[✔️] December 10, 2021 - Daily Global Warming News Digest

[👀 Richard Pauli]

/*December 10, 2021*/
//
/[  Bill McKibben comments on COP26 ]/
*Banksliding and CalPERSiflage*
Adventures in High-End Greenwashing
Bill McKibben
A long time ago, in a mythical realm called Glasgow COP 26, the world’s 
banks and assorted financiers piously assured us all that they were 
deeply serious about solving the climate crisis—many of them had even 
worked out an acronym, GFANZ, or Global Finance Alliance for Net Zero, 
to serve as the vessel for their concern.

Now they’ve left behind that fantastical kingdom, however, and 
Gulfstreamed back to the mundane world where avarice rules. And so 
they’ve begun to, as it were, bankslide. A few developments:

Global banks have turned on the money spigot for big oil. GFANZ stalwart 
Chase Bank “has underwritten some $2.5 billion in bond deals for 
companies like Gazprom PJSC and Continental Resources Inc., equivalent 
to the same period in previous years,” while Wells Fargo has managed to 
double the amount of cash it’s handing over to the climate-wreckers.

Blackrock, world’s largest pile of cash, has decided to lead a group 
that will invest $15.5 billion in Saudi Arabia’s natural-gas pipelines 
as the kingdom, in Bloomberg’s words, “opens up more to foreign 
companies and looks to fund a huge increase in fossil-fuel production.”

And to make their greenwashing job a little easier, Exxon released 
another cloud of smoke, promising to reduce emissions 20 % by 2030. No, 
wait, they promised to reduce “Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions” by 20% by 
2030, which is to say the emissions from their, operations, not their, 
you know, product. Look for a lot of electric Ford F-150 pickups 
prowling the Permian.

It’s very clear that these guys have not committed to the public 
good—that so far their words are worthless. All of which means, 
basically, that civil society has no option but push harder—much 
harder—on the financial system.

And the perfect place to begin would be California, where a new report 
from Stand.earth makes clear that the public employee pension 
fund—CalPERS—and the teachers pension fund—CalSTRS—are the two biggest 
pension funds in the country, and among the biggest investors in the 
fossil fuel industry. Other big players: the Chicago teachers pension 
fund, Massachusetts public employees, and New York teachers; taken 
together, pension funds like these have about $81 billion invested in 
wrecking the planet. California teachers cannot seriously want their 
money fueling forest fires—and indeed county by county educators are 
standing up to the grandees that manage their retirement accounts. But 
they need to prevail soon, because climate change is happening now.

And it can happen. Inspired campaigns have freed pensioners from this 
moral burden (and financial drag) in New York City, Maine, Boston, San 
Diego, Quebec, Holland—on and on. Divestment has been the most 
widespread, and among the most effective, manifestations of the public 
demand for climate action, and it can keep spreading.

We just need to cut through the tangle of duplicitous verbiage that has 
become the weapon of choice for the fossil fuel industry and the 
financiers that orbit them. Yes to plain-speaking.
https://billmckibben.substack.com/p/banksliding-and-calpersiflage?r=10305&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email


/[  Los Angeles is pretty seriuos about climate change - items from a 
weekly newsletter   ] /
*Newsletter: Climate change is transforming how Angelenos live, breathe 
and escape the heat*
BY SAMMY ROTH - -STAFF WRITER
DEC. 9, 2021
This is the Dec. 9, 2021, edition of Boiling Point, a weekly newsletter 
about climate change and the environment in California and the American 
West. Sign up here to get it in your inbox.

If you’re looking for evidence that the climate crisis is taking a toll, 
look no further than a new survey of Angelenos.

Fifty-one percent of Los Angeles County residents avoided going outside 
at some point between summer 2020 and summer 2021 because of concerns 
about breathing wildfire smoke, the University of Southern California 
survey found. More than one-quarter of Angelenos said they had suffered 
psychological distress due to a disaster such as a fire, flood or 
extreme heat during that time.

Heat storms in particular are taking a toll on quality of life. 
Fifty-four percent of local residents said they had gone to a mall, 
library, community center or other cool location for the sole purpose of 
getting out of the heat — a startling number, at least to me.

Rising temperatures don’t affect everyone equally. The survey found that 
27% of Black Angelenos work outdoors with no cover, much more than any 
other racial group. And whereas 62% of white survey respondents said 
their neighborhoods have enough trees to provide adequate shade for 
walking on a hot, sunny day, only 51% of Latino, Asian and Black 
residents said the same.

