[TheClimate.Vote] February 24, 2019 - Daily Global Warming News Digest

Sun Feb 24 10:30:17 EST 2019

/February 24, 2019/

[See the 3 minute video]
*Dianne Feinstein rebuffs young climate activists' calls for Green New Deal*
Guardian News
Published on Feb 23, 2019
The California senator has been criticised for her response to a group 
of children and teenagers asking her to support the Green New Deal. 
Video footage shows Feinstein flatly rejecting the activists' request, 
telling them: 'I've been doing this for 30 years. I know what I'm doing'
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jEPo34LCss8
- - -
[Follow up opinion and Senator Feinstein's blunder to youth]
*SUNRISE MOVEMENT - We are Sunrise*
As you all already know, yesterday a group of young people with Sunrise, 
Youth v. Apocalypse, and Earth Guardians, went to Senator Feinstein's 
office to ask her to get behind the Green New Deal as the solution to 
the greatest crisis facing our generation. We immediately posted a full 
15-minute video publicly for all to see and then posted a shorter 
2-minute excerpt for Twitter. Thousands of people watched the full video 
and were outraged by Sen. Feinstein "lecturing" kids, and the young 
people in the room were shocked by how they were treated. 
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/22/climate/feinstein-sunrise-green-new-deal.html

The full video speaks for itself: almost nobody in the political 
establishment understands the magnitude of the climate crisis. This is 
an unfolding human rights catastrophe of historic proportions. Millions 
will die. Where is the urgency?

For the first time in US history the conversation around climate change 
is being driven by a solution at the scale of that crisis -- the Green 
New Deal. Thousands of young people across the country are responsible 
for that, and Dianne Feinstein's response was to tell them that it's 
impossible and to put forward a watered down" alternative. "Senator 
Feinstein said"I know what I'm doing. Maybe people should listen a bit." 
But the truth is that if Senator Feinstein and her colleagues knew what 
they were doing for the past 30 years, we wouldn't be in this mess. GOP 
elite have sold themselves to Big Oil, and the Democratic establishment 
has failed to treat the crisis with the urgency it deserves. It's time 
for Senator Feinstein and all members of Congress to #ListenToTheKids. ..
- -
*Our take on the details of Feinstein's resolution*: Putting forward her 
own, watered down, resolution is out of line with what UN scientists say 
is necessary, divides Democrats, and distracts from the momentum of Rep. 
Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Markey's resolution.

Rep. Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Markey's resolution has the support of all 
the major Democrats running for President, and, most importantly, is 
line with the latest UN IPCC climate report. Senator Feinstein's watered 
down resolution dilutes the urgency and timeline for action, and doesn't 
propose solutions as the scale of the crisis. This mean millions more 
people die from unnecessary climate disasters, some of whom could be the 
very children she dismissed.

Senator Feinstein's says her resolution can actually pass. It can't. 
Mitch McConnell would never allow it. And her resolution is symbolic, 
just like the GND resolution. So all that her resolution accomplishes is 
watering down the goals and ambition of what needs to happen.

Senator Feinstein's "responsible resolution" would essentially bring 
back inadequate Obama-era climate rules and targets, invest in some R&D, 
slap a price on carbon, and hold tight make sure we're ready to adapt. 
There's nothing"responsible" about this. This is wholly insufficient to 
what the latest science tells us we need to do.

Senator Feinstein's main critique of the Green New Deal was that there 
is no way to pay for it. She does not articulate how she would pay for 
her"responsible" plan, so it seems like the only thing she's putting 
forward is less ambition, not more pragmatism.

