[TheClimate.Vote] January 5, 2020 - Daily Global Warming News Digest

[Richard Pauli]

/*January 5, 2020*/

[The Atlantic opinion]
*Australia Will Lose to Climate Change*
Even as the country fights bushfires, it can't stop dumping 
planet-warming pollution into the atmosphere.
Australia is caught in a climate spiral. For the past few decades, the 
arid and affluent country of 25 million has padded out its 
economy--otherwise dominated by sandy beaches and a bustling service 
sector--by selling coal to the world. As the East Asian economies have 
grown, Australia has been all too happy to keep their lights on. 
Exporting food, fiber, and minerals to Asia has helped Australia achieve 
three decades of nearly relentless growth: Oz has not had a technical 
recession, defined as two successive quarters of economic contraction, 
since July 1991.

But now Australia is buckling under the conditions that its fossil fuels 
have helped bring about. Perhaps the two biggest kinds of climate 
calamity happening today have begun to afflict the continent.

The first kind of disaster is, of course, the wildfire crisis. In the 
past three months, bushfires in Australia's southeast have burned 
millions of acres, poisoned the air in Sydney and Melbourne, and forced 
4,000 tourists and residents in a small beach town, Mallacoota, to 
congregate on the beach and get evacuated by the navy. A salvo of fires 
seems to have caught the world's attention in recent years. But the 
current Australian season has outdone them all: Over the past six 
months, Australian fires have burned more than twice the area than was 
consumed, combined, by California's 2018 fires and the Amazon's 2019 fires.

The second is the irreversible scouring of the Earth's most distinctive 
ecosystems. In Australia, this phenomenon has come for the country's 
natural wonder, the Great Barrier Reef. From 2016 to 2018, half of all 
coral in the reef died, killed by oceanic heat waves that bleached and 
then essentially starved the symbiotic animals. Because tropical coral 
reefs take about a decade to recover from such a die-off, and because 
the relentless pace of climate change means that more heat waves are 
virtually guaranteed in the 2020s, the reef's only hope of long-term 
survival is for humans to virtually halt global warming in the next 
several decades and then begin to reverse it.

Meeting such a goal will require a revolution in the global energy 
system--and, above all, a rapid abandonment of coal burning. But there's 
the rub. Australia is the world's second-largest exporter of coal power, 
and it has avoided recession for the past 27 years in part by selling coal.

Though polls report that most Australians are concerned about climate 
change, the country's government has so far been unable to pass pretty 
much any climate policy. In fact, one of its recent political 
crises--the ousting of Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull in the summer of 
2018--was prompted by Turnbull's attempt to pass an energy bill that 
included climate policy. Its current prime minister, Scott Morrison, 
actually brought a lump of coal to the floor of Parliament several years 
ago while defending the industry. He won an election last year by 
depicting climate change as the exclusive concern of educated 
city-dwellers, and climate policy as a threat to Australians' cars and 
trucks. He has so far attempted to portray the wildfires as a crisis, 
sure, but one in line with previous natural disasters.

In fact, it is unprecedented. This season's fires have incinerated more 
than 1,500 homes and have killed at least 23 people, Prime Minister 
Morrison said on Saturday.* There were at least twice as many fires in 
New South Wales in 2019 as there were in any other year this century, 
according to an analysis by The New York Times. Climate change likely 
intensified the ongoing epidemic: Hotter and drier weather makes 
wildfires more common, and climate change is increasing the likelihood 
of both in Australia. Last year was both the hottest and driest year on 
record in the country.

Perhaps more than any other wealthy nation on Earth, Australia is at 
risk from the dangers of climate change. It has spent most of the 21st 
century in a historic drought. Its tropical oceans are more endangered 
than any other biome by climate change. Its people are clustered along 
the temperate and tropical coasts, where rising seas threaten major 
cities. Those same bands of livable land are the places either now 
burning or at heightened risk of bushfire in the future. Faced with such 
geographical challenges, Australia's people might rally to reverse these 
dangers. Instead, they have elected leaders with other priorities.

Australia will continue to burn, and its coral will continue to die. 
Perhaps this episode will prompt the more pro-carbon members of 
Australia's Parliament to accede to some climate policy. Or perhaps 
Prime Minister Morrison will distract from any link between the disaster 
and climate change, as President Donald Trump did when he inexplicably 
blamed California's 2018 blazes on the state's failure to rake forest 
floors. Perhaps blazes will push Australia's politics in an even more 
besieged and retrograde direction, empowering politicians like Morrison 
to fight any change at all. And so maybe Australia will find itself 
stuck in the climate spiral, clinging ever more tightly to coal as its 
towns and cities choke on the ash of a burning world.
ROBINSON MEYER is a staff writer at The Atlantic, where he covers 
climate change and technology.
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2020/01/australia-caught-climate-spiral/604423/

- -

[more opinion]
*Australia Is Committing Climate Suicide*
As record fires rage, the country's leaders seem intent on sending it to 
its doom.
By Richard Flanagan
Mr. Flanagan is a novelist.
- - -
The bookstore in the fire-ravaged village of Cobargo, New South Wales, 
has a new sign outside: "Post-Apocalyptic Fiction has been moved to 
Current Affairs."
- - -
"Australia is a burning nation led by cowards," wrote the leading 
broadcaster Hugh Riminton, speaking for many. To which he might have 
added "idiots," after Deputy Prime Minister Michael McCormack blamed the 
fires on exploding horse manure.

