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Al Gore’s Climate Sequel Misses a Few Inconvenient Facts

They say the sequel is always worse than the original, but Al Gore’s first film set the bar pretty low. Eleven years ago, “An Inconvenient Truth” hyped global warming by relying more on scare tactics than science. This weekend Mr. Gore is back with “An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power.” If the trailer is any indication, it promises to be more of the same. The former vice president has a poor record. Over the past 11 years Mr. Gore has suggested that global warming had caused an increase in tornadoes, that Mount Kilimanjaro’s glacier would disappear by 2016, and that the Arctic summers could be ice-free as soon as 2014. These predictions and claims all proved wrong. “An Inconvenient Truth” promoted the frightening narrative that higher temperatures mean more extreme weather, especially hurricanes. The movie poster showed a hurricane emerging from a smokestack. Mr. Gore appears to double down on this by declaring in the new film’s trailer: “Storms get stronger and more destructive. Watch the water splash off the city. This is global warming.” This is misleading. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change—in its Fifth Assessment Report, published in 2013—found “low confidence��� of increased hurricane activity to date because of global warming. Storms are causing more damage, but primarily because more wealthy people choose to live on the coast, not because of rising temperatures. Even if tropical storms strengthen by 2100, their relative cost likely will decrease. In a 2012 article for the journal Nature Climate Change, researchers showed that hurricane damage now costs 0.04% of global gross domestic product. If climate change makes hurricanes stronger, absolute costs will double by 2100. But the world will also be much wealthier and less vulnerable, so the total damage is estimated at only 0.02% of global GDP. In the trailer, Mr. Gore addresses “the most criticised scene” of his previous documentary, which suggested that “the combination of sea-level rise and storm surge would flood the 9/11 Memorial site.” Then viewers are shown footage of Manhattan taking on water in 2012 after superstorm Sandy, apparently vindicating Mr. Gore’s claims. Never mind that what he actually predicted was flooding caused by melting ice in Greenland. More important is that Mr. Gore’s prescriptions—for New York and the globe—won’t work. He claims the answer to warming lies in agreements to cut carbon that would cost trillions of dollars. That would not have stopped Sandy. What New York really needs is better infrastructure: sea walls, storm doors for the subway, porous pavement. These fixes could cost around $100 million a year, a bargain compared with the price of international climate treaties. Mr. Gore helped negotiate the first major global agreement on climate, the Kyoto Protocol. It did nothing to reduce emissions (and therefore to rein in temperatures), according to a March 2017 article in the Journal of Environmental Economics and Management. Undaunted, Mr. Gore still endorses the same solution, and the new documentary depicts him roaming the halls of the Paris climate conference. By 2030 the Paris climate accord will cost the world up to $2 trillion a year, mostly in lost economic growth, according to the best peer-reviewed energy-economic models. It will remain that expensive for the rest of the century. This would make it the most expensive treaty in history. And for what? Just ahead of the Paris conference, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change estimated that if every country fulfils every promised Paris carbon cut between 2016 and 2030, carbon dioxide emissions will drop by only 60 gigatons over that time frame. To keep the temperature rise below 2 degrees Celsius, the world must reduce such emissions nearly 6,000 gigatons over this century, according to the IPCC. A “successful” Paris agreement wouldn’t even come close to solving the problem. Mr. Gore argues that the Paris approach pushes nations and businesses toward green energy. Perhaps, but the global economy is far from ready to replace fossil fuels with solar and wind. The International Energy Agency, in its 2016 World Energy Outlook, found that 0.6% of the world’s energy is supplied by solar and wind. Even with the Paris accord fully implemented, that number would rise only to 3% in a quarter-century. In part because of activists like Mr. Gore, the world remains focused on subsidizing inefficient, unreliable technology, rather than investing in research to push down the price of green energy. Real progress in Paris could be found on the sidelines, where philanthropist Bill Gates and others, including political leaders, agreed to increase spending on research and development. This is an important start, but much more funding is needed. Mr. Gore declares in his new film that “it is right to save humanity.” No argument here. But is using scare tactics really the best way to go about it?

by Bjorn Lomborg, President of the Copenhagen Consensus Center and the author of “The Skeptical Environmentalist” and “Cool It.”

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“Grounded,” by Barry Blitt. The New Yorker July 24, 2017.

Trump, what else!

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Blue whale skeleton and new Hintze Hall display from 14 July 2017

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A three year project to install a blue whale skeleton in the Museum's central space.

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One of the biggest icebergs ever recorded, a trillion-ton behemoth more than seven times the size of New York City, has broken off of Antarctica, triggering disagreement among scientists over whether global warming is to blame.

