[TheClimate.Vote] November 27, 2020 - Daily Global Warming News Digest

[Richard Pauli]

/*November 27, 2020*/

[Black Friday realization]
*Rein in advertising to help tackle climate crisis, report urges*
Industry promotes materialism and lifts sales of climate-harming 
products, study says
- -
Researchers say the promotion of consumerism, materialism and a 
work-and-spend cycle, and the industry’s role in pushing sales of beef, 
tobacco, high-polluting SUVs and flights, are all part of that indirect 
role.

The report says the advertising industry has so far escaped scrutiny 
about its role in contributing to climate change. Tim Kasser, an 
emeritus professor of psychology at Knox College in Illinois, who 
co-authored the report, said there was a body of evidence to show that 
in order to make progress in addressing and reversing climate and 
ecological degradation, it would be prudent to rein in and change the 
practices of the advertising industry...
- -
"This report argues that enough sound empirical evidence exists to 
support the conclusion that the advertising industry indirectly 
contributes to climate and ecological degradation through its 
encouragement of materialistic values and goals, the consumption-driving 
work and spend cycle, and the consumption of two illustrative products, 
namely beef and tobacco," Kasser wrote...
- -
Tobacco production also has a direct impact on the environment. "Each 
stage in the life cycle of a cigarette, from growing the tobacco to 
manufacturing the cigarette to smoking the cigarette to disposing of the 
cigarette, is associated with specific climate and ecological risks: 
deforestation, chemical pollution of water and soil, CO2 and other 
noxious emissions."...
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/nov/27/rein-in-advertising-to-help-tackle-climate-crisis-report-urges


[brief video - expect more precip in future]
*Daniel Swain on Increased Precipitation Events*
Nov 10, 2020
greenmanbucket [Peter Sinclair]
Researcher Daniel Swain at UCLA has found that larger precipitation 
events are an increasing feature of climate change impacts.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zLcp7hWAH_k



[Adapting to the future]
*The U.S. Fight Against Climate Change Has to Start at Its Center: The 
Midwest*
By WYATT SCOTT
NOV 26, 20205
- -
Just as the Midwest became a political battleground that national 
candidates ignore at their peril, this region will be crucial to the 
success of any national climate change plan. When it comes to cutting 
greenhouse gases, however, what works for San Francisco or New York City 
is not necessarily going to fly in the middle of the country.

"The United States is not losing the climate change conversation on the 
coasts," said Rolf Nordstrom, CEO of the Great Plains Institute. "One 
reason that previous attempts at federal climate policy have faltered is 
in part because we have not managed to galvanize the middle of the 
country. … We need a center-out strategy." A strategy, in other words, 
that starts at the country's core, calibrating to what works there, and 
then carries out to other parts of the country, customizing as it goes.

A center-out strategy speaks to the Midwest's particular character--and 
its economic importance. The region is a global breadbasket, the source 
of most of America's amber waves of grain, as well as soybeans and other 
staple crops. In 2019, it accounted for almost half of all farm income 
in the United States, generating $162 billion. And while the Midwest is 
maybe not quite the manufacturing powerhouse it once was, it still 
produces most of the cars and auto parts made in the United States, 
among other goods.

With all of that manufacturing and agriculture come greenhouse gases; 
the Midwest produces  one-quarter of the country's emissions. The region 
is already suffering the effects of climate change; average annual 
temperatures, the number of rain days, and the frequency of heavy 
rainfall events are all on the rise. According to the most recent U.S. 
National Climate Assessment, released by the Trump administration in 
2018, climate change will mean increases in extreme heat, humidity, soil 
erosion, rainfall, and flooding across the region. The report also warns 
of possible declines in crop yields, as high as 20 percent. That could 
mean higher food prices or empty shelves not just in other parts of the 
United States, but around the world...
- -
The private sector has played a role as well. Tom Linebarger, CEO of the 
Indiana-based Fortune 500 company Cummins, said that he takes climate 
change seriously, both for moral reasons and as a matter of good 
business. He has customers around the world, for example, and has to be 
competitive in countries with carbon markets. Further, one of St. 
Louis's most famous companies, Anheuser-Busch, has committed to 100 
percent renewable electricity for its own operations no later than 2025.

The key, according to leaders across the region, is to tailor climate 
policies to the can-do Midwestern culture, and that means opting for 
measures that are practical and focused on local solutions and benefits. 
"This is not Seattle or California," said Howard Learner of the 
Environmental Law and Policy Center. "If you want to be effective in a 
place like the Midwest, where the manufacturing base is so significant, 
you simply cannot say we want to put the environment first and economy 
and jobs second."

Some approaches that can fight climate change don't even require people 
to believe it's real. Hughes, the farmer and state politician, practices 
no-till cultivation and other carbon sequestration techniques that also 
improve soil conditions and water retention, even though he doesn't 
believe human activity causes climate change. "I'm very protective of my 
environment because that's where my living comes from," he said, adding 
that local solutions and "problem solving on the ground seems a better 
fit with Nebraska..
- -
That preference for local flavor can extend to education. Learner said 
that a scientist from the University of California, Berkeley, might not 
get an entirely warm reception in the Midwest, but local talent is 
another story. Fortunately, the university system in the United States 
has reservoirs of talent and research that do both globally significant 
and locally relevant climate and disaster resilience research in every 
state, including the Midwest.

