[TheClimate.Vote] December 21, 2018 - Daily Global Warming News Digest

Fri Dec 21 11:41:50 EST 2018

/December 21, 2018/

[Solutions superb video presentaiton]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dLWDY-L2tA8
*Dark Snow: Peter Sinclair on Climate Choices and Energy Solutions*
greenman3610
Published on Dec 20, 2018
A great team from CanCan Productions recorded my climate talk in the 
Philly area last spring, and really did a nice job editing this version.
If you have not caught my program, it gets good reviews - beginners and 
citizen wonks should all learn something.
Let me know what you think.

[company picnic]
*Former fossil fuels lobbyist to head Trump interior department – Top 
two U.S. environmental agencies now run by people previously paid by 
industry*
David Bernhardt's new job means top two US environmental agencies will 
be helmed by people once paid by industry
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/dec/16/david-bernhardt-ryan-zinke-lobbyist-interior-department

[USA Today tells us]
*Kids, it's time to give your parents 'the talk.' Not that one, the one 
on climate change.*
Michael A. Smyer, Opinion contributor Published 6:00 a.m. ET Dec. 20, 2018
Confronting your family and leaving them upset is not the goal. Keep it 
positive, and you might be surprised by what happens next.
Michael A. Smyer, Opinion contributor
My first-year Bucknell University students were nervous about their 
assignment: Interview someone in your family about climate change. Only 
one rule: It had to be someone 50 or older. It had to be 
intergenerational. If I could, I'd give everyone the same homework 
assignment this holiday season.
Yes, we need national and international action to solve the climate 
dilemmas we face. That's what the 24th Conference of the Parties to the 
United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP24), which 
wrapped up Sunday, has been all about. But each of us also needs to talk 
about the issues with our family and friends, because those 
conversations are what will lead to concrete changes in our daily lives, 
specific next steps for making our lives more sustainable and eventually 
political action to ensure a more sustainable country.
- - -
Less than a third of Americans (31 percent) talk about global warming at 
least occasionally with family members or friends, according to a Yale 
Program on Climate Change Communication survey. That's why I wanted them 
to have "the conversation." Because talking with others is the first 
step from anxiety to action. It lets others know how concerned we are, 
lets us hear their concerns and what they support, and starts us 
planning our next steps toward sustainability.
Maybe parents and grandparents aren't talking to young adults because 
they're worried about adding anxiety. The irony is that silence only 
makes it worse -- the generations don't realize that they share a deep 
concern, that they are actually doing something about it, and that 
together they can do more and demand more from our leaders.

So how did it go? Really well! Not one student got turned down. Lesson 
No. 1: If you ask a family member or friend to spend a few minutes 
talking with you, chances are they will say yes, especially if it's an 
invitation across generations.

The students' biggest take-away, however, was surprise: Their 
interviewees were already taking actions like planting trees, changing 
their air filters, eating less meat, reducing their driving or changing 
to solar power. They were surprised because, as the students put it, 
their families never spoke about it. And that's the point. Many of us 
are absorbing the enormity of climate change in isolation, not realizing 
that others are also concerned and taking action.

Everyday actions add up
*Here are three steps to starting your own climate conversation this 
holiday season: *

*First, keep it social.* Focus on people and places that you and your 
family care about. With my students, I began by asking them to imagine a 
place that has special meaning for them and to envision the impact of 
extreme weather or climate change on that place.

*Second, keep it short* in terms of time frame, three or four 
generations at the most. Our class interview assignment focused on the 
next 40-50 years at the places they cared about. One student told me 
that this short-term view had a strong impact on her grandfather. He 
considered life for his child and grandchildren in the next 50 years and 
was upset about what it may look like.

*Third, keep it positive*. Leaving parents and grandparents upset is not 
your goal. Instead, help them see that they don't need to solve climate 
change in one day or one step. They just need to take a next step. The 
Alliance for Climate Education, for example, urges students and teachers 
to do one thing. As they put it: "Everyday actions add up."

My students used climate action cards and asked their friends and 
relatives to identify one next step, to move one card from "could do" to 
"will do". Some chose political action (like joining a climate 
organization or joining a climate demonstration). Others chose simple 
acts such as washing clothes in cold water and using public 
transportation. One of my students put it well: It's not important what 
you're doing now, but what you do to move ahead.

Not sure what your next step should be or what to recommend? 
Environmental groups have lists of things you can do online and in your 
everyday life.

