[TheClimate.Vote] March 30, 2020 - Daily Global Warming News Digest

Mon Mar 30 12:31:15 EDT 2020

/*March 30, 2020*/

[Bloomberg]
*Professor Sees Climate Mayhem Lurking Behind Covid-19 Outbreak*
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-25/coronavirus-can-t-keep-the-world-s-climate-satellites-down

[Important thinking]
*Nafeez Ahmed on Synchronous Failure and Post-Pandemic Systems Change*
By Asher Miller, Nafeez Ahmed, originally published by Resilience.org
March 30, 2020
As the pandemic grows, governments and communities are not only 
struggling to minimize loss of life and protect our fragile healthcare 
and economic systems, they are wrestling with questions about how we can 
recover when this storm eventually passes.

But how many people are thinking about the larger context of this 
crisis? How many recognize that this pandemic--or some other shock to 
our interconnected and brittle global systems--could trigger a massive 
"phase change," and utterly remake the world as we know it?

I spoke with investigative journalist and systems thinker Nafeez Ahmed 
about these critical questions.

Nafeez and I discuss frameworks for understanding how the pandemic 
relates to the larger, systemic environmental, energy, economic, and 
political challenges we face--including Thomas Homer-Dixon's concept of 
"Synchronous Failure," Joseph Tainter's "Collapse of Complex Societies," 
C.S. Holling's "Adaptive Life Cycle," and Naomi Klein's "Shock 
Doctrine." But far from being an abstract, academic exploration, Nafeez 
and I explore the real-world implications of these forces at play, and 
provide a call-to-action when we re-enter a world that has been 
transformed by COVID-19.

Please give it a watch or if you'd rather give it a listen on your 
favorite podcasting app, we've also released the interview on Crazy 
Town. Oh, and share with your friends and loved ones if you find it 
worth a listen.

We at Post Carbon Institute are closely monitoring the global COVID-19 
pandemic and encouraging our staff, volunteers, and broader community to 
take great caution and practice social distancing. We'll do our best to 
share insights and resources--ones grounded in PCI's dedication to 
helping humanity address the broader sustainability crises of the 21st 
century and build a just and resilient future.

Our team at resilience.org has and will continue to publish important 
and timely essays on what the pandemic means for our communities and the 
larger, systemic crises our societies face.
https://www.resilience.org/stories/2020-03-30/nafeez-ahmed-on-synchronous-failure-and-post-pandemic-systems-change/
- - -
[long video interview]
*Synchronous Failure: Nafeez Ahmed on the cascading effects of COVID-19 
and the whole system changing*
Mar 26, 2020
postcarboninstitute
PCI Executive Director Asher Miller speaks with investigative journalist 
Nafeez Ahmed about how the coronavirus pandemic could trigger a massive 
"phase change," and utterly remake the world as we know it.

Nafeez has been an investigative journalist for nearly 20 years. He's 
formerly a Guardian environment writer who has also written for The 
Independent, The Atlantic, Foreign Policy, New Statesman, and others. 
He's currently 'system shift' columnist at VICE, and Research Fellow at 
the Schumacher Institute. Check out his article on the topics discussed 
in this interview here: https://t.ly/qmgxm.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=ef-XDFlRZM4&feature=emb_logo

[Krugman Opinion]
*Covid-19 Brings Out All the Usual Zombies*
Why virus denial resembles climate denial.
By Paul Krugman
March 28, 2020
Let me summarize the Trump administration/right-wing media view on the 
coronavirus: It's a hoax, or anyway no big deal. Besides, trying to do 
anything about it would destroy the economy. And it's China's fault, 
which is why we should call it the "Chinese virus."

Oh, and epidemiologists who have been modeling the virus's future spread 
have come under sustained attack, accused of being part of a "deep 
state" plot against Donald Trump, or maybe free markets.

Does all this give you a sense of deja vu? It should. After all, it's 
very similar to the Trump/right-wing line on climate change. Here's what 
Trump tweeted back in 2012: "The concept of global warming was created 
by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing 
noncompetitive." It's all there: it's a hoax, doing anything about it 
will destroy the economy, and let's blame China.

And epidemiologists startled to find their best scientific efforts 
denounced as politically motivated fraud should have known what was 
coming. After all, exactly the same thing happened to climate 
scientists, who have faced constant harassment for decades.
- - -
But I suspect that the disastrous response to Covid-19 has been shaped 
less by direct self-interest than by two indirect ways in which pandemic 
policy gets linked to the general prevalence of zombie ideas in 
right-wing thought.

