[TheClimate.Vote] July 31, 2020 - Daily Global Warming News Digest

[Richard Pauli]

/*July 31, 2020*/

[melting ice consequence]
*Sea Level Rise Alone Threatens to Crush the Global Economy*
https://earther.gizmodo.com/sea-level-rise-alone-threatens-to-crush-the-global-econ-1844557915


[Press release]
*Sixty-Nine Organizations Tell the Federal Reserve to Stop Buying Fossil 
Fuel Debt*
BY COLLIN REESNEWS, PRESS RELEASES
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
July 30, 2020
*Sixty-Nine Organizations Tell the Federal Reserve to Stop Buying Fossil 
Fuel Debt*
In letter, groups outline how the Fed has prioritized fossil fuels in 
its response to the pandemic

New York, NY -- Today in a letter to the Federal Reserve (the Fed), 69 
public accountability, environmental, economic justice, science, health, 
and religious organizations and private companies called on the Fed to 
stop purchasing corporate debt from the fossil fuel sector through its 
emergency facilities created to address COVID-19's economic fallout.

"As the pandemic continues to exacerbate existing racial inequalities, 
the Fed should not be boosting the sector responsible for climate 
change, which will impact communities of color the hardest." said Ericka 
Taylor, Popular Education Manager at Take on Wall Street. "The Fed fails 
in its financial stability responsibilities when it is supporting fossil 
fuel firms that are both deeply culpable in environmental racism and 
responsible for the growing climate crisis."

The letter highlights the Fed's failure to promote systemic financial 
stability by its continued investment in the debt of a sector 
responsible for the ongoing climate crisis. The organizations note that 
the Fed's overweighting in the fossil fuel sector relative to market 
benchmarks, despite the increased risks to financial stability this 
creates, leads to questions about its independence and autonomy.

A recent report from nonpartisan think tank InfluenceMap shows that the 
Fed's purchases through its Secondary Market Corporate Credit Facilities 
(SMCCF) are heavily overweight in oil, gas, and coal companies when 
compared to several market benchmarks.

According to InfluenceMap, roughly 8% ($748 million) of the Fed's $9.5 
billion of bond purchases through July 10 are in the fossil fuel sector. 
>From that, $134 million has occurred through the direct purchase of 
corporate debt, the rest through the purchase of Exchange Traded Funds 
(ETFs) that track corporate debt markets. As of July 10, $124 million of 
the $748 million (17%) of purchased energy bonds were junk-rated, 
compared to $856 million of 9.3 billion (9%) for purchases overall 
across sectors.

"The Fed has previously warned of the financial risks of fossil fuels, 
as well as the monetary damages associated with environmental 
catastrophe. But the Fed is now investing public dollars in the debt of 
the same companies it warned others about," said Collin Rees, Senior 
Campaigner at Oil Change International. "Instead of intensifying risks 
to financial stability by supporting the fossil fuel sector, the Fed 
needs to reduce systemic risk during this health and economic crisis and 
stop boosting the industry driving climate devastation."

The signing groups called on the Fed to:
End the purchase of corporate debt from the fossil fuel sector through 
the SMCCF, the Primary Market Corporate Credit Facility, or any other 
emergency facility;
Analyze and disclose the climate risks of all firms represented in the 
emergency lending portfolio, including the level of greenhouse gas 
emissions;
Apply meaningful conditions on the credit facilities: a ban on 
participating companies issuing dividends or buying back its shares, 
restrictions on executive compensation, and the retention of workers 
well beyond making a "commercially reasonable effort";
Focus on mitigating climate risks in the Fed's role as regulator, 
instead of exacerbating them in the Fed's role as lender of last resort.
In late March, 30 groups sent a letter to the Fed after the announcement 
of the facilities expressing concerns about the lack of conditions on 
public financial support for an industry whose practices harm the public 
good, as well as the absence of adequate analysis of climate financial 
risk in the management and strategy of this program.

In April, U.S. Senators Brian Schatz, Sheldon Whitehouse, Sherrod Brown 
(Senate Banking Committee Ranking Member), and six other Senators urged 
the Fed's Board to consider the long-term financial risks associated 
with climate change, and warned that the U.S. financial system's 
"blindness to climate financial risks means that our response to the 
current economic crisis will make a future climate crisis more likely."

