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2017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #22
Posted on 4 June 2017 by John Hartz
Story of the Week... Editorial of the Week... Toon of the Week... Quote of the Week... Graphic of the Week... SkS in the News... Photo of the Week... SkS Spotlights... Video of the Week... Reports of Note... Coming Soon on SkS... Poster of the Week... Climate Feedback Reviews... SkS Week in Review... 97 Hours of Consensus...
Story of the Week...
Paris Agreement: Trump's Climate Exit Risks U.S. Economy, World's Welfare
Trump said the United States won't be bound by any of the treaty's obligations while he backs out of the Paris Agreement. The crowd outside the White House for the announcement wasn't pleased. Credit: Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP/Getty Images
By pulling the United States out of the Paris climate agreement, President Donald Trump has rolled a pair of dice, with high stakes for America's economic future and the welfare of the whole world.
First, he's betting on a domestic energy policy that strongly favors increased production of fossil fuels. "I don't want anything to get in our way," he declared.
Second, he's betting—at least so he said in his speech on Thursday afternoon in the White House Rose Garden—that the rest of the world will come back to the bargaining table for a new deal. ("If we can't, that's fine," he shrugged.)
Either bet could go wrong. Missed opportunities in the emerging green economy could end up outweighing any short-term gains from fossil fuels. Today's fossil fuels could even end up as stranded assets if the rest of the world does hold firm and weans itself off them.
Paris Agreement: Trump's Climate Exit Risks U.S. Economy, World's Welfare by John H Cushman Jr & Zahra Hirji, Inside Climate News, June 1, 2017
Editorial of the Week...
Trump’s Stupid and Reckless Climate Decision
A protester at the March for Science in Philadelphia in April. Credit Mark Makela for The New York Times
People say, if all you have is a hammer, then every problem looks like a nail. We should be so lucky. President Trump has a hammer, but all he’ll use it for is to smash things that others have built, as the world looks on in wonder and in fear. The latest, most troubling example is his decision to obliterate the Paris climate accord: After nearly 200 years of scientific inquiry and over 20 years of patient diplomacy that united every nation save Syria and Nicaragua, we had this afternoon’s big game-show Rose Garden reveal: Count us out.
It’s a stupid and reckless decision — our nation’s dumbest act since launching the war in Iraq. But it’s not stupid and reckless in the normal way. Instead, it amounts to a thorough repudiation of two of the civilizing forces on our planet: diplomacy and science. It undercuts our civilization’s chances of surviving global warming, but it also undercuts our civilization itself, since that civilization rests in large measure on those two forces.
Trump’s Stupid and Reckless Climate Decision, Opinion by Bill McKibben, New York Times, June 1, 2017
Toon of the Week...
Quote of the Week...
In a series of tweets, Cardinal Blase Cupich of Chicago wrote:
- The president’s misguided decision to withdraw from the Paris climate accord does not diminish our responsibility to care for the planet.
- Environmental stewardship is a global issue and requires a spirit of cooperation, not the national individualism sadly displayed yesterday.
- Climate change is real. Failing to protect the earth is not just a failure of leadership. It is a moral failure.
- It is a moral failure because it is an issue of life or death, especially for the poor, the first to suffer the effects of climate change.
- Let us resolve together to continue the fight to protect our common home.
Cardinal Cupich Knocks Trump’s ‘Misguided’ Climate Move as Moral Failure, Millenial Journal, June 2, 2017
Graphic of the Week...
What progress have we made predicting a year to decades ahead?, NOAA Climate Program Office, June 1, 2017
SkS in the News...
In her Bloomberg Op-ed, Why Scientific Consensus Is Worth Taking Seriously, Faye Flam cites and links to Consensus on consensus: a synthesis of consensus estimates on human-caused global warming, John Cook et al, Environmental Research Letters, Apr 13, 2017
In his Futurism article, There Are No Legitimate Arguments Against Human-Caused Climate Change, Tom Ward links to to the Intermediate version of the SkS rebuttal article, How do we know more CO2 is causing warming?
Photo of the Week...
The Climeworks direct carbon capture plant in Switzerland removes carbon dioxide from ambient air. Credit: Climeworks
World’s First Commercial CO2 Capture Plant Goes Live by Bobby Magill, ClimateCentral, May 31, 2017
SkS Spotlights...
The Climate Group works internationally with leading businesses, states and regions to deliver a world of net zero greenhouse gas emissions and greater prosperity for all.
We are at the forefront of ambitious climate action. Our focus is on collaborative programs with corporate and government partners that deliver impact on a global scale.
The Climate Group stimulates action by businesses, states and regions, bringing them together to develop and implement the policies that make change happen. We also communicate their achievements to secure global public acceptance of, and even greater ambition for, a prosperous, net-zero future for all.
The Climate Group is an international non-profit with offices in Beijing, London, New Delhi and New York.
Video of the Week...
The Crux of Climate Change, YouTube Video, Climate State, May 27, 2017
Coming Soon on SkS...
- Donald Trump vs Paris Climate Agreement (Climate Adam)
- SkS Analogy 07 - Christmas Dinner and the Faux Pause (Evan)
- Trump's climate ignorance and what the rest of the world can do (Dana)
- Guest Post (John Abraham)
- Explainer: Dealing with the ‘loss and damage’ caused by climate change (Carbon Brief)
- 2017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #23 (John Hartz)
- 2017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Waming Digest #23 (John Hartz)
Poster of the Week...
Climate Feedback Reviews...
Climate Feedback asked its network of scientists to review the three part article, Antarctic Dispatches: 1. Miles of ice collapsing into the sea; 2. Looming floods, threatened Cities; and, 3. Racing to find answers in the ice, by Justin Gillis, New Tork Times, May 18, 2017
Nine scientists analyzed the article and estimated its overall scientific credibility to be ‘high’.
A majority of reviewers tagged the article as: Accurate, Insightful, Sound reasoning.
Click here to access the entire review.
SkS Week in Review...
- 2017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #22 by John Hartz
- Reflections on the politics of climate change by John Abraham (Climate Consensus - the 97%, Guardian)
- Donald Trump just cemented his legacy as America’s worst-ever president by Dana Nuccitelli (Climate Consensus - the 97%, Guardian)
- Anti-vaccers, climate change deniers, and anti-GMO activists are all the same by Guest Author
- Endorsing the Paris Agreement is Trump’s best opportunity for a big win by Joseph Robertson (Climate Consensus - the 97%, Guardian)
- SkS Analogy 6 - Speakers, tuning forks, and global warming by Evan
- 2017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #21 by John Hartz
97 Hours of Consensus...
Quote derived from
"Carbon dioxide is an acid gas. It reacts with water to form carbonic acid. And then that carbonic acid completely disassociates, it forms a a hydrogen ion and bicarbonate, and in doing so, it reduces the pH of seawater. Since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, that pH change has been about 0.1 pH units, which is a 30% rise in hydrogen ion concentration. A 30 % rise in acidity of the surface ocean."
Without America to drag us down and constantly spend our time trying to convince, the rest of us can get on with it. Besides anyone who voices doubts about climate change will be labeled as a Trumpite. Not a nice thing to be labeled with.