[TheClimate.Vote] June 4, 2018 - Daily Global Warming News Digest

[Richard Pauli]

/June 4, 2018/
*
Thousands of acres ablaze in Colorado, New Mexico 
<https://www.cnn.com/2018/06/02/us/wildfires-colorado-new-mexico/index.html>*
https://www.cnn.com/2018/06/02/us/wildfires-colorado-new-mexico/index.html

*Thinning clouds increase California's wildfires 
<https://mailchi.mp/climatenewsnetwork/thinning-clouds-increase-californias-wildfires>*
Southern California's wildfires are likely to increase as a protective 
layer of cloud is driven away by the warmer climate and urban growth.
By Alex Kirby
LONDON, 4 June, 2018 - Southern California's wildfires are posing a 
growing risk, as the Sunshine State threatens to become too sunny for 
its own good. In many southern coastal areas, rising summer temperatures 
caused by spreading urbanisation and the warming climate are driving off 
formerly common low-lying morning clouds and increasing the prospect of 
worse wildfires, US scientists say.
Park Williams, a bioclimatologist 
<http://www.ldeo.columbia.edu/user/williams> at Columbia University's 
Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, is lead author of their study. He 
says: "Cloud cover is plummeting in southern coastal California. And as 
clouds decrease, that increases the chance of bigger and more intense 
fires." This conclusion reinforces earlier research 
<https://climatenewsnetwork.net/warming-climate-may-cut-cloud-cover/> 
which found that low-level clouds could help to cause some cooling.
What is happening is a neat example of a process known by climate 
scientists as a positive feedback, a way in which climate change 
contrives to feed on itself to worsen the situation still further 
(negative feedbacks, by contrast, cool things down)...
- -
Professor Williams says the decrease is driven mainly by urban sprawl, 
which increases near-surface temperatures, but that overall warming 
climate is contributing too. Increasing heat drives away clouds, 
admitting more sunlight to heat the ground further, leading to dryer 
vegetation and higher fire risk. The team's research is published in the 
journal Geophysical Research Letters 
<https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2018GL077319>.
https://mailchi.mp/climatenewsnetwork/thinning-clouds-increase-californias-wildfires
- - - -
[See also: from 2013]
Posted on December 31, 2013 by Tim Radford
Warming climate may cut cloud cover 
<https://climatenewsnetwork.net/warming-climate-may-cut-cloud-cover/>
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE One of the great unknowns of climate science is 
what effect clouds have in accelerating or slowing warming. A new study 
sheds a disturbing light on their possible impact.
https://climatenewsnetwork.net/warming-climate-may-cut-cloud-cover/
- -
[Washington Post weather news]
*Phoenix could hit 120 degrees this weekend. Is a 'dry heat' really 
better? 
<https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/capital-weather-gang/wp/2016/06/15/phoenix-could-hit-120-degrees-this-weekend-is-a-dry-heat-really-better/?utm_term=.5becdc204cb2>*
"When it's hot and dry in Phoenix, there won’t be a cloud in the sky all 
day, whereas in D.C. it's almost always partly cloudy during a hot and 
muggy heatwave," Sheridan said. "One hundred degrees in the sun is more 
stressful than 100 degrees in the shade."
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/capital-weather-gang/wp/2016/06/15/phoenix-could-hit-120-degrees-this-weekend-is-a-dry-heat-really-better/?utm_term=.5becdc204cb2


[important video for NJ region]
*Why chronic floods are coming to New Jersey <https://youtu.be/yD5mm8FI5hM>*
Vox - Jun 2, 2018
Railroads aren't great if they're underwater.
Scientists have directly observed sea level rise since the late 18th 
century. And as they forecast the next 20, 50, and 100 years, sea level 
rise will continue to accelerate at an alarming rate. That rise won't 
just threaten homeowners on the coast - it will also impact the critical 
infrastructure that supports many of our largest cities. While sea level 
rise is often phrased as an issue of concern in the future, we can 
already see some of the implications. Many coastal communities have 
witnessed a sharp uptick in flooding, during lunar king tide periods. 
Other places are forced to consider what life might be like as the land 
they currently occupy goes underwater.

