The Political Thread

GLOBAL WARMING (Devastating Deadly Extreme Climate Events = DDECE) & Related Articles.

--09-22-18: us.cnn.com/2018/09/21/opinions/coastal-communities-are-sleepwalking-toward-catastrophe-bociurkiw/index.html  
(CNN) — About 41 million Americans live in areas that have a chance of flooding -- and the number exposed to serious flooding is as much as 3.1 times higher than previous estimates.

Time is clearly not on our side. Sea levels are rising faster than predicted, and homeowners in particularly vulnerable areas, such as South Florida, could see their properties literally under water within their lifetimes.

Relative sea levels there are roughly four inches higher now than in 1992; various projections, including by the Army Corps of Engineers, see rises in South Florida of 12 inches by 2030 and between 2 to 3 feet by 2060.

What's more, "rare events are going to become more common in the future strictly due to sea level rise," William Sweet, an oceanographer at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), told The Guardian.

And so it would make some sense that as officials tally the damage from Hurricane Florence in the Carolinas, with 41 dead and insured losses estimated at $2.5 billion, coastal homeowners and businesses might conduct their own tallies of the cost of continuing to live in places vulnerable to flooding and high winds.

Yet, national and local leaders appear to be sleepwalking toward climate catastrophe. Based on my own exchanges over the years with municipal mayors from both inland and coastal jurisdictions, my sense is that few view it as a top priority -- especially those in places such as South Florida, where the property tax base is the main source of income.

Rather than curbing building in vulnerable areas or returning flood-prone areas to nature, jurisdictions such as Miami Beach have opted to spend millions on flood abatement projects.

And for their part, financial markets deflect reality. Climate change "is a very slow-moving disaster that may last decades before it has any effect on the markets," Wall Street investor Michael Popow told me. "In the meantime it is another negative in the macro-economic environment which will, sooner than later, cause the markets to crash."

But this disaster is not so slow-moving. Monster storms are coming faster and with more ferocity (last year was the first time in over a decade that four hurricanes made US landfall in one season), and a growing number of coastal dwellers have now lived through multiple storms, with some not even fully recovered from the last one.

By one estimate, from Seattle-based Zillow Research, based on current projections by NOAA of ocean levels rising six feet by 2100, almost 2 million properties -- or roughly 2% of US housing stock, worth $882 billion -- could be under water in a little over 75 years.

Close to half of that loss in value would occur in Florida alone, where 1 in 8 properties, worth a total of $400 billion, are threatened.

As Zillow points out, given the insatiable appetite for waterfront properties, these numbers could be on the conservative side if development is allowed to continue in vulnerable areas.

In fact sea-level rise is already swamping coastal property values: research by the First Street Foundation has tabulated a home value loss of $14.1 billion across eight coastal US states since 2005.

Ironic, is it not, that some of the most coveted and expensive property in the US is also becoming the most vulnerable -- and is on a depreciation cycle.

In my frequent trips to South Florida, I encounter more and more people who are contemplating moving away from the waterfront -- especially in flood-prone Miami Beach, where even on clear days during high tides, and even with billions spent on flood alleviation measures, residents can encounter so-called blue-sky flooding.

According to one study, such high-tide flooding there has increased by more than 400% in the last 12 years.

In short: if you're a young to middle-aged homeowner near water in South Florida, there is a chance that your property will be under water by the time you are a senior - or more likely when the time comes to sign the title over to little Jane or Johnny.

John Hilliard's approach towards rising sea levels is probably typical of many of those who reside on the Venetian Islands. The elevation of his new waterfront home in Miami Beach is at about nine feet above sea level.

"That's reasonably high," he told me. "I do see larger rain events due to the greater water-holding ability of a warmer atmosphere.

But that rain should run off my island into the sea," instead of flooding and staying. "After 2100 we will be wishing we took this issue seriously as the loss of property will be enormous."

