Arguments
2022 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #11
Posted on 20 March 2022 by BaerbelW
Listing of articles linked to on the Skeptical Science Facebook Page during the past week: Sun, March 13, 2022 through Sat, March 19, 2022.
The following articles sparked above average interest during the week: The FLICC-Poster - Downloads and Translations, Electric cars coming on fast: Climate worries, sinking prices put spotlight on EV sales, How climate change historians are using centuries-old data to shine a light on our planet’s future, Coal Mining Emits More Super-Polluting Methane Than Venting and Flaring From Gas and Oil Wells, a New Study Finds, and When will EV trucks be ready for large-scale adoption? It’s complicated.
Articles Linked to on Facebook
- Skeptical Science New Research for Week #10 2022 by Doug Bostrom & Marc Kodack, Skeptical Science, Mar 10, 2022
- At Global Energy Conference, Oil and Gas Industry Leaders Argue For Fossil Fuels’ Future in the Energy Transition by Nicholas Kusnetz, Fossil Fuels, Inside Climate News, Mar 11, 2022
- Electric cars coming on fast: Climate worries, sinking prices put spotlight on EV sales by Elizabeth Weise, USA Today, Mar 13, 2022
- How climate change historians are using centuries-old data to shine a light on our planet’s future by Karen Black, Toronto Star, Mar 12, 2022
- A growing force in the climate movement: Moms by Somini Sengupta, Climate, New York Times, Mar 11, 2022
- Investors launch global standard for corporate climate lobbying by Simon Jessop, Reuters, Mar 14, 2022
- ‘Defining moment’: how can the US end its dependency on fossil fuels? by Oliver Millman, US News, The Guardian, Mar 11, 2022
- Coal Mining Emits More Super-Polluting Methane Than Venting and Flaring From Gas and Oil Wells, a New Study Finds by Phil McKenna, Fossil Fuels, Inside Climate News, Mar 15, 2022
- We Need to Tell People Their Houses Are Going to Burn by Emma Marris, The Atlantic, Mar 15, 2022
- Tree Planting Is Booming. Here’s How That Could Help, or Harm, the Planet by Catrin Einhorn, New York Times, Mar 14, 2022
- Children's climate change case overturned on appeal as Federal Court dismisses government's 'duty of care' by Michael Slezak, ABC News (AU), Mar 14, 2022
- The FLICC-Poster - Downloads and Translations by Bärbel Winkler, Skeptical Science, Mar 16, 2022
- Impacts on pregnant people now a focus of climate science by Analysis by Jessica Kutz, The 19th/Narwhal, Mar 15, 2022
- Spending deal undercuts Biden’s UN climate pledge by Benjamin Hulac, Roll Call, Mar 16, 2022
- Appellate court rules Biden can consider climate damage in policymaking by Anna Phillips, The Washington Post, Mar 16, 2022
- How the Largest Global Meat and Dairy Companies Evade Climate Scrutiny by Anna Lappé, Civil Eats, Mar 15, 2022
- When will EV trucks be ready for large-scale adoption? It’s complicated by Jeff St. Lohn, Canary Media, Mar 17, 2022
- ‘Imminent’ tipping point threatening Europe’s permafrost peatlands by Giuliana Viglione, Carbon Brief, Mar 14, 2022
- Dead coral found at Great Barrier Reef as widespread bleaching event unfolds by Graham Readfearn, The Guardian, Mar 18, 2022
- Hailstorms and climate change: What to expect by Bob Henson, Yale Climate Connections, Mar 17, 2022
- Wildfires Are Fueling a Dangerous Feedback Loop of Arctic Warming by Ed Cara, Gizmodo, Mar 18, 2022
- What Humanity Should Eat to Stay Healthy and Save the Planet by Gayathri Vaidyanathan, Nature/Scientific American, Mar 17, 2022
The following recent NPR items are like The Atlantic item "We Need to Tell People Their Houses Are Going to Burn". They are about severe flooding events affecting already built parts of the USA. They are stories that are likely mirrored around the world.
Rebuild or leave? In a flood-prone Tennessee town, one family must decide
This school wasn't built for the new climate reality. Yours may not be either
What they have in common is long standing developed features that have been severely damaged by intense unprecedented recent flooding. As a result, the developed items and locations are being understood to be at serious risk of future severe flooding, but without certainty about how severe. And what they also have in common is the belief that the solution is 'building what is hoped to withstand the future events or building what are hoped to be adequate regional flood mitigation measures' rather than 'abandoning the locations that are at risk of being severely flooded in the future'.
As a Civil engineer I am painfully aware that without certainty regarding the future magnitude of human climate change impacts it is less likely that climate forecasts can be developed to establish a conservative certainty regarding the changed climate conditions that need to be designed for.
Even if climate change impacts are limited to 1.5C, or peak slightly higher then are rapidly brought back down to 1.5C, it is difficult to establish conservative future design requirements (especially when the cost of more conservative requirements is argued against by people hoping to save money or save part of the developed status quo). And if the impacts peak at 2C or higher it is even less certain what the required conservative design conditions would be.
Abandoning areas at risk of future flooding, based on a very conservative evaluation of flood risk, would develop things that would survive far into the future with less risk of disruption or repair costs. That would build lasting improvements, rather than hoping to save money by building something that is hoped to be good enough based on not really having much understanding about what the future will be like.
The real story is that the real problem is that the short term benefits of being increasingly harmful to the future generations are too hard for those currently living to give up. It is even harder for caring people to have the power to 'motivate (force)' the people benefiting the most harmfully to give up their harmful unsustainable developed pursuits of 'more'.