    It's going to impact low-lying infrastructure in particular. Imagine
    if you're on a train and you had to wait for high tide to go out
    before the train could go through and what a disruption to the
    system that would be. And then multiply that by every other train
    line or roadway that goes at sea level.  The Meadowlands is six
    miles away from New York City's Times Square.
    It's one of the busiest transit corridors in the United States. If
    you draw a line from Philadelphia to New York City and/or
    Philadelphia to Boston, you basically have to go through the
    Meadowlands. So as a result, all of the infrastructure that connects
    this region together bottlenecks down, comes together in the
    Meadowlands.  By year 2050 researchers estimate that 115 rail
    stations here would flood on a chronic basis. And by that time
    nearly 60% of the region's current power generating capacity would
    be in a floodplain.

"The response to sea level rise boils down to three options: prevention 
is basically building higher sea walls.
Things like berms.
Adaptation is elevation. Some critical infrastructure can't relocate for 
economic reasons, so
it would just end up being cheaper to raise them.
Retreat is basically returning the land to nature, but the state of New 
Jersey doesn't seem keen on that.
In the last decade, a new NFL stadium was built alongside large swaths 
of new housing and there's an airport expansion plan. But all of that 
new concrete could increase flooding from storm water runoff.
The Meadowlands is one of the biggest sponges in our region. If we get 
rid of those wetlands or if we you know pave them over, we're going to 
be pushing water into other places.
It's very hard to find any community that's looking at sea-level rise as 
a threat that they're planning for today."
https://youtu.be/yD5mm8FI5hM
- - - -
[More info from Rutgers:]
*Sea - level rise in New Jersey fact sheet 
<.https://geology.rutgers.edu/images/stories/faculty/miller_kenneth_g/Sealevelfactsheet7112014update.pdf>*
All  shorelines  (including the New  Jersey  shore)  are  dynamic 
environments  that  are  constantly  being reshaped by sea level rise, 
storms, and currents
https://geology.rutgers.edu/images/stories/faculty/miller_kenneth_g/Sealevelfactsheet7112014update.pdf
- - - - -
[more regional flood info]
*Regional Plan Association 'Under Water' and 4th Plan reports for 
residents of the greater New York City metro area: 
<http://library.rpa.org/pdf/RPA-Under-Water-How-Sea-Level-Rise-Threatens-the-Tri-State-Region.pdf>
Under Water How Sea Level Rise Threatens the Tri-State Region
*http://library.rpa.org/pdf/RPA-Under-Water-How-Sea-Level-Rise-Threatens-the-Tri-State-Region.pdf
- - - -
[know the tides]
*What is high tide flooding? 
<https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/nuisance-flooding.html>*
High tide flooding, sometimes referred to as "nuisance" flooding, is 
flooding that leads to public inconveniences such as road closures. It 
is increasingly common as coastal sea levels rise.
As relative sea level increases, it no longer takes a strong storm or a 
hurricane to cause coastal flooding. Flooding now occurs with high tides 
in many locations due to climate-related sea level rise, land 
subsidence, and the loss of natural barriers.
High tide flooding - which causes such public inconveniences as frequent 
road closures, overwhelmed storm drains and compromised infrastructure - 
has increased on all three U.S. coasts, between 300 and 925 percent 
since the 1960s.
The effects of rising sea levels along most of the continental U.S. 
coastline are expected to become more noticeable and much more severe in 
the coming decades, likely more so than any other climate-change related 
factor. Any acceleration in sea level rise that is predicted to occur 
this century will further intensify high tide flooding impacts over 
time, and will further reduce the time between flood events.
https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/nuisance-flooding.html
- - - - -
[NOAA technical report]
*PATTERNS AND PROJECTIONS OF HIGH TIDE FLOODING ALONG THE U.S. COASTLINE 
<https://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/publications/techrpt86_PaP_of_HTFlooding.pdf>*
https://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/publications/techrpt86_PaP_of_HTFlooding.pdf


