Citing $69 Trillion Price Tag by 2100, Moody's Warns Central Banks of Far-Reaching Economic Damage of Climate Crisis
commondreams.org/news/2019/07/03/citing-69-trillion-price-tag-2100-moodys-warns-central-banks-far-reaching-economic
July 3, 2019
Noting previous warnings that the human-caused climate crisis could cause trillions of dollars in damage to the global economy by the end of the century, a new report from Moody's Analytics explores the economic implications of the international community's failure to curb planet-warming emissions.
Moody's Analytics chief economist Mark Zandi told The Washington Post—which first reported on the new analysis—that this is "the first stab at trying to quantify what the macroeconomic consequences might be" of the global climate crisis, and it comes in response to European commercial banks and central banks. The climate emergency is "not a cliff event. It's not a shock to the economy. It's more like a corrosive," Zandi added. But it is "getting weightier with each passing year."
The financial research and consulting firm's analysis (pdf) highlights a few key projections from a report published last October by the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC): if the average global temperature soars to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels—the lower limit of the Paris climate agreement—the cost to the global economy is estimated to be $54 trillion in 2100, and under a warming scenario of 2°C, the cost could reach $69 trillion.
Moody's—whose clients include multinational corporations, governments, central banks, financial regulators and institutions, retailers, mutual funds, utilities, real estate firms, insurance companies, and investors—notes researchers have found that "warming beyond the 2°C threshold could hit tipping points for even larger and irreversible warming feedback loops, such as permanent summer ice melt in the Arctic Ocean."
One of the key takeaways, the report emphasizes, is that economically, "the more draconian effects of climate change are not felt until 2030 and beyond. And they do not become especially pronounced until the second part of the century."
"That's why it is so hard to get people focused on this issue and get a comprehensive policy response," Zandi told the Post. "Business is focused on the next year, or five years out."
"Most of the models go out 30 years," he said, "but, really, the damage to the economy is in the next half-century, and we haven't developed the tools to look out that far."
Responding to the Post report, which emphasized Moody's warning of the anticipated damage to the global economy, some advocates of ambitious global action to slash human-generated greenhouse gas emissions pointed to recent findings from climate experts that the world's temperature could rise 3°C or higher by 2100, implying that the economic costs could exceed the IPCC's upper estimate.
Linking to the Post report, Defend Our Future—a project of the Environmental Defense Fund that aims to empower young people interested in advancing climate and clean energy solutions—tweeted: "There is no denying it: The longer we wait to take bold action to curb emissions, the higher the costs will be for all of us."
Moody's analysts examined the climate emergency's expected economic damage across six impact channels—sea-level rise, human health effects, heat effect of labor productivity, agricultural productivity, tourism, and energy demand—and created forecasts through 2048.
"This analysis reveals that some countries are significantly exposed to rising temperatures while others, particularly in Northern Hemisphere climates, are well insulated," the report says. Those at the greatest risk, analysts found, are "countries in hot climates, particularly those that are emerging economies such as Malaysia, Algeria, the Philippines, and Thailand, and oil producers such as Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Oman."
On the agricultural front, rising temperatures are expected to impact both the health of farmworkers and crop yields, which particularly threatens less-developed nations that are economically dependent on farming. Echoing a U.N. report published this week, Moody's notes that "heat stress, determined by high temperature and humidity, lowers working speed, necessitates more frequent breaks, and increases the probability of injury."
The report says that in terms of human health, the number of heat-related deaths worldwide is expected to increase as the global temperature does, and a hotter world "can lengthen the season and increase the geographic range of disease-carrying insects such as mosquitoes, ticks, and fleas, allowing them to move into higher altitudes and new regions."
Recognizing some limitations of its analysis, Moody's acknowledges that "there are a number of factors that were not considered in this work. The foremost of these is the increasing frequency and severity of natural disasters." The report points to a U.S. government calculation that in the United States alone, disasters caused more than $300 billion in damage in 2017.
As the environmental legal organization Earthjustice concluded in response to the report, "We literally cannot afford inaction on this crisis."
