Warming and the Search for Climate Justice for the Poor

A slight temperature rise is THE big problem for the poor?  It might hurt the Filipino farmer below somewhat, who looks like he is harvesting sugar-cane, but how come he is not sitting in the air-conditioned cabin of a big mechanical harvester?  THAT is the real issue.



There are many things the poor need before they need to worry about the climate.  Such as cheap electricity, cheap petroleum products and a government that is repealing laws and regulations rather than adding to them.  That canecutter could be sitting in an airconditioned cabin and harvesting 100 times more cane than he is now if only his government had long ago decided to sit on its hands.  China did it with resounding success so the way ahead for the poor of the 3rd world is clear.  And it has nothing to do with climate


A far-reaching report being drafted by the United Nations' authoritative climate science panel explores in comprehensive detail the environmental justice, poverty and other human rights challenges facing the world as it pursues the urgent and daunting goals of the Paris Agreement.

"In a 1.5 degree Celsius warmer world"—a world we're likely to see by mid-century without a global transformation in the next decade, the latest version of the draft report says—"those most at risk will be individuals and communities experiencing multidimensional poverty, persistent vulnerabilities and various forms of deprivation and disadvantage."

To help protect them, it calls for policies "guided by concerns for equity and fairness and enhanced support for eradicating poverty and reducing inequalities."

In scope, scale and detail—but also in its careful attention to questions of ethics and justice—this report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is a landmark work in progress.

The emerging report is more than 800 pages long, heavily footnoted and packed with graphics and sidebars. It lays out as never before "an assessment of current knowledge of the extent and interlinkages of the global environmental, economic, financial, social and technical conditions that a 1.5 degree Celsius warmer world represents." It takes on "complex ethics questions" that demand "interdisciplinary research and reflection."

How, it asks, will a 1.5 degree warmer world impact the human rights of the dispossessed, "including their rights to water, shelter, food, health and life? How will it affect the rights of the urban and rural poor, indigenous communities, women, children, the elderly and people with disabilities?"

The draft report gauges how the half-degree gap from 1.5 to 2 degrees of warming "amounts to a greater likelihood of drought, flooding, resource depletion, conflict and forced migration."

It notes that even if all the nations achieve their Paris pledges, the result will be worldwide emissions in 2030 that already lock in 1.5 degrees of warming by the end of this century. The temperature barrier would likely be broken by mid-century, as Reuters noted in first reporting on the draft study. Even the 2 degree target eventually would fall unless emissions are brought to zero, the IPCC and other agencies have repeatedly warned.

Either way, the outlook is dire, especially for the poor.

"The risks to human societies through impacts on health, livelihood, food and water security, human security and infrastructure are higher with 1.5 degrees Celsius of global warming compared to today, and higher still with 2 degrees Celsius global warming compared with 1.5 degrees," the draft concludes.

"These risks are greatest for people facing multiple forms of poverty, inequality and marginalization; people in coastal communities and those dependent on agriculture; poor urban residents; and communities displaced from their homes."

Suitable pathways forward, the report said, must square the circle of energy use and sustainable development—not an easy task, but one that would pay off with a cleaner environment, better health, prospering ecosystems and other benefits. There would be risks for poverty, hunger and access to energy; those must be "alleviated by redistributive measures."
How to Move Forward?

The focus on justice and fairness is enlisted to press for substantial transformations of the energy landscape as emissions from fossil fuels are eliminated and changes in land management, among other steps, are pressed hard.

On the one hand, these remedies "are put at risk by high population growth, low economic development, and limited efforts to reduce energy demand," the report says. On the other hand, the solutions cannot be allowed to burden the poor.

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IPCC says Paris goal is a crock

Bar a concerted global effort to reduce emissions and remove carbon from the atmosphere, the world is highly likely to exceed the most ambitious climate goal set by the Paris Agreement by the 2040s, according to a leaked draft of an Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report obtained by Reuters.

The IPCC is expected to release the final version of their highly anticipated Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5°C in October. The preliminary version obtained by Reuters was submitted to a small group of experts and government officials for review and was not meant for public release.

