[TheClimate.Vote] January 23, 2019 - Daily Global Warming News Digest
Richard Pauli
richard at theclimate.vote
Wed Jan 23 08:45:18 EST 2019
/January 23, 2019/
[New Poll]
*Global Warming Concerns Rise Among Americans in New Poll*
"I've never seen jumps in some of the key indicators like this," the
lead researcher said.
A record number of Americans understand that climate change is real,
according to a new survey, and they are increasingly worried about its
effects in their lives today.
Some 73 percent of Americans polled late last year said that global
warming was happening, the report found, a jump of 10 percentage points
from 2015 and three points since last March.
The rise in the number of Americans who say global warming is personally
important to them was even sharper, jumping nine percentage points since
March to 72 percent, another record over the past decade.
The survey is the latest in a series from the Yale Program on Climate
Change Communication and the George Mason University Center for Climate
Change Communication. It was conducted online in November and December
by Ipsos, which polled 1,114 American adults.
The results suggest that climate change has moved out of the realm of
the hypothetical for a wide majority of Americans, said Anthony
Leiserowitz, director of the Yale program.
- - -
Global warming and its effects are increasingly part of the national
discussion, said Sunshine Menezes, an expert in climate communication at
the University of Rhode Island and executive director of the Metcalf
Institute for Marine and Environmental Reporting.
She noted that 41 percent of respondents in the poll said they talked
about global warming with family and friends "often" or "occasionally,"
and 56 percent said they heard about the topic in the news media at
least once a month, a 13 percent increase since 2015. "It's becoming
harder and harder to avoid conversations about climate change," she said.
Though it is impossible to attribute shifts in public opinion like this
to any one factor, Dr. Menezes said, "I'm just thrilled that it's
happening."
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/22/climate/americans-global-warming-poll.html
[brief video two guys in a casual banter, one is a climate scientist]
*Antarctica is melting more than scientists thought - Hotpocalypse -
Excerpt*
Hotpocalypse
Published on Jan 22, 2019
Antarctica contains enough ice to raise sea levels by 190 feet. Climate
scientist Josh Willis explains.
Watch the full episode: https://youtu.be/YI50024GwWk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7q5n1Cln8FU
[Yale Climate Communications report Jan 22, 2019]
*Climate Change in the American Mind: December 2018*
http://climatecommunication.yale.edu/publications/climate-change-in-the-american-mind-december-2018/
Download the report
http://climatecommunication.yale.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/Climate-Change-American-Mind-December-2018.pdf
Read the executive summary
http://climatecommunication.yale.edu/publications/climate-change-in-the-american-mind-december-2018/2/
*Executive Summary*
This report documents a continued upward trend in Americans' concern
about global warming, as reflected in several key indicators tracked
since 2008, including substantial increases in Americans' certainty that
global warming is happening and harming people in the United States now.
The proportion of Americans who are very worried about global warming
has more than tripled since its lowest point in 2011. Increasing numbers
of Americans say they have personally experienced global warming and
that the issue is personally important to them. Notable findings include:
Seven in ten Americans (73%) think global warming is happening, an
increase of ten percentage points since March 2015. Only about one in
seven Americans (14%) think global warming is not happening. Americans
who think global warming is happening outnumber those who think it isn't
by more than a 5 to 1 ratio.
Americans are also increasingly certain that global warming is happening
- 51% are "extremely" or "very" sure it is happening, an increase of 14
percentage points since March 2015, matching the highest level since
2008. By contrast, far fewer - 7% - are "extremely" or "very sure"
global warming is not happening.
About six in ten Americans (62%) understand that global warming is
mostly human-caused. By contrast, about one in four (23%) say it is due
mostly to natural changes in the environment.
More than half of Americans (57%) understand that most scientists agree
that global warming is happening, the highest level since 2008. However,
only one in five (20%) understand how strong the level of consensus
among scientists is (i.e., that more than 90% of climate scientists have
concluded that human-caused global warming is happening).
