[TheClimate.Vote] October 27, 2018 - Daily Global Warming News Digest

Richard Pauli richard at theclimate.vote
Sat Oct 27 12:35:02 EDT 2018


/October 27, 2018/

[Voting carbon tax]
*Today Climate Hawks Vote announcing our final endorsement of 2018: the 
carbon fee initiative in Washington state, I-1631 
<http://climatehawksvote.com/candidate/i-1631/>*
(Initiative) I-1631 would place a $15 per ton fee on greenhouse gas 
pollution, raising over $800 million a year for investments in the clean 
energy economy. It's backed by the largest coalition in Washington 
history. Unions, tribes, communities of color, faith groups, health 
professionals, businesses like Microsoft and REI all support I-1631. 
However, the oil companies have poured in $26 million and counting to 
defeat it.
"Normally when announcing an endorsement, we ask the national climate 
hawk community to do some small dollar fundraising. But the I-1631 
organizers need one-on-one conversations for people power to defeat Big 
Oil lies. So instead we've asked climate hawks to give some time to 
I-1631," says RL Miller, president of Climate Hawks Vote.
To view this endorsement on the web: 
http://climatehawksvote.com/candidate/i-1631/
- - -
[Big enemy]
*Big Oil Really Wants to Kill Washington's Green New Deal 
<https://www.thenation.com/article/washington-carbon-emissions-tax-initiative-1631/>*
Will a record $28 million war chest sway Evergreen State voters?
By KC Golden
- - -
Now, voters in Washington State can take the offensive against the 
climate-wrecking industry by passing ballot initiative 1631. This "Green 
New Deal" would fund public investments to tackle climate disruption and 
economic inequality, using proceeds from carbon pollution fees starting 
at $15 per metric ton.

The best indication of the potency of I-1631 may be the fury with which 
Big Oil is attacking it. Petroleum companies have amassed a war chest of 
$28 million to defeat 1631--the largest ever for a Washington ballot 
measure. With BP and Phillips 66 leading the way, 99.5 percent of the No 
campaign budget is from Big Oil, according to the Washington state 
public-disclosure commission. What's more, Big Oil's lavish spending 
against 1631 climbed steeply after the Intergovernmental Panel on 
Climate Change's recent report calling for urgent climate action. In 
other words, Big Oil's answer to the global alarm was to pour more fuel 
on the fire.

"The campaign opposing 1631 is the biggest political oil spill in state 
history," Washington governor Jay Inslee told The Nation. "These 
companies have a permit for infinite pollution at zero cost. But 
Washingtonians can revoke that permit and take control of our energy 
future by approving 1631."...
- -
The oil-i-garchs are clearly worried about I-1631, and they should be. 
Any effective climate policy must keep fossil fuels in the ground. But 
their reserves of coal, oil, and gas are exactly what make fossil-fuel 
companies valuable. If their underground assets can't be drilled, mined, 
monetized, and combusted, then Big Oil and King Coal are toast. But if 
even half of these reserves are burned, then everything else is toast. 
We can have a viable fossil-fuel industry or a decent future. Not both...
- - -
The burning question is: Will we act fast enough?

That question is on the ballot in the Evergreen State. Washingtonians 
can stand up to the abusive power of the oil industry and strike a blow 
for freedom from fossil fuels, right now.

The future is unwritten, Rebecca Solnit observed, responding to the fear 
and fatalism that wafted thick behind the IPCC report. As ballots arrive 
in their mailboxes, Washington's voters have the pen.
more at - 
https://www.thenation.com/article/washington-carbon-emissions-tax-initiative-1631/
- - -
[Time to Vote]
*Campus Election Engagement Project 
<http://campuselect.org/voter-education/candidate-issue-guides/>*
CEEP creates nonpartisan, state-specific candidate & issue guides to 
help students navigate candidate stands. We research salient votes & 
what candidates say to different groups, not just how they spin their 
positions. Our research team includes a former Encyclopaedia Britannica 
senior editor & veteran New York Times & Los Angeles Times reporters. 
Use our guide distribution resource to help share them across your campus.
more at - http://campuselect.org/voter-education/candidate-issue-guides/


[Paul Beckwith video plays with data displays]
*Freakishly Slow Sea Ice Regrowth: 1 of 2 
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zKeB9vFozk4>*
Paul Beckwith
Published on Oct 26, 2018
Arctic sea ice regrowth in October is freakishly slow. We are at record 
low ice extent for late October; even lower than the 2012 minimum. In 
this video, and the next, I chat about Beaufort Gyre stalling and 
reversal, atmospheric and ocean circulation changes, sea-surface and 
water column temperatures, salinities, heat transport, and much more. 
Since formation in 2015, there have been two permanent hot spots in the 
oceans off Svalbard, with water temperatures at 78 degrees latitude 
North of 18.5 degrees Celsius in late October. /[temperatures of 18 
degrees C is about 64 degrees Fahrenheit]/
Please donate at http://paulbeckwith.net to get the unvarnished science 
on our climate. Thanks
see the video at - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zKeB9vFozk4
*Freakishly Low Sea Ice Regrowth: 2 of 2 
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PDDRo-N8SzA>*
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PDDRo-N8SzA


