Climate Change News & Discussions

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caltrek
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Re: Climate Change News & Discussions

Post by caltrek »

You still a fan of this guy, Caltrek?
When did I say I was a fan of Manchin?

That is like saying you are a fan of Boris Johnson because, if memory serves me correct, you indicated that he was not as bad as Donald Trump.

I do think it is important to note that Manchin's state, West Virginia, voted for Trump 68.6% to Biden's 29.7%. It is hardly surprising that Manchin would put some distance between himself and Biden. Sure, if I had my way, West Virginia would have voted 68.6% for Biden (after sending a delegation to the Democratic convention consisting exclusively of Sanders supporters). Unfortunately, that is not the reality of the situation.
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wjfox
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Re: Climate Change News & Discussions

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raklian
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Re: Climate Change News & Discussions

Post by raklian »

wjfox wrote: Sat Oct 16, 2021 6:11 pm
I think at this point, Biden will have to change his negotiation tactics from that of a carrot to a stick. He needs to lay out to Manchin how he will punish him if he doesn't stick with the overall Democratic agenda.
To know is essentially the same as not knowing. The only thing that occurs is the rearrangement of atoms in your brain.
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Re: Climate Change News & Discussions

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That would require the Biden Administration to both actually desire to bring down carbon emissions even if it threatens a given industry that acts as a lobbying force and it would require a spine. Two things the administration does not have.
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Re: Climate Change News & Discussions

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erowind
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Re: Climate Change News & Discussions

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That thread being locked is really just the icing on the cake. I think there is a concerted cultural phenomena to suppress and otherwise censor substantive discussion of climate change and ecology in this society. I call it a cultural phenomena because though I do believe that there is active information warfare taking place, and some scientists have effectively been delivered gag orders already (see link,) there is also a concerted effort by private individuals and groups in positions of power independent of systemic institutions doing the same thing. In other words, not only is there a propaganda campaign on the matter, but people generally believe it and self-enforce the propaganda and censorship.

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-02669-8
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caltrek
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Re: Climate Change News & Discussions

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^^^ For the United States government, the situation was particularly bad under Trump. There was a systematic and concerted effort to suppress any mention of the effects of climate change and its anthropogenic causes.

Under the Biden administration, officials can now at lest talk about the problem. Unfortunately, that is where we should have been decades ago. At this point dramatic action is needed. As noted in earlier posts, this dramatic action may very well be blocked by a coalition of Republican and conservative Democratic senators. Even the more ambitious agenda proposed by the Biden administration was probably not enough. We are already starting to pay the steep price for ignoring the problem. For future generations the problem is likely to get a lot worse before it gets better, but hey, at least government scientists can now talk about how the situation is so pathetically bad.

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caltrek
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Re: Climate Change News & Discussions

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Speaking of the Biden administration at least talking about the situation, the White recently released a statement on the matter. Coming form the White House, it is a public document, so limitations on length of citation need not apply. I have provided an edited version in the quote box below to shorten it up a little bit to help focus on what I regard as the most essential points.

Fact Sheet: Prioritizing Climate in Foreign Policy and National Security

https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-roo ... -security/

Extract:
(The White House) The…National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Climate Change…is the most authoritative assessment from the Intelligence Community (IC) and represents the consensus view of all 18 IC elements. The U.S. Federal Science Agencies provided the baseline observational data and climate modeling that enabled the IC to conduct the geopolitical analysis of the implications and risks to the United States….

Climate change will increasingly exacerbate a number of risks to U.S. national security interests, from physical impacts that could cascade into security challenges, to how countries respond to the climate challenge. While the IC judges that all of these risks will increase and that no country will be spared from challenges directly related to climate change.

The three broad category of risks are: 1) increased geopolitical tension as countries argue over who should be doing more, and how quickly, and compete in the ensuing energy transition; 2) cross-border geopolitical flashpoints from the physical effects of climate change as countries take steps to secure their interests; and 3) climate effects straining country-level stability in select countries and regions of concern.

... Both climate change threats and the global efforts to address climate change will influence U.S. defense strategic interests, relationships, competition, and priorities. The Department of Defense (DOD) Climate Risk Analysis (DCRA)—the first Pentagon report focused on the strategic risks of climate change—provides a starting point for a shared understanding of these risks and lays out a path forward. The DCRA describes how DOD will integrate climate considerations into strategic, planning, budget, and other key documents, as well as engagements with allies and partners. Inclusion of climate considerations across these documents will ensure that DOD considers the effects of climate change at every level, which will be essential to train, fight, and win in an increasingly complex environment.

… Climate considerations will be included in key DOD documents, such as the forthcoming National Defense Strategy, which guides the ways DOD meets national security challenges. Additionally, the DCRA will inform how the Department incorporates climate considerations into its engagements with allies and partners. For example, DOD worked closely with NATO Allies to develop a Climate Change and Security Agenda and subsequent Action Plan in June of this year.

With a focus on strategic and mission risk, the DCRA is complementary to the recently released Climate Adaption Plan (CAP), which is focused on ensuring that DOD can operate under changing climate conditions. DOD will also work in coordination with allies and partners, to prevent, mitigate, account for, and respond to defense and security risks associated with climate change.

