[TheClimate.Vote] September 29, 2019 - Daily Global Warming News Digest

Sun Sep 29 09:40:21 EDT 2019

/September 29, 2019/

[data analysis of fired up voters]
*The young Climate Strikers marching this week are all fired up and 
ready to vote.*
And if voting doesn't bring change, expect more confrontational tactics.
By Dana R. Fisher
September 28, 2019
Since 16-year-old climate activist Greta Thunberg arrived by 
solar-powered sailboat on Aug. 28, she has taken the U.S. by storm. She 
and others in her "Fridays for Future" movement protested climate 
inaction in front of the United Nations; marched by the White House; 
testified in a joint congressional hearing on the climate crisis; and 
shamed U.N. leaders in a moving speech at its Climate Action Summit. 
Perhaps most notably, she and many other young people led the Sept. 20 
Global Climate Strike, which mobilized millions of people worldwide in 
street protests about the failure to reduce carbon emissions.

Who is involved in this youth climate movement? Are they simply 
marching, or are they politically engaged more generally? Here's what I 
found.

Here's how I did my research
I collected data from participants at the Climate Strike in Washington, 
D.C. on Sept. 20. A 13-person research team (including me) snaked 
through the crowd as they lined up at John Marshall Park before they 
began marching, sampling every fifth person at designated increments to 
gather a field approximation of a random sample. In total, we collected 
data from 193 participants at the event, with a response rate of 79 percent.

What we found is consistent with my findings from earlier research on 
the youth climate movement and on those with experience in what many 
have called the "resistance": the broader movement that has been 
challenging President Trump's administration and its polices since 
January 2017. Participants in the Climate Strike were predominantly 
female. The median age of the crowd was 22 years old. Three-quarters, or 
76 percent, of the participants will be eligible to vote in the U.S. 
2020 election. And their current levels of civic engagement strongly 
suggests they will vote.

The U.N. Climate Summit has limits. But it's not the only game in town.

As part of this survey, we asked participants the following question: 
"If the 2020 election were held today (no matter whether you are 
eligible to vote), who would you vote for?" Forty-one percent supported 
Elizabeth Warren, with by far the largest share. Bernie Sanders came in 
second with 20 percent of the support. Joe Biden was a distant third 
with 12 percent.

Most participants in the Climate Strike identified as being on the 
political left, while 9 percent identified as politically moderate. 
Interestingly, those who identified themselves as "Very Left" on the 
political spectrum (24 percent of the crowd) also favored Warren (46 
percent) over Sanders (33 percent).

These activists are significantly more engaged in a range of political 
activities than the general American population: 46 percent reported 
contacting an elected official in the past year; 46 percent attended a 
public, town, or school meeting; and 44 percent engaged in consumer 
activism by boycotting or deliberately buying a certain product for 
political, ethical, or environmental reasons ("buycotting").

What Americans really think about California's auto emissions standards 
-- and what could change their minds.

Many report having been involved with more confrontational forms of 
political engagement as well. About a third of Climate Strikers, or 32 
percent, reported participating in confrontational direct action in the 
past year.

Given these levels of civic engagement and political experience, expect 
these new voices to make themselves heard in the upcoming elections. If 
the election's outcome is not what they hoped for, don't be surprised if 
there's more climate action in the streets. Based on the direct action 
we saw during ShutDownDC on Monday and Friday, as well as the other 
civil disobedience that took place around the U.S. this past week, these 
climate activists are willing to act.

And if peaceful protest and political participation do not work, they 
still have other options.

Don't miss anything! Sign up to get TMC's smart analysis in your inbox, 
three days a week.

Dana R. Fisher @Fisher_DanaR is a professor of sociology at the 
University of Maryland who has been studying the youth climate movement 
since spring 2019. Her new book American Resistance will be out from 
Columbia University Press in November.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/09/28/young-climate-strikers-marching-this-week-are-all-fired-up-ready-vote/#comments-wrapper 

