[TheClimate.Vote] September 7, 2019 - Daily Global Warming News Digest

Sat Sep 7 10:05:10 EDT 2019

/September 7, 2019/

[impressive photos from Friday]
*Category 1 Hurricane Dorian Makes Landfall in Outer Banks (PHOTOS)*
Hurricane Dorian made landfall in North Carolina's Outer Banks Friday 
morning as a Category 1 storm, bringing damaging winds, storm surge and 
severe flooding. Hundreds have been reported trapped by flooding on 
Ocracoke Island and in Hatteras, where the storm made landfall.

According to PowerOutage.us, more than 400,000 homes and businesses were 
without power in the Carolinas and Virginia, including 100% of customers 
on Ocracoke and Hatteras islands...
- - -
Dorian weakened Friday to a Category 1 storm from Sunday's Category 5 
status, which first lashed the Bahamas with wind gusts up to 220 mph.

The storm was in the Caribbean for a week. In the U.S. Virgin Islands, 
Dorian cut power across St. Thomas and St. John on Wednesday, and some 
damage was reported. However, both the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico 
escaped severe, widespread damage. The storm caused extreme damage to 
the Abaco Islands in the northwestern Bahamas on Sunday, shredding homes 
and bringing storm-surge flooding ashore. After the hurricane made two 
landfalls in the Abacos, all communication to the islands was lost...
https://weather.com/safety/hurricane/news/2019-08-29-hurricane-dorian-photos?cm_ven=hp-slot-1#261

[New Yorker about the CNN debates]
*The Growing Impatience for Action at CNN's Climate-Change Town Halls*
By Eren Orbey
September 5, 2019
[article concludes:]
The true stars of the night were not the candidates, whose extemporizing 
often felt canned, but the questioners in the audience, whose 
backstories and adamance offered the more inspiring reminder that, while 
it's too late to avoid the crisis completely, it's not too late to act. 
Carson Tueller, an advocate from Utah who questioned Harris from his 
wheelchair, pointed out that climate change disproportionately hurts 
disabled Americans; his spine injury prevents him from sweating, a 
condition that proved nearly unbearable, he said, on the hottest days of 
July. Francine Streich, a mother whose child was killed by a falling 
tree during Hurricane Sandy, seemed unfazed when Biden launched a 
political pitch without offering his condolences. There were students 
from the Sunrise Movement, parents who had resettled their families, and 
scientists who had seen their warnings largely ignored. There was a 
lawyer who had refocussed his work to address the crisis and a black 
activist who observed that climate change poses the greatest risks to 
systematically neglected communities of color. A number of the 
questioners had lost their homes or their relatives. It seemed clear 
that all of them, perhaps even more than the most progressive 
candidates, had lost their patience.
https://www.newyorker.com/news/campaign-chronicles/the-growing-impatience-for-action-at-cnns-climate-change-town-halls

[from DeSmogUK - a prep for faux preparations]
*Climate Science Deniers Planning European Misinformation Campaign, 
Leaked Documents Reveal*
By Richard Collett-White - Friday, September 6, 2019
A coalition of climate science denial groups is gearing up for a 
European media blitz later this month, in an apparent bid to derail 
efforts to set an EU-wide "net zero" emissions target, documents 
obtained by DeSmog show.

Plans for a self-styled "European Declaration" include press conferences 
in Brussels, Rome and Oslo and a letter to be sent to leaders of EU and 
UN institutions, scheduled for mid-September.

The letter claims to have "400 independent Climate Scientists and 
Professionals" signed up so far.

Some notable signatories are part of a trans-Atlantic network of 
thinktanks pushing for environmental deregulation post-Brexit, and have 
a history of climate science denial. A number of former employees of the 
network's member organisations are now staffers in Boris Johnson's cabinet.

Titled 'There is no climate emergency', the group's letter claims that 
current changes in the climate are "to be expected from the cyclic 
behaviour of the climate system" and that there is "no proof" that 
carbon dioxide is a major cause of global warming.

Another of the group's "urgent messages" is to "strongly oppose" an EU 
carbon neutrality goal, a policy that was blocked by Poland and three 
other member states in June and is set to be discussed again at a 
European Council meeting in October.

Robert Brulle, Professor of Sociology at Drexel University and an expert 
on climate science denial, told DeSmog the campaign looked like a 
panicked response to recent high-profile efforts to highlight the 
climate crisis:

"The rise of the Extinction Rebellion movement, and the immense 
popularity and influence of Greta Thunberg, are having a significant 
impact on media coverage of climate change and concern about this issue. 
I would suspect that the aim of the campaign is to blunt the impact of 
these climate advocacy efforts."

