Wednesday, August 30, 2023

AT SALON THE DISMAL CALCULUS  MEANS LONG DIVISION

SALON "Negligent manslaughter": Study finds climate change could kill 1 billion mostly poor people

"A future person is killed every time 1000 tons of fossil carbon are burned," the authors report

By MATTHEW ROZSA

Staff Writer

PUBLISHED AUGUST 30, 2023 12:25AM (EDT)

SALON'S CLIMATE SOLON GOT HIS EPOCHAL HEADLINE FROM MDPI, A PREDATORY VANITY  PRESS KNOWN FOR PUBLISHING PAPERS REJECTED ELSEWHERE, INCLUDING:

 energies


Quantifying Global Greenhouse Gas Emissions in Human Deaths to Guide Energy Policy

Joshua M. Pearce 1,*

and Richard Parncutt 2

1

Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering and Ivey School of Business,

 Western University, London, ON N6G 0N1, Canada
University of Graz, 8010 Graz, Austria; richard.parncutt@uni-graz.at

Academic Editor: Adel Ben Youssef  Received: 26 July 2023 Revised: 9 August 2023 

Accepted: 17 August 2023 Published: 19 August 2023

Copyright: © 2023 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.

Abstract: 

When attempting to quantify future harms caused by carbon emissions and to set appro- priate energy policies, it has been argued that the most important metric is the number of human deaths caused by climate change. Several studies have attempted to overcome the uncertainties associated with such forecasting.

approaches to estimating future human death tolls from climate change relevant at any scale or location are compared and synthesized... consistent with the “1000-ton rule,” according to which a future person is killed every time 1000 tons of fossil carbon are burned (order-of-magnitude estimate). 

If warming reaches or exceeds 2◦ C this century, mainly richer humans will be responsible for killing roughly 1 billion mainly poorer humans through anthropogenic global warming, which is comparable with involuntary or negligent manslaughter. 

On this basis, relatively aggressive energy policies are summarized that would enable immediate and substantive decreases in carbon emissions. 

The limitations to such calculations are outlined and future work is recommended to accelerate the decarbonization of the global economy while minimizing the number of sacrificed human lives. 

                                         SOME LIKE IT HOT


Saturday, August 26, 2023

                ANOTHER MELTDOWN AT THE GUARDIAN


Rebecca Ratcliffe in Bangkok and Reuters

Fri 25 Aug 2023 06.17 EDT

Two of the world’s few tropical glaciers, in Indonesia, are melting and their ice may vanish by 2026 or sooner... the country’s geophysics agency has said…

“The glaciers might vanish before 2026 or even faster, and El NiƱo could accelerate the melting process,” said Donaldi Permana, a climate researcher at the agency.

He said little could be done to prevent the shrinking, and the event could… cause a rise in the global sea level within a decade. 

We are now in a position to document the glaciers’ extinction,” Donaldi said. “At least we can tell future generations that we used to have glaciers.”


The complete meltdown of Indonesia's glaciers which cover 2.8 km2, and have a total ice volume of  1/10th of a cubic kilometer, would raise sea level by almost 1/100  of the thickness of a hair in President Trump's mug shot.



                     EXISTENTIAL THREAT CROSS REFERRALS
                                           ARE NOW A THING

The Climate Psychology Certificate provides psychological training and skills for therapists, healers, and allied professionals to address the growing mental health impacts of the climate emergency. 

Utilizing an integrative and robust framework that includes multiple behavioral science approaches and philosophies, as well as a view into the broken systemic legacies from which painful eco-emotional conditions arise, climate psychology is adaptable to various therapeutic orientations.

The primary focus of the Climate Psychology Certificate is to provide training... for working therapeutically with the lived experiences of eco-anxiety, eco-grief, and many expressions of climate-invoked dread… :

Immediate mental health impacts of climate related disasters

Long term stress of living with the reality of climate change over time

Trauma-informed therapeutic and emotional resiliency skills with ways of motivating effective action

Existential dilemmas that come into the therapy room, such as whether to have a family, move out of a geographical area to avoid climate related disasters, kinship breakdown, and more generally, how to navigate the future with escalating threats

The program cohort is intentionally kept small to promote… lifelong networking, shared professional efforts, and cross referrals. 

Friday, August 25, 2023

     CAN THE MASTER OF DISASTER SAVE PRESIDENT BIDEN'S
                            EXTREME  WEATHER  SWAT  TEAM?

THE NEW YORKER RECENTLY ADDUCED 

A decade ago, lobbyist, White House Chief of Staff and Hillary Clinton Campaign Manager John Podesta set the stage for Vivek Ramaswamy by hiring the damage control lobbying firm dubbed the Masters of Disaster to reframe the "Dialectic" of climate politics as a 
     " TROGLODYTE NARRATIVE "
  THAT BRANDS AS A "SOCIAL MISANTHROPE"
 ANYONE CRITICIZING HIS AGENDA 


"From: christopherlehane@sbcglobal.net  
To: john.podesta@gmail.com  
Date: 2014-01-28 14:37 Subject: Follow-up    

Per your request, attached is a memorandum outlining a possible unifying approach for the Administration when it comes to climate
 
the specific material requested(a range of so-called "frames"...to provide some strategic thinking on the politics of climate... 

Best,      
Christopher Lehane

CLIMATE: A  UNIFYING  THEORY  TO THE CASE

OVERVIEW  
Thank you for asking us to share some ideas for a holistic approach to climate. Per your direction, the goal is to unify policy, politics, and communications ...

The unifying theory is best expressed by this basic principle: 
If the effort to change public opinion on climate change is animated by the same one-off policies and practices that are employed to change public opinion on most other policy issues, then defeat is inevitable...

