[TheClimate.Vote] November 17, 2017 - Daily Global Warming News Digest
Richard Pauli
richard at theclimate.vote
Fri Nov 17 09:37:36 EST 2017
/November 17, 2017
/
*Evidence Strong Enough to Sue Fossil Fuel Companies for Climate
Impacts, Study Says
<https://www.climateliabilitynews.org/2017/11/16/climate-accountability-liability-ciel-cop-23/>*
Research has boosted the concepts of climate liability and corporate
accountability in recent years from pie-in-the-sky theories to plausible
underpinnings for litigation. Now, a new report synthesizing this
research concludes there is solid evidentiary basis for holding fossil
fuel companies accountable for climate change.
The report by the Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL),
released Thursday at the United Nations climate talks in Bonn, Germany,
pulls together the studies and research of climate accountability and
public deception and evaluates the evidence in the context of legal
liability standards. Titled Smoke and Fumes: The Legal and Evidentiary
Basis for Holding Big Oil Accountable for the Climate Crisis, it details
what the petroleum industry knew about climate change, when it knew it,
and what it did with this knowledge.
"The knowledge these companies had about the nature of their product and
what it would do to the climate is important for different concepts of
legal responsibility," said CIEL staff attorney Steven Feit, a co-author
of the report.
Under tort and human rights law, the report explains, liability for harm
depends on the defendant's ability to foresee this harm, and also having
the opportunity to minimize or avoid the harm. The report concludes that
big oil and gas corporations satisfy both conditions of liability.
Petroleum companies were aware of the climate risk of their products in
the 1950s, and by the late 1960s, the entire industry was unequivocally
warned about the consequences of fossil fuel combustion on the climate.
Exxon and its oil industry allies have given us a decades-long history
of climate change, climate denial, and climate chaos," said Carroll
Muffett, CIEL president and report co-author. "This report exposes that
history and suggests that the future of these companies will be marked
by climate litigation and climate accountability."
Exxon, whose climate research has been the subject of extensive
reporting, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Feit said he hopes that potential plaintiffs, attorneys, advocates and
others look at this report and see there is a case to be brought. "We
hope they look at this and say, here is the evidence, we can pursue a
claim."
https://www.climateliabilitynews.org/2017/11/16/climate-accountability-liability-ciel-cop-23/
also:
*Half of Modern Global Warming Caused by 90 Companies, New Study
Concludes
<https://www.climateliabilitynews.org/2017/09/07/global-warming-fossil-fuel-companies-study-ucs/>*
https://www.climateliabilitynews.org/2017/09/07/global-warming-fossil-fuel-companies-study-ucs/
-
*Smoke and Fumes: The Legal and Evidentiary Basis for Holding Big Oil
Accountable for the Climate Crisis
<http://www.ciel.org/reports/smoke-and-fumes/>*
presents a comprehensive synthesis of the available evidence on what the
oil industry knew about climate science, when they knew it, and what
they did with the information. It combines that synthesis with an update
on the latest developments in accountability research and science, which
have dramatically improved our ability to identify the impacts of
climate change on individuals and communities, the corporate actors that
contributed to those impacts, and the nature of their contributions. The
report presents this evidence in the context of the core elements of
legal responsibility in tort and human rights law. It concludes that oil
industry actors had early knowledge of climate risks and important
opportunities to act on those risks, but repeatedly failed to do so.
Those failures give raise to potential legal responsibilities under an
array of legal theories.
http://www.ciel.org/reports/smoke-and-fumes/
http://www.ciel.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/Smoke-Fumes-FINAL.pdf
(pdf file)
*(video) Rockstrom: Earth System in 2050 - Carbon Law
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qkXcIu1USDk>*
Johan Rockström from the Stockholm Resilience Centre in Sweden speaks
about sustainable development goals. This talk is part of the Impacts
World 2017 conference,
more at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wICG8eTcchM
Rockström at https://twitter.com/jrockstrom
For more talks from Impacts 2017 visit / follow
youtube.com/user/PotsdamInstitute
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qkXcIu1USDk
*This group thinks Trump hasn't done enough to unravel environmental
rules. Here's its wish list.
