[TheClimate.Vote] November 7, 2020 - Daily Global Warming News Digest
Richard Pauli
richard at theclimate.vote
Sat Nov 7 08:36:35 EST 2020
/*November 7, 2020*/
[Dave Roberts insight]
*Joe Biden will be president, but there will be no Green New Deal*
Without Congress, he'll be limited to executive action, just like Obama.
By David Roberts david at vox.com Nov 6, 2020
Biden can make climate progress without Congress
But there is an enormous amount that Biden can do with the presidency alone.
He can immediately begin reversing Trump's massive deregulatory moves,
restoring the more than 125 rules Trump has reversed or weakened.
He can instruct the Environmental Protection Agency to develop a more
ambitious version of Obama's Clean Power Plan for the electricity
sector, to work toward his goal of net-zero emissions electricity by
2035, and the Department of Transportation to develop, as his plan
promises, "rigorous new fuel economy standards aimed at ensuring 100% of
new sales for light- and medium-duty vehicles will be electrified." He
can grant California the waiver it needs (which Trump is now in court
trying to block) to pursue its own ambitious vehicle standards.
He can end Trump's oil and gas development bender on public land,
reimposing protections and encouraging safe development of renewable
energy, and restore the "waters of the United States" (WOTUS) rule to
prevent water pollution. He can restore and strengthen the rules on
methane leakage from oil and gas operations that Trump rolled back.
One of the most important structural moves Biden can make is to use the
powers granted to him by the Dodd-Frank financial reform legislation to
ensure that the Federal Reserve, and the financial system more broadly,
takes climate risk into account, channeling investment away from
carbon-intensive projects. (More on how to do that here.)
If he is feeling particularly bold, it is within Biden's powers to
declare climate change a national security emergency, which would give
him the power to implement industrial policy directly, boosting the
production of electric vehicles, EV charging infrastructure,
long-distance electricity transmission lines, solar panels, or other
materiel needed to address the emergency.
Perhaps most importantly, Biden can reassure America's international
partners that it is back in the climate game. His foreign policy powers
as president are limited only by his ambition. Rejoining the Paris
agreement is only the first step.
Beyond that, he could rejoin the World Health Organization and push it
to better address climate health risks. He could convene smaller "clubs"
of willing nations to hasten the development of key clean energy
technologies or develop policies to address environmental migration. He
could push forward international agreements around hydrofluorocarbons,
deforestation, plastics, or other climate-adjacent issues.
There's no way around it, though: To implement anything close to what's
needed, to muster the necessary investments and properly protect
affected communities, Biden would need Congress. (If Democrats don't win
the Senate in 2020, Democrats have their next chance at a majority in
two years, but it's not a sure bet.) Without it, his climate
accomplishments, like Obama's, will be partial and inadequate.
Republican climate intransigence is not a problem Biden can solve...
more at -
https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/21547245/joe-biden-wins-2020-climate-change-clean-energy-policy
[Listen to big money talking]
*Long concerned about climate change, VC Steve Westly is feeling
electrified*
Connie Loizos - November 6, 2020
A former controller and CFO of the state of California, Steve Westly is
passionate about government. The onetime eBay exec and early Tesla
board member has also been a proponent of clean energy for roughly 30
years, so he's feeling optimistic right now, with former U.S. VP Joe
Biden amassing a growing number of electoral votes and widening his
leading Donald Trump as he inches toward an election win.
We talked earlier today with Westly, who founded the venture firm The
Westly Group 13 years ago and which is currently raising up to $250
million for a fourth fund, according to SEC paperwork filed earlier this
week. We wanted to know whether he thinks Biden will be able to achieve
any part of his climate plan in the likely scenario that Republicans
continue to control the Senate...
*- -*
*TC: It's looking like Joe Biden is going to win the election, but
there's also a strong chance that he'll be working with a
Republican-controlled Senate. Meanwhile, climate change was not in the
top five concerns for voters of either party. Does this can get kicked
down the road again?*
No, it just means they'll have to work together and that he'll have to
go directly to the issues that are most popular to get them through.
Trump had no clue that sustainable energy is immensely popular today and
that some of the states that used to block green initiatives --
including Texas, North Dakota, and South Dakota -- are increasingly
becoming wind and solar powers, such that their senators who used to
say, 'natural gas forever' are also saying that solar and wind are
employing more and more people in their states.
*TC: What do you see as first steps?*
SW: Biden will bring the U.S. back into the Paris climate agreement.
You'll also see him at the front of this global movement toward the
electrification of everything, and there will be support for EVs and
support for sustainable energy.
