Didn't see that coming!

Blinded by the light

Revved up like a deuce

Another runner in the night

Manfred Mann

Running on empty 

Running blind

Jackson Brown

Greetings

        Happy Solstice. (late, as usual).  

 So, of course, these days we have learned to accept climate change.    But we naturally hope it would be in some other place, or some other time.   For instance,  In Alaska they have to move entire towns;  south Florida is flooding without storms, see here (nice maps here

 ;  water shortages in  India .  But not in my city.  Surely not in Salem.  Yes, in Salem, you can't drink the water

   And maybe lots of other places.  Here's an explanation form The Climate Institute

Climate change contributes to excess cyanobacteria blooms by creating ideal conditions for cyanobacteria to grow. Cyanobacteria thrive in warm waters: as global temperatures rise, so too does global water temperatures. Cyanobacteria not only grow more rapidly in warm water from increased temperatures, but warmer waters also make it more difficult for water to mix, meaning the surface of the water remains much warmer than the rest of the body of water—and cyanobacteria grow more successfully on the surface.5 This is also disadvantageous because growing a thick cover on the surface of the water means that this photosynthetic organism can absorb sunlight easily, and grow even more rapidly.

Furthermore, increasing concentrations of atmospheric carbon dioxide are also favorable to the growth of cyanobacteria.6 The combination of warmer water temperatures and carbon dioxide absorption further creates perfect conditions for cyanobacteria growth and blooms.

A change in climate also affects precipitation rates and patterns. According to NASA, “Rising temperatures will intensify the Earth’s water cycle, increasing evaporation.  Increased evaporation will result in more storms, but also contribute to drying over some land areas.”7 This poses a problem when increased rainfall and storms causes more frequent nutrient pollution, “Thus, fertilization of arable land, sewage discharging, industrial effluents, use of detergents, extensive livestock farming are some of the activities that are responsible for the anthropogenic input of nutrients.”8

I guess the bottom line is, we need to expect the unexpected.  Here's  Michael Mann

Uncertainty is not our friend here," said Penn State climate scientist Michael Mann. "We are seeing increases in extreme weather events that go well beyond what has been predicted or projected in the past. We're learning that there are factors we were not previously aware of that may be magnifying the impacts of human-caused climate change." Among those are "subtle mechanisms involving the behavior of the jet stream that may be involved in explaining the dramatic increase we've seen in floods, droughts, heat waves and wildfires," he said.

"Increasingly, the science suggests that many of the impacts are occurring earlier and with greater amplitude than was predicted," Mann said, after considering new research since the milestone of the IPCC's Fifth Assessment, which served as the scientific basis for the Paris Agreement.

"We have literally, in the space of a year, doubled our assessment of the potential sea level rise we could see by the end of this century. That is simply remarkable. And it is sobering," he said.

Who was expecting toxic algea blooms?  How about "rain bombs" like Houston had?  Or the "hot blob"?

'An ocean heating event called the Blob resulted in mass loss of sea life during the period of 2013-2014. It was associated with a towering high pressure ridge in which the upper level winds ran far to the north and into the Arctic. Beneath the ridge, temperatures both at the land and ocean surface grew to be much warmer than normal.

Or how about " insect Armageddon"?

"An insect Armageddon is under way, say many entomologists, the result of a multiple whammy of environmental impacts: pollution, habitat changes, overuse of pesticides, and global warming. And it is a decline that could have crucial consequences. Our creepy crawlies may have unsettling looks but they lie at the foot of a wildlife food chain that makes them vitally important to the makeup and nature of the countryside. They are “the little things that run the world” according to the distinguished Harvard biologist Edward O Wilson, who once observed: “If all humankind were to disappear, the world would regenerate back to the rich state of equilibrium that existed 10,000 years ago. If insects were to vanish, the environment would collapse into chaos.”

So, the impacts are worse than we had expected at this temperature.    And the temperature is rising faster than we had expected.  How fast?   How about  4 degrees above pre industrial as early as 2064?

A great many record-breaking heat events, heavy floods, and extreme droughts would occur if global warming crosses the 4 °C level, with respect to the preindustrial period," said Dabang Jiang, a senior researcher at the Institute of Atmospheric Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. "The temperature increase would cause severe threats to ecosystems, human systems, and associated societies and economies."

In the analysis, Jiang and his team used the parameters of scenario in which there was no mitigation of rising greenhouse gas emissions. They compared 39 coordinated climate model experiments from the fifth phase of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (https://www.wcrp-climate.org/wgcm-cmip), which develops and reviews climate models to ensure the most accurate climate simulations possible.

They found that most of the models projected an increase of 4°C as early as 2064 and as late as 2095 in the 21st century, with 2084 appearing as the median year.

Study here

.  

Of course that's the "worst case".  Unfortunately, expecting the worst case seems to be the most prudent approach..

According to a recentanalysis from scientists at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR),  "[t]he worst case projections for global warming may be the most likely.”

 Are we already in a "climate emergency"?  I recently came across a book that suggests we are, and  offer a somewhat different slant on our predicament.  It's called, "Climate and Ecological Delusions and Contradictions That Will Rapidly End Humanity…Unless..."Free download here.    

The author argues that our current "plan", designed by politicians, is a recipe for disaster.  it consists of a rapid build-out of renewables (and a conversion of industrial and transportation to electricity).   As that cannot achieve the necessary reductions in CO2, a carbon sucking technology is proposed to fill the gap. 

 Relying on the work of Kevin Anderson, the book argues that while the plan is politically feasible, in practice it will not, and perhaps can not succeed.  The build-out would need to be much faster (perhaps 400 times as fast - see here ).  The current Paris agreement  proposals  will lead to 2-3 degrees beyond pre-industrial.  And the countries that agreed to them are not following through (see UN emissions gap report).  Furthermore, the carbon sucking technology has not been demonstrated . and the leading contender BECC, is potentially harmful.

