Category Archives: Everyone

This year’s U.N. climate talks — brought to you by coal?

by antonioorozco Posted on December 4, 2018

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KATOWICE, POLAND — There’s a specter hanging over the COP24 climate talks, happening this week in the small city of Katowice, Poland. It’s not the goalpost-moving report that the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released two months ago about the need to limit warming to 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit (instead of 3.6 degrees). It’s not the conspicuous absence of prominent U.S. politicians — with the exception of former California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, who parachuted in, Terminator-style, to brag about his four low-emission Hummers. (Wait, what?)

Nope, the cloud over COP24 is coal dust. Literally. Smokestacks and coal plumes are visible from the spaceship-shaped conference center, and the Wujek coal mine is less than three miles away. And if you thought Poland would try to downplay its historical (and, well, current) reliance on coal, you’d be wrong: The booth for the town of Katowice, sitting right next to the official one for all of Poland, proudly touts coal. And not just a little coal — coal made into soap, coal made into earrings and other jewelry, coal under glass, coal in cages — lots and lots of coal.

This is no accident. The host city is in the heart of the Polish region of Silesia, which sits on a lucrative coal deposit. A Katowice native running the booth explained that here everyone has a connection to coal: a family member or friend who has either worked in the mines or supported the industry in some other form. Coal isn’t just an energy source in Katowice — it’s a way of life.

COP24’s president, Michał Kurtyka, a state secretary in Poland’s Ministry of Energy, argued in his opening remarks that bringing the climate summit to Katowice was a strategic decision: to exhibit a city and region in need of transition away from its lifeblood. “How does one tell a region of 5 million people — in over 70 cities across the region — to just move on, your world is that of the past?” he asked the assembled dignitaries.

It’s a rhetorical question familiar in the United States, where coal-mining jobs have been on a fairly steady decline since the 1980s. But while coal in the U.S. now makes up 30 percent of electricity generation, thanks largely to falling natural gas prices, in Poland coal still accounts for almost 80 percent. And the government is planning the construction of further plants.

“Every government in Poland is coal, coal,” Monika Sadkowska, a Warsaw-based climate activist, told Grist. “The only strong worker union in Poland is mining. And every government is afraid of them.”

Even as the IPCC declared in its October report that coal must be almost entirely phased out by mid-century to keep average global temperatures from cresting over the 2.7 degrees F mark, Polish President Andrzej Duda has been hesitant to renounce it. “According to experts, we have coal deposits that will last 200 years,” he said at a press conference on Monday. “It would be hard to expect us to give up on it totally.”

Soap made from coal is displayed at the Katowice booth at the COP24 climate talks.Meghan Shea

Instead, the Polish government is promoting “carbon neutral” ways to have its coal and burn it, too. In a pamphlet handed out at the Polish country booth, the delegation is promoting “forest coal farms,” or tree-planting projects that will “enable the absorbance of even more CO2” from the country’s massive coal installations.

At a press conference, Robert Cyglicki, the director of Greenpeace for central and eastern Europe, was blunt about the scientific reality of such a project. “One coal power plant, Bełchatów, emits more annually than all Polish forests can absorb,” he said of the world’s largest brown coal-burning facility. Yes, forests are great carbon sinks. But they’re no match for all of Poland’s old, dirty coal plants.

And while Poland has started spreading the gospel of coal at COP24, the U.S. is poised to join the chorus. Last year, at COP23 in Bonn, Germany, the Trump administration ran a coal-focused side event that was interrupted by young protestors. This year, it has a similar gathering in the works, and reports say the U.S. delegation is likely to push for coal to be part of any future global energy mix.

Amid the heavy coal boosterism, this year’s conference has brought attention to the plight of workers whose livelihoods will be changed under an energy transformation. France’s recent “yellow vest” protests were in response to an increased fuel tax, and the populism spreading across Europe is omnipresent at COP24.

In Katowice, most delegates are calling for a “just transition” — a switch in energy sources that doesn’t leave society’s most vulnerable behind. Just as Trump has promised to save the coal industry, Poland’s leaders are promising to provide alternative livelihoods for their countrymen currently working in its mines and coal-fired plants.

Piotr Trzaskowski, the Polish organizer of 350.org, says the “just transition” talk in Poland is just that — talk. Coal is king here, and as President Duda suggested, Polish officials aren’t likely to abandon it. “Their vision is making sure it stays, but just tweaking it here and there,” he told Grist.

Meanwhile, attendees representing developing nations may be less concerned about what happens to today’s fossil fuel workers than with the fact that climate change’s worst effects are still on the horizon.

“Small islands feel like the ‘just transition’ conversation is only happening vis a vis workers who might lose their jobs,” explains Anabella Rosemberg, the international program director of Greenpeace. “They say,’ What about us? Yes they will lose jobs, but we are sinking.’ The ‘just transition’ for them is 1.5 degrees C (2.7 degrees F).”

But to even dream of averting 2.7 degrees F will involve phasing out coal — and coal workers’ jobs — fast.

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This year’s U.N. climate talks — brought to you by coal?

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What’s the Environmental Impact of Flying Cross-Country?

by AnaBruxner Posted on December 3, 2018

With millions traversing the globe to reach their loved ones for the holidays, travel (particularly air travel) is top of mind.?How can I avoid the lines??Will I be able to fit all these gifts in my carry-on??But one more question arises in the environmentally conscious: What’s this going to do to my carbon footprint?

Aviation is, at its core, a fossil fuel industry, one which guzzles a shocking 5 million barrels of oil every single day. Burning this fuel to get you to your grandma’s place in Wisconsin or that winter getaway in Hawaii currently contributes to close to 2.5 percent of total carbon emissions. Experts expect this figure to rise to 22 percent by 2050, even as other sectors start cutting.

