[TheClimate.Vote] February 7, 2021 - Daily Global Warming News Digest

[Richard Pauli]

/*February 7, 2021*/

[SuperBowl TV Commercial indicates paradigm shift]
*GM is all-in for electric vehicles in this new Super Bowl ad. What 
changed?*
The company has a long history of obstructing climate policies.
- -
It will likely cost the automaker upward of $10 million to run the ad on 
Sunday, and it follows GM’s announcement that it aspires to eliminate 
tailpipe emissions from all its new light-duty vehicles by 2035. 
Transportation is the largest source of US greenhouse gas emissions, so 
this commitment from the country’s largest car manufacturer represents a 
new level of corporate ambition to bring down these emissions.

But the concerns of Will Ferrell’s character — who furrows his brow in 
incredulity — are valid: The US indeed lags way behind Norway in EV 
sales. International Energy Agency data shows that Norway surged past 
the rest of the world, with a 56 percent EV market share for sales in 
2019 while they were just 2 percent in the US.

And some environmental advocates pointed out the hypocrisy of a GM ad 
expressing any surprise at the state of US EV adoption, given the 
company’s history.

GM has itself to blame, in part, advocates say, for the US trailing 
Norway in EV market share after decades of lobbying against government 
efforts to rein in emissions and gas consumption....
- -
*GM’s history of opposing climate action*
GM’s embrace of electric vehicles is a major about-face from four years 
ago. According to the New York Times, the company’s CEO, Mary Barra, met 
with President Trump soon after he took office and requested that he 
undo President Obama’s CAFE fuel economy standards — regulations that 
would have required the auto giant’s new vehicles to reach 54.5 miles 
per gallon by 2026. Trump’s watered-down regulations mean new US cars 
will only need to reach 40 miles per gallon. The research firm Rhodium 
Group calculated that Trump’s deregulation moves in the transportation 
sector were the most damaging rollbacks for carbon emissions during his 
administration.

On top of that, when the Trump administration tried to strip California 
of its authority to set its own higher fuel efficiency standards, GM and 
other automakers also sided with the Trump administration in the ensuing 
lawsuit...
- -
Geoffrey Supran, a Harvard research fellow who studies the fossil fuel 
industry’s climate denial, called attention to GM’s long history of 
obstruction in response to the Super Bowl ad:
GM's new EV ad is entertaining for sure. But it also:

    1 Discourages carpooling  [but then so does Covid]

    2 Promotes misplaced American exceptionalism

    3 Disregards GM's decades undermining climate science & pollution regs

    4 Fails to note Norway's success is due to progressive taxes & policies

https://twitter.com/GeoffreySupran/status/1357349499312754688

GM’s U-turn seems to be in part because the market has forced its hand. 
As the New York Times reported, two giant auto markets — China and 
California — have committed to 100 percent EV (including hybrids in 
China’s case) sales by 2035. President Joe Biden has also said the US 
will phase out internal combustion engine vehicles, although he hasn’t 
set a date yet.
https://www.vox.com/2021/2/5/22266732/super-bowl-general-motors-will-ferrell-electric-vehicles-awkwafina-kenan-thompson



[paleoclimatology text and audio from The Atlantic]
*The Terrifying Warning Lurking in the Earth’s Ancient Rock Record*
Our climate models could be missing something big.
Story by Peter Brannen
- -
Taking in the whole sweep of Earth’s history, now we see how unnatural, 
nightmarish, and profound our current experiment on the planet really 
is. A small population of our particular species of primate has, in only 
a few decades, unlocked a massive reservoir of old carbon slumbering in 
the Earth, gathering since the dawn of life, and set off on a global 
immolation of Earth’s history to power the modern world. As a result, up 
to half of the tropical coral reefs on Earth have died, 10 trillion tons 
of ice have melted, the ocean has grown 30 percent more acidic, and 
global temperatures have spiked. If we keep going down this path for a 
geologic nanosecond longer, who knows what will happen? The next few 
fleeting moments are ours, but they will echo for hundreds of thousands, 
even millions, of years. This is one of the most important times to be 
alive in the history of life.
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2021/03/extreme-climate-change-history/617793/



