#ClimateSynopsis : Rising risks, type 1 errors & the laboratories of democracy

The reality of rising seas is sinking in, while flooding events reach new high tide records. In filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, oil companies have acknowledged the risks to their own infrastructure, and coastal cities around the globe face the consequences of decades of burning fossil fuels. New York City, Houston, Miami and San Francisco are taking steps to mitigate the risks, both by designing resilient places for the near term and by reducing emissions for the long term. But a CNN photo essay shows how flood patterns are already changing. Coastal lands are vanishing from Louisiana to Rhode Island, and Rutgers and Princeton predict that Charleston, South Carolina will experience extreme flooding. A neighborhood in Miami, Florida is even considering relocation. And the Dutch engineers are standing by, ready to share their centuries of water management prowess.

President Trump recently read about how sea level rise was impacting Virginia's Tangier Island -- where the people supported him -- so he called the Mayor and offered reassurance. "Your island has been there for hundreds of years," he said, "and I believe your island will be there for hundreds more." That don't worry be happy approach is evident throughout his administration, but in truth, it simply means that someone else has to do the hard work. The Bureau of Indian Affairs deleted references to "climate change" on the Tribal Climate Resilience Programs website, but cities like Chicago, Portland and San Francisco are spending time and effort publishing the data that the federal government has deleted. Cities can't publish data that never exists in the first place, however, so indigenous people in Alaska are also collecting data on their own. The U.S. Department of Energy is eliminating the entire Office of International Climate and Technology, a group that played an important role in global climate diplomacy, so others will fill the leadership void.

Still, the loss of federal leadership is significant. The President's budget cuts are so deep that they are expected to decimate NOAA's Regional Climate Centers that collect weather data used by firefighters battling wildfires, farmers planting crops, and engineers designing infrastructure. The U.S. Forest Service is concerned that it lacks the resources for the coming season of wildfires. And at budget hearings, members of Congress offered a bipartisan critique, telling U.S. Environmental Protection Administrator Scott Pruitt that Congress would not support the proposed budget, which cut more than half the science research funding and which expected states to continue programs while cutting state funding. Oklahoma Republican Representative Tom Cole offered sarcastic congratulations, noting that Pruitt would "be the first EPA administrator that has come before this committee in eight years that actually gets more money than they ask for," while Washington State Democratic Representative Derek Kilmer accused the administration of leaving the states "holding the bag."

Showing awareness of the federal government's pullback, a University of Michigan poll found that 66% of Americans want the states -- the "laboratories of democracy" -- to act on climate change. Well aware of the air pollution and public health consequences of greenhouse gases, California signed a climate agreement with Germany and with China. Los Angeles launched an electric carsharing program. As a result of California's big role, Governor Jerry Brown is one of the most visible leaders of the not-so-United States, along with Oregon Governor Kate Brown and Washington State Governor Jay Inslee. The division has been embraced by some European leaders, and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change named Governor Brown as its special envoy to states.

Mr. Brown might be busy, because climate change is both global and local. Politicians from red states like Georgia, Louisiana, New Hampshire, Texas, and the entire Colorado River Basin are being forced to think about heat, flood, drought and shrinking water supplies due to climate effects. A NOAA study also concluded that Texas and Georgia are the nation's most disaster prone state due to its exposure to weather and climate events, including hurricanes, tornadoes and floods. Sooner or later, the Red States -- which are often leaders in the implementation of renewable energy -- must also discuss the problems, even if they don't call it climate change.

Trying to force the President and the budget conscious members of Congress to think about rising seas, Congressman Earl Blumenauer introduced the Prohibiting Aid for Recipients Ignoring Science Act -- call it the PARIS Act -- which would prevent properties owned by a president from receiving federal subsidies through the National Flood Insurance Program. The attention-getting bill is dead in the water, but it makes a point, because experts predict that Mar-A-Lago will be underwater 210 times per year.

Perhaps this publicity-minded #resistance to Trump is necessary to overcome the powerful resistance to climate action. Climate deniers are normalized by national media attention, and they publish their own conspiracy theories and books. Academics can get paid to write op-eds that sow climate doubts. Conservative columnists accuse Europeans of using climate change policy as a new form of imperialism, complain about scientific integrity officials who allegedly undermine the Administration's goals, and call climate activists zealots while declaring that we need more coal.Others blame naturally reoccurring sources of atmospheric pollutants, like volcanoes, for climate change. No one is dying, insists a Fox News commentator, and Vice President Mike Pence labels climate change an issue for the left.