Additionally, we are flying more than ever. Demand for flights increases daily, to the point that demand from new and existing travelers is supposed to double by 2035. With?the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) warning us that we have just 12 years to avoid apocalyptic climate change disaster, this rising trend in air travel is certainly bleak.

The third problem? While aircraft is becoming more fuel efficient, electric planes are still decades away. We have yet to invent a battery that can deliver as much power as jet fuel and, so far, the technology is cost prohibitive.

Most of us are ignorant of how our flying behavior contributes to climate change, largely because it just isn’t communicated to us very often. Think about it…when was the last time you saw an advertisement mentioning the environmental impact of flying? New cars, appliances, even houses are required to disclose energy efficiency. Planes and airlines? Not so.

So what’s to be done? We won’t be shutting down cheap air travel anytime soon (aviation was purposefully excluded from the Kyoto and Paris climate change agreements) and regulatory organizations are dragging their feet, avoiding any plan that might have negative economic implications.

Here’s what you can do about this.

Your government, your favorite airline, the companies that control global wealth…they won’t do a thing as long as citizens remain blissfully unaware of the impact of aviation emissions. Want a carbon tax on flights? Speak up.

Connect with your peers. Encourage everyone to use their voice to make change. Maybe then, we will be able to find a less damaging solution, while still retaining access to global travel and that vacay you always dreamed of in Hawaii.

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are solely those of the author and may not reflect those of Care2, Inc., its employees or advertisers.

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What’s the Environmental Impact of Flying Cross-Country?

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3 things to know ahead of this year’s UN climate talks in Poland.

by PaulinaNesmith Posted on December 2, 2018

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Thousands of the world’s top officials have gathered in Katowice, Poland to negotiate over the nuts and bolts of global climate solutions. The 24th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (otherwise known for its jazzier name, COP 24) kicks off on December 3, and will continue over the following two weeks.

A lot is riding on the summit. This year marks the deadline set by the Paris climate agreement during COP 21 to hammer out a rulebook for critical commitments made by nearly every country in the world to slow down climate change and avoid hugely damaging natural, economic, and human costs.

According to the Nature Conservancy, “This COP is just as important as the one in Paris, but without the fanfare.”

We’ll always have Paris … but a lot has changed since that climate accord was signed in April 2016. The United States has turned away from its Paris agreement pledge. The United Kingdom is preoccupied by Brexit, making it less likely to be able to focus on environmental goals. And Brazil, which recently backtracked on its offer to host next year’s U.N. climate talks, is about to inaugurate a leader who wants to open up the Amazon rainforest to deforestation, and could eff up the planet for all of us.

So what are we to make of COP 24 against all this ruckus? Here are three signs that already hint to what we might expect from this year’s global climate talks.

Most U.S. politicians are sitting this one out.

Look, given his recent comments on his administration’s own climate report, no one expected President “I don’t believe it” Trump to high-tail it to COP 24. But few if any top Democrats, who recently said they plan to use their House majority to prioritize the issue of climate change, seem to be schlepping it to Poland this year. According to Axios, no Democratic senators will be attending COP 24. Even the top Democrat on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, Rep. Frank Pallone of New Jersey, will be sending staff in his place.

Last year, several big-name politicians, including California Governor Jerry Brown and Oregon Governor Katie Brown, attended COP 23 in Bonn, Germany — but they won’t be attending this year. What gives? According to congressional aids, it’s about timing: COP 24 is a being held nearly a month later in the year compared to 2017’s talks, and Congress is still in session.

Coal is going to be creeping on the conference.

COP 24 will be held in Katowice, a coal mining city that is among the most polluted in Europe. Poland’s coal habit is becoming more expensive and damaging to the environment, but the country is still struggling to part ways with it. Poland currently uses coal to meet a whopping 80 percent of its energy needs. One of Poland’s leading coal companies, Jastrzębska Spółka Węglowa (JSW), was the first official sponsor of the climate talks. Several other coal companies have followed suit.

The Trump administration has not been shy about its own love affair with coal. This year, it’s planning to have its own coal convention as a side event to COP 24 touting the “long-term potential” for so-called “clean coal.” Pffft.

The recent flurry of climate reports might add real urgency to negotiations.

There has been a spate of major scientific reports in the run-up to COP 24, including this one and this one and this one. The most comprehensive of these is arguably the 2018 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report, which underscores just how far governments still have to go if they’re to reach the goal agreed upon in Paris — namely to try to limit global warming to less than 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. But the IPCC report found that even in a 1.5-degree scenario, there will likely be an increase in extreme weather conditions, resulting in a major uptick in hunger, poverty, mass migration, and resource-driven conflicts.

The reports just might be the scary kick-in-the-ass world leaders need to up their commitments to reduce carbon emissions.

Stay tuned for Grist’s on the ground coverage of the goings-on at COP 24.

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3 things to know ahead of this year’s UN climate talks in Poland.

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3 things to know ahead of this year’s U.N. climate talks in Poland.

by MarianaTrujillo Posted on December 2, 2018

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Thousands of the world’s top officials have gathered in Katowice, Poland to negotiate over the nuts and bolts of global climate solutions. The 24th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (otherwise known for its jazzier name, COP24) kicks off on December 3, and will continue over the following two weeks.

A lot is riding on the summit. This year marks the deadline set by the Paris climate agreement during COP21 to hammer out a rulebook for critical commitments made by nearly every country in the world to slow down climate change and avoid hugely damaging natural, economic, and human costs.

According to the Nature Conservancy, “This COP is just as important as the one in Paris, but without the fanfare.”

