[TheClimate.Vote] February 3, 2021 - Daily Global Warming News Digest

[Richard Pauli]

/*February 3, 2021*/

[The Atlantic has a tactical notion]
*The Weekly Planet: A New Idea for Fighting Climate Change: Retirement 
Plans!*
If you’re retiring in the 2060s, you should make sure you can enjoy the 
2060s.
ROBINSON MEYER
In January 2020, Boris Khentov attended a climate protest in Washington, 
D.C., led by Jane Fonda. (She was, at its climax, arrested.) Its theme 
was the role of financial institutions in the climate crisis, and the 
speakers—who included Joaquin Phoenix, Martin Sheen, and the 
environmental author Bill McKibben—stressed one idea over and over 
again: divestment.

Financial institutions needed to stop investing in fossil-fuel 
companies, they said, for society to have a shot at fighting climate 
change. For the past decade, divestment has been the climate movement’s 
biggest demand of banks, pension funds, and university endowments, an 
echo of earlier campaigns against apartheid and Big Tobacco.
“As we marched together towards the Capitol, one phrase ran through my 
mind,” Khentov later told me in an email: “‘If only it were that simple.’”

Khentov is not an expert in climate change, but he does know something 
about finance. He is the senior vice president of operations at 
Betterment, a software company that advises people on how best to manage 
their money.
Betterment is what’s called a robo-adviser: It offers consumers a few 
portfolios of stocks and bonds, then automatically shifts how assets in 
a portfolio are “weighted” for each customer’s goals, so that a 
30-year-old, say, has more stocks in her retirement fund than a 
60-year-old. It has about half a million customers and $22 billion under 
management.

Divestment wasn’t wrong, Khentov thought, but it was inadequate. The 
fight against climate change requires transforming the physical stuff of 
the world—its engines, refineries, foundries, everything we call 
economic infrastructure—in the next 30 years. That would require more 
than just an oil change, so to speak. It would require changing every 
company—including Betterment.

The protest led him to create something that, as far as I know, is 
unique among major 401(k) providers and robo-advisers: a specifically 
climate-focused portfolio. (This week he published a blog post 
explaining what went into making it.) Any American can invest in it, 
including with a retirement account such as a Roth IRA. (Before we get 
any further, I should specify: Nothing in this column constitutes 
financial advice.)

Even if you don’t have any retirement savings, the new Betterment 
climate portfolio is worthy of your attention, I think. Unlike many 
would-be pro-climate investment products, it represents a sincere 
attempt to think through what will actually change the economy.

To very quickly catch you up, there are two big trends in investing 
circa 2021. The first is that investors are choosing broad, low-fee, 
diversified funds that track the overall market rather than searching 
for the very few companies that do disproportionately well. The second 
is the laudable but frankly kind of nebulous idea that people want to 
invest in line with their values. This is usually called investing for 
“environmental, social, and governance,” or ESG, funds. Over the past 
few years, hundreds of billions have poured into ESG funds.

Betterment has promoted and boosted these two trends. Its “core” 
portfolio tracks major indices, and, in 2017, it launched an 
ESG-inspired portfolio.

ESG funds are seen as inherently climate-friendly, but they’re really 
not—or, at least, they usually have a broader ambit than climate alone. 
Many ESG funds track companies based on how well they perform on a 
scorecard, which might look at a firm’s carbon footprint alongside 
questions of “good corporate governance” that climate-focused investors 
don’t necessarily care about. Some ESG funds invest more in companies if 
they have a woman on the board of directors—which is a worthwhile idea, 
except that ExxonMobil’s board has three.

The basic idea of ESG is good, though—and, I would add, goes to the 
heart of what retirement means in the first place. Perhaps for older 
readers—and I mean this with no slight—the middle decades of the 21st 
century remain notional. But I, God willing, would like to celebrate my 
59th birthday in 2050, and under current law, I have to start taking 
money from my 401(k) in 2063...
That’s about the same time that 90 percent of the world’s coral reefs 
will be at risk of destruction, and when much of California’s forestland 
will be giving way to scrub, grassland, and desert. The premise of 
retirement is that I will one day get to enjoy the 2060s, but it will 
take some societal work to make the 2060s enjoyable. I would like my 
(for now, meager) retirement savings to enable such work.