Every few years, the IPCC publishes an Assessment Report containing the available research about the current state of climate change. This year’s special report is the first focused on what is possibly the Paris Agreement’s most controversial climate goal: limiting global temperatures to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels.

Though some countries are in strong support of taking action to ensure the world meets this climate goal, research has shown that we are highly unlikely to do so.

The draft of the special report obtained by Reuters seems to confirm this low probability of success: “There is very high risk that […] global warming will exceed 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels [should emissions continue at the current pace].”

The draft also states that meeting the climate goal would require an “unprecedented” leap from fossil fuels to renewable sources of energy and extensive reforms everywhere from industry to agriculture.

Additionally, while curbing global temperatures would help reduce some of the worst impacts of climate change, including sea level rise and droughts, it would not be enough to protect the planet’s most fragile ecosystems, including polar ice caps and coral reefs.

Political Motives?

While the findings currently included in the report confirm what the public may consider the worst-case scenario, scientists who have read the report are not surprised by its contents.

“The report is unexceptional,” Peter Wadhams, Professor of Ocean Physics at the University of Cambridge, told Futurism. “It was already clear to every climate scientist that a 1.5 degrees Celsius warming limit would be breached by 2050 (in fact, probably much earlier) in the absence of drastic carbon capture measures.”

Gabriel Marty, a climate change analyst and former U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) delegate for France, told Futurism that it’s too soon to speculate on the content of the final report.

However, once it is released, he said readers should note the treatment of the uncertainties and risks of the so-called “bio-energy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS)” technologies designed to suck carbon emissions out of the atmosphere.

“The risks associated [with heavily relying on these technologies] must be clearly outlined,” said Marty. “They do not exist yet, the scale that would be needed would be enormous, and the adverse impacts on land and water resources would likely be huge.”

According to sources familiar with the IPCC’s proceedings, the panel has been criticized in the past for being too coy about the limitations of BECCS and for understating their risks in order to present the 2 degrees Celsius target as “still viable.”

Wadhams also mentioned the possibility that the IPCC’s hesitation to release the special report itself could be politically motivated.

“The IPCC has long since become a political rather than a scientific organization, so their secretiveness and sensitivity about a perfectly ordinary report has some political motive,” he told Futurism.

"“A lot could still change between now and the final version.”"

Roz Pidcock, head of communications for the IPCC Working Group 1, told Futurism that that’s not the case. She said the fact that the special report is currently confidential has nothing to do with a lack of transparency on the part of the panel — they simply aren’t finished with it yet.

“All of the expert and government review comments that come in over the next few weeks are taken on board […] Just to give an idea of what that involves, the first draft of this report received 12,895 comments from nearly 500 expert reviewers around the world,” said Pidcock. “A lot could still change between now and the final version.”

We will need to wait until October for the IPCC’s final take on the viability of the extremely ambitious 1.5 degrees Celsius limit, but whatever the contents of the report, we can’t let it discourage us from taking the strongest action possible to prevent further damage to our planet.

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The 'bomb cyclone' and Dems' energy disaster

A convergence of weather patterns created the nor'easter that brought frigid temperatures and snow to the eastern U.S. from Mississippi to Maine.

That "bomb cyclone" also exposed a perfect storm of President Obama's failed energy policies that threatens disastrous consequences for the nation.

Brutal cold strained the electric power grid. Utilities relying on natural gas for power generation clamored for supplies as fuel was diverted to heat homes and businesses. Further, a lack of pipelines created a bottleneck for delivering gas to power plants.

PJM Interconnection, the regional grid operator serving 65 million people in the East, reports coal provided 40 percent of its power in the latest cold snap.

Recall that the Obama administration aggressively sought to eliminate coal from the nation's fuel mix. Unlike natural gas or renewables, which Obama favored, utilities can stockpile coal for immediate use when demand soars.

The Trump administration understands this, and the plan put forward by Energy Secretary Rick Perry appropriately prices coal against natural gas so utilities have the flexibility they need to ensure energy grid security.

On another energy front, the Northeast is heavily dependent on fuel oil for home heating, and the frigid temperatures left suppliers scrambling to meet demand.

But Obama-era policies on renewable fuels threaten the very existence of independent refiners in the Northeast.

