[TheClimate.Vote] May 23, 2019 - Daily Global Warming News Digest
Richard Pauli
richard at theclimate.vote
Thu May 23 08:29:24 EDT 2019
/May 23, 2019/
[It IS the MOST important issue]
*Climate crisis more politically polarizing than abortion for US voters,
study finds*
Democrats ranked global heating as the third most important issue on
their list, while Republican voters ranked it last in a Yale poll
- -
When voters were asked to rank topics important to them for the 2020
presidential election, conservative Republicans put global warming last
out of 29 issues. Liberal Democrats placed the issue third, behind only
environmental protection and healthcare.
This yawning gap in priorities between the two voting groups,
highlighted in new Yale University data, is more stark than
traditionally divisive topics such as abortion and gun control. Abortion
ranks fifth and gun policies sit in seventh for conservative
Republicans, with these issues coming in at number 13 and number seven,
respectively, for progressive Democrats...
- -
"There's nothing about the thermometer that gives you a different answer
depending on who you vote for," she said. "I've had many conservative
groups say to me 'Hey, it does look like something is happening, how do
we prepare for this?'
"The whole idea we can do this without everyone has fallen flat on its
face; the Australian election is the latest example of this. But we've
been doing it ass backwards by trying to get people to accept the
science first.
"We don't have to agree on humans being to blame to agree on the
importance on building resilience and weaning ourselves off fossil
fuels. There are strong arguments for doing those things anyway."
- -
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/may/21/climate-crisis-more-politically-polarizing-than-abortion-for-us-voters-study-finds
[legal defeat]
*European Court Rules Individuals Cannot Sue Over Climate Change*
https://www.climateliabilitynews.org/2019/05/22/european-union-climate-change-peoples-climate-case/
[another DiCaprio movie]
*Leonardo DiCaprio captures the fight against climate change in new HBO
documentary trailer*
HBO released the trailer for Leonardo DiCaprio's upcoming environmental
documentary Wednesday, which also coincided with International
Biodiversity Day. DiCaprio produced and narrated "Ice on Fire," which
"offers hope that we can actually stave off the worst effects of global
warming," according to an HBO press release.
"The melting of the world's snow and ice has now triggered multiple
climate tipping points, especially increasing levels of methane,"
DiCaprio narrates in the trailer. "Scientists have discovered solutions,
giving us a chance at reversing climate change. But the clock is ticking."
The documentary highlights innovations created to slow down the
escalating climate crisis, which has had devastating effects in the
Arctic, fueling flooding and droughts globally. It follows scientists,
farmers and innovators working to reduce carbon in the atmosphere around
the world, from Norway to Costa Rica to Alaska. In a tweet promoting the
trailer, DiCaprio called those innovations "never-before-seen solutions."...
- -
DiCaprio has been a vocal environmental activist for years through the
Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation, which partners with projects that protect
vulnerable wildlife from extinction. He's produced several documentaries
on climate change and animal rights, including "The 11th hour," "Sea of
Shadows," "Cowspiracy," "Catching the Sun," "Before the Flood," "The
Ivory Game," "A Plastic Ocean" and "Virunga."
"Ice on Fire" is produced by Leonardo DiCaprio, George DiCaprio and
Mathew Schmid, and directed by Leila Conners. It premiered Wednesday at
the Cannes Film Festival and debuts on HBO June 11.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/leonardo-dicaprio-hbo-climate-change-documentary-trailer-released-today-2019-05-22/
- - -
[Movie premiers June 11th]
*Ice on Fire (2019): Official Trailer | HBO*
Published on May 22, 2019
Produced by Oscar-winner Leonardo DiCaprio, George DiCaprio and Mathew
Schmid and directed by Leila Conners, Ice on Fire is an eye-opening
documentary that focuses on many never-before-seen solutions designed to
slow down our escalating environmental crisis.
Ice on Fire premieres June 11 at 8 PM.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Elf0RFBhr8I
[New article by Dr. Jennifer Francis, Woods Hole Research Center senior
scientist, in Scientific American:]
*Yes, Climate Change Is Making Severe Weather Worse*
Recent disasters show how climate change is making winter storms,
flooding rains and summer heat waves more extreme...
