Seabirds face dire threats from climate change, human activity — especially in Northern Hemisphere

https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2021-05/uow-sfd052521.php

 

News Release 27-May-2021
University of Washington

 

Many seabirds in the Northern Hemisphere are struggling to breed -- and in the Southern Hemisphere, they may not be far behind. These are the conclusions of a study, published May 28 in Science, analyzing more than 50 years of breeding records for 67 seabird species worldwide.

The international team of scientists -- led by William Sydeman at the Farallon Institute in California -- discovered that reproductive success decreased in the past half century for fish-eating seabirds north of the equator. The Northern Hemisphere has suffered greater impacts from human-caused climate change and other human activities, like overfishing.


•••••

It’s already getting too hot and humid in some places for humans to survive

https://www.theverge.com/21252174/heat-humidity-human-survival-climate-change-science-advances

By Justine Calma@justcalma May 8, 2020, 2:00pm EDT


A combination of heat and humidity so extreme that it’s unendurable isn’t just a problem for the future — those conditions are already here, a new study finds. Off-the-chart readings that were previously thought to be nearly nonexistent on the planet today have popped up around the globe, and unyielding temperatures are becoming more common.

Extreme conditions reaching roughly 115 degrees Fahrenheit on the heat-index scale — a measurement of both heat and humidity that’s often referred to as what the temperature “feels like” — doubled between 1979 and 2017, the study found. Humidity and heat are a particularly deadly combination, since humidity messes with the body’s ability to cool itself off by sweating. The findings imply that harsh conditions that scientists foresaw as an impending result of climate change are becoming reality sooner than expected.

•••••

Extreme heat already kills more people in the US than any other weather-related event.

In 50 years, between 1 to 3 billion people could find themselves living in temperatures so hot that they’re outside the range in which humans have been able to thrive, found another study published this week. Just how many billions will face that future depends on what action is taken now to stop the planet from dangerously overheating.

March 2020 was warmer than average across much of the globe

https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/global/202003



•••••

March 2020 was characterized by warmer-than-average conditions across much of the globe. The most notable warm March temperatures were present across much of Asia, the eastern half of the contiguous U.S., and southern South America where temperatures were 2.0°C (3.6°F) above average or higher. Some ocean areas were notable as well, including parts of the tropical Atlantic Ocean, central Indian Ocean, and parts of the northern and southwestern Pacific Ocean, where temperatures were 1.5°C (2.7°F) above average or higher. The most notable cool temperatures departures were present across Canada, Alaska, northern India, parts of the North Atlantic Ocean, and the Antarctic.

Record-warm March surface temperatures were present across parts of the Atlantic, Indian, and western Pacific oceans, as well as parts of southern North America, South America, Asia, and Africa. Overall, March 2020 had 8.17% of the world's land and ocean surfaces having a record high March temperature, considering a 1951 start date, when global coverage grew. This was the second highest percentage of record-warm March temperatures of that era. Only March 2016 had a higher percentage with 15.47%. One small area across the North Atlantic, representing 0.06% of the globe, had a record-cold March temperature.

Averaged as a whole, the global land and ocean surface temperature for March 2020 was 1.16°C (2.09°F) above the 20th century average of 12.7°C (54.9°F) and the second highest in the 141-year record. Only March 2016 was warmer at 1.31°C (2.36°F). The 10 warmest Marches have all occurred since 1990, with Marches of 2016, 2017, 2019, and 2020 having a global land and ocean surface temperature departure from average above 1.0°C (1.8°F). The March 2020 global land and ocean surface temperature departure tied with February 2020 and December 2015 as the third highest monthly temperature departure from average in the 1,683-month record. Only February and March 2016, when a strong El Niño was present in the tropical Pacific Ocean, had higher temperature departures.

March 2020 marked the 44th consecutive March and the 423rd consecutive month [35.25 years] with temperatures, at least nominally, above the 20th century average.

•••••

Alaska Chokes on Wildfires as Heat Waves Dry Out the Arctic

https://insideclimatenews.org/news/11072019/arctic-wildfires-alaska-climate-change-heat-wave-2019-university-funding

By Bob Berwyn, InsideClimate News
Jul 11, 2019

•••••

Global warming has been thawing tundra and drying vast stretches of the far-northern boreal forests, and it also has spurred more thunderstorms with lightning, which triggered many of the fires burning in Alaska this year, said Brian Brettschneider, a climate scientist with the International Arctic Research Center who closely tracks Alaskan and Arctic extreme weather.

So far this year, wildfires have scorched more than 1.2 million acres in Alaska, making it one of the state's three biggest fire years on record to this date, with high fire danger expected to persist in the weeks ahead.

Several studies, as well as ongoing satellite monitoring, show that fires are spreading farther north into the Arctic, burning more intensely and starting earlier in the year, in line with what climate models have long suggested would happen as sea ice dwindles and ocean and air temperatures rise.

•••••

Across the state:

For the first time in the 95-year record, the year-long July-to-June average temperature for Alaska as a whole was above freezing, showing the persistence of much warmer than average temperatures over the state.

For the year to date, the Alaska statewide average temperature was 7.9°F above average, according to NOAA's latest National State of the Climate report.

During the last 67 years, Anchorage saw a total of 17 days with a temperature of 81°F or above. This year, 81 was the average temperature for a 12-day stretch in late June and early July, Brettschneider posted on Twitter.

On July 4, Anchorage hit 90°F, breaking the city's all-time record by 5 degrees.

•••••

Australia heatwave: overnight minimum of 35.9C [96.6F] in Noona sets new record

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/jan/18/australia-heatwave-sydneys-west-to-hit-45c-after-week-of-extreme-weather

Naaman Zhou
Thu 17 Jan 2019 20.42 EST
First published on Thu 17 Jan 2019 19.48 EST

Extreme temperatures are persisting – and even peaking – in Victoria and New South Wales on the fifth day of Australia’s extraordinary, record-breaking heatwave with Noona in western NSW recording a minimum temperature of 35.9C, a new Australian heat record.

