[TheClimate.Vote] December 2, 2017 - Daily Global Warming News Digest
Richard Pauli
richard at theclimate.vote
Sat Dec 2 11:44:06 EST 2017
/December 2, 2017
/
*The GOP Tax Bill Is Basically Like Throwing Gasoline On The Dumpster
Fire That Is the Climate Crisis
<http://inthesetimes.com/article/20723/gop-tax-bill-senate-climate-environment/>*
The latest Republican scheme isn’t just bad news for the economy, it
will be terrible for the environment
For starters, the bill would extend a generous corporate tax cut to the
very industries now careening the planet and humanity toward a hotter,
wetter future, namely coal, oil and gas. It would also open up 1.5
million acres of Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for oil and
gas drilling. An analysis from Oil Change International released last
year found that nearly two-thirds of fuel reserves in existing oil and
gas fields need to remain undeveloped to keep the earth from warming
beyond 2 degrees, a threshold that itself would mean large-scale climate
impacts and severe loss of land in low-lying areas.
The bill could also make it harder for the United States to break its
addiction to fossil fuels. Though it wouldn’t eliminate existing tax
credits for renewable fuel sources, the legislation could make these
credits harder to access. On November 22, a provision many renewable
energy advocates hoped would get left behind in the House version of the
tax package—the Base Erosion Anti-Abuse Tax (BEAT) provision—re-emerged
in the Senate version, prompting a vocal response from solar and wind
trade associations. “We normally don’t speak in these kinds of terms,
where we talk about collapse of the tax equity market,”a joint letter
from several renewables trade associations
<http://www.acore.org/resources/press-releases/6305-acore-awea-cres-and-seia-submit-joint-letter-calling-on-senate-to-repair-provisions-that-undermine-renewable-energy-in-the-senate-tax-bill>
stated in response. “We’re looking at the end of the principal financing
mechanism that has fostered growth of the renewable energy sector since
the 1990s.”
The BEAT provision would essentially add uncertainty for investors in
renewable projects that they could collect tax equity from Production
and Investment Tax Credits, which currently subsidize around a third of
wind and solar development. According to a blog post
<http://www.nortonrosefulbright.com/knowledge/publications/158454/us-tax-equity-market-could-shrink-under-senate-tax-bill?utm_source=vuture&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=20171122%20base%20erosion%20tax_23%20november%202017>
from Keith Martin, a lawyer specializing in tax and project financing,
so-called tax equity financing provides around 40 to 50 percent of the
funds for the average solar project and 50 to 60 percent for the average
wind project.
Were it to be implemented, the BEAT provision would mean that neither
renewable energy companies nor their investors could be sure at the
onset of a wind or solar project whether they could claim the relevant
tax credits as tax equity, threatening to upend one of the primary
incentives offered by the government to spur investment in renewable
energy. Because the measure would also apply retroactively, Martin told
the trade publication Utility Dive that it could cut into tax credit
claims on deals “closed as far back as 2008.”l(For more detailed
explainers on the BEAT provision, see here
<http://www.nortonrosefulbright.com/knowledge/publications/158454/us-tax-equity-market-could-shrink-under-senate-tax-bill>
and here.)
<https://pv-magazine-usa.com/2017/11/29/devastating-provision-in-senate-tax-bill-would-hobble-the-itc/#.Wh6-Vkcf7kU.twitter>
... Kate Aronoff
http://inthesetimes.com/article/20723/gop-tax-bill-senate-climate-environment/
*Top US firms including Walmart and Ford oppose Trump on climate change
<https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/dec/01/trump-climate-change-paris-withdrawal-ford-walmart>*Big
businesses appear at Miami summit to show progress on sustainability
'We've been working on this for a long time, prior to this administration'
Several of the country's corporate giants, including Walmart, General
Motors, Ford and Mars, appeared this week at the second annual Companies
v Climate Change <http://usa.solveclimatechange.com/index.php>
conference in Miami to showcase their progress and reinforce their
belief that sustainability and other green targets can be achieved
irrespective of the policies and purpose of the White House.
