[TheClimate.Vote] May 2, 2018 - Daily Global Warming News Digest

Richard Pauli richard at theclimate.vote
Wed May 2 09:14:36 EDT 2018


/May 2, 2018/

[A new list]
*11 key themes as countries take stock of Paris Agreement progress 
<http://www.climatechangenews.com/2018/05/01/11-key-themes-countries-take-stock-paris-agreement-progress/>*
By Megan Darby - published on 01/05/2018
The Talanoa Dialogue could be a springboard to stronger action on 
climate change, or just another talking shop. Here are the discussions 
to watch...
In the next two weeks in Bonn, national negotiators will meet assorted 
academics, campaigners and lobbyists in parallel sessions to exchange 
ideas. They have been asked to answer three questions – the third being 
the hardest and most important: Where are we? Where do we want to go? 
How do we get there?
More than 400 submissions have been made, which give a flavour of the 
discussions to come. Come the COP24 climate summit in Katowice this 
December, these will bubble up to the political level.
Here are 11 of the key themes. 
<http://www.climatechangenews.com/2018/05/01/11-key-themes-countries-take-stock-paris-agreement-progress/>
More at: 
http://www.climatechangenews.com/2018/05/01/11-key-themes-countries-take-stock-paris-agreement-progress/
- - - -
*Bonn morning brief: 'We simply don't have any time to waste' 
<http://www.climatechangenews.com/2018/05/01/bonn-morning-brief-simply-dont-time-waste/>*
US diplomat and Obama appointee Trigg Talley once again led his state 
department team to the talks. His new boss, Mike Pompeo, is yet to show 
his hand on international climate policy. (His focus is taken up with 
North Korean denuclearisation). Will he continue his predecessor Rex 
Tillerson's policy of unenlightened disinterest? Or will the Koch 
brothers' most financially favoured politician 
<http://www.climatechangenews.com/2017/11/30/pompeo-koch-ally-paris-climate-critic-tipped-us-secretary-state/> 
use his power to push the talks off balance?
http://www.climatechangenews.com/2018/05/01/bonn-morning-brief-simply-dont-time-waste/


[Security Advisor - about the future]
*Warren, Sanders want climate change considered in selection of homeland 
security adviser 
<http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/385650-warren-sanders-want-climate-change-considered-in-selection-of-homeland>*
BY JOHN BOWDEN - 05/01/18
Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) are calling 
on the Trump administration to consider the effects of climate change 
when selecting President Trump's next homeland security adviser.
In a letter to Trump, the two senators urge the president to select an 
individual who "takes seriously" severe weather patterns and storms 
caused by a changing climate.
"The Homeland Security Advisor regularly attends meetings of the 
National Security Council and is responsible for overseeing the 
Administration's response to natural disasters, including hurricanes," 
reads a statement from Warren's office.
"[Tom] Bossert, who served as Homeland Security Advisor since January 
2017 until his resignation last month, had refused to acknowledge the 
overwhelming scientific consensus that human-induced climate change 
contributes to severe weather events."
Bossert resigned in April, after John Bolton joined the White House as 
national security adviser and sought to shake up the team. A replacement 
for the homeland security adviser has not yet been announced.
"Without a dedicated federal effort to reduce the quantity of greenhouse 
gasses that human activity releases into the atmosphere, climate change 
will continue to worsen and cause increasingly severe weather events, 
including hurricanes," the two senators wrote in the letter. "Climate 
change is having and will have a tangible and harmful impact on our 
national security and disaster readiness."
The Trump administration has moved to strip fighting climate change from 
government websites and policies. The president announced last year that 
the U.S. would exit the Paris climate accord, a global agreement aimed 
at reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/385650-warren-sanders-want-climate-change-considered-in-selection-of-homeland


