[TheClimate.Vote] April 29, 2019 - Daily Global Warming News Digest

Mon Apr 29 10:11:25 EDT 2019

/April 29, 2019/

[Newsweek publishes opinion top climate scientist]
*THE CLIMATE CHANGE GENERATION NEEDS TO KNOW WHAT'S COMING | OPINION*
MICHAEL E. MANN - ON 4/24/19 The fossil fuel industry's decades-long 
campaign to build political power and spread disinformation about 
climate change is well-documented. It has long kept the American public 
in the dark and elected leaders in their pocket. Their strategy of 
denying the causes of climate change has been wildly lucrative for the 
fossil fuel industry, but devastating for our environment and democracy.

As kids across the U.S. and around the globe rise up to demand action, 
this disinformation campaign is now being targeted at America's classrooms.

A spate of bills introduced in states across the country would either 
prohibit teachers from discussing climate change in their classrooms or 
require public school teachers to present "both sides" of an issue that 
has come to dominate American political discourse. This would give 
science equal weight with flat-out propaganda.

This assault on our children is reprehensible for so many reasons. To 
start with an obvious one, it is keeping kids in the dark about an 
urgent global problem that will affect the rest of their lives. To 
present rigorous scientific evidence alongside self-interested corporate 
propaganda equates truth with lies and blurs fact and fiction.

Misinformation is a tool of oppression and it has no place in classrooms.

Furthermore, presenting information to our kids through the lens of 
partisan politics corrupts the goals of education. It deadens critical 
thinking skills and instead nudges children toward ideological, rather 
than fact-based, decision making. It divides our communities. It teaches 
kids to distrust, to bend facts to their preferences, rather than to 
inquire, test and seek truth. It does the subtle work of hemming in 
their imaginations to align more closely with the agenda of special 
interests and the politicians that do their bidding.

What a cynical and depressing worldview the legislators who write these 
bills must have.

I myself have long been targeted for my research into climate change and 
my efforts to communicate the dire consequences of human-caused climate 
change. These days it's mostly easily-ignored Twitter trolls, but during 
the height of the attacks on climate science, someone mailed me a letter 
filled with white powder. And in the not-too-distant past, members of 
Congress used the power of their offices to publicly attack my research 
and malign my reputation. It is always disturbing to see elected leaders 
bully in this way. Their purpose is never to provide "balance." It is 
always to intimidate and obfuscate.

Many teachers are already hesitant to talk about climate change. Some 
describe fear of backlash from parents. The reality--according to recent 
polling --is that the overwhelming majority of parents want their kids 
to know what scientists have to say about climate change. That includes 
two-thirds of Republican parents. But saber-rattling by elected 
officials creates a chilling effect that ripples all the way into our 
kids' schools. Even if the bills don't move forward, the simple act of 
introducing them works to suppress information and hinder awareness.

I feel solidarity with the teachers whose daily work may be disrupted by 
these backward bills. I feel angry for the students whose education is 
being compromised for political purposes. I feel frustration for the 
parents whose kids are being turned into the next battleground for an 
inane "debate" over climate change, instead of being prepared to take it on.

What can we do? For one, we can support groups that are fighting back 
against ignorance, like the National Center for Science Education and We 
The Future, a project putting art and teaching materials highlighting 
young leaders in 20,000 classrooms.

We're already seeing the harm of floods, fires, heat and drought, but 
it's the next generation that will bear the brunt of climate change. The 
least we can do is give our kids the tools to rise to the immense 
challenge they will face as the climate change generation.

Actually, the very least we could do is not lie to them about it.
Michael E. Mann is Distinguished Professor of Atmospheric Science at 
Pennsylvania State.
https://www.newsweek.com/climate-change-generation-need-know-whats-coming-1404552

[A plain video explaining the current situation and telling us why 
radical change is required]
*Climate Change : How to survive past 2050*
Just Have a Think
Published on Apr 28, 2019
Energy use in our homes, industry and transport accounts for two thirds 
of our total human induced carbon dioxide emissions. Far from 
dramatically reducing since the 'historic' Paris agreement in 2015, 
those emissions have actually started to creep back up. The world is now 
catastrophically off track to meet any of the lower pathways set out by 
the IPCC special report published in 2018. We know what we must do. So 
why aren't we doing it? This week we look at a new report just out from 
the International Renewable Energy Agency, which provides a stark 
assessment of what's required.
[From the Transcript]

    "...to me at least that the shock tactics employed by Extinction
    Rebellion and
    other groups - like the Friday's school strikes, far from being a
    bloody nuisance
    caused by schoolchildren and greasy haired hippies - are in fact the
    crucially sharp stick
    jabbing away our leaders and shoving the issues more forcibly
    into the faces of each and every one of us; as uncomfortable and
    irritating as that may be."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ikz5JHfPQ6k
- - -
[SKY News video interview]
*Labour: 'Dramatic' action needed on climate change*
Sky News - Published on Apr 28, 2019
The shadow business secretary Rebecca Long-Bailey tells Sky News a 
"green industrial revolution" would unlock benefits for the economy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ixfc-ZrVEI4

