[TheClimate.Vote] February 20, 2020 - Daily Global Warming News Digest

[Richard Pauli]

/*February 20, 2020*/

[Wildfire in politics]
*Statements from five presidential candidates about wildland fire*
Author Bill Gabbert - Feb 19, 2020
They were asked about how to break the cycle of more severe weather, 
homes in fire-prone areas, and fire suppression that puts forests at 
greater risk for more catastrophic fires in the future...
https://wildfiretoday.com/2020/02/19/statements-from-five-presidential-candidates-about-wildland-fire/



[influence]
*Parents can't fix climate change with life hacks -- but here are ways 
to make a real impact*
By Caitlin Gibson - Feb. 18, 2020
The climate crisis is so monumental, its symptoms so horrific -- 
acidifying oceans, raging wildfires, vanishing wildlife -- that it's 
easy to feel paralyzed in the face of it. For parents raising the 
children who will inherit a damaged planet, the prospect can feel 
particularly daunting...
- - -
How climate experts think about raising children who will inherit a 
planet in crisis

Individual consumer choices do matter (go for that bamboo toothbrush 
over a plastic one; the sea turtles thank you), but they are not the 
deciding factor in halting the current crisis, says Mary DeMocker, an 
environmental activist and author of "The Parents' Guide to Climate 
Revolution: 100 Ways to Build a Fossil-Free Future, Raise Empowered 
Kids, and Still Get a Good Night's Sleep."

"Busy parents -- along with everyone else -- have been told for years 
that individual lifestyle changes can stop the climate from spinning out 
of control, but the truth is they can't," she wrote in her book. "Not by 
themselves, anyway."...
- - -
Focus time, energy on larger movement
If you only have a little time to spare at the end of a busy week, the 
best way to spend it is not by meticulously sorting every scrap of 
recyclable material in your home, but rather by contributing to bigger 
environmental efforts -- whether at the local, state or national level, 
DeMocker says.

"Spend 10 minutes looking at your local grass-roots climate group 
online," she says. Are they protesting a proposed pipeline? Urging 
residents to call their elected officials about pending legislation? 
Advocating for the protection of a threatened park or waterway?

"Understand your sphere of influence, where your interest is and where 
the levers of power are. . . . Look up the important decisions being 
made on the policy level in your own community," she says.

This is especially critical in an election year, she says. "Now is the 
time to plug into the electoral cycle, at whatever level parents and 
families can," she says. "That might mean volunteering, it might mean 
phone-banking or knocking on doors, it might mean just having more 
water-cooler conversations about the climate champions who are running 
for office."

Moms Clean Air Force encourages its members to bring their kids with 
them when they do advocacy work, Toney says. "There are kids who, I 
swear, should be registered lobbyists because they know how to advocate, 
they have been in the practice of speaking for themselves," she says. If 
you don't have time to plan a trip to your local representative's 
office, she adds, your child can help you reach out in other ways.

"Sign a petition, write an email, send a Facebook message with a picture 
of a handmade sign," she says. "Find out what people in your community 
are doing, and join in."

Connect kids to the environment
"This sounds really simple, but just getting outdoors is hugely helpful 
for getting your children to have a connection with nature and the 
environment," Toney says. That doesn't mean you have to take them on a 
grand tour of every national park: "I don't mean, 'Go buy $500 hiking 
boots and climb through the mountains,' " she says. "Figure out what you 
have right in your space, and just go outside."

When you're out there, help your children learn how to pay attention to 
their surroundings. Even with very young kids, this is something that 
sets the stage for a deeper environmental awareness, Toney says.

"When we walk from the front door to the car, which is just down a 
little sidewalk, we take note of what's outside. 'There's the grass, and 
the trees, and is that a flower? What color is the tree? Is that a 
rabbit?' " she says. "It creates a relationship. Now when my little one 
gets out of the car at night, he immediately looks up. He says, 'Oh, 
stars! The sky! Clouds!' We're trying to create, at a very young age, 
this connection with the natural things around us."