[Disaster information]
*Helping Older Adults After Disasters: A Guide to Providing Support*
09/01/2019
Source: Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration 
(SAMHSA). Published: 9/2019. This 19-page guide will help prepare 
outreach staff for encounters with older adults by describing common 
disaster reactions and providing tips and resources. Topics include 
Disaster Recovery in Older Adulthood, Common Disaster Reactions and 
Signs of the Need for More Help, Using Other Resources To Help Older 
Adults After Disasters, and Managing Your Stress After a Disaster: Tips 
for Older Adults. (PDF)
*Helping Older Adults After Disasters: A Guide to Providing Support*
Source: Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA)
Date Published: 9/2019
Format: PDF
Annotation: This 19-page guide will help prepare outreach staff for 
encounters with older adults by describing common disaster reactions and 
providing tips and resources. Topics include Disaster Recovery in Older 
Adulthood, Common Disaster Reactions and Signs of the Need for More 
Help, Using Other Resources To Help Older Adults After Disasters, and 
Managing Your Stress After a Disaster: Tips for Older Adults.
URL: https://store.samhsa.gov/system/files/pep19-01-01-001.pdf
Type: Guideline/Assessment Tool
Access Notes: Direct link to document: 
https://store.samhsa.gov/system/files/pep19-01-01-001.pdf
ID: 20068. From: Disaster Lit®a database of the U.S. National Library of 
Medicine.
https://disasterinfo.nlm.nih.gov/search/?source=292
https://store.samhsa.gov/system/files/pep19-01-01-001.pdf

[climate science summary]
*3 Climate Scientists Named MacArthur 'Genius Grant' Fellows*
Their research is helping answer existential questions of our time: How 
much will sea level rise, how fast, and what will be the impact on human 
civilizations?
They were chosen partly because answering those questions is so 
important to humanity.

"The inclusion in this year's Fellows of three scientists and one artist 
who works on climate change expresses the urgency felt by the scientific 
community and the deep engagement of creative minds in mitigation and 
adaptation," said Cecilia Conrad, a managing director at the John D. and 
Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation who oversees the Fellows Program.

Dutton's research shows that the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets may 
melt much faster than scientists thought just a few decades ago. 
Mitrovica's models help explain how sea level rise will vary regionally 
by identifying the "fingerprints" of various ice sheets. And Jupiter 
works on sustainable development and ecosystem management on islands in 
the Western Pacific.

"As one person, there is only so much I can do. But now I have this 
platform, and I can help lift others," said Dutton, a geochemist and sea 
level researcher who recently joined the University of Wisconsin-Madison 
from the University of Florida. She said she plans to use the $625,000 
award to support other female scientists. The money, which each of the 
26 MacArthur Fellows receives, has no strings attached...
- - -
Andrea Dutton: Coral Records and Rising Seas
Up until a few decades ago, scientists thought the polar ice sheets were 
so big and so cold that they would melt very slowly. Dutton's research 
using fossilized corals around the world has helped to show that 
Greenland and Antarctica are highly sensitive to warming...
"The thing we're really focusing on right now is figuring out the rate 
of sea level rise," she said. "What people really want to know is how 
quickly this is going to happen. Is it going to take centuries or 
millennia? Will it be gradual? Or will it happen in sudden jumps, since 
we know ice sheets can decay in a non-linear fashion."
The new IPCC special report on oceans and cryosphere published this week 
cites Dutton's research and highlights those concerns, especially with 
acceleration of ice sheet melting.

"Mass loss from the Antarctic ice sheets in the last 10 years tripled 
over the previous decade and doubled from the Greenland ice sheet. 
Global mean sea level is rising at 2.5 times the rate of the 20th 
century," Dutton said. "We are observing this acceleration. How much 
have we committed ourselves to? The largest uncertainty is how the 
Antarctic ice sheet is going to respond."
- - -
"My work shows sea level was not the same everywhere at that time, and 
here's how you can connect the dots between those areas. If successful, 
you can say not only that average sea level is increasing. You can say 
something more, that the water seems to have been coming from Antarctica 
or Greenland."

If you know that, and you have an idea of how fast those ice sheets will 
melt, then you have useful information for coastal communities trying to 
prepare for the slow-motion flood, he said.

"We need to understand how much adaptation we will need, and that's a 
complicated question," he said.

Penn State climate researcher Mike Mann said Mitrovica's work helps 
explain important regional variations in sea level rise, like the 
changing gravitational pull of Antarctica as its ice melts. "That effect 
can lead to even faster sea level rise, for example, along the U.S. east 
coast," he said.

