farley shoveled dirt to smother the fire. Because the power was out, the pump to get water from a well didn’t work, so he also poured water from a jug onto the ground, before he got a bucket he could refill in the Murphys’ pool. Then a fire crew showed up to help.

“It’s like everybody has to work together to make this fire protection a reality,” Farley said. “Because these are just about some of the worst fire conditions.”

– Ry Rivard

• VOSD’s Adriana Heldiz captured several amazing images from one neighborhood near Fallbrook ravaged by the Lilac Fire.
• President Donald Trump declared a state of emergency in Southern California on Friday, allowing federal assistance to flow in.
• NBC 7 is regularly updating this page with information on evacuations and closures tied to the fires.
• The Union-Tribune reports that at least 25 horses were killed as the Lilac Fire spread on Thursday.
• A second, much smaller blaze dubbed the Sweetwater Fire broke out Friday morning near Descanso, Times of San Diego reported.
• The Union-Tribune reported Friday afternoon that SDG&E was continuing to try to restore power for the thousands who’d had it shut off amid the wildfire conditions – and County Supervisor Dianne Jacob, one of the SDG&E’s biggest local critics, shared her latest beefs with the utility at a Friday press conference.

At 98 degrees, heat in Los Angeles breaks a 131-year-old record

From the LA Times:

by Andrea Castillo

Los Angeles hit a record high of 98 degrees Saturday, as a wildfire in northern Santa Barbara County continued to burn out of control and the region suffered through the third day of a blistering heat wave.

Downtown Los Angeles’ record high temperature beat out the 131-year-old record of 95 degrees set in 1886, according to the National Weather Service.

Record high temperatures were also recorded in Long Beach, 96 degrees, and Burbank, 105, whilePalmdale tied its record of 110. Woodland Hills also reported a temperature of 110.

The San Fernando Valley was especially hard hit by triple-digit temperatures. By 3 p.m., the mercury registered 107 degrees at Lake Balboa, near Encino.

Extreme Weather Watch: Devastating Heat and the Rise in Earth's Temperature

by John Lawrence

Hottest Temps Ever Recorded

Two Middle Eastern locations hit 129 degrees F, the hottest temperatures ever recorded in earth's history. The temperature in Mitribah, Kuwait, surged Thursday, July 21 to a blistering 129.2 degrees (54 Celsius). And on Friday in Basra, Iraq, the mercury soared to 129.0 degrees (53.9 Celsius).  At the same time a heat dome in the US sent temperatures soaring to over 100º in much of the country. A study published in the journal Nature Climate Change last October cautioned that by the end of the century temperatures may become too hot for human survival due to climate change.

Last year was the hottest year ever globally — or it was until 2016 got off to a sweltering start. NASA announced that the first six months of this year have been the hottest since 1880, which is when people started keeping reliable records. In June 2016 the average earth temperature was 1.62 degrees hotter than the average June temperature for the 20th century.

The Arctic has seen sky high temperatures this year with the result of record low sea ice levels. The Alaskan town of Deadhorse just 50 miles from the Arctic coast set a record temperature of 85º F.

Farmers Losing Their Farms Due to Heat

Excessive heat is contributing to more heat related deaths as well as farmers losing their farms. One year after India experienced the fifth-deadliest heat wave ever recorded, temperatures were again soaring to deadly extremes. Local governments are scrambling to address rising death tolls and dwindling water supplies.

The drought and blistering heat, some 20 to 30 degrees Fahrenheit above normal, have made it impossible for farmers to tend their crops. Towns on India’s eastern side have been hit with record-setting temperatures — 119.3 degrees in the town of Titlagarh, Orissa, which is the highest temperature ever recorded in that state during April.

India’s subsistence farmers are incredibly vulnerable to the heat. They’re faced with a dire choice: stay inside and let the crops go to waste or work the land and risk heat stroke. Abandoning the choice altogether, thousands of farmers have migrated to cities in search of jobs often leaving elderly and young relatives behind in parched villages.

Here at home the Santa Clarita Sand fire filled the skies of Los Angeles with smoke and ash, destroyed at least 18 structures and consumed an area equal to 10,000 football fields a day. It forced the evacuation of 20,000 people and sent nearly 770 animals to shelters.

A separate fire in the Big Sur area, on the central coast, had spread to nearly 15,000 acres by Monday, July 26. Up to 1,650 structures were threatened.

2016 Will Be Hottest Year on Record

2016 is on track to becoming the hottest year on record surpassing even 2015 which has been the hottest recorded so far. The record temperatures are mostly the result of the excessive heat that has built up in the earth's atmosphere due to accumulating greenhouse gasses. That heat is raising sea levels and causing more extreme weather events.

Every month this year has set a record for high temperatures. According to both NASA and NOAA, several months this year have already recorded temperatures 1º C above average. All six months of the year so far have exceeded that benchmark when compared to preindustrial temperatures. There have been an unprecedented record breaking 14 record hot consecutive months.

The year-to-date record temperatures are 1.89º F or 1.06º C above the 20th century average according to NOAA. According to NASA, they are 1.96º F or 1.09º C above the 1951-1980 average. Of the 15 warmest years on record, 14 of them have occurred in the 21st century.

