[TheClimate.Vote] January 6, 2020 - Daily Global Warming News Digest

[Richard Pauli]

/*January 6, 2020*/

[campaign 2020]
*Tom Steyer talks climate change and foreign policy on tour of Iowa*
- - -
Speaking exclusively with CBS News aboard the bus between Sheldon and 
Spirit Lake, Iowa, Steyer said his hedge fund's investments in fossil 
fuels were "a mistake."

"There were definitely mistakes made," Steyer said when asked if he 
regretted the fossil-fuel investments. "If I knew then what I know now, 
would I have made them? No. But I didn't know then what I know now. And 
when I learned it, I acted on it."

Steyer wants Americans to come to the same conclusion he has about the 
unintended consequences of relying on a fossil-fuel economy.

"This is still a fossil-fuel-driven economy," Steyer said, adding, "we 
need to make a change." He wishes he had "figured it out sooner."...
- - -
Steyer is currently ramping up his operation in Iowa and claims there's 
momentum behind his campaign. The size of his team has increased in 
Iowa, with 70 staffers on the ground and 15 field offices across the 
state. He has not yet qualified for the January debate, which will be 
co-hosted by the Des Moines Register and CNN in Des Moines in mid-January.

On Friday, however, Steyer reached the 225,000 donor threshold set by 
the Democratic National Committee, which gets him part of the way to the 
debate stage. For now, he's still two qualifying polls shy of meeting 
that bar.

Some caucus goers in Iowa are attracted to Steyer's message around 
climate change. They recognize him from the barrage of television ads he 
has deployed on the airwaves and remember that he was pushing for 
impeachment of Mr. Trump back in 2017.

In Onawa, Iowa, a small town of roughly 3,000 residents where Steyer 
made a stop on Thursday afternoon, Iowan Debby Stanton told CBS News she 
was "very impressed" with Steyer and "likes what he's saying." 
"Hopefully, he can continue to get more support and be able to go one on 
one with President Trump," she said.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/tom-steyer-talks-climate-change-and-foreign-policy-on-tour-of-iowa/



[population is the core problem - video panel]
*Overpopulation & Climate Change: A Seat at the Table**
*Jan 3, 2020
UPFSI
Recorded at COP25 in Madrid, Spain on December 6, 2019, this may have 
been the only formal event at the UN climate negotiations where human 
overpopulation was even discussed.  Our burgeoning human numbers 
constitute a major 'elephant in the room'.  It is politically incorrect 
to even discuss the question of population while at the same time how 
many of us there are is obviously one of the most relevant drivers of 
climate change and the general ecological breakdown that is being 
experienced around the world.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZPMy2Yw8teM



[Follow the fashion]
*Italian Vogue Won't Publish Photos This Month*
Fashion's favorite trend -- sustainability -- comes for print magazines.
- - -
In his January 2020 note to readers, Emanuele Farneti, the editor in 
chief, described what it takes to fill one issue of his magazine (in 
this example, the traditionally thick September issue) with original 
photographs:

"One hundred and fifty people involved. About twenty flights and a dozen 
or so train journeys. Forty cars on standby. Sixty international 
deliveries. Lights switched on for at least ten hours nonstop, partly 
powered by gasoline-fuelled generators. Food waste from the catering 
services. Plastic to wrap the garments. Electricity to recharge phones, 
cameras …"

Owning up to this pollution was important to Mr. Farneti, particularly 
after he and the 25 other international Vogue editors made a pledge in 
December to help "preserve our planet for future generations" and show 
respect "for our natural environment."
- -
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/02/style/italian-vogue-sustainability-illustrated.html



[New Yorker $ opinion Elizabeth Kolbert]
*What Will Another Decade of Climate Crisis Bring?*
2019 has been called the year we woke up to climate change. Australia's 
wildfires are yet more evidence that it's time we started acting like it...
- - -
What will the twenty-twenties bring? In geophysical terms, this question 
is almost too easy to answer. Temperatures will continue to rise. It's 
virtually guaranteed that the coming decade will be warmer than the 
twenty-tens, which were warmer than the two-thousands, which were warmer 
than the nineteen-nineties, which--you guessed it--were warmer than the 
nineteen-eighties.

And with still higher temperatures will come still greater damage. 
Droughts will grow more punishing. (Australia's horrific wildfires are, 
in large part, the result of what Australians are calling a "big dry," 
which is now in its third year and has forced many towns to truck in 
water.) Warmer air holds more moisture, so the flip side of drought is 
deluge. (Last week, as Australia was roasting, flooding in Indonesia 
killed at least forty people.) Meanwhile, the planet's ice sheets will 
continue to melt, leading to ever-higher sea levels, as will the Arctic 
ice cap. It's possible that by 2030 the Arctic Ocean will be ice-free at 
the end of the summer...
- - -
Every decade is consequential in its own way, but the twenty-twenties 
will be consequential in a more or less permanent way. Global CO2 
emissions are now so high--in 2019, they hit a new record of forty-three 
billion metric tons--that ten more years of the same will be nothing 
short of cataclysmic. Unless emissions are reduced, and radically, a 
rise of two degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) will be pretty much 
unavoidable by 2030. This will make the demise of the world's coral 
reefs, the inundation of most low-lying island nations, incessant heat 
waves and fires and misery for millions--perhaps billions--of people 
equally unavoidable.

