[✔️] May 24, 2021 - Daily Global Warming News Digest

[Richard Pauli]

/*May 24, 2021*/

[hard to catch up]
*‘War’ footing needed to correct economists’ miscalculations on climate 
change, says professor*
PUBLISHED SUN, MAY 23 20219:55 PM EDT
Karen Gilchrist

    -- Economic forecasts predicting the potential impact of climate
    change grossly underestimate the reality and have delayed global
    recovery efforts by decades, a leading professor has said.
    -- Mainstream economists “deliberately and completely” ignored
    scientific data and instead “made up their own numbers,” Steve Keen,
    a fellow at UCL, told CNBC.
    -- Now, a “war-level footing” is required to have any hope of
    repairing the damage, he said.

- -
Referring specifically to a report produced by economists at the 
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which was instrumental 
in outlining global climate targets including those presented at the 
Paris Agreement COP21, Keen said even their most severe estimates were a 
“trivial underestimate of the damage we expect.”

That is because they “completely and deliberately ignore the possibility 
of tipping points,” a point at which climate change can cause 
irreversible shifts in the environment.
“I think we should throw the economists completely out of this 
discussion and sit the politicians down with the scientists and say 
these are the potential outcomes of that much of a change to the 
biosphere; we are toying with forces far in excess of ones we can 
actually address,” he said.

Keen’s comments come as world leaders wrapped up their final day of 
meetings at the Arctic Council — an intergovernmental forum covering 
wide-ranging geopolitical issues from climate to trade.
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/05/24/war-footing-needed-to-correct-economists-climate-change-failings.html

- -

[big changes required]
*Biden adviser says reducing red meat isn't sole climate change solution*
The White House's national climate adviser, Gina McCarthy, responded on 
Sunday to claims made by Republicans that President Biden’s climate plan 
includes a ban on red meat, concluding that “we’re all in a lotta 
trouble” if people think consuming less meat is the “entire solution to 
climate change.”
- -
The USDA called the claims made by Republicans “a fabrication.”

“This is a fabrication. There is no such effort or policy that exists by 
this Administration. It’s not a part of the climate plan nor the 
emissions targets. It is not real,” a USDA spokesperson previously told 
The Hill.
https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/554986-biden-advisor-says-reducing-red-meat-isnt-sole-climate-change



[it's a giant Slip 'n Slide]
*Airborne radar reveals groundwater beneath glacier*
by Stanford University
MAY 20, 2021

    "Based on the radar signal, the study team constructed two possible
    models to describe Hiawatha Glacier's geology: Frozen land with
    thawed ice below it or porous rock that enables drainage, like when
    water flows to the bottom of a vase filled with marbles. These
    hypotheses have different implications for how Hiawatha Glacier may
    respond to a warming climate."

https://phys.org/news/2021-05-airborne-radar-reveals-groundwater-beneath.html 




[arriving by train or boat?]
*UAE asks to host 2023 climate change conference*
ARAB NEWS - May 23, 2021
DUBAI: The United Arab Emirates has asked to host the COP 28 
international conference on climate change in its capital Abu Dhabi in 
2023, state news agency WAM reported on Sunday.

The UAE is offering to host Conference of the Parties (COP 28) to the 
United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) with a 
focus on the economic case for inclusive climate action, the statement 
said.

Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Minister of Foreign Affairs and 
International Cooperation, said, “COP 28 will represent a pivotal moment 
to capitalize on this opportunity, and our vision is to work with all 
countries to realize their net economic benefits from accelerated action. “

“As COP 28 host, the UAE would leverage its experience as a regional and 
global convener to mobilize all actors in achieving the Paris Agreement 
and reinforcing the compelling investment case for raising ambitions,” 
Sheikh Abdullah added.

The UAE is a permanent host country for the International Renewable 
Energy Agency (IRENA), and is considered the first country in the region 
to sign and ratify the Paris Agreement.

“Climate impacts are already being acutely felt, but our experience 
gives us optimism that we can meet global climate goals while creating 
social and economic opportunities – with contributions coming from all 
corners of the globe,” the minister said.
https://www.arabnews.com/node/1863176/middle-east



[Leaving LA for Vermont ]
Los Angeles Times Opinion
*Op-Ed: Leaving California*
After more than four agreeable decades in California, my wife and I 
became climate migrants — highly privileged ones, to be sure — and moved 
to Vermont.

Our life in Marin County had turned into a tightrope walk...
- -
We moved with more excitement than regret. We understand our enormous 
good fortune: Most people can’t afford to pick up stakes, no matter how 
dire the prognosis on home ground. We loved the Bay Area, and now, most 
likely, we will love another place, too.

