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Some reading for the “anti-warmalists” and “climate-change deniers”

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Kiwithrottlejockey
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« Reply #875 on: September 18, 2017, 06:50:16 pm »


from the Los Angeles Times....

Why the wiring of our brains makes it hard to stop climate change

“Humans aren't wired to act on complex statistical risks very well.
We care a lot more about the tangible present than the distant future.”


By DAVID G. VICTOR, NICK OBRADOVICH and DILLON AMAYA | 4:00AM PDT - Sunday, September 17, 2017

Pedestrians walk in a flooded street as Tropical Storm Irma hits Charleston, South Carolina on September 11th. — Photograph: Mic Smith/Associated Press.
Pedestrians walk in a flooded street as Tropical Storm Irma hits Charleston, South Carolina on September 11th. — Photograph: Mic Smith/Associated Press.

HOUSTON has barely begun to dry out from Hurricane Harvey, and Florida faces a massive rebuilding effort after the Irma catastrophe. These two storms, among the most powerful in American history, are typical of the extreme weather events that are likely to become more common as the planet warms. A third hurricane, Jose, waits offshore and the storm season is far from done.

So why isn't the public heeding scientists and demanding climate action by politicians that could help deal with these destructive extremes? You can point fingers at the influence of fossil fuel companies, at misinformation from climate deniers and at political obstructionism, notably from a fragmented Republican party. But a much deeper force is also at work: the way our brains function.

Humans aren't well wired to act on complex statistical risks. We care a lot more about the tangible present than the distant future. Many of us do that to the extreme — what behavioral scientists call hyperbolic discounting — which makes it particularly hard to grapple with something like climate change, where the biggest dangers are yet to come.

Our mental space is limited and we aren't primed to focus on abstruse topics. Except for a small fraction that are highly motivated, most voters know little about the ins and outs of climate change, or the policy options relating to it. Instead, voters' opinions about such things derive from heuristics such as political party affiliation and basic ideology.

It isn't surprising, then, that most people don't process information about extreme events the way scientists do. And they don't do a good job of holding politicians accountable when the effects of political inaction are far removed from the policy failures that cause them.

The arrival of extreme events — hurricanes, wildfires, drought and torrential deluges — is not proof to many people that scientists are right and that a complete rethinking of climate policy is overdue. Instead, voters see these shocks more as evidence that things are out of whack. Change is needed, and voters deliver that verdict not by reevaluating policy but by casting politicians out of office.

Political scientists call such decision-making retrospective voting, and it too is rooted in how the brain deals with complex topics. It seems less than rational, but for busy voters, focusing on immediate, visible results and situations is a practical way to assess politicians, even if those results and situations are many steps removed from elected leaders' actual responsibilities.

When it comes to climate change, this sort of brain-driven behavior tends to create churn in political leadership rather than the continuity needed for long-term planning. It ejects whoever happens to be in office, rather than the real culprits. It doesn't help that when politicians know they are at risk of losing office due to disasters, they may pursue quick payoffs, neglecting longer-term policies like those needed for emissions mitigation and climate adaptation.

California's climate actions prove there can be exceptions to these rules. But what matters for global warming is ultimately what happens across the nation and the planet. Overall, the politics of controlling emissions, especially given the time horizons we face, will continue to bring out the worst in how we make important policy decisions.

Quick, deep cuts in emissions would impose high costs on existing well-organized interest groups for benefits that will be diffused across all nations and that will accrue mainly in the distant future. Failing at emissions control, we will have to grapple with the politics of adaptation — abandoning vulnerable regions and subsidizing the construction of various forms of protection, like sea walls to deal with worsening storm surges.

Voters consistently report being worried about climate change. But asked to rank their priorities, they rarely put climate policy high on the list. Nor does the public indicate that it is willing to spend what is needed to address the problem. What voters know is mixed, muddled and sparse.

This grim analysis explains why political systems will always be playing catch-up. Even with the conspicuous signals of regular extreme events, public support for the policies needed to stop global warming will be fleeting. But that realization can also inspire new policy strategies that are better wired for our political brains.

First, investments in technology can help immensely because they lower the cost of reducing emissions, making change appear less costly and easier to adopt. New energy technologies also create new interest groups that can help keep policy makers focused on controlling emissions when voters’ minds drift.

Second, we're likely to do better with policies that generate immediate and tangible benefits. A good example is efforts to control soot — a potent warming pollutant and also a central ingredient in noxious local air pollution. Even countries and societies that care little about global goals find it in their self-interest to protect the air their citizens breathe.

Third, our political institutions can help people focus on the long view by surveying climate impacts on a regular basis, so that each extreme storm is less a novel event and more a part of a pattern that needs sustained policy attention. One model is California's program of localized climate assessments that inform decisions about land-use planning and development. Another is the Obama administration's regular, nationwide assessments, which are at risk of termination under President Trump.

Our brains are unfortunately not wired to tackle problems like climate change. With some help we can build policies that enable us to do better. What the storms in the Gulf and Atlantic are reminding the public — for now, if not for long— is that the consequences of failure are big.


David G. Victor is a professor at UC San Diego's School of Global Policy & Strategy and codirector of the Initiative on Energy and Climate at the Brookings Institution.

Nick Obradovich is a research scientist at MIT's Media Laboratory.