Florence's wrath will not soon be forgotten, and neither will the
blatant demonstration of climate change in action. The hurricane's
unusual severity can be attributed to specific effects of climate
change: greater heat in the air and ocean, extra water vapor, the
tenacious blocking high and weak steering winds. These factors are
in play around the world, favoring rapid storm intensification,
heavier precipitation, greater flooding and stronger storm winds.
Florence was just one of many examples in 2018 of the various ways
climate change is affecting extreme weather. Multiple 'bomb
cyclones' battered the northeastern U.S. An outbreak of Arctic air
called the 'beast from the east' froze Europe. Severe heat waves
crippled Japan, Scandinavia and Greece. Floods ruined parts of
Venice, Paris and Maryland.
Such misfortunes have happened since humans walked the earth, of
course. But every year it becomes clearer that today's epidemic of
bizarre weather cannot be explained by natural variability. Although
in the past scientists were careful to not directly link climate
change to specific weather events, we are now indeed saying that
because of climate change, major floods are occurring more often.
Killer heat waves are hotter and lasting longer. Cold spells are
sticking around longer in some places, too...
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/yes-climate-change-is-making-severe-weather-worse/?redirect=1
- - -
[other recent publications of Dr Francis on how climate change
influenced previous hurricanes:
Florence:
https://www.carbonbrief.org/how-arctic-warming-could-have-steered-hurricane-florence-towards-the-us
Michael:
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/11/climate/hurricane-michael-science.html
Sandy: https://tos.org/oceanography/assets/docs/26-1_greene.pdf
[Your Library as Disaster Information Management Research Center]
*Bibliography: Librarians and Libraries Respond to Disasters*
This bibliography highlights library roles in disaster preparedness,
response, and recovery, from 2014 to the present.
Improving Access to Disaster Health Information
2019 Publications
Ayala-González HT. Puerto Rico's libraries, archives and museums road to
recovery: A timeline of events after Hurricane Maria. [Internet].
Available from http://scalar.usc.edu/works/prlamrecovery/index
Brunvand A. Reasons to Love Your Library: Think of Them as "Resilience
Centers." Catalyst [Internet]. 1 Mar 2019. Available from
https://catalystmagazine.net/reasons-to-love-your-library-think-of-them-as-resilience-centers/
Carmody S. Michigan lawmakers moving quickly on opioids in libraries.
Michigan Radio [Internet]. 11 May 2019. Available from
https://www.michiganradio.org/post/michigan-lawmakers-moving-quickly-opioids-libraries
Edwards E. Disaster Preparedness and Recovery in Libraries: Bracing for
the Worst, Helping the Community Heal. ILA Reporter [Internet] (37:1,
38-42). Feb 2019. Available from
https://www.ila.org/content/documents/reporter_0219.pdf
Freudenberger E. Not Just Narcan. Library Journal [Internet]. 07 May
2019. Available from
https://www.libraryjournal.com/?detailStory=Not-Just-Narcan
Institute of Museum and Library Services. Protecting America's
Collections - Results from the Heritage Health Information Survey.
[Internet]. Feb 2019. Available from
https://www.imls.gov/sites/default/files/publications/documents/imls-hhis-report.pdf
Johnson A. Kasson Public Library Doubles as a Safe Shelter. KIMT 3 News
[Internet]. 05 Mar 2019. Available from
https://www.kimt.com/content/news/Kasson-Public-Library-doubles-as-a-safe-shelter-506733811.html
Joy J. Lorain libraries holding opioid abuse programming. The Morning
Journal [Internet]. 13 Feb 2019. Available from
https://www.morningjournal.com/news/lorain-county/lorain-libraries-holding-opioid-abuse-programming/article_3bbee6c4-2ed7-11e9-b1c8-1313f6deefa8.html
Kasarda B. 'I was happy the library wasn't closed'; public buildings
continue serving in frigid weather. NWI.com [Internet]. 30 Jan 2019.
