71 F. maximum temperature yesterday in St. Cloud.
67 F. average high on May 9.
69 F. high on May 9, 2016.
May 10, 1934:
'The Classic Dust Bowl' hits Minnesota. Extensive damage occurs over
the region, with near daytime blackout conditions in the Twin Cities and
west central Minnesota. Dust drifts cause hazardous travel, especially
at Fairmont where drifts up to 6 inches are reported. Damage occurs to
personal property due to fine dust sifting inside homes and businesses.
A Big Sloppy Dose of Weather Gratitude"I
don't have to chase extraordinary moments to find happiness - it's
right in front of me if I'm paying attention and practicing gratitude"
wrote Brene Brown. She's right, of course. Every waking moment is a
miracle, but a fire-hose of daily distractions can make it easy to
forget how lucky we really are.
The other day I was whining about
something stupid. A friend smiled "Paul, the world would love to have
your problems. Half the 7 billion people on this planet live on less
than 3 bucks a day." That shut me up pretty fast.
With Texas
tornadoes, damaging hail in Denver, killer, late- spring freezes for the
Carolinas and historic flooding from Missouri to Quebec we've been
fortunate in the weather department.
No river flooding, few severe
storms (yet) and ample soil moisture for farmers & gardeners.
Weather? We don't have anything to gripe about.
Showers brush the
southern third of Minnesota (including the MSP metro) today but dry
weather prevails Thursday into the weekend.
Next week brings 70s, more humidity and a few swipes of thundery-rain. No drama (for a change).
Broad Severe Threat Today.
A storm intensifying over the central Plains will pull moisture from
the Gulf of Mexico northward, mixing with sufficient wind shear for
strong to severe T-storms. A few tornadoes can't be ruled out as far
north as Iowa and central Illinois. Map: NOAA SPC.
84-Hour NAM Future Radar.
Heavy showers and T-storms push across the Upper Midwest today, while
the eastern USA enjoys dry, lukewarm weather - quiet along the Gulf
Coast and California, but more rain reaches Portland and Seattle during
the day Thursday. Model guidance: NOAA and Tropicaltidbits.com.
Trending Warmer for the Weekend.
ECMWF (above) is catching up to a warm solution from NOAA (GFS predicts
highs near 80F Saturday and Sunday in the Twin Cities). 70s seem like a
fairly good bet Saturday and Sunday if the sun is out for any length of
time. Twin Cities numbers: WeatherBell.
Warm and Stormy End to May.
GFS long-range trends continue to suggest a trough from the Rockies
into the Pacific Northwest, a chilly bias for New England. Otherwise the
forecast 2 weeks out suggests warm ridging for much of central Canada
and the eastern half of the USA.
U.S. Drought at Lowest Level in 17 Years. Now the problem is much of the USA can't turn off the rain.
Climate Central reports: "
After
years of intense, record-setting drought across the U.S., particularly
in the Great Plains and California, the country is now experiencing its
lowest level of drought in the 17 years since the U.S. Drought Monitor
began its weekly updates. Less than 5 percent of the U.S. was in some
stage of drought as of May 4, the most recent update, compared to the 65
percent mired in drought in September 2012..."
Map credit: "
Drought Has Disappeared from much of the U.S. Left: August 7, 2012. Right: April 25, 2017."NASA Earth Observatory
April Was USA's Wettest in 60 Years. USA TODAY runs the numbers: "...
If
you thought April was unusually soggy, you were right: April 2017 was
the USA's second-wettest April on record, the National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration reported Monday. The onslaught of heavy rain
led to deadly and devastating flooding in several states, including
North Carolina, Missouri and Arkansas. The average national
precipitation total for April was 3.43 inches, which is 0.91 inch above
average. Only April 1957 was wetter..."
Swath of States Experiencing Warmest Year to Date. The off-the-charts warmth of February is starting to fade. Here are a couple of clips from a
Climate Central recap: "
For
a swath of states from New Mexico over to Florida and up to Ohio, 2017
has been the hottest year on record through April. For the Lower 48 as a
whole, the year is the second warmest in records going back to
1895...Fourteen states along the southern tier of the country and up the
Ohio Valley are record hot for the year so far, with another 17 states
having a top 5 warmest year through April. Numerous cities in those
states, including Atlanta, Washington, D.C., Miami and Charleston, S.C.,
are also running record hot so far in 2017, according to the Southeast Regional Climate Center. Only the Pacific Northwest had temperatures at or below average for the year..."