[Really?, must we ASK for this?]
*UN Urged to Recognize Healthy Climate As a Human Right 
<https://www.climateliabilitynews.org/2018/10/26/un-climate-human-rights-david-boyd/>*
By Ucilia Wang
David Boyd stood in front of the United Nations General Assembly in New 
York City on Thursday as the new special rapporteur on human rights and 
the environment and he argued the global organization should recognize 
the right of people to live in a healthy environment.

"Climate change is one of the top priorities because it threatens the 
human rights of billions of people in the world, because of declining 
water supplies and changing agricultural production patterns and 
increasing storms throughout," said Boyd, who is also law professor at 
the University of British Columbia in Canada.

The idea that everyone deserves a clean and safe environment may seem 
lofty, but many argue that a formal resolution from the U.N., 193-member 
assembly of virtually every nation in the world, would produce concrete 
results, swaying policies and legal opinions on a wide range of 
environmental issues, including climate change...
- - -
He's also come across lawsuits in 50 countries so far, including Costa 
Rica, Argentina and the Philippines, that seek to enforce the right to a 
healthy environment. One suit in the U.S., Juliana v. United States, 
features 21 young people suing the government for fostering an energy 
system that exacerbates climate change and has led to a U.S. District 
Court judge declaring a safe climate as a Constitutional right. It was 
stayed by the Supreme Court before the trial even began.

The Commission on Human Rights in the Philippines is currently 
investigating whether 47 fossil fuel, cement and coal companies violated 
the human rights of Filipinos.

Lawsuits have also emerged in recent years to hold governments 
responsible for addressing climate change as a human right. One of them 
is the landmark Urgenda case in the Netherlands, where an appeals court 
recently upheld the ruling the government must cut emissions more 
aggressively...
more at - 
https://www.climateliabilitynews.org/2018/10/26/un-climate-human-rights-david-boyd/


[Adaptation]
*They Know Seas Are Rising, but They're Not Abandoning Their Beloved 
Cape Cod 
<https://insideclimatenews.org/news/23102018/cape-cod-sea-level-rise-trump-voters-climate-change-questions-science-based-coastal-building-codes>*
Lifelong residents are building higher with each flood. But while they 
deal with climate change, some say they aren't sure what to believe 
about the cause.
BY MEERA SUBRAMANIAN, INSIDECLIMATE NEWS
OCT 26, 2018
"It flooded in early January, and then it happened again two or three 
months later," says Matt Teague of Barnstable, Mass., about the slew of 
storms that hit Cape Cod in the winter of 2017. "We're like, what are we 
doing here?" he says, opening his arms skyward.
- - -
The 2018 hurricane season so far has been quiet around the Cape, but 
farther south, the Carolinas are reeling from an estimated $1 billion in 
damage from storm surge and flooding from Hurricane Florence.

During one of my conversations with Matt, I ask what he'll do if the 
1-foot-above-flood-plain level that he chose for his foundation's height 
proves insufficient. "I designed it so I can jack it up again!" he says. 
He laughs, then pauses, becoming more reflective. "People are adaptive. 
Humans have always figured out a way to live where they live," he says. 
Consider the desert. The Arctic. Coastal areas. "The problem in the past 
was that people had to learn the hard way." Losing homes to floods is 
pretty hard, but New Englanders are used to hardship and hard weather 
and cleaning up after storms. Now they're getting used to building their 
homes higher and higher, hoping to reach themselves out of harm's 
way--and keep the view.

"The fact that there's enough science out there to provide some 
predictability for that and to provide for some policy--that makes 
sense," Matt says returning to the hope for smart policy based on solid 
science. "I think that's as good as you're going to get."
more at - 
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/23102018/cape-cod-sea-level-rise-trump-voters-climate-change-questions-science-based-coastal-building-codes


[VICE video news segment a few minutes duration]
*Melting Ground Crisis & Arctic Journey VICE News Tonight Full Episode 
(HBO) <https://youtu.be/J0-qgA3lIvw?t=1018>*
VICE News
Published on Oct 24, 2018
This s the October 17, 2018 FULL EPISODE of VICE News Tonight on HBO.
[also] 17:00 VICE News joined NASA for their annual flight to study 
thing thawing permafrost in the Arctic.
https://youtu.be/J0-qgA3lIvw?t=1018


