[TheClimate.Vote] January 22, 2021 - Daily Global Warming News Digest

[Richard Pauli]

/*January 22, 2021*/

[Western Environmental Law Center]
*As President Biden takes office, groups double down on legal push to 
end fracking on public lands*
Jan 21, 2021 | News Release
As Joe Biden prepared to assume the presidency this week, a coalition 
filed a lawsuit to overturn the Trump administration’s sale of more than 
1 million acres of public lands in the American West for fracking.

Filed in federal court by WildEarth Guardians, Physicians for Social 
Responsibility, and the Western Environmental Law Center, the lawsuit 
targets the Trump administration’s failure to address the climate and 
public health consequences of leasing public lands to the oil and gas 
industry for drilling and extraction. The case targets the sale of 
public lands across Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming.

“While the Trump administration attempted to illegally cede our public 
lands and climate to the oil and gas industry and recklessly ignore 
climate science, we’ve been there to challenge them in court at every 
step of the way,” said Shiloh Hernandez, Staff Attorney for the Western 
Environmental Law Center. “The time has come for the Bureau of Land 
Management to take stock of the monumental danger caused by its entire 
oil and gas program.”

President Joe Biden has pledged to end the sale of public lands to the 
oil and gas industry, and the lawsuit aims to ensure the new 
administration follows through with bold climate and health action to 
keep fossil fuels in the ground...
- -
This week, on behalf of a coalition of plaintiffs, the Western 
Environmental Law Center filed an amended lawsuit to overturn the sale 
of nearly 45,000 acres of public lands in New Mexico’s Greater Chaco region.
Last week, WildEarth Guardians and the Western Environmental Law Center 
filed suit to overturn the sale of nearly 60,000 acres of public lands 
in Montana. And earlier this month, WildEarth Guardians called on a 
federal appeals court to block the sale of nearly 70,000 acres of public 
lands in New Mexico.
- -
Science supports winding down and ultimately phasing out fossil fuel 
production as an essential strategy to confronting the climate crisis.

A 2018 U.S. Geological Survey report found that oil and gas produced 
from public lands and waters contributes 10% of all U.S. greenhouse gas 
emissions. And a 2018 report by the Stockholm Environmental Institute 
confirmed that ending public lands fossil fuel production could 
significantly reduce nationwide greenhouse gases.

Ending the sale of public lands for fracking would also yield enormous 
health benefits. A report in June 2019 released by Physicians for Social 
Responsibility and Concerned Health Professionals of New York confirmed 
extensive health risks associated with oil and gas extraction, including 
cancer, asthma, pre-term birth, and more.
more at - 
https://westernlaw.org/president-biden-takes-office-groups-double-legal-push-end-fracking-public-lands/ 




[casting about]
*Elon Musk announces $100 million prize for new carbon capture tech*
It would be his single largest philanthropic effort to date.
https://www.engadget.com/elon-musk-announces-100-million-prize-for-new-carbon-capture-tech-001130681.html



[youth]
*A million young people urge governments to prioritise climate crisis*
World leaders will meet for Climate Adaptation Summit to consider how to 
adapt to extreme weather
- -
Thousands of scientists from around the world, including four Nobel 
prize winners, have signed a separate call to world leaders at the 
summit, demanding that adaptation be prioritised.

They said in their statement: “As our failed response to the Covid-19 
pandemic has demonstrated, the world is simply not ready to face the 
investable impacts of our climate emergency. Unless we step up and adapt 
now, the results will be increasing poverty, water shortages, 
agricultural losses and soaring levels of migration with an enormous 
toll on human life.