At the Paris summit on climate change held in December 2015, it was agreed upon by the nations of earth that they would set a goal of limiting global warming to less than 2 degrees Celsius compared to pre-industrial levels. It was also decided that the parties would also "pursue efforts to" limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C.  According to NASA and NOAA average earth temperatures are already at 2.4º F (1.34º C) above average. And this only seven months after the COP21 conference!

It was estimated by some scientists that the 1.5°C goal would require zero emissions sometime between 2030 and 2050. We are already practically at the 1.5º C limit and are nowhere near zero emissions. The 2030 time limit to achieve zero emissions is still 14 years away! Meanwhile, we will probably surge past the 1.5º C goal in a year or two. The nations have hardly gotten started on their efforts to limit climate change and we will probably blast through the 2º C goal in a few years.

COP 21 Conference Could Turn Out to be Exercise in Futility

The nations of the earth can agree all they want to limit greenhouse gasses. If they were to reach their goals, all burning of fossil fuels would have to be terminated immediately. That will never happen so the COP21 conference will turn out to be an exercise in futility, and earth's temperatures will continue to rise which will lead to more record temperatures well above 127º F.

Deadly heat is forecast in the Persian Gulf by 2100 according to a study in the journal, Nature Climate Change. Areas of the Persian Gulf could be hit by waves of heat and humidity so severe that simply being outside for several hours could threaten human life. Because of climate change, some population centers in the Middle East are likely to experience temperature levels that are intolerable to humans.

The monthly numbers from NASA and NOAA put the planet on track to surpass 2015 as the hottest year on record. "2016 has really blown that out of the water," Gavin Schmidt, director of Goddard's Institute for Space Studies, said.

Extreme Weather Watch: May 2016 - Canada Burns, India's Extreme Heat Record, US Tornadoes

By John Lawrence from the San Diego Free Press

Too Hot to Go Outside

A city in western India set an all time heat record of 123.8 degrees F in May. Authorities issued a severe heat wave alert which means that people can expect temperatures of 117 degrees F or more. In addition drought is affecting much of the country. The heat will probably not let up until the monsoon rains come some time in June. The prolonged heat wave has already killed hundreds and destroyed crops in more than 13 states. Hundreds of small farmers have reportedly killed themselves, and tens of thousands have been forced to abandon their lands and live in squalor in urban slums in order to eke out a living.

Rivers, lakes and dams have dried up in many parts of the western states of Rajasthan, Maharashtra and Gujarat, and groundwater supplies are severely depleted. The government has sent in water by train for emergency relief. Dr. Bhani Ram Paliwal, the principal medical officer at a government hospital in Phalodi, could not remember days like this in 15 years of working there. Roughly 500 patients, almost double the average number, visited his outpatient department, many complaining of diarrhea and fever. “It was like heat waves were coming out of a clay oven,” he said. Scientists say that if greenhouse gas emissions continue at a high pace, average global temperatures could rise by more than six degrees Fahrenheit by the end of the century.

Last year more than 2,400 people died from heat-related illness in India, according to India’s National Disaster Management Authority. Many of those who died were laborers and farmhands who work outside, even in peak temperatures. The heat makes going outside virtually unthinkable, and staying indoors is a critical safety measure. “If you go outside you can’t survive in this heat wave,” Dr. Paliwal said.

Canada Burns Up

This gigantic fire in Canada's Alberta province started out at Fort McMurray on May 1. It is still burning and stretches 370 miles long. 88,000 people have been evacuated from Fort McMurray. It has consumed more than 544,000 acres. So far 2400 homes and buildings have burned.

Fuelled by tinder and helped along by unseasonably warm weather and low humidity, the fire released massive amounts of energy as it moved, creating its own weather, including lightning which produced new fire starts. High winds make these kinds of fires uncontrollable. Shorter winters produced by global warming contribute to the drying out of burnable vegetation. More than 500 firefighters continue to fight the blaze. In Alberta 15 wildfires are still burning.

The fires are occurring in the heart of Canada's oil fields and oil producers are warning of production shortfalls. So far the tar sands themselves have not caught fire, but, if they did, Canada would have an even huger problem on its hands. The problem is that winds have become more ferocious all over the world due to global warming. This has produced more monstrous wildfires as well as more monstrous tornadoes.

US Tornadoes

Tornadoes tore through the nation's midsection from Texas to Indiana flattening homes, uprooting trees, snarling traffic both on the ground and in the air. Softball sized hail was unleashed denting thousands of cars. One of the most damaging tornadoes touched down in Grayson County in north Texas. The storm shredded roofs, flipped over semi-trucks and sent at least five people to the hospital. A woman was killed when a tree landed on her mobile home. There have been 468 tornadoes reported in the United States in 2016.

A significant tornado outbreak occurred across an area extending from Colorado to Kentucky beginning with a large multiple-vortex EF2 tornado that tossed several RVs and injured two people near Wiggins, Colorado on May 7. A high-end EF2 tornado also caused considerable damage near Wray Colorado as well. Tornado activity was less intense on May 8, though a significant tornado event caused major damage across parts of Oklahoma on May 9. This included multiple EF3 tornadoes and the first EF4 of the year, a large stovepipe tornado that caused severe damage and one death near Katie, Oklahoma. Significant tornado activity continued on May 10, including an EF3 that struck the town of Mayfield, Kentucky. Overall, this outbreak killed two people and produced 43 tornadoes.

As the month of May ended, there were more torrential rains and tornadoes in Texas leading to several dead and missing and extensive property damage.