Overall, more than three-quarters of respondents said climate change is 
a threat to the well-being of Angelenos.

It’s not hard to see what’s giving people that idea. Los Angeles County 
recorded a record-high 121-degree temperature during an excruciating 
heat wave in summer 2020, following a decade in which heat killed an 
estimated 3,900 Californians, with the death count rising over time, 
according to an L.A. Times investigation. Southern California officials 
have issued air quality advisories due to wildfire smoke on 17 days so 
far this year — and 55 days last year, when the Bobcat fire raged in the 
San Gabriel Mountains.

Kelly Sanders, an energy and climate expert at USC who was not involved 
with the survey, told me it’s more than wildfires to blame for filling 
the air with smoke and keeping people indoors. California is in drought 
— and lack of rainfall not only primes the landscape for fire but also 
allows lung-damaging particles to linger in the air longer. High 
temperatures, too, can exacerbate smog.

All those forces — heat, drought, wildfires, air pollution — are made 
worse by the burning of fossil fuels.

Sanders pointed to the growing number of Californians who have 
experienced ash falling out of the sky.

“It’s not just a one-off — it’s happening every year, multiple times a 
year at this point,” she said. “We always talk about these apocalyptic 
events in the future, but ash falling out of the sky — it doesn’t get 
more apocalyptic than that.”
- -
The USC survey offers reasons for hope, too. I was encouraged that 40% 
of Angelenos say their next car is likely to be electric. (I wasn’t one 
of the 1,244 people to take the survey, but I would have said the same.) 
Large majorities of Angelenos also try to limit their electricity and 
water use, the amount of time they spend driving and how much meat they 
eat — all good for the climate.

Interestingly, older people were more likely to say their individual 
actions can make a difference in tackling global warming — a sign that 
younger generations, such as my own, are fed up with decades of inaction 
by corporations and government and are sick of being told their 
lifestyles are to blame. Fifty-seven percent of survey respondents ages 
18 to 39 said their actions can make a difference, compared with 75% of 
respondents in their 40s, 71% in their 50s and 65% age 60 and older.

Younger people “have a different idea about who are the humans that are 
causing climate change,” said Kyla Thomas, director of the LABarometer 
survey at the USC Dornsife Center for Economic and Social Research, 
which conducted the polling.

One other key finding: Just 17% of Angelenos said local government is 
doing enough to fight climate change.

To be fair, I don’t know of any local government that’s truly doing 
enough, given the science showing that global emissions need to be cut 
roughly in half in less than a decade. But it’s not hard to point to 
places where Los Angeles is falling short. Just to offer one example 
from my previous reporting, the city still doesn’t have a plan for 
reducing planet-warming emissions from residential gas heating and gas 
stoves, despite Mayor Eric Garcetti setting targets for net-zero-carbon 
buildings way back in April 2019.

Garcetti did join with three City Council members this week to introduce 
a motion instructing L.A.'s climate emergency office to develop 
recommendations for slashing emissions from gas appliances in homes, 
with a focus on affordability. Environmental justice activists have 
raised concerns that requiring electric heating and cooking could raise 
energy and housing costs.

The new initiative “will ensure that the people who are most impacted by 
climate change and housing insecurity are the ones leading the 
conversation, and that the solutions proposed lead to strong labor, 
housing, and health protections,” said Martha Dina Argüello, executive 
director of Physicians for Social Responsibility-Los Angeles, in a 
written statement...
- -
Shifting from gas cooking to induction stoves will be especially 
important as wildfire smoke and higher temperatures force people to 
spend even more time sheltered at home with the windows closed, Sanders 
said. That’s because cooking with gas can lead to high levels of indoor 
air pollution. And gas stoves aren’t the only problem — the air outside 
has a big effect on the air inside.

“We need to focus more on improving our homes and buildings to promote 
safe indoor air quality, as well as access to adequate air conditioning. 
People are spending a lot more time at home,” Sanders said. “Communities 
living closer to pollution sources like highways, wildfires, industrial 
centers, the ports — they’re really disproportionately impacted by this 
poor air quality.”
- -
They’ve really got me thinking about how many politicians still talk 
about climate change as a problem to be solved for the sake of future 
generations, as opposed to a disaster that is here now and making the 
planet progressively less livable for current generations. President 
Biden, for instance, recently pitched his “Build Back Better” 
legislation by describing the fight against global warming as an 
“obligation to our children and to our grandchildren.”

That attitude is admirable but behind the times. We live in a world 
where large and growing numbers of people are staying indoors to protect 
their lungs from wildfire smoke, going to the mall to stay cool and 
feeling anxiety from climate calamity.

