[TheClimate.Vote] November 8, 2020 - Daily Global Warming News Digest

[Richard Pauli]

/*November 8, 2020*/

[follow the money]
*Companies defy investor demands on climate change*
Analysis of 6,000 listed groups shows few businesses are close to 
meeting targets set by Paris accord
https://www.ft.com/content/798f752a-5db1-498c-8d1d-6389b66f317d


[mixing resources]
*Climate Deniers Boost Pro-Trump Efforts to Cast Doubt on US Election*
By Sharon Kelly • Friday, November 6, 2020
In unusual remarks made during a corporate earnings call today, Friday, 
November 6, Continental Resources founder and executive chairman Howard 
Hamm referred to counting "all legal votes" -- a phrase used by 
President Donald Trump to suggest that some votes cast in the 2020 
election are not legitimate. The founder and executive chairman of the 
Oklahoma-based oil and gas company joined others who dispute mainstream 
climate science in taking up this language in the wake of this week's 
slowly unfolding presidential election.

"Finally, I wanted to provide my thoughts on the current state of the 
election," Hamm said after discussing Continental Resources' financial 
performance. "The election process is not final and we like you are 
waiting to see the results when all legal votes are counted."

Fact-checking website Politifact notes that the Trump campaign declined 
to clarify specifically which, if any, votes President Donald Trump 
believes were "illegal." Trump's unsupported claims of wrongdoing in 
this year's elections have proved too much for observers across the 
political spectrum, including those at Fox News and the Wall Street 
Journal, which categorized such claims as "lashing out" by Trump.

Hamm hastened to assure investors that Republicans would serve as a 
bulwark against laws that the oil and gas industry opposes. "While we 
wait to see the final results of the presidential election, the Senate 
will more than likely remain in the hands of Republican leadership and 
the House Republican representation will be strengthened," he said. 
"This should serve as a backstop for any legislation that would be 
harmful for U.S. oil and gas producers."
- -
FreedomWorks posted photographs of rally attendees in Philadelphia, many 
not wearing masks, carrying printed signs with messages like "count 
legal votes" and encouraging people to text the word "stolen" to sign 
up, with the FreedomWorks logo printed below.

FreedomWorks and its related organizations grew from an organization 
founded by the petrochemical billionaire Koch brothers in the early 
1980s and have, over their histories, received millions of dollars in 
Koch and dark money funding, DeSmog's database profile of the 
organizations shows.

FreedomWorks and its related organizations have historically received 
funding from the Koch network, the American Petroleum Institute, 
ExxonMobil, and others tied to fossil fuels and promotion of climate 
science denial, DeSmog's profile indicates.

More recently, the organization appears to have distanced itself from 
Koch. "While [Citizens for a Sound Economy, one of FreedomWorks' 
predecessors] was founded by the Koch brothers in 1984 as special 
interest group promoting deregulation and was originally affiliated with 
Citizens for a Sound Economy Foundation (CSEF), Koch does not appear 
active in FreedomWorks itself," DeSmog's database notes.

There is evidence that the organization has maintained ties to fossil 
fuel companies during President Trump's time in office. In 2019, 
FreedomWorks received $50,000 from coal company Murray Energy, formerly 
owned by Bob Murray (recently deceased), bankruptcy filings revealed. 
Since Trump took office, FreedomWorks Foundation has taken over $384,000 
in funding via DonorsTrust, the notorious conduit for dark money (a role 
so central to its existence that it's famously been dubbed the "dark 
money ATM of the conservative movement" by Mother Jones.)

FreedomWorks -- which is often cited as having helped to create the Tea 
Party movement last decade -- also has a long history of promoting 
climate disinformation. "While FreedomWorks does not have an official 
statement on climate change, they regularly publish articles on their 
website questioning the existence of man-made climate change," DeSmog's 
profile indicates.

Charlie Kirk, founder and executive director of the conservative youth 
activist group Turning Point USA, also called for the counting of "every 
LEGAL vote" on Twitter. Kirk has also opposed action on climate change 
(calling the Paris Climate Agreement, which the U.S. formally exited on 
November 4, a "BAD Deal" on Twitter).
"Charlie Kirk has admitted to soliciting funds from the fossil fuel 
industry," DeSmog's database entry on Kirk notes. "He acknowleded in an 
interview that some donors of [Turning Point USA] 'are in the 
fossil-fuel space.'"

The entry of well-funded organizations into the election fray runs 
counter to the suggestion that pro-Trump rallies intended to 
delegitimize the democratic voting process sprang up entirely from the 
grassroots.