Montreal's Historic Flooding. When weather stalls for days or weeks on end, the consequences can be significant. Here's an excerpt from
The Atlantic: "
Montreal’s mayor has declared a state of emergency
and about 1,200 military troops have been deployed to the city after
rising floodwater forced people from their homes. The state of emergency
will last for 48 hours, though it could be extended because there are
several dikes at risk and the rain is not likely to let up soon. The
emergency was declared late Sunday night after three dikes gave way in
the city’s north and spilled water into the nearby towns. As of Monday
morning, about 1,900 homes across 130 surrounding neighborhoods and
towns were affected..."
Photo credit: "
Canadian soldiers place sandbags outside a home in a flooded residential neighborhood." Christinne Muschi / Reuters.
Mississippi River To Reach Flood Stage in Memphis. U.S. News has the story.
Severe Weather, Tornadoes Plague Missouri to Start 2017. Here's a clip from
Missourian that puts spring weather-misery into context: "
Missouri has been among the states hit hardest by severe weather so far in 2017, according to preliminary data from the National Weather Service’s Storm Prediction Center.
As prime time for tornadoes begins, the data suggests the worst is yet
to come. Through May 4, Missouri recorded 555 reports of severe weather,
made up of hail, thunderstorms, winds and tornadoes. That’s the
second-highest rank in the U.S., with only Texas reporting more. This is
part of an above-average start to the year for severe weather across
the U.S., with 6,947 incidents of severe weather reported through the
first four months of the year. Comparing preliminary data, which is
subject to revision and can increase or decrease slightly, that ranked
as the fourth most active start to a year since 2000..."
Photo credit: Charlie Riedel/AP. "
Ethan
Pederson, 9, and his mom Susan Goodman clear away debris as they help
salvage items from a friend's home on March 7 that was destroyed by a
tornado after a severe storm passed through Oak Grove, Missouri."
The Billionaire and the Flood: How a Tragedy Transformed the Greenbriar Resort and Blue-Collar Town That Depended On It. Washingtonian Magazine has a story about the 3rd worst flood in West Virginia history and the political implications: "...In
the final days before the election, Justice’s team leveraged the flood
explicitly, releasing an ad that portrayed him as a savior amid the
wreckage. It showed fire swallowing a house in White Sulphur—an orange
apparition—and dragging it toward a bridge. The scene cuts to an
overturned 18-wheeler, then to a dystopic image of houses ripped from
their foundations. After a tribute to Justice’s help, flood victim Toni
Cooley appears. “Thank you, Mr. Justice, for everything you’ve done,”
she says. “I’m gonna get my house back.” Justice is now the 36th
governor of West Virginia. He won the state with nearly half the vote.
In Greenbrier County, which in the previous gubernatorial race just
barely went blue, he won more than 60 percent. “I didn’t think I’d vote
for him,” one White Sulphur city official says, “but after seeing the
way he helped us get going again, you couldn’t vote for anyone else. We
saw his heart...”
Photo credit: "
The flood on June 23, 2016, was the third worst in West Virginia history." Photo courtesy of the Greenbrier.
Don Paul: A Tenuous Tie Between Tornadoes and Climate Change.
Buoyancy is increasing with warming, but wind shear may actually
decrease over time. The jury is still out, explains meteorologist Don
Paul at The Buffalo News: "...Brooks’
and others' research shows the suspected link is tenuous to some
extent. Some of the uncertainty in research is tied to the small scale
of tornadoes and the difficulty in simulating their development in
larger scale computer models. There is a higher certainty of the link
between a warming climate and more numerous intense thunderstorms with
torrential downpours. The extra heating adds more buoyancy to moist low
level air by taking advantage of the potential energy already present in
that air. A warming climate is linked with more episodes of rapid
upward motion of moist parcels of air, lifted to where it cools and must
condense. With enough strong lift comes violent, heavy thunderstorms.