The event, captured by satellite, happened sometime in the past few days when the giant chunk snapped off an ice shelf.

While such "calving" of icebergs is not unusual, this is an especially big one. It covers an area of roughly 2,300 square miles (6,000 square kilometers), more than twice the size of Luxembourg. Its volume is twice that of Lake Erie, according to Project MIDAS, a research group based in Britain.

It broke loose from the Larsen C ice shelf, which scientists had been monitoring for months as they watched a crack grow more than 120 miles (200 kilometers) long.

The iceberg is considered unlikely to pose any threat to shipping. And since the ice was already floating, the breakup won't raise sea levels in the short term, the project said in a statement.

But it removed more than 10 percent of the ice shelf, and if that eventually hastens the flow of glaciers behind it into the water, there could be a "very modest" rise in sea level, the project said.

Two other Antarctic ice shelves, farther north on the Antarctic Peninsula, collapsed in 1995 and 2002. That sped up the slide of glaciers, which contributed to sea-level rise, David Vaughan, director of science at the British Antarctic Survey, said in a statement.

"Our glaciologists will now be watching closely to see whether the remaining Larsen C ice shelf becomes less stable than before the iceberg broke free," he said.

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The history of the violin can be traced back to 1530, when a violin-like instrument first appeared in Gaudenzio Ferrari's painting, "Madonna of the Orange Tree." By the 1550s, Andrea Amati and his descendants began to craft priceless violins, in the form we know them today. And then followed other families closely associated with the golden age of these stringed instruments - the Bergonzi, the Guarneri, the Stradivari.

Today, luthiers like Dominique Nicosia continue the same tradition. Above you can watch Nicosia hand-craft a violin at the Musée de la lutherie et de l'archèterie françaises in northeastern France.

Shot by Baptiste Buob, the wordless documentary walks you through the making of a violin, from start to finish. A process that takes a luthier 3-4 weeks, working full-time, gets covered in 33 elegant minutes.

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Joe Bonamassa - "Taxman" - Live at The Cavern Club

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After the caliphate

No one knows what will happen after the jihadists lose Mosul and Raqqa. That is alarming

It has been a long war, with many horrors. But three years after Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi ascended the pulpit of the Nuri mosque in Mosul to call on all Muslims to flock to his “caliphate”, IslamicState (IS) is suffering two crushing blows. In Iraq, the jihadists have all but lost Mosul; they blew up the Nuri mosque in their last stand in a pocket of alleyways. Mr Baghdadi, if he is alive, may have fled to Syria. But IS is faring badly there, too. American-backed fighters have pushed into the old city of Raqqa; IS’s Syrian stronghold will fall soon. With the loss ofits biggest cities, the mystique of the jihadist “state” is being shattered. IS is turning into a nasty militia, and may yet become a nebulous terrorist group, like al-Qaeda. The world should rejoice at its decline. IS committed untold barbarity, from mass beheadings to sexual enslavement, and inspired jihadists to kill the innocent in Europe and elsewhere. America has led the campaign ably, giving training and air support, while letting local allies do the ground fighting. Butwhat will come after the caliphate? No one knows, least of all Donald Trump. He has yet to fill nearly 200 foreign and national-security jobs, and policymaking in his administration is dysfunctional. That is alarming. Adrift, America faces two perils: one is a vacuum that allows jihadists to regroup, as they did repeatedly in Iraq; the other is being sucked into a regional war thatwould make everything worse.