Torrential rains in France and Germany produced massive flooding with the Louvre Museum in Paris shut down to prevent damage to the paintings.

Global Warming

Global warming is making hot days hotter, rainfall and flooding heavier, hurricanes stronger and droughts more severe. This intensification of weather and climate extremes will be the most visible impact of global warming in our everyday lives. It is also causing dangerous changes to the landscape of our world, adding stress to wildlife species and their habitat. It is causing more power outages, more hail produced damage to cars and structures, crop damage and outright loss, more human migration into already overburdened urban areas and more political unrest.

Sea level rises are threatening high price real estate in coastal areas prompting the building of expensive sea walls which will only hold back the tides temporarily. More allergies and viruses such as the Zika virus will affect larger and larger areas as disease carrying mosquitoes migrate northwards. The first decade of this century (2001–2010) was the hottest decade recorded since reliable records began in the late 1800s. The first antibiotic resistant bacteria has been unleashed on the world.

Flooding is becoming more common as clouds release torrential rains due to more moisture being trapped in the atmosphere. A pattern of intense rain and snow storms and periods of drought is becoming the new normal in our everyday weather as levels of heat-trapping gases in the atmosphere continue to rise.

Extreme weather because of global warning could become the new climate normal, increasing the risk of world instability, the World Bank warns in a new report.

Turn Down the Heat: Confronting the New Climate Normal analyzes the impact of warming of 2 to 4 degrees Celsius (3.6 and 7.2 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels on crops and coastlines.

“Today’s report confirms what scientists have been saying – past emissions have set an unavoidable course to warming over the next two decades, which will affect the world’s poorest and most vulnerable people the most,” said Jim Yong Kim, President of the World Bank Group.  “We’re already seeing record-breaking temperatures occurring more frequently, rainfall increasing in intensity in some places, and drought-prone regions like the Mediterranean becoming drier."

Extreme heat is the biggest problem, the report found, because it can reduce crop yields, negatively impacting food security and future economic growth as well as economic development, social stability and well-being.

“These changes make it more difficult to reduce poverty and put in jeopardy the livelihoods of millions of people,” Kim said. “They also have serious consequences for development budgets, and for institutions like the World Bank Group, where our investments, support and advice must now also build resilience and help affected populations adapt.”

Extreme Weather Watch: December 2015 - Tornados, Floods Kill Hundreds

by John Lawrence from the San Diego Free Press

Christmas 2015 Notable for Extreme Weather Throughout the US

Record high temperatures on Christmas day, as much as 30 degrees F above normal, were experienced up and down the eastern portion of the US. At the same time tornadoes destroyed homes and lives in the nation's midsection and south. December 2015 saw more than 2,600 record high temperatures; major metropolitan areas in the Northeast saw some of the warmest Christmas Eves and Days on record.

On Christmas Eve temperatures were 10 to 15 degrees higher than previous records. It was 71 F in New York City, and the same in Philadelphia and Washington, DC.

From 82 degrees in Savannah, Georgia, to 79 in Norfolk, Virginia, to 68 in Philadelphia, to 62 in Portland, Maine, cities up and down the East Coast tied or smashed record high temperatures for Christmas Day. Not only have the daytime temperatures been warm, but the nighttime lows in many locations have been running 10 degrees above the normal daily low temperature. Not only did the United States see record temperatures last month, but much of Europe is warm as well. It was nearly 50 degrees F in Moscow Christmas week, with puddles, not ice, surrounding the Kremlin.

Tornadoes, Flooding Kill At Least 43 in Southern US

While the East Coast enjoyed unseasonably warm weather, people in the south were suffering. In the Southeast there were torrential rains and tornadoes. As of Christmas night, 15 deaths in Mississippi, Tennessee and Arkansas had been linked to this severe weather, in addition to scores of injuries. The Mississippi Governor declared a State of Emergency. At least 11 people died and dozens were injured in strong tornadoes that swept through the Dallas area. Vehicles were mangled, power lines fell and trees were toppled. As many as 1450 homes were damaged or destroyed

The Governor of Alabama declared a State of Emergency as an EF-2 tornado swept through Birmingham with 130 mph winds. Flooding rains turned Alabama roads into rivers. 200 roads were closed. Two dozen tornadoes were recorded in three states in the south killing at least 18 people.

Christmas weekend at least 11 tornadoes swept through Dallas suburbs. Cars were swept off I-30. Dozens were injured. 29 people died from tornadoes in 5 states, triple the number of tornado related deaths all year.

In Houston my friend, Gary Kane, reported a record total rainfall for the year of 84.43 inches, just beating 84.32 inches in 1979, which included a tropical storm named Claudett, which dumped 17 inches over night. The state of Texas, except for about 6%,  is now considered out of any drought condition.  In the 44 years that Gary has been measuring temps and rainfall, the average rainfall has been 52.73 inches. So last year's rainfall (2015) was almost 32 inches above average. This was just for Gary's house though, not the official tally.

In New Mexico snow was coupled with hurricane force wind gusts. A State of Emergency was declared. More than 200 car accidents in New Mexico injured more than 60 people. At the same time a 1200 acre wildfire sparked by a downed power line was being fought in Ventura, CA.

Snowfall records, rainfall records and severe weather records were happening simultaneously in the same state of Texas.

