Media roundup: Americans are already living with climate change; corporate America believes there’s money to be made; Greenland at ‘tipping point’; businesses are worried

Gone in a Generation

Washington Post

Across America, climate change is already disrupting lives.

The continental United States is 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than it was a century ago. Seas at the coasts are nine inches higher. The damage is mounting from these fundamental changes, and Americans are living it.

Corporate America Is Getting Ready to Monetize Climate Change

Bloomberg

Bank of America Corp. worries flooded homeowners will default on their mortgages. The Walt Disney Co. is concerned its theme parks will get too hot for vacationers, while AT&T Inc. fears hurricanes and wildfires may knock out its cell towers.

The Coca-Cola Co. wonders if there will still be enough water to make Coke.

As the Trump administration rolls back rules meant to curb global warming, new disclosures show that the country’s largest companies are already bracing for its effects. The documents reveal how widely climate change is expected to cascade through the economy — disrupting supply chains, disabling operations and driving away customers, but also offering new ways to make money.

The disclosures were collected by CDP, a U.K.-based nonprofit that asks companies to report their environmental impact, including the risks and opportunities they believe climate change presents for their businesses. More than 7,000 companies worldwide filed reports for 2018, including more than 1,800 from the U.S.

Recently, CDP, formerly known as the Carbon Disclosure Project, released letter grades for those companies that measure “how aware they are about the issue, how they’re managing it, how they’re progressing toward targets,”said Caroline Barraclough, a CDP spokeswoman.

Greenland’s Melting Ice Nears a ‘Tipping Point,’ Scientists Say

New York Times

Greenland’s enormous ice sheet is melting at such an accelerated rate that it may have reached a “tipping point,” and could become a major factor in sea-level rise around the world within two decades, scientists said in a study published on Monday.

The Arctic is warming at twice the average rate of the rest of the planet, and the new research adds to the evidence that the ice loss in Greenland, which lies mainly above the Arctic Circle, is speeding up as the warming increases. The authors found that ice loss in 2012 was nearly four times the rate in 2003, and after a lull in 2013-14, it has resumed.

The study is the latest in a series of papers published this month suggesting that scientific estimates of the effects of a warming planet have been, if anything, too conservative. Just a week ago, a separate study of ice loss in Antarctica found that the continent is contributing more to rising sea levels than previously thought.

Business Worries About Climate. Business Actions to Fix it, Not So Much.

Greg Ip, Wall Street Journal

Every year the World Economic Forum asks 1,000 business, policy and thought leaders to rank about 30 risks facing the world by both impact and likelihood. In this year’s report, released Wednesday, climate-related risks top the list.

Officials Brace for Sea Level Rise 

 North Coast Journal

As sea levels inexorably rise, various public agencies have been working locally to find a defensive strategy to protect vulnerable bottomlands from inundation. This is a challenging enterprise. The cities of Arcata and Eureka, plus more than 10,000 acres of agricultural land, U.S. Highway 101, underground gas lines and electrical power lines are located in a 102-mile-long ring around Humboldt Bay. They are largely protected from the sea by a crumbling ring of earthen dikes, most of which are about 100 years old. A 3-foot rise in sea level, predicted to occur by 2050, would top some of these dikes and result in the loss of 62 percent of our agricultural lands, according to a presentation by Humboldt County Planner Lisa Shikany.

Complicating matters, no one agency is responsible for maintaining the dikes. There are 170 different landowners and the failure of even one to maintain their portion of the “bathtub” would result in everybody getting inundated.