A warning in South America

Monday, December 11, 2023

Good afternoon,

Here's the agenda today:

UP FIRST: This year's El Niño in South America is a preview of coming attractions

CATCH UP: Can Democrats figure out their differences over Gaza?

—Dylan Scott, senior correspondent

UP FIRST

El Nino is a preview of our climate future

Karlotta Freier for Vox

If you're looking for signs of progress on our planet's changing climate, they are hard to find this Monday.

Reuters reported that the draft agreement being hashed out at the global climate conference COP28 does not include an explicit commitment to phasing out fossil fuels. Meanwhile, another extreme weather event incurred a devastating toll, with at least six people dead in Tennessee and tens of thousands without power after as many as 13 tornadoes ripped through the state over the weekend.

I don't know about you, but when I try to visualize the irrevocably altered climate that likely awaits us in the coming years, it is tempting to imagine the flooded and uninhabitable New York City of the 2004 film The Day After Tomorrow. But in reality, there will be a less cinematic but equally potent kind of destruction that is visited upon the world.

As part of Vox's ongoing climate change series pegged to the COP28 conference, senior correspondent Umair Irfan examined this year's particularly devastating El Niño in South America and what it tells us about future weather worldwide.

El Niño means "the boy," as fishers of days gone by noticed that the unusual weather patterns always seemed to coincide with Christmas. Every few years, the ocean off the coast of Peru and Ecuador grows a little warmer than usual, which sets off the storms that are associated with the name. Because of its effect on water temperatures, El Niño is a natural preview of sorts for what warmer weather could yield.

The planet's continued heating combined with this year's El Niño have pushed global temperatures above the 1.5 degrees Celsius threshold that the 2015 Paris climate agreement sought to prevent the earth from passing. The belief was that keeping temperatures below those levels would make climate change more manageable. While the Paris Agreement technically specifies a 10-year average, and we are therefore not yet in violation of those terms, it is still an ignoble milestone.

"The impacts of El Niño look a lot like what the impacts of climate change are going to be," Christopher Callahan, an earth science researcher at Stanford University, told Umair:

The Southern Hemisphere saw record-breaking heat waves during its winter. Inland lakes in turn saw their water levels, always a closely watched indicator of climate change, reach record lows. That, in addition to the decades-long retreat of glaciers in the Andes Mountains, threatens the region's water supply.
Parts of South America are experiencing both extreme drought and rainfall, devastating local ecosystems. The Amazon is in the middle of a drought that has killed dozens of river dolphins. Wetlands to the south of the rainforest have burned, and habitats that are critical for jaguars have been erased.
The economic toll of El Niño is daunting. High tides could wipe out local infrastructure, roads, and bridges. Peru's government expects to spend $1 billion — a hefty sum for a country with a GDP of $242 billion — to recover from extreme weather this year.

Read the rest of Umair's reporting here.

CATCH UP

Can Democrats overcome their deep divisions over Gaza?

Lead pipes, broken open to show their toxic interiors, lay on a tiled surface.

Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

The Democratic Party remains fractured over the Israel-Hamas war more than two months after the conflict first began.

Biden continues to be stuck in a political quagmire over the war, with just 37 percent of Americans approving of how he's handling it and 52 percent disapproving, according to a new Wall Street Journal poll. Republicans are fairly uniform in their outlook: They disapprove of the president's actions, they have much more sympathy for Israelis than Palestinians, and they think Israel's military campaign has been largely proportionate.

But Democrats are more divided. Half of the party says they sympathize with both peoples equally; 24 percent say they side more with Palestinians and 17 percent said they were more sympathetic to Israelis. Younger Democrats in particular are driving much of the party's support for the Palestinians.

Democrats are still searching for an elusive consensus, Vox's Nicole Narea writes, but are now a party divided on a high-profile issue going into next year's presidential campaign.

Democratic divisions were on display in a high-profile House vote last week. Republican leadership put forward a resolution that equated any anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism, not really as an ideological statement, but to put the members across the aisle on the hot seat. In that sense, it worked: 95 Democrats voted for it, 92 Democrats abstained (voting "present" and refusing to take a position) and 13 voted against it.
Congressional Democrats have continually found themselves at odds over the Israel-Hamas war. Rep. Pramila Jayapal caught flak last week from colleagues for, in their view, not condemning sexual violence by Hamas forcefully enough. Meanwhile, a small group of Democratic senators are trying (but will likely fail) to get language in an aid package for Israel that requires the nation to abide by international law in its military campaign.
Some Democratic strategists don't think the disarray will lead to an electoral penalty. "It's highly unlikely that for other than a small number of people this will be a determinative voting issue for them 11 months from now," Democratic strategist Simon Rosenberg told Nicole. "Based on history, where foreign policy issues often are not determinative for many voters, it's unlikely that this is going to become something that creates a major fissure in the Democratic Party."

VERBATIM

🗣️ "The whole question of cats is less about the cat and more about the human. A cat is going to be a cat, and they're very funny and affectionate … You as a person also have to understand that there are things in this life you cannot control, and one of those things is a cat."

—Ella Cerón, an author, friend, and owner of two black cats (Holly and Olive) to Vox's Emily Stewart on what makes for a good cat. [Vox]

AROUND THE WEB

The world's first CRISPR-based treatment gets FDA approval. It is one of the most notable applications so far of the breakthrough gene-editing technology. The medication, called Casgevy, treats sickle-cell disease, a chronic condition that can shorten people's lives. [STAT]
A surge in applesauce lead cases sparks concerns. This one hit close to home: My 21-month-old twins eat applesauce almost every day. A Post investigation found that the number of cases of lead poisoning tied to a few brands likely exceeds the official count. [Washington Post]
Misinformation stymies efforts to strike a "pandemic treaty." Ahead of next year's World Health Assembly, the world's nations are trying to strike an agreement on how best to prevent future pandemics. But, much like during the Covid-19 pandemic, they are beset by conspiracy theories and false claims (such as that signees must surrender their sovereignty to the World Health Organization) that are making it difficult to reach a consensus [Devex]