If the survey says anything, it says people want action, and they want 
it now.

Here’s what else is happening around the West:
TOP STORIES
California’s biggest source of water supply — the Sierra Nevada snowpack 
— could be close to zero for five straight years as soon as the 2040s, 
new research finds. Here’s the story by my colleague Hayley Smith, which 
speaks to the critical importance of using water more carefully. And as 
scary as conditions might get in a few decades, they’re already bad now. 
Just 6% of the contiguous U.S. was covered in snow as of Friday, the 
lowest coverage since researchers started tracking that figure, 
according to AccuWeather’s Mark Puleo. There’s so little powder in the 
Rocky Mountains that one Colorado ski town is holding a four-day “snow 
dance” to ask Ullr, the Norse God of Snow, to please help them out, the 
Associated Press’ Thomas Peipert and Brittany Peterson report.

President Biden’s “Build Back Better” bill includes the largest-ever 
federal investment in U.S. forests — $27 billion overall, with $14 
billion for fuels reduction to limit wildfire severity. This would mark 
a sea change from the current approach of throwing tons of money at 
firefighting and neglecting prevention, The Times’ Jennifer Haberkorn 
reports. Here in California, meanwhile, Pacific Gas & Electric has 
agreed to pay $125 million for sparking the Kincade fire, Gregory Yee 
reports. And in fire news of a different kind, local officials say the 
awful smell in the city of Carson was caused by a warehouse fire ignited 
by illegally stored flammable materials, including hand sanitizer and 
antibacterial wipes, Hailey Branson-Potts and Andrew J. Campa report.

As part of a settlement agreement with environmental groups, a massive 
home development at Tejon Ranch in northern L.A. County won’t have 
natural gas hookups. Instead, homes will be built with electric heat 
pumps and induction stoves; details here from my colleague Louis 
Sahagún. At the same time, many Tejon Ranch residents will probably 
drive several hours each day commuting to and from Los Angeles, spewing 
carbon into the atmosphere. State lawmakers have tried to reduce 
emissions (and make housing more affordable) by promoting density, but 
some cities are racing to restrict new housing ahead of a law that would 
require them to allow duplexes and fourplexes in single-family 
neighborhoods, The Times’ Liam Dillon reports. L.A.'s City Council 
overwhelmingly opposed that law, despite new polling from The Times 
showing a strong majority of voters support the idea.

DROUGHT CENTRAL
It looks like California will again mandate water-saving measures such 
as not watering lawns after it rains, with $500 fines for noncompliance. 
In the meantime, conservation is ticking up — Californians cut their 
water use by 13.2% in October, up from 3.9% in September, Hayley Smith 
reports for The Times. Out in the desert, Cadiz Inc. has pitched its 
plan to pump groundwater and ship it to coastal cities as a drought 
solution — but the Biden administration isn’t buying it. Officials are 
trying to reverse a Trump administration decision clearing the way for 
the Cadiz pipeline, which has long been opposed by critics as an 
environmentally damaging water grab, my colleagues Alex Wigglesworth and 
Ian James report. Columnist Michael Hiltzik was pleased by the federal 
government’s change of course, writing of the Cadiz project, “It’s time 
to bury it in the desert grave where it belongs.”...
- -
THE ENERGY TRANSITION
Southern California Edison is tearing down the San Onofre nuclear plant, 
in a process expected to take eight years and cost $4.5 billion. The San 
Diego Union-Tribune’s Rob Nikolewski has a detailed explainer on the 
teardown, with critics questioning whether Edison will manage it safely. 
In other nuclear news, the Biden administration is looking for 
communities that might want to store the nation’s spent nuclear fuel. 
And President Biden’s energy secretary said she might talk with 
California officials about extending the life of the state’s last nuke, 
Diablo Canyon, Reuters’ Timothy Gardner reports. Supporters of keeping 
the plant open past 2025 held a rally last weekend, Rachel Showalter 
reports for KCBX; see also my deep dive on Diablo from earlier this year.

