[TheClimate.Vote] November 23, 2019 - Daily Global Warming News Digest

Richard Pauli richard at theclimate.vote
Sat Nov 23 11:55:46 EST 2019 

/November 23, 2019/

[Give the People What they want]
*Voters want more climate-change debate, but the Democratic event gave 
less than 10 minutes to the issue*
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/voters-want-more-climate-change-debate-but-the-democratic-event-gave-less-than-10-minutes-to-the-issue-2019-11-21
- - -
[See the details]
*Where the 2020 Democrats stand on climate change*
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/where-the-2020-democrats-stand-on-climate-change-2019-08-26


[Oh dear, now discussed openly, seriously - but not by politicians]
*The Collapse of Civilization May Have Already Begun*
Scientists disagree on the timeline of collapse and whether it's 
imminent. But can we afford to be wrong? And what comes after?
By Nafeez Ahmed
Nov 22 2019
"It is now too late to stop a future collapse of our societies because 
of climate change."

These are not the words of a tinfoil hat-donning survivalist. This is 
from a paper delivered by a senior sustainability academic at a leading 
business school to the European Commission in Brussels, earlier this year...
- - -
Yet this is not just a scientific debate. It also raises difficult moral 
questions about what kind of action is warranted to prepare for, or 
attempt to avoid, the worst. Scientists may disagree about the timeline 
of collapse, but many argue that this is entirely beside the point. 
While scientists and politicians quibble over timelines and half 
measures, or how bad it'll all be, we are losing precious time. With the 
stakes being total collapse, some scientists are increasingly arguing 
that we should fundamentally change the structure of society just to be 
safe.

Jem Bendell, a former consultant to the United Nations and longtime 
Professor of Sustainability Leadership at the University of Cumbria's 
Department of Business, delivered a paper in May 2019 explaining how 
people and communities might "adapt to climate-induced disruption."

Bendell's thesis is not only that societal collapse due to climate 
change is on its way, but that it is, in effect, already here. "Climate 
change will disrupt your way of life in your lifetimes," he told the 
audience at a climate change conference organized by the European 
Commission...
- - -
He argues this is not so much a doom-and-gloom scenario as a case of 
waking up to reality, so that we can do as much as we can to save as 
many lives as possible. His recommended response is what he calls "Deep 
Adaptation," which requires going beyond "mere adjustments to our 
existing economic system and infrastructure, in order to prepare us for 
the breakdown or collapse of normal societal functions."

Bendell's message has since gained a mass following and high-level 
attention. It is partly responsible for inspiring the new wave of 
climate protests reverberating around the world.

In March, he launched the Deep Adaptation Forum to connect and support 
people who, in the face of "inevitable" societal collapse, want to 
explore how they can "reduce suffering, while saving more of society and 
the natural world." Over the last six months, the Forum has gathered 
more than 10,000 participants. More than 600,000 people have downloaded 
Bendell's paper, called Deep Adaptation: A Map for Navigating our 
Climate Tragedy, published by the University of Cumbria's Institute of 
Leadership and Sustainability (IFALS). And many of the key organizers 
behind the Extinction Rebellion (XR) campaign joined the protest 
movement after reading it...
- - -
"I say in the original paper that I am only guessing at when social 
collapse will occur. I have said or written that every time I mention 
that time horizon."

But why offer this guess at all? "The problem I have with the argument 
that I should not give a time horizon like 10 years is that not deciding 
on a time horizon acts as a psychological escape from facing our 
predicament. If we can push this problem out into 2040 or 2050, it 
somehow feels less pressing. Yet, look around. Already harvests are 
failing because of weather made worse by climate change."

Bendell points out that such impacts are already damaging more 
vulnerable, poorer societies than our own. He says it is only a matter 
of time before they damage the normal functioning of "most countries in 
the world."...
- - -
Bendell argues that the main trigger for some sort of collapse--which he 
defines as "an uneven ending of our normal modes of sustenance, 
security, pleasure, identity, meaning, and hope"--will come from 
accelerating failures in the global food system.

We know that it is a distinct possibility that so-called 
multi-breadbasket failures (when major yield reductions take place 
simultaneously across agricultural areas producing staple crops like 
rice, wheat, or maize) can be triggered by climate change--and have 
already happened.
- - -
"For the Deep Adaptation groups that I am involved with, we ask people 
to agree that societal collapse is either likely, inevitable or already 
unfolding, so that we can have meaningful engagement upon that premise," 
he said. "Deep Adaptation has become an international movement now, with 
people mobilizing to share their grief, discuss what to commit to going 
forward, become activists, start growing food, all kinds of things."

Confronting the specter of collapse, he insisted is not grounds to 
give-up, but to do more. Not later, but right now, because we are 
already out of time in terms of the harm already inflicted on the 
planet: "My active and radical hope is that we will do all kinds of 
amazing things to reduce harm, buy time and save what we can," he said. 
"Adaptation and mitigation are part of that agenda. I also know that 
many people will act in ways that create more suffering."
- - -
Most of all, the emerging science of collapse suggests that civilization 
in its current form, premised on endless growth and massive 
inequalities, is unlikely to survive this century. It will either evolve 
into or be succeeded by a new configuration, perhaps an "ecological 
civilization", premised on a fundamentally new relationship with the 
Earth and all its inhabitants--or it will, whether slowly or more 
abruptly, regress and contract.

