Category: Climate News Roundup

• The big news this week was that the State Department determined that the Keystone XL pipeline is not in the national interest and that President Obama rejected TransCanada’s application for a permit. This decision has big symbolic implications as we move toward the Paris Climate Summit, asserting that the U.S. is serious about being a world leader on climate change.
• Wen Stephenson, a former editor at the Atlantic and the Boston Globe, has recently written a book entitled What We’re Fighting for Now Is Each Other: Dispatches from the Front Lines of Climate Justice. In this article in Salon, excerpted from the book, Stephenson profiles Bill McKibben. It’s a very interesting piece.
• In previous Weekly Roundups I have provided links to the investigative reporting by Inside Climate News of Exxon’s climate change research program in the 1970’s and 80’s. Now a group of more than 40 environmental and social justice organizations has called for a federal investigation of the company. Justin Gillis and John Schwartz of The New York Times provide a look at what has transpired and a critique of the comparison of Exxon to the tobacco industry. Meanwhile, New York’s attorney general has launched an investigation into whether ExxonMobil misled the public and shareholders about the investment risks from climate change.
  Doug Hendren has released a new song about Exxon.
• A major message at the recent Conservative Clean Energy Summit was that clean energy should not be a partisan issue, but rather, a concern of everyone. Amanda Little reports on the Summit and efforts to bring conservatives into the clean energy fold. This would be very good because according to Christiana Figueres, the UN’s leading climate official, the U.S. is currently “playing catch up to China” in clean energy. Of course, government is not the only actor on tackling climate change. Business has an important role to play, as discussed by Paul Polman, CEO of Unilever.
• A strong climate deal in Paris will reportedly launch a $90 trillion energy revolution, as projected by the International Energy Agency. This article is almost enough to make one feel very optimistic about a global energy revolution. In addition, a new report from the Institute for Policy Integrity at New York University School of Law has found that the U.S. could gain up to $10 trillion in benefits by 2050 from other countries’ actions on climate change.
• News reports presented in previous Weekly Roundups have suggested that pledges for the Paris climate summit are sufficient to hold global warming to 2.7 degrees C by 2100. However, as Joe Romm points out, this is true only if certain optimistic assumptions are met. He argues that warming is likely to be greater; around 3.5 degrees C. Similarly, a new report by the U.N. Environment Program states that current pledges will only take about half way to where we need to be in limiting CO2 emissions.
• A new NASA study published in the Journal of Glaciology has found that the ice mass in East Antarctica is still increasing, although at a diminishing rate. While the rate is still larger than the rate of ice loss from West Antarctica, at some point it will be insufficient to offset those losses. The findings are proving to be controversial, even among NASA scientists. To help sort this out, Robert McSweeney of CarbonBrief takes a deeper dive into the topic. Meanwhile, a modeling study of the West Antarctic ice sheet has indicated that another 60 years of melting at current rates could set off irreversible glacial loss over the next several hundred years, ultimately raising sea level around 10 ft.
• By mid-century more of the Arctic will be ice-free and for longer periods, causing a variety of cascading effects, according to a new study published in Nature Climate Change.
• Women in developing countries are far more vulnerable to the impacts of climate change than men for a variety of reasons.
• Based upon wind speed as the measure of the strength of a hurricane, the U.S. is currently experiencing a drought in tropical hurricanes. According to a recent paper in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society there are better indicators of hurricane strength, such as pressure. When they are used, the drought disappears.
• While a majority of people in the U.S recognize that climate change is happening and is largely the result of human activities, most people are not concerned. In fact, less than 25 percent of people say that they are worried, according to a new AP-NORC poll. On the other hand, a new report by the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication shows that the number of people concerned about climate change increased in response to the Pope’s encyclical. To further complicate matters a new Pew poll of people in 40 countries found that overall 78 percent of the respondents thought that their countries should reduce emissions as part of an international agreement. However, people in the U.S. and China were the least concerned.
• Senators Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) and Jeff Merkely (D-Oregon) have introduced a bill entitled “Keep It in the Ground Act”. As the name suggests, the bill would ban all new fossil fuel development on federal lands and cancel current leases that aren’t producing. The bill was cosponsored by five other senators.
• The U.S. electricity sector is expected to emit the lowest amount of CO2 this year since 1995 according to a report from Sierra Club.
• New data from China indicate that it has been burning up to 17% more coal than previously reported. This will be a complicating factor during the Paris climate summit.
• A new NOAA report examined 28 severe weather events that occurred in 2014 and determined that 14 of them were related to climate change as a contributing cause. National Geographic provides a summary of the major results while Mashable provides more in-depth analysis. On a similar note, a study by the U.K. Met Office has found that climate change made the wet winter of 2013/14 seven times more likely.

These news items have been compiled by Les Grady, member and former chair of the CAAV steering committee. He is a licensed professional engineer (retired) who taught environmental engineering at Purdue and Clemson Universities and engaged in private practice with CH2M Hill, the world’s largest environmental engineering consulting firm. Since his retirement in 2003 he has devoted much of his time to the study of climate science and the question of global warming and makes himself available to speak to groups about this subject. More here.