Dillon J. Amaya is a PhD student at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography.

http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-victor-amaya-obradovich-why-our-brains-make-it-hard-to-stop-global-warming-20170917-story.html
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Kiwithrottlejockey
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« Reply #876 on: September 18, 2017, 06:52:34 pm »


Actually, that article applies mostly to DUMB & STUPID people.

Intelligent people (with longer-term attention spans) have the nouse to see what the problem is.

The DUMB & STUPID people (with short-term attention spans) desperately look for bogus science.

Also, those DUMBARSES are basically selfish wankers who don't give a fuck about destroying the planet for their grandchildren, great-grandchildren and great-great-grandchildren.

There's three of those despicable types posting at this group, including in this thread.
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« Reply #877 on: September 18, 2017, 08:56:19 pm »

...yeah...nah...sounds like a lot of lefty bullshit to me🙄

...why is that not a surprise😳
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« Reply #878 on: September 18, 2017, 09:44:42 pm »

Anybody who states "climate science is settled" is waving a huge flag that tells you they are either idiot lefties or sycophantic govt troughers, or naive idiots
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« Reply #879 on: September 18, 2017, 10:01:13 pm »

KTJ the real dumbasses are those who don't realise that committing societal and economic suicide by deindustrialising will literally be condemning the poor to early deaths. And for what? A theory that is full of holes. The greatest scam in the history of science.
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« Reply #880 on: September 18, 2017, 11:23:44 pm »

Here's a goody...



Not perfect but does give reason for pause.
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« Reply #881 on: September 19, 2017, 01:40:16 am »


from The Washington Post....

Hurricanes Harvey and Irma offer sobering lessons
in the power of nature


The astonishing storms of 2017 — so far — show how Americans respond
when calm blue skies turn a violent gray.


By JOEL CHENBACH, ABIGAIL HAUSLOHNER and PATRICIA SULLIVAN | 9:14PM EDT - Sunday, September 17, 2017

Paul England pilots his boat through floodwaters in Port Arthur, Texas, in the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey on September 2nd. — Photograph: Gerald Herbert/Associated Press.
Paul England pilots his boat through floodwaters in Port Arthur, Texas, in the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey on September 2nd.
 — Photograph: Gerald Herbert/Associated Press.


MIAMI — The astonishing hurricanes of 2017, Harvey and Irma, have provided a sobering lesson in the power of nature, along with some modest reassurance about how Americans respond when calm blue skies turn a violent gray.

The next test could come sooner than anyone wants. This stormy hurricane season is a long way from over, and there are ominous stirrings in the Atlantic, which has a history of brewing tropical cyclones that spin toward the United States. Hurricane Jose has been loitering in the Atlantic and might be preparing a run toward the East Coast this week. And Hurricane Maria is expected to hit the Leeward Islands in the Caribbean on Monday.

While Texas and the Southeast pick up after significant wind and flood damage, the welcome news from the Harvey and Irma hurricanes is that, in a crisis, neighbors help neighbors. The government did not stumble and bumble as it did initially during the Hurricane Katrina disaster of 2005. Improved storm track forecasts gave millions of people and civic leaders time to prepare for tornadic winds and biblical flooding.

But the storms were not without moments of confusion and chaos, as well as tragic mistakes.

In Texas, first responders were overwhelmed, leaving many flood-related rescues to a nomadic corps of volunteers with boats. In Sarasota, Florida, the American Red Cross struggled to staff emergency shelters because many of its local volunteers are snowbirds who don't arrive in Florida until October or later, said Jacqueline Fellhauer, who manages one of the Red Cross shelters.

“We were just trying to grab people out of the sky,” she said.

Perhaps the biggest lesson from the storms was driven home by the shocking images of flooded nursing homes in Texas and eight deaths at a facility for the elderly in Florida last week: In emergencies, communities and their government officials need to be much more effective in protecting the most-fragile members of society.

The episode in South Florida, where the facility grew dangerously hot after losing air conditioning in the storm — along with multiple instances in Texas where entire residential populations of the infirm and wheelchair-bound required boat rescues — has prompted advocates and state authorities to finger-point and soul-search.

Advocates argued that all nursing homes should be marked as top priorities in both state evacuation and emergency response strategies. Better enforcement of existing codes — such as ensuring that generators are functional and up to date — might also be necessary.

“The lesson learned is, when you lose power you have to get the frail elderly out of the nursing homes,” an outraged Senator Bill Nelson (Democrat-Florida) said in a telephone interview, remarking on the deaths at a Hollywood, Florida, facility. “The nursing home is right across the street from the hospital.”

In Houston, scores of people died in flooding that, although historic in scale, was predicted by meteorologists many days in advance. Harvey would strike the Gulf Coast and then inundate Southeast Texas with days of rain, they warned. Yet many residents were unprepared to see their homes and belongings lost suddenly to floodwater, and thousands needed to be rescued from the tops of homes or cars, sometimes after making ill-advised ventures out into the fast-flowing current.

A number of observers have applauded Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner's decision not to evacuate the city. The flooding, in the end, caused fewer deaths than the evacuation of Houston ahead of Hurricane Rita in 2005. But the days before the storm were filled with conflicting official messages, stirring elements of panic, confusion and hand-wringing among Texans. Governor Greg Abbott (Republican), for example, encouraged coastal evacuations, while Turner (Democrat) told residents to shelter in place.