Confronted with this barrage of misinformation, even some science supporters succumb to questioning human impact on climate, despite a scientific consensus explained by NASA and nearly 200 other credible organizations. But science does matter. A Newsweek column challenged the journalistic tendency to engage in false equivalence, pushing back against a New York Times article that suggested that the Democrats, or Obama, are somehow responsible for the Republican resistance to science. The Nation Magazine flatly accuses the Republican party of knowingly lying about climate change, and dissertations are studying the phenomenon of climate denial. While polling shows that NASA scientists retain the popular trust, many Trump voters reported Fox News as a trusted source of climate change information. Ellen Stofan, a former NASA chief scientist, offered a sharp and insightful critique of current events:

“We are under siege by fake information that’s being put forward by people who have a profit motive,” Ms. Stofan said in an interview with the Guardian. “Fake news is so harmful because once people take on a concept it’s very hard to dislodge it.”

The influence of fake news, the deception of teachers and politicization of climate science education, and the outright rejection of the government's own expert advisors can spread. It has occurred in Australia and Northern Ireland and Great Britain and the Netherlands. But New Zealand and Scotland continue to push for climate action, France is hiring foreigners to conduct climate research, and India has emerged as a renewable energy market leader, with the sunshine and the available land masses to take full advantage of the declining costs of solar power.

In some ways, the world can thank President Trump, whose decision to withdraw from the Paris Agreement has united the world to defend and reaffirm the accord, including actions this month by China and the EU, Columbia, Germany and the Vatican. Yet, the Administration remains resolute. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt attended the Group of Seven ministers’ meeting on climate in Italy, and left early for a cabinet meeting in Washington, where he told the President that his message to the G7 that the United States "will be focused on growth and protecting the environment" was "received well." Italian Environment Minister Luca Galletti clearly did not agree with Mr. Pruitt's version of events, saying "We cannot allow one nation to derail what 190 other nations are happy to do." Indeed, the United States' outlier position was reduced to a footnote in the final G7 communique, and European science organizations sharply criticize the "alternative facts" and vested-interest propaganda coming from some of their increasingly isolated American counterparts.

Recalcitrant politicians cannot alter the facts. No matter how you calculate the size of the scientific consensus on humanity's impact on the planet, hard evidence of climate change in cold climates is dramatic. The Larsen C Iceshelf is collapsing into the Antarctic Ocean, where scientists are watching the birth of the world's largest iceberg, unprecedented rains are occurring in the deserts, leading to melting areas that measure three times the size of Texas. National Geographic calls it a collapsing continent.

On the other polar extreme, photos reveal a similar degree of change. Pathenogenic Vibrio bacteria that usually thrive in warm waters are appearing in Alaska and Scandinavia. Warmer winters are thawing the permafrost, and melting ice is changing the Arctic ocean soundscape. A World Wildlife Fund report warns that Canadian rivers are transforming, and a Canadian icebreaker has been spending so much time rescuing other ships from huge chunks of melting ice near Newfoundland that it had to cancel its own mission to study climate change. Earth is warming much faster than it did during its transition from a prior ice age, and although the sun's influence is still not fully understood -- after all, global warming occurred on Mars -- scientists are increasingly understanding Earth's carbon dynamics.

While change is most evident in the cold climates, the whole planet faces risks. NASA scientists concluded that the tropics will experience an increase in rainfall. Forests are expected to become less effective at absorbing excess atmospheric carbon, sea turtle eggs are cooking in the overheated sand, and mudfish are dying in droughts. The wildlife in the "goldilocks zone" (like lobsters in Maine) will have the best chance of adapting.

The Anthropocene era has begun, and the impacts reach far beyond wildlife. Temperatures will reach historic highs, and MIT expects cities to experience more deadly and intense heat waves. Geologists worry that cities will run out of fresh water supplies. There are national security implications, too, and while conservatives might call these concerns "ridiculous" or climate craziness, the risks are real. One report by the Center for Climate and Security warns of the possibility of five conflicts related to fishing in the South China Sea, water supplies at the China-India border, cattle in Nigeria, coffee in Honduras, and oil in the Arctic. Another report cautions that food security will cause widespread strife in the Middle East.

Adaptation has begun. China is building floating solar farms. The President of the Marshall Islands appeals for help. Pope Francis and his Laudato Si encyclical sparked an interfaith dialogue, although cautious U.S. bishops remain tepid on the subject. And while President clings to the past and takes credit for coal jobs, Bloomberg reports that world coal production just had its biggest drop on record. President Trump's statements, however, gave a rhetorical platform to an emboldened North Korea, which recently declared that U.S. is "chiefly to blame for global environmental pollution."

