[TheClimate.Vote] March 20, 2020 - Daily Global Warming News Digest

[Richard Pauli]

/*March 20, 2020*/

[political news]
*Democrats Want to Include Climate Action in Coronavirus Aid*
The two main proposals are for airlines to reduce carbon emissions and 
to extend clean-tech tax credits..

    "Aviation currently accounts for around 2.5% of global greenhouse
    gas emissions. But that percentage is expected to triple by
    midcentury as tourism and travel expand..."

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/democrats-want-to-include-climate-action-in-coronavirus-aid/


[See clearly]
*Coronavirus: Air pollution and CO2 fall rapidly as virus spreads*
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-51944780


[Ooops! nearly an eights of an inch]
*Greenland's melting ice raised global sea level by 2.2mm in two months*
**Analysis of satellite data reveals astounding loss of 600bn tons of 
ice last summer as Arctic experienced hottest year on record...
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2020/mar/19/greenland-ice-melt-sea-level-rise-climate-crisis
[What happens when ice packs and ice sheets are raised a fraction of an 
inch?]


[certainly so]
*Climate Voters Still Want More From Biden*
By Lisa Friedman
March 19, 2020
WASHINGTON -- Ardent climate change voters thought Campaign 2020 was 
going to be their election.

Gov. Jay Inslee of Washington centered his entire presidential campaign 
on the issue. When he dropped out, Tom Steyer, Senator Elizabeth Warren 
and Senator Bernie Sanders each clamored for the mantle of 'climate 
candidate' with a series of increasingly ambitious calls for action.

Now, some climate-focused voters said they are struggling with their 
feelings as former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. appears certain to 
become the Democratic nominee. In interviews with two dozen activists 
and voters who consider the planet's warming their top issue, almost all 
said they worried that Mr. Biden has not made the issue a sufficient 
priority or been specific enough about his plans.
"The response to Biden on climate change ranges from suspicion to 
resignation," said Megan Mullin, an associate professor of environmental 
politics at Duke University's Nicholas School of the Environment."He 
doesn't talk about it very much, and he doesn't talk about it very 
convincingly," she said.
Multiple polls have found climate change has been among the top three 
issues for Democrats in the 2020 primary, often second only to health 
care. And many Democratic voters are happy with the front-runner. One 
Super Tuesday exit poll found that 34 percent of voters who cited 
climate change as their most important issue went for Mr. Biden, 
compared to 28 percent who voted for Mr. Sanders.
Mr. Biden said this week he was prepared to act aggressively. After 
winning three more states that held primaries on Tuesday, he extended an 
appeal, "especially to the young voters who have been inspired by 
Senator Sanders: I hear you. I know what is at stake. And I know what we 
have to do."

But Mr. Biden has resisted tacking left on climate change these past few 
weeks in the way he did recently when he endorsed Senator Warren's 
bankruptcy plan.

His climate change plan would inject $1.7 trillion into the economy with 
an aim of achieving zero emissions in the United States by 2050. Mr. 
Sanders, in comparison, calls for spending $16 trillion and completely 
eliminating fossil fuels from the American economy by 2050. Asked about 
it Sunday in a debate, Mr. Biden was unapologetic.

"It is ambitious enough to tackle the crisis," Mr. Biden said. Noting 
his home state of Delaware is three feet above sea level and vulnerable 
to warming, he told Mr. Sanders, "I don't need a lecture on what's going 
to happen about rising seas."...
- - -
He pointed to his introduction, as a senator, of one of the first bills 
on climate change and his efforts in the Obama administration on the 
Paris Agreement. He also noted that, as part of the 2009 Recovery Act, 
he helped direct $90 billion toward clean energy investments that helped 
bring down the costs of solar and wind energy.

"That's why not another new coal plant will be built," Mr. Biden said to 
Mr. Sanders. "I did that while you were watching."

Surrogates for Mr. Biden said the overwhelming support Mr. Biden has 
seen in recent primaries indicated that most Democrats like his climate 
policy already.

"It's hard to argue with someone who is winning by such wide margins 
that he doesn't have a plan that people like," said Representative 
Donald McEachin, a Virginia Democrat who helped design Mr. Biden's plan. 
"They know what his climate plan is, and they're fine with it."
Some critics are unconvinced. Laurie Mazer, a renewable energy 
consultant in Philadelphia, said she still could not get behind Mr. 
Biden's candidacy. Ms. Mazer, 41, said Mr. Biden should set tougher 
targets and call for a national ban on hydraulic fracturing, the oil and 
gas extraction technique also known as fracking.

"We've got to get to a place where climate change is treated as 
seriously as it needs to be," Ms. Mazer said. "I'm sure Biden and I 
aren't that unaligned, but sending a message is important for me."...
Liam Shaffer, a 27-year-old wine salesman in New Jersey and supporter of 
Mr. Sanders, said working with a product directly affected by climate 
change had made the issue one of his top voting priorities. He 
acknowledged that he had not read Mr. Biden's climate plan, but he said 
his impression was that Mr. Biden did not favor the sweeping changes 
that he believes are necessary.

