[TheClimate.Vote] October 6, 2019 - Daily Global Warming News Digest

[Richard Pauli]

/October 6, 2019/

[Activism training- UK based]
*Witnessing Arrests - the basics | Extinction Rebellion*
Oct 4, 2019
Extinction Rebellion
Do you know what to do when someone is getting arrested near you?
As a movement that uses the tactic of mass arrests we should all have 
this basic skill!
We do not know how the police will react during October's Rebellion so 
we should all be equipped with this basic and essential skill.
This is an essential briefing on what to say and do to look after the 
wellbeing of your fellow rebels through the arrest process and help them 
get police station support.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wKqLWUsL81s



[hotter]
*Earth just experienced its hottest September ever recorded*
September follows a record-setting summer, which recorded the hottest 
June and July, and the second hottest August. This July was the hottest 
month on record since record-keeping began 140 years ago...
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/earth-just-experienced-its-hottest-september-ever-recorded-2019-10-04/



[Tamino notes the increasing rate of sea level rise is now 5 mm/yr]
*Sea Level Rise*
Posted on October 5, 2019
The streets flood even without storm, rain, wind, even on a calm sunny 
day. It didn't used to happen, but now the highest spring tides of the 
year (around October) bring flood waters, septic systems back up, waste 
oozes onto streets and lawns, saltwater leaks into groundwater and 
spoils drinking supplies. It's not a pretty sight, and it's not confined 
to Miami and New Orleans, it's all along the coast.

It's an undeniable sign sea level is rising. But one wonders: how fast?...
- - -
My analysis confirms that although the rate of sea level rise has 
averaged about 3 mm/yr during the satellite era, it's faster now, rising 
at about 5 mm/yr...
https://tamino.wordpress.com/2019/10/05/sea-level-rise-2/



[More discussion from Extinction Rebellion]
*Why XR Demands A Citizens' Assembly On Climate And Ecological Justice | 
Extinction Rebellion*
Oct 1, 2019
Extinction Rebellion's third demand is that government must create and 
be led by the decisions of a citizens' assembly on climate and 
ecological justice. But what is a citizens' assembly? And why does 
Extinction Rebellion believe that it's our only hope to create the 
radical change needed to deal with this emergency?

In this video, Linda Doyle, a member of XR UK's national citizens' 
assembly working group describes why citizens' assemblies are essential 
to giving the UK public the opportunity to respond and getting the 
radical change we need to address the climate and ecological emergency.

You can link to the slides: 
https://drive.google.com/file/d/14nu4GVmxChFnJZUk6QlaQ8uO1sIaBzlh/view
Join the rebellion: https://Rebellion.Earth/
International: https://Rebellion.Global/
1. #TellTheTruth
2. #ActNow
3. #BeyondPolitics
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WTILQFaREZ4



[audio podcast]
*Climate Diplomacy Podcast 3: Populism and Climate Change*
Right-wing populist parties are already part of the governments of seven 
EU member states and are expected to make up a quarter of MEPs after the 
European elections in May 2019. The dwindling trust of citizens in 
democratic institutions and in Europe, the re-sorting of party 
spectrums, the declining influence of traditional popular parties as 
well as the emergence of multi-party coalitions and minority governments 
will all make governance increasingly difficult. At the same time, we 
are experiencing a profound transformation of life, work and mobility 
through digitalisation, urbanisation and climate change. In this episode 
host Martin Wall talks to the authors of an explorative study on the the 
voices and the weight of right-wing populist parties in the formulation 
of European climate policy.
https://www.climate-diplomacy.org/news/climate-diplomacy-podcast



[Politics connects all]
*Could Climate Change Fuel the Rise of Right-wing Nationalism?*
Saturday, September 28, 2019
By Joshua Conrad Jackson, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill 
and Michele Gelfand, University of Maryland

Two trends have defined the past decade and both have been on display at 
this year's session of the United Nations General Assembly.

One has been the escalating effects of climate change, which were the 
focus of the United Nations' Climate Action Summit. Forest fires, floods 
and hurricanes are all rising in their frequency and severity. Eight of 
the last 10 years have been the warmest on record. Marine biologists 
warned that coral reefs in the U.S. could disappear entirely by the 2040s.

The other trend has been the surge of right-wing nationalist politics 
across Western nations, which includes Donald Trump's election in the 
U.S., and the rise of nationalist political parties around the world.

Indeed, the first four speeches of the United Nations general debate 
were given by Brazilian right-wing populist Jair Bolsonaro, Trump, 
Egyptian dictator Abdel Fattah el-Sisi and far-right Turkish President 
Recep Erdogan.

These two trends are rarely discussed together. When they are, their 
correlation is sometimes viewed as an unfortunate coincidence, since 
many nationalist politicians actively obstruct climate change solutions.

However, our new research suggests that these two trends may be closely 
related, and not in the way you might think. The effects of climate 
change -- and the way it makes societies feel threatened -- may be one 
of the elements fueling the rise of right-wing nationalism.
How Climate Shapes Culture

To understand how climate shapes culture, it's important to step away 
from current events and consider the way the climate has influenced 
societies throughout human history.

Cultures can vary in what's called their “tightness” -- the strictness 
or flexibility of their rules and traditions, and the severity of their 
punishments for rule breakers.

The Fellahin people of Egypt, for example, were one of the tightest 
cultures that we analyzed. For centuries, they've enforced strict gender 
norms and strong expectations for how children should be raised.