“We must avoid inaction where those who are not rich lose out, and 
cannot react in the timeframe necessary and without resources to make 
the required changes.”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jan/22/a-million-young-people-urge-governments-to-prioritise-climate-crisis



[Paris Agreement simple explanation in video - from GRIST[
*Biden rejoining the Paris Agreement, explained*
Here’s what that means for the U.S., the world, and climate change.
view the video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQQdzELKzV0&feature=emb_logo
https://grist.org/politics/biden-rejoining-the-paris-agreement-explained-climate/ 


- -

[political action]
*The Climate Action Tracker*
The Climate Action Tracker is an independent scientific analysis that 
tracks government climate action and measures it against the globally 
agreed Paris Agreement aim of "holding warming well below 2°C, and 
pursuing efforts to limit warming to 1.5°C." A collaboration of two 
organisations, Climate Analytics and New Climate Institute, the CAT has 
been providing this independent analysis to policymakers since 2009.
CAT calculates global warming consequence and emissions gaps
https://climateactiontracker.org/global/temperatures/

- -

[more carbon awareness]
*The Global Carbon Project*
The Global Carbon Project (GCP) integrates knowledge of greenhouse gases 
for human activities and the Earth system. Our projects include global 
budgets for three dominant greenhouse gases — carbon dioxide, methane, 
and nitrous oxide — and complementary efforts in urban, regional, 
cumulative, and negative emissions.
The Global Carbon Project is a Global Research Project of Future Earth 
and a research partner of the World Climate Research Programme. It was 
formed to work with the international science community to establish a 
common and mutually agreed knowledge base to support policy debate and 
action to slow down and ultimately stop the increase of greenhouse gases 
in the atmosphere.

The overwhelming realization that anthropogenic climate change is a 
reality has focused the attention of the scientific community, 
policymakers and the general public on the rising atmospheric 
concentrations of the main greenhouse gases, carbon dioxide (CO2), 
methane (CH4), and nitrous oxide (N2O). The GCP has approached this 
challenge by focusing comprehensively on the global biogeochemical 
cycles which govern these three greenhouse gases, including their 
natural and human drivers, and opportunities for low carbon pathways.
https://www.globalcarbonproject.org/index.htm



[propaganda battlefield]
*Oil Industry’s Public Climate Denial Campaign Dates Back to at Least 
1980, Nearly a Decade Earlier Than Previously Thought*
By Nick Cunningham • Friday, January 15, 2021
The American Petroleum Institute (API), the leading oil and gas industry 
trade group, publicly pushed misleading information on climate change as 
early as 1980 – much earlier than previously thought – according to 
newly discovered archival documents.

API “was promulgating false and misleading information about climate 
change in 1980, nearly a decade earlier than previously known,” wrote 
Benjamin Franta, a JD/PhD candidate at Stanford University’s Law School 
and Department of History, in a new peer-reviewed paper published this 
month in Environmental Politics.

An organized campaign of climate disinformation is generally thought to 
have begun around 1989 with the formation of the Global Climate 
Coalition, an industry front group aimed at protecting fossil fuel 
interests, before it coalesced into a more active campaign of climate 
denial in the 1990s, which included attacking climate scientists, 
muddying the waters on climate science, and promoting climate deniers. 
API was one of the coalition’s leading members, along with Exxon (later 
ExxonMobil).

But Franta points to a policy booklet published by API in 1980 as 
evidence that the lobby group not only knew then about the negative 
impact fossil fuel combustion had on the climate, but actively sought to 
obscure that fact to the public.

“This contradicts the idea that the industry was a good-faith player at 
that time, and only later turned to disinformation efforts,” Franta told 
DeSmog of his findings, which he stumbled across when doing archival 
research.

In API’s booklet, “Two Energy Futures: A National Choice for the 80s,” 
the industry acknowledged that carbon dioxide was a “pollutant,” but 
cast doubt on the role of CO2 in global warming by misrepresenting what 
prominent scientists said at the time.

For instance, API pointed to popular astronomer Carl Sagan who wrote 
about global warming in science journals and in his 1980 book “Cosmos.” 
“Other scientists are more sanguine about the presence of carbon dioxide 
in the atmosphere. Some scientists, including Dr. Carl Sagan, Cornell 
University astronomer, see a cooling phenomenon as counteracting the 
greenhouse effect,” API wrote.

But suggesting that Sagan was “sanguine” about CO2 is false. Sagan 
explored the albedo effect from land use change – he proposed that 
deforested areas increase the planet’s albedo, which meant that 
disturbed land would reflect more sunlight because of its lighter color, 
thus potentially causing a cooling effect. Ultimately, though, Sagan 
warned that the dangers of warming from fossil fuels was much more 
significant than any cooling effect from an increased albedo. 
Misrepresenting some of Sagan’s work on albedo, API jumped to the 
conclusion that warming from fossil fuels was nothing to worry about.