Friday, July 5, 2019
'We Are in a Climate Emergency, America': Anchorage Hits 90 Degrees for First Time in Recorded History
Friday, July 05, 2019
by Common Dreams
'We Are in a Climate Emergency, America': Anchorage Hits 90 Degrees for First Time in Recorded History
"This is unprecedented. I tease people that Anchorage is the coolest city in the country—and climatically that is true—but right now we are seeing record heat," said Anchorage Mayor Ethan Berkowitz
************************************************************************************************************************************************* "The Anchorage International Airport has just reached 89 degrees. The all-time record high temperature for Anchorage has officially been broken," the Anchorage National Weather Service announced in a tweet late Thursday (Photo: Shutterstock)
With Alaska in the midst of an unprecedented heat wave that experts say is driven by the climate crisis, Anchorage—the state's largest city—reached an all-time high temperature of 90 degrees on Thursday.
"At 5 pm [Thursday] afternoon, Anchorage International Airport officially hit 90 degrees for the first time on record," the Anchorage National Weather Service announced in a tweet early Friday.
"We are in a climate emergency, America," wrote meteorologist Eric Holthaus in response to the news.
Anchorage reached the 90-degree mark just hours after the city hit 89 degrees, shattering the previous high of 85 degrees set in June of 1969, according to the Anchorage National Weather Service.
"This isn't just breaking a record—it's obliterating a record that's stood for more than half a century," tweeted Bill McKibben, environmentalist and founder of 350.org.
The record heat in Anchorage forced officials to cancel planned Fourth of July firework celebrations due to wildfire concerns. The Alaska state fire marshal had already banned the sale and personal use of fireworks throughout much of the state due to the unusually hot weather.
"This is unprecedented," Anchorage Mayor Ethan Berkowitz told the New York Times. "I tease people that Anchorage is the coolest city in the country—and climatically that is true—but right now we are seeing record heat."
And the 90-degree record may not stand for long.
As the Times reported, temperatures could rise even higher over the weekend.
"With the combined forces of climate change that has disrupted temperature trends around the state, a remarkable dearth of ice in the Bering Sea and weather patterns generating a general heat wave, Alaska is facing a Fourth of July unlike any before... city officials are worrying about air quality and forecasters expect temperatures to rival those in Miami," according to the Times.
News of Anchorage's record-breaking heat comes after data from the U.N.-backed Copernicus Climate Change Service showed that last month was the hottest June ever recorded.
"Summer has just begun for many, but already temperature records are being broken," said 350.org. "We need to act like this is the climate emergency it is."
by Common Dreams
'We Are in a Climate Emergency, America': Anchorage Hits 90 Degrees for First Time in Recorded History
"This is unprecedented. I tease people that Anchorage is the coolest city in the country—and climatically that is true—but right now we are seeing record heat," said Anchorage Mayor Ethan Berkowitz
************************************************************************************************************************************************* "The Anchorage International Airport has just reached 89 degrees. The all-time record high temperature for Anchorage has officially been broken," the Anchorage National Weather Service announced in a tweet late Thursday (Photo: Shutterstock)
With Alaska in the midst of an unprecedented heat wave that experts say is driven by the climate crisis, Anchorage—the state's largest city—reached an all-time high temperature of 90 degrees on Thursday.
"At 5 pm [Thursday] afternoon, Anchorage International Airport officially hit 90 degrees for the first time on record," the Anchorage National Weather Service announced in a tweet early Friday.
"We are in a climate emergency, America," wrote meteorologist Eric Holthaus in response to the news.
Anchorage reached the 90-degree mark just hours after the city hit 89 degrees, shattering the previous high of 85 degrees set in June of 1969, according to the Anchorage National Weather Service.
"This isn't just breaking a record—it's obliterating a record that's stood for more than half a century," tweeted Bill McKibben, environmentalist and founder of 350.org.
The record heat in Anchorage forced officials to cancel planned Fourth of July firework celebrations due to wildfire concerns. The Alaska state fire marshal had already banned the sale and personal use of fireworks throughout much of the state due to the unusually hot weather.
"This is unprecedented," Anchorage Mayor Ethan Berkowitz told the New York Times. "I tease people that Anchorage is the coolest city in the country—and climatically that is true—but right now we are seeing record heat."
