[TheClimate.Vote] October 20, 2019 - Daily Global Warming News Digest

Richard Pauli richard at theclimate.vote
Sun Oct 20 11:19:29 EDT 2019 

/October 20, 2019/

[go XR]
*Why Extinction Rebellion Might Succeed -- and in Many Ways, Already Has*
Extinction Rebellion, also known as XR, is a U.K. social movement 
founded in 2018 focused on addressing the climate and biodiversity 
crises. XR has three demands of governments: 1) Tell the truth about 
these crises; 2) reduce carbon emissions to net zero by 2025; and 3) 
create a democratic citizens' assembly of randomly selected and 
demographically representative citizens to hear expert testimonies and 
direct an emergency-level effort to reduce carbon emission and protect 
biodiversity.

XR's strategy to get their demands met entails disrupting "business as 
usual." In the U.K., this has involved occupying major sites in London 
for up to two weeks. In November 2018, over 6,000 activists shut down 
five major bridges in London, and in April 2019, activists occupied five 
major London sites, resulting in over 1,100 arrests. On October 7, 2019, 
a large rebellion in London as well as smaller protests disrupted more 
than 60 cities across the globe. Over 1,000 activists were arrested in 
London during the first four days of the October rebellion...
- - -
The London police have banned all XR protests, yet activists continue to 
gather in new locations, and are challenging the legality of the ban. As 
with all movements, XR is not perfect and will continue to face setbacks 
and criticism. Despite its imperfections, XR continues to bring 
widespread attention to our environmental crises, increasing dialogue 
and the demand for action - bringing about a "climate culture change." 
As the movement continues and increasingly coordinates with other 
groups, governments may begin to respond.
At this moment, the attributes of XR are increasing the chances that the 
movement will be effective and successful. However, ideas of success in 
XR go beyond their three demands. If success includes increasing 
awareness and creating a regenerative culture with a stronger sense of 
community, solidarity and resilience, in many ways, XR has already 
succeeded.
https://truthout.org/articles/why-extinction-rebellion-might-succeed-and-in-many-ways-already-has/
- - -
[explanations]
*Dr. Gail Bradbrook; "I have lawful excuse for an act of civil 
disobedience" | Extinction Rebellion*
**https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xeP8BGSINsw


[Follow the money]
*Bank Regulators Present a Dire Warning of Financial Risks From Climate 
Change*
WASHINGTON -- Home values could fall significantly.
Banks could stop lending to flood-prone communities.
Towns could lose the tax money they need to build sea walls and other 
protections.

These are a few of the warnings published on Thursday by the Federal 
Reserve Bank of San Francisco regarding the financial risks of climate 
change. The collection of 18 papers by outside experts amounts to one of 
the most specific and dire accountings of the dangers posed to 
businesses and communities in the United States -- a threat so 
significant that the nation's central bank seems increasingly compelled 
to address it...
- -
"The associated risks and effects of climate change are relevant 
considerations for the Federal Reserve," Ian Galloway, director of the 
San Francisco Fed's Center for Community Development Investments, said 
by email.

The new research calls on lenders and other businesses involved in 
community development "to take a leadership role in preparing vulnerable 
regions most at risk for a 'new abnormal,'" Mr. Galloway wrote in a 
foreword to the papers, which appeared in the journal Community 
Development Innovation Review.