I am, apparently, not alone. In October, Betterment split its new 
climate-focused portfolio from its main ESG offering. Within three weeks 
of launch, it passed $100 million in total assets—“far faster than any 
brand-new portfolio in Betterment’s 10-year history,” Khentov wrote. The 
median investor in the climate portfolio is three years younger than the 
median Betterment customer.

What are those investors getting? After he came home from the protest, 
Khentov began a months-long research effort to improve Betterment’s 
climate portfolio.

“Literally every single sector, every single business, has a CO2 
emissions profile,” he said in an interview. “How do we incorporate the 
fact that these oil and gas companies are pumping, and these utilities 
are burning, to serve [other] companies? Every business has a carbon 
profile and very few have fossil-fuel reserves.”

What was needed was another approach—call it divestment-plus. He and his 
colleagues decided to divide the new Betterment portfolio into three parts.

The first is divestment. Betterment devotes about half of its stock 
portfolio to exchange-traded funds that track large-cap companies that 
have no oil, gas, or coal reserves. So Microsoft is here, but no Exxon. 
Google, but no Chevron. Yet pipeline manufacturers are here too, because 
even though they trade in fossil fuels, they don’t own underground reserves.

The second approach is what he calls “optimization.” Betterment commits 
the other half of its stock portfolio to a fund called CRBN, which 
elevates companies that have the smallest ratio of carbon emissions per 
dollar in their respective sector. That is, it finds the cleanest 
companies in each industry, and “votes” for them with dollars.

The final approach is to invest in “green bonds,” through  a fund called 
BGRN. These bonds directly finance climate-friendly investments, such as 
new renewable projects.

None of these strategies is perfect. The divestment stocks “clearly 
represent that energy and emotion that I saw when I was protesting,” 
Khentov said, but because most companies raise money by issuing bonds, 
divestment from shares may not significantly raise the cost they pay for 
capital. The optimization approach isn’t ideal either, because these 
index funds pick the lowest-carbon companies in every sector, including 
the energy sector. And the green-bond industry remains hopelessly 
unregulated, so it’s hard to know whether your dollars are funding truly 
pro-climate projects. (Although the U.S. Securities and Exchange 
Commission could step in soon.)...
The optimization problem in particular troubles Justin Guay, a 
climate-finance activist and the director of global climate strategy at 
the Sunrise Project. Companies solely devoted to fossil fuels should 
have no place in a climate portfolio, he told me. “Some companies need 
to die as part of the energy transition, while others need to evolve 
into birds,” he said.

Khentov argues that a “best in class” index, such as CRBN, could open up 
a new age of what he calls “index activism.” Companies are desperate to 
get on crucial stock-market indexes—when Tesla made the S&P 500 earlier 
this year, it was interpreted as a coronation—because they raise the 
share price, and because they act as a de facto vote of confidence for 
management. If CRBN attracted enough investor money, he said, then 
simply wanting to remain on its index could become a pressure point for 
a company’s executives. They might undertake more ambitious 
decarbonization plans to stay ahead of their competitors, driving what 
the political scientist Sarah Manina Kelsey calls a “green spiral”of 
positive behavior.

Or maybe not: Either way, the Betterment portfolio is, Khentov admits, 
an experiment. It wouldn’t have been possible to put together this 
climate portfolio a year ago, he said, and it’s possible that next year, 
even better climate-focused funds will be available for his team to add 
to its portfolio. The next frontier, for instance, may be investing in a 
fund that promises to get involved in disputes between investors and 
management over climate plans. But right now, no such fund exists.

When I talked to Guay, the activist, he homed in on—and complimented—an 
aspect of Betterment’s design that I hadn’t noticed. When an investor 
opens a fund on Betterment’s website, the user interface puts its “core” 
portfolio on the same tier as its socially responsible portfolios, 
including its climate portfolio...
“That is different. That is fundamentally different than most retirement 
advisers,” he said. Fidelity, for instance, provides no divested 
portfolio options for its 401(k) customers.

The next step, he said, was for the climate-friendly portfolio to become 
the default. “Options are all well and good … but you’ll never get there 
by consumer choice alone,” he said, citing research that organ-donation 
programs are more successful when they’re opt-out. “The problem can’t 
fall on the shoulders of consumers.”
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2021/02/new-idea-fighting-climate-change-retirement-plans-betterment/617909/



[fast says NPR]
*How Fast Will Biden Need To Move On Climate? Really, Really Fast*
February 2, 20215
LAUREN SOMMER
In a flurry of first-week executive orders, President Biden sent a 
definitive message that his administration would move faster on climate 
change than any before. Now, the question is whether it will be fast enough.

