[TheClimate.Vote] March 28, 2018 - Daily Global Warming News Digest
Richard Pauli
richard at theclimate.vote
Wed Mar 28 08:44:23 EDT 2018
/March 28, 2018/
[Overlooked News]
*Anti-pipeline campaigners found not guilty by judge because 'protest
against climate change crisis' was legal 'necessity'
<https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/pipeline-protesters-boston-protest-not-guilty-climate-change-karenna-gore-mary-ann-driscoll-a8276851.html>*
'We're part of the the movement that is standing up and saying we won't
let this go by on our watch'
Andrew Buncombe
More than a dozen protesters who clambered into holes dug for a high
pressure gas pipeline said they had been found not responsible by a
judge after hearing them argue their actions to try and stop climate
change were a legal "necessity".
Karenna Gore, the daughter of former Vice President Al Gore, was among
more than 198 people who were arrested because of their 2015 actions
protesting the pipeline in West Roxbury, Massachusetts, a suburb of
Boston. Thirteen people were to go on trial this week, though
prosecutors downgraded their original criminal charges to one of civil
infraction.
On Tuesday, Judge Mary Ann Driscoll of West Roxbury District Court,
found all 13 defendants not responsible, the equivalent of not guilty in
a criminal case. She did so after each of the defendants addressed the
judge and explained why they were driven to try and halt the pipeline's
construction.
Speaking outside the court afterwards, Ms Gore, 44, Director of the
Centre for Earth Ethics at Union Theological Seminary in New York, said
the court's decision was historic. "What happened today was really
important," she said.
"The [activists] were found not responsible by reason of necessity. The
irony is that we are making ourselves responsible. We're part of the the
movement that is standing up and saying we won't let this go by on our
watch. We won't act like nothing's wrong."
Marla Marcum of the Climate Change Disobedience Centre, which supported
the activists, said that each of the 13 had addressed the judge about
why they had been part of the protests against the pipeline, which was
constructed by Houston-based company Spectra Energy.
"At the end, she said they were all not responsible by reason of legal
necessity," she said. She said the group had an audio recording of the
hearing which it intended to post online.
Neither Ms Driscoll or the court clerk was available for comment.
However, one member of the court's staff who asked not to be named, told
The Independent the judge had found them not responsible. The person
denied, however, that the judge had made the ruling on the grounds of
legal necessity.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/pipeline-protesters-boston-protest-not-guilty-climate-change-karenna-gore-mary-ann-driscoll-a8276851.html
[Also]
*West Roxbury Lateral Pipeline in Boston Criminal Trial Downgraded
<https://patch.com/massachusetts/westroxbury/west-roxbury-lateral-pipeline-boston-criminal-trial-downgraded>*
Wondering whatever happened to that trial scheduled against those who
blocked the pipeline?
https://patch.com/massachusetts/westroxbury/west-roxbury-lateral-pipeline-boston-criminal-trial-downgraded
[videos]
Mothers Out Front in West Roxbury
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BHR1mdTj6_0>
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BHR1mdTj6_0
[video, Yale presents the question - Sea Level Rise]
*Sea Level Rise: Some Reason for Hope?
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yN7S_YmMnQc>*
*YaleClimateConnections* Published on Mar 25, 2018
Scientists analyze global sea level rise. Most uncertain of all: How,
when humans reduce carbon emissions.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yN7S_YmMnQc
[Runaway Ice]
*Runaway Arctic Ice Menaces Oil Rigs and Shipping as the Planet Warms
<https://insideclimatenews.org/news/27032018/global-warming-arctic-sea-ice-data-icebergs-ocean-shipping-oil-gas-drilling-grand-banks-newfoundland>*
BY BOB BERWYN - INSIDECLIMATE NEWS
That ice can pose serious risks to ships and offshore oil and gas rigs.
Last year, strong storms sent a swarm of icebergs surging into the oil
and gas drilling field at the Grand Banks off Newfoundland, marking the
fourth extreme iceberg season in a row
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zgmP8U9tJ6w>, according to
International Ice Patrol <https://www.navcen.uscg.gov/?pageName=IIPHome>
Commander Gabrielle McGrath...