Available from
https://www.nwitimes.com/news/local/porter/porter-newsletter/i-was-happy-the-library-wasn-t-closed-public-buildings/article_bd8b5af6-9763-5f91-8a79-9cb41d8bf81c.html
Library Journal. Michele Stricker | Movers & Shakers 2019 - Community
Builders. [Internet]. 08 Mar 2019. Available from
https://www.libraryjournal.com/?detailStory=michele-stricker-movers-shakers-2019-community-builders
Liptak A. How a Vermont Social Network Became a Model for Online
Communities. The Verge [Internet]. 24 Jan 2019. Available from
https://www.theverge.com/2019/1/24/18129437/front-porch-forum-vermont-social-network-listserv-local-online-community?fbclid=IwAR3l0Lv3EwUBMmX2ZZFM5__ROmM9LcMLbYUSi_nZ7JgKhzFElNPN5pX3pAI
Martucci J. How your library can become a shelter in a storm. The Press
of Atlantic City [Internet]. 08 Mar 2019. Available from
https://www.pressofatlanticcity.com/news/south-jersey-cultural-institutions-prepare-for-the-worst/article_d2695d9a-0329-505e-89fc-e1708a67fd0d.html
Various Authors. Current Issue: Volume 11, Issue 1 (2019). Creative
Librarianship [Internet]. 2019. Available from
https://digitalcommons.du.edu/collaborativelibrarianship/
Web Junction. New York State Library Provides Opioid Overdose Guidance
to All Libraries in the State. Web Junction [Internet]. 04 Apr 2019.
Available from
https://www.webjunction.org/news/webjunction/new-york-state-library-opioid-crisis.html
https://disasterinfo.nlm.nih.gov/bibliography
[Re-invent news media]
*What if we covered the climate crisis like we did the start of the
second world war?*
Bill Moyers
In the war, the purpose of journalism was to awaken the world to the
catastrophe looming ahead of it. We must approach our climate crisis the
same way
[video of Bill Moyers on covering climate change -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-Ey0unxTvU
*Bill Moyers on covering climate change*
Columbia Journalism Review
Published on May 22, 2019
Journalist and former White House Press Secretary Bill Moyers speaks at
CJR's Covering Climate Change symposium.]
"Reporting the truth is always the basis for any moral authority we can
claim as journalists. Reporting the truth about climate disruption, and
its solutions, could be contagious."
Today marks the official launch of Covering Climate Now, a project
co-sponsored by The Columbia Journalism Review and The Nation. Joined by
The Guardian and others partners to be announced, Covering Climate Now
will bring journalists and news outlets together to dramatically improve
how the media as a whole covers the climate crisis and its solutions.
The following is an abridged version of the conference keynote speech by
iconic TV newsman Bill Moyers, as prepared for delivery. A video version
of the speech is available here. See here for more about the Covering
Climate Now project.
I have been asked to bring this gathering to a close by summing up how
we can do better at covering the possible "collapse of our civilizations
and the extinction of much of the natural world," to quote the noted
environmentalist David Attenborough, speaking at the recent United
Nations climate summit in Poland.
I don't come with a silver bullet. And I'm no expert on the topic. Like
you, I am just a journalist whose craft calls for us to explain things
we don't understand. There's so much I don't understand that journalism
became my continuing course in adult education. The subjects were so
fascinating, and the work so fulfilling, that I kept at it "full speed
ahead" for half a century, until two years ago, at the age of 83, I
yielded finally to the side effects of a long life and retired (more or
less). This is the first opportunity I have had since then to be with so
many kindred spirits of journalism, and the camaraderie reminds me how
much I have missed your company.
Many of us have recognized that our coverage of global warming has
fallen short. There's been some excellent reporting by independent
journalists and by enterprising reporters and photographers from legacy
newspapers and other news outlets. But the Goliaths of the US news
media, those with the biggest amplifiers--the corporate broadcast
networks--have been shamelessly AWOL, despite their extraordinary
profits. The combined coverage of climate change by the three major
networks and Fox fell from just 260 minutes in 2017 to a mere 142
minutes in 2018--a drop of 45%, reported the watchdog group Media Matters.
Meanwhile, about 1,300 communities across the United States have totally
lost news coverage, many from newspaper mergers and closures, according
to the University of North Carolina School of Media and Journalism.
