Month: August 2023

Polls Have Warning for Republicans on Climate, Progressive Issues

With purported “Next Generation” Republican Vivek Ramaswamy putting all his chips on Climate Denial last week, he has effectively become the face of GOP intransigence on science – Republicans become increasingly more vulnerable on the issue.

Polling expert John Della Volpe of Harvard Kennedy school on Meet the Press –

Gen Z is becoming more urgent, and even more progressive

The nation divides between those over 41, Gen Xers and Baby Boomers, and those under 41, Millenials and Gen Zers.

That coalition will be 40 percent of all voters in 2024

Millenials not becoming more conservative, but rather more progressive as they age

Heavily concerned about climate, and becoming more so

UPDATE: Below, CBS interview with Republican climate activist Benji Backer.

Continue reading “Polls Have Warning for Republicans on Climate, Progressive Issues”

Idalia to Become Major Hurricane, Tampa at Risk

After a few days of dithering as to how fast this storm would strengthen, it now seems clear that the ultra-warm Gulf will lead to rapid intensification, and a very dangerous storm.
Tampa very much in the crosshairs. Report above from WFAA in Tampa Bay area.

National Hurricane Center Advisory:

Continue reading “Idalia to Become Major Hurricane, Tampa at Risk”

Ramasmarmy Doubles Down on Denial – Putin’s New Favorite?

Ramasmarmy on CNN this morning, doubling down on climate denial.
Is that why he’s challenging Trump to be the “Apple of Putin’s Eye”?

Above, Russian media enamored of the leading Climate Deniers in the US Presidential race.

Below, more background.

Continue reading “Ramasmarmy Doubles Down on Denial – Putin’s New Favorite?”

Heads Up: Building Storm Enters Hot Gulf

EV Sales are What an “S” Curve Looks Like

What’s that old saying? Change comes slowly, slowly, ..then, all at once.

That’s what economist’s call the “S” curve of technology adoption.

Experts explain below:

Continue reading “EV Sales are What an “S” Curve Looks Like”

The Weekend Wonk: Young Republicans Say GOP Deserves to Lose without a Climate Plan

Ramasmarmy has an issue with Young Republicans.

I’ve posted on this several times already, but worth taking a look at some of the mainstream follow up reporting. This week’s Republican debate showed that candidate Vivek Ramaswamy at least has enough awareness of how out of step he is with younger Republicans that he had the good sense to lie to them (in a “piss on your leg and tell you it’s raining” sort of way) about his climate position. (see CNN report below)

Above, Washington Post profile of Benji Backer, a leading voice among Young Republicans on climate issues, mentioned prominently below.

Guardian:

Republicans “deserve to lose” electorally if they can’t show they care about the climate crisis, according to the head of a conservative climate organization that put forward a rare question on the issue to GOP candidates in Wednesday’s televised debate.

The Republican presidential hopefuls, minus Donald Trump, were asked at the Fox News debate what they would do to improve the party’s standing on climate policy by Alexander Diaz, a young conservative who is part of the American Conservation Coalition (ACC), a youth conservative group that pushes for action on the climate crisis.

Asked by the moderators for a show of hands over whether climate change is real, none of the candidates did so, with one, Vivek Ramaswamy, the far-right businessman, declaring that the “climate agenda is a hoax”. Two other candidates, Tim Scott and Nikki Haley, accepted the well-established scientific reality of global heating but looked to shift the blame to other major carbon polluters, such as China, and even, in Scott’s case, to Africa, which is responsible for about 3% of the world’s emissions.

Benji Backer, founder and executive chairman of ACC, said the question on climate was “historic” and highlighted the desire among young Republicans for their leaders to take the threat of global heating seriously.

“That we didn’t get an immediate hand raise speaks to how much work we have left to do; young people will never vote for a candidate that doesn’t believe in climate change,” he said after the debate. “We’re not going away, we are normalizing this as part of the Republican conversation. Republicans deserve to lose if they are climate deniers and don’t have a plan.”

Backer said that Ramaswamy “has always been wrong on this issue” and that Haley’s answer was a “winning one” for young people. He noted how Ramaswamy, who he said an ACC colleague confronted about his remarks after the debate, was booed by the audience for his dismissal of climate science.

