[TheClimate.Vote] August 7, 2018 - Daily Global Warming News Digest
Richard Pauli
richard at theclimate.vote
Tue Aug 7 09:20:16 EDT 2018
/August 7, 2018/
[From an academic study]
*Hothouse Earth: Runaway global warming threatens 'habitability of the
planet for humans'
<https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/science/2018/08/06/hothouse-earth-runaway-global-warming-threatens-habitability-planet/916521002/>*
Doyle Rice, USA TODAY
We've been warned.
Runaway global warming on our planet remains a distinct possibility in
the decades and centuries ahead, scientists reported Monday in a new
study, warning that a "hothouse Earth" threatens the very "habitability
of the planet for human beings."
Such a hothouse Earth climate would see global average temperatures some
6 to 8 degrees Fahrenheit higher than they are now, with sea levels 30
to 200 feet higher than today, the paper said.
In addition, even if the carbon emission reductions called for in the
Paris Agreement are met - meaning a rise of no more than 3.6 degrees
above preindustrial levels - that still may not be enough...
- - - -
The feedbacks include methane release from thawing permafrost, loss of
snow cover in the Northern Hemisphere, loss of Arctic summer sea ice,
and dramatic reduction of Antarctic sea ice and polar ice sheets.
"These tipping elements can potentially act like a row of dominoes,"
said study co-author Johan Rockstrom of the Stockholm Resilience Centre,
an independent research institute that specializes in sustainable
development and environmental issues.
"It may be very difficult or impossible to stop the whole row of
dominoes from tumbling over. Places on Earth will become uninhabitable
if 'hothouse Earth' becomes the reality," he said.
Steffen added that these feedbacks would be difficult to influence by
human actions. They could not be reversed, steered or substantially
slowed...
https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/science/2018/08/06/hothouse-earth-runaway-global-warming-threatens-habitability-planet/916521002/
[Serious fires]
*California Fires: 14,000 firefighters now battling 16 major blazes
across state
<https://www.mercurynews.com/2018/08/06/california-fires-14000-firefighters-now-battling-16-major-blazes-across-state/>*
The Mendocino Complex Fire has become the largest wildfire in recorded
California history
California's traditional fire season is not yet half over, but on Monday
an army of more than 14,000 firefighters battled 16 major blazes around
the state - fires that already have destroyed more than 2,000 homes and
killed nine people...
- - - -
More fire danger looms. A coming heat wave across Southern California
prompted the National Weather Service to issue a red flag warning for
large parts of Santa Barbara, Ventura and Los Angeles counties through
Tuesday.
Temperatures were forecast to reach 95 degrees in downtown Los Angeles
and up to 108 degrees in the San Fernando Valley. Forecasters said the
high temperatures, very low humidity and gusty winds up to 50 miles an
hour would create extreme fire risk for the mountain areas around
Southern California, including the Los Padres National Forest and
Angeles National Forest...
- - - - -
Smoke across the state led to air quality advisories in the Sierra and
Central Valley. The Bay Area Air Quality Management District also
extended an air quality advisory through Thursday, urging people who
smell smoke to stay inside with windows and doors closed and set air
conditioning systems in their homes and cars to re-circulate to prevent
outside air from moving inside...
https://www.mercurynews.com/2018/08/06/california-fires-14000-firefighters-now-battling-16-major-blazes-across-state/
- - - - -
PBS News Hour video
*Climate change is making wildfires more extreme. Here's how
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a0heBE3IuOw>*
PBS NewsHour Published on Aug 6, 2018
High winds, high temperatures, pervasive drought. These extreme
conditions are driving two enormous fires in California, and many more
throughout the American West and much of Northern and Western Europe.
William Brangham talks with Michael Mann of Pennsylvania State
University about the ways climate change is contributing to the danger
and destruction.
Find more from PBS NewsHour at https://www.pbs.org/newshour
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a0heBE3IuOw
[Trump tweetings]
*In a strikingly ignorant tweet, Trump gets almost everything about
California wildfires wrong
<http://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-hiltzik-trump-fires-20180806-story.html>*
What he overlooked, plainly, is the increasing agreement among experts
that intensifying climate change has contributed to the intensity of the
wildfire season. California's woodlands have been getting drier and
hotter. As my colleagues Rong-Gong Lin II and Javier Panzar reported
over the weekend, "California has been getting hotter for some time, but
July was in a league of its own."