• Bill McKibben imagines what it might have been like if Exxon had been up front about climate change. ExxonMobil has been pushing back against the investigative reports by Inside Climate News but in doing so they have overstated the uncertainty in climate science, according to John Cushman, Jr. of Inside Climate News.
• A study published recently in the journal Nature Communications indicates that California will face twice as many droughts and three times as many floods in 2080 compared to historical occurrences if we continue to emit CO2 and other greenhouse gases in a business-as-usual manner.
• Rep. Lamar Smith (R. Texas), chairman of the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, has inserted politics into climate science by demanding all records and data related to a paper published in Science during the summer by NOAA scientists showing that the pause or hiatus in global warming had not actually occurred. This caused ranking committee member Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson (D. Texas) to send a strong letter to Rep. Smith. Late Tuesday NOAA refused to provide Smith with all of the records he demanded, citing confidentiality concerns and the integrity of the scientific process. A NOAA spokeswoman said “We have provided data, all of which is publicly available online, supporting scientific research, and multiple in-person briefings…. We stand behind our scientists who conduct their work in an objective manner.” Mashable has a good overview.
• I’ve posted information previously about the surface melting on Greenland and its importance to sea level rise (20 ft if all Greenland ice melted). This article is a close-up look at a research team collecting data on melt rates to make more accurate estimates of how melting is proceeding. I recommend it for two reasons. First, the photography and the graphics are spectacular and the story is fascinating. Second, it provides an excellent illustration of the possible impacts of Rep. Lamar Smith’s war on climate science.
• Differences between developed and developing nations resurfaced at the climate negotiations in Bonn last week in preparation for the December Paris climate summit. Although attempts had been made prior to the Bonn meeting to pare the draft document down to a size that would be manageable in Paris, issued were raised that caused the document to more than double in length. Sophie Yeo of Carbon Brief provides an analysis of what transpired.
• The pledged reductions in greenhouse gas emissions received so far in advance of the Paris climate summit are insufficient to keep warming below 2 degrees C by 2100. Rather, they will allow 2.7 degrees of warming to occur if they are all carried out.
• The Paris climate summit may well signal the beginning of the end of the fossil fuel era. One result could be increased vulnerability of fossil fuel companies to legal damages, either from those who have suffered from climate-related impacts or from investors if those companies downplay the decreased value of fossil fuel reserves. Meanwhile, the president of Appalachian Power, West Virginia’s largest electric utility, told a group of energy executives that coal is not coming back, regardless of what happens with the U.S. EPA Clean Power Plan.
• We all know that portions of West Virginia have suffered economically as natural gas has replaced coal for electric power generation in parts of the U.S. We may be less familiar with the fact that portions of China have also suffered economic loss as a result of decreased demand for coal.
• A new poll conducted by the University of Texas at Austin has found that 90% of Democrats, 59% of Republicans and 75% of the general public now accept the scientific consensus on climate change.
• Nuclear fusion occurs when two atoms are squeezed together so tightly that they merge, releasing a large amount of energy. It is the reaction that fuels the sun. For years, people have sought to achieve and sustain nuclear fusion here on Earth because it would provide an almost limitless supply of energy without producing either greenhouse gases or radioactive waste. Unfortunately, attainment of fusion has been very difficult, in spite of billions of dollars being invested by governments around the world. Now venture capitalists are stepping in to fund private companies pursuing different approaches. The question is whether they will succeed where government efforts have failed.
• A new study published in Nature Climate Change has found that some cities in the Persian Gulf region will be too hot and humid for human habitation by the end of the century if humans continue emitting CO2 in a business-as-usual manner. Robert McSweeney of Carbon Brief has a good background explanation while Joby Warrick of The Washington Post puts the study in a broader context.
• Cristina Maza of the Christian Science Monitor provides an overview of carbon pricing schemes. The New Carbon Economy has released a new working paper entitled “Implementing Effective Carbon Pricing.” It shows that carbon pricing works and can be consistent with strong economic growth. Nevertheless, carbon pricing is not likely to be part of the Paris climate accords.
• A report and policy statement released by the American Academy of Pediatrics states that climate change poses a significant threat to children from natural disasters, heat stress, air pollution, infectious diseases, and effects on food and water. The report’s lead author is from Virginia Commonwealth University’s school of medicine.
• The cod fishery in the Gulf of Maine is collapsing because of rapidly warming waters and a failure to consider the impacts of that warming when setting quotas for commercial fishing. Meanwhile, further north in Canada the cod population is doing much better.
• Earlier this year we learned that Totten glacier in East Antarctica is rooted deep below sea level and therefore is subject to melting due to warm water from below. A new study finds that Totten glacier will be harder to destabilize than the West Antarctic glaciers, but is indeed subject to melting from below, although the rate at which that will occur is still uncertain.

These news items have been compiled by Les Grady, member and former chair of the CAAV steering committee. He is a licensed professional engineer (retired) who taught environmental engineering at Purdue and Clemson Universities and engaged in private practice with CH2M Hill, the world’s largest environmental engineering consulting firm. Since his retirement in 2003 he has devoted much of his time to the study of climate science and the question of global warming and makes himself available to speak to groups about this subject. More here.

