Climate Change Thread

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Oh, but the world's "leading climatologist" sez "It'll start getting cooler. You just watch." "I don't think science knows, actually".

https://www.politico.com/video/2020/...ifornia-090147

The naivete of Wade Crowfoot in literally pleading with Trump shows he understands very little about the man

Trump as his crowd -- schooled by Limbaugh's views on the matter for two decades -- are that we are in a natural warming phase of the Earth's temperature/climate cycle and that attempts to ascribe primacy for this climate change to anthropomorphic action are not supported by definitive science but are, instead, the product of incomplete scientific assessment that has been taken up as a leveraging tool by socialist/anti-capitalist/anti-US-hegemony forces to take the USA down three or four notches and continue to press for world governance and the expense of US sovereignty and personal freedoms.

As such, "It'll start getting cooler," is no less valid than all of science because they view the science as having been corrupted/suborned an inherently untrustworthy.

[ReluctantSamurai]

As such, "It'll start getting cooler," is no less valid than all of science because they view the science as having been corrupted/suborned an inherently untrustworthy.

I would argue that this crowd doesn't believe in science at all.

we are in a natural warming phase of the Earth's temperature/climate cycle and that attempts to ascribe primacy for this climate change to anthropomorphic action are not supported by definitive science

I'm pretty sure that climatologists understand that Earth's climate has cyclical patterns of warming and cooling Nah, it's the same old same old......money. Right now the money is on fossil fuels, although that's changing (not so much in the US if Fearless Leader gets re-elected).

[Montmorency]

Wrong thread plz delete.

[Montmorency]

Trump as his crowd -- schooled by Limbaugh's views on the matter for two decades -- are that we are in a natural warming phase of the Earth's temperature/climate cycle and that attempts to ascribe primacy for this climate change to anthropomorphic action are not supported by definitive science but are, instead, the product of incomplete scientific assessment that has been taken up as a leveraging tool by socialist/anti-capitalist/anti-US-hegemony forces to take the USA down three or four notches and continue to press for world governance and the expense of US sovereignty and personal freedoms.

As such, "It'll start getting cooler," is no less valid than all of science because they view the science as having been corrupted/suborned an inherently untrustworthy.

I would offer an amendment to this: the bulk of deniers - the ones who aren't conscious professional liars - don't have any fixed beliefs on the etiology or reality of climate change. The ideas they'll profess to hold are typically fluid and situational, i.e. anything that serves to contradict the climate consensus in the immediate moment. They have no problem contradicting themselves, because rational argument or even a defense of earnestly-held beliefs is not their domain. You might even call it -

I'm pretty sure that climatologists understand that Earth's climate has cyclical patterns of warming and cooling Nah, it's the same old same old......money. Right now the money is on fossil fuels, although that's changing (not so much in the US if Fearless Leader gets re-elected).

for the bulk not solely motivated by pecuniary blandishments - a form of identity politics metonymous to all the rest, bizarrely but genuinely inseparable from the broader supremacist project and mindset.

[ReluctantSamurai]

I would offer an amendment to this: the bulk of deniers - the ones who aren't conscious professional liars - don't have any fixed beliefs on the etiology or reality of climate change. The ideas they'll profess to hold are typically fluid and situational, i.e. anything that serves to contradict the climate consensus in the immediate moment. They have no problem contradicting themselves, because rational argument or even a defense of earnestly-held beliefs is not their domain.

I would say that Mother Nature is doing Her best to trash the "rational" arguments of climate change nay-sayers. From the historic wild fires out West and in Australia, to the derecho that flattened the Midwest, to the already record-breaking hurricane season for the Gulf states, to the unprecedented heat wave in Siberia....well the litany is loooong:

https://www.climate.gov/news-feature...extreme-events

[ReluctantSamurai]

While wildfires in California and Australia make international news on a regular basis, this goes well under media radar:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...s-drought-heat

Devastating wildfires have broken out across across Paraguay, as drought and record high temperatures continue to exacerbate blazes across South America.

A total of 5,231 individual wildfires broke out across the country on 1 October – up 3,000 on the previous day. Most of were concentrated in the arid Chaco region in the west of the country, but thick yellow smoke had reached as far as the capital, Asunción.

Paraguay’s outbreak came as the southern hemisphere heads into summer and neighbouring countries also face unprecedented wildfires. The Brazilian Amazon is recording its worst blazes in a decade, with numbers up 61% on the widely reported fires of last year, and separate fires in the southern Pantanal region.

Argentina has also seen record numbers of fires devastate the wetlands along the Paraná River, with multiple areas of the country continuing to experience aggressive blazes.

Guillermo Achucarro, climate policy researcher at Base-IS research centre in Asunción, said weather conditions were accelerating Paraguay’s wildfires.

One of the country’s worst droughts of recent decades has seen the River Paraguay –one of its main waterways – drop to 50-year lows. Meanwhile, the country is going through a heatwave, registering a record high temperature of 45.5C (113.9F) last Saturday.