[Panel discussion of polite understatement]
*The Bug Apocalypse*
The Agenda with Steve Paikin
Published on Apr 25, 2019
Two recent landmark studies show a precipitous decline in insect 
populations worldwide, as much as 80 percent in three decades. While it 
is not an extinction, it has serious implications for the natural world 
and humans. The Agenda will examine the effects of the so-called ,Insect 
Apocalypse,, how it happened and what options science provides to 
address the problem.
[from the transcript:]

    on the estimates that I've seen lately are twenty to thirty years
    before we
    reach a point where there's so much carbon in the atmosphere we're
    entering
    a point where there's essentially no stopping a runaway warming
    effect that's frightening.
    so ... that's why I mentioned first reducing emissions, If we don't
    do that, I think no.
    it's gonna be a much tougher battle. We're fast approaching the
    point of no return
    there's no doubt about that and it's gonna be upon us very very soon

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YVDwnta7q4o

[comment of media coverage]
*climate change is the story of the century. let's tell it.*
EndClimateSilence.org is a volunteer organization dedicated to helping 
the media link stories about climate-change impacts to climate change 
itself. Mobilizing through digital activism, we focus on all media 
platforms--from television networks to print outlets to online 
content providers to radio programs. We are motivated by the awareness 
that climate change poses a grave danger to humanity and we must 
transition from fossil fuels to safe energy immediately in order to 
preserve a planet that supports civilization. We see that climate change 
has begun to hurt people, and it's the media's job to report on that fact.
https://www.endclimatesilence.org/

[On the violent evolution of language]
*Global Warming? or Climate Change?*
greenman3610
Published on Dec 21, 2010
Switching the words "climate change", for global warming, -- is it a 
devious, Orwellian perversion of the language, a mind controlling 
neurolinguistic word play engineered by  psychological manipulators of 
the New World Order?
http://youtu.be/mqMunulJU7w
- -
[Items in history of media coverage of global warming]
*3 - Climate Change -- Anatomy of a myth*
potholer54
Published on Mar 23, 2009
I had planned to put several myths in this video, but discovered such an 
appalling web of deceit and fabrication in this first one that I felt I 
had no choice but to thoroughly debunk it. Like many ingrained myths, 
this one is so ubiquitous that it takes an awful lot of hard evidence to 
convince true believers that it's been fabricated.
A paper cited in this video was incorrectly dated. It is "The myth of 
the 1970s Global Cooling Consensus" by TC Petersonet al, September 2008 
volume 89 issue 9, Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EU_AtHkB4Ms
- - -
*Slate's Phil Plait re-debunks *the "Why don't they call it global 
warming anymore?" talking point often heard on the Fox News Channel: 
this talking point had been previously debunked by Peter Sinclair of 
ClimateCrocks.com.
http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronomy/2013/04/28/fox_news_global_warming_versus_climate_change.html

[most alarming video Chris Hedges]
*On Contact: Climate emergency with Dahr Jamail*
RT America
Published on Feb 23, 2019
The glaciers in Alaska alone are losing an estimated 75 billion tons of 
ice every year.  The oceans, which absorb over 90 percent of the excess 
heat trapped by greenhouses gases in the atmosphere, are warming and 
acidifying, melting the polar ice caps and resulting in rising sea 
levels and oxygen-starved ocean dead zones.  We await a 50-gigaton burp, 
or "pulse," of methane from thawing Arctic permafrost beneath the East 
Siberian Arctic Shelf, which will release about 2/3 of the total carbon 
dioxide pumped into the atmosphere since the beginning of the industrial 
era. Some 150 to 200 species of plant, insect, bird and mammal are going 
extinct every 24 hours, 1000 times the "natural" or "background" rate.  
This pace of extinction is greater than anything the world has 
experienced since the disappearance of the dinosaurs 65 million years 
ago. Chris Hedges speaks to journalist and author Dahr Jamail about his  
new book The End of Ice: Bearing Witness and Finding Meaning in the Path 
of Climate Disruption and the climate emergency.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wEKGp3gT_vs

[XR view from Denis Postle]
*Extinction for Skeptics*
A celebration of day 2 of the Extinction Rebellion action at London's 
Oxford Circus, with a layer of material spelling out why it was necessary
https://vimeo.com/332811346

*This Day in Climate History - April 29, 2014 - from D.R. Tucker*
In a 6-2 decision, the US Supreme Court upholds the EPA's Cross-State 
Air Pollution Rule.
http://www.politico.com/story/2014/04/supreme-court-epa-air-pollution-106140.html?hp=r2
http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/epa-supreme-court-rare-win
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/30/us/politics/supreme-court-backs-epa-coal-pollution-rules.html
/-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------/

/Archive of Daily Global Warming News 
<https://pairlist10.pair.net/pipermail/theclimate.vote/2017-October/date.html> 
/
https://pairlist10.pair.net/pipermail/theclimate.vote

/To receive daily mailings - click to Subscribe 
<mailto:subscribe at theClimate.Vote?subject=Click%20SEND%20to%20process%20your%20request> 
to news digest./

*** Privacy and Security:*This is a text-only mailing that carries no 
images which may originate from remote servers. Text-only messages 
provide greater privacy to the receiver and sender.
By regulation, the .VOTE top-level domain must be used for democratic 
and election purposes and cannot be used for commercial purposes.
To subscribe, email: contact at theclimate.vote 
<mailto:contact at theclimate.vote> with subject subscribe, To Unsubscribe, 
subject: unsubscribe
Also you may subscribe/unsubscribe at 
https://pairlist10.pair.net/mailman/listinfo/theclimate.vote
Links and headlines assembled and curated by Richard Pauli for 
http://TheClimate.Vote <http://TheClimate.Vote/> delivering succinct 
information for citizens and responsible governments of all levels. List 
membership is confidential and records are scrupulously restricted to 
this mailing list.