The idea that there isn't enough water is the craziest thing in the
world.
PETER GLEICK, PACIFIC INSTITUTE
The current wildfires, which have killed nine people and consumed nearly
400,000 acres of woodland, destroyed 1,100 homes and forced the
evacuation of thousands of residents, are among the worst in the state's
history. They're unrelated to water supplies or environmental laws.
http://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-hiltzik-trump-fires-20180806-story.html
- - - -
[largest in state history]
*California fire officials say they have plenty of water to fight
wildfires, despite Trump's tweet
<https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/california-fire-officials-plenty-water-fight-wildfires-trumps/story?id=57064370>*
By STEPHANIE EBBS Aug 6, 2018
video <https://gma.abc/2OqikRv> - https://gma.abc/2OqikRv
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/california-fire-officials-plenty-water-fight-wildfires-trumps/story?id=57064370
- - - -
*Trump Throws Word Salads at California Wildfire Crisis
<http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2018/08/trumps-nonsense-california-wildfires-water-shortages.html>*
By Ed Kilgore
It's hardly unprecedented for the president of the United States to say
nonsensical or completely mendacious things on Twitter, worded
strangely. But this tweet over the weekend was especially odd:
California wildfires are being magnified & made so much worse by the
bad environmental laws which aren't allowing massive amount of
readily available water to be properly utilized. It is being
diverted into the Pacific Ocean. Must also tree clear to stop fire
spreading!
- Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 5, 2018
As, well, just about every expert noted immediately, you don't stop
wildfires by spraying them with water like you'd do with a house fire in
a city.
For wildland firefighters, the tools of the trade are Pulaskis, rakes,
shovels, and flamethrowers that burn clearings ahead of towering
infernos. Instead of fire engines, they use bulldozers. Since these
firefighters aren't usually using pump trucks and fire hoses, they
aren't limited by water. When they need to snuff out an area, they often
do it by air.
And to the extent California firefighters do use water, they've got
plenty of it: Scott McLean, deputy chief for Cal Fire, tells me there's
no basis, "at all," for Trump's suggestion that firefighters there are
short of water: "I can reassure you we have water. There is plenty of
water."
The business about water "being diverted in the Pacific Ocean" is almost
too weird to mock. After all, as one tweeter noted: "Water running into
the Pacific Ocean is called a river." And it's unclear what any of this
has to do with "bad environmental laws."
Perhaps aware that readers did not seem to understand his meaning, Trump
weighed in a second time to make his complaint a personal one:
Governor Jerry Brown must allow the Free Flow of the vast amounts of
water coming from the North and foolishly being diverted into the
Pacific Ocean. Can be used for fires, farming and everything else.
Think of California with plenty of Water - Nice! Fast Federal govt.
approvals.
Donald J. Trump - - @realDonaldTrump 10:43 AM - Aug 6, 2018
You get a mental image of Brown as some sort of mythic giant bending the
course of huge cataracts of water and sending them past parched
farmlands and burning forests to dribble off into the distant coastlands
inhabited by the hippies and illegal immigrants who are his party's
base, in the imagination of MAGA people. But the reference to farmers
does provide a hint of where Trump is getting his misinformation:
Formally known as California Water Fix, the controversial project would
construct two tunnels beneath the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta to
connect freshwater from the river to aqueducts conveying water south.
It's been championed by Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown, who is in his final
year in office, but vehemently opposed by many conservation groups and
other Democratic politicians.
No Republican pol is more closely associated with the demands for more
water for Central Valley farmers than Trump's staunch ally on the
Russian Front, Representative Devin Nunes. But Nunes should probably
explain to the president that it's Brown's refusal to "divert" more
water to the Central Valley via dams and pumping stations that's his
main beef. Farms already account for three-fourths of California's water
consumption, and non-agricultural users have been subjected to mandatory
conservation measures that exclude farmers. Yes, California Republicans
(like their colleagues elsewhere) routinely demagogue about Brown and
his hippies protecting useless endangered fish species instead of
insatiably tapping the water that supports them. But with trout and
salmon now in serious trouble, that argument seems a little less
compelling than before...
