[TheClimate.Vote] March 18, 2019 - Daily Global Warming News Digest

Mon Mar 18 09:32:26 EDT 2019

/March 18, 2019/

[click for Images from the Student Strike in NYC]
*Here's What New York's Climate Strike Looked Like*
https://earther.gizmodo.com/heres-what-new-yorks-climate-strike-looked-like-1833320316
- -
[NPR has photos too]
*Photos: Youth Climate Change Demonstrations Across The World*
A youth movement that started with a teenager in Sweden spread across 
the world on Friday, evidenced by the students from London to New Delhi 
who skipped school to take part in demonstrations calling for action on 
climate change.
Sixteen-year-old Greta Thunberg kicked off the movement last summer in 
Sweden, gaining attention when she delivered a powerful speech at the 
United Nations climate summit in December.
This wave of demonstrations saw one of the largest turnouts so far, 
including protesters in almost every state across the U.S., taking part 
in an event organizers called the "U.S. Youth Climate Strike." Strikes 
and demonstrations were scheduled in more than 100 countries and 
territories, including South Africa, India, New Zealand and South Korea. 
In Europe, students marched in Lisbon, Vienna, Rome and Copenhagen, 
among other cities.
- -- 
Thunberg, who inspired the "school strikes," spoke to a crowd in 
Stockholm on Friday. The teenager was nominated for the Nobel Peace 
Prize this week.
"We are facing an existential crisis, the greatest humanity ever faced," 
Thunberg said, according Swedish public television station SVT. "We will 
be living with this crisis throughout our lives. We will not accept it."
https://www.npr.org/2019/03/16/704050431/photos-youth-climate-change-demonstrations-across-the-world 

[AOC at SXSW]
*AOC Surprised by Bill Nye at SXSW*
TicToc by Bloomberg
Published on Mar 10, 2019
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez answers Bill Nye's questions about climate 
change and how to counteract fear at #SXSW.
https://youtu.be/jaSIgln0gwc

[simple 30 minute conversation "Resilience should be built in, not 
bolted on"]
*The Climate and Security Podcast Episode 10: A Conversation with 
Michael Lowder, Dept. of Transport*
The Center for Climate and Security
Published on Mar 14, 2019
In this episode host Dr. Sweta Chakraborty talks to Michael Lowder, 
principal at Michael W. Lowder and Global Associates as well as the Fmr. 
Dir. of the Office of Intelligence, Security, and Emergency Response for 
the U.S. Dept. of Transport, Fmr. Deputy Dir. of the Response Division 
for FEMA, as well as a former special agent as part of a 47 year career 
in civil service! Michael explains the meaning of critical 
infrastructure and its role in security, economic security, and public 
health and safety. He explains how climate impacts like sea level rise 
have direct impacts on portions of the infrastructure such as through 
inundation of roadways, railroads and airports. The ripple effects are 
vast, and knowing and adapting accordingly will be vital for preserving 
a thriving society. Tune in to learn critical information pertaining to 
our collective security and well being!
https://youtu.be/tDRkbsFSQQk

[Simple science background 12 min video presents the issue]
*Greenland Ice Sheet : Is it stable?*
Just Have a Think
Published on Mar 17, 2019
The Greenland Ice Sheet has been on a rapid downward spiral for at least 
a couple of decades, but in 2018 it seemed to begin recovering. This 
week we look at what happened and whether or not this is good news for 
the future.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gH4cYf1nVy0

[Bill McKibben on Beto]
*How to Tell If Beto O'Rourke Is for Real: A Green New Deal and Natural Gas*
https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/how-to-tell-if-beto-orourke-is-for-real-a-green-new-deal-and-natural-gas 

[Behavioral Economics]
*It's time for climate change communicators to listen to social science*
By David Ropeik on Mar 17, 2019
David Wallace-Wells' recent climate change essay in the New York Times, 
published as part of the publicity for his new book "The Uninhabitable 
Earth: Life After Warming," is, sadly, like a lot of writing on climate 
change these days: It's right about the risk, but wrong about how it 
tries to accomplish the critical goal of raising public concern. Like 
other essays that have sounded the alarms on global warming -- pieces by 
Bill McKibben, James Hansen, and George Monbiot come to mind -- 
Wallace-Wells' offers a simple message: I'm scared. People should be 
scared. Here are the facts. You should be scared too.