What will be the trigger to cause mass panic or a collapse of the waterfront property bubble? The former mayor of Coral Gables, James Cason, offers a stark scenario: when water levels in that tony community rise to the point where the masts of sailboats are unable to pass under its main bridge, that is when people will "suddenly see their property values go down because they can no longer get a boat out.

So that will be one of the first indicators (of sea level rise) and a wake-up call for people."

Of course, outward migration from places like Coral Gables will translate into a slimmer property tax ledger for the seaside town, which in turn creates challenges for such municipalities to provide essential services.

And municipal bonds, already in a precarious state, could sink even further when they are issued by jurisdictions known to have massive flooding problems.

While it would take a lot for cities like Miami Beach to be abandoned, rising tides and more frequent monster storms are becoming, like the ravaging forest fires in California, a new normal.

One study predicts there will be as many as 13 million "climate refugees" in America by the end of the century -- with the hardest-hit county being Miami-Dade. READ MORE…

--10-06-18: www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/miami-will-be-underwater-soon-its-drinking-water-could-go-first/ar-BBMB2kP?li=BBnb7Kz  YET OUR BANKS & INVESTMENT FIRMS KEEP BUILDING HUGE CONDO TOWERS ON THE BEACH AREA… You all should see how high the Ocean Water gets on High Tides everyday in Miami Streets..
One morning in June, Douglas Yoder climbed into a white government SUV on the edge of Miami and headed northwest, away from the glittering coastline and into the maze of water infrastructure that makes this city possible.

He drove past drainage canals that sever backyards and industrial lots, ancient water-treatment plants peeking out from behind run-down bungalows, and immense rectangular pools tracing the outlines of limestone quarries.

Finally, he reached a locked gate at the edge of the Everglades. Once through, he pointed out the row of 15 wells that make up the Northwest Wellfield, Miami-Dade County’s clean water source of last resort.

Yoder, 71, is deputy director of the county’s water and sewer department; his job is to think about how to defend the county’s fresh drinking water against the effects of climate change. A large man with an ambling gait, Yoder exudes the calm of somebody who’s lived with bad news for a long time.

“We have a very delicate balance in a highly managed system,” he said in his rumbly voice. “That balance is very likely to get upset by sea-level rise.” What nobody knows is when that will happen, or what happens next.

From ground level, greater Miami looks like any American megacity—a mostly dry expanse of buildings, roads, and lawns, sprinkled with the occasional canal or ornamental lake.

But from above, the proportions of water and land are reversed. The glimmering metropolis between Biscayne Bay and the Everglades reveals itself to be a thin lattice of earth and concrete laid across a puddle that never stops forming.

Water seeps up through the gravel under construction sites, nibbles at the edges of fresh subdivisions, and shimmers through the cracks and in-between places of the city above it.

Miami-Dade is built on the Biscayne Aquifer, 4,000 square miles of unusually shallow and porous limestone whose tiny air pockets are filled with rainwater and rivers running from the swamp to the ocean.

The aquifer and the infrastructure that draws from it, cleans its water, and keeps it from overrunning the city combine to form a giant but fragile machine.

Without this abundant source of fresh water, made cheap by its proximity to the surface, this hot, remote city could become uninhabitable.

Climate change is slowly pulling that machine apart. Barring a stupendous reversal in greenhouse gas emissions, the rising Atlantic will cover much of Miami by the end of this century.

The economic effects will be devastating: Zillow Inc. estimates that six feet of sea-level rise would put a quarter of Miami’s homes underwater, rendering $200 billion of real estate worthless.

But global warming poses a more immediate danger: The permeability that makes the aquifer so easily accessible also makes it vulnerable.

“It’s very easy to contaminate our aquifer,” says Rachel Silverstein, executive director of Miami Waterkeeper, a local environmental protection group. And the consequences could be sweeping. “Drinking water supply is always an existential question.”