As the research makes clear, that new abnormal is already here.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/17/climate/federal-reserve-climate-financial-risk.html
- - -
[Read the letter from the FED]
FRBSF Economic Letter
2019-09 | March 25, 2019
*Climate Change and the Federal Reserve*
Glenn D. Rudebusch
Conclusion
Many central banks already include climate change in their assessments 
of future economic and financial risks when setting monetary and 
financial supervisory policy. For the Fed, the volatility induced by 
climate change and the efforts to adapt to new conditions and to limit 
or mitigate climate change are also increasingly relevant 
considerations. Moreover, economists, including those at central banks, 
can contribute much more to the research on climate change hazards and 
the appropriate response of central banks.
Glenn D. Rudebusch is senior policy advisor and executive vice president 
in the Economic Research Department of the Federal Reserve Bank of San 
Francisco.
References
https://www.frbsf.org/economic-research/publications/economic-letter/2019/march/climate-change-and-federal-reserve/
- - -
[Source materials from 
https://www.frbsf.org/community-development/files/CDIR_vol_14_issue_1_final.pdf]
*Strategies to Address Climate Change Risk in Low- and Moderate-income 
Communities - Volume 14, Issue 1*
This issue of the Community Development Innovation Review offers 
strategies that address climate change risk in low- and moderate-income 
(LMI) communities. As these communities begin to grapple with a changing 
environment, strategic investments can increase resiliency and support 
adaptation while simultaneously advancing community development 
priorities. The articles in this issue of the Review consider these 
investment opportunities from a diverse set of community, financial, 
economic, and academic perspectives.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
- -
*Climate Adaptation and Community Development*
A central hallmark of adaptation is about building a capacity for not 
only managing risks (i.e., moderating negative effects) but also for 
taking advantage of beneficial opportunities. As such, climate 
adaptation and community development are uniquely aligned in that 
capacity building has been a central tenet of community development.
JESSE M. KEENAN
*- - *
*Flood Risk and Structural Adaptation of Markets: An Outline for Action*
Current flood risk assessment tools are too blunt and outdated to 
accurately measure flood risk and the impact of hazard mitigation 
investments. As the frequency and severity of floods in the U.S. 
continues to increase due to climate change, the shortcomings of our 
current tools will be increasingly insufficient to quantify flood risk.
MICHAEL D. BERMAN
- - -
*Real Estate as a Tool for Adaptive Banking*
By aligning the performance of loans with long-term property values, 
Coasean bargaining suggests that banks could be incentivized to 
subsidize adaptive projects when doing so provides a net benefit to the 
community.
[Clip from the Fed paper]