<https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2017/11/15/this-group-thinks-trump-hasnt-done-enough-to-unravel-environmental-rules-heres-its-wish-list/?utm_term=.a8c82f4e6965>*
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2017/11/15/this-group-thinks-trump-hasnt-done-enough-to-unravel-environmental-rules-heres-its-wish-list/
/for example:/
*(video) Years of Living Dangerously
<https://www.facebook.com/YearsOfLiving/videos/1547703445316708/?hc_ref=ARS9ny3CKwrz-DP5ZhjtCa78y6bMel9cNY9EMC7NqDh4uJR3xbInw0T37yuJPjCkbnU&pnref=story>*
The climate change denial movement didn't happen by accident. We take
you inside a secret meeting where powerful interests plan to make the
biggest issue of our time one that politicians are afraid to talk about.
https://www.facebook.com/YearsOfLiving/videos/1547703445316708/?hc_ref=ARS9ny3CKwrz-DP5ZhjtCa78y6bMel9cNY9EMC7NqDh4uJR3xbInw0T37yuJPjCkbnU&pnref=story
*New index shows human-induced global warming is happening faster than
ever <https://phys.org/news/2017-11-index-human-induced-global-faster.html>*
Human-induced global warming is happening faster than ever and
accelerating, according to a new measurement index developed by an
international team that includes the Director of Victoria University of
Wellington's New Zealand Climate Change Research Institute, Professor
Dave Frame.
The researchers' real-time Global Warming Index
<http://www.globalwarmingindex.org/>will be updated continuously on the
website www.globalwarmingindex.org and provides improved scientific
context for temperature stabilisation targets, with the potential to
reduce climate policy volatility.
The index and its data have been announced in a paper for the Nature
research journal Scientific Reports.
Warming exceeded 1°C above mid-nineteenth-century levels in 2017 and is
increasing at a rate that leaves little time to achieve the goals of the
Paris Climate Agreement, say the researchers.
"Global temperatures may be pushed up temporarily by El Niño events or
down by volcanic eruptions," says Dr Karsten Haustein from the
University of Oxford in the United Kingdom, lead author of the paper.
"We combine temperature observations with measurements of drivers of
climate change to provide an up-to-date estimate of the contribution of
human influence to global warming."
https://phys.org/news/2017-11-index-human-induced-global-faster.html
-
*Current Global Warming Index Tracking progress to a safe climate
<http://www.globalwarmingindex.org/>*
Theglobalwarmingindex.org <http://www.globalwarmingindex.org/>website
shows an up-to-the-second index of human-induced warming relative to the
mid-19th century (1850-79) based on the standard "detection and
attribution" approach introduced byHasselmann (1997)
<http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s003820050185>, first
introduced inOtto et al. (2015)
<http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/v5/n10/full/nclimate2716.html>and
published with a comprehensive uncertainty analysis inHaustein et al.
(2017) <http://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-017-14828-5>.
A supplementary*speadsheet*to calculate the monthly index with data up
to the lastest months isavailable for download here.
<http://www.globalwarmingindex.org/AWI/AWI_AR5_new_spreadsheet.xlsx>
http://www.globalwarmingindex.org/
*(video) Climate change warning from scientists
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jn9mYhFwTqw>*
CBC News
More than 15,000 scientists issue a warning about climate change,
extreme weather and global warming.
To read more: http://cbc.ca/1.4395767
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jn9mYhFwTqw
*University of Wisconsin study finds carbon emissions increase when land
is converted into crops for ethanol
<http://www.jsonline.com/story/news/2017/11/16/uw-study-finds-carbon-emissions-increase-fromland-converted-into-crops-ethanol-boost-carbon-emission/864416001/>*
A University of Wisconsin-Madison study shows that the shift of more
than 7 million acres into cropland led to massive releases of carbon
emissions into the atmosphere after a 2007 federal law mandated ethanol
in gasoline.