Other companies at the conference in Miami - a poignant venue following
flooding from Hurricane Irma in September and the threat of obliteration
from sea-level rise within the next century - touted their own
achievements in defiance of Trump's climate stance. For example, General
Motors' purchase of 200 megawatts of wind energy for its Ohio and
Illinois plants
<http://www.gm.com/mol/GM-renewable-energy-by-2018.html>achieves 20% of
its target to use only renewable energy sources by 2050. Confectionery
giant Mars, meanwhile, has launched a $1bn sustainability plan,
targeting a 70% reduction in greenhouse gases.
"The message is one of optimism and hope. The president can only do so
much, he's full of bluster and likes to talk a lot and kind of
exaggerates his influence. The companies are seeing they can take the
lead and influence what happens on the ground, so there's hope and
optimism. Companies around the world are moving forward and not letting
this one rogue administration hold them back."
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/dec/01/trump-climate-change-paris-withdrawal-ford-walmart
*
Good news about climate change, from unexpected quarters
<https://thebulletin.org/good-news-about-climate-change-unexpected-quarters11319>
*In a pair of dramatic reversals over the past few days, the Trump
administration now appears to have changed its positions on a key pair
of earlier, Obama-era environmental efforts-a laudable change of events,
albeit in back-door fashion, that one can only hope is a sign of real
things to come.
After saying the opposite a few months ago...the Trump administration
now says that it will back the phasing-out of a powerful new class of
greenhouse gases known as hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), said a US State
Department official at a conference last Thursday in Montreal.
Reading between the lines, it seems that manufacturing giant Honeywell
and chemical company Chemours-a spin-off of Dupont de Nemours-had
already invested more than $1 billion in manufacturing systems to make
refrigerants that are more ozone-friendly than HFCs, and didn't want to
go back to the old way of doing things, which would have required a
fortune to re-tool. They formed an alliance with environmental
organizations to oppose Trump's EPA (proving that politics does indeed
make strange bedfellows)...
https://thebulletin.org/good-news-about-climate-change-unexpected-quarters11319*
*
*This dark shadow over the Russian Arctic comes from coal
<https://thebarentsobserver.com/en/arctic/2017/11/dark-shadow-over-russian-arctic-comes-coal>*
Company VostokCoal has backing from the highest political level for its
extraction and export of 30 million tons of coal per year from Taybass,
the coal basin on the northern tip of great Taymyr peninsula.
By Atle Staalesen
November 29, 2017
It is one of the remotest places on earth. Nobody makes it to Taymyr
without the right papers, contacts and security clearance. The vast
lands of the peninsula are inhabited by only a few thousand people and
infrastructure is almost nonexistent.
This is where VostokCoal is developing its huge project. Over the next
few years, the company intends to extract hundreds of millions of tons
of coal, build new roads and infrastructure, ...
It is anthracite, a hard kind of coal with high carbon content, which is
located in abundant layers north in the Arctic peninsula. It is used
mostly in the metallurgy sector and mined only by a few countries in the
world. The 30 million tons from Taymyr will account for almost five
percent of annual global production.
According to VostokCoal, this material needs no processing and can be
easily digged out of the area and directly loaded on board ships for
exports.
It is a high-profit project, project owner Aleksandr Isayev says in an
interview with Prime. «The extraction is conducted in the immediate
vicinity to the port», he says and adds that in 2017-2018 the company
will spend only about $20 per ton extracted and sent to port, $5 on
local terminal loading and $20 on shipment to Amsterdam.
And the works are in full progress. In 2016, the first 100,000 tons of
coal were extracted and the first ship load sent towards foreign buyers.
More out-shipments followed this year...
According to company plans, as much as 30 million tons of the
high-quality coal is to be extracted every year by 2025. Already in
2019, production will amount to ten million tons.
And it is all going to be shipped out and exported through Arctic waters.
Ultimately, this coal will constitute a lion's share of shipments on the
Northern Sea Route. A memo from the federal Ministry of Natural
Resource, made available by news site PortNews, shows that more than
half of Russian Arctic shipments in year 2025 might come from VostokCoal.
https://thebarentsobserver.com/en/arctic/2017/11/dark-shadow-over-russian-arctic-comes-coal
*Breaking: YouTube terminates largest Climate Science channel in the
World
<http://climatestate.com/2017/11/30/breaking-youtube-terminates-largest-climate-science-channel-in-the-world/>*
YouTube cites spam, scam, and deception
...after YouTube just last February took down the Climate State channel,
and now again. The Climate State channel had close to 18,000 subscribers
and 6.5 million views, over 600 videos - the biggest climate change
focused channel on the planet.
