With help from floating data-collectors, a new study reveals the impact greenhouse gas emissions and ozone depletion are having on the Southern Ocean. Inside Climate News, Sabrina Shankman SEP 24, 2018 The Southern Ocean around Antarctica is warming at an alarming rate—twice that of the rest of the world’s oceans. Now, researchers have developed more powerful evidence pointing to the human causes.
IPCC Climate Report: world has 10 years to ward off global warming disaster
The report was signed off on by the IPCC delegates on Saturday afternoon in the South Korean city of Incheon after a marathon six days of talks – including an overnighter to end the event.
One delegate who asked not to be identified said the process looked to be “doomed” after delegates from Saudi Arabia objected to the draft report and began “bashing the desk”.
For the first time in a IPCC report, the authors included social and economic impacts. That marked “the end of magical thinking” that sustainable development goals and poverty reduction could be divorced from climate action
‘Next decade critical’: Perils mount at 1.5 degrees of warming, says IPCC , Sydney Morning Herald, By Peter Hannam & Nicole Hasham 8 October 2018 —The amount of coal and other fossil fuels the world can burn without unleashing dangerous climate change that will undermine the livelihoods of hundreds of millions of people and all but wipe out the Great Barrier Reef is “very small”, according to a major climate report.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s special report on a 1.5-degree hotter planet, released on Monday, said limiting warming to that amount remains possible, but only with “rapid, far-reaching and unprecedented changes in all aspects of society”……..
We’re currently heading towards about 3 degrees or 4 degrees of warming by 2100,” said Mark Howden, director of the Climate Change Institute at the Australian National University and one of the review’s editors.
“Limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees is not impossible but would actually require major transitions in many aspects of society, and to do those transitions, the next 10 years are critical.”
Many of those transitions will mean curbing if not halting entirely the release of greenhouse gas emissions from the burning of fossil fuels, land-clearing and other human activities.
Average temperature rises mask extreme events. Temperatures of hot days are forecast to increase three degrees in a 1.5 degree warmer world, and by four degrees if mean temperatures rise by 2 degrees. Continue reading
Climate change. It’s a critical time for the future of the planet
Why the next three months are crucial for the future of the planet
Two forthcoming major climate talks offer governments an opportunity to respond to this year’s extreme weather with decisive action https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/oct/05/why-the-next-four-months-are-crucial-for-future-of-planet-climate-change Fiona Harvey Environment correspondent 5 Oct 2018 This week, scientists are gathering in South Korea to draw together the last five years of advances in climate science to answer key questions for policymakers. The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) celebrates its 30th birthday this year with what is likely to be a landmark report to be released on Monday 8 October. What is expected to emerge will be the strongest warning yet that these unusual occurrences will add up to a pattern that can only be overcome with drastic action.
Thousands of the world’s leading climate experts collaborate on the periodic reports, released roughly every half-decade. They have grown clearer over the years in the certainty of their evidence that climate change is occurring as a result of human actions, and firmer in their warnings of the disruptive consequences.
This time, the scientists will attempt to answer whether and how the world can meet the “aspiration” set in the Paris agreement of 2015 to hold warming to no more than 1.5C, beyond which many low-lying states and islands are likely to face dangerous sea level rises.
When the scientists deliver their verdict, the onus will pass to politicians to translate their advice into concrete action. Already in recent weeks, global initiatives have begun aimed at doing so: the Global Climate Action Summit in San Francisco last month spurred protests, and dozens of local governments and multinational companies to make pledges; the second One Planet Summit saw advances in climate finance; while at the UN General Assembly, secretary general António Guterres urged world leaders to step up, calling climate change “the defining issue of our time”.
The warning signals of climate change that have hit people around the world in the last few months must be heeded by national governments at key meetings later this year, political leaders and policy experts are urging, as the disruption from record-breaking weather continues in many regions.
Extreme weather events have struck around the world – from the drought and record temperatures in northern Europe, to forest fires in the US, to heatwaves and drought in China, to an unusually strong monsoon that has devastated large areas of southern India.
As the northern hemisphere summer closes, polar observations have just established that the Arctic sea ice narrowly missed a record low this year. The sea ice extent was tied for the sixth lowest on record with 2008 and 2010. Sea currents and wind conditions can have large effects on sea ice extent from year to year, but the trend is starkly evident.
“Put simply, in the last 10 years the Arctic is melting faster than it ever has previously since records began,” said Julienne Stroeve, professor at University College London. “We have lost over half of the summer sea ice coverage since the late 1970’s and it is realistic to expect an ice-free Arctic sea in summer in the next few decades.”
