[TheClimate.Vote] March 24, 2020 - Daily Global Warming News Digest

[Richard Pauli]

/*March 24, 2020*/


[LA Times gets it]
*Editorial: Climate change is just as real as COVID-19. Now's the last, 
best chance for our government to treat it that way *
- - -
Here's a good place to start: The government should not be bailing out 
the oil and gas industry at a time when we should be focusing on 
expanding production of renewable energy and the infrastructure to store 
and deliver it.

In recent days, early coronavirus scoffers -- including the president -- 
have come around to the reality that this pandemic is a deadly threat 
and have finally begun taking strong steps to address it. Yet global 
warming is a larger and longer-lasting threat to humankind. We have 
about a decade, according to the experts, to make significant reductions 
in carbon emissions to avoid the worst ramifications of climate change. 
The world already is seeing the effects in longer and more severe 
droughts in some places, record flooding in others, stronger and more 
intense tropical storms and regional temperature rises that are making 
parts of the word nearly uninhabitable.

The science confirms all this, as it has confirmed the spread and 
dangers from the novel coronavirus. So maybe accepting the reality of 
COVID-19 will lead the administration to recognize the reality of 
climate change and work with Congress to begin addressing it in 
meaningful ways.
https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2020-03-23/trump-climate-change-coronavirus-covid-19 




[from the Guardian]
*Delay is deadly: what Covid-19 tells us about tackling the climate crisis*
Jonathan Watts
Rightwing governments have denied the problem and been slow to act. With 
coronavirus and the climate, this costs lives
- - -
For the right, this makes the pandemic a greater political threat than 
the climate crisis has ever been. Unless they can quickly get on top of 
the disease, they will lose any claim to being champions of national 
security. It is entirely possible that the effects of this pandemic 
could be one of the most catastrophic failures of free-market capitalism.

This should also be a lesson for the left. If state intervention and 
scientific advice is effective in dealing with the virus, the same 
principles should be applied more aggressively towards the still more 
apocalyptic threats of climate disruption and the collapse of nature. 
Until now, the left has recognised these dangers, but done little to act 
on them because economic growth has always taken precedence.

The pandemic has proved that delays are deadly and expensive. If we are 
to avoid a cascade of future crises, governments must think beyond a 
return to business as usual. Our conception of what is "normal" will 
have to change. We'll need to invest in natural life-supporting systems 
such as a stable climate, fresh air and clean water. In the past, those 
goals have been dismissed as unrealistic or expensive, but recent weeks 
have shown how quickly the political compass can shift.

First though, we need to accept - and share - risk. Instead of deferring 
risks to future generations, weaker populations and natural systems, 
governments need to transform risks into responsibilities we all bear. 
The longer we hesitate, the fewer resources we will have at our 
disposal, and the more risk we will have to divide.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/mar/24/covid-19-climate-crisis-governments-coronavirus



[practice]
*How Coronavirus Could Help Change Climate Policy For the Better*
Major changes could influence how emissions evolve in the future.
Based on new projections for economic growth in 2020, we suggest the 
impact of the coronavirus might significantly curb global emissions.

The effect is likely to be less pronounced than during the global 
financial crisis (GFC). And emissions declines in response to past 
economic crises suggest a rapid recovery of emissions when the pandemic 
is over.

But prudent spending of economic stimulus measures, and a permanent 
adoption of new work behaviours, could influence how emissions evolve in 
future...
https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/how-coronavirus-could-help-change-climate-policy-better-134722



[Lessons not learned, will be repeated]
*Opinion: Paying the Price of Science Denialism … Again*
President Trump's bungled Covid-19 response has been shaped by the GOP's 
history of corporate-backed science denialism.
THE SHORT BUT tragic history of the federal government's response to the 
Covid-19 crisis has been shaped by the same corporate-backed science 
denialism that has long been deployed by the tobacco, fossil fuel, 
chemical, and mining industries to fight public health and environmental 
regulation. That denialism has infected the body of the Republican party 
and now the Trump administration.

