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

[Richard Pauli]

/*March 13, 2021*/

[The UN speaks]
*Polar vortex responsible for Texas deep freeze, warm Arctic temperatures*
9 March 2021
Climate and Environment
A “polar vortex” was responsible for the freezing conditions in the US 
state of Texas last month, UN weather experts said on Tuesday, before 
warning of a worrying increase in global carbon dioxide levels.

Spokesperson Clare Nullis from the World Meteorological Organization 
(WMO) told journalists during a regular briefing in Geneva that the 
United States shivered through its coldest February since 1989, thanks 
to the natural phenomenon:

The vortex is “area of low pressure and cold air, surrounding either of 
the poles”, she said. “It normally keeps cold air in the Arctic, warmer 
air in the lower latitudes. It weakened this winter so that meant that 
the cold air came spinning out of the Artic…warm air by contrast went 
into parts of the Arctic.”...
https://news.un.org/en/story/2021/03/1086752



[Back to the EPA]
*Senate confirms Michael Regan to lead EPA*
The 44-year-old North Carolina regulator, the first Black man to head 
the agency, has vowed to fight climate change and environmental injustice
Brady Dennis - Dino Grandoni - March 10, 2021

The Senate confirmed Michael Regan on Wednesday as the next 
Environmental Protection Agency administrator, a role that lies at the 
heart of President Biden’s promises to cut the nation’s greenhouse gas 
emissions and help poor and minority communities that have long borne 
the brunt of pollution.

In an era defined by partisan divides, Regan won confirmation by a 
comfortable margin of 66 to 34. Sixteen Republicans and every Senate 
Democrat voted in favor of Regan, 44, who since 2017 has served as 
secretary of North Carolina’s Department of Environmental Quality.

He will be the first Black man to lead the EPA in its half-century of 
existence. The agency’s first African American chief was Lisa Jackson, 
who held the role for four years under President Barack Obama.

“He is immensely qualified for this position, not only in 
qualifications, but in his demeanor,” Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.) said on 
the Senate floor before voting for Regan. “Too often we overlook whether 
a nominee has the right character to lead an organization. In this case, 
there’s no question that Michael Regan has that character.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2021/03/10/regan-epa-confirmed/


[We're gonna need a bigger toilet]
*Sea-level rise drives wastewater leakage to coastal waters*
by Marcie Grabowski, University of Hawaii at Manoa - March 12, 2021

When people think of sea level rise, they usually think of coastal 
erosion. However, recent computer modeling studies indicate that coastal 
wastewater infrastructure, which includes sewer lines and cesspools, is 
likely to flood with groundwater as sea-level rises.
[see the drawing 
https://scx1.b-cdn.net/csz/news/800a/2021/1-sealevelrise.jpg ]

A new study, published by University of Hawai'i (UH) at Mānoa earth 
scientists, is the first to provide direct evidence that tidally-driven 
groundwater inundation of wastewater infrastructure is occurring today 
in urban Honolulu, Hawai'i. The study shows that higher ocean water 
levels are leading to wastewater entering storm drains and the coastal 
ocean—creating negative impacts to coastal water quality and ecological 
health.

The study was led by postdoctoral researcher Trista McKenzie and 
co-authored by UH Sea Grant coastal geologist Shellie Habel and 
Henrietta Dulai, advisor and associate professor in the UH Mānoa School 
of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology (SOEST). The team assessed 
coastal ocean water and storm drain water in low-lying areas during 
spring tides, which serve as an approximation of future sea levels.

To understand the connection between wastewater infrastructure, 
groundwater and the coastal ocean, the researchers used chemical tracers 
to detect groundwater discharge and wastewater present at each site. 
Radon is a naturally occurring gas that reliably indicates the presence 
of groundwater, while wastewater can be detected by measuring specific 
organic contaminants from human sources, such as caffeine and certain 
antibiotics.

"Our results confirm that indeed, both groundwater inundation and 
wastewater discharge to the coast and storm drains are occurring today 
and that it is tidally-influenced," said McKenzie. "While the results 
were predicted, I was surprised how prevalent the evidence for these 
processes and the scale of it."

In low-lying inland areas, storm drains can overflow every spring tide. 
This study demonstrated that at the same time wastewater from 
compromised infrastructure also discharges into storm drains. During 
high tides, storm drains are becoming channels for untreated wastewater 
to flood streets and sidewalks. In addition to impeding traffic, 
including access by emergency vehicles, this flooding of contaminated 
water also poses a risk to human health...

The team also found evidence that many of the human-derived contaminants 
were in concentrations that pose a high risk to aquatic organisms. This 
has negative consequences to coastal organisms where the groundwater and 
storm drains discharge.