• In a study published in the journal Nature, economists at Stanford and UC Berkeley have found that failure to address climate change could lower per-capita GDP as much as 23% by 2100. This estimate is based solely on lost productivity due to warmer temperatures and does not consider the impacts of sea level rise and other factors on infrastructure, health, etc.
• On Friday the U.S. EPA published its Clean Power Plan (CPP) in the Federal Register. Immediately, 24 states joined in a law suit against EPA over the plan and two other states filed separate suits. Nevertheless, Tomas Carbonell, Director of Regulatory Policy and Senior Attorney for the Environmental Defense Fund, says that the CPP rests on a solid legal and technical foundation. If you would like to see a map indicating where each state stands, go here.
• A new analysis by the International Energy Agency of the pledges by over 150 nations prior to the Paris climate summit shows that while CO2 emissions will be slowed, the global emission rate will still be increasing by 0.5% a year in 2030.
• Based on Tuesday’s hearing before a subcommittee of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, there appear to be a number of misconceptions about the upcoming Paris Climate Summit. Using testimony by Todd Stern, U.S. Special Envoy for Climate Change, Gwynne Taraska of the Center for American Progress refutes three common myths.
• Climate negotiators have their work cut out for them in Bonn in preparation for the Paris climate summit in December because developing nations are unhappy with the draft accord and are demanding a guarantee of climate finance provisions. Nevertheless, the French are in the middle of an unprecedented diplomatic drive to ensure that the Paris meeting is a success, resulting in a strong global accord.
• Because of accounting procedures adopted in previous climate negotiations, countries are responsible only for the CO2 emissions from within their own borders, regardless of where the fossil fuel being burned originated. This has allowed the U.S. to chide India and China about their increased use of coal, even though some of that coal came from the U.S. Not only that, the coal came from public lands (i.e., it belongs to American citizens) and is being sold to coal companies at a deep discount. Such situations make it difficult for us to be taken seriously in climate negotiations.
• On its surface, burning trees (as wood pellets) to generate electricity appears to be carbon neutral because if the land is replanted with trees, over time the CO2 emitted by burning will be reabsorbed as new trees grow. Many scientists argue, however, that the practice of burning trees to generate electricity is not really a good thing to do because of the long time required to grow new trees and because of the loss of biodiversity associated with their harvest. John Upton of Climate Central explores the issues associated with burning trees in a multi-part series: Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3. This issue is particularly important to Virginia.
• Krill is the foundation of the entire Antarctic aquatic food chain, as well as an important target for commercial fishing. Thus it is disturbing to find that ocean acidification could reduce Antarctic krill production by 20 to 70 percent by 2100.
• On Monday another 68 companies signed onto a voluntary White House initiative, “American Business Act on Climate”, to reduce their climate impact, joining 13 that had joined in June.
• For some time now the Pentagon has recognized climate change as a threat multiplier from a national security perspective. This has led to slow recognition of climate change as a national security issue. Analysts caution, however, that there are both pluses and minuses in framing climate change in that manner.
• Utility-scale solar energy (USSE) requires large tracts of land. For example, according to a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the deployment of 500 GW of USSE would require a land area equivalent to that of South Carolina. Although we often assume that desert land has low biodiversity, that is often not the case. Consequently, care must be exercised in the siting of USSE facilities to minimize the loss of biodiversity.
• An interesting new study in The Anthropocene Review examines human interactions with the biosphere and their potential ability to drive the sixth great extinction. The study did not focus exclusively on climate change, but rather posited four drivers of current changes on Earth: (1) global homogenization of flora and fauna, (2) human domination of net primary production, (3) human-directed evolution of other species, and (4) increasing interaction of the biosphere with the technosphere. Jeremy Hance has an excellent essay summarizing the study in The Guardian.
• Indonesia has experienced an exceptionally large number of wildfires this year. Furthermore, because over half of those fires are in peat formations, since September the daily CO2 emissions have exceeded the daily CO2 emissions from all U.S. economic activity.
• According to NOAA data, September 2015 was the hottest September on record. In addition, so far 2015 is progressing as the hottest year on record by a wide margin.
• The latest installment of Inside Climate News‘ investigative report on Exxon focuses on its role in sowing doubt about climate change by stressing uncertainty.

These news items have been compiled by Les Grady, member and former chair of the CAAV steering committee. He is a licensed professional engineer (retired) who taught environmental engineering at Purdue and Clemson Universities and engaged in private practice with CH2M Hill, the world’s largest environmental engineering consulting firm. Since his retirement in 2003 he has devoted much of his time to the study of climate science and the question of global warming and makes himself available to speak to groups about this subject. More here.