Of particular concern is the decline in thick ice which forms over several years. “The older ice has been replaced by more and more first-year ice, which is easier to melt out each summer,” she explained.
Not all of the effects of this year’s extraordinary weather, which has also seen the UK’s joint hottest summer on record, can be traced directly to climate change. However, scientists are clear that the background of a warming planet has made extremes of temperature, and accompanying droughts and floods, more likely.
This week, scientists are gathering in South Korea to draw together the last five years of advances in climate science to answer key questions for policymakers. The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) celebrates its 30th birthday this year with what is likely to be a landmark report to be released on Monday 8 October. What is expected to emerge will be the strongest warning yet that these unusual occurrences will add up to a pattern that can only be overcome with drastic action.
Thousands of the world’s leading climate experts collaborate on the periodic reports, released roughly every half-decade. They have grown clearer over the years in the certainty of their evidence that climate change is occurring as a result of human actions, and firmer in their warnings of the disruptive consequences.
This time, the scientists will attempt to answer whether and how the world can meet the “aspiration” set in the Paris agreement of 2015 to hold warming to no more than 1.5C, beyond which many low-lying states and islands are likely to face dangerous sea level rises.
When the scientists deliver their verdict, the onus will pass to politicians to translate their advice into concrete action. Already in recent weeks, global initiatives have begun aimed at doing so: the Global Climate Action Summit in San Francisco last month spurred protests, and dozens of local governments and multinational companies to make pledges; the second One Planet Summit saw advances in climate finance; while at the UN General Assembly, secretary general António Guterres urged world leaders to step up, calling climate change “the defining issue of our time”.
Nicholas Stern, co-chair of the Global Commission on the Economy and Climate, which produced the study, said: “Current economic models fail to capture both the powerful dynamics and very attractive qualities of new technologies and structures [that reduce carbon]. Thus we know that we are grossly underestimating the benefits of this new growth story. Further, it becomes ever clearer that the risks of the damage from climate change are immense, and tipping points and irreversibilities getting ever closer.”
The existence of tipping points – thresholds of temperature beyond which certain natural processes become irreversible, such as the melting of permafrost, which may release the greenhouse gas methane and create runaway warming effects – is a key concern of many climate scientists. The faster emissions rise, the sooner we may unwittingly pass some of these key points.
For all these reasons, the IPCC’s special report comes at a crucial point. Scientists and economists have warned that if the world cannot shift course within the next few years, the consequences will be dire, as new infrastructure built now – in energy generation, transport and the built environment – will be made either to low-emissions standards or in the high-emissions habits of the past. As the IPCC’s next comprehensive assessment of climate science will not be available until 2021, this year’s report will be vital in shaping policy.
Ted Chaiban, director of programmes at Unicef, urged governments to seize the opportunities for action offered by this year’s series of political meetings offers for action. “Over the past few months, we have seen a stark vision of the world we are creating for future generations,” he said. “As more extreme weather events increase the number of emergencies and humanitarian crises, it is children who will pay the highest price,” he said.
“It is vital that governments and the international community take concrete steps. The worst impacts of climate change are not inevitable, but the time for action is now.”
After the IPCC publication, the world will face a key test of faith in the 2015 Paris agreement, the only global pact stipulating action on temperature rises. This December in Poland, the UN’s climate change arm will hold a two-week meeting aimed at turning the political resolve reached in Paris three years ago into a set of rules for countries to follow on reducing emissions.
The political situation is more fraught than it was in the runup to Paris. The US is pulling out of the landmark climate agreement and is likely to play little part in the talks. Australia’s government is also in turmoil over climate actions. Now the challenger for Brazil’s presidency, Jair Bolsonaro, is threatening to withdraw its participation – a potential blow to the Paris consensus, as Brazil was a linchpin among rapidly developing nations.
All eyes will be on China, which has shown remarkable progress on renewable energy and emissions reduction, and India, where climate champions have found common cause with opponents of increasingly damaging air pollution. Patricia Espinsoa, the UN’s top climate official, warned that only “uneven progress” had been made so far on the 300-page rulebook for implementing the Paris targets, leaving the rest of the work for December.
While the dangerous weather of the first half of 2018 has raised concerns worldwide that we are seeing climate change in action, many leading experts told the Guardian they were optimistic that political and business leaders this year would help set the world on a different course to avoid the worse predictions of untrammelled warming.
