Categories
Opinion Viewpoint

Go Outside, Feel Better, Save the Climate

We’re experiencing disastrous climatic events because we treat the land — metaphorically speaking — like dirt. 

Nature’s ecosystems regulate climate. In turn, the well-being of all nature, ourselves included, is dependent upon the health of the climate. The current level of global climate change is so extreme that climate scientists have issued what they call the final warning.

Work with the sliver of hope. We can combat global climate change by reestablishing our love for and connection to the only home we’ve ever known, Earth. We can start by simply going outside. Being in nature has health benefits for you, and the closer you are to nature, the more inclined you’ll be to protect it.

Please: Try it now. You’ll likely be surprised by the invigorating benefits, both for you and the planet. Improving one’s health by simply being in nature is called ecotherapy, and there is a growing field of practitioners. The science behind ecotherapy is new, but there is evidence that being outdoors has significant health benefits, both mental and physical. 

Just being around plants and trees has been shown to lower blood pressure and pulse rate, reduce levels of stress hormones, increase levels of immune-boosting white blood cells, and improve sleep. Some therapists believe that in order to get the full benefit of ecotherapy, you need to give something back, such as plant a tree, start a garden, and so on. The beauty of this is that giving back to nature — even a little — will help combat global climate change. 

The best way to experience the health benefits of ecotherapy is to find a nice quiet spot in a natural setting where you can be alone with your thoughts. The only hard part will be muting your smartphone, but you can do it. Pay attention to the sights, sounds, and smells of nature. 

Acknowledge what you’re sensing. If it’s sunny, appreciate the warmth the sun is giving you. Appreciate the support of the rock or stump or ground you’re sitting on. You might try repeating to yourself over and over, “I have arrived, I am home,” and pay attention to the tension draining from your body. You won’t reach nirvana, but you might very well sense a connection to the Earth, and that’s a spiritual feeling. 

You don’t have to go for a wilderness outing; simply spending time in a city park or backyard can achieve health benefits. And if you don’t have an opportunity to find solitude in a natural setting, you can also get some benefits of ecotherapy inside. 

Look around your home. You’ve likely brought nature into your household in one form or another — perhaps a houseplant, pet, scenic painting, natural wood furniture, calendar with nature pictures, fire in the form of candles or fireplace, and so on. If you have brought such natural objects into your house, pause and notice them for a moment. 

It may even inspire you to join a local environmental group, buy a bicycle for some of your transportation needs, start using only reusable bags when you shop, donate to a climate defense organization, testify at local public hearings on behalf of carbon reduction policies, or add insulation to your home, as examples of what we can all do once we see how much we care for nature. 

We know what needs to be done to combat climate change, but too many of us lack the motivation to make lifestyle adjustments for the good of humanity and the planet. 

If you are willing and able to take the above simple and healing steps, you will come to a deeper understanding of your connection to everything in the world around you. Then giving something back to nature will suddenly seem important. What could be better than taking steps to combat climate change? If enough of us contribute a little, the effect will be large, and together we can make the world a better place for everyone. 

We need to do it now, while we still can. 

Paul Hellweg is a freelance writer and poet. His writing can be seen at PaulHellweg.com and VietnamWarPoetry.com.

Categories
Opinion The Last Word

Environmentalists Applaud Passage of Inflation Reduction Act

Last week Congress approved the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) of 2022. The bill does a lot of things, but environmentalists applauded its $350 billion package to address climate change and promote clean energy investments. Some said the bill has the potential to lower greenhouse gas emissions across the nation by 40 percent by 2030. Here’s what some of those environmental advocates had to say about it.


“Change is coming. This bill is a historic commitment by the United States to regain a leadership position not only in addressing climate disruption but also in leading the clean energy technology revolution that is being unleashed.

While no single entity can take credit for the roller-coaster ride that led to the Senate [and the House later] passing this significant legislation, much credit must be given to the voters in Georgia. By electing not one, but two climate-focused Senate leaders in a runoff election in early 2021, these two Southern senators were absolutely necessary for creating this moment in history and shepherding the bill through the political tightrope in the Senate.”

— Stephen Smith (writing before the House passed the bill)
Executive Director, Southern Alliance for Clean Energy


“In almost every Climate Reality training, I include a quote from the great American poet Wallace Stevens, who wrote: ‘After the final no there comes a yes / and on that yes the future world depends.’

Today, in Congress, there came a historic yes, with the House voting to follow the Senate and pass the Inflation Reduction Act, the biggest climate bill the U.S. has ever seen. It is no great exaggeration to say that on this ‘yes’ our future world depends.

