[✔️] July 21, 2021 - Daily Global Warming News Digest

[👀 Richard Pauli]

/*July 21, 2021*/

[floods in China]
*Rescue efforts launched after record floods in central China displace 
1.2 million*
Washington Post



[In the Atlantic, an obit for a policy ]
*Carbon Tax, Beloved Policy to Fix Climate Change, Is Dead at 47*
It reshaped how the world thought about climate change. But its prized 
trait—bloodless economic efficiency—won it few friends on the right or left.

By Robinson Meyer
The death was confirmed by President Joe Biden’s utter lack of interest 
in passing it.

The carbon tax aimed to reduce carbon-dioxide pollution—which heats the 
air, acidifies the ocean, and causes climate change—by applying a 
commonsense idea: If you don’t want people to do something, charge them 
money for it. The tax would have levied a fee—ranging from $5 to, in 
some estimates, more than $150—on every ton of carbon released into the 
atmosphere. Such a cost would have percolated through the economy, 
raising gasoline and jet-fuel prices, closing coal-fired power plants, 
and encouraging consumers and companies to adopt cleaner forms of energy.
- -
Today, cap-and-trade markets are by far the dominant form of carbon 
pricing worldwide. Now that China has launched its cap-and-trade system, 
carbon prices cover 20 percent of global emissions. Forty-five countries 
are covered by some form of carbon price, according to the World Bank. 
But relatively few of them use carbon taxes.

Advocates say they will cryogenically freeze the American carbon tax in 
case it is needed in the future. Some supporters argue that the tax is 
one of very few climate policies that can survive a conservative Supreme 
Court, because the Constitution clearly empowers Congress to levy taxes 
but may not allow other types of regulation.

Yet near-term prospects for the policy’s revival are dim.

The American carbon tax leaves behind dozens of supportive think-tank 
employees, thousands of politically engaged and idealistic Americans, 
and 3,589 dejected economists.
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2021/07/obituary-carbon-tax-beloved-climate-policy-dies-47/619507/



[first famine from carbon emissions]
*Climate, Not Conflict. Madagascar's Famine is the First in Modern 
History to be Solely Caused by Global Warming*
https://time.com/6081919/famine-climate-change-madagascar/


[Academic studies]
JULY 12, 2021
*Stanford researchers map how sea-level rise adaptation strategies 
impact economies and floodwaters*
By 2100, sea levels are expected to rise by almost seven feet in the Bay 
Area. New research shows how traditional approaches to combating 
sea-level rise can create a domino effect of environmental and economic 
impacts for nearby communities...
- -
To understand the broader impacts of climate resilience decisions, 
including investments in nature, the researchers plan to model how 
sea-level rise adaptation strategies are connected with infrastructure, 
employment, community dynamics and more.

“Our plans should be as interconnected as our ecosystems,” said Guerry.
https://news.stanford.edu/2021/07/12/economic-impacts-combatting-sea-level-rise/



[WAPO]
*"You should not be surprised that climate predictions may have been too 
conservative"*
July 19m 2021
“The IPCC’s reports tend to be both conservative and consensus,” Bill 
McGuire, emeritus professor at University College London, told the 
network. “They’re conservative, because insufficient attention has been 
given to the importance of tipping points, feedback loops and outlier 
predictions; consensus, because more extreme scenarios have tended to be 
marginalized.”

Speaking to Axios, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory’s Michael 
Wehner similarly argued that climate scientists had erred in favor of 
less extreme predictions, in part out of concern that they might seem 
alarmist. But for anyone who has been tracking the IPCC’s reports over 
time, that the effects of climate change might extend beyond the 
projected estimates was always clear.

  In 2003, John Houghton, then the IPCC co-chair, conceded that some 
people believed the temperature projections included in the group’s 
first report — released in 1991 and which informed the international 
Kyoto climate accord — showed that “the IPCC was far too conservative 
and should have been bolder” even then. In 2005, he adopted that 
position himself, telling a Senate committee that “IPCC reports have 
consistently proved to be too conservative” in their estimates.

