10 Worst Climate-Driven Disasters Of 2018 Cost $85 Billion
Where is the evidence that ANY of these events were driven by climate change? There is none. It's all supposition. Below is all that the PDF underlying the report below had to say about causation:
"All of these disasters are linked with human-caused climate change. In some cases scientific studies have shown that climate change made the particular event more likely or stronger, for example with warmer oceans supercharging tropical storms. In other cases, the event was the result of shifts in weather patterns - like higher temperatures and reduced rainfall that made fires more likely - that are themselves consequences of climate change.
2018 was the fourth-hottest year on record, with average global temperatures nearly 1°C above the pre-industrial average. The warming trend is clear, with the last four years the hottest on record, and matches scientific projections of the results of human emissions of greenhouse gases. This report highlights some of the disastrous consequences of this warming that are already striking."
It's just Warmist boilerplate, treating theory as fact and assuming that correlation is causation in the usual Warmist non-scientific way. There is no scientific way a connection to any of the events COULD be demonstrated after the fact.
U.K. charity Christian Aid just published its 2018 report Counting The Cost: A Year of Climate Breakdown in which they analyze the economic impact of climate change-driven weather events over the past year.
Founded in 1945, Christian Aid is an organization that works to eradicate global poverty. As indicated by research inspired by the principles of Effective Altruism, ending radical poverty is one of the three cause areas that we should prioritize in our philanthropic efforts.
Christian Aid's report highlights once again how devastating the economic impact of climate change may be. All 10 events identified by the charity caused damage of over USD 1 billion, while four of them cost more than USD 7 billion each.
All of these disasters can be connected to human-driven climate breakdown. As a substantial body of research highlights, the number of extreme weather events is increasing worldwide and this can be linked to climate change. For example, warmer oceans can supercharge tropical storms.
Significantly, these 10 events affected rich and poor countries alike. However, Christian Aid emphasizes how in many developing countries the human cost of climate change can be much higher than the financial cost.
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Climatologist counters climate-disaster predictions with sea-level report
For years, climate prognosticators have warned that human-caused global warming is fueling catastrophic sea-level rise, but now climatologist Judith Curry is rocking their boat.
In her latest paper, Ms. Curry found that the current rising sea levels are not abnormal, nor can they be pinned on human-caused climate change, arguing that the oceans have been on a "slow creep" for the last 150 years - before the post-1950 climb in carbon-dioxide emissions.
"There are numerous reasons to think that projections of 21st-century sea level rise from human-caused global warming are too high, and some of the worst-case scenarios strain credulity," the 80-page report found.
Her Nov. 25 report, "Sea Level and Climate Change," which has been submitted for publication, also found that sea levels were actually higher in some regions during the Holocene Climate Optimum - about 5,000 to 7,000 years ago.
"After several centuries of sea level decline following the Medieval Warm Period, sea levels began to rise in the mid-19th century," the report concluded. "Rates of global mean sea level rise between 1920 and 1950 were comparable to recent rates. It is concluded that recent change is within the range of natural sea-level variability over the past several thousand years."
Such conclusions are unlikely to find favor with the global-warming movement, or within the academic climate "consensus," where some experts have predicted that mean sea level could rise by five to 10 feet by the end of the 21st century.
Then again, Ms. Curry is accustomed to making waves. The former chair of the Georgia Tech School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, she represents one of the biggest names on the so-called "skeptic" side of the climate debate, the counterweight to Penn State climatologist Michael Mann, who leads the "warmist" camp.
She said the problem is that the disaster scenarios are driven by the most extreme forecasts of carbon-dioxide emissions, known as RCP8.5, which she and other critics have described as so extreme as to be implausible.
"[President] Trump, he said something about people talking about the extreme scenarios - well, they are," Ms. Curry told The Washington Times. "Consideration of extreme scenarios has some value, but they're portrayed as the expected outcome, and that's really not useful."