[The Guardian reports on California]
*California’s famed Highway 1 collapsed last week. It’s sure to happen 
again*
The iconic coastal road has a history of landslides, and experts say ‘it 
would not be surprising’ to see them happening more frequently
California’s Highway 1 has been ruptured by a landslide that is expected 
to keep 23 miles of the iconic road snaking through the state’s rugged 
coastal cliffs closed for months.

A severe winter rain storm last week caused a 150ft fissure along the 
picturesque thoroughfare tucked against Big Sur, with concrete, trees 
and mud falling into the sea below.

It’s not the first time. Landslides have been a longstanding feature of 
Highway 1. And with climate change and a deluge in tourism and traffic 
overwhelming both infrastructure and environmental ecosystems in the 
coastal region, the problems are only expected to get worse...
- -
Severe weather combinations like the one that occurred last week are no 
longer an anomaly. They fall in line with climate crisis trends and 
models marked by hot dry summers, bigger fires and long periods of 
drought peppered by intense rainstorms that cause floods and landslides.

“There is no question that climate change is occurring,” said Griggs, 
the coastal scientist. “It would not be surprising to see this happening 
more frequently.”

It’s not just fires, rain and landslides that threaten Highway 1 – parts 
are also being ravaged by the sea. Farther north at Gleason beach in 
Sonoma county, Caltrans has given up on preserving the route and has 
instead opted to build new sections farther inland. Smashed seawalls – 
remnants of attempts to buy more time against the encroaching waves – 
already line the shore. The state sank millions into emergency 
restorations as the coastline continued to erode by roughly 14 inches on 
average each year...
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/feb/06/california-highway-1-landslide-climate-crisis



[in November]
*UN names Mike Bloomberg special envoy for climate change*
The appointment comes ahead of the COP 26 climate summit set to take 
place in Scotland later this year.
The UN said Bloomberg will work with governments, businesses, cities and 
financial institutions to secure new pledges to significantly reduce 
emissions over the next several decades.

He will also work with high-emitting nations and industries to 
accelerate the phase out of coal and a transition to a clean energy 
economy.

Bloomberg, who has campaigned on the issue of climate change, previously 
held roles as UN Special Envoy for Climate Action in 2018 and UN Special 
Envoy on Cities and Climate Change in 2014.

“Fighting climate change is a global challenge that requires strong 
global collaboration. I’m honored to be returning as Special Envoy to 
the UN Secretary-General to help drive the fight forward and secure a 
greener, healthier future for generations to come,” Bloomberg said in a 
statement.

The appointment comes as the Biden administration has moved forward to 
rejoin the Paris climate accord, reversing former President Trump’s 
withdrawal from the pact aimed at limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees 
Celsius by the end of the century...
https://thehill.com/changing-america/sustainability/climate-change/537609-un-names-mike-bloomberg-special-envoy-for



[What? --"may be" ?!?   "may be"?]
Capital Weather Gang of the Washington Post
*Recent blockbuster snow totals along East Coast may be tied to climate 
change*
Above-average sea-surface temperatures off the East Coast are adding 
more moisture to the atmosphere.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2021/02/05/snowfall-records-climate-change-northeast/



[Well, duh..]
*Climate change "may have played a key role" in coronavirus pandemic, 
study says*
BY JEFF BERARDELLI
FEBRUARY 5, 2021 - CBS NEWS
- -
Beyer does agree that "caution is well-justified" when it comes to 
connecting climate change directly to the pandemic because, as he 
explains, assessing the degree to which climate change contributed to 
any stage between a bat carrying the virus and a human getting infected 
will take a lot more work. In particular, he says, this involves the use 
of epidemiological models that analyze the interactions of different 
species and viruses across space and time.