To help shape the climate measures that are included in this bill, our Climate Reality leaders and chapters held more than 150 meetings with legislators. Our friends and supporters contacted their representatives and policy-makers over 180,000 times. All with one simple message: Go big. Go bold. Act now. Yes, yes, yes.

There is much to celebrate. The IRA will supercharge the just transition to clean energy that is already underway across the country, transforming our economy while creating an estimated 1.5 million jobs and cutting costs for working families. Critically, the bill invests $60 billion in frontline communities hit hardest by fossil fuel pollution and the climate crisis, bringing clean air, good jobs, and better opportunities to those who have been subject to generations of environmental injustice.

The impact of this bill will ripple across continents. By putting the U.S. on the path to cutting global warming pollution 40 percent by 2030, the IRA helps keep the Paris Agreement alive and demonstrates to the world that we are committed to climate action for the long-term.

But for all the progress we will achieve through the IRA, there are provisions that require urgent attention and action. Fossil fuel interests forced painful concessions in negotiations, requiring the government to offer new areas for drilling in Alaska and the Gulf of Mexico, as well as more oil and gas leasing on our public lands. Lawmakers are poised to take additional steps that would fast-track pipelines that communities — and Climate Reality leaders — have fought for years to block.”

— Al Gore
Founder and Chairman, The Climate Reality Project


“The historic passage of the Inflation Reduction Act makes renewable energy — which was already affordable and, in many cases, cheaper than gas — even more cost-effective. Even before today’s momentous vote, an independent study found that the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) would save billions by replacing its aging, dirty coal plants with clean energy as opposed to gas.

Families across the Valley are seeing higher power bills this summer due to TVA’s over-reliance on fossil fuels. It should be a no-brainer for TVA to take advantage of this groundbreaking legislation by scrapping plans to recklessly spend billions on new gas plants and invest in clean energy sources instead.”

— Amanda Garcia
Tennessee Office Director, Southern Environmental Law Center


“The Inflation Reduction Act is by far the most consequential legislation for climate action that has ever passed. I think it will take some time to be able to process the scale and positive effects this will have on our collective future.

But the fight is not over, we’ll need to keep up momentum across the country and here in the Southeast. Paired with more federal, state, and local actions, we will be more equipped to face the most existential threat of our time: climate change.”

— Maggie Shober
Research Director, Southern Alliance for Clean Energy

Categories
At Large Opinion

Welcome to Hell

Sometimes I stare in space

Tears all over my face

I can’t explain it, don’t understand it

I ain’t never felt like this before

Now that funny feeling has me amazed

Don’t know what to do, my head’s in a haze …

Just like a heat wave

Burning right here in my heart

— Holland-Dozier-Holland

It’s 8:30 on Saturday morning at Tobey Dog Park. Many of the regulars and their mutts are here. The humans, maybe nine of them, are gathered in the shade of the one appreciable tree. The dogs, maybe 14 of them, make brief forays out into the burnt-grass hellscape to chase a ball or wrestle or dry-hump each other or poop, but soon return to the shade. They are not stupid creatures. Neither are the humans, who don’t even try to wrestle or dry-hump each other or poop. They just stay in the shade and commiserate.

It’s the third or fourth week without rain in Memphis. No one here in the shade can remember the last time water fell from the sky. We all agree it’s been at least 10 days since the daily high temperature was less than 98 degrees, with many days reaching triple digits. On Friday, the day before my trek to the dog park, Memphis registered the highest “feels like” temperature in the United States — a balmy 114 degrees.

What the hell, y’all?

At our house, we have closed every curtain, shutter, and window blind. All the ceiling fans are turning at warp speed. We keep the lights off during the day. We open and shut exterior doors quickly so the satanic heat can’t get in. We’re now living in a dark bat cave just so our air-conditioning can keep up. Sort of. When it’s 114 outside, we consider an interior high of 76 degrees a victory.

If it’s any comfort (and no, it’s not) we’re not alone. Heat waves have been happening all over the Northern Hemisphere this summer — in Spain, France, India, the Middle East, parts of Africa, and elsewhere, leading to the usual attendant miseries of drought and crop failure. And also to forest fires like those that have ravaged the Western U.S. this year — where they’re running out of water because it doesn’t snow enough anymore.

At least we’ve got water in Memphis. For now. Unless Governor Lee decides to privatize the Memphis Sand Aquifer. Which I wouldn’t rule out.

The world’s legitimate scientists have long moved past debating whether climate change exists or even whether our addiction to greenhouse gases is the cause. In a recent New York Times story, some scientists said that the current trend to longer and more frequent heat waves renders the question obsolete. The climate has changed, and we’re going to have to deal with the consequences. Why argue about the obvious?