• In a Commentary published in the journal Nature Geoscience UK climate scientist Kevin Anderson accuses his fellow climate scientists of deliberately downplaying the challenge of keeping warming below 2 degrees C. His analysis concludes that to have even a slim chance of staying under that limit will require a revolution in how we both consume and produce energy. This is a very sobering commentary, as discussed by Ed King, who also cites a paper published this week in Environmental Research Letters that warns that the combined climate plans of the U.S., the EU, and China leave “little room” for emissions from other countries if we are to stay below the carbon budget.
• In a new series of articles, The Guardian asks “Which countries are doing the most to stop dangerous global warming?”. In those articles they examine the pledges of 14 nations ahead of the November Paris climate conference.
• N. Gregory Mankiw is a conservative economics professor at Harvard, yet he advocates a carbon tax as the best way to fight climate change. To find out why, read this interview by Amanda Little in Grist. Then read what Eduardo Porter has to say about “Bringing Republicans to the Climate Change Table.”
• A new study published in the journal Nature Climate Change examined precipitation in the Sierra Nevada mountains of California to determine how frequently it has been as low as this past year. They used precipitation records back to about 1930 and tree ring data back to around 1500. They found that the current drought was the worst in the entire 500 year record. Furthermore, with further warming the frequency of such a drought is likely to increase.
• In an article published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences researchers from the US and Germany examine the possible fate of US cities in the face of sea level rise. A key finding is that millions of Americans may already live in cities destined to be inundated. Whether they will or not depends on whether we reduce our CO2 emissions and the fate of the West Antarctic ice sheet. Andrew Freedman provides a more detailed analysis in Mashable.
• Climate feedbacks have a very important impact on the outcome from adding CO2 to the atmosphere. In fact, they are the major complicating factor that makes it difficult to know exactly how much Earth will warm in response to more CO2. Prof. Eric Wolff of the University of Cambridge in the UK has explained the term feedback and summarized the major ones acting on the climate system, indicating where uncertainties lie. His piece was prepared for a general audience.
• Boreal forests are Earth’s northern-most forests, ringing the globe and providing nearly a third of Earth’s forest cover. Unfortunately, they are in trouble because of the more rapid warming of the Arctic, thereby impacting the large number of species that live there. Jim Robbins summarizes the present state of the boreal forests and how they are changing in response to warming.
• A massive review of 632 published papers about the world’s oceans has found that climate change in combination with ocean acidification is reducing both the abundance and diversity of marine species. Unfortunately, there is little evidence for acclimation to acidification or temperature increases, except for microorganisms. This simplification of ocean ecosystems is likely to have major impacts on the ability of the oceans to support human life.
• The melting of the land ice on Antarctica will have a major impact on sea level rise. To get a better picture of how melting might proceed, a group of scientists conducted a study to see how rising air temperatures might effect surface melting. One finding was that whether humans act to curb CO2 emissions will have a major impact on the melt rate during the second half of this century.
• Three items from the oil front. BP’s top economist has admitted that some of the world’s oil will not be burned because of concerns over climate change. While many factors enter into decisions concerning oil exploration, it is encouraging to note that exploration for new oil reserves has been significantly curtailed. On Friday the Interior Department announced that it is cancelling oil lease sales for the Arctic Ocean for 2016 and 2017.
• Kristen Meek and Rebecca Gasper, writing for the World Resources Institute, outline ways Virginia can meet its obligations under the EPA Clean Power Plan.
• Recently I have put in links to articles dealing with the cold blob in the North Atlantic and evidence for an impact on North Atlantic ocean circulation. Now Chris Mooney of The Washington Post reports on two new articles that relate to this circulation and its importance in influencing global air temperatures.
• A new study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences indicates that if we continue to burn fossil fuels in a business as usual manner for the rest of the century, the amount of the Amazon forest subject to severe drought could triple. This, in turn, could lead to tree death, with the release of the carbon in them as CO2, exacerbating the problem.
• Perhaps it’s the crazy weather we’ve been having, but according to a new poll, there has been a significant increase in the percent of Americans who believe that climate change is happening and that humans are influencing it.
• Government forecasters expect the strong El Nino to cause the northern states to have a milder and drier winter and the southern states to have a cooler, wetter winter.

These news items have been compiled by Les Grady, member and former chair of the CAAV steering committee. He is a licensed professional engineer (retired) who taught environmental engineering at Purdue and Clemson Universities and engaged in private practice with CH2M Hill, the world’s largest environmental engineering consulting firm. Since his retirement in 2003 he has devoted much of his time to the study of climate science and the question of global warming and makes himself available to speak to groups about this subject. More here.

• The United Nations has published a new, slimmed-down draft of the global climate agreement to be negotiated in Paris in December. This document is 20 pages long (from a previous 90) but is filled with bracketed phrases that still must be negotiated. India has already voiced its objection to it.
• Official negotiations will not be the only thing going on the Paris climate talks in December. Rather, grassroots groups such as 350.org will be putting on “Climate Games” to emphasize red lines that they fear negotiators will cross.
• Hoesung Lee, a long-standing vice chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), has been elected chair. Lee is a professor of climate change economics at the Graduate School of Energy and the Environment at (South) Korea University.
• Twenty countries considered to be very vulnerable to climate change are forming a new group, the V20 (V for vulnerable), to give them more leverage in pressing for action against climate change. One thing they hope to achieve is “improved access to international climate change finance.”
• Because so much rain fell on South Carolina over the weekend all major media outlets covered the event. The question is, what happened to cause so much rain. Andrew Freedman and Chris Mooney posted analyses of the confluence of events that led to so much rain.
• Changing weather conditions in sub-Saharan Africa over the past two years have put 60 million people at risk of starvation.
• New research published in the journal Global Environmental Change has found that the exposure of pregnant women to low precipitation and very hot days can result in low birth weight babies.
• In a study recently published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences researchers report that high temperatures are a major factor contributing to dengue outbreaks Southeast Asia. Although other factors also influenced outbreaks, high temperature was the major factor.
• NASA’s climate change newsletter for October came out this week and two of the articles are about Greenland ice and what is happening to it. One focuses on the research of Eric Rignot, a glaciologist, and the other is about the new project Oceans Melting Greenland (OMG). Both are short and worth the time to read.
• The first six months of ocean heat data for 2015 are now available and they show a continued increase in the heat content of Earth’s oceans.
• As in 1998 and 2010 massive coral bleaching is occurring world-wide in response to higher ocean temperature. While both previous events were each one year long, this one is poised to occur over two years, making it potentially the largest such event ever. Scientists fear that over 4,500 sq. miles of coral could be affected.
• Greenpeace has warned that forest and peat fires in Indonesia are poised to pump more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere this year than the UK’s total annual emissions.
• SolarCity has announced that its new solar panels convert 22.5% of incident sunlight into electricity, the highest conversion rate on the market. This will allow them to reduce the cost of rooftop solar installations for homes and businesses.
• Continued year-after-year budget cuts for the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, one of DOE’s “national labs,” is undermining their efforts to engage in long-term, cutting-edge research for developing the next generation of solar panels.
• Inside Climate News has released parts IV and V of its investigative report on ExxonMobil and climate change. In part IV it examines Exxon’s dilemma over the Natuna natural gas field under the South China Sea, which they acquired rights to in the 1970’s. To date they have not developed that field because of the high amounts of carbon dioxide and hydrogen sulfide in it. In part V Exxon’s role in the potential development of synthetic liquid fuels from coal and tar sands is examined.

