The Climate Report #382: The REAL DEAL About Climate Change
Featuring: How Trees and Forests Cool The Climate and Cause Rain. Also, The Real Deal About Flooding and Drought.
Welcome to Episode #382 of The Climate Report.
As ever, I’m critiquing the prevailing narrative around climate change. This is important, because the reporting on climate change is as ubiquitous as it is misleading.
We have real solutions at our fingertips. The opportunities surround us. That’s why I spend the first half of this episode talking about how trees and forests help bring rain and create healthy water cycles.
But it’s also important to separate truth from fiction, so I in Parts 2 and 3, I talk about the real deal with flooding and drought.
And in Part 4, I review the UN’s website about “The Effects of Climate Change.”
I hope that in this journey, we can both learn a little more about how the natural world really works and refine our understanding of what we can do.
I regret that the information from trusted institutions like the UN and major media is so unreliable and misleading. But as long as that’s the case, we can use their misleading rhetoric to refine our critical thinking skills.
Below, please find my outline, so you can follow along if you wish.
SHOW NOTES:
Welcome to The Climate Report. This is Hart Hagan, your host, and we are on episode number 382.
Today’s Topic is … The REAL DEAL about climate change.
Four parts:
Part 1: How trees and forests cool the climate and cause rain.
Part 2: What are droughts really about?
Part 3: What is flooding really about?
Part 4: What is the UN saying about the effects of climate change?
[0:52]
The purpose of TCR is to bring clarity and sanity to the conversation about climate change. We are being lied to constantly about climate change. Of course powerful lies are not completely false. They contain an element of truth.
It’s true that climate change is caused in part by GHG. But is that the biggest part? And should reducing GHG be our sole and exclusive focus? And do the people who are bellyaching about GHG have a plan for dealing with them?
I say no to all these questions. GHG are a symptom of much deeper problems, scientifically and politically.
[2:30]
And the people who are trying to scare us into reducing GHG do not have a plan for dealing with them.
[3:20]
My critiques of the prevailing narrative.
Greenhouse gases are not the only cause of global warming.
Fossil fuels are not the only cause of greenhouse gases.
Lowering fossil fuels is not going to happen under any of the proposals currently being discussed.
The main opportunities facing us are to restore
Our plant matter
Our water cycles
Our ecosystems
Opportunities (beyond the scope of this talk)
To lower our total energy
To live within our ecological limits
To look at WHO is making these decisions and decide whether or not we want a democracy or an oligarchy.
[7:30]
Part 1: How trees and forests cool the climate and cause rain.
Part 2: What are droughts really about?
Part 3: What is flooding really about?
Part 4: What is the UN saying about the causes and effects of climate change?
[8:00]
PART 1: How trees and forests cool the climate and cause rain.
Trees capture rainfall.
According to the US Forest service a medium size tree can intercept as much as 2380 gallons of rainfall per year.
That’s 50-100 gallons per rain event.
How does it do this? How does the tree capture all that rain?
Leaves,
bark,
roots,
Forest soil
Leaves become leaf litter, which become soil.
Roots enrich the soil with carbon.
Roots increase the soil organic matter.
Roots jump start the soil food web.
Trees drink water
https://www.fs.usda.gov/Internet/FSE_DOCUMENTS/stelprdb5269813.pdf
HOW MUCH WATER DOES A TREE DRINK? A healthy 100-foot-tall tree has about 200,000 leaves. A tree this size can take 11,000 gallons of water from the soil and release it into the air again, as oxygen and water vapor, in a single growing season.
ROOTS DO MORE THAN DRINK The roots of a tree grip the ground and act like thousands of “fingers” to anchor the tree as it keeps soil from washing away. The amazingly complex root network — often an area underground larger than the tree’s branches — also filters harmful substances out of water as it soaks downward.
FOREST SOIL HELPS THE WATER TABLE To become groundwater, rain must fall, then seep through the soil down to the water table, like water going through a coffee filter on its way to the pot. But sometimes water never has a chance to get into the ground. Instead, it washes off parking lots or other paved areas, eventually making its way into lakes or streams. Forests are very good at allowing water to enter the ground and recharge the water table. The soil, shade and organic materials under trees help hold moisture so it can be absorbed and replenish groundwater levels.
Trees Hold water
Trees are 50% water.
