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Posts Tagged ‘global Warming’

Regulation of Commercial Solar Farms

Fri ,01/12/2023

These are notes from a recent Town Hall meeting on 11/16/2023 regarding proposed commercial solar farms in Sedgwick County, Kansas. Many of the regulations for commercial renewable energy installations are made through zoning decisions. Though you may not live in Sedgwick County, this may become an issue where you live.

Thanks goes to Mary Ann Harmon who researched and wrote the following article.

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Sedgwick county has a six-month moratorium on utility (commercial) solar farms (USF) that began September 2023. On November 16th, the entities involved in planning convened a town hall to take comments from all the shareholders on whether there should be such utilities in the county, and, if so, how they should be regulated. The meeting was attended by well over 100 people from various governing and regulatory groups, and members of the public, some of whom will be living near the proposed USF between Colwich and Maize. There are many issues to consider when deciding to site and regulate any utility.

Location, Location, Location

The location of the proposed USF is adjacent to a power plant that is being decommissioned. This provides a huge advantage, as most, if not all the transmission lines that are required for a utility are already in place.

Installing a new transmission line system for a utility can cost upwards of half a billion dollars. Here is an interview regarding the difficulty of siting transmission lines: Transition to clean energy is happening faster than you think-reporter-says October 5 2023 NPR

Residents of the area believe that the property is too valuable to put it to an ‘unsightly’ solar farm. They say this will prevent the growth of their towns.

There are calls to utilize rooftops to prevent some of the issues listed below, and this has validity. Arguments for USFs point to the economies of scale, the ability to use panels that will follow the sun, etc. But the current, dire situation calls for both rooftop and USFs.

Glare

There are concerns that a solar farm can produce a lot of glare. Fortunately, there is new technology that can totally eliminate glare to protect against danger to airline pilots or drivers approaching from an elevation. It also prevents ‘lake effect’ when birds see reflections off the panels, and dive down, intending to land. This can result in the bird’s injury or death.

Long term commitment: The contract for the property will be for 35 years, with an option to renew for another 35 years. This presents a plethora of opportunities for failure. There is a history of corporations establishing a USF, only to sell it to other companies later, resulting in a facility that is not well managed. Appropriate regulation with penalties at the local level could ameliorate this problem.

Environmental concerns

. Sourcing of materials: Materials for and construction of panels vary greatly. It is essential that all solar panels, especially in our neighborhoods, be made carefully for robust service, and with materials that are responsibly sourced to reduce impacts to the environment and society. It is prudent and responsible to prevent sources that use slave labor, seabed mining, wildly unsafe manufacturing processes, and other unsustainable practices.

·      Greenhouse gases:  Solar panels are not without cost to the environment, but a much better alternative to fossil fuels. A 2023 article by CNET states: “…when it comes to greenhouse gases, solar panels pay for themselves within one to four years of use, according to a report by the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy. “Pros and Cons of Solar Panels: Are they worth it?” Written by Katie Collins, Eric Mack Updated Aug. 9, 2023

·      Land Use: The property in Sedgwick County under contract for the USF is very fertile ground, not ideal for use by solar panels only. However, the county has identified possible co-uses. The land under and around the panels can be used for plants helpful to pollinators. Certain vegetable crops thrive in lower sun settings, and so can use the shade of the panels. Sheep have also been grazed successfully in these facilities. We cannot forgo this opportunity to utilize this ground. Here is an excellent article on solar farms and biodiversity: Solar farms are often bad for biodiversity — but they don’t have to beYes, we can have clean energy and tortoises too.”

·      Precious local water: The proposed USF is poised above the Equus beds, vital to the drinking water supplies of Wichita and surrounding communities. Whether these panels, and the associated equipment, could affect that water must be examined as part of an environmental impact study. The metals inside the panels can cause contamination if the panels are damaged, so any ongoing operating regulations of such a farm need to include regular inspection.

Economic concerns

The proposed site is under contract with a huge international corporation, and there are rumors that the operation will be run as a Limited Liability Corporation, or LLC. LLCs are very difficult to hold accountable under law. There are also concerns that much of the money brought into and being earned by the LLC will not benefit the local economy, especially after the initial build. Such a utility requires very little labor to operate, while occupying a large swath of land.