  Over and over this crops up. James Hansen, the scientist whose 1988 
testimony before Congress kick-started the focus on climate change, 
described the IPCC as being overly cautious in a 2004 interview, 
specifically referring to its consideration of the potential 
ramifications of the collapse of the Arctic ice sheet. Michael 
MacCracken, head of the Climate Institute in Washington, previewed the 
IPCC’s 2007 report by noting that it had consistently erred on the side 
of less-bad outcomes.

  “Scientists don’t like to be wrong, so they tend to discount the most 
uncertain things,” MacCracken told USA Today. “And that’s good, but 
policymakers and risk managers usually want to know the worst case, as 
well as the middle one, when they plan for things.”

In the aftermath of that report, the IPCC’s fourth, there was a broad 
array of critics opining that its estimates may not have accurately 
conveyed the dangers posed by warming. Some of that feedback was 
certainly a function of an activist movement newly empowered by the 
prominence of climate change in the political debate (largely a function 
of the release of “An Inconvenient Truth” the year prior), but much of 
the criticism came from scientists themselves — including some familiar 
names.

  “At times it is frustratingly conservative,” University of Chicago 
climatologist David Archer told Inter Press Service that year.

   In 2013, in advance of the fifth report, the New York Times reported 
on the broad sense that the IPCC was overly cautious, identifying two 
contentious issues — each of which was decided in favor of the more 
conservative position. Research from MIT and another group of American 
scientists found that the IPCC’s models were overly optimistic or 
ignoring the possibility of negative feedback loops, a situation in 
which one negative effect worsens another negative effect. (Thawing 
permafrost from rising temperatures in the Arctic, for example, can 
release more methane that contributes to warming.)

  It’s also useful to note that most people don’t get their 
understanding of the effects of climate change from closely parsing the 
massive IPCC reports on the predicted effects. What’s at issue here is 
less the accuracy of the report (though that is at issue) than the point 
Hulme makes: What danger is there in being overly alarmist on the subject?

  In that case, ironically, the IPCC appears to err in favor of the 
outlier: An extreme position of alarm is the more dangerous path to take.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/07/19/you-should-not-be-surprised-that-climate-predictions-may-have-been-too-conservative/


[video interview.   Better deadline would be noon tomorrow. ]
*Climate Crisis: John Kerry says next 100 days could ‘save many lives’ 
ahead of COP 26*
Jul 20, 2021
Channel 4 News
In the middle of the international politics, trying to marshal countries 
towards a common goal, is the American elder statesmen John Kerry - 
who's now the US envoy on climate change.
I spoke to him earlier this afternoon, after his speech here at Kew, and 
began by putting it to him that he gave an apocalyptic vision of the 
world in a hundred years if Cop 26 is a failure.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQqZAmE8xSQ



[Meat means high CO2]
*Investigation: How the Meat Industry is Climate-Washing its Polluting 
Business Model*
Growing global meat consumption threatens to derail the Paris Agreement, 
but that hasn’t stopped the meat industry insisting it is part of the 
solution to climate change.
July 18, 2021
DeSmog conducted a five-month investigation into the meat industry’s PR 
and lobbying, reviewing hundreds of documents and statements by 
companies and trade associations. Our research shows how the industry 
seeks to portray itself as a climate leader by:

Downplaying the impact of livestock farming on the climate;
Casting doubt on the efficacy of alternatives to meat to combat climate 
change;
Promoting the health benefits of meat while overlooking the industry’s 
environmental footprint;
Exaggerating the potential of agricultural innovations to reduce the 
livestock industry’s ecological impact.
- -
Today’s meat industry is dominated by a few multinational giants, 
including JBS, Tyson Foods, Vion, and Danish Crown, with access to 
markets across the world. In step with rising global demand, meat 
production has more than quadrupled in the past sixty years.

