[TheClimate.Vote] May 4, 2020 - Daily Global Warming News Digest

Mon May 4 09:11:26 EDT 2020

/*May 4, 2020*/

[Warren Buffett sells airline]
*Berkshire Hathaway sold all airline stocks*
Prior to the pandemic, Berkshire Hathaway owned over $4 billion worth of 
of stocks with American, Delta, Southwest, and United. In recent weeks 
SEC filings suggested that the company sold airline stocks, though we've 
now officially learned that Berkshire Hathaway has sold all airline 
stocks, across all companies.

I think it's interesting to take a look at Buffett's explanation of the 
situation, not necessarily because of the implications on stocks, but 
rather because I find it interesting to hear his thoughts on airline 
recovery:

    "The world has changed for the airlines. And I don't know how it's
    changed and I hope it corrects itself in a reasonably prompt way. I
    don't know if Americans have now changed their habits or will change
    their habits because of the extended period..."

    "When we sell something, very often it's going to be our entire
    stake. We don't trim positions. That's just not the way we approach
    it any more than if we buy 100% of a business. We're going to sell
    it down to 90% or 80%. If we like a business, we're going to buy as
    much of it as we can and keep it as long as we can. And when we
    change our mind we don't take half measures."

https://onemileatatime.com/warren-buffett-airline-stocks/

[Resilience]
*After the Pandemic: a Ten-Point Plan for the Collective Provision of 
Basic Needs*
This manifesto is an intervention by a Europe-wide group of academics - 
the foundational economy collective - who have for several years in 
books and articles argued that policy makers need to balance concern 
with jobs and wages with more attention to essential goods and services 
like housing, food, utility supply, health, education and care. The 
provision of all of these things relies on the collective organisation 
of much larger systems; if group provision breaks down, citizens cannot 
buy their way out through individual consumption...
https://www.resilience.org/stories/2020-04-13/after-the-pandemic-a-ten-point-plan-for-the-collective-provision-of-basic-needs/
https://foundationaleconomy.com/covid-19-report/

[Carbon fuel anxiety]
*Big Oil Fears Keystone XL Ruling Means End of Easy Pipeline Permits*
By Steve Horn - Sunday, May 3, 2020
On April 15, Judge Brian Morris nullified water-crossing permits in 
Montana that were granted for the Keystone XL, a major setback for the 
long-embattled tar sands oil pipeline. The ruling came just days after 
Keystone XL owner TC Energy, formerly known as TransCanada, obtained 
billions of dollars in subsidies from the Alberta government as global 
oil prices plummeted.

The oil and gas industry has taken notice. Seemingly just a ruling on 
Keystone XL -- the subject of opposition by the climate movement for the 
past decade -- the ruling could have far broader implications for the 
future of building water-crossing pipelines and utility lines.

In his decision, Judge Morris cited a potential violation of the 
Endangered Species Act when he ordered the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers 
to do a deeper analysis of potential impacts to protected species. 
Morris required the Corps to demonstrate whether or not it could 
construct the pipeline without harming endangered species, such as the 
Pallid Sturgeon or the American burying beetle. Instead, the Army Corps 
"failed to consider relevant expert analysis and failed to articulate a 
rational connection between the facts it found and the choice it made," 
Morris ruled, when the Corps gave Keystone XL the initial green light.

The original July 2019 complaint in that case -- filed by Northern 
Plains Resource Council, Bold Alliance, Sierra Club, Natural Resources 
Defense Council, and Center for Biological Diversity -- also argued that 
the Army Corps had violated the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) 
in using an obscure regulatory lever to fast-track the review process...
- - -
Morris could make a decision on how broadly his Nationwide Permit 12 
decision applies as soon as May 8. Regardless of the outcome, Morris' 
next move will likely face an appeal from either side.
https://www.desmogblog.com/2020/05/03/keystone-xl-future-pipeline-permits