To achieve victory, we must treat climate change as... a true political social movement to create change...
 Fully leveraging ... Biblical superstorms, extreme droughts, and historic wildfires...

2. Right v. Wrong (Climate as political social change)...

one cannot be  handcuffed  by  data  on a fundamental moral issue of this kind..the magic will not be in the precision of specific wordsthe Administration chooses to use ...


The concept must be big; it must be simple; and it must 'lean in' 
to where the public is inclined to go ... The Big Idea would be the communications prism, the emotional touchstone, and the policy hub for all climate-related policies...

× Dialectic. 
... an organizing platform that defines ... the opposition as morally responsible for an issue that threatens the health and welfare of the American people. 

TR had the plutocrats. FDR fought Fascism. LBJ took on poverty. And Reagan had the Soviets...

× Anti-Basic Science
The power of this approach... fits into what we call the Troglodyte Narrative  (anti-women; anti-Latino; anti-gun safety; anti-common sense fiscal policy; and anti-science) that is raising basic trust issues for the Republican Party ...

× Frame climate 
You either are a member of our society or you are a social misanthrope..

× Justice ...the focus on equality/opportunity could encompass… rising seas wiping out millions of poor people in Southeast Asia, droughts leading to famine in Africa; rising temperatures creating plagues in Latin America


× Anti-Tobacco... We realize that this is likely a bridge too far, but we felt obligated to present it.



The Winning Principles 


- ending royalties to the most profitable companies in the world and sending the money back to the public as a tax break

- solar panels along our public roads that would reduce energy costs for all Americans… barring... fees to consumers who put solar panels on their domiciles

- improved drinking water standards

- significantly enhanced liabilities for companies that pollute water or pollute lands with pipeline/rail leaks

- stronger consumer protection on gas prices ...

× Briefing on the Big Idea to each and every Department/Agency. … require that they...be held accountable and responsible.

× Weekly meeting with each agency’s point person and the White House point person.

× White House point person coordinates all activity with the White House communications office.


× Establishment of an extreme weather SWAT team..."



READ THE WHOLE THING HERE:


Thursday, August 24, 2023

                                  THE KILLING FIELDS:
 25 KILOTON FIRESTORM BURNED UPWIND OF LAHAINA

Non-native grass species blamed for ferocity of Hawaii wildfires
Failure to heed warnings over unchecked growth meant blaze was ‘a disaster waiting to happen’
 Left ‘completely unmanaged’ for 25 years , abandoned canefields surrounding the town  hosted over a kiloton per square kilometer of dry grass. While Maui's wet windward side receives 300 inches of rain a year, Lahaina gets only 15.


 

Scientists and academics say they have been warning for several years that invasive grasses covering a quarter of the Hawaii islands are a major fire risk.

Untamed grassland helped fuel the spread and intensity of last week’s deadly fires on the island of Maui, according to experts… A July 2021 report on wildfire prevention by a Maui government commission warned that non-native grasses are making Hawaii more vulnerable to destructive fires, saying their presence, particularly on abandoned sugarcane fields, provides a source of “combustible, rapidly burning fuels” that “needs to be addressed”.

Hawaii’s last sugarcane mill, HC&S, which covered 14,570 hectares (36,000 acres) on Maui, closed in 2016. “The lands around Lahaina were all sugarcane from the 1860s to the late 1990s. Nothing’s been done since then... the grasses were “completely left unmanaged”.

The 2021 report quotes Trauernicht describing the wildfire season in Hawaii as a “one-two punch” of wet then dry conditions. During the wetter part of the year, “a lot of vegetation and particularly grasses … grow and grow very fast,” he said. Then, in the dry period, the grasses turn “from green to yellow to brown pretty quickly … making us way more vulnerable to these big, destructive fires”.

Non-native grass species include fountaingrass (Cenchrus setaceus) and Guinea grass (Megathyrsus maximus), both of which have “adapted to thrive with fire”, according to a factsheet from the Pacific Fire Exchange (PFX), 

Frazier  “ It is shocking and gut-wrenching, but the fire itself was not a surprise.”

Wednesday, August 23, 2023

   LIVE FROM LAHAINA, IT'S THE HAWAI'I REVIEW OF BOOKS!




“ Malm’s refreshing humanist ethos combined with his Marxist radicalism make him one of the most exciting contemporary writers on the climate crisis,
Political Economy Research Centre 


“ Malm has captured the rising fury of climate activists"

"A strong case for looking beyond non-violent activism"
VICE


“hard to read without daydreaming about sabotaging jets”
—Tim DeChristopher, Yes Magazine 


“it does make an unflinching case for carrying out such activities...”

—James Wilt, Canadian Dimension


“there’s no better place to start than Andreas Malm’s short treatise on the virtues of eco-sabotage.”
—Abigail Weinberg, Mother Jones


“Dynamite”

—David Hughes, Time Out


“This is a book as weapon, a manifesto for forcing change framed by the legacy of… national liberation armed struggles.”


—David Wallace-Wells, author of The Uninhabitable Earth


“essential reading”
—Naomi Klein, author of This Changes Everything and The Shock Doctrine



HOW NOT TO GOVERN THE WORLD LESSON 1: HYPERBOLE


Mike Hulme & Andy Revkin read the riot act to
 Secretary Generalissimo of the UN Climatariat & Turtle Bay Dinghy Sailing Club Commodore
Antonio Guterres


https://twitter.com/Revkin/status/1677078860565737473?s=20

Monday, August 21, 2023

                ANGER MANAGEMENT AT THE GUARDIAN

Anger is most powerful emotion by far for spurring climate action, study finds