[TheClimate.Vote] April 19, 2019 - Daily Global Warming News Digest.

[Richard Pauli]

/April 19, 2019/


[activist alliances]*
**Pope encourages Swedish campaigner Greta on environment*
https://www.apnews.com/34a7836e4abd4415b803df7e7e0456d2


[BBC Production, for a brief time a copied version on YouTube 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LLdxWjEWCrk ]
[also on Netflix https://www.netflix.com/title/80049832
*Climate change: Sir David Attenborough warns of 'catastrophe'*
Sir David Attenborough has issued his strongest statement yet on the 
threat posed to the world by climate change.

In the BBC programme Climate Change - The Facts, the veteran broadcaster 
outlined the scale of the crisis facing the planet...
- -
Sir David's new programme laid out the science behind climate change, 
the impact it is having right now and the steps that can be taken to 
fight it.

"In the 20 years since I first started talking about the impact of 
climate change on our world, conditions have changed far faster than I 
ever imagined," Sir David stated in the film.

"It may sound frightening, but the scientific evidence is that if we 
have not taken dramatic action within the next decade, we could face 
irreversible damage to the natural world and the collapse of our societies."

Speaking to a range of scientists, the programme highlighted that 
temperatures are rising quickly, with the world now around 1C warmer 
than before the industrial revolution.
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-47976184
also on Netflix https://www.netflix.com/title/80049832


[survey the candidates]
*We Asked the 2020 Democrats About Climate Change (Yes, All of Them). 
Here Are Their Ideas.*
The New York Times sent a climate policy survey to the 18 declared 
candidates. They all want to stick to the Paris Agreement. Beyond that, 
they diverge.
For Democrats vying to unseat President Trump, acknowledging climate 
change is easy. Deciding what to do about it is the hard part.

Among the 18 declared candidates, there is no broad consensus on taxing 
polluters on their carbon emissions -- a measure most experts say is 
needed to slow global warming. And when it comes to building new nuclear 
power plants or adding federal regulations, there is even less agreement.

Those divisions were apparent in the candidates' responses to a new 
climate policy questionnaire from The New York Times. They unanimously 
supported remaining in the Paris Agreement and restoring Obama-era 
policies that Mr. Trump has abandoned. But scientists are clear that 
preventing catastrophic climate change will require going well beyond 
those policies.

While the candidates agreed with that assessment, few offered detailed 
strategies for getting it done. Some have supported the Green New Deal 
in principle, but that congressional resolution was more a statement of 
ideals than a plan of action...
- - -
*To tax or not to tax?*
Just seven of the 18 Democrats put their weight firmly behind a carbon 
tax, which economists widely view as the most effective way to reduce 
greenhouse gas emissions. Such plans come in many varieties, but they 
typically charge polluting industries for the carbon dioxide they pump 
into the atmosphere. Some call for returning the money as a dividend to 
taxpayers, while others aim to allocate the revenue to fund government 
programs.

*FAVOR A CARBON TAX:*
Cory Booker, Pete Buttigieg, Julian Castro, John Delaney, Kirsten 
Gillibrand, Marianne Williamson, Andrew Yang
- - -
*How strict should regulations be?*
After Congress tried and failed in 2009 to create a system of trading 
carbon emissions, Mr. Obama turned to another tool: regulation....
All of the 2020 Democrats vowed to restore Mr. Obama's regulations and 
recommit to the Paris Agreement, the global climate pact that Mr. Trump 
plans to abandon. But only nine of the 18 said unequivocally that they 
would push for additional, stronger federal rules, and still fewer 
explained what those rules would be.
*
**FAVOR NEW REGULATIONS:*
Julian Castro, Tulsi Gabbard, Kirsten Gillibrand, John Hickenlooper, Jay 
Inslee, Beto O'Rourke, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Marianne Williamson
- - -
*An easier choice: Money for research*
By contrast, every Democrat supported greater investment in research and 
development. Mr. Booker vowed to "at least double" federal funding for 
clean-energy research, a benchmark Mr. O'Rourke's campaign said he also 
supported. Mr. Delaney has proposed increasing funding fivefold. And Mr. 
Sanders's campaign said he was developing a plan that would include a 
"massive investment in infrastructure" and eliminate subsidies for 
fossil fuels...
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/18/us/politics/climate-change-democrats.html
- - -
[the data]
*How 18 Democratic Candidates Responded to a Climate Policy Survey*
A coal-fired power plant in Glenrock, Wyo.
David Ake/Associated Press