On Christmas day flash flood watches were in effect for parts of 16 states, from Texas in the West to Indiana and Ohio in the north to Virginia in the East.

EF-3 and EF-4 tornadoes were reported. The city of Garland, Texas was declared a disaster area. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott made disaster declarations for four counties — Dallas, Collin, Rockwall and Ellis. Oklahoma Governor Mary Fallin declared a state of emergency after blizzard conditions, ice storms and flooding caused by as much as 9 inches of rain were suffered there.

While St. Louis itself stayed mostly dry thanks to a floodwall, its suburbs were water-logged. The biggest problems came from the Meramec River — a tributary of the Mississippi — which at points topped the 1993 record flood level by 4 feet. Hundreds of homes and business were evacuated in Pacific, Eureka, Valley Park and Arnold, Missouri. Eleven levees failed. I-44 and I-55 were closed. Traffic was at a standstill. The flooding problems started after more than 10 inches of rain fell in an area spanning Illinois to Missouri. 22 people have died mostly in cars that were swept away. Wastewater plants were flooded out with the result that raw sewage washed into rivers.

In St. Louis the Mississippi floods at 30 feet. On December 30 it was brimming at 41.5. It was expected to go to 43, 13 feet above flood stage, the highest mark since 1993 when 100,000 homes were destroyed. Interstates were shut down. Sewage was being spewed into a fast moving river. Communities were being evacuated. Jay Nixon, Governor of Missouri called in the National Guard and declared a State of Emergency. 14 million Americans faced flood watches. In St. Louis it's been the wettest year and wettest December on record.

Twelve Illinois counties have been declared disaster areas, and Gov. Bruce Rauner ordered Illinois National Guard troops into flooded areas in the southern part of the state to mitigate flood damage and help with evacuation efforts.

Midwest and plains states experienced snow, blizzards, gale force winds torrential rain and tornadoes all mixed in together in a melange of bad weather that put 75 million people in the path of danger. Travelers were left stranded as thousands of flights were cancelled or delayed.

As the month ended, flood waters continued to rise on the Mississippi. The water in Saint Louis was 12 feet above flood stage. The Meramec, Missouri and Mississippi Rivers were all brimming threatening to overtop levees. Later the Meramec River crested shattering 18 records. More than 100,000 have been stranded on the road. States downstream were getting ready to absorb the huge amounts of water that flooded upstream states.

Weather girls Dylan Dreyer and Karen Wetter were kept busy explaining why this El Niño has been so devastating and will only get worse. Anchor girl Kate Snow observed that her name presaged more of that in the east.

82 Die in Floods Across Europe

Torrential rains across central Europe have led to the worst flooding in decades, claiming the lives of 82 people. At least 58 died in the Black Sea area, where thousands of Russian tourists were caught out by floodwaters that swept cars and tents out to sea.

Thousands of British tourists are being forced to cancel holidays amid the chaos. One of the worst-hit cities is Prague, where more than 50,000 people, including foreign visitors, were evacuated as the most devastating floods for more than a century threatened to engulf the Czech capital.

Soldiers and hundreds of volunteers worked building sandbag barriers. But as torrential rain continued to fall, a state of emergency was declared.

Parts of Mala Strana, the medieval area of the city center, were almost certain to be flood-damaged as the deluge forced dams on the river Vltava to open their gates. Prague has not seen the river as high since 1890 with estimates putting the water flow at 20 times the average for the time of year.

In Austria, Salzburg has been declared a disaster zone and Vienna is under threat. The Danube has been closed to all shipping as the river has swollen to a near 100-year high. Three people have been killed in towns near Salzburg. In the city itself 1,000 buildings were partially or totally submerged, and the sightseeing-boat Amadeus sank. An emergency services spokesman in Upper Austria, where over three-quarters of the region is affected by flooding, said 8,000 workers and volunteers were ready to help evacuate residents.

Meanwhile in England

It was the warmest December on record and the wettest on record in Scotland and Wales. An army company has helped build temporary flood defenses in Cumbria in the northwest of England as residents struggled with the winter storms and heavy rains. That part of the country was still reeling from Storm Desmond earlier in December.

Environment Minister Rory Stewart called the rainfall in the flooded areas unprecedented. The Met Office, according to the Environment Agency, "confirmed this is the wettest December on record for Cumbria since records began in 1910." More than 7,300 homes were flooded across the north of England as river levels reached record highs.

December has been a record-breaking month for rainfall other in parts of the United Kingdom as well. A Christmas weekend storm brought up to 8 inches of additional rainfall on saturated soil. The Met Office listed just a small portion of the December rainfall records that were set Christmas weekend, in some cases blowing away the previous December records by 10 inches.

However, there is already clear evidence that what has happened over the past month or so in terms of temperature and rainfall has fallen outside the range of the natural variability of the notoriously fickle British weather, according to a growing number of climate experts.

“There is no doubt in my mind that climate change is partly responsible for the flooding across the North of England. This December is around 5 C warmer than normal and physics tells us that 24-hour extreme rainfall increases by 7 per cent per degree,” said Piers Forster, professor of climate science at Leeds University.

South America Floods

More than 150,000 people were forced to evacuate their homes in areas of Paraguay, Uruguay, Brazil and Argentina after floods due to heavy summer rains caused by El Niño, authorities said. In Paraguay, which was the hardest-hit, more than 130,000 people were evacuated. In Alberdi city, residents fled as walls holding back water appeared on the verge of collapse, authorities said. Argentina had 20,000 evacuees, half of them from Concordia city.