"He represents a return to the way things were run under Obama," Mr. 
Shaffer said. "I guess I just don't feel that's enough."

And Alyssa Midcalf, a 25-year-old musician who owns a vintage clothing 
store in Detroit, said she disliked Mr. Biden's willingness to accept 
corporate donations and the lack of respect she feels he has shown young 
activists fighting for aggressive plans like the Green New Deal.

"He has time and time again treated constituents like they don't matter 
to him," she said.

Sam Ricketts and Bracken Hendricks, Democratic strategists who helped 
write Mr. Inslee's climate change plan, said Mr. Biden should adopt the 
plan, which Greenpeace hailed as the "gold standard."

"There's more that his plan can do," Mr. Ricketts said of Mr. Biden. He 
pointed to specific renewable energy standards; a strategy for halting 
carbon emissions for individual sectors like transportation, buildings 
and electricity; opposing fossil fuel subsidies; and providing details 
for the promises his plan makes of fighting for low income communities 
of color most vulnerable to environmental injustices.

Maggie Thomas, who was Mr. Inslee's deputy climate change director 
before joining Senator Warren's campaign, has not yet thrown her support 
behind either Mr. Sanders or Mr. Biden. But she said if Mr. Biden does 
become the Democratic nominee, "He really needs to show that this is a 
priority for his campaign."

President Trump's re-election campaign already is painting Mr. Biden as 
radical on climate change, releasing a video after Sunday's debate 
edited to emphasize his statements against fossil fuels and mocking 
moderate Democrats who had sought to assure voters in gas-rich states 
that the former vice president does not intend to ban fracking.
Mr. McEachin said he thought Mr. Biden was open to other ideas, but he 
said the notion that Mr. Biden is not aggressive enough was a 
misperception. "From a climate change point of view you can't have a 
better candidate than Joe Biden," he said.

Collin O'Mara, the president of the National Wildlife Foundation, which 
last week endorsed Mr. Biden through its political action fund, called 
Mr. Biden's plan and approach to climate change "incredibly impressive." 
He credited the activist movement for raising the standard for 
candidates to meet.

"In any other election, this would be the strongest plan that's ever 
been put out," Mr. O'Mara said. But ultimately, he added, "The best laid 
plans are just symbols on a page." He said he supports Mr. Biden because 
the former vice president could actually get his ideas enacted.

Jennie Sweet-Cushman, an associate professor of political science at 
Chatham University in Pittsburgh, has been making a similar argument to 
her students. She cited climate change as one of her top three voting 
issues and said she supported Mr. Biden because he is a pragmatist, and 
her years studying government have shown her that major structural 
changes require bipartisanship.

"If you want any sort of change, you have to have people pushing it that 
are willing to listen to the other side, and I don't see that out of the 
Sanders campaign," she said.

But Ms. Cushman has had a hard time convincing students like Taylor 
Pelow, 20, a chemistry and political science major from Buffalo who said 
her dream was to one day run the Environmental Protection Agency. Ms. 
Pelow said she believes in banning fracking and wants to see a 
transition away from fossil fuels earlier than Mr. Biden does.

If Mr. Biden wins the Democratic nomination Ms. Pelow said she would 
vote for him in November, but only because she believes he is slightly 
better than President Trump on climate change.
"It's the lesser of two evils at that point," she said.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/19/climate/climate-voters-biden.html



[Dark view]
MARCH 18, 2020
*The IPCC's Worst Case Scenario*
by ROBERT HUNZIKER
The truth of the matter: Scientists' models have been off course, 
meaning way too conservative. Similar to the rampant stock market run to 
unsustainable heights of recent in contrasts to expectations by a few 
smart hedge fund managers, global warming has blown apart analyses of 
the smartest and brightest, and based upon a series of recent studies 
demonstrating the onset of ecosystems collapsing, e.g., permafrost in 
the high Arctic collapsing 70 years ahead of expectations...
- -
It is likely that global warming has morphed into global heating at its 
worst and thus more mercurial than ever thought possible. If so, then 
batten down the hatches as it will soon become politically a necessity 
to force unified global efforts, like the Marshall Plan, to take steps 
to combat the biggest threat of all time.

As such, powerful, clear evidence of anthropogenic impact on the climate 
system, well beyond the forces of nature, is beyond the scope of debate. 
After all, rising greenhouse emissions and rising temperatures run 
upwards in parallel fashion, nearly step-by-step, with a lag effect.

Meanwhile, of all the global proposals to combat climate catastrophe, 
one of the more interesting is World War Zero initiated by former 
Secretary of State John Kerry, former California governor Arnold 
Schwarzenegger and former Ohio governor John Kasich. According to the 
Terminator: "It's not a party issue at all because there is no 
Democratic air or Republican air. We all breathe the same air. There's 
no Democratic water or Republican water. We all drink the same water. So 
don't fall for those tricks. It's not a political issue."

They advocate net zero emissions as soon as humanly possible. Along the 
way, they grandstand the obvious benefits of conversion from fossil 
fuels to renewable energy, or the onset of a vast renaissance of global 
business with high-wage jobs galore, similar to the industrial 
renaissance of the early 20th century conversion from horse and buggy to 
gasoline-powered vehicles.