County officials agree with her. “The minute the world thinks your water supply is in danger, you’ve got a problem,” says James Murley, chief resilience officer for Miami-Dade, although he adds that the county’s water system remains “one of the best” in the U.S.

The questions hanging over Miami and the rest of Southeast Florida are how long it can keep its water safe, and at what cost.

As the region struggles with more visible climate problems, including increasingly frequent flooding and this summer’s toxic algae blooms, the risks to the aquifer grow, and they’re all the more insidious for being out of sight.

If Miami-Dade can’t protect its water supply, whether it can handle the other manifestations of climate change won’t matter.

--10-03-18: us.cnn.com/2018/10/02/opinions/how-to-show-trump-you-care-about-climate-change-inslee/index.html  
(CNN) — While Donald Trump is blowing smoke on climate change, we here in the West have been choking on it this summer. And if we don't start electing people -- from city council to governor -- who are willing to confront climate change, we're all going to pay dearly.

In Washington state we know this from our own gasping experience. For two weeks in August, the skies were shrouded in the darkest smoke in recent memory, as record-breaking fires tore through the Western states -- destroying communities and forcing widespread evacuations. A thick, acrid and dangerous pall from hundreds of fires filled the lungs of citizens trying to go about their lives.

And this month climate change has brought more tragedy and destruction to our country. Hurricane Florence hit North and South Carolina with a combination of wind strength, rainfall and storm surge that is unprecedented — but increasingly expected -- for the region.

For millions of Americans, climate change is no longer just a chart or a graph. It's wildfires. It's floodwater invading our homes and drought destroying our crops. It's hurricanes and record-breaking heat waves. It's an emerging new normal, one that we don't need to accept as inevitable.

Americans, we must start voting on climate change. We can in just a few weeks, in voter initiatives and in elections for governors and state legislatures throughout the country. That is because states can lead the fight against the serious dangers posed by global warming, building a safer future full of new and greater economic opportunities, powered by fast-growing clean energy solutions like wind and solar energy, and electric vehicles. It's happening everywhere already.

So, why is the Trump administration doing everything it can to dismantle climate progress?

In August Trump's EPA announced plans to repeal the Clean Power Plan and allow power plants to dump unlimited carbon pollution into our atmosphere, even though their own analysis shows this could lead to as many as 1,400 more premature deaths each year.

This follows the administration's plan to repeal the Clean Car Standards, which would essentially force Americans to use more oil, increase pollution from cars and trucks, and deliver a damaging blow to our nation's auto industry in the global marketplace.

And now Trump's EPA wants to unravel rules that limit methane and even mercury and toxic air pollution. Taken together these actions would undo the most important steps America has ever taken to confront climate change.

Columnist Thomas Friedman recently argued that climate change should be on the ballot in 2020 -- that our Democratic presidential nominee should make fighting climate change and creating the jobs that flow from investing in a clean energy economy front and center in our national dialogue.

He's right. But we cannot wait until 2020. Make no mistake: Climate change is on the ballot in 2018.

This year Americans can elect governors and state legislatures who will push back, who will work to transform our nation's energy and transportation systems and reduce the carbon pollution that is harming our communities. They can vote for initiatives like I-1631 in my state that will finally hold polluters accountable.

Americans don't have to wait for Washington, D.C. Donald Trump cannot stop us in the states.

Wealthy special interests have predictably argued that Washington state's climate leadership would hurt our economy, but they've been proven fantastically wrong; our state economy has been No. 1 in the nation for the last two years, according to CNBC and Business Insider.

Clean energy is part of our growth story, as it is in other states. Jobs in renewable energy are among the fastest growing in America.

We in Washington state are not alone. Many constituencies are joining forces across America to fight for climate action. The Peoples Climate Movement is bringing together environmentalists, labor unions, frontline communities, faith groups and others to mobilize voters who will demand climate action rooted in racial and economic justice.

Governors across the country have joined to commit their states to meet the goals of the Paris Climate Agreement. are moving forward, despite Donald Trump. Soon more will join us.

