Tuesday, November 03, 2020

NZ

Flooding, Wildfires And Droughts - Climate Change Is Already Affecting Our Region

Wednesday, 4 November 2020, 5:49 am
Press Release: Greater Wellington Regional Council

Our region is already seeing higher chances of droughts, wildfires, floods and sea level rises, all of which threaten our communities, infrastructure and natural resources - signals a new report released by the Ministry for the Environment (MfE) and StatsNZ.

‘Our atmosphere and climate 2020’ report highlights that we are experiencing climate change right now, with the Wairarapa to face the brunt of the negative environmental and social effects if we don’t act now.

Greater Wellington senior climate scientist, Dr. Alex Pezza, says “The report stresses that a small window of time remains to act, we need to act urgently to make the necessary carbon emission reductions to avoid the severe impacts of a world that is two degrees hotter than today.”

“It shows the atmospheric temperature in New Zealand has increased by about 1.1 degrees celsius over the last 111 years. This compares to about 0.8 degrees increase in the Wellington region, according to Greater Wellington’s monitoring, which is slightly moderated by the cooling effects of channelled winds from the Cook Strait and the Tararua Ranges,” says Dr. Pezza.

One of the fastest increases in annual average maximum temperatures occurred in Masterton, which also gained a week’s extra hot days per decade, placing the Wairarapa as a national hot spot for ‘daytime heat spikes’. For Wellington city, minimum temperatures are increasing faster.

For rainfall, the report highlights some opposing changes between regions, with likely winter decreases in Wellington and spring increases in Masterton since 1960.


“Rainfall has a very high natural fluctuation, so a longer record of data will help us better understand how the changes are playing out for different areas,” says Dr. Pezza.

The report shows increases in drought intensity and frequency, and that the oceans around New Zealand are also warming, with areas to the east of the Wairarapa coast being a hotspot.

To add to this, the risk of wildfire is increasing in Masterton and Wellington city also features a high number of extreme fire risk days that challenge historical records.

Models also project an increase in strong El Niños, which could result in more severe droughts for the Wairarapa in the future. It is expected there will be an increase in seasonal allergies as a result of the warming pattern combined with changing seasons.

“With extreme rainfall increasing and unusually high tides causing flooding across the region even when there are no waves or storm surges, our infrastructure and communities are at serious risk,” adds Dr. Pezza.

In alpine areas, many native birds and at least two weta species have retreated to higher ground, due to warmer temperatures and increased number of predators.

Greater Wellington councillor and climate committee chair, Thomas Nash says climate change risks particularly impact māori and mana whenua. Places of special significance to iwi are at risk from flooding and sea level rise and taonga species face increased risk of extinction.

“Climate action is as much a question of justice and equity as it is of responsible planning. We have a window of opportunity now to build a future together where people in our region can live well, produce good food and adapt to the changes coming our way.

“We need Government and community commitment to restore key ecosystems such as wetlands, native forests, and the coastal marine area.

“Rebuilding this natural infrastructure will help us achieve our carbon reduction goals, boost our biodiversity and water quality outcomes, and build up natural resilience against increasing weather extremes. All of this is absolutely critical to community wellbeing,” adds Cr Nash.

Greater Wellington Wairarapa councillor and deputy chair, Adrienne Staples says, “Greater Wellington has declared a climate emergency and is wholeheartedly committed to becoming climate positive by 2030. We’re on our way to creating a better future, but more action is urgently needed.”

“We have a new study that deals exclusively with the Wairarapa as a ‘climate change hotspot’, which is due to be released later in 2021. This information will provide better clarity on what actions we can collectively take against climate change.”

To understand more the projections and implications of climate change for the Wellington region, visit: www.gw.govt.nz/climate-change.


New Report Shows Significant Changes To New Zealand’s Climate

Thursday, 15 October 2020, 10:55 am
Press Release: Statistics New Zealand

Climate change is already happening in New Zealand and could have a profound impact on future generations of New Zealanders, a new report from the Ministry for the Environment and Stats NZ says.

Our atmosphere and climate 2020, released today, includes analysis of temperature data from 30 sites around New Zealand that shows our climate is warming. Every site recorded increasing average temperatures in winter.

