[TheClimate.Vote] July 26, 2016 Daily Global Warming News for voters, candidates and officials

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    *Climate*Voters Finally Matter.  Can Clinton Convince Them?
    <http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2016/07/bernie_supporters_could_sway_the_election_will_clinton_get_to_them_in_time.html>

Slate Magazine 	 -‎5 hours ago‎ 	

	
	
	

*Hillary needs to realize—soon—that her chances of becoming president 
hinge on climate voters*....But it turns out that this minority—the one 
that believes*climate change*is an issue of singular importance worth 
hanging your vote on—could be large enough to swing the election this 
year, if they decide to stay home or vote for Jill Stein, ....*Hillary 
needs to make it known as loudly and as often as possible that she 
believes climate change is a human rights issue, and there’s nothing 
more important. She needs to be clear that in addition to the 
incremental steps she’s already announced, she’ll make significant 
further leaps to address it—the kind of language Sanders used throughout 
his campaign. According to the latest numbers from FiveThirtyEight’s 
Nate Silver, if the election were held today, Trump would likely win. 
Hillary needs to assuage Bernie backers’ fears, and fast...What she 
needs to do now is convince climate voters that her specific brand of 
incrementalism is the best way forward: After all, making steady, 
day-after-day progress is better than just hoping for a carbon tax to 
magically make it through a hostile Congress. Problem is, that’s a hard 
sell when you’re already convinced the world is burning down around you...*


    Tim Kaine's*Climate*Record Is All over the Map
    <http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/tim-kaine-s-climate-record-is-all-over-the-map/>

Scientific American 	 -‎4 hours ago‎ 	

	
	
	

He is for natural gas and oil drilling, yet also for cutting greenhouse 
gas emissions...At the same time, he supported renewable energy and 
instituted the first-ever*climate change*commission in Virginia to bring 
together environmentalists and power companies to chart a way forward on 
cutting*greenhouse gas*levels. *..**."I think, at best, his climate 
record is mixed to poor," said Mike Tidwell, head of the Chesapeake 
Climate Action Network..."In terms of the broader environmental track 
record, both as governor and senator, I do think 'moderate' is an 
accurate label," said Trip Pollard, a Richmond-based lawyer with the 
Southern Environmental Law Center. Pollard noted that for a Southern 
Democrat in a state where most lawmakers still won't utter the words 
"climate change," Kaine could be considered moderate to 
progressive...."It's hard to predict what anyone would do in a different 
office, but I do feel like the bottom line is, as governor and senator, 
he's been a fairly strong voice on environmental issues."*


    Why*Climate*Negotiators Have Turned Their Attention to Your Air
    Conditioner
    <http://time.com/4421908/climate-change-hfcs-air-conditioning/>

TIME 	 -‎2 hours ago‎ 	

	
	
	

*Climate*negotiators meeting in Vienna over the weekend laid the 
groundwork for an agreement to stem emissions of*global warming*-causing 
hydrofluorocarbons—known as HFCs—that some environmental experts say 
could be the most significant advance infighting global warming this 
year....An agreement is finally in sight after seven years of talks on 
the topic, negotiators said following meetings. They expect the accord 
to be finalized at a conference in October during a conference in 
Rwanda.  “Amending the Montreal Protocol to phase down HFCs is one of 
the single most important unitary steps that we could possibly take at 
this moment to stave off the worst impacts of climate change and to 
protect the future for people in every single corner of the globe,” said 
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry at the conference.


    EPA moves to regulate climate-warming  Airplane Pollution
    <http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/26/us/politics/epa-airplane-pollution.html>

CBS News 	
	

	
	
	

