California Free Press

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

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.

Off the Top of My Head

Living With Temps Over 120º For Months With No AC

by John Lawrence, September23, 2019

That's what it's like in Jacobabad, Pakistan. And then there are the electricity blackouts lasting as long as 12 hours. In Turbat, Pakistan the temperature reached 128.7º on May 28, 2017. Most people in these poor cities cannot afford air conditioners. Probably the rich can. Resting under a shade tree is an option, but most of the shade trees have been chopped down for firewood. You can't work in these conditions. When the air temperature exceeds the human body temperature of 98.6º, the only way to keep from overheating (heatstroke) is to sweat. But when the humidity is also high, the air is already saturated with moisture so sweating is less effective.

To add injury to injury in many cities in the world's heat belt, there is little or no water, certainly no effective system to deliver it. A flushed toilet uses up precious water so people urinate and defecate outside rather than flush into a nonexistent sewage system. Of course none of this reaches the mass media here in the US which is focused not on the world but on tweets here at home especially those of the tweeter-in-chief. His constituents could care less what happens in Pakistan. Their only concern is that ISIS, al-Qaeda and Boko Haram don't start up again, and, if they do, we will send American troops, planes and drones to strike them down.

The US, as the biggest industrialized mass consumer nation, is largely responsible for the century long spewing of greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere which has caused these abnormal and extreme weather situations which so far have mainly affected the poor in other parts of the world. Of course, the US as a nation takes no responsibility for this. The mass migration of climate change refugees has already begun. Hot and dry weather in the Middle East has dried up the Tigris-Euphrates river basin so that subsistence level farmers migrate to the already overpopulated cities causing regional instability. The old adage that it's not the heat that kills you, it's the humidity, turns out to be true. You can survive 100º temps for days at a time as long as the humidity stays below 50%. By 2100 74% of the population will experience that deadly combination according to some studies. The combination of heat and humidity has reduced the number of days that workers can work outside, thus diminishing their livelihoods.

These excessive temperatures can be mitigated by planting more trees. The micro climate created by a few shade trees can reduce ambient temperatures under them by as much as 9º F. Trees also draw carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere thus mitigating climate change. There are other ways too. Creating an infrastructure where piped water and adequate sewage systems are universal, where air conditioning is universal, where reliable electric grids are universal could alleviate much of the human suffering which is otherwise in store for the human race mostly in poor countries which will then send their refugees streaming into more advanced nations.

In Houston this year massive flooding precipitated by as much as 40 inches of rain in a couple of days destroyed much of the city 2 years after Hurricane Harvey destroyed much of the city. Harvey caused $125 billion in damage. How much will this tropical storm Imelda (not even a hurricane) cost? Will people have to rebuild every couple of years or so? Imelda has dropped 60 inches of rain in a couple of days. Imelda dropped 4 inches of rain in an hour in some areas, double what Harvey dropped in an hour. Yet when people are interviewed for TV news they will never attribute their misfortunes to climate change. They will just say things like "I've never seen anything like it" except that they have - two years ago.

Some areas of the world are simply a lost cause already. That's why so many people are leaving those areas and migrating. The situation will only get worse in years to come. The Caribbean is a disaster zone, and rather than rebuilding, smart people are only getting out and moving elsewhere. After Harvey, more than 91,000 Texans filed flood insurance claims, and FEMA has paid an estimated $8.8 billion for those claims. But FEMA's budget is limited. In fact it's a political football. According to statistics from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, over the past several decades, the government responded to roughly six disasters a year that caused $1 billion each in damages. Between 2014-2018, however, that number spiked to 13 disasters a year. Now Trump doesn't want any more funds allocated to help Puerto Rico.

It's obvious that people shouldn't rebuild in flood plains. Those optimistic people who think that just because they've experienced a 1000 year flood, there won't be another one for another 1000 years are just wrong. They will probably get a 10,000 year flood next year. Every one of these calamities is the result of climate change, but many don't want to admit it when even the President of the US is a climate change denier. Will it come down to whichever congressional districts have the most influential legislators as to who gets help and who doesn't?

The US needs to start remedying the effects of climate change in other parts of the world rather than trying to control them with its military. That policy will only make it seem more attractive to local residents there to support indigenous groups opposed to the US, so-called terrorist groups. Lately, the definition of a terrorist has change. A terrorist is any group who doesn't agree with the policies of the US and is fighting back. Anyone on the other side of the line dividing the US and its allies with Russia, China, Iran and their allies is a terrorist by definition. A terrorist no longer is someone that wants to blow up buildings in the US, but anyone who objects to US policies with regard to the rest of the world.

However, when it comes to climate change, we are all in this together so we better make peace and common cause with the rest of the world's peoples. The vengeance Mother Nature is taking out shows no preference to any nation so the nations of the world better band together instead of squabbling among themselves over small potatoes.