--09-27-18: slate.com/business/2018/09/hurricane-florence-climate-change-rainfall-record.html  
For Americans who want to move with the warming planet in mind, Madison, Wisconsin seems like a good bet. The state capital is small and not too hot, with an average amount of rainfall, and at virtually no risk from forest fires, sea level rise, or hurricanes.

When Vivek Shandas, a planning professor at Portland State University, talked to Business Insider last year about the U.S. cities in the best position to weather the impacts of climate change, he had Madison on his shortlist.

At the end of August, a series of storms made southern Wisconsin momentarily the wettest place in the United States. Flooding caused an estimated $100 million in damage in Dane County, prompting Gov. Scott Walker to declare a state of emergency.

In Madison, which is on an isthmus between two lakes, lake water surged to record highs, flooding streets, houses, and funnily enough, the basement of the University of Wisconsin’s Center for Limnology—the study of inland lakes and rivers. The National Weather Service in Sullivan, Wisconsin, estimates that one particularly bad day set the all-time record for rain in the state (though they are still seeking proof).

Two weeks later, Hurricane Lane dropped more than 50 inches of rain on the Big Island of Hawaii, another state record. Two weeks after that, Hurricane Florence has smashed the all-time rainfall record on the entire East Coast north of Florida, not to mention the Carolinas.

All of it comes a year after Hurricane Harvey dropped an astounding 64.58 inches of rain just east of Houston, an all-time mark for U.S. rainfall. A fact that continues to astound: The weight of the water lying on Houston was enough to flex the earth’s crust, momentarily sinking the city by a half-inch.

It is very, very easy to get unnecessarily alarmed and misled by headlines about broken records. But four to five states setting all-time rainfall records in 13 months is, at least, representative of the way things are going.

According to the 2014 National Climate Assessment, between 1958 and 2012 the amount of rain falling in “very heavy events”—those at the top 1 percent of all rainstorms—rose by 27 percent in the South, 37 percent in the Midwest, and 71 percent in the Northeast.

Climate change is making slow-moving hurricanes more common, increasing the potential rain damage from storms like Harvey and Florence. Also worrisome is the increasing frequency of organized thunderstorm systems, like the kind that hit Wisconsin.

Hurricanes are the most damaging natural disasters, accounting for nearly half of all billion-dollar events between 1980 and 2011. But most hurricane deaths come from hazards related to inland flooding and occur away from the coast.

According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, inland floods cause more damage every year than any other severe weather event, at $6.96 billion a year between 1977 and 2006.

In all cases, human development complicates and aggravates the damage. The geographer Stephen Strader at Villanova has concluded that the primary reason we’re seeing a rise in storm damage is because people are moving into storms’ paths.

New arrivals are vulnerable themselves, but in many cases they are also worsening the impact on their neighbors as increased density leaves the consequences of impervious development and wetland removal unaddressed.

Furthermore, unprotected industrial facilities—like oil and chemical facilities in the Houston Ship Channel or the pig and chicken barns in North Carolina that are now spilling toxic waste as a result of Hurricane Florence—drastically worsen the consequences of flood events.

In Madison, the subject is all the more tricky because of political maneuvering around how high to keep lake water levels. (Everyone likes high water for recreation, but it doesn’t leave much room for error when storms come.)

In all those cases, we might have gotten away with much of it—the endless fields of concrete, the open coal ash pits, the water lapping right beneath the front dock—if we weren’t also making the atmosphere more likely to deal out biblical rainfall events.

In Houston, the aftermath of Harvey has been a reckoning. Until FEMA redraws its flood maps, the city and county are playing it safe by operating under the assumption that they should plan for a 500-year flood—not the 100-year mark that forms the baseline of resilience planning elsewhere in the United States.

Other places where so-called 100-year floods keep happening, like North Carolina, might want to take similar steps.