[New Meme takes off]
*How flygskam (or flight shame) is spreading across Europe*
Fears over climate change have led many to rethink the way they travel 
and, in Sweden, they've even invented a new word for the shame 
associated with flying
Climate change and travel have been on the lips of most Londoners this 
week thanks to the Extinction Rebellion protest group currently camped 
out in Oxford Circus, Marble Arch, Waterloo Bridge and Parliament Square.

In order to escalate the protest Extinction Rebellion announced plans to 
disrupt London's rail and tube lines today, a move which Sadiq Khan said 
in a Twitter statement would "damage the cause for all of us who want to 
tackle climate change."

The Swedes meanwhile have wholeheartedly embraced their rail network. 
SJ, Sweden's national rail service, reported a record 32 million 
customers last year. The company attributes "the big interest in 
climate-smart travel" to its unprecedented growth.
Flying, on the other hand, has become almost taboo as a result of its 
negative impact on the environment. And, in typical Scandinavian style 
(see hygge, lagom etc), they have created a roster of new words to 
describe this antipathy: "flygskam" (flying shame), "tagskryt" (train 
bragging) and "smygflyga" (flying in secret).

The move away from air travel was spearheaded by teen activist Greta 
Thunberg, who single-handedly kicked off the student climate strikes 
after boycotting school once a week to raise awareness for climate 
change. Thunberg refuses to fly and travelled by train to the World 
Economic Forum in Davos and the climate summit in Poland, while 1500 
delegates flew in by private jet.
Swedavia AB, which operates 10 Swedish airports including the ones in 
Stockholm and Gothenburg, has seen year-on-year passenger numbers drop 
for seven consecutive months. In 2018 the company reported its weakest 
overall passenger growth in a decade.

As ever, social media is playing a substantial part in turning the tide 
of opinion against air travel. One anonymous Swedish Instagram account 
has amassed more than 60,000 followers for shaming influencers promoting 
trips to far-flung destinations and the hash tag #StayOnTheGround has 
been trending on twitter.

But it's not just the Swedes racked with guilt about their carbon 
footprints. The Finnish have invented the word "lentohapea", the Dutch 
say "vliegschaamte" and the Germans "flugscham", all referring to a 
feeling of shame around flying.

In contrast, in the UK, plans continue for a third runway at Heathrow 
despite the airport already being the biggest single source of CO2 
emissions in the UK and claims that a third runway would cause aviation 
emissions to rise by 4.9 million tonnes by 2030.
https://www.standard.co.uk/lifestyle/esmagazine/flight-shame-europe-sweden-a4120231.html


[Dutch General video interview]
*The Climate and Security Podcast: Episode 12 with General Middendorp*
In this episode host Dr. Sweta Chakraborty talks to General Tom 
Middendorp, Chair of the International Military Council on Climate and 
Security and former Chief of Defence of the Netherlands. General 
Middendorp talks about being a commander in South Afghanistan, and how 
even after driving out the Taliban in one case, conflict persisted due 
to disputes over the division of water. He describes firsthand 
experiences from across twenty missions on how climate change and human 
impacts can amplify war and negate best efforts at peacekeeping. He 
discusses the importance of cooperation across aid workers, diplomats, 
policymakers, military coalitions and other stakeholders to pursue 
stability at a global scale. Tom emphasizes the role defence communities 
can play in terms of offering opportunities to visionaries to develop 
ideas such as an innovation that extracts water out of dry, desert air.  
Hear this unique perspective - from the former highest-ranking military 
officer in the Dutch Armed forces - on overcoming the challenges at the 
nexus of climate and security!
The Center for Climate and Security's video podcast takes climate change 
out of its environmental box, and brings it to the big kid's table of 
national and international security. Featuring a series of exclusive 
dialogues with leading security, military and foreign affairs experts, 
the podcast explores our responsibility to prepare for a 
rapidly-changing world.
https://climateandsecurity.org/2019/04/15/the-climate-and-security-podcast-episode-12-with-general-middendorp/