Despite this tremendous growth, forecasts indicate that the world is 
still far from reaching “peak meat”. The Organisation for Economic 
Co-operation and Development (OECD), which represents many of the 
world’s biggest economies, and the United Nations Food and Agriculture 
Organization (FAO) predict that global meat production will continue to 
rise in the coming decade as incomes increase in developing countries.
- -
“Our strong belief, based on the science, is that livestock and animal 
source food benefits people and the planet: livestock is a valuable 
contribution to sustainability,” he said.

But as it stands, there is a gap between what the meat industry is 
reported to be doing and what it is actually doing to address its 
environmental impact, Jacquet argues. For her, the amount of positive 
media attention companies like JBS and Tyson receive just for making 
commitments to reach net-zero emissions is “astonishing”.

“Those words don’t seem to have associated actions as yet,” she says. 
“We all have to demand more than just words. We need action as well."
https://www.desmog.com/2021/07/18/investigation-meat-industry-greenwash-climatewash/



[DW video news]
*Are Germany's flood warning systems ready for more extreme weather? | 
DW News*
Jul 20, 2021
DW News
00:00 The death toll from Germany's devastating flood disaster has risen 
to more than 160, as emergency workers continue to search for dozens of 
people still unaccounted for. German authorities insist their flood 
warnings worked, even though there was massive loss of life. Some 
experts say Germany's flood warning system failed and has led to such 
widespread devastation. They say authorities knew what was coming, but 
failed to prepare.
02:28 DW reporter Giulia Saudelli is on the ground covering the latest 
developments. She joins us from the town of Altenahr, in the German 
state of Rhineland-Palatinate, which was especially hard hit by the 
flooding.
05:19 DW reporter Emily Gordine is covering the latest developments in 
Schönau, in the southern German state of Bavaria.
09:40 Jeff Da Costa, he's a researcher focusing on flood warning systems 
at the University of Reading and has been personally affected by events 
as his family's home in Luxembourg was flooded.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=apiLNO_6ZfU

*- -
*

*Opinion: The climate crisis can't be stopped, we must adapt*
Most people should have realized by now that we're facing a climate 
crisis. Curbing greenhouse gas emissions is just one side of the 
problem. Adopting safety precautions is the other, says David Ehl.
https://www.dw.com/en/opinion-the-climate-crisis-cant-be-stopped-we-must-adapt/a-58294704



[Says BBC]
*How to cool your home in a warming world*
By Chris Vallance
Technology Reporter
A recent government report into climate risks warned that unless homes 
can be kept cool in summer and warm in winter, health and productivity 
will suffer.
https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-57467776


[video]
*Fed Chair Powell grilled by grouchy senators over inflation and climate 
change, even as economy rebounds*
UPDATED MON, JUL 19 2021

    “There’s no doubt that the banks are stronger today than they were
    when they crashed the economy in 2008,” she added. “But that’s the
    wrong standard: The question is whether or not they are strong
    enough to withstand the next crisis and whether the Fed is tough
    enough to protect the American economy and the American taxpayer.”

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/07/15/fed-chair-powell-faces-grumpy-senators.html


[Video from Pecos Hank]
*The Visual Beauty of Storms*
A STORM OF BEAUTY - Spectacular Phenomenon
Pecos Hank
Thunderstorm time lapse and spectacular phenomenon with facts and 
information of where to witness these fascinating sights.  Upward 
lightning, mammatus, sprites, gustnadoes and of course, tornadoes.

Copyright Pecos Hank, LLC. 2018
To license storm video contact hankschyma at gmail.com

QLCS INFORMATION:
A Quasi-Linear Convective System (QLCS), also known as a squall line can 
harbor strong straight-line winds, heavy precipitation, hail, A LOTTA  
lightning and possibly tornadoes…  For me,  squall lines often provide 
spectacular storm scenery and other weird phenomenon. This video 
highlights an array of fascinating weather along with storm relative 
locations of where you’re most likely to witness these beautiful sights.
https://www.physicsforums.com/threads/the-visual-beauty-of-storms.1004731/



[criminal action- or just immorality?]
*How a powerful US lobby group helps big oil to block climate action*
The American Petroleum Institute receives millions from oil companies – 
and works behinds the scenes to stall or weaken legislation

Chris McGreal - 19 Jul 2021

When Royal Dutch Shell published its annual environmental report in 
April, it boasted that it was investing heavily in renewable energy. The 
oil giant committed to installing hundreds of thousands of charging 
stations for electric vehicles around the world to help offset the harm 
caused by burning fossil fuels.

