[TheClimate.Vote] November 4, 2020 - Daily Global Warming News Digest
Richard Pauli
richard at theclimate.vote
Wed Nov 4 10:22:25 EST 2020
/*November 4, 2020*/
[harsh]
*Climate change: US formally withdraws from Paris agreement*
*After a three-year delay, the US has become the first nation in the
world to formally withdraw from the Paris climate agreement.*
President Trump announced the move in June 2017, but UN regulations
meant that his decision only takes effect today, the day after the US
election.
The US could re-join it in future, should a president choose to do so.
The Paris deal was drafted in 2015 to strengthen the global response to
the threat of climate change.
It aims to keep the global temperature rise this century well below 2C
above pre-industrial levels and to pursue efforts to limit the
temperature increase even further to 1.5C.
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-54797743
[Oily PR blunder]*
**Shell's climate poll on Twitter backfires spectacularly*
Oil giant accused of gaslighting after asking users: 'What are you
willing to change?'
Damian Carrington Environment editor
3 Nov 2020
A climate poll on Twitter posted by Shell has backfired spectacularly,
with the oil company accused of gaslighting the public.
The survey, posted on Tuesday morning, asked: *"What are you willing to
change to help reduce emissions?"*
💨 Offset emissions 23.1%
✈️ Stop flying 6.5%
🚗 Buy electric vehicle 25.6%
⚡️ Renewable electricity 44.7%
Though it received a modest 199 votes the tweet still went viral – but
not for the reasons the company would have hoped. The US congresswoman
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was one high-profile respondent, posting a
tweet that was liked 350,000 times.
*Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez @AOC*
Nov 2
US House candidate, NY-14
I'm willing to hold you accountable for lying about climate change
for 30 years when you secretly knew the entire time that fossil
fuels emissions would destroy our planet 😇
Greta Thunberg accused the company of "endless greenwash", while the
climate scientist Prof Katharine Hayhoe pointed out Shell's huge
contribution to the atmospheric carbon dioxide that is heating the
planet. Shell then hid her reply, she said.
*Prof. Katharine Hayhoe @KHayhoe*
Replying to @Shell
What am I willing to do? Hold you accountable for 2% of cumulative
global GHG emissions, equivalent to those of my entire home country
of Canada. When you have a concrete plan to address that, I'd be
happy to chat about what I'm doing to reduce my personal emissions.
In 2017, the Guardian revealed that a "confidential" Shell report in
1986 noted the large uncertainties in climate science at the time but
nonetheless stated: "The changes may be the greatest in recorded history."
A Shell film released in 1991 said: "Global warming is not yet certain,
but many think that to wait for final proof would be irresponsible.
Action now is seen as the only safe insurance."
However, the company's recent investments in low-carbon energy have
remained tiny compared with its fossil fuel investments. Its plan to
become net carbon zero covers only about 65% of the emissions from the
oil and gas it produces, according to Follow This, a group of more than
5,800 green shareholders in oil and gas companies...
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/nov/03/shells-climate-poll-on-twitter-backfires-spectacularly
- -
[comment to Shell on Twitter]
*SHELL - What are you willing to change to help reduce emissions?*
https://twitter.com/Shell/status/1323184318735360001
[Where your Amazon dollar is spent]
*The Weekly Planet: How Jeff Bezos Is Spending His $10 Billion Earth Fund*
These nine environmental groups are some of his first grantees.
Back in February, Jeffrey Bezos posted a picture of the Earth on
Instagram. In the caption, the world's richest man announced his new
project to save the world: the Bezos Earth Fund, an initiative to
support scientists, activists, nonprofits, and anyone else who seems to
have a good idea to fight climate change. "Climate change is the biggest
threat to our planet," the Amazon chief executive said. He committed $10
billion to the effort, and said he would begin issuing grants in the summer.
The fund portended a revolution: In pledging what was then more than 7
percent of his net worth, Bezos was, by any measure, eclipsing the total
sum spent by American philanthropists on climate change in recent years.
Then the pandemic arrived. Amazon became a kind of private utility, and
Bezos's attention was diverted. Little has been heard about the fund.
Months came and went without any grant announcements.
But that is soon to change. Throughout the summer, Bezos--sometimes
joined by his girlfriend, Lauren Sanchez, a television producer--met via
phone with environmental nonprofits and other advisers in the field,
according to two people who work in climate philanthropy and have
knowledge of the situation. He is now ready to start giving.
But Bezos's gifts indicate that he isn't trying something new on climate
so much as boosting an ancien régime. Bezos is prepared to give $100
million each to four of the most established environmental groups in the
country--the Nature Conservancy, the Environmental Defense Fund, the
Natural Resources Defense Council, and the World Wildlife Fund,
according to my two sources, who were granted anonymity so that they
could speak candidly about the small world of climate giving.
Bezos has also committed $100 million to the World Resources Institute,
a sustainability-research organization that operates globally, the two
sources said.
And he has promised smaller amounts of $10 million to $50 million to
four nonprofits that specialize in climate and energy research, the
sources said. Those groups are the Energy Foundation, the Union of
Concerned Scientists, the ClimateWorks Foundation, and the Rocky
Mountain Institute...