Since tornadoes come from thunderstorms, and usually violent storms, it
must follow the increase in those storms would have an almost linear
relationship with an increase in tornadoes. The complexity and
uncertainty enters the picture when models show a warming climate will
probably lessen the favorable change in winds with increased altitude
which feeds the spin in the atmosphere leading to tornadoes..."
Photo credit: "
People clean up the debris inside homes destroyed by a tornado in Van Zandt County, Texas, on April 30, 2017." (Jae S. Lee/Dallas Morning News/TNS).
Good Reasons to Consider Flood Insurance.
I might consider spending a few extra bucks on flood insurance, even if
you think you're not in a flood zone. Remember, homeowners insurance
doesn't usually cover flood-related damage. Last year, for the first
time on record, Minnesota experienced 2 separate "mega-rain" flash flood
events. That means over 1,000 square miles picking up 6 inches or more.
2016 brought 160 natural disasters across North America with 19 major
floods in the USA; the most since records were first kept in 1980,
according to Munich Re. Epic floods are underway right now from Arkansas
and Missouri to Montreal. You don't have to live near a river to be at
risk. "Drainage events" are floods that lie outside traditional FEMA
flood zones. A 2015 Illinois study showed that almost all flood damage
occurred outside the traditional flood plain.
Unpleasant Surprises.
With increasing frequency people are discovering that they may be
vulnerable to "drainage events", serious flooding - with no stream or
river nearby to overflow. FEMA flood maps don't necessarily factor these
new drainage floods into account. Cutting to the chase: drainage and
sewage systems designed in the 20th century can't handle 21st century
rainfall events.
Here's Where Heavy Rain Is Increasing the Most in U.S.
Climate Central reports: "
Heavier precipitation is a signature of
climate change. For every 1°F of temperature increase, the atmosphere
can effectively hold 4 percent more water vapor. So as the world warms
from the increase in greenhouse gases, the amount of evaporation also
increases from oceans, lakes, rivers, and soils. The extra water vapor
is available to produce additional rain and snow, creating an
environment ripe for heavy precipitation events which is exactly what we
are seeing in the numbers. This week’s analysis, an update from our
2015 Climate Matters, shows an increase in the top 1 percent of daily
rainfall events across the vast majority of states in the U.S..."
90% of Hurricane Deaths Aren't From the Wind.
THE WEATHER SOCIAL reminds us of the sheer power of storm surge: "...
You should
prepare for a reasonable worst case scenario because, albeit
infrequent, storm surge is an extreme event. Water moving at only 4 mph
has the same damage potential as the winds of a Category 3 hurricane.
90% of hurricane related deaths are from water. Storm surge is the
deadliest hazard of a hurricane. I can go on but needless to say a few
feet of ocean water in your neighborhood is a big, life-threatening
deal. Which brings us to the second new storm surge product from the
National Hurricane Center — the storm surge watch/warning graphic..."
Map credit: "Example
of the new Storm Surge Watch/Warning graphic from the National
Hurricane Center for south Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama. The
product is experimental for this hurricane season but is expected to
become an operational watch/warning product from the National Weather
Service by the 2017 hurricane season."
West Mims Fire.
This is a massive blaze near the Georgia/Florida border, and the smoke
plume was easy to spot on (non-operational) GOES-16 imagery yesterday.
More details at
InciWeb.
FISH Project That Reduced Mercury Levels in North Shore Women is Expanding Statewide. Go a little easy on the walleye and lake trout if you're pregnant, according to a story at
MinnPost: "
An
initiative to reduce mercury levels among pregnant women living in
northeastern Minnesota by getting them to change their fish consumption
habits has been effective and is being expanded to include women
throughout the state, the Minnesota Department of Health (MDH) announced
on Monday. North Shore women who took part in the initiative
successfully lowered their mercury levels by being more careful about
which types (species) of fish they ate — and how often they ate them.
“We don’t want to discourage women from eating fish, but we want to
encourage them to eat fish that is low in mercury,” said Pat McCann, a
research scientist for MDH, in a phone interview with MinnPost..."
Why Electric Car Early Adopters Went Electric + Best Things About Driving Electric.
For me it was the ability to save money (charging at home late at
night), lower insurance and MUCH less maintenance. There are 150 moving
parts on my Tesla, compared with roughly 10,000 moving parts on a
traditional gas-powered vehicle. There is simply less that can go wrong.