Achucarro said these phenomena were directly linked to Paraguay’s environmental record, which sees cattle ranching fuel some of the world’s highest rates of deforestation in the ecologically important Chaco.

“There is terrible, inefficient, non-existent environmental management in all areas: water, forested areas, waste management,” he said. “Now, we’re literally tasting the environmental crisis: we’re breathing smoke.”

And this goes largely unreported, as well:

https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/im...res-in-siberia

Abnormally warm temperatures have spawned an intense fire season in eastern Siberia this summer. Satellite data show that fires have been more abundant, more widespread, and produced more carbon emissions than recent seasons.

The area shown in the time-lapse sequence above includes the Sakha Republic, one of the most active fire regions in Siberia this summer. The images show smoke plumes billowing from July 30 to August 6, 2020, as observed by the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) on NASA/NOAA’s Suomi NPP satellite and the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite. Strong winds occasionally carried the plumes as far as Alaska in late July. As of August 6, approximately 19 fires were burning in the province.

“After the Arctic fires in 2019, the activity in 2020 was not so surprising through June,” said Mark Parrington, a senior scientist at the Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS) of the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts. “What has been surprising is the rapid increase in the scale and intensity of the fires through July, largely driven by a large cluster of active fires in the northern Sakha Republic.”

Estimates show that around half of the fires in Arctic Russia this year are burning through areas with peat soil—decomposed organic matter that is a large natural carbon source. Warm temperatures (such as the record-breaking heatwave in June) can thaw and dry frozen peatlands, making them highly flammable. Peat fires can burn longer than forest fires and release vast amounts of carbon into the atmosphere.

Parrington noted that fires in Arctic Russia released more carbon dioxide (CO2) in June and July 2020 alone than in any complete fire season since 2003 (when data collection began). That estimate is based on data compiled by CAMS, which incorporates data from NASA’s MODIS active fire products.

But hey, there's no such thing as climate change, right?

[Seamus Fermanagh]

While wildfires in California and Australia make international news on a regular basis, this goes well under media radar:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...s-drought-heat



And this goes largely unreported, as well:

https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/im...res-in-siberia



But hey, there's no such thing as climate change, right?

Course not. Good to go. All those thermometers over the last century and a half were all wrong.

[ReluctantSamurai]

Why articles like this are so misleading (I would've expected far better from Politico):

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/1...a-texas-432043

“It absolutely helps Trump, not only in Pennsylvania, but also in Texas, Ohio and several other key states,” said Charlie Gerow, a GOP strategist in Pennsylvania who has worked on presidential campaigns. “I think even Biden realized that he stepped in it last night. You could see him trying to back-walk it.” [referring to Biden's comments on transitioning away from oil]

“The vice president’s comment about ending oil and gas development in the very near future certainly hurts his chance to lock down working-class voters in northeastern Pennsylvania and throughout Pennsylvania,” Yudichak said. “We can’t dismiss building-trade, construction trade workers. We need to make sure that they don’t feel forgotten.”

That certainly isn't the only article like that (insinuating that Biden's "transition from oil" was a mistake), but I use Politico a lot as reference material, so it's disappointing to see such a lack of depth in that article.

Energy companies themselves are making plans for a "transition", although they seem to be banking on the demand for petrochemicals in plastics to shore up their profits:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/scottca...ould-backfire/

Nonetheless, many industrial companies are in the process, or have already implemented carbon-reducing policies:

https://www2.deloitte.com/us/en/insi...ransition.html

Our survey respondents reported that their companies either already had a plan in place or were developing a strategy to reduce reliance on fossil fuels: eighty-seven percent of chemical company executives, 92 percent of power and utilities executives, and 92 percent of oil and gas industry executives responded affirmatively to these statements. Across sectors, the top drivers of decarbonization included customer focus and digital technologies supporting energy efficiency and decarbonization. Notably, 56 percent of oil and gas respondents indicated that plan metrics were tied to executive compensation. And when asked if a low-carbon future would have a positive, neutral, or negative impact on the future of their organization, more than 60 percent of oil and gas respondents answered that it would have a positive impact.

Decarbonization trends are having a mixed impact on the oil and gas sector. Increasingly, oil and gas companies are sourcing renewable energy for their needs. And while most do not have a renewables plan per se, 49 percent of respondents plan to switch to cleaner fuels or renewables in their facilities and field operations, according to our survey results. This is particularly true of the larger oil and gas companies, as 61 percent of respondents from this group noted that increasing reliance on clean fuels and renewables was core to their strategy. A similar trend has emerged in the chemical sector: fifty-seven percent of chemical executives reported that their company had invested in using renewables to reduce emissions and waste. In addition, the half of chemicals executives surveyed reported that their company had increased use of renewable energy for production, though this trend is more pronounced among larger chemical companies than at medium or small companies.