Such are those who would open the gates of hell and lead a nation to 
commit climate suicide.
More than one-third of Australians are estimated to be affected by the 
fires. By a significant and increasing majority, Australians want action 
on climate change, and they are now asking questions about the growing 
gap between the Morrison government's ideological fantasies and the 
reality of a dried-out, rapidly heating, burning Australia.

The situation is eerily reminiscent of the Soviet Union in the 1980s, 
when the ruling apparatchiks were all-powerful but losing the 
fundamental, moral legitimacy to govern. In Australia today, a political 
establishment, grown sclerotic and demented on its own fantasies, is 
facing a monstrous reality which it has neither the ability nor the will 
to confront.

Mr. Morrison may have a massive propaganda machine in the Murdoch press 
and no opposition, but his moral authority is bleeding away by the hour. 
On Thursday, after walking away from a pregnant woman asking for help, 
he was forced to flee the angry, heckling residents of a burned-out 
town. A local conservative politician described his own leader's 
humiliation as "the welcome he probably deserved."

As Mikhail Gorbachev, the last Soviet leader, once observed, the 
collapse of the Soviet Union began with the nuclear disaster at 
Chernobyl in 1986. In the wake of that catastrophe, "the system as we 
knew it became untenable," he wrote in 2006. Could it be that the 
immense, still-unfolding tragedy of the Australian fires may yet prove 
to be the  Chernobyl of climate crisis?
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/03/opinion/australia-fires-climate-change.html


[Solar costs fall faster than estimated - video statement]
*Mark Dyson: Solar Cost Declines have always Beaten Predictions*
Jan 4, 2020
greenmanbucket
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f031Ddq37BE



[Activism - running for office - Extinction Rebellion]
*Jackie Bond - Join[in]g Extinction Rebellion for radical climate action*
Jan 4, 2020
Nick Breeze
For more information visit: https://envisionation.co.uk/index.php.
When Jackie Bond started reading about climate change, her instincts 
told her she needed to act. In this interview Jackie talks about how she 
joined Extension Rebellion, as well the running as an MP in the recent 
election, where she trebled the Green Party's vote share in Vauxhall, 
South London.

Much of Jackie's experience is based upon placing the climate crisis at 
the centre of our discourse, be that social or political. Interview by 
Nick Breeze.

NB: What got you to be where you are today as a green candidate running 
to be an MP?

JB: Initially I got into this about 6 years ago and I always try to 
think about how I found out about how terrible the situation the world 
was in. I can't remember, I just remember suddenly being immersed in 
reading 20-30 articles a day on climate change, destruction of rain 
forests, all our biomes just catapulting out of control.

I was thinking that this situation was abysmal and it wasn't satisfied 
by having some knowledge of climate change given to us in school. It 
felt like there was a blanket of lies about how this was being 
communicated. If you looked you could find the truth that was out there 
but it wasn't being presented to you upfront.
visit: https://jacquelinebond.com
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Atvyh9USJik



[Foreign Affairs]
*Adapt or Perish*
*Preparing for the Inescapable Effects of Climate Change*
By ​​​​​​​Alice Hill and Leonardo Martinez-Diaz January/February 2020

Ever since climate change became a concern for policymakers and 
laypeople alike, the focus of public debate has largely been on 
mitigation: limiting greenhouse gas emissions, capturing carbon, and 
transitioning to renewable energy. Those efforts must continue if we 
hope to keep the planet hospitable. But it is also time to acknowledge 
that--no matter what we do--some measure of climate change is here to 
stay. The phenomenon has already affected the U.S. economy, U.S. 
national security, and human health. Such costs will only grow over 
time. The United States must build resilience and overhaul key systems, 
including those governing infrastructure, the use of climate data, and 
finance.