The increased carbon emissions is equivalent to 20 million new cars
driving down American roadways every year, according to the researchers'
estimates in the study released Wednesday.
The findings show big changes in land use across the Midwest, including
Wisconsin, and other parts of the United States between 2008 and 2012.
That coincided with a change in federal law that required blending
ethanol from crops like corn and soybeans into gasoline.
The federal Energy Information Agency reported that 10% of 143 billion
gallons of gasoline came from ethanol in 2016.
http://www.jsonline.com/story/news/2017/11/16/uw-study-finds-carbon-emissions-increase-fromland-converted-into-crops-ethanol-boost-carbon-emission/864416001/
*Climate Change in the American Mind: October 2017
<http://climatecommunication.yale.edu/publications/climate-change-american-mind-october-2017/>*
Our most recent nationally representative survey finds that the number
of Americans "very worried" about global warming has reached a record
high (22%) since first measured in 2008. *A majority of Americans (63%)
say they are "very" or "somewhat" worried about the issue.*
Likewise, Americans increasingly view global warming as a threat. Since
Spring 2015, more Americans think it will harm them personally (50%, +14
points), their own family (54%, +13 points), people in the U.S. (67%,
+18 points), people in developing countries (71%, +18 points), and
future generations (75%, +12 points).
Other key findings include:
- Seven in ten Americans (71%) think global warming is
happening, an increase of 8 percentage points since March 2015. By
contrast, only about one in eight Americans (13%) think global
warming is not happening. Americans who think global warming is
happening outnumber those who think it is not by more than 5 to 1.
- Nearly two in three Americans (64%) think global warming is
affecting weather in the United States, and one in three think
weather is being affected "a lot" (33%), an increase of 8 percentage
points since May 2017.
- A majority of Americans think global warming made several
extreme events in 2017 worse, including the heat waves in California
(55%) and Arizona (51%), hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and Maria (54%),
and wildfires in the western U.S. (52%).
- More than four in ten Americans (44%) say they have personally
experienced the effects of global warming, an increase of 13
percentage points since March 2015.
- Four in ten Americans (42%) think people in the United States
are being harmed by global warming "right now", an increase of 10
percentage points since March 2015.
This report is based on findings from a nationally representative survey
– Climate Change in the American Mind – conducted by the Yale Program on
Climate Change Communication (climatecommunication.yale.edu) and the
George Mason University Center for Climate Change Communication
(climatechangecommunication.org), Interview dates: Oct. 20 – Nov. 1,
2017. Interviews: 1,304 Adults (18+). Average margin of error +/- 3
percentage points at the 95% confidence level.
http://climatecommunication.yale.edu/publications/climate-change-american-mind-october-2017/
*While The Adults Meet On Climate Change, Youth Are Acting
<http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/plan-international-canada/while-the-adults-meet-on-climate-change-youth-are-acting_a_23275760/>*
"Everyone, even children like us, has a role to play. We have chosen to
take part and be part of the solution."
For millions of people, climate change has already altered everyday life
in profoundly challenging ways.
The impacts of climate change are global. We recently experienced one of
the worst hurricane seasons on record, causing$300 billion in damage
<http://time.com/money/4935684/hurricane-irma-harvey-economic-cost/>.
British Columbia had its worst wildfire season*ever,*with more than1000
fires scorching 800,000 hectares, costing more than $300 million in
damages
<https://globalnews.ca/news/3675434/2017-officially-b-c-s-worst-ever-wildfire-season/>.
40 million people have been affected by flooding in South Asia,
including thedisplacement
<http://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/aug/30/mumbai-paralysed-by-floods-as-india-and-region-hit-by-worst-monsoon-rains-in-years>of
more than 500,000 people. Almost two million children were put out of
school.