These news items have been compiled by Les Grady, member and former chair of the CAAV steering committee. He is a licensed professional engineer (retired) who taught environmental engineering at Purdue and Clemson Universities and engaged in private practice with CH2M Hill, the world’s largest environmental engineering consulting firm. Since his retirement in 2003 he has devoted much of his time to the study of climate science and the question of global warming and makes himself available to speak to groups about this subject. More here.

• Last week I included an article about the dramatic growth of the fossil fuel divestment movement. In this article, Shawn McCarthy discusses the impacts this is having on the stocks of fossil fuel companies.
• In this article in Mashable, Bill McKibben reflects on the divestment movement and other aspects of the battle against climate change.
• As a result of disappointing findings from its exploratory drilling in the Arctic, Shell has announced suspension of Arctic drilling for the “foreseeable future.”
• Climate Interactive, a Washington-based climate research group, released an analysis on Monday that found that the emission reduction pledges received to date still leave Earth on a path to 6.3 degrees F of warming compared to pre-industrial times. Later in the week Climate Action Tracker released its analysis, which found that the pledges would hold warming to 4.9 degrees F. While both are less warming than would occur without the emission reductions, they are still above the level countries have agreed to. An important thing about the pledges that we shouldn’t lose sight of is that they do reduce our global emission rates, which buys us a little more time before we reach the carbon budget, as discussed by Joe Romm.
• A new study released this week has found that countries that belong to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) have decoupled their economic growth from their CO2 emissions.
• Whether you are a carnivore, climate carnivore, flexitarian, vegetarian, or vegan I think you will find John Sutter’s piece on the climate impacts of meat to be of interest. Those of you who have spent part of your lives in Texas will appreciate his description of brisket, particularly the pictures, even if you no longer eat beef. Brings back memories, although I will say I don’t recall ever being served a 1 lb helping of brisket.
• One consequence of the Inside Climate News investigation of Exxon’s (now ExxonMobile) climate change research in the 1980’s, which showed that their own scientists were warning of the link between climate change and the burning of fossil fuels, is that a number of groups and individuals are considering litigation.
• Many people are wondering what outcome is required from the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP 21) in Paris for it to be considered a success. Anthony Hobley of the Carbon Tracker Initiative provides a set of criteria. One concern about the conference is how much aid to developing countries the developed countries will commit to. In the past developed nations have promised to provide $100 billion annually, but pledges have fallen short of that value. Now French President Francois Hollande has pledged to increase France’s contribution from $3.3 billion annually to $5.6 billion by 2020.
• Six large U.S. Banks have called for a strong international agreement on climate change. They said that putting a price on carbon is essential to unlocking investments in clean energy. In addition, Mark Carney, the governor of the Bank of England warned of the huge financial risk exposure faced by the insurance and other industries as a result of climate change and 15 insurance executives echoed his call for action.
• In the U.S. large trucks burn a lot of fuel and thus make a significant contribution to our greenhouse gas emissions. That is why the EPA and the NHTSA have jointly issued new proposed standards that are currently being commented on. Innovative companies are reminding everyone that the technologies required to meet the new standards are already available so the agencies should go further to drive the deployment of more advanced technologies.
• Rachel Notley, Alberta’s new premier, has stated that she sees no long-term future in fossil fuels and predicts that Alberta will wean itself from them. Perhaps the oil companies should do the same, since they are having a harder time making money in the oil business.
• The Atlantic has a challenging and thought-provoking article entitled “If Everyone Gets Electricity, Can the Planet Survive?”
• Last week I linked to an article by Chris Mooney in The Washington Post about the cold blob in the North Atlantic. This week he had a followup article as well as one about the concern of scientists for the stability of the glaciers on West Antarctica.
• On Thursday, ten leaders from some of the world’s biggest food companies called upon the U.S. government to support a strong global agreement on combating climate change.
• India submitted its plan for reducing CO2 emissions to the UN in preparation for the Paris meeting in December. It has pledged to get 40% of its electricity from renewable sources and cut the carbon intensity of its economy by 35% by 2030.

These news items have been compiled by Les Grady, member and former chair of the CAAV steering committee. He is a licensed professional engineer (retired) who taught environmental engineering at Purdue and Clemson Universities and engaged in private practice with CH2M Hill, the world’s largest environmental engineering consulting firm. Since his retirement in 2003 he has devoted much of his time to the study of climate science and the question of global warming and makes himself available to speak to groups about this subject. More here.