[Peter Sinclair reports]
*Jeff Flake on Solar Energy, Nuclear Power, and How GOP Needs to Wake up 
on Climate 
<https://climatecrocks.com/2018/04/30/jeff-flake-on-solar-energy-nuclear-power-and-how-gop-needs-to-wake-up-on-climate/>*
by greenman3610
Doing a brief speaking tour in Philadelphia area.  In the meantime, 
remember the Dark Snow fundraiser still ongoing. In a Senator Jeff 
Flake, an Arizona Republican, speaking in New Hampshire (stick a pin in 
that) March 2018. CNN: Republican Sen. Jeff Flake, a vocal critic of 
President Donald Trump, delivered a series of verbal blows […]
"I hope that someone does run the Republican primary, somebody to 
challenge the President," he said Friday after a man in the audience 
asked if he'd make a White House run. "I think the odds that I will are 
long, but I've not ruled it out."
Flake's message targeted the "Never Trump" movement, as he sought to 
paint himself as a conservative alternative to the President.
Video: Jeff Flake on Solar Energy, Nuclear Energy, and Climate 
<https://youtu.be/5kZC-qP6I0g>
https://youtu.be/5kZC-qP6I0g
Any Republican thinking of coming out on climate should listen to Jerry 
Taylor's story.
video - Climate 'Skeptic' Flips, Now Backs Action 
<https://youtu.be/1cbey_bxI2U>
https://youtu.be/1cbey_bxI2U
and
video - Jerry Taylor: How I Talk to Fellow Conservatives about a Carbon 
Tax <https://youtu.be/enPZWL1Sqqo>
https://youtu.be/enPZWL1Sqqo
https://climatecrocks.com/2018/04/30/jeff-flake-on-solar-energy-nuclear-power-and-how-gop-needs-to-wake-up-on-climate/


[Yale reminder]
*In Case You Missed It ... on talking climate change 
<https://www.yaleclimateconnections.org/2018/04/icymi-on-talking-about-climate-change/>*
Let's examine how best to talk about climate change, in ways that don't 
lead to fear, sadness, guilt, confusion ... and more.
We need to talk more about climate change. We all know this, even if we 
don't do it. And a small spate of recent pieces (including one here) 
provide us some useful and encouraging how-to tips.
Still, for many, such conversations aren't much fun to think about. 
Indeed, the topic of climate change is quite likely to upset us, to make 
us feel scared, sad, guilty, confused, overwhelmed, helpless, anxious. 
These feelings push us into the many paralyzing maneuvers psychologists 
associate with self-protective denial.
Which is why psychologist Rosemary Randall's essay "The Id and the Eco" 
<https://aeon.co/essays/we-need-to-talk-about-climate-change-even-if-it-s-depressing>(Aeon, 
2012) is still well worth reading. This short, insightful piece offers a 
clear view of why and how our emotions lead us to avoid facing this 
subject. And it suggests that we begin to move on by recognizing and 
naming our emotions, then talking about them with compassion and without 
judgment.
https://www.yaleclimateconnections.org/2018/04/icymi-on-talking-about-climate-change/
- - - -
*The id and the eco 
<https://aeon.co/essays/we-need-to-talk-about-climate-change-even-if-it-s-depressing>*
Thinking about climate change makes people feel helpless and anxious – 
but that's why we must talk about it openly
https://aeon.co/essays/we-need-to-talk-about-climate-change-even-if-it-s-depressing


[Alaska youth]
*Young Alaskans take action in the courts after decades of inaction on 
climate change 
<https://www.adn.com/opinions/2018/04/30/young-alaskans-take-action-in-the-courts-after-decades-of-inaction-on-climate-change/>*
Opinion, Tristan Glowa, Kyrstyn Kelley
Today, April 30, oral arguments will be heard regarding the case brought 
by the Our Children's Trust youth plaintiffs against the State of 
Alaska. These leaders from across the state will be in court because 
they believe that the status quo is not enough.

    We are writing as young Alaskans representing hundreds of others
    throughout our communities who have brought attention to the
    critical issue of climate change for the past two decades to express
    our full support for the youth plaintiffs' lawsuit. The world is
    running out of time to act on climate change and our state
    government must be held accountable, especially when the federal
    government refuses to address the issue and routinely denies science.

Climate change is the most pressing issue facing our generation––we have 
the most to lose or gain, depending on the actions our leaders take 
today. It's a matter of justice for future generations.