And these events all occurred within the last six months.
While these disasters often get significant media airtime, the everyday
realities faced by people living through climate events are rarely
captured. As is too often the case, those who have contributed least to
the challenges facing our world bear the brunt of their impacts.
For example, the impact of climate disasters disproportionately affects
women and children from the poorest communities who have the fewest
resources to cope or adapt. Over 500 million children live in areas of
'extremely high risk' to flood andnearly 160 million
<https://www.unicef.org/publications/files/Unless_we_act_now_The_impact_of_climate_change_on_children.pdf>live
in areas at 'high' or 'extremely high' risk of drought. The World Health
Organization estimates that climate change could be causing more
than150,000 deaths per year
<http://www.who.int/heli/risks/climate/climatechange/en/>, of which more
than88 per cent occur
<http://www.who.int/entity/ceh/publications/hehc_booklet_en.pdf?ua=1>in
children less than five years of age. That numberis expected to double
<http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/global-warming-and-health/>by
2030.
Children, and especially girls, are rarely cast as the heroes in our
sci-fi and post-apocalyptic movies, yet in the real world, youth are
fighting the effects of climate change head-on. For children living in
disaster-prone and vulnerable regions, climate change is not a newspaper
headline or an issue to be debated in political arenas. It is their
lived reality and they face the daunting task of regularly finding local
solutions and adapting to its impacts, all without superpowers.
Louisa and her group of friends decided to try to fight against the
effects of climate change after taking part in a number of environmental
training sessions run by Plan International as part of our
Child-Centered Climate Change Adaptation project.
"We are doing coastal clean-ups and planting mangrove trees on the beach
and will soon be starting work on helping our barangay (village) with
solid-waste segregation this summer," says Louisa. "We cannot stop
climate change, but we can do something to lessen its effects. Everyone,
even children like us, has a role to play. We have chosen to take part
and be part of the solution."...
http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/plan-international-canada/while-the-adults-meet-on-climate-change-youth-are-acting_a_23275760/
*Fossil Fuels' Fishy New Friends
<https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-11-16/fossil-fuels-fishy-new-friends>*
How public affairs firms engineered a "grass-roots" group defending oil
and coal investments.
By Benjamin Elgin and Zachary Mider
November 16, 2017, 2:00 AM PST
James Short, a retired deputy fire chief, is the founder of an
organization called Protect Our Pensions
<http://helpprotectourpensions.org/>. At least that's what it says on
the group's website....
Protect Our Pensions isn't what it appears to be. While Short's name and
those of other coalition members show up on letters to state legislators
and opinion pieces, much of the writing is actually done by public
affairs firms operating in the shadows, according to documents and
emails obtained by Bloomberg News. Instead of an active group of public
servants and pensioners eager to discuss an important issue, most of the
41 people listed on the website didn't respond to emails and phone
calls. Some said they were proud to support the cause, but a few
couldn't remember signing up.
"The disturbing thing about this is they pretend to be organic, like
it's just this one firefighter who started it," said Jim Griffith, a
city council member in Sunnyvale, California, who rejected a recent
request to join the group. "But it's not."
Grass-roots lobbying - the creation of groups of ordinary citizens to
advocate for causes - has been around for decades. But when corporations
hide their involvement or recruit members indifferent to the issue,
tactics known as astroturfing, it can provide an appearance of public
support that doesn't actually exist.
The internet only makes such subterfuge easier. Anyone can set up a
website and launch a social-media campaign while disguising who's behind
it. As Congress and federal investigators probe how such tactics helped
spread disinformation during the last U.S. presidential election,
Protect Our Pensions shows how similar strategies can be used to create
an artificial veneer of public support for policies that stand to
benefit corporations.