You'll also see some sort of penalties or restrictions on carbon-based
fuels because of the increased data we have that carbon in the
atmosphere is causing public health problems, reducing air quality and
that large insurance companies are having to pay for [these things]. Now
that Munich Re and others say, 'We pretty much know what the cost is,
and we're charging you back,' the government can use that data to charge
carbon producers appropriately.
*TC: Traditional energy companies– the biggest carbon emitters -- say
they've resolved to address this problem. Do you think that's mostly
optics?*
SW: A lot is optics, but it's also a realization that you either change
your business model or you go down with the ship. You don't want to take
the Kodak approach. You want to be Apple and reinvent yourself.
https://techcrunch.com/2020/11/06/vc-and-former-politician-steve-westly-is-feeling-electrified-right-now-heres-why/
[Wise old man gives us some fundamentals of activism]
*Noam Chomsky - Our Stark, Cruel Dilemma*
Nov 5, 2020
Facing Future
The 'lost videos' from our conversation with #NoamChomsky before the
2018 climate negotiations in which he skewers the 'guilty parties,'
while advising those activists who would rise to the occasion and change
humanity's fate. He outlines the #CrimesAgainstHumanity being committed
by #CorruptLeaders who would sacrifice all future generations for their
personal gain and ideologies of 'unending economic growth.'
(c) http://FacingFuture.Earth
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=19Ix-bNmudk
[Andy Revkin in discussions with Samantha Montano ]
*Disasterologists' Dissect Our Pandemic-Shaped Political Moment -
Sustain What*
Streamed live Nov 6, 2020
Andrew Revkin
Sustain What host Andy Revkin leads a solution-seeking brainstorm on
paths to resilience amid the interlaced, and continuing disasters
shaping American's political decisions – and amplified or mitigated by
the outcome of #Election2020.
Our special guests are:
- Samantha Montano, assistant professor in the Department Emergency
Management at the Massachusetts Maritime Academy and a passionate voice
for public education and preparedness on social media via @SamLMontao.
Her website: http://www.disaster-ology.com/
- Jevin West, Director of Center for an Informed Public at the
University of Washington and co-author, with Carl Bergstrom, of "Calling
Bullshit: The Art of Skepticism in a Data-Driven World." Follow Jevin at
@jevinwest.
- Joshua DeVincenzo, project coordinator and instructional designer at
the National Center for Disaster Preparedness at Columbia University and
author of a recent paper on new paths to public education and engagement
on climate change. Follow Josh at @j_devincenzo. Here's his new paper on
climate pedagogy: http://j.mp/climatepedagogy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HNfSKPkncog&feature=youtu.be&t=399
[UCSF press release November 4, 2020]
*Climate Change Will Give Rise to More Cancers *
UCSF Study Focuses on Global Impact for Major Cancers and Steps Needed
to Lessen Risks
By Elizabeth Fernandez
Climate change will bring an acute toll worldwide, with rising
temperatures, wildfires and poor air quality, accompanied by higher
rates of cancer, especially lung, skin and gastrointestinal cancers,
according to a new report from UC San Francisco.
In an analysis of nearly five dozen published scientific papers, the
researchers provided a synopsis of future effects from global warming on
major cancers, from environmental toxins to ultraviolet radiation, air
pollution, infectious agents and disruptions in the food and water supply.
Ultimately, the most profound challenge to the global cancer picture
could come from the disruption of the complex health care systems
required for cancer diagnosis, treatment, and care, the authors wrote.
The review appears in The Lancet Oncology.
"In the worldwide battle to mitigate climate change, the international
community is not on track to slow emissions of greenhouses gases," said
lead author Robert A. Hiatt, MD, PhD, UCSF professor of Epidemiology and
Biostatistics, and associate director for population science at the UCSF
Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center. "2015-2019 were the
five warmest years on record, and 2020 has seen tremendous climate
impacts, from wildfires to hurricanes."
The impacts of climate change on health are large and are expected to
continue growing without rapid action. High temperatures, poor air
quality and wildfires cause higher rates of respiratory and
cardiovascular diseases. Warmer temperatures and changing rainfall
patterns raise the risk and spread of vector-borne disease, such as
malaria and dengue. "Extreme weather events cause death, injury,
displacement, and disrupt health-care delivery," the authors wrote.
Cancer is widely predicted to be the leading cause of death in the 21st
century. Worldwide, there were 24.5 million new cases of cancer and 9.6
million deaths in 2017, a striking increase from 2008 with 12.7 million
cases and 7.6 million deaths.
