[TheClimate.Vote] February 8, 2021 - Daily Global Warming News Digest

[Richard Pauli]

/*February 8, 2021*/

[glacier melt and collapse, avalanche catastrophe in India]
*Himalayan glacier bursts in India; dozens feared dead*
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=buyBVlwYVdE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1TLUXW2oGI
*Himalayan glacier causes deadly flood*
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxhVB9hcWMQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P8lNTPlsRtI


[Industry]

*A Disillusioned ExxonMobil Engineer Quits to Take Action on Climate 
Change and Stop ‘Making the World Worse’*
After 16 years of working for the oil giant, Dar-Lon Chang said Exxon 
would not address climate change. So he quit the sector for good, and 
began a new low-carbon life.
By Nicholas Kusnetz
February 8, 2021

- -

He’d had an interest in alternative energy since his college days, and 
thought science and technology would blaze a path towards a future 
without fossil fuels. Exxon, he believed, could help lead the way. When 
he could, Chang tried to nudge the company along in small ways, holding 
out the hope that change would come...

- -

But with each passing year, Chang watched the climate crisis grow more 
urgent, while the company he had devoted his career to only deepened its 
commitment to oil and gas. Eventually, he became disillusioned.

So in 2019, without any prospect of future employment, he resigned, 
packed up with his wife and daughter, who had known no home other than 
Houston, and moved to a net-zero community outside Denver built around 
environmentally-conscious living.

He had hoped to find a job in the renewable energy sector, but 
meanwhile, he poured himself into his new Geos Neighborhood, where 
residents hold monthly meetings to discuss how to lighten their load on 
the planet. A small herd of goats graze on undeveloped lots, the 
community’s fossil-free answer to weed control. A blue Nissan Leaf and a 
black Tesla Model 3 sit side-by-side in his garage, plugged into 
chargers fed by solar panels on his roof.

“I didn’t want the rest of my career to be wasted on something that I 
felt was making the world worse, when there was all the possibility to 
make things better,” he said recently.

Chang belongs to a generation of engineers, environmental scientists and 
computer developers who entered the fossil fuel sector just as the world 
was waking up to the grave threat posed by the industry’s products. 
While oil companies are already under pressure from investors, 
governments and society at large, Chang’s story reflects another 
emerging challenge for the industry: a younger generation of workers who 
are worried about climate change and their own role in determining what 
kind of future their children will inherit...

- -

There is no evidence of any formal movement within Exxon’s ranks 
agitating for change. But Inside Climate News spoke with people who have 
worked at Exxon who expressed views similar to Chang’s.

One worker, who asked not to be named because she was not authorized to 
speak to the media, described a generational schism, saying she guessed 
that most employees under the age of 50 thought climate change was a 
serious issue. She recently left the company.

Another former employee, Enrique Rosero, has said in interviews that he 
left Exxon last year after being punished for speaking out about climate 
change. Exxon’s announcements in October that cratering oil prices would 
force it to cut thousands of jobs globally has delivered more cause for 
anxiety.

Exxon is not the only company under pressure. At Royal Dutch Shell, a 
split over how fast the oil giant should pivot towards clean energy has 
contributed to the departure of several executives in recent months, 
according to a report by the Financial Times. And BP’s chief executive, 
Bernard Looney, said last year that concern about climate change on the 
part of his workforce was part of why he announced a new direction for 
the company, which has pledged to reduce oil and gas production as it 
ramps up spending on low-carbon energy.

One of the greatest appeals of a career at Exxon, Chang said, was the 
chance to work on a diverse range of projects that could help supply the 
world with energy. But as the climate crisis grew more dire, he said, 
the company’s management showed no interest and resisted calls to move 
into lower-carbon products.

Exxon spokesman Casey Norton, responding to questions about the 
company’s attitude toward employees who pushed for more aggressive 
action on climate change, said, “We encourage an open dialogue and 
employees can share their ideas with their supervisors, human resources 
and colleagues.” He pointed to the company’s efforts to reduce its own 
emissions, and added that oil and natural gas will continue “to play a 
significant role for decades in meeting increasing energy demand of a 
growing and more prosperous global population.”...

more at - 
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/08022021/a-disillusioned-exxonmobil-engineer-quits-to-take-action-on-climate-change-and-stop-making-the-world-worse/




[top climate scientist]
*Nine Years After Filing a Lawsuit, Climate Scientist Michael Mann Wants 
a Court to Affirm the Truth of His Science*
The case raises difficult issues about free speech in an era of online 
misinformation and disinformation.