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2018/08/trumps-nonsense-california-wildfires-water-shortages.html
[Wildfire report on PBS]
*Climate change is making wildfires more extreme. Here's how
<https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/climate-change-is-making-wildfires-more-extreme-heres-how>*
Aug 6, 2018
High winds, high temperatures, pervasive drought. These extreme
conditions are driving two enormous fires in California, and many more
throughout the American West and much of Northern and Western Europe.
William Brangham talks with Michael Mann of Pennsylvania State
University about the ways climate change is contributing to the danger
and destruction...
- - -
Dr. Michael Mann:
Yes, so we're not saying that climate change is literally causing
the events to occur.
What we can conclude with a great deal of confidence now is that
climate change is making these events more extreme. And it's not
rocket science. You warm up the atmosphere, it is going to hold more
moisture, you get larger flooding events, you get more rainfall.
You warm the planet, you're going to get more frequent and intense
heat waves. You warm the soils, you dry them out, you get worst
drought. You bring all that together, and those are all the
ingredients for unprecedented wildfires...
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/climate-change-is-making-wildfires-more-extreme-heres-how
- - - -
[Vox]
*Donald Trump has some thoughts on fighting wildfires. They're nonsense.
<https://www.vox.com/2018/8/6/17655626/trump-wildfire-twitter-mendocino-complex-carr-california>*
Humans are increasing wildfire risks, but "bad environmental laws"
aren't the problem.
https://www.vox.com/2018/8/6/17655626/trump-wildfire-twitter-mendocino-complex-carr-california
[lessons not learned, will be repeated]
*On climate change, it's time to start panicking
<https://www.salon.com/2018/08/05/on-climate-change-its-time-to-start-panicking/>*
The crisis over global warming warrants an unparalleled response
MATTHEW ROZSA - AUGUST 5, 2018 - Salon
It is time for us to panic about global warming. Indeed, a proper state
of panic is long overdue.
Global warming has made the news for a number of reasons this week:
TheSupreme Court rejected a request by President Donald Trump
<https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-07-30/u-s-supreme-court-won-t-halt-teenagers-climate-change-lawsuit>to
halt a lawsuit by children and teenagers to force the federal government
to address man-made climate change; Trump's Environmental Protection
Agency and Department of Transportation took new steps toreverse
President Barack Obama's rules
<https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/02/opinion/trumps-biggest-climate-move-yet-is-bad-for-everyone.html>requiring
car manufacturers to steadily reduce greenhouse gas pollution from their
vehicles;former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger
<https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2018/08/02/politics/arnold-schwarzenegger-trump-environment/index.html>denounced
those same Trump policies as "stupid"; and The New York Times ran
abrilliant piece
<https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/08/01/magazine/climate-change-losing-earth.html#main>documenting
how, between 1979 and 1989, the world had the opportunity to effectively
address man-made climate change... and squandered it.
Yet this is one of those issues in which - because there are so many
twists and turns and overwhelming details - it is easy to lose sight of
a crucial fact: If we do not resolve the problem of man-made climate
change, it could quite literally spell the end of human civilization.
"There will be and already is major consequences and they grow over
time. It does not look good,"Kevin Trenberth
<http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/staff/trenbert/>, a a Distinguished Senior
Scientist in the Climate Analysis Section at the National Center for
Atmospheric Research at the University Corporation for Atmospheric
Research, told Salon by email. "The effects are always local but there
are more and more of them and the consequences are major. These includes
floods and drought, heat waves and wild fires." He also pointed Salon in
the direction of a paper he co-authored that elaborated on howHurricane
Harvey in particular could be linked to climate change
<http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/staff/trenbert/trenberth.pdf/2018_Trenberth_et_al-Earths_Future.pdf>.
Indeed, the California wildfires that ravaged America's most populous
state last month provide a major example of the dangers of man-made
climate change discussed by Trenberth. A number of scientists have come
out to argue that the devastating blazes were at the very least
exacerbated by climate change,according to the San Francisco Chronicle
<https://www.sfchronicle.com/science/article/Scientists-see-fingerprints-of-climate-change-all-13128585.php>.