Scientists warn that the coming decade will be critical for slowing 
heat-trapping emissions, potentially keeping average annual global 
temperatures from rising more than 1.5 degrees Celsius compared to the 
mid-19th century. Right now, the world is on track for an increase of 3 
degrees Celsius, a level that ensures more destructive wildfires and 
hurricanes, devastation for coral reefs and rising seas flooding the 
coastlines.

Biden has set a goal of making the U.S. carbon neutral by 2050, which 
will require steeper emissions cuts than the U.S. has ever achieved. To 
reach it, coal power would have to wane into a footnote, replaced by 
renewables like solar and wind. Most cars would run on batteries, 
instead of gas. He has also emphasized investing in communities that are 
hardest hit, both communities of color that bear the highest pollution 
burden and those that depend on disappearing fossil fuel jobs.
- -
"We need to increase tree cover five times faster than we are," said 
John Kerry, Biden's special envoy for climate. "We need to ramp up 
renewable energy six times faster. And the transition to electric 
vehicles needs to take place at a rate 22 times faster."

Prevailing winds are blowing in Biden's direction. Renewable energy is 
increasingly cheaper and, along with a glut of natural gas, is driving 
coal power plants to retire. States and companies are pursuing their own 
goals to cut emissions.

Still, reversing the Trump Administration's environmental rollbacks 
could potentially take years. The administration will also need the 
cooperation of Congress to dramatically increase investment in climate 
policies. Biden says even without Congress, climate will be a priority 
across all federal agencies.

"To me, that suggests that it's not just a campaign promise, but that 
the administration is really committed to achieving this goal," says 
Angel Hsu, assistant professor at University of North Carolina at Chapel 
Hill. "That said, it's very easy to make these types of goals and 
pledges. The hard part really comes in the follow through."...
- -
"Coal-fired power plants are just uneconomic and are continuing to 
retire," says Dan Lashof, director of the World Resources Institute. 
"But much of the power from coal plans has been replaced by natural 
gas-fired power plants, and we need to start making that transition away 
from gas. And that means doubling or tripling the pace at which we're 
building wind and solar over the next decade."...
- -
As carbon dioxide pollution from power plants fell, transportation 
became the country's largest source of greenhouse gases. The Obama 
Administration instituted fuel economy standards that required 
automakers to improve their efficiency by 5 percent every year. The 
Trump administration replaced that with just 1.5 percent improvements 
annually.
- -*
**What's working against Biden*

On his first day in office, Biden took direct aim at more than 100 
Trump-era environmental policies, ordering federal agencies to review 
and replace them. Many are critical to cutting emissions in the U.S., 
like limiting emissions of methane from oil and gas wells, a significant 
source of the potent heat-trapping gas.

Still, that process is likely to take years. Many regulations, like the 
federal fuel economy rules for cars and trucks, require a lengthy 
rulemaking process with scientific analysis and public comment. As a 
result, many of the Trump Administration's rules only went into effect 
in his last year in office.

Even after that, Biden's environmental rules are likely to be challenged 
by lawsuits, potentially reaching the Supreme Court and adding years to 
the process. Future administrations could also undo those rules, just as 
the Trump Administration did.

That has some looking to Congress for meaningful climate action, since 
laws passed there have better sticking power and spending power.

"Ideally, we would have a federal clean electricity standard that would 
require a steady reduction in emissions to get us to 100 percent clean 
power by 2035," says Lashof. "It's unclear whether the votes will be 
there in Congress."

A high-profile climate bill would test the Democrats' razor-thin margin 
in the Senate, where support from party conservatives like Senator Joe 
Manchin of West Virginia would be hard won. Instead, Democrats may look 
to add climate policies to other bills or pass them through the arcane 
budget process.

"There's a lot of acrimony that you can see in Congress and where we're 
sitting right now, it's probably hard to see a big bipartisan bill on 
climate change," says Greg Dotson of the University of Oregon, who also 
worked on energy policy in the U.S. House of Representatives. "But I 
don't think that means you stop trying in Congress. Maybe it's tax 
policy. Maybe it's investment decisions. Maybe it's budgetary issues."

For now, the Biden Administration is focusing on executive actions, like 
banning new oil and gas leases on federal lands and revoking permits for 
the Keystone XL pipeline, which would have carried carbon-intensive oil 
from Canada.