Power generated here will be sold on the market, just as most utilities. Electricity could be transmitted to other states, depending on demand. Kansas has a history of profiting from and shipping excess to other locations, being the breadbasket of the continent.

Threat from hail, tornadoes, straight winds is not to be ignored. But these threats will only increase if we do not reduce the fossil fuel emissions that have thrown our earth into greater and greater extremes. Most of those extremes have been impacting other areas. That does not reduce our responsibility to create clean energy with the resources at hand, just the same way Kansas has provided wheat to famine areas.

The only Kansas incentives for solar power generation are a moratorium on property tax on the land in use for a10-year period after construction. As it has been pointed out, these incentives are not available in Oklahoma, but Oklahoma has different incentives for solar generation that do not fit the plans Invenergy have. But most states have some method in place to attract renewable energy. See the incentives here: “Financial Information: Funding, Incentives, Tax Breaks, and Programs” Agrisolar Warehouse

There are, of course, federal monies for this project thru the Inflation Reduction act. Full regulation of these projects is good stewardship of the taxpayer dollars, the land entrusted to us, and the water below it.

Decommissioning

A 2020 Harvard Business Review article states: “First Solar is the sole U.S. panel manufacturer we know of with an up-and-running recycling initiative, which only applies to the company’s own products at a global capacity of two million panels per year. With the current capacity, it costs an estimated $20–$30 to recycle one panel. Sending that same panel to a landfill would cost a mere $1–$2. ‘There must be regulations in place, perhaps contributions to a recycling fund over time to ensure that the panels are properly handled at the end of their useful lives. Technology to recycle solar panels advances daily.

Even though this is decades in the future, there must also be thought about what state the land must be in after the solar panels have been removed.

So much to consider! How can we make this work for everyone? The main issues to be considered are size, setbacks, decommissioning, payment in lieu of taxes, and rules and regulations that define best practices in this type of zoning case. These are very complex issues that requires much study, caution, and input from the public!

Additional information

The Town Hall meeting was recorded and is available on YouTube here.

Solar ‘farm’ proposed for rural Sedgwick County by Craig Andres, March 28, 2023, Wichita Eagle (simplified article)

Commercial solar projects in Sedgwick County? Residents weigh in at townhall meeting by Matthew Kelly, Wichita Eagle November 17, 2023 (simplified article)

Photos of the posters from the Town Hall Forum by Randi Thimesch

Photos: The Growth of Solar-Power Stations by Alan Taylor, The Atlantic, Nov. 27, 2023

The information is from the 316 United newsletter and reflects the author’s personal opinions. Its intent is to provide interested people with different touch points to consider. This is a complicated subject which deserves your personal research. 

316 United is an Environmental Conservation Organization, whose goal is “Uniting people for sustainability”. Follow: See all

Global Warming Is the Causes of the Polar Vortex

Mon ,26/12/2022

It is difficult to explain how global warming can cause some of the extremely cold weather we have been experiencing. The Arctic is warming much faster than the rest of the earth. The warmer Arctic destabilizes and weakens the jet stream, causing it to pull frigid air down from the Arctic into the United States.

The weaker the jetstream, the slower the loops (called Rossby Waves) move from West to East. This causes the polar vortex pattern to persist longer over the United States. This is like a weather event – and when it will happen is difficult to predict. However, all indications are that we will have many more such events as the Arctic warms.

Global Warming: Alarmism Versus Denial

Sat ,19/02/2022

Fossil fuel companies knew in 1979 that carbon dioxide emissions would cause the Earth to warm, creating undesirable consequences for the Earth. By 1981, the Exxon scientist concluded that the burning of fossil fuels could be catastrophic for some of the world’s population by 2030. The choice between huge profits and the possibility of harming the Earth and its inhabitants was a tough ethical choice for Exxon’s scientists, but not so much for management. They launched a campaign to keep the truth hidden and to keep themselves from being regulated. Their main strategy was obfuscation and denial.

Evangelical Christians were some of the first to become concerned about how global warming would impact the Earth’s population, mainly the poor. Genesis 1:28 says, ” Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.”  Generally, those who argue for Christian stewardship think that “dominion” means “benevolent rule”. The Interfaith Stewardship Alliance, in 2000, developed the Cornwall Doctrine. Its main goal was to address the challenges faced by indigenous communities and the poorer countries as they faced climate change.