WASHINGTON -- The government has found that jet engine exhaust is adding 
to climate change and endangering human health, and needs to be 
regulated....Jet engines spew significant amounts of greenhouse gases, 
including carbon dioxide and methane, into the upper atmosphere, where 
they trap heat from the sun. But proposed rules such as imposing 
fuel-efficiency standards have faced stiff opposition from aircraft 
makers and commercial airlines...Aircraft emissions were not addressed 
as part of the landmark global climate agreement agreed to in Paris in 
December..."Addressing pollution from aircraft is an important element 
of U.S. efforts to address climate change," said Janet McCabe, EPA's 
acting assistant administrator for air and radiation. She said aircraft 
are the third largest contributor to greenhouse gas emissions... 
Environmentalists say aviation accounts for about 5 percent of global 
greenhouse emissions,...The EPA's findings do not apply to small 
piston-engine planes or to military aircraft....Environmental groups 
have criticized the new international standards as too weak to actually 
slow global warming. Planes burn the most fuel during takeoffs and 
landings, while cruising at high altitudes is the most fuel-efficient 
period.


    These are the best arguments from the 3% of*climate*scientist
    'skeptics.' Really.
    <https://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2016/jul/25/these-are-the-best-arguments-from-the-3-of-climate-scientist-skeptics-really>

The Guardian 	 -‎4 hours ago‎ 	

	
	
	

WhenI give a presentation and mention the 97% expert consensus 
<https://www.skepticalscience.com/best-arguments-from-3-percent.html> on 
human-caused*global warming*, I'm often asked, “what's the deal with the 
other 3%?.the world’s largest private sector coal company went to court, 
made its best scientific case against the 97% expert consensus, and 
lost. One of coal’s expert witnesses was University of Alabama at 
Huntsville climate scientist Roy Spencer - a controversial figure who 
once compared those with whom he disagreed to Nazis, and has expressed 
his love for Fox News....Last week, Spencer wrote a white paper for the 
Texas Public Policy Institute (TPPI) outlining the contrarian case 
against climate concerns. TPPI is part of the web of denial, having 
received substantial funding from both the tobacco and fossil fuel 
industries, including $65,000 from ExxonMobil and at least $911,499 from 
Koch-related foundations since 1998, and over $3 million from “dark 
money” anonymizers Donors Trust and Donors Capital Fund....
Spencer’s arguments should of course be evaluated on their own merits, 
regardless of who commissioned them. However, it turns out that they 
have little merit on which to stand. The white paper is a classic 
example of a Gish Gallop – producing such a large volume of nonsense 
arguments that refuting all of them is too time-consuming. NASA Goddard 
director Gavin Schmidt rightly described Spencer’s paper as:..A mishmash 
of myths...Most of Spencer’s white paper consists of repeating a variety 
of long-debunked myths. It’s laid out in the form of 13 basic climate 
questions that Spencer tries to answer. Fortunately, 
SkepticalScience.com has a database of over 200 climate myths, and 
summaries of what the peer-reviewed scientific research says about each. 
This makes it possible to handle Spencer’s 13-point Gish Gallop by 
simply referring to the relevant myth rebuttals 
<https://www.skepticalscience.com/fixednum.php>. 
https://www.skepticalscience.com/fixednum.php


    Can the Art of Divination Help People Cope With*Climate*Anxiety?
    <http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonianmag/turning-art-divination-help-people-process-their-climate-anxiety-180959898/>

Smithsonian 	 -‎10 hours ago‎ 	

	
	
	

A Brooklyn-based artist strives to create emotional connections with the 
looming threat of climate change...Harrowing facts about*climate 
change*have become commonplace; the concept of*climate*anxiety is now 
part of the popular lexicon...The “new normal” is here: The world is 
experiencing its 14th consecutive month of record-breaking temperatures, 
the longest in recorded history. Harrowing facts about climate change 
have become commonplace; the concept of climate anxiety is now part of 
the popular lexicon. Yet while cause for concern has increased, 
engagement with climate change has stagnated or ceased. This disparity 
is what spurred Leonard to action. “I thought to myself, if we’re not 
going to listen to climate scientists, we might as well be listening to 
fortune-tellers,” Leonard says. Then he took that idea and ran with it, 
using the art of divination as a conduit to help people grapple with 
climate change...On the surface, such small actions may seem futile, 
bordering on frivolous. But Leonard’s perception is correct: 
Psychologists have almost no evidence that data changes people’s 
decision-making, as I learned in research for a 2012 TEDx talk on 
psychological barriers to environmental engagement. Science is not our 
only conduit to understanding.... “The human species did not evolve to 
handle today’s complex problems,” says Anthony Leiserowitz, a research 
scientist who runs the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication. 
Instead, our brains are designed to respond to four kinds of threats, 
explains Harvard University psychologist Daniel Gilbert: “Ones that are 
instantaneous, imminent or personalized—or things that repulse us.” What 
we see and, more importantly, what we directly experience, matters. What 
also matters is what we believe to be true: Psychology studies suggest 
that we will go so far as to embrace misinformation that conforms to our 
pre-existing ideas in order to keep our values in alignment. When faced 
with compelling evidence contrary to their opinions, people often harden 
their beliefs because they distrust the message or the messenger.
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonianmag/turning-art-divination-help-people-process-their-climate-anxiety-180959898/#eXCel4KCbeubeXf1.99