Achim Steiner, administrator of the UN Development Programme, said the past few years had seen “extraordinary progress” in areas such as renewable energy and the take-up of low-carbon technology: “This is real, not in the future but happening now. We are showing that we can do this, we can bring down emissions, it doesn’t need to be a disaster.”
Adopting low-carbon aims now would set developing countries on a course to a brighter future, added Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, former economic minister of Nigeria and a member of the Global Commission on the Economy and Climate. “Now is the time to do this, before we lock in high-carbon infrastructure,” she said. “Now is the opportunity for real sustainable growth.”
Political leaders will find that global investors back them up in opting for low-carbon policies, predicted Frank Rijsberman of the Global Green Growth Institute. “I see this from investors, from businesses,” he said. “They are ready, and they see low-carbon as the future.”
Felipe Calderón, former president of Mexico, called on political leaders to take note: “We can turn better [economic] growth and a better climate into reality. It is time we decisively legislate, innovate, govern and invest our way to a fairer, safer, more sustainable world.”
Evidence showing that tackling climate change can be an economic boost rather than a brake has been growing. The recently published New Climate Economy report says more than 65m new low-carbon jobs could be created in just over a decade, and that 700,000 premature deaths from air pollution could be avoided every year by government action on climate change. A further $2.8tn could be added to government revenues by 2030 by reforming perverse incentives to burn fossil fuels.
Nicholas Stern, co-chair of the Global Commission on the Economy and Climate, which produced the study, said: “Current economic models fail to capture both the powerful dynamics and very attractive qualities of new technologies and structures [that reduce carbon]. Thus we know that we are grossly underestimating the benefits of this new growth story. Further, it becomes ever clearer that the risks of the damage from climate change are immense, and tipping points and irreversibilities getting ever closer.”
The existence of tipping points – thresholds of temperature beyond which certain natural processes become irreversible, such as the melting of permafrost, which may release the greenhouse gas methane and create runaway warming effects – is a key concern of many climate scientists. The faster emissions rise, the sooner we may unwittingly pass some of these key points.
For all these reasons, the IPCC’s special report comes at a crucial point.
Saudi Arabia subverting international climate change talks
International talks on how to present the science around 1.5C of global warming just ran into overtime in Incheon, South Korea. Climate Home News 5 Oct 18
National delegates are expected to argue well into Saturday about the feasibility of holding temperature rise to 1.5C – the stretch goal of the Paris Agreement – and its implications for sustainable development.
Saudi Arabia is leading the criticism of several elements of the draft summary of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s special report, sources told Climate Home News reporter Natalie Sauer in Incheon.
The country’s diplomats want to emphasise the costs of climate action and downplay the sustainable development benefits, a source said.
The version issued to governments before the meeting had some inconvenient conclusions for oil producers. For example, it said fossil fuel investment would fall by a quarter over the next two decades in a 1.5C-compatible scenario.
One observer described the Saudi delegation as “more aggressive and virulent – both in terms of issues and airtime – than any time in my memory”. Others confirmed the Saudis had been vocal, but did not see their behaviour as different to previous meetings.
The US is reportedly keeping a lower profile, but leaked pre-meeting comments from the Trump administration reveal some pro-fossil fuel talking points.
EU stance
Meanwhile, the EU is pushing for stronger warnings on the risks of exceeding 1.5C, according to documents seen by CHN…….http://www.climatechangenews.com/
London especially vulnerable to sea level rise, with climate change
Independent 5th Oct 2018 , The UK capital is increasingly vulnerable as a result of sea level rises
and will have to use its main flood defence, the Thames Barrier, more
frequently.
London is among the cities identified as being at risk of major
flooding, according to a new report. Sea levels are expected to rise by
over 40cm unless global warming is limited to 1.5C above pre-industrial
levels, the more ambitious target set by the Paris climate agreement.
An analysis released by Christian Aid as nations meet in Korea to finalise a
major UN climate change report concerning the 1.5C target looks at some of
the coastal cities most at risk. Climate change could act as a “threat
multiplier” to existing problems such as sinking ground and subsidence,
water extraction and bad planning.