We have each been involved with efforts to seek policy change and action 
on climate over the years: In 2005, we collected 5,000 signatures from 
teenagers in more than 150 villages and cities around the state, asking 
our congressional delegation to take action on climate change. We 
received a nod in the media, but no action from Sen. Lisa Murkowski or 
other leaders. As part of the program Alaska Youth for Environmental 
Action, we have traveled to our state
capitol each year since 2003 asking State Administrations for action on 
climate. We have seen no meaningful action.
- - - - -
Given the continued inaction of Alaskan political officials, we believe 
that the Our Children's Trust case is now necessary. Plaintiffs are 
asking the court to order the State of Alaska to put together a climate 
change action plan that includes specific and enforceable reductions in 
emissions necessary to stabilize the climate and protect future 
generations. While Gov. Bill Walker and Lt. Governor Byron Mallott have 
established a Climate Action Leadership Team - a step in the right 
direction - we believe the threat to our future warrants decisive 
political action as the suit demands.
https://www.adn.com/opinions/2018/04/30/young-alaskans-take-action-in-the-courts-after-decades-of-inaction-on-climate-change/


[promotional]
*Climate Visuals <https://www.climatevisuals.org/>*
We're proud to share with you our completely revamped Climate Visuals 
website, the world's first evidence-based library of climate images.
If you're familiar with the old website, you'll find it much easier now 
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Every day, thousands of images of climate change are shared around the 
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Video Introduction to Climate Visuals <https://youtu.be/5bvCO9FFU9Y>
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[News Opinion]
*We need to rethink our moral obligations to create a better world 
<https://theconversation.com/we-need-to-rethink-our-moral-obligations-to-create-a-better-world-93286>*
Anne Schwenkenbecher
Our collective overuse and misuse of antibiotics is accelerating 
resistance to these universal drugs, leaving people increasingly 
vulnerable to infections that can no longer be treated. This applies not 
only to the use of antibiotics in human medicine, but also in animal 
industries.

Antibiotic resistance is an example of a collective action problem. 
These are problems where what is individually rational leads to a 
collectively undesirable outcome. Small things that many of us do, often 
on a daily basis, can have disastrous consequences in aggregate. The 
most challenging problems humanity is facing are in one way or another 
collective action problems.

The list of global collective action problems is long: plastic pollution 
of our oceans and waterways; the heightened concentration of greenhouse 
gases in the atmosphere leading to global warming; and the consumption 
of meat, the production of which is tied to environmental degradation.

*The importance of individual action*
What problems such as these have in common is that they cannot be 
resolved by any political actor on their own. We need global, 
coordinated policy responses to address these issues with any measure of 
success. Political actors – states, international organisations, or 
alliances of states – need to cooperate.

But should we leave it to policy makers and our political 
representatives to address these questions? I believe that in doing so 
we would violate important moral obligations as individuals.

Apart from coordinated policy responses, aggregate individual actions 
can actually have a significant positive impact on alleviating problems 
of collective action (even if they will not resolve them).

Let's take the example of antibiotic resistance. The World Health 
Organization has identified a number of actions each of us can take to 
help reduce the spread of resistance. These include limiting the medical 
use of antibiotics (where that is a safe option), reducing the 
consumption of food produced using antibiotics, and preventing 
infections through improved hygiene.

Similarly, climate researchers have identified individual actions that 
will have the greatest impact on climate change mitigation, provided 
enough people join in. These include having one fewer child, living 
car-free, avoiding air travel and shifting to a plant-based diet. If 
enough of us take such actions we can collectively limit global warming 
to a maximum of 2℃, thereby achieving something that global political 
actors have failed to achieve.

*The paradox of collective action*
The paradox of collective action is that while none of us can 
individually make a difference to the overall outcome, together we can. 
And while no individual's failure to act will undermine the success of 
the collective effort, if too many people continue with business as 
usual we will not make a change for the better.

So why change your behaviour if it doesn't make much difference for 
better or worse? Understanding how we might have obligations for 
collective problems will mean we need to rethink some of our common 
assumptions and intuitively held views about morality.

This, in fact, is something moral philosophers have been grappling with 
for several decades. The late Oxford philosopher Derek Parfit thought 
that so-called "common-sense morality" would often lead us to make 
mistakes in our "moral mathematics". We tend to neglect the moral import 
of small (often imperceptible) contributions to large-scale problems (or 
benefits, for that matter). This is an empirical claim, but it also 
applies to moral theorising.