[Commentary]
*Robinson Meyer on the Green New Deal*
greenmanbucket
Published on Apr 18, 2019
Staff writer for the Atlantic, Rob Meyer focuses on climate. I 
interviewed Rob in Washington DC at the American Geophysical Union Fall 
Meeting in December 2018.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Glb65xRef9w



[time to stock up on groceries]
*Extreme heat is growing threat to harvests*
April 17th, 2019, by Tim Radford
A warmer world means more chance of extreme heat in more than one 
continent at the same time, and a rising threat to global food security.

LONDON, 17 April, 2019 − Ever-higher average global temperatures mean 
more intense extreme heat over ever-wider regions.

When the planet becomes on average 1.5C warmer than it was for most of 
human history, then for two out of every three years, one-fourth of the 
northern hemisphere will experience the kind of blistering heat waves 
recorded in 2018.

And should planetary average temperatures creep up by 2C - the maximum 
proposed by 195 nations at the global climate conference in Paris in 
2015 - then the probability rises to 100%. That is, extreme heat over a 
large area of the hemisphere will be guaranteed every summer.

Heat extremes are all too often accompanied by devastating thunderstorms 
or extended drought and massive outbreaks of wildfire, with potentially 
disastrous consequences for harvests in the blighted regions.

"Ultimately, extreme events affecting large areas of the planet could 
threaten food supply elsewhere, even in Switzerland"

In 2018, people died of heatstroke, roads and even rails started to 
melt, forests went up in flames, and power generation systems sometimes 
failed, not just in one region but in a number in the temperate zones 
and the Arctic at the same time.

Between May and July, 22% of agricultural land and crowded cities of the 
northern half of the globe were hit simultaneously by extended periods 
of extreme heat. In all, 17 countries were affected, from Canada and the 
US across the Atlantic and Pacific to Russia, Japan and South Korea. In 
Europe, temperatures in the rivers Rhine and Elbe reached such heights 
that fish suffocated; there were wildfires in Sweden, Latvia and Greece 
and record temperatures in Germany.

"Without climate change that can be explained by human activity, we 
wouldn't have such a large area being simultaneously affected by heat as 
we did in 2018," said Martha Vogel, of the Swiss Federal Institute of 
Technology, known as ETH Zurich, who presented her findings at a press 
conference held by the European Geosciences Union in Vienna.

*Serious impacts*
The reasoning and methodology have yet to be published, but the authors 
say their paper is in review for the journal Earth's Future. "If in 
future more and more key agricultural regions and densely populated 
areas are affected by simultaneous heatwaves, this would have severe 
consequences."

Other research teams have already warned that global warming could bring 
a repeat of the simultaneous drought and heat outbreaks across the world 
that triggered calamitous famines in Asia and Africa between 1875 and 1878.

They have repeatedly warned of potentially catastrophic levels of heat 
that could arrive with increasing frequency to claim greater numbers of 
lives especially when accompanied by extreme levels of humidity.

The Swiss scientists focussed on data from agricultural regions and busy 
urban areas above latitude 30 for the years 1958 to 2018 to find 
occasions of heat extremes in more than one region and then used 
computer modelling to simulate probabilities as average planetary 
temperatures continued to grow.