London’s sinking problem is largely a vestige of the last ice age when glaciers that weighed Scotland down and
lifted up the south like a see-saw melted and reversed the effect,according to the study.
https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/london-sea-level-rise-sink-global-warming-climate-change-houston-bangkok-a8569276.html
The new U.N. climate report will contain very bad news
 Climate scientists are struggling to find the right words for very bad news https://www.washingtonpost.com/energy-environment/2018/10/03/climate-scientists-are-struggling-find-right-words-very-bad-news/?utm_term=.1540529e507a
A much-awaited report from the U.N.’s top climate science panel will show an enormous gap between where we are and where we need to be to prevent dangerous levels of warming. By Chris Mooney and Brady Dennis October 3 2018 In Incheon, South Korea, this week, representatives of over 130 countries and about 50 scientists have packed into a large conference center going over every line of an all-important report: What chance does the planet have of keeping climate change to a moderate, controllable level? When they can’t agree, they form “contact groups” outside the hall, trying to strike an agreement and move the process along. They are trying to reach consensus on what it would mean — and what it would take — to limit the warming of the planet to just 1.5 degrees Celsius, or 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit, when 1 degree Celsius has already occurred and greenhouse gas emissions remain at record highs. “It’s the biggest peer-review exercise there is,” said Jonathan Lynn, head of communications for the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. “It involves hundreds or even thousands of people looking at it.” The IPCC, the world’s definitive scientific body when it comes to climate change, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize a decade ago and has been given what may rank as its hardest task yet. It must not only tell governments what we know about climate change — but how close they have brought us to the edge. And by implication, how much those governments are failing to live up to their goals for the planet, set in the 2015 Paris climate agreement. 1.5 degrees is the most stringent and ambitious goal in that agreement, originally put there at the behest of small island nations and other highly vulnerable countries. But it is increasingly being regarded by all as a key guardrail, as severe climate change effects have been felt in just the past five years — raising concerns about what a little bit more warming would bring. “Half a degree doesn’t sound like much til you put it in the right context,” said Durwood Zaelke, president of the Institute for Governance and Sustainable Development. “It’s 50 percent more than we have now.” The idea of letting warming approach 2 degrees Celsius increasingly seems disastrous in this context. Parts of the planet, like the Arctic, have already warmed beyond 1.5 degrees and are seeing alarming changes. Antarctica and Greenland, containing many feet of sea-level rise, are wobbling. Major die-offs have hit coral reefs around the globe, suggesting an irreplaceable planetary feature could soon be lost. It is universally recognized that the pledges made in Paris would lead to a warming far beyond 1.5 degrees — more like 2.5 or 3 degrees Celsius, or even more. And that was before the United States, the world’s second-largest emitter, decided to try to back out. “The pledges countries made during the Paris climate accord don’t get us anywhere close to what we have to do,” said Drew Shindell, a climate expert at Duke University and one of the authors of the IPCC report. “They haven’t really followed through with actions to reduce their emissions in any way commensurate with what they profess to be aiming for.” The new 1.5 C report will feed into a process called the “Talanoa Dialogue,” in which parties to the Paris agreement begin to consider the large gap between what they say they want to achieve and what they are actually doing. The dialogue will unfold in December at an annual United Nations climate meeting in Katowice, Poland. But it is unclear what concrete commitments may result. At issue is what scientists call the ‘carbon budget’: Because carbon dioxide lives in the atmosphere for so long, there’s only a limited amount that can be emitted before it becomes impossible to avoid a given temperature, like 1.5 degrees Celsius. And since the world emits about 41 billion tons of carbon dioxide per year, if the remaining budget is 410 billion tons (for example), then scientists can say we have 10 years until the budget is gone and 1.5 C is locked in. Unless emissions start to decline — which gives more time. This is why scenarios for holding warming to 1.5 degrees C require rapid and deep changes to how we get energy. The window may now be as narrow as around 15 years of current emissions, but since we don’t know for sure, according to the researchers, that really depends on how much of a margin of error we’re willing to give ourselves. And if we can’t cut other gases — such as methane — or if the Arctic permafrost starts emitting large volumes of additional gases, then the budget gets even narrower. “It would be an enormous challenge to keep warming below a threshold” of 1.5 degrees Celsius, said Shindell, bluntly. “This would be a really enormous lift.” So enormous, he said, that it would require a monumental shift toward decarbonization. By 2030 — barely a decade away — the world’s emissions would need to drop by about 40 percent. By the middle of the century, societies would need to have zero net emissions. What might that look like? In part, it would include things such as no more gas-powered vehicles, a phaseout of coal-fired power plants and airplanes running on biofuels, he said. “It’s