While it's widely understood that exponential growth of the human 
population, and our rampant exploitation of the natural world, like 
destroying forests and expanding the animal trade, is increasing the 
risk that contagious pathogens can more easily make the jump from 
animals to humans, it has been less clear the extent to which climate 
change factors in...
- -
Beyer also sees climate connections beyond just the increase in bat 
species. "In some cases, higher temperatures can increase the viral load 
in species, which can make it more likely that the virus is 
transmitted," he said. "And: Increased temperature can increase the 
tolerance of viruses to heat, which in turn can increase infection rates 
since one of our primary defense systems to infectious diseases is to 
raise our body temperature (fever)."

While there is some caution in the scientific community about the 
specific impact of climate change on the current coronavirus pandemic, 
there is widespread agreement that, in the future, climate change will 
be a growing driver of emerging infectious disease and pandemics.

"Climate change will shift the geographic distributions of 
pathogen-carrying species in such a way that they overlap with species 
that they did not overlap with before," said Beyer. "These new 
interactions will provide dangerous opportunities for viruses to spread 
and evolve."

"Climate change definitely is an important driver in disease emergence 
and spread.  It can increase transmission in a number of ways," said 
Ostfeld. "So, yes, climate change definitely concerns me as a driver of 
future pandemics."
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/climate-change-coronavirus-bats-study/



[14 min video ]
*Carbon Dioxide Reduction. A BIG loophole for business*
Feb 1, 2021
Just Have a Think
Carbon Audits and carbon taxes are coming. And big business knows it. 
Some are responding by investing heavily in genuine reductions to their 
carbon footprint. Others are banking on throwing money at carbon offset 
schemes like large scale reforestation to enable them to carry on 
business as usual. But with limited suitable land available, that may 
prove to be a very dangerous gamble indeed!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DGoOmUIYVSo



[information battleground]
*How to spot the tricks Big Oil uses to subvert action on climate change*
Three ways fossil fuel companies try to trick the public.
By Jariel Arvin --  Feb 1, 2021

In his first week in office, President Joe Biden committed to an 
all-of-government approach to tackle climate change, signing executive 
orders recommitting the US to the Paris climate agreement, pausing new 
leases for oil and gas companies on federal land, and stating his 
intention to conserve 30 percent of federal lands by 2030.

Yet while Biden’s climate actions have been lauded by many, there are 
some, often with connections to the fossil fuel industry, who strongly 
oppose taking stronger action on climate.

Many such detractors use common oil industry talking points in their 
arguments — talking points that have been developed in collaboration 
with PR firms and lobbyists to undercut clean energy policies and 
prolong dependence on fossil fuels.

A 2019 report by researchers at George Mason, Harvard University, and 
the University of Bristol describes how the fossil fuel industry 
deliberately misled the public by funding climate denial research and 
campaigns, all while knowing for decades that human-induced climate 
change exists.

Aware of the science but afraid of the impacts it might have on their 
returns, oil executives funded opposition research that “attacked 
consensus and exaggerated the uncertainties” on the science of climate 
change for many years, with the goal of undermining support for climate 
action.

Their messaging has worked for so long because Big Oil has become really 
good at stretching the truth.

“What’s really important to keep in mind is that part of the reason that 
oil and gas propaganda is so effective is that there is always a grain 
of truth to it,” said Genevieve Guenther, the founder of End Climate 
Silence, an organization that works to promote accurate media coverage 
of the climate crisis.

“I call it ‘sort of true,’ where there’s something about the messaging 
that’s true, but that grain of truth gets developed into a whole tangle 
of lies that obscure the real story,” she said.

Guenther, originally a professor of Renaissance literature, is also 
working on a book titled The Language of Climate Change. I spoke with 
her to get a better understanding of how to recognize — and counter — 
Big Oil propaganda.