*Poor are hardest-hit*
The choice of agricultural areas was purposeful: in such scenarios where 
more than one region suffers harvest failures, food prices begin to 
soar. In the 2010 heatwave, Russia ended all its wheat exports and 
prices in Pakistan rose by 16%, with harsh consequences for the poorest. 
Governments, agriculture ministries and international aid agencies need 
to be prepared.

"Such incidents cannot be resolved by individual countries acting on 
their own. Ultimately, extreme events affecting large areas of the 
planet could threaten food supply elsewhere, even in Switzerland," said 
Sonia Seneviratne, an ETH climate scientist who has also shared in the 
study.

"We are already clearly feeling the effects just from the one degree 
that global average temperature has risen since the pre-industrial era." 
− Climate News Network
https://climatenewsnetwork.net/extreme-heat-is-growing-threat-to-harvests/


[A classic from 2015]
[Consumerism hinders a solution- 3000 times a day]
*Is global sustainability possible in our society? | Jon Alexander | 
TEDxUCL*
TEDx Talks
Published on Jan 15, 2015
This talk was given at a local TEDx event, produced independently of the 
TED Conferences. What are we doing to ourselves when we tell ourselves 
constantly - through the medium of ever-more pervasive advertising - 
that we are Consumers? And what would it look like to put all the 
creativity that currently goes into that, into involving people in 
society as Citizens?
Jon spent a decade working at big name ad agencies, on some of the 
world's biggest brands, all the while asking deeper and deeper questions 
about the role of his industry in society. His conclusions will shock 
and inspire you.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mor2CZj3KZQ




[New Creation News]
*News of the planet and the nexus of culture, ecology, justice, and 
spirituality.*
*Rethinking our work in the context of reality*
The times call for it, this rethinking, particularly given the work we 
do. Anyone, or any group or institution that is serious about grappling 
with the vast, rapid changes swirling around us has to be doing this one 
way or another, down to the core of their missions and purpose. If not, 
they can become irrelevant quickly (this, too, is happening), or even a 
significant drag on our ability to deal with the challenges 
forthrightly, as needed, as the times require. Putting energy into 
defending or holding onto those structures and old paradigms that are no 
longer useful (the ones that got us into this mess to begin with) will 
only waste time.

This famous oft-quoted passage from the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. 
has been on my mind a lot lately as I read every day about how dire our 
ecological crises are becoming, and how, as a nation, we are in a form 
of free-fall into incoherence, chaos, authoritarianism, and political 
and cultural collapse.
We are now faced with the fact that tomorrow is today. We are confronted 
with the fierce urgency of now. In this unfolding conundrum of life and 
history, there "is" such a thing as being too late. This is no time for 
apathy or complacency. This is a time for vigorous and positive action.

Sadly, though, we are no longer talking about action aimed at trying to 
save us from all these unfolding disasters, occurring because of 
irreversible dynamics already in play; rather, we're talking about 
action aimed at figuring out how we're going to live through these 
mounting disasters, while trying to keep things from getting so bad that 
our precious Earth becomes a hostile place for us to live. While we work 
to change the fundamental dynamics of the industrial growth economy, we 
must also start learning the new ways of life, freed from those dynamics 
as much as possible, that can help us chart a way through what James 
Howard Kunstler has called, "the long emergency." The less we depend 
upon what is collapsing, the less terrifying the collapse will seem, and 
the more likely that we survive, and hopefully do much more than merely 
survive.

Two things must be going on at the same time: mitigation (including 
activism, intense community organizing, and 
education/consciousness-raising, with attention to marginalized 
populations) to slow down the pace of global warming, mass extinctions, 
and destruction of ecosystems and habitats that are at the root of so 
many disasters (including the refugee crisis at our southern border); 
and deep adaptation, learning the ways of radical simplicity, 
community-building, spiritual resilience, relocalized economies of 
sharing, and more to lighten our human footprint so that the planet can 
begin to regenerate the living systems or communities that humans have 
shattered. We need to be participants within the natural world, not 
exploiters and manipulators of it.