a drastic change,” he said. “These are huge, huge shifts … This would really be an unprecedented rate and magnitude of change.” And that’s just the point — 1.5 degrees is still possible, but only if the world goes through a staggering transformation. An early draft (leaked and published by the website Climate Home News) suggests that future scenarios of a 1.5 C warming limit would require the massive deployment of technologies to remove carbon dioxide from the air and bury it below the ground. Such technologies do not exist at anything close to the scale that would be required. “There are now very small number of pathways [to 1.5C] that don’t involve carbon removal,” said Jim Skea, chair of the IPCC’s Working Group III and a professor at Imperial College London. It’s not clear how scientists can best give the world’s governments this message — or to what extent governments are up for hearing it. An early leaked draft of the report said there was a “very high risk” that the world would warm more than 1.5 degrees. But a later draft, also leaked to Climate Home News, appeared to back off, instead saying that “there is no simple answer to the question of whether it is feasible to limit warming to 1.5 C . . . feasibility has multiple dimensions that need to be considered simultaneously and systematically.” None of this language is final. That’s what this week in Incheon — intended to get the report ready for an official release on Monday — is all about. “I think many people would be happy if we were further along than we are,” the IPCC’s Lynn said Wednesday morning in Incheon. “But in all the approval sessions that I’ve seen, I’ve seen five of them now, that has always been the case. It sort of gets there in the end.” |
Solar and wind power back on the day after Hurricane Florida: nuclear and coal not so resilient
Hurricane Florence crippled electricity and coal — solar and wind were back the next day https://www.cbsnews.com/news/hurricane-florence-crippled-electricity-and-coal-solar-and-wind-were-back-the-next-day/, 25 Sept 18, Nearly two weeks after Hurricane Florence swamped North and South Carolina, thousands of residents who get power from coal-fired utilities remain without electricity.Yet solar installations, which provide less than 5 percent of North Carolina’s energy, were up and running the day after the storm, according to electricity news outlet GTM. And while half of Duke Energy’s customers were without power at some point, according to CleanTechnica, the utility’s solar farms sustained no damage.
Traditional energy providers have fared less well. A dam breach at the L.V. Sutton Power Station, a retired coal-fired power plant near Wilmington, North Carolina, has sent coal ash flowing into a nearby river. Another plant near Goldsboro has three flooded ash basins, according to the Associated Press, while in South Carolina, floodwaters are reportedly threatening pits that contain ash, an industrial waste from burning coal.
The lesson, according to environmentalists: Utilities’ vulnerability to major storms underscores the urgency of shifting to energy that it is not only clean and renewable, but also more resilient.
Consumer society, high energy, lifestyle underlies climate change
GLOBAL HUMAN POPULATION ISN’T GOING TO EXPLODE—BUT THAT DOESN’T MEAN WE’RE SAFE | NewsWeek, , PROFESSOR AT THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND
9/26/18 Population has grown super-exponentially over the 20th century, which has led to some alarmist messages along the way. The most well known of them is the 1968 book, The Population Bomb, by Stanford professor Paul Ehrilch. Mass starvation due to the classic Malthusian catastrophe of population growth outpacing food production was predicted for the 1970s and 80s in the absence of immediate implementation of population reduction measures. This dire prediction did not materialize, of course, thanks to the Green Revolution.
The main drivers of population growth are death and birth rates—but the initial population size is important as well. Lifespan has lengthened due to medical miracles, while fertility has dropped across the board due to birth controls and family planning. But most importantly, because of the education and empowerment of women.
While population growth rates have declined, total population has continued to grow due to the initial size of the population, referred to as population momentum. The UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs projected in 2017 that Earth’s population would surpass 11 billion by 2100, despite these fertility and population growth rate trends.
The UN expects that nearly 70 percent of the world’s population for the latter half of the 21st century would be made up of a population with fertility rates below-replacement (less than 2.1 births per woman). And yet, there has been a steady call for population reduction—only now in the context of emission targets developed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to meet global warming goals.
This “Population Climate Bomb” alarm is founded on ignoring several important factors that have brought us to this state of affairs as far as climate change is concerned. Foremost is the arbitrary accounting of the impact of population on climate, which neglects the global trade network where emissions are moved around hidden in goods and services.
Even the lowered fertility rates among the educated and empowered women may be associated with an unintended upward bump in per capita consumption (as discussed below). Additional complications arise because humanity has yet to chart a course to increasing the Human Development Index without increasing the environmental footprint. All developed countries have a high environmental footprint and no developing country can achieve higher standards of living without increasing its per capita consumption.