"Certainly we're going to look at congressional action," Gina McCarthy, 
Biden's domestic climate advisor, told NPR. "But right now, we can use 
the strength of the federal budget and our procurement opportunities to 
send the right market signals on the kind of technologies and products 
that we think we need and we know we have available now that are 
cost-effective and that, again, grow jobs."

The Biden Administration's climate ambitions will become clearer this 
spring when it releases new U.S. commitments for cutting emissions under 
the Paris climate agreement. Biden announced the U.S. would rejoin the 
accord on his first day in office, after the Trump Administration pulled 
out and ceased engaging in the international effort.

Biden says the U.S. will come back to the table at a key moment, when 
countries are making new commitments to cut emissions under the Paris 
accord. Now, he has to convince them he can deliver.
https://www.npr.org/2021/02/02/963014373/how-fast-will-biden-need-to-move-on-climate-really-really-fast 




[ethics by OXFAM]
*The ‘1%’ are the main drivers of climate change, but it hits the poor 
the hardest: Oxfam report*
Catherine Clifford - Jan 27 2021
The richest of the rich are polluting the world and driving climate 
change, while the poorest of the poor suffer the greatest consequences, 
according to a new report published Monday by Oxfam International.

The richest 1% of the global population have used two times as much 
carbon as the poorest 50% over the last 25 years, the nonprofit’s report 
says.

When fossil fuels (which are carbon-based) are burned in factories or 
jets, for example, carbon dioxide is produced. Carbon dioxide emissions 
trap heat in the earth’s atmosphere, resulting in the warming of the 
planet. The burning of fossil fuels and processes that generate carbon 
dioxide emissions are major drivers of economic productivity and wealth.

The coronavirus pandemic has exacerbated inequality in almost every way 
(billionaires’ wealth increased by $3.9 trillion between March 18 and 
December 31, while the number of people living on less than $5.50 a day 
may have increased to as many as 500 million in 2020, Oxfam says), and 
that extends to carbon consumption.

For instance, ”[w]orldwide sales of private jets soared when commercial 
travel was banned,” the Oxfam report says...
“In country after country it is the richest who are least affected by 
the pandemic, and are the quickest to see their fortunes recover. They 
also remain the greatest emitters of carbon, and the greatest drivers of 
climate breakdown.”

Meanwhile, for poorer communities, and especially for women, climate 
change will make life harder.

“While no one is immune, the consequences will continue to be more 
devastating for low and middle-income countries, which are most at risk 
and face the highest climate-fuelled displacements, and within these 
countries for women living in poverty, who typically bear greater 
responsibility for tasks that are made more difficult by climate change, 
including sourcing food and water,” the Oxfam report says.

The cleave in the global population — between those reaping the rewards 
of carbon-producing processes and those paying the price — needs to be a 
top priority for global governments, according to Oxfam. “There is 
simply no possibility of any further delay,” the report says.
*What governments around the world should do*
“The fight against inequality and the fight for climate justice are the 
same fight,” says the Oxfam report says. “The pandemic has shown us that 
massive action by governments is possible in the face of a crisis; we 
must see the same level of action to prevent climate breakdown.”

Governments need to implement policies that help reduce overall demand 
for energy and accelerate the use of renewable energy, according to 
Oxfam, which means ending subsidies to fossil fuel industries, as well 
as forcing banks to end investment in fossil fuels and ramp up 
investment in sustainable energy sources, the report says.

“Nowhere in the world should governments allow the construction of a 
single new coal-fired power station, the public health and climate costs 
of which are borne by the poorest and most marginalized communities 
worldwide,” the report suggests.
Further, says Oxfam, governments should implement scaled taxes on carbon 
emissions: Luxury-related consumption that drives carbon emissions — 
such as “frequent or business class flights” or gas-guzzling large 
vehicles, according to the report — should be taxed at a higher rate for 
the carbon consumption.

The money from carbon taxes should then be directed to help poorer 
communities that need social support programs and also towards those 
poor who are especially vulnerable to increasingly frequent and severe 
natural disasters, Oxfam says.

Governments should also focus on retraining the poor and marginalized in 
new, renewable energy or health and social care, the report says.