About seven in ten Americans (69%) say they are at least "somewhat
worried" about global warming. About three in ten (29%) are "very
worried" about it - the highest level since our surveys began in 2008.
About seven in ten Americans are "interested" in global warming (69%).
Majorities also feel "disgusted" (53%) and/or "helpless" (51%). Nearly
half are "hopeful" (48%).
Few Americans think it's too late to do anything about global warming (14%).
Nearly half of Americans (46%) say they have personally experienced the
effects of global warming, an increase of 15 percentage points since
March 2015.
Nearly half of Americans (48%) think people in the United States are
being harmed by global warming "right now." The proportion who believe
people are being harmed "right now" has increased by 16 percentage
points since March 2015 and by nine points since our previous survey in
March 2018.
About half or more Americans think they (49%), their family (56%),
and/or people in their community (57%) will be harmed by global warming.
Even more think global warming will harm people in the U.S. (65%), the
world's poor (67%), people in developing countries (68%), plant and
animal species (74%), and/or future generations of people (75%).
About seven in ten Americans (72%) say the issue of global warming is
either "extremely," "very," or "somewhat" important to them personally,
while only about three in ten (28%) say it is either "not too" or "not
at all" personally important. The proportion who say it is personally
important has increased by 16 percentage points since March 2015, and by
nine points since our previous survey in March 2018.
About four in ten Americans (41%) say they discuss global warming with
family and friends "often" or "occasionally," an increase of 15
percentage points since March 2015. However, more say they "rarely" or
"never" discuss it (59%), although this reflects a 15-point decrease
since March 2015.
More than half of Americans (56%) say they hear about global warming in
the media at least once a month, an increase of 13 percentage points
since our previous survey in March 2018.
Fewer than half of Americans perceive a social norm in which their
friends and family expect them to take action on global warming.
Forty-six percent think it is at least moderately important to their
family and friends that they take action (an injunctive norm), and four
in ten (40%) say their family and friends make at least a moderate
effort to reduce global warming (a descriptive norm).
About two in three Americans (65%) think global warming is affecting
weather in the United States, and three in ten think weather is being
affected "a lot" (32%). About half think global warming made the 2018
wildfires in the Western U.S. (50%) and/or hurricanes Florence and
Michael (49%) worse.
A majority of Americans are worried about harm from extreme events in
their local area including extreme heat (61%), flooding (61%), droughts
(58%), and/or water shortages (51%).
http://climatecommunication.yale.edu/publications/climate-change-in-the-american-mind-december-2018/
[another important poll]
*Is the Public Willing to Pay to Help Fix Climate Change?*
The Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago and The AP-NORC
Center conducted a national survey of 1,202 adults in November 2018 to
explore Americans' views on climate change, carbon tax and fuel
efficiency standards.
Seventy-one percent of Americans say climate change is a reality, and
most think human activity is primarily responsible, while only 9 percent
say it is not. Nineteen percent are unsure. Among those who say climate
change is happening, 60 percent think it is primarily caused by human
activities.
Nearly half of Americans say the science on climate change is more
convincing than five years ago, with extreme weather driving their
views. The survey was conducted while wildfires were burning out of
control in California, though there were no significant regional
differences in responses...
- -
To combat climate change, 57 percent of Americans are willing to pay a
$1 monthly fee; 23 percent are willing to pay a monthly fee of $40.
Party identification and acceptance of climate change are the main
determining factors of whether or not people are willing to pay, with
Democrats being consistently more inclined to pay a fee.
Last summer, the Trump administration proposed a freeze on fuel
efficiency standards for cars, rolling back an Obama administration rule
that requires automakers to nearly double the fuel economy of passenger
vehicles to an average of about 54 miles per gallon by 2025.
Half of the survey respondents were told the proposed freeze could lead
to reduced prices for vehicles. Of those, 49 percent support the freeze.