In the same Times article, climate scientist Andrew Dessler said, “The warming of recent decades has already made it hard for scientists to know what to call a heat wave and what to treat as simply a ‘new normal’ for hot weather. … As time goes on, more and more of the planet will be experiencing those temperatures, until eventually, with enough global warming, every land area in the mid-latitude Northern Hemisphere would be above 100 degrees.”

If this is the new normal, then summer is the new hell. And it’s not like we don’t have a few other things to worry about these days, including a major political party that can’t kick its addiction to a delusional con man, a country that can’t keep its young men from randomly gunning down dozens of strangers, and a Supreme Court apparently made up of faith healers, gun nuts, and (probably) climate-change deniers.

Where to turn? It all feels new and not at all normal. I would say we’re all going to hell in a handbasket, but it appears we may have already arrived. Which begs the question: Can you get out of hell in a handbasket?

Categories
News Blog News Feature

Report: Weather, Climate Disasters Cost Tennessee Billions of Dollars, Numerous Lives

Dozens of billion-dollar weather and climate disasters have cost Tennessee untold amounts of money, resources, and, more importantly, lives.

That’s according to a new report from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Adminstration (NOAA), the federal agency responsible for monitoring the climate and environment. That report says the U.S. has suffered 310 weather and climate disasters since 1980 and that each cost more than $1 billion in damages and losses. 

Credit: NOAA

The country saw 21 such events in 2021, the reports says. The year saw one drought, two flooding events, 11 severe storms, four tropical cyclone events, one wildfire, and one winter storm that each racked up over $1 billion in response costs. These events also resulted in 688 deaths, according to NOAA. 

The report does not break out the specific costs and lives lost in Tennessee, but it does capture any such event that has affected the state. 

For example, the Category 4 Hurricane Ida slammed the Louisiana coast in August, leveling homes and knocking out power for thousands. Response to the hurricane and losses incurred cost about $75 billion, NOAA said, and 93 died. 

A major storm had already caused flooding in Tennessee, hitting hard in the small town of Waverly. Those there were still calculating the devastation in lives lost and clean-up efforts when Ida dumped another 2.5 inches of rain on the area. 

Hurricane Ida had a more direct economic effect in Tennessee, too, as the storm’s rain bands soaked the festival grounds for Bonnaroo 2021. The show was supposed to mark the festival’s return from 2020’s Covid cancellation. But event organizers said the rain meant the show could not go on, issuing refunds to ticket holders of what is a multi-million-dollar concert event in the state. 

“While this weekend’s weather looks outstanding, currently Centeroo is waterlogged in many areas, the ground is incredibly saturated on our tollbooth paths, and the campgrounds are flooded to the point that we are unable to drive in or park vehicles safely,” Bonnaroo tweeted at the time. “We have done everything in our power to try to keep the show moving forward, but Mother Nature has dealt us a tremendous amount of rain over the past 24 hours, and we have run out of options to try to make the event happen safely and in a way that lives up to the Bonnaroo experience.”

Memphis is mentioned directly once in NOAA’s report and it comes with a direct price tag. In 2011, parts of the Ohio Valley saw nearly 300 times the amount of its usual rainfall. Much of that water flowed into the Mississippi River. Combine that water with the year’s typical snowpack melt, and the event flooded the river. 

The overall cost of the flood was $3.8 billion, according to NOAA. For Memphis, the flood caused $403 million (adjusted for inflation) in damages. It also caused more than $1 billion worth of agricultural damages in Mississippi. 

Talks on climate and the economy were held in July during a House Financial Services Subcommittee on Consumer Protection and and Financial Institutions. Rachel Cleetus, policy director for the Union of Concerned Citizens, said Congress needs an advisory council to require climate risk exposure in the marketplace and protect those most in harm’s way (usually low-income households) from the harms of climate change. 

”If we fail to take action now, the potential for severe shocks to our financial system will grow and, as with previous crises, the impacts will be especially harsh for those who can least afford it, low- and fixed-income households and communities of color,” Cleetus said.        

Categories
Letter From The Editor Opinion

Inside the Hot Box

When I was in the fourth grade, my science teacher began a lesson on the biosphere with an example that made a lasting impression on me. She set a glass terrarium on the table at the front of the class. The glass rectangle held tufts of spongy green moss, gravel and sand and soil, and a water bowl disguised as a rock. If I had been a small lizard in the market for a new home, I could have done worse.

“This is the Earth,” she said. “Anything in here, we can use it, but then it’s gone. And anything we add, it’s going to be in here with us for a while.”

