[TheClimate.Vote] April 27, 2020 - Daily Global Warming News Digest

[Richard Pauli]

/*April 27, 2020*/

[video, commentary and questions]
*Is Big Oil finally getting stranded?*
Apr 26, 2020
Just Have a Think
Thanks to Russia and Saudi Arabia, global oil production has not 
decreased in reaction to the abrupt halt in our economies. That means 
all the pipelines, all the oil tankers, all the refineries and all the 
storage facilities are full to capacity with a commodity that nobody can 
use right now. Oil producers large and small are haemorrhaging money in 
a way that is genuinely threatening to their existence, and people are 
learning how to work from home in a way that may mean we choose to 
travel far less when the pandemic finally ends. So is this a 'Perfect 
Storm' that spells the end for BIG OIL?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ibWcbk3ARd0



[cognitive distancing]
*Climate science deniers at forefront of downplaying coronavirus pandemic**
*Vocal influencers such as the conspiracy theorist Alex Jones and the 
Heartland Institute are hitting back at a time when people's trust in 
science is rising
Fringe climate science deniers who spread online disinformation are now 
downplaying the seriousness of the Covid-19 pandemic, according to a new 
analysis.
DeSmog, a blog and organization that tracks the culprits behind false 
information about the climate crisis, identified about 70 individuals 
and groups questioning the deadliness of the coronavirus and pushing for 
an end to social distancing, along with protesters who have been 
encouraged by Donald Trump.

 From the conservative conspiracy theorist Alex Jones to the US-based 
Heartland Institute and UK-based James Delingpole, the review concludes 
that the same influencers trying to make the public question the 
severity of global heating are also discounting the science surrounding 
Covid-19.

"The climate war has largely been about confusing the public and making 
people trust in science and government less," said DeSmog's executive 
director, Brendan DeMelle. "And here we are in a pandemic where science 
and global cooperation are critical, and that's a threat to the ideology 
of a lot of these … organizations.

"You end up with this conspiracy theory about big government taking over 
our lives, taking away our freedoms, subjecting us to stay-at-home 
orders that we have to liberate ourselves from," DeMelle said.

DeSmog also identified fossil fuel and chemical industry aligned 
interests touting single-use plastics in personal protective gear, food 
packaging and grocery bags.

John Cook, who studies climate denial at the center for climate change 
communication at George Mason University, said he expected the overlap 
but was surprised by the extent of the parallels.

"People who are politically conservative and who value individual rights 
over collective responsibility are less supporting of social distancing 
policies and also just have a lower understanding of the dangers of 
Covid-19," Cook said, citing emerging polling data.
Cook outlines five techniques of science denial that people should watch 
for, including the cherry-picking of data.

"The latest argument that we should relax social distancing because the 
curve [of cases] is flattening is very much an example of 
cherry-picking," Cook said.

In the US, some of the same groups that have petitioned the Trump 
administration to debate human-caused climate disruption and to roll 
back climate standards are sowing distrust of epidemiological research.

Jay Lehr, science director of the Heartland Institute, on 30 March said 
people have been "barraged on the 24/7 news cycle for years" about 
climate change and now "face a more realistic fear of the most 
contagious virus any of us have ever experienced" but "both, however, 
suffer from questionable statistics and predictions that make us wonder 
what is real and what is someone's best guess."
Heartland's communications director, Jim Lakely, in a podcast about the 
"Wuhan virus" on 15 March compared the virus to a bad flu season and 
said that while "the panic is definitely more dangerous than the flu - 
this has to be put in perspective.

"We have to think about the economic damage this is doing to the 
country. This is incalculable," Lakely said.

The Heartland Institute also posted a piece by economics professor 
Daniel Sutter arguing that alternative strategies to social distancing - 
like sheltering vulnerable populations - "could have mitigated the human 
toll at a significantly lower economic and social cost".

The Manhattan Institute, which calls itself a free-market thinktank, ran 
an article from Heather MacDonald in which she wrote: "Even if my odds 
of dying from coronavirus should suddenly jump ten-thousand-fold, from 
the current rate of 0.000012 percent across the U.S. population all the 
way up to 0.12 percent, I'd happily take those odds over the destruction 
being wrought on the U.S. and global economy from this unbridled panic."

The Media Research Center in a video said: "This is exactly how they 
incite mass panic: through lies and deception and exploiting ignorance. 
It's how they convince people that we're all going to die because Trump 
doesn't believe in science or something."

Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, who founded Infowars, has called the 
virus a "hoax" and appeared at a "You Can't Close America" rally in 
Austin on Saturday, where he shook hands with unmasked supporters.

Fossil fuel supporters have also capitalized on the pandemic to warn of 
the costs of climate action.

Alex Epstein, the founder of the Center for Industrial Progress which 
DeSmog cites as associated with various groups connected to the 
rightwing billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch, called the 
current recession a "mild preview of the Green New Deal", and said that 
"our biggest ally in the fight against coronavirus is the fossil fuel 
industry."

The links between climate science denial and Covid-19 downplaying reach 
outside the US. In the UK, Delingpole, a rightwing commentator, has 
reposted calls to rapidly return to regular life.

In a recent podcast, he called doubters of quarantining measures 
"lockdown skeptics", and referred to those who support social distancing 
as "hysterical bedwetters". He accused the media of promoting panic in 
"hysterical tabloids".
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/25/climate-science-deniers-downplaying-coronavirus-pandemic
- - -
[Series of Climate and Covid denial]
*COVIDeniers: Anti-Science Coronavirus Denial Overlaps with Climate Denial*
https://www.desmogblog.com/covideniers-anti-science-covid-19-denial-overlaps-climate-denial



[Eric Rignot's daughter makes a pretty video for Vice]
*Making Sense of the End of the World with my Dad*
Apr 22, 2020
VICE
How much trouble is humanity in as Earth's ancient glaciers melt?