"The talking points are stale and patently scientific nonsense. That 
isn't critical. The point would be to keep the 'contested' nature of 
climate change alive."

Geoffrey Supran, a Postdoctoral Fellow at Harvard University who gave 
evidence to the European Parliament in March on oil giant ExxonMobil's 
historic promotion of climate science denial, said he thought the move 
was an attempt to distract from the various upcoming efforts to increase 
action on climate change globally, such as the UN Climate Action Summit 
at the end of the month:

"These people are the rhetorical equivalent to the kid in the classroom 
screaming 'Look at me! Look at me!' They're desperate for attention."

"As always, they presumably hope to muddy the waters of public and 
political discourse on the climate crisis. To feed the echo chamber of 
sympathetic right-wing media and blogs, and to prey on naive and 
unsuspecting journalists who may be tempted to exercise false balance in 
their climate coverage."

*Coordinated effort*
The campaign is being spearheaded by a new Netherlands-based climate 
science denial group called the Climate Intelligence Foundation 
(CLINTEL), launched in April with funding from Niek Sandmann, a 
multimillionaire real estate developer.

The group's co-founder Guus Berkhout, an engineering professor who began 
his career at Shell and set up the Delphi Consortium in the 1980s to 
develop new exploration methods for the oil and gas industry, told 
DeSmog that interest in the campaign had been "overwhelming".

Berkhout said there were plans to hold press conferences in European 
capitals and that the effort was being "expanded to a World Climate 
Declaration". He declined to offer further details or comment.

In addition to CLINTEL, the international organising group includes some 
well-known figures from the climate misinformation world, including:

    Professor Richard Lindzen, former Distinguished Senior Fellow at the
    Cato Institute (USA)
    Viv Forbes, Chairman of the Carbon Sense Coalition (Australia)
    Professor Fritz Vahrenholt, Speaker at the European Institute for
    Climate and Energy (Germany)
    Professor Jeffrey Foss, Contributor to the Frontier Centre for
    Public Policy (Canada)
    Jim O'Brien, Chair and Co-founder of the Irish Climate Science Forum
    (Ireland)
    Terence Dunleavy, Founding Chairman of the International Climate
    Science Coalition (New Zealand)

In an email seen by DeSmog, Berkhout explains that "signatures are being 
collected from persons who give a valuable contribution to the climate 
debate and are recognised as such". He goes on to boast that there are 
"already a lot of great names on the list".

Of the 400 signatories, only a handful have a background in climate 
science, with the majority being writers, engineers and geologists with 
no direct expertise in the field.

In addition to the Cato Institute's Richard Lindzen, the list features 
numerous figures from US-based libertarian groups, including Patrick 
Michaels of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, and Charles Battig and 
Willie Soon from the Heartland Institute, which provides a total of 12 
signatures alone. All three organisations are members of the Atlas 
Network, a Koch-funded international umbrella body of free-market groups.

UK affiliates of the network include the Institute of Economic Affairs 
(IEA), the Adam Smith Institute (ASI) and the Taxpayers' Alliance. A 
number of former employees of these groups are now working in Boris 
Johnson's government.

Taxpayers' Alliance founder Matthew Elliott is reportedly advising new 
Chancellor Sajid Javid, whose Conservative leadership campaign he ran, 
while former employee Chloe Westley has joined Boris Johnson's Number 10 
team. International Trade Secretary Liz Truss has appointed two special 
advisors from the IEA and ASI.

*UK support*
The UK's principal climate science denial group, the Global Warming 
Policy Foundation (GWPF), founded by former Chancellor Nigel Lawson in 
the run-up to the 2009 Copenhagen climate summit, is also 
well-represented in the campaign.

At least four members of its Academic Advisory Council feature in the 
letter's signatories, and other contributors to the GWPF have also 
backed the "declaration".

One is Northumbria University Professor Valentina Zharkova, who gave a 
lecture to the group last year claiming that climate change is caused by 
natural solar cycles. A paper Zharkova co-authored in June on the same 
subject was criticised for containing "basic errors" and an 
investigation into how it came to be published was launched by the 
scientific journal that printed it.

CLINTEL also has close ties to the GWPF. Berkhout wrote an essay for the 
UK group last year insisting that climate change was purely a natural 
phenomenon. And in February, the GWPF published an article by its Dutch 
counterpart that said: "Yes, the Earth is warming up. But that is 
business as usual. Earth's history tells us that climate change has 
always happened."

The following month GWPF director Benny Peiser spoke at a gathering in 
Amsterdam where CLINTEL announced its upcoming launch.

At that event, Berkhout admitted: "in this whole audience, apart from 
the organisation and a few brave ones, I don't see young people. So the 
first thing we are going to do is talk with the young people." CLINTEL 
currently has a youth wing called "Young Clintel".