We’ll always have Paris … but a lot has changed since that climate accord was signed in April 2016. The United States has turned away from its Paris agreement pledge. The United Kingdom is preoccupied by Brexit, making it less likely to be able to focus on environmental goals. And Brazil, which recently backtracked on its offer to host next year’s U.N. climate talks, is about to inaugurate a leader who wants to open up the Amazon rainforest to deforestation, and could eff up the planet for all of us.

So what are we to make of COP24 against all this ruckus? Here are three signs that already hint to what we might expect from this year’s global climate talks.

Most U.S. politicians are sitting this one out.

Look, given his recent comments on his administration’s own climate report, no one expected President “I don’t believe it” Trump to high-tail it to COP24. But few if any top Democrats, who recently said they plan to use their House majority to prioritize the issue of climate change, seem to be schlepping it to Poland this year. According to Axios, no Democratic senators will be attending COP24. Even the top Democrat on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, Rep. Frank Pallone of New Jersey, will be sending staff in his place.

Last year, several big-name politicians, including California Governor Jerry Brown and Oregon Governor Katie Brown, attended COP23 in Bonn, Germany — but they won’t be attending this year. What gives? According to congressional aids, it’s about timing: COP24 is a being held nearly a month later in the year compared to 2017’s talks, and Congress is still in session.

Coal is going to be creeping on the conference.

COP24 will be held in Katowice, a coal mining city that is among the most polluted in Europe. Poland’s coal habit is becoming more expensive and damaging to the environment, but the country is still struggling to part ways with it. Poland currently uses coal to meet a whopping 80 percent of its energy needs. One of Poland’s leading coal companies, Jastrzębska Spółka Węglowa (JSW), was the first official sponsor of the climate talks. Several other coal companies have followed suit.

The Trump administration has not been shy about its own love affair with coal. This year, it’s planning to have its own coal convention as a side event to COP24 touting the “long-term potential” for so-called “clean coal.” Pffft.

The recent flurry of climate reports might add real urgency to negotiations.

There has been a spate of major scientific reports in the run-up to COP24, including this one and this one and this one. The most comprehensive of these is arguably the 2018 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report, which underscores just how far governments still have to go if they’re to reach the goal agreed upon in Paris — namely to try to limit global warming to less than 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. But the IPCC report found that even in a 1.5-degree scenario, there will likely be an increase in extreme weather conditions, resulting in a major uptick in hunger, poverty, mass migration, and resource-driven conflicts.

The reports just might be the scary kick-in-the-ass world leaders need to up their commitments to reduce carbon emissions.

Stay tuned for Grist’s on the ground coverage of the goings-on at COP24.

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3 things to know ahead of this year’s U.N. climate talks in Poland.

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What the Trump administration got wrong on its own climate report (pretty much everything)

by KirkGroomawqml Posted on November 30, 2018

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This story was originally published by the Bulletin and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

The federal government’s new National Climate Assessment is the latest scientific report to confirm the devastating effects of climate change: Extreme hot weather is getting more common, wildfires are becoming more devastating, rising sea levels are forcing people from their homes, and so forth. “Climate change is transforming where and how we live and presents growing challenges to human health and quality of life, the economy, and the natural systems that support us,” the report says. And without rapid action to reduce carbon emissions, these problems are going to get worse. A lot worse.

The Trump administration has responded to the climate crisis by rolling back regulations and policies intended to reduce carbon emissions — exactly the opposite of what experts say is required to slow global warming. So it was no surprise when the Trump administration tried to bury the inconvenient report by releasing it on the afternoon of Black Friday. It didn’t work, though.

On Monday, when asked about the report’s conclusion that climate change will wreak havoc on the U.S. economy, President Trump said, “I don’t believe it.” Tuesday, the White House doubled down on its climate denial, with Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders questioning the methodology and conclusions of the climate report and saying it was “not based on facts.” That phrase is a fitting description for the talking points offered up by the White House. With one exception, none of these points is factually accurate:

Climate change won’t affect the economy. The president may not “believe” it, but economists do. The report released a few days ago says that if climate change is left unchecked, “annual losses in some sectors are estimated to grow to hundreds of billions of dollars per year by the end of the century.”

It’s worth noting that the 1,656-page report was issued by Trump’s own government. It is backed by NASA, NOAA, the Pentagon, and 10 other federal scientific agencies. It represents decades of work by more than 300 authors.

Trump is leading on clean air and water. The president and his spokespeople have repeatedly tried to divert attention from climate change by claiming that what really matters is clean air and water. “The president is certainly leading on what matters most in this process, and that’s on having clean air, clean water. In fact, the United States continues to be a leader on that front,” Sanders said at the White House press conference. In case anyone missed it, she said it three times.

First off, the president is not leading on clean air and water. In fact, he has been working steadily to overturn or relax rules and programs designed to protect air and water, everything from the Clean Power Plan to fuel efficiency standards. The only reason America’s air and water are relatively clean today is because of policies and legislation adopted before Trump took office. The level of particulate matter in the air actually increased last year, after a long period of steady decline.

More important, the continued burning of fossil fuels is expected to make both the air and the water more polluted. The National Climate Assessment estimates with “high confidence” that global warming will increase ozone levels across the nation’s central region, and that it will lead to increased smoke from wildfires.

What the Trump administration fails to understand is that climate change is air pollution. Human activities are polluting the air with heat-trapping gases that are raising the planet’s temperature to feverish levels. Reducing climate change is simply a matter of reducing the air pollutants that are causing it.

America’s air is the cleanest ever. In an interview with the Washington Post on Monday, Trump asserted that the nation’s air and water is “right now at a record clean.” Um, no.

