[TheClimate.Vote] September 28, 2020 - Daily Global Warming News Digest

[Richard Pauli]

/*September 28, 2020*/

[United Nations hears]
*Leaders to UN: If virus doesn't kill us, climate change will *
https://apnews.com/article/climate-climate-change-oceans-environment-united-nations-general-assembly-d073896990db973a3e45db26787d6a18


[CBS 60 minutes]
*Sir David Attenborough to 60 Minutes on climate change: "A crime has 
been committed"*
Eighteen years after declining to take a hard stance in his first 
profile on 60 Minutes, Sir David Attenborough warns about the dangers of 
climate change...
- -
Despite his stark warning about the planet's peril, Attenborough told 
Cooper it is not too late to salvage it, if countries work together and 
societies alter their behavior. The nonagenarian remains hopeful for the 
future.

"There's a huge movement around the world of people from all nations, 
young people who can see what is happening to the world, and demanding 
that their government should take action," Attenborough said. "And 
that's the best hope that I have."
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/sir-david-attenborough-60-minutes-2020-09-27/



[In August, Bill Gates got global warming]
*Climate Change Is a Bigger Disaster Than Coronavirus: Bill Gates*
Aug 6, 2020
Bloomberg Markets and Finance
Aug.06 -- Microsoft Corp. co-founder Bill Gates says climate change is 
bigger disaster for the world than coronavirus. Gates speaks exclusively 
to Bloomberg's Emily Chang.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b4kZG2SAr14



[very positive science lesson]
*Why don't we all just use Geothermal Energy?*
Sep 27, 2020
Just Have a Think
Science tells us there's enough energy in the first 10 kilometres below 
our planet's surface to provide all our energy needs for millions of 
years. The Romans tapped into it for their hot water spas. Today, we all 
know it as Geothermal Energy. There's no carbon dioxide emissions and no 
air pollution with geothermal, and it's literally right there beneath 
our feet. So why isn't our entire planet powered by it?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Ss_wHCS1Aw



[Propaganda battlefield history- myth origins exposed]
*The video origin of the myth that global warming is good for agriculture*
Two '90s-era coal-funded videos on CO2 featured government scientists 
who say their comments were misleadingly edited. How it all happened.
By Karin Kirk | Sunday, September 27, 2020
Misinformation is at the root of many scientific controversies, and 
fighting it can feel like a losing battle. But one effective method is 
to expose the mechanics of misinformation, to show tactics and deceptive 
processes in broad daylight.

And learning from the past can be key to combating persistent 
misinformation campaigns currently and, no doubt, again in the future. 
"Those who ignore history," writer and philosopher George Santayana 
taught us, "are bound to repeat it."

A pair of widely circulated climate misinformation videos from the 90s - 
"The Greening of Planet Earth," and "The Greening of Planet Earth 
Continues" - were funded by the benignly named Greening Earth Society, 
whose membership consisted of coal interests. Featured in the video were 
U.S. government civil service scientists who had no idea they would land 
in the midst of a pro-pollution/pro-CO2 narrative. Special interests 
supporting use of fossil fuels used the inclusion of the scientists, 
which seemed to give the video credibility, to cast doubt on the idea 
that climate change would harm people and ecosystems.
*
**An early example of a longstanding tactic to mislead*
The two videos in question were released in 1992 and 1998. But more than 
20 years later, their legacy lingers.

The videos were widely distributed to classrooms and found their way 
into bibliographies and lecture halls. The 1998 edition was distributed 
widely on Capitol Hill. Both tout the once-common claim, long since 
debunked, that adding more carbon dioxide to the atmosphere would lead 
to larger plants and a better and greener world. It was a misleading 
assertion: The videos did not address the fact that rising carbon 
dioxide levels would also boost weeds and poison ivy. Nor did they 
grapple with the impact on crops of climate-change-induced heat stress, 
drought, wildfires, or the expansion in range of insect pests and 
livestock diseases. Today, reputable scientists expect that higher 
temperatures will lead to reduced yields of major commodity crops.