Ways to help kids cope with -- and help combat -- climate change

Pick one thing to champion or to give up
If the eco-parenting "to-do" lists are feeling like too much, DeMocker 
suggests finding just one thing that feels reasonable for your family to 
give up, such as eating red meat, buying tropical wood, taking vacations 
that involve plane travel or using a bank with ties to the fossil fuel 
industry...
- - -
Empower kids to be agents of change
Is your community debating an environmental policy or pondering the 
possibility of adding more pedestrian- or bicycle-friendly 
infrastructure? If there's a public hearing coming up, let your child be 
the one who addresses your elected leaders. Planning to attend a 
pro-environment demonstration? Bring the kids, and let them make their 
own signs.

Not every young climate activist is Greta Thunberg, but any child can 
carry her message forward, DeMocker says. "A child can make a sign to 
display on your car or the bike or the front lawn," she says. "They can 
knock on doors, help you write a letter or an email."

For younger kids, this sense of initiative can start at the household 
level. When Toney's daughter was 7, the family's community did not 
provide recycling bins. She was determined that the family should 
recycle anyway, so she created her own container, decorating a big 
cardboard box with crayon drawings, Toney says.

"We kept that box until it was soaked through with God knows what, and 
that was our recycling container, and that was initiated by my child," 
Toney says. "It's important to find things that they can initiate 
themselves, and support them in that."

Don't give in to despair
For Christmas 2016, DeMocker asked her family to create a "wall of 
kindred spirits" in their home, complete with portraits of inspirational 
figures, climate heroes and creative icons -- among them Harriet Tubman, 
Susan B. Anthony, Honduran environmentalist
Berta Caceres and Kenyan Nobel Peace Prize winner Wangari Maathai, who 
was honored for leading an effort to plant 30 million trees. The point 
of this display, DeMocker says, is to offer encouragement in moments 
when optimism feels hard to come by.

"When I'm ragged and without the strength to go on, my heroes silently 
say, You've got this, dear. Keep on fighting," she writes in her book.

The climate crisis can be frightening and heartbreaking, and we must 
make space to process those emotions, DeMocker says; cry, vent, go for a 
run -- but then rally, because it's not too late. And kids need to see 
determination and optimism modeled for them, too.

"We have hope; scientists are telling us that we are not doomed, and 
this is really an important conversation because so many people think 
we're a lost cause already," DeMocker says. "And we have to work hard to 
address that, because I think it's the biggest issue we face -- the 
emotional response that people have to the climate crisis. And I 
understand why; it's big, it's daunting. But it is not a lost cause, and 
we must remember that."
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/parents-cant-fix-climate-change-with-life-hacks--but-here-are-ways-to-make-a-real-impact/2020/02/17/291d23ce-42a8-11ea-b5fc-eefa848cde99_story.html


[WHO is World Health Organization]
*World failing to provide children with a healthy life and a climate fit 
for their future: WHO-UNICEF-Lancet*
19 February 2020 News release
As climate and commercial threats intensify, WHO-UNICEF-Lancet 
Commission presses for radical rethink on child health
No single country is adequately protecting children's health, their 
environment and their futures, finds a landmark report released today by 
a Commission of over 40 child and adolescent health experts from around 
the world. The Commission was convened by the World Health Organization 
(WHO), UNICEF and The Lancet.

The report, A Future for the World's Children?, finds that the health 
and future of every child and adolescent worldwide is under immediate 
threat from ecological degradation, climate change and exploitative 
marketing practices that push heavily processed fast food, sugary 
drinks, alcohol and tobacco at children.

"Despite improvements in child and adolescent health over the past 20 
years, progress has stalled, and is set to reverse," said former Prime 
Minister of New Zealand and Co-Chair of the Commission, Helen Clark. "It 
has been estimated that around 250 million children under five years old 
in low- and middle-income countries are at risk of not reaching their 
developmental potential, based on proxy measures of stunting and 
poverty. But of even greater concern, every child worldwide now faces 
existential threats from climate change and commercial pressures.
*A manifesto for immediate action on child and adolescent health *
To protect children, the independent Commission authors call for a new 
global movement driven by and for children. Specific recommendations 
include:

    1. Stop CO2 emissions with the utmost urgency, to ensure children
    have a future on this planet;
    2. Place children and adolescents at the centre of our efforts to
    achieve sustainable development;
    3. New policies and investment in all sectors to work towards child
    health and rights;
    4. Incorporate children's voices into policy decisions;
    5. Tighten national regulation of harmful commercial marketing,
    supported by a new Optional Protocol to the UN Convention on the
    Rights of the Child.

