[TheClimate.Vote] January 30, 2020 - Daily Global Warming News Digest.

Thu Jan 30 11:05:30 EST 2020

/*January 30, 2020*/

[XR video talk]
*Can meaningful hope spring from revealing the depth of our climate 
failure? Kevin Anderson*
Jan 29, 2020
Extinction Rebellion
Peel away the layers of dangerously naive hope and unfounded optimism 
and the mitigation challenge posed by the Paris Agreement now demands 
the rapid and profound re-shaping of contemporary society. Whilst the 
models dominating the mitigation agenda employ evermore exotic and 
speculative technologies to remain 'politically palatable', the 
arithmetic of emissions increasingly embeds equity at the heart of any 
mathematically cogent strategy. Dress it up however we may like, the 
Parisian mitigation agenda is ultimately a rationing issue. Until we are 
prepared to acknowledge this, we will continue our reckless pathway 
towards a 3-5C future.

Against such a depressing backdrop, do the rapid emergence of new and 
vociferous constituencies and the heightened profile of climate change 
suggest early cracks and the prospect of new light?

Professor Kevin Anderson - University of Manchester (UK) and Uppsala 
University (Sweden) - speaking at St. Mary's Church Welcome Centre 
Walthamstow hosted by XR Waltham Forest. Tuesday 21st January 2020.
Follow Kevin on Twitter: @KevinClimate
Contact Waltham Forest Extinction Rebellion: xrwalthamforest at protonmail.com
Join the rebellion: https://Rebellion.Earth/
International: https://Rebellion.Global/

1. #TellTheTruth
2. #ActNow
3. #BeyondPolitics

World Map of Extinction Rebellion Groups: https://Rebellion.Global/branches/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mk49vAmNoiQ

[Defining the problem - opinion]
*Humans are good at thinking their way out of problems, but climate 
change is outfoxing us*
https://phys.org/news/2020-01-humans-good-problems-climate-outfoxing.html

[hard freeze goes soft]
*Ice fishing, a Minn. tradition, cracks as winters warm*
https://www.eenews.net/stories/1062204501

[Dave Roberts tells us how to get ready]
*Social tipping points are the only hope for the climate*
A new paper explores how to trigger them.
Jan 29, 2020, 10:10am
At this point, the targets enshrined in the Paris climate agreement -- 
holding the rise in global average temperature to a maximum of 2 degrees 
Celsius, with efforts to limit to 1.5C -- are beyond the reach of 
incrementalism. If the world's large economies had begun a slow, steady 
reduction in greenhouse gas emissions back in the 1990s, it might have 
sufficed. But action has been delayed so long now that only rapid, 
radical change can still do the job...
- - -
At this point, the targets enshrined in the Paris climate agreement -- 
holding the rise in global average temperature to a maximum of 2 degrees 
Celsius, with efforts to limit to 1.5C -- are beyond the reach of 
incrementalism. If the world's large economies had begun a slow, steady 
reduction in greenhouse gas emissions back in the 1990s, it might have 
sufficed. But action has been delayed so long now that only rapid, 
radical change can still do the job...
- - -
New research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of 
Science (PNAS)...constructs a framework for understanding social tipping 
points, the systems where they might do the most good on climate, and 
the kinds of interventions that might trigger them...
- - -
The more help concerned people can get in focusing their efforts where 
they might do the most good, the better. Insofar as science can help 
identify those areas -- and this paper is a good start -- it is to 
everyone's benefit.

But we probably don't have the brain or computing power to understand 
the logic of the collective behavior of 7 billion semi-rational people, 
or even the collective behavior of the US's half-billion. There have 
never been 7 billion people in the world, or half a billion people in 
the US, before. Everything humanity is doing now is happening for the 
first time, in unprecedented conditions. Every decade from here on out 
will be the warmest humanity has ever experienced and the coolest it is 
ever likely to experience again. Again, history is of little help.

Ultimately, there's an element of the miraculous to social tipping 
points, of intrinsic unpredictability. They can be hoped for, strived 
toward, but they cannot be planned, scheduled, or relied on. There's 
nothing anyone can really do with the knowledge that they might be out 
there except ... keep working...

more at - 
https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2020/1/29/21083250/climate-change-social-tipping-points
- - - -
[source PNAS paper]
*Social tipping dynamics for stabilizing Earth's climate by 2050*
*Significance*
Achieving a rapid global decarbonization to stabilize the climate 
critically depends on activating contagious and fast-spreading processes 
of social and technological change within the next few years. Drawing on 
expert elicitation, an expert workshop, and a review of literature, 
which provides a comprehensive analysis on this topic, we propose 
concrete interventions to induce positive social tipping dynamics and a 
rapid global transformation to carbon-neutral societies. These social 
tipping interventions comprise removing fossil-fuel subsidies and 
incentivizing decentralized energy generation, building carbon-neutral 
cities, divesting from assets linked to fossil fuels, revealing the 
moral implications of fossil fuels, strengthening climate education and 
engagement, and disclosing greenhouse gas emissions information.