One aspect of this investment in new technology is the venture capital investments that international oil and gas companies are making in clean energy technologies. The larger companies are building their portfolios in areas such as clean energy and EV charging; many have also formed venture capital arms and pursued partnerships and acquisitions in the clean tech space. [...] the volume of transactions in clean energy concluded by large oil and gas companies across the globe has almost doubled over the past decade.While the deal volume by these companies in the solar and wind industries has begun to decline, growth in battery storage picked up sharply in 2019. Investments in EV charging have also increased from 2017, as have investments in biofuels and hydrogen.

Customers now perceive that not all energy molecules are the same, and many are showing a growing preference for “green” energy, in power and in oil and gas. This has led many companies across various sectors to differentiate their products and change their production processes where possible. A majority of power executives polled reported their organization has committed to providing more electricity sourced from renewables to their customers. Demand for clean energy is rising fast as corporations boost renewable procurement and carbon emission reduction targets and realize cost savings on wind and solar, even with the PTC and ITC phasedown. This is evident in the 2019 increase of power purchase agreements for renewable energy signed by corporate consumers: 14 GW of bilateral renewables PPA in 2019, up from 8.5 GW in 2018 [...]

Many shareholders and investors have begun to apply pressure on companies to focus on lower-carbon operations and curtail carbon emissions by reducing their carbon footprint and reducing reliance on fossil fuels. BlackRock’s January 2020 letter to clients emphasizing the growing impact of sustainability on investment returns and outlining initiatives to increase their focus on sustainability helped set a broader tone underlining the attractiveness of low-carbon industries and businesses. And a growing investor preference for sustainable companies and sustainability funds was already evident even before this announcement.

Oil and gas company executives are well aware of this market sentiment. Among the CEOs we surveyed, 68 percent indicated that the key component of their low-carbon strategy was a focus on low-carbon fuels (though that also includes natural gas). Oil and gas executives surveyed identified “consumer support for reducing carbon emissions” as one of the top drivers for the industry’s transition toward a sustainable, low-carbon future.

Then there's this:

https://www.vox.com/2020/10/23/21530299/trump-biden-debate-oil-wind-solar

Survey after survey shows widespread support for cleaner energy amongst Americans.

Of course Fox News is whipping up a fabricated frenzy over all this:

https://www.foxbusiness.com/markets/...iden-move-away

“Six-dollar gas is coming if Trump isn’t re-elected,” Continental Resources founder Harold Hamm told FOX Business on Friday after the former vice president outlined his approach to energy policy at Thursday night's debate in Nashville, Tenn.

“If Biden is elected and his plan on energy is adopted, he will send America into a deep depression and millions of jobs will be lost in Texas, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Oklahoma, North Dakota and we will once again be beholden to foreign rogue regimes for our energy,” Hamm argued.

Even though energy execs themselves are preparing for some sort of transition away from fossil fuels, the GOP is so desperate for anything to try and reverse current polls, that we can expect more of this type of bullshit in the next week.

Even corporate Democrats like two vulnerable House Democrats in oil-producing states, Kendra Horn in Oklahoma and Xochitl Torres Small in New Mexico, immediately distanced themselves from Biden on this, showing duplicity is not restricted to Republicans.

[ReluctantSamurai]

With all the discussion of the harm CoviDon can do before he has to vacate the Oval Office, this kind of harm has the potential to last generations, unlike some of short-term havoc he can wreak:

https://www.theguardian.com/environm...-refuge-alaska

The Arctic refuge’s coastal plain has been at the center of a fierce battle over oil extraction on public lands for decades. It was earmarked for potential development in 1980 but remained protected until a Republican-controlled Congress added a provision to a tax bill in 2017 that finally opened the area to oil development.

This is the kind of continued damage that can be wrought by the fossil fuel industry. Yes, I know this kind of crap has happened for years and in many countries around the world, but if you haven't been there, like I have, and just stood in absolute wonder at what nature has wrought, then you will have trouble understanding why folks like me get passionate, sometimes overly so, about what mankind is doing to this precious planet....

[end of rant]

[ReluctantSamurai]

Just to show that I'm not partial to just ragging on Republicans, have a gander at this piece of duplicity from Democratic governor of California, Gavin Newsom:

https://capitalandmain.com/gov-newso...ghts-more-1023

On Sept. 23, California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed an executive order to ban hydrofracturing in the state by 2024. Just three weeks later, on Oct. 16, his administration approved permits to frack six new wells owned by a company with whom he has lobbying ties.

Even though the Newsom administration had requested six more exemptions in Kern County since the governor took office, Newsom has continued to position himself as Trump’s environmental adversary. In recent weeks, Newsom has slammed Trump for his climate change denial. In a filmed Sept. 14 meeting, he told Trump that “the science is in and observed evidence is self-evident,” saying “climate change is real and is exacerbating this,” referring to the unprecedented wildfires still burning in California.