*Strategies to Address Climate Change Risk in Low- and Moderate-Income 
Communities*
The Community Development Innovation Review focuses on bridging the gap 
between theory and practice, from as many viewpoints as possible. The 
goal of this journal is to promote cross-sector dialogue around a range 
of emerging issues and related investments that advance economic 
resilience and mobility for low- and moderate-income communities.
*What does this mean for the relationship between climate change and 
property values?*
In addition to anecdotal reports by news media, researchers in 2017 
conducted 48 semistructured interviews in Miami-Dade County (MDC)--a 
location with overwhelming exposure to climate change from sea level 
rise--with local officials, researchers, real estate
developers, investors, financiers, residents, and activists and found a 
consensus that "high elevation property would increase in value over the 
long-term with SLR [sea level rise] and
that preferences relating to flood risk (climate-change related or not) 
were increasingly being
recognized among consumers and real estate actors." This consensus was 
supported by the
researchers empirically by examining 107,984 single family home 
transactions in MDC from
1971-2017. After including linear controls for age, square footage, and 
transaction date, the
authors found evidence in support of the hypothesis that higher 
elevation properties had
appreciated more quickly than lower elevation properties over the last 
47 years in MDC. The
authors are careful to note that "since elevation was the only 
locational factor, it is possible
that the results simple demonstrate a correlation between location and 
price appreciation." What this means is that since higher elevation 
properties tend to differ systematically along
other dimensions from lower elevation, the observed price appreciation 
may have been
driven by aggregate trends over time in the value of other 
characteristics, or even something as simple as actual flooding damage. 
While these results can't be taken as causal, the
finding of faster appreciation for higher elevation properties in MDC is 
suggestive evidence
that SLR may already be affecting house prices and consistent with 
first-hand accounts from
the interviews these researchers conducted...
ASAF BERNSTEIN, MATTHEW GUSTAFSON, AND RYAN LEWIS
- - -
*Rebuild to Fail or Rebuild to Adapt: How CRA Lending Can Guide Climate 
Change Disaster Response*
Wildfire risk mitigation plans can be a model for promoting adaptive 
reconstruction after climate change-related natural disasters. This 
approach represents a middle ground between disaster recovery and 
long-term risk associated with climate change
MARK NORTHCROSS
- - -
*Insurance Innovation and Community-Based Adaptation Finance*
Governments traditionally act as "insurers of last resort." When 
disaster strikes, vulnerable communities turn to local, state, and 
federal government agencies for support and recovery assistance. More 
recently, as the frequency and severity of various disasters--from 
severe storms and floods to wildfires--have grown, the gap between who 
has financial protection in the form of insurance and who does not has 
also grown. As a result, many government agencies have found themselves 
being expected to act as insurers of first resort.
SHALINI VAJJHALA AND JAMES RHODES
- -
*Forest Finance Unlocks Opportunities for Rural Communities: Exploring 
the Triple Bottom Line Impacts of the Forest Resilience Bond Model*
The Forest Resilience Bond promises to accelerate the pace and scale at 
which critical work to restore the health and functioning of the 
nation's forested landscapes is undertaken. It does so by engaging 
private capital to cover the upfront cost of activities to improve 
forest health and by bringing together stakeholders that benefit from 
this work to share in the cost of reimbursing investors over time.
NATHALIE WOOLWORTH AND ZACH KNIGHT
- - -
*Community Resilience and Adaptive Capacity: A Meaningful Investment 
Across Assets*
Every investment, from real assets to corporate initiatives, is 
inextricably connected to the surrounding community. Thus, understanding 
how acute and chronic physical climate hazards will affect local 
communities and how these communities are responding enables investors 
to assess the full extent of the risks they face. This, in turn, cannot 
be done without considering a community's adaptive capacity, which 
mediates the impacts of climate hazards on communities and local 
infrastructure and has major implications for business continuity.
NATALIE AMBROSIO AND YOON KIM
- -
*Hunting for Money: U.S. Cities Need a System for Financing Climate 
Resilience and Adaptation*
The growing number of studies and emerging innovations in climate 
resilience and adaptation financing for cities is setting the stage for 
developing a comprehensive system--a set of standardized products and 
services, practices and tools--that is able to overcome key barriers and 
to take advantage of opportunities posed by climate change.
JOHN CLEVELAND, JON CROWE, LOIS DEBACKER, TRINE MUNK, AND PETER PLASTRIK
- - -
*Climigration and the Private Sector*
As the effects of climate change grow more severe, millions of people in 
the United States and around the world will relocate away from hazards. 
This climate-induced relocation, or "climigration," will have 
significant consequences for the private sector.
A.R. SIDERS AND CARRI HULET
- - -
*Building Community Wealth through Community Resilience*
Climate resilience and adaptation planning efforts often operate within 
a traditional political economic paradigm focused on risk, including 
climate risk. Often, these planning exercises do not adequately deal 
with underlying structural concerns, such as political enfranchisement, 