Really waking up, and not just dreaming to ourselves that things will be 
O.K., has become urgent--beyond urgent, in fact. To paraphrase 
Victoria's fire authority: The world is in danger, and we need to act 
immediately to survive.
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/01/13/what-will-another-decade-of-climate-crisis-bring




[follow the oil money - VICE news]


*The Hidden Signs That the Oil Industry Is Heading for a Reckoning**
*Despite the millions Big Oil is spending to slow and delay action on 
climate change, the world is shifting decisively away from fossil fuels.
By Geoff Dembicki - Jan 3 2020

A major U.S. oil and gas producer whose business model is premised on 
denying the urgency of global temperature rise was forced last month to 
acknowledge reality. In a move that reverberated across the financial 
world, Chevron, a funder of campaigns disputing the need for aggressive 
climate change policies, announced that up to $11 billion worth of its 
fossil fuel projects are effectively worthless.

"We have to make the tough choices," the company's CEO Mark Wirth told 
the Wall Street Journal. He blamed the company's massive write-down on a 
global oversupply of oil and gas that made drilling in places like 
Appalachia and the Gulf of Mexico unprofitable.

But there's more to the story than that. Despite the millions of dollars 
oil and gas companies are spending to slow and delay action on climate 
change, the world is shifting decisively away from fossil fuels, and the 
painful financial impacts are impossible for the planet's worst 
polluters to deny. In other words, Big Oil could be in much more trouble 
than it wants to admit.

In early October, BP wrote down up to $3 billion of its fossil fuel 
assets. That was followed a week later by a gigantic $12.4 billion 
write-down linked to shale oil drilling from the oil field services 
giant Schlumberger. And in December, the Spanish oil and gas giant 
Repsol cut $5 billion worth of climate-damaging projects. Though each of 
these was due to unique company circumstances, observers also see the 
write-downs as previews of a much larger financial reckoning.
- - -
The conventional wisdom from companies such as Chevron is that the 
global shift away from atmosphere-trashing energy sources will be slow 
and gradual with massive amounts of oil and gas still consumed by the 
world decades from now. And the spectacular failure of the recent 
international climate talks in Madrid, where countries couldn't reach 
consensus on a plan for preventing doomsday levels of warming, certainly 
falls in line with that narrative.

But forces threatening the oil and gas business model are undeniable. 
Renewables have become "amazingly affordable," according to Bloomberg 
columnist Peter Orszag. The president of GM, Mark Reuss, argued on 
CNN.com that "electric and self-driving vehicles will alter the 
automotive landscape forever--it's only a question of how soon." 
September's climate strikes were likely the largest mass protests for 
action on global warming in history. Goldman Sachs will no longer 
finance Arctic oil development, a decision it made out of concern for 
climate change and also the fact that drilling and exploring in the far 
north is risky and expensive.

When you add these factors to the carbon prices, vehicle bans, clean 
energy mandates, coal phase-outs, efficiency regulations and other 
climate policies already being implemented by governments around the 
world, and then make the not unreasonable assumption that these policies 
will become more stringent in the next five years, Kansy said, it's 
obvious companies such as Chevron face severe and mounting financial 
risks. The prediction that oil and gas companies could lose $500 billion 
by 2025 is "based on the current momentum that we see in countries," he 
explained. "It's a realistic scenario."

And it's not out of step with what outlets like the Wall Street Journal 
have already reported: "Oil companies have struggled to reap the profits 
of old and are falling out of favor with investors amid fears that 
electric vehicles and renewable energy, along with government 
regulations to address a warming planet, will constrain their futures."

Oil and gas companies a decade ago made up 10 percent of the stock 
market's value, they are now down to 4 percent. And even the best 
misinformation that fossil fuel money can buy isn't enough to change it. 
"The amount that's been invested in oil and gas companies has been 
declining," Fugere explained. "These companies are starting to 
understand the need to change but some of them not quickly enough."
https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/m7qa9n/the-hidden-signs-that-the-oil-industry-is-heading-for-a-reckoning



[Russia warming]
*Russia announces plan to 'use the advantages' of climate change*
Kremlin website recognises global heating as a problem but lists 
'positive' economic effects
Russia has published a plan to adapt its economy and population to 
climate change, aiming to mitigate damage but also "use the advantages" 
of warmer temperatures.

The document, published on the government's website on Saturday, 
outlines a plan of action and acknowledges changes to the climate are 
having a "prominent and increasing effect" on socioeconomic development, 
people's lives, health and industry.

Russia is warming 2.5 times faster than the planet as a whole, on 
average, and the two-year "first stage" plan is an indication the 
government officially recognises this as a problem, even though Vladimir 
Putin denies human activity is the cause.

