[TheClimate.Vote] October 3, 2019 - Daily Global Warming News Digest

[Richard Pauli]

/October 3, 2019/

[The rain raineth]
*In Houston, a Rash of Storms Tests the Limits of Coping With Climate 
Change*
After Hurricane Harvey hit in 2017, Houston jumped to the front of the 
pack in adapting to the threat of climate change. It passed tougher 
building codes...
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/02/climate/hurricane-adaptation-houston.html


[maybe if we call it global warming]
*No Mention of Climate Change in the U.S. National Drought Resilience 
Partnership*
By Marc Kodack
The National Drought Resilience Partnership (NDRP) recently released a 
report on its priority actions on long-term drought resilience. The NDRP 
was created in 2016 and consists of multiple federal agencies, including 
the Departments of Defense, Interior, Agriculture, Energy, Homeland 
Security, and Commerce. These departments, other federal agencies, and 
offices "work together to leverage technical and financial federal 
resources, strengthen communication, and foster collaboration among its 
members to productively support state, tribal, and local efforts to 
build, protect, and sustain drought resilience capacity at regional and 
basin scales." However, the climate change and drought nexus is not 
emphasized within NDRP's mission, and how climate change affects drought 
resilience is not addressed at all in the report. That's a striking 
omission, given the clear connections, and the importance of accounting 
for climate change when strengthening drought resilience.
The NDRP efforts are spread across the following six goals...
*Data Collection and Integration:* The U.S. Geological Survey, the 
Bureau of Reclamation, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric 
Administration are developing the Next Generation Water Observation 
System " to provide real-time data on water quantity and quality 
necessary to support modern water prediction and decision systems for 
water emergencies and to better understand drought impacts on water 
availability." Current, federal climate data and tools that can be used 
to examine drought are available from many sources including those 
described in the Fourth National Climate Assessment.
*Communicating Drought Risk to Critical Infrastructure: *The Department 
of Homeland Security's National Protection and Programs Directorate will 
disseminate the Regional Drought Primer. The Primer "synthesized 
information on drought hazard and potential impacts to infrastructure 
services across multiple sectors." Drought is also considered in the 
Fourth National Climate Assessment's chapter on the Built Environment, 
Urban Systems, and Cities. A subset of the built environment is critical 
infrastructure. For example, "in recent years in the Southwest region, 
California experienced exceptional drought conditions. Urban and rural 
areas saw forced water reallocations and mandatory water-use reductions. 
Utilities had to cut back on electricity production from hydropower 
because of insufficient surface water flows and water in surface 
reservoirs." The electric grid is one of the nationally critical 
infrastructure sectors.
*Drought Planning and Capacity Building:* The National Aeronautics and 
Space Administration (NASA) created a Western Water Applications Office 
(WWAO). The "WWAO connects stakeholders with NASA scientists, 
technology, tools, and data, including development of custom solutions 
through application projects." In the water section of the Summary 
Findings of The Fourth National Climate Assessment drought conditions 
are considered. For example, "rising air and water temperatures and 
changes in precipitation are intensifying droughts, increasing heavy 
downpours, reducing snowpack, and causing declines in surface water 
quality, with varying impacts across regions…Groundwater depletion is 
exacerbating drought risk in many parts of the United States, 
particularly in the Southwest and Southern Great Plains. Dependable and 
safe water supplies for U.S. Caribbean, Hawai'i, and U.S.-Affiliated 
Pacific Island communities are threatened by drought…" Incorporating 
climate change effects on drought would further enhance local planning 
efforts to build capacity to increase drought preparedness and resiliency.
*Coordination of Drought Activity*: The Department of Energy "is 
leveraging its modelling capabilities forecasting the interactions 
between energy and water ecosystems under simulated drought conditions 
with forecasts from diverse end users." The U.S. Global Change Research 
Program(USGCRP), which oversees the preparation and coordination of each 
national climate assessment, is another forum that federal agencies have 
used to consider climate change effects on drought. Five of the 13 
federal agencies who participate in NDRP are also members the USGCRP, 
including the Departments of Defense, Interior, Agriculture, Energy, and 
Commerce. Better information flow between representatives of the NDRP 
and the USGCRP would enhance NRDP's support to local drought resilience 
efforts.
*Market-based Approaches for Infrastructure and Efficiency:* The 
Department of Energy created the Water Security Grand Challenge "to 
advance transformational technology and innovation to meet the global 
need for safe, secure, and affordable water." Through "prizes, 
competitions, early-stage research and development, and other programs" 
DOE set goals to reach by 2030 including desalination technologies that 
deliveries cost competitive water and lowering freshwater use intensity 
for existing thermoelectric power plants.
*Innovative Water Use, Efficiency, and Technology:* The Environmental 
Protection Agency is leading efforts to write a National Water Reuse 
Action Plan...
https://climateandsecurity.org/2019/10/02/no-mention-of-climate-change-in-the-u-s-national-drought-resilience-partnership/