Increased ice mobility is a sign that the Arctic climate system is
likely to change in big increments in the next few decades, said
University of Manitoba ice ... The sea ice pack is becoming mechanically
weaker...
The drifting sea ice was also studded with thousands of icebergs, most
of them from Greenland's accelerating glaciers. Those rivers of ice have
speeded up sharply in recent years, and the icebergs that break off of
them into the ocean drift southward, where they get caught up in the
drifting sea ice. The past two decades have seen the highest number of
icebergs in the northwest Atlantic since at least 1900.
The pattern could persist for at least several decades, but the
long-term future for icebergs is less certain, because some glaciers
will retreat so far inland that they won't be able to discharge icebergs
into the ocean anymore. Instead, the glaciers will terminate on land and
release the melting ice as water..
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/27032018/global-warming-arctic-sea-ice-data-icebergs-ocean-shipping-oil-gas-drilling-grand-banks-newfoundland
[More going to the courts]
*Oyez, Oyez, the Environmental Courts are Now in Session (Part 1)
<http://www.resilience.org/stories/2018-03-26/oyez-oyez-the-environmental-courts-are-now-in-session-part-1/>*
The days of constructive political debate and compromise in the
legislative and executive branches of government are gone, leaving the
courts as the primary venues in which the causes and consequences of
global climate change are being debated, and stable solutions sought.
The growing number of climate cases being filed in both federal and
state courts is paralleled by the increasing number of legal theories
being relied upon to bring them. Today's actions go much beyond
traditional legal challenges, i.e., how an agency went about crafting or
rescinding an environmental regulation or whether an emission exceeded
the legal limit...
- - - - see full text at
http://www.resilience.org/stories/2018-03-26/oyez-oyez-the-environmental-courts-are-now-in-session-part-1/
Following Trump's logic in the case of opioids: if a drug dealer should
receive the death penalty for selling to addicts on the street, what
should the punishment be for selling coal to India and China in the market?
http://www.resilience.org/stories/2018-03-26/oyez-oyez-the-environmental-courts-are-now-in-session-part-1/
[Faith - audio and text]
*Pastor mobilizes black churches to act on climate
<https://www.yaleclimateconnections.org/2018/03/pastor-mobilizes-black-churches-to-act-on-climate/>*His
own church is teaching children how to care for creation.
Reverend Doctor Ambrose F. Carroll says that African American churches
are not often associated with environmentalism. But he wants to change that.
So he founded Green the Church, a campaign to motivate environmental
action at black churches.
Carroll: "We are people of the African diaspora. We're people who are
ex-slaves, people who are migrant farmers, people who have spent eons
with our hands in the ground, and even though we don't talk the language
of environmentalism, it's really very close to who we are."
'... Even though we don't talk the language of environmentalism, it's
really very close to who we are.'
At Green the Church trainings, workshops, and conventions, faith leaders
teach pastors and other church representatives the religious importance
of protecting the earth. And, they provide strategies for engaging
churches in renewable energy, food security, and environmental justice.
Carroll says that action takes many different forms. For example, his
church in Berkeley, California has switched to LED lighting and launched
a program to teach children to care for God's creation. He says the
campaign inspires action, and shows that, in fact …
Carroll: "The African American church is engaged."
https://www.yaleclimateconnections.org/2018/03/pastor-mobilizes-black-churches-to-act-on-climate/
[Coal Baron candidacy]
*Coal Country Con Man Running for Senate
<https://climatecrocks.com/2018/03/27/coal-country-con-man-running-for-senate/>*
Paul Krugman:
<https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/26/opinion/conservatism-honesty-crime-gop.html?smid=tw-share>
In 2010 an explosion at a coal mine operated by Massey Energy killed 29
men. In 2015 Don Blankenship, the company's former C.E.O., was sent to
prison for conspiring to violate mine safety standards. In 2018,
Blankenship appears to have a real chance at becoming the Republican
candidate for senator from West Virginia.
Blankenship is one of four Republicans with criminal convictions running
for office this year, several of whom may well win their party's
nominations. And there is a much broader list of Republican politicians
facing credible accusations of huge ethical lapses who nonetheless
emerged victorious in G.O.P. primaries, ranging from Roy Moore to, well,
Donald Trump.
