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

[Richard Pauli]

/*October 27, 2020*/

[E&E News]
*Exclusive: GM, Ford knew about climate change 50 years ago*
Maxine Joselow, E&E News reporter - Monday, October 26, 2020
Scientists at two of America's biggest automakers knew as early as the 
1960s that car emissions caused climate change, a monthslong 
investigation by E&E News has found.

The discoveries by General Motors and Ford Motor Co. preceded decades of 
political lobbying by the two car giants that undermined global attempts 
to reduce emissions while stalling U.S. efforts to make vehicles cleaner.

Researchers at both automakers found strong evidence in the 1960s and 
'70s that human activity was warming the Earth. A primary culprit was 
the burning of fossil fuels, which released large quantities of 
heat-trapping gases such as carbon dioxide that could trigger melting of 
polar ice sheets and other dire consequences.

A GM scientist presented her findings to at least three high-level 
executives at the company, including a former chairman and CEO. It's 
unclear whether similar warnings reached the top brass at Ford.

But in the following decades, both manufacturers largely failed to act 
on the knowledge that their products were heating the planet. Instead of 
shifting their business models away from fossil fuels, the companies 
invested heavily in gas-guzzling trucks and SUVs. At the same time, the 
two carmakers privately donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to 
groups that cast doubt on the scientific consensus on global warming.

It wasn't until 1996 that GM produced its first commercial electric 
vehicle, called the EV1. Ford released a compact electric pickup truck 
in 1998.
More than 50 years after the automakers learned about climate change, 
the transportation sector is the leading source of planet-warming 
pollution in the United States. Cars and trucks account for the bulk of 
those emissions.
- -
GM, in a brief response, pointed to steps it's taking to reduce 
emissions, such as releasing an electric version of its Hummer, which 
for years has embodied the popularity of gas-guzzling SUVs. The company 
downplayed its past rejection of climate action.

"There is nothing we can say about events that happened one or two 
generations ago since they are irrelevant to the company's positions and 
strategy today," a GM spokesman said.
- -
Reck, the GM scientist, left the automaker in 1992 after she was 
allegedly told to stop researching environmental issues.

"I always wondered whether they would try to end the research if it 
showed what they were doing was bad," she said. "Toward the end, they 
did. But for 27 years they supported it."

Reck went on to become head of the global climate change program at 
Argonne National Laboratory and a professor of atmospheric sciences at 
the University of California, Davis. Now 88 years old and retired, she 
rarely leaves her home in Indiana due to concern about the COVID-19 
pandemic.

Over the course of four phone interviews with E&E News, Reck expressed 
shock that severe consequences of global warming, such as the massive 
wildfires raging in California, have materialized in her lifetime.

"We thought that might happen 800 years from now," she said of the 
fires. "We had it in the very far future that these things might start 
to happen from climate change. So it has gone at such an accelerated rate."
https://www.eenews.net/stories/1063717035



[Oxford Climate Society - live video discussion]
*US Election and Climate Policy*
October 26, 2020
*Maggie Thomas - Climate Policy Advisor to Sen. Elizabeth Warren & 
Policy Director at Evergreen Action*
Julian Brave NoiseCat - Vice President of Policy and Strategy at Data 
for Progress
Kate Guy - Senior Fellow at the Center for Climate and Security
https://youtu.be/cXpxoIHAbL4?t=385

- -

[THE CENTER FOR CLIMATE & SECURITY]
*The Center for Climate and Security on CBS News: Suppression of Climate 
Change Analysis by the White House*
By Kate Guy
OCTOBER 26, 2020
...
There is still time for the U.S. government to take these threats 
seriously, and to prepare for and prevent the worst outcomes. Check out 
the Climate Security Plan for America: A Presidential Plan for Combating 
the Security Risks of Climate Change for detailed proposals on how the 
next Administration can advance these issues...
https://climateandsecurity.org/2020/10/the-center-for-climate-and-security-on-cbs-news-suppression-of-climate-change-analysis-by-the-white-house/