On Friday, parts of NSW and the ACT were again forecast to soar above 40C [104F] – for the fifth day in a row.

Nine records were broken in NSW on Wednesday, and more are forecast to fall on Friday.

•••••

Rebecca Farr, a forecaster for the Bureau of Meteorology, said Canberra would break the record for the longest stretch of over-40C days since records began in 1939.

“For Canberra, today we are forecasting 40C and, if we reach that, it will the the first time on record that we will have four consecutive days of 40C or more,” she said.

“Broken Hill is forecast to hit four consecutive days of 45C, and that also hasn’t happened before. Records there started in 1957.”

•••••

Links

A friend posted this excellent comment on Facebook.
There is a case to be made for reasonable control of national borders. But there is no case to be made for the demonization of our brothers and sisters abroad, nor for the stoking of irrational fears in the service of racism and political advantage.


http://fortune.com/2018/06/22/george-will-leaves-republican-party-donald-trump/
June 23, 2018
George Will, a longtime political commentator and staunch defender of the conservative movement, chided the Republican Party, citing the party’s support for Donald Trump in the upcoming 2020 presidential election.
On Friday, Will published a column in the Washington Post explaining his view, using the kind of excoriating language his columns are known for. The column, titled “Vote against the GOP this November,” argued that the number of Republicans in Congress “must be substantially reduced.”
Will’s exit followed the departure of other notable conservatives from the Republican Party, such as Mary Matalin, a longtime strategist for the party, who left in May 2016.


https://www.yahoo.com/news/philippines-races-free-30-trapped-landslide-typhoon-kills-044037282.html
Oct. 31, 2018
Philippine rescuers worked with bare hands and shovels to try to free 23 people trapped under earth and rubble on Wednesday, after Typhoon Yutu dumped heavy rains on the northern mountainous region, triggering floods and deadly landslides.
Typhoon Yutu swept across the main island of Luzon on Tuesday with winds of 140 km per hour (87 miles per hour) and gusts of up to 230 kph (142 mph). It came six weeks after Super Typhoon Mangkhut caused nearly 50 landslides in the Cordilleras, killing more than 70 people.
Some 360 police, soldiers, firefighters and public works personnel were digging through the mud that engulfed the building where 20 laborers, an engineer, three security guards and six or seven residents had taken shelter.
Twenty-three were believed to still be trapped.
When it struck the Philippines, Yutu's winds were half the strength of those it packed five days earlier, when as a super typhoon it piled into the U.S. Northern Mariana islands, about 6,000 km (3,700 miles) west of Hawaii, killing one person, wounding more than 130 and damaging critical infrastructure.
Yutu, the 18th typhoon to hit the Philippines this year, was moving toward southern China on Wednesday and had weakened to a tropical storm with winds of 102 kph (63 mph), according to the U.S. Joint Typhoon Warning Center in Hawaii.


https://www.yahoo.com/news/pakistan-frees-christian-woman-facing-death-blasphemy-case-051355728.html
Oct. 31, 2018
Pakistan's Supreme Court on Wednesday freed a Christian woman from a death sentence for blasphemy against Islam and overturned her conviction, sparking angry protests and death threats from an ultra-Islamist party and cheers from human rights advocates.


[Amusing video]
https://www.yahoo.com/news/frisky-feline-struts-stuff-fashion-193505806.html
All eyes were on a frisky feline that crashed a fashion show, where it made itself at home on the runway. 
The stray cat appeared unfazed by the models working the Vakko ESMOD fashion show in Istanbul on Thursday, video of the event showed.
Music blared as the attractive mouser cleaned itself, pawed at the models’ hems and eventually took its own turn parading down the runway.
Eventually the cat had enough of the spotlight and sauntered off stage, allowing its fans to pet it before moving on, likely to its next soiree.


I'm not usually interested in royalty or sports, but I love the name of this sport.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/duchess-sussex-beats-her-husband-013908175.html
Duchess of Sussex beats her husband in the art of welly wanging in New Zealand
The Duchess threw a pink spotted wellington boot a little further than her husband, as they played the game with schoolchildren in Auckland.


[Of course, there are multiple influences on the murder rate. The murder rate has been falling in recent decades, but there is a good chance that is due to the decrease in lead exposure, and physical punishment of children.]
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/income-inequalitys-most-disturbing-side-effect-homicide/
Scientific American November 2018 Issue
Income inequality can cause all kinds of problems across the economic spectrum—but perhaps the most frightening is homicide. Inequality—the gap between a society's richest and poorest—predicts murder rates better than any other variable, according to Martin Daly, a professor emeritus of psychology at McMaster University in Ontario, who has studied this connection for decades. It is more tightly tied to murder than straightforward poverty, for example, or drug abuse. And research conducted for the World Bank finds that both between and within countries, about half the variance in murder rates can be accounted for by looking at the most common measure of inequality, which is known as the Gini coefficient.


https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/trump-admin-will-apparently-not-renew-program-fight-domestic-terror-n926361
Oct. 31, 2018
The Trump administration, which already canceled a grant for a group that fights white supremacist terror, now appears unwilling to renew the anti-domestic terror program under which it was funded, despite recent high-profile attacks like the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting and data showing a spike in attacks on religious minorities.


http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2018/10/men-convicted-of-plot-to-murder-immigrants-blame-trump.html
Oct. 31, 2018
Kansas Men Convicted of Plotting to Murder Immigrants Blame Trump’s Rhetoric


https://www.consumer.ftc.gov/blog/2018/09/free-credit-freezes-are-here
September 21, 2018
Free credit freezes and year-long fraud alerts are here, starting September 21st, thanks to a new federal law. Here’s what you should know:


https://states.aarp.org/new-medicare-cards-mailed-beginning-in-april-be-cautious-of-scammers/
03/27/2018
New medicare cards coming, they are free; beware of scams.