"Many people may think of sea-level rise as a future problem, but in 
fact, we are already seeing the effects today," said McKenzie. "Further, 
these threats to human health, ocean ecosystems and the wastewater 
infrastructure are expected to occur with even greater frequency and 
magnitude in the future."

This project demonstrates that actions to mitigate the impact from 
sea-level rise to coastal wastewater infrastructure in Honolulu are no 
longer proactive but are instead critical to addressing current issues. 
Through its multi-partner effort, the Hawai'i State Climate Commission 
also raises awareness around the variety of impacts of sea level rise, 
including those highlighted by this study.

"Coastal municipalities should pursue mitigation strategies that account 
for increased connectivity between wastewater infrastructure and 
recreational and drinking water resources," said McKenzie. "We need to 
consider infrastructure that minimizes flooding opportunities and 
contact with contaminated water; and decreases the number of contaminant 
sources, such as installation of one-way valves for storm drains, 
decommissioning cesspools, monitoring defective sewer lines, and 
construction of raised walkways and streets."
https://phys.org/news/2021-03-sea-level-wastewater-leakage-coastal.html


[Climate and religion]
[ 19 min video documentary from University of Virginia - Religion, Race 
& Democracy Lab]
*The story of how potent forces came together to mount an army of 
climate change skeptics in the name of God, country and capitalism.*
DIRECTED AND PRODUCED BY JEANINE ISABEL BUTLER AND CATHERINE LYNN BUTLER
Check out “God $ Green: An Unholy Alliance” from Religion, Race & 
Democracy Lab on Vimeo.
https://vimeo.com/467843113
A BUTLERFILMS PRODUCTION FOR THE RELIGION, RACE & DEMOCRACY LAB
In God $ Green: An Unholy Alliance viewers are taken on an eye-opening 
journey through decades of religious polarization, political propaganda, 
corporate deal-making, and environmental injustice based on systemic 
racism. It’s a story often told in light of social and cultural issues. 
It’s told less so in relation to the biggest crisis facing us 
today—climate change.
Download Transcript 
https://religionlab.virginia.edu/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/God_Green_Transcript.pdf
Download reading list 
https://religionlab.virginia.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/GodGreen-Bib.pdf
Check out “God $ Green: An Unholy Alliance” from Religion, Race & 
Democracy Lab on Vimeo.
https://vimeo.com/467843113



[measured annually by MediaMatters ]
*How broadcast TV networks covered climate change in 2020*
Special PROGRAMS CLIMATE & ENERGY
WRITTEN BY TED MACDONALD - RESEARCH FROM ALLISON FISHER & EVLONDO COOPER
3/10/21
*Introduction*
For this study, Media Matters examined 2020 news coverage of climate 
change on broadcast TV networks, counting and analyzing segments devoted 
to climate change and those in which a network figure incorporated 
climate change or engaged with a guest who brought up the issue. We 
analyzed coverage on the nightly news programs and Sunday morning 
political shows on ABC, CBS, and NBC. We also analyzed Fox Broadcasting 
Co.’s syndicated Sunday morning political show, Fox News Sunday. Fox 
Broadcasting Co. (which is separate from the Fox News cable channel) 
does not have a nightly news program, so there was far less overall Fox 
airtime to analyze than the other broadcast networks. In addition, 
weeknight episodes of PBS NewsHour were analyzed for a comparison point 
with the nightly news programs on ABC, CBS, and NBC, but they are not 
included in the full data set.

For the first time ever in this annual study, Media Matters also 
analyzed climate coverage on the morning news programs on ABC, CBS, and 
NBC. The typical running time for these programs is two hours, with the 
exception of the weekday third hour and Saturday and Sunday editions of 
NBC’s Today, and the Sunday edition of ABC's Good Morning America. Today 
and Good Morning America air seven days a week, while CBS This Morning 
airs six days a week. Due to this volume of airtime, their unique format 
which includes weather reports, and the lack of year-to-year comparative 
data from previous studies, analysis of the network’s morning shows is 
reviewed separately.

Top trends from broadcast TV news climate coverage in 2020
*Key findings:*

        -- The volume of corporate broadcast TV news coverage of climate
        change -- nightly news shows and Sunday morning political shows
        on ABC, CBS, and NBC -- plummeted from 238 minutes in 2019 to
        just 112 minutes in 2020, constituting a 53% decrease.