I’m paraphrasing, but I think I’m pretty close to the mark; that one lesson stuck with me more than anything else I learned in school. It’s a simple trick for reframing the way you look at the world — every action, whether adding or subtracting, makes some change to our environment. If we’re all just little fence lizards and five-lined skinks in a science teacher’s terrarium, I want to be one of the good guys.

By the time I was in fifth grade, I lived in Phoenix, Arizona, where my mother still lives today. She texted me last week, ecstatic that it was raining. She used three exclamation points, and excess punctuation aside, she had reason to feel relieved. At the time, there were 13 major fires in the area.

Right now the Pacific Northwest is experiencing a “once-in-a-millennium,” “record-crushing” heat wave, to quote a few headlines. Washington State DOT’s Twitter has posted videos of pavement buckling in the heat. The West is a tinderbox, and Independence Day — with all its sparky celebrations — is right around the corner. Our little terrarium is awfully hot these days, on track to get hotter by the year, and its corners are experiencing weather patterns for which they’re woefully unprepared.

To a Memphian, I’m sure it seems silly to watch others panic when faced with the kinds of temperatures we see every summer, but I would remind anyone laughing of two things: First, remember last February, when a freak cold front shut us down for a week? “We don’t have the infrastructure,” you probably explained to your Northern friends and family. “Temperatures don’t fall so far or so fast here, and we certainly don’t get this much ice in a week.” Washingtonians are as equipped to handle this heat wave as we were ready for ice and cold. Climate change is wrecking typical weather patterns, and the different regional infrastructure we have set up to prepare us for the usual weather extremes won’t be enough.

Thing number two is that it can always get hotter. You think you can handle the heat, my fellow Memphians? Oh, you sweet summer child, wait until you’ve seen 110-degree temperatures as the weekly average. Trust me, a former resident of America’s furnace, also known as Phoenix, Arizona, when I say we aren’t ready for that. Flying into Phoenix, an airplane passenger with a window seat can’t help but notice the number of swimming pools and covered carports laid out below. The houses are constructed differently, too, all pale white stucco, crouched close to the ground, and nary a grass lawn in sight. I vividly remember the many public service announcements about avoiding water waste or heat stroke. I don’t think I ever saw a house with an attic or a single window unit; whereas, I now live in the converted attic of a Midtown home and am currently listening to the gentle hum of a small window air-conditioning unit.

Now imagine Phoenix temperatures with Memphis humidity. It gives a whole new meaning to the phrase, “Southern heat.”

Meanwhile, the U.S. Senate’s bipartisan infrastructure bill, introduced last Thursday, cut costs by doing away with many of President Biden’s more ambitious environmental goals. The newest version of the bill still allocates funding for public transit, electric buses, and charging stations for electric vehicles, but much has been left out. Gone are the funds earmarked to help create a national standard of clean energy. Of course, this bipartisan version of the infrastructure bill might not pass, but, whether in the infrastructure bill or elsewhere, we must make a priority of combatting and preparing for climate change.

It’s our terrarium, after all. It’s up to us to make sure it’s the kind of place we want to call home.

Categories
News News Blog

Report: Rejoining Climate Agreement Could Save Lives, Billions of Dollars in Tennessee

Justin Fox Burks

A shipment of coal arrives to feed the Allen Fossil Plant on President’s Island.

Tennessee could save thousands of lives and billions of dollars if the U.S. would rejoin the Paris Agreement on climate change.

President Donald Trump removed the U.S. from the agreement in 2017. He argued the agreement would undermine the U.S. economy and the country would only rejoin under negotiated terms that were fair “to the United States, its businesses, its workers, its people, its taxpayers.” President-elect Joe Biden promised in November to rejoin the agreement.

A new report from a Duke University researcher shows the benefits of rejoining the agreement for Tennessee. Dr. Drew Shindell, Nicholas Distinguished Professor of Earth Sciences at Duke, presented Tennessee and national findings to a federal House committee in August.

”The United States can save lives, reduce illnesses, and save trillions of dollars by acting now on its own — at a local, state, regional, and national level — to eliminate the primary impacts of fossil-fuel pollution,” reads the report. “Over the next decade and beyond, eliminating fossil fuel combustion in this state and others and in coordination with the rest of the world will benefit Americans enormously while bringing the United States closer to the climate targets in the Paris Agreement.”

Findings from the report were released earlier this month by Rep. Jim Cooper (D-Nashville) and many Nashville-based environmental groups.

“I am confident President-elect Biden will keep his promise and the U.S. will rejoin the Paris Climate Agreement in 2021,” Cooper said in a statement. “It was reckless and irresponsible to leave the Agreement and we will be spending decades trying to reverse the impact on our climate.”