In the aftermath of the storm, the state's highly decentralized system of government meant that casualties were slow to tally and the desperate needs of local jurisdictions — like Beaumont, a city that languished without running water for days — appeared to get lost in the morass of competing cries for help.

“You never have one clear distinctive voice,” said retired Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen, who helped prop up the federal response to Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

By contrast, Allen said, Florida benefited from the clear leadership of Governor Rick Scott (Republican): “The governor was out front, he was the voice of the state, he was transparent, he was credible, he emoted.”

The volunteers who flocked to the rescue efforts in Houston were a source of pride for many Texans, and an illustration, many said, of what went right during the crisis. But the citizen heroes of Houston learned some lessons as well. The flooded streets of the city and its suburbs contained dips and hills, deep water, shallow water and dangerously rushing water, and the amateur rescuers were sometimes woefully ill-equipped.

Air boats and john boats were good for city rescues but often became treacherous in strong currents, they found. Bigger boats could handle the current, but were useless in shallower water, and problematic when curbs, cars, mailboxes and other obstacles got in the way.

Charitable efforts after the storms also saw a tide of donations mismatched to needs: too many clothes and would-be rescuers, and too few cleaning supplies and ready laborers to help with the unglamorous task of dragging moldy furniture out of wrecked homes, local church leaders said.


Rising coastal populations

Hurricanes expose the flaws in infrastructure. And in some instances, the airing of those flaws has sounded like a broken record.

Earlier warnings against Houston's unchecked building explosion have come back to haunt it yet again, environmentalists and civil engineers said this month, attributing part of the flooding to the city's lack of adequate drainage and excessive building in areas of known risk.

Old sewage systems in flat landscapes that require the pumping of wastewater need backup plans when the power gets knocked out and the facilities flood, as much of Central Florida has discovered. The power grid turned out to be so vulnerable to windstorms that 16 million people across the southeastern United States, most of them in Florida, lost power from Hurricane Irma, a U.S. record. Some still haven't gotten it back.

And then there are the basic needs that come with the basic facts of living on or near a coast.

“We need better generators, we need to require generators at shelters, and they need to be beefy enough to sustain lights, food service, and a semblance of air-conditioning and fans,” said Sarasota City Manager Tom Barwin.

There were “glitches” in the shelter plan in Miami-Dade County, Mayor Carlos Gimenez admitted as the storm roared toward Florida. He had insisted that the county open enough space for 100,000 people. But the Red Cross had trouble mustering volunteers amid difficult travel conditions, and many shelters were short-staffed.

In 1960, when Hurricane Donna rode up Florida, a peninsula that juts directly into Hurricane Alley, the state had fewer than 5 million residents. Today it has more than 20 million, and an average of roughly 1,000 people move to the state every day.

The Houston metropolitan area's population, estimated by the U.S. Census Bureau to be about 6.6 million, has similarly boomed during the past few decades, adding more than 100,000 people from 2014 to 2015 alone.

Along the packed U.S. coastlines, these waves of humanity are meeting a rising sea. Climate change intensifies deluges, and warmer water can supercharge a hurricane.

But trying to stop the population growth would be unrealistic, experts and officials say.

“People are going to come to Florida,” Senator Nelson said. “So we have to use the best scientific evidence about hurricanes and wind speeds and drainage and water and so forth, so that we have smart growth, not irresponsible growth.”

Robert Gilbert, a professor and the chair of the civil, architectural and environmental engineering department at the University of Texas at Austin, echoed that view for geographical “bathtubs” like Houston and New Orleans.

Instead of rebuilding homes with the kind of materials that will require the large-scale stripping of drywall every time there’s a flood, communities should build with the reality of floods in mind, Gilbert and other experts said. They recommended using materials that hold up better in water and considering drainage. For example, in many frequently wet parts of the world, homes are made of concrete, he said.

“Saying we're not going to let people move there is naive,” Gilbert said. “Maybe a better way of looking at it is how to build better, so that people can get wet but not lose their houses and not lose their jobs.”

And instead of offering flood insurance to only those in arbitrarily marked flood zones, face up to the reality that flooding is a pervasive risk that warrants broad protection in the United States, he added. “The way we deal with flood insurance in the United States is broken.”

Others think it might be better to throw in the towel in some spots.

In Houston, Mayor Turner said Thursday that rebuilding low-income apartment complexes in areas like Greenspoint, a frequent flood zone on the north side of the city, might not be wise.

“Quite frankly, we've already had a conversation with FEMA because it may not be the best thing to rebuild in those locations,” he said at a news conference. “Otherwise we'll find ourselves in those conditions again.”

In Bonita Springs, in Southwest Florida, flooding from a late August storm had not dried up by the time Hurricane Irma hit last week, submerging the area in four feet of water a few days later.

The low-lying city has been involved in a years-long legal battle over whether to allow development on its east side. It's vacant now and absorbs rainwater during major storms.

Mayor Peter Simmons thinks it's time to consider buying out dozens of homeowners and letting the river do what it wants to do, an idea he said he discussed this week with Governor Scott.

“No matter what you do, Mother Nature is always going to win,” Simmons said.

William “Brock” Long, the FEMA administrator, has had two epic storms in his first three months on the job, and what he's seen affirms his philosophy that the United States needs a fundamental change in disaster preparedness.