Yet the tired myth promoted in the videos persists.

At America Out Loud, a fringe talk radio platform and website, a June 
2020 article describes carbon dioxide as "plant food, the very opposite 
of 'pollution.'" The article also repeats the misleading claim from the 
"Greening" videos that "More CO2 means free, rich fertilizer and thus 
increased yields of food crops."

To Harvard University science historian and author Naomi Oreskes, the 
two videos, funded by the now-defunct Western Fuels Association, were 
instrumental in helping create the myth that higher levels of carbon 
dioxide in the atmosphere are overwhelmingly positive for plants, crops, 
food supply, and humans generally. She points to witnesses testifying on 
Capitol Hill in the past few years repeating that key point emphasized 
in the videos. That pro-carbon dioxide point "is still a live meme," 
Oreskes said in a recent phone interview. "It is still alive and well 
and living on K Street," she said, referring to Washington, D.C's 
"lobbyist's row."

Science historian and author Spencer Weart pointed to William Faulkner's 
quote that "The past is never past, it's not even past," and said 
"zombie ideas" like those expressed in the two 90s-decade videos 
initially "sound plausible" to some, take on a life of their own, and 
are still being circulated.

*Years of research discarded during editing*
Several government scientists who appeared in "The Greening of Planet 
Earth" now say they were basically duped. They say they were not told 
the purpose of the video at the time of the recording, and at least in 
one case a scientist felt pressure to comply.

The three former U.S. Department of Agriculture research scientists 
individually discussed their roles via Zoom calls reflecting on their 
research on CO2 and agriculture, and on the events that led them to be 
caught off-guard about how their research was presented.

The scientists say they did not then or currently think that food 
production would increase in a CO2-enriched atmosphere, and their 
research then and since shows the opposite. The filmmakers simply edited 
out the scientific context, stripping away anything counter to their 
intended message that CO2 is beneficial for humanity and for food 
production. Their research efforts - experimental design, diligent data 
collection, and important results - were discarded on the editing room 
floor.

*Lewis Ziska, Ph.D.: 'I did not know who they were'*
"Basically I was in the dark," said Lewis Ziska, a plant physiologist 
who worked at USDA at the time. In the video, Ziska explains how more 
CO2 in the atmosphere could increase the yield of rice. But he didn't 
know the purpose of the production, nor did he know it was funded by the 
coal industry. "I did not know who they were," Ziska recently said of 
the filmmakers. "I was only doing it because my boss said, 'Oh, there's 
a film crew here.'"

Although it's true that CO2 enhances plant growth, that's only one of 
many factors that influence plant health and crop yield. Ziska attempted 
to round out his explanation of enriched CO2 on agriculture: "I turned 
to the producer and I said, 'Would you like to know how carbon dioxide 
affects weeds?' And he said no."

Then, Ziksa was told to sign a waiver of some sort. "I signed the 
release form while the [USDA] national program leader was standing with 
the producer, and I knew that if I didn't do this, he would be upset."

Several months later, the completed video arrived in Ziska's mail. He 
learned only then that the video had been produced by the Greening Earth 
Society, an organization created by a coal industry trade group, the 
Western Fuels Association. The VHS cassette and accompanying literature 
had been sent to every Capitol Hill legislative office in Washington 
D.C., according to Climate Files.

Ziska watched the video and thought, "OK, what do I do now?" He 
considered his options: "I'm a young scientist at USDA and do I want to 
make waves? Do I want to complain?" He opted not to raise the issue. 
"Okay, well, learn your lesson and move on," he recalled, holding up his 
arms as if signaling defeat.
*
**James Bunce, Ph.D.: 'I disagree with most of it'*
James Bunce is another USDA researcher appearing in the video campaign. 
In his segments, he explained that increasing CO2 could help plants grow 
in drier environments. Like Ziska, Bunce says he did not know the 
genesis or focus of the video project. But unlike Ziska, Bunce had only 
recently seen the final product. "I certainly do not endorse the 
conclusions they drew from those facts!" he wrote in an email.