Are you a parent or grandparent who wants to start a conversation with 
kids, but not sure where to start? You're in luck! The Climate Reality 
Project has developed "Beginning the Climate Conversation," a family 
guide with advice and activities for meeting kids where they are.

The holidays are a perfect time to have a sit down. Just ask your 
relatives and friends to think and talk about a place they care about. 
And ask them what's next. You may be surprised by what happens.
Michael A. Smyer, Ph.D., is a professor of psychology at Bucknell 
University, the founder of Graying Green: Climate Action for an Aging 
World and an Encore public voices fellow with The OpEd Project. Follow 
him on Twitter @MickSmyer.

[foreign policy]
*Rising Tides Will Sink Global Order 
<https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/12/20/rising-tides-will-sink-global-order-climate-change/>*
Global warming will produce national extinctions and international 
insurgencies--and change everything you think you know about foreign policy.
BY ADAM TOOZE - DECEMBER 20, 2018
It is commonly said that climate change is a global risk that affects 
everyone. But that truism hides an essential difference. It is far 
riskier for some populations than for others. The current targets put 
the world on track for a 3.5-degree Celsius temperature rise; that is 
enough to doom the island nations in the Caribbean, Pacific, and 
elsewhere whose very existence is called into question by rising sea 
levels. Inhabitants of coastal areas around the world face mass 
displacement. In delta regions like Bangladesh that will involve tens of 
millions of people. But they at least have a hinterland to retreat to. 
For islanders, there is no retreat.
In addition to practical contingencies, this crisis has raised new and 
fundamental questions about international politics. What does 
sovereignty mean when global risks are so unequal? How will countries 
with a finite life expectancy conceive of politics? And what is the 
world's responsibility when the first nations begin to disappear under 
water? The answers will likely add up to a revolution in global order.
This will become especially apparent for the United States. The 
conservative wing of American politics is the global leader in climate 
change denialism--indeed, it is the credo of the Trump administration. 
But, given the consequences for the international order that the United 
States has underwritten and the responsibilities that will soon be 
forced upon the country by its immediate neighborhood, this is an 
increasingly untenable position for the American government machinery to 
uphold.
https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/12/20/rising-tides-will-sink-global-order-climate-change/

[decimation]
*The economic impacts of climate change could limit climate change 
<https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/12/the-economic-impacts-of-climate-change-could-limit-climate-change/>*
Lowered GDP would mean lower emissions.
[W]hat if the worst-case scenario is bad enough that it prevents us from 
reaching the worst-case scenario?
That is an awkward way of saying that if climate change slows economic 
growth, our emission of greenhouse gases should also slow. With climate 
change, you hear a lot about "positive feedbacks"--processes that 
amplify change, like warming permafrost releasing greenhouse gases that 
cause more warming. This could be a negative feedback, limiting the 
potential for warming.
- -
The exact numbers aren't the most important thing in this study--most of 
the estimates involved are highly uncertain. But it shows that this 
economic feedback could be pretty significant and cannot be ignored. The 
high-end warming scenario seen in various climate studies could still 
come about if, say, human emissions beat expectations or the Earth's 
natural systems release more carbon. The presence of a forced economic 
brake is just one factor among many. It may, however, lower the upper 
limit on what is ultimately possible, though hopefully our decision to 
move away from fossil fuels will be the more significant constraint on 
emissions.
https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/12/the-economic-impacts-of-climate-change-could-limit-climate-change/

[MSNBC meets Katharine Hayhoe]
*What's The Most Important Thing You Can Do To Fight Climate Change? *
Velshi & Ruhle | MSNBC
MSNBC -  Dec 17, 2018
The United Nations climate change talks ended with a major global deal. 
Ali Velshi speaks with one of the authors of the latest U.N. report on 
climate change, Katharine Hayhoe, about what's in the deal and the most 
important thing you can do to fight climate change.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OEAhNLo_ZG4

[Audio reading reading of Wallace-Wells latest]
*He wrote a Story on the Worst Scenarios of Climate Change*
Climate State - Published on Aug 1, 2018
The Uninhabitable Earth is a New York magazine article by American 
journalist David Wallace-Wells published on July 9, 2017. The long-form 
article depicts a worst-case scenario of what might happen in the future 
due to global warming.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z9RlqNKmP-A

*This Day in Climate History - December 21, 2007 - from D.R. Tucker*
December 21, 2007: "CBS Evening News" declares the climate crisis the 
story of the year.
http://www.cbsnews.com/videos/the-story-of-the-year-2007/

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