• The big news this week was the visit of Pope Francis to the U.S. and his speeches before a joint session of Congress and the U.N. Since they have been covered so extensively in the mainstream media I am not providing links to them here. However, I thought there were two particularly good articles in The Washington Post. One, by Chelsea Harvey, enumerated five important things about climate change that the Pope understands. The other, by Chris Mooney, made the case for why we might gain a little cautious optimism from the Pope’s visit.
• While most attention has been on the Pope’s visit, the visit of Chinese President Xi Jinping has resulted in some significant commitments that will have a strong impact on their CO2 emissions. One of them is a nationwide cap and trade system on CO2 from several major sectors of their economy. The Spark, the newsletter of the Rocky Mountain Institute has links to a number of articles about the Chinese and U.S. commitments.
• Last week I gave you links to the first two reports from Inside Climate News (ICN) about Exxon’s climate change research program in the 1970’s and 1980’s. Here is the third installment, plus an infographic that lays out the timeline. In addition, here is a response from Exxon/Mobil.
• Adam Ozimek at Forbes reports on an interesting idea for keeping fossil fuels in the ground patterned after conservation easements.
• Miguel Canete, the EU’s climate chief, has stated that the EU will push for a robust, ambitious, and binding climate change agreement at the UN talks in Paris in December. The EU nations call on all nations of the world to phase out fossil fuel use by 2100. At the same time, some are expressing optimism that the Paris talks in December will lead to a landmark agreement.
• When electrical distribution systems were first being built, the big battle was between alternating and direct current, with alternating current, or AC, winning out. Today the big battle is in the energy storage and automotive technology areas and is between hydrogen and batteries. Who will win? Germany appears to be betting on hydrogen as discussed in this article from E&E News.
• The number of carbon pricing schemes, either taxes or cap and trade systems, have almost doubled worldwide since 2012 according to the World Bank. Unfortunately they still cover only 12% of emissions and are insufficiently high to keep global warming below 2C. Interestingly, a number of large corporations have begun charging themselves a price for carbon emissions as a way for preparing for the day in which carbon is priced globally.
• We’ve known for some time that as the planet warms, permafrost will melt, allowing the organic matter stored in it to decompose, releasing carbon dioxide and methane, which are both greenhouse gases that will cause the planet to warm even more. What we haven’t known are the economic impacts of the additional warming associated with the melting permafrost. Now, a scientist and an economist have teamed up to estimate what those costs are.
• A study just published in Nature Climate Change indicates that if nothing is done to curb global warming, flooding along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts will increase by 35 to 350 times over historical occurrences due to the combined effects of storms and sea level rise. Of course, sea level rise occurs everywhere and this means that birds that nest on low-lying islands will be increasingly vulnerable to its impacts.
• Another study in Nature Climate Change has found that more methane is being emitted by landfills in the U.S. than previously thought because those landfills are receiving more organic waste that undergoes rapid decay.
• Investors representing $2.6 trillion in assets have now pledged to divest from fossil fuels. Also, an increasing number of global corporations are increasing their efforts to fight climate change through actions such as using more renewable energy and stopping deforestation. The effort of the shipping industry to become more fuel efficient is one example.
• In a previous Weekly Roundup I provided material about a possible weakening of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), which is a major circulation that carries heat from the equator to the North Atlantic. Now NOAA has released data showing that the North Atlantic is indeed cooling. Chris Mooney of the Washington Post discusses this.
• A report released Wednesday by the U.S. Energy Information Administration states that the total number of operating coal mines in the U.S. has hit the lowest on record while the number of new coal mines opening has fallen to the lowest point in a decade. Records go back to 1923.
• Scientists at Harvard have published a paper in Science reporting on a new type of flow battery that is made with cheap, non-toxic, non-corrosive, non-flammable, high-performance materials. Such batteries are easily scaleable and are targeted at stationary locations, such as homes and businesses.
• You often hear that 97% of climate scientists believe that climate change is happening and is being driven by human activity. But what about other scientists? Is there such strong acceptance among them? To find out a survey of biological and physical scientists was conducted, finding that 92% of the more than 700 scientists surveyed agreed with the 97% of climate scientists.

These news items have been compiled by Les Grady, member and former chair of the CAAV steering committee. He is a licensed professional engineer (retired) who taught environmental engineering at Purdue and Clemson Universities and engaged in private practice with CH2M Hill, the world’s largest environmental engineering consulting firm. Since his retirement in 2003 he has devoted much of his time to the study of climate science and the question of global warming and makes himself available to speak to groups about this subject. More here.

• One of the world’s biggest problems is how to lift people out of poverty while simultaneously reducing the use of fossil fuels. One way of doing this is to help countries leap over fossil fuels and go directly to renewable energy, such as solar panels. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, a former finance minister of Nigeria and a former director of the World Bank, discusses how this is being done in an op-ed piece in The New York Times.
• Numerous studies have made it clear that the majority of fossil fuels must remain in the ground if humanity is to have any hope of keeping global warming below 2C (3.6F) above pre-industrial temperatures. This necessity was emphasized in the most recent IPCC report when it included the concept of a carbon budget. Now, in order to stay within the carbon budget, a group of environmental organizations has called on President Obama to stop new leases for the development of fossil fuels in public lands and waters.
• The G20 nations pledged to end fossil fuel subsidies in 2009. In spite of that, subsidies given in the Powder River Basin total $2.9 billion a year according to a study by Carbon Tracker Initiative and three other organizations. This equates to $8 per tonne, or almost 25% of the sales price. However, the unaccounted for social costs of fossil fuels are even greater.
• Bill McKibben reflects on the first installment of a report by Inside Climate News on Exxon’s understanding of climate change and its causes in the 1970’s and 80’s. The second installment was released Thursday.
• Scientists and economists at Penn. State University have prepared a Climate Impacts Assessment Update for the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection. Because of the proximity of Pennsylvania to Virginia, their findings may provide a clue as to the changes we might expect in a warming world.
• Last week I provided a link to an article about projections indicating that all of the ice in Antarctica will melt if we burn all of the known reserves of fossil fuels. Jedediah Purdy, a professor at Duke Law School, used that article as a springboard for a discussion of the fact that the future of the planet is a political problem.
• Dry lands comprise 40% of Earth’s land surface. They are covered with “biocrust”, a symbiotic mixture of mosses, lichen, and photosynthetic cyanobacteria,
  that glues the surface together, preventing the soil from blowing away. The biocrust also stores a significant amount of carbon, estimated at 25% of the carbon in Earth’s soil. Thus it is disturbing that a recent study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences has found that elevated temperatures, like those expected from global warming, disrupts the biocrust, causing loss of the mosses and lichen with their associated adhesive properties.
• A research paper in the journal Nature Climate Change has found that the drought in California is more severe than any in the past 500 years. While the drought is considered to be part of a natural pattern, a Columbia University study has found that human-caused climate change has made it significantly worse. As if that wasn’t enough, a Stanford University study found that a future of more frequent drought in California is a near certainty. National Geographic provided a detailed report on the implications of these findings.
• Commitments of CO2 reductions made for the Paris talks are inadequate to hold warming below 2C. Carbon Brief discusses a new report about the consequences of exceeding that threshold.
• U.S. and Chinese cities are committing to higher standards for greenhouse gas reductions than their respective nations have. Meanwhile, some cities worldwide are progressing well in their efforts to abandon fossil fuels, whereas others are almost completely reliant on them.
• The National Academy of Sciences has released a new booklet that highlights four ways that changes in the Arctic will reverberate beyond the Arctic: (1) changes in the weather, (2) impacts on our food supplies, (3) increase in sea level, and (4) worsening of global warming. You can download a copy of the booklet (8 MB) for free.
• Two recently published scientific papers used new statistical techniques to conclude that a hiatus in global warming during the past 15 years never actually existed. When combined with other papers published recently the evidence is clear that global warming is continuing unabated.
• Britain’s top climate and weather body, the Met Office, issued a report on Monday that predicted that 2015 and 2016 will be among the very warmest years ever recorded.
• In a sensitive essay entitled “The Age of Loneliness“, Meera Subramanian writes about where we have been and where we might be going during the Anthropocene.
• Here is an essay you just may want to pass on to a mom or dad who doesn’t seem too concerned about climate change.

