[TheClimate.Vote] April 29, 2020 - Daily Global Warming News Digest..

Wed Apr 29 09:26:46 EDT 2020

/*April 29, 2020*/

[long read]
*What the Media Should Learn From Its Intense Coverage of COVID-19 About 
How to Cure Its Failed Reporting On the More Devastating Threat of 
Climate Change*
A new paper explains how the press's aggressive Covid-19 coverage 
provides insights on how it could improve its failed climate change 
coverage, a problem monstrously more threatening and urgent. It also 
explains how getting nations to comply with their ethical obligations 
for climate change is indispensable to prevent climate catastrophe, a 
counter-intuitive idea to most technically trained professionals working 
on environmental issues. It also explains several issues that GHG 
emissions target setting policy formation necessarily takes a position 
on that are crucial for citizens and governments need to understand to 
effectively critically evaluate a government's climate policies but 
rarely are identified in climate policy controversies.
Ethicsandclimate.org
Donald A. Brown
Scholar In Residence
Sustainability  and Law
Widener University Commonwealth Law School
https://ethicsandclimate.org/2020/04/27/what-the-media-should-learn-from-its-intense-coverage-of-covid-19-about-how-to-cure-its-failed-reporting-on-the-more-devastating-threat-of-climate-change/

[List of Michael Moore's critics]
*Moore's Boorish Planet of The Humans: An Annotated Collection*
April 25th, 2020 · 1 Comment
For Earth Day 2020, Michael Moore announced 30 days of YouTube access of 
Jeff Gibbs' and his Planet of the Humans. This free mass release sparked 
viewership and a discovery that, sigh, this was mediocre propaganda.
- - -
This post will provide an updated discussion of some of the better 
discussions of this boorishly propagandistic mocku-mentary.
http://getenergysmartnow.com/2020/04/25/moores-boorish-planet-of-the-humans-an-annotated-collection/
- -
[one more]
*Climate experts call for 'dangerous' Michael Moore film to be taken down*
Planet of the Humans, which takes aim at the green movement, is 'full of 
misinformation', says one online library

A new Michael Moore-produced documentary that takes aim at the supposed 
hypocrisy of the green movement is “dangerous, misleading and 
destructive” and should be removed from public viewing, according to an 
assortment of climate scientists and environmental campaigners.

The film, Planet of the Humans, was released on the eve of Earth Day 
last week by its producer, Michael Moore, the baseball cap-wearing 
documentarian known for Fahrenheit 9/11 and Bowling for Columbine. 
Describing itself as a “full-frontal assault on our sacred cows”, the 
film argues that electric cars and solar energy are unreliable and rely 
upon fossil fuels to function. It also attacks figures including Al Gore 
for bolstering corporations that push flawed technologies over real 
solutions to the climate crisis.
Planet of the Humans has provoked a furious reaction from scientists and 
campaigners, however, who have called for it be taken down. Films for 
Action, an online library of videos, temporarily took down the film 
after describing it as “full of misinformation”, though they later 
reinstated it, saying they did not want accusations of censorship to 
give the film “more power and mystique than it deserves”. A free version 
on YouTube has been viewed more than 3m times.

A letter written by Josh Fox, who made the documentary Gasland, and 
signed by various scientists and activists, has urged the removal of 
“shockingly misleading and absurd” film for making false claims about 
renewable energy. Planet of the Humans “trades in debunked fossil fuel 
industry talking points” that question the affordability and reliability 
of solar and wind energy, the letter states, pointing out that these 
alternatives are now cheaper to run than fossil fuels such as coal.

Michael Mann, a climate scientist and signatory to Fox's letter, said 
the film includes “various distortions, half-truths and lies” and that 
the filmmakers “have done a grave disservice to us and the planet by 
promoting climate change inactivist tropes and talking points.” The 
film's makers did not respond to questions over whether it will be 
pulled down.

Planet of the Humans has been shown at Moore's Traverse City film 
festival, where the producer said it was “perhaps the most urgent film 
we've shown in the 15-year history of our film festival”. Jeff Gibbs, 
who wrote and directed the film, has suggested that unrestrained 
economic and population growth should be the target of 
environmentalists' efforts rather than technological fixes.
Climate activist Bill McKibben, one of the targets for the film for 
allegedly being influenced by corporate money and for supporting the 
burning of biomass such as wood chips for energy, said the 
characterisations are untrue. McKibben has previously changed his views 
on biomass energy, which he now sees as being detrimental to climate 
action, and claims he has “never taken a penny in pay” from any 
environmental group.

“I am used to ceaseless harassment and attack from the fossil fuel 
industry, and I've done my best to ignore a lifetime of death threats 
from rightwing extremists,” McKibben said. “It does hurt more to be 
attacked by others who think of themselves as environmentalists.”

Renewable energy has long been portrayed as expensive and unreliably 
intermittent by oil and gas companies and their lobby groups, which have 
spent several decades questioning the veracity of climate science and 
undermining efforts to radically reduce planet-heating emissions.

In fact, the technology used for wind and solar energy has improved 
markedly in recent years, while the costs have plummeted. While electric 
cars often require fossil fuel-generated energy to produce them and 
provide the electricity to fuel them, research has shown they still emit 
less greenhouse gas and air pollutants over their lifetime than a 
standard petrol or diesel car.

Generating all power from renewables will take significant upgrades of 
grid infrastructure and storage but several researchers have declared 
the goal feasible, most likely with carbon-capture technology for 
remaining fossil fuel plants. Scientists say the world must reach net 
zero emissions by 2050 to head off disastrous global heating, which 
would likely spur worsening storms, heatwaves, sea level rise and 
societal unrest.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/apr/28/climate-dangerous-documentary-planet-of-the-humans-michael-moore-taken-down

[equanimity]*
*Roshan Krishnan
April 27, 2020*
**White Environmentalism and the Corporate University*
Universities and corporations are teaming up to fix the climate 
crisis--and ensure that they can continue to amass power through racial 
capitalism.