“We don't seem to learn the lessons over and over again from past hurricanes,” he said. He cited the many people who refused to evacuate from storm-surge zones, “which blows my mind.”

He said he believes the 10,000 people who didn't evacuate the Florida Keys “got lucky, and don't realize that a shift of that storm track, just a few miles west or east, could have had devastating impact.” Likewise, a slightly different path could have sent storm surge rampaging into Tampa Bay, or widespread devastation along Florida's Gulf Coast.

Americans need to save money, Long said. They need to recognize that disasters will happen.

“We need a true culture of preparedness,” he said.

Senator Marco Rubio (Republican-Florida) echoed that sentiment after touring damage from Irma.

“You live in the tropics, you live in South Florida, you're never more than 10 days away from a hurricane,” Rubio said.

In Miami, where authorities have yet to finish clearing thousands of downed palm trees and power lines, humorist Dave Barry — who lived through Hurricane Andrew in 1992 — offered his own lesson learned from Irma:

“Never fall into the trap of thinking it won't happen again. But also never fall into the trap of thinking, while it's happening, that you should have moved to Oklahoma. No offense to Oklahoma, there's a reason you live in Florida. And in the end, it's worth it.”


Patricia Sullivan reported from Houston and Bonita Springs, Florida, and Abigail Hauslohner reported from Houston. Roy Furchgott in Sarasota, Florida, contributed to this report.

• Joel Achenbach covers science and politics for the National Desk at The Washington Post. Achenbach also helms the Achenblog.

• Abigail Hauslohner is a national reporter who covers Islam, Arab affairs and America for The Washington Post. Before coming to Washington in 2015, she spent seven years covering war, politics and religion in the Middle East, and served as The Post's Cairo bureau chief. She has also covered District politics and government.

• Patricia Sullivan covers government, politics and other regional issues in Arlington County and Alexandria for The Washington Post. She worked in Illinois, Florida, Montana and California before joining The Post in November 2001.

__________________________________________________________________________

Related to this topic:

 • PHOTOGRAPH GALLERY: Signs of life after Hurricane Irma hit the Florida Keys

 • ‘Waiting for help that never came’: Eight died in Florida nursing home

 • As hurricanes approach, fear is in the water, spreading with new and viral efficiency

 • Recovering from Harvey when ‘you already live a disaster every day of your life’

 • Storm flooding destroyed hundreds of thousands of cars in a city that relies heavily on them

 • An adrenaline-driven mission on the dark, waters streets of Texas


https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/hurricanes-harvey-and-irma-offer-sobering-lessons-in-the-power-of-nature/2017/09/17/b6ac46e6-9951-11e7-87fc-c3f7ee4035c9_story.html
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« Reply #882 on: September 19, 2017, 06:40:09 am »

Hey ktj.....it's Bloody freezing up here , we need it to be at least 2 degrees warmer...I am investing in developing coal fired power stations, but have you got any tips as to how I can help warm the planet faster?
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« Reply #883 on: September 19, 2017, 10:09:13 am »

Harvey and Irma offer powerful lesson to climate religion lunatics...

America has a hurricane season, every year 😁
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« Reply #884 on: September 19, 2017, 12:34:26 pm »


It's great that California's Governor Jerry Brown has stepped up to take over leadership on so many issues from the idiot Donald J. Trump at various world forums.

Who needs the “clown president” at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington D.C. when there are esteemed statesmen like Governor Brown to do the job the Prez should be doing?

THREE CHEERS for California Governor Jerry Brown....a highly-intelligent politician who is full of wisdom & logic, unlike that stupid RETARD in Washington D.C.




from the Los Angeles Times....

Trump is riding a ‘dead horse’ on climate issue,
Governor Brown says at New York conference


By ANN M. SIMMONS | 4:45PM PDT - Monday, September 18, 2017

California Governor Jerry Brown discusses the passage of a pair of climate change measures at a news conference in Sacramento in this July 17th file photo. — Photograph: Rich Pedroncelli/Associated Press.
California Governor Jerry Brown discusses the passage of a pair of climate change measures at a news conference in Sacramento
in this July 17th file photo. — Photograph: Rich Pedroncelli/Associated Press.


CALIFORNIA GOVERNOR Jerry Brown on Monday touted steps the state has taken toward a healthier climate, but warned that powerful forces he called “climate deniers” are resisting technologies and policies designed to improve conditions.

“I like all the optimism around here, but I don't want to minimize the steep hill that we have to climb,” Brown said at the start of a gathering of international leaders called Climate Week NYC. “Decarbonizing the economy when the economy depends so totally on carbon is not child's play. It's quite daunting.”

Hosted by the Climate Group, an international nonprofit organization that works with business and government to promote clean technologies and policies, the event brought together high-profile governors, along with leaders of Fortune 500 companies and multinational businesses this week to share their strategies and leadership in tackling climate change.

The discussions come amid concerns about global warming and after Hurricanes Harvey and Irma caused devastating flooding in Texas, Florida and across parts of the Caribbean. Some scientists believe warmer ocean waters caused by climate change are creating stronger storms.

President Trump this year announced the U.S. withdrawal from the groundbreaking Paris climate agreement.

Trump has expressed doubt about climate change and indicated that he sees the landmark international accord to reduce greenhouse gas emissions as a threat to U.S. sovereignty. The president has argued that the deal is detrimental to U.S. businesses and unfair because Washington was being made to pay more than its fair share. Trump is pushing for more “pro-America terms”, according to White House officials.