When cultures feel threatened -- whether by war, disease or economic 
upheaval -- they tend to become tighter.

But ecological threats can be just as strongly connected to tightening.

In one analysis, we showed that rates of famine and land scarcity 
predicted cultural tightness in historical societies. The Fellahin 
people have faced a constant threat of flooding, and have endured 
frequent earthquakes, sand storms and rockslides.

Centuries of climate catastrophe can also predict differences in the 
cultural tightness in societies today. In another study we found that 
nations that have endured the highest rates of drought, food scarcity, 
natural disaster and climate instability have the tightest cultures today.

Even within the U.S., the states most vulnerable to climate disasters 
have the tightest cultures. A 2014 study found that states like Texas, 
Oklahoma and Alabama -- which have the highest criminal execution rates 
and corporal punishment rates in schools -- also have the highest 
historical rates of natural disasters such as tornadoes, floods and 
hurricanes.

Evolutionary analyses suggest that cultural tightness can be functional 
-- even necessary -- in the face of climate disaster. It can make people 
more cooperative, and more likely to follow protocols, like rationing, 
during a drought.

But our latest studies examined a darker side of cultural tightness. We 
wanted to know whether tightness also made people less tolerant of 
minority religions, ethnicities or sexual orientation. In other words, 
we explored whether prejudice thrives in tighter societies.

This dynamic would have serious consequences for our understanding of 
geopolitical events. If climate anomalies such as hurricanes and forest 
fires have a “tightening” effect on cultures -- and these catastrophes 
are happening more frequently -- it might be driving more people toward 
politicians who espouse xenophobic, homophobic or racist rhetoric.
Environmental Threat and Prejudice

To test these ideas, we brought together a group of 19 researchers from 
eight different nations. With expertise in economics, psychology and 
anthropology, our team was well-suited to study the effect of 
environmental threats and culture on prejudice and political nationalism.

We ended up studying 86 historical societies, 25 modern nations and the 
50 U.S. states, analyzing data on more than 3 million people.

The results were strikingly consistent across these populations. The 
cultures most vulnerable to climate threats had the strictest cultural 
norms, and the highest levels of prejudice against minorities. For 
example, in American states with histories of climate threat and 
cultural tightness, white respondents reported the highest levels of 
aversion to marrying someone who was black, Asian or Hispanic. Turkey 
and South Korea had the tightest cultures, and also showed the most 
aversion to living near someone who was a different ethnicity, sexuality 
or religion.

We next tested whether we could cultivate these social and political 
attitudes in a laboratory setting. We recruited 1,000 people from around 
the world. We had some write about a threatening event in their 
environment, including -- but not restricted to -- climate. Others wrote 
about a threatening event in their personal life. The final group wrote 
about what they had for breakfast.

Subjects who wrote about a threatening event in their environment 
reported the highest support for stricter societal rules and 
regulations. These same people also reported the most prejudice toward 
ethnic minorities. This study showed that even brief reminders of an 
ecological threat could have an effect on people's political leanings 
and make them less tolerant.

Finally, we explored how these issues tied into modern elections. We 
recruited American and French individuals during their respective 
countries' most recent presidential elections.

We found that voters who felt the most threatened were most likely to 
support harsher punishments for rule-breakers, more adherence to 
traditional norms and expressed the highest levels of prejudice. Voters 
who felt threatened were also most likely to vote for Donald Trump and 
Marine Le Pen, each of whom ran on law-and-order, anti-immigration 
platforms.
One Feeds the Other

According to just about every estimate, climate change will only worsen. 
Without serious and immediate reform, temperatures and sea levels will 
continue to rise, along with the risk of destabilizing climatic events.

The natural perils of climate change are evident to many people already. 
But our research underscores a less visible geopolitical peril. As 
climate change increases the level of environmental threat, cultures 
around the world may become tighter, and the exclusionary rhetoric of 
far-right nationalist politicians may sound more and more appealing.

Since far-right nationalists are notorious for ignoring climate change, 
the rise of these politicians may also exacerbate the effects of 
environmental threat. This may create a vicious cycle, in which the 
threat of climate disaster and far-right nationalism encourage one 
another over time.

In this way, bipartisan action on climate change may not just be 
necessary to save the environment. It may also be an important way to 
ensure values like free speech and tolerance are preserved in countries 
and cultures around the world.

Joshua Conrad Jackson, Doctoral Student, Department of Psychology and 
Neuroscience, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Michele 
Gelfand, Distinguished University Professor, Department of Psychology, 
University of Maryland

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative 
Commons license. Read the original article.
https://www.desmogblog.com/2019/09/28/climate-change-fuel-rise-right-wing-nationalism


*This Day in Climate History - October 6, 2008 - from D.R. Tucker*
DeSmogBlog's Jeremy Jacquot praises the 2008 vice-presidential debate 
between Senator Joseph Biden (D-DE) and Governor Sarah Palin (R-AK) for 
its focus on climate change and energy issues:

    "Palin made a big show of her ticket's emphasis on 'energy
    independence' - even ducking a question about bankruptcy laws to
    cheer for more offshore drilling - and McCain's 'all of the above'
    policy. Though she went through the motions, I have my doubts that
    she supports mandatory caps - or, frankly, that she supports any
    real meaningful action on climate change. Now if only the next
    debate moderator can get the presidential candidates arguing about
    climate policy…"

http://www.desmogblog.com/biden-palin-finally-a-real-debate-about-climate-change-and-energy
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