[TheClimate.Vote] January 11, 2020 - Daily Global Warming News Digest

[Richard Pauli]

/*January 11, 2020*/

[Aussie opinion]
*Most conservatives know prevention is better than cure - except when it 
comes to climate change*
Richard Denniss
- - -
Scott Morrison's claim that Australia is "meeting and beating" our 
emissions reduction targets is as misleading as it is meaningless. 
Leaving aside the fact that Australia is relying on accounting tricks to 
meet our Paris targets and to cover up our rising emissions, even if 
Australia was "on track", that track still leads us to a world that is 
at least 3C warmer than it was 100 years ago.

Australia is now experiencing the early symptoms of what climate change 
looks like. While conservatives have trolled the public debate, saying 
"there is no climate emergency" and that "CO2 is plant food", 
Australians have now had their first clear look at what an "extreme 
weather event" is.

This summer's fires were so fierce they made their own lightning, which 
started new fires. This summer's fires were so intense they created a 
wind storm that flipped over ten-tonne firetrucks and killed a 
firefighter. This summer's fires were so vast that we have no chance of 
extinguishing them all. They will burn for at least another month unless 
heavy rains show.

Those commentators who, for years, have obsessed about the "costs" of 
avoiding climate change while telling their audiences about the benefits 
of a heating planet, will probably never hang their heads in shame. But 
perhaps the news outlets that provide a platform for their dangerous 
denialism will. Or, perhaps not.

There is nothing in our constitution that says for-profit companies must 
act responsibly or in the interests of their readers. And most 
Australians with an instinctive support for free speech and freedom of 
the press are willing to accept that it's hard to regulate against fake 
news.

But it is no coincidence that the same voices who once denied climate 
change, and then denied that climate change is caused by fossil fuels, 
are now the ones declaring that climate change doesn't make bushfires 
more frequent or more ferocious.

And it is no coincidence that the prime minister is far happier to fund 
disaster repair than he is to invest in disaster avoidance. Just as the 
climate-denying commentators burned up their credibility when they 
focused on the "upside" of climate change, the Coalition burned up its 
policy credibility when they ripped up the carbon price.

There was a brief moment after the last election when the prime minister 
and some in the press gallery thought climate policy could be put on the 
backburner. But reality bites. Hard.

The people who told us that the quiet Australians weren't that worried 
about climate change, and that December's fires were a "state issue", 
are now in charge of developing a national plan to repair this disaster 
and prevent the next ones. What could go wrong?

Richard Denniss is chief economist at independent thinktank the 
Australia Institute, @RDNS_TAI
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/commentisfree/2020/jan/09/most-conservatives-know-prevention-is-better-than-cure-except-when-it-comes-to-climate-change



[Paul Beckwith video talk of Arctic]
*Arctic Sea-Ice Loss and Literal Darkening of the Arctic Causing Warming 
Amplification: Part 1 of 2*
Jan 7, 2020
Paul Beckwith
I am back after my much needed holiday break. I am chomping at the bit 
and ready to go. Here I discuss how the Arctic region (from 80 to 90 
degrees N) albedo (reflectivity) declined from reflecting 52% of 
sunlight in 1979 to reflecting only 48% of the sunlight in 2011. This 
decline occurred mostly in regions where the Arctic sea ice melted out, 
and was not compensated by cloud cover since the latter did not increase 
significantly. Arctic temperatures thus increased by 3x the global average.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kIA1yN92NK0
- - -
*Darkening Arctic with Loss of Sea-Ice and Snow Cover, Consequences of 
Blue-Ocean State: Part 2 of 2*
Jan 7, 2020
Paul Beckwith
How much Arctic darkening will occur with an ice-free Arctic Ocean 
(Blue-Ocean State)? How much more warming will occur? To get a handle on 
the answers I continue to delve into the scientific literature. 
According to a recent paper, the annually-averaged Arctic Ocean 
planetary albedo under ice-free and cloud-free conditions would be 14% 
over the region. Compare this to the estimated cloud-free albedo of 39% 
in 1979. The Arctic is becoming a much Darker place; cloud growth does 
not compensate for ice loss.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LF3iJ8Zg_nc