As the Biden administration takes important steps to address the climate 
emergency, the fossil fuel industry and its allies in the media will be 
ramping up the misinformation campaign to skew public opinion and get in 
the way of climate policy. Fox News has already started.

Which is why it’s more important than ever to be aware of the tools oil 
and gas companies use to cloud the issue.

My conversation with Guenther, edited for length and clarity, is below.

*Jariel Arvin*
I’d like to start with your thoughts on how the Biden administration is 
handling climate change so far.

*Genevieve Guenther*
I think that the Biden administration has come a really long way since 
the beginning of the [2020] primaries. I think that the Sunrise Movement 
and Evergreen Action folks, and other activists connected to Alexandria 
Ocasio-Cortez and Jay Inslee, have done an amazing job, basically 
schooling Biden on climate.

So far, Biden’s the best president on climate that we have had. I’m not 
quite ready to do a backflip and wave my pom-poms yet, though, because I 
know that his major plan, which is to decarbonize the power grid by 
2035, will need to be routed in some way through Congress.

I am anticipating that’s not going to be easy and expect a massive PR 
blitz [from the fossil fuel industry], which is going to be timed for 
the attempt to pass this plan, whether directly or through budget 
reconciliation. And I worry that the Biden administration, and the 
climate movement more broadly, might not be ready,

*Jariel Arvin*
So what are the talking points the oil industry uses to try to convince 
the public in these PR blitzes?

*Genevieve Guenther*
People can recognize fossil fuel industry talking points by thinking 
about what they’re designed to do. In general, fossil fuel talking 
points are designed to do three things: make people believe that climate 
action will hurt them, and hurt their pocketbooks in particular; make 
people think we need fossil fuels; and try to convince us that climate 
change isn’t such a big deal.

*Jariel Arvin*
How do they make people believe that taking climate action is going to 
hurt them financially?

*Genevieve Guenther*
Right now, they’re really hammering the point that climate action is 
going to hurt jobs and the economy. So, for instance, Sen. Ted Cruz 
released a press statement saying that by rejoining the Paris climate 
accord, Biden is showing that “he’s more interested in the views of the 
citizens of Paris than in the jobs of the citizens of Pittsburgh.”

*Jariel Arvin*
Yeah, and we also saw Rep. Lauren Boebert make a similar statement 
saying she works for “the people of Pueblo, not the people of Paris,” 
and that the Paris agreement would put “blue-collar jobs at risk.”

*Genevieve Guenther*
Yeah, exactly. So Cruz is arguing that Democrats plan to destroy the 
jobs they don’t like, including thousands of manufacturing jobs. This is 
completely false, because building out clean energy infrastructure is 
going to create millions of manufacturing jobs in this country which 
can’t be outsourced.

And whatever fossil fuel jobs have been lost in the past year happened 
a) on Trump’s watch, and b) due to market forces that have absolutely 
nothing to do with any explicit climate policy passed by any administration.

*Jariel Arvin*
So if the claim is untrue, how has the idea that taking action on 
climate change will cause millions of job losses become so pervasive?

*Genevieve Guenther*
There’s a mythology in this country of the coal miner and the oil and 
gas worker as the kind of exemplary masculine figure who acts as the 
backbone of America.

*Jariel Arvin*
Do you think there’s any truth to that?
*
**Genevieve Guenther*
It is true that if we phase out the fossil fuel industry there are going 
to be people, and indeed whole communities, that will need to find their 
livelihood in different industries. That is absolutely true.

But two things about that: Number one, you can design policies so that 
those people don’t suffer, and number two, you can put incentives in 
place so that the new jobs are created in the geographical regions that 
are already depopulated and suffering economically, because the fossil 
fuel industry is not actually prosperous enough anymore to sustain a 
vibrant economy in those regions to begin with.

So you can set up both: policies to ease the transition and policies to 
incentivize new investment so that the economy ends up more vibrant in 
these locations than it was before. Nothing is inevitable. The 
transition can be managed.