In 2008, the Cornwall alliance was taken over by Dr. E. Calvin Beisner, a Dominionist, who interprets the scripture to mean “subdue and exploit”, an interpretation which is received quite favorable by oil companies. Beisner argues that we should take what we wish from the Earth, without regard to its effect upon the environment. As far as the catastrophic effect on some of the world’s population, Beisner assuages his conscience by claiming that efforts to limit carbon emissions are actually harming poor countries by denying them fossil fuels. Poor countries do not have the resources or the infrastructure to use fossil fuels and distributive energy sources, such as wind and solar, would be most useful to them. And, indigenous communities will be hurt the most. The way of life that has sustained them for centuries is now being disrupted by climate change.  They do not have the resources to withstand prolonged droughts or protect themselves from sea level rise or flooding.

Beisner uses religious arguments as the apparatus of justification to reach out to conservative Christians and solicit donations. There is little evidence that the money goes to the poor. Charity Navigator says, “This organization cannot be evaluated by our Encompass Rating methodology because it files Form 990-N, as allowed by the IRS for charities with less than $50,000 annual revenue.” The Cornwall Alliance is funded by dark money and there is no way to establish how much money it collects, who supports it, or how the money is used. Critics of the Cornwall Alliance have accused the organization of being a “front group for fossil fuel special interests,” citing its strong ties to the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow, which in the past was funded by oil industry giants such as Exxon-Mobil and Chevron. 

Beisner uses “climate alarmist”, in a pejorative way, to describe the 99.5% of climate scientists who know that climate change is caused by man’s activity. Of course, scientists are alarmed as Beisner, and others like him, are part of a disinformation campaign to keep governments from taking action on climate change. E Calvin Beisner does not like being called a “denier”, but denying scientific evidence is his main way of dealing with those “science alarmists”. And, he uses religious arguments to bolster his position.

Beisner is quite concerned that Katharine Hayhoe, an evangelical Christian, is infringing on his territory. Dr. Hayhoe is a Canadian-born climate scientist now living in Texas. She is excellent at communicating complex ideas, and her website and her recent book, Saving Us, are excellent primers on climate change, understandable to a non-specialist audience. Her explanations are not just limited to science but extend to religion, politics, and behavioral psychology. I sent a copy of her book to E. Calvin Beisner. He sent me a nice thank you for the book and said he hadn’t gotten around to reading it yet. Along with the letter were enclosed, not one, or two, or three…., but nine articles criticizing Katharine Hayhoe. The articles claim she is entangled in climate idolatry, has no business venturing into theology, is a climate alarmist, is wrong about global warming affecting the weather, and implies she could not believe in God and also man-made global warming. Beisner is sure these are true, even though he has not read her book.

Beisner likes to use religious arguments, but his views are at odds with both religion and science. Apparently, he has very little understanding of ecology. Pope Francis’s encyclical on ecology, Laudato Si, says that “climate change is real and mainly a result of human activity.” “The problem is urgent. Never have we so hurt and mistreated our common home as we have in the last two hundred years.” Beisner claims that Pope Francis was just wrong, probably news to most Catholics. Beisner’s position is even at odds with his own Presbyterian faith. The Presbyterian Church is now recommending divestment from fossil fuels and it was one of the first churches to address global warming. The Presbyterian Church first noted its “serious concern over global warming at the 1990 General Assembly, when it warned that the global atmospheric warming trend (the greenhouse effect) represents one of the most serious global environmental challenges to the health, security, and stability of human life and natural ecosystems’’.

E. Calvin Beisner is certainly right about one thing. Scientists are alarmed because they understand that we are beginning to reach a tipping point from which we will never recover. Scientific models claim we have till about 2030 to reduce our carbon emissions – or the oil companies’ early predictions of catastrophes will come true. Beisner often dismisses any predictions about the future made by scientists by claiming they are based on computer models. However, computers are the way we now store and process information and models are the way that scientists understand complex systems. And, the Cornwall Alliance serves as a good model for understanding global warming denial. 

(c) 2022 JC Moore – all rights reserved.