One of the conceptual obstacles to rethinking our moral mathematics is 
the view that if an action of mine does not make a perceptible 
difference to an outcome then I cannot be morally required to perform it 
(or to refrain from performing it). Holding on to such a principle means 
to let everyone off the hook for the kind of global collective action 
problems mentioned above.

*Rethinking our moral obligations*
Here is a way in which we could rethink our moral obligations regarding 
problems of collective action. We could think of our individual 
obligations as deriving from the collectively optimal response to these 
problems and understand our responsibility to address them as shared, 
rather than individual.

Moral obligations or responsibilities, on this view, have different 
sources. Sometimes, we have obligations to perform certain actions or to 
produce certain outcomes because we can make a difference for the 
better. At other times, the source of our obligation may not reside in 
the effect of our actions or omissions, but in how these relate to a 
collective pattern of action that we perceive as morally right.

We might think that closing the emissions gap or slowing down antibiotic 
resistance by reducing our carbon or anti-microbial footprint is the 
best collective pattern of action available to us (beyond government 
action). Consequently, our obligations to change our behaviour can be 
seen as deriving their moral force from the fact that they form part of 
that pattern.

So reducing our carbon footprint or reducing our anti-microbial 
footprint are actions that are constitutive of our collectively doing 
the right thing. Another way of putting this is to say that individual 
moral responsibility (remedial, in this case) need not be tied to 
individual causal impact, but may derive from our collective 
responsibility and our joint difference-making ability.
/This is the sixth article in a series in which philosophers discuss the 
greatest moral challenge of our time, and how we should address it. Read 
part onehere 
<https://theconversation.com/the-greatest-moral-challenge-of-our-time-its-how-we-think-about-morality-itself-92101>, 
part twohere 
<https://theconversation.com/looking-for-truth-in-the-facebook-age-seek-out-views-you-arent-going-to-like-91659>, 
part threehere 
<https://theconversation.com/we-need-to-become-global-citizens-to-rebuild-trust-in-our-globalised-world-91660>, 
part fourhere 
<https://theconversation.com/dont-shoot-the-messenger-when-confronted-with-inconvenient-ideas-91661>, 
and part fivehere 
<https://theconversation.com/we-must-develop-techno-wisdom-to-prevent-technology-from-consuming-us-91656>./
https://theconversation.com/we-need-to-rethink-our-moral-obligations-to-create-a-better-world-93286


[What's in your textbook?]
*Study finds very few pages devoted to climate change in introductory 
science textbooks 
<https://phys.org/news/2018-04-pages-devoted-climate-introductory-science.html>*
Phys.Org
Now, in new research published in the journal Environmental 
Communication, Yoho and co-author Rittmann examined more than the 15,000 
combined ... They found that less than 4 percent of pages were devoted 
toward discussing climate change, global warming, related environmental 
issues...
- - -
Among the most polarizing issues encountered in science and society 
today is the topic of global climate change. Despite nearly universal 
scientific consensus that it is indeed real and caused by us, the 
American public and politicians continue to be skeptical of the science...
They found that less than 4 percent of pages were devoted toward 
discussing climate change, global warming, related environmental issues 
or renewable energy applications.
In addition, the research team found:

    - While they observed a large variation for individual books,
    biology textbooks had on average the largest number of pages
    discussing the effects of climate change, but still less than 2
    percent, while chemistry textbooks showed the largest variation, and
    physics books have an average of less than 0.5 percent of total pages;
    - The greatest content is in the final third of the book for biology
    and chemistry, which supports a general trend in education in that
    "applications" usually are addressed towards the end of a course of
    study, building on a firm foundation of content knowledge;
    - Among the three disciplines, the least emphasis was placed on
    renewable energy technologies in the biology textbooks examined.
    Characteristically, alternative fuels and other technologies related
    to the transportation sector are emphasized heavily in chemistry and
    physics;
    - Nuclear energy, which was addressed separately, is found on less
    than 1 percent of textbook pages and unfavorably represented.