On the same day, Shell issued a separate report revealing that its 
single largest donation to political lobby groups last year was made to 
the American Petroleum Institute, one of the US’s most powerful trade 
organizations, which drives the oil industry’s relationship with Congress.

Contrary to Shell’s public statements in support of electric vehicles, 
API’s chief executive, Mike Sommers, has pledged to resist a raft of Joe 
Biden’s environmental measures, including proposals to fund new charging 
points in the US. He claims a “rushed transition” to electric vehicles 
is part of “government action to limit Americans’ transportation choice”.

Shell donated more than $10m to API last year alone.

And it’s not just Shell. Most other oil conglomerates are also major 
funders, including ExxonMobil, Chevron and BP, although they have not 
made their contributions public.

The deep financial ties underscore API’s power and influence across the 
oil and gas industry, and what politicians describe as the trade group’s 
defining role in setting major obstacles to new climate policies and 
legislation.

Critics accuse Shell and other major oil firms of using API as cover for 
the industry. While companies run publicity campaigns claiming to take 
the climate emergency seriously, the trade group works behind the scenes 
in Congress to stall or weaken environmental legislation.

Earlier this year, an Exxon lobbyist in Washington was secretly recorded 
by Greenpeace describing API as the industry’s “whipping boy” to direct 
public and political criticism away from individual companies.

Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, a Rhode Island Democrat and strident critic 
of big oil’s public relations tactics, accused API of “lying on a 
massive industrial scale” about the climate crisis in order to stall 
legislation to combat global heating.

“The major oil companies and API move very much together,” he said.

Whitehouse said the oil and gas industry now recognizes it is no longer 
“socially acceptable” to outright deny climate change, and that 
companies are under pressure to claim they support new energy solutions 
that are less harmful to the environment. But that does not mean their 
claims should be taken at face value.

“The question as to whether they’re even sincere about that, or whether 
this is just ‘Climate is a hoax 2.0’, is an unknown at this point,” he 
added.

Shell has defended its funding by saying that while it is “misaligned” 
with some of API’s policies, the company continues to sit on the group’s 
board and executive committee in order to have “a greater positive 
impact” from within. The petroleum firm claims that its influence helped 
manoeuvre API, which represents about 600 drilling companies, refiners 
and other interests such as plastics makers, toward finally supporting a 
tax on carbon earlier this year.

With Biden in the White House and growing public awareness of global 
heating, there are signs API’s influence may be weakening as its own 
members become divided on how to respond.

The French oil company Total quit the group earlier this year over its 
climate policies. Shareholder rebellions are pressing Exxon and Chevron 
to move away from dependence on oil. Top clean energy executives at 
Shell quit in December over the pace of change by the company.

API is also fighting a growing number of lawsuits, led by the state of 
Minnesota, alleging that the trade group was at the heart of a 
decades-long “disinformation campaign” on behalf of big oil to deny the 
threat from fossil fuels.

But despite threats to API’s lasting influence, Whitehouse argues the 
trade organization represents the true face of the industry. Instead of 
using its considerable power to push for environmentally friendly energy 
laws, API is still lobbying to stall progress with the oil industry’s 
blessing.

“Their political effort at this point is purely negative, purely against 
serious climate legislation. And many of them continue to fund the 
fraudulent climate denialists that have been their mouthpieces for a 
decade or more,” Whitehouse said.

Since API was founded in 1919 out of an oil industry cooperation with 
the government during the first world war, it has evolved into a major 
political force with nearly $240m in annual revenue.