Senator Feinstein's goal is to reach net-zero greenhouse gases in the 
U.S. by mid-century. Science tells us we need to get there GLOBALLY by 
mid-century or earlier. The U.S. needs to do much more, much faster.
Sunrise ED Varshini Prakash also made a short video sharing her 
thoughts. Feel free to share and amplify. 
https://twitter.com/VarshPrakash/status/1099407058552717312

["first order political imperative"]
*David Wallace-Wells: 'Why climate change is gravely worse than feared' *
ITV News video Published on Feb 19, 2019
According to American author David Wallace-Wells, there is a jarring gap 
between academic research and how climate change is represented in the 
media.
 From the edited transcript - Wallace-Wells concludes:

    Well I would say two big things, the first is that there is no
    escaping this:
    if it unfolds as we expect it to, there will be no life on earth
    that is untouched.
    And in fact, no aspect of life that will be untouched. This is one
    of the major
    themes of my book - it's not just the science of warming and what do
    you know what it will do to us but what it will mean to the way that
    we live so
    it'll affect our storytelling, our culture, our relationship to
    technology
    and history and all that stuff.

    Living far from the coastline or slightly in the northern latitudes or
    being wealthy will not be a protection against the ravages of warming so
    everyone's in this together. That's one thing. But the more pointed
    point I would
    make is that the research emerging from economics recently on what
    climate
    change will do to our societies is not just incredibly dramatic and
    horrifying,
    but it's a true reversal of what was the economic conventional
    wisdom as recently
    as a few years ago -- which was that aggressive action on climate
    was going
    to be costly. It would mean forgoing some degree of economic growth,
    and for those people on the right who were really primarily oriented
    around that value, that meant
    putting off the problem longer -- waiting for more growth and more
    technology to
    emerge to make the action cheaper. But in fact the new research says
    very, very
    strongly that faster action on climate will bring economic rewards
    in the very
    short term. One big study said that just by 2030, fast action on
    climate could bring twenty six trillion dollars of economic benefit
    to the global economy by 2030. That's not very far away. That's an
    enormous amount of money and if we don't do anything on climate we could
    end up, at the end of the century, suffering economic impacts
    totaling above 600 trillion dollars -- which is more than twice all
    the wealth that exists in the world today.  And we could have a
    global GDP that was 30 percent lower than it would be otherwise. 
    That's an impact that's twice as deep as the Great Recession and it
    would be permanent.

    So if you're oriented around the values of economic growth and
    prosperity as I think many of on the right are, the logic there is
    very, very strong. And it's shift event in that direction very
    quickly. Faster action on climate is better for economic growth not
    worse.  I think that's a huge bit of news from the research and I
    think it hasn't yet filtered into the minds of our policymakers and
    in particular those policy makers on the right. But I think over the
    next few years it will and that's what won't really start to see our
    politics shift.

His new book, worryingly titled, 'The Uninhabitable Earth' is a warning 
that simply more can and must be done.
In a wide-ranging interview with ITV News Science Editor Tom Clarke, 
Wallace-Wells describes how he became a"quasi-activist" during his 
research; how an alarmist approach can be effective; the damning failure 
of the Paris Agreement and how China could play a key role in reducing 
global warming.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yK4pMWZZh2I]

[Ice melt in the Himalaya area]
*Vandana Shiva: We Must Fight Back Against the 1 Percent to Stop the 
Sixth Mass Extinction*
Democracy Now!
Published on Feb 22, 2019
https://democracynow.org - New research finds at least a third of the 
Himalayan ice cap will melt by the end of the century due to climate 
change, even if the world's most ambitious environmental reforms are 
implemented. A report released earlier this month by the Hindu Kush 
Himalaya Assessment warns rising temperatures in the Himalayas could 
lead to mass population displacements, as well as catastrophic food and 
water insecurity. The glaciers are a vital water source for the 250 
million people who live in the Hindu Kush Himalaya range, which spans 
from Afghanistan to Burma. More than a billion-and-a-half people depend 
on the rivers that flow from the Himalayan peaks. We speak with 
world-renowned environmental leader and ecologist Dr. Vandana Shiva 
about climate change, seed sovereignty and her new book,"Oneness vs. the 
1%." Shiva is an Indian scholar, physicist, and food sovereignty and 
seed freedom advocate. She was was born in Doon Valley in the Himalayan 
foothills.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GwxOxQ1AOEg