And the 90-degree record may not stand for long.
As the Times reported, temperatures could rise even higher over the weekend.
"With the combined forces of climate change that has disrupted temperature trends around the state, a remarkable dearth of ice in the Bering Sea and weather patterns generating a general heat wave, Alaska is facing a Fourth of July unlike any before... city officials are worrying about air quality and forecasters expect temperatures to rival those in Miami," according to the Times.
News of Anchorage's record-breaking heat comes after data from the U.N.-backed Copernicus Climate Change Service showed that last month was the hottest June ever recorded.
"Summer has just begun for many, but already temperature records are being broken," said 350.org. "We need to act like this is the climate emergency it is."
Thursday, July 19, 2018
REMOVE Black POW/MIA Flags from New Mexico Capital
July 21 2018
Letter to the Editor:
Time to change New Mexico's flag color from yellow/red to turquoise/yellow.
Turquoise is new mexico's true color. Its also time to REMOVE the black ISIS POW/MIA skull and crossbones flags from ALL of New
Mexico's state buildings and replace them with either a UN flag or, better yet, an EARTH FLAG. The US military and their
incessant warmongering have no place in this country anymore. War is obsolete. We live in ONE WORLD now. Let's start promoting
our unity and solidarity. There are no borders when one looks down upon our planet from space.
Steve Jones
Global Environmentalist
Taos, New Mexico
==> Global Manhattan Project: http://alquedahq.20m.com/manhattan.html
*******************************************************************************************
Letter to the Editor:
Time to change New Mexico's flag color from yellow/red to turquoise/yellow.
Turquoise is new mexico's true color. Its also time to REMOVE the black ISIS POW/MIA skull and crossbones flags from ALL of New
Mexico's state buildings and replace them with either a UN flag or, better yet, an EARTH FLAG. The US military and their
incessant warmongering have no place in this country anymore. War is obsolete. We live in ONE WORLD now. Let's start promoting
our unity and solidarity. There are no borders when one looks down upon our planet from space.
Steve Jones
Global Environmentalist
Taos, New Mexico
==> Global Manhattan Project: http://alquedahq.20m.com/manhattan.html
*******************************************************************************************
Tuesday, February 6, 2018
Fukushima Update: 50,000 trillion Becquerel’s of radiation leaked: 300 tons of radioactive water leaking daily into the Pacific no known technologie to fix it
Fukushima Update: 50,000 trillion Becquerel’s of radiation leaked: 300 tons of radioactive water leaking daily into the Pacific no known technologie to fix it
By National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) US Department of Energy
The China syndrome refers to a scenario in which a molten nuclear reactor core could fission its way through its containment vessel, melt through the basement of the power plant and down into the earth. While a molten reactor core wouldn’t burn “all the way through to China” it could enter the soil and water table and cause huge contamination in the crops and drinking water around the power plant. It’s a nightmare scenario, the stuff of movies. And it is happening at Fukushima and there is no technology known to man to stop it continuing.
TEPCO, Tokyo Electric Power Company however is trying to play down the full impact of this nuclear accident.
According to scientist Micho Kaku there is a mathematical formula which can determine at what level the accident really is.
Apparently the stricken nuclear plant has already released 50,000 trillion Becquerel’s of radiation which would put Fukushima in as a category 7 nuclear accident which is still less than Chernobyl however The Fukushima plant is still continuing to leak radiation from its reactors and TEPCO have claimed the problem could take another 40 years to fix, and to top that statistic the whole situation is less than stable.
Fukushima is basically a ticking time bomb.
The slightest disturbance i.e. a small earthquake and there are many as the stricken plant sits on a fault line causing a pipe to burst and an evacuation of the crew could set off a full scale melt down at all 3 nuclear power stations taking the catastrophe far and beyond what happened at Chernobyl.
To make matters worse TEPCO in a moment of panic pumped in sea water from the Pacific in a desperate attempt to keep water above the melting core but as we well know sea water contains salt which corroded any remaining working pumps at the site.