"I have only the vaguest recollection of having been taped for it," he 
said, explaining that media interviews at that time were not uncommon 
for government research scientists. "We're instructed to be open to 
public questions."

What does he think of the video now that he's seen it? "Well, I disagree 
with most of it," he said.
*
**Bruce Kimball, Ph.D.: Edited to 'suit their sound bite'*
Bruce Kimball is a soil scientist who appeared in the 1992 video, with 
the same theme and format as the 1998 version. He still recalls the 
interview: "They had about 20 or 30 questions, and every one of them 
could be answered with, 'CO2 is good for plants.'"

When the video was filmed, Kimball was under the impression that the 
interview would be about the research he was doing, but the topic never 
came up. "When they came to the end of their questions, I said to them, 
'Aren't you going to ask me about the experiment?'" The camera crew 
obliged, and Kimball went on to describe his work with CO2 enrichment on 
crops. But all of his explanations were left out of the final product.

When Kimball saw the video, he realized the only clips included were the 
ones "that best suited their sound bite."

*Anatomy of misinformation*
The Greening Earth Society endeavored in both videos to make only one 
point: CO2 is good for plants and thus global warming will be "modest 
and benign." Editing stripped away the real scientific context, leading 
to a deceptive message at wide variance from the evidence accepted 
within the science community.

"A lot of the scientists they interviewed, on very specific questions, 
gave correct answers," Bunce said. But the framing around the 
scientists' quotes led to a mistaken impression far from what their 
research showed. "It's the interpretation that I'm sure a lot of the 
scientists would not agree with," said Bunce.

Case in point, Ziska, Bunce, and Kimball all said they stand by their 
original remarks, but each disagrees with the larger point.

"You're only seeing a very small slice of the science," Ziska remarked 
while holding up his thumb and forefinger, allowing a sliver of light to 
pass through. "And it's the rest of it that needs to be explored."

*Concern that USDA scientist 'went off course'*
Among the staff of USDA researchers at the time was a physicist named 
Sherwood Idso. Bunce, Idso, Kimball, and Ziska were part of the USDA's 
Agricultural Research Service, or ARS, where they did experiments on how 
crops responded to carbon dioxide, water, and various nutrients.

Idso carried out taxpayer-funded research on CO2 and plants, and he 
eventually leveraged part of that background to the benefit of fossil 
fuel interests. Idso's own Institute for Biospheric Research produced 
the first Greening Earth video in 1992, nine years before he officially 
retired from the Agriculture Department and from civil service. Six 
years later, he participated in the second video with the same basic 
script, and again funded by the Western Fuels Association.

Reflecting on Idso's role at ARS, Bunce said, "He made a name doing some 
reasonably good things. And then he went off course."

Bunce said that Idso "went into this side business, which I don't think 
anybody in ARS agreed with. The basis of what he was saying with the 
Green Earth stuff - I don't think anybody agreed with him on that."

Nevertheless, Idso remained an active part of the ARS while 
simultaneously working to undermine climate science on his own. Bunce 
recalls that his peers "knew [Idso] was way off base, and were amazed 
that he was allowed to do that as an ARS scientist."

Kimball had dual roles with Idso, working both as a collaborator and 
also as Idso's supervisor. "I tried to supervise him for a while," 
Kimball said, recalling their complex working relationship. "I've argued 
with Sherwood Idso a lot," he said. "I kept telling him, 'Stick to the 
data, stick to the data.'"

Kimball and Idso worked together on a 17-year long experiment growing 
orange trees in elevated CO2 conditions. The project's final publication 
makes no mention of the trees benefiting from climate change, even 
though the trees grew quickly with a boost in CO2. Instead, the results 
are expected to be useful to quantify carbon sequestration in forests, 
and to manage forests and agricultural production in our high-CO2 future.

"I felt I was caught in the middle in a lot of ways," said Kimball 
recently, with a sense of bittersweet empathy for his former colleague. 
"In many ways he was a really excellent scientist. But he would 
extrapolate beyond the data."