Americans no longer see climate change as melting glaciers and polar ice caps, as they did in 2003 when researchers began surveying them. Now, one of the highest associations is extreme weather, and associations between weather and climate change have quadrupled in the past decade.

Flood insurance claims are still concentrated along the coast, in part because that’s where the population is concentrated, too. But individual risk is fairly well-distributed throughout the country, with the highest median claims arising in the counties of the upper Midwest as much as on the Gulf Coast.

Crashing waves may be a more compelling broadcast. But as much as rising seas, the future looks like the wide, straight course of water that an airborne photographer captured above North Carolina on Monday. It looks like a supersized canal. In fact, it’s Interstate 40…

--09-27-18: www.cbsnews.com/news/hurricane-florence-aftermath-north-carolina-flooding-large-aggressive-mosquitoes-2018-09-27/  
FAYETTEVILLE, N.C. -- A North Carolina city dealing with fallout from Hurricane Florence has been swarmed by aggressive mosquitoes nearly three times larger than regular mosquitoes. One resident, Robert Phillips, describes their rise as "a bad science fiction movie."

North Carolina State University entomology professor Michael Reiskind told The Fayetteville Observer that Florence's floodwater has caused eggs for mosquito species such as the Psorophora ciliata to hatch. These mosquitoes, often called "gallinippers," are known for their painful bite and often lay eggs in low-lying damp areas.

The eggs lie dormant in dry weather and hatch as adults following heavy rains. Reiskind said the state has 61 mosquito species, and "when the flood comes, we get many, many billions of them."

He said a silver lining is the mosquitoes aren't transmitting many diseases.

Florence was the nation's second-rainiest storm in 70 years, meteorologist calculates.

North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper has ordered $4 million to fund mosquito control efforts in 27 counties that are under a major disaster declaration, his office said Wednesday in a news release.

"Increased mosquito populations often follow a hurricane or any weather event that results in large-scale flooding," the release said. 'While most mosquitoes that emerge after flooding do not transmit human disease, they still pose a public health problem by discouraging people from going outside and hindering recovery efforts."

The funding will allow efforts to start as early as Thursday.

North Carolina has still been facing other after-effects of the powerful storm, which made landfall in the state nearly two weeks ago. Residents have been dealing with fallen trees, floodwaters and debris, and the recovery process is just beginning

The state on Tuesday reported another death caused by Florence and its remnants. Across multiple states, at least 47 deaths have been attributed to the storm.

When it comes to costs, Florence's rain, wind and flooding in the state already are nearly three times more costly than Hurricane Matthew's total devastation two years ago. The state Agriculture Department said Wednesday that crop and livestock losses were estimated at over $1.1 billion in North Carolina.

--09-19-18: www.cnbc.com/2018/09/19/the-us-states-leading-the-way-in-solar.html  

--09-19-18: www.msn.com/en-us/weather/topstories/climate-change-is-making-storms-like-hurricane-florence-worse/ar-BBNxLu0?li=BBnb7Kz  
Extreme weather events, whether they're deadly heat waves or destructive hurricanes, are often pointed to as harbingers of what is to come thanks to manmade climate change.

Unfortunately, Hurricane Florence, just as with Hurricane Harvey last year, is an example of what climate change is doing to storms right now.

Asking whether any given weather event is influenced by climate change is like asking whether a ball thrown into the air will be influenced by gravity. The planet has warmed significantly over the past several decades, and that has caused changes in the environment in which extreme weather events are occurring.

Some of those changes are small and inconsequential, and some -- such as increased wind shear that tears apart hurricanes,could actually be beneficial. But some have destructive consequences.

When it comes to hurricanes and global warming, there is a lot to learn -- but of the impacts we are most certain of, such as increased rainfall and storm surge, Florence is a sobering example of how hurricane impacts have been worsened by a warmer planet.

Warmer planet, warmer ocean

Human-caused greenhouse gases in the atmosphere create an energy imbalance, with over 90% of remaining heat that is trapped by the gasses going into the oceans, according to the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Association.