Dr. Drew Shindell


Shindell’s research shows nine adverse impacts of climate change on public health:

• It worsens air pollution.

• It causes longer and more intense allergy seasons.

• It promotes the spread of dangerous diseases such as dengue fever and West Nile virus.

• It increases the risks of contracting food and waterborne diarrheal disease.

• It threatens food security by impairing crop quality and output.

• It triggers stress-related disorders and increases the incidence of mental health problems.

• It causes precipitation extremes, like lethal floods and dangerous droughts.

• It produces extreme heat events that cause deaths from heat stroke and cardiovascular and respiratory disease.

• It increases the frequency and intensity of wildfires, resulting in fatalities and increased hospitalizations from smoke exposure.

Joining the agreement would yield health benefits by reducing air pollutants and limiting the number of extreme heat days, according to the report.

For Tennessee, a cooler climate could mean:

• avoiding 79,000 premature over the next 50 years

• avoiding about 69,000 emergency room visits and hospitalizations for cardiovascular and respiratory disease

• avoiding 23,000 childhood bronchitis cases

• avoiding more than 3.9 million lost workdays

• avoiding nearly 48 percent of the premature deaths in 10 years
[pullquote-2-center] Shindell said the economic value of these health benefits would be $630 billion.
Last year, Tennessee Governor Bill Lee told reporters he was unsure whether or not climate change was real, according to The Tennessean.

“I wish I were scientifically smart enough to know the reasons for climate change, and I don’t,” Lee said. “But I certainly believe we have a responsibility to protect the environment and to limit those influences that may impact the climate change in our country, and let the scientists and the experts determine what’s responsible for it.”

Categories
Opinion The Last Word

Edgar Cayce and the Current Dystopia

Well, we human beings had a good run. We’ve gone from green slime crawling out of the sea to the discovery of fire, the invention of the wheel, the use of tools, the dawn of civilization, the Dark Ages, the Renaissance, the creation of industry, mass production, the invention of the printing press, the automobile, the telephone, modern cities and suburbs, space exploration, and the telecommunication revolution.

Then we hit a bump.

Suddenly, we’ve regressed into green slime slouching back into the sea. Between the melting of the polar ice caps and the fires ravaging the Amazon rain forest, we’ve reached a climate apocalypse that may well be irreversible. This didn’t have to happen. It just proves how mindless leadership can alter the world’s climate in the shortest time. Civilization will mock the naiveté of such dire forecasts as Anthony Burgess’ A Clockwork Orange. Say goodbye to the Earth as we know it, and say hello to water wars, mass migrations, riots, and the shredding of the fabric of society.

Wikipedia

Edgar Cayce

In the middle of the last century, a clairvoyant named Edgar Cayce became famous for his prophesies and remedies. An institution in Virginia Beach houses more than 14,000 of his readings — which have been determined to be 85 percent accurate. His clients included Woodrow Wilson, Thomas Edison, Irving Berlin, and George Gershwin. Cayce — “The Sleeping Prophet” — would lie down and enter a state of altered consciousness, which allowed him visions of the future. They were alarming when I first read them, many years ago. They’re terrifying now. In a reading from 1934, Cayce said, “The earth will be broken up in many places. The early portion will see a change … in the West Coast of America. Open waters appear in the northern portion of Greenland. The greater portion of Japan must go into the sea. There will be upheavals in the Antarctic … beginning in 2000-2001.”

Any of this sound familiar? Cayce continues, “There are predictions of temperature changes in the deep waters which impact weather patterns, earthquakes, and volcanic eruptions.” Also, “New York itself, in the main, will disappear. Southern portions of Carolina, Georgia — these will disappear. Los Angeles, San Francisco … will be among those destroyed.”

On a cheerier note, Cayce claimed that Atlantis would reappear and unearth hidden knowledge. He also said that his dystopian vision need not take place with the proper awareness coupled with action. Considering the state of the planet today, that’s pretty incredible stuff, but guess who’s rushing us headlong into extinction? 

Our mock president’s performance at last week’s G7 summit in France did nothing to advance the cause of addressing climate change. Laughingly declaring himself to be “an environmentalist,” Trump said, “I want the cleanest water on earth. I want the cleanest air on earth. … I think I know more about the environment than most people.”

This, coming from a man who boasted about opening up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for oil drilling, withdrew from the Paris Climate Accord, claimed that windmills cause cancer, and wondered aloud if it were possible to “nuke” hurricanes.