WND has reported on the EPA's Rube Goldberg system for trading ethanol credits, known as RINs. Independent refiners are forced to spend millions under a compliance scheme that benefits speculators at the expense of energy producers and consumers.

Reforming the previous administration's renewable fuel mandate will ensure a steady supply of fuel oil for the Northeast without constructing one new pipeline, since the fuel will continue to be produced where it's consumed.

These are just two (extremely timely) examples of Obama policies that weakened America's energy security and endangered grid security. But there's more to the story.

Barack Obama declared war not only on coal - he wanted to phase out the use of all so-called fossil fuels under the banner of "environmentalism."

At one time, environmentalists promoted the use of natural gas, touting it as a clean-burning fuel. No more. The new green orthodoxy says it contributes to global warming and therefore must be banned.

Like his policies on Iran, Israel, immigration, health care, taxes, trade and regulation, President Trump's energy policies are a 180-degree reversal of Obama's.

The Trump administration understands that America's prosperity and security are intrinsically linked to energy. The administration's National Security Strategy identifies Energy Dominance as a pillar supporting national security.

President Trump has opened the oil and gas reserves lying off the nation's shores and in the Arctic hinterlands for production, and has plans to make more than 98 percent of undiscovered, technically recoverable oil and gas resources in federal offshore areas available for future exploration and development.

It's time to understand the agenda of the radical environmentalists in the Democratic Party, an agenda they will never admit openly.

President Donald Trump has spared us from it. Last year he began and this year he will continue to undo the damage it has done to our nation and economy.

In November, it will be up to us to keep control of Congress so we can Make America Great Again

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Now it's a "climate crisis"
 
Remember when global warming meant the planet was supposed to, well, warm up? Temperatures would rise, and all manner of ecological calamity would ensue?

Me too. So it was surprising to find myself shivering, like other Americans, through several days of arctic chill and extreme cold, only to hear Al Gore blame it on global warming.

He didn’t use the W-word, though. “It’s bitter cold in parts of the U.S., but climate scientist Dr. Michael Mann explains that’s exactly what we should expect from the climate crisis,” Mr. Gore tweeted on Jan. 4.

See, it’s a “climate crisis” now. But it’s hard to blame him for trying some rebranding. After all, prediction after prediction has come to naught. But no matter: Like other doomsday prophets, Mr. Gore just acts like the last missed deadline didn’t happen and comes up with a new one.

Which is why it’s important to remind ourselves of what Mr. Gore has said in the past. Consider, for example, how he said global warming would cause the north polar ice cap to be completely free of ice within five years. When did he say that? Nine years ago.

News flash: The Arctic still has ice. Indeed, according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center, “ice growth during November 2017 averaged 30,900 square miles per day.” Oops.

So how about the evidence for the latest cold snap? Mr. Gore’s source, Michael Mann, says the ultra-chilly temps we’ve been enduring are “precisely the sort of extreme winter weather we expect because of climate change.” As the planet warms, he says, we’ll see more cold snaps and “bomb cyclones.”

Seems counter-intuitive, but Mr. Mann suggests this is because warming is “causing the jet stream to meander in a particular pattern” that leads to these cold spells.

I use the word “suggests,” however, because this is simply a theory — one that other scientists are not sold on. (Mr. Gore and the rest of the climate-crisis crowd often act like their ideas are universally accepted — that the scientific community is in complete agreement with them. But there is more room for doubt and disagreement than they care to admit.)

Just ask Kevin Trenberth, a scientist with the National Center for Atmospheric Research. “Winter storms are a manifestation of winter, not climate change,” he recently told The Daily Caller. “The Arctic is greatly affected by climate change, and it has a feedback effect — but not in winter.”

Even if Mr. Gore and Mr. Mann are correct about the link between global warming and cold snaps, the record works against them there, too. “The frequency of cold waves have decreased during the past 50 years, not increased,” University of Washington climatologist Cliff Mass says. “That alone shows that such claims are baseless.”

The term “bomb cyclone” is new to most of us, but it’s been around for a while. Climatologist Judith Curry recently told the Caller that it was coined almost 40 years ago by Fred Sanders of MIT, who spent a lot of time studying such storms. Moreover, there are about 50 or 60 bomb cyclones every year, but most of them occur too far out to sea for us to notice.