...Some Republican politicians have openly admitted that this makes the
party's congressional wing unwilling to hold Trump accountable for even
the most spectacular malfeasance, up to and including possible collusion
with a hostile foreign power.
- - - - -
[harsh headline - Wonkette]
*Jailbird Coal CEO Don Blankenship Running For Senate Because Dead
Miners Can't Vote
<https://wonkette.com/626416/jailbird-coal-ceo-don-blankenship-running-for-senate-because-dead-miners-cant-vote#AsBGvMI8drMCwQVI.99>*
...Of course, Blankenship won't have an easy path to the Senate, not
merely because there's a nationwide conspiracy to keep him down, but
also because there are other Republican candidates in the primary, US
Rep. Evan Jenkins and West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey.
Blankenship may have to explain to West Virginians why he's preferred to
live in Las Vegas instead of West Virginia since getting out of prison,
though he's kept a home in coal country and will undoubtedly go back for
as long as it takes to run...
Despite his lonely years being Coal's Best Friend, Blankenship will
still have to overcome the fact that lots of West Virginians know
exactly who he is and what happened at the Upper Big Branch Mine, so he
may need a boost of some sort to make him stand out and win rightwing
votes...
https://wonkette.com/626416/jailbird-coal-ceo-don-blankenship-running-for-senate-because-dead-miners-cant-vote#AsBGvMI8drMCwQVI.99
---
[Politico]
*Can the Most Hated Man in West Virginia Win?
<https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/03/26/west-virginia-senate-don-blankenship-2018-217703>*
Don Blankenship went to prison after the deaths of 29 of his miners. For
some Republicans, that's the beginning of a successful Senate campaign.
By KEVIN ROBILLARD
March 26, 2018
...Admittedly, this part of the state was not his power base when he was
the bottom-line-driven CEO of Massey Energy, one of the state's largest
mining companies. ("I used to come up here to sell coal," he told me
later in an interview. "Before Obama.") But the almost nonexistent
turnout seemed about right for a man who just three years ago had a
statewide approval rating of 10 percent, lower even than Congress, the
standard for disdain. In 2015, when he was sentenced to a year in prison
on a misdemeanor charge of conspiring to violate mine safety standards
in the 2010 explosion that killed 29 men at the Upper Big Branch mine,
three-fifths of people surveyed thought the judge should have put him
away for longer.
Initially, Blankenship had told prison officials that upon his release
he planned to move to Nevada, where his girlfriend lives. Instead, on
January 23 he signed the papers to challenge Manchin. A 67-page
manifesto he had written in prison decrying his political persecution by
the Obama Justice Department effectively became his political platform.
The idea that a former inmate who many view as an unrepentant murderer
would dare to run for Senate seemed laughable at first, even to members
of his own party.
- - - - -
Anti-establishment to his core, Blankenship doesn't feel a hint of
regret that national figures from his own party are already lining up
against him. "I was against McConnell long before he was against me,"
Blankenship says of the Kentucky Republican, whom he once considered an
ally in the battles against the Obama administration's climate change
efforts. But in 2014, Blankenship wrote an essay on his website bashing
McConnell and noting the senator's wife, Transportation Secretary Elaine
Chao, sat on the board of a Michael Bloomberg-backed group that funded
the Sierra Club. "Electing McConnell is better than sending a Democrat
that will always support Obama to D.C., but McConnell is not a coal
guy," Blankenship wrote at the time.
Many Republicans in D.C. and West Virginia didn't think Blankenship's
run was serious at first. He had already been paying for television ads
promoting his theory of the Upper Big Branch explosion and alleging a
Justice Department coverup, and it appeared his entrance into the race
was simply an attempt to get cheaper ad rates.
But McConnell and the rest of the GOP establishment may soon have to
confront the possibility of Blankenship picking up the GOP nomination. A
Jenkins-commissioned poll released earlier this month showed Blankenship
with 27 percent of the vote, just behind the incumbent congressman at 29
percent. Morrisey was in third with just 19 percent. Some Jenkins
supporters, and some national Republicans who think the congressman is
the party's best chance to beat Manchin, think Blankenship's presence in
the race will only eat away at Morrisey's vote share, as the two
candidates will split the anti-establishment vote...