More extreme weather events are also starting to be seen – extreme rainfall, heatwave days, and dry spell days increased and frost days decreased at some places. Changes to seasons are becoming apparent.

Visit our website to read this news story and information release:
 

© Scoop Media


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 ENERGY

Japan faces another Fukushima disaster crisis

November 3rd, 2020, by Paul Brown

Collecting sea water samples near the damaged Fukushima nuclear power station. Image: By IAEA Imagebank, via Wikimedia Commons

A plan to dump a million tonnes of radioactive water from the Fukushima disaster off Japan is alarming local people.

LONDON, 3 November, 2020 − The Japanese government has an unsolvable problem: what to do with more than a million tonnes of water contaminated with radioactive tritium, in store since the Fukushima disaster and growing at more than 150 tonnes a day.

The water, contained in a thousand giant tanks, has been steadily accumulating since the nuclear accident in 2011. It has been used to cool the three reactors that suffered a meltdown as a result of the tsunami that hit the coast.

Tritium is a radioactive element produced as a by-product by nuclear reactors under normal operation, and is present everywhere in the fabric of the reactor buildings, so water used for cooling them is bound to be contaminated by it.

To avoid another potentially catastrophic meltdown in the remaining fuel the cooling has to continue indefinitely, so the problem continues to worsen. The government has been told that Japan will run out of storage tanks by 2022.

Announcement delayed

As often happens when governments are faced with difficult problems, the unpalatable decision to release the contaminated water into the sea has not been formally announced, but the intention of the government to take this course has been leaked and so widely reported.

Immediately both local and worldwide adverse reaction has resulted. There are the direct effects on the local fishermen who fear that no one will want to buy their catch, but over a wider area the health effects are the main concern.

As ever with the nuclear industry, there are two widely different views on tritium. The Health Physics Society says it is a mildly radioactive element that is present everywhere, and doubts that people will be affected by it. But the Nuclear Information and Resource Service believes tritium is far more dangerous and increases the likelihood of cancers, birth defects and genetic disorders.

The issue is further complicated because the Fukushima wastewater contains a number of other radionuclides, not in such high quantities, but sufficient to cause damage. Ian Fairlie, an independent consultant on radioactivity in the environment, is extremely concerned about Japan’s plans and the health of the local people.

“Ten half-lives for tritium is 123 years: that’s how long these tanks will have to last – at least. This will allow time also for politicians to reflect on the wisdom of their support for nuclear power”

In a detailed assessment of the situation he says other highly dangerous radioactive substances, including caesium-137 and strontium-90, are also in the water stored at Fukushima.

They are in lower quantities than the tritium, he says, but still unacceptably high – up to 100 times above the legally permitted limit. All these radionuclides decay over time − some take thousands of years − but tritium decays faster, the danger from it halving every 12.3 years.

In a briefing for the Nuclear Free Local Authorities (NFLA), a UK based organisation, another independent analyst, Tim Deere-Jones, discusses research that shows that tritium binds with organic material in plants and animals.

This is potentially highly damaging to human health because it travels up the food chain in the marine environment, specifically accumulating in fish. This means fish-eating communities on the Japanese coast could ingest much larger quantities of tritium than some physicists think likely.

Relying on dilution

Tim Deere-Jones is also concerned that the tritium will be blown inshore on the prevailing wind in sea spray and will bio-accumulate in food plants, making it risky to eat crops as far as ten miles inland. Because of the potential dangers of releasing the water the NFLA has asked the Japanese government to reconsider its decision.

The government has not yet responded though, because officially it is still considering what to do. However, it is likely to argue that pumping the contaminated water into the sea is acceptable because it will be diluted millions of times, and anyway seawater does already contain minute quantities of tritium.

Dr Fairlie is among many who think this is too dangerous, but he admits there are no easy solutions.

He says: “Barring a miraculous technical discovery which is unlikely, I think TEPCO/Japanese Gov’t [TEPCO is the Tokyo Electric Power Company, owner of the Fukushima Daiichi plant]  will have to buy more land and keep on building more holding tanks to allow for tritium decay to take place. Ten half-lives for tritium is 123 years: that’s how long these tanks will have to last – at least.