[display future geographies]
*LECTURE: Four-Fifths of Coldest Arctic Air Volume has GONE*
Paul Beckwith
Published on Feb 22, 2019
In this video, I mostly talk on how the coldest Arctic air volumes are 
gone. In fact 80% of the coldest air masses are no longer there. Not 
just cold air at the surface, but cold air all the way up. As the entire 
Arctic continues warming at rapidly accelerating rates it is only a 
matter of time when sea-ice no longer forms; Greenland melting will 
cause rapid sea-level rise. Extreme weather severity, duration, and 
frequency will also skyrocket, and unprecedented weather events like 
snow in deserts will occur.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UjMKhvSd950

[Democracy Now]
*Vandana Shiva: We Must Fight Back Against the 1 Percent to Stop the 
Sixth Mass Extinction*
Democracy Now!
Published on Feb 22, 2019
https://democracynow.org - New research finds at least a third of the 
Himalayan ice cap will melt by the end of the century due to climate 
change, even if the world's most ambitious environmental reforms are 
implemented. A report released earlier this month by the Hindu Kush 
Himalaya Assessment warns rising temperatures in the Himalayas could 
lead to mass population displacements, as well as catastrophic food and 
water insecurity. The glaciers are a vital water source for the 250 
million people who live in the Hindu Kush Himalaya range, which spans 
from Afghanistan to Burma. More than a billion-and-a-half people depend 
on the rivers that flow from the Himalayan peaks. We speak with 
world-renowned environmental leader and ecologist Dr. Vandana Shiva 
about climate change, seed sovereignty and her new book,"Oneness vs. the 
1%." Shiva is an Indian scholar, physicist, and food sovereignty and 
seed freedom advocate. She was was born in Doon Valley in the Himalayan 
foothills.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GwxOxQ1AOEg

[Witty banter with climate scientist]
*Hotpocalypse Episode 7 - The US Youth Climate Strikes (with teen 
activist Isra Hirsi)*
Hotpocalypse
Published on Feb 22, 2019
Climate scientist Josh Willis and comedian Andy Cobb ask Isra Hirsi 
about the US Youth Climate Strikes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-nouezBKpk

[share this with the kids]
*US Youth Climate Strikes*
Who Are We? Why Are We Striking?
We are a group of concerned teenagers from all different backgrounds 
who've had enough of sitting around and waiting for action to resolve 
the climate crisis. We are standing up for our future on this planet as 
we, along with youth from across the globe inspired by Greta Thunberg's 
weekly strikes in Sweden, demand radical action be taken. We refuse to 
be silent any longer. We are running against the clock and we refuse to 
let our leaders make irresponsible decisions on issues that effect us most.
- - -
*The demands of US Youth Climate Strike are:*
1. We demand a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions in line with the 
October 2018 IPCC Special
Report on Global Warming of 1.5 degrees Celsius.
2. We demand our world leaders take action that ensures global warming 
remains under 1.5 degrees
Celsius.
3. We demand that our US legislators implement the Green New Deal and 
other legislative actions
that decrease the climate crisis.
https://www.youthclimatestrikeus.org/

[serious science research - a one week list]
New research, February 11-17, 2019
Posted on 22 February 2019 by Ari Jokimaki
*A selection of new climate related research articles ...*
https://skepticalscience.com/new_research_20190211.html

*This Day in Climate History - February 24, 2002 - from D.R. Tucker*
In the Denver Post, Bruce Smart of Republicans for Environmental 
Protection rips President George W. Bush's February 14, 2002 speech on 
climate change:

    "...President Bush reaffirmed the nation's commitment to the U.N.
    Framework Convention's 1992 goal 'to stabilize greenhouse gas
    concentrations at a level that will prevent dangerous human
    interference with the climate,' and he outlined an environmental
    path for the nation to follow. A number of the specifics he
    proposed, if forcefully pursued, can be helpful.

    "But the medicine prescribed for the world's greatest environmental
    threat--the malignant growth of atmospheric concentrations of
    greenhouse gases--is only a well-packaged placebo. It is no cure for
    global warming and the hazardous changes in climate that a great
    majority of scientists believe it is likely to cause."

http://web.archive.org/web/20030122161530/http://www.rep.org/opinions/op-eds/19.htm
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