The other half were told the proposed freeze could mean that greenhouse
gas emissions would not be reduced. Only 21 percent support the freeze
when they are given that argument.
http://www.apnorc.org/projects/Pages/Is-the-Public-Willing-to-Pay-to-Help-Fix-Climate-Change-.aspx
[explore difference between alarming and alarmism]
*'The world is going to end in 12 years if we don't address climate
change,' Ocasio-Cortez says*
twitter video https://twitter.com/tomselliott/status/1087550417653940224
- - -
[report on opinions]
*Should a future president declare climate change a national emergency?*
By Greta Moran on Jan 22, 2019
As President Trump holds the entire government hostage over funding for
his border wall, there's been talk that he might declare a national
emergency on the southern border to get the wall built. Such a move
would allow Trump to dip into federal funding used for actual crises,
like the ongoing Hurricane Maria recovery effort.
Senator Marco Rubio, a Republican from Florida, isn't exactly a fan of
this idea. Rubio recently warned that this broad use of executive power
might enable a future Democratic president to declare -- gasp! --
climate change a national emergency.
Rubio's comment unintentionally helped set the idea in motion. "Do you
want to know what a real 'national emergency' is?" Senator Bernie
Sanders from Vermont tweeted. "The scientists tell us that if we don't
combat climate change aggressively, the severe damage done to our
country and planet will be irreversible. Now that's a 'crisis.'" Former
Secretary of State John Kerry and comedian Sarah Silverman joined the
chorus, too.
So how about it? It could conceivably work (under some future president,
obviously). The National Emergencies Act, passed in 1976, gives the
president legal authority to declare a state of emergency. Under the
law, the president could invoke up to 136 statutes, according to the
Brennan Center.
In the case of a climate emergency, the president could theoretically
suspend oil leases, support the expansion of battery and electrical
vehicles, divert military funds to renewable energy, and impose further
regulations on the fossil fuel industry, wrote Dan Farber, a law
professor at the University of California, Berkeley.
"But there are problems with these funding mechanisms no matter how you
do it," Farber wrote in an email to Grist. "The first is that Congress
doesn't like being bypassed. The second is that each statute has its own
history and quirks, so there are possible legal snags. And the third is
that the money is often going to come at the expense of someone else who
was supposed to get it, leaving them very unhappy and prepared to push
back legally and politically."
Other lawyers also raised concerns about declaring climate change to be
a national emergency. The move would be an overreach of executive power
and a digression from more meaningful legislative work, said Michael
Burger, executive director of the Sabin Climate Law Center.
It's true that climate change is unlike national emergencies we've seen
in the past, such as the swine flu outbreak in 2009 or the terrorist
attacks on September 11, 2001. "Climate disruption is not an unexpected
crisis that pops up and then fades away," said Rob Verchick, a professor
of environmental law at Loyola University New Orleans. "It's a new
normal state of affairs."
Verchick said what's needed are comprehensive strategies, laws, and new
institutions to address climate change, not necessarily an emergency
declaration. "We need to fold in a climate change considerations into
almost everything we do, including health care, weather prediction, and
building codes," he said
Michael Walleri, a lawyer who has worked with Alaskan communities
threatened by climate change, described the National Emergencies Act as
"more of a shield than a sword": It allows the president to deploy
resources against national threats, but it likely wouldn't help
communities prepare for and cope with the effects of climate change.
So, if a national emergency isn't the way forward, what is? What legal
"swords" could a future president use to fight the unfolding climate
catastrophe?
Walleri pointed to the Stafford Act. Upon declaration of a disaster, the
law authorizes the federal government to send aid packages to affected
states, local governments, and tribes. It's typically used for sudden
disasters like hurricanes and wildfires. But if the act were amended to
encompass disasters that unfold slowly, Walleri said, it could become a
tool to help communities deal with the consequences of climate change
that play out over time, like melting permafrost or rising seas.