Nevertheless, by all appearances, the planet's climate system has 
already been radically altered more so than ever before, or at least as 
far back as ice core evidence of a couple million years ago.

Alas, the risk of major breakdown of ecosystems throughout the planet 
has never been so prevalent. In fact, it's already started. Greenland 
and Antarctica are clear, absolute proof. The overriding question 
therefore is whether humanity will go to work to mitigate the 
catastrophe as much as humanly possible.

After all, CO2 emissions and global temperatures have risen in lockstep, 
but what really counts in the final analysis is the actuality of 
physical responses, like the measured massive meltdown of the worlds' 
largest masses of ice. That's an incontrovertible fact, yet almost 
unbelievable, but still a measure of harsh reality.

*Postscript:* One year ago one of America's greatest climate scientist 
Wally Broecker, affectionately known as "the grandfather of climate 
science," passed away at age 87. He coined the term "global warming," 
and in 1984 warned the House of Representatives that urgent action was 
required to halt accumulation of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere 
because, in his words, "the climate system could jump abruptly from one 
state to another with devastating effects."

Ergo, his warning of 36 years ago now lingers over Congress.

*Post-Postscript:* During a 2019 BBC interview, James Lovelock (100) the 
father of Gaia theory said: "There is a real danger of losing our tenure 
on the planet altogether…. We've got to care about this matter of global 
warming because if we don't do anything about it, there won't be anybody 
here… It's about time we went back to taking an interest in the 
environment… What happens to the planet when more CO2 is put into the 
air? The earth will get hotter. It will heat up to a point where no life 
on it of our kind will be possible…When tough times come, it'll be very 
rapid, indeed." (James Lovelock, The Vanishing Face of Gaia, A Final 
Warning, Allen Lane, 2010)
https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/03/18/the-ipccs-worst-case-scenario/



[good advice]
*Anxiety and global warming: A growing source of fear among different 
age groups*
Sean Krajacic - March 15, 2020
Dr. Karen Cassiday, the past president of the Anxiety and Depression 
Association of America, broached a hot topic and stressed that cool 
minds prevail as she presented on "Decreasing Worry in the Age of Global 
Warming" at the Salem Community Library on Wednesday.

The event was hosted by the Westosha Dems and the Kenosha Democratic Party.

Cassiday began the evening with the question of how many felt more 
anxiety than they had two years prior. The entire room, about 15 
attendees, raised their hands.

Moving onto the subject of anxiety and global warming, Cassiday shared 
statistics including the staggering number that 72 percent of elementary 
students through college students worry about global warming every day.

She stated that research shows that worrying leads to anxiety and a 
feeling of being overwhelmed that manifests as losing sleep, headaches 
and stomachaches.

The way we consume media is a large factor in the amount of anxiety we 
harbor, Cassiday said. In this age, people are bombarded with headlines 
and stories pushed to their electronic devices. The more they click on a 
specific subject, the more those subjects are fed to them.

"We are hardwired to pay attention to fear," she said.

Cassiday provided techniques to break the cycle of fear, worry and anxiety.

"If you want to change things, you have to have a positive belief 
system, compassion and love," said Cassiday.

The simplest way to change your way of thinking is to practice 
gratitude. Find three small things each day that you're thankful for and 
focus on those, she said..

Beyond gratitude, to weaken anxiety's grip one can: seek news of 
successful attempts to manage risk factors for global warming, avoid 
criticizing inaccurate news reports and focus on facts about efforts to 
manage global warming.

Cassidy said that "simple solutions are empowering." Instead of focusing 
on "doom and gloom" and "worst case scenarios," she said we should be 
proactive and take small steps such as making recycling routine, or 
choosing to use reusable bags instead of disposable plastic bags at the 
grocery store.

Cassiday finished her presentation with a bit of parenting advice, 
saying that we should strive to raise our children with a skill-based 
model rather than a fear-based one.
https://www.kenoshanews.com/news/local/anxiety-and-global-warming-a-growing-source-of-fear-among/article_be6be5b5-6185-56f0-a67a-47259a8c15dc.html


[following the money]
*Study: global banks 'failing miserably' on climate crisis by funneling 
trillions into fossil fuels*
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/mar/18/global-banks-climate-crisis-finance-fossil-fuels



[Digging back into the internet news archive]
*On this day in the history of global warming  - March 20, 2007 *

In a published interview, then-Rep. Wayne Gilchrest (R-MD) notes that he 
was blocked from being appointed to the bipartisan Select Committee on 
Energy Independence and Global Warming by House Minority Leader John 
Boehner because Gilchrest refused to disavow the overwhelming evidence 
of human-caused climate change. Gilchrest also notes that fellow 
Republican Roy Blunt of Missouri "…said he didn't think there was enough 
evidence to suggest that humans are causing global warming," Gilchrest 
said. "Right there, holy cow, there's like 9,000 scientists to three on 
that one."

http://www.orangepower.com/threads/global-warming-panel-makeup-questioned.33589/

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