The GWPF did not respond to a request for comment.

Other UK signatories include directors and former directors of 
lesser-known oil and gas companies, as well as five Fellows of the 
Geological Society, a professional body representing Earth scientists.

In addition to the EU "net zero" emissions target under consideration, 
planned "climate strike" protests and the upcoming UN Climate Action 
Summit, the media offensive may also, given its European focus, be timed 
to coincide with a crunch government meeting in Germany on how the 
country will meet its 2030 emissions target, set to take place on 20 
September.

German signatories to the letter include a spokesperson for the European 
Institute for Climate and Energy (EIKE), which a Der Spiegel 
investigation earlier this year found had been working closely with the 
insurgent, far-right Alternative for Germany party to campaign against 
action on climate change.
https://www.desmog.co.uk/2019/09/06/climate-science-deniers-planning-coordinated-european-misinformation-campaign-leaked-documents-reveal

[New Cli-Fi novel]
*Divining Comedy*
Amitav Ghosh's new novel is set amid climate disaster--yet it steers 
toward the mythic and the comic conversation with the acclaimed novelist 
Amitav Ghosh -- truly one of the great literary masters alive today -- 
about his new novel, GUN ISLAND, and his previous book, The Great 
Derangement: Climate Change and the Unthinkable.
https://thebaffler.com/latest/divining-comedy-stephenson

[read all the words of the live discussions on CNN Wednesday evening]
*CNN LIVE EVENT/SPECIAL*
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/2019.09.04.html
• Climate Crisis Town Hall With Julian Castro (D), Presidential 
Candidate. Aired 5-5:40p ET
• CNN Climate Crisis Town Hall with Andrew Yang (D), Presidential 
Candidate. Aired 5:40-6:20p ET
• Climate Crisis Town Hall With Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), Presidential 
Candidate. Aired 7-7:40p ET
• Climate Crisis Town Hall with Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA), Presidential 
Candidate. Aired 6:20-7p ET
• Climate Crisis Town Hall with Joe Biden (D), Presidential Candidate. 
Aired 8-8:40p ET
• Climate Crisis Town Hall with Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Presidential 
Candidate. Aired 8:40-9:20p ET
• Climate Crisis Town Hall with Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), 
Presidential Candidate. Aired 9:20-10p ET
• Climate Crisis Town Hall with Mayor Pete Buttigieg (D-South Bend, IN), 
Presidential Candidate. Aired 10-10:40p ET
• Climate Crisis Town Hall with Beto O'Rourke (D), Presidential 
Candidate. Aired 10:40-11:20p ET
• Climate Crisis Town Hall with Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ), Presidential 
Candidate. Aired 11:20p-12a ET
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/2019.09.04.html
- - -
[the big two questions addressed on CNN]
*The Story Behind the Most Heated Moment of CNN's Climate Crisis Town Hall*
https://earther.gizmodo.com/the-story-behind-the-most-heated-moment-of-cnns-climate-1837897639

*CNN's Town Hall Finally Aired Climate Change's Big Dirty Secret*
https://earther.gizmodo.com/cnns-town-hall-finally-aired-climate-changes-big-dirty-1837899528 

- - -
[Quick review]
*Stephen Colbert and Jimmy Fallon recap CNN's 7-hour climate change 
event, fixate on Biden's bleeding eye*
https://theweek.com/speedreads/863175/stephen-colbert-jimmy-fallon-recap-cnns-7hour-climate-change-event-fixate-bidens-bleeding-eye

[Not yet sure if this is a big deal]
*New Climate Model for the IPCC*
AWI climate model part of the basis for the IPCC Assessment Report for 
the first time
[04. September 2019]
Researchers from the Alfred Wegener Institute now, for the first time, 
feed the results from their global models directly into the 
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change database. The data is 
particularly interesting because the underlying model, developed at the 
AWI, depicts the sea ice and the oceans with far greater definition than 
conventional methods. The results are used by climate scientists and 
stakeholders around the globe to determine the effects of climate change 
on humans and the environment.
https://www.awi.de/en/about-us/service/press/press-release/new-climate-model-for-the-ipcc.html

[The necessity defense - Duty to Warn]
*Washington Supreme Court Establishes 'Very Important Precedent' for 
Climate Necessity Defense in Case of Valve-Turner Ken Ward*
The court's decision, explained one attorney, "creates a strong legal 
basis for climate protesters to justify their actions in a court of law."
by Jessica Corbett, staff writer
In a decision that could profoundly impact future litigation involving 
climate activists, the Washington Supreme Court this week refused to 
review a lower court's ruling to allow valve-turner Ken Ward to present 
a "necessity defense" for charges related to a 2016 multi-state action 
that temporarily shut down tar sands pipelines.

