[GWSG] 2015 #1; oceans heating; floodplain plans; fed. Children's Trust; integrating solar; new politics, vs. Dark Money

[Tilley, Al]

1.  2015 was the hottest year of modern record, reaching 1C over the 1880-1920 mean.  http://csas.ei.columbia.edu/2016/01/19/global-temperature-in-2015/  The increment of .3C was unusually large.  In 2014 Kevin Trenberth suggested that with a strong El Niño we might see such an increment, and that it may be permanent, because the ocean will have given up that heat to the atmosphere.  http://climatecrocks.com/2016/01/21/scientists-stunning-prediction-playing-out/



2.  A new study by NOAA and the Lawrence Livermore National Lab documents that the oceans have absorbed 30% of the CO2 and 90% of the heat generated by fossil fuels, heating at all levels.  Acidity has increased 30%.  The ecological effects are still unclear in detail, though food chains are at risk of collapse.  http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/jan/18/world-oceans-warming-faster-rate-new-study-fossil-fuels  The rate of heating is faster than expected and accelerating.    http://www.csmonitor.com/Science/2016/0118/The-oceans-are-heating-up-more-rapidly-than-we-thought.-Why-that-matters



3.  With executive order 13690 President Obama mandated new and more stringent requirements for all federally funded projects in a floodplain.  Republican legislators attached riders to the budget bill to attack the new standards, but the final bill (mysteriously) created exceptions to their riders which effectively negated them.  Federal guidelines to implement the new policy are expected to appear within a year.  http://insideclimatenews.org/news/11012016/congress-climate-change-omnibus-budget-bill-flood-standard-obama



4.  As I reported previously, 21 young people have filed a federal suit to force the federal government to take action to limit greenhouse gas emissions in order to fulfill its fiduciary obligations as trustee of the environment.  (Several similar suits are also in process at the state level.)  A federal judge has ruled that fossil fuel corporations may join the government as defendants in the case, a move welcomed by the plaintiffs.  Two Catholic networks have joined the children.  http://registerguard.com/rg/news/local/33968375-75/story.csp



5.  5.  The Department of Energy’s Sunshot program is funding six projects geared to integrate rooftop solar into power grids, using energy storage as well as an array of grid management tools.  The target is to achieve a levelized cost of $.14/kwh for fully integrated distributed solar energy, which means cutting current costs roughly in half.  The program prepares the way for utilities to manage significant levels of distributed solar energy, and is part of a $220 million program to modernize grids in the next three years.  http://reneweconomy.com.au/2016/sunshot-program-seeks-to-lower-solar-plus-storage-costs-to-14-cents-per-kilowatt-hour-75780



6.  The Anthropocene we are busy producing requires a new politics to match.  Jebediah Purdy describes its outlines in an interview with environment 360.  http://e360.yale.edu/feature/in_search_of_a_new_politics_for_a_new_environmental_era_jedediah_purdy/2947?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+YaleEnvironment360+%28Yale+Environment+360%29



7.  Purdy’s vision is in direct contrast with the market anarchy so energetically pursued by the very wealthy in Jane Mayer’s Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right (just out from Random House).  This powerful book brings efforts by the Koch brothers and others into sharp focus as they attempt, with far too much success, to destroy the role of the US government in moderating the damage done by corporations.  The counsels of the billionaires have brought us to the brink of suicide, and this book recalls us to ourselves.  Our current position is that of Spenser’s Red Cross Knight in the Cave of Despair.  He emerges, and so can we.  Dark Money is a page-turner and an essential book if ever there was one.  http://www.amazon.com/Dark-Money-History-Billionaires-Radical/dp/0307970655  ?

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