They resorted to sending in suicide squads into the crippled plant to hose water onto the melting reactor.
And the situation has now worsened.
This accident has released enormous amount of iodine into the atmosphere, Iodine is soluble, and when it rains it soaks into the soils and of course into the food system.
Farmers there are now dumping milk and crops and the local economy has collapsed.
It's been over half a decade since Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station suffered a catastrophic meltdown which topped the International Nuclear Event Scale due to its severity. Radiation loves to hang around, and researchers conducting operations with robots inside the damaged reactors were met with radiation levels at their highest point since the actual meltdown back in 2011.
In fact, the radiation level is so elevated that the robot operators had to quickly recall one of their robotic probes because it began to literally go blind.
Like sending a rover to another planet, the mission for robot operators from the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) is to monitor the status of the failed reactors and the nuclear materials housed within.
Unfortunately, the radiation level of the reactor units was high enough to actually begin to damage one of the robots' camera systems, and could have completely blinded the view for the operator and left the bot stranded in the radioactive hellscape. (In layman's terms what they are saying here is no technology has yet been invented to fix the problem, humans or robots cannot get anywhere near the rector long enough to fix the problem so TEPO's claim it will take another 40 years to fix the problem is probably a very conservative guess)
However, TEPCO was able to study some of the readings taken by the robots before things went awry.
The scientists have estimated the level of radiation to be anywhere from 530 Sieverts per hour to 650 Sieverts per hour.
Those numbers are representative of the amount of radiation an object would expect to be bombarded with over a specific period of time.
To add a bit of scope to that, it's estimated that just one Sievert will cause fatal cancer in approximately 5% of people, while a dose of five Sieverts will kill 50% of people exposed to it within a month.
As little as 90 millisieverts (0.09 Sieverts) accumulated over time can increase cancer risk in both adults and children. (With 300 tons of this stuff washing into the Pacific every day how long will it take before it kills the Pacific Ocean, it is a big ocean but not that big)
Later this month TEPCO plans to send yet another probe into the reactor to take additional readings and hopefully paint a clearer picture of just what exactly is going on inside.
Tipping point breached! Monarch butterfly has a 95% decline since 1980's in North America: Two-thirds of ALL animals and insects extinct in 2 years
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tipping point breached! Monarch butterfly has a 95% decline since 1980's in North America: Two-thirds of ALL animals and insects extinct in 2 years
According to researchers from WWF and the Zoological Society of London in just two years’ time, the World will have lost two-thirds of all wild animals and insects.
This amazing statistic from The Living Planet Index goes on: The number of wild animals living on Earth is set to fall by two-thirds by 2020, according to a new report, part of a mass extinction that is destroying the natural world upon which humanity depends.
The latest species under stress is the wonderful North American monarch butterfly.
A new report by The Xerces Society claim the number of monarchs wintering in California has dropped to a five-year low, despite more volunteers counting more sites in search of the orange-and-black insect that is arguably the most admired of North American butterflies, a report said on Friday.
The latest tally of 200,000 monarchs in forested groves in California’s central coast has dropped from the 1.2 million counted two decades ago, indicating the number of butterflies found west of the Rocky Mountains, or the so-called western population, continues to sharply decline, the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation said in a report.
Thanks to the efforts of many, this year’s WMTC tallied a total of 192,629 monarchs.
This is the lowest number counted since 2012, despite volunteers visiting nearly twice as many sites as they did that year.
The total represents less than one-sixth of the 1.2 million monarchs recorded in 1997, the first year of the WMTC, and is part of a long-term downward trend in the population of monarchs overwintering in California.
A study led by Cheryl Schultz, of Washington State University Vancouver, analyzed WMTC data and comparable historical data and demonstrated a dramatic population decline of over 95% the since the 1980s.
This is similar to the decline of over 80% seen in the monarch population that overwinters in central Mexico since the 1990s.
Earth has crossed its own tipping point and is creaking under the strain: Two-thirds of animals extinct by 2020! Climate changed forever! World population to hit 8 billion and accelerating
Planet has crossed the tipping point
Our planet is creaking under the strain
By 2020 two thirds of all wild animals who once lived on the world will be dead.