Its board has been dominated by heavyweights from big oil, such as Rex 
Tillerson, the Exxon chief who went on to become Donald Trump’s 
secretary of state, and Tofiq Al Gabsani, the chief of Saudi Refining, a 
subsidiary of the giant state-owned Aramco oil giant. Al Gabsani was 
also registered as a lobbyist for the Saudi government.

API also hired professional lobbyists, including Philip Cooney, who went 
on to serve under George W Bush as chief of staff of the Council on 
Environmental Quality until he was forced to resign in 2005 after 
tampering with government climate assessments to downplay scientific 
evidence of global heating and to emphasise doubts. Shortly afterward, 
Cooney was hired by Exxon.

API came into its own as the realities of the climate crisis crept into 
public and political discourse, and the industry found itself on the 
defensive. The trade group, which claimed to represent companies 
supporting 10m jobs and nearly 8% of the US economy, played a central 
role in efforts to combat new environmental regulations.

In many cases, API was prepared to carry out the dirty work that 
individual companies did not want to be held responsible for. In 1998, 
after countries signed the Kyoto Protocol to help curb carbon emissions, 
API drew up a multimillion-dollar disinformation campaign to ensure that 
“climate change becomes a non-issue”. The plan said “victory will be 
achieved” when “recognition of uncertainties become part of the 
‘conventional wisdom’”.

Much of this is the basis of several lawsuits against API. The first was 
filed last year by the Minnesota attorney general, Keith Ellison, who 
accuses the group of working alongside ExxonMobil and Koch Industries to 
lie about the scale of the climate crisis. The suit alleges that 
“previously unknown internal documents” show that API and the others 
well understood the dangers for decades but “engaged in a 
public-relations campaign that was not only false, but also highly 
effective” to undermine climate science.

The city of Hoboken in New Jersey is also suing API, claiming that it 
engaged in a conspiracy by joining and funding “front groups” that ran 
“deceptive advertising and communications campaigns that promote climate 
disinformation and denialism”.
The lawsuits allege that API funded scientists known to deny or 
underplay climate changes, and gave millions of dollars to ostensibly 
independent organisations, such as the Cato Institute and the George C 
Marshall Institute, which denied or downplayed the growing environmental 
crisis.

“API has been a member of at least five organizations that have promoted 
disinformation about fossil-fuel products to consumers,” Ellison alleges 
in Minnesota’s lawsuit. “These front groups were formed to provide 
climate disinformation and advocacy from a seemingly objective source, 
when, in fact, they were financed and controlled by ExxonMobil and other 
sellers of fossil-fuel products.”

When Terry Yosie joined API in 1988 as vice-president for health and 
environment, the trade group had spent years funding scientists to 
research climate issues after hearing repeated warnings. In 1979, API 
and its members formed the Climate and Energy Task Force of oil and gas 
company scientists to share research.

Yosie, who moved to API from the Environmental Protection Agency, 
controlled a $15m budget, part of which he used to give workshops on 
climate change by EPA officials and other specialists.

“I brought them together in front of oil industry senior level 
executives for the sole purpose of making sure this industry had some 
understanding as to what other significant stakeholders thought about 
climate change, where they saw the issue evolving, what information they 
were relying on,” he said.

When Yosie left API in 1992, he believed oil the lobby group was still 
serious about addressing the growing evidence of climate change. But a 
year later, it disbanded the task force at the same time that Exxon 
abandoned one of the industry’s biggest research programmes to measure 
climate change.

Yosie believes that confronted with the true extent of the looming 
disaster, API and the oil companies ran scared, choosing instead to 
pursue an agenda informed by climate denialism.

“As the climate issue began to move from the periphery to the centre 
stage, I think there was a collective loss of confidence in the entire 
industry, a fear that this was not a debate that was winnable,” he said.

API and its financial backers founded a front organisation, the 
deceptively named Global Climate Coalition, to drum up purported 
evidence that the climate crisis was a hoax. In the late 1990s, the 
GCC’s chairman, William O’Keefe, was also API’s executive 
vice-president, a man who falsely claimed that “climate scientists don’t 
say that burning oil, gas and coal is steadily warming the earth”.