... The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is on the frontlines of the climate crisis, with a duty to safeguard the homeland from today’s increasingly severe, frequent, and destructive climate change related emergencies, forecasting and preparing for future risks and opportunities created by tomorrow’s challenges. DHS supports all communities by leading through acute crises and envisioning the actions needed to increase our future resilience. As part of that mandate, today DHS is releasing the Strategic Framework for Addressing Climate Change, signed by Secretary Mayorkas on [October 20, 2021], to lead adaptation to changes in the climate risk landscape resulting from strategic competition, demographic trends, aging infrastructure, and emerging technology.

The Strategic Framework will guide DHS’s implementation of President Biden’s Executive Order on addressing the impacts of climate change at home and abroad, and includes the five lines of effort: empowering individuals and communities to develop climate resilience; building readiness to respond to increases in climate-driven emergencies; incorporating climate science into strategy, policy, programs, and budgets; investing in a sustainable and resilient DHS; and ensuring the DHS workforce is informed on climate change. The need to achieve equity will be a guiding principle throughout each line of effort described in the Strategic Framework.

The Framework was developed through the first-ever DHS Climate Change Action Group (CCAG), comprised of senior officials from across the Department and focused on promoting resilience and addressing multiple risks, including flooding, extreme heat, drought, and wildfires.

…In Executive Order 14013, President Biden called for an assessment of the impact climate change is having on migration. This assessment marks the first time the U.S. Government is officially recognizing and reporting on this linkage. The report identifies migration as an important form of adaptation to the impacts of climate change and in some cases, an essential response to climate threats, to livelihoods and wellbeing; therefore it requires careful management to ensure it is safe, orderly, and humane. Development and humanitarian assistance programs help address underlying causes of forced migration and displacement in the face of insecurity. Addressing individuals’ human security can decrease the likelihood of migration and the second-order implications for international security. It is critical to approach these efforts in a way that acknowledges that in almost all cases climate change is not the sole driver of migration.

The Report on the Impact of Climate Change on Migration can be found here: https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/u ... ration.pdf
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Re: Climate Change News & Discussions

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Historical analysis finds no precedent for the rate of coal, gas power decline needed to limit climate change to 1.5C
https://phys.org/news/2021-10-historica ... power.html
by Cell Press

Limiting climate change to the 1.5°C target set by the Paris Climate Agreement will likely require coal and gas power use to decline at rates that are unprecedented for any large country, an analysis of decadal episodes of fossil fuel decline in 105 countries between 1960 and 2018 shows. Furthermore, the findings, published October 22 in the journal One Earth, suggest that the most rapid historical cases of fossil fuel decline occurred when oil was replaced by coal, gas, or nuclear power in response to energy security threats of the 1970s and the 1980s.

Decarbonizing the energy sector is a particularly important strategy for reaching the goal of net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, which is necessary in order to prevent global average temperatures from climbing beyond 1.5°C this century. However, few studies have investigated the historical precedent for such a sudden and sweeping transition—especially the decline of carbon-intensive technologies that must accompany the widespread adoption of greener ones.

"This is the first study that systematically analyzed historical cases of decline in fossil fuel use in individual countries over the last 60 years and around the world," says Jessica Jewell, an associate professor in energy transitions at Chalmers University in Sweden, a professor at the University of Bergen in Norway, and the corresponding author of the study. "Prior studies sometimes looked at the world as a whole but failed to find such cases, because on the global level the use of fossil fuels has always grown over time."

"We also studied recent political pledges to completely phase out coal power, which some 30 countries made as part of the Powering Past Coal Alliance. We found that these pledges do not aim for faster coal decline than what has occurred historically," adds Jewell. "In other words, they plan for largely business as usual."

To explore whether any periods of historical fossil fuel decline are similar to scenarios needed to achieve the Paris target, Jewell and her colleagues, Vadim Vinichenko, a post-doctoral researcher at Chalmers and Aleh Cherp, a professor at Central European University in Austria and Lund University in Sweden, identified 147 episodes within a sample of 105 countries between 1960 and 2018 in which coal, oil, or natural gas use declined faster than 5% over a decade. Rapid decline in fossil fuel use has been historically limited to small countries, such as Denmark, but such cases are less relevant to climate scenarios, where decline should take place in continental-size regions.
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Re: Climate Change News & Discussions

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https://www.cmu.edu/news/stories/archiv ... nance.html

Pittsburgh becomes America’s first major city to pass a dark skies ordinance :)
This is the first ordinance of its kind in the country and aims to replace the city's 35,000 streetlights, and install up to 8,000 new ones.

Dark sky lighting uses technology, like motion sensors, dimmers and timers, cooler temperature bulbs, and shielding — which makes sure light is directed down instead of up — to reduce light pollution while providing enough lighting for safety and comfort.

The city plans to retrofit existing streetlights to dark sky compliant LED lights. Pittsburgh's current 4,300 LED streetlights glow at 5,000 kelvins and give off a bright blue-white glare. The new LED lights will be at a lower temperature and look much softer and warmer, as recommended by the International Dark-Sky Association.
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