"Both scientists' work (Dutton's and Mitrovica's) has indicated that sea 
level rise from human-caused warming may be an even greater threat than 
scientists thought only a decade ago," Mann said....
- - - -
Stacy Jupiter: The Human Impact
Fixing global warming and slowing sea level rise is not going to solve 
all the world's environmental challenges, said  Jupiter, a marine 
scientist with the Wildlife Conservation Society who earned her 
MacArthur Fellowship for her work helping Pacific island communities 
respond to disruption caused by climate change and other human impacts.

Millions of people will be displaced by the end of the century, not just 
by sea level rise, but also by connected impacts to the natural world, 
including land degradation and over-use of resources.

Tackling global warming in isolation isn't enough, Jupiter said.

Along with figuring out the logistics of climate displacement, 
communities need to also learn how to deal with the stress and trauma 
that causes, and how that affects mental and spiritual health--the 
well-being of people, she said...
- - -
"What we're stumbling on is the importance of looking after your place 
for the continuance of cultural practices and for well-being, what 
indigenous people have been doing for thousands of years," she said. 
"Looking after ecosystems is part of many indigenous cultures, and they 
understand how that's important for mental and spiritual health."
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/28092019/macarthur-genius-grant-climate-scientist-andrea-dutton-jerry-mitrovica-stacy-jupiter

[spreading]
*The Gospel Of Climate Change: One Man's Mission To Take The Message To 
Commuters*
audio with TRANSCRIPT
September 27, 2019

On a Saturday morning in early September, 68-year-old Richard McLachlan 
stands at the center of a Brooklyn-bound Q train, looking up and down 
the subway car. A couple of dozen riders stare at their phones or lean 
their heads back against the windows, their eyes closed. McLachlan 
clears his throat and starts shouting.

"Ladies and gentlemen, I do not want any money from you, but I would 
really appreciate a few minutes of your time and attention," he says.

McLachlan is meticulously shaven. The New Zealand native wears a clean, 
collared shirt and fine leather shoes. He hardly fits the bill for New 
York City desperate, yet his message is one of heartfelt urgency.

"This is not about me," he continues. "It's about all of us here in this 
climate emergency that we are in. I'm an elderly man now, with five 
grandchildren, and their lives are going to be so much more difficult 
and painful than mine or many of yours ever were."

Almost no one on this train even looks McLachlan's way.

McLachlan is part of Extinction Rebellion, the climate group best known 
for shutting down main arteries in London last April. Here in New York 
City, steeped in the subway din, McLachlan delivers a crushing litany of 
food shortages, forest fires, more and bigger storms. He wants to scare 
his listeners, wake them up. Mostly, he says, he wants them to connect 
with one another.

"Talk to your family and friends, your lovers, your workmates. Talk to 
complete strangers in the subway car," he urges.

The riders stare at the floor or at their phones. It's almost as if 
they're waiting, making sure McLachlan will hold up his end of the 
bargain and not ask them for money or anything else. Then -- at least by 
New York City subway standards -- something astonishing occurs: A dozen 
riders break into applause. Others nod in affirmation. "Thank you!" a 
woman shouts.

McLachlan is clearly moved by these responses.

"That means a lot to me," he says. "Just to know you listened."

Leaning against the train car doors and smiling, Metropolitan 
Transportation Authority employee Stacey Johnson says that of all the 
things she has seen on the train, "this is one of the best things, one 
of the good forms of communication and information being passed around."

But even while some riders applaud, a man raises his voice in response. 
His name is Kape Deville, and -- just as McLachlan implored -- Deville 
is now talking about climate change on the subway to strangers, but his 
message might not be exactly what McLachlan was after.

"Brace yourself!" Deville shouts. "It's too late!" A moment later, 
Deville explains his outburst.

"Everything he's saying, it sounds good, but it's too late now. The 
environment is already too far gone. The things we were supposed to do 
to fix it, we were supposed to do in the '80s. God is the only one 
that's gonna save us."

A couple of weeks later, on a Tuesday night in Bushwick, Brooklyn, 
McLachlan teaches members of Extinction Rebellion how to give their own 
subway talks. His workshop is part writing craft, part encouragement and 
part reflection from a man who has a genuine knack for preaching the 
apocalypse.