Hundreds of others are still standing only as "ghost newspapers." They
no longer have resources for even local reporting, much less for climate
change. "Online news sites, as well as some TV newsrooms, are working
hard to keep local reporting alive, but these are taking root far more
slowly than newspapers are dying," observes Tom Stites of Poynter in a
report about the study. And, alas, many of the news outlets that are
still around have ignored or misreported the climate story and failed to
counter the tsunami of deceptive propaganda unleashed by fossil-fuel
companies and the mercenaries, ideologues, and politicians who do their
bidding.
But events educate, experience instructs, and so much destructive
behavior has been caused by climate disruption that more Americans today
than ever seem hungry to know what's causing it, what's coming and what
can be done about it. We journalists have perhaps our last chance to
help people grasp the magnitude of the threat. My friend and
journalist-turned-citizen-activist Bill McKibben told me last week that
because of the looming possibility of extinction, and in response to it
from the emerging leadership among young people, we have reached a
'climate moment' with real momentum, and our challenge as we go forward
is to dramatically change the zeitgeist--"to lock in and consolidate
public opinion that's finally beginning to come into focus."
So, while I did not come with a silver bullet--there's no such thing--I
do want to share a couple of stories that might help us respond to this
daunting task.
I'll begin with how I first heard of global warming--before many of you
in this room were born. It was 54 years ago, early in 1965, at the White
House. Before I became President Lyndon Johnson's press secretary ("over
my dead body," I might add,) I was his special assistant coordinating
domestic policy. One day, two members of the president's
science-advisory committee came by the office. One of them was the
famous oceanographer, Roger Revelle. Famous because only a few years
earlier he had shaken up the prevailing consensus that the oceans were
massive enough to soak up any amount of excess of carbon released on
earth. Not so, Revelle discovered; the peculiar chemistry of sea water
actually prevents this from happening.
Now, he said, humans have begun a "vast geophysical experiment." We were
about to burn, within a few generations, the fossil fuels that had
slowly accumulated in the earth over the past 500 million years. Burning
so much oil, gas, and coal would release massive amounts of carbon
dioxide into the atmosphere, where it would trap heat that otherwise
would escape into space. Earth's temperature could rise, causing polar
ice to melt and sea levels to rise, flooding the earth's coastal regions.
President Johnson took scientists seriously; as vice president, he had
been chosen by President Kennedy to chair the intergovernmental
committee overseeing NASA's charge to put a man on the moon. So Revelle
and his colleagues got the green light, and by the fall of 1965 they
produced the first official report to any government anywhere on the
possible threat to humanity from rising CO2 levels. On November 6,
Lyndon Johnson became the first president to mention the threat in a
message to Congress.
President Johnson urged us to circulate the report widely throughout the
government and to the public, despite its controversial emphasis on the
need for "economic incentives" to discourage pollution,
including--shudder!--taxes levied against polluters. (You can go online
to Restoring the Quality of Our Environment--1965 and read the entire
23-page section, headlined Appendix Y4--Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide.)
This was in 1965! Nearly six decades ago! The future in plain sight.
But we failed the moment. One year later, largely preoccupied with the
war in Vietnam, the president grew distracted, budgets for other
priorities were squeezed, and the nation was fast polarizing. We flunked
that first chance to confront global warming. Our failure to act--and
the failure of administrations that followed us--metastasized into the
crisis of today, the crisis journalists must figure out how to cover as
if life on earth depends on it, which it does.
Which brings me to the second story I hope will be helpful in
confronting this daunting challenge.
It's about the Murrow Boys: Edward R. Murrow and the young men, none of
them yet famous, Murrow hired to staff CBS Radio in Europe on the eve of
the Second World War.
I was a kid of about six in Marshall, Texas, when my parents bought a
used console radio so they could listen to Franklin Roosevelt's speeches
and I could follow the Saturday serials--especially "The Green Hornet,"
my favorite masked vigilante. That's how we discovered the Murrow Boys,
by listening to the news every evening on CBS. Although I didn't yet
know what to make of the events being reported, I showed up faithfully
to sit on the floor between my parents in their chairs, all of us
listening together.
