Tag Archives: climate-change

Disastrous flooding in Louisiana is now normal flooding

by FranceODowd1081 Posted on August 15, 2016

Disastrous flooding in Louisiana is now normal flooding

By on Aug 15, 2016Share

Historic rainfall and flooding in Louisiana this weekend have led to at least six deaths and thousands of damaged homes. Over a foot of rain fell in Kentwood, La. in just 12 hours, and five different cities in the region have reported rainfall totals of over two feet. The amount of rain is being called “scarily high” by the National Weather Service.

Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards (D) said Sunday that more than 20,000 people had been rescued in the flood, including himself: The Governor’s Mansion in Baton Rogue flooded in the deluge, and the Edwards and his family were evacuated to the Louisiana State Police Joint Emergency Services Training Center in Zachary.

“It’s not over,” Gov. Edwards said at a press conference. “The water’s going to rise in many areas. It’s no time to let the guard down.”

Indeed, rainfall of this magnitude is increasingly common. Why? Warming temperatures from climate change cause additional water vapor in the atmosphere, which leads to heavy precipitation. As Eric Holthaus points out in Pacific Standard: Statistically, we should only see rainfall of this magnitude occurring once every 500 years, but this is the eighth 500-year rainfall in the U.S. in just over a year.

Clearly, something has fundamentally changed — and that something is the climate. The silver lining for Louisiana? Gov. Edwards is more promising than his predecessor, former Gov. Bobby Jindal (R), with regard to acknowledging the threat that climate change poses to his state. Granted, that bar was extremely low.

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Disastrous flooding in Louisiana is now normal flooding

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These Photos of Louisiana’s Deadly Floods Are Terrifying

by Amelie29J029 Posted on August 15, 2016

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

Severe weather and flooding has wracked southern Louisiana in recent days, as more than two feet of rain fell in parts of the region. The flooding has so far caused at least six deaths, according to the Associated Press. More than 20,000 people have been rescued, and 10,000 others have been put in shelters, Gov. John Bel Edwards said in a press conference yesterday.

The US government has declared four parishes federal disaster areas: East Baton Rouge, Livingston, St. Helena, and Tangipahoa. Damage assessments are continuing in other parts of the state, according to the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Edwards declared a state of emergency last Friday and requested aid from the federal government on Sunday.

Shocking images from the scene include cars submerged in water, floating caskets, and residents evacuating in boats. Here’s a look at the tragic scene from Louisiana:

Justin Mai reaches his hands into the mud at a construction site as he makes makeshift sandbags using plastic grocery bags during the historic flooding in Baton Rouge. Photo by Chris Granger @cgranger #flood #batonrouge

A photo posted by NOLAnews (@nolanews) on Aug 15, 2016 at 6:24am PDT

Flooding devastation is seen from the air following record-breaking rainfall in southeast Louisiana. Interstate 12 in Baton Rouge runs through the middle of this photograph. (Photo by Andrew Boyd, @gandrew55) #weather #flooding #laflood #batonrougeflood

A photo posted by NOLAnews (@nolanews) on Aug 14, 2016 at 3:51pm PDT

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These Photos of Louisiana’s Deadly Floods Are Terrifying

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Enjoy it while you can: Climate change is already hitting the Olympics hard

by Anh40L3815000 Posted on August 8, 2016

Hot Bods

Enjoy it while you can: Climate change is already hitting the Olympics hard

By on Aug 8, 2016Share

Sewage water isn’t the only thing competitors may be worrying about at the Rio Olympics: Hot temperatures and air pollution are already interfering with athletic performance. In a preliminary racewalking competition before the games began, 11 out of 18 competitors suffered from heat-related injuries. One athlete even passed out.

But this Olympics might be the best it gets. According to a report from Brazil’s Climate Observatory, as climate records keep falling, outdoor sports records could become much harder to break.

Already, marathon times are 2 minutes slower on average for every 10 degree Fahrenheit that temperature rises. In Rio, the problems are even more pronounced, because poor air quality from vehicle congestion makes high-performance outdoor sports difficult — even deadly. Each year, thousands of Rio’s citizens die from complications of air pollution, which is tied to lung cancer, heart attacks, strokes, and asthma.

“On hot days in polluted areas, it is healthier to go out and have a beer (in the shade) than to practice sport outdoors,” said Luzimar Teixeira, professor at the School of physical education at the University of São Paulo.

The report notes that competitors may be able to mitigate the effects of climate change through technological advances like high-tech equipment and clothing, but those advances are not likely to be available to athletes from less wealthy nations.

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Enjoy it while you can: Climate change is already hitting the Olympics hard

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A Whole Lot of Millennials See No Difference Between Clinton and Trump

by EarleneSynnot Posted on August 6, 2016

Mother Jones

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

One presidential candidate says scientists who work on climate change are “practically calling it a hoax” and wants to eliminate the Environmental Protection Agency. The other calls climate change “an urgent threat and a defining challenge of our time.” And yet about four out of 10 millennials in battleground states think there is no difference between those candidates’ views on the issue.