First, when you have a political movement almost entirely built around 
assertions that any expert can tell you are false, you have to cultivate 
an attitude of disdain toward expertise, one that spills over into 
everything. Once you dismiss people who look at evidence on the effects 
of tax cuts and the effects of greenhouse gas emissions, you're already 
primed to dismiss people who look at evidence on disease transmission.

This also helps explain the centrality of science-hating religious 
conservatives to modern conservatism, which has played an important role 
in Trump's failure to respond.

Second, conservatives do hold one true belief: namely, that there is a 
kind of halo effect around successful government policies. If public 
intervention can be effective in one area, they fear -- probably rightly 
-- that voters might look more favorably on government intervention in 
other areas. In principle, public health measures to limit the spread of 
coronavirus needn't have much implication for the future of social 
programs like Medicaid. In practice, the first tends to increase support 
for the second.
As a result, the right often opposes government interventions even when 
they clearly serve the public good and have nothing to do with 
redistributing income, simply because they don't want voters to see 
government doing anything well.

The bottom line is that as with so many things Trump, the awfulness of 
the man in the White House isn't the whole story behind terrible policy. 
Yes, he's ignorant, incompetent, vindictive and utterly lacking in 
empathy. But his failures on pandemic policy owe as much to the nature 
of the movement he serves as they do to his personal inadequacies.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/28/opinion/coronavirus-trump-response.html

[As the air gets cleaner, the temperature rises.  Video explains it well 
- this is fundamental climate science]
*Global Dimming Paradox: Are we facing an abrupt temperature spike?*
Mar 29, 2020
Just Have a Think
Global Warming is taking a rare back seat in the news right now, as we 
deal with the more immediate existential crisis afflicting our 
civilisation and way of life. But as entire countries are getting shut 
down around the world, with the rapid reduction of emissions that this 
causes, is the global dimming paradox about to be tested? Will we see an 
abrupt spike in temperatures that tips our earth systems into an 
irreversible cascade of warming feedbacks?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=emn1hBSHUfQ
- - -
[Double checking the science]
*Fact-Check: is "global dimming" shielding us from catastrophe?*
-
And what about the often-mentioned temperature jump in the US after 
September 11th, 2001? This was likely more to do with the impact of the 
disappearance in contrail clouds (the thin strips of cloud left behind 
by planes) on the temperature difference between night and day (with 
warmer days and cooler nights), with no evidence for an overall warming 
effect. It also represents an aerosol-cloud effect that is specific to 
aeroplanes, and wouldn't apply in the same way to shutting down power 
stations.

Finally, a key problem with avoiding limiting aerosol emissions by 
keeping heavy polluters going is that further carbon emissions 
guarantees further warming anyway, even if part of it continues to be 
hidden by aerosols. Overall it's probably worth experiencing a decade's 
worth of global warming from reduced aerosols now instead of inexorably 
building up ever more decades of warming from continued carbon emissions 
in the future.

Summary
While the total removal of human-made aerosols theoretically leads to a 
short-term warming of up to ~0.4oC (and ~0.6oC by 2100), an abrupt end 
to all aerosol emissions at once is very unlikely and other feedbacks 
would reduce this warming bump too. Decarbonisation will take decades, 
and aerosols come from a wide variety of sources beyond just the 
heaviest emitting power stations. Recent IPCC modelling projects that 
even a rapid phase out of aerosol emissions would lead to a temporary 
~0.2oC of warming - the equivalent of around a decade more of the 
current warming trend - which is preferable to carrying on emitting 
carbon indefinitely instead and is less likely to trigger any tipping 
points.
https://climatetippingpoints.info/2019/04/15/fact-check-is-global-dimming-shielding-us-from-catastrophe/

[Video interview - grief is change that we did not want]
*"We Are Grieving the World We Have Now Lost" Says a Grief Expert | 
Amanpour and Company*
Amanpour and Company
Grief is a natural part of the human condition. Amidst the pandemic, 
many people worldwide are united in their sadness. David Kessler, author 
of "Finding Meaning: The Sixth Stage of Grief," is one of the world's 
foremost experts on loss and healing. He tells Michel Martin about how 
we can share our pain across these new boundaries, and what he learned 
from the loss of his own mother and son.
Originally aired on March 26, 2020.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pSOZAnbzFuA

[Digging back into the internet news archive]
*On this day in the history of global warming  - March 30, 2011 *

President Obama addresses energy and climate change in a speech at 
Georgetown University in Washington, D.C.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HpRTtfmXXLY
http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2011/03/30/remarks-president-americas-energy-security
http://blogsofbainbridge.typepad.com/greenfront/2011/03/joseph-romm.html
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2011/03/30/207788/drinking-game-for-obama-energy-speech-today/

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