[TheClimate.Vote] December 5, 2020 - Daily Global Warming News Digest
Richard Pauli
richard at theclimate.vote
Sat Dec 5 11:03:56 EST 2020
/*December 5, 2020*/
[Climate agency]
*Under Biden, NOAA's profile is set to rise as climate change takes
center stage*
Transition team is working to set goals and identify leaders for agency.
By Andrew Freedman and Jason Samenow
Dec. 4, 2020
When President-elect Joe Biden takes office in January, the National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is expected to rise to new
prominence as the premier climate research agency in an administration
that intends to place climate change at the top of its agenda.
The Biden transition team is mapping out key priorities and identifying
potential leaders for an agency whose responsibilities also include
weather forecasting, ocean research, the health of the nation's
fisheries and protection of endangered marine species.
NOAA's next leader will have the critical task of shaping the agency's
climate research agenda so it can effectively serve as an information
clearinghouse to policymakers charged with planning for the consequences
of climate change and mitigating its effects...
- -
A blueprint for the Biden administration prepared by issue experts and
former Obama administration officials, known as the Climate 21 Project,
instructs the incoming administration to shore up the agency's
scientific integrity policy to better deter against another Sharpiegate
incident. It also identifies a need to rebuild the morale of the
agency's rank-and-file scientists and policy specialists...
- -
Julie Campbell, who owns a management consulting company in the earth
science market and worked at NOAA for a decade, said additional areas of
emphasis will probably include investments in data accessibility and
cloud computing as well as operational efficiencies while "balancing
mission critical technological developments in such areas as space
remote sensing and new and exciting capabilities in observations and
data sources in the commercial sector."
https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2020/12/04/noaa-biden-transition-climate-leaders/
- -
[Source material]
*Climate 21 Project*
The Climate 21 Project taps the expertise of more than 150 experts with
high-level government experience, including nine former cabinet
appointees, to deliver actionable advice for a rapid-start,
whole-of-government climate response coordinated by the White House and
accountable to the President.
The memos below contain the Climate 21 Project's recommendations for 11
White House offices, federal departments, and federal agencies, as well
as cross-cutting recommendations on personnel and hiring.
Importantly, the Climate 21 Project is not offering a policy agenda.
Rather, the memos below contain recommendations that can help the
President hit the ground running and build the capacity of his
administration to tackle the climate crisis quickly with the existing
tools at hand.
https://climate21.org/
- -
*Climate 21 Project - Attracting and Hiring Climate Change Talent*
https://climate21.org/hiring/
https://climate21.org/documents/C21_Hiring.pdf
[Foreign Policy]
*How Biden's Climate Plans Will Shake Up Global Energy Markets*
The new administration will use foreign policy tools to promote climate
goals, boost clean energy, and punish carbon-intensive production.
BY JASON BORDOFF - DECEMBER 4, 2020...
- -
Given that Biden will be more constrained in passing new legislation if
Republicans retain control of the Senate in the Georgia runoff elections
on Jan. 5, he may lean even more heavily on areas where the executive
branch has existing legislative or constitutional authority. Among the
most significant is the conduct of foreign policy. Selecting someone of
Kerry's stature as climate envoy and giving that person cabinet rank and
a seat on the National Security Council signal that the Biden
administration intends to go far beyond just rejoining the Paris climate
agreement to make climate change a top foreign-policy priority. The
policy shifts that result--in areas as diverse as international trade,
development finance, nonproliferation, and diplomacy--will do at least
as much as his domestic agenda to shake up global energy markets and
give a boost to clean energy firms and technologies...
- -
The Biden administration's ability to drive ambitious climate action
abroad is, of course, linked to its domestic agenda. Progress at home
will enhance its credibility abroad and effect certain tools like border
carbon adjustments. At the same time, domestic policies, even if limited
by a divided Congress, can be amplified on the global stage through
Biden's authority in the international realm to use foreign policy tools
to help deliver both clean-energy growth and domestic economic renewal.