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/03/26/west-virginia-senate-don-blankenship-2018-217703
[Bug counts are down]
*Insect Decimation Upstages Global Warming
<https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/03/27/insect-decimation-upstages-global-warming/>*
by ROBERT HUNZIKER
An alarming loss of insects will likely take down humanity before global
warming hits maximum velocity...
Several naturalists and environmental writers believe the massive loss
of insects has everything to do with three generations of industrialized
farming and the vast tide of poisons pouring over the landscape
year-after-year, especially since the end of WWII. Ours is the
first-ever pesticide-based agricultural society. Dreadfully, it's an
experiment that is going dead wrong… all of a sudden!
- - - - -
Scientists have been noticing the problem for some time now, but
widespread public knowledge is simply not there. Jurgen Deckert, insect
custodian at the Berlin Natural History Museum is worried that "there's
a risk we will only really take notice once it is too late." (Source:
Christian Schwagerl, What's Causing the Sharp Decline in Insects, and
Why It Matters, YaleEnvironment360, July 6, 2012)
The Senckenberg Entomological Institute/Frankfurt recorded a 40% decline
in butterfly and Burnet moth species over a period of decades.
A Stanford University global index developed by Rodlfo Dirzo showed a
45% decline for invertebrates over four decades. Of 3,623 terrestrial
invertebrate species on the International Union for Conservation of
Nature Red List, 42% are classified as threatened with extinction.
The Zoological Society of London in 2012 published a major survey
concluding that many insect populations are in severe decline. And in
both the U.S. and Europe researchers have recorded 40% declines in bee
populations because of colony collapse disorder and sharp losses of
monarch butterflies.
- - - - - -
"Of particular concern is the widespread use of pesticides and their
impact on non-target species. Many conservationists view a special class
of pesticides called neonicotinoids - used over many years in Europe
until a partial ban in 2013 - as the prime suspect for insect losses…
"There are many indications that what we see is the result of a
widespread poisoning of our landscape," says Leif Miller, director
general of the German chapter of Bird Life International," Ibid.
Widespread poisoning of ecosystems is the norm in modern day society.
"Ours is a poisoned planet, … This explosion in chemical use and release
has all happened so rapidly that most people are blissfully unaware of
its true magnitude and extent, or of the dangers it now poses to us all
as well as to future generations for centuries to come." (Source: Julian
Cribb, Surviving the 21st Century, Springer Nature, Switzerland, 2017,
page 104)
"Most people are blissfully unaware" may be a blessing in disguise as
the angst, dread, and uneasiness that knowledge of this horrendous
crisis brings is the root cause of severe bouts of sleeplessness along
with difficult spells of deep depression.
https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/03/27/insect-decimation-upstages-global-warming/
*This Day in Climate History - March 28, 2001
<http://archives.nbclearn.com/portal/site/k-12/flatview?cuecard=238> -
from D.R. Tucker*
March 28, 2001: President George W. Bush says his administration will
not honor the Kyoto Protocol. CAMPBELL BROWN reporting:
BROWN: An embarrassing decision for Bush's EPA administrator, who
sources say, was essentially left out of the loop. And only weeks
earlier, based on Bush's campaign pledge, was telling U.S. allies
Bush supported limits on carbon dioxide emissions. And yet Whitman
is now taking the heat for the president on this and other
controversial decisions. Today on Capitol Hill defending the EPA's
move to postpone setting new standards for cancer-causing arsenic in
drinking water, while promising the environment remains an
administration priority.
CHRISTINE TODD WHITMAN (U.S. EPA Administrator): This is an
administration that's going to surprise everybody with how much
we're, how much progress we're going to make.
BROWN: The outcry over the president's decision on global warming is
not just coming from Democrats but also U.S. allies, and the
president is expected to hear more complaints tomorrow when he meets
with German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder.
http://archives.nbclearn.com/portal/site/k-12/flatview?cuecard=238
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