The authors said the biggest cancer threats are likely to be from air
pollution, exposure to ultraviolent radiation and industrial toxins, and
disruptions in food and water supply. Lung cancer, already the primary
cause of cancer deaths worldwide, is expected to increase as a result of
escalating exposure to particulate matter in air pollution, estimated to
be responsible for as much as 15 percent of new cases.
While the overall effects of climate change on nutrition-related cancers
are difficult to determine, the authors said, one comprehensive modeling
study predicted more than half a million climate-related deaths
worldwide, including cancer deaths, as a result of changes in food
supply by 2050, such as reduced consumption of fruits and vegetables.
Climate change is already exacerbating social and economic inequities,
leading to higher rates of migration and poverty. The authors note that
poor people and communities of color are disproportionately affected by
cancer and have a higher cancer mortality. World Bank estimates that
climate change will push 100 million people globally back into poverty
by 2030.
Major disruptions are also expected to take place in the infrastructure
of health care systems for cancer control, which could affect all
cancers. The COVID-19 pandemic has provided a clear example of this
disruption, shifting medical resources away from cancer and causing
thousands of patients to delay cancer screenings out of fear of
contracting the virus.
"Extreme weather events such as storms and flooding can destroy or
damage health-care infrastructure, reducing health care quality and
availability," said the authors. These events also interrupt service
delivery by causing power shortages, disrupting supply chains,
transportation, and communication, and resulting in staff shortages.
Ironically, COVID-19 also revealed a ray of hope in reversing the damage.
"The early pandemic response resulted in a striking reduction in air
pollution," Hiatt said, "showing the potential of extreme measures to
result in rapid environmental change."
It could take decades to fully understand the impact of climate change
on cancer, given a sometimes lengthy delay from exposure to clinical
diagnosis. But the authors said that shouldn't prevent acting now, as
the harmful impacts from air pollution and other climate risks will
continue to grow during that time.
"There is a lot we can be doing to mitigate climate change and to
mitigate the impact on cancer," said co-author Naomi Beyeler, MPH,
co-director of the Evidence to Policy Initiative and Lead for Climate
and Health at the UCSF Institute for Global Health Sciences. "We should
be doing both, and we should be doing both with urgency."
By reducing pollution, deaths from lung cancer could decline, the
authors said, and there are numerous clinical, behavioral, and policy
solutions to slow climate change, and prevent cancer cases and deaths.
"The COVID-19 pandemic has shown us the importance of science and public
health," said Beyeler, "and we have seen over the past months that as a
global health community, we are able to mobilize the investments,
research, and collective action needed to solve health problems on a
global scale. Now is the time to apply this ambition to tackling the
climate crisis."
https://www.ucsf.edu/news/2020/11/418976/climate-change-will-give-rise-more-cancers
- -
[source matter]
*Cancer and climate change*
Prof Robert A Hiatt, MD
Naomi Beyeler, MPH
Published:November, 2020 DOI:https://doi.org/10.1016/S1470-2045(20)30448-4
Summary
The acute impact of climate change on human health is receiving
increased attention, but little is known or appreciated about the effect
of climate change on chronic diseases, particularly cancer. This Review
provides a synopsis of what is known about climate change and the
exposures it generates relevant to cancer. In the context of the world's
cancer burden and the probable direction we could expect to follow in
the absence of climate change, this scoping review of the literature
summarises the effects that climate change is having on major cancers,
from environmental exposures to ultraviolet radiation, air pollution,
disruptions in the food and water supply, environmental toxicants, and
infectious agents. Finally, we explore the effect of climate change on
the possible disruption of health systems that have been essential to
cancer control practice. We conclude with potential responses and
opportunities for intervention.
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanonc/article/PIIS1470-2045(20)30448-4/fulltext
[GM and Sexism - Scientific American]
*A Woman Warned GM about Warming, But Men Didn't Listen*
Ruth Reck did pioneering climate change research at the automotive
giant, where she says she faced sexism
By Maxine Joselow, E&E News on November 4, 2020
A General Motors scientist who conducted pioneering research on climate
change in the 1960s says she faced sexism that made it difficult to do
her job.
Ruth Reck's allegations raise questions about whether GM executives
dismissed or downplayed her findings on global warming because of her
gender.
Reck joined GM Research Laboratories in Warren, Mich., in 1965 and soon
began studying the effects of car emissions on the climate, E&E News
reported as part of a monthslong investigation (Climatewire, Oct. 26).
As the first female scientist in the lab, she encountered an environment
in which male co-workers evaluated her body rather than her brains.