[Follow the money]
*Europe's Largest Asset Manager Sees `Tipping Point' on Climate 
<https://www.bloombergquint.com/global-economics/2018/05/31/europe-s-largest-asset-manager-sees-tipping-point-on-climate>*
Anna Hirtenstein - 31 May 2018
(Bloomberg) - The world's deepest-pocketed investors are starting to 
take climate change seriously, according to Amundi SA.
"We are really observing a tipping point among the institutional 
investors on climate change," said Frederic Samama, co-head of 
institutional clients at the Paris-based firm. "Until recently, that 
question was not on their radar screen. It's changing, and it's changing 
super fast."
Risks from global warming range from damage to physical assets from 
extreme weather to falling prices on fossil fuel-related assets, as the 
world moves away from burning coal and oil. Bank of England governor 
Mark Carney has repeatedly warned that these risks are not priced in 
adequately and that investors may have exposure to a "climate Minsky 
moment" if they don't take action.
Amundi's remarks hold weight because it has 1.4 trillion euros ($1.6 
trillion) under management, making it the largest asset manager in 
Europe. It runs the world's largest green bond fund with the 
International Finance Corp. and is planning to deploy $2 billion into 
emerging markets. Mainstream investors are beginning to recognize both 
the threats and opportunities coming from climate-related issues, Samama 
said.
https://www.bloombergquint.com/global-economics/2018/05/31/europe-s-largest-asset-manager-sees-tipping-point-on-climate


[Youth Activism planned for July]
July 21. Washington, D.C.*RSVP NOW for The Youth Climate March* 
<https://actionnetwork.org/events/the-youth-climate-march?source=direct_link&>.
*Sister Marches <http://thisiszerohour.org/the-march/#sister-marches>* 
http://thisiszerohour.org/the-march/#sister-marches
Washington, D.C.
The Youth Climate Lobby Day (July 19) <http://thisiszerohour.org/the-march/>
Zero Hour is not mobilizing just for the sake of mobilizing. We the 
youth are demanding an end to business as usual on climate change, so we 
have created science-backed demands for both our leaders, and the 
general public to take action on. On July 19th youth are taking over 
Capitol Hill to deliver our demands to our politicians. We are giving 
them the exact asks that we are marching for - so they have no excuse 
not to take action.
http://thisiszerohour.org/the-march/


[Cough, cough... cough]
*Scientists race to reveal how surging wildfire smoke is affecting 
climate and health 
<http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/05/scientists-race-reveal-how-surging-wildfire-smoke-affecting-climate-and-health>*
By Warren Cornwall - May. 31, 2018
Emily Fischer is likely one of the few people whose summer plans were 
buoyed by a recent forecast that much of the western United States faces 
another worse-than-normal wildfire season. Unusually warm weather and 
drought, together with plenty of dry grass and brush, are expected to 
create prime conditions for blazes this summer, federal officials 
announced on 10 May.

The forecast has local officials bracing for the worst. But it 
represents an opportunity for Fischer, an atmospheric scientist at 
Colorado State University in Fort Collins who is preparing to spend the 
summer flying through plumes of wildfire smoke aboard a C-130 cargo 
plane jammed full of scientific equipment. The flights are the highlight 
of an unprecedented effort, costing more than $30 million, that involves 
aircraft, satellites, instrumented vans, and even researchers traveling 
on foot. Over the next 2 years, two coordinated campaigns - one funded 
by the National Science Foundation (NSF), and the other by NASA and the 
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) - aim to better 
understand the chemistry and physics of wildfire smoke, as well as how 
it affects climate, air pollution, and human health.

