[TheClimate.Vote] March 4, 2019 - Daily Global Warming News Digest
Richard Pauli
richard at theclimate.vote
Mon Mar 4 09:37:36 EST 2019
/March 4, 2019/
[A very important 60 Minutes video segment - 16 mins]
*The climate change lawsuit that could stop the U.S. government from
supporting fossil fuels*
A lawsuit filed on behalf of 21 kids alleges the U.S. government
knowingly failed to protect them from climate change. If the plaintiffs
win, it could mean massive changes for the use of fossil fuels...
Mar 03 2019 - CORRESPONDENT Steve Kroft
Of all the cases working their way through the federal court system none
is more interesting or potentially more life changing than Juliana v.
United States. To quote one federal judge, "This is no ordinary
lawsuit." It was filed back in 2015 on behalf of a group of kids who are
trying to get the courts to block the U.S. government from continuing
the use of fossil fuels. They say it's causing climate change,
endangering their future and violating their constitutional rights to
life, liberty and property. When the lawsuit began hardly anyone took it
seriously, including the government's lawyers, who have since watched
the Supreme Court reject two of their motions to delay or dismiss the
case. Four years in, it is still very much alive, in part because the
plaintiffs have amassed a body of evidence that will surprise even the
skeptics and have forced the government to admit that the crisis is real.
- - -
Steve Kroft: Did they take this case seriously when you filed it?
Julia Olson: I think in the beginning they thought they could very
quickly get the case dismissed.
In November 2016, a federal judge stunned the government by denying its
motion to dismiss the case and ruling it could proceed to trial. In what
may become a landmark decision, Judge Ann Aiken wrote, "Exercising my
reasoned judgment, I have no doubt that the right to a climate system
capable of sustaining human life is fundamental to a free and ordered
society."
Steve Kroft: A federal judge ever said that before?
Julia Olson: No judge had ever written that before.
The opinion was groundbreaking because the courts have never recognized
a constitutional right to a stable climate.
Ann Carlson: That's a big stretch for a court.
Ann Carlson is a professor of environmental law at UCLA. Like almost
everyone else in the legal community, she was certain the case was doomed.
Ann Carlson: There's no constitutional provision that says the that
environment should be protected.
Steve Kroft: Why is the idea that the people of the United States have a
right to a stable environment such a radical idea?
Ann Carlson: Well, I think that Judge Aiken actually does a very good
job of saying it's not radical to ask the government to protect the
health, and the lives and the property of this current generation of
kids. Look, If you can't have your life protected by government policies
that save the planet, then what's the point of having a Constitution?
Steve Kroft: How significant is this case?
Ann Carlson: Well, if the plaintiffs won, it'd be massive, particularly
if they won what they're asking for, which is get the federal government
out of the business of in any way subsidizing fossil fuels and get them
into the business of dramatically curtailing greenhouse gases in order
to protect the children who are the plaintiffs in order to create a safe
climate. That would be enormous.
So enormous that the Trump administration, which is now defending the
case, has done everything it can to keep the trial from going forward.
It's appealed Judge Aiken's decision three times to the ninth circuit
court in California and twice to the Supreme Court. Each time it's failed.
Julia Olson: They don't want it to go to trial.
Steve Kroft: Why?
Julia Olson: Because they will lose on the evidence that will be
presented at trial.
Steve Kroft: And that's why they don't want one.
Julia Olson: That's why they don't want one. They know that once you
enter that courtroom and your witnesses take the oath to tell the truth
and nothing but the truth the facts are the facts and alternative facts
are perjury. And so, all of these claims and tweets about climate change
not being real, that doesn't hold up in a court of law...
- - -
Steve Kroft: Why is the federal government responsible for global
warming? I mean it doesn't produce any carbon dioxide. How are they
causing it?
Julia Olson: They're causing it through their actions of subsidizing the
fossil fuel energy system, permitting every aspect of our fossil fuel
energy system, and by allowing for extraction of fossil fuels from our
federal public lands. We are the largest oil and gas producer in the
world now because of decisions our federal government has made.
- -
Steve Kroft: Why is the federal government responsible for global
warming? I mean it doesn't produce any carbon dioxide. How are they
causing it?
