[TheClimate.Vote] January 13, 2021 - Daily Global Warming News Digest

[Richard Pauli]

/*January 13, 2021*/

[strong words in the Guardian]
*Top scientists warn of 'ghastly future of mass extinction' and climate 
disruption*
Sobering new report says world is failing to grasp the extent of threats 
posed by biodiversity loss and the climate crisis
Phoebe Weston - 13 Jan 2021
The planet is facing a “ghastly future of mass extinction, declining 
health and climate-disruption upheavals” that threaten human survival 
because of ignorance and inaction, according to an international group 
of scientists, who warn people still haven’t grasped the urgency of the 
biodiversity and climate crises.

The 17 experts, including Prof Paul Ehrlich from Stanford University, 
author of The Population Bomb, and scientists from Mexico, Australia and 
the US, say the planet is in a much worse state than most people – even 
scientists – understood.

“The scale of the threats to the biosphere and all its lifeforms – 
including humanity – is in fact so great that it is difficult to grasp 
for even well-informed experts,” they write in a report in Frontiers in 
Conservation Science which references more than 150 studies detailing 
the world’s major environmental challenges.

The delay between destruction of the natural world and the impacts of 
these actions means people do not recognise how vast the problem is, the 
paper argues. “[The] mainstream is having difficulty grasping the 
magnitude of this loss, despite the steady erosion of the fabric of 
human civilisation.”...
- -
The effects of the climate emergency are more evident than biodiversity 
loss, but still, society is failing to cut emissions, the paper argues. 
If people understood the magnitude of the crises, changes in politics 
and policies could match the gravity of the threat.

“Our main point is that once you realise the scale and imminence of the 
problem, it becomes clear that we need much more than individual actions 
like using less plastic, eating less meat, or flying less. Our point is 
that we need big systematic changes and fast,” Professor Daniel 
Blumstein from the University of California Los Angeles, who helped 
write the paper, told the Guardian.

The paper cites a number of key reports published in the past few years 
including:

    -- The World Economic Forum report in 2020, which named biodiversity
    loss as one of the top threats to the global economy.
    -- The 2019 IPBES Global Assessment report which said 70% of the
    planet had been altered by humans.
    -- The 2020 WWF Living Planet report, which warned the average
    population size of vertebrates had declined by 68% in the past five
    years.
    -- A 2018 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report which
    said that humanity had already exceeded global warming of 1C above
    pre-industrial levels and is set to reach 1.5C warming between 2030
    and 2052....

“We certainly should not be in any doubt about the huge scale of the 
challenges we are facing and the changes we will need to make to deal 
with them,” he said.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jan/13/top-scientists-warn-of-ghastly-future-of-mass-extinction-and-climate-disruption-aoe



[UN news speaks out]
*UN chief calls for ‘urgent transition’ from fossil fuels to renewable 
energy *
- -
*Adaptation ‘ a moral imperative’ *
Against this backdrop, Mr. Guterres repeated his appeal to developed 
nations to fulfill their annual pledge for $100 billion dollars to 
support mitigation and adaptation in developing countries.

Pointing to vulnerabilities faced by Africa – from prolonged droughts in 
the Sahel and Horn of Africa to devastating floods in the continent’s 
south – he underscored “the vital importance of adaptation” as “a moral 
imperative”.

The UN chief said that while only 20 per cent of climate finance is 
earmarked for it, adaptation requires “equal attention and investment”.

“The forthcoming climate adaptation summit on 25 January is an 
opportunity to generate momentum in this much neglected area”, he added.
*
**Reversing a dangerous trend *
Despite huge amounts of money that have been reserved for COVID-19 
recovery and stimulus measures, the Secretary-General noted that 
“sustainable investments are still not being prioritized”.

He outlined the need for an annual six per cent decrease in energy 
production from fossil fuels through renewables, transition programmes, 
economic diversification plans, green bonds and other instruments to 
advance sustainability.

He reiterated the need to limit the global temperature rise to 1.5 
degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, stating emissions needed to 
fall by 7.6 per cent every year between now and 2030.

However, he noted that “some countries are still going in the opposite 
direction. “We need to reverse this trend”, he said.

*Aligning with Paris *
He said all public and private financing should support the Paris 
Agreement and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development with training, 
reskilling and providing new opportunities that  are “just and inclusive”.

He noted that a sustainable economy means better infrastructure, a 
resilient future and millions of new jobs – especially for women and 
young people, maintaining that “we have the opportunity to transform our 
world”.

“But to achieve this we need global solidarity, just as we need it for a 
successful recovery from COVID-19”, the Secretary-General said, 
reminding everyone that “in a global crisis we protect ourselves best 
when we protect all”.