    "This is definitely the largest fire experiment that has ever
    happened," says atmospheric chemist Carsten Warneke of NOAA's Earth
    System Research Laboratory in Boulder, Colorado, one of the lead
    scientists. Wildfire smoke, he adds, is "one of the largest problems
    facing air quality and climate issues going forward."

The problem is growing as the size and intensity of wildfires rise in 
the western United States, marinating communities in smoke. Wildfires 
account for more than two-thirds of the particulate matter in the West 
on days that exceed federal clean air standards, according to a 2016 
study in the journal Climatic Change. And global warming is likely to 
stoke even more fire in coming years, by making wildlands more 
combustible. By midcentury, more than 80 million people living across 
much of the West can expect a 57% increase in the number of "smoke 
waves" - events that shroud a community for 2 days or more - according 
to the 2016 study. The consequences for public health could be sobering; 
smoke includes an array of noxious compounds and tiny particles that can 
complicate breathing and promote disease. Other parts of the Americas as 
well as Europe, Africa, Asia, and Australia are likely to experience the 
same climate-driven surge in wildfires, according to U.S. Forest Service 
researchers.

    Despite the potential threat, wildfire smoke has received little
    sustained scientific attention. The two new campaigns aim to change
    that. This year, the NSF-funded team that includes Fischer aims to
    fly its instrumented C-130 through 15 to 20 wildfire plumes. And
    next year, researchers with NASA and NOAA will have access to a
    bigger aircraft - a DC-8 jet - that will scour smoky skies across
    the United States.

One goal is to inventory the chemicals released by wildfires, including 
nitrogen oxides and carbon monoxide, and a vast array of volatile 
organic compounds. Current models for predicting the chemical makeup of 
smoke, which rely largely on satellite observations, have a huge margin 
for error, Warneke says. In part, that's because of uncertainty about 
how much vegetation wildfires consume. New studies that combine data 
from satellites, aircraft, and ground-based researchers scrutinizing 
burn sites should help fine-tune those estimates.
- - - - -
At night, falling temperatures can cause smoke plumes to sink into 
valleys, worsening air quality there. NOAA and NASA researchers will 
track the plumes with aircraft, vans, and a drone. That initiative will 
also involve DC-8 flights beyond the West, into the Midwest and 
Southeast, tracking smoke from fires intentionally set to clear farm 
fields and prescribed burns in forests. The goal of collecting such a 
wide array of data, Warneke says, is "to do the whole picture at one 
time and understand how the whole thing plays together."
*A smokier future*
Beyond these projects, public health researchers are taking a growing 
interest in what happens when smoke blankets communities, sometimes for 
weeks at a time. Past studies have found that short-term smoke exposure 
can increase problems for people with asthma and other lung ailments, 
but "there's really not much information at all" about the effects of 
long-term, chronic exposure, says Curtis Noonan, an environmental 
epidemiologist at the University of Montana in Missoula.
- - - -
One big question, she says, is: "If you're born into really smoky 
conditions with your extremely sensitive, newborn lungs, what does that 
mean for you?"
As scientists prepare to tackle such questions, health officials in 
Missoula are preparing for a possible repeat of last year's smoke waves. 
The health department is stockpiling indoor air filters for day care 
centers, schools, and other gathering spots.

Fischer, for one, hopes they aren't needed. Although she requires fire 
for her studies, she says, "I'm just wishing for an average wildfire 
year with wildfires in wilderness areas that don't cause any property 
damage."
Warren Cornwall is freelance journalist in Washington State.
http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/05/scientists-race-reveal-how-surging-wildfire-smoke-affecting-climate-and-health


[A classic essay]
*Sustainable activism: managing hope and despair in social movements 
<https://www.opendemocracy.net/transformation/paul-hoggett-rosemary-randall/sustainable-activism-managing-hope-and-despair-in-socia>*
Paul Hoggett and Rosemary Randall
In her _study of ACT UP 
<http://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/M/bo6943529.html>_ the 
direct action AIDS movement in the USA in the 1980s and early 1990s, 
Deborah Gould noted the powerful role that's played by emotions in 
animating social activism. She observed that any movement that seeks to 
make things better in the world has to manage despair. We believe that 
this emotion arises because activists are haunted by the belief that 
they might lack the collective resources to address the damage and 
suffering they see around them, and which motivates their action. So in 
addition to its external opponents, a movement always has an internal, 
emotional enemy - a gnawing, repetitive, low-level fear and hopelessness 
that accompany the struggle for deep-rooted social change.