We departed with gratitude for the kindnesses and thoughtfulness of many 
people we’ve known, with pain over dear family members and friends (and 
the neighbors’ dog we loved looking after) whom we are leaving behind, 
and with grief for the suffering and chaos that climate change has just 
begun to generate, emphatically in California and eventually everywhere.

We’re at the beginning of the diaspora, and we shudder at the thought.

Jacques Leslie is a contributing writer to Opinion.
https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2021-05-23/leaving-california-climate-change-wildfire



[Inside Climate News]
*Trees Fell Faster in the Years Since Companies and Governments Promised 
to Stop Cutting Them Down*
The Forest Trends report shows a 50 percent increase in deforestation of 
tropical woodlands, most of it for agriculture and much of it illegal, 
since the 2014 New York Declaration on Forests.
By Georgina Gustin -- May 19, 2021
- -
The report, released Tuesday by the conservation group Forest Trends, 
tracks deforestation, legal and illegal, in 23 countries with large 
areas of tropical forests, including Brazil, home to most of the Amazon 
rainforest. The research looks at the period, starting in 2014, when 
dozens of governments, organizations and companies signed onto the New 
York Declaration on Forests, a voluntary agreement to halve 
deforestation by 2020 and stop it altogether by 2030.

The researchers found that, since those commitments, an area nearly 
twice the size of California has been cleared of trees, mostly for 
commercial agriculture, which is the largest driver of deforestation and 
the biggest source of greenhouse gas emissions from land use.

“The scale of the increase in deforestation is really huge, and given 
all the commitments, is really disappointing and shocking,” said Cassie 
Dummett, one of the report’s lead authors. “Every year so much is being 
cleared, and when it’s for commodities, that means that the world’s 
consumers and governments are complicit.”...
- -
Most of that clearing was driven by a demand for exported commodities. 
In addition to beef, the biggest culprit throughout Latin America 
continues to be soy, largely for animal feed and destined for overseas 
markets, especially China, which has seen a surge in demand for meat. In 
Indonesia, the largest driver of deforestation continues to be palm oil, 
which finds its way into a wide array of commercial food and consumer 
products in markets around the world...
- -
“Behind a lot of this is land deals, land speculation and land 
laundering, depending on the country,” Dummett said. “The legal 
framework is often exploited, where a nexus of political and business 
elites are using commercial agriculture as a means of claiming 
ownership, and the land value increases massively when it’s transformed 
from forest to agricultural land.”

Dummett said that Forest Trends will follow up on the report with a set 
of policy recommendations, but the authors intend it to inform a handful 
of legislative proposals already in the works.

Lawmakers in the United Kingdom are considering a law that would ban the 
import of any product linked to illegal deforestation. In the United 
States, Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) has said he will introduce 
legislation that would ban the import of products linked to illegal 
deforestation, and has called consuming products connected to such 
destruction of woodlands “immoral.”
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/19052021/deforestation-climate-change-forest-trends-companies-governments/?utm_source=InsideClimate+News&utm_campaign=e64d690eb5-&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_29c928ffb5-e64d690eb5-327495193


[criticism from India]
*Why to Avoid Reading a Book on Climate Change Written by a Billionaire*
SIXDEGREES on 05/22/2021
NITIN SETHI
I HARDLY WRITE OR REPORT THESE DAYS. A PUBLICATION ASKED FOR A BOOK 
REVIEW. BUT, IT REJECTED THE REVIEW UPON READING THE DRAFT. NEEDLESS TO 
SAY, ITS NOT A GENTEEL AND POLITE REVIEW. THOUGHT OF SHARING IT FOR 
THOSE WHO MAY WANT TO READ IT ANYWAY. IT HAS NOT BEEN EDITED, SO IT 
COMES WITH ALL THE TYPOS, ERRORS WITHOUT BEING SUBBED CLEAN.
- -
Chapter by chapter Gates resolves it all for humanity. He tells you how 
to have clean transportation, green heating and cooling systems and 
adapt to inevitable climate change (this bit has a photo of him standing 
with a few cows and farmers in Kenya to boot). Universal truths are 
strewn across the pages as sub-heads: “Cities need to change the way 
they grow, focus on the most vulnerable people, factor climate change 
into policy decisions, help farmers manage the risks from more chaotic 
weather.”

Almost as if to ensure he is not blamed for missing out on it, there is 
a sliver of a chapter on why government policies matter. A middle on 
innovation and technology and then a chapter on what all good DIY books 
must tell: “What each of us can do.”

I read these chapters so you and your children do not have to. Stop at 
the first half of the first chapter. Why, you may ask?