“Republicans are environmentalists, we are the original conservationists,” Backer told a debate after-party attended by campaign staffers, some Republican members of Congress and Ramaswamy, a video shared with the Guardian shows. “And by sitting on the sidelines and letting the Democrats take this issue and run with it over the last few decades we’ve not only lost an entire generation of young voters we’ve also ceded the ground to really, really bad policy that is impacting our day-to-day lives in so many ways.”

Polling shows there is growing concern among all Americans over the impacts of the climate crisis, which have been on vivid display this summer, with devastating fires in Hawaii, floods in California and Vermont and a series of punishing heatwaves that have broken temperature records across the US.

Continue reading “The Weekend Wonk: Young Republicans Say GOP Deserves to Lose without a Climate Plan”

Climate Catastrophe Animal Vid of the Week: Penguin Chicks Dying as Antarctica Loses Sea Ice

British Antarctic Survey:

Emperor penguin colonies experienced unprecedented breeding failure in a region of Antarctica where there was total sea ice loss in 2022. The discovery supports predictions that over 90% of emperor penguin colonies will be quasi-extinct by the end of the century, based on current global warming trends.

In a new study published today in Communications Earth & Environment, researchers from British Antarctic Survey discussed the high probability that no chicks had survived from four of the five known emperor penguin colonies in the central and eastern Bellingshausen Sea. The scientists examined satellite images that showed the loss of sea ice at breeding sites, well before chicks would have developed waterproof feathers. 

Emperor penguins are dependent on stable sea ice that is firmly attached to the shore (‘land-fast’ ice) for the majority of the year, from April through to January. Once they arrive at their chosen breeding site, penguins lay eggs in Antarctic winter from May to June. Eggs hatch after 65 days, but chicks do not fledge until summer, between December and January. 

At the beginning of December 2022, the Antarctic sea ice extent had matched the previous all-time low set in 2021. The most extreme loss was seen in the central and eastern Bellingshausen Sea region, west of the Antarctic Peninsula where there was a 100% loss of sea ice in November 2022.  

Continue reading “Climate Catastrophe Animal Vid of the Week: Penguin Chicks Dying as Antarctica Loses Sea Ice”

Green Turd Polishing: Republican “Environmentalists” Make the Best of Debate Debacle

NPR:

It was an unusual opening for a Republican primary debate. Barely 20 minutes into the 2 hour GOP presidential debate on Fox News, moderators Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum played a video from Alexander Diaz, a student at Catholic University in Washington, D.C., who submitted a question on behalf of fellow young conservatives.

“How will you as both president of the United States and leader of the Republican Party calm their fears that the Republican Party doesn’t care about climate change?” Diaz asked.

The moderators then asked the eight candidates directly whether they believe human behavior is causing climate change.

They got very few direct answers — despite the overwhelming scientific consensus that climate change is driven by human activities, primarily burning fossil fuels.

“The climate change agenda is a hoax,” said former tech and finance executive Vivek Ramaswamy, in the night’s clearest answer. Former United Nations Ambassador and South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley acknowledged climate change is real but downplayed American responsibility, while Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis sidestepped the question altogether. Many candidates did not answer.

Some young conservative climate advocates said the fact that the question was even asked marked progress. Polling shows that overall, Republicans are less likely to see climate change as a threat. But young voters across party lines list climate as a top issue. Strategists warn that if Republicans can’t talk about climate, they may lose the younger voting base crucial to swing race wins.

Washington Examiner:

Presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy got booed on stage during the first Republican presidential debate after asserting that climate change is a hoax.

The debate, hosted by Fox News anchors Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum, came to an unexpected turn when the hosts asked the candidates if they believe in human-induced climate change and would address young conservatives’ fears that the GOP party doesn’t care about the issue.

Ramaswamy did not mince his words as he claimed that the “climate change agenda is a hoax.”

“The reality is, the anti-carbon agenda is the wet blanket on our economy,” Ramaswamy said. “And so the reality is, more people are dying of bad climate change policy than they are of actual climate change.”

His response received loud boos from the audience.

A number of the other GOP candidates chimed in, countering Ramasamy’s narrative and asserting that Republicans do care about climate change.

“We do care about clean air, clean water,” Nikki Haley said. “And the right way to do it is, first of all, yes, climate change is real.”

Shortly after the moment, President Joe Biden tweeted a jab at Ramaswamy: “Climate change is real, by the way.”