As Jennifer Francis, a professor at Rutgers University who studies
atmospheric circulation, told the newspaper regarding the searing heat
weave and weaker wind patterns, "We're seeing this mix of conditions
across North America and Europe, but they're all connected. The weather
patterns are just stuck. They're trapped."
The good news is that humanity hasn't passed the point of no return, at
least when it comes to the total destruction of our species (we have
definitely passed that point when it comes to avoiding any kinds of
lasting consequences). If we are to stave off even worse examples of
extreme weather than the hurricanes, wildfires, floods, droughts and
heat waves we've already experienced, however, we need to start
implementing intelligent policies - and do so now.
"I would place a price on carbon," Michael E. Mann, a Distinguished
Professor of Atmospheric Science at Penn State, told Salon by email.
"Whether this takes the form of a carbon tax (a revenue-neutral carbon
tax? fee and dividend? cap-and-trade?), I leave that to the policymakers
to determine as long as they accept, as the premise for policy, what the
science has to say about the reality and threat of climate change. The
price on carbon needs to be set such that it leads to a reduction in
carbon emissions of several percent a year for the next few decades. If
we do that, we can avoid a catastrophic 2C (~3.5 F) warming of the planet."
He also rejected the idea promoted by many on the left that a lasting
solution to global warming is impossible under a free-market capitalist
economic system.
"I'm unconvinced that is true," Mann explained. "In the past, market
mechanisms for pricing environmental externalities have worked. We acted
on acid rain and ozone depletion within a market economy framework. The
real problem, in my view, isn't the nature of our economic system, it's
the way that special interests and plutocrats have blocked the sort of
common-sense market approaches to dealing with environmental problems
that were once supported by democrats and republicans alike. The problem
is the moral and ethical rot that now lies at the very center of the
republican establishment, the lack of good faith and the total sellout
to special interests and plutocrats."
Ken Caldeira from the Carnegie Institute for Science's Department of
Global Ecology offered another observation about the economic
considerations that need to be taken into account when trying to develop
an energy policy that effectively confronts global warming.
"We will also need to have policies that wisely balance competing
interests based on some sort of rational analysis of the facts. No
energy technology is without its downsides," Caldeira told Salon by
email. "Solar farms in the desert will disrupt desert ecosystems, and we
will need new power lines. Many think, and with some good reason, that
nuclear power could be an important tool for solving the climate
problem, but nuclear is expensive and has other problems. These kind of
permitting issues require good public policy and thoughtful decision
making. There will be no consensus so we need good government to balance
competing interests."
He added, "Lastly, this can't happen only in the United States or
Europe. The whole world needs to develop based on near-zero emission
technologies, and so would need to enact similar policies. Of course,
with so many demands on limited resources, and such inequitable
distribution of wealth, this remains a challenge."
Perhaps most important of all, at least in the immediate sense, is that
Americans need to elect a president who will renew this country's
participation in the Paris climate accord.
"It was a huge setback," Trenberth told Salon regarding Trump's decision
to pull the United States out of that agreement. "The US has to lead and
set an example and this is lacking. Under Obama progress was evident but
the Congress is hopeless and in the pocket of fossil fuels. This is more
than a setback, it has major consequences and is already costly hundreds
of billions of dollars (witness Harvey etc)."
MATTHEW ROZSA
Matthew Rozsa is a breaking news writer for Salon. He holds an MA in
History from Rutgers University-Newark and is ABD in his PhD program in
History at Lehigh University. His work has appeared in Mic, Quartz and
MSNBC.
https://www.salon.com/2018/08/05/on-climate-change-its-time-to-start-panicking/
[and possibly, the future]
*More Evidence for a Hot Ancient Earth
<https://climatecrocks.com/2018/08/06/more-evidence-for-a-hot-ancient-earth/>*
August 6, 2018
Actually not that ancient, geologically.
[brief video explains it well https://youtu.be/5wiC4uhvDvA ]
Dr. Aradhna Tripati on Undersea Methane <https://youtu.be/5wiC4uhvDvA>
greenmanbucket - Published on Oct 15, 2014
Dr Aradhna Triipati is a paleoclimate expert with many years of
research on undersea sediments and the paleo temperature record.