[5 min video presentation ]
*The Pandemic's Effects on Climate Change | Special Episode*
Mar 25, 2020
Global Weirding with Katharine Hayhoe
17.5K subscribersThis pandemic is responsible for untold suffering 
around the world. If anything, it's simply reminding us how 
interconnected we all are, and how we can ignore a crisis until it's 
brought to our attention.
Let's take a step back and say 'what is going on?', in relation to 
COVID-19's
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=62IzyebP1_o

[George Monbiot]
*Bail Out the Planet*
1st May 2020
We have the opportunity to reshape our economies to support life on 
Earth. Governments should take it...
- - -
Governments like the UK's should drop their roadbuilding plans. Instead 
of expanding airports, they should publish plans for reducing landing 
slots. They should commit to an explicit policy of leaving fossil fuels 
in the ground.

During the pandemic, many of us have begun to discover how much of our 
travel is unnecessary. Governments can build on this to create plans for 
reducing the need to move, while investing in walking, cycling and - 
when physical distancing is less necessary - public transport. This 
means wider pavements, better bike lanes, buses run for service, not 
profit. They should invest heavily in green energy, and even more 
heavily in reducing energy demand, through, for example, home insulation 
and better heating and lighting. The pandemic exposes the need for 
better neighbourhood design, with less public space given to cars and 
more to people. It also shows how badly we need the kind of security 
that a lightly taxed, deregulated economy cannot deliver.

In other words, let's have what many people were calling for long before 
this disaster hit: a green new deal. But please let's stop describing it 
as a stimulus package. We have stimulated consumption too much over the 
past century, which is why we face environmental disaster. Let us call 
it a survival package, whose purpose is to provide incomes, distribute 
wealth and avoid catastrophe, without stoking perpetual economic growth. 
Bail out the people, not the corporations. Bail out the living world, 
not its destroyers. Let's not waste our second chance.
www.monbiot.com
https://www.monbiot.com/2020/05/01/bail-out-the-planet/

[Leases]
*Judge Vacates Oil and Gas Leases on 145,000 Acres in Montana*
A federal judge, rapping the Trump administration for its weak 
environmental assessments, has vacated hundreds of oil and gas leases 
across a large swath of Montana.
WASHINGTON -- A federal judge on Friday vacated 287 oil and gas leases 
on almost 150,000 acres of land in Montana, ruling that the Trump 
administration had improperly issued the leases to energy companies in 
2017 and 2018.

The judge, Brian Morris of the United States District Court for the 
District of Montana, said the Interior Department's Bureau of Land 
Management failed to adequately take into account the environmental 
impacts of the drilling...
- -
Judge Morris wrote that in issuing the leases, the Trump 
administration's failure to provide the legally required environmental 
analyses "largely relates to the absence of analysis rather than to a 
flawed analysis. In other words, the Court does not fault B.L.M. for 
providing a faulty analysis of cumulative impacts or impacts to 
groundwater, it largely faults B.L.M. for failing to provide any 
analysis."...
- -
"The nature of climate change is that we're dealing with death by a 
thousand cuts. These decisions are saying you have to add up the impact 
of all of those cuts," said Kyle Tisdel, a lawyer with the Western 
Environmental Law Center, a nonprofit law firm that argued against the 
administration in the Montana lease case.

Earlier this year, the White House rolled out a series of proposed 
changes to NEPA, under which consideration of the cumulative impacts on 
climate change of some projects would no longer be required.

