But Lohmann and Gasparini warn that the plan comes with major drawbacks. It could, they say, lead to even more cirrus clouds being formed, exacerbating global warming in the process.
CLIMATE CHANGE AND GEOENGINEERING: ARTIFICIALLY COOLING PLANET EARTH BY THINNING CIRRUS CLOUDS, NewsWeek, BY HANNAH OSBORNEON 7/21/17 “……Over recent decades, scientists from across the globe have been discussing the potential of geoengineering—the deliberate manipulation of the environment that could, in theory, cool the planet and help stabilize the climate.
There are main two types of geoengineering. The first involves removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and storing it. This is already being done on an industrial scale, but it is not effective enough at the moment to cope with the huge levels of emissions. The other type, solar radiation management, is more radical—an attempt to reduce the amount of sunlight absorbed by the planet by reflecting it away.
Many ways of doing this have been proposed. One of the most widely discussed (and riskiest) involves the injection of reflective aerosols into the upper atmosphere. This plan is based on the cooling effect of volcanoes: Sulfur dioxide emitted in an eruption causes the formation of droplets of sulfuric acid. These reflect the sunlight away, creating a cooling effect. But this plan could also go very wrong. The sulfuric acid could strip away the ozone layer, leaving Earth completely exposed to the sun’s radiation.
In an article published in the journal Science, Ulrike Lohmann and Blaž Gasparini, from the ETH Zurich, in Switzerland, discuss a variation of this idea: the thinning of cirrus clouds to target the long-wave radiation coming from Earth.
Cirrus clouds are thin and wispy clouds that form at high altitudes and do not reflect much solar radiation back into space, creating a greenhouse effect. The higher the altitude at which they form, the larger the warming effect on the climate. And in a warmer climate, cirrus clouds form at higher altitudes.
So what if we got rid of them? These clouds could be thinned out—leading to a reduction in their warming effect—by seeding them with aerosol particles like sulfuric or nitric acid, which act as “ice nucleating particles” or INPs. If these are injected into the level of the atmosphere where cirrus clouds form, the way they form would be altered, resulting in thinner clouds that have less of a warming effect.
“The maximum cirrus seeding potential would be achieved by removing all cirrus clouds,” they write. “If cirrus thinning works, it should be preferred over methods that target changes in solar radiation, such as stratospheric aerosol injections, because cirrus thinning would counteract greenhouse gas warming more directly.”
But Lohmann and Gasparini warn that the plan comes with major drawbacks. It could, they say, lead to even more cirrus clouds being formed, exacerbating global warming in the process.
“Unintended cirrus formation is especially pronounced if the seeded INPs start to nucleate ice at very low relative humidities…. If cirrus seeding is not done carefully, the effect could be additional warming rather than the intended cooling. If done carefully, the negative radiative effect from cirrus seeding should be stronger in a warmer climate, in which the overall radiative effect of cirrus clouds will be larger.”
Because of the dangers, the scientists say any plan to thin cirrus clouds should be limited to specific times and places, where it would be most effective. “Contrary to solar radiation management methods, cirrus seeding is more effective at high than at low latitudes. A small-scale deployment of cirrus seeding could therefore be envisioned—for instance, in the Arctic to avoid further melting of Arctic sea ice,” they say, but the scientists add that there are many questions that need to be answered before cirrus thinning can be further explored.
“It is also important to remember that, like solar radiation management, cirrus thinning cannot prevent the CO2 increase in the atmosphere and the resulting ocean acidification,” they conclude. “For the time being, cirrus cloud thinning should be viewed as a thought experiment that is helping to understand cirrus cloud–formation mechanisms.” http://www.newsweek.com/climate-change-geoengineering-artificially-cool-planet-640124
This could be the next big strategy for suing over climate change. Two California coastal counties and one beach-side city touched off a possible new legal front in the climate change battle this week, suing dozens of major oil, coal, and other fossil fuel companies for the damages they say they will incur due to rising seas.WP,By Chris Mooney and Brady DennisJuly 20 2017, Two California coastal counties and one beach-side city touched off a possible new legal front in the climate change battle this week, suing dozens of major oil, coal, and other fossil fuel companies for the damages they say they will incur due to rising seas.
The three cases, which target firms such as Chevron, ExxonMobil, BP and Royal Dutch Shell, assert that the fossil fuel producers are collectively responsible for about 20 percent of global carbon dioxide emissions between 1965 and 2015. They claim that industry “knew or should have known” decades ago about the threat of climate change, and want companies to pay the costs of communities forced to adapt to rising seas.