economic inequality, racism, and unrestrained growth. These and other 
problems have not only contributed to anthropogenic climate change, but 
they have exacerbated its impacts on those most marginalized, including 
minority and low-income residents.
JOHANNA BOZUWA AND THOMAS HANNA
- - -
*Building on Shared Values to Engage with Mainers on Climate Change*
Cultivating the adaptive capacity to respond to changing conditions, 
including economic shocks and stresses, is central to adaptation. As 
Coastal Enterprises, Inc. (CEI) increases its knowledge and 
understanding of the economic and environmental implications of climate 
change, the organization is poised to better assist entrepreneurs in 
preparing for different climate conditions in their future.
ELIZABETH ROGERS, ANNA BROWN, AND KEITH BISSON
- - -
*Embracing the Challenge of Climate Education and Engagement*
Given their exposure to climate-related events, the Greater Miami and 
Southeast Florida regions serve as a climate laboratory for ingenuity 
and problem solving. Working with climate scientists and scores of 
governmental, business, academic, and community leaders, the CLEO 
Institute creates multiple access points to engage diverse audiences in 
understanding the climate crisis and to embrace scalable solutions.
CAROLINE LEWIS
- - -
*America Adapts: The Value of Podcasting in Climate Communications*
People are desperate to learn about the world around them. The central 
challenge for technical subjects like climate change is that much of 
that learning must happen in nontechnical ways. Even adaptation 
professionals are looking for avenues to understand adaptation outside 
of formal webinars and scientific reports. Podcasts offer a potentially 
impactful mechanism to disseminate substantive information to a broad 
array of audiences.
DOUG PARSONS AND DAN ACKERSTEIN
- - -
*Healthy Aging: A Conceptual Model of Community-based Solutions in the 
Face of Climate Change and Global Demographic Changes*
Climate change and shifting demographic patterns require innovative 
ideas about how to build and adapt community infrastructure that helps 
older individuals thrive. Urban planners, and community investors will 
need to consider aging populations as they think about how the built 
environment can promote healthy local communities in the face of a 
changing climate that has acute and unique consequences for individuals 
aged 65 and over.
SECIAH AQUINO, JOSEFINA FLORES MORALES, MAX AUNG, MARY KEOVISAI, AND 
JENNIFER K. MCGEE-AVILA
- - -
*The Critical Role for Young People and Schools in Resiliency Planning*
Demographers predict that people under the age of 18 will comprise 60 
percent of the population of U.S. cities by 2030. Despite this trend, 
recognizing the critical role that young people and schools can play as 
stakeholders in community planning--especially with respect to climate 
resilience and adaptation--continues to be a major blind spot for policy 
makers.
DEBORAH MCKOY, AMANDA EPPLEY, AND SHIRL BUSS
- - -
*Drawing a New Roadmap: The Resilient by Design Bay Area Challenge*
The Resilient by Design Bay Area Challenge confronted key questions in 
the community development field, ranging from how to engage at-risk 
populations in critical decisions concerning their future safety to why 
municipalities should consider resilience and adaptation when planning 
infrastructure upgrades and where to get the money to be proactive, 
rather than reactive, about climate change.
ALLISON BROOKS
- -
*Promoting Equitable Climate Adaptation through Community Engagement*
Design interventions of nearly any scale will inevitably intersect with 
social structures and other invisible forces at play. The success or 
failure of urban climate-adaptive design cannot be understood strictly 
on the basis of how such augmentation performs against climate 
conditions. Rather, design must fundamentally consider the human 
experience now and in the future.
KOKEI OTOSI
- - -
*Investing in the Virtuous Cycle*
Outside the context of extreme storms like Sandy, heavier precipitation 
events, compromised water and air quality, warmer temperatures, and sea 
level rise are increasingly taking their toll on communities, aging 
infrastructure, and stressed natural systems. As the Fourth National 
Climate Assessment highlights, all of these adverse impacts 
disproportionately affect low-income communities, which comprise about 
one-third of the population of the New York City metropolitan area.
ROBERT FREUDENBERG
- - -
*Pre- and Post-Disaster Investments in Housing and Community Development 
Under the CRA*
The CRA has become a catalytic tool for encouraging banks and nonprofit 
lenders to pioneer strategies to increase private investment in 
underserved communities and to make low- and moderate-income communities 
whole in the face of disinvestment, economic downtown, and lack of 
access to opportunity. The CRA should be expanded to recognize that 
investments made in these communities can simultaneously serve to 
advance community resilience and the adaptive capacity of a broad set of 
community stakeholders and institutions.
LAURIE SCHOEMAN
https://www.frbsf.org/community-development/files/CDIR_vol_14_issue_1_final.pdf



[The Arts of changing]
*For Some Horror Writers, Nothing Is Scarier Than a Changing Planet*
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/19/books/review/eco-horror-annihilation-jeff-vandermeer-chernobyl.html


*This Day in Climate History - October 20, 2011 - from D.R. Tucker*
MSNBC host Rachel Maddow challenges Charles and David Koch to come on to 
her show after repeated rhetorical attacks on the program by Koch 
operatives. The challenge is never accepted.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uh8O7tZ2GD4
/-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------/

/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