*Abstract*
Safely achieving the goals of the Paris Climate Agreement requires a 
worldwide transformation to carbon-neutral societies within the next 30 
y. Accelerated technological progress and policy implementations are 
required to deliver emissions reductions at rates sufficiently fast to 
avoid crossing dangerous tipping points in the Earth's climate system. 
Here, we discuss and evaluate the potential of social tipping 
interventions (STIs) that can activate contagious processes of rapidly 
spreading technologies, behaviors, social norms, and structural 
reorganization within their functional domains that we refer to as 
social tipping elements (STEs). STEs are subdomains of the planetary 
socioeconomic system where the required disruptive change may take place 
and lead to a sufficiently fast reduction in anthropogenic greenhouse 
gas emissions. The results are based on online expert elicitation, a 
subsequent expert workshop, and a literature review. The STIs that could 
trigger the tipping of STE subsystems include 1) removing fossil-fuel 
subsidies and incentivizing decentralized energy generation (STE1, 
energy production and storage systems), 2) building carbon-neutral 
cities (STE2, human settlements), 3) divesting from assets linked to 
fossil fuels (STE3, financial markets), 4) revealing the moral 
implications of fossil fuels (STE4, norms and value systems), 5) 
strengthening climate education and engagement (STE5, education system), 
and 6) disclosing information on greenhouse gas emissions (STE6, 
information feedbacks). Our research reveals important areas of focus 
for larger-scale empirical and modeling efforts to better understand the 
potentials of harnessing social tipping dynamics for climate change 
mitigation.
https://www.pnas.org/content/early/2020/01/14/1900577117

[Amazon competes with Microsoft]
*Why is Amazon so touchy about its employees speaking out on climate 
change? The answer's right across the lake.*
But if you read what Amazonians posted in their open letter this week, a 
certain sore point does keep coming up:

"Microsoft plans to be carbon negative (by 2030) sooner than we want to 
be carbon neutral (by 2040). How can Amazon claim to be 'thinking big'?" 
wrote Duncan Scott, an Amazon software engineer.

"Hell, if Microsoft can do it (go carbon negative), why can't we?" 
echoed Austin Dworaczyk Wiltshire, another Amazon engineer.

"The real pioneer moment went to Microsoft," lamented Annett Stapf, an 
Amazon program manager. "I hope Bill Gates scratched Jeff´s 
competition-nerve."
https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/why-is-amazon-so-touchy-about-its-employees-speaking-out-on-climate-change-the-answers-right-across-the-lake/

[Extinction Rebellion pushes tipping points - the Guardian]
*Extinction Rebellion: charges against five protesters dismissed*
Judge says 'abject failure' by CPS left case lacking key prosecution 
witness as police officer goes on holiday
All charges against five Extinction Rebellion protesters have been 
dismissed at City of London magistrates court.

The deputy district judge, Vincent McDade, said there had been an 
"abject failure" by the Crown Prosecution Service. A police officer who 
had been due to be a prosecution witness was not given enough notice 
about the date of the trial and had booked a holiday.

Before the hearing on Tuesday, the former government chief scientist Sir 
David King had backed Extinction Rebellion over the climate emergency. 
"What we are talking about is the most important issue humanity has ever 
had to face up to," he said, speaking outside the court. "And when I say 
humanity I mean all of us. We're all in this boat together."

"No government, including ours, is doing enough today," King said. "So 
what we need is much more action and we need it with a public voice. 
That's what Greta Thunberg and Extinction Rebellion have done. They've 
put it back on the front pages."

King had written a witness statement that could have been admitted as 
evidence in the case. In it, he said: "It is hard to see how the global 
temperature rise is to be limited, on average, to 1.5C in the very 
narrow timeframe still available unless it becomes a matter of real 
urgency within the spheres of national and global politics."

In November, charges against more than 100 Extinction Rebellion 
protesters were dropped after the ban forbidding protest in London in 
October was ruled unlawful, though other cases continued. About 1,800 
protesters were arrested and detained between 14 and 19 October...
- - -
Before the charges were dismissed, Fisher said she had been motivated to 
participate in Extinction Rebellion protests out of fear for the future 
of her children. "The government response to the climate crisis is 
wholly inadequate, so much so that it is criminal," she said. "My 
children, especially my youngest, will have a very difficult life which 
will be full of conflict, worry and distress. I do not believe he will 
have a fulfilling life as a result."

Valentine, a mathematics student at the University of Sussex, said: "The 
terrifying immediacy of our situation is hard to grasp but needs to be 
communicated, which is why I take action with Extinction Rebellion. I 
didn't want to be arrested, it wasn't fun, I would have much rather have 
been at home. But the devastation of our planet isn't going to wait for 
me or any of us."
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jan/28/extinction-rebellion-charges-against-five-protesters-dismissed

[Digging back into the internet news archive]
*On this day in the history of global warming  - January 30, 1976 *
The US Supreme Court issues the Buckley v. Valeo ruling, one of several 
controversial rulings that effectively allow polluters to interfere with 
the US political process.
http://www.fec.gov/law/litigation/Buckley.pdf

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