“We’re already living the impact of sea level rise,” said Marin County Supervisor Kate Sears. She said a county vulnerability study found hundreds of county businesses and other assets could be at risk in coming years.
“This lawsuit is a natural next step in how we address the expense we’ve already had in planning for and trying to remediate the impacts of sea level rise, but also in addressing the impacts we expect in the future.”…….
The California cases are also proceeding under a legal doctrine called “public nuisance” (among other claims), which charges that under California common law, the companies have injured the counties and city by contributing to rising seas, and more frequent and severe flooding as a result.
But the difference is that this time, they are making state level nuisance claims rather than federal ones, which have already failed as courts pointed out that those worried about climate change had other recourses, such as EPA action.
The lawsuits were filed in California courts by Marin and San Mateo counties and the City of Imperial Beach, which sits south of San Diego near the Mexico border. Each cites specific damages expected from rising seas.
San Mateo cited worries about the flooding of the San Francisco Airport, along with up to $24 billion in assets being put at risk.
Marin County estimated nearly $16 billion of homes and businesses were threatened, and that with 6.7 feet of sea level rise, 7 percent of coastal roads would be “exposed to higher average sea level and storm threats at several locations.”
Imperial Beach cited the potential for “over $106 million” in property damages because of coastal erosion and argued the town has few resources to adapt to rising seas.
Vic Sher, a partner at the firm of Sher Edling who is helping lead the legal challenge, said the goal behind the lawsuits is to shift the “very real and very large costs of dealing with sea level rise” from ordinary citizens to the companies responsible for knowingly contributing to global warming.
He likened the cases to past litigation that sought to hold tobacco companies accountable for the public health toll of smoking, as well as efforts to force lead paint manufacturers to renovate homes where health risks remain……..
A strength of the lawsuit, note some legal observers, lies in the fact that sea level rise is easily measurable, constant (unlike climate-affected weather events), and very strongly linked to a warming planet. Moreover, analyses have become more and more precise when it comes to mapping which locations will be inundated, or subjected to greater flooding risks, for a given level of rising seas.
June 26, 2017 By Arundhati Ponnapa“There’s a long list of crises that can have a natural resource base,” said Anne C. Richard, former assistant secretary of state for population, refugees, and migration, at a Stimson Center panel on June 13, 2017, on the impacts of climate change on human security and mobility. The panelists included Kelly McFarland of Georgetown’s Institute for the Study of Diplomacy (ISD), Rod Schoonover of the National Intelligence Council, and Sally Yozell, director of Stimson’s Environmental Security Program.“The people hit hardest are the ones that can’t move,” said McFarland, stressing the need to collect data and plan for long-term environmental changes and potential crises. He presented a new working group report from ISD that outlines the challenges of climate-related migration and offers 10 guiding principles for optimizing adaptation and resilience-building tools, such as assessments of the needs of sending and receiving communities.
One of the challenges is the lack of a legal definition for people displaced by climate change: “It is hard to come up with who exactly is an environmental migrant, because of the fact that there are other drivers involved in getting them to move,” said McFarland. While the panelists agreed that global consensus is required on this issue, Schoonover suggested that global governance structures like multilateral treaties “seemed to work better in the last century.”
“Population does fall between the cracks,” said Richard, calling for looking at climate change and displacement in a more integrative, holistic manner, with an emphasis on planning, resilience-building, and local community responses. Transdisciplinary approaches can address the overlap between issues such as urbanization and rising sea levels: “More and more refugees live in cities. In fact, the majority of refugees, like the majority of people, live in cities,” said Richard.
Schoonover described the burgeoning security risks as “a stew of problems,” citing potential pressures on U.S. homeland security, threats to American allies, and limits on diplomatic or political capacity. “In some cases, humanitarian issues writ large become security issues when they bring in the U.S. military and perhaps strain defense forces,” particularly as potential crises emerge when environmental degradation and population growth tax cities such as Lagos or nuclear states such as Pakistan.
Schoonover pointed out that developed countries with aging populations and physical space could house migrants, and McFarland recommended that policymakers explore offering economic incentives to receiving communities. “Migration does not have to be a dirty word; migration can be a positive experience,” said Richard.
France’s EDF cuts output at two nuclear reactors due to heatwave PARIS, July 18 (Reuters) – French utility EDF cut output at two reactors at its Tricastin nuclear plant in southern France on Tuesday, due to scorching temperatures, to reduce the amount of heated water from the reactors’ cooling system flowing into the Rhone river.
