Links

Cape Town ‘Day Zero’ drought odds tripled by climate change
Such a dry spell would once have only occurred only once every 300 years. Now it is a once-a-century event and will get even more frequent with further global warming
http://www.climatechangenews.com/2018/07/13/cape-town-day-zero-drought-odds-tripled-climate-change/

tags: extreme weather, severe weather

If climate trends continue, rising temperatures and shorter winters mean ticks, and the diseases they carry, will keep expanding their ranges faster than ever, said Uli Munderloh, an entomology professor at the University of Minnesota.
"We do not know all of the disease agents that ticks may be able to transmit," she said. Disease agents can include a virus, bacteria or fungus. "If there's a new tick moving like the bush tick, it could pick up disease agents that are already present and spread by the deer tick."
And that works in reverse too. Deer ticks could potentially spread the new diseases that bush ticks would bring into the region.
https://www.mprnews.org/story/2018/07/12/bush-ticks-moving-north-scientists-work-on-vaccines


One of the world's top economists has written an expert court report that forcefully supports a group of children and young adults who have sued the federal government for failing to act on climate change.
Joseph Stiglitz, who was awarded the Nobel Memorial Prize for economics in 2001 and has written extensively about environmental economics and climate change, makes an economic case that the costs of maintaining a fossil fuel-based economy are "incalculable," while transitioning to a lower-carbon system will cost far less.
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/11072018/joseph-stiglitz-kids-climate-change-lawsuit-global-warming-costs-economic-impact


36-Year Climate Change Record Found in Cycle Racing Footage
They found that back in the 1980’s, branches were almost always bare on the race date—but now, the same trees almost always had leaves. In fact, over the ~40 year period, leaf emergence jumped up almost two weeks.
That result is roughly in line with the data other groups have observed across Europe, says Josep Peñeulas, a biologist at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, who was not involved with the study. For each degree warmer the habitat gets, trees leaf out a few days earlier.
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/2018/07/climate-change-cycling-bike-race/


Japanese Monks Recorded the Climate for 700 Years
Some of the oldest continuous historical records from around the world show us how dramatically the climate has changed.
When scientists want to glimpse the climate of the ancient past, they almost always have to use indirect evidence—changes in tree rings, ice-core layers, or pollen deposits. But the ice records from Japan and Finland, which are the longest of their kind, give us a more direct look at the climate our distant ancestors experienced.
The results of their study, published today in Nature Scientific Reports, show that since the Industrial Revolution, changes in the timing of freeze and thaw have accelerated, and suggest that the yearly rhythm of the ice in both places has become more closely tied to the concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Extreme events have become more common, too: In the first 250 years that Shinto priests recorded the appearance of the ice ridge on Lake Suwa, for instance, there were only three years during which the lake did not freeze. Between 1955 and 2004, there were 12 freeze-free years on Lake Suwa; between 2005 and 2014, there were five. (Magnuson reports that the lake did not freeze during the winters of 2015 or 2016, either.)
https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2016/04/ice-lake-suwa-japan-torne-river-climate-change-monk-shinto/


Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) called the U.S.-Russia summit in Helsinki “a tragic mistake” and faulted President Trump for “naiveté” and “egotism” in meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
He also labeled Trump's press conference with Putin as “one of the most disgraceful performances by an American president in memory.”
McCain said watching Trump’s press conference with Putin was especially “painful” after Trump criticized longtime NATO ally Germany as “totally controlled by Russia.”
“Coming close on the heels of President Trump’s bombastic and erratic conduct towards our closest friends and allies in Brussels and Britain, today’s press conference marks a recent low point in the history of the American presidency,” he said.
“No prior president has ever abased himself more abjectly before a tyrant,” McCain lamented.
http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/397245-mccain-trump-performance-disgraceful