“This will allow time not only for tritium to decay, but also for politicians to reflect on the wisdom of their support for nuclear power.” − Climate News Network


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RIGHT WING LIBERTARIAN REASON MAGAZINE
PRO CARBON TAX

CLIMATE CHANGE
Carbon Pricing Is a Possible Alternative to Partisan Bickering Over Climate Change

Taking meaningful steps to reduce carbon emissions requires recognizing that the market is smarter than bureaucrats in Washington.

SAM RUTZICK | 11.3.2020 


Walter Bibikow / DanitaDelimont.com "Danita Delimont Photography"/Newscom


In the closing days of a race that's closer than expected, Sen. John Cornyn (R–Texas) has been accused of using manipulated footage to make his Democratic challenger, MJ Hegar, say that she "support[s] a carbon tax."

In fossil fuel-rich Texas, of course, support for a tax on carbon is potentially disqualifying. Hegar's actual position is somewhat unclear: She claims to support a carbon tax but also says she would not want it to hit middle-class families. Still, the last-minute tussle over carbon taxes in the Texas senate race is indicative of a greater problem in our national politics when it comes to fighting climate change: The politics often supersede the policy.

That's certainly been true in this year's presidential race.

Democratic nominee and former Vice President Joe Biden's campaign website calls climate change "the greatest threat facing our country and our world." He promises to invest $2 trillion dollars into infrastructure, manufacturing, and "environmental justice" to ensure that "communities who have suffered the most from pollution are first to benefit."

Biden also plans to refit thousands of homes, even though the costs for that are significantly higher than the benefits. He pledges to reduce carbon emissions to zero, which Bjorn Lomborg, a visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution, projects would cost $5 trillion dollars. Overall, Biden's plan would cost thousands of dollars per taxpayer every year, according to Lomborg.

Meanwhile, incumbent President Donald Trump's environmental agenda consists primarily of hoping that climate change goes away. His campaign website describes his second-term agenda as promising to "Continue to Lead the World in Access to the Cleanest Drinking Water and Cleanest Air" and to "Partner with Other Nations to Clean Up our Planet's Oceans"—admirable goals, sure—but does not mention climate change or outline any concrete plan for reducing carbon emissions.

Reducing carbon emissions requires recognizing that the market can do a better job than bureaucrats in Washington—but also that doing nothing isn't a good option. Failing to act on climate change presents significant economic costs as well. According to the Congressional Research Service, even a small increase in global temperatures could lead to a 2 percent annual loss in gross domestic product, with that number increasing alongside the rate of warming.

A new study from the Niskanen Center, a centrist think tank, offers a middle ground that more politicians should be willing to consider: carbon pricing.

Joseph Majkut, director of climate policy, argues in a recently published report that carbon pricing could be an effective policy for curbing emissions while preserving markets. Under Majkut's proposal, the federal government would price carbon at $50 per ton, and return that revenue to taxpayers. This would create a market incentive for corporations to implement clean energy plans. It would discourage investment in fossil fuels, and likely encourage firms to start the process of moving toward clean energy sources. But it wouldn't cost trillions of dollars, nor would it absolutely destroy the American economy. There would be costs, just as with any tax—but not to the degree that Biden's plan would entail.


It would not, Majkut notes, "entirely fix underinvestment in scientific research" nor "eliminate the cost premium and limited selection facing prospective buyers of electric vehicles." But, he argues, it is a valuable first step that would still meaningfully contribute to working against climate change.

Corporate decarbonization can only come from regulatory predictability, and "regulatory predictability and market certainty come from a carbon price, not from continually changing command-and-control measures," Majkut writes. It's a plan that has support from stakeholders in the fossil fuels industry, including energy companies like ExxonMobil and BP, as well as automakers like General Motors and Ford.

The support by the energy sector for carbon pricing has led to some pushing back against it. According to Bloomberg, the projected $40-50 price for carbon may be too low to actually trigger changes in the marketplace. Bloomberg notes that climate activist groups like the Natural Resources Defense Council argue that carbon pricing would effectively price out coal, but would boost the market for natural gas.