And as those transitions are made, governments should focus on 
empowering diverse and representative leadership, according to Oxfam. 
“Workers, women and marginalized communities should be at the heart of 
decision-making processes at all levels — ensuring that their voices are 
heard as governments plan the transition to an economy that allows 
everyone to realize their human rights, within the limits our planet can 
bear,” the report says.
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/01/26/oxfam-report-the-global-wealthy-are-main-drivers-of-climate-change.html



[well]
*Scientists in the Arctic's 'Ice Factory' Found a Worrying Sign of 
Climate Change*
For 40 days last fall, an expedition collected samples that confirm the 
thaw of the Arctic’s mysterious subsea permafrost.
Becky Ferreira - February 2, 2021
- -
Last year, following a historic heatwave across Siberia, the Laptev Sea 
did not freeze in October for the first time on record, and its ice 
production in November was unusually “sluggish,” according to NASA.
- -
“The reduction in the area of sea ice increases wave activity; storms 
occur, which leads to an active mixing of water masses up to a depth of 
40-50 meters,” he explained. “All these parameters accelerate the 
degradation of subsea permafrost and contribute to the release of 
methane into the atmosphere that is soluble in seawater, and methane 
contained in bottom sediments.”
- -
“There was no drilling during the expedition because the permafrost's 
upper boundaries are located deeper than the bottom, so it was not 
directly tested,” Chuvilin said. “Still, numerous geophysical data were 
obtained that show the permafrost's 'roof' and the contours of its 
distribution under the sea. This geophysical data is being processed, 
and soon these new results will be presented to the scientific community.”

Given how little is known about subsea permafrost, it’s difficult to 
estimate the volume of greenhouse gas this underwater layer will belch 
out over the coming decades, as global temperatures continue to rise. 
This type of permafrost is quite distinct from its counterpart on land, 
so it will be important to understand its unique composition, 
distribution, and behavior in order to model the impact of its 
degradation on the global climate...
https://www.vice.com/en/article/xgzmnn/scientists-in-the-arctics-ice-factory-found-a-worrying-sign-of-climate-change
- -
[NASA report]
*Sluggish Start for Arctic Sea Ice Freeze-Up*
https://eoimages.gsfc.nasa.gov/images/imagerecords/147000/147633/arctic_ssi_2020_anim.gif
After the spring and summer melt season, the cap of frozen seawater 
floating on top of the Arctic Ocean begins to refreeze. In 2020, 
however, the annual freeze has been unusually slow.

When Arctic sea ice reached its annual minimum in September 2020, it was 
one of the lowest extents of the satellite record—second only to the 
record low in September 2012. But unlike 2012, the ocean did not see its 
typical rate of refreezing in 2020. As a result, the sea ice extent for 
this October was the lowest on record for any October. Ice growth picked 
up the pace at the start of November but then slowed again, leaving 
plenty of open water in the Barents and Kara seas at the start of December.

According to the National Snow & Ice Data Center (NSIDC), October 2020 
was “the largest departure from average conditions seen in any month 
thus far in the satellite record.” Scientists have used satellites to 
continuously measure sea ice since 1979. The chart above shows how the 
extent of sea ice has progressed in 2020. For context, ice extents for 
2012 (the record low extent) and 2016 (another year with a slow 
refreeze) are also charted...
https://eoimages.gsfc.nasa.gov/images/imagerecords/147000/147633/arctic_ssi_2020_october.jpg
The low ice conditions are also apparent in the map above, which shows 
the average sea ice extent—defined as the total area in which the ice 
concentration is at least 15 percent—for October 2020. The ice extent 
(white) on that day measured 5.28 million square kilometers (2.04 
million square miles). That’s 3.07 million square kilometers (1.19 
million square miles) lower than the 1981-2010 average extent for the 
same month (yellow line).

Regional variations in water temperatures and weather can affect the 
amount of sea ice in different parts of the Arctic. In 2020, ocean 
currents helped flush ice out from the Russian Arctic coast. An intense 
summer storm also parked over the Arctic Ocean, similar to the storm 
that contributed to the record low sea ice minimum in 2012.

But it was the early ice retreat amid warm Arctic air temperatures that 
set the stage for the slow freeze-up in 2020. Starting in May, warm air 
over Siberia provoked rapid melting in the East Siberian and Laptev 
Seas. With large expanses of dark, ice-free water exposed to the warming 
sunlight, the ocean could gain more heat than usual over the course of 
the summer, which reinforced melting. Until that heat escaped to the 
atmosphere, sea ice could not reform...
https://eoimages.gsfc.nasa.gov/images/imagerecords/147000/147633/arctic_merra2_202010.png
The temperature map above shows that anomalously warm air temperatures 
persisted into October. Air temperatures across the central and western 
Arctic Ocean, and along the Siberian Arctic coast, remained far above 
average for the month.