I can still hear the voices coming from that stained brown console in
the corner of our living room; still see the pictures their words
painted in my mind's eye. Their names, hardly known when they started,
became hallowed in the annals of journalism. Murrow of course, Eric
Sevareid, William L Shirer, Larry LeSeuer, Charles Collingwood, Howard K
Smith, William Randall Downs, Richard C. Hottelet, Winston Burdett,
Cecil Brown, Thomas Grandin, and the one woman among them, Mary Marvin
Breckinridge. You can read about them in The Murrow Boys: Pioneers on
the Front Lines of Broadcast Journalism, a superb book by Stanley Cloud
and Lynne Olson.
These reporters spread across Europe as the "phony war" of 1939-40
played out, much like the slow-motion catastrophe of global warming
plays out in our time. They saw the threat posed by the Nazis, and they
struggled to get the attention of an American public back home exhausted
and drained by the Great Depression.
In September of 1939, with Europe hours away from going up in flames,
the powers at CBS in New York ordered Murrow and Shirer to feature an
entertainment broadcast spotlighting dance music from nightspots in
London, Paris, and Hamburg. Here's the account from Cloud and Olson:
"'They say there's so much bad news out of Europe, they want some good
news,' Murrow [in London] snapped to Shirer [in Berlin] over the phone.
The show, scheduled to be broadcast just as Germany was about to rape
Poland, would be called 'Europe Dances' … Finally, Murrow decreed, 'The
hell with those bastards in New York. It may cost us our jobs, but we're
just not going to do it'."
And they didn't. They defied the bosses--and gave CBS one of the biggest
stories of the 20th century, the invasion of Poland.
And still the powers in New York resisted. Through the rest of 1939 and
into the spring of 1940, Hitler hunched on the borders of France and the
Low Countries, his Panzers idling, poised to strike. Shirer fumed, "My
God! Here was the old continent on the brink of war…and the network was
most reluctant to provide five minutes a day from here to report it."
Just as the networks and cable channels provide practically no coverage
today of global warming.
In time I would meet Ed Murrow and follow him as senior correspondent
for the documentary series he created after the war with Fred Friendly.
Eric Sevareid became a mentor, before and after I succeeded him as
commentator on The CBS Evening News. Howard K. Smith and I frequently
corresponded and traded books. And I had casual conversations with
Charles Collingwood at the little French cafe' he frequented near our
office on West 57th street. These men rarely talked details of the past.
But I will never forget my debt as a journalist to their work, or what
they did for our country.
Never in my own long career have I been as tested as they were. Or as
you will be. Our own global warming "phony war" is over. The hot war is
here.
My colleague and co-writer, Glenn Scherer, compares global disruption to
a repeat hit-and-run driver: anonymous, deadly, and requiring tireless
investigation to identify the perpetrator. There are long stretches of
nothing, then suddenly Houston is inundated and Paradise burns. San Juan
blows away and salt water creeps into the subways of New York. The
networks put their reporters out in raincoats or standing behind police
barriers as flames consume far hills. Yet we rarely hear the words
"global warming" or "climate disruption" in their reports. The big
backstory of rising CO2 levels, escalating drought, collateral damage,
cause and effect, and politicians on the take from fossil-fuel
companies? Forget all that. Not good for ratings, say network executives.
But last October, the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a
scientifically conservative body, gave us 12 years to make massive
changes to reduce global greenhouse-gas emissions 45 percent below 2010
levels and to net zero by 2050. On his indispensable site,
TomDispatch.com, Tom Engelhardt writes that humanity is now on a suicide
watch.
Soon, some of you will be traveling to the ends of the earth to report
on this Great Disruption. To Indonesia, where oil-palm growers and
commodities companies are stripping away forests vital to carbon
storage. To the Amazon, where President Bolsonaro's government plans to
open indigenous reserves to industrial exploitation, threatening the
lungs of the Earth. To India, where President Modi pretends to be an
environmentalist even as he embraces destructive development. To China,
where President Xi's Belt and Road initiative, the biggest
transportation-infrastructure program in the history of the world,
threatens disaster for earth systems. You will go to the Arctic and the
Antarctic to report on melting ice, and to the shores of African cities,
Pacific atolls, and poor Miami neighborhoods being swallowed by rising
oceans. And to Nebraska, and Iowa, and Kansas, and Missouri, where this
spring's crop is despair as farmers and their families grieve their losses.