"At some point I thought, 'There's no Richard. There's just an old white 
guy standing up in the subway car yelling,' " he says. "And I sort of 
have this technique. I sit there and I dispense with Richard. And then I 
stand up and start talking."

Aubrey Reeves Aldritch, an actor, is one of nine people in attendance. 
She says she's aware of the associations people might have about someone 
who speaks out on the subway.

"I'm not afraid to be the crazy person, because it's not crazy," she 
says. "It's happening."

Later that night, on the L train crossing into Manhattan, Aldritch and 
others give their subway talks for the first time.

"The polar ice caps are melting," Aldritch shouts, her voice clenching 
up. "The oceans are rising and rising and rising."

Later, on a different train car, another of McLachlan's students offers 
his one-minute speech.

"We're losing untold thousands of species to extinction," Arthur Boyle 
bellows.

John Spies gives his speech its first run on the Uptown 4 train.

"It's not our fault we inherited a broken system," he yells, "but we do 
have a choice."

The performances are awkward. These newbies don't yet connect with their 
audiences, at least not as effectively as their mentor does. But 
McLachlan is all praise. He knows from experience what it takes to stand 
up and start hollering that first time.

"That was great, man," he tells Boyle. "You've got a really good voice. 
You could have gone up quite a lot more."

McLachlan and his students plan to speak on the subway throughout 
October, while their peers in Extinction Rebellion block traffic and 
risk arrest in cities around the globe.
https://www.npr.org/2019/09/27/764677356/subway-proselytizer-preaches-climate-emergency-trains-others-to-spread-their-mes

[Quicknotes style: Geology video lesson from Potholer54]
*The story of the Earth in 33 minutes*
Sep 28, 2019
potholer54
SOURCES:
I usually put sources in the video description, but since this is just a 
basic and uncontroversial geology course it is unnecessary. Any basic 
geology textbook in your local library will have these facts, but if 
people want to dispute any of the science I will be happy to put a 
specific reference in the video description.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQWJbLTyDlc

[Medvedev of Russia]
*Melting permafrost and natural disasters threaten security, says 
Russian PM Dmitry Medvedev*
This week, he signed a government decree on the Paris Agreement.
- -
Melting permafrost and natural disasters threaten security, says Russian 
PM Dmitry Medvedev
This week, he signed a government decree on the Paris Agreement...
- - -
Minister of Agriculture Aleksey Gordeev underlines that Russia's 
participation in the Paris Agreement is important also because it gives 
the country the right to be part of the climate agenda...
https://thebarentsobserver.com/en/ecology/2019/09/melting-permafrost-and-natural-disasters-threaten-security-says-russian-pm-dmitry

[Masses of gasses "could"]
*Mysterious 'Pocket' of Underwater Gas Could Contain 50 Million Tons of CO2*
By Brandon Specktor - Senior Writer  Planet Earth
Who dealt the mystery gas at the bottom of the ocean?
The bottom of the sea can be a gassy place. Underwater volcanoes and 
vents spew carbon dioxide (CO2) near the crevices where tectonic plates 
rift apart. Hungry bacteria convert decomposing creatures of the deep 
into natural methane. And, new research from Japan reminds us, enormous, 
miles-wide reservoirs of greenhouse gases lurk in untouched pockets just 
below the seafloor.

In a study published Aug. 19 in the journal Geophysical Research 
Letters, a team of researchers discovered one such pocket at the bottom 
of the Okinawa Trough, a massive submarine basin sitting southwest of 
Japan where the Philippine Sea plate is slowly sinking below the 
Eurasian plate. Using seismic waves to map the trough's structure, the 
team found a huge gas pocket stretching at least 2.5 miles (4 
kilometers) wide and potentially containing more than 100 million tons 
(90.7 million metric tons) of CO2, methane or some combination of the two.

Depending on its contents, this massive stash of seafloor gas could 
represent an untapped source of natural gas, or a ticking time bomb of 
greenhouse gas emissions just waiting to seep up to the surface, the 
researchers wrote.

"If the gas is assumed to be all CO2, I would very roughly estimate it 
to be about 50 million tons,[45 million metric tons]," study co-author 
Takeshi Tsuji, of Kyushu University's International Institute for 
Carbon-Neutral Energy Research in Japan, told Live Science in an email. 
"This amount is on a similar order to the annual CO2 emissions of all 
private cars in Japan (about 100 million tons [907 million metric tons] 
per year)."...
In the new study, Tsuji and his colleagues sailed over the central part 
of the trough, then used an air gun to generate seismic waves from 
various angles. By measuring how these waves changed as they passed 
through the seafloor, the team created a rough profile of the hidden 
world below the seafloor.