Is Carbon Capture and Storage a Viable Option?

Sun ,17/10/2021

The countries of the world have reached a consensus that we need to reduce our carbon emissions. One proposal to do that is to switch to a hydrogen economy. The problem is that currently about 95% of the hydrogen we use is made using fossil fuels, which is an energy-intensive process that produces more CO2. The fossil fuel companies plan to get around that is to capture the carbon produced and store it (CCS). The questions that must be answered are how to capture the carbon, where to store it, and how much it will cost.

It is possible to capture the CO2 and there are now several plants currently doing it. Much of the captured carbon is currently used to produce more fossil fuels, so there is little gain in doing it. The chart below will give you an idea of the magnitude of the problem. Currently, we are adding 35 billion tons of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere each year. The amount of carbon currently captured is 0.006% of that, an amount so small that it could not even be seen on the chart.


If carbon capture could be scaled up to capture most of the CO2 we are emitting, then where would we store it? The most obvious solution is to store it where it came from. The carbon from coal is mostly from strip mines and open mines, and it cannot be stored there. For petroleum and methane, storing it back underground is a possibility. However, burning them combines them with oxygen – and increases the mass and volume by a factor of two or three. It would be impossible to store more than a fraction of the CO2 back underground.


Assuming we could capture the carbon and find a place to store it, what would be the cost? This would involve acquiring the land, building the thousands of CCS plants required, and providing the energy necessary for the process. That cost has been estimated to be about $5 trillion a year, at current prices, for the rest of this century. There are certainly much less expensive options available.


So there you have it, the amount of CO2 we are putting into the atmosphere is far too great to capture, there is no adequate place to store captured CO2, and the cost would be astronomical. However, the fossil fuel companies are willing to try if we subsidize their costs, fund their research, and wait 80 years. It will be painfully obvious, long before then, that CCS is unworkable. The best plan is obviously to stop putting more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, a solution the fossil fuel companies are unwilling to accept.


Global Warming: The Rise of Methane

Mon ,15/02/2021

New

Greenhouse gases play a huge role in keeping the surface of the Earth warm. Without the greenhouse effect, the temperature of the Earth would average about -18°C, and all the water on the Earth’s surface would be ice. The average temperature of the Earth’s surface is now about 15°C and rising. The graph below shows the concentration of the main greenhouse gases in the Earth’s atmosphere, and how they have changed in the last two millennia. 

Inarguably, an increase in the greenhouse gas concentrations will warm the Earth – and we are seeing that happen. The average temperature of the Earth is now 1.2°F warmer than it was in 1850. The temperature of the Earth was fairly constant over the thousand years before the industrial age, and people, plants, animals, and our agricultural practices have adapted to that temperature. What will happen as the Earth’s temperature rises? We are finding out, and the effects are alarming.

Of the greenhouse gases, water accounts for about 70% of the greenhouse effect, carbon dioxide about 20%, methane 4%, nitrous oxide 1%, and the other greenhouse gases together about 5%. Our efforts to reduce global warming have focused mostly on carbon dioxide, as its concentration has increased over 40% from our use of fossil fuels. It will take time to phase out fossil fuels and transition to the use of renewable energy. The concentration of methane has grown appreciably in the last century, from about 800 parts per billion (ppb) to over 1900 ppb and it is rising rapidly. Methane has about an eight year half-life in the atmosphere before it is converted to carbon dioxide by natural process. The methane in the atmosphere would decrease quickly if we stopped putting it there. That is important, as methane has about 72 times the global warming potential of carbon dioxide.

The main cause of the rise in methane is commercial leaks, oil production, and fracking operations. In commercial sales, it is sometimes less expensive to ignore small leaks than to fix them. But many small leaks add up and it has been estimated that about 10% of natural gas put into pipelines is lost before it reaches the end user. Some of those problems could be fixed. Methane is also produced as a byproduct of oil production. If the amount of gas is too small to be sold commercially, it is often flared, i.e., lit like a torch. That converts it into carbon dioxide, which is less damaging to the environment. 