Conflict, wrapped in strife, inside a war

The bloodbath in the Middle East consists of many conflicts: revolts against oppressive rulers who failed to earn legitimacy or foster prosperity; struggles over competing forms of Islam; regional contests between Saudi Arabia, Iran and Turkey; and rivalry between America and Russia. At its heart is Sunni Arabs’ sense of dispossession, of which IS is the most grotesque manifestation. So America needs a strategy with many dimensions, blending military, political and economic means, and taking account of the complex geopolitics that feeds chaos. There is no sign that Mr Trump’s administration is engaged in such thinking. On his first trip abroad, to Saudi Arabia, he was feted by Arab and Muslim leaders, and regaled with juicy defence contracts. In return, he seemed to embrace the Saudi worldview—and thus precipitated a crisis among America’s Gulf allies. Emboldened, the Saudis and Emiratis (along with the Egyptians and Bahrainis) cut off land, sea and air links with Qatar. They accuse the upstart gas-rich kingdom, which hosts America’s biggest air base in the region, of supporting terrorism (a charge often levelled at the Saudis). Mr Trump denounced Qatar on Twitter. But Rex Tillerson, America’s secretary of state, instead chastised the boycotters; James Mattis, the defence secretary, signed a deal to sell F-15 jets to Qatar, and sent two warships to call at Doha. Amid such incoherence, a strategy may fail, even if one existed. Mr Trump seems to have three vague aims: destroy IS, roll backIran’s growing power and reduce America’s involvement in the Middle East. These are inconsistent, because sustained diplomatic and military engagement will be needed both to prevent a new IS rising from the ashes of the old and also to contain Iran, which is using its proxies and its own forces dotted around the region to extend its influence. Start with IS. To lock in its victories against the jihadists, America must back pluralist and decentralised politics (don’t call it democracy) that gives voice to the region’s disparate groups, especially Sunni Arabs. In Iraq, America must urge the government to woo Sunnis and to include them in running the country; and it should use its air power, special forces and diplomats as a counterweight to Iran. Syria will be even harder. The end of the civil war is a long way off. Mr Tillerson has put out feelers to Russia about co-operating to stabilise the country, but what he wants is unclear. For now, America can help local allies push down the Euphrates valley, not just to defeat the remnants of IS but also to ensure that border crossings are in friendly hands. That would also secure an American voice in future peace talks. This will mean redoubling the effort to train more moderate Sunni Arabs. The alliance led by Kurds is unlikely to want to go beyond Raqqa. The priority will thus be to foster a southern Arab force to fight and draw away support from IS. Inevitably, that will bring America into further contact with Iran. America’s forces and their allies are already rubbing against Syrians and others pushing eastward, seeking to link up with Iranian-backed Shia militias in Iraq and create a land corridor from Iran to Lebanon. America shot down a Syrian jet and bombed Iranian-backed fighters that threatened American and allied forces at al-Tanf, near the southern border with Jordan and Iraq. As if that were not complex enough, Mr Trump says that Iran “has been put on notice”, although he has for now kept to Barack Obama’s deal that froze Iran’s nuclear programme. As the administration debates a new Iran policy, there is much talk of fresh sanctions, with some arguing for “coerced democratisation”: ie, toppling the mullahs. America could thus end up at war with Iran by military accident, or by being goaded into it by Gulf allies or because it succumbs again to the delusion that overthrowing foes is easy and painless. A conflict with Iran is unlikely to unseat the clerics; but it will undoubtedly spread instability and Shia radicalism. Iran is too big to be excluded from the region’s affairs; but it can be contained by a mixture of pressure and dialogue. America should therefore work to end the roaming its Gulf allies, which benefits Iran, just as it should act to halt the war in Yemen, which creates space for al-Qaeda.

American power, vital but limited

Whatever America does will be messy, and its aim sought to be limited. The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq after the 9/11 attacks show that it is good at defeating foes but poor at building lasting institutions; grand plans to remake countries are usually doomed. Yet the collapse of Syria and the rise of IS since 2011 show that neglect poses grave dangers, too. America has no choice but to contain the worst of the tumult. Mr Trump needs to hire good experts and drawup a plan—fast.

source: The Economist - 20170708

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Although Nixon’s proposal passed in the House of Representatives, the FAP  was met with opposition by both the Liberals and the Conservatives in the Senate, and was rejected and cast into oblivion until a few years ago …

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The video was shot from the stage, before Green Day’s concert at BST Hyde Park. The stadium piped Queen's “Bohemian Rhapsody” through the speakers, at which point a massive singalong got underway. As one YouTuber put it, "Only Queen can rock a stadium without even being there," a testament to their enduring influence.

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Some fundamental learnings:

Microfibers found in our oceans can originate from a wide variety of textiles (such as nylon, polyester, rayon, acrylic or spandex)—everything from running shorts to yoga pants to fleece jackets and more—which shows the need for engagement on this issue by the entire apparel industry and through all steps in the product life cycle.

Apparel products are not the only source of microplastic particles that are entering the oceans. Other industries are also contributing to this problem, as are things like fishing nets, bottle caps, packaging and plastics bags that break down in the ocean. A key research priority moving forward is to quantify the magnitude of the contribution of the various sources of microplastics to oceans.

Garments of a higher quality shed less in the wash than low-quality synthetic products, illustrating the importance for manufacturers and consumers alike to invest in gear built to last.

Our washing machines represent an integral step in the path to pollution—so we’ve centered our testing on common appliances found in many homes. And wastewater treatment plants filter a good amount of microfibers (65–92 percent) but still release a significant volume of waste into the environment. So we plan to bring our findings to the appliance industry and waste operators as well.

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The Economist, July 1st 2017