        -- Every network decreased the number of climate segments (with
        the exception of Fox, which aired the same amount of segments)
        and total time they spent covering the issue from 2019 to 2020.
        NBC aired the most minutes of climate coverage in 2020 -- 38 --
        while CBS and ABC aired 36 minutes and 32 minutes of coverage,
        respectively. CBS aired the most segments -- 22 -- while NBC and
        ABC aired 19 and 18 segments, respectively. Fox Broadcasting Co.
        aired six minutes of climate coverage across four segments on
        its Sunday morning political program.

        -- Corporate broadcast TV news mostly failed to explain the
        links between the coronavirus and climate change, mentioning
        them only three times on nightly news shows. By contrast,
        broadcast morning shows made the connection 10 times.

        -- The 89 guests featured in broadcast TV climate segments in
        2020 were predominantly white males, which continues a trend
        that goes back to at least 2017. People of color made up only 8%
        of guests who were interviewed or featured in the corporate
        broadcast networks’ climate coverage. Women made up 28% of
        guests -- and of the 89 total guests, only 6 were women of color.

        -- Twenty-two segments out of 63 total -- 35% of all climate
        segments on nightly news and Sunday political shows in 2020 --
        aired during September, making it the best-performing month for
        broadcast TV news of climate coverage for the second year
        running. Notably, September’s coverage was heavily dominated by
        the destructive wildfires in the western U.S.

        -- Three months -- March, April, and June -- featured no nightly
        or Sunday political show segments on climate.

        -- Major drivers of climate coverage in 2020 included the
        Australian and western U.S. wildfires, other major extreme
        weather events, and the 2020 presidential election, including
        discussions of President Joe Biden’s climate plan. Taken
        together, segments on these topics accounted for 75% of all
        climate coverage -- 47 out of 63 segments.

        -- Corporate broadcast nightly news and Sunday morning shows
        aired only 18 segments on climate solutions in 2020, accounting
        for 29% of all climate coverage. In 2019, climate solutions
        represented 37% of total climate coverage.

        -- PBS NewsHour’s climate coverage declined 58% from 2019 to
        2020. The program aired 58 climate segments in 2020, compared to
        121 segments in 2019. Despite this decrease, PBS NewsHour was
        still the best-performing nightly news show for climate coverage
        in 2020, airing nearly as many segments as the other broadcast
        networks combined. PBS NewsHour, however, is not included in the
        full dataset.

        -- For the first time ever, Media Matters also analyzed the
        morning news shows on ABC, CBS, and NBC -- these programs aired
        267 minutes of climate coverage combined across 158 segments.
        NBC dominated this coverage, which is partly due to the fact
        that the network has an extra hour in its morning show. NBC’s
        Today aired 121 minutes of coverage across 75 segments; CBS This
        Morning aired 89 minutes across 51 segments; and ABC’s Good
        Morning America aired 58 minutes across 32 segments.

        -- All together, morning news, nightly news, and Sunday
        political shows on ABC, CBS, NBC, and Fox aired just over 6
        hours of climate coverage -- approximately 380 minutes -- across
        221 segments in 2020.

        -- Combined climate coverage across all corporate broadcast news
        programs -- morning news, nightly news, and Sunday morning
        political shows -- accounted for only 0.4% of programming in 2020.

[see the graph 
https://cloudfront.mediamatters.org/styles/scale_w1024/s3/static/D8Image/2021/03/04/2020climate11.png?itok=apH5CNYQ 
]
*The overall volume of climate change coverage decreased significantly 
from 2019 to 2020*

        Climate change coverage on corporate broadcast TV nightly news
        and Sunday morning political shows decreased by 53% from 2019 to
        2020, going from 238 minutes to 112 minutes. Furthermore, the
        total climate coverage in 2020 was also a 21% decrease from
        2018, when broadcast TV networks pitifully aired a combined 142
        minutes of coverage. In fact, in the 12 years that Media Matters
        has been producing this study, 2020 ranks as the fifth-worst
        year for climate coverage overall. This steep drop is part of an
        emerging pattern of boom and bust climate coverage on broadcast
        TV news that exposes how inconsistent climate reporting has been
        over the last several years, being subject to disruption and
        overshadowed by competing news cycles...

more at - 
https://www.mediamatters.org/broadcast-networks/how-broadcast-tv-networks-covered-climate-change-2020

[and this is why we subscribe to this newsletter - now in it's 5th year]



