[TheClimate.Vote] March 5, 2020 - Daily Global Warming News Digest

[Richard Pauli]

/*March 5, 2020*/

[Similar problems,  different time frame]
*Focus on coronavirus shows need for climate law, says EU official*
Frans Timmermans calls for bloc to legislate so it does not lose track 
of net zero target

Tensions at the Greek-Turkish border and the coronavirus show why the 
European Union needs a climate law that binds member states to net zero 
emissions by 2050, the EU's top official on climate action has said.

Frans Timmermans, a European commission vice-president who leads on the 
climate emergency, said the different crises facing Europe underscored 
the need for a climate law in order not to lose track of reducing emissions.

The long-awaited climate law unveiled on Wednesday is the centrepiece of 
the European Green Deal, a plan to transform Europe's economy, promised 
by the European commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, within her 
first 100 days.
"It will be our compass for the next 30 years and it will guide us every 
step as we build a sustainable new growth model," Von der Leyen said 
announcing the law.

Some political leaders have argued that the commission needs to focus on 
the protection of the EU's external border, rather than the climate 
crisis – arguments that Timmermans rejected. "The focus this week should 
be completely on the happening in Syria, in Turkey and what is happening 
in Greece, should be on containing the coronavirus and solving it. 
That's absolutely a priority," he said. The climate law was "so 
important", because "it allows you to focus on other things without 
losing track of what you need to do to reach climate neutrality".

"Even if the Eye of Sauron is on something else for a bit, the 
trajectory to 2050 will be clear," he said, in a reference to the dark 
forces in the Lord of the Rings. "Because we discipline ourselves with 
the climate law."

Speaking to the Guardian and six other European newspapers shortly 
before the law was published, Timmermans said the proposal was 
revolutionary because all EU legislation would have to be in line with 
net zero emissions by the mid-century.

Even before the text was officially released, the climate activist Greta 
Thunberg and teenage school strike leaders across Europe gave a 
blistering verdict, accusing the commission of ignoring climate science.

Thunberg, who is meeting Von der Leyen, Timmermans and the rest of the 
commission's top team, described the law as "surrender". In an open 
letter, she said it failed to respect the goal of capping global heating 
at 1.5C above pre-industrial levels – an aspiration the EU signed up to 
in the 2015 Paris agreement.

She repeated that message at a meeting with MEPs on the European 
parliament's environment committee on Wednesday. "In November 2019 the 
European parliament declared a climate and environment emergency," she 
said. "You stated that yes, the house is actually burning, this was no 
false alarm, but then you went back inside, finished your dinner and 
watched your movie and went to bed without even calling the fire department.

"When your house is on fire you don't wait a few more years to start 
putting it out, and yet this is what the commission are proposing today."

Earlier at a private meeting with EU commissioners the teenage activist 
was told by Timmermans that the movement she started was the reason the 
European Green Deal and climate law exists.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/mar/04/focus-coronavirus-shows-need-climate-law-says-eu-official-frans-timmermans



[practice session]*
* *The Psychology of Coronavirus vs. Climate Change: Why We Mobilize for 
One, Not the Other*
Patty Wetli | March 2, 2020 2:57 pm
Humans are arguably the best problem-solving species that ever walked 
the Earth, behavioral scientists say.

Give us a coronavirus and we'll have a vaccine within the year. And in 
the meantime, we'll stock up on disinfectant wipes, walk around in 
surgical masks and wash the heck out of our hands.

But throw climate change at us and we're curiously inert.

The difference between the two crises, and our response to them, is that 
humans prefer to tackle things that are proximate and urgent, said Kevin 
Green, vice president of Rare and head of the organization's Center for 
Behavior and the Environment.

"Climate change feels distant. Our human brains aren't perfectly 
equipped for a challenge like this," Green said, speaking in Chicago at 
a recent climate change forum hosted by Spertus Institute.

Warning people about the end of nature, or ticking off statistics about 
melting glaciers and disappearing species of insects in the Amazon 
doesn't play to our strengths, he said. "Facts often don't change 
people's minds."

Then there's the issue of "present bias."

Behavioral economist Katherine Milkman, also a panelist at the Spertus 
forum, described this as humans' tendency to make decisions in the 
moment, focusing on "what will bring me pleasure right now." It's an 
instinct that keeps people from opting for choices that could help 
combat climate change in the long-term, but are inconvenient in the here 
and now. Think: Hailing Uber/Lyft instead of waiting for a bus, or using 
and tossing paper napkins versus spending more money on cloth, and 
having to launder them.

So are we doomed by our own neurology to destroy the planet?

Not necessarily.

As self-centered as humans are, we're also really social creatures and 
are wired to care a lot about what other people do, and what other 
people think of us, said Milkman, who hosts the podcast "Choiceology."