[44 min audio interview with wise political philosopher]
*Noam Chomsky: America Has Built a Global Dystopia*
Hosted by Robert Scheer Jan. 10, 2020 POLITICS
It is nearly impossible to live in today's world without having come 
across mention of the legendary Noam Chomsky. His work as a linguist, 
historian, political activist and philosopher, which spans nearly a 
century, has had an immeasurable impact on contemporary world views. Not 
only have his over a hundred books become the basis for a vast milieu of 
modern thought, but he himself has become a widely-admired public figure 
whose thoughtful take on current events is as crucial as ever in our 
increasingly hostile, chaotic sociopolitical climate.

While the renowned left-wing thinker, and Truthdig's award-winning 
Editor in Chief Robert Scheer are both well known in progressive circles 
for their lifelong work challenging systems of oppression and false 
narratives about American exceptionalism, until now, the two had never 
met in person. In a remarkable two-part interview, Chomsky and Scheer 
meet to discuss topics ranging from the type of dystopian future we 
face, to the unfortunate, brutal success of the U.S. empire.

Basing his first question on Chomsky's immense body of work, Scheer 
focuses on the two well-known dystopian texts written by Aldous Huxley 
and George Orwell, "Brave New World" and "1984," positing that there is 
"an amalgam of these two totalitarian, dystopian models emerging."

"I think we can start with the assumption," says Scheer, "we have to be 
concerned about a dystopian future. Which model do you see emerging?"

The linguist offers a detailed response based on the novel "We" by 
Yevgeny Zamyatin and Shoshana Zuboff's "The Age of Surveillance 
Capitalism," which in his view best predict and outline the 
techno-surveillance system that has already begun to take hold in in the 
U.S. and beyond, where companies such as Google, Amazon and others are 
finding novel ways to exert control over mankind.

"The kind of model towards which society is moving is already 
illustrated to a substantial extent in China," says Chomsky, "where they 
have very heavy surveillance systems and you get a--they have what they 
call a social credit system.

"You get a certain number of points, and if you, say, jaywalk, violate a 
traffic rule, you lose points," he elaborates. "If you help an old lady 
across the street, you gain points. Pretty soon all this gets 
internalized, and your life is dedicated to making sure you follow the 
rules that are established. This is going to expand enormously as we 
move to what's called the internet of things. Meaning every device 
around you--your refrigerator, your toothbrush, and so on--is picking up 
information about what you're doing, predicting what you're going to do 
next, trying to control what you're going to do next, advise what you do 
next."

Perhaps most alarmingly, Chomsky asserts that "Huxley was kind of right" 
in positing that "people may not see [this form of surveillance] as 
intrusive; they just see it as that's the way life is, the way the sun 
rises in the morning."

The conversation later moves into a discussion of American empire and 
what Chomsky views as its little-understood but undeniable success. 
While Scheer approaches the question from a military standpoint, in 
which the U.S. has led a series of bellicose failures that have ushered 
in an era of immense global instability, Chomsky takes an economic 
approach.

"The imperial model, which succeeded," says the MIT professor, "[has] 
prevented other countries from moving towards independent development, 
and therefore led to a situation in which U.S. multinationals dominate 
the world. It's led to a situation in which [the U.S. empire is] 
primarily designed for the benefit of U.S. capital, which has succeeded 
beyond belief."

Listen to the first part of the remarkable discussion between Scheer and 
Chomsky, and tune in next week for the second installment, which will 
touch upon the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and its global impact.
https://www.kcrw.com/culture/shows/scheer-intelligence/noam-chomsky-america-has-built-a-global-dystopia


[opinion clips from Business Green Editors Blog]
James Murray - 9 January 2020
*Noah's Rainbow - Raising children in an age of climate crisis*
- - -
It was a coincidence that finally broke me.