The Tricastin plant has four pressurised water reactors with an installed capacity of 915 megawatts (MW) each. EDF said on its website that output at reactors 1 and 3 was reduced by 735 MW and 651 MW respectively.
It said this was done for “environmental issues,” without giving further details.
A company spokeswoman said that, due to a heatwave in France on Tuesday, the company decided to reduce the amount of heated non-radioactive water from the cooling systems that flows into a canal near the plant and into the Rhone river.
“This was done so as not to increase the temperature of the already heated water and thus preserve plant and animal life,” she said, adding that a heavy thunderstorm forecast for the area later on Tuesday was expected to cool the situation…….http://www.reuters.com/article/edf-france-nuclearpower-idUSL5N1K94RO
Thawing permafrost poses even greater global warming threat than previously thought, suggests study As the world warms, methane trapped underneath the frozen tundra could be released, increasing the rate of warming in a vicious circle, The Independent, Ian Johnston Environment Correspondent @montaukian 19 July 17 Runaway global warming is, without a doubt, a nightmare scenario for humanity.
One of the most feared of these feedback loops is the vast amount of organic material currently trapped in permafrost, which would release methane and other greenhouse gases in large amounts given the right conditions.
And now a team of researchers has discovered another significant source of emissions that would result from the thawing of the tundra. For the frozen ground acts as a cap on much more ancient gas deposits, preventing them from escaping into the atmosphere.
These seeps were known about, but just how important they would be was poorly understood.
The new study, of 10,000 square kilometres of the Mackenzie Delta in Canada, found that the seeps there were responsible for 17 per cent of the total emissions from the land even though they were only found in about one per cent of the area, according to a paper in the journal Scientific Reports……..
the thawing of permafrost in places like the coastal plains of North Alaska and the major river basins of Siberia could open up new methane seeps.
By studying the Mackenzie Delta, Professor Sachs said the researchers had opened “a window into the future”.
Valerie Masson-Delmotte, co-chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change working group, said the planned cuts were “a major worry” given America’s outsized contribution to the global research.
“I cannot hide the huge anxieties about the strength of research capacities in the US in the coming years,” Dr Masson-Delmotte said.
US work includes as much as 30 per cent of ocean climate research, and running core data centres used by international researchers. Such cuts, if applied, would be difficult for US universities – or other nations – to fill.
Cuts proposed by Australia’s CSIRO in monitoring of the Southern Ocean stirred similar concerns last year before a public outcry prompted the Turnbull government to step in to create a special climate centre with longer-term funding guaranteed.
China has significantly increased its ocean monitoring and climate modelling work “but it is not sufficient to cover what would happen if such a big player as the US would reduce their effort”, said Dr Masson-Delmotte, who is also a senior scientist at France’s Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l’Environnement at the Institut Pierre Simon Laplace.
While researchers continue to expand knowledge of how the rise in greenhouse gases is causing a build-up in planetary heat, important gaps remain.
Research priorities include increasing observations in remote regions, such as Antarctica, where melting ice could trigger global sea-level rises of metres over centuries if the giant sheets collapse.
More understanding is also needed about feedback processes, which could amplify climate change and trigger abrupt shifts such as in ocean circulation patterns.
A third priority is the development of models that can correctly project the changes, particularly on a regional scale.
The sixth IPCC assessment report is due to be completed in 2021, with special reports on the impacts of a 1.5-degree warming, the cryosphere, and climate change effects on land set for release in the next two years.
Inaction on climate change risks leaving future generations $530 trillion in debt, The Conversation., July 19, 2017 By continuing to delay significant reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, we risk handing young people alive today a bill of up to US$535 trillion. This would be the cost of the “negative emissions” technologies required to remove CO₂ from the air in order to avoid dangerous climate change.
These are the main findings of new research published in Earth System Dynamics, conducted by an international team led by US climate scientist James Hansen, previously the director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies.