"Seismic pressure waves generally travel more slowly through gases than 
through solids," study co-author Andri Hendriyana, another researcher at 
the International Institute for Carbon-Neutral Energy Research, said in 
a statement. "Thus, by estimating the velocity of seismic pressure waves 
through the ground, we can identify underground gas reservoirs and even 
get information on how saturated they are."

Pressure wave velocities slowed down significantly over a wide area in 
the middle part of the trough, indicating a massive gas pocket. The team 
estimated that the pocket's width, but were unable to calculate how deep 
or concentrated the reservoir was. ...
With the current data, they could not determine whether the gas in 
question was CO2 or methane (two abundant deep-sea gases), which makes 
the implications of the discovery a bit murky at the moment.

"On one hand, if it's methane, it could be an important resource," Tsuji 
said. (Methane, the main component of natural gas, is used as a fuel 
around the world.) "However, methane is also an important gas for 
climate change."

Following CO2, methane is the second most-common heat-trapping gas in 
Earth's atmosphere, and accounts for about 15% of global greenhouse gas 
emissions, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. Methane 
concentrations in the atmosphere have skyrocketed by nearly 150% in the 
last 250 years, NASA reports, and those numbers will likely continue to 
rise as global warming continues releasing methane once trapped in 
Arctic permafrost.

If, however, the gas in the undersea reservoir is mostly CO2, it could 
have an even greater impact on climate change. If the pocket were to pop 
and release 50 million tons (45 million metric tons) of CO2 into the air 
at once, it could have a measurable effect on CO2 concentrations in the 
atmosphere, and thus on climate change. If pockets like this one are a 
widespread feature at ocean rifts, as the researchers suspect they might 
be, then the potential consequences could be even more significant.

For now, though, there's just not enough data to make any specific 
conclusions about what's in the reservoir, where it came from, and 
what's going to happen to it. Further study of the Okinawa Trough and 
other ocean rift sites will be key in figuring out who (or what) dealt 
the mystery gas -- and who has to deal with it next...
https://www.livescience.com/massive-underwater-gas-trough-mystery.html
- - -
[Sunday Science - "Geophysical Research Letters"]
***Large Gas Reservoir Along the Rift Axis of a Continental Back‐Arc 
Basin Revealed by Automated Seismic Velocity Analysis in the Okinawa Trough*
Abstract

    In the Okinawa Trough off southwestern Japan, hydrothermal
    circulation due to back‐arc rifting is active. Biogenic CH4in
    discharging hydrothermal ﬂuids at the Iheya North Knoll is derived
    from outside the knoll; however, the location of the gas reservoir
    has not been identiﬁed. Here, we applied automated velocity analysis
    to seismic reﬂection data to obtain a P wave velocity structure in
    high spatial resolution. The resulting proﬁles reveal large gas
    reservoirs as low‐velocity zones along the rifting axis (>5 km for
    axis direction) around the Iheya North Knoll. The main gaseous
    components in the reservoir could be CO2and CH4. The heat ﬂow
    inferred from seismic proﬁles (i.e., depth of reﬂector)indicates
    that CH4hydrate could be trapping the gas. Furthermore, the heat ﬂow
    is higher at the rifting axis and close to the knoll, reﬂecting the
    large gas reservoir feeding the hydrothermal ﬂuids in the
    discharging area at the knoll.

Plain Language Summary

    Magmatic activity in the middle Okinawa Trough region southwest of
    Japan gives rise to intense hydrothermal activity. Gases in the hot
    ﬂuids discharging from the hydrothermal ﬁeld at Iheya North Knoll
    consist mainly of biogenic CH4originating from microbial activity
    and CO2. By applying high‐resolution automated velocity analysis to
    seismic reﬂection data, this study revealed widely distributed gas
    reservoirs as inferred from their low seismic velocities.
    Furthermore, our estimates of heat ﬂow suggest that these gas
    reservoirs are capped by CH4hydrate. If the main gas component is
    CH4, the gas reservoir may be a potential natural resource. If the
    gas includes CO2, the distribution of similar reservoirs is
    important because CO2is the main contributor to global warming.