Ocean heat content, a measure of the amount of heat stored in the upper levels of the ocean, is a key indicator of global warming.

2017 was the hottest year on record for Earth's oceans, with a record high for global heat content in the upper 2,000 meters of the oceans. This year is trending even hotter, with April-June ocean heat content the highest on record.

"The heat fuels storms of all sorts and contributes to very heavy rain events and flooding," said Kevin Trenberth, a senior scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research.

"The observed increases of upper [ocean heat content] support higher sea surface temperatures and atmospheric moisture, and fuel tropical storms to become more intense, bigger and longer-lasting, thereby increasing their potential for damage," he said.

Florence's environment was warmer and moister because of climate change, Trenberth said, and that set the the stage for what was to be the storm's biggest threat: heavy rainfall and flash flooding. READ MORE…

--09-19-18: www.investopedia.com/investing/wind-stocks/?partner=YahooSA&yptr=yahoo  
According to the American Wind Energy Association, the wind energy sector grew roughly 9% last year, adding over 7,000 megawatts of power generation capacity.

In total, wind energy accounted for 6.3% of the electricity supplied to the U.S. in 2017. And that 6.3% isn't as insignificant as it seems – it's enough to power nearly 27 million homes.

In 2017, Iowa, Kansas, Oklahoma and South Dakota produced more than 30% of their energy from wind, while at least 10% of the electricity generated comes from wind power in a total of 14 states.

Globally, there's even more room for growth – the International Energy Agency reported that wind is on target to reach 18% of the world's energy production by 2050. READ MORE…

--09-24-18: www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/10-days-after-hurricane-florence-fresh-chaos-in-carolinas/ar-AAAzo0M?li=BBnb7Kz  
BLADENBORO, N.C. — Ten days after Hurricane Florence came ashore, the storm caused fresh chaos Monday across the Carolinas, where rivers kept rising and thousands more people were told to be ready to evacuate.

Authorities urged up to 8,000 people in Georgetown County, on the South Carolina coast, to be prepared to flee from potential flood zones. A "record event" of up to 10 feet (3 meters) of flooding was expected to begin Tuesday near parts of the Pee Dee and Waccamaw rivers, county spokeswoman Jackie Broach-Akers said.

Residents along the Waccamaw braced for water predicted to peak Wednesday at 22 feet (6.7 meters) near Conway. That's twice the normal flood stage and far higher than the previous record of 17.9 feet (5.5 meters), according to charts published Monday by the National Weather Service.

Pastor Willie Lowrimore and several members of his church spent Saturday sandbagging and spreading plastic sheets around the sanctuary of The Fellowship With Jesus Ministries church on the banks of the Waccamaw in Yauhannah, South Carolina, about 20 miles (36 kilometers) south of Myrtle Beach.

The nearly black, reeking water seeped around and over the sandbags around 2 a.m. Monday. By noon, it was several inches deep.

With the church pews moved to a flatbed trailer on higher ground, Lowrimore sat in a rocking chair listening to the normally calm river rush by, ruining the church he built almost 20 years ago.

"I'm going to go one day at a time. Put it in the Lord's hands. My hands aren't big enough," he said.

In North Carolina, the Cape Fear and Neuse rivers remained swollen and were not expected to return to normal levels until October, the charts show.

"Florence continues to bring misery to North Carolina," North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper said Sunday evening in a statement.

Most of the Carolinas have seen the worst of the flooding, but people need to remain cautious, said Todd Hamill, a hydrologist at the National Weather Service's Southeast River Forecast Center. With most rivers having crested, that water is moving toward the coast, he said.

Parts of Interstate 40 are expected to remain underwater for another week or more, and hundreds of smaller roads remain impassable. But there was some good news: Interstate 95 was reopened to all traffic Sunday night for the first time since the floods.