Julia Olson: They're causing it through their actions of subsidizing the
fossil fuel energy system, permitting every aspect of our fossil fuel
energy system, and by allowing for extraction of fossil fuels from our
federal public lands. We are the largest oil and gas producer in the
world now because of decisions our federal government has made...
- - -
For the foreseeable future, it's impossible to predict when and how the
storms and the lawsuit are likely to end...
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/juliana-versus-united-states-the-climate-change-lawsuit-that-could-stop-the-u-s-government-from-supporting-fossil-fuels-60-minutes/
[AOC says: "delayer"]
*Could 'climate delayer' become the political epithet of our times?*
Already we argue over whether to call them climate deniers, skeptics or
doubters. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez might have hit on a more devastating
attack...
- - -
But is there a way of using name-calling, not just to insult, but to
introduce a new political idea. It seemed like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
was doing that this week when she used the term "climate delayer" to
call out those dragging their feet on climate change.
Ocasio-Cortez used the term to describe Senator Dianne Feinstein, who
was filmed telling a bunch of children that when it comes to the looming
apocalypse, she knows better than they do, because she has spent a long
time in the Senate not fixing the problem...
- - -
The term isn't entirely new. "Global warming delayer" appeared on sites
like ThinkProgress more than a decade ago; it appeared in the Guardian
at least as far back as 2011. And out of context, it sounds like a badge
of honor. A climate denier denies climate change, so a climate delayer …
delays it? Like by buying a Prius?
But that's getting into the weeds: we should celebrate the phrase's
emergence in mainstream political debate. Trump's political success has
proven that a label can be as effective as a thousand nuanced arguments.
Sure, "Delayin' Feinstein" might not have quite the same ring as "Lyin'
Ted", but it's getting there. And given the scale of the issue, we badly
need an arsenal of labels for people standing in the way of climate
progress...
- - -
And yet none of these labels have managed to target a fundamental
obstacle to climate change action: powerful people who profess to
understand climate change, yet are curiously immobile on the issue.
Perhaps the popularization of "delayer" will finally put the pressure
on. When it comes to politically productive name-calling, it's a lot
snappier to dismiss someone as a "climate delayer" than to chastise them
as a "person who apparently believes the science but is unwilling to
acknowledge the urgency of the situation".
It's worth noting in all this that the very phrase "climate change" is
mired in labelling warfare. As anyone who has seen the movie Vice knows,
the Republican pollster Frank Luntz encouraged the George W Bush
administration to use the phrase "climate change" rather than "global
warming". Yale researchers recount a secret memo in which he pointed out
that a focus group participant felt "climate change 'sounds like you're
going from Pittsburgh to Fort Lauderdale'," whereas "global warming has
catastrophic connotations". Perhaps if we'd all stuck with "global
warming" – or even tried "global heating" – concern would have grown faster.
Luntz knows messaging: he turned the estate tax into the "death tax" and
health reform into a "government takeover" of healthcare. Fortunately in
Ocasio-Cortez, it seems the left has a messaging expert of its own. And
whether denier or delayer, she points out, "if they get their way, we're
toast".
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/mar/01/could-climate-delayer-become-the-political-epithet-of-our-times
[Saturday Night Live - satirical video]
*Cut for Time: Dianne Feinstein Message - SNL*
Saturday Night Live
Published on Mar 2, 2019
Senator Dianne Feinstein (Cecily Strong) responds to footage of her
arguing with school children about climate change with a special
campaign message.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kP_iVlEyp5M
[NYTimes shares some very impressive motion graphics]
*Teach About Climate Change With These 24 New York Times Graphs*
NOTE: Join us for our free webinar about teaching with graphs from The
New York Times. Date: Wednesday, March 20 at 4 p.m. Eastern Time.
Register here.
Part I: *Strategies for Teaching With Graphs*
Each week in "What's Going On in This Graph?," we spotlight an engaging
graph previously published elsewhere in The Times and pair it with a
simple set of questions: What do you notice? What do you wonder? What do
you think is going on in this graph? On Wednesdays, teachers from the
American Statistical Association provide live facilitation in our
comments section to respond to students as they post analyses and
consider what story the graph is telling.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/28/learning/teach-about-climate-change-with-these-24-new-york-times-graphs.html
[so what is the minimum number?]