- -

[source document]
*The Climate and Security Advisory Group (CSAG): A Climate Security Plan 
for America*
https://climateandsecurity.org/climatesecurityplanforamerica/
*1. Demonstrate Leadership:* Make Climate Change a Vital National 
Security Priority.
*2. Assess Climate Risks:* Maintain Unprecedented Foresight About 
Climate Change.
*3. Support Allies and Partners:* Reinforce U.S. National Security and 
Compete on the World Stage by Bolstering Climate Resilience Abroad.
*4. Prepare for and Prevent Climate Impacts:* Build U.S. Resilience to 
Climate Change Risks and Reduce Their Scale and Scope.
pdf document - 
https://climateandsecurity.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/a-climate-security-plan-for-america_2019_9_24-1.pdf



[ecopiety?]
*Want Some Eco-Friendly Tips? A New Study Says No, You Don't*
By Kate Yoder on Oct 12, 2020
Nagging, giving unsolicited advice, and "ecopiety" are out. But there 
are better ways to get people to adopt green habits.
- -
In the study -- titled "Don't Tell Me What to Do" -- researchers at 
Georgia State University surveyed nearly 2,000 people online to see how 
they would respond to different messages about climate change. Some saw 
messages about personal sacrifices, like using less hot water. Others 
saw statements about policy actions, like laws that would limit carbon 
emissions, stop deforestation, or increase fuel efficiency standards for 
cars. The messenger -- whether scientist or not -- didn't make much of a 
difference.

Then the respondents were asked about their thoughts on climate change. 
The people who read advice about individual action were less likely to 
report that they believed in human-caused climate change, supported 
climate-friendly political candidates, or would act to reduce their own 
emissions.

While the advice about personal behavior spurred a negative response 
from people across the political spectrum, the effect was much stronger 
among Republicans than Democrats, said Risa Palm, a professor of urban 
geography at Georgia State and the lead author of the study.

On the other hand, "when the message was linked with policy issues, it 
didn't have this kind of negative effect," she said. Palm's study 
reinforces previous research that people prefer wide-scale changes that 
don't require them to change their own behavior. They simply don't feel 
like anything they could do would make much of a difference.

It's a valid point of view, according to Sarah McFarland Taylor, the 
author of Ecopiety: Green Media and the Dilemma of Environmental Virtue. 
The scope of the proposed eco-friendly solutions -- like, say, getting 
individuals to use less hot water -- is simply "absurd" compared to the 
scope of the actual problem, she said.

Taylor, an associate professor of religious studies at Northwestern, 
uses the term ecopiety to refer to the voluntary duties that signal a 
person's "green" virtue -- driving a Toyota Prius, filling up a Nalgene, 
or ordering a salad instead of a burger. "We are fiddling with all these 
fiddly little 'ecopiety' details while the world is burning," she said.

"The fact of the matter is, a small cadre of the 'ecopious' who have the 
wherewithal and the resources to do these voluntary individual actions, 
will do them," Taylor said. "And the rest of the people will not."...
- -
Why are people so resistant to climate-friendly behavior? It comes down 
to psychology. When people don't like the solutions that are presented 
to them, or when they feel like their freedom is under threat, they may 
deny that there's a problem altogether, Palm said.

When the Toyota Prius went worldwide in 2000, it was marketed as a 
climate-friendly, virtuous purchase, because it ran on gas and 
electricity. "There was an unintended rebound effect, with certain 
sectors of the population reacting very hostilely," Taylor said. Years 
later, diesel truck owners started "coal-rolling": removing emissions 
controls and rigging up their vehicles to spew giant clouds of smoke, 
targeted at unsuspecting pedestrians, bicyclists, and Prius owners.