Brown said California has taken steps toward advancing climate action. In July, the governor signed legislation to extend California's cap-and-trade program, which requires companies to buy permits to release greenhouse gas emissions, essentially giving them a financial incentive to pollute less. It is the only such initiative of its kind in the U.S. and is widely considered an international model for using financial pressure to prod industry to reduce emissions. The revenue generated from the program is expected to go toward building the bullet train from Los Angeles to San Francisco.

Brown noted that the legislation was passed with bipartisan support, including eight Republican votes.

“It's the first time that I know of where Republican representatives have voted for a climate action explicitly by the name ‘climate action’,” Brown said. “That's real crack in the armor of Republican climate denial, and I think that’s going to spread to other parts of the party.”

California uses around 30% renewable energy and would be at 50% in the next seven years, Brown said.

In 2015, California's Air Resources Board voted to re-adopt its low-carbon fuel standard, which requires the state to achieve at least a 10% cut in the carbon intensity of transportation fuels by 2020. The state has also called for zero-emission cars to represent 15% of sales by 2025. The standards have come under fire from the auto industry that has criticized the rules as too stringent. But sales of electric vehicles rose 91% in the first quarter of 2017 from the same period last year, the Los Angeles Times reported in May. Emissions fell by a third of a percent in 2015, which regulators said was equivalent to removing 300,000 vehicles from state roads for a year, according to a June report in the L.A. Times.

Other initiatives California is pushing include eco-friendly building standards.

Brown was joined onstage at Morgan Library and Museum in Manhattan by Governors Jay Inslee of Washington and David Ige of Hawaii, Philippe Couillard, the premier of Quebec, and Stephen Badger, chairman of the board of Mars Incorporated.

The chocolate giant has pledged to invest $1 billion in its “Sustainable in a Generation” plan, which aims to fight climate change by reducing greenhouse-gas emissions in its production markets by 67% by 2050 and tackling poverty through promoting sustainable farming.

“We're committed,” Brown said.

At a later event on Monday, the governor joined mayors and business leaders from around the world at a conference organized by C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group to emphasize the role that states, cities and regions can play in addressing climate issues.

“Cities and states can make a profound difference,” Brown said during a moderated conversation with Tom Steyer, president and founder of NextGen, an environmental advocacy nonprofit organization. The billionaire environmentalist and potential candidate for governor of California has gained a reputation as a champion for clean energy policies.

On Monday, Steyer announced that he had taken out a full-page ad in the New York Post describing Trump's failure to act on climate change as being even more dangerous than a Category 4 hurricane, according to information released by his company.

The ad, scheduled to publish on Tuesday, the same day Trump is to address the United Nations General Assembly, warns that the president's lack of climate action would endanger even more American lives.

“The most dangerous part of a hurricane isn't the wind or the surge,” reads the ad. “It's a President who fails to act on climate change.”

“It would be better to have the president [on board], but the president is temporarily AWOL on this issue,” Brown said.

Trump's ideology on the climate change issue — he has questioned the science suggesting a man-made role in raising overall global temperatures and has in the past pushed a narrative that climate change is a deliberate hoax created by China—has prompted some people to be more outspoken and committed in supporting action to tackle the climate issue, Brown said.

“He is not going to be successful in the direction he's going,” Brown said. “He’s riding a very dead horse [on] climate denial … He is accelerating the reversal through his own absurdity.”

The governor's comments came as a new report published on Monday found that the impact from the U.S. decision to withdraw from the Paris climate agreement could be significantly mitigated “thanks to the determined action demonstrated by U.S. states, cities and businesses.”

Authored by NewClimate Institute and The Climate Group, the analysis in States, cities and businesses leading the way: a first look at decentralized climate commitments in the US, shows that the U.S. could already meet half of its climate commitments under the Paris agreement by 2025, if 22 states, 54 cities and 250 businesses headquartered in the U.S. continue to implement more than 300 obligations to reduce greenhouse emissions.

“There's a lot of uncertainty at the federal level,” Helen Clarkson, CEO of The Climate Group, told the L.A. Times. “But what the report says is that there is plenty of action happening already. There are commitments.”

These commitments include a pledge by more than 100 businesses — including Google, Facebook and General Motors — to go to 100% renewable electricity, within various time frames, Clarkson said.

Other companies have promised to bring their fleets of vehicles to 100% electric. Los Angeles has committed to 1,000 charging stations, the highest of any city. Britain, India and France are among several countries that have announced a phase-out of internal combustion engines by 2030/2040, Clarkson said.

Under the current scenario and if all commitments are fulfilled, greenhouse gas emissions would be reduced 12% to 14% below the 2005 level by 2025, the analysis found.

Brown this week is expected to undertake a flurry of other activities, including announcing new details regarding the September 2018 Global Climate Action Summit that is scheduled to take place in San Francisco.


Los Angeles Times staff writers Tony Barboza in Los Angeles and Chris Megerian and Russ Mitchell in San Francisco contributed to this report.