*Humans cause climate change. Do we just need fewer humans?*
By Eve Andrews on Feb 28, 2019
- -
Talking about population as the primary cause of climate change is
like talking about food as the primary cause of obesity. You can't have
obesity without food. (I mean, you can't survive long enough to be obese
without food.) But it's not always the primary cause of obesity. There's
also systemic lack of access to healthy food, poor quality healthcare,
genetic illness, and even environmental factors.
Simply limiting food without addressing any of the other factors doesn't
guarantee an improvement in the overall health of the person who is
obese. Similarly, narrowly focusing on population without making
incredible efforts to reduce our consumption and improve our technology
is irresponsible...
https://grist.org/article/humans-cause-climate-change-do-we-just-need-fewer-humans/
[pay attention, follow the money, notice interest]
*The P.G. & E. Bankruptcy and the Coming Climate-Related Business Failures*
By Sheelah Kolhatkar - February 26, 2019
"Global risks are intensifying but the collective will to tackle them
appears to be lacking."
The same week, as if to illustrate the point, the California-based
utility company Pacific Gas and Electric (P.G. & E.) announced that it
would be filing for bankruptcy protection as a result of costs related
to recent wildfires in the state. Between June, 2014, and December,
2017, P.G. & E.'s equipment helped start some fifteen hundred fires,
according to an analysis by the Wall Street Journal. Many were caused by
falling trees that toppled power lines, which then threw sparks onto the
surrounding grass and forest. Once the fires started, they spread
rapidly due to the dry condition of the brush, which was partly the
result of droughts that have plagued the state in recent years. The
company had reportedly been working to improve the safety of its
infrastructure for the last few years, including trimming trees that
posed a danger to its power lines, but this effort wasn't enough to
avert disaster. In 2017, seventeen major wildfires in California were
connected to P.G. & E.; the fires destroyed 193,743 acres in eight
counties and led to the deaths of twenty-two people. The fire season of
2018 was worse; the California Department of Forestry and Fire
Protection reported it as the deadliest and most destructive season on
record. P.G. & E. said that it was facing approximately thirty billion
dollars in liabilities as a result of its role in the 2017 and 2018 fires...
- - -
Dozens of other industries will follow suit. Bruce Usher, a professor at
Columbia Business School who studies climate change and investing, told
me that he foresees three kinds of climate-related risks that may cause
companies to fail in the future: physical risks, policy-related risks,
and technological risks. The changing environment may cause damage to
property or facilities owned by companies, or it could fuel lawsuits and
liability payments related to damage caused by companies to others'
property, as was the case with P.G. & E. As governments finally take
action to address climate change, they will likely pass new regulations
limiting fossil fuels and restraining pollution and consumer behavior;
companies, such as those that manufacture cars and gas-burning stoves,
will be forced to adapt...
- - -
If the coming climate-related business crises will have one positive
side effect, it's that acute financial losses are likely to force policy
changes in a way that environmental damage on its own has not. As one
commenter on a recent Wall Street Journal article about P.G. & E. put
it: "When capitalists decide the scientists are right, then the free
market will adjust accordingly." Usher told me that, just ten years ago,
few in the business world understood the scale of the problem and how it
could be addressed. "The science was much less certain about what was
happening and what was forecast to happen. But a decade ago, the policy
arena was much more supportive," Usher said. "Today, a decade on, the
science is much clearer and, frankly, much more sophisticated. The
business and investment community is much more engaged. There is much
more capital flowing, there is much greater technology available: solar,
wind, the rapid expansion of electric vehicles." What is lacking now, he
said, is focus by policymakers in Washington on making changes that
could actually turn things around. "People in this field say, 'We know
what the problem is, and we know how to solve the problem,' " Usher
said. Our politicians, however, "don't have the willingness to do
something. That's where we are."