Over the last few years we have been _interviewing people 
<http://climatepsychologyalliance.org/explorations/blogs/173-outriders-of-the-coming-adversity-how-climate-activists-and-climate-scientists-keep-going>_ 
in the UK who have been involved in direct actions such as the 
occupation of power stations and airport runways. We wanted to explore 
how they managed the powerful feelings that are aroused by any exposure 
to the disturbing truth of climate change. As one young female activist 
put it to us:

    "I know if I let open the floodgates it's there…I know what that
    depressive, overwhelming 'I feel lost' feeling is. I've had it. It's
    not something I enjoy."

In our own experience of movements for change from the 1970s onwards we 
have been struck by the way in which a failure to contain despair can 
lead to unrealistic hopes, built on a denial of and a flight from some 
difficult truths. The group 'puffs itself up' to make itself feel big. 
It overestimates its own strength and underestimates the power of 
opposing forces. It resorts to faith ('history is on our side') and 
magic ('come on everybody, one last push'). It prefers to engage in 
wishful thinking rather than face reality as it is.

This state of mind is one we often encounter in our work as 
psychotherapists. It's often referred to as _schizoid 
<http://www.encyclopedia.com/psychology/dictionaries-thesauruses-pictures-and-press-releases/paranoid-schizoid-position>_ 
- a state where everything is split into polarities: black or white, all 
or nothing. For someone in the grip of schizoid thinking the world is 
binary - there is no 'in between'. Everything is either one thing or the 
other, and the coin is constantly flipped between one perspective and 
it's opposite: either my marriage was the wonderful relationship I 
always imagined it to be or I was living a total illusion; either I have 
this special and exclusive relationship with my children or I mean 
nothing to them at all.

One of the most painful and destructive things about schizoid thinking 
is that it reproduces the very anxiety it tries to manage. By creating 
an ideal state of affairs that can never be achieved in reality it opens 
the door to further disappointment, more desperate self-criticism, a 
greater sense of failure and more crippling anxiety which can only be 
dealt with by further splits. In politics one obvious and much parodied 
example is the factionalism that often bedevils political groups and 
social movements.

However the problem goes much deeper than this: it can also affect the 
culture of otherwise healthy groups. In movements around climate change 
we can see it at work in a series of unhelpful binaries such as 'The 
only realistic thing to do is change the system'/versus/ 'We are 
powerless to change the system, so must focus on achievable changes in 
our communities and in our own lives.' Another common binary is 'all or 
nothing'. We throw ourselves into an all-consuming commitment which, 
because it is all consuming, demands an immediate return. Then, when 
reality proves recalcitrant, despair sets in. As one of our interviewees 
put it:

    "...there's definitely a danger of tying your whole sense of worth
    and purpose to this challenge that is so much bigger than you and is
    never ending".

This binary is often linked to another which is 'now or never'. In 
climate change work this is manifested in the belief that *'*we must all 
act now or it will be too late,' a belief that can all too quickly slip 
into the perception that it is already 'too late', and that processes 
have already been unleashed which are irreversibly leading us to 
catastrophe.