• Ann M. Simmons is a global development writer/editor on the foreign desk of the Los Angeles Times, where she covers global sustainability issues. In her most recent role she served as a video and multimedia journalist. She has worked as a metro reporter and national and foreign correspondent. She has been based in Russia, Kenya and South Africa and has reported from Iraq and several other countries across the globe. Originally from the UK, Simmons holds a double honors bachelor's degree in Russian and Norwegian from the University of Anglia in Norwich, England, and a master's degree from Columbia University's Graduate School Journalism. She was a Nieman fellow at Harvard in 2003.

Ann M. Simmons reported from New York.

__________________________________________________________________________

Related to this topic:

 • Governor Jerry Brown, America's unofficial climate change ambassador in the Trump era, heads to China


http://www.latimes.com/world/la-fg-un-brown-climate-change-20170918-story.html
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« Reply #885 on: September 19, 2017, 04:57:57 pm »

Ktj..."It's great that California's Governor Jerry Brown has stepped up to take over leadership on so many issues from the idiot Donald J. Trump at various world forums"

...so many issues...could you please list them here?

...could you give us an update on how he is showing leadership on important things like the North Korea issue?
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« Reply #886 on: September 19, 2017, 05:45:55 pm »


from The Washington Post....

Category 5 Hurricane Maria is a severe threat to the Caribbean
and Puerto Rico; Jose to scrape Northeast coast


Maria makes landfall on Dominica as a Category 5 hurricane as storm heads toward St. Croix and Puerto Rico.
Meanwhile, another storm, Jose, could scrape part of the Northeastern U.S. in the coming days.


By JASON SAMENOW | 9:40PM EDT - Monday, September 18, 2017



THE wicked 2017 hurricane season is set to deliver its next two punishing blows from Hurricanes Maria and Jose. In both the Caribbean and along the Atlantic coast of the Northeast United States, conditions are set to deteriorate rapidly through Wednesday as these storms arrive.

Of the two storms, however, Maria is the much more serious hurricane — upgraded to Category 5, the most extreme level, on Monday evening. The “potentially catastrophic storm” with 160 mph winds has the potential to cause widespread destruction along its path from the central Lesser Antilles through Puerto Rico.

Maria is likely to affect Puerto Rico as an extremely dangerous major hurricane, and a hurricane warning is in effect for that island,” the National Hurricane Center said on Monday.

While Jose is capable of producing coastal flooding and pockets of damaging wind from eastern Long Island to coastal Massachusetts, its effects are most likely to resemble those of a strong Nor'easter — rather than a devastating hurricane.


Hurricane Maria



This storm has rapidly intensified which is a potentially disastrous scenario for the islands it will sweep across. At 9:35 p.m. on Monday, the storm made landfall in Dominica, as it plowed west-northwest at 10 mph. It is the first Category 5 storm to strike Dominica in recorded history.

The Hurricane Center said some additional strengthening is possible during Monday night and, while fluctuations in intensity are possible over the next 36 hours, the storm could strike St. Croix and Puerto Rico as a Category 5 on Wednesday.




On Monday, the storm cut across not only Dominica but also Martinique, French Guadeloupe and St. Lucia, where hurricane warnings were in effect. It was also passing close to and affecting St. Kitts, Nevis, and Montserrat, under hurricane warnings, but perhaps positioned far enough north of the storm to miss its brunt.

The worst part of the storm was likely to pass a good deal south of beleaguered Barbuda and Antigua, reeling from Hurricane Irma, but they could still get brushed by some strong wind gusts and heavy showers.

On Tuesday, Maria is predicted to mostly pass through a patch of the Caribbean free of islands before potentially closing in on St. Croix, now under a hurricane warning, late in the day or at night. This island was one of the few U.S. Virgin Islands that was spared Irma's wrath, but may well get hammered by Maria.

The other U.S. Virgin Islands as well as the British Virgin Islands will also need to carefully monitor and prepare for Maria. While they may remain north of its most severe effects, they could easily face hurricane conditions.

By Wednesday, the storm is likely to pass very close to or directly affect Puerto Rico from southeast to northwest. A hurricane has not made landfall in Puerto Rico since Georges in 1998.

Just one Category 5 hurricane has hit Puerto Rico once in recorded history; and Maria could become the second if it does not lose strength. The last Category 4 storm to strike the island occurred in 1932.

The islands directly affected by the storm's core face the likelihood of destructive winds of 120 to 150 mph and 6 to 12 inches of rain (with isolated totals of 20-25 inches, especially in high terrain), which will cause life-threatening flash floods and mudslides.

A devastating storm surge of at least 6 to 9 feet above normally dry ground is likely to target coastlines positioned just north-northeast of the storm center — which could include the south shores of St. Croix and southeast Puerto Rico.

On Friday, the hurricane may come close to the Turks and Caicos and southeast Bahamas, which were ravaged by Irma. Beyond that point, Maria's path becomes more uncertain. Some models suggest it could find an escape route out to sea, remaining offshore from the U.S. East Coast, but it is way too early to sound the all-clear.


Group of simulations from American (blue) and European (red) computer models from early Monday for Hurricane Maria. Each color strand represents a different model simulation with slight tweaks to initial conditions. Note that the strands are clustered together where the forecast track is most confident but they diverge where the course of the storm is less certain. The bold red line is the average of all of the European model simulations, while the blue is the average of all the American model simulations. — Graphic: StormVistaWxModels.com.
Group of simulations from American (blue) and European (red) computer models from early Monday for Hurricane Maria.
Each color strand represents a different model simulation with slight tweaks to initial conditions. Note that the strands
are clustered together where the forecast track is most confident but they diverge where the course of the storm is
less certain. The bold red line is the average of all of the European model simulations, while the blue is the average
of all the American model simulations. — Graphic: StormVistaWxModels.com.