Carbon pricing is a plan that relies on letting market mechanisms sort out the costs of pollution that affect the climate. Unfortunately, implementing it would be tough as it would require our politicians to admit they don't have all the answers.
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UK

Bristol MP demands Government restarts 'Everyone In' for homeless people during coronavirus lockdown

The initiative was a big success for the first lockdown

bristolpost


A Bristol MP has called for the initiative which saw hotel rooms found for people sleeping on the streets during the April lockdown resume this week.

Thangam Debbonaire has called on the Government to “issue clear instruction that everyone should be brought in off the streets” in time for Thursday’s new lockdown.

The Bristol West MP, who is also the Shadow Housing Minister, has written to Communities Secretary Robert Jenrick to ask that the Government support local councils fully to enable people to get off the streets for this lockdown too.

Across the country, the Government funded councils to pay to put people without homes into hotels temporarily, to ensure that no one was unable to “stay at home” because they didn’t have one.

In Bristol, hundreds of people were put up in otherwise empty hotels during the spring lockdown, and the project was described by Ms Debbonaire as a great success.

In Bristol, and in many places around the country, it enabled council housing support services and other organisations the time and space to best support homeless people, and many have been able to move on to more permanent housing, rather than return to the streets.


Homeless people in Bristol City Centre, Broadmead. (Image: Michael Lloyd Photography)

In the letter, Ms Debbonaire said the ‘Everyone In’ initiative ‘saved hundreds of lives’ earlier this year.

She said that for the lockdown to happen for everyone, ‘it is essential that everyone has a safe place to call home’.

“The ‘Everyone In’ initiative in March was an incredible achievement by councils and charities, which saved hundreds of lives,” she wrote.

“A repeat of this success will require strong leadership and effective co-ordination from central Government,” she added.


Numbers of people forced to sleep rough or left without a home has risen rapidly since the ending of lockdown, despite an initial ban on evictions. With the impact on jobs and the ending of the furlough scheme, increasing numbers of people are finding themselves unable to pay rent or mortgages, and some quickly end up on the streets.

“The flow of rough sleepers onto the streets has not stopped since March. Recent data for London revealed that 3,444 people had been sleeping rough between July and September this year, with 1,901 sleeping rough for the first time. The number of young rough sleepers has increased by half.

Labour's Thangam Debbonaire retains her seat in the 2019 General Election (Image: Artur Lesniak/Bristol Live)

“As we head into a second lockdown, the Government must urgently re-start ‘Everyone In’, to protect rough sleepers from a cold, dangerous winter,” she added.

She said she was worried that communal hight shelters could stay open - which could be a place where the virus spreads rapidly.

“Nobody should have to choose between a potentially unsafe communal shelter and spending the night on the streets. Given the current rates of Covid-19, will you revise this guidance to clarify that only self-contained accommodation should be used, and provide local authorities with the support to achieve this?” she asked Mr Jenrick.

ALL COMMENTS 2
Oldbat11 
It shouldn't take a pandemic to house people

6470
of course Labour would be doing it if they were in power
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 Biological Sciences

RESEARCH ARTICLE

Robust evidence for bisexual orientation among men

Jeremy Jabbour, Luke Holmes, David Sylva, Kevin J. Hsu, Theodore L. Semon, A. M. Rosenthal, Adam Safron, Erlend Slettevold, Tuesday M. Watts-Overall, Ritch C. Savin-Williams, John Sylla, Gerulf Rieger, and J. Michael Bailey
PNAS August 4, 2020 117 (31) 18369-18377; first published July 20, 2020; https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2003631117

  1. Edited by Steven Pinker, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, and approved June 16, 2020 (received for review February 25, 2020)

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Significance

There has long been skepticism among both scientists and laypersons that male bisexual orientation exists. Skeptics have claimed that men who self-identify as bisexual are actually homosexual or heterosexual. (The existence of female bisexuality has been less controversial.) This controversy can be resolved using objective, genital responses of men to male and female erotic stimuli. We combined nearly all available data (from eight previous American, British, and Canadian studies) to form a dataset of more than 500 men, much larger than any previous individual study, and conducted rigorous statistical tests. Results provided compelling evidence that bisexual-identified men tend to show bisexual genital and subjective arousal patterns. Male sexual orientation is expressed on a continuum rather than dichotomously.