Something similar might be happening with environmental-friendly advice. 
In a new Facebook ad from the American Conservation Coalition, a 
free-market, pro-business environmental group, a blond college student 
offers a barrage of tips to help you "address climate change on an 
individual level." The list includes asking your local utility to switch 
you over to renewable sources, returning your empty lipstick container 
in exchange for a new one, and buying lots of "sustainable" products -- 
durable water bottles, reusable sandwich bags, backpacks made from 
recycled materials, and more.

Let's put aside the assumption that you could somehow shop your way out 
of the climate crisis and turn to the comment section. The top voted 
comment asks, "Any chance we could prove the 'science' first?" Another 
says, "I don't reduce, reuse or recycle anything."

"Once you tell people to sacrifice, deny, be noble, be pure, be vegan, 
it often triggers the opposite reaction in terms of consumer behavior," 
Taylor said.

Based on the findings of behavioral science, changing habits might 
involve more "showing" and less "telling." Greta Thunberg popularized 
the idea of flight shame not by actually shaming people, but by example. 
Instead of taking a carbon-spewing airplane to the U.N. Climate Action 
Summit last summer, the Swedish activist crossed the entire Atlantic 
Ocean via boat...
- -
As an example, Taylor points to how Copenhagen became a "bicycle 
paradise." After the oil crisis in 1973, the Danish city rethought its 
transportation system and built the infrastructure to make biking safe 
and convenient. Riding a bike was marketed as something practical, 
exciting, and even glamorous. Mikael Colville-Andersen, an international 
biking advocate who helped popularize cycling in Copenhagen, once said 
that bicycling should be sold as "a multivitamin Viagra pill for the 
urban landscape." Copenhagen now has more bikes than people -- and five 
times as many bikes as cars.

The pro-biking campaign, in other words, wasn't bathed in ecopiety and 
guilt. When a survey in 2010 asked people in Copenhagen why they cycled, 
environmental concerns ranked dead last at 9 percent. Most people said 
that it was simply faster, more convenient, healthier, and cheaper to bike.

"You're not trying to get people to bike to work by saying, 'This is 
your duty and your sacrifice, denying the pleasures of the automobile by 
getting on your bike,'" Taylor said.
https://grist.org/climate/want-some-eco-friendly-tips-a-new-study-says-no-you-dont/ 


- - -

[source material]
RESEARCH ARTICLE| 14 OCTOBER 2020
*"Don't Tell Me What to Do": Resistance to Climate Change Messages 
Suggesting Behavior Changes *
Risa Palm; Toby Bolsen; Justin T. Kingsland
(2020) 12 (4): 827–835.
https://doi.org/10.1175/WCAS-D-19-0141.1
*Abstract*
This study evaluates the impact of exposure to messages that emphasize 
the need for changes in individual behavior or in public policy to 
address climate change attributed to a "climate scientist" or to an 
unnamed source. We implemented a large survey experiment (N = 1915) 
online through Amazon's Mechanical Turk (MTurk) platform that 
manipulated the presence of recommendations for voluntary behavioral 
changes or the adoption of new laws to mitigate climate change. We found 
that, regardless of the source of the information, recommendations for 
behavioral changes decreased individuals' willingness to take personal 
actions to reduce greenhouse gases, decreased willingness to support 
proclimate candidates, reduced belief in the accelerated speed of 
climate change, and decreased trust in climate scientists.
https://journals.ametsoc.org/wcas/article-abstract/doi/10.1175/WCAS-D-19-0141.1/354718/Don-t-Tell-Me-What-to-Do-Resistance-to-Climate



[risk increase]
*War on NOAA? A Climate Denier's Arrival Raises Fears the Agency's 
Climate Mission Is Under Attack*
David Legates has spent his career disputing climate science. Now he's a 
top manager in the federal agency most involved in assessing global 
warming's threat...
By Marianne Lavelle
OCT 25, 2020
- -
By placing Legates in a deputy position, the administration has made him 
legally eligible under the Federal Vacancies Reform Act to be moved to 
NOAA's top slot as "acting" administrator. One advantage of "acting" 
appointments is they are a way to avoid a contentious Senate 
confirmation process. Trump has said he prefers "acting" appointments, 
because it gives him more flexibility, but his administration has been 
slapped down by the courts for circumventing the vacancies law.