The pace of ice growth accelerated a bit through November 2020. But the 
rebound was not enough to bring the extent back to normal levels. The 
ice extent for November 2020 was measured as the second-lowest of any 
November on record.
https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/147633/sluggish-start-for-arctic-sea-ice-freeze-up



[Fast Company, the money is speaking, addressing global warming]
*The next global crisis is already here—and it’s even worse than COVID*
Imagine the horrors of coronavirus, compounded and made permanent. 
That’s climate change. Politicians who care about the future (ours and 
theirs) can’t wait to act
BRADLEY TUSK --- 2-1-21

If you ask Americans what they care about, the results aren’t too 
surprising. Over decades of opinion polling, the same combination of 
issues tend to occupy the most mindshare: jobs, education, crime, health 
care. The order shifts with the ebbs and flows of the economy, but it’s 
generally stable.

Of course, we weren’t expecting the typical answers when my consulting 
firm (which is helping to run Andrew Yang’s campaign for mayor) recently 
polled 800 likely voters in New York City. Nor were we surprised by the 
top issue chosen by a whopping 45% of respondents: COVID-19. One year 
ago, hardly anyone knew what coronavirus was. Today, it’s all that most 
voters care about. The next two concerns that appeared on our 
survey—crime (11%) and racial and social justice (8%)—weren’t even close.

The poll helps to explain what New Yorkers are looking for in their next 
mayor. But it also contains lessons for future politicians. When a 
crisis arrives, voters want something different from the usual political 
norms. And the mother of all crises is still ahead of us.

I’m not talking about another pandemic, although that remains a risk. 
I’m talking about climate change. A decade from now, COVID-19 will be a 
painful, distant memory, and a new, harsh reality will be setting in. In 
the west, raging wildfires and smoke-filled days. In the east, massive 
hurricanes and flooding shorelines. In some parts of the world, this new 
reality will mean you can’t go outside during certain times of day, 
because the heat is too extreme. In others, it will mean daily water 
restrictions because of droughts.

Imagine the horrors of coronavirus, compounded and made permanent. 
There’s no vaccine for climate change. The disease may be manageable, 
but it’s forever.

If voters right now are demanding that their politicians solve the 
coronavirus crisis, how do we think they’re going to react when the 
ravages of climate change arrive? They’re not going to care that it was 
too hard politically to pass a carbon tax or to invest in carbon capture 
technology when there was still time. They’re not going to remember that 
they didn’t want gas to cost more, flights to cost more, their electric 
bill to cost more. They’re just going to see that life as they know it 
has changed for the worse, and they’re going to be out for blood.

The trouble with climate change is that it’s slow, occurring over 
generations. In between the “once in a century” disasters that now 
happen every few years, it’s possible to forget that the ice caps are 
melting.

The trouble with most politicians is that they only care about the 
present. In my twenty-five years of experience in city, state, and 
federal government, and in running political campaigns, I’ve learned 
that 99% of elected officials just want to stay in office. They’re 
willing to be flexible on just about any of their views or positions as 
long as it keeps them around. That strategy works in normal times. But 
the world we’re living in today is anything but normal.

The smart politician, the one who’s in it for the long haul, understands 
that you can’t just respond to a crisis as it happens. That’s what 
mediocre politicians do. The smart politician looks around the corner 
and gets ahead of it.

In this case, that means leading on climate change. Failure to do so 
puts their political careers at risk (in addition to the planet). Their 
lack of action — which means passing bills and doing things, not just 
holding press conferences and sending tweets — writes the future 
campaign ads against them.

COVID-19 is a glimpse into the future for today’s politicians, and it 
should be extremely sobering. It won’t matter whose fault it is. It 
won’t matter what threats you were facing from the opposition at the 
time. All that matters is if you were perceptive and proactive enough to 
recognize all of the ways your constituents’ lives were about to change 
for the worse and you did something about it.

Will taking action now anger some lobbying groups and potentially make 
you more vulnerable in a primary (especially for Republicans)? Probably. 
But you can manage anger over a handful of votes. You can’t triage a 
climate apocalypse.