Here's an excerpt from
Clean Technica: "...
Environmental
benefit” was still the leading response, but the gap narrowed hugely
for this question versus the previous one. Drive quality was illuminated
as a dramatic benefit of EVs in this section. “The smooth and quiet
drive” of EVs and “the fun and/or convenience of instant torque” were in
close contention for the #2 spot. However, they both concern drive
quality and could have been combined if we chose to go that route. In
such a case, “drive quality” may well have risen to #1. The remaining
benefits rather evenly split the pie, with some notable differences by
region and type of EV, as highlighted in the previous section. However,
one more benefit worth pulling out here is “low maintenance.” It didn’t
perform well at all in the previous section, but it gets quite a bit of
love here — comparable with several other topics, on average..."
Minnesota Sees 80 Percent Jump in Solar Energy Capacity This Year. Here's an excerpt from
Star Tribune: "
Minnesota's
solar energy capacity rose 80 percent during 2017's first three months,
the second consecutive quarter of leapfrog growth as several major
solar arrays were switched on. The state had 447 megawatts of solar
production capacity at the end of the first quarter, a far cry from 37
megawatts at the end of 2015, according to data released Friday by the
Minnesota Department of Commerce. A megawatt is 1 million watts, enough
electricity to power 140 homes. Altogether, Minnesota's solar arrays
have the capacity to crank out about as much power as one of Xcel
Energy's larger natural gas-fired plants — at least when it's sunny..."
Photo credit: Wright Hennepin Cooperative Electric Association. "
Solar
capacity has jumped 80 percent in Minnesota this year, provided by
projects such as the Wright Hennepin Cooperative Electric Association's
in Rockford, the first community array in the state."
60-Foot, All-Electric Bus With 275 Miles of Range? Insideevs.com has the story: "
The
Antelope Valley Transit Authority (AVTA) has become the first transit
provider in North America to have an all-electric, 60-foot articulated
electric bus in its fleet, supplied by BYD. It’s the production version
of the prototype shown some two years ago,
with a ~547 kWh battery and has an expected real world range of 275
miles according to a company spokesperson. This particular vehicle is
the first of thirteen 60-foot BYD buses ordered, together with a shorter
version, in AVTA’s broader goal to switch its entire fleet to BEVs by 2018.
Another big achievement is the delivery of BYD’s 250 kW WAVE wireless
charging system that should be capable of recharging the bus in around
two hours..."
Photo credit: "
Antelope Valley Transit Authority received North America’s first 60-foot articulated electric bus made by BYD."
Today, Even US Water is Overly Medicated - These Scientists Want to Change That. An interesting article at
Ars Technica, here are a couple excerpts: "...
The United States of America is a highly medicated country: almost seven in 10 Americans take prescription drugs. That translates to 4.4 billion prescriptions and nearly $310 billion spent on medication in 2015. Painkillers, cholesterol-lowering medications, and antidepressants top the list of drugs most commonly prescribed by doctors...Americans
aren’t just putting these drugs into their bodies; they’re also putting
more drugs into the environment. A growing body of research suggests
all types of drugs, from illegal drugs to antibiotics to hormones, enter
the environment through sewage and cesspool systems across the country.
And while pharmaceutical drugs—when used as prescribed—are capable of
curing disease and alleviating symptoms in people, they can wreak havoc
on nature..."
Photo credit: Dr. Sylvia Lee.
Joanna Blaszczak / Cary Institute
U.S. Life Expectancy Varies By More Than 20 Years from County to County. For much of America it's going in the wrong direction, according to new data compiled at
The Washington Post: "
Life
expectancy is rising overall in the United States, but in some areas,
death rates are going conspicuously in the other direction. These
geographical disparities are widening, according to a report published Monday in JAMA Internal Medicine.
Life expectancy is greatest in the high country of central Colorado,
but in many pockets of the United States, life expectancy is more than
20 years lower, according to the report from the University of
Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation..."