[The answer is yes]
*Climate change means wild weather. Does that include snowstorms?*
https://grist.org/article/climate-change-means-wild-weather-does-that-include-snowstorms/



[KQED transcript and audio 6 mins]
*Climate Change Despair Is Real. This Is How You Fight It*
In 2015, Bay Area lawyer and activist Sarah Jornsay-Silverberg found 
herself in Paris representing island nations at the United Nations 
Climate Change Conference. She was thrilled to be there.

'We are biologically wired to respond with anxiety to alert us to 
respond to real threats.'
Robin Cooper, a psychiatrist in San Francisco
As the event progressed, however, "it was really clear that we were not 
going to achieve what we'd hoped," she said.

What she and her colleagues had hoped for was a deal to limit global 
temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius this century and a binding 
mechanism to enforce that. What they got was the Paris Agreement, which 
aims to keep global temperature rise to "well below 2 degrees Celsius" 
-- and which countries have signed on to through voluntary pledges.

Instead of celebrating in the streets, she found herself curled up in 
her hostel bed, crying.

The depression that struck Jornsay-Silverberg, 34, in 2015 still comes 
and goes today. She worries about ecosystems, native people and their 
habitats, the Amazon. She is also grieving a vision of her future that 
may no longer become a reality.

"People like myself are deciding whether [we] even want to have 
children," she said. When she was younger, she always assumed that she 
would.

*The Rise of Eco-Anxiety*
Environmental activists like Jornsay-Silverberg are not the only ones 
feeling overwhelmed with despair as the climate changes. While 
"eco-anxiety" is most commonly used to describe these feelings, 
therapists and others have bandied about different labels, too: climate 
anxiety, climate despair, eco-despair and eco-grief.

The American Psychological Association even published a guide for 
therapists to help them assist their patients. In it, they wrote, "the 
psychological responses to climate change, such as conflict avoidance, 
fatalism, fear, helplessness and resignation are growing. These 
responses are keeping us, and our nation, from properly addressing the 
core causes of and solutions for our changing climate, and from building 
and supporting psychological resiliency."

Robin Cooper, of San Francisco, is one of the founders of the Climate 
Psychiatry Alliance, a group of psychiatrists working to highlight how 
climate change impacts mental health, and how to help those affected.

She said she and her colleagues are seeing more patients with "tension, 
anxiety, worry, depression" about the climate.

In cases like this, one of the first things Cooper said she does is 
acknowledge the realistic nature of a patient's concerns. Unlike an 
irrational fear, eco-anxiety is a healthy response to a serious risk, 
she said.

"We are biologically wired to respond with anxiety to alert us to 
respond to real threats," she said.

*Despair's Antidote*
So if the negative aspects of climate change won't be going away, how do 
we "treat" eco-anxiety?

Experts seem to agree on a three-part strategy:
*Come together in community.* "Find allies who understand what [you're] 
feeling… and get together with them," said Craig Chalquist, a 
psychologist and professor at the California Institute of Integral 
Studies. He said it can even be something informal. Often, people 
struggle with these feelings in isolation, since bringing up climate 
change is taboo in many social situations.
*Process your feelings.* This can happen through talking, grief groups 
and spending time in nature. Really? Just talk about such a huge issue? 
Chalquist said yes, adding that people with eco-anxiety then "quickly 
move from that phase into, 'What can I do?'"
*Identify what specific problems speak to you, and get to work.* 
Interested in oceans? Food systems? Reforestation? Chalquist said 
because all these aspects of the environment are connected, "to work on 
one is actually to bring some healing to the whole thing."
Sarah Jornsay-Silverberg said these steps have been crucial for her 
mental health.