If visitors now try to access the channel, a highlighted message reads:
"This account has been terminated due to multiple or severe violations
of YouTube's policy against spam, deceptive practices, and misleading
content or other Terms of Service violations."
Back in February it took several days before the channel was enabled
again - and nobody provided any explanation. The channel is in good
standing, meaning there are zero copyright strikes, there are no valid
copyright claims, and no other community violations we made aware of.
The community guidelines are very broad, and can be read here
<https://www.youtube.com/yt/about/policies/#community-guidelines>.
We'd like to inform you that due to repeated or severe violations of
our Community Guidelines
(https://www.youtube.com/t/community_guidelines) your YouTube
account Climate State has been suspended.
After review we determined that activity in your account violated
our Community Guidelines, which prohibit spam, scams or commercially
deceptive content (
https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/2801973?hl=en ).
Please be aware that you are prohibited from accessing, possessing
or creating any other YouTube accounts. For more information about
account terminations and how our Community Guidelines are enforced,
please visit our Helper Center
The appeal was rejected, citing the community guidelines. Apparently,
the decision is wrong when YouTube cites spam, scams and deception.
If you feel that YouTube should activate our channel, sign below
petition
<https://www.change.org/p/youtube-should-release-our-created-content-and-reinstate-our-channel>.
It takes just a few minutes. If the channel stays inactive then I have
no longer the option to publish video content, the stuff I did the past
two years extensively, hundreds of videos. A YouTube policy prohibits me
from doing climate videos ever again in light of a termination. The
petition will be send to YouTube's CEO.
Our video backup can be accessed here
https://www.bitchute.com/channel/ClimateState If you want to support us
you can become a Patreon, <http://patreon.com/ClimateState>or donate
<http://climatestate.com/support-future-climate-change-coverage/>.
Climate State is entirely independent, without funding.
http://climatestate.com/2017/11/30/breaking-youtube-terminates-largest-climate-science-channel-in-the-world/
-
Peter Sinclair
<https://climatecrocks.com/2017/11/25/the-weekend-wonk-stephen-schneider-from-1990/>:
"Climate State has been doing an absolutely amazing job of providing a
useful historical archive of important experts warning on climate issues
through past decades."
*YouTube Terminates Largest Climate Science Channel
<https://climatecrocks.com/2017/12/01/youtube-terminates-largest-climate-science-channel/>*
Peter Sinclair Dec 1, 2017
https://climatecrocks.com/2017/12/01/youtube-terminates-largest-climate-science-channel/
-
*Inside YouTube's Nuclear War on Climate Change Science
<http://climatestate.com/2017/12/01/inside-youtubes-climate-state-channel-termination/>*
Why did they Really terminate Climate State?
http://climatestate.com/2017/12/01/inside-youtubes-climate-state-channel-termination/
-
*Willie Soon brought to you and funded by Exxon
<http://climatestate.com/2017/11/23/willie-soon-brought-to-you-and-funded-by-exxon/>*
November 23, 20172017, Climate Crocks, Denial
(Willie Soon YouTube video taken down
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BxXTgcwk3jQ)
No surprise to those who saw this video last year, Dr Willie Soon, one
of the most frequently cited climate deniers with any science
background, (although his Phd is in aerospace engineering, not
climate..) is in the news, as a new Greenpeace report shows where the
bodies are buried.
https://climatecrocks.com/2011/07/01/willie-soon-powered-by-exxon The
Soon fallacy
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2015/02/the-soon-fallacy
Video via https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YUcgzTJgeLE Sourcewatch
https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Willie_Soon
http://climatestate.com/2017/11/23/willie-soon-brought-to-you-and-funded-by-exxon/
*(reposted by Peter Sinclair) Willie Soon and Funding from Exxon
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YUcgzTJgeLE>**
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YUcgzTJgeLE
*Climate sceptic Willie Soon received $1m from oil companies, papers
show
<https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2011/jun/28/climate-change-sceptic-willie-soon>
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2011/jun/28/climate-change-sceptic-willie-soon*
*
YouTube Channel Climate One Published on Dec 1, 2017
*(50 second video) Slowing Down Progress
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jc11QUzCOpk>*
Stanton Glantz, director at the University of California San Francisco's
Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education, details why the Koch
brothers and tobacco industries' bottom line is more important than
making progress in public health matters.
