[TheClimate.Vote] July 12, 2019 - Daily Global Warming News Digest

[Richard Pauli]

/July 12, 2019/

[Live TV NBC]
*Watch Live: Radar tracks Tropical Storm Barry as it heads towards Gulf 
Coast*
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMbR50ii73U


[newest candidate]
*Steyer Takes on Corporate Accountability for Climate Change in 
Presidential Bid*

Billionaire climate activist Tom Steyer jumped into a crowded field of 
Democratic presidential candidates this week, prompting the question of 
whether he can lift climate change out of the shadows and into a major 
campaign issue. With the Democratic National Committee desperately 
dodging the idea of a climate-focused debate, and Washington Gov. Jay 
Inslee failing to get much attention for his climate-action message, 
Steyer at least brings the prospect of spending his ample resources to 
amplify the issue. Also, Steyer is outspoken in calling out the fossil 
fuel industry for its role in the crisis and the country's need to hold 
it accountable. That adds an urgency to the message behind the growing 
number of climate liability suits.
https://www.climateliabilitynews.org/2019/07/09/tom-steyer-climate-change-corporations/



[Polar regions]
*Alaska Chokes on Wildfires as Heat Waves Dry Out the Arctic*
Fires are spreading farther north, burning more intensely and starting 
earlier, in line with what scientists have warned would happen with 
climate change.
By Bob Berwyn, *InsideClimate News*
Jul 11, 2019
Under the choking black smoke from the bog and forest fires in Siberia 
and Alaska, it can feel like the Earth itself is burning. The normally 
moist, black organic peat soil and lush forests have been drying, and 
when they catch fire, they burn relentlessly.

Global warming has been thawing tundra and drying vast stretches of the 
far-northern boreal forests, and it also has spurred more thunderstorms 
with lightning, which triggered many of the fires burning in Alaska this 
year, said Brian Brettschneider, a climate scientist with the 
International Arctic Research Center who closely tracks Alaskan and 
Arctic extreme weather.

So far this year, wildfires have scorched more than 1.2 million acres in 
Alaska, making it one of the state's three biggest fire years on record 
to this date, with high fire danger expected to persist in the weeks ahead.
- -
A region of Alaska about the size of California has been sizzling under 
an intense, record-length heat wave for weeks. And it isn't just the 
land that's warming: the northern coast is losing its sea ice about two 
months earlier than average and ocean surface temperatures are as much 
as 9 degrees Fahrenheit above normal in the Chukchi Sea. Across the state:

    - For the first time in the 95-year record, the year-long
    July-to-June average temperature for Alaska as a whole was above
    freezing, showing the persistence of much warmer than average
    temperatures over state.
    - For the year to date, the Alaska statewide average temperature was
    7.9F above average, according to NOAA's latest National State of the
    Climate report.
    - During the last 67 years, Anchorage saw a total of 17 days with a
    temperature of 81F or above. This year, 81 was the average
    temperature for a 12-day stretch in late June and early July,
    Brettschneider posted on Twitter.
    - On July 4, Anchorage hit 90F, breaking the city's all-time record
    by 5 degrees.

In Anchorage this time of year, "our normal high is 66 (degrees 
Fahrenheit), and today, it's already 74 or 75 degrees at 10:30 in the 
morning," Brettschneider said via Skype on July 8.
Sitting outside in the morning in a T-shirt and sweating is not normal 
in Anchorage, he said. "We keep our doors and windows closed at night to 
keep the smoke out. This morning I got up and it was 80 degrees in the 
house," he said.
- -
The large Arctic fires in June could be a sign of a climate tipping 
point, said Thomas Smith, a climate researcher at the London School of 
Economics and Political Science.

Responding to a post about the record Arctic wildfire activity on 
Twitter, Smith wrote that if temperatures stay above a certain 
temperature threshold long enough, fuels dry out and become ignitable.

"It really is unprecedented, a word we should not use lightly," he 
wrote. "It may be that in most previous years, temperatures have never 
been warm enough to drive off moisture from the winter frost and 
snowpack. The ground is likely covered in mosses that act as a sponge, 
staying moist all summer long before freezing again in winter. But now 
that sponge is drying out."