[As far as I could find, the situation hasn't changed.]
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/27/health/china-flu-virus-samples.html
Aug. 27, 2018
For over a year, the Chinese government has withheld lab samples of a rapidly evolving influenza virus from the United States — specimens needed to develop vaccines and treatments, according to federal health officials.
Despite persistent requests from government officials and research institutions, China has not provided samples of the dangerous virus, a type of bird flu called H7N9. In the past, such exchanges have been mostly routine under rules established by the World Health Organization.
Now, as the United States and China spar over trade, some scientists worry that the vital exchange of medical supplies and information could slow, hampering preparedness for the next biological threat.


https://www.wunderground.com/cat6/Flooding-Venice-and-Deadly-Storms-across-Italy
Oct. 30, 2018
Flooding in Venice and Deadly Storms across Italy
When it comes to sea level, Venice faces a triple whammy: natural long-term sinking (subsidence) of the city, additional subsidence caused by human activity, and sea level rise due to human-caused climate change. The average water height in Venice has increased about 23 cm (9”) since 1897. Of that total, about 40% is attributable to sea level rise. The bulk of the remainder is from subsidence due to pumping of fresh water from an aquifer beneath the lagoon between the 1920s and early 1970s.

We have 12 years to limit climate change catastrophe, warns UN

Please read the whole article at the following link:

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/oct/08/global-warming-must-not-exceed-15c-warns-landmark-un-report

Jonathan Watts Global environment editor
Mon 8 Oct 2018 02.23 EDT

The world’s leading climate scientists have warned there is only a dozen years for global warming to be kept to a maximum of 1.5C, beyond which even half a degree will significantly worsen the risks of drought, floods, extreme heat and poverty for hundreds of millions of people.

The authors of the landmark report by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released on Monday say urgent and unprecedented changes are needed to reach the target, which they say is affordable and feasible although it lies at the most ambitious end of the Paris agreement pledge to keep temperatures between 1.5C and 2C.

The half-degree difference could also prevent corals from being completely eradicated and ease pressure on the Arctic, according to the 1.5C study, which was launched after approval at a final plenary of all 195 countries in Incheon in South Korea that saw delegates hugging one another, with some in tears.

•••••

The world is currently 1C warmer than preindustrial levels. Following devastating hurricanes in the US, record droughts in Cape Town and forest fires in the Arctic, the IPCC makes clear that climate change is already happening, upgraded its risk warning from previous reports, and warned that every fraction of additional warming would worsen the impact.

Scientists who reviewed the 6,000 works referenced in the report, said the change caused by just half a degree came as a revelation. “We can see there is a difference and it’s substantial,” Roberts said.

At 1.5C the proportion of the global population exposed to water stress could be 50% lower than at 2C, it notes. Food scarcity would be less of a problem and hundreds of millions fewer people, particularly in poor countries, would be at risk of climate-related poverty.

•••••

Sea-level rise would affect 10 million more people by 2100 if the half-degree extra warming brought a forecast 10cm additional pressure on coastlines. The number affected would increase substantially in the following centuries due to locked-in ice melt.

Oceans are already suffering from elevated acidity and lower levels of oxygen as a result of climate change. One model shows marine fisheries would lose 3m tonnes at 2C, twice the decline at 1.5C.

•••••

At the current level of commitments, the world is on course for a disastrous 3C of warming. The report authors are refuseing to accept defeat, believing the increasingly visible damage caused by climate change will shift opinion their way.

•••••

“Climate change is occurring earlier and more rapidly than expected. Even at the current level of 1C warming, it is painful,” he told the Guardian. “This report is really important. It has a scientific robustness that shows 1.5C is not just a political concession. There is a growing recognition that 2C is dangerous.”

'Never Seen Anything Like This': 155 Dead, More Than 50 Still Missing in Japan Floods, Mudslides

The fossil fuel executives knew that the continued use of their product would cause such tragedies. They response was to suppress their own research, fund denialism among the public, and pay off politicians, to enable them to get even richer than they already were. They are mass murderers.

https://weather.com/news/news/2018-07-07-deadly-floods-southwestern-japan-okayama

July 10, 2018

At a Glance

• More than 150 people have died and dozens remain missing after torrential downpours slammed southwestern Japan.
• Residents fled to roofs and balconies to stay above rising waters as Okayama prefecture was inundated.
• Water has reached as high as 16 feet in the hardest-hit areas.

•••••

As many residents returned to their flooded homes to begin the cleanup, officials said at least 50 people remain unaccounted for, many of which were in the Hiroshima area, which was slammed by floods and mudslides.

•••••

The assessment of casualties has been difficult because of the widespread area affected by the rainfall, flooding and landslides since late last week. Authorities warned that landslides could strike even after rain subsides as the calamity shaped up to be potentially the worst in decades.

Some homes were smashed. Others were tilting precariously. Rivers overflowed, turning towns into lakes, leaving dozens of people stranded on rooftops. Military paddle boats and helicopters have brought people to the ground. Thousands of homes were without clean water and electricity in Hiroshima and other hard-hit areas, where many people lined up for water tanks under the scorching sun, with temperatures rising as high as 93 Fahrenheit.

•••••

the government has expended the search and rescue effort, dispatching 73,000 troops and emergency workers. "The rescue teams are doing their utmost."

•••••

Parts of southwestern Japan had as much as 3 inches per hour of rain, the highest in decades, the Japan Meteorological Agency said. By Monday, rain warnings have been lifted.

