[TheClimate.Vote] October 30, 2018 - Daily Global Warming News Digest
Richard Pauli
richard at theclimate.vote
Tue Oct 30 10:50:53 EDT 2018
/October 30, 2018/
[defining heros and zeros]
*This group is helping voters make sense of which candidates take
climate change seriously
<https://www.vox.com/2018/10/29/18022736/2018-midterm-elections-climate-change-voters-guide>*
The guide to House and Senate races scores candidates on their positions
on climate change and a carbon price.
By Umair Irfan Oct 29, 2018,
- - -
Yet despite mounting concerns about climate, there aren't a whole lot of
tools out there to help voters figure out where candidates actually
stand on climate change and related issues.
A group called Vote Climate US PAC
<https://voteclimatepac.org/voters-guide/> has taken a stab at this.
They put together a climate change voter's guide for House and Senate
races, ranking what candidates in House and Senate races have said and
plan to do about rising average temperatures.
Karyn Strickler, president of Vote Climate US PAC, told Vox that what's
unique about her guide is not only that it focuses on climate change,
but that it scores both incumbents and challengers. (The PAC, she added,
is not funded by any billionaires but "a few small funders who care" but
did not say whom.)
For incumbents, the guide scores their votes on climate-related bills,
their stated positions on climate change, any leadership roles they've
taken on the issue, and their position on a carbon price. Challengers,
who may not have a voting record on climate change, are graded on their
views of climate change and their position on a carbon price...
- - -
The League of Conservation Voters has its own scorecard
<http://scorecard.lcv.org/sites/scorecard.lcv.org/files/LCV_Scorecard-2017-Full.pdf>,
but it focuses only on officials in office and covers environmental
issues writ large rather than climate change in particular. The Sierra
Club has a similar guide
<https://www.sierraclubindependentaction.org/endorsements>.
more at -
https://www.vox.com/2018/10/29/18022736/2018-midterm-elections-climate-change-voters-guide
[revolt starting in England]
*'We have a duty to act': hundreds ready to go to jail over climate
crisis
<https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/oct/26/we-have-a-duty-to-act-hundreds-ready-to-go-to-jail-over-climate-crisis>*
Rowan Williams backs call for mass civil disobedience 'to bypass the
government's inaction and defend life itself'
Letter: Facts about our ecological crisis are incontrovertible. We must
take action
Matthew Taylor Environment correspondent
Fri 26 Oct 2018
Roger Hallam
A new group of "concerned citizens" is planning a campaign of mass civil
disobedience starting next month and promises it has hundreds of people
– from teenagers to pensioners – ready to get arrested in an effort to
draw attention to the unfolding climate emergency.
The group, called Extinction Rebellion, is today backed by almost 100
senior academics from across the UK, including the former archbishop of
Canterbury Rowan Williams.
In a letter published in the Guardian they say the failure of
politicians to tackle climate breakdown and the growing extinction
crisis means "the 'social contract' has been broken…[and] it is
therefore not only our right, but our moral duty to bypass the
government's inaction and flagrant dereliction of duty, and to rebel to
defend life itself."
- - -
"I've taken part in civil disobedience before but not for the last 15
years. I've been prompted to again by the dire stakes of the climate
breakdown we are now in the early throes of, and by the dire failure of
our government (or any government, for that matter) to take these stakes
seriously.
The way that climate chaos has manifested in the last three years, with
our weather systems perhaps beginning to spiral out of control, and
especially the overheating of the Arctic, has been a big factor for me.
The situation in the Arctic is now genuinely terrifying, because of the
risk of huge-scale methane release.
This is an emergency, an unprecedented emergency. It dwarfs any other
emergency we've known, including even World War II. And we will be
judged by our children by how we respond in this emergency. Not by what
are, in comparison, just distractions: such as Brexit. To future
generations I would say that we are trying. Those of us who are joining
this rebellion, and the many who support us, are really trying. If we
fail you, it wasn't for lack of effort."
more at -
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/oct/26/we-have-a-duty-to-act-hundreds-ready-to-go-to-jail-over-climate-crisis
[Letter to the Guardian]
*Facts about our ecological crisis are incontrovertible. We must take
action
<https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/oct/26/facts-about-our-ecological-crisis-are-incontrovertible-we-must-take-action>*
Humans cannot continue to violate the fundamental laws of nature or
science with impunity, say 94 signatories including Dr Alison Green and
Molly Scott Cato MEP
Our government is complicit in ignoring the precautionary principle,
and in failing to acknowledge that infinite economic growth on a
planet with finite resources is non-viable. Instead, the government
irresponsibly promotes rampant consumerism and free-market
fundamentalism, and allows greenhouse gas emissions to rise. Earth
Overshoot Day (the date when humans have used up more resources from
nature than the planet can renew in the entire year) falls ever
earlier each year (1 August in 2018).