"The changes that Trump has proposed to NEPA are not in place yet," said 
Patrick Parenteau, a professor of environmental law at the Vermont Law 
School, "but if they were, Judge Morris would not have been able to find 
that B.L.M. was in violation of the law."
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/01/climate/oil-gas-leases-montana.html

[Opinion from March ]
*Quit Obsessing About Climate Change. What You Do or Don't Do No Longer 
Matters.*
Glen Hendrix
Mar 26, 2019
- -
According to scientists, the only way to keep the planet's temperature 
from increasing 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit is to immediately phase out all 
fossil fuel infrastructure and devices. As soon as existing coal, oil, 
or gas plants reach their engineered lifespans, instead of refurbishing 
we must shut them down. If we don't, the estimates for increasing 
temperatures start going up.
- -
This is the most pivotal point in the history of man. We only get one 
shot at this. If we blow it, we won't get a comparable situation for 
millions of years, if ever. If mankind does have a world-wide 
civilization by then, we will have forgotten all of this -- this choice 
we had. Save the planet or just get along and ignore it until it is too 
late. Scientists are saying our planet is doomed and all I hear on the 
news is everything but that. We are a society in denial, trying to 
collectively whistle past the graveyard. Our weather men won't even talk 
about it on the local news. It might be construed as political. It might 
upset people. We are so polite and civilized in our denouement.

Since it is off our individual shoulders now, maybe we should give more 
thought about how we tell our children what's happening and what to 
expect in the future. Hopefully, they won't kick you in the shins when 
they finally understand what you are talking about. How do we look 
someone like Greta Thunberg in the face and tell her we screwed up in 
the worst possible way. This Swedish teen will probably spit in your eye 
and tell you to fuck off and keep riding that bike to work. She is up 
for a Nobel Prize for her admonitions to do something about climate 
change. In reality, she should be voted Queen of the World, because that 
is exactly what is needed right now; some central, charismatic figure 
with smarts and determination to do what is right, what is required.

It is not really our fault. Besides being stupid and greedy, we are 
genetically handicapped to deal with this situation. We simply don't 
live long enough to plan ahead. By "planning ahead" I don't mean 
decades. I mean centuries. The reason is that people with money and 
power, the people with the means to do something, just don't care. They 
would have to give up some of that money and power to change things. 
They figure they won't be around to suffer the consequences of climate 
change anyway, so they just don't give a damn. It would require 
Biblically long lifetimes to plan ahead for the human race. For now and 
the near future we can, at most, hope to live to a hundred, not the 969 
years of Methuselah. If you were going to be around for the consequence 
of your actions or inaction for as long as he was, you would care.

Our one ray of hope is artificial intelligence. Pundits say a 
generalized AI, the singularity, will be here within 20 years. It will 
have the lifetime and the smarts to rationally plan ahead for a viable 
future for the Earth. Maybe, by the grace of God, it will take over and 
guide the human race rationally into the future instead of selling us as 
cheap, world-wrecking slaves to the first aliens that drop by.

So tell your children you are sorry for what is going on with the 
climate, but it's not their fault or yours. Tell them some bad people 
made it too hard to do anything until it was too late. Tell them you 
will vote for people that might help with the problem. Maybe if we elect 
the right leaders, and they do the right things there is still time. 
Tell them to study science and engineering so that someday they might 
help with a solution or figure out adaptations to deal with it. Or you 
can put that whole talk off for later. I won't blame you. You are only 
human.
https://medium.com/age-of-awareness/quit-obsessing-about-climate-change-what-you-do-or-dont-do-no-longer-matters-2942d12bed8b

[Game]*
**The Climate Collage*
You're holding all the cards
The Game
The Climate Collage is a serious game about climate change, based on 
collective intelligence and creativity. Whether you're completely new to 
the topic or quite savvy, you can play the Climate Collage. In 3 hours' 
time, you will retrace the IPCC's reasoning and  you may even have fun 
doing it! You'll also have the opportunity to discuss the consequences, 
challenges and changes that you see are coming or should be coming.
http://climatecollage.org/

[Digging back into the internet news archive]
*On this day in the history of global warming - May 4, 2010 *

MSNBC's Keith Olbermann rips syndicated columnist George Will for 
continuing to peddle myths about wind energy.

http://mediamatters.org/video/2010/05/04/olbermann-names-will-krauthammer-in-worst-perso/164226

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