And some of you will go to Washington, to report on the madness--yes, I
said madness--of a US government that scorns reality as fake news,
denies the truths of nature, and embraces a theocratic theology that
welcomes catastrophe as a sign of the returning Messiah.
Madness! Superstition! Destruction and death.
Can we get this story right? Can we tell it whole? Can we connect the
dots and inspire people with the possibility of change?
What's journalism for? Really, in the war, what was journalism for,
except to awaken the world to the catastrophe looming ahead of it?
Here's the good news: While describing David Wallace-Wells's stunning
new book The Uninhabitable Earth as a remorseless, near-unbearable
account of what we are doing to our planet, The New York Times reports
it also offers hope. Wallace-Wells says that "We have all the tools we
need…to aggressively phase out dirty energy…"; [cut] global
emissions…[and] scrub carbon from the atmosphere…. [There are] 'obvious'
and 'available,' [if costly,] solutions."
What we need, he adds, is the "acceptance of responsibility."
Our responsibility as journalists is to tell the story so people get it.
I wish I could go there with you to tell it. This is a very exciting
time for journalism, despite our beleaguered newsrooms, our diminished
ranks, and the power arrayed against truth. And I really do think this
project - Covering Climate Now - could be the beginning of our redemption.
Over my long life I've seen things change quickly. After the Birmingham
bombing. After Selma. Vietnam. Nixon and Watergate. The Berlin Wall. The
pendulum can swing suddenly. The public can change its mind.
Which brings us back to the Murrow Boys. Late 1940. The start of the
Blitz, with bombs blasting London to bits. A Gallup poll that September
found that a mere 16% of Americans supported sending US aid to
beleaguered Britain. Olson and Cloud tell us that, "One month later, as
bombs fell on London, and Murrow and the Boys brought the reality of it
into American living rooms, 52% thought more aid should be sent."
Americans had taken one step toward defeating fascism, and the Murrow
Boys helped us take it. Of course, the journalists were only part of the
cast, and I don't want to overrate their importance. But they were
there. On the right side. At the right time. In the right way--reporting
on the biggest story of all, the fight for freedom. For life itself.
Reporting the truth is always the basis for any moral authority we can
claim as journalists. Reporting the truth about climate disruption, and
its solutions, could be contagious. Our gathering today could be a
turning point for American journalism.
With no silver bullet, what do we do? We cooperate as kindred spirits on
a mission of public service. We create partnerships to share resources.
We challenge media owners and investors to act in the public interest.
We keep the whole picture in our heads--how melting ice sheets in the
Arctic can create devastation in the Midwest--and connect the dots for
our readers, viewers, and listeners. We look every day at photographs of
our children and grandchildren, to be reminded of the stakes. And we
tell the liars, deniers, and do-nothings to shove off: There's no future
in naysaying.
As some of you know, I am president of the Schumann Media Center, a
small nonprofit devoted to the support of independent journalism. The
Center is the progeny of the Florence and John Schumann Foundation,
founded in Montclair, NJ, in l961 by a civic-minded couple whose
offspring were brought up with a strong commitment to democratic values.
Their support of my journalism on public television led us to join
forces, which is how I became president of the foundation and now of the
center. The family resolved to give away their wealth in their lifetime,
and we are just about there; our resources are modest now, and we're
almost done.
One of our last major gifts will be a million dollars to launch the
Covering Climate Now project of The Columbia Journalism Review and The
Nation and to get the project through the first year. Other foundations
and individual philanthropists will then have to step up to the
challenge, and I believe they will.
This has been a good day of talking and thinking--now must come action.
My colleagues at the Schumann Media Center wish all of you and all of
those you represent--in newspapers, radio stations, local news, and
major corporations--we wish all of you, because it will take all of you,
every success.