[Dave Roberts has a strong opinion]
*The most important job ahead for Democrats*
Democracy reform is a prerequisite for any livable political future.
David Roberts - March 12, 2021
- -
The larger context of the 2020 election is an ongoing process whereby 
America’s mostly white, rural, and suburban conservative minority — 
which hasn’t won the popular vote in a presidential election since 2004 
— is gaining greater and greater structural political advantages each 
passing year. Republicans are overrepresented in the Senate, 
overrepresented by the Electoral College, gerrymandered into safe House 
seats, and busy passing voter suppression bills at the state level...
- -
I would put it this way: Democrats either pass substantial democracy 
reform (including statehood for DC) through Congress in the next 18 
months or they will lose one or both houses in 2022 and remain locked 
out of congressional majorities for a decade if not longer...
- -
But I wasn’t particularly hopeful about Biden from the very beginning of 
his presidential campaign, and at every juncture, he’s done better than 
I expected. It’s the same since he took office. The aura of low-drama 
competence he and his team have maintained so far is pretty close to my 
best-case scenario for a Biden administration.

So perhaps they know what they’re doing and will go to the mat for 
democracy reform when the time comes. Perhaps they can pull recalcitrant 
senators along with them. I suppose they’ve earned a little hope.
https://www.volts.wtf/p/the-most-important-job-ahead-for


[true cost accounting]
*The price of coal weighs heavy on planetary health*
March 11th, 2021, by Tim Radford
In air pollution terms alone, the price of coal is huge. The true price 
of energy in almost any fossil form is colossal.

LONDON, 11 March, 2021 − Does anyone think fossil fuels should be more 
expensive? The true price of coal, oil and gas − the cost they exact on 
human health and in environmental destruction − in the energy and 
transport sectors worldwide could add up to very nearly US$25 trillion 
(£18tn).

And in the economists’ favourite measure of wealth, that is more than 
one fourth of the whole world’s Gross Domestic Product, or GDP.

That fossil fuels are subsidised and their “external” costs rarely 
factored in to the price is well known and widely condemned.

But researchers in the UK and Korea report in the journal Energy 
Research and Social Science that they decided to try to put a price on 
all the “externalities” − both the unrecorded or unexpected costs and 
the unconsidered benefits to be connected with the supply of 
electricity, energy efficicency, and transport.

“Our research has identified immense hidden costs that are almost never 
factored into the true expense of driving a car or operating a 
coal-powered power station”

Their considered estimate? It adds up to $24.662 million million. And 
measured against the global GDP, that reaches 28.7%.

What the scientists see in this accounting is a measure of the way the 
market has failed the world’s energy systems. If governments included 
the social costs as well as the production costs of nuclear power plant 
and fossil-fuelled generation systems, they’d pronounce them 
economically unviable.

“Our research has identified immense hidden costs that are almost never 
factored into the true expense of driving a car or operating a 
coal-powered power station,” said Benjamin Sovacool of the University of 
Sussex, UK, who led the study.

“Including these costs would dramatically change least-cost planning 
processes and integrated resource portfolios that energy suppliers and 
others depend on. It is not that these costs are never paid by society, 
they are just not reflected in the costs of energy. And unfortunately, 
these costs are not distributed equally or fairly.”

*Coal’s highest price*
The “externalities factor” extends to all human action: there are 
unconsidered costs to wind, hydro, solar and other renewable energy 
systems too. What Professor Sovacool and his colleagues did was 
scrutinise 139 separate studies of these hidden costs to identify 704 
separate estimates of externalities. Of these, 83 were for energy 
supply, 13 for energy efficiency, and 43 for transport.

Coal exacted by far the highest hidden price across the energy markets 
of just four countries and regions: China, Europe, India and the US. 
Coal had three times as many “negative externalities” as solar 
photovoltaic power generation, five times that of wind turbines and 155 
times more than geothermal power.

Climate risks from fossil fuel emissions could cost some countries 19% 
of their GDP by 2030: developing nations would be hardest hit.

That coal and oil combustion has, over two centuries, cost lives, 
damaged human health and blighted natural ecosystems is not news. Indoor 
and outdoor pollution, from power utilities, exhaust pipes and household 
ovens is behind 4.7 million deaths and the loss of 147 million years of 
healthy life, every year.

*Guiding post-Covid recovery*
Pollution kills three times more people than malaria, tuberculosis and 
HIV-Aids combined. The surprise is in the scale of economic costs.

The point of research like this is to help national and regional 
governments to make practical and sustainable decisions in a concerted 
effort to revive economic activity but at the same time to contain 
climate change.

“Our findings are timely and we hope they will help inform the design of 
Green New Deals or post-pandemic Covid-19 recovery packages around the 
world,” said Jinsoo Kim, a co-author, of both Sussex and Hanyang 
University in Korea.

