[TheClimate.Vote] January 14, 2021 - Daily Global Warming News Digest

[Richard Pauli]

/*January 14, 2021*/

[important opinion]
*The Capitol Insurrection Shows White Nationalism Is the Biggest Threat 
to the Climate*
White nationalism gave us the climate emergency. Now, it’s our biggest 
obstacle.
Eric Holthaus - Jan 12, 2021
- -
As climate activists know from Harvard political scientist Erica 
Chenoweth’s work, it only takes 3.5% of the population engaged in active 
protest to change the course of history. While non-violent revolutions 
have historically been twice as successful as violent ones, obviously 
violent revolutions can also be successful.
As shocking as this week’s events were — the most serious attack on our 
country since 9/11 and the worst attack on our nation’s capital since 
the war of 1812 — a YouGov rapid poll found that more than 20% of 
registered voters, including 45% of Republicans, approved of them. 
That’s more than enough people to forcibly block climate action, and 
render the planet uninhabitable.
I’ll say it very clearly: White nationalism is a threat to the planet...
- -
In recent years, white nationalists have increasingly embraced 
eco-fascism before carrying out mass shootings. Neo-nazis are using the 
climate emergency to recruit people. White supremacy means supremacy 
over Nature itself.
As Sarah Smarsh has written for years, white nationalism is not a case 
of rural, backwards hillbillies. It’s in boardrooms. It’s in the white 
exodus of public schools. It’s in the privatization of health care. It’s 
in the fossil fuel industry. It’s in the White House.
And even more importantly, as climate scientist Ayana Elizabeth Johnson 
wrote after the murder of George Floyd last summer, racism steals time 
from fighting climate change...
- -
I don’t know where we go from here, honestly. But I know that chaos and 
collapse are not inevitable. There are futures where justice and 
equality and a thriving spirit of mutual prosperity for all living 
things will flourish. And so that’s what we have to fight for.
If there’s anything we’ve learned from 2020, it’s that the old world 
isn’t coming back. If we’re going to build a better world that works for 
everyone, WE are the ones who are going to have to do that work, together.
https://futurehuman.medium.com/the-capitol-insurrection-shows-white-nationalism-is-the-biggest-threat-to-the-climate-e32494621b24




[Records set]
*Climate crisis: record ocean heat in 2020 supercharged extreme weather*
Scientists say temperatures likely to be increasing faster than at any 
time in past 2,000 years
The world’s oceans reached their hottest level in recorded history in 
2020, supercharging the extreme weather impacts of the climate 
emergency, scientists have reported.

More than 90% of the heat trapped by carbon emissions is absorbed by the 
oceans, making their warmth an undeniable signal of the accelerating 
crisis. The researchers found the five hottest years in the oceans had 
occurred since 2015, and that the rate of heating since 1986 was eight 
times higher than that from 1960-85.

Reliable instrumental measurements stretch back to 1940 but it is likely 
the oceans are now at their hottest for 1,000 years and heating faster 
than any time in the last 2,000 years. Warmer seas provide more energy 
to storms, making them more severe, and there were a record 29 tropical 
storms in the Atlantic in 2020.

Hotter oceans also disrupt rainfall patterns, which lead to floods, 
droughts and wildfires. Heat also causes seawater to expand and drive up 
sea levels. Scientists expect about 1 metre of sea level rise by the end 
of the century, endangering 150 million people worldwide.

Furthermore, warmer water is less able to dissolve carbon dioxide. 
Currently, 30% of carbon emissions are absorbed by the oceans, limiting 
the heating effect of humanity’s burning of fossil fuels...
- -
“The fact the oceans reached yet another new record level of warmth in 
2020, despite a record drop in global carbon emissions, drives home the 
fact that the planet will continue to warm up as long as we emit carbon 
into the atmosphere.” said Prof Michael Mann, at Penn State University 
in the US, and one of the study team. “It is a reminder of the urgency 
of bringing carbon emissions down rapidly over the next several years.”

Prof Laure Zanna, of New York University, said: “Continuous ocean 
temperature measurements, as presented in this study, are crucial to 
quantify the warming of the planet.”

Rising sea level driven by heating, as well as the melting of glaciers 
and ice caps was important, she said. “That directly impacts a 
significant fraction of the world’s population.”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jan/13/climate-crisis-record-ocean-heat-in-2020-supercharged-extreme-weather


[The Atlantic ]
*The Weekly Planet: What 2020’s Bizarre Economy Taught Us About Climate 
Change*
U.S. carbon pollution hasn’t been this low in decades—that’s the bad news.
ROBINSON MEYER - JANUARY 12, 2021
- -
The math only gets harder for more ambitious targets. President-elect 
Joe Biden has said that the U.S. should aim to zero out its carbon 
emissions by 2050. That scale of reduction obviously couldn’t happen in 
a single year, so analysts have tried to estimate a glide path for 
getting there. Larsen’s rule of thumb is that by 2030, the U.S. would 
need to cut emissions to about 40 percent below their historic peak to 
stay on track.

But last year, amid the pandemic, the U.S. managed a cut of only 21 
percent. So the U.S. would need to double 2020’s cuts in less than a 
decade if we hope to stay on track for net zero.