Amid all of this, scientists in Alaska are worried about the future of 
scientific research at the region's universities--the state legislature 
is struggling to get enough votes by Friday to override a veto by the 
Republican governor that would effectively slash state funding for the 
university system by 41 percent.
*June's Unprecedented Smoke & Fire Intensity*
There are seasonal and regional nuances, and natural climate cycles are 
also a factor, but wildfire experts in Alaska are generally expecting 
conflagrations to increase through at least 2100, said Scott Rupp, 
deputy director of the International Arctic Research Center.

A 2016 paper in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society 
showed that human-caused climate change increased the risk of extreme 
fire seasons in Alaska by 34 percent to 60 percent by drying out fuels, 
he said. Trees, grass, shrubs and tundra are more flammable with warmer 
temperatures if the warmth is not offset by wetter conditions.

"A rule of thumb is that, for every 1 degree Celsius temperature 
increase, you need a 15 percent increase in precipitation to offset the 
drying effects," he said. "In interior Alaska we have seen increases of 
2-3 degrees Celsius over the past 40 years." Precipitation has not 
increased enough to offset the warming, so fire conditions are 
worsening, he said.
Chart: Arctic Wildfire Emissions Spike 
https://insideclimatenews.org/sites/default/files/styles/icn_centered_medium/public/alaska-temps-070819_nasa-earth-observatory.png?itok=1hJ0q3Bk

A European climate-monitoring satellite this week confirmed that the 
recent levels of smoke emissions and fire intensity in Alaska and 
throughout the Arctic were unprecedented for June, said Mark Parrington, 
a senior scientist with the ECMWF and Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring 
Service.

Reinforcing the link between extreme heat and wildfires, the Copernicus 
monitoring shows that the June wildfires in Siberia started burning in a 
region that was a global hotspot at the time--during Earth's warmest 
June on record, Parrington said.

"I am concerned about how bad it can potentially get in terms of the 
size of the fires and the impact of smoke pollution in the Arctic, which 
is often thought of as a remote and pristine environment," Parrington 
said. "We know that the Arctic climate has been changing at a much 
faster rate than the rest of the world, and it is worrying to think that 
we could now be witnessing the effect of this directly in the Arctic 
Circle."
New Threats to Alaska & Places Not Used to Fires

Several recent studies have shown serious health risks from wildfire 
smoke that increasingly hangs in noxious shrouds over fire-prone regions 
like Southern Alaska...
- -
"We passed a million acres, and the potential for continued extreme fire 
activity will be sticking with us for the foreseeable future," Rupp 
said. "Fairbanks in particular is surrounded by fire, and residents are 
dealing with the worst air quality anywhere on the globe. That is likely 
not to change for some time."
Around the world, global warming has clearly contributed to an increase 
in extreme fires in most biomes, from tropical rainforests to boreal 
evergreen forests, and they are often linked with heat waves, said 
University of Tasmania fire geographer David Bowman.
That poses new fire threats to places that aren't used to seeing much 
fire at all, including temperate mid-latitude forests near regions with 
dense populations, as shown by unusual wildfires in places like Germany 
during last summer's European heat wave and drought.
"We crossed the line in the last few years," said Bowman. "It's hard to 
keep pace with the growth of unusually extreme fires burning across 
South America, Australia and western North America. Fires are starting 
to burn more in places with vegetation that isn't by nature highly 
combustible."
Bowman analyzed the growth of Earth's most intense fires between 2002 
and 2013 in a study showing a close link between disastrous fires and 
extreme droughts and heat waves. It projected that the number of days 
conducive to extreme fires would increase by 20 to 50 percent globally 
by mid-century.*
*
*Oceans Heat, Sea Ice--It's all Connected*
It's not only land areas that are heating up. The ocean around Alaska 
has also been running a fever for months, and it's all connected.