*(1:32 Video) The Playbook for Deception
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=blaGbZv1aKM>*
Adrienne Alford from the Union of Concerned Scientists breaks down her
organization's, "playbook of deception" which is used to show how
"business interests deceive, misinform, and buy influence at the expense
of public health and safety."
-
[Union of Concerned Scientists]
*The Disinformation Playbook
<http://www.ucsusa.org/our-work/center-science-and-democracy/disinformation-playbook#.WiHoBFXtxph>*
*How Business Interests Deceive, Misinform, and Buy Influence at the
Expense of Public Health and Safety*
The deceptive practices that make up the Playbook are used by a small
minority of companies-and yet, as we show, they are found across a broad
range of industries, from fossil fuels to professional sports.
Here are five of the most widely used "plays" and some of the many cases
where they have been used to block regulations or minimize corporate
liability, often with frightening effectiveness-and disastrous
repercussions on public health and safety:
*1. THE FAKE*
<http://www.ucsusa.org/our-work/center-science-and-democracy/disinformation-playbook#playbook-tactic-1>
Conduct counterfeit science and try to pass it off as legitimate research
*2. THE BLITZ*
<http://www.ucsusa.org/our-work/center-science-and-democracy/disinformation-playbook#playbook-tactic-2>
Harass scientists who speak out with results or views inconvenient for
industry
*3. THE DIVERSION*
<http://www.ucsusa.org/our-work/center-science-and-democracy/disinformation-playbook#playbook-tactic-3>
Manufacture uncertainty about science where little or none exists
*4. THE SCREEN*
<http://www.ucsusa.org/our-work/center-science-and-democracy/disinformation-playbook#playbook-tactic-4>
Buy credibility through alliances with academia or professional societies
*5. THE FIX*
<http://www.ucsusa.org/our-work/center-science-and-democracy/disinformation-playbook#playbook-tactic-5>
Manipulate government officials or processes to inappropriately
influence policy
Union of Concerned Scientists
http://www.ucsusa.org/our-work/center-science-and-democracy/disinformation-playbook#.WiHoBFXtxph
-
*(video) Climate One TV: The New Political Climate
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RYUwpZpfxPw&t=467s>*
With the People's Climate March as a backdrop, Climate One is on the
road in Washington D.C., where Tea Party co-founder, Debbie Dooley,
Executive Director of 350.org, May Boeve and Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse
(D-RI) come together and discuss what it takes to make real progress in
the fight against Climate Change.
https://youtu.be/RYUwpZpfxPw
*Judge Questions Exxon's Attempt to Block Climate Fraud Investigations
<https://insideclimatenews.org/news/30112017/exxon-climate-fraud-investigation-judge-court-hearing-schneiderman-new-york-healey-massachusetts>
The hearing edged a federal judge closer to deciding whether to dismiss
the oil giant's case against the attorneys general of New York and
Massachusetts.
*ExxonMobil drew tough questions and skeptical responses from a federal
judge on Thursday as it urged her to shut down two state investigations
into whether the oil giant misled investors and the public about climate
change risks. The judge's inquiries suggested the company had failed to
build a strong enough case to halt the probes.
U.S. District Judge Valerie E. Caproni pressed Exxon's lawyers to
demonstrate how the investigations
<https://insideclimatenews.org/tags/exxon-climate-change-investigation>
by the attorneys general of Massachusetts and New York are politically
motivated efforts to suppress its free speech, as the company claims.
"I can expect you to come forward with something that doesn't require
wild leaps of logic," she told Exxon's lawyers.
The two attorneys general, Eric Schneiderman of New York and Maura
Healey of Massachusetts, have asked the judge to dismiss Exxon's
lawsuit. Caproni gave them until Dec. 21 to file additional written
arguments. Exxon will then have until Jan. 12 to respond...
The hearing in a Manhattan court was yet another step in the nearly
two-year battle
<https://insideclimatenews.org/news/05062017/exxon-climate-change-fraud-investigation-eric-schneiderman-rex-tillerson-exxonmobil>by
Exxon to thwart investigations into how the company represented its
understanding of the risks climate change poses to investors and
potential investors. The time frame in question includes the years when
Rex Tillerson, now U.S. secretary of state, was Exxon's chief executive.