In other words: “We will need emissions reductions of this scale … for 
many years to come, and we need to do it differently than we did in 
2020,” Larsen said.
- -
Above all else, we should focus on a broad lesson about 2020. In the 
spring, Americans conducted an unprecedented and unintentional 
experiment in reducing carbon emissions. They did not drive to work or 
travel for fun; they stayed at home. The world grew quieter, the air 
cleaner. Wildlife moved back into urban spaces. And carbon emissions 
decreased. In April and May, emissions were 20 percent lower than they 
had been a year prior.

But that behavioral change was not enough to meet even the least 
ambitious of America’s long-term climate goals. This extraordinary and 
painful trial should provide the final proof, I think, that climate 
change simply cannot be solved by changing our personal behavior. We 
have to change systems, and the only way to do that is to develop and 
deploy technologies that will enable economic prosperity without carbon 
pollution...
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2021/01/the-lowest-carbon-pollution-in-three-decades/617652/



[success and aspirations]
*Minnesota Power lays out renewable energy plan: No coal by 2035, no 
carbon by 2050*
The company reached 50% renewables in December, and now plans to 
increase that to 70% by 2030. It will be 80% carbon free by 2035 and 
100% carbon free by 2050...
- -
“With our vision, and our now company goal, to be 100% carbon-free, 
we're going to look at carbon minimizing options, because why would you 
transition to something that you would then just have to turn around and 
turn off and in a short amount of time?” Pierce said. “So we’ll be 
thoughtful about that.”...
https://www.duluthnewstribune.com/business/energy-and-mining/6836745-Minnesota-Power-lays-out-renewable-energy-plan-No-coal-by-2035-no-carbon-by-2050


*
*

[Emissions down]*
* *Coronavirus causes largest U.S. greenhouse gas emissions drop since 
World War Two: report*
The economic fallout from the uncontrolled spread of COVID-19 - 
especially in big emitting sectors like transportation, power and 
industry - resulted in a sharper emissions drop than the 2009 recession, 
when emissions slid 6.3%.
The drop means that the United States would outperform its pledge made 
under the Copenhagen climate accord to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 
17% below 2005 levels by 2020. Emissions will actually drop by 21.5% 
compared with 2005...
https://www.reuters.com/article/usa-climatechange-emissions/coronavirus-causes-largest-us-greenhouse-gas-emissions-drop-since-world-war-two-report-idUSL1N2JM2S2




[consequences reports from Capital Weather Gang]
*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

By  Andrew Freedman and Jason Samenow
Jan. 12, 2021

The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy has reassigned 
Trump appointees David Legates and Ryan Maue, senior officials at the 
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) who were 
appointed by President Trump, for their role in producing and publishing 
controversial papers questioning the seriousness of climate change 
without White House approval.

The two had been detailed to the White House since November but were 
removed from their postings Tuesday after the papers, which were 
published on nongovernment websites, came to light. The papers bear the 
imprint of the Executive Office of the President and state that they 
were copyrighted by the White House Office of Science and Technology 
Policy (OSTP).

But they were never approved by Kelvin Droegemeier, the director of the 
office.

“Dr. Droegemeier was outraged to learn of the materials that were not 
shared with or approved by OSTP leadership,” OSTP spokeswoman Kristina 
Baum said in an email Tuesday afternoon. “He first became aware of the 
documents when contacted by the press. As a result, Dr. Droegemeier took 
swift action and the individuals responsible have been relieved of their 
duties at OSTP.”

Baum had stated Monday night that the papers, which make controversial 
and disputed claims about climate science, were not created at OSTP’s 
direction or cleared by its leadership. She said Tuesday morning that 
the science and technology arm of the White House “has no intention to 
formalize these” by publishing them on the agency’s site.

The dismissal of Legates and Maue from OSTP means they will return to 
NOAA, where they were first hired. Both Legates’s and Maue’s last day 
working for the Trump administration is this week.

Scott Smullen, deputy director of NOAA communications, said the 
publication of the documents will be reviewed under the agency’s 
scientific integrity policy. He distanced the agency from the documents, 
known as the “Climate Change Flyers.”

“Science papers from NOAA follow a rigorous peer-reviewed process under 
agency regulations on scientific publications. NOAA was not involved in 
the creation or posting online of the climate change flyers that have 
been allegedly attributed to the Office of Science and Technology 
Policy, nor does NOAA endorse the flyers. OSTP is investigating the 
issue,” Smullen said in a statement.

The papers include the claim that subscribing to the idea of 
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, who led the production of the papers, 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 not been approved by the 
White House.

Legates, a climate skeptic and climatology professor at the University 
of Delaware, has been a mysterious figure at NOAA since he started 
working there 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 that 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 Climate Change Flyers consists of 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 
the topics covered.

“These flyers have been written by top scientists from leading 
institutions from around North America,” says the series introduction, 
written by Legates. “The Office of Science and Technology Policy is 
pleased to bring you these briefs to further your understanding of 
climate change by learning from these learned scholars.”

White House taps second controversial scientist to steer major U.S. 
climate change report

There is no information provided regarding whether the essays were 
peer-reviewed or the process for developing them.

