Lethal Heating: 09/05/19

05/09/2019

Trump's Rollback Of Climate Change Regulations Will Be Felt Far Beyond His Presidency

CNN - Drew Kann

Trump angered environmentalists from the get-go. Video by Lacey Russell and Alex King, CNN

In almost every corner of his administration, President Donald Trump has veered sharply from the policies of his predecessor -- and even past Republicans.
But his rollback of regulations designed to limit global warming is one of the clearest ways he has worked to erase a cornerstone of President Barack Obama's legacy.
From promising to leave the landmark Paris climate accord to relaxing restrictions on power plant emissions, Trump has attempted to remove many of the guardrails installed by the Obama administration to limit the emissions of greenhouse gases.
These rollbacks come at a critical time. Earth just endured its hottest month on record, and Greenland's massive ice sheet is melting an alarming rate.
Last fall, the world's top climate scientists warned that we have barely more than a decade to drastically cut global carbon emissions, to avoid facing the worst consequences of the climate crisis -- droughts, wildfires and food shortages impacting hundreds of millions of people.
Regardless of what happens in the 2020 presidential election, critics say Trump has already cemented an environmental legacy that will be felt by generations to come.
"He is locking in permanent, irreversible damage to our environment through his irresponsible environmental policies, including his efforts to block progress on climate change," said Dr. Michael E. Mann, distinguished professor of atmospheric science at Penn State University and the director of the Penn State Earth System Science Center. "Once we go beyond key tipping points -- the melting of the major ice sheets -- there is no going back."
Here's a look at some of Trump's most consequential climate policy rollbacks:

Weakening fuel economy standards
Last year, the New York Times reported that the Trump administration was seeking to relax fuel efficiency and greenhouse gas emissions benchmarks, a shift that would stamp out one of Obama's signature climate initiatives.
If the proposed change goes into effect, it could have profound consequences for the planet: Transportation emits more greenhouse gases than any other sector of the US economy, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.
But California and several other states have sued to block the change, and there are signs that even some automakers are not on board with Trump's rollbacks.

Replacing the Clean Power Plan
In a boost to electrical utilities and the struggling coal industry, Trump's move to replace Obama's Clean Power Plan (CPP) could have serious consequences for the health of humans and the planet.
The CPP placed flexible limits on carbon dioxide emissions from power plants and according to analysis by Obama's EPA, would have reduced CO2 emissions from power generators by 32 percent compared to 2005 levels by 2030.

A coal plant near Baltimore spews emissions.

Trump's replacement for the CPP is called the Affordable Clean Energy rule and allows states to set their own emissions standards for coal-fueled power plants. Earlier this year, EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler touted the plan, saying it gives power companies "the regulatory certainty they need to continue to reduce emissions and provide affordable and reliable energy for all Americans."
But the new rule could cost American lives. By EPA's own analysis, Trump's rule could result in 1,400 more premature deaths by 2030 than under the CPP. Many states and cities are also suing to block the new regulations from going into effect.

Opening public lands and waters offshore to oil and gas drilling
Many scientists warn that keeping fossil fuels in the ground is critical to tackling the climate crisis. But the Trump administration has moved the US in the opposite direction, opening vast stretches of land and water offshore to oil and gas drilling.
In 2017, the administration shrank two of Utah's national monuments -- Grand-Staircase Escalante National Monument and Bear Ears -- by 51% and 85% respectively. The moves took land areas spanning twice the size of Rhode Island out of protected status and was part of the largest reduction of public lands in US history, according to a study published in the journal Science. The changes open the areas removed from the national monuments to oil and gas development, but both decisions face challenges in court.

The vast wilderness of the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve is seen from a plane.

The administration has also pushed to open Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil and gas exploration, as well as waters offshore along the East and Pacific coasts, and the Arctic.
"The pipeline projects potentially lock in long term extraction of natural gas and petroleum, and therefore have a very long legacy that will extend beyond the next administration," Mann said.

Pulling out of the Paris climate agreement
Trump's 2017 decision to pull the US out of the landmark Paris climate accord that was agreed to by nearly all of the world's countries was a major blow to the global response to the climate crisis.
The decision sent a message to the rest of the world that the US -- which can legally leave the agreement as early as 2020 -- would not be leading the global fight against climate change. And studies have shown the decision has had global implications: a report last year found that Trump's decision has made it easier for other countries to renege on their climate commitments.