Fracking operations now produce a tremendous amount of natural gas for commercial use, and considerable amounts of methane escape into the atmosphere from the drilling operations and pipeline leaks. It requires effort and resources to contain the methane at the wellhead and to fix storage and transmission leaks. The EPA requires that leaks be self-reported, but often they were just ignored. Just recently, it has become possible to detect methane from GHGSat satellites. Below is a map that shows eight leaks in a 25 mi.² area in Turkmenistan, as they were seen by satellite. Estimates were that those leaks accounted for about 10,000 kg of methane a day. The methane was from fracking operations, pipeline leaks, and unlit flares.

Before satellites, most methane emissions were discovered by infrared cameras. Using them, it was found that the methane emissions from the Permian basin in Texas and New Mexico were much greater than those reported. Much of that came from unlit flares, which could easily be corrected. One accident at a gas well in Ohio is now thought to be the largest methane leak ever in the United States. Three different oil and gas facilities in Algeria were found to be leaking methane amounts equivalent to the carbon dioxide produced by a medium-size coal-fired power plant. The detection of leaks has been spotty and regulation of leaks has been difficult in the past. There is considerable economic incentive for gas companies to reduce methane emissions from leaks. However, it is expensive to send out crews to detect and repair smaller leaks, and many companies have just let them go.

The EPA expects the oil and gas industry to self-report and to repair leaks, but many companies just don’t. There are plans to deploy seven more GHGSat satellites to monitor greenhouse gas emissions. With them, it will be possible to detect and enforce the regulation of many methane leaks. It has been estimated that cutting methane emissions by 40% would have the same effect as taking 60% of the world’s coal-fired power plants off-line. And, we could easily cut methane emissions by 40% within the next decade.

(C) 2021 J.C. Moore All rights reserved.

Global Warming and the Jet Stream

Sun ,14/02/2021

The Arctic is much warmer now than it was 30 years ago. They even had 100° days in Siberia last summer. The warming Arctic has caused changes in the jet stream, which controls the Northern Hemispheres’ weather. The Rossby waves in the jet stream,  that move from west to east across the United States, (see picture), now come down further and move slower from west to east.

This means that the jet stream can sometimes pull Arctic air down from the Arctic region, called a Polar Vortex. The slower movement of the Rossby Waves causes the extreme cold to persist for longer. It is 3° today in Kansas, the windchill is -15°, and this cold spell will persist for about a week. If it is extremely cold and snowy where you live, you can thank global warming for that.

Rossby Waves of the Jet Stream

Please Nominate Your Candidates for the 2017 Environmental Hall of Fame/Shame Awards

Tue ,27/03/2018

Last year, 2017, saw some real heroes and villains with respect to the environment. It is important that we recognize those who most affected the environment, for good or ill, by their words or actions.

Each year, this site Earthrise2takes a poll to find those most deserving to be in the Environmental Hall of Fame or the Environmental Hall of Shame. Please send  your nominations  for  each category by e-mail through the “Contact the Author”   link, send it to moorejc2646@gmail.com, or put it in the comment section. If you would like, please include a short reason that your nominee should be chosen and suggest a suitable gift if they win.

Nominations will be taken until May 15, 2018. The nominees will then be  listed  and this site will conduct a poll to determine the winner in each category.  You may suggest a suitable prize for your nominee. Please be imaginative, as particularly thoughtful or humorous  nominations will  be recognized and published on this site.

(c) 2018 J.C. Moore

Has Global Warming Made Hurricane Damage Worse?

Sun ,31/12/2017

Hurricanes are the most violent and destructive storms in nature. There’s a smaller, yet potentially destructive, storm raging between climate scientists and climate skeptics about the nature of hurricanes. The scientific evidence points to the fact that global warming  causes hurricanes to be more intense. Skeptics would like to convince everyone that global warming has not made any change in hurricanes, so there is no need to address global warming. Skeptics do have a point or two, but not many. Skeptics want absolute proof from the scientists, but science doesn’t work that way. The changes caused by a warming world have changed the probability of the occurrence of extreme weather events, and skeptics apparently don’t want to consider probabilities.

Skeptics say that the number of hurricanes in the Southern Atlantic is not increasing, and they’re probably right on that. Hurricanes begin as tropical storms, which occur at random depending on the weather conditions. Skeptics also say that the increasing economic damages done by hurricane is because of the increased construction along the coasts. That is partly right, but it is also right that the damage done by storm surges has increased because of increased sea level rise, which is a measurable consequence of global warming. Those who listen to the skeptics, and unwisely build in floodplains, are sure to experience more damage from storm surges.