The personnel moves won praise from the community of conservative 
climate action opponents, who have mostly supported the president, but 
who expressed concern that he has not moved more aggressively to 
dismantle the remnants of climate science policy. "Legates' appointment 
to NOAA represents a big win for climate realism," wrote H. Sterling 
Burnett, a senior fellow with the Heartland Institute, on the group's 
website.

But if Trump loses the election, added Ebell, of the Competitive 
Enterprise Institute, "I expect David would disappear pretty rapidly in 
a Biden administration."

That isn't necessarily the case. Political appointees sometimes go on to 
seek appointments to career government positions, an 
end-of-administration ritual known in Washington as "burrowing in." 
Although there is anxiety in NOAA about Trump appointees finding a way 
to stay on in a Biden administration, there's no indication that is 
Legates' intention. Indeed, an email that his University of Delaware 
department chair sent to students said, "David hopes to be back at UD in 
the spring."

Even if Legates and the other new hires have a short stay at NOAA, they 
still could have influence over the National Climate Assessment.

Nominations of scientists from both inside and outside the federal 
government will be accepted through Nov. 15. Hundreds of authors 
typically participate, and at least one climate contrarian--William 
Happer, a Princeton University emeritus professor of physics and former 
Trump White House official--has expressed interest in participating as 
an author. Steven Koonin, a former chief scientist for BP who briefly 
held a position in the Obama administration and is now a physics 
professor at New York University, told E&E News that he has pitched to 
the Trump White House the idea of incorporating an adversarial review by 
skeptics of climate science into the National Climate Assessment.

That would make for a quite different report from the National Climate 
Assessment that came out on Black Friday in 2018. Philip Duffy, a 
physicist and former White House policy adviser who helped coordinate 
the National Climate Assessment in the Obama administration, said he 
believed that the last report was an important affirmation of the 
science at a critical time, likening it to the statements about the 
coronavirus by Dr. Anthony Fauci, head of the National Institute of 
Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

"It was a strong statement which contradicted the party line, shall we 
say," said Duffy, president and executive director of the Woodwell 
Climate Research Center in Woods Hole, Mass. He added that the 
assessment's greatest value was the detail it provided on the specific 
impacts of warming on different regions of the country, from heavy 
precipitation in the South to heat and drought in the West. "It's 
intended to form the basis of decision-making and planning. That's 
what's unique about it, and essential."

But skeptics of climate science and opponents of U.S. action to curb 
fossil fuel emissions were sharply critical of that report, and the 
Trump administration for not exerting more control over it. Ebell, who 
disputes the validity of both the models and the data that have informed 
the climate assessment, said he believes that if Legates has an 
opportunity to help shape the next assessment, it could provide a much 
different perspective than the reports of the past.

"If David Legates and his colleagues are able to be involved in the 
preparation of the National Climate Assessment right up to the date of 
publication, they're not going to feature the least likely scenario in 
order to scare the public," Ebell said. "They're going to feature the 
most realistic scenario, and that will be a huge improvement."

What that most realistic scenario is, however, is another matter: The 
consensus of mainstream scientists is that it depends on how much the 
world's nations do to cut carbon emissions.

The 2018 National Climate Assessment focused both on a high-end global 
warming scenario, assuming little effort by nations to curb greenhouse 
gases, and a low-end scenario, consistent with nations implementing 
significant mitigation measures. At least one recent study concluded 
that the high-end scenario is the most realistic.

Wuebbles, who has been a coordinating lead author on past National 
Climate Assessments, said the next volume will come at a critical time.

"We need to make sure we understand well what climate change means, and 
what kind of options do we have, both in terms of trying to reduce the 
future climate change, but also in terms of 'how do we adapt to be 
resilient,'" he said. "This is an important document for the government. 
We've got to make sure it's done right."