Then, Trump skipped a climate discussion with other world leaders, leaving an empty chair in his stead. Other G7 participants walked on eggshells around Trump, hoping that America’s human wrecking ball wouldn’t destroy another meeting of sane heads of state. While French President Emmanuel Macron was expressing outrage over Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro’s (or, as he’s been dubbed by some, the “Trump of South America”) handling of the Amazon fires, Trump himself was advocating for Russia’s re-admittance to the G7 and hyping one of his Florida resorts for the next summit, citing its many wonderful accoutrements.

Like Trump, the Brazilian president is a climate change denier. He relaxed environmental regulations and permitted farmers and other commercial interests to burn off parts of the Amazon rain forest, then claimed the current conflagration was caused by “non-governmental organizations” for the purpose of “drawing international criticism to [his] government.” 

The rain forest produces 20 percent of the world’s oxygen. The World Wildlife Fund stated that if the Amazon rain forest, sometimes known as “the world’s lungs,” reaches the point of no return, the area could become a “dry savanna,” emitting carbon instead of oxygen. Without Trump’s input, the G7 pledged $20 million to help contain the fires that are destroying two and a half football fields worth of rain forest every minute of every day and are spilling over into neighboring countries.

Meanwhile, NASA and the European Space Agency have determined that the polar ice caps have melted faster in the last 20 years than in the previous 10,000. Antarctica and Greenland have lost three times as much ice, compared to 20 years ago. A rise in sea level of more than six feet would be enough to inundate most major coastal cities. If the Greenland ice sheet melted, sea levels would rise by more than 20 feet. So long, New Orleans. Nice to know you, Miami. It’s good that Denmark refused to sell Greenland to Trump. He’d only melt it and turn it into the world’s largest water park.

Randy Haspel writes the “Recycled Hippies” blog.

Categories
News News Blog

Report: Much Hotter Days Ahead for Memphis If No Action on Climate Change

US National Weather Service Memphis Tennessee

The heat index for Memphis on July 8 was 107 degrees. Shelby Countians will need to get used to that if nothing is done about climate change, according to a new report.

Memphis summers could boil above a heat index of 127 degrees for 20 days of the year by the end of this century if nothing is done about climate change, according to a new report by the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS).
Union of Concerned Scientists/Facebook

The Washington-D.C.-area group says it ”puts rigorous, independent science to work to solve our planet’s most pressing problems.” On Tuesday, the group issued dire warnings about the future if the country does not capture heat-trapping emissions, which cause climate change, in a report called “Killer Heat in the United States: Climate Choices and the Future of Dangerously Hot Days”
[pullquote-1] “The rise in days with extreme heat will change life as we know it nationwide, but with significant regional differences,” said Rachel Licker, senior climate scientist at UCS and report co-author. “For example, in some regions currently unaccustomed to extreme heat— those such as the upper Midwest, Northeast and Northwest — the ability of people and infrastructure to cope with it is woefully inadequate. At the same time, people in states 

already experiencing extreme heat — including in the Southeast, Southern Great Plains, and Southwest—have not seen heat like this.

“By late century, they may have to significantly alter ways of life to deal with the equivalent of up to five months a year with a heat index above — often way above — 105 degrees. We don’t know what people would be able and willing to endure, but such heat could certainly drive large-scale relocation of residents toward cooler regions.”

The report lays out several scenarios for the future — with action on climate change, slow action, and rapid action. Those scenarios are laid out into possibilities for the middle of this century and the end of the century.

Visit the UCS interactive map with all of the data here.
Union of Concerned Scientists

A screenshot of the UCS interactive map, which indicates that if nothing is done about climate change, Shelby County could have 83 days per year with a heat index over 105 degrees.

Shelby County hasn’t had days with a heat index above 127 degrees, according to the study. If nothing is done, the county could see four such days a year by mid-century. By the end of the 21st century, Shelby County is looking at 20 days per year with heat indices of more than 127 degrees.

With bold action on climate change, the USC report says Shelby County would have three days of 127-degree heat each year by midcentury. With that action, the county could cut those 20 days of “off the chart” heat to only four by the end of the century.