Global warming has made the oceans much warmer, even later into the year. The water temperature must be above 82°F for a tropical storm to grow into a hurricane, and the warmer the ocean the more likely it is that the a hurricane, once formed,  will intensify. Hurricanes are much like a heat engine, they are driven by the warm air rising from the oceans much like a chimney effect. The greater the temperature difference between the ocean and the upper atmosphere, the faster the flow upward and the greater the wind speeds.

If you could slice into a hurricane, it would look something like the diagram below. It has a low pressure eye at the center, and the air drawn into it rises and circulates counterclockwise around the low pressure area, faster and faster as it nears the eye. The small red arrows show warm, moist air rising from the ocean, and forming bands of clouds around the eye. As the warm moist air produces rain, more heat is released, warming the air further and causing it to rise faster until it reaches the top of the storm. Reaching there, it has become cooler and dryer. The blue arrows show how the cool, dry air then sinks in the eye and between the bands of clouds. Remember that the bands of clouds are rotating very quickly, and the large red arrow show the rotation of the rising bands of clouds.

.                                                                                                                                                      Credit: Kelvinsong

A hurricane is much like a heat engine. It is driven by the energy from the warm oceans and the cold temperature of the atmosphere above the storm. Because of global warming, that temperature difference is greater. The upper atmosphere receives its energy from the earth below. The increasing carbon dioxide between acts as a blanket, which causes the oceans to be warmer and the upper atmosphere to be colder. As in all heat engines, the greater the temperature difference, the more power the engine has. As a hurricane passes, it leaves the oceans cooler behind it as it sucks energy from the ocean. Because of global warming, the warmth goes deeper there is a greater area of warm water,  both factors which provide more heat to the hurricane and cause it to increase in size and intensify.

The vapor pressure of water increases exponentially with temperature. In our warmer world, there is now 10 to 15% more water vapor in the rain bands moving around the hurricane. When hurricane Harvey made landfall over Houston, it could be expected that Houston would receive increased rainfall. But by chance, Harvey stalled  over Houston and continued to pull warm moist air in from the Gulf, dumping over 50 inches of rain. Sea level rise has been measured to be about 30 inches along the Gulf Coast. The extreme rainfall coupled with the sea level rise  increased the storm surge and flooded much of the lower areas of Houston. The storm’s stalling was a chance event, and the skeptics are right when they say it should not have happened, but it did. Considering the storm’s intensity, the wind damage, the sea level rise, and the extreme rainfall, climate scientists attribute about 30% of the damage in Houston to global warming.

Below is a satellite image of hurricane Irma on the right, compared in size to the smaller hurricane Andrew which struck Florida in 1992, killing 65 people, destroying 65,000 home, and doing $26 billion in damages. Andrew was the  the most destructive hurricane to hit Florida ever before, and Irma could have been much worse.  

Florida was extremely lucky that hurricane Irma, wider than the whole Peninsula, went up the western side of the Peninsula. The western side of the  Peninsula experienced very little storm surge. The winds on the leading edge of the Irma, circulating counterclockwise, blew the ocean water away from shore, leaving the ocean dry for several hundred yards out as it passed. The storm was so weakened that by the time the back of the storm made landfall, directing the water toward shore, that the storm surge was only a few feet. Had Irma gone up the east side of Florida, the storm surge at the leading edge of the hurricane could have been as much as 15 feet, completely inundating much of Miami.

There you have it. Global warming has increased the temperatures of the oceans and has increased the temperature difference between the oceans and the upper atmosphere, both factors which tend to make the hurricanes more intense. The warmer oceans put more moisture into the air, making the rainfall from the hurricanes greater, and sea level rise has increased the height of the destructive storm surges. This fall, there were five intense hurricanes which formed in the Southern Atlantic, all of them making landfall and doing extensive damage. That could just be a chance occurrence, as the skeptics claim, but it has never happened before.