    Weather Disasters Can Fuel War in Volatile Countries
    <http://www.climatecentral.org/news/weather-disasters-can-fuel-war-20557>

Climate Central 	 -‎4 hours ago‎ 	

	
	
	

Following the warmest two years on record and spikes in violence that 
fueled a global refugee crisis,*climate*scientists on Monday reported 
that armed fighting is prone to follow droughts, heatwaves and other 
weather-related calamities in turbulent*...*

*Facing Down "Environmental Grief" 
<http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/facing-down-environmental-grief/>*
Is a traumatic sense of loss freezing action against climate change?
Despite a growing body of evidence that climate change is wreaking havoc 
on our environment and psyches, many people still resist making small 
lifestyle changes that may help mitigate disaster. The logic of climate 
science has not shaken enough people from their apparent complacency; 
neither has fear. So what will? Washington State–based thanatologist 
Kriss Kevorkian—a specialist in death, dying and bereavement—suggests 
that real motivation depends on people acknowledging their 
“environmental grief,” a term she coined after studying the decline of 
killer whale populations...Grief over loss of human life is assigned a 
series of stages but Kevorkian (no relation to famed assisted-suicide 
doctor Jack Kevorkian) notes that we lack an analogous lexicon for the 
loss of our natural world and its creatures. Yet what else can we call 
the wrenching feeling of witnessing whales beaching themselves like 
toppled towers, bee populations dying off, even the death of a gorilla 
at a zoo?...This “is the grief reaction stemming from the environmental 
loss of ecosystems by natural and man-made events,” Kevorkian says. This 
theory builds on gerontologist Ken Doka’s work on “disenfranchised 
grief,” which is grief that is often unacknowledged or invalidated 
(often resulting from cases of suicide or abortion). Whereas the term 
“environmental grief” may be new, similar concepts emerged from 
“ecopsychology” and movements including the deep ecology of the 1970s, 
which drew from indigenous traditions to promote living in connection 
with nature....Kevorkian says that when the death of whales began 
causing her to experience grief as profound as it would be for members 
of her own family, she was hesitant to share this with others at 
first—until she found like-minded grievers. Now, at this critical 
climate juncture, she hopes to bring legitimacy to these experiences, 
much as naturalist Richard Louv made people aware of nature deficit 
disorder a decade ago.


    *Climate Change*and the Complexity of Science
    <http://www.huffingtonpost.com/steven-cohen/climate-change-and-the-co_b_11177834.html>

Huffington Post 	 -‎1 hour ago‎ 	

	
	
	

One of the most successful environmental treaties of all time was the 
Montreal Protocol of 1987, which banned the use of chlorofluorocarbons, 
or CFCs, an ozone-depleting substance mainly used in refrigeration and 
air conditioning.... Nearly 100 of the most ozone-depleting substances 
have been phased out. And as a result, the hole in the ozone is 
shrinking and on its way to repair. It’s why we’re here today... Now, 
that’s the good news. The bad news is that in too many cases, the 
substances banned by the Montreal Protocol have been replaced by 
hydrofluorocarbons - HFCs - which are safer for ozone, but are 
exceptionally potent drivers of climate change - thousands of times more 
potent, for example, than CO2.

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