The world's primates face an "extinction crisis" with 60% of species now threatened with extinction
Unprecedented death of millions of tons of marine life around the world’s oceans and waterways
NOAA and NASA claimed 2016 marked three consecutive years of record warmth for the globe with the first eight months of 2016 unprecedented warmth!
10 of the 11 warmest years ever recorded coming in the last 16 years
Not climate change but climate "changed"
North Pole warmer than the Mediterranean in winter
World population soon to hit 8 billion and accelerating
Wars and rumours of wars
In just two years’ time, the World will have lost two-thirds of all wild animals.
This amazing statistic from The Living Planet Index goes on: The number of wild animals living on Earth is set to fall by two-thirds by 2020, according to a new report, part of a mass extinction that is destroying the natural world upon which humanity depends.
The analysis, the most comprehensive to date, indicates that animal populations plummeted by 58% between 1970 and 2012, with losses on track to reach 67% by 2020. Researchers from WWF and the Zoological Society of London compiled the report from scientific data and found that the destruction of wild habitats, hunting and pollution were to blame.
In another report released by journal Science, Advances are claiming the world's primates face an "extinction crisis" with 60% of species now threatened with extinction, according to research.
A global study, involving more than 30 scientists, assessed the conservation status of more than 500 individual species. This also revealed that 75% of species have populations that are declining.
Add to this the unprecedented death of millions of tons of marine life around the world’s oceans and waterways all point to a crisis which has crossed the tipping point.
Just yesterday NOAA along with NASA claimed 2016 marked three consecutive years of record warmth for the globe with the first eight months of 2016 unprecedented warmth!
With 10 of the 11 warmest years ever recorded coming in the last 16 years, it is fair to claim climate change is climate changed it will never recover.
The Sun hasn't risen over its horizon for more than two months yet the North Pole was warmer than South of France, Italy, Greece Turkey and Syria this week and not for the first time either this winter!
The world is creaking under the stress; crops are failing all over the world due to extreme weather, and with 7.5 billion people we can’t possibly feed everyone, even though the West probably throw’s away enough food to feed the poorest.
Graph worldometers
During the 20th century alone, the population in the world has grown from 1.65 billion to 6 billion.
In 1970, there were roughly half as many people in the world as there are now. We will hit 8 billion people within the next 8 years.
Monday, December 18, 2017
Whole Foods/Amazon Employment
dec 21 2017
whole foods market, sedona, arizona
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hi kristin-
Listen, I've decided to withdraw my employment interest in working for Whole Foods for the time being. Any corporation or business that requires or FORCES its employees to have a phone number just to be able to complete an online application process is not worthy of being my employer.
FORCED phone number policies are being used by Facebook, Twitter, Google Gmail and most recently by E-bay/Paypal in order to conduct transactions, business and online communications- among other things. It now seems like Whole Foods, which is owned by Amazon (and receives hundreds of millions of dollars from the CIA) is instituting similiar measures with regards to prospective employees. I'm sorry, but its NOT a crime to NOT own or use a phone.
I believe FORCED phone numbers are being used by these corporations to ILLEGALLY identify, track, monitor, record, spy and surveil (both with GPS tracking and via audio records) on all American citizens who submit to this new business protocol. Its widely known that the personal phone number is being used today as the PRIME means through which the NSA (the National Security Agency) is ILLEGALLY spying on the American people. Along with biometric ID cards and FORCED background/drug tests, these policies are being used to digitally enslave every man, woman and child in this country to a tyrannical plutocratic electronic digital police state regime that willfully and maliciously violates our core constitutional civil liberties when it comes to the 4th Amendment and our right to personal privacy. I'm sad to say that Whole Foods and Amazon seem to have recently joined that dictatorial cabal.
Thus said, there is always space for corporations like WF/Amazon to turn away and reject such tyrannical practices and policies and learn to respect the privacy and dignity of its employees and its customers. If and when WF/Amazon turns from its wicked ways, i would be happy to to re-submit my interest and employment prospects with Whole Foods Market. Whole Foods, on whole, is a great market, with lots of good employees and products, however, the company also has alot of serious problems and conflicts of interest to sort out, in my opinion.