Loosening restrictions on methane emissions
Just last week, Trump's EPA announced that it would no longer require oil and gas companies to install monitors that detect methane leaks from new wells, tanks and pipelines.

A fracking rig near Waynesburg, Pa. is shown in 2012.

At a time when the US has become the world's biggest natural gas and oil producer, the move is significant because of the potency of methane's heat trapping capabilities. Though the gas doesn't last in the atmosphere as long as CO2, one ton of methane has 84 to 87 times more global warming potential than the same amount of CO2 over a 20-year period.

Delaying ratification of a treaty on hydrofluorocarbons
Another key global agreement to limit planet-warming gases went into effect earlier this year, but Trump has yet to send it to the Senate to ratify it.
The treaty is called the Kigali Amendment, and it deals with a little-known but highly potent class of greenhouse gases called hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), which are used in refrigerators and air conditioners. The gases are sometimes called "super greenhouse gases" because of their capacity to trap huge amounts of heat in the atmosphere - they have more than 1,000 times greater warming potential than carbon dioxide.
The climate change solutions organization Project Drawdown has found that phasing out these chemicals would be the most impactful solution to stop global warming -- more than eating less meat, driving electric cars or switching to renewable energy.

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Huon Pine Trees Live For 3,000 Years But Climate Change Could Wipe Them Out In The Next 50

ABC News - Felicity Ogilvie

Huon pine has been around for thousands of years. (ABC News: Felicity Ogilvie)

Key points

Huon pines are the second oldest living trees in the world
Experts fear in 50 to 100 years the tree could go extinct
Scientists are taking samples of tree cores to study how the climate has changed

The rare Huon pine, which has existed on Earth for thousands of years, could go extinct due to the effects of climate change, experts warn.
uon pines are the oldest living trees in Australia and the second oldest in the world — only the North American bristle cone lives longer.
Huon pines can live for 3,000 years, meaning some were seedlings before the Greeks invented democracy and well before Julius Caesar was born.
Professor Tim Brodribb from the University of Tasmania is one of those concerned about what carbon dioxide emissions could mean for the giant tree.
"If the emissions continue to rise as they are at the moment, then this species [Huon pine] and a lot of species in Tasmania will be extinct in 100 years for sure," he said.

"The timescale [could be] 100 years or 50 years, depends on how our carbon dynamics work."

Professor Brodribb recently visited a Huon pine forest on Tasmania's West Coast with University of Melbourne scientist Kathy Allen.

Professor Tim Broadribb is concerned about what carbon dioxide emissions could mean for the giant tree. (ABC News: Felicity Ogilvie)

Dr Allen has been using an instrument called a dendrometer to take data every 15 minutes to see how the trees grow.
She is also taking samples of the tree cores to study how the climate has changed.

Kathy Allen takes data every 15 minutes to see how the trees grow. (ABC News: Felicity Ogilvie)

She has observed that in the past 1,000 years, there were only a few hot summers — but that has changed since the 1950s.
"The change you're seeing since the 1950s record is unprecedented," she said.
Professor Brodribb also said the West Coast — where Huon pines grow — is facing a triple threat of increasing temperature, decreasing rainfall and more bushfires.
The old trees are rarely cut down but the timber is rot-proof, enabling sawmillers to salvage logs from the forest floor and river beds.

Sawmiller Bern Bradshaw thinks scientists have got it wrong. (ABC News: Felicity Ogilvie)

Sawmiller Bern Bradshaw, 90, has been working with Huon pines most of his life.
He thinks the scientists have got it wrong and that the trees will survive climate change.
Mr Bradshaw also looked at the tree rings of Huon pine logs.

"I think it's just coped with very warm weather and its also coped with very cold weather," he said.

But his colleague Dianne Coon is terrified about what could happen to the tourism industry and the timber industry in a region that is reliant on tourists taking cruises up the Gordon River to see giant Huon pines.
"If we are to lose something that takes so long to grow and embodies so much history it would be a shame on us all," she said.