API and the GCC led attacks on Bill Clinton’s support for the Kyoto 
protocol with a “global climate science communications plan” that 
misrepresented the facts about global heating.

The relationship between API and big oil remained exceptionally close 
throughout. Exxon’s chief executive served on the lobby group’s 
executive committee for most of the past three decades, and the two 
worked together in promoting denialism over the climate crisis.

The focus of API’s efforts were on Congress, where it led the industry’s 
opposition to policies, such as the 2009 cap-and-trade legislation to 
control carbon emissions.

“Most of the funding for the Republican party, and probably a very 
considerable amount of the big dark money funding behind the Republican 
party, comes out of the fossil fuel industry,” said Whitehouse. Last 
year, API indirectly gave $5m to the conservative Senate Leadership Fund 
to back Republican election candidates (many of whom question climate 
science), and to the campaigns of members of the energy committees in 
both houses of Congress.

Growing public disquiet, and the departure of oil-friendly Donald Trump 
from the White House, shifted the ground for API. In March it launched a 
Climate Action Framework, which for the first time endorsed policies 
such as carbon pricing. It also stated its support for the Paris climate 
agreement.

API called the plan “robust” but others noted the lack of specifics and 
its sincerity was called into question when an Exxon lobbyist was caught 
on camera earlier this year saying that a carbon tax will never happen 
and that support for the measure was a public relations ploy intended to 
stall more serious measures.

And between API’s lost support from Total, and the Shell executives who 
resigned in December over what they regarded as the company’s 
foot-dragging on greener fuels, there are signs of shifting attitudes 
within the industry itself.

Shell and BP have said they will continue to review their support for 
API. Shell said that where it disagrees with API’s position, the company 
“will pursue advocacy separately”.

However, Peter Frumhoff, director of science and policy at the Union of 
Concerned Scientists, is sceptical that there has been any significant 
change in direction.

“I think it’s fair to say that API and its prominent member companies 
have have a broadly shared goal, which is to keep the social licence of 
the oil and gas industry operating, and therefore enabling them to 
continue to extract oil and gas for as long as possible, as profitably 
as possible,” he said.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jul/19/big-oil-climate-crisis-lobby-group-api



[DW]
*Opinion: The climate crisis can't be stopped, we must adapt*
Most people should have realized by now that we're facing a climate 
crisis. Curbing greenhouse gas emissions is just one side of the 
problem. Adopting safety precautions is the other, says David Ehl....
RECORD TEMPERATURES FELT ACROSS THE WORLD

    *Lytton, Canada: Fire and extreme temperatures*
    The Canadian town of Lytton saw record-breaking heat on July 2 when
    temperatures hit nearly 50 degrees Celcius. A few days later, the
    village was all but destroyed in a wildfire. Experts warn that heat
    domes like those in North America are becoming more likely due to
    global warming, which has slowed down the jet stream. This is why
    such extreme conditions tend to sometimes last for weeks.
    - -
    *Kevo, Finland: Record heat in northern Europe*
    It’s been the hottest July since 1914 in Lapland with 33.6 C
    recorded in northern Finland. Parts of Scandinavia have also been
    experiencing temperatures that are 10-15 degrees above average.
    Meteorologists say that the record heat in northern Europe is linked
    to the heat dome above North America.
    - -
    *New Delhi, India: Heat-related deaths and irregular monsoons*
    India has also been unusually hot this year. At the beginning of
    July, the capital New Delhi saw temperatures hit 43C, the hottest
    ever in nine years. The start of the monsoon season has also been
    delayed by about a week this year. India has seen at least 6,500
    heat-related deaths since 2010.
    - -
    *Nizhnyaya Pesha, Russia: Permafrost releases methane*
    Siberia has also seen sweltering heat this year, with temperatures
    of over 30C in May, making this region north of the Arctic Circle
    warmer than many parts of Europe. Drought and high temperatures are
    also leading to large-scale fires in densely forested Northern
    Russia. And its permafrost is melting, releasing more and more Co2
    and methane into the atmosphere.
    *- -*
    *New Zealand: A warm winter*
    Winter in the Southern Hemisphere is also unusually warm this year.
    Hastings, New Zealand saw temperatures rise to 22C last month. It
    was the warmest June in 110 years, according to the National
    Meteorological Agency (NIWA). Average temperatures increased by
    about 2C. Warmer winters pose a problem for agriculture and, of
    course, ski resorts.
    - -
    *Mexicali, Mexico: Dramatic drought*
    At a sizzling 51.4C, Mexico recorded its hottest-ever temperature in
    June. Mexico is going through its worst drought in 30 years. Baja
    California is particularly affected and the Colorado River there has
    partially dried up. Water levels in the reservoirs near Mexico City
    are also falling.
    - -
    *Ghadames, Libya: Desert heat in North Africa*
    The Arabian Peninsula and North Africa have also been particularly
    hot this year. The Sahara Desert saw the mercury rise to 50C last
    month. Meanwhile, in western Libya, it was 10 degrees warmer than
    usual at the end of June, according to the National Center for
    Meterology. In the oasis city of Ghadames, the heat rose to 46C,
    with the capital Tripoli not far behind at 43C.