I was hoping to partner with WF/Amazon to further pursue the global environmental work and values i am trying to promote to help salvage what we have left of our beautiful planet. As i stated previously, we have ALREADY lost roughly 50% of all life on Earth. With support and employment from environmentally conscious institutions such as WF/Amazon, i was hoping to work with the company to salvage what's left before we descend into an irreversible downward spiral of species extinction. But, it seems, for now, I will have to take my efforts and employment elsewhere. Out of respect, though, for the good environmental/organic values that WF/Amazon does support and endorse, I pass onto the company my online book, SAVING THE PLANET: http://stp.neocities.org AND my most recent proposal for a GLOBAL MARSHALL PLAN: http://leftcoast7.simplesite.com to save what's left of our planet.
In summation, I would highly recommend that WF/Amazon abandon its current police state trajectory and learn to EVOLVE a more sane and survivable business strategy that protects and upholds the right to personal privacy, as welll as, supports and endorses an environmental ethos that most of your customers expect when doing business with WF/Amazon.
Regards,
Steve Jones
Global Environmentalist
Sedona, Arizona
USA
cc: WF Customer Service, WF/Amazon CEO's, Green Festivals, Refuse Fascism, Commondreams, Democracy Now!
*************************************************************************************************************************************************** Sent with ProtonMail Secure Email.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hi kristin-
Listen, I've decided to withdraw my employment interest in working for Whole Foods for the time being. Any corporation or business that requires or FORCES its employees to have a phone number just to be able to complete an online application process is not worthy of being my employer.
FORCED phone number policies are being used by Facebook, Twitter, Google Gmail and most recently by E-bay/Paypal in order to conduct transactions, business and online communications- among other things. It now seems like Whole Foods, which is owned by Amazon (and receives hundreds of millions of dollars from the CIA) is instituting similiar measures with regards to prospective employees. I'm sorry, but its NOT a crime to NOT own or use a phone.
I believe FORCED phone numbers are being used by these corporations to ILLEGALLY identify, track, monitor, record, spy and surveil (both with GPS tracking and via audio records) on all American citizens who submit to this new business protocol. Its widely known that the personal phone number is being used today as the PRIME means through which the NSA (the National Security Agency) is ILLEGALLY spying on the American people. Along with biometric ID cards and FORCED background/drug tests, these policies are being used to digitally enslave every man, woman and child in this country to a tyrannical plutocratic electronic digital police state regime that willfully and maliciously violates our core constitutional civil liberties when it comes to the 4th Amendment and our right to personal privacy. I'm sad to say that Whole Foods and Amazon seem to have recently joined that dictatorial cabal.
Thus said, there is always space for corporations like WF/Amazon to turn away and reject such tyrannical practices and policies and learn to respect the privacy and dignity of its employees and its customers. If and when WF/Amazon turns from its wicked ways, i would be happy to to re-submit my interest and employment prospects with Whole Foods Market. Whole Foods, on whole, is a great market, with lots of good employees and products, however, the company also has alot of serious problems and conflicts of interest to sort out, in my opinion.
I was hoping to partner with WF/Amazon to further pursue the global environmental work and values i am trying to promote to help salvage what we have left of our beautiful planet. As i stated previously, we have ALREADY lost roughly 50% of all life on Earth. With support and employment from environmentally conscious institutions such as WF/Amazon, i was hoping to work with the company to salvage what's left before we descend into an irreversible downward spiral of species extinction. But, it seems, for now, I will have to take my efforts and employment elsewhere. Out of respect, though, for the good environmental/organic values that WF/Amazon does support and endorse, I pass onto the company my online book, SAVING THE PLANET: http://stp.neocities.org AND my most recent proposal for a GLOBAL MARSHALL PLAN: http://leftcoast7.simplesite.com to save what's left of our planet.
In summation, I would highly recommend that WF/Amazon abandon its current police state trajectory and learn to EVOLVE a more sane and survivable business strategy that protects and upholds the right to personal privacy, as welll as, supports and endorses an environmental ethos that most of your customers expect when doing business with WF/Amazon.