By documenting that large textbooks devote relatively few pages to these 
pressing societal issues, this research calls into question the 
effectiveness of the information provided to students in introductory 
materials.
Read more at: 
https://phys.org/news/2018-04-pages-devoted-climate-introductory-science.html

*
*[Buying influence in the University]*
GMU student lawsuit challenges privacy, influence of public university 
donors 
<http://www.fairfaxtimes.com/articles/gmu-student-lawsuit-challenges-privacy-influence-of-public-university-donors/article_8da92c8a-4a60-11e8-8c17-635deab723b2.html>*
http://www.fairfaxtimes.com/articles/gmu-student-lawsuit-challenges-privacy-influence-of-public-university-donors/article_8da92c8a-4a60-11e8-8c17-635deab723b2.html
-
*George Mason U. President Admits Some Gift Agreements "Raise Questions" 
<https://nonprofitquarterly.org/2018/04/30/george-mason-u-president-admits-gift-agreements-raise-questions/>*
https://nonprofitquarterly.org/2018/04/30/george-mason-u-president-admits-gift-agreements-raise-questions/
-
*Major university allowed conservative donors say in hiring and firing 
of faculty: documents 
<http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/385560-major-university-allowed-conservative-donors-say-in-hiring-and>*
http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/385560-major-university-allowed-conservative-donors-say-in-hiring-and
*-
Documents Show Ties Between University, Conservative Donors 
<https://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2018/04/30/us/ap-us-koch-college.html>*
By The Associated Press - April 30, 2018
FAIRFAX, Va. - Virginia's largest public university granted the 
conservative Charles Koch Foundation a say in the hiring and firing of 
professors in exchange for millions of dollars in donations, according 
to newly released documents.
https://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2018/04/30/us/ap-us-koch-college.html
-
*George Mason president: Some donations 'fall short' of academic 
standards 
<https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/george-mason-president-some-donations-fall-short-of-academic-standards/2018/04/28/bb927576-4af0-11e8-8b5a-3b1697adcc2a_story.html?utm_term=.a90113fb1b08>*
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/george-mason-president-some-donations-fall-short-of-academic-standards/2018/04/28/bb927576-4af0-11e8-8b5a-3b1697adcc2a_story.html?utm_term=.a90113fb1b08
-
[From Climate News]
*What're the Kochs Up To Lately? Ruining the Planet, As Per Usual. 
<https://climatenewsnetwork.net/> *
With all the fireworks around Pruitt's neverending scandalrama, and the 
other uproars over all "the best people 
<https://climatenexus.us4.list-manage.com/track/click?u=d1f5797e59060083034310930&id=305a01a2bc&e=95b355344d>" 
in the Trump administration, the Koch brothers are enjoying a moment of 
relative obscurity.

But a group of six senators are aiming to change that. The lawmakers 
sent letters last week the White House and eight regulatory bodies 
soliciting information about how the Koch network has infiltrated the 
Trump administration 
<https://climatenexus.us4.list-manage.com/track/click?u=d1f5797e59060083034310930&id=37400cb990&e=95b355344d>.
Their concerns are certainly well-founded, and they've documented 
multiple employees whose CVs brag about their Koch network gigs, like 
Doug Domenech. But we're surprised it's taken this long to become a 
concern worthy of a letter...

After all, we raised this flag back in November 2016 
<https://climatenexus.us4.list-manage.com/track/click?u=d1f5797e59060083034310930&id=a31f2b926c&e=95b355344d>, 
pointing to Pence, Pompeo, and Domenech's Kochnecctions. Then nearly a 
year later in October '17 
<https://climatenexus.us4.list-manage.com/track/click?u=d1f5797e59060083034310930&id=3dd714cfa2&e=95b355344d>, 
there was the Jane Mayer profile 
<https://climatenexus.us4.list-manage.com/track/click?u=d1f5797e59060083034310930&id=d39a5e7add&e=95b355344d> 
of Pence's career as a Koch crony. Then in December '17 
<https://climatenexus.us4.list-manage.com/track/click?u=d1f5797e59060083034310930&id=0658608fc4&e=95b355344d> 
Public Citizen's Koch Government 
<https://climatenexus.us4.list-manage.com/track/click?u=d1f5797e59060083034310930&id=b5fdcadb82&e=95b355344d> 
report detailed the 44 Kochs in 45's cabinet, and of course replacing 
Tillerson with Pompeo 
<https://climatenexus.us4.list-manage.com/track/click?u=d1f5797e59060083034310930&id=ea3a930233&e=95b355344d> 
was another chance to call out the Kochs.