•••••


tags: severe weather, extreme weather

The trouble with bitcoin and big data is the huge energy bill

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/nov/26/trouble-with-bitcoin-big-data-huge-energy-bill

John Naughton
Nov. 26, 2017

•••••

very service that Google provides is provided via its huge data centres, which consume vast amounts of electricity to power and cool the servers, and are therefore responsible for the emission of significant amounts of CO2. Since the advent of the modern smartphone in about 2007 our reliance on distant data centres has become total, because everything we do on our phones involves an interaction with the “cloud” and therefore has a carbon footprint.

The size of this footprint has been growing. At the moment, about 7% of the world’s electricity consumption is taken by our digital ecosystem but this is forecast to rise to 12% by 2020 and is expected to grow annually at about 7% through to 2030.

The big internet companies are acutely aware of this. Electricity costs money and they are fanatical about reducing costs. And they are desperate to avoid the PR downsides of being perceived as energy hogs. So they have responded to a challenge issued by the environmental group Greenpeace some years ago – to commit to having all of their activities powered by renewable sources. Facebook, Apple and Google made this “100% renewable” commitment four years ago and have now been joined by nearly 20 other internet companies.

The trouble is that server farms and networks account for only 50% of the electricity consumption of our networked world. The devices we use consume another 34% and the industry that manufactures them takes up the remaining 16%. Making environmental progress on these fronts will be much harder. A desktop PC running eight hours a day, for example, emits 175kg of CO2 in a year. So you can imagine the carbon footprint of a large city office block that has thousands of desktop PCs running for the whole of a working day. Multiply that by all the office blocks in the centre of London and you get an idea of the environmental impact of even the humble PC.

•••••

According to one estimate, bitcoin mining is now consuming more electricity than 159 countries, including Ireland, Bahrain and the Slovak Republic. The same source reckons that it’s currently taking as much electricity as would be required to power 2.7m US households and that it’s responsible for 0.13% of global electricity consumption. If things go on like this, bitcoin mining will require all of Denmark’s electricity consumption by about 2020.

So here’s your starter for 10: is bitcoin a bubble? Answers on the back of a postage stamp, please.


https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/nov/27/bitcoin-mining-consumes-electricity-ireland

Bitcoin mining consumes more electricity a year than Ireland
Network’s estimated power use also exceeds that of 19 other European countries, consuming more than five times output of continent’s largest windfarm.

As Arctic Sea Ice Disappears, 2,000 Walruses Mob Remote Alaska Beach

https://insideclimatenews.org/news/17082017/walrus-alaska-haul-out-climate-change-sea-ice-temperature-records

By Phil McKenna
Aug. 17, 2017

A remote barrier island off Alaska's northwest coast has been mobbed by thousands of Pacific walruses in recent weeks in the earliest known "haul out" for the species.

Their arrival is tied to shrinking Arctic sea ice and follows one of the hottest months on record. It also comes as Arctic sea ice extent is near a record low for this time of year.

•••••

Walruses rely on the ice as they hunt for food. They typically dive from floating blocks of ice to feed on clams on the ocean floor. As the ice floes melt, however, this vanishing habitat recedes farther north, beyond the shallow waters of the continental shelf and into Arctic waters too deep for the foraging animals. Then they haul up on shore, crowding together, sometimes in herds of thousands, where deadly stampedes can occur.

As of last week, approximately 2,000 of the marine mammals were on shore, U.S. Fish and Wildlife spokesperson Andrea Medeiros wrote in an email. Observers from the nearby Native village of Point Lay say they have already seen dead animals this year.

"This early haul out shows that Pacific walruses are in terrible trouble," Emily Jeffers, an attorney with the Center for Biological Diversity said in a written statement. "The walrus, within the foreseeable future, will be at risk of extinction due to the loss of sea ice."

The environmental advocacy organization has petitioned the federal Fish and Wildlife Service to protect Pacific walruses under the Endangered Species Act. A decision is expected by the end of September.

Mass walrus haul-outs were first observed off Point Lay in 2007, when Arctic sea-ice extent dropped 1 million square miles below average — an area the size of Alaska and Texas combined.

President Donald Trump's efforts to withdraw from the Paris climate accord and to open the Arctic to offshore drilling would exacerbate sea ice loss and other threats to Pacific walruses, Jeffers said.

•••••

Wildfire Season Is Scorching the West, made worse by global warming

http://www.climatecentral.org/news/western-wildfire-season-off-to-blazing-start-21661

Andrea Thompson By Andrea Thompson

The West is ablaze as the summer wildfire season has gotten off to an intense start. More than 37,000 fires have burned more than 5.2 million acres nationally since the beginning of the year, with 47 large fires burning across nine states as of Friday.

The relatively early activity is quickly becoming the norm, with rising temperatures making the fire season longer than it used to be. The warming fueled by greenhouse gases is also helping to create more and larger fires as it dries out more vegetation that acts as fuel for fires.

•••••

A 2016 Climate Central analysis showed that the annual number of large fires has tripled since the 1970s and that the amount of land they burn is six times higher than it was four decades ago.

•••••

While multiple factors, including land use and tree disease, influence fire activity, climate change is playing a role in those trends. A study published in October found that rising temperatures accounted for nearly half of the increase in acres burned, as they helped to dry out forests and extend the length of the fire season.

The fire season is 105 days longer than it was in the 1970s, the Climate Central analysis found.

The lengthening of the fire season has become clear in California, which usually didn’t see major fires until the Santa Ana winds kicked in in the fall and vegetation had dried out over several months.

Now bouts of hot, dry weather are coming earlier and earlier, setting the stage for prime fire conditions. Southern California already has a nearly year-round fire season, Scott Stephens, a professor of fire science at the University of California, Berkeley, said.

With those hot periods likely coming earlier and earlier in spring and summer as global temperatures continue to rise, “you’re going to have a longer period where fire can ignite and move,” Stephens said.

