[TheClimate.Vote] March 28, 2020 - Daily Global Warming News Digest

[Richard Pauli]

/*March 28, 2020*/

[FEWS NET Famine Early Warning Systems Network]
Global Weather Hazards
*Desert locust swarms continue to spread into the Horn of Africa while 
parts of East Africa remain flooded*
March 27, 2020 to April 2, 2020
https://fews.net/global/global-weather-hazards/march-27-2020



[NYTimes Opinion]
*What the Coronavirus Means for Climate Change*
Lockdowns and distancing won't save the world from warming. But amid 
this crisis, we have a chance to build a better future...
By Meehan Crist
- - -
There is a world in which stimulus measures could outweigh short-term 
impacts on energy and emissions, driving emissions up over the long 
term. This is what happened in China after the 2008 global economic 
crisis. Already, China is indicating that it will relax environmental 
supervision of companies to stimulate its economy in response to 
coronavirus shutdowns, which means that astonishing 25 percent cut in 
carbon emissions could evaporate, followed by even more emissions than 
before.

In the United States, we could see similarly shortsighted recovery 
packages aiming to ramp up the economy to pre-pandemic levels that 
double down on soaring carbon emissions. So far, the American 
government's aid legislation has failed to address clean energy or the 
climate. The $2 trillion stimulus bill passed by Congress this week, the 
largest fiscal stimulus package in modern American history, includes 
direct payments to individuals, expanded and extended unemployment 
benefits, and $500 billion in loans to bail out affected industries. It 
does not include relief for renewables, such as crucial tax credit 
extensions for solar and wind.

This isn't likely to be the last stimulus. Already, there is talk of the 
next phase of economic relief, and climate and clean energy advocates 
are looking to future legislation that might aim to relieve specific 
industries.

The two biggest wild cards for climate going forward are how 
policymakers respond to the threat of a global recession and how the 
pandemic changes political will for climate action around the world. 
Prime Minister Andrej Babis of the Czech Republic has already said that 
the European Green Deal, a new policy package that commits European 
Union member states to zero emissions by 2050, should be set aside so 
that countries can focus on fighting the pandemic.

This week has seen a chilling shift in conservative rhetoric around the 
virus that echoes all-too-familiar patterns of climate denialism, 
suggesting that a more dangerous sort of transference is taking place. 
As the climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe wrote on Twitter, "The six 
stages of climate denial are: It's not real. It's not us. It's not that 
bad. It's too expensive to fix. Aha, here's a great solution (that 
actually does nothing). And -- oh no! Now it's too late. You really 
should have warned us earlier."
- -
A best-case outcome might include a rethinking of the social contract 
that helps protect and provide for the most vulnerable members of 
society at a time of increasing risk. We need to ask:
What does a government owe to its people? The climate crisis has already 
demonstrated that the way our societies and economies are organized is 
unsustainable on a planet of finite resources. And as people face 
increasing and unevenly distributed climate risk, it is reasonable to 
wonder what sort of support we can expect from our government. When your 
community is in crisis, how will your government respond? The pandemic 
is a gut-wrenching reality check.

The crushing blows of the coronavirus pandemic, like those of the 
climate crisis, will be felt hardest by our most vulnerable populations 
-- the poor, the elderly, the homeless, the stateless, the incarcerated, 
and the precariously employed -- while international corporations driven 
by the logics of profit and endless growth to seek new markets, cheap 
labor, and what the sociologist Jason Moore has called "cheap nature," 
thereby connecting the world and helping create the conditions for 
crisis, will most likely remain relatively protected.

The new coronavirus spread through the activity of global markets, and 
it remains to be seen whether we can respond to this crisis without 
relying on and reinforcing the same market logics that got us into this 
mess. Rather, to face the profound challenges of pandemics -- of which 
this coronavirus will not be the last -- as well as the threat of 
climate change, to survive and even flourish on this interconnected 
planet, we have to learn to subordinate the needs of the market to our 
own needs.
It is tempting to say that humans are a pox on the Earth. That where we 
recede, nature rebounds. When images of dolphins and swans supposedly 
appearing in newly clear Venice canals popped up on social media, it was 
easy to believe (though it was not entirely true) that the virus had 
forced people indoors and "nature" had recovered in our absence. This is 
the wrong climate lesson to take from the pandemic.