She argued that a more appropriate estimate would be about 0.2 to 1.5 meters, or six inches to five feet, and that anything over two feet is "increasingly weakly justified." Mean sea level has risen by about seven to eight inches since 1900.
By lending her prestige to the sea-level debate, she could chill the rash of lawsuits filed by cities and counties in California, Colorado and New York-as well as the state of Rhode Island - calling for oil-and-gas companies to pay billions in damages associated with future coastal flooding.
Ms. Curry agreed that there is a human-caused component to the problem, but said it has more to do with the earth sinking than the oceans swelling.
"In most of those cases where they're suing, half of the sea-level rise is really from the land sinking, rather than anything that the ocean is doing," she said. "If you look at Galveston and New Orleans, much more than half is caused by sinking. And this comes from geologic processes, it comes from landfills on wetlands."
She cited groundwater withdrawal in the Chesapeake Bay area, which has also caused sinking.
"That's really underappreciated, this whole issue of problems with coastal engineering that we've caused that have made things worse," Ms. Curry said.
Challenging her sea-level conclusions are scientists like Mr. Mann. In a June debate with Ms. Curry at the University of Charleston in West Virginia, he argued that the latest models show that "ice sheets can collapse more quickly than we thought."
"If you had asked us five years ago what the best estimate was of the sea level rise we could see by the end of the century, we would have told you three feet," he said, adding, "Well, now if you ask us, we have to say, it may be closer to six to eight feet."
She and Mr. Mann have sparred before. At a March 2017 congressional committee hearing, he denied calling her a "climate science denier, to which she retorted, "It's in your written testimony. Go read it again."
"I think he's learned that there's a lot of backlash when he calls me a denier, so he calls me a contrarian," said Ms. Curry with a laugh. "And I don't think he's really mentioned me much lately. I think he's been burned."
She said she doesn't believe her findings on sea-level rise are particularly controversial, saying that they jibe with those of the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
"It's pretty well-documented in the literature," said Ms. Curry. "I frame the problem a little different, and my conclusions are a little different than some people, but this has been pretty well-documented and supported."
Ms. Curry left academia in January 2017 for a host of reasons, one of which was the "craziness" associated with the politics of the climate-change debate. She moved to Reno and has since devoted her energies to her company, Climate Forecast Applications Network.
Her clients include the federal agencies and companies in the energy and insurance business seeking answers on the risks associated with climate change. After a lifetime spent in the ivory tower, she said she finds the real-world work rewarding.
"When there's something that really depends on the outcome and the understanding of this information, rather than just using it as a political tool to drive policy, it's really a different ballgame," she said. "People making real decisions, people spending real money - their companies could be hurt by getting things really wrong in either direction. So that's what I'm trying to help with."
Given that nobody wants to be labeled a "denier," what does she prefer to be called? That's an easy one.
"I'm a scientist. And I regard it as my job to continually reevaluate the evidence and reconsider my conclusions. That's my job," Ms. Curry said. "And some people don't really want scientists. They want political activists. But if you want a scientist, give me a call."
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EPA targets Obama crackdown on mercury from coal plants
The Trump administration on Friday targeted an Obama-era regulation credited with helping dramatically reduce toxic mercury pollution from coal-fired power plants, saying the benefits to human health and the environment may not be worth the cost of the regulation.
The 2011 Obama administration rule, called the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards, led to what electric utilities say was an $18 billion clean-up of mercury and other toxins from the smokestacks of coal-fired power plants.
Overall, environmental groups say, federal and state efforts have cut mercury emissions from coal-fired power plants by 85 percent in roughly the last decade.
Mercury causes brain damage, learning disabilities and other birth defects in children, among other harm. Coal power plants in this country are the largest single manmade source of mercury pollutants, which enters the food chain through fish and other items that people consume.
A proposal Friday from the Environmental Protection Agency would leave current emissions standards in place. However, it challenges the basis for the Obama regulation, calculating that the crackdown on mercury and other toxins from coal plants produced only a few million dollars a year in measurable health benefits and was not warranted.