Wuebbles said he could not speculate on the impact the new leadership at 
NOAA could have on the report. "I think we're all concerned," he said. 
"We don't know for sure."
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/23102020/noaa-climate-denial-david-legates


[video AGU summary of science by satellite]
*Sagan Series: Detecting land cover change: Reflections of human 
influence on the land surface*
Oct 26, 2020
AGU
The AGU Sagan Lecture series sponsored jointly by the Biogeosciences and 
Planetary Sciences Sections of AGU and is aimed to provide perspectives 
on astrobiology and public engagement on critical issues which 
transcends boundaries of disciplinary research and planetary boundaries. 
These lectures encompass topics integrate and synthesize multiple 
disciplines in a unique fashion to explore and to expand our knowledge 
of life without boundaries. This seminar will cover land fragmentation, 
land cover change, biodiversity changes as observed and studied with 
remote sensing techniques provides a greater global evaluation of these 
localized phenomena.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3gViwdKvQts



[Bob Murray coal baron - mean epitaph to a controversial life]
*Ohio Valley coal giant Bob Murray died inside his St. Clairsville home 
Sunday morning. He was 80.*
https://twitter.com/WTOV9/status/1320527075502153729
- -
[WAPO Obit]
*Robert Murray, Ohio coal baron who fought government regulations, dies 
at 80*
..
Mr. Murray was criticized for his company's safety record and accused of 
pressuring his employees to attend political rallies or donate money to 
his preferred candidates. But he remained unabashed about his coal 
boosterism, characterizing himself as a coal miner, through and through, 
who was interested in maintaining jobs that supported communities from 
Utah to West Virginia.

"This is a human issue for me," he told the Times in 2016, lamenting 
that most of the 431 miners at his Powhatan No. 6 mine would probably be 
laid off when it closed down later that year. "It kills me. Lives are 
being destroyed deliberately by some and by the ignorance of most."
- -
Mr. Murray grew the company in part by acquiring mines located near 
power plants with access to rivers, reducing transportation costs. He 
was also credited with helping to develop longwall mining techniques 
that enable miners to extract coal more efficiently.

At the same time, he acquired a reputation for litigiousness, suing 
several newspapers as well as "Last Week Tonight" host John Oliver for 
coverage of him and his company. (Oliver claimed victory after Murray 
Energy dropped its defamation lawsuit in 2019, two years after the HBO 
host ran a scathing segment on Mr. Murray and his business practices.)

Mr. Murray became increasingly prominent in the wake of a 2007 collapse 
at the Crandall Canyon mine in Utah, which trapped and killed six of his 
miners. Three others were killed when a rescue tunnel collapsed 10 days 
later.

While appearing in television interviews during the rescue effort, Mr. 
Murray shouted down reporters and insisted that the disaster was caused 
by an earthquake. That explanation was later contradicted by federal 
investigators who concluded "unauthorized mining practices" and design 
flaws had contributed to the disaster, and found no evidence of an 
earthquake...
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/obituaries/robert-murray-ohio-coal-baron-who-fought-government-regulations-dies-at-80/2020/10/26/de9663e8-1794-11eb-befb-8864259bd2d8_story.html
- -
*Crandall Canyon Mine*
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crandall_Canyon_Mine
- -
[musical expressions are not slander, so much criticism will be 
musically re-packaged as a show tune]:
*Last Week Tonight: Eat Shit, Bob: The Musical*
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c5W06xR8EYk
- -
*John Oliver Bob Murray Musical* [and lyrics in comments]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqt5iE1vhFw&feature=youtu.be



[Digging back into the internet news archive]
*On this day in the history of global warming - October 27, 2006 *

Senators Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) and Olympia Snowe (R-ME) urge ExxonMobil 
to stop funding climate-change-denying think tanks.

http://web.archive.org/web/20130303200905/http://www.rockefeller.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/press-releases?ID=87f3ae3b-0f0d-44ee-af03-9080592901a4


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