•••••

Fossil Fuel Industries Pumped Millions Into Trump's Inauguration, Filing Shows

https://insideclimatenews.org/news/19042017/fossil-fuels-oil-coal-gas-exxon-chevron-bp-donald-trump-inauguration-donations

By Marianne Lavelle
April 19, 2017

Fossil fuel companies were not big donors to Donald Trump's presidential campaign, but they helped him shatter records in raising money for his inauguration festivities, according to new disclosures filed at the Federal Election Commission.

More than 1,500 corporations and individuals gave a total $107 million to the presidential inaugural committee. That is more than double the $53 million raised for President Barack Obama's then record-breaking inaugural in 2009.

Among the big donors were Chevron, which gave $525,000; Exxon, BP and Citgo Petroleum, which each donated $500,000; and the Ohio-based coal company Murray Energy, which contributed $300,000. Kelcy Warren, the chief executive of Energy Transfer Partners, developer of the Dakota Access pipeline, gave $250,000. Continental Resources, the Oklahoma-based fracking company whose chief executive Harold Hamm was an early Trump supporter, gave $100,000.

Those seven donations alone surpass the $2 million that the Trump campaign raised from the energy and natural resources industry before the election, according to the tally by the Center for Responsive Politics. (In contrast, Republican Mitt Romney raised $13 million from the sector in his 2012 presidential bid.)

The Trump team's inauguration fundraising blitz raises red flags for those concerned about the influence of money in politics. "It's very clear the reason a corporation would seek to make a contribution to an inauguration is that they are making a business investment," said Tyson Slocum, head of the energy program at Washington watchdog Public Citizen. "And they are expecting a financial return on their investment in the form of access, or when they are pushing for specific legislative and regulatory priorities."

The Trump inaugural committee offered top donors perks such as access to cabinet appointees at "leadership luncheons" and other events.

The fossil fuel industry certatinly wasn't the only sector contributing to the inauguration festivities. The committee recorded big donations from Las Vegas casino magnate Sheldon Adelson ($5 million), Microsoft ($500,000), American Financial Group ($500,000) and the health insurer Anthem ($100,000), among many others.

•••••

In addition to fossil fuel companies, some of the larger donors to the Trump inauguration were private equity titans who have major investments in oil, gas and coal. Contributing $1 million each to the inauguration were: Henry Kravis, co-chairman and CEO of KKR, a major energy company investor, and Paul Singer of Elliott Management, whose firm has stakes in Marathon Petroleum, Hess Oil and BHP Billiton. Private equity firms poured $20 billion into investments in U.S. shale oil and gas production in the first quarter of this year, indicating they are betting on big growth for the sector, despite low oil and gas prices, according to financial data firm Preqin.

•••••

Other energy companies that gave at least $100,000 to the Trump inauguration include Xcel Energy, one of the nation's largest utilities; White Stallion Energy of Houston, an oil and gas company; Consol Energy, a coal and natural gas company; and Cheniere Energy, a natural gas exporter.

The inaugural committee also garnered donations from the renewable energy industry, including $1 million from the Nebraska ethanol firm Green Plains Renewable Energy and $250,000 from NextEra Energy of Florida, the parent company of Florida Power & Light, which has mostly natural gas and nuclear power plants, but also a large amount of wind and solar generation.

As the wealthy get wealthier, carbon emissions grow in US states

https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2017-04/bc-mtb040617.php

Public Release: 7-Apr-2017
Money to burn: As the wealthy get wealthier, carbon emissions grow in US states
Boston College study the first to link income inequality and growth in carbon emissions at the state level
Boston College

Across the U.S., state-level carbon emissions are higher in states where income is more highly concentrated among the wealthiest residents, according to a new study by two Boston College researchers.

On a global level, the connection between national wealth and carbon emissions has been well documented. The study, by sociologists Andrew Jorgenson and Juliet Schor, is the first to link income inequality and carbon emissions within and across the individual U.S. states.

The study found that state-level carbon emissions between 1997 and 2012 were positively associated with the income share of the top 10 percent of a state's population, according to the findings, published online and in the April edition of the journal Ecological Economics.

•••••

Spending power drives carbon-intensive consumerism. But so do the political clout and economic power of the wealthiest individuals, according to Jorgenson and Schor, whose analysis with co-author and BC graduate student Xiaorui Huang employed established economic models that assess the political and economic influence of individual wealth on society.

"First, income concentration leads to concentrated political power and the ability to prevent regulations on carbon emissions," said Schor, a professor of sociology. "Second, high income consumers are disproportionate carbon polluters."

•••••

"What we find here in the context of income inequality and carbon emissions is that it's about the concentration of income at the top of the distribution," said Jorgenson. "In our statistical models, where the Gini coefficient is non-significant, across the board the wealth of the top 10 percent is. That tells us that it really is about income concentration at the top end of the distribution."

•••••

Shell's 1991 warning: climate changing ‘at faster rate than at any time since end of ice age’

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/feb/28/shell-film-warning-climate-change-rate-faster-than-end-ice-age

Damian Carrington and Jelmer Mommers
Feb. 28, 2017

Climate change “at a rate faster than at any time since the end of the ice age – change too fast perhaps for life to adapt, without severe dislocation”. That was the startling warning issued by the oil giant Shell more than a quarter of a century ago.

The company’s farsighted 1991 film, titled Climate of Concern, set out with crystal clarity how the world was warming and that serious consequences could well result.

“Tropical islands barely afloat even now, first made inhabitable, and then obliterated beneath the waves … coastal lowlands everywhere suffering pollution of precious groundwater, on which so much farming and so many cities depend,” says the film’s narrator, over disturbing images of people affected by natural disasters and famine. “In a crowded world subject to such adverse shifts of climate, who would take care of such greenhouse refugees?”