https://www.newyorker.com/business/currency/the-pg-and-e-bankruptcy-and-the-coming-climate-related-business-failures
[NY Magazine takes a shot]
*A Radically Moderate Answer to Climate Change*
By Andrew Sullivan
- -
What would that kind of revolutionary moderation look like today? That
depends on your take on the world we are living in. My own view is that
this period is unique in human history because it is the first time our
species is on the verge of wiping out most life as it now exists on this
planet. It's the mother of all emergencies. In this context, moderation
is radicalism. Splitting the difference right now between the GOP and
the Democrats on this subject is to guarantee eco-suicide. And since it
is an emergency, gradualism is not, shall we say, optimal. That's why
the Green New Deal has appeal. Its vast ambition is actually well-suited
to the humongous scale of the challenge. When AOC's critics say her idea
is preposterously expensive and unnecessarily socialist (as it is), she
is perfectly right to ask: So what's your alternative?... more at:
http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/03/andrew-sullivan-a-radically-moderate-climate-solution.html
[methane concerns]
*Methane in the atmosphere is surging, and that's got scientists worried*
By JULIA ROSEN
MAR 02, 2019
Scientists love a good mystery. But it's more fun when the future of
humanity isn't at stake.
This enigma involves methane, a potent greenhouse gas. Twenty years ago
the level of methane in the atmosphere stopped increasing, giving
humanity a bit of a break when it came to slowing climate change. But
the concentration started rising again in 2007 -- and it's been picking
up the pace over the last four years, according to new research...
- -
For 10,000 years, the concentration of methane in Earth's atmosphere
hovered below 750 parts per billion, or ppb. It began rising in the 19th
century and continued to climb until the mid-1990s. Along the way, it
caused up to one-third of the warming the planet has experienced since
the onset of the Industrial Revolution.
Scientists thought that methane levels might have reached a new
equilibrium when they plateaued around 1,775 ppb, and that efforts to
cut emissions could soon reverse the historical trend.
"The hope was that methane would be starting on its trajectory downwards
now," said Matt Rigby, an atmospheric scientist at the University of
Bristol in England. "But we've seen quite the opposite: It's been
growing steadily for over a decade."
That growth accelerated in 2014, pushing methane levels up beyond 1,850
ppb. Experts have no idea why.
"It's just such a confusing picture," Rigby said. "Everyone's puzzled.
We're just puzzled."
- -
It doesn't help that scientists recently revised the global warming
potential of methane upward by 14%.
Regardless of what's behind the recent increase, scientists say there
are ways to reduce methane concentrations. And the benefits will accrue
quickly because methane has a shorter lifetime than CO2, lingering in
the atmosphere for only about a decade.
Humans account for as much as 60% of methane emissions, and nearly half
of that may come from the fossil fuel industry, Jacob said....
more at: -
https://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-methane-atmosphere-accelerating-20190301-story.html
- - -
[Gail'S blog is WitsEndNJ]
Saturday, March 2, 2019
*Methane Mania*
When it comes to abrupt climate change, the ominous prospect of massive,
sudden, catastrophic methane release from melting permafrost and
explosive pingos is dramatic and daunting; meanwhile, a more humble but
current source of dangerous intensification is flying under the radar
even as it constitutes a profoundly existential threat.
On the first of March, the LA Times published a story about the recent
accelerating increase of methane in the atmosphere which began to rise,
after a lull, in 2007. Fossil fuel burning and gas leakage results in
"heavy" methane, and the research sought to but could not determine
whether the rising percentage of "light methane" is accounted for by
agricultural practices or natural processes. The scientists were also
unable to conclude whether it could be attributed to a loss of
atmospheric reactions that break down methane, although they do not
believe it is from permafrost melt...
- -
This flurry of concern is due to the alarming fact that if this rise in
methane is not properly identified so that it can be halted and
reversed, there is no way to stay within even the dubious safe limits
for temperature increase outlined in the Paris accords - no matter what
is achieved by way of CO2 reductions - due to the much intensified
impact methane provides as a greenhouse gas.
This research hardly began with that study in Global Biogeochemical
Cycles; Fred Pearce summarized several similar avenues of pursuit in a
2016 e360Yale article which likewise conclude that the increase is due
to microbial emissions as opposed to fossil fuel, biomass burning, or
(so far) permafrost release...