The floods, caused by overflowing rivers and torrential rains blamed on the El Niño phenomenon, have been responsible for at least eight deaths: six in Paraguay and two in Uruguay. The Paraguay River in that nation is within inches of topping its banks, and the Uruguay River in Argentina is 46 feet above normal, according to a BBC News report.

Authorities are preparing to cope with the possibility of diseases spreading - heightened by the fact that mosquitos and snakes thrive in swamp-like conditions. Overflowing sewers have also caused homes to have dirty running water.

Fires in Australia at Christmas

At the same time when many were enjoying a warm Christmas on the East coast and many others were suffering from tornadoes in the south, on the other side of the world in Australia, 116 homes were burning in Victoria. It's fire season in Australia at Christmas time.

The Insurance Council of Australia declared the bushfires a catastrophe, estimating initial insurance losses of $25 million. Some relief was forthcoming from the state's coffers. Victorian Emergency Services Minister Jane Garrett said the relief grants would help locals get back on their feet as fast as possible. "It has been devastating for these communities at Christmas time, which is why we are making sure people have the support they need," she said.

The Wrap-up for 2015

2015 was the hottest year on record. There were more extreme weather incidents than any other year. While El Niño has been getting a lot of press, the El Niño was made much more severe by global warming.

Extreme heat killed more than 1200 people in Pakistan and 2500 in India. Many died because the power and air conditioning went off at peak heat periods when it was needed most. Heat waves also affected Iraq and Iran. Typhoons rocked the Phillipines. High temperatures in Alaska made for the hottest May on record. Myanmar and Ghana experienced record flooding. Droughts in California, South Africa, Ethiopia and Brazil set records. Temperatures at the North Pole were 50 degrees F above normal in December surging above the freezing point of 32 degrees.

Scientists at Oxford University have started work on a scientific model they hope will enable them to establish or rule out links between climate change and extreme weather more quickly. “We want to clear up the huge amounts of confusion around how climate change is influencing the weather, in both directions,” Dr Friederike Otto, of Oxford University’s Environmental Change Institute, said.

Extreme Weather Watch: October 2015 - South Carolina, Texas Inundated by Torrential Rains

by John Lawrence

In early October torrential rain flooded almost the entire state of South Carolina. At least 17 people died. The cost of the flooding could top $1 billion, Senator Lindsey Graham said. Interstate 95 was closed for 70 miles. At least 11 dams failed. Another 35 dams were at risk. The rain event set records all over the state, flooding entire towns. For some locations, this historic rainfall qualifies as a 1,000-year rain event, meaning in a given year there is a 1 in 1,000 chance of observing rainfall totals of this magnitude.

They would like to think that floods of this magnitude won't happen again for another 1000 years. However, the truth is that with global warming and climate change floods like these are becoming a much more common occurrence, not unprecedented and historical as some have described them.

President Barack Obama signed a disaster declaration, ordering federal aid to help recovery efforts in South Carolina. The president's action  made federal funding available to people in Charleston, Dorchester, Georgetown, Horry, Lexington, Orangeburg, Richland and Williamsburg counties. Forms of assistance are grants for temporary housing and home repairs, low-cost loans for uninsured property losses and other programs to help individuals and business owners recover.

Gov. Nikki Haley said about 550 roads and bridges were closed in the state, the results of 2 feet of rain in two days. There was looting and power outages. Haley said there had been 175 water rescues in South Carolina, and more than 800 people were temporarily housed in shelters at one period.

More than 400,000 state residents were under a "boil water advisory" affecting about 16 water systems. In the region surrounding Columbia, as many as 40,000 homes lacked drinking water. Mayor Steve Benjamin said 375,000 water customers will likely have to boil their water for "quite some time." In another image of the storm's otherworldly toll, state officials said caskets had popped out of the ground in 11 instances in six counties. Nine deaths came about from people trying to drive in flooded areas.

4 Feet of Rain in the Phillipines

Typhoon Koppu barreled down on the island of Luzon in the Philippines where it landed as a Category 4 storm with 150 mph winds. Koppu drenched the country's main northern island of Luzon with as much as 43 inches of rain during its slow, meandering journey across the country. At least 48 were dead, and thousands of people were displaced. Thousands were evacuated.

There was nearly 100 percent damage to infrastructure in Casiguran, where the typhoon came ashore. Philippines news website Rappler reported that  “Electricity and phone signals remain cut off in the area, making it difficult to get supplies and aid to at least 27,000 affected people.” In Baguio City, home to over 318,000 people, nearly 3 feet of rain were recorded. Over 6 inches of that fell in just three hours.

Power outages were reported province-wide during the height of the storm in Pangasinan, Cagayan, Isabela, Quirino, Nueva Vizcaya, Aurora, Nueva Ecija, Apayao, and Kalinga, according to the Philippines National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council. The outages affected an estimated 9 million people, or nearly one-tenth of the entire population of the Philippines.

Because it is one of the most cyclone prone coastlines on Earth, settlement along the east coast of northern Luzon is quite sparse. A large part of the coastline is virtually uninhabited, but Koppu crossed the coast south of the most desolate zone and instead hit Aurora, a province of about 200,000 people that hugs the eastern coastline of Luzon northeast of Manila.