According to drilling data collected by the groups Consumer Watchdog and FracTracker Alliance, Newsom issued 190% more oil drilling permits in the first half of 2020 compared with the first half of 2019. He has issued over 7,000 new permits since taking office in 2019, according to data the groups collected, now published on the website NewsomWellWatch.com

“He keeps tweeting ‘climate change is real’ but turns around and shows us he values profit over people’s health,” Nalleli Cobo, a college sophomore activist who grew up with oil drilling next door to her childhood home in South Los Angeles and is battling cancer, said in a press release. “Gov. Newsom – stop being a hypocrite and remember you work for us, the people.”

“First he passes the buck to the legislature, then he gives out new permits like gifts to Big Oil,” Siegel said. “By continuing to fast-track more fracking and drilling, Newsom is fanning the flames of the climate emergency.”

Just another two-faced corporate government official.....

[Pannonian]

Boris Johnson's 10 point plan for a Green Industrial Revolution

Apparently part of the plan involves Britain and Ireland sinking beneath the waves. Iceland too.

[ReluctantSamurai]

I damn near fell out of my chair, laughing......

[spmetla]

From Brexit to Earth-exit, too funny!

[edyzmedieval]

Since we're discussing the oil extraction in the Arctic, there's a good chance opening it up for oil drilling will be too little too late.

Prices of renewables have dropped significantly, price of oil has dropped significantly and extracting from the Arctic to make it commercially viable, let's say by 2025... yeah, not a good look. Oil companies are seeing the writing on the wall, Shell has invested by now more than 1 billion EUR in renewables.

[ReluctantSamurai]

While response to climate change may be spotty and inconsistent at the government level, businesses are taking the issue seriously. Especially the one business impacted the most---insurers. Policy is already being affected, and changes to investment and policies is already happening:

https://www.heitman.com/news/climate-risk-2/

A report by the Urban Land Institute (ULI), a global multidisciplinary real estate organization, and Heitman LLC (Heitman), a global real estate investment management firm, finds that real estate investors have expanded their analysis of climate risk to explore impacts at the market-level. Investors interviewed for the report noted a heightened appreciation for market-level climate risk and expect assessments of that risk to increasingly influence investment decision-making and outcomes.

Climate Risk and Real Estate: Emerging Practices in Market Assessment finds that investors now commonly view local climate risks, such as wildfires, increasingly frequent and intense storms and sea-level rise, as core factors in investment decision-making. Exact weighting of climate risk varies from investor-to-investor; however, climate risk is having greater impact on investment outcomes overall. Certain investors revealed they were starting to pull back from investment in some local property markets due to lack of climate resilience.

Globally, most major economic hubs are in coastal locations, river deltas, or other high-risk areas and these cities house more than half the world’s population. Many cities’ key business districts are in their most at-risk area, their waterfronts. In many cities, high value residential development, representing a key part of the local tax base, is likewise located in waterfront districts.

Some cities threatened by climate change are in the process of moving their populations, most notably Cairo and Jakarta. Climate migration is also an increasingly recognized phenomenon, with prominent examples in the U.S. including migrations after disasters such as Hurricane Katrina, Hurricane Maria and the 2020 wildfires. With climate change risks intensifying, and costs of insuring, protecting, or rebuilding property rising, the trend to pick up and move altogether may become more common, more quickly than anticipated.


Climate change is increasing the frequency and intensity of many different weather events that result in catastrophic losses, including extreme precipitation, drought, floods, tsunamis, wildfires, heat waves, and landslides. Globally, there were 40 disaster events in 2019 that resulted in at least $1 billion in near-term, direct losses each – part of an upward trend of billion-dollar disasters. Worldwide losses from extreme weather events from 2010-2020, some on a smaller scale, totalled over $3 trillion.

From the aforementioned ULI report (the full PDF is available in the above link):

Leading real estate investment managers and institutional investors are increasingly recognizing climate risk as a core real estate issue that is beginning to affect their decisions at the market level as well as at the asset level. The consensus from interviews with leaders in the industry is that market-scale climate risk assessment will play a role in future investment decisions, mirroring the recent advances in assessing physical risk at the asset level. As this market-scale analysis of climate risks and cities’ resilience strategies advances, investors will better asses both the economic impact of climate-related events and the cost and ability of cities to mitigate the impact of climate change through their resilience strategies.

As investors increase understanding and prioritization of market resilience to climate risk, their real estate investment decisions at the market level are likely to become more climate conscious. In the meantime, some investors are starting to make decisions on whether to invest, or continue investing, in markets particularly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. Examples of pulling back from entire markets completely because of climate risk are limited but do exist. In these cases, investors often see climate risk as a “tiebreaker issue” that makes a difference if other market-level concerns exist.

BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, made headlines in January 2020 when Larry Fink, the firm’s CEO, stated in his annual letter on corporate governance that “climate change has become a defining factor in companies’ long-term prospects,” and “we are on the edge of a fundamental reshaping of finance.” The BlackRock announcement signified an increasing industry prioritization of climate change mitigation, or efforts to prevent or reduce greenhouse gas emissions.Leading real estate investors report participating in the Task Force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) as established by the Financial Stability Board, and using the results to drive climate-risk decision-making. One interviewee representing a real estate investment trust in Southeast Asia noted, “[A]s TCFD methods are fleshed out, property managers will have a better understanding of those key risks.” The interviewee further noted, “We actually ran a TCFD analysis of our portfolio, and . . . this gives us insight into which regions we should be developing in, how we should respond, and what are the issues we need to look at right away.” GRESB, the Global Real Estate Sustainability Benchmark, has also recently integrated a Resilience Module, which scores respondents on their climate risk and resilience strategy.

The last bold text should raise a red flag as it's called "redlining" outside of the insurance world. And not surprisingly:

A 2019 study by Deloitte found that more than half of U.S. state insurance regulators “indicated that climate change was likely to have a high impact or an extremely high impact on coverage availability and underwriting assumptions.”

In response, insurers have sometimes raised prices or refused to issue new policies in high-risk areas, and regulatory entities have imposed restrictions on higher rates. Following the California wildfires in 2018 and 2019, for example, insurers canceled many homeowner policies in high-risk areas. In response, the state imposed a one-year ban on that practice. Real estate investment managers interviewed for this report noted that they are currently seeing increases in property insurance premiums, a trend many attribute to climate change and the increased frequency of storm events. “We are looking at the possible physical damage, but insurance is a key factor for us,” noted a U.S.-based investment manager. “Pretty much all of our insurance is renewed annually at the discretion of the insurers, so that is part and parcel of the risk.”

Most interviewees also expressed overall uncertainty about future insurance prices and the likely market impacts of shifting insurance policy. In an extreme scenario, some investors envisioned a future in which properties could not qualify for insurance at all and therefore became ineligible for loans. In short, a loss of insurance could cause a downward spiral even in the absence of a peak climate event. Even without a worst-case scenario, the annual insurance pricing structure can under predict risk for longer hold periods as well as for infrastructure.

Whether government officials acknowledge climate change or not, businesses are, and business decisions going forward are going to influence climate change policy irregardless of governmental decisions. A few examples:

However, a few investors indicated that they are beginning to suspend acquisitions or take steps to reduce their real estate footprint in city markets where they harbor climate-risk concerns. Examples of divesting from entire markets because of climate risk remain limited but do exist. In most cases where an investor divested from an entire market, they harbored general concerns about that market, and climate risks represented one problem too many. Some investors shared examples about markets where their behavior had recently changed because of perceived climate risk, primarily providing commentary on U.S. markets, including the following:

One investment manager described an exit from Houston after Hurricane Harvey (2017), where “the climate risk factor added a material lever to the overall conversation.” The process of exiting took several years, given the need to make improvements to damaged properties. “We had to wait a couple of years . . . to restore the buildings’ reputations,” noted the investment manager. “We have been trying to determine an internal case study of what happened there and what does it mean to have your property impacted by a climate event.”

Another investor described a decision to significantly reduce investment in Boston because of concerns about sea-level rise and the high proportion of the city developed on fill.

One European investment manager noted that market decisions related to city-level physical risk can also happen in cities where climate risk is not commonly perceived as a major issue. The investment manager shared Edinburgh as an example, where a concern about future sea-level rise for a potential acquisition prompted an investigation of the municipality’s infrastructure plans for the surrounding area. “If flood risk comes out as something unfixable, then that will be an exclusion,” said the investment manager.

Some interviewees noted overall speculation about prospects in South Florida, discussing concerns about flood risk while recognizing the resilience work underway at the city and regional levels. “I do think there is an observed discount for properties in South Florida,” noted one U.S.-based investment manager. Another investor described a process by which its fund reduced its exposure to a region after completing a local flood-risk study that shed light on the region’s compounded risk via its geological foundation of porous, erosion-prone limestone. While the firm did not report a formal policy on investment in the region, the flood-risk study led to greater focus on properties with fewer vulnerabilities at the asset level.

In a small number of conversations, some managers noted making market-based decisions on limited or even anecdotal information. “There are so many markets to choose from,” noted one manager, explaining that anecdotal concern was enough for him to avoid markets that could be vulnerable. Decisions like this were informed by a range of types of sources, from popular media articles to think tank studies focused on topics outside of real estate and land use. This approach to investment decision-making could prove detrimental to cities vulnerable to climate impacts and whose extensive resilience policies and infrastructure investments may require greater industry recognition.

Going forward, it seems that development projects are going to come under more scrutiny regarding profit/loss:

Another investor summed up the issue: “To pursue any of these strategies [for climate adaptation] costs money, and that will increase taxes.” These taxes and fees incurred could range from transaction costs to stormwater fees, permitting costs, zoning variance costs, or many other models. Efforts to enhance resilience, such as strengthened building codes and design guidelines, are also likely to present additional costs in the short term, even if they lead to avoided losses over the long term. An interviewee from a ratings agency agreed, noting that “there’s a balance certainly to be struck between the implementation of projects and the cost at which they’re being implemented.”

