There’s a good chance we’ll see 50 degrees in the metro area Sunday and early Monday. No small feat, considering the Winter Solstice is less than 3 weeks away. The sun is lowest in the southern sky on December 21. The worst day of the year to get a tan in the Northern Hemisphere. The darkest day. The null point. Oh-dark-30. My spirits start to lift by late December when daylight increases again, for the first time since late June.
Mild December? In spite of the upcoming temperature correction next week NOAA’s Climate Forecast System (CFSv2) climate model continues to predict a significantly warmer than average December for a big chunk of North America. Time will tell, but the (Pacific) signal has been persistent.
Here’s Where Winters Are Warming the Most. Climate Central reports: “…Winter is the fastest warming season in most of the country generally from the Front Range of the Rockies to the East Coast. The greatest warming along the northern states emphasizes a general rule of climate change — cold areas and seasons warm faster than areas and seasons that are already warm. But there are a few exceptions. Fall is warming the fastest in the Pacific Northwest, and spring is warming the fastest the Southwest. Summers are the fastest warming season in Texas. Warming winters may sound nice to some who prefer more moderate temperatures, but milder winters can signal more difficult times for industries that economically depend on cold winters. Tourism and recreation may suffer when mild conditions negatively affect skiing, snowmobiling and ice fishing…”
Hurricane Season Has Finally Ended. And what a season it was, possibly the costliest in U.S. history. Here’s a clip from CNN.com: “…A trio of major hurricanes hit US soil this year, in what could be the most expensive hurricane season with damage estimates ranging up to $300-$475 billion. Harvey, Irma and Maria are major hurricanes, meaning they reached Category 3 or higher. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is expected to release a cost assessment later this year that includes total costs for these three hurricanes. For comparison, the damage from Katrina in 2005, which has been the costliest hurricane in US history, was $108 billion...”
The Historically Hazy Story of Donora’s Deadly Smog. It seems manufacturacted misinformation and conspiracy theories never really go away, according to Atlas Obscura: “…This day-to-day pollution alone would make the town an unlikely epicenter for a burgeoning environmental movement. But after Donora became the site of a fog that would kill dozens and sicken thousands more—one of the worst environmental disasters in the history of the United States—the town’s very name became a recognized shorthand for the dangers of unregulated industry and the need for federal clean air laws. First, though, the story of the disaster would be told and retold in a modern-seeming back-and-forth of misinterpretations and counternarratives. The Donora Smog became an ideological morass of subjective memory, the protective half-truths of insiders, the distortions of outsiders, conspiracy theories, and the obfuscating legalese of those responsible, all competing for the right to tell what really happened in the fog…”
Photo credit: “Donora in 1910.” Library of Congress/ LC-USZ62-131258
3 Reasons Why Evangelicals Stopped Advocating for the Environment. An article at Christianity Today caught my eye; here’s an excerpt: “…But there is a clear case to be made for ecological stewardship within the pages of Scripture. In the Garden of Eden, Adam was given the task of tending the garden (Gen. 2:15). God preserved both human and non-human creation while judging the earth through a cataclysmic flood and entered into a covenant with all living creatures not to destroy the earth again by a flood (Gen. 8–9). The Psalms bear witness that creation testifies to God’s character (e.g., Ps. 19:1–6). Paul tells us that Jesus came to reconcile “all things” to himself (Col. 1:15–20), which is a state for which creation is eagerly longing (Rom. 8:18–25). There is a biblical case for evangelical Christians to be actively engaged in environmental activism, but political polarization has put creation care among the issues that often divide the right and the left. It has not always been this way…”
Image credit: Cococino National Forest / Flickr
Solar Panel Prices Plunge by a Shocking 26% In One Year. Here’s a clip from ThinkProgress: “Prices for new wind and solar plants continue to plunge at an astonishing pace. Driven by steadily improving technology and the use of auctions to set prices, the cost of solar and wind dropped 25 percent this past year — and even more in some key emerging markets like China, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance data. That drop comes on top of an 80 percent reduction in the previous 10 years, which is why building new renewable energy sources is now cheaper than just running old coal and nuclear plants, as a new analysis recently detailed...”
Graphic credit: Bloomberg New Energy Finance.