So whenever we remove trees, we’re removing a reservoir of water. The tree itself is a reservoir of water. And it helps support a surrounding ecosystem which is also a reservoir of water. So both trees and the ecosystems they support our reservoirs of water. We can nurture and respect that Reservoir of water, or we can destroy it. If we respect that reservoir of water then it will cool the air, create habitat for wildlife and contribute to steady gentle rainfall.
Transpiration. Trees and plants transpire.
USGS. A large tree can transpire 40,000 gallons per year. 150 gallons per day.
Transpiration ⇒ evaporative cooling.
Step out of the shower, the bath or the pool.
Walk under a shade tree.
Even plants transpire and create a cooling effects.
Trees and forests
Create cool, moist conditions into which rain can fall.
Mitigate
the urban heat island.
The bare dirt heat island in a crop field
The heat island of a desert
The heat island that exists when you clearcut a forest.
Trees Cause precipitation
Aerobacter
Terpenoids.
Precipitation creates a biotic pump.
Condensation creates a vacuum, which pulls in moist air laterally and pulls in moist air from below.
[37:50]
Part 2: What are droughts really about?
Deforestation
Excessive tillage in crop fields.
Bad soil that does not absorb water, but sloughs it off, so the water is NOT available for periods of low rain fall. This increases the impact of the drought.
Good soil absorbs rainwater, so that it is available through periods of below average rainfall.
[39:20]
Part 3: What is flooding really about?
Flooding is not a function of rainfall, as much as runoff.
An inch of rain can cause a flood if all of it runs off.
A foot of rain will not cause a flood as long as it all soaks into the ground. (It’s possible for a foot of rain to soak into the ground.)
How can we reduce runoff?
Plants and trees
Good soil
Designing our stormwater management for hydration, not drainage.
We currently design our stormwater systems for rapid drainage. This causes floods.
[42:20]
Part 4: What is the UN saying about the effects of climate change?
What is the UN leaving out?
The importance of water and ecosystems.
Water flowing through ecosystems cools the environment, locally and regionally and--if we let it--globally.
The importance of nurturing our ecosystems, where we live, work, play and grow our food.
The opportunity to nurture ecosystems by restoring
Our landscapes
Our forests
Our deserts
Our farms
UNITED NATIONS: Effects of Climate Change
Hotter temperatures
As greenhouse gas concentrations rise, so does the global surface temperature.
The last decade, 2011-2020, is the warmest on record. Since the 1980s, each decade has been warmer than the previous one. Nearly all land areas are seeing more hot days and heat waves. Higher temperatures increase heat-related illnesses and make working outdoors more difficult. Wildfires start more easily and spread more rapidly when conditions are hotter. Temperatures in the Arctic have warmed at least twice as fast as the global average.
Effects of Climate Change
More severe storms
Destructive storms have become more intense and more frequent in many regions. As temperatures rise, more moisture evaporates, which exacerbates extreme rainfall and flooding, causing more destructive storms. The frequency and extent of tropical storms is also affected by the warming ocean. Cyclones, hurricanes, and typhoons feed on warm waters at the ocean surface. Such storms often destroy homes and communities, causing deaths and huge economic losses.
Effects of Climate Change
Increased drought
Climate change is changing water availability, making it scarcer in more regions. Global warming exacerbates water shortages in already water-stressed regions and is leading to an increased risk of agricultural droughts affecting crops, and ecological droughts increasing the vulnerability of ecosystems. Droughts can also stir destructive sand and dust storms that can move billions of tons of sand across continents. Deserts are expanding, reducing land for growing food. Many people now face the threat of not having enough water on a regular basis.
Effects of Climate Change
A warming, rising ocean
The ocean soaks up most of the heat from global warming. The rate at which the ocean is warming strongly increased over the past two decades, across all depths of the ocean. As the ocean warms, its volume increases since water expands as it gets warmer. Melting ice sheets also cause sea levels to rise, threatening coastal and island communities. In addition, the ocean absorbs carbon dioxide, keeping it from the atmosphere. But more carbon dioxide makes the ocean more acidic, which endangers marine life and coral reefs.
https://www.un.org/en/climatechange/science/causes-effects-climate-change
CONCLUSION
What are the opportunities facing us?
Understanding the importance of water and ecosystems.
Water flowing through ecosystems cools the environment, locally and regionally and--if we let it--globally.
The importance of nurturing our ecosystems, where we live, work, play and farm.
The opportunity to nurture ecosystems by restoring
Our landscapes
Our forests
Our deserts
Our farms