The areas most under risk are obvious, and that bodes very bad for low value communities particularly minority ones:

Globally, most major economic hubs are in coastal, river delta, or other high-risk areas. These locations present many advantages, relating to connectivity, trade, quality of life and placemaking. These cities house more than half the global population, with
much higher percentages of residents in some regions. About 80 percent of U.S. residents live in cities, for example, and 39 percent of the European Union population lives in metro areas with 1 million or more inhabitants.

Many of the greatest infrastructure needs are in historically marginalized communities, including for low-income residents or people of color. In many South and East Asian countries, for example, infrastructure access closely correlates to income. In the United States, low-income communities are frequently located in flood-vulnerable parts of cities, and about 8 to 9 percent of government-subsidized housing is in flood-prone areas. In the United Kingdom, nongovernmental organization Climate Just notes
that low-income households are less likely to live in flood-resilient homes and have home contents insurance, and are more likely to be displaced by flooding.

In some locations, flood risk and race also correlate; in Chicago, for example, “Thirteen zip codes represent nearly three-fourths of flood damage claims paid between 2007 and 2016. In these areas, 93 percent of residents are people of color.” Previously redlined neighborhoods also face significantly more risk from extreme heat; a 2019 study found consistently higher temperatures in formerly redlined neighborhoods in 94 percent of the cities surveyed. With a frequent lack of parks, tree canopy, and cooling infrastructure, low-income neighborhoods can be as much as 13°F/–10.56°C hotter than affluent areas in the same cities.

And so a Catch 22 situation arises. The cities most at risk for damage from climate related events, are exactly the ones that business investment will be staying away from precisely because of climate-related risk. In conclusion:

As real estate investors have become more sophisticated in tracking and evaluating climate risks, leading firms have already begun to broaden their scope of analysis to the city or marketcontext. This has increased investors’ interest in data about how cities respond to extreme weather events as well as data on the financial implications of long-term city planning decisions and infrastructure investments.

Evaluating climate risk at a market level will require the development of new assessment methodologies. Few metrics are available to quantify market-scale risk and resilience, which can make it difficult for leaders in the field to test and build support for innovative ideas to enhance city resilience.

As investors find solutions and build these types of metrics into their investment decision-making, climate risk will become a more significant factor.

Here in the US (as elsewhere in the world), Dr. No and the rest of the GOP can attempt to block every single piece of the Biden Administration's climate policy, but eventually the old adage of "Money Talks and Bullshit Walks" will prevail, and Congress will be forced into a reality that many in the business world have already accepted.

[fupa]

we should just try to ruin the planet as fast as possible so that humanity is snuffed out because humanity sucks tbh

[ReluctantSamurai]

That reply makes me think of the preface to the Environmental Handbook (1970).

By Don Marquis, in “archy does his part,” (1935):

dear boss i was talking with an ant
the other day
and he handed me a lot of
gossip which ants the world around
are chewing over among themselves

i pass it on to you
in the hope that you may relay it to other
human beings and hurt their feelings with it
no insect likes human beings
and if you think you can see why
the only reason i tolerate you is because
you seem less human to me than most of them
here is what the ants are saying

it wont be long now it wont be long
man is making deserts of the earth
it wont be long now
before man will have used it up
so that nothing but ants
and centipedes and scorpions
can find a living on it
man has oppressed us for a million years
but he goes on steadily
cutting the ground from under
his own feet making deserts deserts deserts

we ants remember
and have it all recorded
in our tribal lore
when gobi was a paradise
swarming with men and rich
in human prosperity
it is a desert now and the home
of scorpions ants and centipedes

what man calls civilization
always results in deserts
man is never on the square
he uses up the fat and greenery of the earth
each generation wastes a little more
of the future with greed and lust for riches

north africa was once a garden spot
and then came carthage and rome
and despoiled the storehouse
and now you have sahara
sahara ants and centipedes

toltecs and aztecs had a mighty
civilization on this continent
but they robbed the soil and wasted nature
and now you have deserts scorpions ants and centipedes
and the deserts of the near east
followed egypt and babylon and assyria
and persia and rome and the turk
the ant is the inheritor of tamerlane
and the scorpion succeeds the caesars

america was once a paradise
of timberland and stream
but it is dying because of the greed
and money lust of a thousand little kings
who slashed the timber all to hell
and would not be controlled
and changed the climate
and stole the rainfall from posterity
and it wont be long now
it wont be long
till everything is desert
from the alleghenies to the rockies
the deserts are coming
the deserts are spreading
the springs and streams are drying up
one day the mississippi itself
will be a bed of sand
ants and scorpions and centipedes
shall inherit the earth

men talk of money and industry
of hard times and recoveries
of finance and economics
but the ants wait and the scorpions wait
for while men talk they are making deserts all the time
getting the world ready for the conquering ant
drought and erosion and desert
because men cannot learn

rainfall passing off in flood and freshet
and carrying good soil with it
because there are no longer forests
to withhold the water in the
billion meticulations of the roots

it wont be long now It won’t be long
till earth is barren as the moon
and sapless as a mumbled bone

dear boss i relay this information
without any fear that humanity
will take warning and reform

[Xantan]

One of the recent topics of discussion in the business world is the concept of peak oil, arguing that the maximum demand of oil has already passed due to COVID. While some of the reports suggest that peak oil will happen maybe in 10-20 years, per consulting groups such as McKinsey (arguing for 2035), we can expect to see a rebounding of oil demand soon.