The IPCC has often been accused of ignoring population as a driver of climate change and global warming. Population projections are very much a part of the calculations for future scenarios on emission, mitigation and adaptation—but some would like a more explicit mention of the impact of population reduction on greenhouse gas emissions……….
The developed world has a narrow base of younger population with a nearly even distribution up to the aging population. Japan stands as a stark example of an ever growing aging population due to stagnating birth rates. Developing countries on the other hand display a pyramidal age structure with a large base of population under 25. This offers a golden opportunity to educate and empower girls and young women. Nothing has proven more effective as a contraception than educating and empowering women.
Climate assessments including adaptation and mitigation scenarios by the IPCC are indeed better served by focusing on reducing energy intensity of GDPs and carbon intensity of energy production. Population is a problem that is solving itself. Our penchant for high-energy lifestyle shows no signs of diminishing. Our energies are best focused on evolving into carbon-neutral sapiens who will naturally settle into a healthy population level.
Raghu Murtugudde is a Professor of Atmospheric and Oceanic Science and Earth System Science at the University of Maryland. He is currently a Visiting Professor at the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay in India. His research focuses On the role of the oceans on climate variability and change including the biological feedbacks on climate. https://www.newsweek.com/global-human-population-explosion-carbon-emissions-consumption-1138996
Kavanaugh Confirmation Fight Has Consequences for Climate Law
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The Supreme Court could hear cases related to the EPA’s climate obligations and other environmental issues, Scientific American, By Mark K. Matthews, E&E News on September 27, 2018
If Senate Republicans plow ahead and confirm Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, the longtime jurist could have near-term impact on a slew of environmental cases. Among the disputes the high court has agreed to hear this fall: a case that pits villagers from India against the World Bank in a fight over a coal plant. If the villagers prevail, it could have worldwide economic and political repercussions. Several other climate-related issues have a decent shot, too, of getting a future date with the Supreme Court, including one closely watched fight—the “kids’ climate case”——that makes the far-reaching argument that the government must take action on global warming so as not to imperil future generations. Kavanaugh—currently a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit—would replace Justice Anthony Kennedy, who retired in July after three decades of service and dozens of landmark decisions. Kennedy was often a swing vote on the ideologically divided court, and he played a key role in several major environmental cases. There’s a lot at stake for domestic and international efforts to address climate change. Here are five brewing legal fights in which the future justice could play a role. ……..https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/kavanaugh-confirmation-fight-has-consequences-for-climate-law/ |
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Antarctic ocean heating up – caused by greenhouse gas emissions and ozone depletion
What’s Causing Antarctica’s Ocean to Heat Up? New Study Points to 2 Human Sources
Science reporting on climate change: the severity is downplayed for political reasons
Observer 23rd Sept 2018 , Warnings about the dangers of global warming are being watered down in the
final version of a key climate report for a major international meeting
next month, according to reviewers who have studied earlier versions of the
report and its summary.
They say scientists working on the final draft of
the summary are censoring their own warnings and “pulling their
punches” to make policy recommendations seem more palatable to countries
– such as the US, Saudi Arabia and Australia – that are reluctant to
cut fossil-fuel emissions, a key cause of global warming.
“Downplaying the worst impacts of climate change has led the scientific authors to omit
crucial information from the summary for policymakers,” said one
reviewer, Bob Ward, policy director at the Grantham Research Institute on
Climate Change and the Environment.
The report – to be presented at a
meeting in Korea in early October – will make clear that allowing
temperatures to rise by 2C will have devastating consequences, including
rising sea levels, spreading deserts, loss of natural habitats and species,
dwindling ice-caps and increases in the number of devastating storms.
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2018/sep/23/scientists-changing-global-warming-report-please-polluters
Electricity being restored to Brunswick nuclear power station in North Carolina flooded area
Utility begins restoring power to only nuclear plant to shut down during Hurricane Florence https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/policy/energy/utility-begins-restoring-power-to-only-nuclear-plant-to-shut-down-during-hurricane-florence, by Josh Siegel September 20, 2018 Utility company Duke Energy is restoring power at Brunswick nuclear plant in North Carolina after the site closed because of Hurricane Florence, with one reactor in service and the other set to restart soon.
Shannon Brushe, a Duke spokeswoman, confirmed to the Washington Examiner that it returned power Thursday to one of two units at the 1,978-megawatt Brunswick nuclear plant near Wilmington.
Duke had shut down the two reactors as a precaution before Florence hit. It was the only nuclear plant to close in either North or South Carolina because of the storm.