Otherwise, the blow to the U.S. economy will be staggering. Assuming 
that current trends continue, coastal damage, increased spending on 
electricity, and lost productivity due to climate-related illness are 
projected to consume an estimated $500 billion per year by the time a 
child born today has settled into retirement. Other estimates suggest 
that the U.S. economy will lose about 1.2 percent of GDP per year for 
every degree Celsius of warming, effectively halving the country's 
annual growth...
. .. .
Besides politics, the other major obstacle to progress is psychological. 
For decades, both public officials and private citizens have 
underestimated the growing risks from climate change. Behavioral 
economists refer to this as "availability bias," the tendency to judge 
the likelihood of an event based on how easily a relevant example can be 
called to mind. The government commission charged with investigating the 
9/11 attacks, for example, singled out "a failure of imagination"--the 
simple inability to conceive of hijackers flying planes into 
buildings--as a key reason the United States had let its guard down.

The 9/11 Commission therefore recommended "routinizing . . . the 
exercise of imagination." The same idea could help decision-makers with 
climate resilience. The Task Force on Climate-Related Financial 
Disclosures, an advisory group with backing from financial regulators, 
has recommended that all publicly listed corporations regularly discuss 
and disclose potential climate-related scenarios to understand how 
accelerating climate impacts could affect their businesses.

Climate change is here. Reducing its impacts on lives and livelihoods 
will demand a sustained, collective effort across the United States. 
Both the government and private actors will need to rethink where and 
how they build infrastructure, how they use climate and weather data, 
and how they mobilize financial resources to offset potential risks. The 
economic case for such a transformation is clear. But putting it into 
practice will require creativity and collaboration. Politicians, 
business leaders, and the public will have to envision a planet 
different from the one they have come to know and put in place new 
systems that can ensure survival, health, and prosperity in a warmer world.
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/united-states/2019-12-10/adapt-or-perish


[evaluating existentialist risk - 70 minutes audio interview]
*The Climate Crisis as an Existential Threat with Simon Beard and Haydn 
Belfield*
August 1, 2019 - by Ariel Conn
Does the climate crisis pose an existential threat? And is that even the 
best way to formulate the question, or should we be looking at the 
relationship between the climate crisis and existential threats 
differently? In this month's FLI podcast, Ariel was joined by Simon 
Beard and Haydn Belfield of the University of Cambridge's Center for the 
Study of Existential Risk (CSER), who explained why, despite the many 
unknowns, it might indeed make sense to study climate change as an 
existential threat. Simon and Haydn broke down the different systems 
underlying human civilization and the ways climate change threatens 
these systems; They also discussed our species' unique strengths and 
vulnerabilities -- and the ways in which technology has heightened both 
-- with respect to the changing climate.

This month's podcast helps serve as the basis for a new podcast we're 
launching later this month about the climate crisis. We'll be talking to 
climate scientists, meteorologists, AI researchers, policy experts, 
economists, social scientists, journalists, and more to go in depth 
about a vast array of climate topics. We'll talk about the basic science 
behind climate change, like greenhouse gases, the carbon cycle, feedback 
loops, and tipping points. We'll discuss various impacts of greenhouse 
gases, like increased extreme weather events, loss of biodiversity, 
ocean acidification, resource conflict, and the possible threat to our 
own continued existence. We'll talk about the human causes of climate 
change and the many human solutions that need to be implemented. And so 
much more!. If you don't already subscribe to our podcasts on your 
preferred podcast platform, please consider doing so now to ensure 
you'll be notified when the climate series launches...
- - -
Topics discussed in this episode include:

    What an existential risk is and how to classify different threats
    Systems critical to human civilization
    Destabilizing conditions and the global systems death spiral
    How we're vulnerable as a species
    The "rungless ladder"
    Why we can't wait for technology to solve climate change
    Uncertainty and how to deal with it
    How to incentivize more creative science
    What individuals can do

https://futureoflife.org/2019/08/01/the-climate-crisis-as-an-existential-threat-with-simon-beard-and-haydn-belfield/



[MLK and destabilizations]
*How would Martin Luther King have organized a climate emergency protest?*
This is a legitimate question ....
GISELA HAUSMANN, life skills expert, email evangelist, environmentalist
This is a legitimate question because Martin Luther King knew how to 
bring about change better than almost anybody else. And, he did it the 
American way.

Probably, most Americans will agree that if Dr. King were with us today 
he would be a leader in fighting the climate emergency as it threatens 
everybody and everything he fought for.

In his speech "The Other America" (1968) Dr. King said, "And what is it 
America has failed to hear?…It has failed to hear that the promises of 
freedom and justice have not been met…"

The same is true for climate change. For decades, most of our leaders 
and big corporations failed to acknowledge that CO2 emissions are 
destroying the planet; and, many of them grew rich ignoring this fact. 
While millions of people started reducing, reusing, and recycling stuff, 
buying energy efficient windows and solar panels, and planted trees, and 
local government officials stepped up in response to the crisis, big 
governments' and big corporations' efforts are nowhere near what would 
be required to reign in the climate emergency.