Summer ocean heat waves contribute land heat waves; in the fall, warmer 
ocean and land temperatures delay the freeze-up of ice near the shore, 
which leads to even more heat buildup in the ocean, part of the death 
spiral of the Arctic climate system as we know it, now headed toward an 
uncertain future, according to scientists.

The changes in ocean temperatures and sea ice extent likely represent a 
climate shift for Alaska, said Rick Thoman, with the International 
Arctic Research Center.

"But there's no reason to think that we're at a new equilibrium," he 
said. He likens it to a five-year-old on an escalator: "The climate will 
likely feature big swings all the while trending up. Sure, the 5-year 
can run up or down and so get to the top faster or slower, but in the 
end the escalator 'wins.'"
Rick Thoman Tweet on Alaska temperature trends

More directly, the warm ocean temperatures have resulted in significant 
die-offs of large numbers of animals in Western Alaska, Thoman said. The 
reports of dead fish, marine mammals and birds are piling up on the 
Local Environmental Observer network, a citizen science database that 
helps resource agencies track impacts in far-flung locations across the 
vast state.

Kotzebue, a coastal town in Northwestern Alaska, has reported above 
average temperatures for more than 112 days in a row, and there's no 
doubt warm ocean waters are influencing those readings, said Mark 
Serreze, director of the National Snow and Ice Data Center.

"It's a two-way street. Fires are linked to warming, but fires also 
deposit dark soot on the ocean and hastens sea ice melt. Fire also 
alters landscape to hasten thaw of permafrost. And the permafrost is not 
coming back," he said.

Thoman added, "In many areas, it is clear we've crossed thresholds and 
the change is abrupt, for example multiple aspects (extent, thickness, 
volume) of sea ice. Given the amount of heat going into the ocean, it's 
not physically reasonable to expect the system to 'go back' for any 
length of time."
Blows to Universities & Alaskan Ways of Life

The spiraling cycle of climate impacts is bad enough, but Alaska is also 
facing a political attack on its science institutions, said Uma Bhatt, 
chair of the atmospheric sciences department at the University of Alaska 
Fairbanks. Gov. Mike Dunleavy's budget battle with the state legislature 
could result in big cuts to university funding, including climate research.

"What keeps me up at night is that the climate problem is a complex 
problem. It's not just a science problem, it's a social problem and a 
political problem," Bhatt said. "I should be doing climate research 
rather than worrying about whether the university will be standing."

Concerns about climate change impacts are growing in the state, she said.

"I talk to a lot of people in rural areas, and they are concerned about 
how ecosystem services are changing. There is a notable population in 
Alaska who live a subsistence lifestyle, hunting and fishing, and that 
is changing. It's changing fast, within a generation, so the knowledge 
about things like hunting in the coastal ice will have to shift very 
quickly," she said.

Even if people and communities can at least partly adapt, some things 
will disappear forever.
"You can never get back that plants and animals that will go extinct 
because of global warming," she said.
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/11072019/arctic-wildfires-alaska-climate-change-heat-wave-2019-university-funding
- - -
[from WILDFIRE TODAY]
*Wildfires produce heavy smoke in Alaska, Canada, and the Midwest*
Wildfires in Alaska and Ontario are creating large quantities of smoke 
that is affecting not only those areas but Yukon, British Columbia, 
Quebec, Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and the Midwestern states. Tuesday 
morning the smoke is unusually noticeable in Milwaukee, Grand Rapids, 
Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland, and Toronto.

The NOAA map above shows the extent of smoke at 6:48 a.m. MDT July 9. 
The one below produced by the Canadian government is the forecast for 6 
p.m. MDT July 10 but only covers the area within the black border.
map: 
https://i0.wp.com/wildfiretoday.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/US_Smoke_648amMDT_7-9.jpg?ssl=1
https://wildfiretoday.com/2019/07/09/wildfires-produce-heavy-smoke-in-alaska-canada-and-the-midwest/
- - -
[GIZMODO report]
*Alaska's Wildfire Season Is Exploding, Spreading Smoke Across the State*
Maddie Stone
Historic, record-breaking heat isn't the only environmental malaise 
that's gripped Alaska this summer. So has wildfire smoke.