As a result, one of the Biden administration's most enduring legacies in
global energy markets may be how diplomacy and geoeconomic tools in
international finance, development assistance, trade, and innovation
will have brightened the outlook for clean energy and expanded
opportunities for U.S. firms in the sector.
https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/12/04/biden-climate-energy-markets/
[Worry about the future]
*Climate 'apocalypse' fears stopping people having children - study*
Survey of 600 people finds some parents regret having offspring for same
reason
Damian Carrington - Fri 27 Nov 2020
People worried about the climate crisis are deciding not to have
children because of fears that their offspring would have to struggle
through a climate apocalypse, according to the first academic study of
the issue...
- -
The researchers surveyed 600 people aged 27 to 45 who were already
factoring climate concerns into their reproductive choices and found 96%
were very or extremely concerned about the wellbeing of their potential
future children in a climate-changed world. One 27-year-old woman said:
"I feel like I can't in good conscience bring a child into this world
and force them to try and survive what may be apocalyptic conditions."
These views were based on very pessimistic assessments of the impact of
global heating on the world, the researchers said. One respondent, for
example, said it would "rival world war one in its sheer terror". The
research also found that some people who were already parents expressed
regret over having their children.
Having a child also potentially means that person going on to produce a
lifetime of carbon emissions that contribute to the climate emergency,
but only 60% of those surveyed were very concerned about this carbon
footprint...
"The fears about the carbon footprint of having kids tended to be
abstract and dry," said Matthew Schneider-Mayerson, of Yale-NUS College
in Singapore, who led the study. "But the fears about the lives of
existing or potential children were really deep and emotional. It was
often heartbreaking to pore through the responses - a lot of people
really poured their hearts out."
The number of people factoring climate change into their reproductive
plans was likely to grow, Schneider-Mayerson said, as the impacts of
global heating became more obvious. "To address this, we really need to
act immediately to address the root cause, which is climate change
itself," he said.
The study, published in the journal Climatic Change, found no
statistically significant difference between the views of women and men,
though women made up three-quarters of respondents. A 31-year-old woman
said: "Climate change is the sole factor for me in deciding not to have
biological children. I don't want to birth children into a dying world
[though] I dearly want to be a mother."
The researchers found that 6% of parents confessed to feeling some
remorse about having children. A 40-year-old mother said: "I regret
having my kids because I am terrified that they will be facing the end
of the world due to climate change."
Schneider-Mayerson said: "I was surprised - for parents, this is an
extremely difficult statement to make."
The study is the first peer-reviewed academic study of the issue and
analysed a large group of concerned people. The survey was done
anonymously so people could express themselves freely.
"It is an unprecedented window into the way that [some people] are
thinking and feeling about what many consider to be the most important
decision in their lives," said Schneider-Mayerson.
Other findings were that younger people were more concerned about the
climate impacts their children would experience than older respondents,
and that adoption was seen as a potential alternative to having
biological children.
The study indicated that climate-related fears for their children's
lives were rooted in a deeply pessimistic view of the future. Of the 400
respondents who offered a vision of the future, 92.3% were negative,
5.6% were mixed or neutral, and just 0.6% were positive.
One 42-year-old father wrote that the world in 2050 would be "a
hot-house hell, with wars over limited resources, collapsing
civilisation, failing agriculture, rising seas, melting glaciers,
starvation, droughts, floods, mudslides and widespread devastation."
Schneider-Mayerson said he thought the pessimistic views held were all
within the range of possibilities, if not necessarily the most likely
outcome.
However, he said further research was needed on a more diverse group of
people and in other parts of the world. The self-selecting group in the
study all lived in the US and were largely white, more highly educated
and liberal.
Previously, opinion polls of the general public indicated people were
connecting the climate crisis and reproduction, with one poll in 2020
finding that among 18- to 44-year-old US citizens without children, 14%
cited climate change as a "major reason" for not having children. In
2019, scores of women in the UK said they were starting a "birth strike"
until the climate crisis was resolved.
Seth Wynes, of Concordia University in Canada, whose 2017 study found
having one less child was the greatest impact individuals can have in
fighting climate change, said the researchers had properly stressed that
the sample was not representative of all Americans. But he said the
distress over the decision to have children made sense. "Climate change
is already affecting our world in frightening ways and so it's certainly
reasonable to account for the climate crisis when thinking about the
future of one's family.