This is not ideal at all for our climate prospects.

https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2...denly-upon-us/

[ReluctantSamurai]

While some of the reports suggest that peak oil will happen maybe in 10-20 years, per consulting groups such as McKinsey (arguing for 2035), we can expect to see a rebounding of oil demand soon.

Those reports could very well be accurate, but I have my doubts. If you examine the information given in the first two links of post #428, and read the Heitman study I quoted above, there's already an industry shift in not only prevailing thought, but in actions and investments. Insurance companies and real estate developers are already factoring in climate related events to insurance rates and where to invest in real estate projects. The scale of the money involved will force both lawmakers and energy companies alike to deal with change, whether they like it or not...

[ReluctantSamurai]

A climate change model that all other countries in the world should seriously consider:

https://www.theguardian.com/environm...ro-in-pictures

My first inclination was to say that not everyone has such readily available geo-thermal energy sources, but a quick perusal turned up some surprises:

https://www.nsenergybusiness.com/fea...ing-countries/

An already installed capacity of 14,000 GW world wide...and the US with the world's largest production of 3,639 GW of energy (misprint in the article, I think, as they state the levels in MW). The list of other countries with significant geo-thermal output surprised me, but then I never really looked.

Aside from the production of energy from geo-thermal sources, Iceland seems to be on the cutting edge of technologies designed to significantly lower carbon emissions, and even incorporate carbon capture techniques...which, IMHO, is crucial to lowering atmospheric CO2 levels. Countries are either not interested, or not moving nearly fast enough to prevent a worsening of the current climate changes. Even if CO2 emissions were cut to zero today, there is still a 20-25 year "overrun" before atmospheric CO2 levels fall enough to prevent significant global warming.

Some of the pictures in the first link provide a fascinating look into creative ways to manage greenhouses (even without the use of geo-thermal energy those techniques are amazing), fisheries, plastic recycling, dairy farming, micro-algae production, and even crypto-currency mining, of all things.

This level of innovation needs to be encouraged, financed, and brought to the forefront of public awareness if any real impact on climate change is going to be made in our lifetimes. Wind and solar get the vast majority of headlines and money, but these kinds of technologies used by Icelanders cost far less, and produce, or help to produce a wide range of products...not just energy.

An additional source of geo-thermal information:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geothermal_power

Estimates of the electricity generating potential of geothermal energy vary from 35 to 2000 GW depending on the scale of investments. This does not include non-electric heat recovered by co-generation, geothermal heat pumps and other direct use. A 2006 report by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) that included the potential of enhanced geothermal systems estimated that investing US$1 billion in research and development over 15 years would allow the creation of 100 GW of electrical generating capacity by 2050 in the United States alone. The MIT report estimated that over 200×10⁹ TJ (200 ZJ; 5.6×10⁷ TWh) would be extractable, with the potential to increase this to over 2,000 ZJ with technology improvements – sufficient to provide all the world's present energy needs for several millennia.

The table near the end of the article shows that the Philippines, Kenya, and El Salvador, produce significant amounts of their total energy needs from geo-thermal sources. The carbon foot print of geo-thermal energy production is significantly lower than fossil fuel, but the fly in the ointment is the drilling cost, which needs to get lowered to make it more competitive. On the upside, geo-thermal production is highly scalable, without the need for huge, centralized plants, as the Iceland example shows.

[ReluctantSamurai]

No matter your views on climate change, this story makes for an interesting read, IMHO:

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine...istory/617793/

While I have 0 expertise in the field of paleoclimatology, and therefore 0 chance of critiquing the authors methodology, his discussions of feedback loops in our earth's climate systems is fascinating. "Life has speed limits" is an appropriate quote. In a century that is likely to be defined by the current pandemic, where the social fabric in the world today is being shredded by conspiracy theories, autocrats, and increasing disparities between nations and races, it's rather humbling (at least to me) to see just how little time we humans have been aboard Spaceship Earth, and yet how long-lasting our footprint could become.....

A bit about the author:

https://www.colorado.edu/cej/2019/02...-peter-brannen

[Montmorency]

From the little reading on climate I've done over the past year, I've gleaned that consensus modeling has downgraded both the worst-case scenarios and the best-case scenarios. Thoughts?

[a completely inoffensive name]

From the little reading on climate I've done over the past year, I've gleaned that consensus modeling has downgraded both the worst-case scenarios and the best-case scenarios. Thoughts?