Bill Moyers is a broadcast journalist. He has earned 37 Emmys, nine
Peabodys, and the Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Academy
of Television. He is president of the Schumann Media Center
Bill Moyers is grateful to the veteran environmental journalist Glenn
Scherer for the research and ideas he contributed to this speech. His
own impressive work can be found at MongaBay.org
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/may/22/climate-crisis-ed-murrow-bill-moyers?CMP=share_btn_link
https://www.cjr.org/watchdog/climate-crisis-media.php
[who should lose sleep? see the video]
*Democrats grill Trump Interior chief for saying he hasn't 'lost sleep'
over climate change*
BY REBECCA BEITSCH - 05/22/19
Democrats grilled President Trump's new Interior secretary on Wednesday
over his recent comments that he hasn't "lost any sleep" over aspects of
climate change.
see the video
https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/445016-dems-grills-interior-head-over-climate-change-comments?jwsource=cl
Interior Secretary David Bernhardt appeared before a subcommittee of the
Senate Appropriations Committee, but faced more questions about his
response to climate change and a slew of ethical concerns than about his
budget.
Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) centered his questions entirely on
Bernhardt's "sleep" comment, flanked by a staffer holding photos of
climate-related disasters in Puerto Rico, California and Texas, listing
off the number of people who died in the disasters and how much damage
they caused.
"Do you lose sleep over it?" Merkley asked after each example.
"I think it's an issue that need to be addressed, but I don't lose sleep
over it," Bernhardt responded.
"The policies you're promoting are doing enormous damage to our planet,"
Merkley said, calling the agency's policies "an immoral thing to do to
the generations to come."
Merkley told the secretary he should "maybe lose some sleep and maybe
decide to be part of the solution" on climate change.
Bernhardt later said: "We completely respect that the climate is
changing, and we need to study and address it," and listed divisions of
the department he said are making such efforts.
Some of Bernhardt's comments echoed his past assertion that the
legislative branch needs to take a greater role in directing the
department to respond to climate change.
Speaking to reporters after the meeting, subcommittee Chairwoman Lisa
Murkowski (R-Alaska) agreed, saying it shouldn't fall to one secretary
to make such determinations, and criticized her colleagues for
"rhetorical" questioning of the secretary.
"I think the secretary, in response to rhetorical questions, is just
kind of pointing out the obvious that the authority rests with
Congress," she said.
But Democrats have criticized Bernhardt for not viewing climate change
as part of his job, with Sen. Tom Udall (D-N.M.) arguing that Bernhardt
is ignoring the intent of legislation.
"Blaming Congress is a dodge," Udall said.
He also raised conflict of interest concerns related to Bernhardt's past
as a lobbyist.
"We could spend this entire hearing probing your various conflicts of
interest," Udall said. "It's clear you're making decisions that benefit
former clients instead of the American people."
Senators on both sides of the aisle also pressed Bernhardt to limit
offshore drilling and clarify the department's position on the issue
after pausing the development of its five-year offshore drilling plan.
In responding to a question from Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) Bernhardt
said litigation was the driver behind halting the plan's development.
"I've paused it until I figure out a pathway," Bernhardt said, nodding
to an Alaska case that would bar drilling in the Arctic.
"I'm glad you've paused it and hope you permanently pause it," Van
Hollen replied.
The Trump administration's $30 billion budget request for the Interior
Department would be a cut from last year's budget, though Bernhardt
noted it is larger than what the department requested last year.
Republicans praised aspects of the budget that would help deal with the
maintenance backlog in national parks and funds included to protect the
Everglades.
https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/445016-dems-grills-interior-head-over-climate-change-comments
*This Day in Climate History - May 23, - from D.R. Tucker*
May 23, 2006: In perhaps the most hilariously demented attack on "An
Inconvenient Truth," former Delaware Congressman and Governor Pete Du
Pont declares in a Wall Street Journal op-ed that we don't need to
reduce C02 emissions because C02 is "vital for plant growth."
http://web.archive.org/web/20060602003144/http://www.opinionjournal.com/columnists/pdupont/?id=110008416
/-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------/
/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.
More information about the TheClimate.Vote
mailing list