[Business Insider]
*We're altering the climate so severely that we'll soon face apocalyptic 
repercussions. Sucking carbon dioxide out of the air could save us. 
<https://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-stop-gobal-warming-plan-carbon-capture-2018-10>*
Dana Varinsky

    *The Earth is warming so rapidly that most experts agree we'll need
    to suck carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere in order to avoid the
    worst consequences of climate change.*

    *A new report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering,
    and Medicine lays out a range of options for how to do that.*

    *But the authors say developing these negative-emissions
    technologies requires large-scale investment from the government --
    and the funding has to come immediately.*

A recent report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change 
(IPCC) predicts that just another half-degree temperature rise -- which 
is predicted to happen by the year 2040 -- will lead to severe drought, 
even more intense hurricanes, and the death of most coral reefs. These 
changes could trigger huge migrations of people and mass extinctions of 
animals.

There are two ways to deal with this problem. The first is to make big 
changes to the ways we power our lives and grow food in order to stop 
putting greenhouse gas into the atmosphere. The second is to suck carbon 
dioxide back out of the air then store it away or turn it into new 
products or fuels.

A comprehensive new report looks at that second approach.
The study, written by scientists from the National Academies of 
Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NAS), suggests a plan for 
developing so-called "negative-emissions technologies" (a term for ways 
to remove CO2 from the atmosphere) and highlights options that have 
essentially unlimited capacity for reducing carbon levels in the 
atmosphere, but aren't yet ready for prime time.

Researching and developing those technologies requires substantial 
investment from the US government -- and the report's authors say that 
money needs to start flowing soon, or we could soon cross dangerous 
climate tipping points...
- - -
But according to the new report -- funded by the US Department of 
Energy, EPA, NOAA, and the US Geological Survey, along with several 
foundations -- those approaches require a lot more research to be scaled 
up, and there's no way those methods alone could ever capture enough 
carbon to keep Earth's temperature from rising another degree.
"Uncertain research breakthroughs will be required before those NETs 
[negative emissions technologies] can provide even the minority share of 
the solution," the authors wrote.

A more promising option, they said, is to invest in technologies that 
essentially filter out CO2 molecules from the air around us. These 
technologies are still in early development stages, but usually involve 
materials that naturally attract and bind with carbon.
"It's like draining a bathtub -- like pulling the plug and letting a 
little bit of the water out. It's actually not that sophisticated or 
crazy," Gordon told Business Insider.

That carbon would then get concentrated and stored, perhaps by injecting 
it into pores in deep underground rock, which is essentially where it 
came from in the first place. There's not much limit to how much CO2 
these potential technologies could capture and store.
We need this kind of intervention immediately, according to the authors.
more at - 
https://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-stop-gobal-warming-plan-carbon-capture-2018-10


[RT America]
*"America: The Farewell Tour" & Climate Change: What's at Stake? 
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_gVRE35AnBk>*
The Big Picture RT video 28 minutes
Published on Oct 19, 2018
Holland Cooke speaks with Dr. Gregg Marland from the Department of 
Geological and Environmental Sciences at Appalachian State University 
and Marc Morano, former Republican political aide, founder of 
ClimateDepot.com, and Climate Change skeptic about the UN Climate 
Report, which highlights extreme risks to regions around the world. Then 
a discussion with Chris Hedges on his latest book, "America: The 
Farewell Tour".
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_gVRE35AnBk


[Activism on October 29th]
*Trial of the Century <https://www.ourchildrenstrust.org/trial/>*
21 YOUTH ARE SUING THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT FOR CAUSING CLIMATE CHANGE.
BUT THE GOVERNMENT CONTINUES TO TRY TO SILENCE THEM.
[video https://youtu.be/6bBFeHwYmVc ]
Join us for the rally at the federal courthouse in your state (see 
below) to be a part of the #TrialoftheCentury and support these young 
climate warriors in Juliana v United States who are fighting for their 
right to be heard in court.
Our freedom depends on a climate system that will sustain human life. 
Let's show the government that it has a duty to listen to our country's 
youngest citizens, and to prepare and implement a Climate Recovery Plan 
to protect our basic and most fundamental rights!
These brave youth need you to stand with them!
https://www.ourchildrenstrust.org/trial/


[Lewis Black rants on global warming science]
Lewis Black & Friends - A Night to Let Freedom Laugh (Live In Washington 
D.C.) <https://youtu.be/SsM44DGmc7M?t=5746>
https://youtu.be/SsM44DGmc7M?t=5746