As part of a sweeping investment strategy aimed at “[scaling] the 
innovations and business-based solutions to reduce plastic waste,” the 
bank announced that they were partnering with the University of 
Michigan's School for Environment and Sustainability (SEAS) to establish 
a Plastic Waste Reduction fellowship for graduate students at the 
school. For his part, Jonathan Overpeck, the Dean at SEAS, expressed 
excitement about the partnership and its potential to advance 
“cutting-edge scholarship” that could “help inform the field to make 
smarter investments that matter and have real, lasting impact.”

Many students at SEAS, where I am currently a graduate student, were 
considerably less enthused. The prospect of partnering with Morgan 
Stanley to reduce plastic waste while the company remained the 
11th-largest funder of fossil fuels in the world reeked of 
greenwashing-the common corporate tactic of engaging in superficially 
sustainable projects in order to distract from problematic environmental 
records. In Morgan Stanley's case, that record is particularly sordid: 
from funding the Dakota Access Pipeline to investing in global 
deforestation to targeting communities of color with predatory loans in 
Detroit, the list of abuses committed by Morgan Stanley is considerable. 
Student discontent boiled over in the fall of 2019, when SEAS announced 
further collaboration with Morgan Stanley in the form of a project for 
Master's students. In response, students and staff (myself included) 
circulated an open letter in opposition to the partnership, arguing that 
it was “fundamentally at odds with SEAS's stated commitments to 
environmental and social justice.”...
- - -
As part of a sweeping investment strategy aimed at “[scaling] the 
innovations and business-based solutions to reduce plastic waste,” the 
bank announced that they were partnering with the University of 
Michigan's School for Environment and Sustainability (SEAS) to establish 
a Plastic Waste Reduction fellowship for graduate students at the 
school. For his part, Jonathan Overpeck, the Dean at SEAS, expressed 
excitement about the partnership and its potential to advance 
“cutting-edge scholarship” that could “help inform the field to make 
smarter investments that matter and have real, lasting impact.”

Many students at SEAS, where I am currently a graduate student, were 
considerably less enthused. The prospect of partnering with Morgan 
Stanley to reduce plastic waste while the company remained the 
11th-largest funder of fossil fuels in the world reeked of 
greenwashing-the common corporate tactic of engaging in superficially 
sustainable projects in order to distract from problematic environmental 
records. In Morgan Stanley's case, that record is particularly sordid: 
from funding the Dakota Access Pipeline to investing in global 
deforestation to targeting communities of color with predatory loans in 
Detroit, the list of abuses committed by Morgan Stanley is considerable. 
Student discontent boiled over in the fall of 2019, when SEAS announced 
further collaboration with Morgan Stanley in the form of a project for 
Master's students. In response, students and staff (myself included) 
circulated an open letter in opposition to the partnership, arguing that 
it was “fundamentally at odds with SEAS's stated commitments to 
environmental and social justice.”...
- - -
Majority-white environmental advocacy groups co-produced the white 
environmentalist narratives emerging from within the halls of academia, 
creating deep divides in the racial dynamics of environmental activism 
in the United States. The Sierra Club, a well-known conservation 
organization, is a notable example...
- - -
Left unchallenged, corporate partnerships enabled by white 
environmentalism will create new white environmentalisms, entrenching 
the current power structures that keep white supremacy and racial 
capitalism alive.

So what can we do to challenge them? It is incumbent on students, 
faculty, and staff in the environmental field to recognize and repair 
the fissures created by white environmentalism and challenge racial 
capitalism at every turn. That means going beyond sanitized, 
university-endorsed notions of diversity and inclusion and engaging in 
the hard work of anti-racism, decolonization, and redistributing the 
means of knowledge production. We must be vigilant in our criticism of 
corporate partnerships and relationships that legitimize harmful and 
racist practices, but these partnerships are merely one manifestation of 
white environmentalism. We can take steps toward dismantling its 
hegemony more broadly by looking to the work of grassroots environmental 
justice activists and radical scholars of color. We can decolonize our 
research methodologies and incorporate marginalized communities into our 
knowledge production in substantive, mutually liberatory ways. We can 
demand more inclusive curricula that incorporate critical histories of 
environmental movements. We can look to the “divest and reinvest” model 
to push our universities to divest from harmful institutions and 
partnerships and instead engage in meaningful partnerships and 
community-building with our neighbors who exist on the frontlines of 
ecological degradation and climate change. We can push for reparations 
and the return of Indigenous lands to dismantle the power of white 
environmentalist narratives and begin processes of reconciliation.

If we are to truly tackle the problems of the climate crisis and achieve 
the just, equitable transition toward which we claim to be working, then 
we must remake our institutions of teaching and learning with a 
commitment to applying environmental justice to all we do and an 
explicit rejection of white environmentalism. Let's get to work.
https://www.the-trouble.com/content/2020/4/27/white-environmentalism-and-the-corporate-university

[Digging back into the internet news archive]
*On this day in the history of global warming - April 29, 1999 *
BetsyRosenberg.com presents: This Day in Climate History
April 29, 1999: The ExxonMobil-funded Competitive Enterprise Institute 
names former Rep. Jack Kemp (R-NY) its first "Distinguished Fellow." Two 
years later, in a Washington Times op-ed, Kemp asserts that the 
scientific evidence pointing to human-caused climate change is inconclusive.
http://cei.org/news-releases/jack-kemp-named-distinguished-fellow-competitive-enterprise-institute
http://cei.org/op-eds-and-articles/warming-diplomacyat-what-cost

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