Huon pines grow on the West Coast. (ABC News: Felicity Ogilvie)

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Global Heating Made Hurricane Dorian Bigger, Wetter – And More Deadly

The Guardian - Michael Mann | Andrew E Dessler

We know that warm waters fuel hurricanes, and Dorian was strengthened by waters well above average temperatures

‘As climate change has melted glaciers and ice around the world, that water has gone into the oceans.’ Photograph: Ramón Espinosa/AP

Authors

Michael Mann is is Distinguished Professor of Meteorology at Pennsylvania State University and the author of The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars: Dispatches from the Front Lines.
Andrew Dessler is Professor of Atmospheric Sciences and holder of the Reta A. Haynes Chair of Geosciences at Texas A&M University. His most recent book is Science and Politics of Global Climate Change: A Guide to the Debate.

The Bahamas, for those who live there, is simply a place to call home. For many Americans, it’s a dream vacation spot. But Hurricane Dorian turned that dream into a nightmare. And the worst part is this is only the beginning. Because unless we confront the climate crisis, warming will turn more and more of our fantastic landscapes, cities we call paradise and other dream destinations into nightmarish hellscapes.
While the science has yet to come in on the specifics of just how much worse climate change made Dorian, we already know enough to say that warming worsened the damage. Because it’s not a coincidence that Dorian was one of the strongest landfalling storms ever recorded in the Atlantic, with the strongest sustained peak winds east of Florida, and the strongest ever to hit the Bahamas. This comes less than a year after Florida withstood the first landfalling category 5 hurricane in decades, on 5 October – the latest ever in the season for a storm that strong.
On a basic physics level, we know that warm waters fuel hurricanes, and Dorian was strengthened by waters well above average temperatures. The fact that climate change has heated up our oceans means Dorian was stronger than it would have been had we not spent the past 150 years dumping carbon pollution into the atmosphere. Sea surface temperatures were more than 1C warmer in the region where Dorian formed and strengthened than they were before we started burning fossil fuels.
Empirically, there is a roughly 7% increase in maximum sustained wind speeds of the strongest storms for each 1C of warming. Since destructive potential is proportional to the third power of the wind speed, that corresponds to a 23% increase in potential wind damage. We saw that wind damage in the heartbreaking scenes of total devastation that have come in from the Bahamas.
We know that the warmer air gets, the more moisture it can hold – and then turn into flooding rains in a storm like this. And we know that as climate change has melted glaciers and ice around the world, that water has gone into the oceans. The extra water, along with the expansion of water as it’s warmed, means that sea levels have been raised. That means when a storm like Dorian makes landfall, there’s more water for its storm surge, already bolstered by stronger winds, to push further inland.
All that extra water makes hurricanes even more deadly, since it’s generally not the wind but the water that kills people. So although Dorian’s 220mph gusts were incredibly dangerous (and sped up thanks to climate change), it was the 20-plus feet of storm surge and torrential rains that were the most destructive elements.
But there are two other ways that warming has probably worsened Dorian’s damage. One is that all that warm water allowed for the storm to ramp up quickly, undergoing what is known as rapid intensification as it exploded from a moderate category 2 to extreme category 5 over just two days. A recent study has shown that this is getting more common because of climate change, and indeed the past few years have seen many similar examples of this effect in action. Dorian was the fourth category 5 storm in just the last four years.
So while climate change is making it so hurricanes can spin up quickly, it may also be slowing down how fast hurricanes move. Instead of moving across a coast and dissipating as normal, in recent years these storms are lingering longer in place, which means more flooding as the water piles up. For example, that’s exactly what we saw in Houston during Harvey, and in North Carolina during Florence.
Had Dorian been moving at a regular pace of a few miles an hour, the devastation in the Bahamas would have been much less severe. But because it sat in place, basically stationary, the damage has been catastrophic. Again, Dorian is far from unique in moving slowly, as a study last year found a 10% decrease in speed for storms like this globally, while a similar study found a 17% decrease along the east coast of the US. While neither of these studies directly tie that slowdown to climate change, the theory that climate change is changing the jet stream in ways that would lead to stalling storms (a phenomenon one of us has researched) is growing increasingly convincing.
When all these factors combine in one storm, as it has for Dorian, it is truly a nightmare scenario – and a preview of the climate crisis to come. The only question is whether we have the foresight to address it.

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How Has Climate Change Affected Hurricane Dorian?

