[TheClimate.Vote] July 29, 2020 - Daily Global Warming News Digest
Richard Pauli
richard at theclimate.vote
Wed Jul 29 10:46:59 EDT 2020
/*July 29, 2020*/
[FP - Foreign Policy]
*It's Time to Put Climate Action at the Center of U.S. Foreign Policy*
From the Pentagon to the White House Situation Room, climate change
must be considered in every decision.
JASON BORDOFF - JULY 27, 2020
First, the biggest shift from the current U.S. approach would be to take
climate change considerations into the mainstream of all
national-security and foreign-policy decision-making. If a meeting in
the White House Situation Room is not squarely focused on a
climate-related concern, it is unlikely any official in the room will
bring that perspective to how the issue is discussed. Prioritizing
climate change requires integrating its consideration into
foreign-policy strategies broadly, just as issues ranging from
counterterrorism to nonproliferation are treated today...
- -
Second, climate change obviously needs to be at the center of U.S.
energy diplomacy. For example, dialogue with OPEC nations or cooperation
on strategic oil stocks to address global supply shocks should include
discussion of how to prepare for an uncertain and potentially volatile
period of transition away from oil. Plans to increase energy security
for Eastern European countries dependent on Russian natural gas must
consider the carbon intensity of alternatives, including U.S. exports of
liquified natural gas, and whether infrastructure investments to bolster
security today may stymie efforts to reach lower emissions tomorrow.
Expanding energy access for the 840 million people who lack access to
electricity, the majority of whom live in sub-Saharan Africa, is
critical for global health and development, yet support for efforts to
achieve this goal must avoid following the carbon-intensive paths of
other emerging economies such as India. At present, Africa's growth in
oil demand over the next two decades is projected to be larger than
China's and second only to India's.
Prioritizing climate change in energy diplomacy also means attaching an
even greater weight to issues such as securing electricity grids around
the world against cyberattacks, since a decarbonized world will depend
even more on electrical power as many additional sectors--such as
buildings, cars, and trucks--are electrified. In most countries today,
the power grid is at greater risk of cyberattack than the fossil fuel
supply. Similarly, access to rare earths and other critical minerals
such as lithium and cobalt will be even more important as raw materials
for batteries, solar panels, and other renewable energy technologies...
- -
The U.S. foreign-policy landscape is already complicated enough without
adding yet more decision criteria. But the stakes for climate change are
too high for it to be delegated to a marginal role, where it is
considered only by climate officials in climate-specific policy
contexts. To truly prioritize climate change, foreign policy must go
beyond climate and energy diplomacy to make mainstream the consideration
of climate change in all foreign-policy decisions. It may not always
prevail when weighed against all other national security goals, but it
is too important to be ignored.
Jason Bordoff, a former senior director on the staff of the U.S.
National Security Council and special assistant to President Barack
Obama, is a professor of professional practice in international and
public affairs and the founding director of the Center on Global Energy
Policy at Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs.
https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/07/27/climate-change-foreign-policy/
[The Barents Observer]
*Ships moving in as Arctic sea ice level reaches record low*
The Northern Sea Route is now completely open.
July 27, 2020...
https://thebarentsobserver.com/en/industry-and-energy/2020/07/ships-moving-arctic-sea-ice-level-reaches-record-low
- -
[NSIDC]
By July 15, 2020, Arctic sea ice extent was at a record low over the
period of satellite observations for this time of year. The Siberian
heat wave this past spring initiated early ice retreat along the Russian
coast, leading to very low sea ice extent in the Laptev and Barents
Seas. The Northern Sea route appears to be nearly open.
https://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/
[for those who carefully attend to investments]
*This unappreciated climate-change risk lurks in many portfolios
according to BlackRock*
By Rachel Koning Beals - July 27, 2020
In one chart: Within a decade, much of the world will lie in regions of
high water stress
Water stress -- when demand for H20 exceeds supply -- is an
underappreciated investing risk that cuts across regions, asset classes
and sectors, the world's largest fund firm BlackRock warns.
The hardship threatens public health, production facilities and global
supply chains and should be given as much attention as growing
climate-related risks such as hurricanes, wildfires and flooding, said
the firm, with some $7 trillion under management, in a report.
The analysts included a map that glares red in the most at-risk regions.
see the map -
https://ei.marketwatch.com/Multimedia/2020/07/27/Photos/NS/MW-IL239_BlackR_20200727125101_NS.png
Large cities will need to strengthen their water infrastructure,
BlackRock says, citing World Resources Institute findings. WORLD
RESOURCES INSTITUTE/BLACKROCK
Within a decade, much of the world will lie in regions of high water
stress, projections by the World Resources Institute show. Northern
Africa is one high-risk zone, as seen by the red tones in the chart
above. The risks also have geopolitical dimensions, as highlighted by a
recent spat over a large hydroelectric project in Ethiopia that
neighbors Egypt and Sudan fear could reduce water availability.