375 Million Jobs May be Automated by 2035, Study Suggests. CNN.com has a summary: “The McKinsey Global Institute cautions that as many as 375 million workers will need to switch occupational categories by 2030 due to automation. The work most at risk of automation includes physical jobs in predictable environments, such as operating machinery or preparing fast food. Data collection and processing is also in the crosshairs, with implications for mortgage origination, paralegals, accounts and back-office processing. To remain viable, workers must embrace retraining in different fields. But governments and companies will need to help smooth what could be a rocky transition. “The model where people go to school for the first 20 years of life and work for the next 40 or 50 years is broken,” Susan Lund, a partner for the McKinsey Global Institute and co-author of the report, told CNN Tech. “We’re going to have to think about learning and training throughout the course of your career…”
Image credit: Huffington Post.
Robots Could Replace Nearly a Third of the U.S. Workforce by 2030. Here’s a summary of the recent McKinsey report from The Washington Post: “…The jobs most at risk involve repetitive tasks. About half the duties workers handle globally could be automated, according to the report, though less than 5 percent of occupations could be entirely taken over by computers. Caretakers, psychologists, artists, writers — anyone who relies on empathy or creativity at work — can expect to have the most job security as automation continues to spread, said Jason Hong, a computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh…”
Robots: Is Your Job at Risk? More perspective on current trends from CNN.com: “…Jobs that require only a high school degree are most in danger. Take cashiers and toll booth operators, for example. These jobs don’t require much human analysis so are easier for machines to handle. Some toll booth operators have already been replaced by automated systems such as E-ZPass, which is used in 16 states. Meanwhile, as many as 7.5 million retail jobs are at risk of automation in the next decade, according to a study from financial services firm Cornerstone Capital Group. A shift is already underway. CVS (CVS) has installed self-checkouts in 448 locations. McDonald’s (MCD) and Wendy’s have also added kiosks in some restaurants, allowing customers to place orders on a touchscreen...”
The Gospel of De-Gentrification. A story at CityLab made me do a double-take: “…The gospel of de-gentrification isn’t just a strategy to snag the attention of a younger generation whom the wider church is struggling to captivate. It is a core purpose of New City Church. Besides growing a church with new converts to Christianity, the church’s central mission is to slow, stop, and even turn back the negative effects of demographic change in these urban Minneapolis communities. To this end, the church is pursuing revenue-generating backyard farms, community-owned housing, and better policies for longtime residents—while spreading a gospel that is relevant to millennials moving in and the neighborhood’s old guard alike…”
Photo credit: “At New City Church in Minneapolis, Rev. Tyler Sit preaches about the perils of displacement.” Serena Solomon
Want to Live Longer? Hit the Sauna. Here’s an excerpt from Mother Nature Network: “…A 2017 study shows that regular visits to a sauna are affiliated with a reduced risk of high blood pressure. More than 1,600 Finnish men ages 42 to 60 participated for more than 20 years with factors such as smoking and body mass index taken into consideration. The findings correlate with a 2015 study of more than 2,300 Finnish men that showed a lower risk for a number of cardiovascular conditions including heart failure and coronary heart disease. Between 1984 and 1985, the men filled out health questionnaires about their weekly sauna use…”
Photo credit: “In Finland, many homes feature small private saunas like this one.” (Photo: Vladimir Nenezic/Shutterstock).
The Rise and Fall of the Leeches Who Could Predict the Weather. Uh oh, this changes everything. Atlas Obscura has the disruptive news for meteorologists everywhere: “…Merryweather, perhaps living up to his name, saw a greater potential in leeches—as storm forecasters. To Victorians, writes Katharine Anderson in Predicting the Weather: Victorians and the Science of Meteorology, “the weather seemed a puzzle that would be solved.” It was, to them, only a matter of time before these mysterious forces could be understood by mathematics and governed by certainty. Victorians also had a preoccupation with what they considered the “natural knowledge” of animals. “Although the subject of Animal Instinct has had the attention of the learned men of all nations drawn to it,” Merryweather wrote, “I am ignorant of any good purpose to which it has been applied.…”
Image credit: “Leeches were used in medical treatment for hundreds of years, despite usually making patients sicker.” Public Domain
+.4 F. November was nearly half a degree F. milder than average in the Twin Cities, after the coldest start since 1995.