After dismissing the dangers of fossil fuels, API went on to promote the 
expansion of fossil fuel production in its booklet, citing the 1980 
World Coal Study. The coal study, although published by the 
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), was funded by the industry 
and set out to promote the expansion of coal in order to produce 
synthetic fuels.

API pointed to the coal study to argue that expanding coal would have 
“no significant damage to the environment.”

The lobby group further claimed that doubling coal production would be 
“consistent” with the conclusions of the 1979 World Climate Conference. 
But, that conference – the first major international climate conference 
attended by top scientists from a variety of fields – recommended no 
such thing. Far from endorsing coal, it warned of the dangers of 
“man-made changes in climate.” In a keynote address, Robert White, the 
conference chairman, said that “the growing dependence of the world on 
coal may create the most serious threat to the world's climate.”

After the publication of the MIT study in 1980, the director of the 
study lobbied President Jimmy Carter’s administration. That same year, 
the Carter administration adopted a goal of doubling coal production by 
1990 – a policy goal that was also adopted by the G7 in 1980. “So, it 
does look like that study was very influential, in shaping the entire 
energy future of the world, really,” Franta told DeSmog.

API, however, wasn’t just mischaracterizing what outside experts were 
saying about climate change at the time – it also publicly contradicted 
its own knowledge on the issue. According to Franta’s paper, the 
industry trade group’s own internal task-force knew at the time that 
production trends for fossil fuels put the world on track for several 
degrees of warming, which could potentially be catastrophic.

Six months before API published its “Two Energy Futures” booklet, 
Stanford engineer John Laurmann told API’s climate change task force 
that 2.5-degrees Celsius of warming could “bring world economic growth 
to a halt,” and that 5-degrees would have “globally catastrophic 
effects.” Avoiding such outcomes would require prompt action, Laurmann 
said. Despite this information, API made no mention of this in the 
booklet, and instead argued that a massive expansion of coal production 
would not harm the environment.

The American Petroleum Institute did not respond to a request for comment.

Franta’s report into what API knew about the connection between fossil 
fuels and climate change – and when it knew it – adds to a growing 
understanding about the industry’s decades-long effort to discredit the 
science on climate change.

In 2015, InsideClimate News revealed that ExxonMobil knew about climate 
change in the late 1970s – decades earlier than previously thought, and 
yet, starting in 1989, it went on to actively mislead the public about 
that fact for more than a decade. InsideClimate News also showed that 
API’s task force was aware of climate change and discussed various 
responses during the task force’s existence between 1979 and 1983.

Over the past five years, additional reporting by news outlets, 
including DeSmog, has added more detail to this history. But until now, 
it was generally thought that the public disinformation campaign began 
around 1989. The newly uncovered API booklet moves this history back 
nearly 10 years.

The booklet shows “the earliest public disinformation about climate 
change from the petroleum industry that we know of now,” said Franta.

“Big Oil now has another decade of lost time to answer for – and 
arguably to pay for,” climate science historian Geoffrey Supran, a 
research associate at Harvard University, wrote in a statement to 
DeSmog. He added that this new paper shows that “despite all we already 
know about fossil fuel interests' history of misleading Americans about 
climate change, we're still just scratching the surface. There are more 
documents out there – more skeletons in the closet, waiting to be found.”
https://www.desmogblog.com/2021/01/15/api-american-petroleum-institute-oil-industry-public-climate-denial-campaign-1980

- -

[clips from the DeSmog research database]
*American Petroleum Institute*
*Background*
Based in Washington DC, the American Petroleum Institute (API) is the 
largest trade association for the oil and gas industry, representing 
over 600 corporate members “from the largest major oil company to the 
smallest of independents, come from all segments of the industry.” The 
API says its mission is to “influence public policy in support of a 
strong, viable U.S. oil and natural gas industry.” API describes itself 
as “the only national trade association that represents all aspects of 
America’s oil and natural gas industry.” [1]

API was initially established on March 20, 1919 in New York City and 
moved to Washington DC in late 1969. According to its website, API 
“speak[s] for the oil and natural gas industry to the public, Congress 
and the Executive Branch, state governments and the media. We negotiate 
with regulatory agencies, represent the industry in legal proceedings, 
participate in coalitions and work in partnership with other 
associations to achieve our members’ public policy goals.”  [2], [1]