Humans are part of nature, not separate from it, and human activity that 
hurts the environment also hurts us. In China, just two months of 
reduced pollution is likely to have saved the lives of 4,000 children 
under the age of 5 and 73,000 adults over the age of 70, writes Marshall 
Burke, an assistant professor in Stanford's earth system science 
department. Perhaps the real question is not whether the virus is "good" 
or "bad" for climate, or whether rich people will take fewer airplane 
flights, but whether we can create a functioning economy that supports 
people without threatening life on Earth, including our own.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/27/opinion/sunday/coronavirus-climate-change.html 




[Fast Company]
*Coronavirus shows how to fight disinformation about climate change*
Americans have stayed vigilant against conspiracy theories about 
coronavirus. Experts say there are lessons for how we deal with climate 
change.
BY JEREMY DEATON
With both coronavirus and climate change, misconceptions abound. In each 
instance, people have downplayed the impact or blamed China, and many 
believe that news outlets are exaggerating the threat.

But with coronavirus, news outlets and tech companies have done a much 
better job of quashing misinformation, experts say, which could provide 
lessons on how to fight conspiracy theories about climate change.
We're responding to this rapidly evolving situation, and we'll continue 
to review the Twitter Rules in the context of COVID-19 and make changes 
as necessary.
"The big difference between coronavirus and climate change is that 
people's bullshit detectors are on high alert on this issue compared to 
climate change," says John Cook, a cognitive psychologist at the George 
Mason University Center for Climate Change Communication and co-author 
of a new handbook on how to debunk conspiracy theories. "They just have 
a much lower tolerance for misinformation--both the public and the media."

Here are the big takeaways.

*CORONAVIRUS IS AN URGENT CRISIS. CLIMATE CHANGE HAS TO FEEL THE SAME 
WAY FOR PEOPLE TO TAKE MISINFORMATION SERIOUSLY.*
With coronavirus rapidly spreading through the United States, correcting 
misinformation has become a matter of life and death. Climate change 
doesn't share the same sense of urgency.

"The media have been clamping down on misinformation much harder than 
they normally would. The difference is that with coronavirus, it's a 
much more immediate threat," Cook says. "It's like climate change on 
fast-forward."

Thus, while brand-name news outlets like The New York Times have been 
willing to run op-eds skeptical of climate science, they wouldn't do the 
same with coronavirus, says Cook's collaborator Stephen Lewandowksy.

"People in The New York Times might develop some edifice inside their 
heads that justifies their denial--by appealing to uncertainty or 
whatever--but that's very different from saying, 'No one is dying of 
coronavirus.' There is a qualitative difference there," says 
Lewandowsky, a cognitive psychologist at the University of Bristol and 
co-author of the handbook. "That makes it much harder for well-adjusted 
people to engage in this nonsense."

With coronavirus, round-the-clock reporting has made the extraordinary 
stakes of the pandemic clear, spurring people to be more skeptical of 
conspiracy theories. Experts say that news outlets have to do the same 
thing with climate change. We take their cues on the scale and urgency 
of a problem from the volume of news coverage.

We also learn from the people around us. In response to the grim news 
about the coronavirus, Americans are donning masks, stockpiling food and 
canceling dinner plans, creating a new norm around the illness, says 
Margaret Klein-Solomon, a trained clinical psychologist who now heads 
The Climate Mobilization Project. She says we need to take a similar 
approach with climate change, treating the issue with the seriousness it 
deserves, while staying watchful for misinformation.

"How we evaluate risks is by looking to each other," says Klein-Solomon, 
author of Facing the Climate Emergency. "With coronavirus, the social 
signaling has been so strong."
*PEOPLE EMBRACE CONSPIRACY THEORIES BECAUSE THEY'RE AFRAID. THE REMEDY 
IS TO MAKE THEM FEEL EMPOWERED.*
Where people have bought into conspiracy theories about coronavirus, it 
may simply be a defense mechanism, Lewandowsky says. It's easier to 
believe the crisis has been orchestrated by a cadre of mustache-twirling 
ne'er-do-wells than to accept that it's the result of a chance or some 
broader systemic failure. That is true of any vast, unwieldy problem, be 
it a quickly spreading virus or a rapidly warming planet.