The Paris Agreement in 2015 saw the international community agree to limit warming to within 2°C. The Hansen team argue that the much safer approach is to reduce atmospheric concentrations of CO₂ from the current annual average of more than 400ppm (parts per million) back to 1980s levels of 350ppm. This is a moderately more ambitious goal than the aspiration announced in Paris to further attempt to limit warming to no more than 1.5°C. Many climate scientists and policymakers believe that either the 2°C or 1.5°C limits will only be possible with negative emissions because the international community will be unable to make the required reductions in time…….https://theconversation.com/inaction-on-climate-change-risks-leaving-future-generations-530-trillion-in-debt-81134
A little more than a year after a massive wildfire forced the full evacuation of Fort McMurray in Alberta, another set of extreme wildfires in British Columbia is again forcing major population centers to empty. In the region of Williams Lake and Cariboo City, 17,400 people have been forced to flee as a wildfire is threatening the major highway exiting the area. As the fire expands, another 27,000 in the broader province may also be asked to leave. This mass evacuation has been enough to empty large urban centers — turning them into ghost towns as fires rage through the surrounding countryside.
On Saturday, 40 mph winds, hot temperatures in the 90s (F), and lightning strikes fanned flames in the region — considerably worsening the fire situation and spurring more comprehensive evacuation orders. Heavy rains earlier in the year caused rapid vegetation growth. But as much warmer than normal temperatures accompanied by dry, windy conditions entered the region in June and July, the new growth has turned into tinder — adding a serious fire hazard.
Scores of very large wildfires rage across British Columbia on July 15 — casting smoke plumes that now stretch across most of Canada. For reference, bottom edge of this image frame covers roughly 550 miles. Image source: NASA Worldview.)
Presently, 160 wildfires are now burning across British Columbia. This number is down from more than 200 fires earlier in the week. However, many of the larger fires have grown in size. The result is that the province is still under a very severe alert level 4 with a mass mobilization of firefighting resources underway. On July 15, the fires were clearly visible in NASA satellite imagery (see above).
Precipitation extremes and increasingly warm temperatures are a hallmark signal of human caused climate change resulting from continued fossil fuel burning. And it is these kinds of conditions that have dominated British Columbia over recent months. Both the strong swing from wet to dry conditions accompanied by much warmer than normal summer temperatures is climate change related
Carbon dioxide must be removed from the atmosphere to avoid extreme climate change, say scientists Ian Johnston, The Independent July 19, 2017
Humans must start removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere as soon as possible to avoid saddling future generations with a choice between extreme climate change or spending hundreds of trillions of dollars to avoid it, according to new research.
An international team of researchers – led by Professor Jim Hansen, Nasa’s former climate science chief – said their conclusion that the world had already overshot targets to limit global warming to within acceptable levels was “sufficiently grim” to force them to urge “rapid emission reduction
But they warned this would not be enough and efforts would need to be made to reduce the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere by about 12.5 per cent.
This, the scientists argued, could be mostly achieved by agricultural measures such as planting trees and improving soil fertility, a relatively low-cost way to remove carbon from the air.
Other more expensive methods, such as burning biomass in power plants fitted with carbon-capture-and-storage or devices that can remove carbon from the air directly, might also be necessary and would become increasingly needed if steps were not taken soon.
An academic paper in the journal Earth System Dynamics estimated such industrial processes could cost up to $535 trillion this century and “also have large risks and uncertain feasibility”.
“Continued high fossil fuel emissions unarguably sentences young people to either a massive, implausible clean-up or growing deleterious climate impacts or both,” said the paper.
“We conclude that the world has already overshot appropriate targets for greenhouse gas amount and global temperature, and we thus infer an urgent need for rapid phasedown of fossil fuel emissions [and] actions that draw down atmospheric carbon dioxide.
“These tasks are formidable and … they are not being pursued globally.”
Cuts to emissions of greenhouse gases such as methane, nitrous oxide and ozone would also be required.
The study is to be used as part of a ground-breaking lawsuit brought against the US Government by 21 children in which the plaintiffs claim their constitutional right to have a health climate in which to live in is being violated by federal policies.
If the case succeeds, environmentalists believe it could force the Trump administration to reduce greenhouse gases and take other measures to prevent global warming.
The paper pointed out that the last time temperatures were this high, during the Eemian period, global sea levels were about six to nine metres higher than they are today, suggesting significant rises are still to occur.
The paper said that the Paris Agreement, the tumbling price of renewable energy and the recent slowdown in the increase of fossil fuel emissions had led to a sense of optimism around the world.
But, speaking to The Independent, Professor Hansen said he believed this optimism was misplaced.
“The narrative that’s out there now … is that we’ve turned the corner,” he said.
“On the contrary, what we show is the rate of growth of climate forcing caused by increased methane [and other gases] is actually accelerating.
That’s why it’s urgent.”
Asked to assess the world’s current progress in fighting climate change, he said the “s*** is hitting the fan”.