The same sort of peer pressure that gets us to cough into our elbows 
instead of our hands could also be marshaled for climate change. Studies 
have shown, for example, that if people are aware of how much energy 
their neighbors are conserving, they'll follow suit.

The key, Green said, is to make these behaviors observable. Because if 
no one sees you turn down your thermostat, did it even happen?

We also really like to brag, Milkman said, so it helps to give people 
opportunities to show off.

She cited an experiment conducted to encourage people to cut energy 
usage during peak hours. Researchers posted a sign-up sheet in a 
building's lobby and lo, when people could broadcast their 
participation, more opted in.

Another difference between coronavirus and climate change, Milkman said, 
is the way we respond to "exemplars." It's more powerful, she said, to 
have identifiable victims; we're far more likely to be moved by humans 
being infected with and dying from a virus than caring about an ice 
shield in Antarctica.

"We have to think about how to make [climate change] more vivid, more 
real," she said.
Contact Patty Wetli: @pattywetli | (773) 509-5623 | pwetli at wttw.com
https://news.wttw.com/2020/03/02/psychology-coronavirus-vs-climate-change-why-we-mobilize-one-not-other


[More]
*Coronavirus and Climate Change*
By ROBBIE HARRIS - FEB 6, 2020
Scientists say we can expect more viruses from the corona family, like 
the one currently afflicting thousands of people primarily in China.

And one of the reasons for that is climate change.

    ListenListening...
    0:19 / 1:36  Robbie Harris reports -
    https://cpa.ds.npr.org/wvtf/audio/2020/02/Coronavirus.mp3

Luis Escobar is a disease ecologist at Virginia Tech. He says, climate 
change and deforestation have an impact on the movement of viruses.

"So, it's, specific conditions like, de- forestation or increase of 
urbanization or agriculture, that put people closer to wildlife and that 
makes us more at risk or more exposed to these viruses that are natural 
in wildlife. "

Escobar says most viruses have been co- existing just fine with their 
animal hosts for centuries, even millennia.

"So they have co-evolved to the point that they don't harm the natural 
host. They live with them. They need the host to be alive in order for 
them to perpetuate another generation of the virus. "

But when these viruses move from animals to humans, they can cause 
serious harm to people quickly. And it's not only climate, but it's 
subset, the weather, that has an effect on how much a virus spreads.

"What we know for the flu for example, is that humidity in the air can 
allow the virus to survive longer in the air, once somebody sneezes, for 
example, as compared with drier air. So, the climatic conditions 
definitely facilitate the transmission  .

Escobar published a paper this week in the journal, EcoHealth that found 
that the response to this current corona virus has actually been faster 
than in previous outbreaks and that this time, China is sharing its data 
more freely. But the paper suggests China and the U.S. need to lead a 
world wide effort to be more proactive instead of reactive to these 
outbreaks.

Dr. Anthony Boffo-Bonnie is Medical Director for Infection Prevention 
and Control at Carillion Clinic in Roanoke. He says the risk to people 
in this country is, at this point, extremely low, but nonetheless, 
Carillion is preparing in case a local person comes down with, or even 
thinks he or she is coming down with, the virus.

    Listen Listening...0:18
    https://cpa.ds.npr.org/wvtf/audio/2020/02/Selection.mp3

"So, the suspect patient would have to have the symptoms and the 
appropriate risk of exposure, meaning travel or around somebody who has 
been diagnosed with that condition or being investigated for the 
condition. So that would be a fast way to screen and bring them up as 
suspect. "

He says, the next step, called a P-C-R Test, looks at genetic sequences. 
It's being done only at the Centers for Disease Control (CDC).

"It's not 100% sensitive, but it's good enough. And that gives us an 
idea whether somebody is truly positive or not. Even though there is a 
small number of cases confirmed in the U.S. The possibility that someone 
could show no symptoms, could, nonetheless, transmit the virus."

    Listen Listening...0:22 https://cpa.ds.npr.org/wvtf/audio/2020/02/2.mp3

The Coronavirus that is cause for concern, is part of a family of 
viruses related to the common cold. But this virulent strain is so new 
it has not yet been formally named. Tradition is, these kinds of 
infectious diseases are named for the place they're discovered, so it 
will ultimately be deemed 'The Wuhan" virus for its origin in that 
Chinese province.
https://www.wvtf.org/post/coronavirus-and-climate-change#stream/0


[Digging back into the internet news archive]
*On this day in the history of global warming  - March 5, 2020 *
March 5, 2015 - The New York Times reports:

    "Senator Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky and majority
    leader, is urging governors to defy President Obama by refusing to
    implement the administration's global warming regulations."

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/05/us/politics/mcconnell-urges-states-to-defy-us-plan-to-cut-greenhouse-gas.html?mwrsm=Email

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