However, one hopeful sign that also emerges from our interviews with the 
current generation of climate activists is that they are developing a 
much more emotionally-intelligent culture. Direct action places 
activists in vulnerable situations, and rather than resorting to a macho 
denial this generation seems much more prepared to acknowledge their 
vulnerability. Many activists also seem to be able to take up a more 
proportionate response. Times of intense engagement are often followed 
by a period of taking a step back and giving due attention to self-care 
and self-reflection. Many of them described a kind of proportionality to 
their engagement, where they could let go of their painful knowledge for 
a time, relegating it to the background while continuing to work on a 
practical project. "I think I don't think about it," explained one. 
"I've accepted it, found my own kind of path of how I live my life with 
those kinds of things going through it." Rather like someone who has 
learned to live with a life-limiting condition like diabetes, these 
activists were no longer obsessed with climate change but concerned to 
act as effectively and dynamically as they could to counter its worst 
effects.

There were a number of elements at play when this balance worked. The 
first was a sense of excitement and pleasure in the actions themselves. 
"It's just really fun...if you don't have fun day to day, you are going 
to burn out way quicker," explained one. The second factor was giving 
conscious attention to building a cohesive group with a high level of 
trust, debriefing properly after actions and offering support to anyone 
distressed or traumatised by their experiences. Some of our respondents 
emphasised the cohesion: "There's an incredible sense of solidarity that 
comes out of doing a direct action," said one, while others focused on 
the capacity of the group to accept and understand each other's 
vulnerabilities: "We have Activist Trauma Support, we have medical 
support, we have debriefings, we have a really good way of helping 
people. We know what burnout is now. We know what post-traumatic stress 
disorder is," said another.

Another important element was an awareness of the kinds of practices – 
time spent outdoors, in meditation, or with family – that could counter 
the intense involvement with such a difficult subject. For one activist 
it was her father's presence with a banner at all her court appearances 
that mattered. Others spoke of a profound relationship with nature, the 
inner practice of yoga, or time spent walking with the dog after an 
intense day's work.

Finally, the sense of building a movement that might prefigure the kind 
of society they hoped might materialise in the future was hugely 
sustaining to almost all our respondents. The sense that they could 
create a world in miniature that was more caring, more responsive and 
more inclusive – a community, in other words – was a source of pride and 
strength.

As a result, many have begun to talk in terms of 'sustainable activism,' 
one that can survive for the much longer term. As one of our 
interviewees put it:

    "The struggle will always be there for justice and for those kinds
    of things ...there's no utopic end point is what I mean. It will
    always be evolving and changing and I see my... there will always be
    another struggle somewhere…"

Sustainable activism has what Gramsci called a '_pessimism of the 
intellect' 
<https://archive.org/stream/AntonioGramsciSelectionsFromThePrisonNotebooks/Antonio-Gramsci-Selections-from-the-Prison-Notebooks_djvu.txt>_ 
which can avoid wishful thinking and face reality as squarely as 
possible. However it also retains an 'optimism of the will', an inner 
conviction that things can be different. By holding optimism and 
pessimism in tension, sustainable activism is better able to handle 
despair, and it has less need to resort to binary thinking as a way of 
engaging with reality. It can hold contradictions so that they don't 
become either/or polarities. It can work both in and against the system. 
Whilst it believes there can be no personal change without political 
change it is equally insistent that there can be no political change 
without personal change. It insists optimistically that those who are 
not against us must be with us, and therefore carries a notion of 'us' 
which is inclusive and generous, one which offers the benefit of the 
doubt to the other.

Finally, sustainable activism holds that it is never too late. In the 
context of climate change it is able to face the truth that some 
irreversible processes of change are already occurring; that the _two 
degrees limit <http://unfccc.int/paris_agreement/items/9485.php>_ in the 
increase in global temperatures agreed at the 2015 Paris climate 
conference may not be achieved; that bad outcomes are inevitable, and 
that some are already happening. Nevertheless it also insists that this 
makes our struggles all the more vital to reduce the scale and 
significance of these future outcomes, to fight for the 'least-worst' 
results we can achieve, and to ensure that the world of our 
grandchildren and their children is as habitable as possible.
https://www.opendemocracy.net/transformation/paul-hoggett-rosemary-randall/sustainable-activism-managing-hope-and-despair-in-socia