New York Times - John Schwartz

Credit NASA/EPA, via Shutterstock

The links between hurricanes and climate change are complex, but some aspects are getting clearer.
Tropical storms draw their energy from ocean heat — and more than 90 percent of the heat trapped by greenhouse gas emissions is being stored in the ocean. Storms that survive the cradle of formation can intensify quickly and become immensely powerful.
While it’s common to hear the question, “Was it caused by climate change?” scientists argue that this is an unhelpful way to look at the issue. As Katharine Hayhoe, a climate scientist at Texas Tech University, put it recently on Twitter, “that’s the wrong question. The right one is, ‘how much worse did climate change make it?’”

"Was it caused by climate change?" is the most common question when we hear about an extreme event. But when it comes to hurricanes, that's the wrong question. The right one is, "how much worse did climate change make it?" (thread)
— Katharine Hayhoe (@KHayhoe) August 31, 2019

Like so many hurricanes, Dorian’s origins were unassuming. At 11 a.m. on August 24, the National Hurricane Center in Miami announced a new tropical depression east-southeast of the Lesser Antilles. At the time, it was just Tropical Depression Five.
Now, as that same storm slowly moves away from the Bahamas — which experienced a nightmare scenario of a Category 5 storm stalling over it for 24 hours — it begins its slow roll toward the East Coast of the United States.
A number of recent storms have stopped in one place for extended periods of time, including Harvey, which sat over Houston for days in 2017 and caused unprecedented flooding.
Recent research suggests that climate change has made stalled Atlantic storms more common since the mid-20th century, and that they are more dangerous because they stay in one place for a longer period of time, potentially concentrating their destruction.
Jennifer Francis, a scientist with the Woods Hole Research Center, said, “This is yet another example of the kind of slow-moving tropical systems that we expect to see more often as a response to climate change. Upper-level steering winds are slowing over the continents during summer, so stalling weather systems are more likely.”

Credit Johnny Milano for The New York Times

Hurricanes are steered in part by high-atmosphere winds not directly related to the storm. Dorian slowed to a crawl — about one mile an hour — because the tropical winds that were pushing it westward over the Bahamas weakened, said Joel Cline, a meteorologist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Silver Spring, Md.
Climate change is making hurricanes more destructive in many ways.
Andrew Dessler, a climate scientist at Texas A&M University, said that some of the links between hurricanes and climate change are still being worked out. But, he said, some attributes of storms, particularly the increasing amount of rainfall associated with many of them, has reached a very strong consensus.
A similarly solid consensus has developed about storms getting stronger. There is somewhat less consensus, he said, around the idea that storms are likelier to stall.
The problem with looking for answers in individual storms, he said, is that “because these are rare events, it’s really hard to get good statistics. Picking out trends is difficult.” And so the field draws conclusions from physics and models, and “physics rules the system.”One of the other characteristics of Dorian: Its course has, at times, been difficult to forecast. Gabriel Vecchi, a professor of geosciences at Princeton University, said that forecasts of the storm’s path have actually been “in relative agreement,” but that the people find the remaining degree of uncertainty unsatisfying. “The problem is our standards have gotten so high, because the forecasts have gotten so good,” he said.Mr. Cline said that over the previous two days, Dorian’s track had more closely matched the forecasts. As it travels up the East Coast the storm’s behavior may become even more predictable, he said, as it encounters the typical west-to-east wind flow that defines most of the weather in the Mid-Atlantic region. That should drive Dorian increasingly to the northeast, he said.
Dr. Vecchi warned against trying to attribute too many elements of an individual storm to climate change right away, however, since attribution science has so far been most successful in terms of rainfall. He cautioned against saying that every intense storm was made more powerful because of global warming, since “there have been intense storms in the past.”
Instead, he put it this way: Dorian “looks like what we’re going to have more of in the future.”