It lists preventive measures such as dam building or switching to more 
drought-resistant crops, as well as crisis preparations including 
emergency vaccinations or evacuations in case of a disaster.

The plan says climate change poses risks to public health, endangers 
permafrost, and increases the likelihood of infections and natural 
disasters. It also can lead to species being pushed out of their usual 
habitats.

Possible "positive" effects are decreased energy use in cold regions, 
expanding agricultural areas and navigational opportunities in the 
Arctic Ocean.

Among a list of 30 measures, the government will calculate the risks of 
Russian products becoming uncompetitive and failing to meet new 
climate-related standards, as well as prepare new educational materials 
to teach climate change in schools.

Russia is one of the most vulnerable countries to climate change, with 
vast Arctic regions and infrastructure built over permafrost. Recent 
floods and wildfires have been among the planet's worst climate-related 
disasters.

Moscow formally adopted the Paris climate accord in September last year 
and criticised the US withdrawal from the pact.

Putin, however, has repeatedly denied the scientific consensus that 
climate change is primarily caused by emissions deriving from human 
activity, blaming it last month on some "processes in the universe".

He has also criticised the Swedish climate campaigner Greta Thunberg, 
describing her as an uninformed, impressionable teenager possibly being 
"used" in someone's interests.

He has also voiced scepticism on numerous occasions about solar and wind 
energy, expressing alarm about the dangers of turbines to birds and 
worms, causing them to "come out of the ground" by vibrating. While 
there is evidence that large wind-power installations can pose a risk to 
birds, known research does not suggest they harm worms.

On Sunday, Russia's meteorological service predicted temperatures up to 
16C higher than normal for Monday and Tuesday, when Russia celebrates 
Orthodox Christmas.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jan/05/russia-announces-plan-to-use-the-advantages-of-climate-change



[both transcript and audio]
*Not Cool Ep 26: Naomi Oreskes on trusting climate science*
November 25, 2019 - by Ariel Conn
It's the Not Cool series finale, and by now we've heard from climate 
scientists, meteorologists, physicists, psychologists, epidemiologists 
and ecologists. We've gotten expert opinions on everything from 
mitigation and adaptation to security, policy and finance. Today, we're 
tackling one final question: why should we trust them? Ariel is joined 
by Naomi Oreskes, Harvard professor and author of seven books, including 
the newly released Why Trust Science? Naomi lays out her case for why we 
should listen to experts, how we can identify the best experts in a 
field, and why we should be open to the idea of more than one type of 
"scientific method." She also discusses industry-funded science, 
scientists' misconceptions about the public, and the role of the media 
in proliferating bad research.

Topics discussed include:

    Why Trust Science?
    5 tenets of reliable science
    How to decide which experts to trust
    Why non-scientists can't debate science
    Industry disinformation
    How to communicate science
    Fact-value distinction
    Why people reject science
    Shifting arguments from climate deniers
    Individual vs. structural change
    State- and city-level policy change

https://futureoflife.org/2019/11/25/not-cool-ep-26-naomi-oreskes-on-trusting-climate-science/


[Why not?]
*Fukushima unveils plans to become renewable energy hub*
Japan aims to power region, scene of 2011 meltdown, with 100% renewable 
energy by 2040
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jan/05/fukushima-unveils-plans-to-become-renewable-energy-hub-japan 




[Digging back into the internet news archive from D.R. Tucker]
*On this day in the history of global warming  - January 6, 2009 *

Days before leaving office, a rather defensive President George W. Bush 
insists that his administration has "...taken aggressive steps to make 
America's energy supply cleaner and more secure -- and confronted the 
challenge of global climate change."

http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2009/01/20090106-4.html
http://youtu.be/BXcgg98tW4M

/-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------/

/Archive of Daily Global Warming News 
<https://pairlist10.pair.net/pipermail/theclimate.vote/2017-October/date.html> 
/
https://pairlist10.pair.net/pipermail/theclimate.vote

/To receive daily mailings - click to Subscribe 
<mailto:subscribe at theClimate.Vote?subject=Click%20SEND%20to%20process%20your%20request> 
to news digest./

*** Privacy and Security:*This is a text-only mailing that carries no 
images which may originate from remote servers. Text-only messages 
provide greater privacy to the receiver and sender.
By regulation, the .VOTE top-level domain must be used for democratic 
and election purposes and cannot be used for commercial purposes.
To subscribe, email: contact at theclimate.vote 
<mailto:contact at theclimate.vote> with subject subscribe, To Unsubscribe, 
subject: unsubscribe
Also you may subscribe/unsubscribe at 
https://pairlist10.pair.net/mailman/listinfo/theclimate.vote
Links and headlines assembled and curated by Richard Pauli for 
http://TheClimate.Vote <http://TheClimate.Vote/> delivering succinct 
information for citizens and responsible governments of all levels. List 
membership is confidential and records are scrupulously restricted to 
this mailing list.