When a government wilfully abrogates its responsibility to protect
its citizens from harm and to secure the future for generations to
come, it has failed in its most essential duty of stewardship. The
"social contract" has been broken, and it is therefore not only our
right, but our moral duty to bypass the government's inaction and
flagrant dereliction of duty, and to rebel to defend life itself.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/oct/26/facts-about-our-ecological-crisis-are-incontrovertible-we-must-take-action
[extinction rebellion]
HOPE DIES ACTION BEGINS <https://risingup.org.uk/>
We are facing an unprecedented global emergency. Our children and our
nation face grave risk.
The planet is in ecological crisis, we are in the midst of the sixth
mass extinction event this planet has experienced. Scientists believe we
may have entered a period of abrupt climate breakdown.
The earth's atmosphere is already over 1C warmer than pre-industrial
levels. The chance of staying below the 2C warming agreed upon in the
Paris agreement are tiny.
Recent projections show we are on course for 3 degrees of warming and
potentially much higher.
Children alive today in the UK will face unimaginable horrors as a
result of floods, wildfires, extreme weather, crop failures and the
inevitable breakdown of society when the pressures are so great.
We are unprepared for the danger our future holds.
The time for denial is over - we know the truth about climate change and
we know the truth about current biological annihilation.
It's time to act like that truth is real.
What does living with this truth call us to do? Will you die knowing you
did all you were able to?
more at - https://risingup.org.uk/XR/
[Vote]
*These Voters Could Approve the First U.S. Carbon Fee. Big Oil Is
Spending Millions to Defeat It.
<https://insideclimatenews.org/news/29102018/election-2018-washington-carbon-fee-ballot-initiative-price-carbon-big-oil-opposition>*
If the Washington state measure wins, it could begin a U.S. movement to
make the price of fossil fuels reflect their cost to the planet.
Marianne Lavelle
BY MARIANNE LAVELLE
Washington state voters will decide this November whether to approve the
nation's first carbon fee in what has become the most expensive ballot
initiative fight in the state's history and a referendum on the oil
industry's political clout.
If the measure passes, it will show that even as the federal government
turns its back on the climate crisis, one state's voters can make a
difference.
If it is defeated, that will affirm the oil industry's ability to
marshal money for advertising and support to deflect challenges to its
continued dominant role in fueling the nation's economy...
- - - -
KC Golden, a longtime Washington activist, said he believes the carbon
price fight will reverberate beyond the state's borders--not because the
plan will be a model or template for others, but because of what it says
about climate advocates' ability to face off against the measure's
powerful and well-funded foes.
"It's less about the particulars of the policy design, and more about
the ability to overcome the single biggest obstacle to climate policy,
which is the concentrated economic and political power of the fossil
fuel incumbents," Golden said.
"We have all these elaborate psychological explanations about why we
have failed these past 30 years to respond to the climate crisis," he
said. "We'd commit ourselves to the transition in a minute, if there
wasn't something stopping us, and that something is now spending $29
million to try to stop us in Washington State.
More at -
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/29102018/election-2018-washington-carbon-fee-ballot-initiative-price-carbon-big-oil-opposition
[fear of youth and self]
*Why Is the U.S. Government So Motivated to Avoid the Kids' Climate
Case?
<https://www.climateliabilitynews.org/2018/10/29/us-government-kids-climate-case/>*
By Karen Savage
Although their case remains on hold while the Supreme Court reviews a
last-ditch, extraordinary motion by the Trump Administration, the 21
young plaintiffs in the landmark climate suit Juliana v. United States
have already taken climate litigation into previously uncharted territory.
The plaintiffs, who come from communities around the country already
dealing with debilitating effects of climate change, allege that the
federal government is violating their Constitutional rights to life,
liberty and property by promoting a fossil fuel-based energy system that
exacerbates climate change. Their suit, filed in 2015, successfully
convinced a U.S. District Court judge to order the case to trial and
until two weeks ago, had dodged every effort by the federal government
to halt the case.
The trial had been scheduled to begin on Monday. The Supreme Court still
has not ruled on the Trump administration's request for a writ of
mandamus, a rarely granted legal maneuver that overrules a lower court
before a trial has even occurred.
That request was part of a persistent government effort to stop the
case's momentum to trial. It was its sixth mandamus request and second
to the Supreme Court.
Why the government appears so frantic to avoid the trial has been an
overriding, and unanswered, question. But part of the reason could be
that the case puts the government in an uncomfortable legal position.