The moment marked a subtle yet significant shift on the issue of climate change within the Republican Party. An issue that has rarely taken significance within GOP campaigns took a national front seat, with the moderators asking the presidential candidates whether or not climate change is real.
—
Conservative “Conservationists” followed up with a triumphal tweet.

But anyone who actually watched the debate, noticed that when Brett Baier asked anyone who believed that climate change was real, and human caused, to raise their hand, — not one Presidential hopeful thought it was advantageous to do so – that the stage immediately dissolved into a cacophony with the only identifiable voices being Vivek Ramasmarmy, who called climate change a “hoax”, and Nikki Haley, who meekly volunteered that she liked clean water.

Continue reading “Green Turd Polishing: Republican “Environmentalists” Make the Best of Debate Debacle”

There Will Be No “Climate Havens”

Julie Arbit, Brad Bottoms and Earl Lewis in The Conversation:

Southeast Michigan seemed like the perfect “climate haven.” 

“My family has owned my home since the ‘60s. … Even when my dad was a kid and lived there, no floods, no floods, no floods, no floods. Until [2021],” one southeast Michigan resident told us. That June, a storm dumped more than 6 inches of rainon the region, overloading stormwater systems and flooding homes.

That sense of living through unexpected and unprecedented disasters resonates with more Americans each year, we have found in our research into the past, present and future of risk and resilience.

An analysis of federal disaster declarations for weather-related events puts more data behind the fears – the average number of disaster declarations has skyrocketed since 2000 to nearly twicethat of the preceding 20-year period.

As people question how livable the world will be in a warming future, a narrative around climate migration and “climate havens” has emerged.

These “climate havens” are areas touted by researchers, public officials and city planners as natural refuges from extreme climate conditions. Some climate havens are already welcomingpeople escaping the effects of climate change elsewhere. Many have affordable housing and legacy infrastructure from their larger populations before the mid-20th century, when people began to leave as industries disappeared.

But they aren’t disaster-proof – or necessarily ready for the changing climate. 

Six climate havens

Some of the most cited “havens” in research by national organizations and in news media are older cities in the Great Lakes region, upper Midwest and Northeast. They include Ann Arbor, Michigan; Duluth, Minnesota; Minneapolis; Buffalo, New York; Burlington, Vermont; and Madison, Wisconsin.

Yet each of these cities will likely have to contend with some of the greatest temperature increases in the country in the coming years. Warmer air also has a higher capacity to hold water vapor, causing more frequent, intense and longer duration storms.

Continue reading “There Will Be No “Climate Havens””

Will Lahaina’s Comatose Banyan Tree Come Back from Fire?

Treehouse Dad:

The Banyan Tree still stands!  Though everything around it has been charred, the tree still stands within Lahaina Banyan Tree Court.  The Old Lahaina Courthouse in front of it is standing, though only its walls remain.

Arborists have checked out the tree and its roots, and they say that there are signs of healthy tree tissue below the charred bark.  If the roots are strong, and it’s taken care of, the tree may survive and continue to grow. Clean-up and recovery crews from Goodfellow are watering it daily. There’s still life under every one of the 35 aerial roots and the main trunk.

The fact that the Lahaina Banyan Tree still stands gives the people of Lahaina and Maui hope. Just like our community, banyan trees are incredibly strong and can handle a great deal of stress.

Today, what we’re doing is called aeration.  We’re breaking up the compaction of the soil, and if there’s any burnt or charred soil (which we didn’t actually see on top of the ground)… we want to break it up so that water can penetrate down into the ground.  After we break up the soil like this, then we’re going to be putting on the tree what we call a compost tea with microorganisms in it.  We’re going to be putting on some what they call Bio-Char.  It’s a type of material that helps the tree absorb foreign materials and things like that, but we’ll also be putting on humic acid.  And then we’re going to be monitoring the soil moisture. So we’ll have someone checking the moisture every few days and then we’ll be documenting that. So we’ll be checking and trying to keep the moisture in the ground the best we can but not overwatering it,” Arborist Steve Nimz explained in detail. “We checked underneath the bark of all the lower trunks of the tree and we found that there’s still live tissue.”

Continue reading “Will Lahaina’s Comatose Banyan Tree Come Back from Fire?”