"Whenever there's a huge, threatening event, some people will resort to 
conspiracy theories because--if you can blame this on some evil people 
like the Chinese government developing biological weapons--it gives you 
a greater sense of control in some funny way," he says.

Crucially, he says, conspiracy theories don't have to be coherent. A 
theorist might say that coronavirus is both a hoax and that it was 
created by the Chinese. And hardcore believers are happy to brush off 
evidence that challenges their theory--if the CDC says that China isn't 
responsible for the pandemic, they will say that it must be because the 
CDC is in on the conspiracy, Lewandowsky says.

That's why challenging the facts or logic of a conspiracy theory doesn't 
always work. In some cases, the best way to fight misinformation is to 
empower people, Cook says. For coronavirus, that means telling people 
that they can slow the spread of the illness by washing their hands and 
staying indoors. For climate change, it could mean encouraging people to 
call their congressperson or join a protest.

"If you just talk about a problem without the solutions, people tend to 
lose hope. It can paralyze people," he says...
*MISINFORMATION ERODES TRUST IN OFFICIAL ACCOUNTS. DEBUNK CONSPIRACY 
THEORIES EARLY AND OFTEN.*
It is crucial to stop conspiracy theories before they spread because, 
even when they are debunked, they can have a pernicious effect, 
Lewandowsky says.

"What conspiracy theories do demonstrably--that's been shown in 
experiments over and over again--is they reduce peoples' trust in an 
official account," he says. He points to one study in which people 
exposed to a conspiracy theory about the federal government manipulating 
unemployment data were less likely to trust local police and local 
schools. "You can't run a democracy unless people trust the government, 
at least to some extent," he says.

Misinformation can also affect policymaking. Despite warnings from 
health experts, elected officials downplayed the extent of the 
coronavirus crisis, as did conservative news media. President Trump even 
called it a "hoax." Unsurprisingly, the government has been slow to roll 
out tests and supply ventilators.

The same can be seen with climate change, where political leaders have 
dismissed the warnings of scientists for years. The problem, Lewandowsky 
says, is that you can only dismiss the facts for so long. Eventually, 
the truth catches up.

"Within the next three weeks, there will be such a massive disaster 
unfolding in the U.S., I really don't see how you can avoid that," he 
says. "The epidemiologists have been warning us for months about this."

On a more hopeful note, debunking conspiracy theories about coronavirus 
may help weaken other conspiracy theories, Cook says, including theories 
about climate change. Some public figures are already connecting the dots...
- - -
"If you can debunk one, and a person all of a sudden realizes that it's 
wrong, then yes, I would expect them also be responsive to corrections 
of other conspiracy theories," Lewandowsky says. "The underlying theme 
is that the scientists told us this ahead of time, and if we had 
listened we could have done something about it."

Jeremy Deaton writes for Nexus Media, a nonprofit climate change news 
service. You can follow him @deaton_jeremy.
https://www.fastcompany.com/90482197/coronavirus-shows-how-to-fight-disinformation-about-climate-change?partner=rss 




[PBS video of the science]*
**PBS Report on the 'Doomsday Glacier'*
Mar 26, 2020
Scientists Warning
Lest we forget in the face of the #Coronavirus #pandemic, #ClimateChange 
is still happening, and accelerating. It's been predicted for many years 
that increased occurrence and rapid spread of pandemics would be one of 
the many results of climate change. This one may not have been that, but 
it's a taste of things to come.
We are being given a 'wake-up call'.  Will we hear it?  Will we heed 
it?  Ordinary people seem to be 'getting it', but governments, and their 
primary clients (banks and large corporations) are trying to get us back 
to Business As Usual, with its destructive 'growth economic' system that 
was put in place by bankers a century ago, and still is manipulated to 
benefit the wealthy at the expense of the Earth and human survival.

Worth a watch and a share.  We thank the PBS News Hour for their 
allowing us to republish this report for the common welfare of all.
https://youtu.be/F_iYB18jlxQ?t=52



[Digging back into the internet news archive]
*On this day in the history of global warming - March 28, 2001 *
President George W. Bush says his administration will not honor the 
Kyoto Protocol.
http://archives.nbclearn.com/portal/site/k-12/flatview?cuecard=238

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