Because, reading further you might get the impression all it takes is a 
goofy, sweet and geeky globetrotting-self to become a genius billionaire 
and some techno-interventions to save the planet.

Neither is true. It takes a whole lot of business acumen to be the 
first. Mr Gates prefers not to talk of the first. This is the kind of 
book one writes after one has made his billions, poured his billions 
into philanthropy that part-promotes investments to grow yet more billions.

It certainly takes more to resolve the biggest long-ranging challenge 
humanity faces. Do not get me wrong. Mr Gates is right: technology is a 
key. But, ask yourself this? If Mr Gates and many like him have the 
technology list ready (or almost ready) why is it taking the World, its 
most powerful nations and citizens heading these nations, so long to fix 
the problem?

I would recommend you read anything that answers to the above question 
rather than Mr Gates, who is rather averse to corporates in the global 
North relaxing their patents for manufacturers in the global South to 
produce vaccines against Covid-19 pandemic. Underneath the banality of 
his book lies such real-world challenges, that Mr Gates has decided it’s 
best to avoid discussing.

Nitin Sethi is a journalist with The Reporters’ Collective. Besides 
other things, he has written on the intersections of climate change, 
science, politics and governance for over a decade.
https://www.sixdegreesnews.org/archives/30213/why-to-avoid-reading-a-book-on-climate-change-written-by-a-billionaire


[a classic audio talk from 6 years ago]
*How Humanity Is Causing a 'Sixth Extinction' - Elizabeth Kolbert Interview*
Aug 17, 2015
The Elephant

We typically think of climate change in terms of the consequences it has 
for humanity. But it also has huge and troubling impacts on the other 
species we share our planet with. In this episode we speak with 
Elizabeth Kolbert about her Pulitzer Prize winning book the Sixth 
Extinction, and discuss how, like the asteroid that killed the 
dinosaurs, human beings are having an impact so disruptive on the 
environment that a large proportion of the earth's species will have 
likely gone extinct by the end of the century.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cdPdd8Sz2q8



[Digging back into the internet news archive]
*On this day in the history of global warming  May 24, 2006 *
May 24, 2006: "An Inconvenient Truth" is released in the United States. 
BoxOfficeGuru.com's Gitesh Pandya notes:

    "Setting the limited release box office on fire was the global
    warming documentary 'An Inconvenient Truth' which opened in only
    four theaters but grossed a hefty $367,311. That gave the Al Gore
    pic a stunning average of $91,827 per location over four days.
    Distributed by Paramount Vantage, the new incarnation of Paramount
    Classics, Truth collected $281,330 over the Friday-to-Sunday portion
    averaging a scorching $70,332. Total since Wednesday stands at
    $490,860. Opening this weekend on multiple screens at a pair of
    theaters in both New York and Los Angeles, Truth will add about 60
    more playdates on Friday and expand throughout June hoping to become
    the dominant doc of the summer."

(Al Gore and director Davis Guggenheim would appear on the June 2, 2006 
edition of "EcoTalk" on Air America to discuss the film.)
http://youtu.be/8ZUoYGAI5i0
http://www.boxofficeguru.com/052906.htm
http://blogsofbainbridge.typepad.com/ecotalkblog/2006/06/al_gore_about_a.html
http://blogsofbainbridge.typepad.com/ecotalkblog/2006/06/davis_guggenhei.html

/-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------/

/Archive of Daily Global Warming News 
<https://pairlist10.pair.net/pipermail/theclimate.vote/2017-October/date.html> 
/
https://pairlist10.pair.net/pipermail/theclimate.vote

/To receive daily mailings - click to Subscribe 
<mailto:subscribe at theClimate.Vote?subject=Click%20SEND%20to%20process%20your%20request> 
to news digest./

- Privacy and Security:*This mailing is text-only.  It does not carry 
images or attachments which may originate from remote servers.  A 
text-only message can provide greater privacy to the receiver and sender.
By regulation, the .VOTE top-level domain must be used for democratic 
and election purposes and cannot be used for commercial purposes. 
Messages have no tracking software.
To subscribe, email: contact at theclimate.vote 
<mailto:contact at theclimate.vote> with subject subscribe, To Unsubscribe, 
subject: unsubscribe
Also you may subscribe/unsubscribe at 
https://pairlist10.pair.net/mailman/listinfo/theclimate.vote
Links and headlines assembled and curated by Richard Pauli for 
http://TheClimate.Vote <http://TheClimate.Vote/> delivering succinct 
information for citizens and responsible governments of all levels. List 
membership is confidential and records are scrupulously restricted to 
this mailing list.


-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://pairlist10.pair.net/pipermail/theclimate.vote/attachments/20210524/b45289a8/attachment.htm>