Abstract

The question whether some men have a bisexual orientation—that is, whether they are substantially sexually aroused and attracted to both sexes—has remained controversial among both scientists and laypersons. Skeptics believe that male sexual orientation can only be homosexual or heterosexual, and that bisexual identification reflects nonsexual concerns, such as a desire to deemphasize homosexuality. Although most bisexual-identified men report that they are attracted to both men and women, self-report data cannot refute these claims. Patterns of physiological (genital) arousal to male and female erotic stimuli can provide compelling evidence for male sexual orientation. (In contrast, most women provide similar physiological responses to male and female stimuli.) We investigated whether men who self-report bisexual feelings tend to produce bisexual arousal patterns. Prior studies of this issue have been small, used potentially invalid statistical tests, and produced inconsistent findings. We combined nearly all previously published data (from eight previous studies in the United States, United Kingdom, and Canada), yielding a sample of 474 to 588 men (depending on analysis). All participants were cisgender males. Highly robust results showed that bisexual-identified men’s genital and subjective arousal patterns were more bisexual than were those who identified as exclusively heterosexual or homosexual. These findings support the view that male sexual orientation contains a range, from heterosexuality, to bisexuality, to homosexuality.

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 LETTER

Do face masks help? is not the question

Qin Xiang Ng, Michelle Lee Zhi Qing De Deyn, and Wee Song Yeo
PNAS November 3, 2020 117 (44) 27078-27079; first published October 6, 2020; https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2012241117

This Letter has related content. Please see:

We read with great interest the study by Zhang et al., which analyzed the trend in the daily number of new confirmed cases and mitigation measures in three COVID-19 epicenters, namely Wuhan, China, Italy, and New York City (NYC) (1). The researchers concluded that social distancing is insufficient per se and wearing of face masks in public spaces is the most effective preventive measure. We appreciate the conclusions reached, but the analyses and conclusions are problematic for several reasons.

First, it is at best imprecise, and at worst grossly inaccurate, to attribute the slower increase in the numbers of daily new cases between NYC and the United States after 14 April to the implementation of wearing face masks in public. The authors did not consider lags in epidemic dynamics. We cannot conclude that facemasks alone or the extended lockdown alone (2) drove the reduction in the transmission rate. Their combined effect is what is being measured in the study. Due to the variable incubation period of COVID-19, which could take between 1 to 24 d (3), as well as testing and reporting delays, new cases and hospitalizations reflect individuals who were infected 1 to 2 wk prior. Furthermore, although Governor Andrew Cuomo urged and later signed an executive order mandating New Yorkers to cover their faces in public, when not practicing social distancing, the actual implementation and compliance on the ground has been widely questioned (4). There are no fines or penalties for noncompliant individuals, and enforcement is purely at the discretion of local jurisdictions. We know that “socially responsible” behaviors may not be intuitive and, as with health behavior change, take time. It is thought that it takes anywhere between 18 and 254 d to develop a new habit (5).

Second, Zhang et al. (1) oversimplify the day-to-day fluctuations and erroneously applied linear regression to the data between 17 April and 9 May in NYC and between 5 April and 9 May in the United States. Linear regression should be limited to variables with a linear relationship (6). In the case of COVID-19, modeling the disease rate as the virus spreads in the community is complex. The researchers used best-fit lines to support a decreasing rate in the daily new infections; we would advise caution in interpreting these linear regressions. Nonlinear regression analysis, or a more explicitly epidemiological model such as EpiEstim (7), would be more appropriate.

It is too premature to discount the preventive benefits of social distancing in favor of face masks. We do certainly hope that properly worn face masks help stem the spread of the coronavirus, and there is growing evidence to support the recommendation to wear masks in public spaces (8). However, ensuring public compliance is in itself a difficult task. In Singapore, stringent laws were put in place to enforce wearing face masks in public and work spaces; first-time offenders would be fined while egregious cases could be prosecuted in court (9).

Footnotes

  • Author contributions: Q.X.N. designed research; M.L.Z.Q.D.D. and W.S.Y. performed research; Q.X.N., M.L.Z.Q.D.D., and W.S.Y. analyzed data; Q.X.N., M.L.Z.Q.D.D., and W.S.Y. wrote the paper; and W.S.Y. provided supervision.

  • The authors declare no competing interest.

This open access article is distributed under Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0 (CC BY).

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