All the while, the Koch operatives who haven't (yet) been invited into 
Trump's cabinet of puppets continue trying to subvert democracy for 
their funders profit. Case in point: a collection of Koch groups 
submitted a lengthy public comment 
<https://climatenexus.us4.list-manage.com/track/click?u=d1f5797e59060083034310930&id=68ed9844bb&e=95b355344d> 
on the proposed repeal of the Clean Power Plan last week. And the 
Koch-funded Daily Caller 
<https://climatenexus.us4.list-manage.com/track/click?u=d1f5797e59060083034310930&id=b37533a1b1&e=95b355344d> 
was, of course, all too happy to do PR for them 
<https://climatenexus.us4.list-manage.com/track/click?u=d1f5797e59060083034310930&id=31f274fab0&e=95b355344d>, 
eschewing any funding information and instead calling them "free market 
groups."
Fortunately, the constellation of Koch groups are up against a 
formidable foe. Beyond the reality of climate change and the 
Endangerment Finding, last week a group of 27 states, counties and 
cities announced their support for the CPP 
<https://climatenexus.us4.list-manage.com/track/click?u=d1f5797e59060083034310930&id=6ebf51b31c&e=95b355344d> 
and opposition to Pruitt's "error-filled" attempts to justify the repeal.

And a second coalition of 15 local governments submitted a comment 
alleging 
<https://climatenexus.us4.list-manage.com/track/click?u=d1f5797e59060083034310930&id=a15cafebba&e=95b355344d> 
that Pruitt's repeated criticisms of the CPP, and promises to repeal it, 
constitute a "lack of due process and fairness" that renders the public 
comment period moot because Pruitt's already made up his mind to repeal. 
They assert that Pruitt's "involvement has irreparably tainted the 
current administrative process, and as a result, EPA must withdraw the 
proposed CPP repeal."
If Pruitt's still EPA Administrator, playing in the big league so to 
speak, by the time the CPP repeal goes through, he'll be facing some 
stiff courtroom opposition. As Kamala Harris once pointed out 
<https://climatenexus.us4.list-manage.com/track/click?u=d1f5797e59060083034310930&id=856cbffac9&e=95b355344d>, 
Pruitt's record in suing the EPA was… not good, "Baseball fan Pruitt 
lost 6 of 7 lawsuits against the EPA," Harris Tweeted last year. "That 
would be a mediocre .142 batting average."

Now that Pruitt would be defending the EPA instead of suing it, we're 
wondering if he will get sent back down to the Koch's (coal and oil-) 
miner league.
https://climatenewsnetwork.net/


[Yum, I think]
*Creepy cuisine: The rise of edible insects 
<https://www.nzherald.co.nz/health-wellbeing/news/article.cfm?c_id=1501238&objectid=12042137>*
New Zealand Herald
"The fact that most of us don't know what the impact of our Western diet 
is having on global warming is frightening and it became very important 
to us to ... Diack started farming locusts for pet food in 2009, but 
changed his focus after reading a newspaper article about Israeli 
grasshopper farmers and "the ...

More than just creepy-crawlies, insects may be the answer for the 
world's nutrition and environmental issues. Lucy Corry meets advocates 
of eating food with six (and eight) legs.
There are ants in Javier Carmona's kitchen and he's pretty happy about 
it. These aren't the kinds of ants that march through pantries, leaving 
a chemical stench and sticky footprints; these are crisp black critters 
that he's currently scattering over dishes of sweetcorn with chipotle 
butter, coffee crema, dried manchego cheese and toasted corn silk. 
"They're quite citrusy," he says chirpily.
Carmona, head chef at hip Auckland restaurant Inti, is no stranger to 
unusual ingredients. Cynics might say that embracing insects is just the 
latest way to capture diners' dollars, but he's adamant that there's 
more to it.