*Retirement from USDA to 'unfettered' rejection of climate science*
After 34 years at the Agricultural Research Service, Idso retired from 
government service in 2001.The Agricultural Research Service's Water 
Conservation Laboratory's annual research report that year was dedicated 
to him, calling him one of the laboratory's "most productive scientists" 
and saying he was widely cited in the scientific literature.

The dedication noted that Idso had authored over 480 official 
publications for USDA "and 88 more on his own time, including a pair of 
influential books on carbon dioxide and global change."

Those "influential" books seeking to cast climate change as a "fortunate 
and desirable phenomenon" -- self-published by the Institute for 
Biospheric Research, Idso's own organization -- were widely discredited 
by climate scientists.

The closing statement of Idso's retirement dedication hinted at what was 
to come as Idso narrowed his focus to full-time work on what he saw as 
the benefits of CO2 and of climate change: "We wish him well in his new 
endeavor - unfettered by reviews, approvals, and Form 115s!" (A form 115 
is part of the USDA's internal approval process for publishing research 
results.)

Idso and his two sons, Craig and Keith, went on to launch and run the 
Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change. Craig Idso has 
worked with the Cato Institute, and the Heartland Institute, and he was 
a former director of environmental sciences for Peabody Energy, the 
world's largest privately owned coal company. Keith in the early 2000s 
served as an officer of the Idso-led center and wrote and testified in a 
few instances sharing views in support of higher CO2 concentrations.

A primary goal of their efforts was and remains the dismantling of EPA's 
2009 Endangerment Finding, which requires greenhouse gases to be 
regulated. The center's webpage asserts that EPA's landmark ruling 
failed to account for the "very significant" benefits of CO2 emissions. 
They continue to swim upstream on climate science. "To attack CO2 is to 
attack human prosperity," reads the banner text on a 2019 YouTube video 
narrated by Craig Idso.

According to the organization's website, it still has financial ties to 
the fossil fuel industry. Its webpage describing its funding sources 
claims independence, but acknowledges that "ExxonMobil made some 
donations to us a few times in the past; they probably liked what we 
typically had to say about the issue."

*Craig Idso defends his father's legacy*
Asked to comment for this article, Craig Idso replied on his father's 
behalf, saying the elder Idso's health prevents him from communicating 
directly. Criag Idso wrote in an email that his father's involvement was 
"being filmed for the project and recommending other scientists who 
might be willing to share their research." He said the elder Idso was 
not "involved in deceptively editing content." He said also that USDA 
"played no role whatsoever in the production of either video," although 
USDA scientists were featured in both.

Turning to the science, Criag Idso said "the accuracy of the message" in 
both videos "has withstood the test of time. Enriching the atmosphere 
with carbon dioxide has indeed benefited Earth's biosphere." He said 
"many updated peer-reviewed science papers" support that conclusion and 
"confirm the thesis put forth in the two Greening of Planet Earth videos 
from the 1990's that rising CO2 will enhance the productivity of the 
planet's vegetation. Quite frankly the data confirm it has," he wrote.

*Agriculture experiments portend a decline in crop yields*
It's widely accepted that plants grow faster with additional CO2 in the 
atmosphere, whether in a greenhouse or in an open field. But the error 
propagated by the Greening Earth Society and its videos was to exclude 
susceptible plants and crops and other variables from the equation.

"The goal from the other side was to show how wonderful CO2 is because 
it makes plants grow more. Without recognizing that, okay, so it's only 
going to affect strawberries but it's not going to have any effect on 
poison ivy? It's not going to affect invasive weeds? It's not going to 
affect the quality of the food that we have? It's not going to affect 
how we use pesticides or herbicides?" He continued: "It's not going to 
affect the pollen that we come into contact with? It's not going to 
affect plants' toxicology, it's not going to affect the ability of 
plants to produce volatile organic carbons which contribute to smog, 
it's not going to affect biodiversity, it's not going to affect the 
entire food chain?"

