[TheClimate.Vote] May 29, 2019 - Daily Global Warming News Digest.

Wed May 29 09:35:13 EDT 2019

/May 29, 2019/

[Follow the money - Canada - video interview]
*The Climate Change Risk to Our Banks*
The Agenda with Steve Paikin
Published on May 28, 2019
The Bank of Canada turned heads this month when, in its annual financial 
system review, it included climate change as a risk to financial 
institutions. What will this mean for banks and for Canada's corporate 
sector? Celine Bak, president of Analytica Advisors and a senior 
associate with the International Institute for Sustainable Development, 
talks to Steve Paikin about the affects to Canadians.

" ...without those two things we absolutely have the possibility of
a repeat of the
scenario that we had with the global financial crisis..."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yeNbPFO44fs

[Tornadoes]
National Weather Service
https://www.weather.gov/

[The extinction crisis]
*First, Climate Change, Now the Global Extinction Crisis: Industry-Paid 
Hacks Deny Science to Congress*
By Justin Mikulka - Thursday, May 23, 2019 - 16:18
- -
*Oversight: WOW Oversight Hearing*
Subcommittee on Water, Oceans, and WildlifeDate: Wednesday, May 22, 2019
See the video 
https://naturalresources.house.gov/hearings/wow-oversight-hearing
- -
Perhaps the most concrete recommendation of the day came from Watson, 
who recommended that governments stop subsidizing industries that are 
causing harm to the climate and global species.

"One should get rid of many of these environmentally harmful subsidies 
in agriculture, energy, and transportation," Watson told the committee.

With suggestions like these, Watson was an obvious target for 
industry-funded science deniers like Morano and Moore...
https://www.desmogblog.com/2019/05/23/climate-science-deniers-marc-morano-patrick-moore-biodiversity-report

[Talk radio on the podcast]
*Episode 12 - Helicopter Money and a Game of Kick the Can (May 22, 2019)*
[discussion of]Good (and long) article on Modern Monetary Theory (MMT)
Presentation by Nate Hagens that covers some of the topics in this 
episode, delivered on Earth Day 2019

Have you ever wondered how dolphins feel about quantitative easing?
OK, probably not, but it is important to consider the effects that
money and monetary policy have on the real world of energy, society,
and the environment. Nate Hagens joins Asher, Rob, and Jason to
discuss said dolphins, a never-ending Grateful Dead concert, and the
prospects of two mature solar panels giving birth to a little bitty
baby solar panel. Oh, and Nate also offers coherent comments on how
money works, how our economic system is likely to perform in the
coming years, and how individuals can respond appropriately to
humanity's overshoot predicament (spoiler alert: it doesn't involve
stockpiling guns, gold, and beans).

Videos that discuss the relationships between money, energy, and wealth 
in the real world -- produced by Nate for his class at the University of Mi
https://www.postcarbon.org/crazytown/
-- -
[Video gives more Nate Hagens]
*Earth vs. The Amoeba -Energy and Our Future*
Published on Apr 27, 2019
*Earth Day Talk, Stockholm Wisconsin, April 22, 2019*
This is a story about our culture, who are arriving at a period I refer 
to as 'The Great Simplification'.  This story explains why the 
environment and social situation are getting worse not better, and why 
we won't en masse make meaningful changes until we get emotional cues to 
do so (aka a crisis) . Obviously this is a bit of a buzzkill to hear 
about - especially on a nice spring day - but imo we have to understand 
the current game board and rules if we're to make good 'game moves' as 
future events arrive.  The more people who are aware of - and start to 
engage on the choreography of these issues in their communities and in 
their own lives, the higher the chances a networked, creative response 
will be.  My hope with these and other videos is to change the initial 
conditions of these future events in a positive way. Because we have a 
lot to lose -and also gain.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVdGqKMBcHw&feature=youtu.be

[What is, just is. Deal with it.]
*Author of dystopian climate crisis novel is 'deeply optimistic'*
John Lanchester tells Hay audience that we have 'a moral obligation' not 
to despair
People have "a moral obligation" to be optimistic about the climate 
crisis because the alternative would be to despair and allow the worst 
to happen, the novelist John Lanchester has said.

Lanchester's new book is a dystopian vision of a world after a climatic 
event called "the change".

But he told the Hay festival in Wales that it did not mean he was 
pessimistic. "I'm deeply optimistic," he said. "My main ambition for the 
book is to be wrong, and I'll take any form of wrongness … because we 
can't bequeath that world, it would be a shameful thing to do.

"I think there is a moral obligation to be optimistic, because if we're 
pessimistic we will despair, and if we despair, this will happen. If we 
despair we won't act and we morally can't let it happen."