Experts in manufacturing scientific doubt on behalf of corporate 
polluters have been installed in influential posts, shaping the work of 
key government agencies. Hundreds of dedicated, career scientists have 
left the agencies, leaving huge gaps in expertise. World-renowned 
scientists were dismissed from advisory committees and important public 
health functions, like the National Security Council's Directorate for 
Global Health Security and Biodefense, have been shuttered.

We are reaping the consequences of the rejection of science and 
expertise that Republican politicians and their corporate allies have 
sown for decades.

We are now reaping the consequences of the rejection of science and 
expertise Republican politicians and their corporate allies have sown 
for decades. Long before the current crisis, they belittled the science 
that documented the dangers of tobacco, firearms, numerous toxic 
chemicals and pollutants, and, of course, the atmospheric accumulation 
of greenhouse gases. They frequently accused public health scientists of 
being scaremongers seeking to advance their own careers or political 
ideology.

These manufacturers of doubt are instrumental in corporate campaigns to 
stop government efforts to protect the public from deadly products. 
Defenders of cigarettes were able to manufacture doubt about the 
scientific evidence for decades before their lies became so unconvincing 
that even their most stalwart defenders had to acknowledge the truth. 
Generous funding by the Koch family and fossil fuel companies, for 
instance, supported a small group of questionable scientists and 
promoted their rejection of overwhelming scientific consensus around 
climate change. The same generous funding, in the form of campaign 
contributions, motivated Republican politicians to embrace the science 
fiction of climate change denialists. Only recently, as extreme weather 
events and rising sea levels render the effects undeniable, have some 
Republican politicians acknowledged the enormity of the climate crisis.

President Trump's response to the Covid-19 pandemic has followed a 
trajectory similar to the Republican party's response to the dangers 
produced by the tobacco, fossil fuel, chemical, and mining industries, 
but telescoped over weeks instead of years: Scientists' concerns about 
significant harm are met with skepticism and denial, then 
acknowledgement and government action only once the truth becomes 
overwhelmingly clear, illuminated by disaster and tragedy.
- -
In this case, it wasn't the Republican party's fealty to its corporate 
backers that blinded the White House to good science. There is evidence 
that President Trump initially saw rising case numbers as a poor 
reflection on his leadership, likely to undermine his re-election 
prospects. But once he recognized it was no longer possible to wish away 
the epidemic, the deniers folded quickly and are now helping warn the 
country of the importance of controlling the virus. But rather than 
acknowledge that he ever held a different position, he is attempting to 
rewrite history, denying statements millions heard him make only weeks ago.

Unfortunately, there are other looming global catastrophes like the 
climate crisis and the spread of antibiotic resistant "superbugs," 
threats that are happening over years rather than days. It would be 
heartening if President Trump and the leadership of the Republican party 
came to the same epiphany about these challenges, recognizing that only 
through concerted global actions can we slow and perhaps halt these 
looming disasters.

There will no doubt be many lessons of this pandemic, but one is that 
the public health infrastructure, highly resourced, staffed with the top 
scientists, and empowered to take action to reduce public health risks, 
is no less important than the Department of Defense in protecting the 
nation. A second lesson is that without a leader who recognizes the 
importance of science and values the advice of scientists, the health of 
the nation will be imperiled.

David Michaels is an epidemiologist and Professor of Environmental and 
Occupational Health at the Milken Institute School of Public Health...He 
is the author of "The Triumph of Doubt: Dark Money and the Science of 
Deception" (Oxford University Press), and he can be found on Twitter 
(@drdavidmichaels).
https://undark.org/2020/03/22/paying-the-price-of-science-denialism-again/


[Digging back into the internet news archive]
*On this day in the history of global warming  - March 24, 1989 *
The notorious Exxon Valdez oil spill takes place.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A7hfQ8mTVrU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VaRdUHrUnBs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5R0a2lY6A-k

/-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------/


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