But these facts are not well known.   In fact, we are flooded with,"feel good " stories about high tech making great strides.  Of course, strides are being made but they are dwarfed by the size of the problem.

And so the "problem,". (i.e.  something that can be solved,)  is rapidly turning into a "predicament ", (something that must be endured.)  Some aspects are already out of our control - see e.g. melting glaciers in the Arctic.  They argue that the only counterweight to the press and the politicians is the philanthropies .  These organizations control billions of dollars, they could illuminate our actual situation, and what it would really take to adapt to our current predicament and to avoid even more dangerous climate change.

The authors recognized the difficulty in getting through to the general public in a way that is " visible and visceral", a gut punch  of reality.  They offer some examples of techniques but recognize the competing  strength of our habitual world views.

           The  stories we  tell  ourselves,  the  cultural  paradigms that  represent  the  water  we  fish  swim  in,  change slowly  until  they  no  longer  work.   It  is  easy  then  to  ignore  coming  disasters,  even  though  we  may acknowledge  their  looming  reality.  Most  people  continue  to  use  vast  amounts of  fossil  fuels,  and  to consume far  more  than  our  happiness  requires,  even  though  we  are  aware  our  excesses  will  have  dark consequences  down  the  road.  The  future  is  “discounted”168  by  all  of  us,  not  only  by  economists. There  is  no  evidence-based,  rational way  that  we  can  continue  current operating systems–taking  twice  what  Mother  Earth  can maintain, sustain,  regenerate,  supply  to  us without exhaustion.  These  are delusions,  multi-faceted and interconnected.   Yet  facts  alone  will not move  or  change  dominant  human  behavioral  patterns or habituated cultural perspectives.

Here is James Hansons assessment of our actions to date.

All we’ve done is agree there’s a problem,” Hansen told the Guardian. “We agreed that in 1992 [at the Earth summit in Rio] and re-agreed it again in Paris [at the 2015 climate accord]. We haven’t acknowledged what is required to solve it. Promises like Paris don’t mean much, it’s wishful thinking. It’s a hoax that governments have played on us since the 1990s.”

Hansen’s long list of culprits for this inertia are both familiar – the nefarious lobbying of the fossil fuel industry – and surprising. Jerry Brown, the progressive governor of California, and the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, are “both pretending to be solving the problem” while being unambitious and shunning low-carbon nuclear power, Hansen argues.

There is particular scorn for Barack Obama. Hansen says in a scathing upcoming book that the former president “failed miserably” on climate change and oversaw policies that were “late, ineffectual and partisan”.

So, instead of dealing with the problem - our hyper consumption paradigm that is creating the overshoot in so many areas, we deal only with the symptoms.  Some symptoms are anticipated like wildfires and drought .  Some are not,  like toxic algea.  Are we ready for this Brave New Climate?  

And what about the issue of the day, immigration?  Here's an interesting analysis .    from here.  See also Welcome to the age of climate migration

One factor causing migrants to risk everything—even potentially losing their children—to travel through the heat of summer in the dangerous desert and towards the barbed wire fences and tent cities springing up just south of the United States border: climate change.

Many of the migrants being detained here now hail from what's referred variously as the Dry Corridor or the Northern Triangle, which consists of the three countries immediately south of Mexico: Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras.

The agricultural crisis of the Northern Triangle area isn't something that cropped up overnight, but has been in the making for more than a decade. The Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations published a report in June 2016 that described the depth of the food insecurity crisis in the region, leaving 3.5 million people, or nearly 30 percent of the population, food insecure from crop losses estimated to be as high as 90 percent.

Why the high crop losses? It’s due to a cycle of severe drought followed by tumultuous rainfall in the region, a pair of extreme weather patterns attributed to El Nino and La Nina.

Kicking off in 2015, this latest cycle of El Nino has twisted normal weather patterns in the region. By the next year, 2016, many in the Dry Corridor region reported at least two failed harvests as local weather patterns turned to La Nina, which is characterized by above-normal summer rainfall. That rainfall is made doubly dangerous when the Atlantic hurricane season—which has gotten more violent every year—dumps plenty of its own rainfall, making farming difficult, if not absolutely impossible.

"What we're talking about here are changing precipitation patterns," Robert Albro, a research associate professor in the Center for Latin American and Latino Studies at American University, said. "Climate scientists have observed that climate change is exacerbating El Nino and La Nina, so we see radically changing seasonal patterns."

      So, how are we going to deal with all these changes.  Be resilient, I suppose.   Be prepared, be flexible, have good community networks.  One lesson from Salem's water problems is that average citizens are very unprepared for any emergency.  They expect to be bailed out by somebody else - the government.    see Statesman editorial.

It's flawed reasoning for most residents to assume government will provide all necessary supplies in an emergency or that outside assistance will be instantly ready to offer aid.

The run early last week on water at area stores was worrisome but understandable because few were aware of the potential toxins threatening the water supply, so to them, it came without warning.

But residents with the means should have been able to crack open their emergency kit and take water from it.

It was an ideal opportunity to use water that might have been stored for a few months, and then replace it when the threat receded.

And yet, most raced to the store to buy water and other supplies causing many retailers to run out. Others took advantage of city and state water-distribution points.

...

With these recent water advisories, too many residents demonstrated they were unprepared to be without water and other supplies for a couple of days, let alone the couple of weeks.

Individuals who can, bear primary responsibility for preparing themselves. 

It's easy to bellyache about the failures of government; it's much harder to take responsibility for our own. 

So, expect the unexpected.  And prepare.