Lanchester said the worst did not have to happen, the Intergovernmental 
Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was not saying: "We're doomed, it's 
finished, it's all over."

'"The IPCC conference last year said it was still possible to keep the 
temperature of the world to within 1.5 degrees of what it was at the end 
of the industrial revolution and we've had one degree already," said 
Lanchester. "That's no paradise. It leaves the oceans still getting 
warmer for centuries to come."

Lanchester's book explores intergenerational tensions, with the young 
blaming the old for the world they now live in, a subject which 
resonates today. He was asked whether young people should consider not 
reproducing, a real-world phenomenon known as birth striking.

Lanchester said that would be "heartbreakingly sad", adding: "I think 
acting as if we have a future is very, very important. Apart from 
anything else, it does personalise it. Every stake we have in the future 
is a good thing, every bit of us that is committed to the future is a 
good thing. It's that future that will make us act in the present."

The climate emergency is something we would all like to deny if it was 
possible, he said, and is a challenging subject because "most of the 
people who are going to be catastrophically impacted by climate change 
aren't here. They don't exist. They haven't been born yet. The people 
who are going to suffer most are the unborn poor close to the equator. 
They are the ones whose lives are going to be utterly wrecked.

"That's why works of the imagination are so important. In effect we are 
having to imagine these people into being and then act on behalf of 
their interests. This is a new thing."

The Wall is the fifth novel by Lanchester, a writer and essayist who is 
celebrated for his ability to explain hugely complicated concepts in 
accessible terms. His previous novel, Capital, published in 2012, 
brilliantly skewered the London property bubble.

Lanchester, who immersed himself in research for The Wall, was asked the 
big question: what will it take for the world to change in order to 
prevent the climate catastrophe?

He said his hunch was that a shift in the political momentum would have 
to come from a shift in the economic momentum. "You're starting to hear 
that corporations are panicking, they don't want to be seen as the baddies."

Another key factor, he added, would be young people perceiving the 
climate crisis "as an emergency … not just an item on the to-do list. 
Those things are going to shift it."
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/may/27/john-lanchester-author-of-dystopian-climate-crisis-novel-says-hes-deeply-optimistic

[DW Documentary]
*Energy hunger, energy guzzlers and energy providers (1/2) | DW Documentary*
DW Documentary
Published on May 28, 2019

Our hunger for energy goes beyond all limits and will double in the next 
20 years. But what available technologies could meet the growing thirst 
for electricity? And will we also have to cut power consumption? What 
can Europe learn from China? And could "decentralization" into so-called 
"microgrids" the future of energy?

What is supposed to be the largest and most efficient solar power plant 
in the world is currently being built near the Moroccan desert city of 
Ouarzazate. The Noor solar power plant, which means "Light" in Arabic, 
is due to be completed by 2020, when it will comprise 4 units. In its 
final expansion stage, Noor will supply a total of 1.3 million 
households with electricity. The sun is the most powerful source of 
energy in our galaxy and could theoretically supply all of humanity with 
electricity with ease, but what technologies do we have to usher in this 
new era of electricity?

Could wind power be a more promising alternative? Wind farms are being 
built at full speed around the world, but is wind energy really viable? 
Is the enormous investment in wind turbines at all worth it and can it 
meet our demand for electricity?

China has shown how quickly you can push ahead with the switch from 
fossil to renewable energy sources. China's enormous economic growth in 
recent decades has made the Middle Kingdom the world's largest energy 
guzzler. But China is also the world's largest energy producer. A 
veritable energy revolution is currently underway. Almost 20 percent of 
the ever-growing demand for energy is now met by renewable technologies, 
and a large proportion of the solar cells used worldwide already come 
from China. What can Europe learn from China? One key to avoiding an 
electricity crisis could be "decentralization," so-called "microgrids." 
A quiet little town in the Swabian Allgäu region has shown it is 
possible to produce eight times as much electricity as it needs itself.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J0Fi9Zdn07Q
- - -
[Part 2]
*Energy hunger, energy guzzlers and energy providers (2/2) | DW Documentary*
DW Documentary
Published on May 28, 2019

Mobility is one of the world's biggest drivers of energy consumption.

The switch to renewable energies will affect people's everyday lives. 
How will we get from A to B when fossil fuel reserves run out in the 
future? How will we fly around the globe without oil and gas?

Mobility is one of the world's biggest drivers of energy consumption. 
The transportation of people and goods by road, rail and air accounts 
for around 34 percent of total energy consumption. The electrification 
of mobility has already begun and, as the example of Norway shows, it 
could be one solution - but not for trucks and industrial vehicles. Is 
fuel cell technology a viable alternative here? Japan firmly believes it is.