The proposal, which now goes up for public comment, is the latest Trump administration move that changes estimates of the costs and payoffs of regulations in arguing for relaxing Obama-era environmental protections.
It's also the administration's latest proposed move on behalf of the U.S. coal industry, which has been struggling in the face of competition from natural gas and other cheaper, cleaner forms of energy. The Trump administration in August proposed an overhaul for another Obama-era regulation that would have prodded electricity providers to get less of their energy from dirtier-burning coal plants.
In a statement, the EPA said Friday the administration was "providing regulatory certainty" by more accurately estimating the costs and benefits of the Obama administration crackdown on mercury and other toxic emissions from smokestacks.
Sen. Tom Carper of Delaware, the top Democrat on the Senate's Environment and Public Works Committee, condemned the move.
The EPA has "decided to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory" after the successful clean-up of toxins from the country's coal-plant smokestacks, Carper said.
He and other opponents of the move said the Trump administration was playing with numbers, ignoring what Carper said were clear health, environmental and economic benefits to come up with a bottom line that suited the administration's deregulatory aims.
Janet McCabe, a former air-quality official in the Obama administration's EPA, called the proposal part of "the quiet dismantling of the regulatory framework" for the federal government's environmental protections.
Coming one week into a government shutdown, and in the lull between Christmas and New Year, "this low-key announcement shouldn't fool anyone - it is a big deal, with significant implications," McCabe said.
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Nancy Pelosi revives special House committee on climate change
She aims for Green votes -- and screw the workers
The House Democratic leader, Nancy Pelosi, has appointed the Florida representative Kathy Castor to lead a special committee on climate change that will be reinstated in the new Congress.
The climate panel is similar to one that Pelosi created when Democrats last controlled the House, from 2007 to 2011. It was eliminated when Republicans took the majority.
Pelosi, the likely House speaker, said Castor brings experience, energy and "urgency to the existential threat of the climate crisis" facing the US and the world. Castor is set to begin her seventh term representing the Tampa Bay area and serves on the energy and commerce committee.
"Congresswoman Castor is a proven champion for public health and green infrastructure, who deeply understands the scope and seriousness of this threat. Her decades of experience in this fight, both in Florida and in the Congress, will be vital," Pelosi said.
Castor said in a statement that she was honored to lead the panel and pledged to "act with urgency to reduce carbon pollution" and "unleash" American ingenuity to create clean-energy jobs.
"The costs of the changing climate and extreme weather events pose greater risks every day to American families, businesses and our way of life," Castor said. She added that the new panel "will tackle the crisis head on. Failure is not an option."
The membership and exact scope of the panel remain to be determined, but Pelosi said it would play a key role in shaping how Congress responds to the threat of global warming while creating good-paying, "green" jobs.
The Maryland representative Steny Hoyer, the incoming House majority leader, said last week the climate committee would probably not have legal authority to demand documents under subpoena. But he added that he did not think the panel would need subpoena authority, since experts will be "dying to come before them".
Climate scientists and other experts "are going to want to testify", Hoyer said. "I think they'll want to give the best information as it relates to the crisis."
The Democratic representative-elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, and other progressives, have pushed for a "Green New Deal" that includes thousands of jobs in renewable energy such as wind and solar power. She and other leaders say the climate panel is a key platform to advance the green agenda.
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Australia: There's no such thing as a happy Greenie. The plastic bag ban is only the beginning
Six months ago it didn’t seem possible that Australians would ever give up the convenience of single-use plastic shopping bags.
But watching shoppers pack up their groceries at a nearby Woolworths Metro, it’s clear that the bag ban has worked.
During the busy lunchtime rush this month, there are definitely some people still buying the thicker 15c bags available at the checkout but most people either had their own bags or were choosing to carry their groceries without a bag.