https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1029/2019GL083065?referrer_access_token=0QI_kvEKbHbm73k2K3LnGcOuACxIJX3yJRZRu4P4eruiIksDthvd3dAUW3ZKSUY8v3PbQUedn8seK5Nnv3FtwV4V6UAng3OZILcy4QivcKtPpycGHGWqVvf89WdJWT5X9dup9Fgnc6t3HIDcXj0odg%3D%3D&

[From the BBC, a sabbath meditation]
*Climate change: Greta Thunberg calls out the 'haters'*
Justin Rowlatt - Chief environment correspondent
Greta Thunberg is angry, and not just about climate change.

"The haters are as active as ever", the 16-year-old Swedish climate 
activist posted on social media on Thursday, "going after me, my looks, 
my clothes, my behaviour and my differences". Anything, she says, rather 
than talk about the climate crisis.

It hasn't stopped her from campaigning. On Friday, she led another of 
her climate strikes, heading up a huge demonstration in Montreal, 
demanding international aviation does more to cut its carbon footprint.

But she is clearly very annoyed, accusing critics of "crossing every 
line to avert the focus" with, what she calls, lies and conspiracy theories.

Of course, the attention isn't surprising. Over the past year, Greta 
Thunberg has arguably done more to galvanise global action on climate 
than any other single individual.
And there is no question the unnerving power of her rhetoric comes in 
part from the fact that she is so young.

    Greta Thunberg
    @GretaThunberg
    Here we go again...
    As you may have noticed, the haters are as active as ever - going
    after me, my looks, my clothes, my behaviour and my differences.
    They come up with every thinkable lie and conspiracy theory. (Thread->)

A key reason her "How dare you!" message hit home so hard in the UN this 
week was because she seemed so jarringly out of place in the 
air-conditioned formality of the UN's New York HQ.

It is unusual for young people to hold the adult world to account so 
forcefully and so publicly and some people clearly don't like it.

Donald Trump is one. The US president appeared to mock Thunberg this 
week when he tweeted that she "seems like a very happy young girl 
looking forward to a bright and wonderful future".

She brushed off his sarcasm on Swedish television with a laugh, saying 
she "knew he was going to say something about me".

Others have been more offensive, claiming she's being manipulated by 
sinister forces.

The UK newspaper The Sun has suggested these include "energy giants and 
pushy celebrity parents - including a fame-hungry mum who once appeared 
on Eurovision".

Or how about this: Thunberg is "the deeply disturbed messiah of the 
global warming movement", according to one Australian newspaper.

"I have never seen a girl so young and with so many mental disorders 
treated by so many adults as a guru," wrote the columnist Andrew Bolt in 
the Herald Sun.

So, is Greta Thunberg the dour, vulnerable child with mental health 
issues that her critics present her as?

She was certainly not dour when I met her in Plymouth Sound aboard the 
racing yacht on which she was about to sail to America. She'd just got 
back from a trip out in the high winds beyond the breakwater and was 
clearly thrilled by the experience.

And, having met her, the idea that she was somehow persuaded by someone 
to take up the climate issue is fanciful.
She explained she first heard the world's climate was changing when she 
was eight, and couldn't understand why so little was being done about 
it. By the time she was 11, she was very unhappy indeed. She stopped 
eating. She stopped growing, and she stopped speaking to almost everyone.

"It felt like I was the only one who cared about the climate and the 
ecological crisis," Thunberg told me. "My parents didn't care about it, 
my classmates didn't care about it, my relatives didn't care about this. 
I mean nobody I knew cared about this and I felt like I was the only one."

She was determined to change that and, starting with her family, she 
began her campaign to get the world to take action on climate change.

First, she persuaded her parents to stop eating meat and even got her 
mother, Malena Ernman, a famous opera singer whose career depends on 
travelling, to agree to stop flying.

Next came the climate strikes. One Friday just over a year ago (20 
August 2018) Thunberg walked alone on to the steps of the Swedish 
parliament building holding her now-famous "Skolstrejk För Klimatet" - 
school strike for climate - sign. The rest is history. She rapidly 
became one of the most celebrated - and reviled - people in the world.

