[TheClimate.Vote] July 26, 2019 - Daily Global Warming News Digest
Richard Pauli
richard at theclimate.vote
Fri Jul 26 11:24:31 EDT 2019
/July 26, 2019/
[Europe heat]
*108 degrees in Paris: Europe is shattering heat records this week*
Paris reported its highest temperature ever this week as Europe's second
major heat wave of the summer continues.
https://www.vox.com/2019/7/25/8930325/europe-heat-wave-france-uk-paris-germany-record
- - -
*Paris hits 109 degrees in record-breaking heat wave*
CBS Evening News
Published on Jul 25, 2019
Europe is in the middle of a life-threatening heat wave. Temperatures
hit 99 degrees in London and Paris hit 109 degrees, the highest
temperature ever recorded there. But the French capital is not prepared
for the extreme heat. Ian Lee reports from Paris.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WPO6ZNA9ekQ
[Check reality]
*Automakers, Rejecting Trump Pollution Rule, Strike a Deal With California*
WASHINGTON -- Four of the world's largest automakers have struck a deal
with California to reduce automobile emissions, siding with the state,
and against President Trump, in a bitter fight over one of the
president's most consequential regulatory rollbacks.
In coming weeks, the Trump administration is expected to all but
eliminate a signature Obama-era regulation designed to reduce vehicle
emissions that contribute to global warming. However, California and 13
other states have vowed to keep enforcing the stricter rules,
potentially splitting the United States auto market in two, with car
companies forced to build different lineups of vehicles for different
states...
- -
Last month, 17 automakers sent a letter to Mr. Trump telling him that
his plan to weaken tailpipe pollution standards threatened to cut their
profits and produce "untenable" instability in a crucial manufacturing
sector. In particular, automakers said they feared a situation in which
they would be forced to sell entirely different kinds of cars in
different states and be subject to fines and litigation if consumers
crossed state lines to buy gas-guzzling SUVs that were legal in some
states but not others.
In response, a White House spokesman put the blame on California, saying
the state "failed to put forward a productive alternative."
After that letter, several auto companies approached California
officials asking if they could work together on a separate deal. "It
became clear very quickly that following up on that letter and the lack
of response from the administration that they were ready to sit down
with us," said Mary D. Nichols, California's top clean air official.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/25/climate/automakers-rejecting-trump-pollution-rule-strike-a-deal-with-california.html
[Follow the money]
*Moody's Buys Climate Data Firm, Signaling New Scrutiny of Climate Risks*
Moody's Corporation has purchased a controlling stake in a firm that
measures the physical risks of climate change, the latest indication
that global warming can threaten the creditworthiness of governments and
companies around the world.
The rating agency bought a majority share in Four Twenty Seven, a
California-based company that measures a range of hazards, including
extreme rainfall, hurricanes, heat stress and sea level rise, and tracks
their impact on 2,000 companies and 196 countries. In the United States,
the data covers 761 cities and more than 3,000 counties.
"We are taking these risks very seriously," said Myriam Durand, global
head of assessments at Moody's Investors Service, who said the purchase
would allow its credit analysts to be more precise in their review of
climate related risks. "You can't mitigate what you don't understand."
The purchase is the latest in a series of moves by rating agencies to
better account for the effects of climate change on the ability of
governments to pay back the money they borrow by issuing bonds. Global
warming can threaten that ability in a variety of ways...
- - -
There are steps that officials can take to cut their odds of climate
related downgrades. Moody's has said that cities and counties with plans
for reducing their exposure to climate risks, by updating their
infrastructure for example, could see their ratings improve as a result,
or at least not deteriorate.
The result could be a spur to action for cities and counties that have
so far overlooked the risks of climate change, according to Jesse
Keenan, a faculty member at Harvard's Graduate School of Design who
advises governments on climate adaptation. He said the data produced by
Four Twenty Seven can help governments know what steps are most likely
to reduce the physical risks associated with climate change.