This is from a longer interview I conducted earlier this year.
50 or so million years ago, things were pretty damn hot. Problem is we
are not sure why, as climate models have trouble reproducing the
temperatures that rocks show prevailed at that time - so some kind of
as-yet-not understood feedback may have been in play. Methane?
Possibly, but does that mean we are headed for that future?
Again, unclear. Aradhna Tripati (above), and James Hansen (below) above
walk thru the known unknowns.
The Atlantic:
<https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/08/earths-scorching-hot-history/566762/>
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/08/earths-scorching-hot-history/566762/
But the most striking feature of this early age of mammals is that
it was almost unbelievably hot, so hot that around 50 million years
ago there were crocodiles, palm trees, and sand tiger sharks in the
Arctic Circle. On the other side of the blue-green orb, in waters
that today would surround Antarctica, sea-surface temperatures might
have topped an unthinkable 86 degrees Fahrenheit, with near-tropical
forests on Antarctica itself. There were perhaps even sprawling,
febrile dead zones spanning the tropics, too hot even for animal or
plant life of any sort.
This is what you get in an ancient atmosphere with around 1,000
parts per million (ppm) of carbon dioxide. If this number sounds
familiar, 1,000 ppm of CO2 is around what humanity is on pace to
reach by the end of this century. That should be mildly concerning.
"You put more CO2 in the atmosphere and you get more warming, that's
just super-simple physics that we figured out in the 19th century,"
says David Naafs, an organic geochemist at the University of
Bristol. "But exactly how much it will warm by the end of the
century, we don't know. Based on our research of these ancient
climates, though, it's probably more than we thought."...
https://climatecrocks.com/2018/08/06/more-evidence-for-a-hot-ancient-earth/
[BBC radio]
*Domino-effect as Earth moves to 'hothouse' state
<https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0bd6y5p#play>*
from about 1:50 for 7 mins or so. [even prayer at 1:48]
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0bd6y5p#play
[More reaction to the NYTimes blunder]
*The GOP and Big Oil can't escape blame for climate change
<https://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2018/aug/06/the-gop-and-big-oil-cant-escape-blame-for-climate-change-dana-nuccitelli>*
Dana Nuccitelli
The New York Times magazine blames 'human nature,' but the true culprits
have already been fingered
Last week's issue of the New York Times magazine
<https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/08/01/magazine/climate-change-losing-earth.html>
was devoted to a single story by Nathaniel Rich that explored how close
we came to an international climate agreement in 1989, and why we
failed. The piece is worth reading - it's a well-told, mostly accurate,
and very informative story about a key decade in climate science and
policy history. But sadly, it explicitly excuses the key players
responsible for our continued failure.
Culprit #1: The Republican Party
Rich's piece immediately goes off the rails in its Prologue, where he
argues that the GOP isn't responsible - at least not for the climate
failures up to 1989:
Nor can the Republican Party be blamed…during the 1980s, many
prominent Republicans joined Democrats in judging the climate
problem to be a rare political winner: nonpartisan and of the
highest possible stakes.
However, his story is peppered with examples that contradict this
narrative. The world's foremost climate scientists had published the
groundbreakingNational Academy of Sciences 'Charney Report'
<https://www.nap.edu/catalog/12181/carbon-dioxide-and-climate-a-scientific-assessment>
in 1979, concluding that a doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxide would
most likely cause 3°C of global warming (still the consensus today), and
as Rich summarizes:
The last time the world was three degrees warmer was during the
Pliocene, three million years ago, when beech trees grew in
Antarctica, the seas were 80 feet higher and horses galloped across
the Canadian coast of the Arctic Ocean.
But Ronald Reagan was elected president the next year and came in with a
stark anti-environment agenda, including an effort to eliminate the
Energy Department's carbon dioxide program. In 1983, the National
Academy of Sciences published yet another major climate report. It
mostly reiterated the Charney report findings, but this time the press
briefing was run by Reagan appointee William Nierenberg. In a glaring
omission, Rich's story failed to note that in 1984, Nierenberg founded
the fossil fuel-funded, climate-denying George C. Marshall Institute and
proceeded to publish a variety of reports denying mainstream scientific
findings.