“Some of the most important commonalities of many stimulus packages have 
been bailouts for the fossil fuel, automotive and aeronautic industries, 
but a global and national recovery may not be sustainable if the true 
cost of these industries is not factored in.” − Climate News Network
https://climatenewsnetwork.net/the-price-of-coal-weighs-heavy-on-planetary-health/


[we are not surprised -- nor are we amused]
*A Large PR Firm Pledged To Fight Climate Change. Then It Took Millions 
 From A Notorious Fossil Fuel Trade Group.*
Edelman, a PR firm that’s pledged to “work with an environmental 
conscience,” was paid $4 million to promote one of the most extreme 
fossil fuel trade groups in the country, new tax filings show.
Zahra Hirji - Kendall Taggart - BuzzFeed News Reporters
March 12, 2021
Edelman, one of the largest public relations firms in the world, has 
pledged never to work with climate deniers and proudly touts its work on 
environmental justice campaigns with brands like Tazo Tea.

But newly released tax filings obtained by BuzzFeed News show that in 
2019 the company accepted more than $4 million from the American Fuel 
and Petrochemical Manufacturers, a major US oil trade organization that 
even Shell and BP had recently dumped for its aggressive opposition to 
popular climate solutions.
"Edelman is basically misleading the public about its so-called green 
reputation,” Robert Brulle, an environmental sociologist at Brown 
University who studies climate lobbying and advertising, told BuzzFeed News.

The global public relations powerhouse has roughly 6,000 employees 
working to “promote and protect” prominent brands like Ikea, KFC, and 
Dove. Selling its own socially conscious image, the company has 
repeatedly stressed its commitment to efforts to “reduce emissions,” 
“work with an environmental conscience,” and “lead in the transition to 
sustainable and socially responsible business models.” On its website, 
Edelman proudly declares it worked with cleantech companies “long before 
climate change became a buzzword.”

But in recent years, Edelman has faced a backlash, both publicly and 
internally, over its willingness to take on high-profile campaigns for 
clients that are big polluters.

After four high-level executives quit in 2015 citing this issue, the 
firm publicly pledged never to work with coal clients or climate 
deniers. The vague commitment left the door open to a broad range of 
work for fossil fuel businesses or companies that have fought against 
regulations cutting carbon pollution...

“Right now the only categorical exclusion we have is on climate denial 
and coal,” Michael Stewart, then a top Edelman executive, told the 
Guardian in 2015. “When you are trying in some way to obfuscate the 
truth or use misinformation and half-truths that is what we would 
consider getting into the work of greenwashing, and that is something we 
would never propose or work we would support our client doing.”

But AFPM, a trade group that pulled in more than $55 million in revenue 
in 2019 alone, has aggressively opposed climate action and provided 
funding to the Heartland Institute, a climate denial group. AFPM has 
paid Edelman at least $12 million for public relations work from 2017 to 
2019, tax filings show.

AFPM has taken some of the most extreme positions among fossil fuel 
trade groups, including helping create Energy4Us, a group that ran 
Facebook ads supporting the Trump administration’s rollbacks of national 
fuel efficiency standards without initially disclosing its ties to the 
oil and gas industry. The trade group also helped fund a campaign 
opposing a carbon tax in Washington state.

The trade group’s hardline climate policies prompted Royal Dutch Shell 
to announce in the spring of 2019 that it would not be renewing its AFPM 
membership, followed by the French oil company Total and the UK giant 
BP. All three oil companies, which are among the world’s top climate 
polluters, cited the trade group’s opposition to a carbon tax and lack 
of support for the Paris climate agreement in their decisions to quit.

AFPM is “not technically denying climate change but they might as well 
be,” said Andrew Logan, senior director of the oil and gas industry 
program at the corporate sustainability group Ceres...
- -
Edelman recently became a target of a public pressure campaign dubbed 
“Clean Creatives,” which is trying to get public relations firms and ad 
agencies to commit to refusing future contracts with fossil fuel 
companies, trade associations, and front groups.

And sometime over the past year, the firm quietly changed the section of 
its website dedicated to its “Position on Climate” to a position on 
“Energy and the Environment.”
In recent blog posts, CEO Richard Edelman has heralded the business 
community for being “prepared to take the lead in fighting the twin 
evils of climate change and inequality” and urged companies to consider 
setting climate science–based targets.
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/zahrahirji/edelman-fossil-fuel-pr-climate


[Digging back into the internet news archive]
*On this day in the history of global warming - March 13, 2001 *

The Bush administration announces that it will not regulate carbon 
dioxide emissions from power plants, abandoning a campaign pledge under 
pressure from the fossil fuel industry.

http://www.heatisonline.org/contentserver/objecthandlers/index.cfm?id=3657&method=full


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