Maybe, the climate emergency only grew that enormous because of the 
absence of a leader like Dr. King?

Still, I do not believe that Dr. King would ask Americans to march for 
climate change in 2020. Since the protests of the sixties, American 
organizations have "learned to deal with protests." They resort to  
making abstract statements like "We are working on it" and "The research 
isn't finalized," which equates to postponing any real action as long as 
possible.

Meanwhile, in 2019 alone, there have been ten climate disaster events 
with losses exceeding $1 billion each across the United States, which 
doesn't cover the loss of life and the hardships of individuals whose 
possessions and communities went up in flames or drowned in floods.

That's why I believe that Dr. King would have resorted to a much 
stronger action plan, like the one he employed in Montgomery, Alabama, 
where, in and before 1955, black residents experienced harassment and 
unequal treatment from the Montgomery Bus Company.

Dr. King's proven concept

As a first step, the Montgomery Improvement Association under Dr. King's 
leadership presented their formal list of demands to the city 
commissioners and bus company officials, asking for courteous treatment 
by bus operators and first-come, first-served seating for all, black and 
white.

That action step has already happened with regards to the climate 
emergency - hundreds of times. For decades, environmental organizations 
have presented ideas and demands.

When, in 1955, Dr. King's talks failed, he simply called for boycotting 
the Montgomery Bus Company's services, and the black community followed 
his call. Because black bus riders constituted about seventy-five 
percent of the bus system's customers, the transportation service lost 
an estimated $3,000 per day, for 381 days. (At the time, the average 
cost of a new house was $3,000 to $5,000.)

Depriving the Montgomery Bus Company of this kind of money helped to 
bring about victory for the protesters.

Just like the black bus riders' problem, the climate emergency isn't a 
new problem

It is obvious why teenage climate activist Greta Thunberg and millions 
of school-aged children are angry about the climate emergency. Not only 
did they not create the problem, courtesy of the Internet, the children 
know that our environmental problems are neither new nor unexpected. 
NASA scientist James Hansen told a congressional hearing that the planet 
was "already warming" - in 1988, long before today's young activists 
were born.

Most of them were elementary students, kindergartners, or preschoolers 
when Al Gore's movie "An Inconvenient Truth" tried to educate people 
about global warming and ways to correct the problems - in 2006.

Still, even thirteen years later, the United Nations Climate Change 
Conference 2019, also known as COP25, failed. UN secretary-general 
António Guterres stated that "the international community lost an 
important opportunity to show increased ambition on mitigation, 
adaptation & finance to tackle the climate crisis" which makes it 
crystal-clear that for our voices to be heard and really understood a 
different kind of protest is required, one that just like the Montgomery 
Bus Boycott "attacks the wallets" of the organizations who profit from 
not dealing with the climate emergency in competent ways.

Martin Luther King showed us the way

A peaceful No-Idling Protest can be carried out much easier than the 
Montgomery Bus Boycott because not a single American would have to 
change their way of living; nobody would have to bicycle to work or take 
the bus and no child who always gets picked up from school would have to 
ride the school bus. Protesters would not reduce or stop driving their 
cars but only stop idling.

Still, as laid out in my blog, "A kind of nonviolent protest that might 
actually help saving planet Earth," if approximately fifty million 
Americans would not idle their cars at drive-throughs and next to 
schools on Earth Day 2020, they would save 2.1 million gallons of fuel 
and deprive the fossil fuel industry of more than $6.2 million in 
earnings - on only one day.

If Americans would keep up the boycott as long as Montgomery, Alabama's 
black population kept up theirs, it would cost the fossil fuel industry 
more than $2.3 billion.

Disruption leads to change

It is reasonable to assume that it would not take 381 days until 
American corporations and the American government would dramatically 
step up their efforts to fight the world's climate crisis. Nobody likes 
to lose money, even if they can afford it.

So - are you in?

The task is easy. Avoid idling your car on Earth Day 2020 and get your 
family and friends to do the same. Then, watch TV and social media 
platforms to see how we made the news!

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. would be proud of us.
https://thriveglobal.com/stories/how-would-martin-luther-king-have-organized-a-climate-emergency-protest/


[Digging back into the internet news archives of D.R. Tucker's work]
*On this day in the history of global warming  - January 5, 2000 *

During a Democratic Presidential debate with former New Jersey Senator 
Bill Bradley, Vice President Al Gore notes that as a Congressman, "...I 
decided to take on the issue of global warming and make it a national 
issue, when everybody was saying 'You know, you're going to run a lot of 
risk there. People are going to think that that's kind of off the edge 
there.' Well, now more and more people say, 'Yes, it is real,' and the 
next president has to be willing to take it on."

(for clip move to time 29:28-29-50)

http://c-spanvideo.org/program/DemocraticCandidatesDebate10

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