- -
Managing that economic transition will take new institutions and a new
kind of economic expertise. Maybe that cause can receive some of Bezos's
remaining $9.3 billion...
more at -
https://www.theatlantic.com/newsletters/archive/2020/11/how-jeff-bezos-spending-his-10-billion-earth-fund/616977/
[Opinion]
*On the Existential Risks of Abrupt Climate Change and a chat on Chomsky
Election Thoughts*
Oct 31, 2020
Paul Beckwith
Hello Everybody,
I agree completely with Chomsky on the following statements, and have
said these things for years:
"Definitely the worst one I can think of in history, Adolf Hitler was
pretty hideous – [but] he wasn't trying to destroy organised human
society on earth," -- Chomsky
"The facts are pretty straight; there is almost universal consensus
among serious scientists that we are racing towards the cataclysm, if
current tendencies persist," -- Chomsky
"By the end of this century, you might have reached the level three,
maybe four degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. And every
analysis concludes that's a total cataclysm. Organised human societies –
nothing survives." -- Chomsky
Repeated for emphasis:
"Definitely the worst one I can think of in history, Adolf Hitler was
pretty hideous – [but] he wasn't trying to destroy organised human
society on earth," -- Chomsky
Challenged on this, with the fact that the Nazi Holocaust killed at
least six million Jewish people, Chomsky, whose parents were Jewish,
says Hitler also killed "30 million Slavs, but not human civilisation".
Here is the article link; please read it and think about it carefully:
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-election-2020/trump-climate-change-noam-chomsky-book-interview-hitler-robert-pollin-b1374789.html
I agree with Chomsky, and have been saying these exact things for many
years; it's why I study climate change and have done so for many years.
Presently, we are only 1.1 C above the 1880-1910 average (1.4 C above
1750) and we already experience weather extremes, loss of the Arctic ice
and cold, mega-wildfires, and looming global food shortages.
We face civilization collapse. Global food shortages. Frequent pandemics
due to loss of global biodiversity. Collapsing political systems.
Fascism and lies.
Climate destabilization is the fundamental root cause of all this
accelerating chaos.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pNyF0LJBZlk
- -
[Noam Chomsky video interveiw]
*Trump's denial of climate change represents worse threat to humanity
than Hitler, says activist Noam Chomsky*
Exclusive: Veteran intellectual tells The Independent there is barely a
decade to avert environmental catastrophe
Noam Chomsky is not in the mood for holding back.
The celebrated linguist and media critic watches the world approaching a
US election whose outcome he believes could send the planet hurtling
further towards environmental catastrophe.
It is perhaps not surprising he has stark words about Donald Trump and
the Republican Party, which he says is the world's only large
conservative political grouping to deny the existence of climate change.
In an interview with The Independent to promote a new book about the
urgency of the crisis and a means to transition to a non-fossil fuel
economy as part of a so-called global green new deal, he says he has
identified several patterns over the course of the Trump presidency...
- -
Chomsky recently caused some controversy when he essentially said 2020
was not a year for a protest vote and said Mr Biden, however imperfect
from the perspective of a progressive, was the only viable option.
"Every couple of years something comes up called an election. You spend
a few minutes deciding whether it's worth taking some time off to
participate," he said.
"Sometimes it is so transparent that it shouldn't take five seconds when
you have a malignant cancer who is racing to destroy the world and the
alternative is a programme that's not great but at least open to
improvement. A rational person doesn't spend five seconds on this decision."
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-election-2020/trump-climate-change-noam-chomsky-book-interview-hitler-robert-pollin-b1374789.html
[Digging back into the internet news archive]
*On this day in the history of global warming - November 4, 1988 *
November 4, 1988: Discussing the conflict of visions at the heart of the
1988 presidential campaign, the New York Times notes:
"Neither candidate has a record in office as a committed
environmentalist. [Vice President George] Bush, for example, headed
a Reagan Administration task force that recommended relaxing many
environmental regulations. [Massachusetts Governor Michael] Dukakis
sought waivers of Federal requirements that Boston Harbor be cleaned
up. Yet both candidates are campaigning as strong conservationists,
and protection of the environment has become a widely discussed
issue for the first time in a Presidential campaign.
"Mr. Bush ran a series of television advertisements attacking Mr.
Dukakis for pollution in Boston Harbor. Mr. Dukakis, saying he was
not at fault, responded with ads blaming Reagan budget cuts for the
harbor's pollution and criticizing the Vice President for opposing
renewal of the Clean Water Act and strong regulation of corporate
polluters.
"Mr. Dukakis has won the endorsement of most national environmental
organizations. The League of Conservation Voters, the political arm
of the main environmental groups, gives Mr. Dukakis a rating of B,
Mr. Bush a grade of D+, based on their records and stated positions.
"Neither man has promised to spend much new money on the
environment. But both have endorsed a program to reduce pollution
that causes acid rain, both say they would bring an end to ocean
dumping and both promise to call a meeting of world leaders to
address the threat of global warming caused by man-made gases."
http://www.nytimes.com/1988/11/04/us/emotional-issues-are-the-1988-battleground.html?pagewanted=print&src=pm
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