David Fike is one of those Midwestern scientists (from Washington 
University in St. Louis), and he reports that he does, indeed, work 
collaboratively with farmers around the state. They share information 
with him about "changes they see in rain and crops, or in the spread of 
pests," and in turn, he helps them "understand the context within which 
those changes are happening." Fike says that this kind of dialogue 
creates a "shared understanding, as opposed to science talking down to 
the public."

Although the Midwest has a significantly larger white majority than the 
nation writ large, both the pandemic and environmental pollution more 
strongly affect the region's Black population. Any center-out strategy 
has to take that disparity into account, and that can be a win-win 
proposition. Cutting emissions from transportation, for example, means 
increasing mass transit options, which in turn benefits disadvantaged 
communities. Currently, these same communities are underserved when it 
comes to transportation options, even though nationwide, according to 
the American Public Transportation Association, about 60 percent of mass 
transit riders are people of color.

These transit and environmental inequities are tied to the systemic 
racism that has provoked unrest in Midwestern cities, such as 
Minneapolis and Kenosha, Wisconsin. As St. Louis Alderman Lewis Reed 
said, "When you look at a lot of climate issues and sustainability 
issues, we also need to talk about social and economic justice because 
it all plays together. It's all one subject matter." One way to close 
the gap, community advocates told us, is to include local residents in 
the design process upfront, whether the policies are focused on cutting 
emissions, growing jobs, or improving resilience. It matters not only to 
have "a seat at the table," said Shalini Gupta, a Minneapolis-based 
health and environment expert, but also to have the right data and 
information "to be able to engage in these very technical spaces."
- -
Indeed, there's a downside risk of being too pragmatic and too polite, 
of letting uncomfortable or unscientific views go unchallenged, 
supposedly in the name of local culture. The Midwestern states rank 
among the lowest, for example, in percent of the population that reports 
regularly wearing masks and have some of the highest coronavirus 
infection rates in the country. So, while local solutions and 
perceptions are the key to success with climate change, the Midwest, 
like other regions, can't always be left to its own devices.

At the national level, a center-out strategy should follow two tracks. 
The first relies on and respects local voices and is designed in 
partnership with local communities, even if that means never using the 
words climate change. The other track should use the national bully 
pulpit and tools, be unflinching about the scientific realities, and 
empower local champions, including the private sector, universities, 
governments, and people of color, to talk openly about climate change in 
their communities.

Future Tense is a partnership of Slate, New America, and Arizona State 
University that examines emerging technologies, public policy, and society.
https://slate.com/technology/2020/11/climate-change-midwest-agriculture-emissions.html



[New appointees]
*Cancer Alley Community Leaders Are Cautious As Biden Picks Their Fossil 
Fuel-Friendly Congressman for White House Role*
By Julie Dermansky -  November 24, 2020
Community leaders long at odds with the powerful petrochemical industry 
in Louisiana took note when their Congressional representative, Cedric 
Richmond, announced November 12 that he was taking a new job in the 
Biden White House. In his announcement, Richmond, a Democratic 
representative in Louisiana for most of the heavily industrialized 
region stretching from New Orleans to Baton Rouge, made no mention of 
his constituents' ongoing battle for environmental justice.

Richmond has taken hundreds of thousands of dollars in fossil fuel 
campaign contributions during his career. Despite this history, some 
fenceline communities in Louisiana are looking forward to the potential 
of what Joe Biden's ascension to the White House with Richmond by his 
side could mean for their majority-Black neighborhoods which are 
impacted daily by air pollution from an expanding petrochemical industry.

On his campaign website, Biden has called for environmental justice and 
"rooting out the systemic racism in our laws, policies, institutions, 
and hearts," linking this cause to the pandemic, which continues to 
disproportionately impact people of color.

"Any sound energy and environmental policy must … recognize that 
communities of color and low-income communities have faced 
disproportionate harm from climate change and environmental contaminants 
for decades," reads Biden's website. "It must also hold corporate 
polluters responsible for rampant pollution … [and] means officials 
setting policy must be accountable to the people and communities they 
serve, not to polluters and corporations."

Richmond will become a senior adviser to the President as the director 
of the White House Office of Public Engagement, giving up his seat in 
Louisiana's Second Congressional District that he has held since 2011 -- 
a district which includes seven of the nation's 10 most polluted census 
tracts...
- -
This spring, Taylor and members of the Coalition Against Death Alley, a 
grassroots group advocating for environmental justice in Cancer Alley, 
protested in front of the newspaper The New Orleans Advocate's office on 
April 24 when Richmond was there to do a live-streamed town hall event.

Confronted by the protesters when he left the building, Richmond spoke 
to them for a few minutes until the exchange turned contentious. He 
later reached out to Taylor directly by phone. Taylor, unfortunately, 
missed the call and hasn't pressed Richmond to set up an in-person 
meeting due to concerns about the pandemic.