An incredible satellite image taken on July 8 shows smoke spreading far 
and wide across Alaska as a spate of hot, dry weather causes the state's 
wildfire season to kick into high gear. Dense smoke advisories and red 
flag fire warnings are currently in effect across interior Alaska and on 
the Kenai Peninsula, while concentrations of particulate matter, which 
can lodge in the lungs and cause breathing problems, have surged to 
dangerous levels around Fairbanks and surrounding communities. Alaska 
Center for Climate Assessment and Policy climatologist Rick Thoman, 
who's based in Fairbanks, said that visibility is currently about a mile 
and described the air quality as "terrible," noting that one air quality 
station notched a particulate matter reading of over 700 this morning. 
Levels over 250 are considered hazardous to human health.

"You can look right at the Sun and it's that blood orange color" Thoman 
said.
All the smoke is the result of an explosive intensification of Alaska's 
wildfire season over the past week. Between July 3 and 10, more than 
600,000 acres burned statewide, more than doubling the year-to-date burn 
total which now sits at 1.28 million acres. And it's only July 10. 
Thoman said he'd give it a 50-50 chance that the state crosses the 
2-million-acre-burned threshold by the end of the year, and he wouldn't 
rule out a 3-million-acre year, which would place 2019 among the top 
fire seasons on record.

"It is now unquestionably a big [fire] year," Thoman said.
[Graph of cumulative acreage burned 
https://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/s--QYM4nlP9--/c_scale,f_auto,fl_progressive,q_80,w_800/bkaeqb49jc850fs00jtp.png]
The 41 large fires the National Interagency Fire Center is currently 
tracking in Alaska include the Swan Lake fire south of Anchorage, which 
has topped 100,000 acres in size but is getting closer to containment, 
and the Hess Creek fire northwest of Fairbanks, now the largest fire in 
the U.S. at over 149,000 acres. Sparked by lightning on June 21, the 
fire has expanded dramatically on the heels of the last week's hot 
weather and remains entirely out of control.

These fires and many others are being fueled by a week of 
record-shattering heat, which, after the second-warmest June in Alaska's 
history, has turned much of interior and southern part of the state into 
a tinderbox. Merritt Turetsky, a fire ecologist at the University of 
Guelph who studies the ecosystems Alaska and northern Canada, explained 
that very warm, dry weather following a period of "pretty ample 
lightning activity" has created the ideal conditions for fire to spread. 
And even though temperatures are forecast to fall from record-breaking 
levels back to simply warm by late week, Turetsky expects the extreme 
fire activity will persist--in part because of deeper layers of the 
forest floor have become very dry.

"Because of the intense heat wave we've had, those deep duff layers 
[layers of moss and lichen] are now dry," Turetsky said. "It's going to 
take significant rainfall to wet those layers up. And I think it's 
pretty unlikely to happen."
Thoman also wasn't optimistic about the fire season letting up soon.

"The heat wave in south Alaska is breaking and temperatures will likely 
tail off a bit in the interior with more thundershowers expected, but 
we're going from much above normal to above normal," he said. "And with 
the return of thunderstorms and the ground very dry, the fuels are very 
receptive [to burning]. The fear is that things will get much worse 
before they get better."

Alaska has always had big fire seasons, but with climate change turning 
up the heat on the state, scientists expect to see more of them. They're 
also worried about the very nature of fire season changing and what it 
could mean for the climate if, say, we start to see more deep-burning 
fires that torch carbon that's been sequestered for thousands of years. 
And Turetsky said, researchers are watching for ecological shifts as 
fire becomes more prevalent in ecosystems that didn't use to burn often, 
like the currently ablaze Kenai Peninsula.