Professor Hansen, now a scientist at the Columbia University Earth Institute in the US, said he believed the court case had a chance of winning.
A court would not be able to tell the Government what to do, he admitted, but would be able to say that failing to deal with the problem was unconstitutional and require politicians to produce an effective plan.
The paper said the need for “prompt action implied by these realities [of climate change] may not be a surprise to the relevant scientific community” because of the available evidence.
“However, effective communication with the public of the urgency to stem human-caused climate change is hampered by the inertia of the climate system, especially the ocean and the ice sheets, which respond rather slowly to climate forcings, thus allowing future consequences to build up before broad public concern awakens,” it said.
“All amplifying feedbacks, including atmospheric water vapor, sea ice cover, soil carbon release and ice sheet melt could be reduced by rapid emissions phasedown.
“This would reduce the risk of climate change running out of humanity’s control and provide time to assess the climate response, develop relevant technologies, and consider further purposeful actions to limit and/or adapt to climate change.”
It warned that sea level rise of up to a metre “may be inevitable even if emissions decline” and would have “dire consequences”.
Sea level rise of several metres would result in “humanitarian and economic disasters”.
“Given the increasing proportion of global population living in coastal areas, there is potential for forced migrations of hundreds of millions of people, dwarfing prior refugee humanitarian crises, challenging global governance and security,” the paper said.
And, they argue in the journal Environment Magazine, even a single nuclear missile strike could darken the skies, chill the atmosphere, stop rainfall, ruin harvests and cost a billion lives.
Observers with memories that stretch back to the Cold War and the arms race between the U.S. and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) powers on the one hand and the USSR on the other will know something of this already.
In 1983 the astronomer Carl Sagan and colleagues introduced the idea of global annihilation or at least the end of human civilization, in a “nuclear winter” as a consequence of a nuclear weapons exchange.
Years later, as the Soviet Union collapsed and the Russian Federation was born, the same scientists did their calculations again, and reduced the threat to a kind of “nuclear autumn.”
Nuclear Club
Eight nations now possess a nuclear arsenal: The U.S., Russia and China all have nuclear weapons big enough to precipitate a nuclear calamity, and a ninth, North Korea, now claims to have nuclear capability.
This prompted researchers and political scientists from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln to revisit the question. They contemplated the theoretical effect of a 15-kiloton nuclear warhead with the explosive force of 15,000 tons of TNT.
Once exploded, it would incinerate 1,300 square kilometers of a city and its surrounds. This would be quite enough to push five million metric tons of black carbon smoke particles into the stratosphere.
This would be enough to screen solar radiation, reduce the agricultural crop season by between 10 and 40 days a year for at least five years, and lower global temperatures to a point lower than normal for at least 25 years.
In the very short term, this cold snap would be colder than anything for the last 1,000 years. Rainfall would decrease by as much as 20 percent to 80 percent in the Asian monsoon region.
The American southwest and western Australia could become 20 percent to 60 percent drier. South America and southern Africa, too, would see less rain. This global “nuclear drought” and the resulting famines “could kill up to a billion people from starvation.”
The most immediate victims would be those in countries that are already poor or food-insecure. And, the scientists warn, should a warhead fall upon a nuclear power facility “the spread of toxic radionuclides and their long-term effects would be greatly magnified.”
The drop in precipitation would, they warn, also increase conflict in developing regions, “although global temperature reduction may reduce social violence in the United States and other developed countries.”
RPT-One of worst droughts in decades devastates South Europe crops,
* Crops damaged include olives, almonds and durum wheat
* Farmers in southern Europe question their long term future.
By Isla Binnie and Paul Day ROME/MADRID, July 14 (Reuters) – Italian durum wheat and dairy farmer Attilio Tocchi saw warning signs during the winter of the dramatic drought to come at his holding a mile away from the Tuscan coast.
“When it still hadn’t rained at the beginning of spring we realised it was already irreparable,” he said, adding that he had installed fans to try and cool his cows that were suffering in the heat.
Drought in southern Europe threatens to reduce cereal production in Italy and parts of Spain to its lowest level in at least 20 years, and hit other regional crops including olives and almonds.
Castile and Leon, the largest cereal growing region in Spain, has been particularly badly affected, with crop losses estimated at around 60 to 70 percent……By Isla Binnie and Paul Day
ROME/MADRID, July 14 (Reuters) – Italian durum wheat and dairy farmer Attilio Tocchi saw warning signs during the winter of the dramatic drought to come at his holding a mile away from the Tuscan coast.