Could electrification also revolutionize air transport? Siemens and 
Airbus want to make aviation history here and are working on a regional 
aircraft with a hybrid electric drive - but it won't work for long-haul 
flights. But scientists from ETH Zurich and the German Aerospace Center 
are working on a spectacular solution to the long-haul problem: 
synthetic kerosene from sunlight.

An alternative to heavy oil is also being sought for shipping. Neither 
electric propulsion nor fuel cells will work for gigantic cruise liners 
and above all for the container ships that account for a large part of 
world trade. Methanol, which can be produced sustainably, could be the 
answer and a large prototype vessel is currently undergoing trials.

In addition to mobility, digitalization is one of the great power 
guzzlers of the 21st Century. Streaming services, cloud computing and 
the Internet of Things are all increasing our energy requirements. 
Experts anticipate consumption will increase by around 40% over the next 
12 years. Microsoft's server farms alone will consume as much 
electricity as a medium-sized European country. Where's that power going 
to come from? We have to cut back our consumption.

This will also apply to our future lives. The world's first 
self-sufficient apartment building is located in Switzerland and shows 
how you can become energy independent. The future will be in networked 
houses that exchange electricity among themselves.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eHmp7_r1PG8

[Canada politics]
*Green Party unveils plan for climate change - Power & Politics*
CBC News
Published on May 17, 2019
Green Party Leader Elizabeth May has proposed a 20-point climate plan 
that promises to double Canada's current greenhouse-gas-reduction 
targets. Leading into the 2019 election, May's party will campaign on 
sweeping changes to the oil and gas industry, a carbon tax and 
zero-emission buildings.
read more: http://cbc.ca/1.5138676
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JXLfrJZdtfg

[Reviewing misinformation by ClimateFeedback.org]
*Breitbart article baselessly claims a study of past climate invalidates 
human-caused climate change*
Analysis of "Scientists Prove Man-Made Global Warming Is a Hoax"
Published in Breitbart, by John Nolte on 9 Apr. 2019

Ten scientists analyzed the article and estimated its overall scientific 
credibility to be 'very low'.
A majority of reviewers tagged the article as: Flawed reasoning, 
Inaccurate, Misleading.
2019-04-11

"By the reasoning of this article, if a rock rolled down a hill
three million years ago, no human can be responsible for rolling a
rock down a hill today. The fallaciousness of this reasoning is
astounding.
It is hard to imagine that a well-intentioned person can so
profoundly misunderstand the science. Assuming the author is acting
in good faith, this article provides evidence that motivated
reasoning can produce results that appear delusional to
well-informed people."

https://climatefeedback.org/evaluation/breitbart-article-baselessly-claims-a-study-of-past-climate-invalidates-human-caused-climate-change-john-nolte/

[Truh-bulll]
*Trump Administration Hardens Its Attack on Climate Science*
...In the next few months, the White House will complete the rollback of 
the most significant federal effort to curb greenhouse-gas emissions, 
initiated during the Obama administration. It will expand its efforts to 
impose Mr. Trump's hard-line views on other nations, building on his 
retreat from the Paris accord and his recent refusal to sign a 
communique' to protect the rapidly melting Arctic region unless it was 
stripped of any references to climate change.

And, in what could be Mr. Trump's most consequential action yet, his 
administration will seek to undermine the very science on which climate 
change policy rests...
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/27/us/politics/trump-climate-science.html
- -
[finding limits of willful ignorance]
*EVEN STEVE BANNON THINKS TRUMP'S LATEST CLIMATE CHANGE PLAN IS TOO EXTREME*
When it comes to taking on climate change science, the administration is 
just getting started...
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2019/05/even-steve-bannon-thinks-trumps-latest-climate-change-plan-is-too-extreme?verso=true

[Trump's Guy Friday]
*What You Need to Know About the Trump Adviser Who Compared CO2 to 
Persecuted Jews*
https://news.vice.com/en_us/article/597wbb/what-you-need-to-know-about-the-trump-adviser-who-compared-co2-to-persecuted-jews

*This Day in Climate History - May 29, 2007 - from D.R. Tucker*
On MSNBC's "Countdown," Al Gore observes:

"...[F]or all of its excesses and bad features, the Internet does
invite a robust multi-way conversation that I think is already
beginning to serve as a corrective for some of the abuses of the
mass media persuasion campaigns that brought us the invasion of Iraq
and the ignoring of the climate crisis and the other serious
mistakes that we've been making over the last few years."

(4:44-5:15)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bb-uKbJ9gDE (Part 1)
http://youtu.be/5doTtYGviPw (Part 2)
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