https://www.dw.com/en/opinion-the-climate-crisis-cant-be-stopped-we-must-adapt/a-58294704



[but can I send in my CD collection?]
*Doomsday Music Vault to be built on Svalbard*
The vault will be located 1000 feet below the ground into the permafrost 
and will be able to withstand the most catastrophic of events.
Polina Leganger Bronder - July 16, 2021
The project will be headed by Elire Management Group, which is an 
Oslo-based commercial venture group. A case in point of exactly how 
unique the commercial venture group’s approaches can be is their Global 
Music Vault project.

The Global Music Vault is intended to be buried 1000 feet beneath the 
ground in an Arctic mountain on the Svalbard archipelago in the case of 
doomsday so that irreplicable music will not be wiped out alongside a 
majority of life on the surface.

The vault will be specifically designed to be able to withstand both 
natural and manmade catastrophes. To accomplish this, the site will be 
built to be unaffected by electromagnetic pulses from potential nuclear 
explosions. The vault is estimated to last for at least 1000 years.

The vault was selected to be buried in Svalbard due to the island’s 
relative security and geographical remoteness. One of the reasons the 
region was the perfect location for the vault is due to a general 
international consensus of it being a demilitarized zone. 42 nations 
have already declared Svalbard as an official demilitarized zone. 
Thereby, the vault is expected to be located far from any major future 
battlegrounds or bomb sites.

Additionally, due to Svalbard’s high Arctic climate, a cool and dry 
permafrost underlies approximately 90% of the island. It is expected the 
region’s permafrost will add an extra layer of security to the vault, 
which will make it even less likely to be affected by any major 
catastrophic events, due to the ground’s density.

According to Billboard, the music in the doomsday vault will be stored 
using special technology developed by Piql, a Norwegian firm 
specializing in the storage of analog and digital information. Piql will 
use binary coding alongside high-density QR codes written on durable 
optical film.

The vault is planned to be operational by the early months of 2022. The 
prioritized focus of the song selection in the vault will be indigenous 
music styles from across the world. However, the vault will store more 
than solely that.

Luke Jenkinson, the managing director of the Global Music Vault, 
explained that the goal of the project is not “to just protect a certain 
genre and certain era”.  He went on to state that to preserve as many 
music genres as possible, individual nations will be able to submit 
their own ideas as to what songs, compositions or tracks should make the 
final cut to be stored in the vault. Such an election procedure could 
even take the form of a formal domestic vote.
https://thebarentsobserver.com/en/arctic/2021/07/doomsday-music-vault-be-built-svalbard