Koppu, the second strongest storm to hit the disaster-plagued Southeast Asian archipelago this year, had forced more than 60,000 people from their homes according to authorities. Residents of flooded farming villages in the Philippines were trapped on their rooftops and animals floated down fast-rising rivers.

Storm in California Leaves Massive Mudslides

The storm that slammed into the high desert and mountains of Southern California in October was one for the record books. Intense rain sent massive mudflows onto highways, picking up cars and pushing them into one another. Hundreds of vehicles were trapped in mud up to 20 feet deep. Some motorists were stranded overnight.

In one spot in the Antelope Valley, the storm dumped 1.81 inches of rain in 30 minutes, in what the National Weather Service described as a 1,000-year rain event. Another 1000 year event? Give me a break. More like a 1 year event, thanks to global warming.

"It's absolutely incredible," said Robbie Munroe, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Oxnard. One person was pulled from her car dead. Preview of El Nino?

The warm ocean temperatures — about 75 degrees, at least 5 degrees above normal — produced more water evaporation and higher humidity levels. The storm system combined with the high humidity to create enough instability in the atmosphere to trigger the intense thunderstorms and torrential rainfall.

The storm shut Interstate 5 through the Grapevine and sent a sea of mud sweeping through country roads. One of the most dramatic scenes played out on Highway 58 east of Tehachapi. There, mudslides trapped 200 vehicles including dozens of tractor-trailers and at least two tour buses filled with passengers.

In all, the storm left an estimated 300,000 cubic yards of mud and debris on major roadways, officials said.

Especially hard hit was Death Valley which received another 1000 year weather event. Really? The powerful weather system dropped 3 inches of rain in 5 hours, battering historic structures, chewing through roadways and covering the rugged landscape with layers of mud and rocks. It was the wettest October on record in the region which normally receives only 4 inches of rain for the entire year.

Hurricane Patricia in Mexico

The strongest hurricane ever recorded in the Western Hemisphere hit Mexico’s southwest coast, transforming hotels full of tourists into makeshift shelters, shuttering schools, closing airports and sending inhabitants racing to bus stations to flee inland.

Patricia developed into a Category 5 hurricane with wind speeds up to 250 mph practically overnight. Sustained winds were 165 mph. It was not only the largest hurricane in history, but its intensification was the quickest ever seen. This was attributed to the fact that the Pacific Ocean is 6 degrees warmer than what is normal for this time of year. The warmth of the Pacific Ocean is what is responsible for the extreme typhoons lashing the Phillipines and for the El Nino effect that is supposed to bring torrential rain to southern California this winter.

In the final analysis Patricia did not do major damage in Mexico, miraculously. However, Texas got torrential rain and flooding during this same time period from the remnants of Patricia. Some areas got over 20 inches of rain. There was major flooding and over 70 water rescues.

Texas Inundated

Torrential rains and massive flooding hit Texas in October. As the month ended several million Americans were under flash flood warnings. Six people are known to have died from the storms. Several tornadoes were reported. The state was still recovering from an earlier battering of severe weather, when the remains of Hurricane Patricia swept across the region. The ground was still saturated when the latest storms hit.

Nearly 15 inches of rain fell in Austin on October 30 setting an all time one day record. The Austin airport was battered by almost 14 inches in 6 hours. That's more rain than the city received the entire month of May which was already the second wettest month on record! An inch per hour is catastrophic, but over 2 inches per hour? That's ridiculous. That led to flooding, power outages and cancelled flights.

Flash flooding caused a freight train to derail south of Dallas. Drivers were trapped in their cars. Tropical storm force winds coupled with tornadoes and rapidly rising flood waters damaged vehicles, homes and businesses.

In a square mile one inch of rain is equivalent to 17 million gallons of water. Flash flood warnings covered 75,000 square miles. That equates to 1.27 trillion gallons of water enough to fill 192,000 Olympic swimming pools.

The rain on the last two days of the month delivered as much as one third inch per hour, which fell onto water logged ground, leading to widespread flooding. The Houston Fire Department said it had made more than 130 water rescues on Saturday (Halloween), and some public light-rail and bus routes had to be suspended. The roads were filled with pumpkins carried away by the storm.

Power lines were down. People were evacuated from flood prone regions. 15 million people were on high alert. Interstates were closed down. People were trapped in their cars. First responders couldn't keep up with calls for help.

This will be the wettest October on record for Texas. Only a couple weeks before there was drought and wildfires. Extreme weather is an acknowledged effect of climate change, but it is little acknowledged as such by TV weathermen and ladies. Their job is to get eyeballs glued to the tube for commercial purposes. Mentioning climate change might cause their viewers to actually think, and that would be bad for business which wants passive consumers. Disastrous weather events lately have rivaled murder and mayhem in attracting viewers. That's good for business.

Extreme Weather Watch: September 2015 - Fires Devastate Homes in California

by John Lawrence

2000 Homes and 200 Square Miles Up in Flames

On September 13 California Gov. Jerry Brown declared a state of emergency in Lake and Napa counties. He also had issued a state of emergency in Calaveras and Amador counties. Four firefighters were injured in the fire called the Valley fire. Thousands fled as mandatory evacuations were ordered for the communities of Cobb, Middletown, Harbin Hot Springs and Big Canyon Road.