*Jariel Arvin*
Okay, so what’s the second talking point oil and gas uses?

*Genevieve Guenther*
The second thing oil and gas companies will do is try to make people 
believe that we need fossil fuels, and that oil and gas companies should 
stay in business.

One I’ve seen a lot lately raises people’s national security fears with 
the message that we need to extract oil to maintain our “energy 
independence,” as if domestically produced fossil energy alone were 
powering America’s homes and businesses.

The truth is that, according to the US Energy Information Agency, in 
2019 (the latest year for which full data is available) the US imported 
9.14 million barrels of petroleum a day — half a million more than we 
exported. It’s clean, safe energy sources like wind and solar that are 
sure to be domestically produced, not oil and methane gas.

*Jariel Arvin*
So they act as if US independence will be lost without fossil fuels, 
while in reality America still depends on other countries to get its oil 
and gas. Got it. What else?
*
**Genevieve Guenther*
Another talking point designed to make us believe that we need fossil 
fuels is the message that we cannot halt global warming without 
“innovation.” This is a tricky one, because you’ll often hear energy 
researchers talk about the innovations we’ll want to develop in order to 
enable continued aviation and industrial shipping.

But saying that new technologies will help us is different from saying 
that we need them, which implies that the world cannot stop using fossil 
fuels now. So politicians in the pockets of the oil and gas producers 
will proclaim that they support “innovation,” and fossil fuel companies 
will place ads touting the money they’re spending on research and 
development— but the money they actually do spend is orders of magnitude 
smaller than their PR budgets, not to mention their budgets for 
exploring and developing new fossil fuel reserves.

*Jariel Arvin*
What’s the third big talking point?

*Genevieve Guenther*
The third thing Big Oil will try to do is to make people believe that 
climate change is not such a big deal. Either they call people trying to 
communicate the dangers of global warming “alarmists” or they simply 
don’t talk about the climate crisis at all.

In their campaign of silence they’re aided by the vast majority of the 
broadcast news media, which mostly proceeds as if the crisis didn’t 
exist and won’t even mention the words “climate change” when they report 
on floods, fires, and hurricanes in which there are scientifically 
established links to global warming.

It’s weird to think of silence as messaging, but sometimes what you 
don’t say is as important as what you do.

*Jariel Arvin*
Okay, so we now have the three points the fossil fuel industry often 
uses: Convince people climate action will hurt their pocketbooks, 
suggest that we need fossil fuels, and downplay the climate emergency. 
How do climate scientists, activists, and the media counter that narrative?
*
**Genevieve Guenther*
We’ve got to keep climate change in the foreground of people’s 
attention. We’ve got to be clear about why we’re making this energy 
transition — it’s not just because it’s a new way to create jobs, and 
it’s not just because we like clean air and water.

It’s because if we don’t do it, we might actually destroy civilization.

We’re not going to change up everything unless we have to, and guess 
what? We have to. This is what an existential threat means.

I worry that the Biden administration isn’t bringing that message to the 
foreground, because you need that to be part of the understanding of why 
we’re doing this work.

The motivation here is that we’re trying to save our world. We’re trying 
to save the lives of our children. I think activists do a pretty good 
job of keeping that messaging in the foreground, but I really wish that 
politicians would do it too. I think they’re still running scared, and I 
don’t think they have to be.
https://www.vox.com/22260311/oil-gas-fossil-fuel-companies-climate-change