“When it still hadn’t rained at the beginning of spring we realised it was already irreparable,” he said, adding that he had installed fans to try and cool his cows that were suffering in the heat.
Drought in southern Europe threatens to reduce cereal production in Italy and parts of Spain to its lowest level in at least 20 years, and hit other regional crops including olives and almonds.
Castile and Leon, the largest cereal growing region in Spain, has been particularly badly affected, with crop losses estimated at around 60 to 70 percent.
Abrupt Climate Mayhem Now, in Spite of Main-Stream-Climatologist Posturing https://paulbeckwith.net/ July 14, 2017 Quite frankly, I am sick and tired of people, especially main-stream-talking-head-scientists, downplaying the huge unprecedented threats that are accumulating daily and will soon take down our civilizations. Our world is one that is full of specialists, with no ability to join-the-dots and recognize that humanities existence, and that of our entire ecosystems of plants and animals is degrading rapidly. Even exponentially.
From my chair, I categorically state that anybody who downplays the significance and importance of our planets peril is part of the problem, and needs to get with the program or step aside so that the rest of us can do what is needed. The public needs the truth, no matter how bad it is to have any hope of changing course. And the truth is truly awful, at present.
Everyone agrees that this article hit a nerve with Main-Stream-(Media: MSM; Scientists: MSS) and the public.
We all hear over and over, from Main-Stream-Scientists), that climate change is occurring “faster than expected“. Think about what this means. It means that what is expected is completely wrong. What will, and is happening is way worse that what MSS are saying, and what MSM is reporting. The public needs the truth, and not some sugarcoated MSM/MSS bullshit.
Main-Stream-Media Awakens to Perils of Abrupt Climate Change? A lot can happen in a day. Things can turn on a dime. Has this just happened? David Wallace-Wells wrote a great article in nymag.com recently on “The Uninhabitable Earth”. Media around the world carried parts of it, and a number of scientists chimed in. Many people said the article is too apocalyptic. I say that the article is spot on. Civilization, more correctly humanity is going down big time, on our current path. Abrupt climate change all but guarantees that. Unless we collectively change course by:
1) Declare a global climate emergency.
2) Deploy technologies to remove carbon from the atmosphere &/or oceans.
Earth could become ‘practically ungovernable’ if sea levels keep rising, says former Nasa climate chief http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/earth-sea-levels-rising-nasa-climatechange-chief-jim-hansen-global-warming-melting-ice-antarctica-a7841026.html, Ian Johnston Environment Correspondent, 15 July 17 @montaukian The Earth could become “practically ungovernable” because of sea level rise, Nasa’s former head of climate research, Professor James Hansen, has warned.Professor Hansen, who was among the first scientists to alert politicians and the public to the risks posed by climate change, told New York Magazine that he doubted the atmosphere would warm by four or five degrees Celsius by the end of this century – the upper end of current projections, which would likely end human civilisation as we know it.However he said the biggest problem would be sea level rise. Professor Hanson was an author of a scientific paper published last year which warned that continued high fossil fuel emissions could increase sea levels by “several meters over a timescale of 50 to 150 years”.
This is significantly higher than the latest expert report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which forecast a range from about 30cm to just under a metre, depending on emissions.Asked to consider what the world would be like if the “scarier” projections of climate change for the end of the century became reality, Professor Hansen, former director of the Nasa Goddard Institute for Space Studies, said: “I don’t think we’re going to get four or five degrees this century, because we get a cooling effect from the melting ice. But the biggest effect will be that melting ice.“In my opinion that’s the big thing – sea-level rise – because we have such a large fraction of people on coastlines, more than half of the large cities in the world are on coastlines.
“The economic implications of that, and the migrations and the social effects of migrations … the planet could become practically ungovernable, it seems to me.
“Once sea levels go up significantly, you won’t have stable shorelines. Just parts of the city will go under water, but then it doesn’t make sense to continue to build there … By the time you get to even one-meter rise, you’re going to be losing more land.”The growing human population was a “problem”, he said.“That’s why you want to have energy that’s needed for people to eliminate poverty, because countries that have become wealthy have the population under control. But if you do begin to lose major cities [then] the planet becomes ungovernable,” Professor Hansen said.But if the world did reach four or five degrees, the scientist said this would mean “the tropics and the subtropics are going to be practically uninhabitable”.