Al Gore and his fellow travelers may have trouble admitting that they could be wrong. But their never-look-back crusade isn’t helping scientific research.

“It is very disappointing that members of my profession are making such obviously bogus claims,” Cliff Mass said. “It hurts the science, it hurts the credibility of climate scientists, and weakens our ability to be taken seriously by society.”

That’s what happens, though, when we bend facts to fit theories — and not the other way around. And remember, Al, as the old song goes, “Baby, it’s cold outside!”

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Phony Prophets Painting Fake Pictures to Produce an Alternate Global Warming Reality?

On Twitter December 28, President Trump wrote: "In the East, it could be the COLDEST New Year's Eve on record. Perhaps we could use a little bit of that good old Global Warming that our Country, but not other countries, was going to pay TRILLIONS OF DOLLARS to protect against. Bundle up!"

Predictably, social media lit up with comments by agitated alarmists who apparently believe everything, including the gas problem their great uncle had during Christmas dinner, is caused by global warming. They won't be happy until the Earth freezes over and everyone dies.

They must have missed the news that Escambia County Florida had nearly two inches of snow on December 10, Erie, Pennsylvania just broke a 59-year-old snowfall record and  International Falls, Minnesota had a record-breaking 37 degrees below zero Christmas week. This happened thanks to a phenomenon scientists call a "Rossby wave" -- not global warming -- whereby Alaska blows it's arctic air south while simultaneously "inhaling" warm air from the tropics. We get a break from the cold while folks in the Lower 48 get to experience what living in Alaska is like without buying a plane ticket.

You're welcome.

Besides record-breaking cold, alarmists ignore that snowfall has increased for more than a century.

Up here in my little slice of paradise, researchers were recently shocked that the snowfall has doubled on Mt. Hunter in the Alaska range since the mid-1800s. In that same time frame, southcentral Alaska has experienced a 117 percent increase in winter snowfall and a 49 percent increase in summer snowfall. In addition, from 1950 to 2011, many coastal Alaskan towns have experienced winter snow increases ranging from 26 percent in Yakutat to 67 percent in Kodiak.

On December 6, 2017, in the Chugach mountains I call home, Thompson Pass, experienced one of history's most intense snowfalls at a rate of 10 inches per hour. That's a record even for Thompson Pass which often gets between 600 to 900 inches of snow per year.

Additionally, the sea ice improved this year.

The Anchorage Daily News reports that Alaska's "cool late-summer weather over the central Arctic Ocean helped preserve sea ice, slowing its melting enough to rank this year's annual ice minimum as only the eighth lowest in the satellite record, far from the worst it's been."

Record cold. Record snow. Recovering sea ice. But, things are not always as they appear. The U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Science, Space and Technology announced in February 2017 they are investigating the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) for alleged climate data manipulation after whistleblowers stepped forward, including Dr. John Bates, former principal scientist at the National Climatic Data Center in Asheville North Carolina who claims NOAA scientists put a "thumb on the scale" to favor their global warming argument.

Maybe this is not about science at all. Maybe it's more about phony prophets painting fake pictures to produce an alternate reality.

Alarmists are not interested in the indisputable evidence the Earth goes through cyclical periods of cooling and warming. The Earth experienced periods of glaciation, then melting, long before the construction of Al Gore's energy-devouring Nashville home and Leonardo DiCaprio's excessive use of private jets.

Gore said the Arctic would be ice free by 2014 and the guy that Democrats call a "prophet," James Hansen, former director of NASA's Godard Institute for Space Studies, predicted the Arctic ice would melt by the end of 2017.

Oops.

Hansen recently published a paper suggesting we are now on the brink of a short ice age caused by.wait for it.global warming. He claims global temperatures are an "unreliable diagnostic of planetary condition as the ice melt increases" and predicts "large scale regional cooling by mid-century" for the North Atlantic and Southern oceans.

Obviously, climate alarmists have the same answer for every weather pattern, so the rest of us normal folks should forget them and focus on reality. Right about now, a little global warming sounds nice as we dream of white sandy beaches, not the white powdery stuff outside our windows waiting to be shoveled.

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