One woman who was juggling a tub of yoghurt, carton of mini-cucumbers and a salad, told news.com.au that she would definitely have taken one of the old grey bags before but didn’t want to pay for one to transport her lunch back to work.
Even though she said she often forgot to bring her own bags, at least a third of her fellow shoppers had remembered to bring one. Only a handful of the approximately 50 shoppers bought the 15c bags. Other shoppers also improvised and were seen tucking lemons into handbags and microwave meals into backpacks.
While the major retailers won’t reveal how many of the thicker 15c bags they were now selling, this month Coles and Woolworths revealed their bag ban had stopped 1.5 billion thinner plastic bags being dumped into the environment.
A news.com.au Facebook poll also indicated most people were remembering to bring their own reusable bags.
Tim Silverwood, co-founder of Take 3, told news.com.au that anecdotal evidence suggested there were less of the thinner bags making their way to Australia’s waterways.
“During our clean-up activities in NSW and Queensland there’s definitely less thin grey shopping bags, according to our volunteers,” Mr Silverwood said. “I think we are all starting to realise now that it doesn’t take that much change to make a big difference.”
He said the success of the bag ban was a great opportunity to take the war against plastic to the next level. This includes passing legislation in NSW to ban bags as well, reduce the use of the thicker bags and to follow the example of the European Union, which has plans to phase out or reduce 10 types of single-use plastic items.
The National Waste Report 2018 released in November showed that just 12 per cent of plastic in Australia was recycled. About 87 per cent was sent to landfill.
Each state and territory approaches waste and recycling differently. There are container deposit schemes in all states except Tasmania and Victoria but only ACT, South Australia and Victoria have a landfill ban.
NSW is the only state or territory not planning to introduce a plastic bag ban. In NSW, Woolworths and Coles have voluntarily phased out the bags but Jeff Angel of the Boomerang Alliance said a ban was still needed because a lot of smaller stores like chemists and food outlets continued to give out the lightweight bags.
Mr Angel wants the supermarket giants to reveal how many of the thicker 15c bags were being used as there was anecdotal evidence they were also ending up in the litter stream and landfill.
The thicker bags are 55 microns thick instead of 35 microns so there is more plastic in them.
Western Australia’s environment minister Stephen Dawson recently revealed his intent to target the use of thicker bags — the type that Myer uses for example — as the next step. “I think it would be a gradual phase-out, just as we’ve done with say microbeads,” Mr Dawson said.
There are also many other forms of plastic that could be tackled and Australia is already behind in this area.
The European Commission has moved to ban or reduce 10 types of single-use plastics by 2030.
If approved, littering by these items will be reduced by more than half, avoiding environmental damage which would otherwise cost €22 billion ($A34 billion). It will also avoid the emission of 3.4 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent by 2030.
These products are the top 10 most found single-use items on European beaches and make up 43 per cent of total marine litter.
The items that will be targeted include food containers, cups for beverages, cotton buds, cutlery/plates/stirrers/straws, sticks for balloons/balloons, packets and wrappers, beverage bottles, tobacco product filters and sanitary towels/wet wipes among European Union countries.
Items like cotton buds made with plastic would be replaced by sustainable alternatives while there will be an attempt to reduce the consumption of things like food containers.
The commission will also tackle fishing gear, which makes up an extra 27 per cent of marine litter.
European Union countries have recognised the damaging impact plastics can have and the costs of cleaning litter up as well as the losses for tourism, fisheries and shipping.
Due to its slow decomposition, plastic accumulates in seas, oceans and on beaches. Plastic residues have been found in sea turtles, seals, whales and birds, but also in fish and shellfish, meaning humans could also be consuming them. There are estimates that mussel-loving Europeans could be consuming up to 11,000 microplastics in a year.
Mr Silverwood said the 10 items being banned in Europe were also regularly found during clean-up activities in Australia, although the container deposit scheme was helping to reduce the number of beverage containers.
He said Australia should introduce measures similar to the European Union, to tackle other types of single-use plastics.
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Jim Hansen and his twin