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“It is amazing it is 25 years ago. Incredible,” he said. “It was quite comprehensive on what might happen, what the consequences are, and what we can do about it. I mean, there’s not much more.” He said the predictions for temperature and sea level rises in the 1991 film were “pretty good compared with current understanding”.

“What is really striking is nothing has happened [since] to make you doubt the science as it was stated then,” said Tom Burke, at the green thinktank E3G and a former member of Shell’s external review committee.

But Shell’s actions on global warming since 1991, such as major investments in highly polluting tar sands and lobbying against climate action, have been heavily criticised. In 2015, it was accused of behaving like a “psychopath” by the UK’s former climate change envoy and of being engaged in a cynical attempt to block action on global warming. Even its own former group managing director, Sir Mark Moody-Stuart, said in 2015 it was “distressing” that “remarkably little progress” had been made on climate change by Shell and other oil companies.

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“The film shows that Shell understood that the threat was dire, potentially existential for civilisation, more than a quarter of a century ago,” said Jeremy Leggett, a solar power entrepreneur and former geologist who had earlier researched shale deposits with Shell and BP funding.

“I see to this day how they doggedly argue for rising gas use, decades into the future, despite the clear evidence that fossil fuels have to be phased out completely,” he said. “I honestly feel that this company is guilty of a modern form of crime against humanity. They will point out that they have behaved no differently than their peers, BP, Exxon and Chevron. For people like me, of which there are many, that is no defence.”

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Shell had, in fact, known of the risks of climate change even earlier. A “confidential” company report written in 1986, also seen by the Guardian, noted the significant uncertainties in climate science at the time but warned of the possibility of “fast and dramatic” changes that “would impact on the human environment, future living standards and food supplies, and could have major social, economic, and political consequences”.

In 1989, Shell had already taken the effects of climate change into account in the construction of an oil rig. But in the same year, the so-called Global Climate Coalition (GCC) was formed by the major oil companies, including Shell’s US operation Shell Oil. It lobbied hard to cast doubt on climate science and oppose government action, and in 1998 Shell withdrew, citing “irreconcilable” differences.

However, Shell remained a member of another business lobby group that campaigned against climate action, the American Legislative Exchange Council, until 2015 and remains a member of the Business Roundtable and American Petroleum Institute, which both fought against Barack Obama’s Clean Power Plan.

The company has said it has remained a member of groups that hold different views on climate action to “influence” them. But Thomas O’Neill, from the group Influence Map, which tracks lobbying, said: “The trade associations and industry groups are there to say things the company cannot or does not want to say. It’s deliberately that way.”

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Shell has also lobbied directly to undermine European renewable energy targets, a sector it has invested in although at a much lower level than oil and gas. In 2016, Shell launched its New Energies division, with annual spending less than 1% of the total $30bn Shell pumps into oil and gas.

Despite the company’s public support since the 1990s for carbon taxes to drive cuts in emissions, in 2015 it lobbied for exemptions for the electricity it produces and uses, particularly for its offshore oil and gas platforms.

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Shell was one of the first major oil companies to acknowledge the need to act on climate change and has long argued that providing affordable energy was vital for the world and its development. The 1991 film anticipated the problem: “How could [developing] countries continue to advance but leapfrog the energy-intensive face of development, by which other nations prospered before its adverse consequences came to light?”
Ogoni king: Shell oil is killing my people
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But in 2015 its own external review committee concluded Shell’s sustainability report did not “adequately convey the urgency of this [low-carbon energy] transition”. Earlier in February, Shell’s CEO Ben van Beurden said: “We believe that climate change is real and we believe that action will be needed.”

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Burke, a former head of Friends of the Earth, agreed there is a wider problem. “It is too easy to blame it all on Shell for getting it wrong”, he said, as there has been “a broader societal failure”.

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Global sea ice is at lowest level ever recorded

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2118093-global-sea-ice-is-at-lowest-level-ever-recorded/

By Michael Le Page
Jan. 16, 2017

It’s a new low point. The area of the world’s oceans covered by floating sea ice is the smallest recorded since satellite monitoring began in the 1970s. That means it is also probably the lowest it has been for thousands of years.

The latest observations from the US National Snow & Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colorado, show how the ice extent has fallen to a new low this year (bright red trace in the graph below).

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In the Arctic, the low in sea ice coverage is a result of both global warming and unusual weather events probably influenced by global warming.

But in the Antarctic, the current low in seasonal sea ice could just be a result of natural variability.

The extent of Arctic sea ice should be growing rapidly during the northern hemisphere winter. But not only has the Arctic been warming rapidly, this winter repeated incursions of warm air have pushed temperatures even further above average.

It has been so warm that on occasions this winter the sea ice coverage has actually temporarily shrunk, as shown by dips in the blue line in the graph below.

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In the Arctic, by contrast, there is a long-term decline in sea ice due to global warming. This warming seems to be weakening the winds that circle the pole, allowing warm air to intrude into the Arctic.

And when warm air intrudes, cold air spills south. This is why parts of Asia and Europe have experienced unusually cold weather at times this winter.

As a result of the simultaneous lows at both poles, the total area of sea ice on the planet has fallen to a record low. Reconstructions of past levels of sea ice in the Arctic suggest it is likely the lowest it has been for thousands of years, says meteorologist Eric Holthaus.

How to reduce your carbon footprint

https://us.sunpower.com/blog/2017/01/10/how-reduce-your-carbon-footprint/?sf50340410=1

Jan. 10, 2017

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While kicking off 2017 with promises to eat healthy or live more simply is a great start, have you ever thought about resolving to reduce the environmental impact that your lifestyle has on the planet?

We’re talking about your carbon footprint. Although carbon dioxide, a colorless, odorless gas known as CO2, occurs naturally in the atmosphere as part of the life cycle of oceans, soil, plants and animals, human activities are causing harmful amounts to be released into the environment. The resulting greenhouse gas effect is causing climate change.