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Climate Activists To Argue They Can Break The Law In Order To Save The Planet

ABC The Signal - Stephen Stockwell | Ange Lavoipierre

Emma Dorge was arrested in Brisbane during climate change protests. (Supplied: Will Bri)

Key points

Four climate activists will plead not guilty, arguing that climate change poses an "extraordinary emergency"
The defence has been used by activists successfully in other countries, but never in Australia
The four were arrested during protests last month in Brisbane

When 23-year-old Emma Dorge appears in court to enter her plea, she will be relying on a unique defence.
Charged with traffic offences for blocking Brisbane streets during a protest, she will argue she should be allowed to break the law because she is saving the planet.
"I'm pleading not guilty on the basis of the extraordinary emergency defence, which basically allows for people breaking the law in an extraordinary emergency," she told The Signal.
"We're in the midst of a crisis and that's the climate crisis, we believe we've essentially been forced to break the law to avert a far more catastrophic outcome."
On Wednesday, Ms Dorge will be joined by three other climate change activists in Brisbane Magistrates Court.
They'll all be relying on the defence and hoping to set a new legal precedent.

What did Emma do?
Ms Dorge is a member of the Extinction Rebellion, a global organisation of environmental activists.

Emma Dorge joined a protest organised by Extinction Rebellion, a group of environmental activists. (Supplied)

The group's activists have occupied the Scottish parliament and even glued themselves to the front of banks in Manchester in a world-wide campaign of civil disobedience meant to force governments into action on climate change.
On August 6, members of the group in Brisbane marched through the streets, with some activists sitting down to block a major intersections in the city's CBD.

Hundreds of people marched along the road in the middle of the city last month. (ABC News: Dan Smith)

Police had just pulled a protester from a group blocking George Street when Ms Dorge said she threw herself into the gap, linking arms with the remaining activists.
"A police officer almost immediately jumped on me and pushed me down," she said.
The officer arrested her for a traffic offence and put her into a nearby paddywagon.

The Signal
Breaking the law in a climate crisis

A Queensland court is about to hear a case that climate change is a good enough excuse to break the law. It's an argument that's worked overseas, but never here. So could that change?

The protest ended with 70 people charged by police.
"Signing a petition or making a phone call does not force action to happen," said Ms Dorge.
"But taking to the streets and sitting down and not moving, once you get that mass of people, business as usual can not continue and Brisbane can't continue to function as a city.
"Politicians will be forced to listen to us and to act."

What is the defence?
The extraordinary emergency defence has been used for centuries, according to Dr Nicole Rogers from the School of Law at Southern Cross University.
"It's origins actually lie in a case where various individuals were accused of murder," she said.
"There had been a shipwreck, they were all in a boat and a decision was made basically to kill and eat the weakest, youngest member of the crew, on the basis they all needed to survive."
It's not often used to defend cannibals these days, and is more likely to be argued when someone breaks a road rule so they can save a life, for example.
Climate activists have taken an interest in the law, said Dr Rogers, because of how the statue uses the phrase, 'extraordinary emergency'.
"We're seeing this ongoing process where parliaments and governments and universities and even the Pope are all making declarations of climate change emergency," she said.
"So we're seeing it recognised publicly and framed as an extraordinary emergency.
"It's interesting to see this particular section of the Queensland Criminal Code being activated by climate activists."
In fact, the defence has worked before, just not in Australia.

Police made dozens of arrests when Extinction Rebellion protesters blocked traffic in the Brisbane CBD. (ABC News: Dan Smith)

Many common law jurisdictions around the world have a similar statute to "extraordinary emergency" and climate change activists in the United Kingdom successfully argued such a defence in 2008.
"Greenpeace activists who scaled the chimney of a power station and painted graffiti on it actually were acquitted on the basis of statutory version of necessity in the UK statute," Dr Rogers said.
"It hasn't been followed by similar examples until this year. One of the founders of Extinction Rebellion and his colleague were acquitted, again it was graffiti damage that they'd been charged with and the jury was quite prepared to accept their argument that the climate crisis justified their actions."

Will it work?
Even if judges accept the argument from activists that there is a climate emergency, the defence still has a long way to go, according to Dr Rogers.
"Judges are coming back and saying, 'Well there are all sorts of legal avenues that are available to activists," she explained.
If activists are to win they would have to prove actions, like blocking roads, are the only options left to them.
Regardless of the outcome of Ms Dorge's case, Dr Rogers believes activists should continue to test the extraordinary emergency defence in courts.
"The question of what is reasonable behaviour is shifting and also what is lawfulness in light of the extraordinary emergency of climate change," she said.
"I think inevitably it will change. I don't know when, I don't know how, but I think the resilience of legal norms in the face of climate change is questionable, so I think law as we know it is going to change."

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