- -
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/this-unappreciated-climate-change-risk-lurks-in-many-portfolios-according-to-blackrock-2020-07-27
[activism]
*Extinction Rebellion, Greenpeace Campaign for a Breakup Between Big
Tech and Big Oil*
Employing disparate tactics, the activist organizations want Amazon,
Google and Microsoft to stop helping the fossil fuel industry extract
more oil and gas.
BY ILANA COHEN - JUL 24, 2020...
- -
Geoffrey Cann, an author, speaker and trainer for digital transformation
in oil and gas, argued that achieving a less carbon-intensive system
required a focus on reducing fossil fuel demand, rather than attacking
production. Cann said that making the oil and gas industry more
efficient wasn't "necessarily a bad thing."
Cann said he would much rather fossil fuel companies devote themselves
to "optimizing their existing business model to buy time for the energy
transition," than "simply stop" their operations at a moment lacking
clean energy alternatives to meet the scale of the world's energy demand.
"Let's set out a long-term roadmap that lets us work our way off of
[fossil fuel] products and onto cleaner, more sustainable products,"
said Cann, "without putting at risk the societies that we've built for
the past 100 years." And if people can "apply the smarts that we've got
today in Big Tech" to support that process, he said, "that has to be the
agenda."
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/23072020/extinction-rebellion-greenpeace-google-microsoft-apple-tech-oil
- - - -
[Oct 2019]
*Big Tech's eco-pledges aren't slowing its pursuit of Big Oil*
https://apnews.com/deff37576c1140feb3727dee483d223b
- - -*
*
[of course, big clients]*
**Big Tech Loves Big Oil*
They promised us a brighter future. They lied.
*Big Tech wants you to think they take climate change seriously*.
Google says they are carbon neutral! Microsoft says they are going
carbon negative! Amazon is even naming a stadium the "Climate
Pledge" arena!
*But they also want to help Big Oil's business, which is DESTROYING
our planet.* Amazon Web Services has an Oil and Gas division (1).
Google uses AI and machine learning to discover oil reserves (2).
Microsoft hosts conferences called "Empowering Oil and Gas with
A.I," proudly pursuing "the future health of oil and gas companies"
*These companies are vulnerable to public pressure. *In the midst of
a global reckoning on race, Big Tech is calling for new regulations
on the facial recognition technologies that subjugate Black People,
Indigenous People, and People of Color (5). These are the same
groups whose lives Big Tech dismisses by accelerating climate change.
*If you take action, they'll take action.* For the next three weeks,
we're going to use humor to embarrass Big Tech into action. We,
technology's workers and users, must claim our rights and voice the
truth.
https://www.bigtechlovesbigoil.com/
[ClimateOne]
*Flooding in America's Heartland*
Streamed July 28, 2020
Climate One
Miami may be the poster child of rising waters in the U.S., but further
inland, states are grappling with torrential flooding that is becoming
the new norm. Last year, flooding in the southeast killed 12 people and
caused $20 billion in damages. This year's rains have already driven
Mississippi into a state emergency, and Missouri is bracing itself with
a levee system still in disrepair from last year's storms.
Can infrastructure like floodplains, wetlands, and engineered barriers
save riverside states from their new, saturated norm? How are
communities adapting to a changing, wetter climate in some of the most
conservative parts of the country? Join us for a conversation with Julia
Kumari Drapkin, CEO and founder of ISeeChange and Martha Shulski,
director of the Nebraska state climate office, for a conversation on
flooding in America.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y5Ieb5M-wTI
[what happened to our world 12,900 years ago - can we survive and
recover from our similar condition]
*The Younger Dryas impact research debate: Part 19a - wildfires*
Jul 28, 2020
From the YouTube channel of *Prehistory Decoded*
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCx11KXwumf5w8J-GdBGKNVA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bY4XrwS1o6c
[Digging back into the internet news archive]
*On this day in the history of global warming - July 29, 2008 *
MSNBC's Keith Olbermann covers "...the headlines breaking in the
administration's 50 running scandals--Bushed.
"Number three: Blood for oil-gate. Remember when the people who said
the Iraq war was designed to benefit the oil industry? The Republicans
responded by calling those people 'tinfoil hat' conspiracy theorists.
And then the Republicans started saying we have to stay in Iraq because
otherwise al Qaeda might get the oil and raise the price of gas.
"Well, the pretext is officially at an end! Richard Perle, one of the
architects of the invasion of Iraq is, according to the Murdoch Street
Journal, trying to invest in an oil drilling deal with the Kurds of Iraq
even though the Bush administration is on record opposing any oil deals
with the Kurds until the Iraq government straightens out which group
owns what oil fields in Iraq."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=78ro5f7x4cM
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