She has found meaningful community through the Good Grief Network, a 
group that follows a 10-step program to combat despair and eco-anxiety, 
and build "personal resilience." Jornsay-Silverberg described this 
resilience as the ability to face the climate crisis head-on while not 
being bowled over by it.

Good Grief steps range from "accept the problem and its severity," to 
"reinvest in problem-solving efforts," according to the group's website. 
Good Grief has been a place for Jornsay-Silverberg to process her 
emotions about the climate crisis.

"It's really useful to be in community," Jornsay-Silverberg said. She  
doesn't feel like she's bringing other people down "when I talk about 
where my mind goes and how sad and dark it feels sometimes."

It has also reinvigorated her desire to fight for the environment in 
several ways. First, she and some friends are starting a Good Grief 
group in the Bay Area that's open to new people. Second, she is 
launching an outdoor class aimed at helping kids develop emotional 
resilience to face whatever challenges our society may face in the 
future. And third, she is hitting the streets: She and friends marched 
in the recent Global Climate Strike in downtown San Francisco.

'You don't have to be a trained climate activist to play your part. You 
just have to figure out what you're good at and how you are a useful 
contributor, and just stick with that.'

"This is the antidote," she said walking down 7th Street last Friday. 
"Being surrounded by people that also care about this, you feel so 
supported and held by this community. Like look at how many young people 
are here with their signs. I'm going to cry, you know?"

Jornsay-Silverberg's eco-anxiety is not gone, and it probably never will 
be. But her actions help her feel like she is part of the solution.

"You don't have to be a trained climate activist to play your part," she 
said. "You just have to figure out what you're good at and how you are a 
useful contributor, and just stick with that."

This story is part of KQED Science's partnership with Covering Climate 
Now, a global collaboration of more than 300 news outlets to strengthen 
coverage of the climate story.
https://www.kqed.org/news/11776098/climate-change-despair-is-real-this-is-how-you-fight-it


[Villain view GCC]
*Global Climate Coalition: Climate Denial Legacy Follows Corporations*
Climate Investigations Center on April 25, 2019

As corporations are increasingly being held accountable for deception of 
shareholders and the public on climate risk, as authors and journalists 
explore this history, and as lawmakers investigate it, Climate 
Investigations Center embarked on a year-long investigation of the 
Global Climate Coalition (GCC), arguably the most impactful industry 
group ever to campaign against climate change regulation and science.

The United States woke up to climate change in 1988 after extreme 
weather caused drought across half the country and newsworthy Senate 
hearings on the science stressed urgent action. In 1989, the Global 
Climate Coalition, the first industry organization to challenge 
government action on climate, was launched from the offices of the 
National Association of Manufacturers, with leadership dominated by 
coal-vested electric utility interests, fossil fuel companies (oil, 
coal) and their trade associations, and heavy manufacturing (i.e. steel, 
aluminum, railroads, and automobiles). The GCC was corporate America's 
primary vehicle of climate change science denial and regulatory delay 
during its existence until 2002.

Now, nearly two decades after the group disbanded, the Climate 
Investigations Center has collected the most comprehensive collection of 
GCC documents, and made them publicly available in its archival portal, 
Climate Files.

Curated from research by advocates and journalists, and from private 
archives, litigation, FOIA requests, and IRS filings, this collection 
reveals the broad industry coalition that led, staffed, and coordinated 
the GCC's efforts. The documents show GCC's work to carefully pick apart 
established climate science, emphasize uncertainty, and advocate for 
regulatory inaction to the public, media, lawmakers, and government 
representatives.

Below you will find the top documents from the collection and key 
findings from the full summary of our analysis.

View and download the full report: Global Climate Coalition: Big 
Business Funds Climate Change Denial and Regulatory Delay.

View the full Global Climate Coalition Document Index. 
https://climateinvestigations.org/global-climate-coalition-documents-index/

Key Findings
I. Oil, Utilities, and Coal at Helm of GCC and its Denial Committee, STAC

A.  From GCC's founding until its dissolution, the industries with the 
most to lose in a carbon-constrained future were central components to 
the GCC's strategy and output.