What happens next is still up to us. Our choices today will not merely 
write our own futures, they determine who we are, and what our 
descendants will be capable of becoming. As we look ahead, this strange 
new science hints to us at a momentous opportunity to become agents of 
change for an emerging paradigm of life and society that embraces, not 
exploits, the Earth. Because doing so is now a matter of survival.
https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/8xwygg/the-collapse-of-civilization-may-have-already-begun


[different approach to science lecture]
*What The Press Doesn't Tell You About Climate Change - Dr. Hawley K 
Rising III*
Aug 12, 2019
Humanist Community in Silicon Valley
This Forum of the Humanist Community in Silicon Valley 
(www.humanists.org) was held on 3/24/2019. To see all of our Forum 
videos, please visit vimeo.com/hcsv.

When we hear about climate change in the news, it is often in the form 
of votes (polls) or it is in the form of very general statistics. In 
reality, science isn't a vote, and climate change affects much more than 
the frequency of storms or the sea level. This talk will examine some of 
the rest of what it affects, by looking at where some of the theory came 
from and what it means. This will be a talk about how it is easier to 
break things than to put them back together.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3-KyWpwuqi8




[UNHCR = UN Refugee Agency]
*Climate change and disaster displacement*
Research indicates that the Earth's climate is changing at a rate that 
has exceeded most scientific forecasts. Some families and communities 
have already started to suffer from disasters and the consequences of 
climate change, which has forced them to leave their homes in search of 
a new beginning.

UNHCR recognizes that the consequences of climate change are extremely 
serious, including for refugees and other people of concern. The Global 
Compact on Refugees, adopted by an overwhelming majority in the UN 
General Assembly in December 2018, directly addresses this growing 
concern. It recognizes that 'climate, environmental degradation and 
natural disasters increasingly interact with the drivers of refugee 
movements.'..
- - -
*UNHCR's role in addressing climate change and disaster-related 
displacement*
UNHCR's work on climate change and disaster displacement covers four 
main areas:

    1. Legal advice, guidance and the development of norms to support
    the enhanced protection of the rights of people displaced in the
    context of disasters and climate change.
    2. Promoting policy coherence to ensure that issues of disaster
    displacement are effectively mainstreamed across relevant areas.
    3. Research to fill gaps that underpin this operational and policy work.
    4. Field-based activities to address internal and cross-border
    disaster displacement; to reduce the environmental impact of refugee
    settlements and ensure sustainable responses to displacement; risk
    reduction activities and others which may contribute to efforts to
    avert, minimize and address displacement...

- - -
The term "climate refugee" is often used in the media and other 
discussions. However, this phrase can cause confusion, as it does not 
exist in international law...
https://www.unhcr.org/en-us/climate-change-and-disasters.html


[Ten years ago]
*Climategate: 10 Years On*
On 19 November 2009, an unknown hacker published a cache of emails from 
the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit. Multiple 
enquiries would clear the scientists of any wrongdoing. But with their 
emails taken out of context and posted on climate science denial blogs, 
the scientists suddenly found themselves under vicious attack.

10 years on, this DeSmog special series looks back at the key players 
that manufactured the scandal that came to be known as 'Climategate'. We 
find out how it felt to be a climate scientist at the time, look at how 
the science has moved beyond the myths sparked by cherry-picked quotes, 
and reveal where those responsible for creating the smog clouding the 
climate debate are now.

It was meant to be the hack that brought down climate science. But it 
made the research stronger than ever.
https://www.desmogblog.com/climategate-10-years



[For those who wish to learn -- a few videos on one topic]
*Mathematics of Climate Change*
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w4O4jK-lZrI&list=PLU5dY2n3AbGFG9eUmkih3OPvqU-mg4LKh



[Book review]
*Rachel Maddow's New Book on Russia, Oil, and Politics Accidentally Had 
Perfect Timing With Trump Impeachment Inquiry*
By Dana Drugmand -- Tuesday, November 19, 2019
https://www.desmogblog.com/2019/11/19/rachel-maddow-blowout-book-russia-oil-politics-trump-impeachment 



*This Day in Climate History - November 23, 2014 - from D.R. Tucker*
The New York Times reports:

    "A warming climate is melting [Glacier National Park's] glaciers, an
    icy retreat that promises to change not just tourists' vistas, but
    also the mountains and everything around them.

    "Streams fed by snowmelt are reaching peak spring flows weeks
    earlier than in the past, and low summer flows weeks before they
    used to. Some farmers who depend on irrigation in the parched days
    of late summer are no longer sure that enough water will be there.
    Bull trout, once pan-fried over anglers' campfires, are now caught
    and released to protect a population that is shrinking as water
    temperatures rise."

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/23/us/climate-change-threatens-to-strip-the-identity-of-glacier-national-park.html?mwrsm=Email
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