"We know that these large fire seasons and extreme fire weather 
conditions are on the rise," Turetsky said. "This is part of the 
consequence of climate change."
https://earther.gizmodo.com/alaskas-wildfire-season-is-exploding-spreading-smoke-a-1836244513


[From Mother Jones magazine]
*It's the End of the World as They Know It*
The distinct burden of being a climate scientist
Story by David Corn - July 8, 2019
- - -
It's hardly surprising that researchers who spend their lives exploring 
the dire effects of climate change might experience emotional 
consequences from their work. Yet, increasingly, Cobb, Shukla, and 
others in the field have begun publicly discussing the psychological 
impact of contending with data pointing to a looming catastrophe, 
dealing with denialism and attacks on science, and observing government 
inaction in the face of climate change. "Scientists are talking about an 
intense mix of emotions right now," says Christine Arena, executive 
producer of the docuseries Let Science Speak, which featured climate 
researchers speaking out against efforts to silence or ignore science. 
"There's deep grief and anxiety for what's being lost, followed by rage 
at continued political inaction, and finally hope that we can indeed 
solve this challenge. There are definitely tears and trembling voices. 
They know this deep truth: They are on the front lines of contending 
with the fear, anger, and perhaps even panic the rest of us will have to 
deal with."...

While Americans feel "an increasing alarm" about climate change, 
according to a survey conducted by the Yale Program on Climate Change 
Communication, scientists have been coping with this troubling data for 
decades--and the grinding emotional effects from that research are 
another cost of global warming that the public has yet to fully 
confront. Before you ask, there is no scientific consensus regarding the 
impact of climate research on the scientists performing it. It hasn't 
been studied in a systematic way. ...

But in a single study, two years ago, Lesley Head and Theresa Harada, 
two geography scientists in Australia, published a paper examining 
"emotional management strategies" used by a sample of Australian climate 
scientists. Head and Harada found that daily immersion in the subject 
caused anxiety for the scientists, exacerbated by the difficulty of 
"protecting the psyche from the subject matter of climate change." The 
scientists' thinking was more often "pessimistic than optimistic," and 
they tended to use "diverse distancing practices" to "separate 
themselves from emotions." They generally said they enjoyed their work, 
but Head notes that "it's hard to imagine it's not something that could 
cause manifestations down the track. For the most part, these academics 
are well-established in their jobs and already have demonstrated 
resilience in a competitive system. But you can't help but wonder what 
the burden is doing to people that may or may not be visible."

Are scientists, then, canaries in a psychological coal mine? Is 
understanding their grief important because their anxiety could become 
more widespread within the general population? "That's why," Head 
explains, "I chose them as a research sample."

Put another way, climate scientists often resemble Sarah Connor of the 
Terminator franchise, who knows of a looming catastrophe but must 
struggle to function in a world that does not comprehend what is coming 
and, worse, largely ignores the warnings of those who do. "An accurate 
representation" of the Connor comparison, one scientist darkly notes, 
"would have more crying and wine."...
- - -
"I'm always thinking about it," he says. "That can be a burden. Whenever 
friends talk about flying off to vacation, I feel compelled to point out 
the large carbon cost to flying. I'd like to take a vacation from 
thinking about it. I'm not sure that is psychologically possible."...
- - -
Sarah Myhre, a former senior research associate at the University of 
Washington's School of Oceanography, experiences "a profound level of 
grief on a daily basis because of the scale of the crisis that is 
coming, and I feel I'm doing all I can but it's not enough," she says. 
"I don't have clinical depression. I have anxiety exacerbated by the 
constant background of doom and gloom of science. It's not stopping me 
from doing my work, but it's an impediment." She tried anti-anxiety 
medication, which didn't improve things, so she cut back on caffeine. 
She tries not to think too much about the future that awaits her 
five-year-old son....
- - -
Jacquelyn Gill, a paleontologist at the University of Maine who co-hosts 
a podcast on climate change called Warm Regards, says she's "not 
depressed but angry, all the time, and anger can be empowering or 
debilitating. I swing between both. Being constantly angry is 
exhausting." But, she adds, it takes a certain resilience to be a 
scientist in America: "There are so few jobs, so few grants. You're 
always dealing with rejection. You have to have a built-in ability to 
say 'fuck it.'"...
- - -
Katharine Wilkinson, who has a Ph.D. in geography and the environment, 
is vice president for communication and engagement at Project Drawdown, 
a group of scientists and activists that assembles proposed climate 
change solutions. She makes a distinction between denialism and 
bystanderism, which takes the form of people saying "they care about it" 
but not engaging in meaningful action: "That's when I want to shake 
people and say, 'You know how little time we have?'" She has noticed 
that almost everyone in her line of work seems "to have one dark emotion 
that is dominant. For some, it's anger or rage. For me, it's deep 
grief--having eyes wide open to what is playing out in our world, and we 
have a lukewarm response to it. There is no way for me not to have a 
broken heart most days."