Still, some cities face climate threats so severe that there's not much
they can do to alleviate it, said Mr. Stern, of Breckinridge. The
looming problem for rating agencies, and for investors in general, is
what to do then.
"How do you deal with an issuer that is doing everything you would think
they should be doing, but nonetheless has a long-term risk profile such
that the die may be cast?" Mr. Stern asked. "The market is nowhere near
being able to price those risks."
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/24/climate/moodys-ratings-climate-change-data.html
[Suffer... or take arms against a Sea of Troubles]
*The Action Bias and The Human Condition: The role of contemplation*
Stanford
Published on Jul 25, 2019
Professor Vermeule will discuss the benefits of both action and
contemplation which is the topic of her recent book, Action versus
Contemplation: Why an Ancient Debate Still Matters. The publisher,
University of Chicago Books, states that the book "reminds us of the
richness of a life that embraces action and contemplation, company and
solitude, living in the moment and planning for the future. The active
and the contemplative can--and should--be vibrantly alive in each of us,
fused rather than sundered. … we can discover how the two can nourish,
invigorate, and give meaning to each other, as they have for the many
writers, artists, and thinkers, past and present, whose examples give
the book its rich, lively texture of interplay and reference."
Instructor: Blakey Vermeule, Ph.D., is the Chair of the Department of
English at Stanford. She has written three books in literature and
philosophy, which is her intellectual passion. A New Englander, she
moved to California for graduate school.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0LvzYOnm1HQ
[Sermon for the Extinction Rebellion]
*This is Not a Drill - Missives from XR - Rev Karen G Johnston |
Extinction Rebellion*
Extinction Rebellion
Published on Jul 25, 2019
Bad news is accelerating on the climate crisis front. Also accelerating
are new movements in response. The Sunrise Movement here in the U.S. The
global student strike movement started by Swedish Greta Thunberg.
Extinction Rebellion, which started in the UK in October, 2018 and is
already world-wide. Just a month ago, they published a handbook, from
which this sermon takes its title.
Video rebroadcast courtesy of Unitarian Universalist Congregation of
Santa Fe https://www.uusantafe.org/
Reverend Karen G. Johnston https://www.uua.org/offices/people/ka... is
the settled minister at The Unitarian Society in East Brunswick, New
Jersey. She grew up in Oregon, raised her children in Western
Massachusetts, and now lives with her partner, dog, and cat in Central
Jersey.
"This is Not a Drill"
https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/314/314671/this-is-not-a-drill/9780141991443.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lR7J7kIUqGs
[Traumas of weather events]
*MENTAL TOLL OF CLIMATE CHANGE HITS WOMEN 60% MORE*
By Stephen Starr
WHY YOU SHOULD CARE
Because it's one thing to lose cities and lakes to a warming planet, and
something else entirely to lose your mind to it.
- - -
IN FACT, AMERICAN WOMEN ARE 60 PERCENT MORE LIKELY THAN MEN TO SUFFER
FROM MENTAL ILLNESSES BECAUSE OF CLIMATE CHANGE...
https://www.ozy.com/acumen/mental-toll-of-climate-change-hits-women-60-more/94796
[Woman scientist speaks out]
*I'm a scientist. Under Trump I lost my job for refusing to hide climate
crisis facts*
Maria Caffrey
I was a climate scientist in a climate-denying administration - and it
cost me my job
The Trump administration's hostility towards climate science is not new.
Interior climate staffer Joel Clement's reassignment and the blocking of
intelligence aide Rod Schoonover's climate testimony, which forced both
federal employees to resign in protest, are just two of the innumerable
examples. These attempts to suppress climate science can manifest
themselves in many ways. It starts with burying important climate
reports and becomes something more insidious like stopping climate
scientists from doing their jobs. In February 2019, I lost my job
because I was a climate scientist in a climate-denying administration.
And yet my story is no longer unique.
This is why on 22 July I filed a whistleblower complaint against the
Trump administration. But this is not the only part to my story; I will
also speak to Congress on 25 July about my treatment and the need for
stronger scientific integrity protections.