On Wednesday, a three judge panel from the state's highest court 
unanimously denied (pdf) a petition from the State of Washington to 
review a state appeals court ruling (pdf) in April that overturned 
Ward's conviction for disabling the Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain 
pipeline as part of the "Shut It Down" action on Oct. 11, 2016. The 
pipeline transports Canadian tar sands oil to refineries in Washington's 
Skagit County.

After his first trial ended with a hung jury, Ward was convicted of one 
count of burglary at his second trial in 2017. Ward's attorneys 
successfully argued to the appeals court that the second trial violated 
his constitutional rights because Ward had not been allowed to argue 
that he believed shutting down the pipeline was necessary because of the 
threat that fossil fuels pose to the planet and its inhabitants.

In a statement Thursday, Ward's lawyers welcomed the state supreme 
court's decision and highlighted the broader implications for climate 
activists.

"This victory upholds the right of a defendant to assert the necessity 
defense to the charges brought by the state, and also strengthens the 
essential role that a jury of community members will play in determining 
whether the accused should be found guilty or not," said Lauren Regan, 
attorney for Ward and director of the Civil Liberties Defense Center.

Alice Cherry of the Climate Defense Project, who is also an attorney for 
Ward, called the decision "a victory for free expression and dissent in 
the State of Washington."

"It creates a strong legal basis for climate protesters to justify their 
actions in a court of law, and to defend themselves against 
prosecutorial overreach," said Cherry. "This is significant, given that 
the fossil fuel industry is increasingly attempting to squelch public 
opposition to its expansion projects."

Ward also welcomed the court's decision, saying, "This is just great!"

"I've said all along that I relish the chance to put the facts about 
climate catastrophe before a jury in Skagit County," he added. "I think 
that any reasonable group of citizens will agree that actions like the 
'valve-turners' are necessary if we're to have any hope of avoiding the 
worst, given the stranglehold that the fossil fuel industry has on 
politics, and the speed of collapse."

Ward was one of five valve-turners who participated in the 2016 action, 
which took place on one day across four states. He was joined by Michael 
Foster in North Dakota, Leonard Higgins in Montana, and Emily Johnston 
and Annette Klapstein in Minnesota...
- - -
As Common Dreams reported last year, although Johnston and Klapstein 
were relieved that their charges were dismissed, they were also 
disappointed that they did not get to present a necessity defense to a 
jury. They would have been the first valve-turners to be allowed to do 
so, enabled by a decision from the Minnesota Supreme Court.
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/09/06/washington-supreme-court-establishes-very-important-precedent-climate-necessity

[Foreign policy news]
*How Russia and China are preparing to exploit a warming planet*
POLITICO's latest Global Translations podcast explores how climate 
change is reshaping power dynamics among America's adversaries.
8/29/2019
https://www.politico.com/story/2019/08/29/russia-china-climate-change-1691698

[Sarcasm of the Onion]
*Tech Genius In 2120 Devises Revolutionary Concept Of Utilizing Sharp 
Stick To Harvest Termites*

    WHAT REMAINS OF PHILADELPHIA--Turning the existing paradigm for
    gathering protein completely on its head, the greatest living tech
    genius of 2120 devised a revolutionary concept of utilizing a sharp
    stick to harvest termites roughly a century from Friday. "The one
    known to us as 'Ka' has disrupted the entire hunter-gatherer
    industry by stripping a tree branch of its bark, dipping it into a
    termite's nest, and then feasting on the termites who cling to it,"
    said Turgunu, one of the many tribesmen praising the most stunning
    innovation of the age, proclaiming that it may save The People much
    daylight they now spend by smashing nuts between rocks and
    sacrificing throngs of deformed children to the Harvest God. "This
    is the greatest technological breakthrough of the 22nd century so
    far, on par with Sukkalgir discovering that water comes when one
    digs far down. Who knows what's next? Perhaps The People will soon
    use sticks from trees to make a sort of wood cave to live in."
    Shortly following the announcement, Ka had his skull bashed in by an
    angry tribesman from beyond the hills who claimed that Ka stole his
    idea.

https://www.theonion.com/tech-genius-in-2120-devises-revolutionary-concept-of-ut-1837926534

*This Day in Climate History - September 7, 2011 - from D.R. Tucker*
September 7, 2011:
On MotherJones.com, investigative journalist Brad Friedman, in part two 
of his report on a secretive June 2011 meeting in Colorado held by 
billionaire climate-change deniers Charles and David Koch, notes that 
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie spoke at the meeting--and that David Koch 
called him "my kind of guy."
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2011/09/audio-chris-christie-koch-brothers-seminar/ 

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