(c) 2017 –  J.C. Moore

Note added on 09/01/2021: Here is a great slide show analyzing hurricanes as heat engines: https://www3.nd.edu/~its/Emanuel.pdf

Note added on 05/25/2022: Though climate skeptics say climate change is not making hurricane damage worse, the 2022 Atlantic hurricane season is predicted to be the seventh in a row with an above-normal number of storms, according to a forecast by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Note added on 8/30/2023: Hurricanes have become deadlier since 1988. https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2023/08/16/hurricane-deaths-increasing-vulnerable-groups. Hurricanes have become deadlier in recent decades, study sho…

Note added on 09/14/2023: This year has been one of the worst hurricane season in history, and the season is only half over. ‘Unprecedented’: Renowned hurricane researcher shares thoughts on 2023 Atlantic hurricane season (msn.com)

Who’s Afraid of Climate Change?

Mon ,06/11/2017

What do you fear? People are moved to action by their fears. Sometimes our fears lurk at the edge of our consciousness, and then are brought into sharp focus by events. Dying oceans, polluted lakes and streams, unsafe drinking water in major cities, catastrophic hurricanes, severe drought and wildfires, and an increase in the severity of weather events, have brought environmental problems into the things Americans fear.

The annual Chapman University Survey of American Fears in 2017 provides an in-depth examination into the fears of average Americans. The survey looked at 80 fears and ranked them according to the survey responses The chart below lists America’s top 10 fears for 2017. For the first time ever, not one, but four of the top 10 fears are related to the deterioration of the environment. Pollution of natural waters, unsafe drinking water, global warming, and air pollution are now among Americans worst 10 fears.

It is not only natural disasters that occurred in 2017, but also political events . Americans had considered that the Environmental Protection Agency would protect our natural waters from pollution. However, Scott Pruitt, the current Environmental Protection Agency director, decided not to enforce major pollution laws, and fired the EPA’s entire Science Advisory Board. No advice, no research, no problem. People are beginning to realize that what you don’t know can hurt you.

The publicity surrounding the failure of the state and local government of Flint Michigan to protect the city’s residents from lead poisoning, and the subsequent discovery of lead and other toxins in our city water supplies, have made people fear that their water is not safe to drink. Almost everyone lives downstream from someone, and pollutants that find their way into our water supplies are bound to find their way into us.

Many Americans perceived the results of climate change remote and far into the future. The attribution of worsening disasters to climate change, and the US withdrawal from the Paris Climate Accord have brought carbon emissions and air pollution into sharper focus. Pictures of severe smog in China and the data from the American Heart and the American Lung Associations about the number of deaths caused by air pollution and particulates are making people increasingly fear for their health.

Action and participation is the antidote for what fear can create, a  feeling of helplessness. Our fears should create the will for political action on climate change and pollution. Even with the failure of our government and the EPA to protect the environment, we can still do it using market forces. The best plan is the carbon fee and dividend system as proposed by the Citizens Climate Lobby. The CCL legislative proposal would set an initial fee on carbon at $15 per ton of CO2 at the source and would increase it by $10 each year until the CO2 emissions were reduced to 10% of the 1990 US levels. The carbon fees are not a tax, as they would be rebated 100% to American households. It would give every American citizen a stake in conserving energy and reducing their use of carbon fuels,  which would both cut pollution and improve the economy. Exercise the power in your citizenship, and insist your Representative support action on climate change.

Credit: Thanks to Darrel Hart, President of the Wichita CCL Chapter, for suggesting the idea and supplying some of the wording in the article.

(C) 2017 J.C. Moore

 

 

Climate Change: The Oceans Response

Mon ,22/05/2017

This guest article is a PowerPoint presentation given by Dr. Rick Cowlishaw in April at the Citizens’ Climate Education meeting in Wichita. Dr. Cowlishaw is Professor of Biology at Southwestern College in Winfield, Kansas. He describes how the warming oceans, altered ocean currents, sea level rise, and ocean acidification are affecting the oceans, marine life, and eventually us.

Though you may miss some things without Dr. Cowlishaw’s guidance, the slides are mostly self-explanatory. You will need a PowerPoint program to view the slides –  you may  download a free viewer here. The slides will display as set in your viewer. Please click on the link below to start the program.

Climate Change_The Oceans Response 

We greatly appreciate the work that Dr. Cowlishaw put into the presentation, and for his permission to post it here.

J.C. Moore