{"id":87671,"date":"2017-03-06T12:00:44","date_gmt":"2017-03-06T12:00:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=87671"},"modified":"2017-02-27T17:16:13","modified_gmt":"2017-02-27T17:16:13","slug":"while-our-attention-is-elsewhere-climate-change-worsens","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2017\/03\/while-our-attention-is-elsewhere-climate-change-worsens\/","title":{"rendered":"While Our Attention Is Elsewhere, Climate Change Worsens"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n
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Donald Trump\u2019s presidency has gotten so much attention that the latest threats to climate stability have received only passing notice. To be sure, Trump\u2019s belief that climate change is a Chinese \u201choax,\u201d and his appointment of climate change deniers to head major agencies, have been widely publicized.\u00a0 Even so, the news of actual events\u2014hurricanes, floods, drought, sharp temperature changes, and other distortions in weather patterns in the US and around the world\u2014typically are being crowded out by Trump\u2019s tantrums, fake news, and conflicts of interest.<\/p>\n

For the strong of heart, here are some important developments affecting climate change over the past several months that you may have missed:<\/p>\n

\u00b7\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Mexico City\u2019s water table is sinking at an alarming rate, while climate change is causing flooding and drought that may cause mass emigration. Just the latest case of environmental refugees\u2014and potential sources of new conflicts.<\/p>\n

\u00b7\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The last estimate of sea-level rise before Obama left office, by the NOAA, sees a worst case of an 8-foot rise by the end of the century. The low estimate is still a1-foot rise. Parts of the US will be hit particularly hard. \u201cAn analysis of 90 U.S. cities suggested that such an increase in damaging floods could occur by 2030 in most locations under an intermediate-high sea-level rise scenario and by 2080 under a low scenario. In general, the report suggests it would take\u00a0just shy of 14 inches of sea-level rise for this to happen in any given location.\u201d \u00a0A collapse of the West Antarctica is also quite possible, the report said.<\/p>\n

\u00b7\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Worldwide, the nuclear industry is losing ground thanks to lower costs for wind and solar energy as well as natural gas, and the Fukushima tragedy in 2011. \u201cGlobally, wind power grew by 17%, solar by 33%, nuclear by 1.3%.\u201d The World Nuclear Industry: Status Report 2016<\/em><\/a>; It is no longer economical to invest in a nuclear power plant!\u00a0 As a result, the overall picture is one of cost overruns, abandoned projects, a very little new construction. About the only countries where the nuclear industry continues to thrive are France and South Korea. China\u2019s nuclear industry, which has a high priority in the country\u2019s energy future, has been hit by significant safety failures<\/a>.\u00a0 Eight of China\u2019s 36 currently operating reactors experienced these shutdowns, all caused by human error.\u00a0 The basic problem, openly discussed by Chinese specialists, is that there aren\u2019t enough well-trained, well-rewarded safety inspectors.\u00a0 China thus is spending many times more money on renewable energy than on new nuclear power plants.<\/p>\n

\u00b7\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Australia\u2019s Great Barrier Reef is in serious danger. In 2016 it experienced its largest-ever die-off of coral.<\/p>\n

\u00b7\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Deforestation in the Amazon basin, the world\u2019s largest carbon sink, is once again on the rise. Farmers in Bolivia and Brazil are again clearing land in huge swaths for planting soy under contract to Cargill and Bunge. Those giant agribusinesses were among signers of the New York Declaration of Forests, which promises an end to deforestation in order to grow crops such as soy and palm oil. The common estimate is that one-tenth of global carbon emissions stem from clearing of land and accompanying fires in the Amazon region.<\/p>\n

\u00b7\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Disintegration of the West Antarctica ice sheet is taking place right now. The elongating crack is unstoppable, and while it reportedly will not mean rising seas for decades, it is just another sign of warming oceans and future peril. By the end of the century, melting of this ice sheet, combined with ice melting elsewhere, will cause an estimated sea rise of five to six feet. That\u2019s an extraordinary increase compared with predictions just a few years ago.<\/p>\n