*This Day in Climate History - October 27, 2006 
<http://web.archive.org/web/20130303200905/http://www.rockefeller.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/press-releases?ID=87f3ae3b-0f0d-44ee-af03-9080592901a4> 
- from D.R. Tucker*
October 27, 2006: Senators Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) and Olympia Snowe 
(R-ME) urge ExxonMobil to stop funding climate-change-denying think tanks.
Press Releases
*Oct 27 2006*

    ROCKEFELLER AND SNOWE DEMAND THAT EXXONMOBIL END FUNDING OF CAMPAIGN
    THAT DENIES GLOBAL CLIMATE CHANGE

    *-Senators Demand that the World's Largest Oil Maker Make Public Its
    History of Funding Climate Change "Skeptics"-*
    WASHINGTON, D.C. - In an effort to call attention to the detrimental
    effects of industry-funded, so-called "research" in the debate on
    global climate change, Senators John (Jay) Rockefeller IV (D-WV) and
    Olympia Snowe (R-ME) today called on the world's largest oil company
    to end its funding of a climate change denial campaign. Rockefeller
    and Snowe's effort would also reassert the leading role of the
    United States in addressing important global issues that demand the
    world's collective attention.

    Rockefeller and Snowe said that ExxonMobil's extensive funding of an
    "echo chamber" of non-peer reviewed pseudo-science had unfortunately
    succeeded in raising questions about the legitimate scientific
    community's virtually universal findings on the detrimental effects
    of global warming.  This ongoing "debate" has also damaged America's
    reputation as a leader in global affairs.

    "American companies have every right to engage in important public
    debates, but these discussions should neither serve as a license to
    obscure credible data and research nor impede domestic and
    international actions based on that data," said Rockefeller.
    "Climate change is one of the most serious environmental and
    economic issues facing the United States and our partners in the
    international community.  It is absolutely irresponsible for any
    entity to try to influence our government's involvement in such an
    important debate in any way that is not scrupulously accurate and
    honest."

    "The institutions that ExxonMobil is supporting are producing very
    questionable data.   The company's support for a small, but
    influential, group of climate skeptics has damaged the United
    States' reputation by making our government appear to ignore
    conclusive data on climate change and the disastrous effects climate
    change could have."

    "ExxonMobil - which recorded $10.5 billion in third quarter profits
    this year - has an obligation and a responsibility to the global
    community to refrain from lending their support, financial and
    otherwise, to bogus, non substantiated articles and publications on
    climate change that serve only to cloud the important global debate
    of rigorous peer-reviewed research and writings," Snowe said. "The
    efforts of those supported by ExxonMobil foster the false belief
    among the international community that the United States is
    insensitive to global warming and unwilling to engage in forthright
    discussion on what many consider to be one of the most important
    economic and environmental issues of the 21st century."

    "Rather than continue to damage our credibility abroad, I urge
    ExxonMobil, under its new leadership, to work with those of us in
    Congress who are committed to moving our nation back to the
    negotiating table and leading the way toward greater energy
    efficiencies, and clean alternative and renewable fuels. ExxonMobil
    has the tremendous opportunity to employ its significant resources
    and assist the United States and the world by promoting the
    technological innovations necessary to address climate change and
    develop a global solution to this undeniably global problem."

    According to reports, in 2004 alone, ExxonMobil was the primary
    funder of more than 29 climate change denial front groups. Since the
    late 1990s, ExxonMobil has spent more than $19 million on a strategy
    of "information laundering," enabling a small number of professional
    skeptics, working through so-called scientific organizations, to
    funnel their viewpoints through non-peer-reviewed websites, such as
    www.techcentralstation.com.

    "Climate change denial has been so effective because the 'denial
    community' has mischaracterized the necessarily guarded language of
    serious scientific dialogue as vagueness and uncertainty,"
    Rockefeller and Snowe wrote ExxonMobil Chairman and Chief Executive
    Officer Rex Tillerson. "ExxonMobil is responsible for much of this
    scientific data debate and support of global warming deniers."

    Rockefeller and Snowe insisted that ExxonMobil end its funding of
    the climate change denial campaign by the Competitive Enterprise
    Institute (CEI) and other organizations with similar purposes. The
    two Senators also encouraged ExxonMobil and Tillerson to make its
    history of funding public and acknowledge the dangers and realities
    of climate change.

    Finally, Rockefeller and Snowe suggested that Tillerson, as the
    company's new CEO, has a unique opportunity to change the culture of
    the company: "You will become the public face of an undisputed
    leader in the world energy industry and a company that plays a vital
    role in our national economy.  As that public face, you will have
    the ability and responsibility to lead ExxonMobil toward its
    rightful place as a good corporate and global citizen."

http://web.archive.org/web/20130303200905/http://www.rockefeller.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/press-releases?ID=87f3ae3b-0f0d-44ee-af03-9080592901a4


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