[Essay opinion]
*Why people don’t care about global warming*
Tim Andersen, Ph.D. - Jul 14, 2021
The phrase “public apathy” was coined in the 1940s by marketing 
researchers. The idea is that if the public doesn’t care about what you 
are trying to market to them, then they are “apathetic”.
This term is wrongly applied to groups of people who are — on the 
contrary — experiencing complex and wide ranging emotions about what is 
happening to them, the outcome of which is inaction.
Dr. Renée Lertzman, a psychologist and social scientist who studies the 
connection between psychology and ecological degradation, heads Project 
Inside-Out devoted to developing a new way of doing public outreach. Her 
Ph.D. thesis and book chapter on the Myth of Apathy were based on 
interviews with residents about local pollution and the resulting 
ecological devastation in Green Bay, Wisconsin but have wide ranging 
applications to climate change apathy.
The key result of her research is that so-called apathy is largely a 
defense mechanism against underlying anxieties and a sense of 
powerlessness against the inevitable.
It turns out that when faced with environmental catastrophe, whether 
local or global, people tend to cope with their anxieties by pretending 
not to care...
- -
People have a psychological need to explain why they aren’t doing more 
in order to offset their feelings. People are full of excuses. They say 
all recycling just ends up in the trash, so don’t recycle. Renewable 
power is an eyesore or impractical, so use fossil fuel. Electric cars 
take too long to charge (depends on the battery and charging station) or 
just use fossil fuels from powerplants (not if those powerplants use 
renewables) or don’t last (neither do ordinary cars) or only the rich 
can afford them (not if manufacturers get on board), so buy gas ones. 
Environmental organizations are only interested in money or full of 
“tree huggers”, so don’t support them. All of these reasons are defenses 
coming from a much deeper awareness of the problem than a truly 
apathetic person would have...
- -
Lertzmann argues that the central feature of engaging people with the 
environment such as climate change is creativity. That is, if people can 
participate creatively, they can avoid their psychological barriers 
because they are no longer subject to the guilt and conflict of not 
being able to do the “right things” that they believe are expected of 
them. When people do find ways to contribute and feel that they are 
contributing (have agency), their sense of loss and anxiety melts into 
pride and joy...

https://medium.com/the-infinite-universe/people-are-too-scared-of-climate-change-to-do-anything-about-it-8dc8f51f86ed




[Wet bulbism explained by a comic cartoon]
*Why do we care about wet bulb temperature and could they have given it 
a better name?*
First Dog on the Moon
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/jul/16/why-do-we-care-about-wet-bulb-temperature-and-could-they-have-given-it-a-better-name


[Noam Chomsky]
*Julianna Interviews Noam Chomsky On The Darkest Of Times And His 
Hopeful New Book*
Jul 14, 2021
act.tv
Host and Professor Julianna Forlano speaks at length with Professor and 
longtime activist, Noam Chomsky to discuss the new book Chomsky For 
Activists, which, in itself, is a hopeful collection of Professor 
Chomsky's essays, speeches, interviews, alongside other activists 
writings' about their working directly with this icon of the peace and 
justice. Professor Chomsky lays bare the dire situation we face with the 
environment, the economy, the fall of the united states democracy, wars 
and more.  You can buy the book here: 
https://www.amazon.com/Chomsky-Activi...
Noam Chomsky is the author of more than 100 books; the most recent 
include Requiem for the American Dream, and The 10 Principles of 
Concentration of Wealth and Power, Before coming to the University of 
Arizona as Laureate Professor of Linguistics in 2017, Chomsky taught 
linguistics and philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology 
for 50 years.
For info on Noam go to: https://chomsky.info/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P0Ennk8STHk




[The news archive - looking back]
*On this day in the history of global warming July 21, 2008*
The UK Office of Communication criticizes Britain's Channel 4 for 
running the 2007 denialism doc "The Great Global Warming Swindle." 
Below, Peter Sinclair of ClimateCrocks.com debunks the doc.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/22/science/earth/22clim.html?_r=0
http://youtu.be/boj9ccV9htk
http://youtu.be/8nrvrkVBt24


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