--09-28-18 RECYCLED OCEAN PLASTIC FOR CONSTRUCTION:
www.architectmagazine.com/technology/products/recycled-plastic-building-products-to-save-our-planet_o?utm_source=newsletter&utm_content=Article&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=AN_092818%20(1)&he=  
Despite efforts to collect and reuse plastics, only 9 percent of the material is recycled globally, according to The Economist.

And per a study conducted at the University of California, Santa Barbara, the total volume of existing solid plastic waste would fill an area the size of Manhattan at a consistent height of 230 feet.

Because most of this debris now litters the world’s oceans, organizations like Ocean Cleanup aim to remedy plastic’s broken life cycle by making the material it collects available as feedstock for new products.

Given the sheer quantity of waste polymers available—and assuming the marine collection effort is viable—construction could be an ideal industry to employ the repurposed material.

To this end, several innovative companies and nonprofits have developed novel methods to transform plastic waste into new building products.

Nevertheless, such concerns may be negligible in light of the global environmental catastrophe we have caused with our unwanted plastic refuse. Some 8 million metric tons of plastic enter our oceans each year.

More than 260 animal species are adversely affected by marine plastic debris, and approximately 100,000 marine mammals die annually from this insidious form of pollution, according to PlasticPollution.org.

If architects and contractors could safely incorporate the bulk of this material in new building applications, it would be one of humanity’s most significant achievements in global ecological restoration. READ MORE…

---10-01-18: www.msn.com/en-us/weather/topstories/tropical-storm-rosa-threatens-11-million-people-with-flooding-in-the-southwest/ar-BBNOZSb?li=BBnb7Kz&ocid=U147DHP   In one of my Recent Global Warming Emails that I sent to folks that have signed up for such: I included an article that the Southwest, especially California would be seeing more Tropical Storms/Hurricanes in the near future = Warmer Oceans/Seas. Well, Well, Well…

Deserts aren't supposed to get much rain, but Tropical Storm Rosa is flipping the script.

Rosa is forecast to make landfall early Tuesday with more than 11 million people under a flash flood watch in the Southwest, CNN meteorologist Michael Guy said.

It'll drench Baja California with 3 to 6 inches of rain, with some spots getting up to 10 inches, the National Hurricane Center said.

As it moves northeast, Rosa will also dump 2 to 4 inches of rain on much of Arizona, with up to 6 inches in the mountains.

A flash flood watch is in effect for parts of Arizona until Wednesday as the storm's remnants move across the state, the National Weather Service said.

"These rainfall amounts may produce life-threatening flash flooding," the National Hurricane Center said. "Dangerous debris flows and landslides are also possible in mountainous terrain."

Historically, it's unusual for the US Southwest to get pummeled by a hurricane or tropical storm.

But "these events have begun to increase in recent years," CNN meteorologist Gene Norman said.

Utilities vs. Green Energy
--09-17-18: www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2018/9/14/17853884/utilities-renewable-energy-100-percent-public-opinion?ncid=newsltushpmgnews__TheMorningEmail__091718  
Renewable energy is hot. It has incredible momentum, not only in terms of deployment and costs but in terms of public opinion and cultural cachet.

To put it simply: Everyone loves renewable energy. It’s cleaner, it’s high-tech, it’s new jobs, it’s the future.

And so more and more big energy customers are demanding the full meal deal: 100 percent renewable energy.

The Sierra Club notes that so far in the US, more than 80 cities, five counties, and two states have committed to 100 percent renewables. Six cities have already hit the target.

The group RE100 tracks 144 private companies across the globe that have committed to 100 percent renewables, including Google, Ikea, Apple, Facebook, Microsoft, Coca-Cola, Nike, GM, and, uh, Lego.

The timing of all these targets (and thus their stringency) varies, everywhere from 2020 to 2050, but cumulatively, they are beginning to add up.