Here are the climate-change-related, heat index scenarios for Shelby County, according to the UCS:

Now: 
Above 90 degrees: 77 days
Above 100 degrees: 19 days
Above 105 degrees: 6 days
Above 127 degrees: 0 days

Mid-century, no change:

Above 90 degrees: 119 days
Above 100 degrees: 64 days
Above 105 degrees: 40 days
Above 127 degrees: 3 days

Report: Much Hotter Days Ahead for Memphis If No Action on Climate Change

Late-century, no change:

Above 90 degrees: 121 days
Above 100 degrees: 72 days
Above 105 degrees: 47 days
Above 127 degrees: 4 days

Mid-century, slow change:

Above 90 degrees: 113 days
Above 100 degrees: 64 days
Above 105 degrees: 40 days
Above 127 degrees: 3 days

Late-century, slow change:

Above 90 degrees: 121 days
Above 100 degrees: 72 days
Above 105 degrees: 47 days
Above 127 degrees: 4 days

Into the future with rapid change:

Above 90 degrees: 115 days
Above 100 degrees: 65 days
Above 105 degrees: 40 days
Above 127 degrees: 3 days

Here are some future scenarios the group outlined for Tennessee:

• Historically, there have been 51 days per year on average with a heat index above 90 degrees Fahrenheit, the worker safety threshold. This would increase to 100 days per year on average by midcentury and 128 by the century’s end.

• Historically, there have been eight days per year on average with a heat index above 100 degrees Fahrenheit. This would increase to 53 days per year on average by midcentury and 84 by the century’s end.

Of the cities with a population of 50,000 or more in the state, Clarksville, Jackson and Memphis would experience the highest frequency of these days. Limiting warming to 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels would cap the frequency of such days at an average of 40 per year.
[pullquote-2] • By the end of the century, an estimated 6.1 million people would be exposed to a heat index above 100 degrees Fahrenheit for the equivalent of two months or more per year. By limiting warming to 2 degrees Celsius, more than 4.9 million of those residents would avoid such days of extreme conditions.

• Historically, there has been an average of two days per year with a heat index above 105 degrees Fahrenheit. This would increase to 32 days per year on average by midcentury and 63 by the century’s end. Limiting warming to 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels would cap the frequency of such days at an average of 21 per year.

• By the end of the century, an estimated 6.3 million people would be exposed to a heat index above 105 degrees Fahrenheit for the equivalent of a month or more per year. By limiting warming to 2 degrees Celsius, nearly 4.6 million of those residents would avoid such days of extreme conditions.

Report: Much Hotter Days Ahead for Memphis If No Action on Climate Change (2)

• Historically, the state as a whole has experienced zero “off-the-charts” heat days in an average year. This would increase to two days per year on average by midcentury and 11 by the end of the century. Limiting warming to 2 degrees Celsius could cap the frequency of such days at an average of one per year.

• By the end of the century, an estimated 5 million people would endure “off-the-charts” heat days for the equivalent of a week or more per year.

“Our analysis shows a hotter future that’s hard to imagine today,” said Kristina Dahl, senior climate scientist at UCS and co-author of the report. “Nearly everywhere, people will experience more days of dangerous heat even in the next few decades.

“By the end of the century, with no action to reduce global emissions, parts of Florida and Texas would experience the equivalent of at least five months per year on average when the ‘feels like’ temperature exceeds 100 degrees Fahrenheit, with most of these days even surpassing 105 degrees.”

To review the data for yourself, visit the UCS report website.

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Film Features Film/TV

An Inconvenient Sequel

About a third of the way into An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power, something remarkable happens: Al Gore gets mad. The moment comes during a training session for climate activists, where Gore is passing on the knowledge in his persuasive and ever-evolving Keynote presentation describing the problem of global warming and proposing solutions. For a moment, the famously low-key vice president gets caught up while describing the efforts of the fossil fuel industry to sew doubt about the reality of what he calls the climate crisis. His voice coarsens into a shout, his eyes narrow, and he pumps his fist into the air. Then, he catches himself, stops, and takes a deep breath. The crowd of 300 or so progressives burst into applause and shouts. But Gore doesn’t take the bait and start ranting. Instead, he apologizes, quiets the crowd, and gets back down to business.

It’s a small moment that reveals much about Gore’s character. He kept his cool as the presidency was stolen from him, but he finally loses it when he allows himself to think about the sheer magnitude of the petty, greedy, self-serving, willfully ignorant jackholes who would risk the complete collapse of human civilization just to keep their companies’ stock prices up. If I were Al Gore, I would be frothing with rage all the time. And maybe, down deep, he is. But he’s too disciplined and too focused to let it slip out, and that’s why he’s the one with the Nobel Peace Prize.

When it premiered at Sundance in 2006, An Inconvenient Truth was the right movie at the right time. Climate change denier George W. Bush had won re-election, but his inept handling of Hurricane Katrina in late 2005 had caused the blinders to fall away for a large part of the electorate. The core of the film was just the same slideshow Gore had been polishing since he walked away from a two-decade-long political career in the wake of the 2000 election debacle. But the information was so well presented and so alarming, and Gore’s presence so comfortingly professorial, that the movie became the 10th highest grossing documentary of all time and earned two Academy Awards.