The GMI put out, for example, one report, authored by N himself,
arguing that global warming was caused by the sun, and another that
CFCs weren't bad for ozone, and yet another claiming that secondhand
smoke was fine to breathe.
In the key 1983 press briefing, Nierenberg basically lied about the
climate report's findings, claiming it found no urgent need for action.
Nierenberg's false summary made headlines around the world and stymied
climate policy efforts for years to come. Only after 1985 when the
discovery of ozone depletion captured worldwide attention was climate
change able to ride its coattails back into serious policy discussions.
Rich's story culminates with the first major global climate conference
in Noordwijk, the Netherlands, in 1989. More than 60 countries were
deciding whether to endorse a framework for a global climate treaty.
George H.W. Bush had been elected president after promising on the
campaign trail, "Those who think we are powerless to do anything about
the greenhouse effect are forgetting about the White House effect." But
once he was in the White House, Bush expressed little interest in global
warming and appointed John Sununu as his chief of staff. Sununu had
earned a PhD in engineering from MIT, but developed a conspiratorial
view towards mainstream science:
Since World War II, he believed, conspiratorial forces had used the
imprimatur of scientific knowledge to advance an "anti-growth" doctrine.
When the Swedish minister briefly emerged from a long and ongoing
closed-door negotiation at Noordwijk and was asked by an American
environmental activist what was going on, he answered, "Your government
is fucking this thing up!" Sununu had pressured the Bush administration
representative to force the conference to abandon a commitment to freeze
carbon emissions, and the Noordwijk conference became the first in a
long line of international climate negotiations failures, thanks largely
to the Republican administration.
Culprit #2: the fossil fuel industry
In his unfortunate Prologue, Rich also describes the fossil fuel
industry as "a common boogeyman." He argues that the fossil fuel
industry didn't mobilize to kill the 1989 Noordwijk negotiation. That's
true, because it didn't have to; had the treaty even succeeded, it would
have just been the very first step in global efforts to cut carbon
pollution.
Leah Stokes @leahstokes
Yet, the facts in his article show Exxon was already planning to
resist policy in 1979. He quotes someone inside Exxon saying then:
It behooves us to start a very aggressive defensive program."
Of course Exxon wasn't running a denial campaign until the 1990s.
They didn't need to yet. The threat of policy action was remote.
When action became more likely, that's when fossil fuel companies
started their lying in earnest.
Immediately after the Noordwijk shot came across its bow, the fossil
fuel industry launched a decades-long, many-million-dollar campaign to
undermine public trust of climate science and support for climate
policy. For example, the Global Climate Coalition (GCC) fossil fuel
industry group formed in 1989. By the time the 1992 Rio Earth Summit
rolled around, these polluter industry organizations began heavily
investing in disinformation campaigns to undermine international and
domestic climate policies. Speaking about the Rio summit, Bush sounded
like Donald Trump, saying:
I'm not going to go to the Rio conference and make a bad deal or be
a party to a bad deal.
Bill Clinton proposed an energy tax to try and meet the treaty goals
anyway, but the GCC invested $1.8m in a disinformation campaign, and
Congress voted it down. The GCC then spent $13m to weaken support for
the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, and the Senate voted 95-0 to pre-emptively
declare its opposition to the treaty. Since then, Exxon alone has given
$31m to climate-denying organizations.
It's been three decades since 1989
The fossil fuel industry is one exceptionally wealthy, influential, and
powerful 'boogeyman.' As Rich notes in his Epilogue, it's also been
quite successful:
More carbon has been released into the atmosphere since the final
day of the Noordwijk conference, Nov. 7, 1989, than in the entire
history of civilization preceding it
Apparently at a private dinner the night before his piece was published,
Rich described the fossil fuel industry as being "guilty of crimes
against humanity." It's a shame that his story took on such a different
tone. As Benjamin Franta, PhD student in the history of science at
Stanford summarized it:
One common mistake in this NYT magazine piece is the idea that
companies like Exxon somehow changed from "good" (doing research in
the 1970s and '80s) to "bad" (promoting denial in the '90s and
2000s). Exxon's own memos show that the purpose of its research
program was to influence regulation, not to solve the climate
problem per se. The industry-organized disinformation campaign that
emerged at the end of the 1980s was in response to binding policies
that were just then being proposed. If such policies were proposed
earlier, it stands to reason that the industry response would have
occurred earlier as well. To say that industry disinformation isn't
the whole story is to knock down a straw man: the fact remains that
it is a major--and perhaps the most important--part of the story.