Ziska paused briefly to take a breath. His voice had an edge to it. 
"Well of course it's going to do all those things."

Bunce was also eager to fill in the science he feels had been left out 
of the video. "When you add warming to increasing CO2, the net [result] 
in many, many important crops is negative." Controlling the experiment 
for warmer conditions - not just elevated CO2 - reduced crop output 
"almost all the time." The notion that CO2 would somehow protect plants 
from damage from high temperatures "has been thrown on its head by 
experiments," he said.

Kimball's research showed the same results. In one instance, the 
combination of elevated CO2 and warmer temperatures benefited yields of 
grasses in Wyoming's cool climate. But in most other cases, when crops 
were exposed to elevated CO2 and warmer temperatures, crop yields went 
down. This was true for soybeans and corn in the Midwest and for wheat 
and rice in China, where "CO2 caused small increases in yield, but 
warming caused severe decreases in rice yield."

Changes in precipitation patterns add yet another wrinkle to the 
complexities of agriculture in a warming planet, as floods and droughts 
disrupt crop yields. "A place like Arizona that's already dry is 
probably going to even get drier," Kimball noted, "which is pretty damn 
scary."

*Ziska in 2018: 'Okay, I've had enough'*
Ziska's research has come a long way since his days as a junior 
scientist making an unintended cameo in a P.R. piece. But the USDA has 
changed too, particularly in recent years. In 2018, Ziska was one of the 
authors of a landmark study that showed that rising CO2 diminishes the 
nutritional value of rice. The research team found that elevated CO2 
concentrations create an imbalance within the plant's chemical makeup as 
CO2 becomes disproportionately large compared to other elements of plant 
growth. "The entire elemental balance is out of whack," Ziska said.

That 2018 study concluded that rice grown in high-CO2 conditions had 
lower quantities of protein, iron, zinc, and B-vitamins. Because rice is 
the world's single most important food crop, the effects of reduced 
nutritional value are profound, particularly for lower-income parts of Asia.

After the paper was published in Science Advances, USDA stepped in to 
downplay the work. First, the agency claimed the findings were 
incorrect, even though the research had already been through rigorous 
peer review and internal review within the ARS. Next, USDA declined to 
issue a press release about the paper, and, according to a story in 
Politico. pressured institutions of collaborating authors to pull the 
plug on press releases that had already been written.

Despite USDA's efforts to bury the publication, the far-reaching results 
were newsworthy, and Ziska was approached for media interviews. Ziska's 
bosses denied him permission to do the interviews.

"At that point, that's when I said 'Okay I've had enough.' Ziska said. 
He left the USDA both out of frustration and as a symbol of protest. 
Ziska now continues his work as an associate professor of environmental 
health sciences at Columbia University.

Ziska presses on, convinced that his work carries real importance for 
public health. As science of all types is enduring pointed partisan 
attacks undermining the seriousness of issues from COVID-19 to climate 
change, he says he some days is tempted to crawl under his desk.

But Ziska feels society may be reaching a crossroads. He says he hopes 
strengthening public acceptance on the importance of sound science and 
public health will spur a change, "politically, culturally, and socially 
-- to make things better."
https://yaleclimateconnections.org/2020/09/video-origin-of-the-myth-that-global-warming-good-for-agriculture/



[opinion]*
**Doing Something About Global Warming Is Cheaper Than Doing Nothing*
September 25th, 2020 by Steve Hanley
The rallying cry from conservatives for the past 40 years is that doing 
something about our overheating planet is just too darn expensive. 
Better to do nothing and continue marching into the future using a 
business as usual approach than actually address the climate emergency. 
That's the horse puckey spewed billions of times by rapacious fools who 
are in thrall to Charles Koch. Any lie repeated often enough becomes the 
truth, which basically explains the business model of Fox News.

Koch and his acolytes have built what amounts to a religion based upon 
the idea that humans have an obligation to extract and combust every 
available drop of fossil fuel. That quaint notion has taken its place 
alongside other current quasi-religious movements that preach how 
Democrats want to confiscate our guns, black males are all homicidal 
maniacs who must be incarcerated or killed to preserve law and order, 
and a woman's reproductive system is the property of the state.