The World's Most Valuable Resource Is No Longer Oil, But Data. Here's a clip from
The Economist: "
A
NEW commodity spawns a lucrative, fast-growing industry, prompting
antitrust regulators to step in to restrain those who control its flow. A
century ago, the resource in question was oil. Now similar concerns are
being raised by the giants that deal in data, the oil of the digital
era. These titans—Alphabet (Google’s parent company), Amazon, Apple,
Facebook and Microsoft—look unstoppable. They are the five most valuable
listed firms in the world. Their profits are surging: they collectively
racked up over $25bn in net profit in the first quarter of 2017. Amazon
captures half of all dollars spent online in America. Google and
Facebook accounted for almost all the revenue growth in digital
advertising in America last year. Such dominance has prompted calls for
the tech giants to be broken up, as Standard Oil was in the early 20th
century..."
The Long, Hard, Unprecedented Fall of Sears. The original retail disrupter has been disrupted. Bloomberg tells the tale: "
In
1989, Sears Roebuck & Co. ruled America as its biggest retailer. It
loomed over rivals from a perch high above Chicago, inside what was
once the world’s tallest building—one bearing the company’s name. The
fall from that height may finally be nearing an end. Over the course of
almost three decades, the company experienced what industry observers
described as one of the most monumental collapses in business history.
Despite its union with Kmart—the second-largest retailer from that
era—and a stated belief that it can still turn things around,
Sears is teetering on the edge of disaster..."
TODAY: More clouds, few showers southern Minnesota. Mild sun north. Winds: SW 5-10. High: 67
WEDNESDAY NIGHT: Showers taper. Low: 48
THURSDAY: Bright sun, springy again. Winds: N 8-13. High: 66
FRIDAY: Blue sky, punch out early. Winds: NW 5-10. Wake-up: 49. High: 71
SATURDAY: Warm sun, feels like early June. Winds: SW 8-13. Wake-up: 55. High: 78
SUNDAY: Partly sunny and sticky. Winds: SE 10-15. Wake-up: 59. High: 79
MONDAY: Mild and muggy. Strong T-storms? Winds: SE 10-15. Wake-up: 62. High: 78
TUESDAY: Unsettled, few T-storms possible. Winds: SE 10-15. Wake-up: 61. High: 77
Climate Stories...
The Business Case for the Paris Climate Accord. Here's an excerpt of an Op-Ed at
The New York Times: "...
In
a recent barrage of public letters and full-page ads, Fortune 100
companies are voicing strong support for remaining in the Paris accord.
The breadth of this coalition is remarkable: industries from oil and gas
to retail, mining, utilities, agriculture, chemicals, information and
automotive. This is as close as big business gets to a consensus
position. American business leaders understand that remaining in the
agreement would spur new investment, strengthen American
competitiveness, create jobs, ensure American access to global markets
and help reduce future business risks associated with the changing
climate. Leaving Paris would yield the opposite..." (File image: NASA).
To Curb Climate Change, We Need to Protect and Expand U.S. Forests. Here's an excerpt of an interesting article at
The Conversation: "
Forests
have been removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and storing
carbon for more than 300 million years. When we cut down or burn trees
and disturb forest soils, we release that stored carbon to the
atmosphere. Since the start of the Industrial Revolution, one-third of
all carbon dioxide emissions to the atmosphere from human activities have come from deforestation.
To slow climate change, we need to rapidly reduce global emissions from
fossil fuels, biofuels, deforestation and wetland and agricultural
soils. We need to also accelerate the removal of carbon dioxide that is
already in the atmosphere. In a new report published by the nonprofit Dogwood Alliance, my co-author Danna Smith and I show that we have a major opportunity to make progress on climate change by restoring degraded U.S. forests and soils..."
These People Want You To Know Climate Change Isn't Just for Liberals. Here's an excerpt from a story at
Ars Technica: "...
DeWitt
sees his faith as fundamental to, rather than in conflict with, his
concern about climate change. He often finds common ground with fellow
evangelicals by talking about stewardship of the wonderful natural world
they have been given as a home. Put in these familiar terms, climate
change seems more like an issue worthy of careful consideration. Public
opinion on climate change is, generally speaking, sharply divided by
political and cultural identity. Research on this “cultural cognition”
by Yale’s Dan Kahan has highlighted patterns of polarization around
certain topics. We rely on our network of family, friends, and community
for signals about what is true, and we feel pressure to harmonize our
views with the views of that group. The more that political signals get
tangled up with climate science, the harder it becomes for conservatives
to do anything but reject it..."