Al Gore (above) keeps his cool — even while he warns of a global meltdown.

For a time, An Inconvenient Truth seemed to turn the tide against climate denial. Much progress has been made over the ensuing decade. Gore spends a considerable amount of time in An Inconvenient Sequel talking about the advances in wind and solar power generation. The climax of the film follows Gore as he is part of the team of negotiators trying to close the deal in the 2016 Paris Climate Accords, where he helps negotiate a solar technology transfer to India.

But for a 2017 viewer, what was supposed to be the triumphal moment of the film — the signing of the Paris Climate Agreement by 196 countries — comes across as a harbinger of doom. We know the delicate progress was undercut by the election of Donald Trump, a dedicated climate change denier who promises to withdraw the United States from the agreement. In the words of The Big Lebowski, the plane has crashed into the mountain.

The consequences of continuing to burn fossil fuels are not left to the viewer’s imagination. The film’s most incredible footage — some of the most incredible footage in any film ever — comes from a helicopter pilot flying over Greenland during the hottest day ever recorded on the Arctic island. We see a glacier not so much collapsing as exploding. Thousand-foot spires of ancient ice collapse into clouds of steam. It’s like the buildings exploding in a city-destroying climax of an Avengers movie, only it’s real. Later, Gore is taken on a tour of Miami Beach by the city’s mayor. High tides now routinely flood the city. A city engineer tells Gore of a plan to raise an eroding roadbed by a foot. Gore tells him the sea is expected to rise by at least seven feet. It’s moments like that when you think maybe it would be a good idea if Gore got mad in public more often.

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Film/TV Film/TV/Etc. Blog

Merchants Of Doubt

Issue documentaries, like Michael Moore’s Bowling For Columbine and Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth, have been at the vanguard of the documentary film revival of the twenty first century. Merchants of Doubt is a kind of a meta-issue documentary. It’s not so much about the issue of global climate change as it is about the tactics used in the political war to preserve the status quo whose interests are threatened by the fight against climate change.

NASA climate scientist James Hansen in Merchants Of Doubt.

The two most effective weapons in director Robert Kenner’s arsenal are magician Jamy Ian Swiss and former NASA climate scientist James Hansen. Swiss lays bare the psychological tricks the public relations firms hired by fossil fuel companies such as Exxon Mobile use to induce political gridlock. His example of the planted shills who pretend to win games of three card monte against street hustlers leads directly into a discussion of the way extragovernmental think tanks pretend to be impartial while pushing their funders’ agenda.

Hansen was a NASA scientist whose study of Venus’s 600 degree surface temperature led to a 1988 Congressional testimony where he first delivered the news about the threat of global warming to the American people. This bona fide American hero delivers the most poignant line in the movie: “We just assumed people would do what it took to avoid such adverse results.”

His phrasing—scientific, precise, and bloodless—perfectly illustrates Merchants Of Doubt’s central thesis. As science historian Naomi Oreskes, co-author of the book the film is based on, says, “If this is not a scientific debate, what kind of debate is it?” The answer, of course, is a political debate. And political debates are won by rhetoric and tribalism. The most illuminating passages in Merchants Of Doubt are those which illuminate the role of tribal identity in not only the global warming debate but also the rise of the Tea Party. As Skeptic magazine editor and lifelong libertarian Michael Shermer discovered when, after long doubting that global warming was real, his opinion was changed by a close examination of the overwhelming scientific evidence. When documentarians follow him to a libertarian convention where he debates a climate change skeptic, audience members attack him as with phrases like “That’s what YOUR TEAM wants us to think!”

Merchants Of Doubt’s production design is one of the best I’ve seen in a documentary in recent memory. The writing and research are meticulous, and director Kenner is not afraid to interview the people he’s calling liars and shills. Most memorable is Climate Depot editor Marc Morono, who actually says, with the same perfect conviction he brings to everything, that death threats are no big deal, and he loves to get them.

The problem with this kind of issue documentary is that it seems like preaching to the choir. No one who views their identity as a conservative in good standing is going to voluntarily watch this film, and if they’re exposed to it, they’ll just call it more lies. Indeed, the documentarians’ methodology of following the money and questioning the neutrality of so-called impartial observers naturally leads to the question, “Who’s paying for this?” Just because I agree with it—and I do, wholeheartedly—doesn’t mean I shouldn’t ask hard questions of it. Merchants Of Doubt’s thesis is that slick communicators willing to use any tactics available, regardless of morality, are the ones who can win political debates. The slickness and clarity of the production means the filmmakers have taken that lesson to heart.