But as Mark Twain once observed, "What you don't know won't hurt you 
near as much as what you do know that t'aint true." A recent article by 
the Washington Post suggests we can do something about our changing 
climate and it will cost a lot less than the measures already taken to 
address the scourge of the coronavirus...
- -
Researchers at Stanford University, Resources for the Future, and 
ReconMR have just released the results of a survey conducted between May 
and August asking Americans about their attitudes regarding climate 
change. The poll included 999 people. It found nearly half of Americans 
think addressing climate change will help the economy while only 29% 
believe it will have negative economic consequences. Speaking to Time 
magazine about the Republican mantra that addressing climate change is 
too expensive, Jon Krosnick, a Stanford social psychologist professor 
and lead author of the report says, "It's just an argument that doesn't 
work. The argument has never convinced even a majority of Republicans."

The report finds significant majorities support tax incentives, carbon 
pricing, and regulations as means to reduce emissions. More than 80% of 
Americans believe the U.S. should offer tax incentives for utilities 
that make power with renewable energy. More than 80% support key U.S. 
commitments under the Paris Agreement. And nearly two thirds support a 
requirement for all cars to get at least 55 miles per gallon by 2025. 
"It's not like 52-48 or that kind of thing," says Krosnick. "There are 
clear leanings."

Time says the report finds concern about climate change is driven less 
by personal economic considerations and more by broader societal 
interests. Concern that climate change will significantly harm future 
generations is a better predictor of support for action on climate 
change than concerns it would harm someone personally. "It's not about 
the pocketbook," says Krosnick.

A previous report from Stanford and RFF found the percentage of 
Americans who care passionately about climate change has risen 
dramatically in recent years from 13% in 2015 to 25% in 2020. It finds 
three quarters of Americans believe they have seen the effects of 
climate change and 80% say they support more stringent building codes to 
adapt to the effects of climate change. Oddly enough, despite the 
findings of such reports, not one question about climate change will be 
asked during the upcoming presidential debates that begin in a few days.

An NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll released Sept. 19 shows climate change 
is one of the top concerns for Democratic voters along with the 
coronavirus pandemic and the economy. A June poll from Pew Research 
Center found that nearly two thirds of Americans want more aggressive 
action from the federal government on climate change...
- -
The Washington Post ends with this analysis: "If we can spend trillions 
to fight the coronavirus, we can do this. Building the needed capacity 
over a 30-year period would require some investment, ranging from $50 
billion per year for manufacturing limestone to $250 billion per year 
for MPAs. But that money would produce a 15 percent return, and even the 
high end is a small price to pay for a fully restored climate in this 
century.

"The main hurdle isn't financing or technology; we have enough of both. 
It's expanding our thinking beyond half-measures and committing to 
outcomes we want. We know that restoring public health in the pandemic 
requires bold action and international cooperation. Restoring a healthy 
climate and a livable planet requires no less. But it's within our grasp 
if we're willing to reach for it." The question is, are we willing to do 
what needs to be done to keep our planet habitable for humans? Nothing 
else really matters if the answer to that question is no. And that 
starts with voting in the next election. Vote as if your life and the 
lives of your children and your children's children depends upon it, 
because it does.
https://cleantechnica.com/2020/09/25/doing-something-about-global-warming-is-cheaper-than-doing-nothing/


[Digging back into the internet news archive]
*On this day in the history of global warming - September 28, 2007 *

President George W. Bush speaks at a "conference" on climate change in 
Washington. The speech and the "conference" are widely viewed as 
political efforts to obscure the Bush administration's overall lack of 
interest in taking serious steps to reduce carbon pollution.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/28/world/americas/28iht-28climatesub.7674315.html

  http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2007/09/28/201917/bush-climate-speech-follows-luntz-playbook-technology-technology-technology-blah-blah-blah/


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