In the alternative universe where the Bush administration didn't
sabotage the Noordwijk climate treaty, the fossil fuel industry would
still have crippled global climate policies through its misinformation
campaign and by purchasing the Republican Party's climate denial
complicity
<https://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2016/jun/13/the-grand-oil-party-house-republicans-denounce-a-carbon-tax>.
1989 was a missed opportunity, but the fossil fuel industry and GOP
can't escape responsibility for the ensuing three decades of climate
failures.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2018/aug/06/the-gop-and-big-oil-cant-escape-blame-for-climate-change-dana-nuccitelli
https://www.ft.com/content/78e652f6-9744-11e8-b747-fb1e803ee64e
*ExxonMobil avoids action from SEC on climate reporting
<https://www.ft.com/content/78e652f6-9744-11e8-b747-fb1e803ee64e>*
Conclusion of two-and-a-half-year investigation disappoints
environmental groups
Ed Crooks in New York AUGUST 3, 2018
ExxonMobil has escaped any enforcement action from the Securities and
Exchange Commission, the US financial regulator, over its disclosures on
its reserves and the impact of climate change on its business,
concluding an investigation lasting two and a half years.
The decision is a setback for environmental campaigners, who had hoped
that an SEC action could force Exxon to change the ways it discusses the
risks created by climate change.
The investigation was launched in January 2016, and since then the
leadership of the SEC has changed. Jay Clayton took over as chairman in
May last year, after being nominated by President Donald Trump.
A decision to take action against Exxon could have prompted a
wide-ranging reassessment of disclosures related to climate change and
reserves among oil and gas companies reporting in the US.
- - -
*The Trump administration is the fossil fuel industry's fairy godmother*
- - -
Elliott Negin, Union of Concerned Scientists
The regulator had been looking into what the company said about climate
change and the possible effects of policies to tackle the threat of
global warming, as well as Exxon's valuation of its assets and reporting
on its oil and gas reserves.
After the fall in oil prices that began in 2014, Exxon initially took
much smaller charges for writing down the values of its assets than its
US rival Chevron.
In February 2017, about a year after the SEC inquiry had been launched,
the company cut its reported oil and gas reserves by 19 per cent, as it
revised away 3.5bn barrels of heavy bitumen at the Kearl oil sands
project in Canada.
In a letter to Exxon's law firm on Thursday, the Fort Worth regional
office of the SEC said it had concluded its investigation, and "based on
the information we have as of this date, we do not intend to recommend
an enforcement action".
It added the standard legal caveat that "this notice 'must in no way be
construed as indicating that the party has been exonerated or that no
action may ultimately result from the staff's investigation'".
Exxon said in a statement it had co-operated fully with the inquiry,
providing more than 4.2m pages of documents.
The company added: "As we have said all along, the SEC is the
appropriate entity to examine issues related to impairment, reserves and
other communications important to investors. We are confident our
financial reporting meets all legal and accounting requirements."
The attorneys-general of New York and Massachusetts are pursuing similar
but separate investigations of Exxon's disclosures on climate change.
The company has recently shaken up its disclosures on climate risk,
under pressure from investors: in February it published its first report
exploring the implications for its business of policies designed to
limit the increase in global temperatures to 2C.
Elliott Negin of the Union of Concerned Scientists, an environmental
group, said: "The Trump administration is the fossil fuel industry's
fairy godmother, so it's no surprise that the SEC dropped its
investigation of ExxonMobil's questionable accounting practices right
after proposing to roll back vehicle fuel economy standards."
https://www.ft.com/content/78e652f6-9744-11e8-b747-fb1e803ee64e
[opinion]
*Extreme weather renews focus on adaptation
<https://www.sixdegreesnews.org/archives/25544/extreme-weather-renews-focus-on-adaptation>*
CHINADIALOGUE 08/06/2018
CATHERINE EARLY
Governments need to step up action on climate change adaptation and
resilience planning
This summer has seen multitude of extreme weather events. Wildfires have
raged in the United States, Sweden, and the United Kingdom, and Japan
declared a state of emergency due to unprecedented high temperatures.