According to the Environmental Protection Agency, the majority of human-related carbon dioxide enters the atmosphere through the burning of fossil fuels (coal, natural gas and oil), the decay of solid waste and the combustion of wood products. In 2014, CO2 from human activities accounted for 81 percent of all U.S. greenhouse gas emissions.

The three main sources of carbon pollution in the U.S. are:

Electricity
Transportation
Industry

It’s also important to note the role that methane plays when it comes to greenhouse gas emissions. Methane (CH4) is the second most prevalent greenhouse gas emitted in the United States from human activities, according to the EPA. In 2014, CH4 accounted for about 11 percent of all U.S. greenhouse gas emissions from human activities. And, livestock and their byproducts are responsible for 51 percent of CO2 emissions worldwide.

Why is it so important to reduce our carbon footprint? More than 6 million deaths a year can be attributed to air pollution, according to a recent New York Times report.

How to Reduce Your Carbon Dioxide Footprint

Did you know that a family of four with two cars and a 2,000-square-foot house in Northern California could generate more than 106 tons of CO2 a year, depending on how many airplane trips they take and other factors, including how much food they consume? (Check out how you compare by plugging in your numbers to this carbon footprint calculator tool.)

While you might feel like one family can’t do much to solve global warming, if everyone were to live their lives more sustainably, collectively we could make a difference in the health of our planet, especially when it comes to the air we breathe.

So get started by calculating your carbon footprint. Many of your daily activities, such as throwing away trash instead of recycling, or running the air conditioner instead of opening a window, can impact your household’s carbon footprint.

Then, make a commitment to reduce your footprint. Here are some steps you can take:

Go solar:

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If you can’t go solar, there are many things you can still do to make your home more energy efficient, whether it be investing in ENERGY STAR® certified energy efficient appliances or weatherproofing your windows. (Learn more in this post about reducing your electric bill.) You can also choose to patronize businesses that have made the switch to renewable energy.

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Spend less time in your car: Most cars and trucks use gasoline and diesel to transport people and goods, and this accounts for about 31 percent of total U.S. CO2 emissions. Consider biking to work (find 45,003 mapped miles of cycling routes via the U.S. Bicycle Route System), walking to the grocery store, or taking public transportation. You could also drive an electric vehicle. SunPower has a partnership with Ford that offers rebates to EV owners who go solar, and we’ll donate money to The Sierra Club on your behalf.

Reduce, reuse, recycle: The industries that produce the goods and raw materials that we use every day are one of the three main contributors to U.S. greenhouse gas emissions. Rather than throwing glass or aluminum in the trash, take advantage of local recycling programs. Recycling one good into another means you’re reducing your reliance on new products that add more waste to our landfills.

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Make conscious food choices: Just like working out and getting in shape, conscious food choices start with one meal at a time. Try weaving in just one vegetarian meal a day. If you like the results, consider eating veggie for a whole day or week. Forming healthy food habits will help our animal friends and the planet.

Small choices add up to huge collective reductions in our collective footprint.

Near-Record Global Warmth Continued in October

https://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/nearrecord-global-warmth-continued-in-october

By: Jeff Masters , 6:24 PM GMT on November 17, 2016

October 2016 was Earth's third warmest October since record keeping began in 1880, said NOAA's National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) on Thursday. October 2016 was 0.73°C (1.31°F) warmer than the 20th-century October average; the only warmer Octobers were during the two previous years, 2015 and 2014. NASA reported that October 2016 was the second warmest October in its database, behind October 2015. October 2016 was Earth’s coolest month (relative to average) since November 2014, which was 0.69°C (1.24°F) above average. This October was also the first month since April 2015 that failed to set a global heat record in either the NASA or NOAA database.

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As we blogged about on November 11, a weak La Niña event is now underway in the Eastern Pacific. The cool waters present in that region have helped cool the planet slightly below the record warm levels observed during the strong El Niño event of 2015 - 2016. The fact that October 2016 was still the 2nd to 3rd warmest October on record despite the presence of La Niña can mostly be attributed to the steady build-up of heat-trapping greenhouse gases due to human activities.

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Ocean-only temperatures this October were the second warmest on record, while land-only temperatures were the 16th warmest on record. (Since most of Earth’s surface is covered by ocean, the land-plus-ocean reading is dominated by the ocean-only temperatures, thus keeping October 2016 so warm globally.) Including 2016, the past five Octobers (2012–2016) have had the five highest October global ocean temperatures in the 137-year record.

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October 2016 Arctic sea ice extent was the lowest in the 38-year satellite record, according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC). The new record low was due, in large part, to high sea surface temperatures in open water areas and unusually high October air temperatures that extended from the surface through a considerable depth of the atmosphere. Amazingly, temperatures in the Arctic have spiked in mid-November to even higher values, and were 20°C (36°F) above average north of 80°N this week (see Figure 3). The unusual warmth in the Arctic has created an unusual amount of open water, which has provided high amounts of moisture to the atmosphere. As a result, widespread snows fell in regions where it was cold enough to snow; snow cover in the Northern Hemisphere in October was the third greatest on record.

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No nations or territories set all-time heat or cold records in October 2016. From January through October 31, 2016, a total of 21 nations or territories tied or set all-time records for their hottest temperature in recorded history. This breaks the record of eighteen all-time heat records in 2010 for the greatest number of such records set in one year. Also, one all-time cold temperature record has been set so far in 2016 (in Hong Kong.) For a detailed list of these all-time records, see our September global climate summary post.

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tags: extreme weather

‘Ghost Forests’ Appear As Rising Seas Kill Trees

http://www.climatecentral.org/news/ghost-forests-appear-as-rising-tides-kill-trees-20701

By John Upton
Sept. 15, 2016

OCEAN COUNTY, N.J. — Jennifer Walker stepped off her kayak into a wall of riverside grass. She steadied herself and stooped to scoop soil into a jar, then disappeared into the thicket for more. Analysis of amoeba fossils in the researcher’s samples may help to explain why, jutting above the head-high marsh grass a couple hundred feet further back, cedar forest was dead.