Much of the evidence used by the young people to prove they are being
harmed by climate change comes from the government itself.
In a recent motion to exclude expert testimony, the Trump administration
admitted that climate change is causing "polar ice melt, earlier annual
snow melt, reduced snowpack, sea-level rise, sea temperature increases,
threats to coastal cities, adverse impacts to coral reefs and the life
they support, more powerful storms and hurricanes, wildfires, drought,
floods, and a variety of other impacts."...
- - -
The plaintiffs' unique, overarching narrative would likely help them in
a trial, said Michael Burger, executive director of the Sabin Center for
Climate Change Law at Columbia University.
"That this government--and its various departments and agencies--has
long known about the extraordinary risks that climate change poses both
to individuals living today and to future generations," Burger said.
"[It] has fundamentally failed to take adequate actions to address those
harms and has in fact made affirmative decisions that have made the
problem worse. And the law provides a means to constrain government and
to force action. I think that's a very powerful narrative."
Carlson said it was smart for the plaintiffs to frame the case as not so
much about protecting the wilderness or something the plaintiffs have,
but about protecting the livelihood and lives of future generations.
"I think what's unique about how the plaintiffs have framed this case is
that it's really not 'we have a right to a clean environment,' but 'we
have a right to health and life,'" Carlson said.
- - -
"I am in the firm view that there is no irreparable harm to the
government in conducting a trial. The government conducts trials all the
time--that argument strikes me as absurd and that Justice Roberts is
willing to entertain it is extraordinary," Burger said.
He said the Trump administration's efforts to continually seek
interlocutory appeals from the Ninth Circuit and the Supreme Court over
a trial court's treatment and management of a case is an aggressive
strategy.
"In the appeals process, there would be the opportunity for the Ninth
Circuit Court of Appeals and then possibly the Supreme Court to rule on
the legal questions on whether or not there is a constitutional right to
a stable climate system and whether the public trust doctrine does apply
to the federal government in this context, which are the key arguments
that the federal government is contesting here," said Burger, who added
that he thinks it's extraordinary that Justice Roberts has essentially
reversed Kennedy's decision based on no new information and no change in
circumstance...
- - -
If the case proceeds, Carlson said it's possible the Trump
administration will argue that it would be very unusual for a court to
force the government to adopt policies that stop subsidizing fossil fuel
use and cut greenhouse gas emissions.
"Whether that's the role for a court, I think is a fundamental question
that the government is asking and I think higher courts are going to
have a hard time with. It's not clear that that's a good role for the
judiciary," Carlson said.
She also predicts the Trump administration will argue that it's the role
of Congress to enact laws that require emissions reductions.
"This is kind of an ancillary argument to the court argument--that this
is not the place for a court to be deciding, that this is a political
question," Carlson said...
- - -
"Since the early days of the Republic, our judiciary has grown to be the
last line of defense against governance that threatens the public good
and destroys the lives of our people. It has even been strong enough to
reckon with big entrenched systems of government that deprive the people
of their rights, though not always getting it right on the first try; it
has been a place to shine the light on truth and justice," Olson said.
Hazel Van Ommersen, a 14-year-old plaintiff from Eugene, Ore., said she
and her co-plaintiffs have been waiting for three years for their voices
to be heard in court.
"The U.S. government is doing everything it can to silence us, all while
we watch it continue to make the climate crisis worse," Van Ommersen said.
"It just goes to show how nervous our government is about our stories
and the science getting their day in court. We're going to show the
government that we are not giving up, and we need this country to come
together behind us."
more at -
https://www.climateliabilitynews.org/2018/10/29/us-government-kids-climate-case/
[courts]
*German Government Faces Lawsuit Over Its Failure Meet Climate Goals
<https://www.climateliabilitynews.org/2018/10/28/germany-climate-promises-greenpeace/>*
Three families in Germany are suing their government hoping to compel it
to cut carbon emissions as it has promised, joining a growing trend of
citizens worldwide taking legal action against national governments over
insufficient climate policies.
https://www.climateliabilitynews.org/2018/10/28/germany-climate-promises-greenpeace/
*This Day in Climate History - October 30, 2003
<http://youtu.be/eJFZ88EH6i4> - from D.R. Tucker*
October 30, 2003:
The US Senate rejects the McCain-Lieberman Climate Stewardship Act
of 2003 in a 55-43 vote. The bill failed after an all-out assault on
the legislation aided by ExxonMobil-funded "researcher" Willie Soon.
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/31/us/senate-defeats-climate-bill-but-proponents-see-silver-lining.html
http://youtu.be/eJFZ88EH6i4
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