With Maria, the 2017 hurricane season has already featured four Category 4 or stronger storms; this has only happened four previous times by September 18th.

“2017 joins 1932, 1933, 1961, 2005, and 2007 as only years with multiple Cat 5s; likely to join 2007 as the only with multiple Cat 5 landfalls,” tweeted MDA Federal, a meteorological consulting firm.

2017 is the first hurricane season with two Category 5 storms since 2007.


Hurricane Jose



Jose, which is losing some of its tropical characteristics, is expected to behave like a strong nor’easter along the coast of the Northeast, from near Long Island to eastern Massachusetts.

The tropical storm watch was upgraded to a warning for coastal Rhode Island and eastern Massachusetts, the areas most likely to be substantially impacted by Jose. A tropical storm watch continues for areas to the south down to eastern Long Island. Farther south, along the New Jersey and Delaware coastline, the tropical storm watch was dropped.




The storm, positioned 250 miles east of Cape Hatteras, was headed north at 9 mph at 5 p.m. on Monday. The storm's peak winds were around 75 mph and expected to remain at that intensity through Wednesday.

The Hurricane Center said tropical storm-force winds could begin in coastal sections of the Northeast as soon as Tuesday and Tuesday night. Moderate coastal flooding is expected with water rising up to one to three feet above normally dry land at high tide. Because the storm is a slow-mover, beaches will be assaulted for an extended duration, leading to the prospect of severe erosion.




The worst conditions are likely from eastern Long Island to eastern Massachusetts on Wednesday when these areas may get battered by the combination of heavy rain, damaging wind gusts to hurricane-force, and coastal flooding.

“Total [rain] accumulations of 3 to 5 inches are expected over eastern Long Island, southeast Connecticut, southern Rhode Island, and southeast Massachusetts, including Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket,” the Hurricane Center said.

Links: Local hurricane statements for Delmarva/New Jersey shore | New York/Long Island coastal areas | eastern New England.




It's important to note that small changes in Jose's track could increase or decrease the intensity of effects and how far they expand inland.

“Any deviation to the left of the Hurricane Center forecast track would increase the likelihood and magnitude of impacts elsewhere along the U.S. east coast from Delaware to southern New England,” the Hurricane Center said.

Irrespective of its track, dangerous surf and rip currents are expected along the East Coast through much of the week.


• Jason Samenow is The Washington Post's weather editor and Capital Weather Gang's chief meteorologist. He earned a master's degree in atmospheric science, and spent 10 years as a climate change science analyst for the U.S. government. He holds the Digital Seal of Approval from the National Weather Association.

__________________________________________________________________________

Related to this topic:

 • VIDEO: Hurricane season isn't over. Here's what you need to know about Hurricanes Maria and Jose.


https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/capital-weather-gang/wp/2017/09/18/intensifying-hurricane-maria-is-a-severe-threat-to-caribbean-and-puerto-rico-jose-to-scrape-northeast-coast
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« Reply #887 on: September 19, 2017, 05:59:43 pm »

Yeah..we had a nasty cold shower up here today to...can't wait for global warming😜
..is there any way I can speed it up by a few hundred years?
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« Reply #888 on: September 19, 2017, 08:38:59 pm »

yeah it's too damn cold still waiting for some warm weather and sea level rise so i can have the beach nearer to my door step
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« Reply #889 on: September 19, 2017, 08:51:15 pm »

Haha...ahhh yes ..they will be the days...great to have something to look forward to😜
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« Reply #890 on: September 19, 2017, 09:17:42 pm »

Meanwhile China and India which don't take any notice of Western idiot hippies are going gang busters building coal power stations.
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« Reply #891 on: September 19, 2017, 09:20:52 pm »

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« Reply #892 on: September 19, 2017, 09:30:50 pm »

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« Reply #893 on: September 20, 2017, 01:20:36 pm »


The US Military “gets it” about climate change.

The Neanderthals, flat-earthers, anti-warmalists and climate-change deniers at this group most definitely “don't get it!”

I guess this makes them considerably stupider and dumber than the US Military, eh?




from The Washington Post....

National Guard chief cites ‘bigger, larger, more violent’
hurricanes as possible evidence of climate change


“I do think that the climate is changing, and I do think that it is becoming more severe.”

By DAN LAMOTHE | 2:34PM EDT - Tuesday, September 19, 2017

Members of the Texas National Guard drive through the streets of Orange, Texas, on September 5th after flooding from Hurricane Harvey devastated much of the state. — Photograph: Spencer Platt/Getty Images.
Members of the Texas National Guard drive through the streets of Orange, Texas, on September 5th after flooding from Hurricane Harvey
devastated much of the state. — Photograph: Spencer Platt/Getty Images.


THE National Guard Bureau's top officer says he believes the world's climate is changing, and that this year's deadly and destructive hurricane season underscores the importance of keeping Guardsmen dispersed across the United States so they can respond quickly to natural disasters.