"These campaigns generate a series of problems regarding how political
leaders and members of the mass public interact," said Edward Walker, a
University of California at Los Angeles sociology professor who wrote a
book about the grass-roots lobbying industry in 2014. "When industry
groups or wealthy donors masquerade this way, it allows policymakers to
take actions that primarily support the well-heeled patrons funding the
effort."...
The funders behind Protect Our Pensions remain concealed. Six
fossil-fuel companies and industry associations, including Exxon Mobil
Corp. and the American Petroleum Institute, said they've played no role.
But there are clues pointing to the involvement of DCI Group LLC, a
Washington public affairs firm known for its work with the energy
industry and for building grass-roots coalitions that sometimes obscure
their funders.
The group's website, www.helpprotectourpensions.org, is linked to the
same internet protocol address as DCI's corporate website, according to
reverse IP lookup tools. Shared IP addresses can sometimes be a
coincidence, but of the 11 other sites connected to that address, at
least eight are for coalitions or projects related to DCI clients.
There's also this: Some of the earliest Protect Our Pensions blog posts
have web addresses that contain a string of random Latin words. It's
common practice for publishers and website developers to use such
strings as placeholders as they design pages. But the combination of
words used by Protect Our Pensions, such as "proin in nulla condimentum
diam mattis posuere," are extremely rare. Google, which trawls hundreds
of billions of web pages, shows this exact phrase appears on only one
other website–BuyingBias.org, which DCI helped develop, according to a
former DCI employee familiar with the operation.
Craig Stevens, vice president of media affairs at DCI, declined in an
email to either confirm or deny that his company did work on behalf of
Protect Our Pensions. But he said linking the campaign to DCI through
its IP address "seems like conjecture." He also said DCI "would never
work with someone without their express agreement" and offered a general
defense of the work his and other public affairs firms do.
"Our democracy is stronger," Stevens said, "when citizens act and inform
the government of how legislation, regulations, or judicial rulings
impact Americans' lives and provide policymakers with ways - if
necessary - to improve them."
For a typical grass-roots coalition, a national firm like DCI will
manage the contract and hire regional public affairs specialists to
recruit members and place op-eds in newspapers. For Protect Our
Pensions, much of the group's work has been carried out by two such
firms - FSB Core Strategies in Sacramento, California, and Mac
Strategies Group Inc. in Chicago - both of which have worked with DCI in
the past.
DCI's Stevens said his firm works with hundreds of professionals around
the world but that he couldn't comment on any specific clients, projects
or tactics.
FSB, located a few blocks down a leafy lane from California's domed
state capitol, touts on its website the importance for corporations to
build grass-roots coalitions: In "political arenas, strength in numbers
isn't just a goal. Many times it's the difference between success and
failure."
Mark Funkhouser, the publisher of Governing, said the article was
submitted by FSB, and he understood there was a good chance it had
corporate funding. But the magazine ran the article, he said, because
the "arguments were a reasonable counter to the pro-divestment arguments."
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-11-16/fossil-fuels-fishy-new-friends
*This Day in Climate History November 17, 2006
<http://www.nbcnews.com/id/15814614/ns/msnbc-countdown_with_keith_olbermann/t/worst-person-world-sen-james-inhofe/>
- from D.R. Tucker*
November 17, 2006: MSNBC's Keith Olbermann calls out Oklahoma Senator
James Inhofe for simultaneously trafficking in climate denial and blasphemy:
"But our winner, Senator James Inhofe of Oklahoma, who until January
will remain the chairman of the Senate Committee on the Environment and
Public Works. This morning he declared that any global warming is owed
to 'natural causes' and is 'due to the sun.'
'God's still up there,' he added.
"So, Senator, you're blaming global warming on God?
"Senator James 'Is it just me or is it hot in here' Inhofe, Friday’s
'Worst Person in the World.'"
http://www.nbcnews.com/id/15814614/ns/msnbc-countdown_with_keith_olbermann/t/worst-person-world-sen-james-inhofe/
/
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