By Marianne Lavelle

When Penn State climate scientist Michael Mann first threatened to sue 
two conservative bloggers and their publishers for defamation in 2012, 
they seemed to welcome the opportunity for a face-off in court.
- -
Now, with discovery in the case concluded, Mann is asking the court to 
rule that the conservative outlets have failed to summon any evidence to 
challenge the validity of his science.

In a motion for partial summary judgment filed Jan. 22 in Superior Court 
of the District of Columbia (the Washington, D.C. equivalent of a state 
trial court), Mann’s lawyers have asked the court to bar the Competitive 
Enterprise Institute, the National Review and their authors from using 
as their defense an argument that their accusations were true, or 
“substantially true,” and therefore could not be defamatory.

Mann’s case raises difficult issues regarding free speech in an era of 
online misinformation and disinformation. If Mann prevails in his 
motion, the blog publishers could still win the case, mounting other 
defenses, including that their columns were protected by the First 
Amendment, an argument they have made throughout the long history of the 
litigation. But Mann also would gain an important victory: a ruling 
supporting the validity of his science...
- -
A ruling in Mann’s favor could have implications for anyone publishing 
smears based on falsehoods, giving the case, filed years before the 
Trump era, a new salience amid the rapid spread of dangerous and 
reputation-damaging conspiracy mongering and disinformation on the Internet.

“The American people are fed up with fake news and false accusations,” 
Mann said in a statement emailed by his lawyers, “and this case will 
hopefully prove that there are consequences for this type of behavior.”
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/07022021/michael-mann-defamation-lawsuit-competitive-enterprise-institute-national-review/



[Important, hour-long gloom and doom video from a Unitarian minister]
*Unstoppable Collapse: How to Avoid the Worst (Dowd 1-8-21)*
Jan 8, 2021
thegreatstory
The first draft of this video -- "Irreversible Collapse: Accepting 
Reality, Avoiding Evil": https://youtu.be/iQeK04WOGaA​ -- garnered 8,000 
views and 200 comments in one week, including suggestions for 
improvement. So I revised it based on collective intelligence. SUMMARY: 
The stability of the biosphere has been in decline for centuries and in 
unstoppable, out of control mode for decades. This “Great Acceleration” 
of biospheric collapse is an easily verifiable fact. The scientific 
evidence is overwhelming.
Evidence is also compelling that the vast majority of people will deny 
this, especially those still benefitting from the existing order and 
those who fear that “accepting reality” means “giving up.”
The history of scores of previous boom and bust (progress / regress) 
societies clearly reveals how and why industrial civilization is dying. 
Accepting that Homo colossus’ condition is incurable and terminal may be 
key to not making a bad situation catastrophically worse.

APPLICATION — TO AVOID BECOMING EVIL on a geological timescale, we must…
1. Minimize deadliest toxicity (nuclear, methane, chemicals).
2. Assist plants (especially trees) in migrating poleward.
3. Invest time, energy, and resources in all things regenerative, 
including thriving with LESS (less energy, stuff, stimulation), learning 
from and supporting indigenous wisdom and experience, and nurturing 
community eco-literacy and resilience.

CORE MESSAGE: Without an understanding of ecology, energy, and history, 
good people with the best of intentions will unknowingly propose and 
support policies likely to make a bad situation catastrophically worse. 
Or as an ecologist friend of mine likes to say, “If you don’t 'get' 
overshoot, you’ll misinterpret or misdiagnose virtually everything 
important.”

PERSONAL NOTE: I consider this video to be the single most important 
thing I've created. Thanks to all who helped me improve it!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P8lNTPlsRtI



[Digging back into the internet news archive]
*On this day in the history of global warming - February 8, 2014 *

February 8, 2014: On MSNBC's "Craig Melvin," NASA climatologist Gavin 
Schmidt discusses the consequences of extreme winter weather.

http://www.msnbc.com/craig-melvin/watch/how-winter-is-testing-weak-infrastructure-142984259576# 


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