I'd never cried over climate change before, never mourned the rising 
seas, never let the existential angst of it all escalate into a physical 
response. This detachment was never the result of a generalised 'stiff 
upper lip', 'boys don't cry' reserve. I have a pretty finely tuned 
emotional trigger. Watching Richard Linklaters' Boyhood a few weeks 
before my first son was born the tears flowed. Some days a simple smile 
or innocent comment from the boys can spark a misty-eyed pause as I cast 
around for composure. At our wedding the ushers organised a sweep stake 
- 'the weep stakes' - on how far I could get into the speech without 
crying. About seven minutes as I recall.

My father does not lack for what is now described as emotional 
intelligence, but I have only seen him cry once, I think. At his 
father's funeral. About half way through the ceremony, his shoulders 
shuddered as he sobbed. My mother took his hand, and he pulled himself 
together. I'm pretty sure he didn't cry at his mother's funeral, because 
he was looking after his father - a beautiful, dignified old man 
suddenly bereft. I only saw him cry once, I think. At his wife's 
funeral. About half way through the ceremony, his shoulders shuddered as 
he sobbed. My father took his hand, and he pulled himself together.

That's the tradition. A Victorian, empire-building code of masculinity 
that has echoed through centuries. And then something shifted.

My parents came of age in the Sixties and trained as teachers in the 
Seventies, back when atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases were 
still vaguely in the ballpark of where they were before we started 
burning stuff. They soaked up the educational theories of the era: the 
child-centred desire to move beyond repetitive rote-learning, to teach 
the whole person. To master literacy and numeracy, yes, but also inspire 
an engagement with the world, a love of the new and the unknown, a 
respect for nature, and an understanding of the 'soft' skills that are 
so hard to master. They are the embodiment of everything Michael Gove 
would appear to rail against nearly 40 years later. I prefer their approach.

Soon after our second son was born I overheard my Mother talking to my 
wife about raising boys. The one thing, she said, that she consciously 
aspired to amidst the day to day chaos of corralling young children was 
to produce a boy who was sensitive. The "sensitive child" tag that even 
now is perceived as mild criticism, a shake of the head disappointment, 
was anything but to my mother and her boho-infused ideals. It was 
something to aspire to, even if it ran counter to the old school, 
rough-edged masculinity that still defined what boys should be and how 
they should behave.

The result is a hybrid. A willingness to voice emotions, a recognition 
there is no shame in it, but also a slight awkwardness, a sense that 
expressive outbursts should be reserved for special occasions: weddings, 
funerals, the best films, the worst goodbyes.

I see this awkwardness, this conflict, this dialectic if you will, in so 
many of my peers. Humanity's inherent hubris means every generation 
thinks it is special, that it sits at a turning point in history. But I 
remain absolutely fascinated by my coevals from the maternity wards of 
1980 (and yes, that does mean I'm about to turn 40; and yes, this piece 
should be read as the self-indulgent musings of a newly middle-aged man 
fast approaching the likely mid-point of his existence)...
- - -
*How to use a gun*
What then to do with this excess of reality? How do you comfort your 
child when you are the one crying? How do you raise children in an age 
of climate crisis? My eldest, Calum, has just started school and his 
younger brother, Fraser, is absorbing - in the way only two years old 
can - all the new habits and information that now come home each day. 
This new phase in our lives presents numerous questions. How do we 
prepare them for the world? How do we guard against the new risks they 
will face and help them seize the opportunities? What should we teach 
the boys when we know the future will be so very different from the 
present? Or, because this is meant to be a business blog, how do you 
build a sustainable business in the face of metastasising risks and 
seemingly insurmountable odds?

Stephen Emmott's 10 Billion includes the now infamous vignette of a 
scientist who when asked to pick the one thing he should do in the face 
of environmental crisis deadpanned "teach my son to use a gun". That 
feels a little extreme, and not just because our boys are four and two, 
and we don't live in Texas...
- - -
*An ancestral role*
All of this finds a corollary in the corporate world. The emergence of B 
Corps, of corporates committed to delivering net zero emissions, of 
maturing clean technologies, of a confident millennial workforce 
demanding more from their employers than a pay cheque, of CEOs warning 
of the perils of populism and talking openly about the pursuit of 
purpose, this all combines to provide evidence that deep decarbonisation 
can still be delivered despite political leaders' continued failures. 
There is hope here too.

