[TheClimate.Vote] July 9, 2020 - Daily Global Warming News Digest

Thu Jul 9 08:01:47 EDT 2020

/*July 9, 2020*/

[msg distilled by Bloomberg]
*Coal, Oil, and Gas Don't Burn Themselves**
**Entrenched systems of power aren't just an impediment to real action, 
they're the whole problem...*
"We're not planting any new flags here from the perspective of [Black 
Americans], right? All of this we've known and experienced and lived. 
But at least it seems as though there was this awakening by others."

The book spends little time in the author's professional domain. 
Instead, it lingers on reminiscences, including one about a beloved 
Florida State University college professor who provided him with a 
useful definition of racism. "Dr. [Bill] Jones' definition was framed 
around the idea that racism is steeped in a power imbalance," Shepherd 
writes. "When a certain racial group holds the majority of political, 
economic, and societal power, they can explicitly, implicitly, or 
systematically discriminate against others or suppress equality to 
maintain the balance of power."
In other words, racism is a systemic problem impossible to separate from 
the institutions and networks that perpetuate it. So is climate change, 
but it isn't talked about that way nearly often enough. The people who 
write laws and set policy get up every morning and make decisions that 
wave climate change on through, a fact that rarely factors into 
scientific reports, policy studies, and popular books on climate.

Shepherd's is far from the only book about discrimination to acknowledge 
the systemic analogy between racism and climate change, however. In her 
book So You Want to Talk About Race, Ijeoma Oluo uses climate change as 
an example of a problem that doesn't go away just from acknowledging it. 
"While we talk about global warming and worry about global warming, most 
of us go about our days the same as we did before we ever heard the term 
because it's just easier to talk than to do. And global warming continues."

Coal, oil and gas don't burn themselves. Their continued use is the 
result of active decision-making, carried out by inertia-bound 
institutions whose hold on power depends on maintaining the 
unsustainable status quo. Any change in that structure isn't going to 
come from technology development, or even market forces. It requires a 
political shift
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-07-06/coal-oil-and-gas-don-t-burn-themselves-to-cause-climate-change

- -

[book]*
**The Race Awakening of 2020: A 6-Step Guide for Moving Forward *
https://www.amazon.com/Race-Awakening-2020-6-Step-Forward/dp/B08BDR8YHY/
[*Vote activism*]*
*
*Postcards to Swing States*
Help save democracy by hand writing postcards to voters in ten critical 
states to increase turnout in November. We send you the postcards for 
free. You provide the stamps and mail the cards in October.
FAQ
Postcards to Swing States is a project of Indivisible Chicago Alliance, 
a 501(c)(4) organization, made possible by thousands of grassroots 
donors & the generous support of the Progressive Turnout Project.
https://postcardstoswingstates.com/

[the answer]
*Clean energy grids and electric vehicles key to beating climate change 
and air pollution*
by Institute of Physics
- -
  "The transportation sector is the largest contributor to CO2 emissions 
in the United States. Its impact on health and the environment is also 
significant. Greenhouse gases and criteria air pollutants affect 
different places in different ways. Greenhouse gases disperse globally, 
stay in the atmosphere for decades to centuries, and their effects 
differ globally, but such an effect does not depend on where the 
emissions originate. Criteria pollutants have much shorter lifespans, 
and their effects depend on where the emissions occur."

The study estimated the life cycle monetized damages from greenhouse gas 
emissions and criteria air pollutant emissions for passenger cars, SUVs, 
and transit buses in the US. It looked at vehicles powered by four 
different fuel types--gasoline, diesel, CNG, and grid 
electricity--paired with three vehicle technologies: internal combustion 
engine vehicles (ICEVs), hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs), and battery 
electric vehicles (BEVs)...
- -
"Even in US regions with relatively clean electricity grids (such as the 
west coast and New England), battery electric vehicles can only 
partially reduce air pollution damages. Our results highlight the 
importance of continually cleaning and decarbonizing electricity grids, 
such as with increased amounts of renewable energy technologies and 
nuclear power, as well as improving vehicle efficiency. A clean 
electricity grid with near-zero emissions not only benefits the 
electricity sector and traditional electricity consumers such as 
buildings but also becomes increasingly crucial for a sustainable 
transportation future."
https://phys.org/news/2020-07-energy-grids-electric-vehicles-key.html

[An excellent, understanable video summary of global warming]
*The Basics of Climate Science | Essentials of Environmental Science*
Jul 6, 2020
Hot Mess
Welcome to our new special series about the essentials of environmental 
science

A series on this channel talking about the environment without focusing 
on the era-defining change happening to our planet right now wouldn't 
make any sense. Climate Change is after all, the hot mess we all find 
ourselves in.

Climate is the long-term, average weather over a particular region. It's 
the typical patterns of temperature, precipitation, wind and how those 
change seasonally throughout the year.

But what does that actually mean? Let's take a trip to a few biomes and 
compare what climate looks like around the world. We're going to the 
tropical rainforest of Brazil, the savanna of Mozambique, the desert in 
Saudi Arabia, and the tundra of Canada.

Welcome to our Learning series about the essentials of environmental 
science. We'll have more from this series in the following videos, so 
stay tuned!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yy3VK6OYBbU

[Unlimited wealth and where to go - nonfiction discussion]
*Billionaire Wilderness*
Streamed July 7, 2020
Climate One

What happens when wilderness meets wealth in the most iconic parts of 
the country? Teton County, Wyoming, is famous for pristine outdoors, 
recreation, ranching, and land stewardship. It also leads the country in 
per capita income, with residents averaging a quarter of a million 
dollars annually. This massive accrual of wealth comes with far-reaching 
consequences for income inequality and the environment.