Tom Steyer’s NextGen Climate group released polling at the Democratic National Convention last week focused on millennials in 11 battleground states, conducted by Global Strategy Group in June and early July.

According to the poll, 21 percent of millennials are Bernie Sanders supporters who are so disillusioned with Clinton that they wouldn’t plan to vote for her in a general election if there are third-party candidates, as well.

Young voters are one of the more unpredictable factors in the 2016 election, because they’re more likely than other age groups to support Sanders and less likely to vote in general. Democrats run the risk of losing Sanders holdouts to a third-party candidate. Nearly seven out of 10 Sanders supporters believe there’s no daylight between Trump and Clinton on the issues they care about.

NextGen Climate/Project New America Battleground Millennial Survey

That is alarming news for Clinton. But the numbers could change. NextGen’s findings suggest that if Democrats emphasize climate change and clean energy, they could make progress in winning over this demographic.

Young voters polled, including pro-Sanders voters, rank clean air and water and switching to renewable energy as high priorities. Three-quarters are more likely to support a candidate who wants to transition the United States away from fossil fuels. On the flip side, Trump’s position on the EPA could hurt him. Millennials like the EPA, the polling found—about as much as they like Beyoncé

NextGen Climate/Project New America Battleground Millennial Survey

But this may not help Clinton much because young voters don’t recognize how different she is from Trump. Forty-four percent say there’s no distinction between the two candidates on transitioning away from fossil fuels, and 43 percent say there’s no distinction on protecting air and water.

Maybe that’s in part because Sanders hammered Clinton over her positions on fracking and fossil fuel extraction during the primaries. “On the ground, students just don’t know the difference between the candidates,” Heather Hargreaves, NextGen’s vice president, said at a briefing on the poll.

“It’s not just ignorance,” added Andrew Baumann of Global Strategy Group. “They assume she’s more conservative than she is.” He continued, “I think part of the goal is to educate” voters and reintroduce Clinton.

But if her convention speech was any indication, Clinton isn’t interested in focusing much more on this issue, beyond the usual applause lines. She mentioned in passing how clean energy will lead to job creation, but she didn’t dwell on it. She left the task of drawing a contrast between her climate policies and Trump’s to speakers like California Gov. Jerry Brown and League of Conservation Voters President Gene Karpinski.

Even if Clinton isn’t going to be heavily focused on climate, Steyer and his group plan to press the issue on her behalf. NextGen is putting $25 million into efforts to turn out young voters who are concerned about climate change, including at more than 200 college campuses. The group’s hope is that young voters will understand that the stakes are so high for climate change that they will vote for Clinton even if they don’t love her.

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A Whole Lot of Millennials See No Difference Between Clinton and Trump

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Climate agreements are way too wishy-washy

by AlvaroHutchings Posted on July 26, 2016

syntax on carbon

Climate agreements are way too wishy-washy

By on Jul 26, 2016 7:01 amShare

We live in a world where one single “shall” almost derailed the entire Paris climate agreement. As if it wasn’t difficult enough to get international leaders to agree on climate goals, we have to get them to agree on how those goals should be worded and interpreted.

Policymakers (much like the rest of us) don’t know exactly what it means to “sustain” the environment or keep it within “safe ecological limits.” And when one of these ambiguous terms squeaks its way into policy, it can stifle action.

That’s one finding from a recent study from the University of Dublin, which assembled a team of environmental scientists to analyze the words used in policy agreements. Luckily, there’s an antidote: better communication between scientists and policy makers, and measurable, clearly defined targets.

Here’s one example of a wishy-washy sentence taken from the recently published U.N. Sustainable Development Goals:

By 2020, [countries will] sustainably manage and protect marine and coastal ecosystems and avoid significant adverse impacts, including by strengthening their resilience.

Sounds great, right? But the study’s authors call it “ambiguous to the point of being meaningless.” How do we determine if an adverse impact is “significant”? What, precisely, does “resilience” mean here? Many policies, including the Paris climate agreement, use phrases like “strengthening resilience” — a target that sounds nice, but isn’t measurable or enforceable. There’s no Global Supreme Court of Linguists to step in and say, “Hey, Australia, you’re not ‘strengthening the resilience’ of your coastal ecosystems to a great enough degree!”

So what’s a goal statement done right? The Dublin study points to this example from a 2010 U.N. agreement:

By 2020, the rate of loss of all natural habitats, including forests, is [to be] at least halved and where feasible brought close to zero.

Now there’s something we can actually measure. Keeping ecosystems stable is a complicated task, and it’s one that ecologists and politicians need to collaborate on. The study recommends that scientists identify practical, quantifiable targets that we can use to evaluate an ecosystem’s health, and that policymakers address those targets in legislation.