Regards,
Steve Jones
Global Environmentalist
Sedona, Arizona
USA
cc: WF Customer Service, WF/Amazon CEO's, Green Festivals, Refuse Fascism, Commondreams, Democracy Now!
*************************************************************************************************************************************************** Sent with ProtonMail Secure Email.
Friday, December 8, 2017
'Hot New World': Raging California Wildfires Expose Reality of Climate Threat: 2017
'Hot New World': Raging California Wildfires Expose Reality of Climate Threat 2017:
www.commondreams.org/news/2017/12/07/hot-new-world-raging-california-wildfires-expose-reality-climate-threat
As a "once-in-a-generation" firestorm has raged across nearly 90,000 acres in Southern California this week—covering an area about six times the size of Manhattan and forcing more than 100,000 people to evacuate their homes—experts are warning how climate change is fueling fires on the West Coast. LA meteorologist Anthony Yanez tweeted that he has "never seen" the wildfire threat index reach the designation for "extreme," as it did late Wednesday, and quoted Ken Pimlott, director of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, who reportedly told NBC, "There will be no ability to fight fires in these winds." Environmentalist and 350.org co-founder Bill McKibben indicated the elevated threat warning is a consequence of the "hot new world," a reference to an increasingly warming planet being caused by fossil fuel emissions and other human activity. Writing for Pacific Standard earlier this week, meteorologist Eric Holthaus notes even though it's still fire season in Southern California, "the current conditions in Southern California seem exceptional." Describing the largest of the region's five fires, he writes: The Thomas Fire, first identified late Monday night, grew 30-fold in size in just three hours and advanced at a rate of more than an acre per second for 12 hours into neighborhoods in the cities of Santa Paula and Ventura. At the time of the fire, the National Weather Service rated the fire-related weather conditions as "extremely critical," its worst assessment level. Wind speeds near the fire were measured near hurricane force. "This week's Southern California fires will add to an already disastrous fire season," Holthaus concludes, pointing to wildfires in Northern California that killed at least 44 people earlier this year and are collectively "ranked as the worst fire disaster in California history." Images and videos from the fires continue to circulate virally on social media, especially from commuters and evacuees on the 405 and 101 highways. Officials were forced to shut down a section of the 101 early Thursday, which the Los Angeles Times reports left "no more open routes between Santa Barbara and Ventura counties." Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at the University of California Los Angeles and writer of the Weather West blog, was among the group of experts who explained to The Verge how rain is essential to quenching the California wildfires, and how scientists believe climate change has contributed to below average rainfall in the region that is likely to persist into the future. "By this time of year, usually, there's been some rain that's wetted things down," Swain said, but in the current warm winter dry spell, "it's just as dry as it was in the summer months." From October to May, strong winds in the upper atmosphere, called the jet stream, typically bring rain storms to California, but National Weather Service meteorologists John Dumas and David Sweet note that so far this year, Los Angeles has seen five percent of its average rainfall, while Burbank has seen even less. In the bottom part of the state, where some areas are enduring a moderate drought, "we're quite parched," Sweet said. As The Verge reports: Storms in the jet stream can get diverted by high-pressure bubbles of warm air. A version of this phenomenon called an "atmospheric ridge" is to blame for Southern California's current dry spell. And even bigger one has started forming along the entire West Coast of the U.S. that could shunt rainfall into Canada or Alaska, Swain writes. "We were dry before and now the prospects for rain look even less likely because of the size of this thing," Sweet says. This is the same atmospheric phenomenon that squatted over the state for three winters in a row during California's record-setting, five-year drought. "The real question is how long it persists," Swains says. During the drought, these ridges lasted for months at a time—but we don't know what's in store for this new one. Even worse news: these atmospheric ridges are getting more common—possibly thanks to human-caused global warming, Swain and his colleagues reported in a 2016 study. "What should make Southern California fearful is that climate change could mean a future of more frequent and more intense wildfires," the Los Angeles Times editorial board wrote this week. "Today's fires will end, and what we do afterward—assessing how to better prepare, and how and whether to rebuild—will influence the damage from the fires next time." But even getting to that point—where policymakers can consider taking further steps to address climate change and plan for future fires—has proven difficult, as evacuations continue and firefighters find it difficult to contain the fires due to weather conditions—particularly the powerful Santa Ana winds that are expected to remain strong throughout Thursday.