https://www.who.int/news-room/detail/19-02-2020-world-failing-to-provide-children-with-a-healthy-life-and-a-climate-fit-for-their-future-who-unicef-lancet



[Paul Beckwith video lecture]*
**West Antarctic Ice Sheet Melt Expected to Greatly Accelerate as 
Southern Ocean Warms: Part 1 of 3*
Feb 19, 2020
Paul Beckwith
An island off the northernmost tip of Antarctica reached a record 
breaking temperature of 20.75 C (69.35 F) for the first time, after 
setting a record the previous week of 18.3 C (65 F), besting the 
previous record of 17.5 C (63.5 F) in March 2015. I show on Earth 
Nullschool how a dip in the Southern Hemisphere jet stream let warm air 
penetrate the Antarctica Peninsula; temperatures over this region in the 
last 50 years have increased by 3 C (5.4 F), which is 4 to 5 times the 
global average rise. However it is the temperature rise in the Southern 
Oceans that greatly accelerates West Antarctic Ice Sheet melt.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=60aOaOYU8YQ


[Rare for to scientists to use the term "evil"]
Energy Research & Social Science
Volume 61, March 2020, 101361
*Power, evil and resistance in social structure: A sociology for energy 
research in a climate emergency*

    The climate emergency demands a radical rethink of sociology for
    energy research.
    Giddens' structuration theory can be rejuvenated for this project.
    Powerful, self-serving actors construct and maintain
    climate-damaging social structure.
    Moral argument will not persuade such actors to surrender their power.
    The notion of "evil" is useful for theorizing how their power can be
    dislodged.

A new paper in Energy Research & Social Science by Cambridge's Ray 
Galvin seeks to reinvigorate the social science of climate and energy as 
the general assumption that humans tackle political issues in good faith 
creates a hole in our understanding of behavior, which means "the notion 
of human evil needs to be better theorized." Galvin's work is steeped in 
sociology references and theory, but here's an attempt to present it in 
plain language that we're hoping doesn't stupidly misrepresent it like 
deniers did to Zeppetello.
After the abstract, the first line is: "We find ourselves in a climate 
emergency." Why is that? Galvin proposes that sociology "might help 
explain" why we're "bent on wrecking earth's Holocene climate" and what 
"daring, obstinate actions would be needed to halt this rush to 
destruction."

At the core of the framework Galvin presents is that "powerful people 
who know their actions are harming millions" and "whose actions are 
shaping social structure in their own interests and against the 
interests of humanity are not likely to be persuaded to give up their 
destructive power by the force of moral argument."

"Evil (whatever it is ontologically)," Galvin writes, "is not only in 
their actions, it is also in their tenacious clinging to these actions 
despite good moral argument." These "people who behave selfishly, 
maliciously, or with other 'evil' intent often know very well that these 
behaviours contravene basic moral codes of conduct, not only within 
their own culture but even universally."

So while each of us can individually choose more climate-friendly 
options, like electric vehicles, that can only go so far to mitigate the 
problem in the absence of larger, structural changes. And those changes 
will only come with the exercising of political force, because "we are 
not dealing only with kind-hearted, well-intentioned people of goodwill, 
but also with 'evil'" in the selfish preservation of vast fortunes or 
use of political power to benefit only one's self.

This kind of evil "can only be neutralised by force of power, by 
citizens' determined and carefully crafted resistance." Ultimately, 
"people of goodwill need to increase their power so as to work actively 
to wrest power from those who control social structure for their own 
gain at the expense of others and the climate."

There are a lot of different names and words used to describe various 
shapes of denial. But really two words will suffice. For those who are 
innocently deceived by those who promote denial, the nicest descriptor 
would be that they are merely "misled" deniers.

As for those doing the misleading, that greed, that indifference to 
human suffering, that willingness to deceive others and distort social 
structures to suit one's personal aims at the expense of the public?

That can only truly be described as evil.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S221462961930876X


[Digging back into the internet news archive]
*On this day in the history of global warming  - February 20, 2013*
In his first major policy speech as Secretary of State, John Kerry 
directly addresses the risks of climate change.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aqJt_WSGoVI
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2013/02/21/1620201/speech-kerry-climate-hawk-courage-reject-dirty-keystone-xl-pipeline/


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