Graphic credit:
Climate Fingerprints. Climate science doesn't rest on a single, slender
thread of evidence. There are multiple markers pointing to warming of
the atmosphere, oceans and cryosphere.
Spring's Early Arrival is a Troubling Indicator of Climate Change.
Public Radio International has the story: "...
She’d just
been talking with the students about Henry David Thoreau, the
naturalist, and conservationist whose classic book, "Walden," detailed
his time living here at the pond. Primack explained to the students that
about 17 years ago, he was trying to figure out a good way to measure
the effects of climate change in the region. “And as I started looking, I
heard about these records that Henry David Thoreau had made in the
1850s — from 1851 to 1858 — about when plants were flowering in Concord
when birds were arriving in the spring and when trees and shrubs were
leafing out,” he said. And since 2004, Primack and his students have
been documenting the same things. “And so the information we have from
Concord demonstrates that the warming climate associated with global
climate change is already affecting the biology of the species here in
Concord," he told them..."
Photo credit: "
Richard Primack, here, is searching for newly leafing trees and blooming flowers near Walden Pond." Craig LeMoult/WGBH News.
Washington's Broken Climate Debate.
Axios reports: "
Washington
is a mess when it comes to climate change, split in two mutually
exclusive groups of people: those who think the issue is the most urgent
problem facing the world and those who refuse to acknowledge it's a
problem at all. Why it matters: Dealing with climate change should be a
priority for the U.S. government, but it's impossible with two sides
that don't even agree on the terms of the debate. Congress hasn't
seriously considered a climate bill since 2010, the last time any
sizable group of congressional Republicans were willing to talk openly
about addressing the issue. Meanwhile, outside of the beltway, concern
about climate change is at record highs, according to a March Gallup poll..."
Image credit: Rebecca Zisser / Axios.
America's Farmers Are Caught Between the Changing Climate and Trump's Denial. Here's a clip from
ThinkProgress: "...
Farmers also tend to be skeptical about climate change, man-made climate change in particular. According to a 2014 survey conducted by Perdue University,
only 8 percent of farmers said human activity was the cause of climate
change. Climate change will have widespread impacts on nearly every
sector of society, from flooding coastal towns to more intense allergy seasons. Scientists predict certain areas will be more susceptible to punishing drought, and other areas will be deluged by intense downpours. It will change the way seasons come and go, which will in turn change things like migration patterns and bloom seasons. Extreme weather events,
like floods or heatwaves, will be increasingly common. That’s bad news
for everyone, but it’s especially bad news for farmers, whose livelihood
depends on the regularity of seasons and weather..."
File photo: Gary Hawkins, Rex Features.
Thawing Alaska Permafrost Sends Autumn CO2 Emissions Surging. Troubling news about the rate of permafrost melt, reported by
InsideClimate News: "...
The
study's authors, researchers from Harvard, the National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration and other institutions, measured atmospheric
CO2 in Alaska
and found that emissions from October through December have increased
by 73 percent since 1975 and that the increase correlates with rising
summer temperatures. The findings suggest that global climate models are
underestimating how much greenhouse gas pollution will be unleashed as
the Arctic continues to warm at twice the global average rate, said lead
author Roisin Commane of the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied
Sciences. The Arctic climate feedback loop is stronger than scientists
estimated, Commane said. Global warming thaws permafrost, releasing more
greenhouse gases, which causes yet more warming..."
Photo credit: "
Coastal
erosion reveals the extent of ice-rich permafrost underlying an active
upper layer in Alaska. A new study finds that as temperatures rise, the
ground is freezing later in the season and greenhouse gas emissions that
normally slow in the fall are continuing into early winter." Credit: Brandt Meixell/USGS.
Is It True 97% of Climate Scientists Believe Warming is Occurring? That number may be low, as explained in an answer at
Quora: "...
So
we have seven peer-reviewed and published papers which use different
techniques, published from 2004 to 2015, which show that the consensus
among climate science papers is in excess of 97% and that there are a
tiny number of dissenters who are making obviously incorrect statements.