www.commondreams.org/news/2017/12/07/hot-new-world-raging-california-wildfires-expose-reality-climate-threat
As a "once-in-a-generation" firestorm has raged across nearly 90,000 acres in Southern California this week—covering an area about six times the size of Manhattan and forcing more than 100,000 people to evacuate their homes—experts are warning how climate change is fueling fires on the West Coast. LA meteorologist Anthony Yanez tweeted that he has "never seen" the wildfire threat index reach the designation for "extreme," as it did late Wednesday, and quoted Ken Pimlott, director of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, who reportedly told NBC, "There will be no ability to fight fires in these winds." Environmentalist and 350.org co-founder Bill McKibben indicated the elevated threat warning is a consequence of the "hot new world," a reference to an increasingly warming planet being caused by fossil fuel emissions and other human activity. Writing for Pacific Standard earlier this week, meteorologist Eric Holthaus notes even though it's still fire season in Southern California, "the current conditions in Southern California seem exceptional." Describing the largest of the region's five fires, he writes: The Thomas Fire, first identified late Monday night, grew 30-fold in size in just three hours and advanced at a rate of more than an acre per second for 12 hours into neighborhoods in the cities of Santa Paula and Ventura. At the time of the fire, the National Weather Service rated the fire-related weather conditions as "extremely critical," its worst assessment level. Wind speeds near the fire were measured near hurricane force. "This week's Southern California fires will add to an already disastrous fire season," Holthaus concludes, pointing to wildfires in Northern California that killed at least 44 people earlier this year and are collectively "ranked as the worst fire disaster in California history." Images and videos from the fires continue to circulate virally on social media, especially from commuters and evacuees on the 405 and 101 highways. Officials were forced to shut down a section of the 101 early Thursday, which the Los Angeles Times reports left "no more open routes between Santa Barbara and Ventura counties." Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at the University of California Los Angeles and writer of the Weather West blog, was among the group of experts who explained to The Verge how rain is essential to quenching the California wildfires, and how scientists believe climate change has contributed to below average rainfall in the region that is likely to persist into the future. "By this time of year, usually, there's been some rain that's wetted things down," Swain said, but in the current warm winter dry spell, "it's just as dry as it was in the summer months." From October to May, strong winds in the upper atmosphere, called the jet stream, typically bring rain storms to California, but National Weather Service meteorologists John Dumas and David Sweet note that so far this year, Los Angeles has seen five percent of its average rainfall, while Burbank has seen even less. In the bottom part of the state, where some areas are enduring a moderate drought, "we're quite parched," Sweet said. As The Verge reports: Storms in the jet stream can get diverted by high-pressure bubbles of warm air. A version of this phenomenon called an "atmospheric ridge" is to blame for Southern California's current dry spell. And even bigger one has started forming along the entire West Coast of the U.S. that could shunt rainfall into Canada or Alaska, Swain writes. "We were dry before and now the prospects for rain look even less likely because of the size of this thing," Sweet says. This is the same atmospheric phenomenon that squatted over the state for three winters in a row during California's record-setting, five-year drought. "The real question is how long it persists," Swains says. During the drought, these ridges lasted for months at a time—but we don't know what's in store for this new one. Even worse news: these atmospheric ridges are getting more common—possibly thanks to human-caused global warming, Swain and his colleagues reported in a 2016 study. "What should make Southern California fearful is that climate change could mean a future of more frequent and more intense wildfires," the Los Angeles Times editorial board wrote this week. "Today's fires will end, and what we do afterward—assessing how to better prepare, and how and whether to rebuild—will influence the damage from the fires next time." But even getting to that point—where policymakers can consider taking further steps to address climate change and plan for future fires—has proven difficult, as evacuations continue and firefighters find it difficult to contain the fires due to weather conditions—particularly the powerful Santa Ana winds that are expected to remain strong throughout Thursday.
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