For several years, Eric Holthaus, a meteorologist-turned journalist, has 
written about his own efforts to contend with climate change–induced 
depression. "I lose sleep over climate change almost every single 
night," he wrote last year. "I can't remember how long this has been 
happening, but it's been quite a while, and it's only getting worse. I 
confess: I need help." Holthaus went to see a counselor and, as he put 
it, the therapist "seemed unprepared for my emotional crisis. His simple 
advice was, 'Do what you can.'"...
- - -
  She finds it painful to watch "scientific colleagues standing on the 
sidelines being silent" and not participating in the political fray over 
climate change. With her expertise undervalued generally, she observes, 
"I feel like I'm walking around in an isolation chamber." Kalmus notes 
that when he moved into climate change science, "I felt totally 
alienated from the people around me. My parents didn't get it. My 
friends didn't want to talk about it. Other graduate students didn't 
want to talk about it…It was a very weird disconnected feeling." About a 
year ago, Shukla and her partner decided not to have children out of a 
concern about contributing to climate change. "I feel uncomfortable 
discussing this with colleagues," she says. "It seems nihilistic." She 
avoids conversations in which she might have to explain this decision, 
which further exacerbates her "sense of isolation."...
- - -
"I still haven't figured out a good venue for talking about this. 
Scientists are not trained to discuss how data makes us feel. They are 
trained to quantify and evaluate and communicate it with clarity to our 
colleagues." Perhaps scientists discussing their distress is a good 
first step: "Once we figure out how to talk about this with each other, 
maybe we can figure out how best to talk to the public. To pretend we 
are Vulcans without emotions and are perfect machines makes the problem 
worse."

Are these scientists experiencing the Cassandra Dilemma: seeing the 
potential calamity ahead yet not being heeded by much of society? That 
could certainly throw anyone into a psychological tailspin and cause 
them to wonder, what's the damn point? Yet Cobb notes the goal is to 
avoid such despair: "The way I see it, my role is to provide hope…And 
right before folks decide whether they're going to care or not, whether 
it's worth the fight…they will likely look to those of us who were 
proven correct, who have always had their facts straight."
But the despair experienced by some scientists might have a benefit. 
"More scientists are bringing their emotions and hearts to the forefront 
of their work--getting bolder, more impassioned, more provocative," says 
Christine Arena, the producer of the docuseries on climate change. "In a 
way, this collective grief is making their outreach more effective."

Katharine Wilkinson points out, "Right now, we prioritize technical 
training in science and policy. But the tools of the trade will become 
increasingly emotional and psychological." At a recent panel discussion, 
she recalls, she blurted out, "I have no child and I have one dog, and 
thank god he'll be dead in 10 years." Afterward, people asked Wilkinson 
if she truly believed that. "The truth is, I do," she says. "And it's 
only going to get more intense--the emotional nature of this work--as 
climate change happens and the necessary actions become more urgent."
https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2019/07/weight-of-the-world-climate-change-scientist-grief/



*This Day in Climate History - July 12, 2013- from D.R. Tucker*
July 12, 2013: USA Today reports:

    "U.S. energy supplies will likely face more severe disruptions
    because of climate change and extreme weather, which have already
    caused blackouts and lowered production at power plants, a
    government report warned Thursday.

    "What's driving these vulnerabilities? Rising temperatures, up 1.5
    degrees Fahrenheit in the last century, and the resulting sea level
    rise, which are accompanied by drought, heat waves, storms and
    wildfires, according to the U.S. Department of Energy."

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/07/11/climate-change-energy-disruptions/2508789/
/-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------/

/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.