"Ultimately, through these debt purchases, the Fed is exposing the 
public to financial losses through credit risk, market risk, and 
operational risk due to exacerbation of the climate crisis," said David 
Arkush, Climate Program Director at Public Citizen. "The Fed should be 
doing everything it can to slow and ultimately halt the freight train of 
economic risk bearing down on us because of the climate crisis. But with 
actions like these, it's shoveling coal into the boiler."
http://priceofoil.org/2020/07/30/fed-letter-fossil-fuel-debt/
###
The full letter to the Fed and list of signers 
http://priceofoil.org/fed-letter
The letter sent to the Fed by 30 groups in March regarding BlackRock's 
involvement in COVID-19 relief funds
https://d17a0173-b97b-4c08-a2e3-f8ea72c0874b.usrfiles.com/ugd/d17a01_62f18f6e12614fddac890d692066aea8.pdf
Senator Brian Schatz's letter to Fed on Corporate Credit Facilities from 
April 20, 2020 
https://www.schatz.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/Letter%20to%20Fed%20on%20Corporate%20Credit%20Facilities%2004.20.2020.pdf 

InfluenceMap's Financial Analysis of the US Federal Reserve's Corporate 
Bond Market Interventions 
https://influencemap.org/report/Is-the-Fed-Being-Sector-Neutral-3a1294e4de3b6275fae9370d6f68cc70



[The Nation]
*It's Time to Bring the Carbon Barons to Justice--and Take Their Money*
Climate liability cases are gaining ground just as Big Oil is going 
broke. Who do you think will be left holding the bag?
By Jason Mark - July 29, 2020
Ready To Fight Back?

The carbon barons are in trouble. Landmark lawsuits against ExxonMobil 
and other fossil fuel giants charging that they have caused--and lied 
about--the climate crisis are making real headway. Unfortunately, 
they're doing so just as Big Oil is in danger of going broke, which 
jeopardizes the chances to make these companies pay for the damage 
they've caused.

Since 2017, more than a dozen states, counties, and municipalities 
across the United States have filed lawsuits against the biggest oil 
producers--ExxonMobil, Chevron, Shell, BP, et al.--alleging that the 
companies harmed communities by selling products they knew to be 
dangerous. While these lawsuits are particular to place--some cite the 
damage from rising sea levels, others focus on the destruction caused by 
climate-fueled wildfires and flooding--all seek to recover the costs to 
those communities as they adapt to climate chaos.

At one point, it looked like the oil giants would receive a "get out of 
jail free" card. In 2018, a federal judge in San Francisco dismissed 
climate liability suits brought by San Francisco and Oakland, ruling 
that the issue needed to be settled by Congress, and a federal court in 
Manhattan subsequently tossed out a New York City claim. The carbon 
barons then petitioned to move the other lawsuits from the state courts 
where they were filed to federal courts. Federal courts are generally 
considered a more sympathetic venue for Big Oil, because suits there may 
get tangled up in knotty constitutional questions. The plaintiffs want 
to keep their cases in the state courts and argue that their lawsuits 
are uncomplicated tort claims not unlike the successful lawsuits against 
the tobacco companies.

In the last few months, federal judges have been agreeing with the 
plaintiffs. In July, the US Appeals Court for the 10th Circuit rebuffed 
ExxonMobil and other defendants in a Colorado case. In late May, a Ninth 
Circuit panel ruled unanimously that suits filed by six California 
counties and cities should be settled by the California courts. Judges 
with the US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit came to the same 
conclusion in a Baltimore case, at one point slapping Chevron and other 
defendants with a terse, "They are wrong."

Other jurisdictions are now piling on. In late June, the District of 
Columbia and the State of Minnesota announced lawsuits against 
ExxonMobil, the oil refining Koch Industries, and the American Petroleum 
Institute. Those suits go beyond earlier complaints by arguing that the 
carbon barons' decades-long campaign to sow uncertainty about the 
science of global warming violates local statutes against consumer 
fraud, deceptive trade practices, and false advertising.

The new lawsuits and procedural wins arrive as Democrats are showing 
strengthened resolve to hold the fossil fuel giants accountable for 
their crimes. Not long ago, the carbon barons were operating under the 
delusion that they could strike a grand political bargain in which they 
would agree to support a price on carbon in exchange for blanket legal 
immunity. (Congress has the constitutional power to give an industry or 
a company a "liability waiver"; gun manufacturers enjoy such immunity.) 
That pipe dream is now crumbling. House Democrats recently released a 
comprehensive plan for addressing the climate crisis that includes a 
pointed rebuke to the idea of a congressional liability waiver: 
"Congress should not offer liability relief…to cut pollution in exchange 
for a carbon price." Joe Biden's climate plan includes a promise that 
should he be elected, the federal government will become an ally of the 
state, county, and municipal lawsuits.