The extreme heat follows the extreme cold experienced by many countries
over the winter. Scientists point to climate change as a factor
increasing the risk of both trends. Over the winter, temperatures in the
Arctic were around 20 degrees Celsius above normal, pushing colder air
toward Europe...
- - - - -
"Longer-term planning for intensifying climate impacts can have
significant implications for the way essential resources such as land
and water are used, as well as for investment decisions. For example,
while sea level rise has so far been fairly minor in most areas,
recognising that this will change in the not-too-distant future could
lead to better decisions to build key infrastructure such as new roads,
schools and hospitals in areas unlikely to be flooded during severe
storms," she says....
- - - -
Lawyers have issued a warning to governments and businesses who fail to
act. Sophie Marjanac, a lawyer at campaigning firm ClientEarth says: "If
decision-makers continue to stand still on climate change, they can be
sure that scientific improvements will spur on future climate change
cases as people seek to attribute responsibility for the devastating
consequences of extreme weather events."
https://www.sixdegreesnews.org/archives/25544/extreme-weather-renews-focus-on-adaptation
[past event carries forward great ideas]
*ERC Seminar:"Cartesian Science & Uncertainty" with Dr Yvette Abrahams
<http://www.acdi.uct.ac.za/acdi/events/erc-seminar-dr-yvette-abrahams>*
Cartesian Science & Uncertainty
An exceptional feminist academic, economic historian and organic farmer,
Dr Yvette Abrahams' work has in recent years explored the ways in which
our theories of knowledge must change in the light of the spectacular
failures of the positivist approach, not least its' very well-documented
role in legitimizing colonialism and slavery.
To indigenous knowledge systems, dealing with uncertainty is nothing
new, but a long-standing way of life. While the variations on a theme
are many, four things unite Cartesian science:
1. The notion that everything within the universe is knowable by
human beings.
2. The idea that it is possible to know it through objective
methodologies'
3. The process of separating the part from the whole,
abstracting its being to a form that can be studied in a laboratory.
4. The use of inductive logic, namely the concept that an
increase in the number of samples from a statistical universe would
improve the level of knowledge about the whole.
The second notion of objective science has been debunked thoroughly
(particularly in the last forty years) by many feminist theorists,
historians of science and philosophers. The third notion has been
subjected to decades of spirited critique from organic farming since the
end of World War II, not least by analysts who have used quantum physics
to define the interconnectedness of things and processes. The fourth
notion was mathematically indefensible from the start; a fact that was
only partly obscured by the use of probability theory. But what of the
first notion? Do we still believe that the universe is ultimately
knowable by man?
Environmentalists have noted environmental catastrophes, from DDT to
chloroflourocarbons to persistent organic pollutants as examples that,
while the universe may be fully knowable in an abstract sense, man is
certainly not the species who can claim such knowledge. Analysts such as
Wendell Berry and Masanobu Fukuoka (both highly educated organic farmers
who forsook academia for more activist forms of research) have
considered the Cartesian approach to be as superstitious in its way as
medieval religion ever was. They have long recommended more humility in
the face of the unknowable and less arrogance on the part of scientists
as going a long way towards safeguarding the ecosystem on which we all
depend. Climate change, of course, is a form of ultimate answer to
Cartesian science and has laid many debates to rest, even while raising
new questions.
How will we function as knowledge producers in a world marked by
uncertainty? The only knowledge which we can hold for sure is that we
cannot know it all.
Come and join this first of a two (or three) part exploration into a
facet of uncertainty, climate mitigation, and development.
http://www.acdi.uct.ac.za/acdi/events/erc-seminar-dr-yvette-abrahams
*This Day in Climate History - August 7, 2014
<http://on.msnbc.com/1so8XzG> - from D.R. Tucker*
August 7, 2014: MSNBC's Ed Schultz condemns the Republican Party's
refusal to recognize the severity of the climate crisis, even as two
hurricanes threaten Hawaii.
http://on.msnbc.com/1so8XzG
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