The United States has relatively clean air, but not the world’s best. Canada, Australia, and four other countries have cleaner air by at least one metric. And thanks to wildfires exacerbated by climate change, Northern California literally had the world’s worst air quality earlier this month, dirtier even than the air above smoggy mega-cities in China and India.

The new report relies on extreme climate models, not facts. At the press conference, Sanders claimed that the latest climate assessment “is based on the most extreme model scenario, which contradicts long-established trends … It’s not data-driven.”

Not true, say authors of the report. In a Twitter thread, climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe of Texas Tech University said Sanders actually made two false statements, because Hayhoe and other authors of the report “considered many scenarios” including ones in which carbon emissions would be very low, and the observed increase in carbon emissions over the past 10 to 15 years has been consistent with the scenarios modeled in the report.

The report is based on decades of federal data, not just models — data that show carbon dioxide levels and global temperatures rising in tandem. As Axios reported last week, the Earth has been warmer than average for 406 months in a row: “This means that no one under the age of 32 has ever experienced a cooler-than-average month on this planet.” That’s an entire generation.

Climate modeling is difficult and imprecise. As Sanders said at the press conference, “Modeling the climate is an extremely complicated science that is never exact.” OK, score one true statement for Sarah.

What Sanders didn’t say, though, is that computer models have done a good job of predicting what has already happened to the climate, and they are constantly improving. Also, climate models are more likely to underestimate than overestimate the amount of long-term future change.

Obama’s science adviser agrees with Trump. One of Sanders’ talking points seemed to suggest that skepticism about the climate report was bipartisan: “Even Obama’s undersecretary for science didn’t believe the radical conclusions of the report that was released.” Sanders neglected to mention a few key facts about Steven E. Koonin, the former undersecretary who has frequently argued that climate science is not “settled.”

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Koonin is a theoretical physicist, not a climate scientist. During the Obama administration, he served within the Energy Department for only 18 months, with limited budget authority and responsibilities. Sanders could just as easily have called Koonin “the former chief scientist for the multinational oil and gas company BP,” a position he held for five years. Or she could have called Koonin “the former Obama official that Trump’s EPA administrator wanted to use special authority to hire.” Either of those identifications would have made it clear that Koonin has far more in common with Trump than Obama.

The fact that one of Obama’s high-level employees doesn’t agree with the latest climate report is meaningless. But it’s a classic climate-denier strategy: Lean heavily on the few scientists who don’t agree with the mainstream consensus on climate change, and hope that the public will be fooled into thinking that scientists are evenly divided on the issue.

Based on facts. During its live broadcast of the press conference, CNN took the unusual step of displaying a “Facts First” sidebar next to Sanders. As the press secretary criticized the report, CNN posted a graphic with bullet points about the report: “Climate Change report involved 300 scientists, 13 federal agencies; Co-Author: Not paid for report; Open for review & transparency before publishing.”

It almost seemed as though CNN was trying to “inoculate” its viewers against what Sanders might say, a communications strategy that may be more effective than debunking false statements that have already been made. If that’s true, perhaps it would be better for me to focus on what the Trump administration isn’t talking about, than on the climate claptrap that came out of the White House over the past few days.

Here’s what Trump and Sanders are mum on: the other climate report published by the federal government on Black Friday. In that report, the Interior Department and the U.S. Geological Survey estimated that the extraction and burning of fossil fuels produced on federal lands, including offshore areas, was responsible for about one-fourth of the nation’s greenhouse gas emissions from 2005 to 2014. The Trump administration wants to lease even more public land to drillers, at bargain-basement prices, which will make global warming worse. That’s not just a bad deal for taxpayers; it’s a bad deal for everyone on Earth.

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What the Trump administration got wrong on its own climate report (pretty much everything)

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We broke down what climate change will do, region by region

by AmparoDuhig0526 Posted on November 29, 2018

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Look, at this point, even the most stubborn among us know that climate change is coming for our asses. We really don’t have much time until the climate plagues we’re already getting previews of — mega-wildfires, rising sea-levels, superstorm after superstorm — start increasing in frequency. The 4th National Climate Assessment says all that and much more is on its way.

Here’s the thing: Not all regions in the U.S. are going to experience climate change in the same way. Your backyard might suffer different climate consequences than my backyard. And, let’s be honest, we need to know what’s happening in our respective spaces so we can be prepared. I’m not saying it’s time to start prepping your bunker, but I would like to know if my family should consider moving to higher ground or stock up on maple syrup.

Luckily, that new report — which Trump tried to bury on Black Friday — breaks down climate change’s likely impacts on 10 specific regions. Unluckily, the chapters are super dense.

Silver lining: We at Grist divvied up the chapters and translated them into news you can actually use.

Northeast

Ahh, the Northeast, home to beautiful autumn leaves, delicious maple syrup, and copious amounts of ticks bearing disease. What’s not to love? A lot, according to this report.

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Our region is looking at “the largest temperature increase in the contiguous United States” — 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit by the time 2035 rolls around. We’re going to be slammed with the highest rates of sea-level rise in the whole damn country, and we’re going to have the highest rate of ocean warming. Urban centers are particularly at risk (remember Superstorm Sandy?). And if you’re a fan of snuggling up beside the fire in your Connecticut mansion (or whatever), be warned that winters are projected to warm in our region three times faster than summers. That means delayed ski seasons and less time to tap maple trees.

Things are gonna be rough on us humans, but dragonflies and damselflies — two insects literally no one ever thinks about, but that flourish in healthy ecosystems — are pretty much doomed. The report says their habitat could decline by as much as 99 percent by 2080.

Sea-level rise, flooding, and extreme weather poses a mental health threat to Northeasterners. Impacted coastal communities can expect things like “anxiety, depression, and post-traumatic stress disorder.” But it’s not all bad: The assessment portends more intense (read: Instagram-able) fall foliage and more forest growth.