One of the world's foremost glaciologists, Dr. Eric Rignot, returns to 
Greenland hoping to go the furthest north he's ever been on a boat - a 
perilous journey fraught with sea ice and no radio signal - to for the 
first time ever survey the Humboldt glacier, one of the big potential 
contributors to global sea level rise. He brings his filmmaker-daughter 
Julia along for this 10-day journey to the end of the world. The 
findings from this mission will help scientists globally with their 
climate change projections.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z33VctxsjQw


[news]
*The Lab That Discovered Global Warming Has Good News and Bad News*
The good news is that the pandemic shows "science works." The bad news? 
Global warming may be far more dangerous than a pandemic.
- - -
One thing that keeps public health officials up at night: the deadly 
combination of extreme heat and humidity, which can push humans beyond 
our biological limit.

"There are places like the Persian Gulf, where we are already beginning 
to see these lethal combinations emerge, where it is thermodynamically 
impossible to sweat fast enough to stay cool," Dr. Horton said. "Climate 
models need to be better designed to help communities around the world 
prepare for previously underappreciated risks like this."

Dr. Horton is consulting with New York's power company, Con Edison, 
which is upgrading its infrastructure to prepare for anticipated spikes 
in peak demand from air-conditioner use during the projected hotter 
summers ahead. He is also working with the city as it plans an eventual 
"managed retreat" from some low-lying neighborhoods like coastal Staten 
Island and the Rockaways, Queens.

Lamont scientists discovered that New York City (along with much of the 
Eastern Seaboard) is actually sinking nearly as quickly as the sea 
around it is rising -- a double threat that suggests that America's 
largest city will have a far different shoreline in the not-so-distant 
future.

In the past, climate scientists mostly steered clear of the political 
controversies that swirled around their work. Things have changed. 
"Fewer researchers," Dr. Horton said, "are just sitting in the ivory 
tower." The younger ones, in particular, are speaking publicly about the 
need to act, even challenging Columbia University to do more to curb its 
own emissions.

But just as Lamont scientists are feeling more energized, the lab 
continues losing the financial support of the government, which was once 
its largest source of financing.

"The existing federal funding model is not well suited to this unfolding 
disaster," Dr. de Menocal said. "We need a vastly accelerated and vastly 
better-funded research program if we are going to find the answers in 
time to do something about it."

"We've watched the Covid-19 situation unfold at incredible speed," Dr. 
de Menocal said. He worries that environmental threats are not being 
felt as viscerally. "The climate crisis is playing out on a much slower 
time frame. We know roughly what to expect and when to expect it, and we 
should be preparing with the same level of urgency."

There is little time to waste, he said, though he admitted that he had 
no idea when scientists might return to the laboratory itself. The 
virus, Dr. de Menocal said, has shown us how vulnerable we are as a society.

"The laws of nature don't care whether we believe in them or not," he 
said. "The tragedy and inconvenience we've seen from this pandemic pale 
in comparison to what's in store from climate change. There is a much 
bigger crisis knocking on our door and we have to remember the big 
lesson from this pandemic: Science saves lives."

A version of this article appears in print on April 26, 2020, Section
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/24/nyregion/lamont-doherty-earth-observatory-global-warming.html



[Radical Robert Reich]
*The Solutions to the Climate Crisis No One is Talking About*
Make no mistake: the simultaneous crisis of inequality and climate is no 
fluke. Both are the result of decades of deliberate choices made, and 
policies enacted, by ultra-wealthy and powerful corporations.
*First, create green jobs...*
- -
*Second, stop dirty energy..*.
- -
*Third, kick fossil fuel companies out of our politics..*.
- -
*Fourth, require the fossil fuel companies that have profited from 
environmental injustice compensate the communities they've harmed...*
- -
*If these solutions sound drastic to you, it's because they are. They 
have to be if we have any hope of keeping our planet habitable. The 
climate crisis is not a far-off apocalyptic nightmare -- it is our 
present day.*
Australia's bushfires wiped out a billion animals, California's fire 
season wreaks more havoc every year, and record-setting storms are 
tearing through our communities like never before.

Scientists tell us we have 10 years left to dramatically reduce 
emissions. We have no room for meek half-measures wrapped up inside 
giant handouts to the fossil fuel industry.

We deserve a world without fossil fuels. A world in which workers and 
communities thrive and our shared climate comes before industry profits. 
Working together, I know we can make it happen. We have no time to waste.




[the first part]
** *Scientist reacts to YouTube climate change comments*
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nb84nmXNBqg
- -
[A little bit more science]
*Scientist reacts to YouTube climate change comments #2*
Apr 21, 2020
Simon Clark
What emits more CO2 - volcanoes or humans? Find out (and get 20% off) at 
https://brilliant.org/simonclark
In this video I read through and react to comments on my YouTube videos 
about climate change. There's some interesting stuff...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RzVV2fbkKtk


[Digging back into the internet news archive]
*On this day in the history of global warming  - April 27, 2009 *
NPR reports:

    "Sixteen nations are responsible for 80 percent of the world's
    greenhouse gas emissions. Now those nations, dubbed the 'major
    emitters,' are sending representatives to a conference beginning
    Monday in Washington, D.C., to see if they can work together to slow
    the pace of climate change.

    "The Obama administration has moved quickly to deal with climate
    change in the international arena. It has joined the United Nations
    talks that will take place in Copenhagen later this year and are aimed
    at developing a climate-change treaty. It is working one-on-one with
    China -- which recently surpassed the U.S. as the world's largest
    carbon emitter.

    "And in the meetings that start Monday, the Obama administration is
    convening the 16 nations that contribute most to climate change."

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=103465542


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