Over the weekend, Duke workers had limited access to the Brunswick plant because of flooding.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission said Monday that the plant was completely surrounded by water, with no way in or out of the facility.
Duke issued an emergency alert to the nuclear watchdog commission on Saturday, called an “unusual event” notice, which is the lowest emergency alert that the power plant is required to issue.
Roads in and out of the power plant’s 1,200-acre campus were impassable, making it impossible to relieve the Duke Energy and federal NRC staff stationed at the plant to ride out Hurricane Florence.
But a NRC spokesperson told the Washington Examiner on Thursday that there is now “adequate access to the plant and no other concerns related to flooding at the Brunsw
As of 5:30 p.m. Wednesday, 114,000 Duke customers — most of them in North Carolina — remained without power.
As flooding recedes around Brunswick nuclear power station, NRC considers when it can restart
Beyond Nuclear 20th Sept 2018 , The two-unit coastal Brunswick nuclear power station in South Port, NC was
powered down to zero power shortly in advance of the September 14th arrival
Hurricane Florence with Category 1 winds (sustained < 75 mph), storm surge
and torrential rainfall. Operators maintained the Brunswick units in “hot
standby” (reactor cooling water at 212O F and capable of steam powering
onsite turbines for emergency electricity) to provide an added measure of
power supply for reactor safety and cooling systems in the event of loss of
offsite power and backup emergency diesel generators.
However, throughout the storm, Duke Energy reported that the nuclear power station was in
“stable” condition and never lost offsite electricity power from the
grid providing primary power to safety systems and cooling.
A low-level emergency was declared September 15th when the reactor site was completely
surrounded by rising flood waters making it inaccessible by road. Two
shifts of workers were already housed onsite and supplied in advance for
the storm’s duration. Offsite access by road to the Brunswick units was
restored on September 18th and the “Unusual event” emergency was
terminated.
The continued flooding has damaged many of the bridges and
roads within the ten-mile radius that encompasses the radiological
evacuation planning zone for the Brunswick nuclear power station. As the
flooding recedes, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) will
assess the damage to the infrastructure and will provide its recommendation
to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) before Brunswick is allowed
to restart.
http://www.beyondnuclear.org/nuclear-reactors-whatsnew/2018/9/20/brunswick-nuclear-plant-remains-shut-down-following-hurrican.html
Sea levels could rise by up to 30 feet, due to Antarctic melting
At this rate, Earth risks sea level rise of 20 to 30 feet, historical analysis shows New research finds that a vast area of Antarctica retreated when Earth’s temperatures weren’t much warmer than they are now, WP Chris Mooney, September 20 2018
Temperatures not much warmer than the planet is experiencing now were sufficient to melt a major part of the East Antarctic ice sheet in Earth’s past, scientists reported Wednesday, including during one era about 125,000 years ago when sea levels were as much as 20 to 30 feet higher than they are now.
“It doesn’t need to be a very big warming, as long as it stays 2 degrees warmer for a sufficient time, this is the end game,” said David Wilson, a geologist at Imperial College London and one of the authors of the new research, which was published in Nature. Scientists at institutions in Australia, New Zealand, Japan and Spain also contributed to the work.
The research concerns a little-studied region called the Wilkes Subglacial Basin, which is roughly the size of California and Texas combined and contains more than 10 feet of potential sea-level rise. Fronted by three enormous glaciers named Cook, Mertz and Ninnis, the Wilkes is known to be vulnerable to fast retreat because the ice here is not standing on land and instead is rising up from a deep depression in the ocean floor.
Moreover, that depression grows deeper as you move from the current icy coastline of the Wilkes farther inland toward the South Pole, a downhill slope that could facilitate rapid ice loss.
What the new science adds is that during past warm periods in Earth’s history, some or all of the ice in the Wilkes Subglacial Basin seems to have gone away. That’s an inference researchers made by studying the record of sediments in the seafloor just off the coast of the current ice front……..
Humans have caused about 1 degree Celsius (1.8 degrees Fahrenheit) of warming above the preindustrial planetary temperatures experienced before the year 1880 or so. The world has pledged to avoid a warming above 2 degrees Celsius, and even hopes to hold the warming to 1.5 degrees, but current promises made by countries are not nearly enough to prevent these outcomes.
n other words, we are already on a course that could heat the planet enough to melt some or all of the Wilkes Basin.
“We say 2 degrees beyond preindustrial, and we’re already beyond preindustrial,” Wilson said. “So this is potentially the kinds of temperatures we could see this century.”