"The impacts on communities really have to be dealt with on a community
basis," said Walleri, and a sweeping emergency declaration wouldn't
address these. "That's where the Stafford Act comes in."
Consider Newtok, an Alaskan village that faces severe erosion and
sea-level rise. It will likely be destroyed by 2020, with only "a
smattering of homes" remaining, said Walleri, the community's lawyer.
Newtok's request for a disaster declaration under the Stafford Act was
denied by the Obama administration in 2017 because it didn't resemble
the quick onset of other disasters. (Congress finally granted Newtok
partial funding to relocate the village further inland last year.)
"What we call slow-moving disasters are not considered disasters,"
Walleri said. "That's the real issue."
https://grist.org/article/should-a-future-president-declare-climate-change-a-national-emergency/
[great new app shows flooding for your place]
*What's your flood risk?*
Enter your address
Learn your flood risk
Protect your home
Modeled using trusted scientific data...
https://floodiq.com/
- - -
[for example]
*Rising seas swallowed $70 million in Maine home values, study says*
Flooding caused by rising sea levels threatens property values in Maine
and New England, with $69.9 million lost in Maine and $403 million lost
across the region, a study released Tuesday found.
The report found dramatic dropoffs in home values from Kittery to Winter
Harbor, with the most severely affected community being Bath, where
researchers found two homes that should be worth nearly $150,000 apiece
now valued at just more than $90,000 because of the higher water.
The lost home values were recorded between 2005 and 2017 in a study by
Columbia University and First Street Foundation, a Brooklyn, New
York-based nonprofit that studies sea level rise and its effects...
- - -
The researchers have established a database at FloodiQ.com where anyone
can check the flood risk of their town or even their home or business
address.
The database can help average Americans who wants to invest in real
estate, giving them the same information institutional investors and
wealthy individuals have, Eby said.
"Knowing the direct impact of previous flood events on the value of your
home and understanding how the risks of flooding will increase as sea
levels rise is something the public deserves to know," he said.
https://bangordailynews.com/2019/01/22/business/rising-seas-to-swallow-70-million-in-maine-home-values-study-says/
[difficult listen climate philosophizing]
*Rupert Read: "Seeding a civilisation to succeed this one"*
CenSAMM
Published on Jul 5, 2017
Rupert Read, Reader in Philosophy at the University of East Anglia, and
Chair of Green House.
"Seeding a civilisation to succeed this one"
We live in absurd times. We are almost committed now to catastrophic
climate change (once over 3 degrees, feedbacks will probably take us to
6 remorselessly). And yet, especially after Trump's election, we are
less likely than ever to head off such climate change.
This civilisation is almost certainly finished.
And so: we need to start to build 'lifeboats'. We need to seed what
might be a viable successor-civilisation from out of the brilliance,
squalor and ruins of this one.
We need somehow to do this while being all-too-aware of the very strong
likelihood that the new civilisation will have to pass through an unholy
baptism of fire: the fire of global-overheat, and the fire of the wars
and extreme turbulence that will accompany it.
If there is to be a civilisation to succeed this one, it will have to
survive - without being turned yet more vicious - a time that is likely
quite literally to test humanity more severely by far than we have ever
been tested before. How does one build lifeboats that are not so
viciously exclusive that they undermine their own worth?
Perhaps the task then is not even as easy (sic!) as building just one
new civilisation. Perhaps we need to plan on two, in sequence: perhaps
the real task is to build a 'lifeboat-civilisation', a decent and yet
realistic-pragmatic ethic that can carry some of us through the storms
of our children and grandchildren, and that can carry within it the
seeds of a future successor civilisation that might exist and truly
flourish in a less awfully-pressed time that we might one day be able to
recover to.
We may have to make some pretty awful compromises even to be able to
seed that future civilisation at all.
Climate and Apocalypse conference, June 29, 2017
Find out more at http://censamm.org/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xkshpb4-gAU
- - -
[What is the transition movement?]