(News reports today
<https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/30/us/politics/state-department-tillerson-pompeo-trump.html>
suggest Tillerson could be pushed out as secretary of state in the
coming weeks.)...
Exxon attorney Justin Anderson told Caproni the company could have
legitimate differences about the causes and severity of climate change.
He said discussions of those differences were being suppressed by the
attorneys general.
Much of the hearing centered around this question, with Caproni pressing
Anderson for an explanation of why the investigations should not be
allowed to proceed and then, at times, mocking his responses.
"If they're wrong, they don't have a case," she said. "If they're right,
then Exxon should be held to account."
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/30112017/exxon-climate-fraud-investigation-judge-court-hearing-schneiderman-new-york-healey-massachusetts*
-
Harvard Study Finds Exxon Misled Public about Climate Change
<https://insideclimatenews.org/news/22082017/study-confirms-exxon-misled-public-about-climate-change-authors-say>
*An analysis of Exxon's research and public statements shows a sharp
contrast between what the oil giant knew about climate change and what
it told the public.
A comprehensive, peer-reviewed academic study of ExxonMobil's internal
deliberations,
<http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/aa815f>scientific
research and public rhetoric over the decades has confirmed empirically
that the oil giant misled the public about what it knew about climate
change and the risks posed by fossil fuel emissions, the authors said on
Tuesday.
The paper confirms the findings of a 2015 investigative series by
InsideClimate News
<https://insideclimatenews.org/content/Exxon-The-Road-Not-Taken> that
was based largely on the company's internal records, and also of
independent work published by the Los Angeles Times. That reporting
ignited investigations by state attorneys general that are still in
litigation.
"On the question of whether ExxonMobil misled non-scientific audiences
about climate science, our analysis supports the conclusion that it
did," Geoffrey Supran and Naomi Oreskes of Harvard University wrote in
the study, published today in the scientific journal Environmental
Research Letters.
Across the board, the paper found "a systematic discrepancy between what
ExxonMobil's scientists and executives discussed about climate change
privately and in academic circles and what it presented to the general
public," the authors said.
"ExxonMobil contributed quietly to the science and loudly to raising
doubts about it," they wrote.
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/22082017/study-confirms-exxon-misled-public-about-climate-change-authors-say
*-
Assessing ExxonMobil's climate change communications (1977-2014)
Geoffrey Supran1 and Naomi Oreskes
<http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/aa815f>
*
*Abstract*
This paper assesses whether ExxonMobil Corporation has in the past
misled the general public about climate change. We present an
empirical document-by-document textual content analysis and
comparison of 187 climate change communications from ExxonMobil,
including peer-reviewed and non-peer-reviewed publications, internal
company documents, and paid, editorial-style advertisements
('advertorials') in The New York Times. We examine whether these
communications sent consistent messages about the state of climate
science and its implications-specifically, we compare their
positions on climate change as real, human-caused, serious, and
solvable. In all four cases, we find that as documents become more
publicly accessible, they increasingly communicate doubt. This
discrepancy is most pronounced between advertorials and all other
documents. For example, accounting for expressions of reasonable
doubt, 83% of peer-reviewed papers and 80% of internal documents
acknowledge that climate change is real and human-caused, yet only
12% of advertorials do so, with 81% instead expressing doubt. We
conclude that ExxonMobil contributed to advancing climate science-by
way of its scientists' academic publications-but promoted doubt
about it in advertorials. Given this discrepancy, we conclude that
ExxonMobil misled the public. Our content analysis also examines
ExxonMobil's discussion of the risks of stranded fossil fuel assets.
We find the topic discussed and sometimes quantified in 24 documents
of various types, but absent from advertorials. Finally, based on
the available documents, we outline ExxonMobil's strategic approach
to climate change research and communication, which helps to
contextualize our findings.
http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/aa815f*
*
<http://www2.epa.gov/aboutepa/epa-history>*This Day in Climate History
December 2, 1970 <http://www2.epa.gov/aboutepa/epa-history> - from
D.R. Tucker**
*December 2, 1970: The United States Environmental Protection Agency is
established.
http://www2.epa.gov/aboutepa/epa-history*
**
*
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