- -
In 2009, in Global Change Biology, the abstract for a study about
ozone's impacts on trees said:
The northern hemisphere temperate and boreal forests currently provide
an important carbon sink; however, current tropospheric ozone
concentrations ([O3]) and [O3] projected for later this century are
damaging to trees and have the potential to reduce the carbon sink
strength of these forests...This implies that a key carbon sink
currently offsetting a significant portion of global fossil fuel CO2
emissions could be diminished or lost in the future.
Between the loss of a critical CO2 sink, and the unmeasured increase of
forest methane emissions, the ongoing massacre of trees will ensure the
6th mass extinction proceeds much faster than even the most dire
expectations. Methane-fueled wildfires will rage...and the scientists
will continue to be puzzled.
https://witsendnj.blogspot.com/2019/03/methane-mania.html
[TheNation - food]
*Climate Change Is Here--and It Looks Like Starvation*
But don't expect to hear about it on the nightly news.
By Ben Ehrenreich - MARCH 1, 2019
- -
Last week, the international NGO CARE published its third annual report
on the world's 10 most-under-reported humanitarian crises. Being a
battleground in the US war on terror still gets you in the news
sometimes, which is likely why Somalia did not rate a mention, but its
neighbor, Ethiopia, received the unwelcome honor of making the list
twice. It held second place for hunger in its east, where the same
drought that hit Somalia two years ago has left more than 3 million
people in need of humanitarian aid, and seventh place for massive
displacement in the south, where violence broke out between pastoral and
agricultural communities last spring. (Throughout the continent, drought
is spurring deadly conflicts between herders and farmers over land
rights.) By the end of the summer, nearly a million people had fled
their homes.
This year, CARE highlighted the fact that almost all of these crises can
be traced in large part to climate change. In Sudan, unpredictable
rainfall has meant "frequent droughts," occasional flooding, and
"extreme hunger." In the island nation of Madagascar, "at the frontline
of climate change," cyclones and drought have put 1.3 million people at
risk of hunger and, according to UNICEF, a staggering 49 percent of the
country's children have been left stunted by malnutrition. In the
Philippines, 2018's fiercest storm, "super-typhoon" Mangkhut, fed by the
heat of the warming oceans, displaced more than a million people. In
Niger, desertification has spurred violence and displacement, just as it
has in Chad, where nearly half the population is now chronically
malnourished. The major source of fresh water in the region, Lake Chad,
has shrunk to one-twentieth the area it once covered. In Haiti it was
drought again, plus three devastating hurricanes over two consecutive
years, leaving nearly 3 million people in need of immediate aid.
The numbers, all those millions upon millions, are abstract. The
realities are not. Imagine a child you cannot comfort, a parent you
cannot save, a lover lost in the confusion, a home you'll never see
again. Imagine all possibilities foreclosed, and then begin multiplying
those imaginings by thousands, and thousands of thousands, and on.
Of course, climate change is far from the only cause of all this
suffering. Infrastructure was already poor or absent, inequality and
instability already profound. All of these crises took shape in a global
economic system in which wealth and resources flow in one
direction--from poor countries to rich ones--and misery flows in the
other. But the droughts and the storms have triggered what Christian
Parenti has called a "catastrophic convergence" in which disasters do
not merely happen simultaneously, but "compound and amplify each other."...
- -
In media as in government, no one is committing anything close to the
resources that the crisis demands. If we are not talking about it, we
cannot begin to understand the scope of what we're up against.
We, living humans of the planet Earth, can no longer afford not to see
one another, and not to listen to each other's cries, shouts, demands.
Our fates have always been linked. Now, they are more than ever. The
failure of the planet's wealthy to act is amputating not only the future
but also the present-tense possibilities of many millions here among us.
https://www.thenation.com/article/climate-change-media-humanitarian-crises/
*This Day in Climate History - March 4, 2001 - from D.R. Tucker*
At an international climate summit in Italy, EPA Administrator Christine
Todd Whitman insists that the Bush administration will take aggressive
action to reduce carbon pollution. (By the end of the month, the Bush
administration would officially disavow the Kyoto Protocol.)
http://edition.cnn.com/2001/WORLD/europe/italy/03/04/environment.climate/
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