"This is definitely not just organic, up-from-the-grassroots 
disinformation," Alex Stamos, director of the Stanford Internet 
Observatory told Politico. "There are professionals here who are pushing 
some of this stuff based upon exactly what is going on in the polls and 
in the real-world arguments over the election."

FreedomWorks has not immediately responded to a request for comment.
https://www.desmogblog.com/2020/11/06/climate-deniers-trump-us-election-harold-hamm



[New science]
NOVEMBER 7, 2020
*Mystery of glacial lake floods solved*
by Marcie Grabowski, University of Hawaii at Manoa

The hot water drill used to drill through the glacier to the subglacial 
lakes. The drill stem is hundreds of meters below in the ice, suspended 
on a rubber hose through which hot water is pumped down. Credit: Eric Gaidos
A long-standing mystery in the study of glaciers was recently -- and 
serendipitously--solved by a team led by University of Hawai'i at Mānoa 
astrobiologist and earth scientist Eric Gaidos. Their findings were 
published this week in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.

The mystery involves floods or "jokulhlaups" that emerge suddenly and 
unpredictably from glaciers or ice caps like those in Iceland where 
volcanic heat melts the ice and water accumulates in lakes underneath 
the glaciers. Scientists have long studied the development of these 
floods, which are some of the largest on Earth.

"These floods may affect the motion of some glaciers and are a 
significant hazard in Iceland," said Gaidos, professor at the UH Mānoa 
School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology (SOEST). "But the 
mechanism and timing of the initiation of these floods has not been 
understood."

Then, in June 2015, an unexpected series of events revealed how these 
floods start.

That summer, Gaidos and colleagues drilled a hole to one of the 
Icelandic lakes to study its microbial life. While collecting samples 
through the borehole, the team noticed a downwards current, like a 
bathtub drain, in the hole.

"The flow was so strong we nearly lost our sensors and sampling 
equipment into the hole," said Gaidos. "We surmised that we had 
accidentally connected a water mass inside the glacier to the lake 
beneath. That water mass was rapidly draining into the lake."

Illustration of the water movement that may have triggered the flood of 
June 2015 (arrows indicate flow direction): the subglacial lake, warmed 
to 4 C by geothermal input, the perched reservoir fed by summer melt 
through the firn layer, a water-filled system of crevasses and conduits 
(moulins), our borehole, and the outlet under the ice dam. Credit: 
Gaidos, et al. (2020)
A few days later, after the team had left the glacier, the lake drained 
in a flood. Fortunately, the flood was small and Icelanders have an 
elaborate early-warning system on their rivers so no people were hurt, 
nor infrastructure damaged in this event, Gaidos assured.

The researchers used a computer model of the draining of the flow 
through the hole , and its effect on the lake, to show that this could 
have triggered the flood.

"We discovered that the glacier can contain smaller bodies of water 
above the lakes fed by summer melting," said Gaidos. "If this water body 
is hydraulically connected to the lake then the pressure in the lake 
rises and that allows water to start draining out underneath the glacier."

In June 2015, a team led by Gaidos used hot water to melt a hole through 
250 meters of ice to sample a lake beneath a glacier in Iceland. Credit: 
Eric Gaidos
While the team made an artificial connection to the lake in 2015, 
natural connections can form when water from rain or melting snow 
accumulates in crevasses and the pressure eventually forces a crack 
through the glacier to the lake. This discovery provides a new 
understanding of how these floods can start and how this depends on 
weather and the season.

Collaborators in Iceland are continuing to research this phenomenon 
using radio echo-sounding to search for water bodies within the ice, as 
well as study the larger lake below it.
https://phys.org/news/2020-11-mystery-glacial-lake.html


[oddly wise standout]
Capital Weather Gang
*Trump administration taps mainstream climate scientist to run key 
climate review*
Amid climate science skepticism at the Trump White House, pick may 
encourage scientific community.
By Jason Samenow and Andrew Freedman
November 4, 2020
The next National Climate Assessment, the federal government's most 
definitive and comprehensive report on climate change and its 
consequences for the United States, will be directed by atmospheric 
scientist Betsy Weatherhead, currently a senior scientist at Jupiter 
Intelligence, a company that helps businesses and governments prepare 
for the impacts of climate change.

Weatherhead, who has decades of experience as a climate scientist in the 
academic and private sectors, accepts human-induced climate change is 
happening and is a serious physical, ecological and economic threat.