These news items have been compiled by Les Grady, member and former chair of the CAAV steering committee. He is a licensed professional engineer (retired) who taught environmental engineering at Purdue and Clemson Universities and engaged in private practice with CH2M Hill, the world’s largest environmental engineering consulting firm. Since his retirement in 2003 he has devoted much of his time to the study of climate science and the question of global warming and makes himself available to speak to groups about this subject. More here.

Before getting into this week’s climate news I want to give a shout out to CAAV Steering Committee member Charlie Strickler who is among the group engaged in a fast outside of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission in Washington, DC. Thank you Charlie and good luck. Please take care of yourself.

• Joni Grady, Doug Hendren, and I were in DC on Thursday to participate in the Grandparents Climate Action Day. The high point of our day was being part of a flash mob in Union Station in the morning. You can see it here.
• How business responds to climate change will have a large impact on how rapidly the world reduces its carbon emissions. Thus, it is discomforting to learn that fewer than half (46%) of the CEOs of the worlds largest companies will prioritize the issue, even if a binding climate agreement is reached in Paris.
• The Syrian crisis began when prolonged drought and an exhausted aquifer forced farmers off their land and into cities where there were no jobs. But, as Peter Mellgard discusses, the European migrant crisis may just be a harbinger of things to come as climate change forces people to leave their homelands. Craig Bennett, CEO of Friends of the Earth, also discusses the issue.
• A new study by the New Climate Economy has shown that cities world-wide could generate savings of up $17 trillion by investing in green urban infrastructure.
• Two recently published studies by different scientific teams provide further evidence that melting glaciers on Greenland could lead to disruption of global ocean currents, such as the Gulf Stream. Possible effects range from plunging temperatures in northern latitudes to centuries-long droughts in Southeast Asia.
• In an interesting exercise, Damon Matthews of Concordia University in Montreal, Canada has monetized the CO2 emissions from various nations, dividing them into two groups (debtor and creditor) depending on whether they emitted more or less than the global per capita average. He used the EPA’s social cost of CO2 of $40 per tonne in arriving at his figures, which show that each person in the US has an accumulated debt of $12,000, whereas each person in India has a credit of $2500. Similarly, George Washington University’s graduate program in health administration has released a new visualization based on 2010 data showing the nations most responsible for climate change and the ones most vulnerable to it.
• NASA has an interesting website that you might want to bookmark. It is called “Vital Signs of the Planet” and it tracks CO2, global temperature, sea level, etc. They have recently updated some of the figures so I encourage you to check it out.
• Although it is normal for us to focus on changes occurring in the U.S. weather, we need to remember that changes are occurring all over the world. For example, this summer was especially hot and dry in Europe, as John Abraham reported in The Guardian.
• The folk in Norfolk can look forward to greater than average nuisance flooding this fall, winter, and spring, according to a recent NASA report, going from about 8 flood days to 18.
• A recently published paper by Australian scientists has shown that a single statistic, the ratio of the number of record hot temperatures to the number of record low temperatures in a year, is a good indicator of a changing climate.
• Methane is a more potent greenhouse gas than CO2 so there has been a lot of interest recently in reducing leakage from natural gas transport and distribution pipelines. Thus it is encouraging that a recent study focusing on Cincinnati, OH and Durham, NC has found that replacing old gas mains has brought about a significant reduction in gas leakage.
• The oceans are major carbon sinks, with about a quarter of emitted CO2 being absorbed by them. Unfortunately, around 1980 the ability of the Southern Ocean to absorb CO2 began declining, which was a cause for concern. Now, new studies based on millions of observations from ships at sea have found that the ability of the Southern Ocean to absorb CO2 has recovered and that it is again a major sink.
• Idaho has been hit particularly hard by wildfires this year, as well as in the past few. This has had a large impact on many sectors of the Idaho economy. Rocky Barker examines those effects and wraps up with a good list of things that have been learned about wild fires in Idaho this century.
• In a “the glass is half full” essay, Fred Krupp of the Environmental Defense Fund provides “4 undeniable signs we’re making progress on climate change.” His optimism stems in part from “a deeply reported New York Magazine piece” by Jonathan Chait entitled “The Sunniest Climate-Change Story You’ve Ever Read.”
• While we all hope it will never happen, a recent study investigated the consequences of burning all available fossil fuel reserves. Hint: don’t buy coastal property.
• One impediment to building a consensus for action on climate change is the perception that the risk of extreme warming is low. This stems in part from uncertainty in climate science and in part from a lack of understanding of risk. For example, scientists have reported a range of values for the likely warming associated with a doubling of greenhouse gas concentrations. When we think about that range, we generally think that it follows a bell-shaped curve because the likelihood of so many other things in our lives do. Unfortunately, it doesn’t. It displays a distribution with a “fat tail”. Michael Mann of Penn State explains the impacts of that on the risks associated with rising atmospheric CO2 concentrations.