The Interior Department has issued more onshore oil and gas drilling 
permits per month under President Biden than it did during any of 
President Trump’s first three years in office. Here’s the story from the 
Washington Post’s Maxine Joselow. You may recall that last week in this 
newsletter I wrote about the Biden administration’s slow pace of 
approving solar and wind farms on public lands, which makes for an 
interesting contrast. And although the timing is probably a coincidence, 
the day after that newsletter was published the federal Bureau of Land 
Management announced it’s planning to lower the fees paid by solar and 
wind farms...
- -
Hollywood helped make Los Angeles what it is today — and so did oil. 
“Oil, motion pictures and real estate were like the trifecta of forces 
that were attracting migrants to come west to L.A. Oil was kind of right 
up there with the glamor of Hollywood,” one expert told my colleague 
Rachel Schnalzer, in the latest entry in our series answering reader 
questions about local business. While oil brought wealth and jobs for 
some, there were also safety hazards for workers, many of whom died 
falling into oil tanks.
https://www.latimes.com/environment/newsletter/2021-12-09/climate-change-is-transforming-how-angelenos-live-breathe-and-escape-the-heat-boiling-point?utm_id=44241&sfmc_id=948181



/[ podcast  -- *throughline* - modern culture tries to connect with the 
Hyperobject sounds of Radiohead  ] /
DECEMBER 9, 2021
*History Is Over*
As the end of the 20th century approached, Radiohead took to the 
recording studio to capture the sound of a society that felt like it was 
fraying at the edges. Many people had high hopes for the new millennium, 
but for others a low hum of anxiety lurked just beneath the surface as 
the world changed rapidly and fears of a Y2K meltdown loomed.
https://www.npr.org/podcasts/510333/throughline

- -

/[ important to know the concept of the Hyperobject ]/
*Climate Change is Too Big for our Brains feat. Mike Rugnetta | Hot Mess*
What can a bunch of circles and squares from a 19th century novella tell 
us about Climate Change? Its metaphor time!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Pqp_8XLC6c
*Why is it so hard to fully address climate change? It’s a hyperobject.*
Climate change despite being so definitely caused by humans is so 
profoundly non-human; so expansive that our understanding is continually 
outpaced by its total seepage into our environment. Climate change is 
both a thing and much much more sign that a mere thing could ever be.”
https://www.pbs.org/wnet/peril-and-promise/video/climate-change-impact-hyperobject/ 


- -

[ a few movie reviews...]

*Is 'Don't Look Up' a Movie That's Impossible to Review?*
In Adam McKay's new satire the world is doomed and the jokes are flat, 
but maybe that's the point
By Miranda Collinge  -- 8/12/2021

https://www.esquire.com/uk/culture/film/a38458321/is-dont-look-up-impossible-to-review/

- -

/[  2 min video - you will probably see the movie, and it will motivate 
discussion ]/
*Leonardo DiCaprio on What Lured Him to Star in Comet-Collision Satire 
"Don't Look Up"*
Andrew Revkin
Leonardo DiCaprio describes how filmmaker Adam McKay lured him to star 
with Jennifer Lawrence in the comet catastrophe satire "Don't Look Up."
https://youtu.be/DrWAdZw_k_Q

- -

/[    2012 video - mentions the metaphor of asteroid approaching Earth ] /
*James Hansen: Why I must speak out about climate change*
Mar 7, 2012
TED Talk
http://www.ted.com Top climate scientist James Hansen tells the story of 
his involvement in the science of and debate over global climate change. 
In doing so he outlines the overwhelming evidence that change is 
happening and why that makes him deeply worried about the future.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fWInyaMWBY8

- -

/[ NYTimes article from 1981  ]/
*STUDY FINDS WARMING TREND THAT COULD RAISE SEA LEVELS*/
/    By Walter Sullivan
Aug. 22, 1981
A team of Federal scientists says it has detected an overall warming 
trend in the earth's atmosphere extending back to the year 1880. They 
regard this as evidence of the validity of the ''greenhouse'' effect, in 
which increasing amounts of carbon dioxide cause steady temperature 
increases.

The seven atmospheric scientists predict a global warming of ''almost 
unprecedented magnitude'' in the next century. It might even be 
sufficient to melt and dislodge the ice cover of West Antarctica, they 
say, eventually leading to a worldwide rise of 15 to 20 feet in the sea 
level. In that case, they say, it would ''flood 25 percent of Louisiana 
and Florida, 10 percent of New Jersey and many other lowlands throughout 
the world'' within a century or less.

Workings of Greenhouse

The forecast, which also envisions widespread disruption of agriculture, 
is the fruit of analyses and computer simulations conducted by the 
Institute for Space Studies of the National Aeronautics and Space 
Administration. The institute, which is in New York City, is part of the 
space agency's Goddard Spaceflight Center in Greenbelt, Md. The forecast 
is in an article in the Aug. 28 issue of the journal Science.

Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, which is primarily a result of 
mankind's burning of fuels, is thought to act like the glass of a 
greenhouse. It absorbs heat radiation from the earth and its atmosphere, 
heat that otherwise would dissipate into space. Other factors being 
equal, the more carbon dioxide there is in the atmosphere, the warmer 
the earth should become, according to the theory.

A century ago the amount of carbon dioxide in the air was 280 to 300 
parts per million. It is now 335 to 340 parts per million and it is 
expected to be at least 600 parts per million in the next century.

The possibility that the greenhouse effect could alter the earth's 
temperature has long been debated. Scientists have agreed that carbon 
dioxide is increasing, but disagree on whether temperatures are also 
increasing.

The major difficulty in accepting the greenhouse theory ''has been the 
absence of observed warming coincident with the historic carbon dioxide 
increase,'' the scientists wrote.

Researchers were further confounded by an apparent cooling trend since 
1940. As a result, many atmospheric scientists concluded that the 
climatic effects of increased carbon dioxide might not become detectable 
for many decades. But the Government scientists say they see clear 
evidence that carbon dioxide added to the atmosphere since the 
Industrial Revolution has already warmed the climate.

If fuel burning increases at a slow rate with emphasis on other energy 
sources, the study predicts a global temperature rise in the next 
century of about 5 degrees Fahrenheit. If fuel use rises rapidly, which 
some believe may occur as the developing countries industrialize, the 
predicted rise is from 6 to 9 degrees.

Even the more moderate rise of 5 degrees, the authors say, would result 
in higher average temperatures than were reached in the period between 
the last two ice ages. At that time sea levels were 30 feet higher than 
they are today, probably because West Antarctica was ice free. The 
climate ''would approach the warmth of the Mesozoic, the age of 
dinosaurs,'' the report says.

The study's conclusions are likely to be challenged on two counts: their 
detection of a trend of temperature increase and linking it with a 
carbon dioxide increase, and their projections of the consequences of 
the increase.

A leading participant in past carbon dioxide studies has been Dr. 
Stephen H. Schneider of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in 
Boulder, Colo. Reached by telephone there, he said the conclusions about 
the extent of warming and how quickly it will occur would be reasonable 
if the assumptions on which they are based prove valid, but that many 
can be challenged.

One of these is the space agency group's contention that a cooling trend 
in recent decades was caused by dust from volcanic eruptions high in the 
atmosphere. If that was not the case, their model might be seriously flawed.

Other assumptions open to challenge include such uncertain factors as 
population growth rates, energy-consuming trends in the developing 
world, new developments in solar energy and other alternative energy 
sources, trends in energy conservation and lack of knowledge regarding 
the extent to which oceans might remove carbon dioxide from the air.

These uncertainties are, to a large extent, recognized in the new 
report, signed by Dr. James Hansen and six colleagues at the space 
studies institute.

In their analysis, the scientists seek to respond to an outspoken 
skeptic regarding the carbon dioxide threat, Dr. Sherwood B. Idso, a 
climate specialist with the Federal Department of Agriculture in 
Phoenix. Last March he circulated an analysis saying that a doubling or 
tripling of atmospheric carbon dioxide would have little effect except 
to increase global agricultural productivity by 20 to 50 percent.

Plants grow by converting carbon dioxide and water into carbohydrates 
and other compounds, aided by solar energy. One proposed strategy to 
limit the growth of atmospheric carbon dioxide would be to plant 
extensive forests.

Dr. Hansen and his colleagues cite the observed surface temperatures of 
Mars and, particularly, Venus as support for their predicted greenhouse 
effect. The surface of Venus, with an atmosphere formed largely of 
carbon dioxide, is at about 900 degrees Fahrenheit.

Their conclusion that the climate has warmed by almost one degree in the 
last century is based on a re-analysis of global observations, paying 
special attention to the Southern Hemisphere. ''The common misconception 
that the world is cooling,'' they say, ''is based on Northern Hemisphere 
experience to 1970.''

As ''an appropriate strategy,'' the report proposes emphasis on energy 
conservation and development of alternative energy sources while using 
fossil fuels ''as necessary'' in the coming decades.

/A version of this article appears in print on Aug. 22, 1981, Section 1, 
Page 1 of the National edition with the headline: STUDY FINDS WARMING 
TREND THAT COULD RAISE SEA LEVELS./
https://www.nytimes.com/1981/08/09/world/ancient-ice-yielding-secrets-of-climate.html



[The news archive - looking back]
*On this day in the history of global warming December  10, 2007*
December 10, 2007: Al Gore officially accepts the Nobel Peace Prize.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/11/world/11nobel.html?_r=0


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