Calls to bring the carbon barons to justice are smart politics. A 2019 
survey by the Yale Program on Climate Change Communications found that 
57 percent of Americans favor having the fossil fuel companies pay for 
climate-related damages. A poll released in July by Data for Progress 
found that more than three-quarters of Democratic voters and 63 percent 
of independents want to hold the oil companies responsible for climate 
damages. More than 60 percent of Republicans who are younger than 45 agree.

Here's where things get tricky. The progress in the courts and the shift 
in politics and public opinion are occurring just as the carbon barons' 
fortunes are dwindling.

For years now, oil and gas giants have been struggling against an 
oversupply of a commodity the world is trying to turn away from. In 
December, Chevron was forced to write down $10 billion in assets, a move 
that signaled, according to The New York Times, that the shale gas "boom 
has given way to bust." By the end of 2019, North American oil and gas 
companies were saddled with an estimated $200 billion of debt, and Wall 
Street was starting to look askance at an industry that has 
underperformed the S&P in four of the last five years. In January, 
loudmouth market guru Jim Kramer went on a rant in which he said the oil 
giants are in a death spiral because "the world has turned on them."

Then the pandemic arrived. As businesses shut down and streets emptied, 
demand for oil fell off a cliff; at one point this spring, there was 
such a glut that oil briefly traded at negative prices. While the oil 
and gas companies are still an economic behemoth--the total 
capitalization of the industry is around $1 trillion--the pandemic 
appears to have accelerated their decline. Today, Apple alone is worth 
more than all of the oil and gas majors combined. The pandemic-related 
recession has even sparked chatter that we might have reached the 
historic peak of global oil demand. "Could it be peak oil?" the CEO of 
BP mused in May, not long before announcing sweeping layoffs. "Possibly."

The raft of climate tort cases are, above all, a demand for justice. The 
carbon barons amassed some of the largest fortunes in history through 
deception and the manufacturing and marketing of a product they knew was 
dangerous. Basic fairness requires that they pay for the damage they 
have caused. Adapting to rising temperatures, higher seas, and more 
climate-related disasters will likely cost trillions of dollars (with a 
t) in the course of this century. Someone will have to pick up the tab. 
Either that someone will be you and me--or it will be the companies that 
have done the most to imperil civilization.

The danger now is that as oil company officials see justice closing in, 
they will try to grab for themselves as much of the remaining profits as 
they can. Look for a wave of executive bonuses, stock buybacks, and 
asset liquidations designed to transfer oil company wealth to those at 
the top. ExxonMobil, for example, has been on a multiyear stock buyback 
binge, a scheme that enriches executives even as a company suffers.

All of which intensifies the urgency of demands for climate reparations. 
All calls for justice are urgent, but this one is especially so, because 
it's racing against a clock--driven by the implacable force of 
atmospheric chemistry. This year is on track to be the hottest or 
second-hottest in history. Siberia is on fire; much of Australia has 
already burned to a crisp. There is no time to wait.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. famously said, "The arc of the moral universe 
is long, but it bends toward justice." With Earth beginning to boil, we 
can't afford to wait for the long touchdown at justice. We need--to use 
a term of 2020--to flatten the curve of the moral arc. We need 
accountability now. The longer the courts wait to address the carbon 
barons' crimes, the greater the chance that the oil executives and their 
shareholders will make off with their ill-gotten gains and leave the 
rest of us holding an empty bag. Justice demands better than that.

Jason MarkJason Mark is the editor in chief of Sierra magazine and the 
author of Satellites in the High Country: Searching for the Wild in the 
Age of Man.
https://www.thenation.com/article/environment/oil-companies-climate-lawsuits/


[Energy for cooling]
*Energy is a basic need, and many Americans are struggling to afford it 
in the COVID-19 recession*
Several months into the COVID-19 pandemic crisis, lower-income families 
are struggling to pay their energy bills. That's a big concern during 
extreme events like summer heat waves, which can be deadly – especially 
for elderly people, young children, people of color and the poor.

We ran a nationally representative survey in May 2020 of U.S. low-income 
households to measure energy insecurity. We found that 13% of 
respondents had been unable to pay an energy bill during the prior 
month, 9% had received an electricity utility shutoff notice and 4% had 
had their electric utility service disconnected.

More than half of the states temporarily barred utilities from 
disconnecting customers who were unable to pay their bills due to 
financial hardship in the early months of the economic downturn. Still, 
extrapolating our findings to the national level suggests that 
approximately 800,000 low-income households may have recently had their 
electricity disconnected.

And the problem could get worse as the economy continues to struggle. As 
scholars who study energy policy, the environment and energy justice, we 
believe energy assistance should be a central part of ongoing state and 
federal relief efforts...
- -
Governments should also consider increasing funding for the Department 
of Energy's Weatherization Assistance Program. This program represents a 
longer-term solution that can help low-income households save money on 
energy bills by repairing and upgrading key components like furnaces and 
ducts, and ensuring that houses are well insulated, sealed and ventilated.