— Zoya Teirstein

Southeast

If, like me, you love your filthy, dirty South, you’ll be pleased to hear that summer thunderstorms, skeeters, ticks, and hot, muggy weather aren’t going anywhere! (Actually, don’t be pleased. This is serious.)

Southerners are accustomed to warm days followed by warm nights, but as the heat continues to turn up, those nights just might be our downfall. Urban and rural areas alike can expect to sweat through up to 100 additional warm nights per year by the end of this century. Hot, sticky nights make it harder for us to recover from the heat of the day. This is especially bad in parts of many Southeastern cities, where residents suffer from the “heat island effect.”

“I think it’s really important to look at the heat-related impacts on labor productivity,” says chapter author Kirstin Dow, a social environmental geographer at the University of South Carolina. Under one scenario, the Southeast could see losses of 570 million labor hours, amounting to about $47 billion per year — one-third of the nation’s total loss. What’s more, Dow says, “Those changes are going to take place in counties where there’s already chronic poverty.”

Warming waters will also push the infamous lionfish closer to the Atlantic Coast. In addition to being invasive, this freaky-looking fish is venomous, and swimmers and divers can expect more encounters (and stings) as the climate brings them closer to our beaches.

— Claire Elise Thompson

Caribbean

For someone who doesn’t like donning heavy clothing during the winter, the Caribbean has the perfect weather: year-round warm days with ocean breezes. Climate change, according to the report, means we can’t have nice things.

In the near future, the Caribbean will experience longer dry seasons and shorter, but wetter rainy seasons. To make matters worse: During those arid periods, freshwater supplies will be lacking for islanders. And since islands (by definition) aren’t attached to any other land masses, “you can’t just pipe in water,” says Adam Terando, USGS Research Ecologist and chapter author.

The report confirmed something island-dwellers know all too well: Climate change is not coming to the Caribbean — it’s already there. And it’ll only get worse. Disastrous storms the likes of Hurricane Maria — which took the lives of nearly 3,000 Puerto Ricans — are expected to become more common in a warming world.

Another striking result: Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands are projected to lose 3.6 percent and 4.6 percent of total coastal land area, respectively, posing a threat to critical infrastructure near its shores. The tourism industry will have to grapple with the disappearance of its beaches. Even notable cultural sites aren’t safe: Encroaching seas threaten El Morro — a hulking fortress that sits majestically on the coast of San Juan, Puerto Rico.

“Our island is trying to limit its emissions — but we’re not big emitters,” lead chapter author Ernesto L. Diaz, a coastal management expert at Puerto Rico’s Dept. of Natural and Environmental Resources, tells Grist.

— Paola Rosa-Aquino

Midwest

What’s in store for the Midwest? Oh hello there, crop diseases and pests! Hold onto your corn husks, because maize yields will be down 5 to 25 percent across the region by midcentury, mostly due to hot temps. And soybean hauls will decline more than 25 percent in the southern Midwest.

Beyond wilting crops, extreme heat puts lives at risk. The Midwest may see the biggest increase in temperature-related deaths compared to other regions, putting everyone from farmworkers to city-dwellers at risk. In one particularly bad climate change scenario, late-21st-century Chicago could end up seeing 60 days per year above 100 degrees F — similar to present-day Las Vegas or Phoenix.

The Great Lakes represent 20 percent of freshwater on the world’s surface, but lately, they’re looking … not so fresh. Climate change and pollution from farms are leading to toxic algae blooms and literally starving the water of oxygen.

But hey, there’s a silver lining. Midwesterners (myself included) have developed a bad habit of leaving their homeland for other parts of the country. That trend may reverse. “The Midwest may actually experience migration into the region because of climate change,” Maria Carmen Lemos, a Midwest chapter author and professor at the University of Michigan’s School for Environment and Sustainability, said in a statement. So while you may have to reconsider your ice-fishing plans, Midwesterners, it could be a whole lot worse.

— Kate Yoder

Northern Great Plains

The Northern Great Plains is far from any ocean. Water melts off mountain snowpack, slowly trickles down glaciers, and pools up in basins. The largely arid region is dominated by thirsty industries like agriculture, energy extraction, and tourism. There’s a byzantine system of century-old water rights and competing interests.

Or as my dad, a Montana cattle rancher, puts it: “Whiskey is for drinking. Water is for fighting.”

Residents might want to steel themselves with a little bourbon as climate change will escalate those water woes, according to the report. Winters will end earlier and snow could decline as much as 25 to 40 percent in the mountainous regions.

It’s not just some far-off problem for cross-country skiers and thirsty critters. The authors point to the behavior of the mountain pine beetle as one example of a climate-influenced tweak that’s had devastating impact. Warmer winters and less precipitation have enabled the bugs to kill off huge swaths of forest in the region.

Lest you think what happens in the Dakotas stays in the Dakotas: While only 1.5 percent of the U.S. population lives in this region, it contributes nearly 13 percent of the country’s agricultural market value.

It’s culturally critical, too: The area is home to 27 federally recognized tribes that are already experiencing climate threats such as a lack of access to safe water and declining fisheries.

— Darby Minow Smith

Southern Great Plains

The Southern Great Plains flips between heat waves, tornadoes, drought, ice storms, hurricanes, and hail. The weather is “dramatic and consequential” according to the report. It’s “a terrible place to be a hot tar roofer,” according to me, a former Kansas roofer. In a warmed world, none of this improves. Well, maybe the ice storms.

The region will continue to have longer and hotter summers, meaning more drought. Portions of the already shrinking Ogallala Aquifer, which is critical to a huge western swath of the region, could be completely depleted within 25 years, according to the report.