*Centre for the Critical Study of Apocalyptic and Millenarian Movements*
(CenSAMM) was established to promote high quality critical and academic
research into apocalyptic and millenarian movements across time, place
and culture...
CenSAMM is a non-religious and non-partisan organisation; the Centre
seeks to promote academic rigour and critical inquiry, with an inclusive
and interdisciplinary scope...
https://censamm.org/
[Dealing with anticipatory grief]
Cultivating Individual Resilience to Metabolize Collective Grief
*10 Steps to Psychosocial Resilience*
https://www.goodgriefgroup.org/steps-to-resiliency/
- - -
[personally recommend this wonderful experience]
*The Good Grief Network's unique 10 Step Program aims to help build
personal resilience while strengthening community ties to combat
despair, inaction, and eco-anxiety on the collective level. *
We run through the steps digitally and we're ready to launch a new round
of steps in February.
Are you interested? You can sign up here:
https://goo.gl/forms/T4bzYZ5vLFqIqskR2
(If you are outside North America, please sign up here:
https://goo.gl/forms/15O8jk8ff2kapK4m2)
Do you know someone who might be interested? Could you forward this
invitation to them?
What to Expect:
Each week, the program begins with a reading of a short introduction, a
check-in exercise, and then we'll move into working the step of the
evening. We expect the meeting to run about 1.5 hours and will close
with a check out.
We cap our program at 15 participants, so it remains an intimate, safe
experience. It's not necessary to participate in all 10 steps, though we
believe you'll get the most out of the program if you participate in all
meetings.
We're asking participants to donate $3-10 per session if they are
willing and able. Donations can be made through Patreon (only $1+
monthly donation to ensure the work continues!) or a one-time donation
through Ko-Fi.
We are grateful for your desire to work through the despair, climate
grief, eco-anxiety, and/or pain of the world to get to the richness and
joy still available in life. Help us co-create a truly just and
sustainable paradigm, since this one no longer serves most of us!
To sign up for our upcoming 10 Step program, click here:
https://goo.gl/forms/T4bzYZ5vLFqIqskR2
(If you are outside North America, please sign up here:
https://goo.gl/forms/15O8jk8ff2kapK4m2)
Please let me know if you have any additional questions.
With Gratitude & Love,
-LaUra Schmidt
Good Grief Network CoFounder
https://www.goodgriefgroup.org/
[gentle humor - or maybe tempered sarcasm]
*Where to move for the climate apocalypse - Hotpocalypse - Episode 1*
Hotpocalypse
Published on Jan 12, 2019
Climate scientist Josh Willis and comedian Andy Cobb discuss how the
climate apocalypse will effect some major cities, including Marina Del
Rey, Seattle, Chicago, and Atlanta.
This was originally livestreamed to the Facebook page "Being Liberal" on
1/11/19. In this upload, we swapped out a segment that had an audio
issue during the livestream.
Credits for the Angel Soft commercial are on the original upload:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l-OvTXYVSTk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QloHSXk_zaQ
[Thinking the enormity]
*Ending Capitalism is Not Enough*
leftymathprof
Published on Jan 21, 2019
The world is falling apart, and reforms won't suffice. "End capitalism"
is a good start, but ultimately too simple an explanation. We need to
end authoritarianism, hierarchy, property, competition, productivism,
and separateness, by seeing them more clearly and talking about them.
Replace hierarchy with horizontalism, property with sharing, competition
with cooperation, productivism with ecological awareness, separateness
with empathy. Transcript and related links at
https://leftymathprof.wordpress.com/ending-capitalism/
*This Day in Climate History - January 23, 2007 - from D.R. Tucker*
January 23, 2007:
After six years, President George W. Bush finally addresses the subject
of global climate change in his State of the Union address.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zqoM1AgE9ig
Prior to the address, Dr. Joel C. Hunter discusses climate change and
the church with MSNBC's Ann Curry.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3dpjOoLQRes
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