She has developed a network of contacts who advise her - including 
climate scientists and campaigners - but she's the one who calls the 
shots...
Those close to her confirm that she writes all her speeches. She told me 
she planned to use the two-week trip across the Atlantic to figure out 
what she was going to say at the UN Climate Summit.

"I will try and communicate the urgency and say that they are the ones 
in charge now. Show leadership!" she said.

She certainly did that on Monday when she accused world leaders of 
"stealing my dreams and my childhood", and warned them that "the eyes of 
all future generations are upon you. And, if you choose to fail us, I 
say: 'We will never forgive you'".

So, how about her mental health? And, while we're about it, does anyone 
have the right to comment on it? What's so impressive about Thunberg is 
how clear-headed she is on the urgent need for action in the light of 
the science.

Understandably, Thunberg particularly resents her mental capacity being 
called into question. "Being different is not an illness and the 
current, best available science is not opinions - it's facts", she said 
this week.

She acknowledges that she was very unhappy in the past, but says that 
championing the climate issue has helped lift her out of despair.

"It makes me feel good that I'm not alone in this fight," she told me, 
"and it feels like my life has some kind of meaning lately and I feel 
that what I am doing is meaningful."

She's famously described her Asperger's as a "superpower", allowing her 
to cut through the noise and see to the heart of the issue.
Dr James Cusack, director of science at the autism charity, Autistica, 
says she's been a really important role model for others with the 
condition. "Her brave, clear-minded and science-led approach to activism 
is inspiring for many people," he says.

And, while Thunberg is sometimes emotional about her cause she says 
that's because she's appalled and frustrated that the world isn't doing 
enough to tackle climate change.

She has the full support of her family. Her father, Svante Thunberg, is 
travelling in America with her - and shared the privations on her 
transatlantic voyage. Her mother and younger sister, Beata, stayed in 
Sweden.

She's no plans to stop campaigning any time soon.

These coming months are crucial, she told me, if the world is going to 
manage to keep the global temperature increase below 1.5 degrees above 
pre-industrial levels. Emissions have to start reducing before the end 
of next year, she warns, or we are likely to pass tipping points leading 
to uncontrolled climate change.

Yet, last year global carbon emissions increased by 2.7%, hitting a 
record high of 37.1bn tonnes.

Thunberg was upset by the response of the world leaders in the UN HQ 
this week. They politely applauded her speech but had no new initiatives 
that would significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and most also 
failed to acknowledge either her message or the fact that millions of 
people had taken to the streets to demand action just days before.

So, climate action remains very much a work in progress for Thunberg, 
despite her critics.

"I guess they must feel threatened by us," she wrote this week. "But the 
world is waking up."
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-49855980

[Putin]
*Even Putin Is Now Worried About Climate Change*
Russia has dropped its doubts about joining the Paris accords.
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-09-24/putin-is-finally-worried-about-climate-change

[Anthropocene]
*What if the standard way of planning climate mitigation is part of the 
problem?*
by Sarah DeWeerdt | Sep 24, 2019
- - -
In short, the current modeling approach "may encourage risky pathways 
that delay action, reach higher-than-acceptable mid-century warming, and 
rely on net removal of carbon dioxide thereafter to undo their initial 
shortfall in reductions of emissions," the researchers write.

Instead, the new approach homes in on achieving global net zero 
emissions as fast as possible. That in turn will bring about peak 
warming as soon as possible.

"The need to stabilize warming more quickly is paramount, and therefore 
we suggest a focus on reaching net zero carbon emissions as a key 
milestone of any climate strategy," lead author Joeri Rogelj said in a 
statement.

To do all that will require rapid decarbonization starting immediately – 
which of course will be no easy feat. But this approach rightly puts 
intergenerational justice front and center, Rogelj and his colleagues say...
https://www.anthropocenemagazine.org/2019/09/standard-way-of-planning-climate-mitigation-part-of-problem/

*This Day in Climate History - September 29, 2000 - from D.R. Tucker*
In an apparent effort to convince moderate voters not to support 
Democratic opponent Al Gore, GOP presidential candidate George W. Bush 
delivers an energy speech implying that he will pursue efforts to reduce 
carbon pollution as president. Bush would go on to abandon this implied 
promise during his tenure in the White House.
http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/EnergyIssues3
/-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------/

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