To be sure, Wallace-Wells and these other writers are thoughtful, 
intelligent, and well-informed people. And that is precisely how they 
try to raise concern: with thought, intelligence, and information, 
couched in the most dramatic terms at the grandest possible scale. 
Wallace-Wells invokes sweeping concepts like "planet-warming," "human 
history," and global emissions; remote places like the Arctic; broad 
geographical and geopolitical terms like "coral reefs," "ice sheet," and 
"climate refugees;" and distant timeframes like 2030, 2050, and 2100.
- - -
For more than 50 years, the cognitive sciences have amassed a 
mountainous body of insight into why we think and choose and act as we 
do. And what they have found is that facts alone are literally 
meaningless. We interpret every bit of cold objective information 
through a thick set of affective filters that determine how those facts 
feel -- and how they feel is what determines what those facts mean and 
how we behave. As 17th century French mathematician and theologian 
Blaise Pascal observed, "We know truth, not only by the reason, but also 
by the heart."

Yet a large segment of the climate change commentariat dismisses these 
social science findings. In his piece for the New York Times, 
Wallace-Wells mentions a few cognitive biases that fall under the rubric 
of behavioral economics, including optimism bias (things will go better 
for me than the next guy) and status quo bias (it's easier just to keep 
things as they are). But he describes them in language that drips with 
condescension and frustration:

How can we be this deluded? One answer comes from behavioral economics. 
The scroll of cognitive biases identified by psychologists and fellow 
travelers over the past half-century can seem, like a social media feed, 
bottomless. And they distort and distend our perception of a changing 
climate. These optimistic prejudices, prophylactic biases, and emotional 
reflexes form an entire library of climate delusion.
- -
Interestingly Wallace-Wells admits this is even true for him:
I know the science is true, I know the threat is all-encompassing, and I 
know its effects, should emissions continue unabated, will be 
terrifying. And yet, when I imagine my life three decades from now, or 
the life of my daughter five decades from now, I have to admit that I am 
not imagining a world on fire but one similar to the one we have now.

Yet he writes that "the age of climate panic is here," and he expects 
that delivering all the facts and evidence in alarmist language will 
somehow move others to see things differently. This is perhaps 
Wallace-Wells' biggest failure: By dramatizing the facts and suggesting 
that people who don't share his level of concern are irrational and 
delusional, he is far more likely to offend readers than to convince 
them. Adopting the attitude that "my feelings are right and yours are 
wrong" -- that "I can see the problem and something's wrong with you if 
you can't" -- is a surefire way to turn a reader off, not on, to what 
you want them to believe.

Contrast all this deficit-model climate punditry with the effective 
messaging of the rising youth revolt against climate change. Last 
August, 16-year-old Swedish student Greta Thunberg skipped school and 
held a one-person protest outside her country's parliament to demand 
action on climate change. In the six months since, there have been 
nationwide #FridaysforFuture school walkouts in at least nine countries, 
and more are planned.

Thunberg has spoken to the United Nations and the World Economic Forum 
in Davos, with an in-your-face and from-the-heart message that's about 
not just facts but her very real and personal fear:

Adults keep saying: "We owe it to the young people to give them hope." 
But I don't want your hope… I want you to panic. I want you to feel the 
fear I feel every day. And then I want you to act.

By speaking to our hearts and not just our heads -- and by framing the 
issue in terms of personal and immediate fear of a future that promises 
more harm than benefit -- Thunberg has started an international protest 
movement.

The lesson is clear. Wallace-Wells' New York Times essay will get lots 
of attention among the intelligentsia, but he is not likely to arouse 
serious new support for action against climate change. Risk 
communication that acknowledges and respects the emotions and psychology 
of the people it tries to reach is likely to have far greater impact -- 
and that's exactly what the effort to combat climate change needs right now.
https://grist.org/article/its-time-for-climate-change-communicators-to-listen-to-social-science/

*This Day in Climate History - March 18, 2014 - from D.R. Tucker*
The New York Times reports on a new study on climate change by the 
American Association for the Advancement of Science.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/18/science/scientists-sound-alarm-on-climate.html 

http://blueandgreentomorrow.com/2014/03/19/human-contribution-to-climate-change-clear-as-link-between-cancer-and-smoking/ 

/-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------/

/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.