This will require vast changes in how we live here. This will require 
more than vigorous and positive action. This will require a profound 
letting-go.

The other evening (April 9), I offered a presentation to the local 
350.org chapter here in Milwaukee. I spent some time pondering the 
reality of that number upon which this group was founded. The number is 
based on what climate scientist Dr. James Hansen once said was the 
amount of parts-per-million of carbon in the atmosphere that we must not 
pass if we want to keep a safe climate. Now that number looks almost 
quaint. It is one we are not likely to see again in centuries or even 
millennia.

The number released from NOAA's Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii for the 
month of February was 411.75 ppm, up from 408.32 ppm in February 2018. 
This is what I mean when I say that so many changes to our planet are 
already locked in. We can no longer escape the planetary conditions that 
this rising number indicates for Earth's living communities. They will 
unfold. They are already unfolding. Even if we stopped all human-caused 
emissions today, the number would still rise for decades before the new 
normal settled in. That's why more and more of us believe it's time to 
let go this hope that we can prevent dangerous warming of the 
atmosphere. The Paris climate accords reiterated the importance of 
keeping the planet from warming beyond 1.5C. In all likelihood, we will 
reach 2C by mid-century and probably 3.5C by its end - and that's if we 
start reducing emissions. At the moment, they are still rising - fast.

In other words, life is going to change - a lot! Rather than keeping 
warming within safe limits, we will need to learn quickly how to live on 
a much hotter planet in conditions never experienced before by our species.

The notion of "deep adaptation" is emerging as a new movement in various 
parts of the world. It implies a painful and critical passage in human 
consciousness as it assumes a kind of surrender to the reality in front 
of us, an acceptance of the changes we cannot prevent any longer. It 
also represents a major shift in the cultural and economic paradigms of 
the West. It is a term that has become key to how we think about the 
paths forward.

If you live in the Florida panhandle or once lived in Paradise, CA, for 
example, you have a clue about what that means. This isn't about trying 
to figure out how to preserve the familiar world of an old stable 
climate anymore, or to return our places to the natural environments 
they once were. That's futile. Climate has become unstable, and most of 
us live in places already compromised by resource depletion, pollution, 
and outright destruction of habitats.

What deep adaptation means is learning how to live into the new reality, 
and what is required of us in order to do that while keeping our basic 
humanity intact. It's relearning lost skills and reconnecting with lost 
relationships within our bio-communities. It's entering this period of 
"draw-down," a steep plunge from the high-consuming economies that for a 
while gave a certain percentage of the human population such nice lives. 
It's about partnering with our planet, its living systems and beings, on 
a healing journey, a path of healing and regeneration of natural places, 
which largely means getting this voracious human species out of the way. 
It means ceasing to rip apart the threads of the web of life that holds 
us so that the web can heal itself in new ways, new forms of life, new 
communities of life that can thrive in the new planetary conditions.

Often people look to the speakers and writers, or the gurus and 
teachers, for answers about how to do this. We have no answers, just 
suggestions, possibilities that come from past wisdom and new insights 
about how the Earth works. The reality is that we're all going to be 
living into this together. Humans have never lived in conditions like 
the ones we have now, much less those now evolving. We're going to be 
learning this together, making it up as we go along. It is therefore 
crucial that as we walk this path together, we keep in our hearts and 
spirits the highest "qualities" and values of our human existence - 
integrity, decency, honesty, generosity, kindness, compassion, 
selflessness, and a commitment to building what Dr. King called the 
"Beloved Community."

We can't take intolerance, tribalism, self-interest, and fear on this 
journey if we hope to create, or to help emerge, a new culture that 
arises out of the inevitable ashes of this global industrial "market." 
The market is not god, not inevitable, and it is NOT possible to put a 
price on everything, particularly those things we need for life itself, 
and have anything resembling a "decent" life.