“It’s already becoming uncomfortable in the summers, in the subtropics, you can’t work outdoors. And agriculture, more than half of the jobs are outdoors,” he said. He also reiterated the argument in favour of a carbon tax in which the proceeds were given back to the public – creating a windfall for more than two-thirds of the population.
“If you made the price of fossil fuels honest by including a gradually rising carbon fee, then it actually spurs the economy and increases the GNP as you shift toward clean energies and energy efficiency. It creates potentially millions of jobs,” Professor Hansen said.
“The way to spur the economy – to modernise the economy and modernise the energy structure – would be to give the money back to the public because a carbon fee is a progressive tax, in the sense that rich people have bigger carbon footprints.
“So if you do give 100 per cent of the money to the public, 70 per cent of the public comes out ahead.”
In Landmark Move, GOP Congress Calls Climate Change ‘Direct Threat’ to Security
Extreme weather and rising seas threaten bases from Virginia to Guam. For the first time, a Republican House has voted to recognize that. Foreign Policy, BY BETHANY ALLEN-EBRAHIMIAN, JULY 14, 2017 BETHANY.ALLEN @BETHANYALLENEBR
Kwajalein, a tiny atoll in the Marshall Islands, is home to a state-of-the-art radar installation called Space Fence. The U.S. government awarded Lockheed Martin a nearly $1 billion contract in 2014 to build the new system, meant to help protect U.S. satellites and spacecraft from space debris when it becomes operational next year.There’s just one problem. Kwajalein is a mere 10 feet above sea level, putting Space Fence at high risk for frequent flooding as sea levels rise over the coming decades.It’s one of many U.S. military installations threatened by climate change around the world. One study last year found that rising oceans threaten 128 military installations on the coasts, including naval facilities worth around $100 billion.
The Pentagon has been aware for years of the looming danger represented by climate change. But partisan infighting in Congress, budget sequestration, and the toxic nature of the climate debate have hamstrung the Defense Dept. from taking steps to protect key assets — or even identifying which facilities face the most serious threats.
This week, though, the Pentagon may have gotten a boost — from the unlikeliest of places. The Republican-controlled House retained an amendment to the 2018 defense funding bill affirming that “climate change is a direct threat to the national security of the United States.” It orders defense officials to draw up a report laying out which facilities would be most affected.
“This is a reflection that some Republicans at least are waking up to this reality and voting to affirm the work that DoD is doing,” said Andrew Holland, director of studies and senior fellow for energy and climate at the nonpartisan policy organization American Security Project.
Defense authorizations have included similar language before: In 2008, then-Sens. John Warner (R-Va.) and Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) included a similar amendment. But that was a Democratic-controlled Congress; this time, some 45 Republicans voted for the climate-change language, and lawmakers from both sides shot down an attempt to strike the focus on climate change.
“I think it’s maybe the beginning of a turning point in Congress,” Holland said.
For more than a decade, the Pentagon has been clear-eyed about the risks posed by climate change. Rising sea levels threaten coastal installations, while floods, famines, and droughts promise waves of instability and conflict across big chunks of the planet. Even in the climate-change denying Trump administration, Defense Secretary James Mattis has reiterated what is by now the Pentagon’s standard line.
‘‘I agree that the effects of a changing climate — such as increased maritime access to the Arctic, rising sea levels, desertification, among others — impact our security situation,’’ Mattis expressed in testimony prior to his confirmation.
But climate change is deeply polarizing in Congress, where many Republicans still believe it is a “hoax,” or not caused by human activities. ……….
Rising seas, extreme weather, and water stress won’t just affect domestic military infrastructure. America’s ability to project power around the world — and particularly in the Middle East — is likely to be weakened if no action is taken. In a 2012 report, the American Security Project ranked the top five U.S. military facilities most at risk from climate change — Norfolk, Guam, Eglin in Florida, Bahrain, and Diego Garcia, a shown on the map below: [on original]
The latter is the most threatened high-value base. Located on a British atoll, the U.S. base on Diego Garcia is a major hub for operations in the Middle East, allowing large bombers to deploy without being based in Saudi Arabia or Qatar and giving expeditionary access to the Indian Ocean, Persian Gulf, and Red Sea. But due to its location on a low-lying atoll, it’s the most threatened of all.
“It legitimately could disappear in a certain amount of years,” said Holland.