John Holdren, who headed the OSTP during Barack Obama’s presidency, 
characterized the fliers as “misguided and thoroughly erroneous screeds” 
and said they “would not have been issued by anybody with a shred of 
scientific integrity.”

Holdren also called for Legates to be fired.

One essay, titled “Systematic Problems in the Four ‘National 
Assessments’ of Climate Change Impacts on the United States,” tries to 
discredit all the U.S. government’s previous authoritative reports, 
which were subject to multiple rounds of peer review, including by a 
panel of the National Academy of Sciences.

Legates was appointed by the White House to oversee the next such 
assessment, which is slated to be published in 2023.

The papers are probably intended to influence the 2023 assessment, 
according to Myron Ebell, a climate skeptic close to the Trump 
administration who directs the energy and global warming program at the 
free-market Competitive Enterprise Institute. “This looks like a 
preparatory effort to get the National Assessment pointed in the right 
direction,” he said in an interview.

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.

Betsy Weatherhead, director of National Climate Assessment, said in a 
statement to The Washington Post that studies intended for the report 
should be thoroughly vetted.

“Thoughts written down without process of peer review and lacking the 
multiple layers of scientific evaluation which goes into modern 
assessments are hardly worth reading when one wants trustworthy 
information,” she wrote.

She added, “The last National Climate Assessment involved hundreds of 
scientists and reviewers and concluded that climate change is happening, 
primarily caused by an increase in greenhouse gases and will likely 
continue.”

The unapproved papers were published on a website hosted by the Center 
for Environmental Research and Earth Sciences, which calls itself “a 
multidisciplinary and independent research group” but provides no 
information as to any individual or organization that supports it and 
solicits donations from visitors to the site. The group is affiliated 
with longtime climate contrarian Willie Soon.

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.

The papers were written by well-known climate-change contrarians 
including William Happer, a professor emeritus of physics at Princeton 
University, who served a stint on the White House National Security 
Council in the Trump administration, and Ross McKitrick, an economics 
professor at the University of Guelph.

Several of the authors who contributed to the effort either have 
received funding from the fossil fuel industry or are affiliated with 
anti-regulatory organizations, or both. Among them is Patrick Michaels, 
a senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, but it’s 
unclear where the funding for this series of papers came from.

Legates is listed as the main author of the series, with other 
contributors including Ryan Maue, who was installed as NOAA chief 
scientist in September and subsequently detailed to the OSTP in 
November. Maue recognizes the reality of human-caused climate change but 
has spoken out repeatedly against what he views as overly alarmist 
findings or interpretations of climate science.

Roy Spencer, who wrote a paper in the series titled “The Faith-Based 
Nature of Human-Caused Global Warming,” is a climate scientist at the 
University of Alabama at Huntsville who has long questioned the extent 
of the link between climate change and human activities. He posted the 
entire set of papers on his personal blog last week.

“David [Legates] hopes to be able to get these posted on the White House 
website by January 20 (I presume so they will become a part of the 
outgoing Administration’s record) but there is no guarantee given recent 
events,” Spencer wrote. “He said we are free to disseminate them widely.”

Spencer also wrote on his blog that Legates had asked him and other 
scientists to write these papers late last year to support the view that 
“there is no climate crisis or climate emergency” and to point out “the 
widespread misinformation being promoted by alarmists through the media.”

Holdren, the former OSTP director, wrote that the papers’ appearance 
under the banner of the Executive Office of the President and the OSTP 
without authorization was “not merely outrageous but, apparently, illegal.”

U.S. Code states: “Whoever fraudulently or wrongfully affixes or 
impresses the seal of any department or agency of the United States … 
shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than five years, 
or both.”

The OSTP did not reply to a question regarding any disciplinary measures 
for Legates’s actions.
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 14, 2009 *

MSNBC host Keith Olbermann denounces Senator James Inhofe (R-OK) for his 
rhetorical assault on former EPA Administrator Carol Browner:

"But our winner, climate change denier Senator James Inhofe of Oklahoma, 
desperate to capsize the incoming energy and climate adviser, Carol 
Browner, branding her a secret socialist.  Sounds like a Christmas 
thing, secret socialist.  And saying, 'There is another organization 
that a lot of people don‘t realize.  It‘s called the Center for American 
Progress.  This report that came out, this is the group that is trying 
for the Fairness Doctrine, trying to, I think, dramatically upend the 
First Amendment.  She, Carol Browner, was a member of that group.'

"As he fulminated, Senator Inhofe even held up a copy of a Center for 
American Progress report called 'The Structural Imbalance of Political 
Talk Radio.'  There's only one problem: in that report, the Center for 
American Progress specifically concludes, quote, 'There is no need to 
return to the fairness doctrine.  Increasing ownership diversity will 
lead to more diverse programming.'

"So Senator, thanks for pointing out that Carol Browner belongs to a 
group that specifically opposes reinstating the Fairness Doctrine you‘re 
so scared of.  Senator James 'Maybe next time I‘ll remember to read the 
damn thing first' Inhofe, today‘s worst person in the world!"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k0tbsps_KOA#t=73


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