As Winona LaDuke stated in a lecture the other night (April 11) here in 
Milwaukee: "The problems cannot be solved within the paradigm that 
created them." I see the struggle inherent in that notion, another 
version of the Einstein quote, whenever I give a talk on the unfolding 
nature of our multiple crises - I feel the heaviness in the room, and 
some of the resistance, because it removes from our lists of what we do 
now a lot of what we know how to do. What happens when what we know how 
to do, and have been doing for years, even decades, isn't working to 
change the basic trajectory of economies or of "western civilization?" 
The fact is that, since the dawn of agriculture, there has yet to be any 
great advance in technology, tools, or ways to manipulate the planet to 
serve human "needs" (and greed) that hasn't also led to where we are 
now. The more economies grow, the more human demands are created, and 
then economies of growth move swiftly to meet those demands, and then 
more humans create more demands and on and on across the centuries to 
the edge of the ecological abyss where we stand right now.

At some point, limits would be reached. That happened back in the 1980s 
when the human species surpassed the biocapacity of the planet to 
support our increasingly heavy ecological footprint, taking more than 
the planet can replenish, and spewing more waste than it can absorb. And 
this is the century when those limits, already reached and surpassed, 
will begin to be felt in all of our lives.

For a lot of progressives and social justice advocates, there is another 
layer to this predicament. The paradigm of much of this work over 
decades has been expanding the opportunity to participate in a 
political/economic model based on industrial growth and ever-rising 
rates of consumption for marginalized communities, for the 
discriminated-against, for the working poor and the unemployed. It's 
about bringing more justice into an unjust system.

What happens when we realize that we cannot increase the ecological 
footprint of poor populations (which is what getting out of poverty 
means in this global system) without accelerating the collapse of 
ecosystems around the world? What does a commitment to justice mean in 
these circumstances?

We see how the very rich are dealing with that realization. They are 
hoarding more and more wealth. They are consolidating private ownership 
and control over whatever they can. But for those who care about justice 
and have lived in the comfort of middle to upper-middle to wealthy class 
lifestyles, there is an onus on us that is uncomfortable in the extreme: 
we cannot promote real economic and social justice in this world without 
upending the class structure of the global economy. Unless there is a 
willingness to surrender a whole lot of privileged consuming, and of 
hoarding and storing up in barns, the commitment to social justice is 
impossible. If we don't commit to just distribution of what is needed 
for dignified life for all - which implies a willingness for a lot of 
surrender, downward mobility, simplified ways of life - there is no 
possibility of going through this transition without extreme human 
suffering, including increasing conflict, mass migrations, hunger, and 
the rest.

Deep adaptation: we have to load up the term with content from the 
get-go. We have to hold to principles of justice, inclusiveness, 
willingness to sacrifice and surrender a lot, to keep this transition 
from being truly ugly, the worst of us instead of what is needed now - 
our best, and especially our ethical and creative best.

Rethinking our work in the context of reality - not the world we want, 
but the one that is; not the things once hoped for, but the things that 
are possible. The profound inner examination of what this means for us 
needs to start now as part of the work we do or the lives we live. Given 
the changes coming, it's best to prepare now, to do this inner work 
before conditions get much worse, to build the resilience and steadiness 
we will need to live into, to grow into, this new phase in the human 
journey; i.e., learning all over again how to live here.

Life is going to become increasingly uncomfortable and uncertain. Can we 
learn to live with that and not lose heart?
~ Margaret Swedish
https://newcreationews.blogspot.com/2019/04/rethinking-our-work-in-context-of.html



*This Day in Climate History - April 19, 2009 - from D.R. Tucker*
April 19, 2009: House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) stumbles 
through an interview with George Stephanopoulos on ABC's "This Week," 
shamelessly attempting to dismiss concerns about carbon pollution.
http://youtu.be/tAHSm6Wt1W8
http://youtu.be/WPA-8A4zf2c
/-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------/

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