Science, and an educated public, can find solutions to the problems we all created. The Smithsonian and many others are engaged in the effort. Scientists and conservationists are debating the possibility of assisted colonization to relocate wildlife and enhance adaptation to climate change. Australian scientists have found "supercorals" that are better equipped to survive warmer and more acidic ocean conditions. Climate ready homes can be designed and built in a resilient way, mindful of the changes ahead. Individuals can take measures to reduce their own carbon footprint by changing transportation, energy and diet behaviors. And companies can change as well. Amazon can modify its intense energy usage (and Jeff Bezos could donate more to climate causes). Lyft and Apple are launching green initiatives. Toymaker LEGO already has become 100% powered by renewable energy, and as Al Gore noted, “No matter what President Donald Trump says, no-one can stop the energy revolution now.” Design and architecture can be transformed.

Yet change is hard. Right now, 65 percent of surveyed Americans think our country is headed in the wrong direction. Fortunately, there are abundant policy opportunities, waiting to be adopted and implemented, to help humanity adapt to the future.

Action requires courage. Climate action means young people, like Jayden Foytlin, a teenager in Louisiana, must take a stand, lose friends, sue their own government and prepare for trial. Climate action will cause marketplace turmoil, as oil pipeline company Kinder Morgan noted in a recent climate disclosure, because reduced demand for oil will cause prices to drop and threaten the profitability of the industry. Climate action might demand divestment from fossil fuel companies engaged in disinformation, meaning a short-term loss of profits for investors. And climate action will require bipartisanship, beginning with the Congressional members of the Climate Solutions Caucus.

But climate action requires patience, too. Some activists are upset with the inaction, calling caucus members "climate peacocks," but leadership requires civil dialogue and compromise in the face of organized resistance from extremists on the left and right. To his credit, Florida Republican Congressman Carlos Curbelo is trying, even though a similar effort caused South Carolina Republican Congressman Bob Inglis to lose his seat.

Patience is not boundless, however, and although a grassroots movement has not yet fully mobilized, the environment may soon become a core issue for voters, especially in low-lying, at-risk communities like St. Petersburg, Florida. The electorate may recognize the Republican talking point that the climate has always been changing as an unconvincing and dangerous refusal to see the warning signs, and as a reckless lack of responsibility. Scientists characterize this do-nothing reasoning as a "Type 1 scientific error." In other words, climate deniers are demanding too high level of certainty for a matter where the risks are too high, as a recent opinion letter explained:

"Economic and social changes may be inconvenient, but waiting much longer may take us to a point where corrections are no longer possible and terrible consequences become inevitable."

How much climate action is taken, and by when, remains to be seen. Surely, it will be expensive. The costs of inaction, however, and allowing the worst case scenarios to happen, could be unfathomable.

Climate Monitor thanks the many journalists and publications addressing the challenges of climate change, including more than 150 articles cited in this week's Climate Synopsis.

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Sources cited above include: ABC News, Al Jazerra, Ars Technica, Atlanta Journal Constitution, Auto Rental News, the Baltimore Sun, the Blaze, Bloomberg, Buzzfeed, Ca.gov, CBS News, Charleston Gazette-Mail, Climate Central, Commonweal, CNN, the Conversation.com, Cultivate News, DW, the Daily Breeze, the Express (UK), Fast Company, Fortune Magazine, Fox News, Fusion TV, Futurity, Governors Wind Energy Coalition, Green Car Reports, the Greenville Journal, Grist, the Guardian, Harvard Business Review, High Country News, The Hill, Holyrood, Hong Kong Free Press, the Houston Chronicle, the Independent, Insurance Journal, International Business Times, Inverse, Irish Times, the Japan Times, KUOW, the Local (FR), the Miami Herald, MIT Technology Review, NASA, National Geographic, the National Observer, the New Republic, Newsweek, the New York Times, Nola.com, Oilman, Oregon Public Broadcasting, Pacific Standard Magazine, Quartz, ReefBuilders, Reuters, Reveal News, Salon, San Antonio Express News, San Francisco Examiner, Scoop.nz, Slate, Smithsonian Magazine, The Spokesman-Review, the Tampa Bay Times, Think Progress, Time Magazine, USA Today, Vice, Vox, the Washington Examiner, the Washington Post, The Week, Wired, WMUR, WWNO,