“We have the tools. Let us unlock them with political will”, concluded 
the UN chief.
https://news.un.org/en/story/2021/01/1081802


**[deceit watch]
*Trump official publishes papers questioning seriousness of climate 
change without White House approval*
Papers bearing the presidential seal appear on climate contrarian 
websites but were not authorized
By Andrew Freedman and Jason Samenow
Jan. 12, 2021
Controversial papers questioning the seriousness of climate change led 
by David Legates, a senior official at the National Oceanic and 
Atmospheric Administration appointed by President Trump, have been 
published online without White House approval.

The papers, which were published on nongovernment websites, bear the 
imprint of the Executive Office of the President and state they were 
copyrighted by the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy 
(OSTP). But they were disavowed.

“These papers were not created at the direction of The White House 
Office of Science and Technology Policy nor were they cleared or 
approved by OSTP leadership,” OSTP spokeswoman Kristina Baum said in an 
email Monday night.

Reached by phone Tuesday, she added that “OSTP has no intention to 
formalize these,” and said that they are being dealt with internally.
The papers make controversial and disputed claims about climate science, 
including that human-caused global warming “involves a large measure of 
faith” and that computer models are “too small and slow” to produce 
meaningful climate simulations.

Legates did not reply to requests for comment regarding why the papers 
were published bearing the seal of the Executive Office of the President 
when they were not approved.
“These misguided and thoroughly erroneous screeds would not have been 
issued by any body with a shred of scientific integrity,” wrote John 
Holdren, who was the OSTP director under President Obama. “It is not 
enough for an offense of this magnitude to be disavowed by an OSTP 
spokesperson. It should be forcefully denounced by the OSTP Director, 
Dr. Kelvin Droegemeier.”

Holdren also called for Legates to be fired.
Legates, a climate skeptic and climatology professor at the University 
of Delaware, has been a mysterious figure at NOAA since he started in 
September. Shortly after joining the agency he was detailed to a 
position overseeing the U.S. Global Change Research Program, which 
coordinates federal climate change research, while remaining a NOAA 
employee.

Some at NOAA feared Legates, who has a long history of contributing to 
the Heartland Institute and its efforts to cast doubt on mainstream 
climate science findings, was working on a pet project, possibly one 
that could be harmful to NOAA’s climate research programs.

The work Legates produced, called “The Climate Change Flyers,” 
constitutes nine two- to 10-page essays that question the reliability of 
computer models, the human-induced causes of climate change, and links 
between climate change and hurricanes, among other topics...
- -
Andrew Rosenberg, a former NOAA official and director of the Union of 
Concerned Scientists’ Center for Science and Democracy, described the 
papers as an effort to “seed the record for the National Climate 
assessment and future legal action by circumventing the peer review and 
consensus process.”

“They want to get nonsensical debunked pseudoscience into the ‘official’ 
government record without subjecting it to independent evaluation,” 
Rosenberg wrote in an email.

The controversial, unapproved papers were published to a website hosted 
by the Center for Environmental Research and Earth Sciences, which calls 
itself “a multi-disciplinary and independent research group,” but 
provides no information as to any individual or organization that 
supports it and asks its visitors to provide donations.

It appeals for contributions by declaring its independence “from 
industry, government, religion, politics or ideology,” despite posting 
the documents from Legates bearing the Executive Office of the 
President’s seal.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2021/01/11/controversial-climate-skeptics-release-papers/

- -

[Warning - false information - deliberately deceitful]
*Can Computer Models Predict Climate?*
https://www.ceres-science.com/files/Flyers/Can%20Computer%20Models%20Predict%20Climate.pdf
*The Faith-Based Nature of Human Caused Global Warming*
https://www.ceres-science.com/files/Flyers/The%20Faith-Based%20Nature%20of%20Human-Caused%20Global%20Warming.pdf

- -

[some consequences]
*Trump officials reassigned by White House after publishing 
controversial climate papers without approval*
Papers with the presidential seal appear on contrarian websites without 
authorization, prompting the reassignment of David Legates and Ryan Maue
https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2021/01/11/controversial-climate-skeptics-release-papers/


[Digging back into the internet news archive]
*On this day in the history of global warming - January 13, 2004 *

"The Price of Loyalty," Ron Suskind's profile of former Treasury 
Secretary Paul O'Neill, is released. The book recounts O'Neill's 
numerous conflicts with the George W. Bush administration, noting that 
O'Neill's efforts to have the administration act aggressively on carbon 
pollution were met with scorn.

http://www.upi.com/Science_News/2004/02/09/Climate-CO2-policy-Bush-Cheney-style/UPI-96341076366045/ 



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