Texas’ Gulf Coast will face sea-level rise, stronger hurricanes, and an expanded range of tropical, mosquito-borne diseases like dengue and Zika. It’ll also experience more intense floods. Many of the region’s dams and levees are in need of repair and aren’t equipped for the inundations.

One of the chapter’s lead authors, Bill Bartush, a conservation coordinator with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, tells Grist that how landowners handle the extremes of water management will be key to climate adaptation. Given the region’s high rates of private land ownership, it’s essential to get them on board.

In weirder news, the region’s Southern Flounder population is declining because the fish’s sex is determined by water temperature. Warmer winters mean more males. It’s like a terrible reboot of Three Men and a Baby, but with more flounder and no baby.

— Daniel Penner

Northwest

The Pacific Northwest has more rain in its winter forecast. That might not sound unusual for a region known for its wet weather, but more winter rain — as opposed to snow — could impact the region’s water supply and entire way of life.

Most of the Northwest relies on melting mountain snow for water during the summer. Climate change will replace more of that snow with rain, which flows downstream right away rather than being stored on mountainsides until the temperatures warm. Less snowmelt during hot summers could damage salmon habitat, dry out farms, harm the region’s outdoor industry, and increase wildfire risk.

“It’s like our tap is on all the time,” said Heidi Roop, a research scientist at the University of Washington Climate Impacts Group, which helped author the chapter.

The report forecasts a lot of change in the Northwest, including flooding and landslides. But rainy winters? That’s one thing that’s not going away anytime soon.

— Jesse Nichols

Southwest

“I am large. I contain multitudes,” Walt Whitman said of himself. But he could have very well said it of the Southwest, where stretches of desert give way to soaring, snow-capped mountains. Yet this might not be the case for long. Climate change threatens all of this beautiful ecological diversity, as well as the 60 million people who call this area home, including 182 tribal nations.

The hottest and driest corner of the country is already suffering from heat waves, droughts, and increased wildfires. As a result, the Southwest, to put it bluntly, is running out of water. With water at already record low levels and a population that continues to grow, the region is working on a recipe for water scarcity.

“Lake Mead, which provides drinking water to Las Vegas and water for agriculture in the region, has fallen to its lowest level since the filling of the reservoir in 1936 and lost 60 percent of its volume,” coordinating chapter author Patrick Gonzalez, a climate scientist at the University of California, Berkeley, tells Grist.

In the coming years, temperatures in this region will soar. Droughts, including megadroughts lasting 10 years, will become commonplace. Agriculture will take a steep hit, causing food insecurity. Expect those lovely desert sunsets to take on an unsettling pink, as the snow-capped mountains grow bald.

— Greta Moran

Alaska

In Alaska, water is life, life is shellfish, shellfish is power. But, alas, climate change is about to do a number on the state’s marine life, food webs, and species distributions. According to the climate assessment, ocean acidification is expected to disrupt “corals, crustaceans, crabs, mollusks,” as well as “Tanner and red king crab and pink salmon.” Lots of indigenous peoples rely on that variety of marine life.

The largest state in the country is already ground zero for climate change. Thawing permafrost means structures are literally sinking into the ground all over the state.

What does a temperature increase really mean? Well, under the worst-case scenario, the coldest nights of the year are projected to warm 12 DEGREES F by midcentury.

I know I said water, either frozen or liquid, is the name of the game in Alaska, but the report says the state should expect more wildfires in the future, too. Under a high-temperature-increase scenario, as much as 120 million acres could burn between 2006 and 2100. That’s an area larger than California.

Oh yeah, and the report says there’s going to be an increase in “venomous insects.” Cheers.

— Zoya Teirstein

Hawaii and the Pacific Islands

This region houses 1.9 million people, 20 indigenous languages, countless endemic (one-of-a-kind) flora and fauna species, and the freaking Mariana Trench (the world’s deepest point).

Pacific island communities can expect to grapple with the usual climate change suspects: rising sea levels, weird rainfall patterns, drought, flooding, and extreme temperatures. But all those things have unique implications for supplies of island drinking water. In short, like those who live in the Caribbean, these communities’ ability to survive depends on protecting their fresh water.

Extremes in the weather patterns El Niño and La Niña could double in the 21st century, compared to the previous one. El Ninos bring drought, which means Pacific communities have to desalinate water to make up for dwindling rainfall. But rising sea levels contaminate groundwater supplies and aquifers, which basically means Pacific Islanders have it coming from all sides.

Wait, there’s more. Too much freshwater is bad, too. Under a higher-warming scenario, rainfall in Hawaii could increase by 30 percent in wet areas by the end of the century. Think that’s good for dry areas? Think again! Projections suggest rainfall decreases of up to 60 percent in those. So more rain where rain isn’t needed and less rain where it’s dry. Great.

To end things on a sad note — because why the hell not — the National Climate Assessment states that “nesting seabirds, turtles and seals, and coastal plants” are going to be whacked by climate change. 🙁

— Zoya Teirstein

See original article here – 

We broke down what climate change will do, region by region

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Bad news for the Amazon as Brazil backs out of hosting UN climate talks

by Gabriele0723 Posted on November 28, 2018

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Brazil was set to be the host country for COP25, next year’s crucial United Nation talks to address climate change, but just two months after offering to do so, the country’s officials have reversed their stance.

Brazilian leaders communicated the decision on Monday to Patrícia Espinosa, executive secretary of the UN Convention on Climate Change, just days before the start of COP24, this year’s annual climate conference being held in Katowice, Poland. The Brazilian government blames the change on budget constraints and the ongoing presidential transition process. But others are interpreting the move as yet another sign of President-elect Jair Bolsonaro’s impending war on the environment.