I think we are still fucked.

[Furunculus]

From the little reading on climate I've done over the past year, I've gleaned that consensus modeling has downgraded both the worst-case scenarios and the best-case scenarios. Thoughts?

This is my understanding.
No climate expert - but i do have a degree that is largely founded upon the understanding of paleo-climate.

[ReluctantSamurai]

From the little reading on climate I've done over the past year, I've gleaned that consensus modeling has downgraded both the worst-case scenarios and the best-case scenarios. Thoughts?

Peruse the Heitman article I posted for a gleaning on what's happening on the business front, and the links in post #440 for some ingeneous things that are possible.

Media and Hollywood tends to hype all the doomsday scenarios, and humans may very well get there...at some point. Whatever that time-span might be, it's apparent that in the coming decades, humans will have to adjust to an ever-changing environment. We will no longer be able to depend on certain areas for consistent food output. A good example of that here in the US was last years derecho event in Iowa which laid waste to thousands of acres of crops. Then of course there's drought conditions (some of which would occur even without human causal factors) that seem to be increasing:

https://gdis-noaa.hub.arcgis.com/pag...ght-monitoring

As sea levels continue to rise, coastal areas will continue to lose real estate, and people will start to migrate inland, causing all kinds of social and other endemic problems.

I'm far from any kind of expert on climate change, but one thing I continue to see in all the various climate change models is that changes are happening at an accelerating rate than previous models predicted, especially in the polar regions. Ice sheet losses far beyond what was expected, and accelerated heating as evidenced by unprecedented heat waves above the Arctic Circle (including a record-breaking 38 degrees C in the town of Verkhoyansk on 20 June), and the attendant fires.

The Peter Brannon article is significant to me in that one has to ride the wayback machine millions of years to find equivalency in what is occuring today. That doesn't bode well for the human race, IMHO....

[edyzmedieval]

So... thoughts on the absolute disaster that happened in Texas because of the storm? Climate change going ballistic on us?

[a completely inoffensive name]

So... thoughts on the absolute disaster that happened in Texas because of the storm? Climate change going ballistic on us?

Winter behavior in general is not as easily understood as summer. It is more difficult to say that this particular polar vortex behavior is from climate change than say a prolonged or intensive heat wave.
That being said, the world seems to be finally laying the groundwork for decarbonization and the climate scientists I follow on twitter seem to be more optimistic over the past year. If countries continue to follow through on their pledges, which is looking more likely due to the continued drop in price for renewables and storage, then we could be looking at 3 degrees worst case (vs 4-5 degrees a few years ago). With a bigger push we can still get to 2-2.5 degrees by 2100. It is very unlikely we will hit 1.5 degrees because of the multi decade delays in action.

Two big unknowns at the moment:
How fast can we decarbonize with the current state of electrical grids.
When or even who will start moving first in carbon sequestration deployment and/or geoengineering.

[ReluctantSamurai]

The record cold? Yes. The absolute disaster? No. Despite the lame attempt by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (and the habitual Fox News liar, Tucker Carlson) to blame windmills as the reason for the temporary collapse of the Texas power grid, windmills work just fine here in Michigan and elsewhere during the winter. We just had our first sub-zero temperature this winter a few nights ago, and not a single home went without power, nor a single windmill froze up due to the cold.

This is a failure of leadership to plan for such an emergency by winterizing wellheads, pumping stations, and windmill equipment. Texas had a similar event back in 2011, and they obviously didn't learn a thing. Leadership would rather pander to Big Oil by not enacting regulation that requires winterizing equipment, and laying up reserves for emergencies, all of which requires investment which those companies would rather not spend. Kinda like insurance...you may go years making premium payments with no return, but when disaster strikes, you are covered.

The whole mess was avoidable, and it will be interesting to see where the Texas corporate politicians try to find a scapegoat. It's also rather ironic, that the state most vehement about limiting Federal Government involvement in local matters, went running quickly to Washington for disaster aid...

Of course there's this moron telling fellow Texan's to suck it up and deal with it:

https://www.businessinsider.com/rick...er-grid-2021-2

[Montmorency]

That being said, the world seems to be finally laying the groundwork for decarbonization and the climate scientists I follow on twitter seem to be more optimistic over the past year. If countries continue to follow through on their pledges, which is looking more likely due to the continued drop in price for renewables and storage, then we could be looking at 3 degrees worst case (vs 4-5 degrees a few years ago). With a bigger push we can still get to 2-2.5 degrees by 2100. It is very unlikely we will hit 1.5 degrees because of the multi decade delays in action.

When or even who will start moving first in carbon sequestration deployment and/or geoengineering.

I think we are still fucked.

[ReluctantSamurai]

Forgot about the fact that in 2013, 23 of 24 Republican Representatives in the House voted against relief aid to NY and NJ in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, as well as (then newly elected) Cruz and fellow GOP Senator John Cornyn:

https://www.theguardian.com/commenti...z-sandy-relief