In short, when it comes to getting things done, we need to crawl out of our comfortable burrows of “sustainability” and “resilience” on repeat, come up with specific goals, and focus on meeting them. Actions may speak louder than words, but we’re going to need the right words to prompt the right actions.

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Climate agreements are way too wishy-washy

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Spotted Lake in British Columbia

by Myrna Posted on July 20, 2016

A video shot by a drone over Spotted Lake in August 2014. Originally from:  Spotted Lake in British Columbia ; ; ;

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Spotted Lake in British Columbia

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Ahead of the Election, Americans’ Climate Concerns Slosh

by Myrna Posted on July 12, 2016

A new analysis of voters’ attitudes on global warming show partisans are alarmed and energized but most Americans are focused elsewhere. Follow this link:   Ahead of the Election, Americans’ Climate Concerns Slosh ; ; ;

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Ahead of the Election, Americans’ Climate Concerns Slosh

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Congress pledges billions to the world’s small farmers

by Shannon Walters Posted on July 7, 2016

Congress pledges billions to the world’s small farmers

By on Jul 7, 2016 4:23 pmShare

Everyone in my Twitter feed has been yelling about the GMO-labeling bill that passed the Senate on Wednesday, but few people noticed the much more important bill that passed almost simultaneously. That bill, the Global Food Security Act, provides more than $1 billion a year to support small farmers in developing countries. In a time when Democrats and Republicans seem to agree on nothing, the measure passed the Senate unanimously — and now needs President Obama’s signature to become law.

It’s surprising enough that members of Congress agreed to anything, and more surprising still that they agreed on something truly important. Some 70 percent of the people living in extreme poverty around the world are farmers. With simple tools and training, which this bill finances, those farmers can dramatically increase their harvests and their quality of life. They can send their children to school instead of the fields while growing more food on less land. In fact, helping small farmers is perhaps the most important way we can curb environmental damage.

At the G8 summit in 2009, Obama committed to fight poverty by helping farmers. He followed through later that year with his Feed the Future program, and it’s already delivering results. Susan Rice, the former U.N. ambassador and Obama’s National Security Advisor, highlighted some of them: The program has increased the incomes of small farmers by “more than $800 million” and helped feed 18 million children, according to her calculations.

Now, Congress has formalized that program into law and funded it through 2018. It’s heartening to see Congress pass this with overwhelming support from Democrats and Republicans. “The fact that the Senate passed the legislation without opposition and that the House legislation was cosponsored by nearly one in three members … shows that Congress understands the economic and national security importance of prioritizing global food security,” said Doug Bereuter, a former U.S. Representative at the Chicago Council, a nonpartisan think tank, in a statement.

It’s also heartening to see lawmakers pay attention to people in other countries and act so decisively to help them. Finally, it shows that it’s possible to take commitments made at gatherings of global leaders and turn them into binding laws. Keep your head up, Paris climate agreement!

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Congress pledges billions to the world’s small farmers

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Obama gets riled up about Trump and climate change

by KristianNeff Posted on July 6, 2016

Trumped

Obama gets riled up about Trump and climate change

By on Jul 6, 2016Share

President Obama and Hillary Clinton looked more like old friends than old rivals at their first joint campaign rally in Charlotte, North Carolina. Both heaped praise on the other — she’s the most qualified candidate in history; he has a nice smile — and then got down to the business at hand: attacking Donald Trump.

Unlike at a Trump rally, where concern for climate change is considered a character flaw, the issue was front and center at Tuesday’s event. Obama in particular praised Clinton’s work setting the groundwork for the Paris Climate Accord when she was secretary of State, while noting that her opponent wants to pull the U.S. out from the hard-won agreement:

With Secretary Clinton’s help, America ultimately led nearly 200 other nations to an agreement to save this planet for future generations.

Now, maybe — maybe you don’t care about this. Maybe you think 99 percent of scientists are wrong … But the point is, we’re not done with this, so where we go from here is up to you.

You can vote with the climate deniers who want to tear up the agreements we’ve crafted and doom our kids to a more dangerous world, or you can vote to keep putting people back to work building a cleaner energy future for all of us.

It’s a message that may resonate with North Carolina voters: While Democratic presidential candidates have only won the state twice since 1970, a 2014 Sierra Club poll found more than 60 percent of voters wanted action on climate change.

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Obama gets riled up about Trump and climate change

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A Remote Pacific Nation, Threatened by Rising Seas

by Myrna Posted on July 2, 2016

Climate change is threatening the livelihoods of the people of tiny Kiribati, and even the island nation’s existence. The government is making plans for the island’s demise. Read more:  A Remote Pacific Nation, Threatened by Rising Seas ; ; ;

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A Remote Pacific Nation, Threatened by Rising Seas

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