"I had a very difficult time working at GM in general. They told me I
was a distraction because I was a shapely woman. I don't want to go into
detail, but it was really hard. Really, unbelievably embarrassing," Reck
recalled in one of several phone interviews with E&E News...
- -
*CO2 AND THE CEOS*
Throughout the 1970s, Reck researched the effects of greenhouse gases
such as carbon dioxide. Her work offered strong evidence that CO2 heated
the planet and could trigger dire consequences on Earth, such as melting
ice sheets and sea-level rise.
Despite her expertise, Reck was passed over for the opportunity to lead
GM's task force on global warming in 1989. That distinction went to
Joseph "Joe" Colucci, an engineer who specialized in automotive fuels
and lubricants -- and who had not published any papers on climate change
in peer-reviewed journals.
Led by Colucci, the task force drafted and released a report on the
technologies needed to address global warming. Reck was never asked to
review the document.
After learning from Reck that CO2 emissions from car tailpipes warmed
the planet, the CEOs largely declined to alter GM's business model and
lobbying practices in response. Both Smith and Stempel presided over
periods in which the automaker invested in gas-guzzling trucks and SUVs
while fighting fuel economy regulations that would have made those
vehicles cleaner.
At first, Johnston appeared to take a keen interest in Reck's research,
and the two forged an unusual friendship. But in 1989, he orchestrated
GM's involvement in the Global Climate Coalition, a lobbying group that
opposed actions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions during the George
H.W. Bush administration, said Marina von Neumann Whitman, who was GM's
vice president and group executive for public affairs at the time.
Johnston "felt his major obligation was to 'protect the product plan.'
And he was the one that got General Motors into the Global Climate
Coalition," said Whitman, who is now a professor at the University of
Michigan's Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy.
After leaving GM, Johnston joined the American Enterprise Institute, a
conservative think tank whose scholars have said concern about climate
change is overblown. While at AEI, he published a book titled "Driving
America: Your Car, Your Government, Your Choice" that argued the science
was not settled on "whether the climate is warming and, if so, whether
the warming is the result of human activity."...
- -
'ENRAGING AND HEARTBREAKING'
Women have been overlooked in the field of climate science, as well.
Eunice Newton Foote, the first woman in climate science, posited in 1856
that CO2 affected the Earth's temperature. But the Irish physicist John
Tyndall widely gets credit for the theory, which he suggested three
years later, wrote Ayana Elizabeth Johnson and Katharine Wilkinson in
their recent book "All We Can Save: Truth, Courage and Solutions for the
Climate Crisis."
"We have to wonder if Eunice Newton Foote ever found herself remarking,
as so many women have: 'I literally just said that, dude,'" Johnson and
Wilkinson wrote in the book, which serves as a call to action for women
to become leaders in the climate activism movement.
In an interview with E&E News, Wilkinson said many female climate
scientists who are active today have had experiences similar to the one
endured by Foote.
Wilkinson -- who serves as vice president at Project Drawdown, a
nonprofit organization that seeks to help the world reduce greenhouse
gas emissions -- pointed to a 2018 study in the Proceedings of the
National Academy of Sciences on female scientists who authored U.N.
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change assessments.
The study found that while some female authors had a positive
experience, others felt they were "poorly represented and heard" on the
powerful scientific body...
- -
After 27 years at GM, Reck left the automaker in 1992 to become head of
the global climate change program at Argonne National Laboratory. She
was the first female senior scientist at Argonne who hadn't been
recommended by her husband.
Now 88 years old and retired, Reck identifies as a feminist and believes
gender equality -- in addition to climate change -- represents a
defining issue of the century.
"I'm a feminist, and that changes how I think about things. There were
women who were not feminists and disagreed with me, thinking men
deserved higher pay because they brought more to the scene. I did not
think that," Reck said in a follow-up text message to E&E News.
"I believe God intended us to be how we are," she added. "There's no
reason we should be criticized for how we are. I am proud to be female.
The men should be professional enough to act in a grown-up way."
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/a-woman-warned-gm-about-warming-but-men-didnt-listen/
[cute, sarcastic, insightful video screed]
*Climate Grief | Philosophy Tube*
Premiered Aug 22, 2019
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CqCx9xU_-Fw
[Digging back into the internet news archive]
*On this day in the history of global warming - November 7, 2012 *
The 350.org "Do the Math" tour commences in Seattle.
http://www.desmogblog.com/2012/11/08/bill-mckibben-kicks-do-math-tour-seattle
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lbdJRb7yaWY
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