B.  From the outset, the corporate interests that controlled the central 
components of the GCC were fossil fuel producers, including coal mining 
interests and oil companies, and fossil fuel dependent industries, 
including coal-burning utilities, railroads who moved coal, automobiles, 
and chemical companies. When the GCC became a standalone non-profit 
organization in 1995, independent from the National Association of 
Manufacturers, the membership grew, adding at least 8 new utilities and 
7 new oil and coal corporations as members. At the same time, the budget 
tripled, with tax documents showing three million dollars in corporate 
and trade association dues in tax years 1996 and 1997, compared to one 
million dollars in dues from the years 1994 and 1995.

C.  Revealed in seven years of data uncovered in our collection, the GCC 
was staffed primarily by utility, coal, and oil company employees - 
fifty-seven percent of the coalition's membership. As shown below, coal, 
oil, and gas interests also dominated the GCC's Board, the highest level 
of membership available within the GCC, and the GCC committee largely 
responsible for the creation of GCC's climate science denial.

D.  In the late 1990s, the division between GCC's corporate membership 
shows GCC's hardline approach to climate change science resulted in 
losing member dues and social license.

II. GCC's Priority: Co-opting Science Within the International Climate 
Negotiation Process

A.  Monitoring and analyzing the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate 
Change (IPCC) negotiations was the GCC's primary goal, with documents 
showing GCC's "IPCC Tracker Budget" receiving an average of 
two-and-a-half times more annual funding than any other line-item in the 
budget, topping $78,000 in 1996. These funds were used for corporate 
scientists to attend IPCC meetings, GCC's participation in the IPCC 
process, and to draft reports synthesizing IPCC findings.

B.  The GCC and its member companies sent large delegations to IPCC 
meetings, some registered with the UN as "Global Climate Coalition" 
representatives, while other corporate representatives would register 
with different business-friendly NGOs - forming one coordinated industry 
coalition bearing many different names. At the IPCC's Second Conference 
of the Parties in 1996, only twenty-eight of the forty-five 
representatives with ties to the GCC disclosed that relationship. The 
number of representatives associated with the GCC present at COP-2 was 
more than two times the typical COP delegation from any one developing 
country (usually ranging from one to twenty members).

C.  The GCC engaged with the IPCC in bad faith; GCC corporate 
representatives registered with different organizations to attend the 
IPCC meeting but would report back to the GCC their efforts, emphasizing 
IPCC findings that validated the interests of their member corporations 
and omitting those that did not. Simultaneously, demonstrated in 
previously unreleased documents, the GCC coordinated an attack on the 
IPCC process - erroneously targeting scientist Ben Santer through direct 
communications and public-facing editorials.

III. The Voice of Industry: GCC Doesn't Concede Full Truth on Science

A.  The GCC's rhetoric evolved over time, its early years producing some 
of its most strident public climate change denial. During this time, 
examples of the coalition denying anthropogenic climate change and 
highlighting fringe contrarian theories were commonplace. Despite 
internal discussions about what they could and couldn't factually 
assert, along with small adjustments to the GCC's talking points, the 
group continued to proffer doubt and uncertainty around climate science 
and refer to the same, small group of climate deniers until the group 
disbanded.

B.  GCC's Science and Technology Assessment Committee (STAC) was one of 
many Committee's within the GCC and the place where science was 
discussed most intensively. The STAC also shaped the GCC's carefully 
worded, strategic denial - shaping the group's climate positions, 
emphasizing natural climate variability, questioning the reliability of 
climate modeling, and diminishing humanity's role in greenhouse gas 
emissions.

C.  Despite internal documents and drafts showing the GCC internally 
acknowledging the legitimacy of anthropogenic climate change while 
debunking prevailing "contrarian theories" in 1995, the GCC never 
publicly disclosed their full understanding of climate change science. 
Instead, it would continue to publicly emphasize factors other than 
human greenhouse gas emissions, touting the same "contrarian theories" 
they had internally debated and debunked, as late as 1999.