My 14-year old daughter already blames everyone over the age of 25 for 
destroying her future. Wait till she can vote. Now add in the tens of 
millions of Gen Z-ers just like her. Politicians: the ways life has 
already changed because of coronavirus are a very clear sign of what’s 
to come. Ignore it at your peril.

Bradley Tusk is a venture capitalist, writer, philanthropist, and 
political strategist.
https://www.fastcompany.com/90599873/the-next-global-crisis-is-already-here-and-its-even-worse-than-covid



[Opinion from England]
*The Guardian view on climate progress: the need for speed*
Editorial
The transformation of the US government’s stance on the environment is 
hugely significant. Now the global green recovery must start

The year ahead is an absolutely crucial one in the struggle to keep 
global heating below 1.5C or 2C, above which the UN has warned of chaos. 
John Kerry, who is President Joe Biden’s climate envoy, told the BBC 
that the conference of the parties (Cop26) due to take place in Glasgow 
in November is the “last best chance the world has … to do what science 
is telling us we need to do”. Important as the talks are, the decisions 
taken between now and then are just as significant.

Last year saw an unprecedented drop of 7% in greenhouse gas emissions, 
due to Covid, but a rebound is expected. It is here that attention must 
now be focused. As governments around the world pump money into 
economies ravaged by the pandemic, a return to business as usual would 
be catastrophic. Research carried out after the 2008 financial crash 
showed that the recovery then was about 16% green, with the majority of 
stimulus spending directed at carbon-intensive infrastructure and 
activities. This time, green investment must be more than an add-on. 
Governments must proactively channel public funds towards renewable 
energy, green transport infrastructure, home insulation – and away from 
fossil fuels, especially coal.

Most people agree on the direction of travel. Last week, the largest 
ever opinion poll on climate change revealed that two-thirds of those 
questioned, in 50 countries, believe heating caused by greenhouse gas 
emissions is a “global emergency”. Scientists say the world is hotter 
than it has been for 12,000 years. Climate change has already pushed 
more than 18 million people in South Asian countries to migrate. In 
January last year, a landmark ruling by a UN committee said it would be 
illegal for governments to return people to countries where their lives 
might be threatened by the climate crisis.

The last UN climate conference, in 2019, ended in despair. Since then, 
governments and businesses have made new pledges, including China’s 
announcement of a net zero target of 2060. Now the US, derailed for four 
years by the nihilist denialism of Donald Trump, is back on board. The 
executive orders signed last week by Mr Biden, including a promise to 
end fossil-fuel activity on government land and turn the entire federal 
vehicle fleet electric, were hugely significant.

The world cannot afford to wait until November. Net zero targets provide 
a destination. But action can no longer be deferred. The next decade, as 
Mr Kerry acknowledged, is crucial. The US must present a plan for 
emissions reductions by 2030, as set out in the Paris climate deal, 
without delay. The summit being convened by Mr Biden in April must be 
more than a warm-up for November; decarbonisation projects, bringing 
jobs with them, need to start now.

The global mood surrounding climate prospects has lifted immeasurably. 
Statements from the US, and other countries including Japan and South 
Korea, are all steps in the right direction. But already, the rest of 
the world lags behind the EU, which a Guardian analysis last year showed 
is the green frontrunner in the way its post-pandemic stimulus spending 
has been designed. Delays and prevarications on climate action thus far 
mean that change must now happen very fast. The most useful move that Mr 
Biden could now make would be to announce that April’s talks will be the 
launch pad for a global green recovery. This is no time to sit back. 
Instead, the world must press on, and speed up.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/jan/31/the-guardian-view-on-climate-progress-the-need-for-speed 




[Great audio podcasts]
*Outrage + Optimism*
*86. The Scientific Case for The Race to Zero with Johan Rockström*
With a renewed sense of optimism felt around the world with the 
inauguration of President Joe Biden in the United States this month, our 
collective sigh of relief is quickly met with the sobering reality of 
the moment - Nature’s systems are collapsing and we are running out of 
time to stop irreversible changes to our planet.

The science is clear. If we do not rapidly cut global greenhouse gas 
emissions by at least 50% in 2030, we will push our Earth beyond the 
‘planetary boundaries’ that have sustained life for millions upon 
millions of years.

So what exactly are these ‘planetary boundaries’ we are dangerously 
approaching, and what are the science-based solutions to achieve our 
2030 emissions target? Is there hope for our future? Our guest this 
week, Johan Rockström, is here to present the sobering, scientific case 
for why science demands a united global commitment for the race to zero.