"As climate change continues to worsen, it is important to understand
how perceptions of the future can change the way everyday people plan
their lives," Wynes said. "This study is an initial step in growing that
understanding."
There is also growing evidence of climate anxiety affecting mental
health and earlier in 2020 more than 1,000 clinical psychologists signed
an open letter warning of "acute trauma on a global scale". Last week, a
survey revealed that more than half of child and adolescent
psychiatrists in England were seeing patients distressed about the state
of the environment.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/nov/27/climate-apocalypse-fears-stopping-people-having-children-study
[future food - 3 video talk]
*The Ongoing Disruption to our Global Food Supply from Abrupt Climate
System Change: Parts 1,2,3 of 3*
Dec 3, 2020
Paul Beckwith
Many people inexplicably think that global climate change is a future
problem. In this first of a three video series, I explain clearly how
our global food supply is presently being hammered by ongoing and
accelerating climate system change.
While potentially opening up some new crop growing regions dependent on
soil limitations, climate change is already directly impacting well
established growing regions, in at least 10 direct, or primary ways and
10 indirect, or secondary ways:
Direct Impacts
1) Heat stress is reducing crop yields.
2) Heat stress toll on farmers (sometimes fatal).
3) Heat stress tolls on livestock (often fatal).
4) Altered precipitation: not enough rain; drought.
5) Altered precipitation: too much rain; flooding.
6) Weather whiplashing between drought and flooding (or heat and cold)
ruining crops.
7) Extreme weather physically damaging crops: hail storms, late Spring
frosts, early Fall frosts, early warmth confusing plants to bud
prematurely, followed by killing frosts.
8) Wildfires physically destroying crops and livestock and polluting
water supplies.
9) Smoke and other wildfire pollutants damage crops hundreds of km from
the burn areas.
10) Extreme weather damaging food storage infrastructure, disrupting
food transportation systems, breaking down "cold chain" systems.
All of these above effects are already cascading into a variety of
secondary effects.
Secondary Impacts
1) Crop and farm failures, financing challenges, farmer migration and
suicides, general strikes.
2) Loss of agricultural labour and resource conflicts.
3) Crop stress causes stress on seeds and seed viability damage, causing
poor crop yields in subsequent years.
4) Drought and sea-level rise causes salinization contamination is soils
and farmland, reducing crop yields for years.
5) Heat, drought, and overuse of pesticides wipes out good beetles,
butterflies, bees, and other pollinators.
6) Changing precipitation patterns leads to increased breeding of
locusts and other crop harming pests.
7) Drought dries out soils leading to wind blown soil loss and
desertification.
8) Drought and decreases glacial water storage and groundwater
infiltration, drying up rivers and amplifying water stress in subsequent
years.
9) Torrential rain leading to flooding caused soil erosion, destroys
crops and infrastructure, and carries over to subsequent growing seasons.
10) Crop losses impact feed prices and supply for the following year.
Hopefully, we do not have to take a "Soylent Green" approach to food on
the near future. Remember to check the ingredients of those processed
foods and cookies that you eat.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u4xK4Lx9Ils [Part 1]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oDHExlL6WFY [Part2]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fOF3b_cYuY4 [Part 3]
[like a game of killer chess]
*Trump Administration Targets Banks Divesting From Fossil Fuels In New
Anti-Climate Rule*
By Sharon Kelly - Wednesday, November 25, 2020
A new proposed regulation that would bar large banks from declining to
do business with particular industries or groups of companies was
released on Friday by the Treasury Department's Office of the
Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) -- a move that could have major
implications for a wide array of divestment and boycott campaigns
nationwide, including efforts to divest from fossil fuels.
Although framed as an effort to ensure "fair access" for all businesses
to major banks, the rule bars big banks from declining to do business
with any particular sector or industry. The Trump administration
proposal specifically cited efforts by banks to respond to climate
change risks or to comply with the Paris Agreement, saying the rule
would put those efforts off-limits.