IV. U.S. Policymakers Want Input: GCC Sends Talking Points, Wish Lists, 
and Aggressive Critiques of the Kyoto Protocol

A.  The GCC influenced international negotiations through engagement 
with the United States government delegation involved in the 
negotiations themselves. From just 1996 to 1997, documents show the GCC 
met with high-ranking government officials on at least ten occasions, 
supplying the State Department with talking points and GCC-written 
reports that perpetuated denial and regulatory delay. In those meetings, 
"[t]he GCC position was one of no need for rushing into any controls [of 
greenhouse gases]."

B.  The GCC continued to voice its opinion to government officials until 
at least 2001, when a State Department briefing scripts an 
Undersecretary to tell the GCC that, "POTUS rejected Kyoto, in part, 
based on input from you."

V. GCC Astroturfing: Kochs, ExxonMobil, and Others Support Kyoto Opposition

A.  In 1996, the GCC wanted to expand its reach, announcing a new State 
and Local Committee to engage in climate change dialogue on the ground 
across the United States.

B.  Documents show this plan was to be implemented with the help of 
organizations in the now infamous Koch network, front groups and 
organizations created or supported by GCC industry-members like 
ExxonMobil, the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, and CSX Corporation.

VI. GCC Denial of Climate Impacts on Human Health

A.  As early as 1994, the GCC questioned if modeling was able to 
"quantify the cost of climate change with respect to … health" in an 
"Issues and Options: Potential Global Climate Change" report. In a 1995 
GCC bulletin, the Coalition countered Harvard School of Public Health's 
Dr. Paul Epstein, who contended that more tropical weather from global 
warming would lead to an increase of tropical disease. Then, in a 1996 
strategy memo to the GCC Board of Directors, the GCC flagged that, 
"[f]or the first time, the Administration is likely to play the health 
card - an unfounded argument that climate change will cause an increase 
in diseases and will otherwise affect the health of US citizens."

B.  GCC's STAC received internal briefings from Exxon in 1996 outlining 
a strategy to foster debate and question findings that linked human 
health impacts to climate change. The GCC followed Exxon's advice, 
releasing its own statements marking computer modeling as insufficient 
to show a causal connection between adverse impacts on human health and 
climate change.

C.  In 1997, the GCC quietly funded an American Council on Science and 
Health (ACSH) report on human health and climate. The final ACSH report 
was never circulated among the STAC committee from the documents we have 
here. However, in 1997, ACSH did publish a report on the subject titled 
"Global Climate Change and Human Health" and despite sharing the same 
subject as the STAC grant, the report disclosed no funding or support 
from the GCC or any other corporate entities. The report held that 
sustained fossil fuel consumption was "fundamental to the well-being of 
the human population," thus, ACSH argued, the use of these fuels should 
not be curtailed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

*Full Collection Summary Report*
Oil, Utilities, and Coal at Helm of GCC and its Denial Committee, STAC
GCC's Priority: Co-opting Science Within the International Climate 
Negotiation Process
The Voice of Industry: GCC Doesn't Concede Full Truth on Science
U.S. Policymakers Want Input: GCC Sends Talking Points, Wish Lists, and 
Aggressive Critiques of the Kyoto Protocol
GCC Astroturfing: Kochs, ExxonMobil, and Others Support Kyoto Opposition

GCC Denial of Climate Impacts on Human Health
View and download the full report: Global Climate C
https://climateinvestigations.org/global-climate-coalition-industry-climate-denial/
- - -
[View all the documents]
*Global Climate Coalition Document Index*
https://climateinvestigations.org/global-climate-coalition-documents-index/
- -
[top villain of the last 3 decades]
*Patrick Michaels: Decades of Denial*
Perpetuating Climate Change Disinformation
Patrick Michaels, currently the Director of the Center for the Study of 
Science at the Koch-founded and funded Cato Institute, has built a 
career curating doubt about climate change science and its impact on our 
environment. His contributions as an 'expert' to the multi-pronged 
strategy to stall action on climate change have been subsidized for 
decades by the industries that have the most to lose from any such action.
https://climateinvestigations.org/patrick-michaels/


*This Day in Climate History - October 3, 1970 - from D.R. Tucker*
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is established.
https://www.federalregister.gov/agencies/national-oceanic-and-atmospheric-administration
/-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------/

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