Russian President Vladimir Putin said Monday [July 16, 2018] he wanted President Trump to win the 2016 election, a comment sure to fuel more scrutiny of Moscow’s meddling efforts.
"Yes, I did, because he was the one who wanted to normalize relations with Russia,” Putin said when asked if he wanted Trump to win.
http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/397200-putin-says-he-wanted-trump-to-beat-clinton


CNN, NBC, Fox personalities slam Trump over performance at Putin press conference
Fox News, which is normally friendlier territory for the president, was also largely critical of Trump's performance.
Bret Baier called the press conference "surreal."
Fox News analyst Brit Hume called Trump’s reference to the probe into Clinton’s private email server to deflect questions about Russian interference a “lame response, to say the least.”
Fox Business Network's Neil Cavuto laid into Trump, calling it “disgusting” that the president did not confront Putin.
“It’s not a right or left thing. It’s just wrong,” Cavuto said, adding that Trump failed to offer “even a mild criticism.”
Guy Benson, a Fox News contributor, called it "easily one of [Trump's] worst days as president."
Ari Fleischer, a former aide in the George W. Bush administration and a Fox News contributor, said Trump's acceptance of Putin's denials gives him a better understanding for why Democrats "think Putin must have the goods on him."
[It's good to see that Fox has not been taken over by the Russians.]
http://thehill.com/homenews/media/397220-media-slams-trump-over-performance-at-putin-press-conference


Microsoft president Brad Smith is calling for government regulations on facial recognition technology.
In a blog post on Friday, Smith didn’t call for specific rules to be instituted but did urge for the creation of a “bipartisan and expert commission” to draft policy recommendations.
“In a democratic republic, there is no substitute for decision making by our elected representatives regarding the issues that require the balancing of public safety with the essence of our democratic freedoms,” Smith wrote. “Facial recognition will require the public and private sectors alike to step up – and to act.”
http://thehill.com/policy/technology/396956-microsoft-president-calls-for-unspecified-regulations-on-facial-recognition
[In the past, I have been told by several small business owners that they wished the government would raise the minimum wage or mandate health insurance coverage. They want to do right by their employees, but couldn't compete with other companies if they did so.]


After a record-breaking year of destruction, the summer is off to a fiery start. This week alone, there are more than 50 active wildfires burning across California, Colorado, and the rest of the West, many in urbanized areas.
Pacific Standard spoke with wildfire policy expert Char Miller to learn which wildfires he's watching, and what they can tell us about a pattern of destruction that he no longer calls the "new normal"—just "normal."
Scorching more than 100,000 acres, the Spring Creek Fire is already the third-largest fire in Colorado history, and set to become the second.
Miller identified climate change as the underlying driver for the hot, dry conditions affecting the state
https://psmag.com/environment/the-most-worrying-wildfires-burning-in-the-us-right-now


Yosemite wildfire doubles in size, could 'become a major threat'
A deadly, uncontrolled California wildfire more than doubled in size and raged through more than 14 square miles of brush and forest  Monday, forcing closure of an access road into Yosemite National Park at the height of tourist season.
Firefighter Braden Varney, 36 and a married father of two, was killed Saturday when his bulldozer rolled over.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2018/07/16/yosemite-wildfire-could-become-major-threat/787392002/


The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is alerting health care professionals and patients of a voluntary recall of several drug products containing the active ingredient valsartan, used to treat high blood pressure and heart failure.
This recall is due to an impurity, N-nitrosodimethylamine (NDMA), which was found in the recalled products. However, not all products containing valsartan are being recalled.
NDMA is classified as a probable human carcinogen -- a substance that could cause cancer -- based on results from laboratory tests. The presence of NDMA is thought to be related to changes in the way the active substance was manufactured.
http://abc13.com/health/fda-recalls-heart-meds-that-may-be-tainted-by-carcinogen/3772236/


Carbon Dioxide Emissions: Global and US
http://conversableeconomist.blogspot.com/2018/07/carbon-dioxide-emissions-global-and-us.html