This progress provides a still inadequate riposte to the caveat that has 
to come with any discussion of a 'kids are all right' generational 
shift. As Greta Thunberg put it in characteristically blunt style: "It's 
sometimes annoying when people say, 'Oh you children, you young people 
are the hope. You will save the world'. I think it would be helpful if 
you could help us just a little bit."

She is right, of course. By the time my eldest son is facing his own 
midlife it will be 2055 and we will know whether Europe delivered on its 
promise to build a net zero economy by mid-century. We will know whether 
the Paris Agreement's goal to hold temperature increases 'well below 2C' 
was ever more than words on a piece of paper. We will know if Australia 
kept burning and Jakarta kept sinking. The next decade simply has to 
deliver a peak and a rapid reduction in global emissions or else the 
generational betrayal will be complete - there will be a lot more tears 
shed.

In his recent Broadway show Bruce Springsteen told the story of how just 
before his first child was born his father visited him in California and 
in a roundabout way asked for his forgiveness for "not always being good 
to you". Springsteen interpreted the quasi-apology as both advice on how 
to raise his own children and a petition from his father for "an 
ancestral role in our lives".

"We are ghosts or we are ancestors in our children's lives," he said. 
"We either lay our mistakes and our burdens upon them, and we haunt 
them, or we assist them in laying those old burdens down, and we free 
them from the chain of our own flawed behaviour."

The pursuit of an ancestral role is everything.

The other night Fraser woke once again late in the evening. His nursery 
has been trying to teach his class of two year old tearaways how to 
recognise and process their feelings. They start every day with a simple 
question we should all pose ourselves each morning. "Hello Fraser, happy 
or sad?" they ask. "Happy," he invariably replies. That night as he 
cried out I went to soothe him. As I reached his room he looked straight 
at me, silhouetted in the doorway, and declared "Daddy, the dark is 
upsetting me".

You and me both, son, but it'll be light in the morning. It'll be OK.
https://www.businessgreen.com/bg/blog-post/3084916/noahs-rainbow-raising-children-in-an-age-of-climate-crisis


[military]
*Pentagon Not Using Leading Practices to Assess Water Scarcity at 
Installations*
The Government Accountability Office's (GAO) latest audit of DoD 
installations focused on "the extent to which DoD has assurance that it 
is using reliable information to identify installations at risk of water 
scarcity." GAO found that DOD does not have "assurance that is using 
accurate and reliable information regarding which installations are at 
risk for water scarcity." GAO examined multiple DoD and military service 
assessments that focused on or included water scarcity. Some of these 
assessments included the effects of climate change on water 
availability. GAO collected installation information on water scarcity 
from field visits or through questionnaires from a total of 17 
installations. The installations selected were previously identified by 
DoD or the Services as having water vulnerabilities or scarcity...
- - -
The result of this is that GAO notes that DoD "lacks assurance that it 
has quality information and risks potentially using or providing to 
Congress unreliable information."

Water scarcity, exacerbated by climate change, will challenge multiple 
Department of Defense (DoD) installations to support the missions that 
they host. The Services have actively been surveying their respective 
installations and collecting data on water availability and use to 
determine which installations may be at risk now of in the future of not 
having sufficient water to continue their respective missions. DoD 
currently does not have its own information to determine which 
installations it believes are at risk of water scarcity.
https://climateandsecurity.org/2020/01/10/pentagon-not-using-leading-practices-to-assess-water-scarcity-at-installations/


[Digging back into the internet news archive]
*On this day in the history of global warming  - January 11, 2013 *

Media Matters notes: "After ignoring reports that 2012 was the hottest 
year on record in the U.S., Rush Limbaugh and Fox Business host Stuart 
Varney tried to push back against well-established evidence of climate 
change by citing instances of cold weather."

http://mediamatters.org/blog/2013/01/11/conservatives-once-again-cite-extreme-cold-to-d/192202


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