*
*

[Information battles]*
**Twitter thinks ads about climate change are bad. Big Oil's 
disinformation is fine, though.*
Something is off in Twitter's equation.
- -
But there is still one strain of disinformation that Americans remain 
largely complacent about: disinformation spread by polluters and the 
politicians they fund. Social media companies are routinely letting oil 
industry climate change propaganda slip through the cracks even as they 
clamp down on other political lies...
I see it all the time while reporting for my newsletter, HEATED, which 
published evidence Tuesday that Twitter has been allowing the oil 
industry to run misleading ads designed to prevent political action on 
climate change. The ads, bought by ExxonMobil and the American Petroleum 
Institute, falsely claimed, among other things, that limiting fossil 
fuel development would "hinder environmental progress" and that natural 
gas — a fossil fuel — is key to a "cleaner world."...
The reality is that climate scientists nearly uniformly agree that the 
key to a cleaner world is reducing the use of fossil fuels (including 
natural gas) and replacing them with renewable forms of energy. The 
misleading nature of the ads wasn't what caught my eye, however. It was 
that Twitter allowed the oil industry to pay to spread misleading 
climate-related political propaganda while prohibiting anyone from doing 
the same to call out that propaganda.

Twitter banned all political ads in 2019, in part as a response to the 
Trump campaign's misinformation ahead of the presidential election. The 
effect, however, was that everyone was banned from promoting tweets 
about political issues — even climate change. And now, as recently as 
Tuesday, environmental groups have publicly affirmed that they can't pay 
to spread tweets fact-checking oil companies. Their tweets would be 
considered prohibited "political content."

On the flip side, Twitter doesn't consider it "political" when oil 
companies try to paint themselves as green. Instead, it's considered 
promoting "environmental stewardship." The reality, though, is that 
these oil company tweets are the newest phase of the industry's 40-year 
campaign to sow doubt about the severity of the climate crisis and 
persuade the public to oppose aggressive action. That's not just 
according to me, a reporter who's been covering oil industry climate 
disinformation since 2013. It's according to several researchers who 
specialize in fossil fuel industry communications. As Robert Brulle, an 
environmental sociologist who studies oil industry advertisements at 
Drexel University, told me: "This is just another effort to manipulate 
public opinion to support options that the corporation wants."...
- -
It's unclear whether all this is because of naiveté, willful ignorance 
or psychological dissonance on the part of social media giants. What is 
clear, though, is that social media companies are struggling to 
effectively tackle the threat of climate propaganda and disinformation 
at the worst moment possible. With a new president committed to climate 
action and a slim Democratic majority in Congress, the U.S. is entering 
the most critical political moment for climate policy in our lifetimes. 
As Ken Caldeira, a climate scientist at the Carnegie Institution, 
recently told Grist: "What we do in the next years and decades will 
affect the Earth for tens of thousands of years, if not longer."

What social media companies do or don't do about disinformation will be 
a huge part of the equation.

"Corporations — including social media platforms — need to take climate 
misinformation as seriously as they take election and Covid 
misinformation," John Cook, an assistant research professor at George 
Mason University who studies climate disinformation, told me. "A 
long-term problem like climate change cuts both ways — it may seem less 
immediate now, but it also means we'll be suffering the consequences of 
today's decisions for decades to come."
https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/twitter-thinks-ads-about-climate-change-are-bad-big-oil-n1256661



[Digging back into the internet news archive]
*On this day in the history of global warming - February 7, 2007 *

February 7, 2007:
• Air America host Betsy Rosenberg and Competitive Enterprise Institute 
representative Chris Horner discuss the recently released 4th IPCC 
report on the Fox News Channel program "Hannity and Colmes."

http://youtu.be/5k267NdmiFY

• The US Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation holds 
a hearing on climate change research and scientific integrity, focusing 
on the George W. Bush administration's slicing and dicing of science and 
data. White House whistleblower Rick Piltz and Nobel laureate Sherwood 
Rowland testify.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b9vXi61G0MU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PYDQD8AeORA

http://scienceblogs.com/intersection/2007/02/07/senate-fireworks-on-climate-an/

http://scienceblogs.com/integrityofscience/2007/02/07/administration-testimony-one-o/

http://www.climatesciencewatch.org/2013/01/31/recalling-an-exchange-with-sen-john-kerry-about-climate-change-and-the-bush-white-house/

http://www.climatesciencewatch.org/2013/06/03/recalling-an-exchange-with-sen-lautenberg/

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