Even if policymakers never force power utilities to produce renewable energy through mandates, if all the biggest customers demand it, utilities will be mandated to produce it in all but name.

The rapid spread and evident popularity of the 100 percent target has created an alarming situation for power utilities. Suffice to say, while there are some visionary utilities in the country, as an industry, they tend to be extremely small-c conservative.

They do not like the idea of being forced to transition entirely to renewable energy, certainly not in the next 10 to 15 years. For one thing, most of them don’t believe the technology exists to make 100 percent work reliably; they believe that even with lots of storage, variable renewables will need to be balanced out by “dispatchable” power plants like natural gas.

For another thing, getting to 100 percent quickly would mean lots of “stranded assets,” i.e., shutting down profitable fossil fuel power plants.

In short, their customers are stampeding in a direction that terrifies them.

The industry’s dilemma is brought home by a recent bit of market research and polling done on behalf of the Edison Electric Institute, a trade group for utilities. It was distributed at a recent meeting of EEI board members and executives and shared with me.

The work was done by the market research firm Maslansky & Partners, which analyzed existing utility messaging, interviewed utility execs and environmentalists, ran a national opinion survey, and did a couple of three-hour sit-downs with “media informed customers” in Minneapolis and Phoenix.

The results are striking. They do a great job of laying out the public opinion landscape on renewables, showing where different groups have advantages and disadvantages.

The takeaway: Renewables are a public opinion juggernaut. Being against them is no longer an option. The industry’s best and only hope is to slow down the stampede a bit (and that’s what they plan to try). READ MORE…

Oct 9, 2018 10:44:30 GMT -5 michcusejoe5 said:

Nikki Haley resigns. Sad to see, I am a big fan of Haley. She was definitely one of the brightest spots in the Trump administration. Had a heavy burden early before Pompeo and Bolton came in. She did a great job of laying the hammer at the UN...place is a real shitshow.

I have seen some theories around Trump firing Sessions following the midterms, installing Graham as AG, and Haley appointed to his Senate seat by SC governor. Wouldnt necessarily complain about that scenario. Set her up nicely for a 2024 run.

YEAH just what the Country needs =  MORE Extreme Christian GOP Govt. Officials with Dark Age Beliefs that are Racist, Bigots, Gun Toting Gun Freaks, etc. etc. etc.

Yeah, I heard the same AWFUL rumors too.

The Judge Bart Book isn't finished yet. 

By the WAY, we  just/only saw Chapter One written/completed...more Chapters to come; just wait for it, wait for it, wait for it = MIDTERMS & DEMOGRAPHICS.

10-09-18: www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/petition-to-impeach-kavanaugh-tops-155000-signatures/ar-BBO8T0U?li=BBnb7Kz
A petition calling for Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh to be impeached has gathered over 155,000 signatures in the wake of his confirmation and multiple allegations of sexual misconduct brought against him.

"Kavanaugh has been credibly accused of sexual assault and lying under oath in 2004, 2006 and at least 30 times during his Supreme Court confirmation hearings," the petition, organized by liberal group CREDO Action, claims.

"Perjury is an impeachable offense. The House Judiciary Committee should immediately investigate these accusations and work to remove Kavanaugh from the Supreme Court."

"Our activism forced Republicans' misogyny and hate into the spotlight and delayed the confirmation process for weeks," the petition continues. "Now it's time to unleash the same grassroots power on House members and demand that they use every tool at their disposal to impeach Kavanaugh."

The petition has a goal of 200,000.

Heidi Hess, co-director of CREDO Action, told NBC News she believes "an accused sexual predator who committed perjury by repeatedly lying under oath to the Senate Judiciary Committee has no business being a judge - period."

"A majority of Americans opposed Kavanaugh's confirmation to the Supreme Court and we believe a majority will ultimately support his impeachment as well," Hess said, adding that the group will be particularly focusing on "making sure House Democrats know that progressives expect them to use their full power to get Kavanaugh off the bench if they gain control of the House."