So far in the pandemic, federal and state governments have focused on 
Americans' immediate material needs. But millions of households are 
currently struggling to cover their energy costs, and living without 
energy could be a matter of life or death. Governments have the ability 
to help prevent this kind of secondary disaster, and more generally to 
recognize that energy is a basic and essential human need.

Michelle Graff and Trevor Memmott, doctoral students at the O'Neill 
School at Indiana University, are primary contributors to this ongoing 
research effort and authors of publications associated with this work.
https://theconversation.com/energy-is-a-basic-need-and-many-americans-are-struggling-to-afford-it-in-the-covid-19-recession-140416
- -
*The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Weatherization Assistance Program*
https://www.energy.gov/eere/wap/weatherization-assistance-program



[From Nature - methods include the Fermi paradox - 10% chance]
*Deforestation and world population sustainability: a quantitative analysis*
Mauro Bologna & Gerardo Aquino
Scientific Reports volume 10, Article number: 7631 (2020)
*Abstract*
In this paper we afford a quantitative analysis of the sustainability of 
current world population growth in relation to the parallel 
deforestation process adopting a statistical point of view. We consider 
a simplified model based on a stochastic growth process driven by a 
continuous time random walk, which depicts the technological evolution 
of human kind, in conjunction with a deterministic generalised logistic 
model for humans-forest interaction and we evaluate the probability of 
avoiding the self-destruction of our civilisation. Based on the current 
resource consumption rates and best estimate of technological rate 
growth our study shows that we have very low probability, less than 10% 
in most optimistic estimate, to survive without facing a catastrophic 
collapse...
- -
*Conclusions*
In conclusion our model shows that a catastrophic collapse in human 
population, due to resource consumption, is the most likely scenario of 
the dynamical evolution based on current parameters. Adopting a combined 
deterministic and stochastic model we conclude from a statistical point 
of view that the probability that our civilisation survives itself is 
less than 10% in the most optimistic scenario. Calculations show that, 
maintaining the actual rate of population growth and resource 
consumption, in particular forest consumption, we have a few decades 
left before an irreversible collapse of our civilisation (see Fig. 5). 
Making the situation even worse, we stress once again that it is 
unrealistic to think that the decline of the population in a situation 
of strong environmental degradation would be a non-chaotic and 
well-ordered decline. This consideration leads to an even shorter 
remaining time. Admittedly, in our analysis, we assume parameters such 
as population growth and deforestation rate in our model as constant. 
This is a rough approximation which allows us to predict future 
scenarios based on current conditions. Nonetheless the resulting 
mean-times for a catastrophic outcome to occur, which are of the order 
of 2–4 decades (see Fig. 5), make this approximation acceptable, as it 
is hard to imagine, in absence of very strong collective efforts, big 
changes of these parameters to occur in such time scale. This interval 
of time seems to be out of our reach and incompatible with the actual 
rate of the resource consumption on Earth, although some fluctuations 
around this trend are possible35 not only due to unforeseen effects of 
climate change but also to desirable human-driven reforestation. This 
scenario offers as well a plausible additional explanation to the fact 
that no signals from other civilisations are detected. In fact according 
to Eq. (16) the mean time to reach Dyson sphere depends on the ratio of 
the technological level T and therefore, assuming energy consumption 
(which scales with the size of the planet) as a proxy for T, such ratio 
is approximately independent of the size of the planet. Based on this 
observation and on the mediocrity principle, one could extend the 
results shown in this paper, and conclude that a generic civilisation 
has approximately two centuries starting from its fully developed 
industrial age to reach the capability to spread through its own solar 
system. In fact, giving a very broad meaning to the concept of cultural 
civilisation as a civilisation not strongly ruled by economy, we suggest 
that only civilisations capable of a switch from an economical society 
to a sort of "cultural" society in a timely manner, may survive.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-63657-6



[satire, with an Aussie bite]
*Honest Government Ad | A message from the White House*
Jul 30, 2020
thejuicemedia
The US Government has made an ad about its response to the pandemic, and 
it's surprisingly honest and informative.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dpIkl2QnJeI


[Digging back into the internet news archive]
*On this day in the history of global warming - July 31, 2013 *

On MSNBC's "All In with Chris Hayes," climate scientist Michael Mann 
discusses what it was like to be targeted and harassed by Virginia 
Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli II.

http://www.msnbc.com/all-in/watch/right-wing-gubernatorial-candidate-waged-war-on-science-39494723774


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