Bare trunks of dead coastal forests are being discovered up and down the mid-Atlantic coastline, killed by the advance of rising seas. The “ghost forests,” as scientists call them, offer eerie evidence of some of the world’s fastest rates of sea level rise.

Forests provide habitat and protect against global warming, but they’re declining worldwide because of land clearing, fires, disease and invasive species. The ghost forests show sea level rise can be yet another cause of deforestation.

Climate scientists like Walker, a PhD candidate at Rutgers University researching sea level rise, have begun investigating these dead forests, which are becoming common features along some coastal landscapes. The poison that kills the trees is salt, delivered to their roots by rising tides.

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Seas are rising worldwide because of the warming effects of greenhouse gas pollution from fossil fuels and farms. Several feet of sea level rise is projected this century as the pace of climate change accelerates. That rise will inundate infrastructure, homes and ecosystems. Efforts to switch to clean energy, protect forests and revamp farming and transportation could curb the inundations ahead.

The mid-Atlantic is sinking faster than nearly anywhere else. The Gulf Stream has been shifting northward, bringing warmer water to the region, accelerating sea level rise. Meanwhile, groundwater pumping and natural geological processes are causing lands to sink.

High tides rose here by several inches during a recent decade. That was more than three times faster than the average rate of sea level rise worldwide, simulating conditions expected globally during decades to come.

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Similar forest diebacks have been documented in Canada and Louisiana and monitored in wildlife refuges in Maryland. The botanical corpses occasionally topple during storms, becoming crisscrossed logs, which are slowly buried beneath the muck of marshes. Those marshes can migrate inland as seas rise.

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Preliminary findings from an analysis by Virginia Institute of Marine Science (VIMS) scientists suggests 100,000 acres of coastal forest may have died off around the edges of the Chesapeake Bay since the 1850s. Much of the dead forest has now been replaced by marshland, while former marsh areas are now open water. Overall, the changes are diminishing the ability of plants in the region to fight global warming by absorbing carbon dioxide.

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Bad news for nervous fliers: climate change is making severe turbulence more common

Similarly, the increase in water temperatures, which is leading to more very strong hurricanes, might not be leading to more hurricanes, because increased wind shear can stop the less strong ones from forming.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/news/bad-news-for-nervous-fliers-severe-turbulence-is-becoming-more-common/

Gavin Haines
12 September 2016

Incidents of severe air turbulence are on the rise and there will be worse to come as climate change takes hold, scientists have warned.

Last month a United Airlines flight from Houston, Texas to London Heathrow was forced to make an emergency landing at Shannon Airport in Ireland after severe turbulence left 16 passengers needing hospital treatment.

nd in June dozens more passengers were injured when turbulence rocked a Malaysia Airlines flight from London to Kuala Lumpur as it flew over the Bay of Bengal.

On the face of it, incidents like these might seem to have little to do with climate change, but scientists say these narratives are intrinsically linked.

“When we think of global warming we’re usually thinking about the fact that it’s getting warmer at ground level, but in fact the temperatures are changing higher up in the atmosphere including where planes fly at 35,000ft,” said Dr Paul Williams, an atmospheric scientist at the University of Reading.

“The atmospheric winds and temperatures up there are very strongly tied together and therefore the winds are changing in response to the temperature temperatures.

“As the climate changes the odds of encountering turbulence on your flight are increasing.”

The aviation industry is a leading emitter of carbon dioxide – which acts as a thermal blanket for the Earth – and is now falling victim to the very climatic change it has helped create.

Transatlantic flights are likely to be significantly impacted by rising temperatures because the effect climate change is having on the jet stream.

“Our study finds that the jet stream winds along the flight route between London and New York are getting stronger because of climate change – they are getting 15 per cent stronger in winter,” he said.

“This increase in the jet stream winds is going to have an impact on people’s flights.”

Turbulence is the most common cause of injury to air passengers – in US alone there are an estimated 58 injuries annually because of it – and according to the US Federal Aviation Administration, the number of injuries doubled between 1982 and 2003 (including adjustments made for the rise in number of flights).

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There is little pilots can do to avoid lumps and bumps in the skies: clear air turbulence is not visible to the naked eye, isn’t detectable on radar and can’t be accurately forecasted.

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Thirty-one top scientific societies speak with one voice on global climate change

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2016-06/aaft-tts062716.php

Public Release: 28-Jun-2016
Thirty-one top scientific societies speak with one voice on global climate change
American Association for the Advancement of Science

In a consensus letter to U.S. policymakers, a partnership of 31 leading nonpartisan scientific societies today reaffirmed the reality of human-caused climate change, noting that greenhouse gas emissions "must be substantially reduced" to minimize negative impacts on the global economy, natural resources, and human health.

"Observations throughout the world make it clear that climate change is occurring, and rigorous scientific research concludes that the greenhouse gases emitted by human activities are the primary driver," the collaborative said in its 28 June letter to Members of Congress. "This conclusion is based on multiple independent lines of evidence and the vast body of peer-reviewed science."

Climate-change impacts in the United States have already included increased threats of extreme weather events, sea-level rise, water scarcity, heat waves, wildfires, and disturbances to ecosystems and animals, the intersociety group reported. "The severity of climate change impacts is increasing and is expected to increase substantially in the coming decades," the letter added. It cited the scientific consensus of the vast majority of individual climate scientists and virtually every leading scientific organization in the world, including the U.S. Global Change Research Program, the U.S. National Academies, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the American Chemical Society, the American Geophysical Union, the American Meteorological Society, the American Statistical Association, the Ecological Society of America, and the Geological Society of America.

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