"We're not trying to be gimmicky; we're not trying to freak people out. 
I'm not doing this to be 'wacky Javier'. It makes sense culturally to 
our restaurant because insects were a huge pre-Hispanic food source and 
the Aztec and Mayan cultures survived on them," he says...
"They taste good as well. More importantly, there's a social aspect to 
it - insects are high-protein, they are good for the environment, 
producing them doesn't trash our waterways, they don't contribute to 
greenhouse gas emissions, there aren't the same costs to feed them … 
there are a multitude of reasons why eating them makes perfect sense for 
us."..
- - - - -
"I think people like to buy something that's got a lot of shock factor, 
they like to freak out their friends. And that's good for us because we 
want to shock people. We want bugs to be talked about."
At home, Genefaas regularly adds cricket flour to green smoothies and 
loves to snack on his brand's flavoured fried insects. He knows there's 
a long way to go before these ingredients are considered mainstream, but 
says Crawlers are in it for the long haul.
"We want people to have a really good experience. It's not just about 
shocking people, we want to educate them. If you'd never cooked kangaroo 
before you'd still know that you could fry it in a pan like a steak. 
With insects, we need to give people recipes and show them that you can 
use deep-fried crickets like croutons on a salad, or add them to black 
beans and lentils. We want to show people that they can be part of the 
solution."
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/health-wellbeing/news/article.cfm?c_id=1501238&objectid=12042137


[Mindless, guilty pleasure movie, touches nerve]
*Blu-ray Review: 'Tremors 6' Pits Survivalist Against Global Warming 
Worms 
<https://www.forbes.com/sites/lukethompson/2018/05/01/blu-ray-review-tremors-6-pits-survivalist-against-global-warming-worms/#bf387732121f>*
Luke Y. Thompson , CONTRIBUTOR

    But when part 6 became available for advance review, I confess I
    couldn't resist the chance to check in on those subterranean killer
    "graboid" sandworms and their now-perpetual nemesis, Gross' gun-nut
    survivalist Burt Gummer.

    If you have the chance to do so cheaply, I can offer a qualified
    endorsement. You wouldn't want to pay the price of a movie ticket
    for this, but as a direct-to-video monster cheapie, it's more fun
    than most. Leaning into the silliness without getting quite as
    absurd as the Sharknados of the world, Tremors 6 uses climate change
    the way '50s monster movies spun off of nuclear weapons, with the
    very real-world fear taking a subtle and subconscious backseat to a
    literal monster being unleashed. In this case, it's a prehistoric
    graboid and kin--including the flying variety that go by a name we
    can't reprint here--emerging from melted permafrost above the
    Canadian arctic circle.

    Global warming is also an excuse to shoot the thing in
    less-than-arctic conditions. You've heard of day-for night
    photography? Director Don Michael Paul here shoots sand-for-snow, as
    over-lighting and a blue filter turn the deserts of South Africa
    into snow-covered mountaintops. It's an effective illusion, tipped
    off only by the behind-the-scenes extras. It's an interesting gambit
    to have a premise likely to appeal more to liberals feature a
    protagonist who's way more identifiable to conservatives, but to
    focus on any politics here would be a diversion. As Paul clearly
    states in the Blu-ray extras, his purpose is mainly to have the best
    and grossest kills in the series so far, and put them in new
    settings like water and snow. This may seem oxymoronic in a PG-13
    movie, but just remember that mutilating fictional monsters any
    disgusting way you like is absolutely fine by the MPAA, so long as
    their internal organs and blood/vomit are bright orange.

"Starting from the very first movie, the Tremors series has always 
established that its human characters aren't exactly the brightest bulbs 
in the pinball machine, so it's more forgivable than usual when they do 
the sorts of very stupid things characters in monster movies ought not 
do, like stand right next to the window, or waste all their ammo before 
they can actually see what they're shooting at."
https://www.forbes.com/sites/lukethompson/2018/05/01/blu-ray-review-tremors-6-pits-survivalist-against-global-warming-worms/#bf387732121f


*This Day in Climate History - May 2, 2008 
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pvY9e_ZxxyA> - from D.R. Tucker*
May 2, 2008: On MSNBC's "Countdown," Keith Olbermann and guest Rachel 
Maddow react to GOP presidential candidate John McCain's remarks earlier 
in the day linking the Iraq War to US energy policy.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pvY9e_ZxxyA

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