Every climate-change model I\u2019ve seen suggests that we are way behind the curve for combating global warming and its potentially life-altering changes for human populations and habitat.\u00a0 Plans for a nation-wide solution, such as a carbon tax, seem like whistling in the dark given the sorry state of Washington politics. For instance, some Republican elder statesmen, including former secretaries of state George Shultz and James Baker, III, have come forward with a plan to counter climate change. Though they don\u2019t embrace the obvious\u2014that climate change is due mainly to human factors\u2014they do think \u201cthe risks\u201d are too great to be ignored. Hence, they recommend<\/a> a carbon tax starting at $40 a ton at the well head or mine, the proceeds to be returned to consumers in dividend checks. Of course the producers are expected to pass on their tax to consumers.<\/p>\n

Good luck. With Scott Pruitt at the helm, the Environmental Protection Agency is about to become the Environmental Destruction Agency. Trump has already given the order for significant cuts in the EPA’s budget. The oil and gas industry has Pruitt in its hip pocket, as just-released emails from Pruitt\u2019s time in Oklahoma make crystal clear.\u00a0 As Forbes<\/em> reminds us, \u201cIn six years he filed more than a dozen lawsuits against the EPA over expansion of the Clean Water Act and regulations on coal-fired power plants.\u201d When Pruitt addressed EPA employees for the first time, he made clear that its business is business<\/em>.\u00a0 Forbes<\/em>, which ordinarily is a pro-business publication, firmly stated<\/a> that Pruitt will be violating EPA\u2019s statutory mission: \u201cCompromise with industry is not included. The\u00a0mission of the EPA<\/a>\u00a0is actually quite simple: \u2018to protect human health and the environment\u2014air, water and land\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the US, our best hope lies at the state and city levels, especially now that cities provide the overwhelming portion of greenhouse gas emissions, and those in proximity to coasts have the greatest urgency to act.\u00a0 Here and there\u2014in San Diego and other California cities, for instance, and in Des Moines and Adelaide, Australia\u2014major reductions in those emissions are taking place or are planned.\u00a0 This article<\/a> states that \u201cover 10,000 initiatives are underway in cities worldwide,\u201d which is admirable.\u00a0 But can these ideas possibly halt the upward curve toward planetary overheating?<\/p>\n

James Hansen<\/a>, the indefatigable former NASA official (he retired in 2013) who first brought the threat of climate change to our attention, believes that a carbon tax and a new kind of nuclear technology represent the last chance to thwart devastating climate change.\u00a0 The Paris Agreement\u2019s call for limiting warming to 2 degrees C. is inadequate, he says. Without drastic political action, Hansen foresees the planet returning to conditions 120,000 years ago, when warming produced sea levels 20 to 30 feet higher than they are now. But Washington, DC is full of climate deniers, so what\u2019s the answer?\u00a0 \u201cIt’s really crucial what happens in the near term. But it will take a strong leader who is willing to take on special interests. Whether that can be done without a new party that’s founded on just that principle, I’m not sure. So we’ll have to see.\u201d<\/p>\n

Not very encouraging\u2014and we don\u2019t have time to wait and see.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

_____________________________________<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

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Mel Gurtov<\/em><\/a>, syndicated by <\/em>PeaceVoice<\/em><\/a>, is Professor Emeritus of Political Science at Portland State University.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The news of actual events\u2014hurricanes, floods, drought, sharp temperature changes, and other distortions in weather patterns in the US and around the world\u2014typically are being crowded out by Trump\u2019s tantrums, fake news, and conflicts of interest. For the strong of heart, here are some important developments affecting climate change over the past several months that you may have missed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[61],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-87671","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-environment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87671","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=87671"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87671\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=87671"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=87671"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=87671"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}