The study cannot reveal, however, just how quickly ice emptied out of the Wilkes Basin. The past warm periods in question are thought to have been driven by slight variations in Earth’s orbit as it rotates around the sun, leading to stronger summer heat. That warmth was maintained for thousands of years.
…….. The new research “contributes to the mounting pile of evidence that East Antarctica is not as stable as we thought,” Isabella Velicogna, a glaciologist at the University of California at Irvine, said by email. Velicogna was not directly involved in the paper…….https://www.washingtonpost.com/energy-environment/2018/09/20/antarctica-warming-could-fuel-disastrous-sea-level-rise-study-finds/?utm_term=.7c426ea2a985
Big companies including Facebook, Google and Microsoft not supporting EU’s plan for more ambitious climate change goals
Guardian 19th Sept 2018 Companies including Facebook, Google and Microsoft have failed to distance
themselves from a lobby group’s proposal to fight any effort by the EU to
set more ambitious climate change goals. A leaked document shows that
BusinessEurope, Europe’s biggest business lobbying group, will urge members
to oppose any moves by the European Commission to ratchet up the bloc’s
2030 targets for clean energy, carbon cuts and energy efficiency.
The commission is considering whether to set more ambitious goals in November
after a key international science panel report on meeting tougher global
warming targets is published in October, and before a UN climate summit in
December.
But, at meeting in Brussels on Wednesday, BusinessEurope will ask
big companies to agree a “line to take” on the prospect of steeper carbon
cuts. If the commission’s measures have teeth, the group’s “advocacy and
communication strategy” recommends companies agree to fight them. “To
oppose the new increase of ambition, using the usual arguments of global
playing field, we cannot compensate for others, etc,” the document said. If
the commission opts for warm words and a political statement rather than a
material ratcheting up of the targets, the group suggests it should react
by being “rather positive”.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/sep/19/tech-giants-fail-to-distance-from-businesseurope-fight-against-eu-climate-targets
California’s satellite to measure and and track greenhouse gas
FT 18th Sept 2018 , As President Donald Trump weakens one environmental rule after another, the
deep green state of California has found a way to fight back: with a
rocket. “With science still under attack and the climate threat growing, we
are launching our own damn satellite,” declared Governor Jerry Brown,
explaining that the craft will track emissions and share the results. One
of the pollutants the satellite will measure is methane, a potent
greenhouse gas. Mr Brown’s declaration on Friday in San Francisco, came
just two days after the Environmental Protection Agency in Washington said
it wanted to relax methane rules. For California and Mr Brown, the
satellite is not only about monitoring methane monitoring but also shows
how much states can do themselves to fight climate change.
https://www.ft.com/content/aae5fe16-b91b-11e8-94b2-17176fbf93f5
deep green state of California has found a way to fight back: with a
rocket. “With science still under attack and the climate threat growing, we
are launching our own damn satellite,” declared Governor Jerry Brown,
explaining that the craft will track emissions and share the results. One
of the pollutants the satellite will measure is methane, a potent
greenhouse gas. Mr Brown’s declaration on Friday in San Francisco, came
just two days after the Environmental Protection Agency in Washington said
it wanted to relax methane rules. For California and Mr Brown, the
satellite is not only about monitoring methane monitoring but also shows
how much states can do themselves to fight climate change.
https://www.ft.com/content/aae5fe16-b91b-11e8-94b2-17176fbf93f5
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1 This Month
26 April – Chernobyl: Inside the Meltdown airs on National Geographic on Sunday 26th April from 4pm
29 April – Nuclear Expert Webinar #1 – Radiation Impacts on Families with Mary Olson and Cindy Folkers
- 12:15 PM MT – 1:45 PM MT
- Location: Virtual – REGISTER TODAY
4 May -West Suburban Peace Coalition to discuss Iran war at May Educational Forum
Monday, May 4, 7:00 – 8:00 PM Central Standard Time
Title: : How Trump’s Narrative Tries to Shape the Reality of the War on Iran.
Contact Walt Zlotow, zlotow@hotmail.com 630 442 3045 for further information
14 May – online event From Bombs to Data Centres: the Face of Nuclear Colonialism
Pine Ridge Uranium is the real threat, not Tehran- Tell Burgum: Stop the Extraction.
Chernobyl: The Lost Tapes – A good documentary on Chernobyl on SBS available On Demand for the next 3 weeks– https://www.sbs.com.au/ondemand/tv-program/chernobyl-the-lost-tapes/2352741955560
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity – go to https://nuclearinformation.wordpress.com
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