One paper shows that there are 69,406 authors in the field in two years
alone who agree, and only four in the same two year period who don't
agree. You really should be looking at those four and wondering what
they are smoking, or at least who is paying for them to be smoking it."
Image credit: Jamespowell.org.
Big Investors Urge Trump to Stick with Paris Climate Accord. Reuters has details: "Investors
with more than $15 trillion of assets under management urged
governments led by the United States to implement the Paris climate
accord to fight climate change despite U.S. President Donald Trump's
threats to pull out. "As long-term
institutional investors, we believe that the mitigation of climate
change is essential for the safeguarding of our investments," according
to the letter signed by 214 institutional investors and published on
Monday. "We urge all nations to
stand by their commitments to the Agreement," it said. Signatories of
the letter included the California Public Employees Retirement System
and other pension funds from Sweden to Australia..."
Republicans in California Say They're Ready to Work on Climate Change. The Desert Sun has the story: "...That
kind of hedging isn't unusual for Republican politicians who want to
act on climate but are worried about offending their conservative base,
said David Bookbinder, chief counsel at the Niskanen Center, a
libertarian think tank in Washington, D.C. that has encouraged
Republicans to support a tax on carbon, the main climate pollutant. If
conservatives are ever going to get behind policies to reduce emissions,
Bookbinder said, they'll do it for economic reasons, not for climate
reasons. In Washington, that could mean supporting a carbon tax to raise
revenue for infrastructure projects. In California, it could mean
supporting a carbon pricing program — such as cap and trade — in
exchange for fewer hard-and-fast regulations mandating reduced
emissions..."
Photo credit: "
A tanker truck passes an oil refinery in Richmond, California on March 9, 2010."
(Photo: Paul Sakuma, AP).
Editorial: On Climate Change, Abandoned by Washington. Here's an excerpt of an Op-Ed from the Virginian-Pilot Editorial Board in Hampton Roads: "...Rising
global temperatures warm the oceans, causing the expansion of seawater.
They melt glaciers and ice caps, some of which no longer refreeze. They
thaw overland ice and permafrost, releasing even more CO2 and
contributing to an accelerating warming cycle. All of that helps raise
sea levels. When added to subsidence of the region’s land, rising seas
pose an existential threat to the future of Hampton Roads. There is
already more frequent blue-sky flooding in Norfolk and Virginia Beach,
and the military has spent hundreds of millions of dollars trying to
protect local bases from rising water. Obviously, it would be best to
have the White House as a partner in the fight against global warming
and a leader on climate change. That won’t happen for at least four more
years. Absent that, communities here must mobilize to produce regional
solutions that can help mitigate the inevitable encroachment by the
seas..."
"Climate Change Doesn't Care Whether You Believe It" Here's an excerpt of an Op-Ed at
The Charleston Gazette-Mail: "...
Regardless
of what politicians do, global warming is a real menace that kills
people and causes billions in damage. World temperatures set new records
each year. Warmer air holds more moisture, causing worse hurricanes,
floods, tornadoes, droughts, wildfires and other perils. Melting ice is
raising sea levels, threatening coastal cities. Further danger could
come from large numbers of people, possibly dislocated by climate
change, competing for scarce or fluctuating resources. News reports of
deadly twisters are like global warming indicators, telling everyone the
danger is serious. Politicians may continue to sneer at climate
change, but it's happening, right before people's eyes. The toll in
human lives and damage cost undoubtedly will get worse..."
Study: To Beat Science Denial, Inoculate Against Misinformers' Tricks.
The Guardian explains: "...
In short, the more we explain the techniques of science denial and misinformation,
the more people will become inoculated against them. When we’re exposed
to examples of people using cherrypicking or fake experts or false
balance to mislead the public, it becomes easier to recognize those
techniques, and we’re less likely to fall for them in the future.
Teaching people to recognize those techniques is a primary goal of the Denial101x free online course
mentioned by Cook. When anti-vaxxer Andrew Wakefield was confronted
with the consequences of misinforming the Somali immigrants in
Minnesota, he told a Washington Post reporter “I don’t feel responsible at all.” One wonders whether we’ll be hearing those words from climate deniers in the coming years..." (File image: Matt Brown).
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