For years, climate activists have been pushing banks to divest from
fossil fuels -- and those campaigns have begun to gain steam as major
investment banks have begun to back away from oil, gas, and coal because
of climate concerns. But the oil and gas industry is politically
well-connected, donating heavily to Republican candidates. The OCC's
latest move also comes on the heels of a February move by the Trump
administration to block new requirements that public companies disclose
their climate risk and a June effort to limit ways that pension plans
can consider environmental, social, and governance (ESG) factors.
The OCC's new rule could stunt divestment campaigns by requiring major
banks to justify each individual decision to regulators using
"quantitative, impartial risk-based standards established by the bank in
advance" -- and it could also significantly impact the ways that major
financial institutions are allowed to consider or address a wide array
of other structural or societal risks as well...
- -
*Lame Duck Effort by Trump Administration*
The public comment period for the OCC's proposed rule runs just 45 days
and ends on January 4. That pre-inauguration deadline means that there's
a small window in which it might be feasible for the OCC to finalize its
rule before the Biden administration arrives.
Federal law generally requires regulators to respond to public comments
before finalizing new regulations.
The OCC's proposed rule is expected to draw public comment from a wide
array of interests. The proposal cited ways that the regulation could
cast a very wide net, affecting a large range of businesses.
"Organizations involved in politically controversial but lawful
businesses -- whether family planning organizations, energy companies,
or otherwise," the proposal said, "are entitled to fair access to
financial services under the law."
The proposal also specifically references what it called the
"now-discredited Operation Choke Point," an Obama-era effort to curb
predatory lending, saying that "the OCC believes these criteria are not,
and cannot serve as, a legitimate basis for refusing to grant a person
or entity access to financial services."
Brooks has previous professional ties to those sorts of lenders,
observers say. "Before serving as the [acting] comptroller of the OCC,
Brooks was the former chief legal officer and vice chair of OneWest
Bank, a predatory mortgage lender that was described as a foreclosure
machine," Jacobin Magazine noted.
Framed as an effort to prevent discrimination, the OCC's proposal cites
landmark civil rights laws like the Fair Housing Act, the Community
Reinvestment Act and the Equal Credit Opportunity Act (which prohibits
credit discrimination on the basis of "race, color, religion, national
origin, sex, marital status, age, or because you get public assistance,"
according to the Federal Trade Commission.)
The reference to civil rights laws has drawn strong pushback from
environmental advocates, who noted that the Supreme Court has for
decades upheld laws that protect people from discrimination based on
gender or race specifically because those groups faced long histories of
organized legal discrimination in the U.S.
"We're not talking about a protected class of people … we're talking
about fossil fuel corporations," said Ben Cushing, a Sierra Club senior
campaign representative told The Hill.
Others argued that the rule would just be poor public policy.
"There are huge risks that are difficult to pin a number on -- political
risks, policy risks, technology risks, reputational risks,"
Williams-Derry said. "If financial managers don't continually keep an
eye on these risks, they'll put their institutions in peril. But this
proposal essentially tells banks: forget judgment, forget prudence. If
you can't quantify a risk - or if you didn't happen to quantify a risk
before a new customer comes in through the door -- it doesn't count."
"These rules," he added, "seem to outlaw good judgement."
https://www.desmogblog.com/2020/11/25/trump-administration-banks-divest-fossil-fuels-climate
[Digging back into the internet news archive]
*On this day in the history of global warming - December 5, 2007 *
In a monologue that clearly explains why he had spent the previous
nineteen years claiming that climate change was a hoax, Rush Limbaugh
declares:
"Can I give you a real simple reality? It may be controversial, but it's
inarguable. This is a world that runs on fossil fuels, folks, and it's
going to run on fossil fuels long after you and I and your grandkids are
dead. Wind, solar, all pipe dream stuff, as we sit here and speak now.
Would somebody explain to me what is so immoral about the leaders of
this country attempting to maintain a supply and access to the fossil
fuel that runs the world and runs our economy?...What I'm suggesting
here is that even if a part of all of the strategy here [with the Iraq
War] is to maintain the free flow of oil at market prices, what in the
name of Sam Hill is wrong with that? What's the crime? Where's the
immorality in it?"
http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/daily/2007/12/05/what_s_wrong_with_war_for_oil2
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