"Richmond made some promises to us and I'm hoping that he is in a better 
position to make good on them," Taylor said. "He has fought for criminal 
justice and health care reform, which we also need."...
- -
Over the years, both political parties have failed fenceline communities 
in Louisiana, which is why the two leaders and their scrappy groups plan 
to keep fighting for cleaner air.

They hope that Biden's victory and the pending reviews of the Formosa 
Plastics project will help usher in a new era of environmental justice 
for their corner of Louisiana.
https://www.desmogblog.com/2020/11/24/cancer-alley-cedric-richmond-louisiana-biden-white-house 




[Harvard wakes up and takes notice, pronounces]
The Harvard Gazette
*So how much change can Biden bring on climate change?*
Juan Siliezar & Harvard Staff Writers
November 23, 2020
- -
When it comes to regulatory approaches, Stavins expects the Biden 
administration to announce orders reversing rollbacks on new oil and gas 
leasing on federal lands, possibly blocking the Keystone XL pipeline; 
reversing Trump-era lowering of the Social Cost of Carbon, an estimate 
regulators use in determining limits on greenhouse gas emissions; and 
moving to reinstate or expand on President Barack Obama's Corporate 
Average Fuel Economy standards. Biden could also instruct the EPA to 
reverse the Trump administration's attempts to deny California its 
waiver under the Clean Air Act, which seeks to put in place more 
stringent air-quality regulations than are required under federal law.

These moves don't come without potential drawbacks, however.

"The real challenge to the regulatory approach is that new regulations 
are much more likely to be successfully challenged in federal courts in 
2021 than they were during the Obama years," Stavins wrote on his blog. 
"This is partly because there are now more than 200 Trump-appointed 
federal judges. But more importantly, the Supreme Court now has a 6-3 
conservative majority, which is very likely to favor literal reading of 
statutes, giving executive departments and agencies much less 
flexibility to go beyond the letter of the law or to interpret it in new 
'innovative ways.'"...
- -
"It involves beginning to interact with other major countries in 
discussing joint operations and joint opportunities," McElroy said. 
"Clearly, China is the big player, but I would mention the importance of 
a cooperative relationship between the United States and India, in 
particular. Also, what are our responsibilities to poorer countries? 
Let's take some of the African countries that have not had the advantage 
of using fossil fuels to fuel their development. Are we going to ask 
them to stay where they are or are we going to take some responsibility 
to help them make a transition to a to a new energy system that is more 
renewable?"

Professor of the practice of public policy Joseph Aldy agreed. Since 
climate change is a global problem, it's going to take a global approach 
to combat it by the world's major economies, he said. But those 
solutions have to start at home, and he believes all of government will 
need to get involved.

Aldy, who was a former special assistant to President Obama, sat on the 
steering committee for the Climate 21 Project -- a 300-page blueprint 
for a government-wide climate response. He said it will all start with 
processes the incoming administration lays out and personnel they appoint.

"You need to use every lever throughout the federal government," Aldy 
said. That includes making sure even agencies such as the Treasury or 
Defense Departments know they're responsible for contributing to climate 
change policy. "It's going to be critically important to make sure that 
people at the senior leadership in all the different departments are 
thinking about climate in everything they do and that they're 
accountable to the president for delivering on his agenda."

Freeman expects this, as well, she said. "That plan will be the basis 
for a new U.S. pledge for the Paris Agreement," she said. She also notes 
the administration might succeed in adding significant clean energy 
investment to any COVID recovery package.
Standing over it all, analysts say, is making up for the lost time.

"It's hard to say 'made up' since climate change is fundamentally 
different from other environmental problems," Freeman said. "You can't 
quite clean up the upper atmosphere like you can a local waterway, so 
four years of lost progress is real."

She and others, including Peter Huybers, a Harvard professor of earth 
and planetary sciences and of environmental science and engineering, 
remain hopeful, however.

"Our nation's experience with COVID-19 should be a warning," Huybers 
said. "If we withdraw from international cooperation, ignore the 
science, and shortchange America's capacity to reinvent, we'll bring 
needless suffering upon ourselves.
https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2020/11/harvard-experts-on-whats-next-in-climate-policy/


[Digging back into the internet news archive]
*On this day in the history of global warming - November 27, 2014 *
The New York Times reports:

    "President Obama could leave office with the most aggressive,
    far-reaching environmental legacy of any occupant of the White
    House. Yet it is very possible that not a single major environmental
    law will have passed during his two terms in Washington.

    "Instead, Mr. Obama has turned to the vast reach of the Clean Air
    Act of 1970, which some legal experts call the most powerful
    environmental law in the world. Faced with a Congress that has shut
    down his attempts to push through an environmental agenda, Mr. Obama
    is using the authority of the act passed at the birth of the
    environmental movement to issue a series of landmark regulations on
    air pollution, from soot to smog, to mercury and planet-warming
    carbon dioxide."

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/27/us/without-passing-a-single-law-obama-crafts-bold-enviornmental-policy.html

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