Her appointment stands in sharp contrast to two recent high-level 
political hires at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration 
(NOAA), David Legates and Ryan Maue, who are on the record challenging 
the seriousness of climate change. It also is in contrast to the climate 
change views of President Trump, who downplays humans' role in causing 
global warming, despite the scientific consensus on the topic...
more at - 
https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2020/11/04/national-climate-assessment-director/


[3 year old video gives political understanding that now applies]
*A World in Revolution: The Inevitable Backlash against Global Elites*
Mar 10, 2017
Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs

Skip ahead to main speaker at 3:20

The Trump election and populist movements in Europe and Asia can be 
considered akin to true revolutionary movements--ideologically driven; 
brought about by a slow-down in social mobility, elite factionalization 
and decline in public goods; and pursuing a revolutionary agenda 
including propagandist reshaping of reality and a radical 
reconfiguration of international relations. This talk will show the 
common demographic factors behind these developments, and examine 
whether historical lessons can be drawn regarding the durability of such 
revolutionary movements in modern democratic states.

Jack A. Goldstone is the Virginia E. and John T. Hazel, Jr. Professor of 
Public Policy at George Mason University, a Senior Fellow of the 
Mercatus Center, and a Public Policy Scholar at the Woodrow Wilson 
International Center for Scholars in Washington D.C. Previously, Dr. 
Goldstone was on the faculty of Northwestern University and the 
University of California, and has been a visiting scholar at Cambridge 
University, Stanford University, UCLA, the Hong Kong University of 
Science and Technology and the California Institute of Technology. He 
has received the Distinguished Contribution to Scholarship award from 
the American Sociological Association, the Arnoldo Momigliano Prize, the 
Barrington Moore Jr. Award, the Myron Weiner Award, and fellowships from 
the MacArthur Foundation, the JS Guggenheim Foundation, the U.S. 
Institute of Peace and the Mellon Foundation. He also served as the 
Richard C. Holbrooke Distinguished Visitor to the American Academy in 
Berlin.

A life member of the Council on Foreign Relations, Dr. Goldstone is also 
an Academic Fellow of the European Policy Council, and serves on the 
International Advisory Board of the Gaidar Institute (Moscow). He led a 
National Academy of Sciences study of USAID's democracy assistance 
policies, and has served as a consultant on state fragility to USAID, 
Britain's DFID, and the OECD. He helped lead the Political Instability 
Task Force initiated by the office of the U.S. Vice-President, and 
co-developed in State Fragility Index now published by the Center for 
Systemic Peace.

Dr. Goldstone's research focuses on the impact of global population 
changes on social and economic development. His 2010 essay in Foreign 
Affairs - "The New Population Bomb: The Four Megatrends that will Change 
the World" - has been widely cited as a critical guide to the impact of 
future population change. He has been a keynote speaker at events in 
Oslo, Moscow, Antalya, Delhi, Beijing, Berlin, Aspen and New York, and 
appeared on CNN, MSNBC, Al Jazeera, Russia Today, and Fox News.

His recent books include Political Demography: How Population Changes 
are Reshaping International Security and National Politics (Oxford U. 
Press, 2011) and Revolutions: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford U. Press 
2014). Prof. Goldstone blogs on global politics and economic trends at 
www.newpopulationbomb.com.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pxdi67nF4zM - 3:20


[Digging back into the internet news archive]
*On this day in the history of global warming - November 8, 1989 *

Margaret Thatcher delivers an address to the UN General Assembly on 
global warming, noting that societies should have economic growth "which 
does not plunder the planet today and leave our children to deal with 
the consequences tomorrow."

http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/107817

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VnAzoDtwCBg&sns=em


/-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------/

/Archive of Daily Global Warming News 
<https://pairlist10.pair.net/pipermail/theclimate.vote/2017-October/date.html> 
/
https://pairlist10.pair.net/pipermail/theclimate.vote

/To receive daily mailings - click to Subscribe 
<mailto:subscribe at theClimate.Vote?subject=Click%20SEND%20to%20process%20your%20request> 
to news digest./

*** Privacy and Security:*This mailing is text-only.  It does not carry 
images or attachments which may originate from remote servers.  A 
text-only message can provide greater privacy to the receiver and sender.
By regulation, the .VOTE top-level domain must be used for democratic 
and election purposes and cannot be used for commercial purposes. 
Messages have no tracking software.
To subscribe, email: contact at theclimate.vote 
<mailto:contact at theclimate.vote> with subject subscribe, To Unsubscribe, 
subject: unsubscribe
Also you may subscribe/unsubscribe at 
https://pairlist10.pair.net/mailman/listinfo/theclimate.vote
Links and headlines assembled and curated by Richard Pauli for 
http://TheClimate.Vote <http://TheClimate.Vote/> delivering succinct 
information for citizens and responsible governments of all levels. List 
membership is confidential and records are scrupulously restricted to 
this mailing list.


-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://pairlist10.pair.net/pipermail/theclimate.vote/attachments/20201108/fd8ffbef/attachment.html>