More than 1,300 people fled Middletown, north of San Francisco, as their homes were consumed by the flames. Main Street in Middletown burned up. 600 homes gone. More than 5,000 were without power. The Valley fire burned 40,000 acres in just 17 hours. On Sept. 13 it was reported that 1000 homes gone. As of October 5, the Valley fire was 99% contained. 1,958 structures were destroyed, 93 structures damaged.

A separate blaze — called the Valley Fire — in Lake County, about 170 miles to the northwest, has killed three people, destroyed nearly 600 homes and burned hundreds of other structures.

As of the middle of September, the Butte Fire in Amador and Calaveras counties, about 70 miles east of Sacramento, had grown to 100 square miles. It had destroyed at least 85 residences and 50 outbuildings and threatens 6,150 homes. As of Sunday the 13th fire officials said a blaze that had destroyed more than 100 homes north of San Francisco had grown to 78 square miles.

The Butte fire claimed two deaths. The two killed by the Butte fire — 66-year-old Mark McCloud and 82-year-old Owen Goldsmith — died after rejecting orders from authorities to evacuate, Cal Fire spokeswoman Lynnette Round said. As of October 1, 475 residences, 343 outbuildings, 45 structures were burned or damaged in the Butte fire. It was 100% contained as of October 1.

Totals for California for the month of September 2015: 3914 homes and structures burned or damaged. Tens of thousands were forced to evacuate their homes.

Japan Floods

Sept 13: Japan advised almost 3 million people to evacuate after heavy flooding killed seven people and left at least 15 missing in the eastern region of the country.

Seven people are now confirmed dead and 15 remain missing in the wake of torrential rains associated with former Tropical Storm Etau that dumped unprecedented rainfall on parts of eastern and northern Japan

At least 27 people have been injured across 10 prefectures since floods inundated parts of eastern Japan after a tropical storm, the Fire and Disaster Management Agency said.

Up to 26 inches of rain fell in eastern Japan Sunday through Friday due to Tropical Storm Etau.

In Tochigi, more than 19 inches of rain fell in 24 hours in places, double the amount that normally falls there throughout the whole of September, according to Japanese public broadcaster NHK.

The city of Joso, north of the capital, Tokyo, was hit by a wall of water after the Kinugawa River burst its banks. Helicopter rescue teams have been plucking people from rooftops. More than 100,000 were ordered to leave their homes.

Floods and landslides resulted in 8 dead, 46 injured.

The heavy rain caused additional leaks of radioactive water at the stricken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.

The plant’s operator, Tokyo Electric Power (Tepco), said rain had overwhelmed the site’s drainage pumps, sending hundreds of tons of contaminated water into the Pacific Ocean.

Workers at the Fukushima plant have had to store huge quantities of contaminated water used to cool melted fuel in three badly damaged reactors in thousands of steel tanks.

Flash Floods in Utah and Arizona Sept. 15

Zion National Park in Utah: Hours after they entered Keyhole Canyon, dark skies unleashed fierce rains that sent water surging through the chasm, sweeping seven people to their deaths. Rangers received a report of a group of seven individuals canyoneering in Keyhole Canyon shortly before the flooding began. Their unoccupied vehicles were located on Monday evening and a search began the morning of Tuesday, September 15, 2015 when it was determined that these individuals had not exited the canyon.

Twenty miles away, in the polygamous community of Hildale, an SUV and van carrying 16 women and children were swept away by one of the biggest flash floods locals had ever seen. Flash floods along the Utah-Arizona border engulfed the two vehicles and swept them into a waterway that is normally dry. Three victims survived, and one was transported to a hospital.

Flash flooding near the Utah-Arizona border claimed a death toll of 20 from the violent rainstorm.

Extreme Weather Has Killed Thousands in 2015

Poorer nations suffering from extreme weather disasters, so much so that their citizens are seeking refuge in safer terrains outside their borders, want rich nations like the United States to pay for reparations and to relocate populations.

Preparatory talks ahead of the United Nations Conference on Climate Change to be held in Paris in December has representatives from developing nations asking for more than an already agreed upon $100 billion per year for climate change mitigation measures. They want additional compensation for weather-related disasters as well as a "displacement coordination facility" for refugees. And they want all this to be legally binding as part of the larger anticipated Paris accord.

The U.S. and wealthier nations in the European Union are balking.

Governor Brown Signs Climate Change Bill to Spur Renewable Energy

This just in from the LA Times October 7:

The legislation, SB 350 by Senate leader Kevin de León (D-Los Angeles), was amended to remove a third component that would have required reduced gasoline use on California roads. The battle over the controversial proposal dominated the closing weeks of the legislative session last month.

Despite ceding some ground in a tug-of-war with oil companies, Brown and De León have touted the remaining parts of the legislation as significant steps in California’s fight against climate change. ...

The bill will require California to generate 50% of its electricity from renewable sources such as solar and wind by 2030, up from the current target of 33% by 2020.

Extreme Weather Watch: August 2015 - The Western US Burns Up

by John Lawrence from the San Diego Free Press

Wildfires swept through the states of Washington, Idaho, Oregon and northern California in a record setting conflagration. Thousands of firefighters from all over the world tried to protect houses, but, nevertheless, hundreds burned. A call went out for volunteers and thousands have responded.