“I do think that the climate is changing, and I do think that it is becoming more severe,” Air Force General Joseph L. Lengyel said on Tuesday. “I do think that storms are becoming bigger, larger, more violent. You know, I never know if this one speck of time is an anomaly or not, but, you know, we've all seen now three Category-5 storms that popped out in a period of a month.”

Lengyel's comments aren't quite accurate. While hurricanes Irma and Maria reached Category-5 strength, hurricanes Harvey and Jose topped out as Category-4 storms. But they illustrate, nonetheless, the general's concern now and in the future. They are worries that senior Pentagon officials, including Defense Secretary Jim Mattis also have expressed for years, but break with President Trump, who has questioned whether climate change is a hoax.

Lengyel, speaking with reporters in Washington, said the National Guard will continue responding to natural disasters as a part of its “job jar” and preparing for them alongside local first-responders across the country. To do so, he added, the National Guard must keep people and equipment staged in areas where mega storms and other environmental catastrophes are likely to put people and property at risk.

The general's comments come amid a review that could consolidate some National Guard installations across the country. Lengyel acknowledged on Tuesday that there is room for some consolidation in areas where population has diminished, but advocated keeping Guardsmen dispersed.

“Whether that's in Oklahoma where you have a lot of tornadoes, or whether that's in the Northwest where you have a lot of fires, or whether it's in the gulf or on the East Coast, we need force structure that is in all 54 states, territories and the District of Columbia so we can respond,” he said. “It doesn't work for me to put all of our forces on one base in any particular state.”

In recent weeks, the National Guard has activated thousands of members to respond to Harvey, which made landfall in Texas on August 25th, and Irma, which devastated islands in the Caribbean beginning on September 6th and came ashore in Florida on September 10th. Lengyel said that Guardsmen and women, and their equipment, already are being prepared to respond to Hurricane Maria. The storm devastated Dominica, an island commonwealth located in the Lesser Antilles, on Monday, and is expected to reach Puerto Rico, a U.S. territory, by Thursday.

“Once the storm passes, we can move them in, and that's what we do,” the general said.

The Pentagon has called climate change a global security threat, saying it could degrade living conditions, jeopardize human safety and undermine nations' ability to meet the basic needs of their citizens.

A changing climate will have real impacts on our military and the way it executes its missions,” according to a 2014 assessment conducted by defense officials in the Obama administration. “The military could be called upon more often to support civil authorities, and provide humanitarian assistance and disaster relief in the face of more frequent and more intense natural disasters.”

Mattis and other members of the Trump administration, such as Navy Secretary Richard V. Spencer, have adhered to that point of view. Mattis, responding in testimony to questions posed by the Senate Armed Services Committee after his confirmation, wrote that climate change is “impacting stability in areas of the world where our troops are operating today” and that it is appropriate for American military commanders worldwide to incorporate such “drivers of instability” into their planning.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has said that while it is too soon to say definitively that human activities have caused an increase in hurricanes, they may already have done so. Regardless, global warming is expected to cause an increase in tropical cyclones in the future.

“Anthropogenic warming by the end of the 21st century will likely cause tropical cyclones globally to be more intense on average” by 2 to 11 percent, according to a NOAA assessment. “This change would imply an even larger percentage increase in the destructive potential per storm, assuming no reduction in storm size.”

Lengyel, asked on Tuesday if the National Guard needs more boats, high-water vehicles or other equipment to prepare for climate change, said that the military officials consider that, but he continues to make sure that anything they buy “first and foremost” can be used in combat.

“I look at equipment that works for both the war-fight piece and the homeland piece,” he said. “It's rare that we have a domestic-only capability.”


• Dan Lamothe covers national security for The Washington Post and anchors its military blog, Checkpoint.

__________________________________________________________________________

Related to this topic:

 • Category 5 Hurricane Maria is a disaster scenario for Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands

 • The Coast Guard makes sense of its grueling response to Hurricane Harvey

 • In a changing Arctic, a lone Coast Guard icebreaker maneuvers through ice and geopolitics

 • Climate change threatens national security, Pentagon says


https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/checkpoint/wp/2017/09/19/national-guard-chief-cites-bigger-larger-more-violent-hurricanes-as-possible-evidence-of-climate-change
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« Reply #894 on: September 20, 2017, 01:48:19 pm »

I'm sure our civil defence are also very......dedicated 😉

...let's be very clear about this...they are public servants doing their best and you will know as well as anyone....a public servant doing their best is often quite feeble compared to the real world where there is no long term trough😳
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« Reply #895 on: September 20, 2017, 02:00:42 pm »


So what are you saying here?

That the US Military is full-of-shit?
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aDjUsToR
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« Reply #896 on: September 20, 2017, 03:03:36 pm »

The US military simply parrots whatever the official govt line is on side political issues like the climate change religion or say disabled tranny bathrooms 😀
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« Reply #897 on: September 20, 2017, 03:05:38 pm »

If the govt says tranny commandos are all go, the military will simply officially parrot that tranny commandos are all go.
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« Reply #898 on: September 20, 2017, 03:08:16 pm »


Well....either the US military is telling the truth about climate change, or the US military is full-of-shit.

So which is it?

Can't you answer a simple question?
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« Reply #899 on: September 20, 2017, 03:14:36 pm »

For them it's a side issue which they most likely don't give a shit about. In public the will just say whatever the govt says is the official line.

The loony left will of course scour the earth for this or that military individual who will say what the left wants to hear.
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