[Opinion - Scientific American]
*Should Climate Scientists Fly? 
<https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/should-climate-scientists-fly/>*
Wrong question; instead of scapegoating individual researchers, we 
should blame the centers of power, including corporations and political 
leaders
By Sarah E Myhre on May 31, 2018
Indeed, the complicity of flying is held up as a Rorschach test as to 
whether publicly-facing climate scientists understand the moral math of 
climate change. The culture wants to know: Are we crisis actors 
pantomiming alarmism, whilst we profiteer and jet around the globe to 
our fancy meetings? Or are we noble ascetics who have purified and 
aligned our carbon footprint with our rhetoric?  This dynamic - of 
finger-pointing, grandstanding, condemning and shaming - is an ongoing 
toxic hamster wheel, which further erodes and discredits the public 
trust in the good-faith actions of climate and earth scientists.
- - - -
Why would we ever consider climate scientists an appropriate target for 
our outrage and action, when multinational corporations and gutless 
political leaders are making out like racketeers from heating the 
planet? Oil companies, such as Chevron, ExxonMobil and Royal Dutch Shell 
have generated multi-billion-dollar profits in the first quarter of 2018 
alone. Moreover, actual elected leaders are trafficking in science 
denialism and propaganda in public institutions, wherein the existence 
of snowballs discredits climate warming and rocks falling into the ocean 
cause sea level rise. These are the exact targets for where our public 
outrage and grief should land.
- - - - -
There are very, very bad actors in this space of climate accountability. 
The problem is, these actors are some of the wealthiest and most 
powerful people on the planet, a cabal of mediocre and violent men who 
gatekeep our collective action on climate. To indict them publicly and 
directly is to court both the reality of the political and partisan 
moment of our time and the implied threat of an army of corporate 
lawyers. It is easier, quite frankly, to point at climate scientists as 
dubious and self-conflicted agents of alarmism, rather than prosecute 
the political and economic centers of power.
This is why climate action is about moral courage. Yes, we must have the 
courage to align our personal actions with our understanding of the 
science, through decreasing and stopping our flying. But, more 
importantly, we must have to courage to speak truth to power, despite 
how this might change our public or professional standing. Climate 
action is one of the most fundamental social justice movements of our 
time. No more and no less, our choices now to act as brave stewards of 
planetary life, despite political realities and institutional denialism, 
will change the trajectory of the planet forever. It is worth it.
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/should-climate-scientists-fly/
- - - -
[On the other hand, No Fly Climate Science]
*No Fly Climate Sci <http://noflyclimatesci.org/>*
We are Earth scientists, academics, and members of the public who either 
don't fly or who fly less.
We feel that global warming poses a clear, present, and dire danger for 
humanity. In an era of obvious climate change, we believe that it’s 
important to align our daily life choices with that reality. Actions 
speak louder than words.
We try to fly as little as possible while pushing for systemic change, 
especially through our home institutions. These are our stories - why we 
fly less, and what that means in a society that still rewards frequent 
flying.
- - - -
We're experimenting with having successful and satisfying lives and 
careers without all the flying. We hope that our openness about flying 
less helps to change flying culture, gradually reducing the professional 
handicap for those of us who choose to align our personal actions with 
our knowledge of global warming. We urge academic institutions to 
realize their responsibility to be role models in an age of obvious 
global warming, and therefore to adopt policies and strategies for 
flying less. *We believe that shaming individuals is counterproductive.*
http://noflyclimatesci.org/


*This Day in Climate History - June 4, 2002 
<http://www.nytimes.com/2002/06/05/us/president-distances-himself-from-global-warming-report.html> 
- from D.R. Tucker*
June 4, 2002: President George W. Bush dismisses an EPA report on the 
threat of human-caused climate change, deriding what he called "the 
report put out by the bureaucracy."
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/06/05/us/president-distances-himself-from-global-warming-report.html 


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