Thousands have been evacuated. The cost is soaring past what state and Federal budgets can afford. The choice is to let the West burn up or bankrupt state and national budgets. The Forest Service is spending $10 million a day to fight wildfires.

In 1995 16% of the Forest Service's budget went to fight forest fires. Today it's 52% with 70% predicted in the next decade if present trends continue. US Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said, "No one wants our Forest Service to become one large fire department," but that is exactly what is happening. Vilsack said the federal government has spent more than $1 billion fighting this year’s deadly wildfires

Wildfires across the U.S. have burned a massive 8 million acres so far this year, an area larger than the state of Maryland. It's the largest total for the same period over the last decade, but more than 5 million of those acres have been in rural Alaska. This year a total of 3,382 fires have burned in Oregon and Washington with 93 categorized as large fires. Four new wildfires sparked to life near the end of August, bringing the total acreage scorched this year in Washington and Oregon alone to just over 1 million acres, according to the national Interagency Fire Center in Boise, Idaho.

According to the Washington Post, there are only six other years that have seen more than 8 million acres burned — 2012, 2011, 2007, 2006, 2005, and 2004 — based on National Interagency Fire Center records that date back to 1960. It is hard not to notice that all of these years came since the year 2000. The United States remains at wildfire preparedness level 5 — the highest level — where it has been since Aug. 13.

Fires weren't the only the disruption of normal life that was of concern. Almost the entire state of Idaho was under an air quality alert as ash and particles from fires blew downwind, creating health hazards for those outdoors. Large swaths of eastern Washington, eastern Oregon and western Montana were under similar warnings. People with asthma and other breathing problems were at high risk.

Air sensors in some portions of central Idaho around the Nez Perce tribal reservation showed the air quality index reaching “hazardous” levels — the highest possible designation — with values higher than 300 on the scale, the worst in the state. That's the level at which officials urge residents not to do any physical activity outdoors.

A 400 square mile group of wildfires was called the largest in Washington State's history by officials. This was the Okanogan Complex which killed three firefighters, injured four and burned 200 homes. This fire began with a lightning strike on August 15. More than 1,200 firefighters and support personnel were battling the Okanogan Complex fire. Firefighters battled 17 major blazes burning across more than 400,000 acres in Washington. Residents in the popular recreation centers in Twisp and Winthrop in the scenic Methow River Valley were forced to evacuate.

The Chelan complex fire in Washington state covers about 100,000 acres. To date it is only 65% contained. 21 residences have burned. The cost so far is $13.9 million. There have been 9 injuries. Crews secured the fireline around Hungry Mountain. The fire spotted over the line in a few places on its northwest tip, and crews worked to contain those spot fires.

A hotshot crew assessed the area northwest of Rainy Creek, looking for opportunities to directly suppress the fire. However, the difficult-to-traverse terrain makes the area too dangerous for firefighters. They continue to use aircraft to hold the fire within established lines as they develop a sound strategy for the area. Structure-protection crews continue to defend structures. 9 crews, 48 engines, 6 dozers, 22 water tenders and 4 helicopters battled the fires which continue to burn.

Tens of thousands of firefighters battled to get the upper hand against dozens of large blazes across the West and Northwest. In California, the Summit fire in the San Bernardino Mountains near the resort community of Big Bear Lake burned 100 acres, threatened hundreds of homes and caused most area schools to be closed.

Inciweb, an aggregating website for U.S. wildfires, reported 40 active fires in California alone. The largest to date is the Happy Camp Complex Fire which scorched over 134,000 acres and is currently listed as being 100% contained, but there are scores of other fires in California that are burning 30, 40, and 50 thousand acres at a time.  There are 11,000 firefighters on the front lines in California alone. A good portion of the state is currently on fire.

As of August 24 Oregon had 19 ongoing active wildfires. The largest reported is the Cornet-Windy Ridge Fire which had grown to 103,887 acres. This fire began on August 10 with a lightning strike and is currently 80% contained. The immediate danger with all wildfires, even those seemingly contained, is the shift in winds or the change in weather. Bad weather with lightning, little rain, followed by hot, dry conditions contributes to fires that, once considered under control, spark to life again.

Lightning strikes are the most common way that fires begin. This could be the reason why the Northwest and not the Southwest has seen the largest conflagrations this year. In southern California lightning strikes are relatively more rare.The ones not started by lightning are usually started by arsonists.

And as August ended most fires were still only 50% contained. Southern California still hasn't entered its usual Santa Ana wind driven fire season which usually comes later in the year.

Huge wildfires are being driven by climate change according to recent studies:

The risk of so-called “very large wildfires” could increase as much as six times in the U.S. by mid-century as a result of man-made global warming, researchers concluded in a study announced by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

“Very large fires” are defined as the top 10% of fires based on acreage. Such blazes account for the majority of burned acres across the U.S. each year. There are currently 66 large fires burning, a step down from “very large.”

Climate change is expected to both intensify fire-friendly weather conditions – such as heat and drought -- and lengthen the season during which these fires tend to spread, according to the study, which was published in the International Journal of Wildland Fire.

Huge sections of the western U.S. would see the risk of very large fires increase by as much as 200% to 500%. The highest risk area includes the Great Basin and Northern Rockies, as well as the Sierra Nevada and Northern California.

Meanwhile in Iran the heat index reached a staggering 162 degrees F forcing Iran to call a public holiday. No one could be expected to work in that heat.