These news items have been compiled by Les Grady, member and former chair of the CAAV steering committee. He is a licensed professional engineer (retired) who taught environmental engineering at Purdue and Clemson Universities and engaged in private practice with CH2M Hill, the world’s largest environmental engineering consulting firm. Since his retirement in 2003 he has devoted much of his time to the study of climate science and the question of global warming and makes himself available to speak to groups about this subject. More here.

• Ivy Main has a new blog post in which she presents her third annual update of Virginia renewable energy law and policy. If you are considering putting solar panels on your house or business this is a post you should read.
• A major news story this week was President Obama’s trip to Alaska. Because of its full coverage in major media I will not repeat it here. Rather, I’ll give you a link to a story in The Atlantic about the difficulties of moving a small Alaskan village that is washing into the sea as a result of sea level rise and the melting of the permafrost. The people there are among the first climate migrants
  in the U.S. Another article has a picture of another Alaskan village that is even more vulnerable to sea level rise.
• Climate migrants are not a future phenomenon, they exist right now. One case is in Zimbabwe. Although this migration is occurring within a single country it is still causing significant problems in the region to which the migrants are moving. Another article addresses the issue of climate displacement and why the term “refugee” is not really appropriate for people displaced by climate change, even when they leave their home country.
• People in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, and northwest China depend on melt water from glaciers in the Tien Shan mountain range as a critical part of their water supply. The melt rate of these glaciers has accelerated and by 2050 warmer temperatures driven by climate change could wipe out half of the remaining glacial ice.
• Samuel Alexander (Research Fellow, Melbourne Sustainable Society Institute, University of Melbourne, Australia) and Josh Floyd (advisor on energy, systems, and societal futures at Understandascope, and founding partner of the Centre for Australian Foresight) have some interesting ideas about a sustainable future. Some of their ideas may make you uncomfortable, but they certainly deserve consideration.
• And now for some good news: CO2 emissions from electric power plants have hit the lowest point in 27 years. This happened even before the Clean Power Plan was released.
• The World Wide Views Alliance has engaged 10,000 people in 76 countries to learn their views on the desirability of action on climate change. The United Nations Environment Programme has summarized the findings. A synthesis report is also available.
• The world is undergoing a battery revolution and this may well have a big impact on your life. In fact, the second quarter of 2015 saw a 6-fold increase in energy storage deployment over the first quarter.
• Tampa, Florida, Cairns, Australia and Dubai could experience super-charged hurricanes because of climate change, according to a new study from Nature Climate Change. These so called “grey swan” storms, events that are foreseeable but rare, pose a particularly grave threat to these three cities because of their massive storm surge potential.
• A new study provides additional evidence that a warming Arctic can lead to colder winters in North America and Asia. Specifically, the new study identifies two areas in the Arctic that lead to colder winters, one affecting North America and the other Asia. The authors state that their findings will help weather forecasters.
• A recent study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences makes the case that droughts and heat waves have become more likely to overlap in the past 20 years compared to the period from 1960 to 1980. Interestingly, their map indicates that this has not been the case in the Valley, which has experienced fewer overlaps.
• Deforestation has two impacts on climate change. First, as forests are cut down and burned, large quantities of CO2 are released to the atmosphere, directly contributing to warming. Second, the lost forests no longer remove CO2 through tree growth. Thus, it is disturbing that data from the University of Maryland and Google indicate that the world lost more than 45 million acres of tree cover in 2014. Also this week a new paper in Nature indicated that the world has many more trees than previously thought, although there are 46 percent fewer trees than there were before extensive deforestation began.
• A paper in the journal Geophysical Research Letters indicates that the record floods in Texas and Oklahoma in May 2015 were intensified by global warming.
• A study published in the journal Nature/Scientific Reports has found that between 1950 and 2010, 5.7% of the global total land area shifted toward warmer and drier climate types. Modeling studies found that the shift cannot be explained by natural variations, but rather, was driven by anthropogenic factors such as CO2 emissions.
• Even in the face of extreme climate change, life (of some sort) will go on. Lizzie Wade speculates in Wired on how biodiversity might change in a warmer world.

These news items have been compiled by Les Grady, member and former chair of the CAAV steering committee. He is a licensed professional engineer (retired) who taught environmental engineering at Purdue and Clemson Universities and engaged in private practice with CH2M Hill, the world’s largest environmental engineering consulting firm. Since his retirement in 2003 he has devoted much of his time to the study of climate science and the question of global warming and makes himself available to speak to groups about this subject. More here.