The three-degree world: cities that will be drowned by global warming | Environment | The Guardian

https://www.theguardian.com/cities/ng-interactive/2017/nov/03/three-degree-world-cities-drowned-global-warming

The UN is warning that we are now on course for 3C of global warming. This will ultimately redraw the map of the world

Josh Holder, Niko Kommenda and Jonathan Watts

Fri 3 Nov 2017 02.45 EDT

When UN climate negotiators meet for summit talks this month, there will be a new figure on the table: 3C.

Until now, global efforts such as the Paris climate agreement have tried to limit global warming to 2C above pre-industrial levels. However, with latest projections pointing to an increase of 3.2C by 2100, these goals seem to be slipping out of reach.

Global temperature change compared to pre-industrial levels

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“[We] still find ourselves in a situation where we are not doing nearly enough to save hundreds of millions of people from a miserable future,” said Erik Solheim, the UN environment chief, ahead of the upcoming Bonn conference.

One of the biggest resulting threats to cities around the world is sea-level rise, caused by the expansion of water at higher temperatures and melting ice sheets on the north and south poles.

Scientists at the non-profit organisation Climate Central estimate that 275 million people worldwide live in areas that will eventually be flooded at 3C of global warming.

Asian cities will be worst affected

The regional impact of these changes is highly uneven, with four out of five people affected living in Asia.

…(read more).

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Free Speech on Campus

University of California Television (UCTV)
Published on Aug 16, 2018

(Visit: http://www.uctv.tv/) Hardly a week goes by without another controversy over free speech on college campuses. On one side, there are increased demands to censor hateful, disrespectful, and bullying expression and to ensure an inclusive and nondiscriminatory learning environment. On the other side are traditional free speech advocates who charge that recent demands for censorship coddle students and threaten free inquiry. UC Irvine Chancellor Howard Gillman is an expert in the American Constitution and the Supreme Court. Here he discusses why campuses must provide supportive learning environments for an increasingly diverse student body but can never restrict the expression of ideas. Recorded on 05/30/2018. Series: “Ethics, Religion and Public Life: Walter H. Capps Center Series” [9/2018] [Show ID: 33944]

Irreversible climate change due to carbon dioxide emissions | PNAS

Susan Solomon, Gian-Kasper Plattner, Reto Knutti, and Pierre Friedlingstein
PNAS February 10, 2009. 106 (6) 1704-1709; published ahead of print January 28, 2009. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0812721106

1. Contributed by Susan Solomon, December 16, 2008 (received for review November 12, 2008)

Abstract

The severity of damaging human-induced climate change depends not only on the magnitude of the change but also on the potential for irreversibility. This paper shows that the climate change that takes place due to increases in carbon dioxide concentration is largely irreversible for 1,000 years after emissions stop. Following cessation of emissions, removal of atmospheric carbon dioxide decreases radiative forcing, but is largely compensated by slower loss of heat to the ocean, so that atmospheric temperatures do not drop significantly for at least 1,000 years. Among illustrative irreversible impacts that should be expected if atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations increase from current levels near 385 parts per million by volume (ppmv) to a peak of 450–600 ppmv over the coming century are irreversible dry-season rainfall reductions in several regions comparable to those of the “dust bowl” era and inexorable sea level rise. Thermal expansion of the warming ocean provides a conservative lower limit to irreversible global average sea level rise of at least 0.4–1.0 m if 21st century CO2 concentrations exceed 600 ppmv and 0.6–1.9 m for peak CO2 concentrations exceeding ≈1,000 ppmv. Additional contributions from glaciers and ice sheet contributions to future sea level rise are uncertain but may equal or exceed several meters over the next millennium or longer.

See:

• Climate change is already irreversible

Climate change is already irreversible

Simon Clark

Published on Jun 15, 2018

Start your journey towards coding your own EMIC with Brilliant! https://brilliant.org/simonclark

Puerto Rican Officials Say Electricity Fully Restored After 11 Months

Aug 16, 2018

The Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority—known as PREPA—said Wednesday it has finished restoring electricity across the island, 11 months after Hurricane Maria destroyed most of Puerto Rico’s electrical grid. Critics warn the grid remains highly vulnerable to future storms as the peak of the hurricane season approaches.

GOP to Withhold Documents on Kavanaugh from Public and Most Lawmakers

Aug 16, 2018

Two Senate Democrats up for re-election in states Trump won in 2016 met with federal Judge Brett Kavanaugh Wednesday, further dimming the prospects of opponents of Trump’s far-right Supreme Court nominee. The meetings by Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota and Joe Donnelly of Indiana come ahead of Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearings, scheduled for September 4. This comes as some Democrats blasted the process for Kavanaugh’s review. Massachusetts Senator Ed Markey tweeted Wednesday, “Chairman Grassley has unilaterally ruled one-third of the Kavanaugh records to be ‘Committee Confidential’ meaning anyone not on Judiciary Committee cannot see them. That’s 79 Senators & the entire American public. It’s an unprecedented level of secrecy. #WhatAreTheyHiding?”

Hundreds of Media Outlets Condemn Trump’s Attacks on the Free Press

Aug 16, 2018

More than 300 newspapers and media outlets have launched a campaign to counter President Donald Trump’s attacks on the free press. The effort was led by The Boston Globe, which wrote in an editorial, “For more than two centuries, this foundational American principle has protected journalists at home and served as a model for free nations abroad. Today it is under serious threat. And it sends an alarming signal to despots from Ankara to Moscow, Beijing to Baghdad, that journalists can be treated as a domestic enemy.”