I have worked at the National Park Service (NPS) for a total of eight
years. I started out as an intern during the Bush administration, where
I experienced nothing like this. I returned in 2012 after earning my
PhD, when the NPS funded a project I designed to provide future sea
level and storm surge estimates for 118 coastal parks under different
greenhouse gas emissions scenarios. This kind of information is crucial
in order for the NPS to adequately protect coastal parks against the
future effects of the climate crisis.
I handed in the first draft of my scientific report in the summer of
2016 and, after the standard rigorous scientific peer review process, it
was ready for release in early 2017. But once the new administration
came into power, publication was repeatedly delayed, with increasingly
vague explanations from my supervisors. So for months, I waited. And
waited. I was still waiting when I went on maternity leave almost a year
later in December 2017.
It was while I was on leave that I received an email from another
climate scientist at the NPS who warned me that the senior leadership
was ordering changes to my report without my knowledge. They had
scrubbed of any mention of the human causes of the climate crisis. This
was not normal editorial adjustment. This was climate science denial.
A months-long battle ensued. Senior NPS officials tried repeatedly,
often aggressively, to coerce me into deleting references to the human
causes of the climate crisis from the report. They threatened to make
the deletions without my approval if I would not agree, to release the
report without naming me as the primary author, or not release it all.
Each option would have been devastating to my career and for scientific
integrity. I stood firm.
And I prevailed. Media inquiries and open records requests about my
report eventually led to letters from members of Congress, and the NPS
was essentially forced to publish my report as I had written it.
The NPS continued to retaliate against me. I was forced to accept pay
cuts and demotions while I continued to lead several other projects. By
February of this year, the NPS declined to renew my funding, despite
common knowledge that my branch at the time had ample surplus funding.
When I received this news, my immediate supervisors, who wished for me
to stay, asked me to apply to be a volunteer so that I could continue my
work. My volunteer application was denied without explanation. If there
was any question about whether my termination had to do with legitimate
budget constraints or with punishing me for not altering my report to
suit the Trump administration's agenda, that answered it.
Politics has no place in science. I am an example of the less discussed
methods the administration is using to destroy scientific research. I
wasn't fired and immediately told to leave; instead they sought
retribution by discretely using governmental bureaucracy to apply
pressure and gradually cut funding. I have been cut off from projects
that I created and was working on, including one that would have
provided the public with a valuable interactive way to see for
themselves how sea level rise will impact our parks. This is why we need
to support stronger protections for scientists.
Ultimately it will be the taxpayers who will pay the true price for our
apathy towards these violations. It will become progressively costlier
to alter our infrastructure to accommodate the incoming tides. And we
will watch as our historic structures are swallowed by the sea. As these
things are happening, remember that there were probably multiple
scientists like me who warned of these dangers but were silenced. The
current administration may only last a matter of years, but its actions
may potentially impact our planet for centuries.
Dr Maria Caffrey is a climate scientist who formerly worked in the
National Park Service Natural Resource Stewardship and Science
Directorate. She currently resides in Denver, Colorado
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jul/25/trump-administration-climate-crisis-denying-scientist
[Who is Jay Inslee?]
*Jay Inslee Reveals Number One Priority: Global Warming*
Be Less Stupid
Published on Jul 25, 2019
Jay Inslee is the governor of Washington State as well as a democratic
candidate for U.S. President who believes the number one issue facing
voters is Climate Change. He is polling at less than 1% and has raised
just $5 million dollars.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y6qB9zHH7ZI
*This Day in Climate History - July 26, 2015- from D.R. Tucker*
July 26, 2015: Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton
releases a campaign commercial directly calling out climate deniers and
laying out a bold vision for a clean-energy future.
http://climatecrocks.com/2015/07/26/clinton-campaign-video-make-america-the-clean-energy-superpower/
http://www.latimes.com/nation/politics/la-na-hillary-clinton-climate-policy-20150726-story.html
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2015/07/26/3684585/hillary-clintons-climate-plan-released/
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