Johan Rockström is an internationally recognised scientist and director 
of the Potsdam Institute of Climate Impact Research. He is best known f
https://outrageandoptimism.libsyn.com/86-the-scientific-case-for-the-race-to-zero-with-johan-rockstrm



[We're gonna need a bigger tide chart]
*Sea Levels Are Rising Faster Than Most Pessimistic Forecasts*
New research indicates economies have to emit even less carbon than 
budgeted to keep oceans from rising.
By Jonathan Tirone
February 1, 2021, 9:00 PM PST
Climate change is causing oceans to rise quicker than scientists’ most 
pessimistic forecasts, resulting in earlier flood risks to coastal 
economies already struggling to adapt.
The revised estimates published Tuesday in Ocean Science impact the 
two-fifths of the Earth’s population who live near coastlines. Insured 
property worth trillions of dollars could face even greater danger from 
floods, superstorms and tidal surges. The research suggests that 
countries will have to rein in their greenhouse gas emissions even more 
than expected to keep sea levels in check.

“It means our carbon budget is even more depleted,” said Aslak Grinsted, 
a geophysicist at the University of Copenhagen who co-authored the 
research. Economies need to slash an additional 200 billion metric tons 
of carbon — equivalent to about five years of global emissions — to 
remain within the thresholds set by previous forecasts, he said.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-02-02/sea-levels-are-rising-faster-than-most-pessimistic-forecasts


[Classic academic talk from MIT-OPEN-Courseware  2020]
*Climate 101 Live*
Jun 1, 2020
MIT OpenCourseWare
MIT RES.ENV-003 EarthDNA's Climate 101, Fall 2019
Instructor: Brandon Leshchinskiy, MIT students
View the complete course: https://ocw.mit.edu/RES-ENV-003F19

- -

*EarthDNA's Climate 101*
Course Description
The Climate 101 presentation was developed by Brandon Leshchinskiy in 
collaboration with Professor Dava Newman, MIT Portugal, and EarthDNA in 
an effort to mobilize young people as educators on the issue of climate 
change. The presentation addresses not only the science but also the 
economics and civics of climate change, incorporating a negotiation 
activity that brings key concepts to life.

This resource includes the slides and instructions for the presentation, 
along with an introductory video from Prof. Newman, a video of 
Leshchinskiy actually delivering the presentation to a classroom full of 
students, and extensive supporting materials that will help users to 
become climate ambassadors and deliver the Climate 101 presentation 
themselves.
https://ocw.mit.edu/resources/res-env-003-earthdnas-climate-101-fall-2019/videos/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g6Ksr5sJ0sM



[distressing conjecture by the Council on Strategic RIsk]
*Is Russia Attempting to Overturn the Global Order?*
Feb 2, 2021
Council on Strategic Risks (CSR)
As part of a new series of explainer videos, the Council on Strategic 
Risks (CSR) posed a series of questions to leading national security 
experts about the complex linkages between climate change, nuclear 
energy, nuclear weapons proliferation, and the global order for Russia. 
Together, their diverse answers may help us to better understand 
complexity across existential threats. This is the full version of the 
video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iQVIkVNGJzE
- -
[source material]
*Council on Strategic Risks*
Anticipating, Analyzing, and Addressing Systemic Risks

The Council on Strategic Risks (CSR) is dedicated to anticipating, 
analyzing and addressing core systemic risks to security in the 21st 
century, with special examination of the ways in which these risks 
intersect and exacerbate one another.
https://councilonstrategicrisks.org/
- -
[Web site]
*The Center for Climate & Security*
The Center for Climate and Security (CCS) is a non-partisan institute of 
The Council on Strategic Risks with a team and distinguished Advisory 
Board of security and military experts. CCS envisions a 
climate-resilient world which recognizes that climate change threats to 
security are significant and unprecedented, and acts to address those 
threats in a manner that is commensurate to their scale, consequence and 
probability. To further this goal, CCS facilitates policy development 
processes and dialogues, provides analysis, conducts research, 
communicates to the public, and acts as a resource hub in the climate 
and security field.
https://climateandsecurity.org/



[Digging back into the internet news archive]
*On this day in the history of global warming - February 3, 2011 *

President Obama discusses his administration's clean energy efforts at 
Penn State University.

http://youtu.be/yUE0hjtiiSM
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