51 F. maximum temperature in the Twin Cities on Friday.
32 F. average high on December 1.
39 F. high on December 1, 2016.
December 2, 1985: Record low highs are set in north and east central Minnesota with temperatures ranging from the single digits below zero to the singles digits above. Alexandria was the cold spot with a high of 4 degrees Fahrenheit below zero. Other record low high temperatures included Redwood Falls with 3 below, Long Prairie with zero, and Litchfield and Little Falls with 5 degrees above zero.
December 2, 1982: A record high of 63 degrees is set at the Twin Cities.
TODAY: Partly sunny and mild. Winds: SW 5-10. High: 47
SATURDAY NIGHT: Partly cloudy and mild. Low: 33
SUNDAY: Clouds increase, late-day shower possible. Winds: SE 8-13. High: 51
MONDAY: Showery rains, windy and cooler. Winds: NW 10-20. Wake-up: 45. High: near 50 (falling PM hours)
TUESDAY: Few flakes, feels like 10-15F. Winds: NW 10-20. Wake-up: 21. High: 25
WEDNESDAY: Mix of clouds and sun, slightly numb. Winds: NW 10-15. Wake-up: 15. High: 23
THURSDAY: Puddles of blue sky, less wind. Winds: NW 8-13. Wake-up: 9. High: near 20
FRIDAY: Patchy clouds, closer to average. Winds: NW 10-15. Wake-up: 15. High: 31
Climate Stories…
Moody’s Warns Cities to Address Climate Risks or Face Downgrades. Bloomberg reports: “Coastal communities from Maine to California have been put on notice from one of the top credit rating agencies: Start preparing for climate change or risk losing access to cheap credit. In a report to its clients Tuesday, Moody’s Investors Service Inc. explained how it incorporates climate change into its credit ratings for state and local bonds. If cities and states don’t deal with risks from surging seas or intense storms, they are at greater risk of default. “What we want people to realize is: If you’re exposed, we know that. We’re going to ask questions about what you’re doing to mitigate that exposure,” Lenny Jones, a managing director at Moody’s, said in a phone interview. “That’s taken into your credit ratings.” In its report, Moody’s lists six indicators it uses “to assess the exposure and overall susceptibility of U.S. states to the physical effects of climate change...”
Image credit: National Academy of Sciences.
The Race to Save Coffee. Not too worried about climate change? About that morning coffee addiction, The Washington Post has a bit of sobering news: “…Climate scientists say few coffee-growing regions will be spared the effects of climate change. Most of the world’s crop is cultivated around the equator, with the bulk coming from Brazil, Vietnam, Colombia, Indonesia and Ethiopia. Rising temperatures are expected to shrink the available growing land in many of these countries, said Christian Bunn, a postdoctoral fellow at the International Center for Tropical Agriculture who has analyzed the shift in coffee regions. Warmer air essentially “chases” coffee up to cooler, higher altitudes — which are scarce in Brazil and Zimbabwe, among other coffee-growing countries. Temperature is not climate change’s only projected impact in coffee-growing regions. Portions of Central America are expected to see greater rainfall and shorter dry seasons, which are needed to harvest and dry beans...”
Senate Tax Bill Could Hamper Renewables, Expand Arctic Drilling: From Climate Nexus Hot News: “Language in the Senate’s tax bill could inadvertently hamper investment in renewable energy, advocates warn as the bill heads toward a final vote today. In a letter to lawmakers sent this week, wind and solar industry representatives reaffirmed their support for the Senate bill, but they said that a measure in the bill aimed at discouraging corporations from sending jobs overseas could allow the government to levy additional taxes on those financing renewable energy projects. The massive Senate bill would also open parts of the Alaska National Wildlife Reserve to drilling. As Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), a key swing vote in the larger tax plan, worked to fix technical bugs with the ANWR measure this week, a group of House Republicans wrote to GOP leadership expressing concern with the Senate’s plan to open drilling in the area.” (Renewables: Washington Post $, WSJ $, Politico Pro $, E&E $. ANWR: Politico, Roll Call, Reuters, EcoWatch. GOP letter: Politico Pro $. Commentary: The Hill,Lois Epstein op-ed)
File photo: Wikipedia.