“This decision is not surprising considering it comes from a leader with proven skepticism towards the reality of climate change, and open animosity towards those working to preserve our climate,” Christian Poirier, program director at Amazon Watch, told Grist. Poirier also says he doesn’t buy Brazil’s budget excuse for reversing on hosting the conference. “It is clear that Mr. Bolsonaro’s reactionary political agenda was the decisive factor in this decision.”

Bolsonaro confirmed that he participated in the decision, saying “I recommended to our future minister that we avoid the realization of this event here in Brazil.”

(The United Nations did not immediately reply to Grist’s request for comment.)

Before Bolsonaro’s election, the country seemed eager to host the next round of international climate talks. According to Brazilian news site O Globo, the foreign ministry had said Brazil’s offer reflected “the consensus of Brazilian society on the importance and the urgency of actions that contribute to the fight against climate change.”

But in some ways, the current reversal comes as no surprise. During his campaign, Bolsonaro (a.k.a. The Trump of the Tropics) vowed to jettison from the Paris Climate Agreement — though he’s since backtracked from that promise. Still, he’s been steadfast in his desire to open up the Amazon, the world’s largest rainforest, to mining, farming and dam building. He’s said he wants to open up the country’s existing indigenous reserves to commercial exploitation. And earlier this month, he chose a new foreign minister that has said he believes climate change is a Marxist plot to help China.

A recent report issued by the Brazilian government found the Amazon has reached its highest levels of deforestation in a decade, thanks to illegal logging and the expansion of agriculture in the area. And there are major concerns that Bolsonaro’s lax environmental policies could push the Amazon past its tipping point as one of the world’s most important carbon sinks.

Brazil withdrawing its offer to host COP25 also carries symbolic weight when you consider the country is the birthplace of global climate talks. The milestone Rio Earth Summit of 1992 set the green agenda for decades to come.

“The image of Brazil is at risk,” said Carlos Rittl, executive secretary of the Brazilian Climate Observatory, a coalition of environmental non-governmental organizations, in an interview with the New York Times. “Climate and the environment are the only issues where Brazil is a leader in global terms. We are not leaders in world trade, we are not leaders in a geopolitical sense on security issues. But on climate and environment we are leaders, and we are giving that up.”

The South American country’s decision has left the United Nations scrambling to find a new site for the summit. A new venue for the summit has not yet been determined.

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Bad news for the Amazon as Brazil backs out of hosting UN climate talks

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Bad news for the Amazon as Brazil backs out of hosting U.N. climate talks

by RaquelBeauregar Posted on November 28, 2018

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Brazil was set to be the host country for COP 25, next year’s crucial United Nation talks to address climate change, but just two months after offering to do so, the country’s officials have reversed their stance.

Brazilian leaders communicated the decision on Monday to Patrícia Espinosa, executive secretary of the U.N. Convention on Climate Change, just days before the start of COP 24, this year’s annual climate conference being held in Katowice, Poland. The Brazilian government blames the change on budget constraints and the ongoing presidential transition process. But others are interpreting the move as yet another sign of President-elect Jair Bolsonaro’s impending war on the environment.

“This decision is not surprising considering it comes from a leader with proven skepticism towards the reality of climate change, and open animosity towards those working to preserve our climate,” Christian Poirier, program director at Amazon Watch, told Grist. Poirier also says he doesn’t buy Brazil’s budget excuse for reversing on hosting the conference. “It is clear that Mr. Bolsonaro’s reactionary political agenda was the decisive factor in this decision.”

Bolsonaro confirmed that he participated in the decision, saying “I recommended to our future minister that we avoid the realization of this event here in Brazil.”

(The United Nations did not immediately reply to Grist’s request for comment.)

Before Bolsonaro’s election, the country seemed eager to host the next round of international climate talks. According to Brazilian news site O Globo, the foreign ministry had said Brazil’s offer reflected “the consensus of Brazilian society on the importance and the urgency of actions that contribute to the fight against climate change.”

But in some ways, the current reversal comes as no surprise. During his campaign, Bolsonaro (a.k.a. The Trump of the Tropics) vowed to jettison from the Paris Climate Agreement — though he’s since backtracked from that promise. Still, he’s been steadfast in his desire to open up the Amazon, the world’s largest rainforest, to mining, farming, and dam building. He’s said he wants to open up the country’s existing indigenous reserves to commercial exploitation. And earlier this month, he chose a new foreign minister that has said he believes climate change is a Marxist plot to help China.

A recent report issued by the Brazilian government found the Amazon has reached its highest levels of deforestation in a decade, thanks to illegal logging and the expansion of agriculture in the area. And there are major concerns that Bolsonaro’s lax environmental policies could push the Amazon past its tipping point as one of the world’s most important carbon sinks.

Brazil withdrawing its offer to host COP 25 also carries symbolic weight when you consider the country is the birthplace of global climate talks. The milestone Rio Earth Summit of 1992 set the green agenda for decades to come.

“The image of Brazil is at risk,” said Carlos Rittl, executive secretary of the Brazilian Climate Observatory, a coalition of environmental non-governmental organizations, in an interview with the New York Times. “Climate and the environment are the only issues where Brazil is a leader in global terms. We are not leaders in world trade, we are not leaders in a geopolitical sense on security issues. But on climate and environment we are leaders, and we are giving that up.”

The South American country’s decision has left the United Nations scrambling to find a new site for the summit. A new venue for the summit has not yet been determined.

Visit source:  

Bad news for the Amazon as Brazil backs out of hosting U.N. climate talks

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Here’s what everyone gets wrong about the climate report

by KashaDljvkevnt Posted on November 27, 2018

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When reporters combed through the recently released National Climate Assessment, searching for news, they flagged the potential damage to the U.S. economy. Climate change could “knock as much as 10 percent off the size of the American economy by century’s end,” said a headline in the New York Times, and other outlets picked up the claim. When a reporter asked President Donald Trump about climate change devastating the economy, he responded, “I don’t believe it.”