ExxonSecrets reports that API has funded organizations that oppose 
regulations aimed at combating global warming including the Cato 
Institute and Citizens for a Sound Economy (CSE). API is also a member 
of the National Wetlands Coalition, a group suggesting government 
regulation on wetlands are “burdensome and ineffective regulations on 
private property.” According to Sourcewatch, The National Wetlands 
coalition has been relatively inactive since the 1990s, but was made up 
of a group of about 60 municipal associations, utilities and major 
industrial concerns, such as Exxon, Texaco and Kerr-McGee...
- -
API has released a series of print ads espousing the benefits of fossil 
fuels, claiming that E15 fuel would damage equipment, and linking to 
their project, EnergyTomorrow.org. [their site was shamed out of 
business by my succinct rant at NoEnergyTomorrow.org]
https://www.desmogblog.com/american-petroleum-institute

- -

[Yours Truly pestered and shamed EnergyTomorrow to shut down because of 
my fiery rant]
*NoEnergyTomorrow*
Voices Speaking Contrary to Petroleum Industry Propaganda
*Suborning Murder**
**Suborn 1. To induce (a person) to commit an unlawful or evil act.*

Hey EnergyTomorrow, API and the entire fossil fuel industry - we have to 
speak out.  You suborn murder by heavily promoting carbon fuel usage.  
You actively encourage species suicide.

You have known for decades that CO2 causes global warming.  And you have 
long known that fossil fuels are the major source of CO2 greenhouse 
gasses that cause catastrophic heating.

You hide it from consumers, you deny the science and you secretly fund 
skeptics, and now you seek political support for your carbon fueled 
campaign of mass suicide.

Science pretty much knows now that we are a doomed species.   It will be 
a tough life for all our grandchildren, and we cannot expect many humans 
after that.

And you continue lying when you could have been educating and 
researching and deploying non-polluting energy.   Now your momentum 
traps us all.

Your most evil act is to discount the danger and continue promoting 
ignorance and doubt.   You have pushed the world into total adoption of 
carbon based fuels, and like big tobacco you covered up science and 
distracted your market, and now you are groveling for political support 
to keep your industry going through the chaos ahead.

More than any other industrial segment, yours - oil, gas, coal, all the 
CO2 carbon fuels - are the most directly responsible for the end of our 
species.  You continue to worsen the struggle and cause an early death 
for our progeny.

It is no comfort that your grandchildren are just as doomed as mine.   
Eventually we will all be dying for your sins.   But now we know, and we 
will neither forgive nor forget this mass murder for money.
Richard Pauli   July 4th 2009
http://noenergytomorrow.org/



[Digging back into the internet news archive]
*On this day in the history of global warming - January 22, 1970 *
   In his State of the Union address, President Nixon declares:

    "The great question of the seventies is, shall we surrender to our
    surroundings, or shall we make our peace with nature and begin to
    make reparations for the damage we have done to our air, to our
    land, and to our water?

    "Restoring nature to its natural state is a cause beyond party and
    beyond factions. It has become a common cause of all the people of
    this country. It is a cause of particular concern to young
    Americans, because they more than we will reap the grim consequences
    of our failure to act on programs which are needed now if we are to
    prevent disaster later.

    "Clean air, clean water, open spaces—these should once again be the
    birthright of every American. If we act now, they can be.

    "We still think of air as free. But clean air is not free, and
    neither is clean water. The price tag on pollution control is high.
    Through our years of past carelessness we incurred a debt to nature,
    and now that debt is being called...

    "The automobile is our worst polluter of the air. Adequate control
    requires further advances in engine design and fuel composition. We
    shall intensify our research, set increasingly strict standards, and
    strengthen enforcement procedures—and we shall do it now.

    "We can no longer afford to consider air and water common property,
    free to be abused by anyone without regard to the consequences.
    Instead, we should begin now to treat them as scarce resources,
    which we are no more free to contaminate than we are free to throw
    garbage into our neighbor's yard."

http://youtu.be/5LpspwT0ZwA

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