How are public and private land interests competing in the American 
West? Can conservation and recreation coalesce in a way that is 
inclusive of all communities? Join us for a conversation with Justin 
Farrell, associate professor of sociology at the Yale School of Forestry 
and Environmental Studies and author of Billionaire Wilderness: The 
Ultra-Wealthy and the Remaking of the American West; Dina 
Gilio-Whitaker, American Indian studies lecturer at California State 
University, San Marcos; and Diane Regas, president and CEO of The Trust 
for Public Land.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1zaxOpxqpY0

[Look Squirrel! - from Carbon Brief]
*Guest post: How 'discourses of delay' are used to slow climate action*
Based on our observations as social scientists studying climate change, 
we identified 12 discourses of climate delay. We found that many of them 
shared common features and could be grouped into four overarching 
strategies: "redirect responsibility"; "push non-transformative 
solutions"; "emphasise the downsides"; and "surrender". Our figure below 
summarises these strategies.
- -
A final category of discourses argue for simply surrendering to climate 
change. Society cannot change, according to this discourse, and if it 
could, it would be too late anyway.

Whereas all other discourses appear to suggest that mitigation is 
possible - albeit not necessarily desirable - "surrender" discourses 
challenge the fundamental notion that mitigation would work, potentially 
creating a sense of fear and resignation.

The end effect is that, once again, policies that could be rapidly 
implemented and have been successful in many countries - such as public 
transportation investment, coal phase outs, or building retrofits - are 
downplayed or overlooked...
https://www.carbonbrief.org/guest-post-how-discourses-of-delay-are-used-to-slow-climate-action

[be ready for the long voyage]
*There's no quick fix for climate change*
Scientists looked for a 'shortcut' and didn't find one
By Justine Calma - Jul 7, 2020

It could take decades before cuts to greenhouse gases actually affect 
global temperatures, according to a new study. 2035 is probably the 
earliest that scientists could see a statistically significant change in 
temperature -- and that's only if humans take dramatic action to combat 
climate change.

Specifically, 2035 is the year we might expect to see results if we 
switch from business-as-usual pollution to an ambitious path that limits 
global warming to under 2 degrees Celsius -- the target laid out in the 
Paris climate agreement. The world isn't on track to meet that goal, so 
we might not see the fruits of our labor until even later. That means 
policymakers need to be ready for the long haul, and we're all going to 
need to be patient while we wait for the changes we make now to take effect.

"I foresee this kind of train wreck coming where we make all this 
effort, and we have nothing to show for it," says lead author of the 
study, Bjørn Samset. "This will take time."

It will be time well spent if we manage to cut emissions -- even if we 
have to wait to see results. Humans have so far warmed up the planet by 
about 1 degree Celsius. That's already come with more devastating 
superstorms and wildfires and has forced people from Louisiana to Papua 
New Guinea to abandon their homes as rising sea levels flood their 
lands. Even keeping the planet to the 2 degree goal would result in the 
near annihilation of the world's coral reefs. Taking into consideration 
all of the commitments from world leaders to work together on climate 
change, we're currently careening toward global warming of about 3 
degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels.

To avoid burnout and keep aspirations high when it comes to tackling 
climate change, scientists and policymakers will need to be realistic 
about what's ahead. The first line of the new study, published today in 
the journal Nature Communications, reads: "This paper is about managing 
our expectations."

The study looks at the effects of cutting down on carbon dioxide, black 
carbon, and methane emissions. Carbon dioxide is the toughest greenhouse 
gas to tackle because so much of the world economy still relies on 
burning fossil fuels.

Methane (a more potent greenhouse that comes from agriculture and 
natural gas production) and black carbon (a big component of soot) are, 
in theory, easier to cut back. Using climate models and statistical 
analysis, Samset and his colleagues wanted to know whether addressing 
these other pollutants might lead to faster results. Their analysis 
isolated the effects that reducing methane and black carbon might have. 
They found that temperatures might respond quicker to axing these 
pollutants, but it wouldn't have as big of an effect in the long term as 
pushing down our carbon emissions. The best bet is to tackle all three 
at once.

*"IS THERE A SHORTCUT?"*
"We kind of break this apart and try to see, is there a shortcut? Is 
there anything we can do to give people the impression that things are 
having an effect? And unfortunately, the answer is no," says Samset. 
"There's no quick fix to this."

Part of the problem is that carbon dioxide can persist in the atmosphere 
for hundreds of years after being released by burning coal, oil, and 
gas. Natural variations in climate can also delay the impact that 
cutting down greenhouse gases has on global temperatures.

"There is this fundamental misunderstanding of the climate system by non 
climate scientists trying to use trends on a 10 year time scale for 
climate change, when [with] climate change a 100 or 200-year timescale 
is relevant," explains Natalie Mahowald, a climate scientist at Cornell 
University who was not involved in the study.

"All our hard work today, we will not be able to see for 20 or 30 years 
-- this is the crux of the problem," Mahowald says. "Humans have a 
really hard time doing something for future generations."
https://www.theverge.com/21315822/climate-change-global-temperature-study-decades-fix

[Digging back into the internet news archive]
*On this day in the history of global warming - July 9, 1992 *

Democratic presidential candidate Bill Clinton selects Tennessee Senator 
Al Gore as his running mate.

http://www.nytimes.com/1992/07/10/us/1992-campaign-democrats-clinton-selects-senator-gore-tennessee-running-mate.html

http://www.c-span.org/video/?26971-1/clinton-vice-presidential-announcement
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