The thing is, Trump’s statement is worth a second look. (Crazy, I know). That 10 percent projection comes from an outlier data point on a graph in the report. It’s what happens if we fail to reduce emissions at all, everything else also goes wrong, and temperatures rise 15 degrees Fahrenheit. It’s the worst-case scenario. A more reasonable person might be excused for saying he doesn’t believe the worst-case scenario will come to pass.

That said, even if you don’t focus on the 10 percent blow to gross domestic product — the rightmost point below — the rest of the graph suggests that climate change will almost certainly make the country poorer by 2100, especially if we fail to reduce emissions.

And it could be worse. Marshall Burke, a Stanford scientist, has published estimates where climate change shrinks the U.S. by more than 20 percent by 2100. Unmitigated climate change could squeeze the economy down between 1 and 20 percent by 2100, compared to what it would have been without warming. It’s all within the realm of possibility.

Why the huge range in these projections? Because there are huge unknowns, said Burke. “If you are looking at the historical record about how temperature affects agricultural production, for instance, there’s noise in the data, there’s sampling error, there’s a lot of uncertainty. And then there’s also a lot of uncertainty in how much warming we are going to see.”

These projections also mask the likely pain of economic contraction by lumping it all together into one number, said Gary Yohe, an economist at Wesleyan who reviewed the report for the National Academy of Science. In fact, people living in the Southeast are likely to get poorer while people in the North may actually benefit.

Solomon Hsian et al.

The point is to avoid fixating on any particular number, like 10 percent, Yohe said. “I’m afraid that the report will be dismissed, not because it’s 2 percent, or 10 percent but because 2100 seems really far away. Who cares? How do we refocus back to something people will understand? People are looking out their windows and seeing climate change. People look at their TVs and see California burning. These aren’t projections or estimates, they are observable facts.”

So what should we focus on? Let’s look at what the report actually says: Unless we really get our act together “climate change is projected to impose substantial damages to the U.S. economy, human, health, and the environment.”

And you don’t need to wait for the projections to come true. The report, and Grist, have documented dozens of ways in which climate change is already causing financial distress, right now. In the Southeast residents in 60 percent of cities are already paying for more air conditioning as heat waves increase, and “high tide flooding already poses daily risks to businesses, neighborhoods, infrastructure, transportation, and ecosystems in the region.” In the West, a 2006 heat wave caused some “600 deaths, 16,000 emergency room visits, 1,100 hospitalizations in California, and economic costs of $5.4 billion.” In Oklahoma and Texas, flooding “caused an estimated $2.6 billion in damage in 2015.” Last year, climate-related disasters cost the United States over $300 billion. The report predicts the bill will keep rising.

We can argue about whether climate change will someday “devastate the economy,” but there’s no arguing with the fact that we are already spending heaps of money on crap that we might have avoided.

Link – 

Here’s what everyone gets wrong about the climate report

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1,656 pages too long? Climate report coauthor Katharine Hayhoe has 3 takeaways.

by ReynaMarie942 Posted on November 27, 2018

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The 1,656-page National Climate Assessment can feel overwhelming if not broken up into actionable-sized pieces — not unlike climate change itself. Thankfully, report coauthor Katharine Hayhoe offered up some key takeaways in a webinar with the nonprofit news organization Climate Central on Monday. Hayhoe, an atmospheric scientist and political science professor at Texas Tech University, focused her presentation on a core message: Climate change is impacting everyone now.

“The myth that the science isn’t real, or that it’s something up for debate, is not the most dangerous myth that the largest number of people have bought into,” Hayhoe said. “There’s a belief that is just as pernicious: that global warming does not matter to me.”

To change this mindset, Hayhoe recommended shifting the narrative away from polar bears in the melting Arctic to how climate change is shaping people’s lives today, from wildfires in California to severe flooding in New York.

The new report offers the most up-to-date assessment of how climate change is affecting the United States. As Hayhoe said, it tackles “the myth that climate change is happening to people far away.” Three of her takeaways:

1. “There are already climate refugees in the United States.”

Louisiana’s Isle de Jean Charles, home to members of the Biloxi-Chitimacha-Choctaw tribe, has been swallowed by rising tides. In 1955 the island was 22,000 acres; today it’s only 320. Last year, state officials announced that the tribal nation would be evacuated to higher grounds.

However, many other indigenous communities face significant barriers to receiving relocation funding, as the report details. Slow-onset disasters like coastal erosion and melting permafrost deeply effect communities over time, but they often don’t qualify for relocation funding. The report highlights the need for more community-driven relocation plans.

2. “Hurricanes are getting stronger, bigger, and slower, meaning they can sit over us for longer.”

If you’ve noticed hurricanes getting worse in recent years, it’s not your imagination. Climate change is bringing wetter and more intense hurricanes to the United States. For example, one recent study showed that climate change made Hurricane Florence 50 percent worse. The storm dumped enough water to fill the Chesapeake Bay.

3. “Climate change hits us in the Achilles’ heel.”

Peering into a climate-changed future is a bit like looking into a fun-house mirror where all of your worst features are accentuated. Texas, for example, is susceptible to a host of climate hazards, from heatwaves to hurricanes. It’s experienced more costly weather disasters than any other state. Climate change will only boost these extremes, bringing even more drought, flooding, and high temperatures.

You may have heard that everything’s bigger in Texas. That’s certainly true of climate change.

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1,656 pages too long? Climate report coauthor Katharine Hayhoe has 3 takeaways.

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