Closer to home, the world’s biggest naval base is an even starker illustration of what lies in store. The Hampton Roads region of Virginia, headquarters of the Atlantic fleet, is already buffeted by increasingly extreme weather and frequent flooding. The sea there has already risen by more than a foot in the past 100 years, and the base currently floods about 10 times a year. It’s going to get much worse — the Union of Concerned Scientists estimates that Norfolk may flood 280 times a year by 2100.
Hampton Roads is a climate change “crucible,” retired Rear Admiral Ann Phillips, who previously headed a Navy task force on climate change, said at a July 12 House roundtable on climate change and the military. “We have nearly every climate-related challenge in our future.”
In a battle over military’s approach to climate change, the military and preparedness won.
Forty-six House Republicans, including almost all of the GOP members of the bipartisan House Climate Solutions Caucus, joined Democrats late Thursday to defeat a bill amendment that would have prevented the Department of Defense from analyzing and addressing climate change.
Introduced by Rep. Scott Perry (R-PA), the amendment would have blocked a provision in the current version of the National Defense Authorization Act(NDAA) that requires a study into the 20-year impacts of climate change on the military. The amendment also would have removed language from the NDAA that recognizes climate change as a “direct threat” to the national security of the United States.
The House voted 185–234 against the amendment. No Democrat voted to support it, and Rep. Peter King (NY) was the only Republican member of the House Climate Solutions Caucus to vote in favor of the amendment. Rep. Rodney Davis (IL), another Republican member of the caucus, did not vote.
The other 22 Republican members of the caucus, including Rep. Darrell Issa (CA), joined their Democratic colleagues to help defeat the amendment. Issa has a 4 percent lifetime score from the League of Conservation Voters and is viewed by many climate activists as a long-time climate science denier.
The Climate Solutions Caucus was formed in early 2016 to bring Republicans and Democrats together to advance meaningful climate change legislation. The caucus uses what has come to be known as the “Noah’s Ark approach” to membership: No one can join without a member of the other party coming on board at the same time.
Rep. Ted Deutch (D-FL), co-chairman of the climate caucus, described the vote as proof that there is a “bipartisan majority in Congress of members who understand that climate change is a real threat to our communities, our economy, and our military readiness.”
“I hope my House colleagues were watching closely; denying climate change is no longer a winning strategy,” Deutch said in a statement.
Thursday’s vote not only backed climate action, it also backed the military. For more than a decade, the Department of Defense has warned that climate change poses a critical national security threat. Secretary of Defense James Mattis has stated that climate change is real and a threat to the military’s assets and activities — a position at odds with the views of President Donald Trump and many in his administration. Mattis also believes the U.S. military needs to cut its dependence on fossil fuels and use renewable energy where it makes sense.
“The Pentagon has long warned that climate change is a grave threat to our national security, and the Secretary of Defense says climate change threatens our military readiness today,” Sara Jordan, legislative representative for the League of Conservation Voters, said in a statement issued Thursday in response to the defeat of the amendment. “Now even a bipartisan majority of Congress agrees — showing just how out of step President Trump and his polluter allies are in their efforts to put polluter profits ahead of our health and national security.”
In late June, the House Armed Services Committee, in a bipartisan vote, passed an amendment, introduced by Rep. Jim Langevin (D-RI), to the annual defense authorization bill that directs the Defense Department to assess the vulnerabilities of the 10 bases in each service most threatened by the effects of climate change. Perry’s amendment would have undercut Langevin’s amendment and other policies at the Defense Department to account for climate change.
During a House floor debate on Thursday, Perry said he introduced the amendment because climate change should not be a priority for military leaders and that lawmakers should not tell the military on what matters to focus. “Literally litanies of other federal agencies deal with environmental issues including climate change,” Perry said.
Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY), a member of the House Climate Solutions Caucus, spoke out against her fellow Republican’s amendment. “We would be remiss in our efforts to protect our national security to not fully account for the risk climate change poses to our bases, our readiness, and to the fulfillment of our armed forces’ mission,” Stefanik said on the House floor.
Rep. Stefanik Speaks on Climate Change During NDAA Floor Debate
In her remarks, Stefanik was echoing the statements made by Richard Spencer, Trump’s Navy secretary nominee, to a Senate committee on Tuesday. Spencer said climate change represents a real threat to the military, Politico reported. “The Navy, from my briefings to date, is totally aware of rising water issues, storm issues, etc.,” he said.
In a statement released Thursday, the American Security Project, a nonpartisan national security educational group, commended the House for striking down Perry’s amendment. “The American Security Project strongly supports addressing climate change as a national security priority. The science around climate change is strong enough to take action,” the group said.
