[✔️] May 30, 2021 - Daily Global Warming News Digest

[Richard Pauli]

/*May 30, 2021*/

[USA Today - steps into the disinformation war]*
**'The future of this planet is at stake': Report pressures Facebook, 
YouTube and Twitter to battle climate lies*
Jessica Guynn
USA TODAY - May 27, 2021
The nation’s leading social media companies pulled out the stops to shut 
down conspiracy theories, hoaxes and falsehoods about COVID-19 and 
vaccines, QAnon and the 2020 election, but they are far less aggressive 
when it comes to the latest hot spot in the war on misinformation: 
climate change.
Social media researchers and climate scientists said hundreds of 
thousands of posts denying climate change can be found on Twitter, 
Facebook and its Instagram app, Tik Tok and YouTube. A new report from 
Advance Democracy shared exclusively with USA TODAY found that warning 
labels or links to credible information are frequently missing from 
posts that deny the existence of climate change, dispute its causes or 
underplay its effects.

Among them is the false belief that the Grand Solar Minimum, a period of 
low solar activity, will cool the planet and cause the next ice age, 
which is particularly popular among prominent climate change deniers and 
even has its own YouTube channel...
- -
Daniel Jones, president of Advance Democracy, said climate 
misinformation that obfuscates or downplays the threat to human life 
delays “necessary policy reforms worldwide.”

“Our research affirms that the spread of climate misinformation is 
prolific on social media and could benefit from platform interventions 
that steer users to more accurate information,” he said.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2021/05/27/facebook-youtube-twitter-climate-misinformation-lies/7458465002/



[Western heat and drought forecast - brief broadcast video]
*U.S. braces for extreme weather conditions coast-to-coast*
May 29, 2021
CBS Evening News
Americans nationwide are expected to face extreme weather conditions 
this Memorial Day weekend, with the South bracing for storms and the 
eastern U.S. experiencing unusually cold temperatures. CBS meteorologist 
and climate specialist Jeff Berardelli has more.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vb-GxqVlgPE



[ 's not the proper term, pardon me]
*'Sea snot' is clogging up Turkey's coasts, suffocating marine life, and 
devastating fisheries*
Morgan McFall-Johnsen May 28, 2021

    - A goopy substance called sea snot has been clogging Turkish coasts
    in the Sea of Marmara for months.
    - The mucus has been filling fishing nets, suffocating coral, and
    killing marine life.
    - climate change and fertilizer runoff may be fueling the algae boom
    that's behind the sea snot.

Blankets of a goopy, camel-colored substance have been accumulating in 
the water off Turkey's coast for months.

The goop, called marine mucilage or "sea snot," is covering so much of 
the coastline along the Sea of Marmara that people can no longer fish 
there. The sea snot formations can get up to 100 feet (30 meters) deep, 
according to the Turkish news site Cumhuriyet.

The sea snot fills fishing nets and weighs them down — one fisherman 
told Cumhuriyet that nets have been bursting from the weight of the 
mucus. A fishery co-op leader said people were barely pulling in a fifth 
of the fish they hauled at this time last year.

Marine mucilage is a goopy discharge of protein, carbohydrates, and fat 
from microscopic algae called phytoplankton. The substance was 
documented in the Sea of Marmara for the first time in 2007, as 
researchers at Istanbul University reported in 2008...
- -
Since phytoplankton thrive in warm water, scientists suspect that 
climate change is fueling the new sea-snot crisis. Runoff from nitrogen- 
and phosphorous-rich fertilizer and sewage could also be causing an 
explosion in the phytoplankton population.

"We are experiencing the visible effects of climate change, and 
adaptation requires an overhaul of our habitual practices. We must 
initiate a full-scale effort to adapt," Mustafa Sarı, dean of Bandırma 
Onyedi Eylül University's maritime faculty, told The Guardian.
"The gravity of the situation set in when I dived for measurements in 
March and discovered severe mortality in corals," he told The Guardian.

Thousands of fish have been washing up dead in coastal towns as well, 
Sarı told The Guardian. The fish could be suffocating because sea snot 
clogs their gills, or because it depletes the water's oxygen levels.

"Once the mucilage covers the coasts, it limits the interaction between 
water and the atmosphere," Sarı said.
https://www.businessinsider.com/turkey-sea-snot-crisis-devastates-fishing-marine-life-2021-5



[delicious changes]
*Outrage and delight as France ditches reliance on meat in climate bill*
Environment minister Barbara Pompili says proposals will help country to 
meet net zero emissions

    Meat will be off the menu at least one day a week in schools, while
    vegetarian options will be standard in public catering, and chefs
    will be trained in how to prepare healthy and toothsome plant-based
    meals.

    The proposals have sparked uproar and howls of outrage among the
    traditionalists of French cuisine, but have been welcomed by many
    young people...
    - -
    France’s economic stimulus package is one of the world’s greenest:
    of the €100bn the government is spending to revive the economy after
    the Covid-19 shock, at least €30bn will go on low-carbon projects.

    The French are also working internationally, with the UK, to ensure
    that vital UN climate talks, called Cop26, to be held later this
    year in Glasgow, result in the full implementation of the 2015 Paris
    agreement. “France has a special responsibility,” she said.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/may/29/france-outrage-delight-meat-ditch-reliance-climate


[Why anxiety?]
*Climate Anxiety Makes Good Sense*
But in solidarity there’s some solace.

By Bill McKibben - May 5, 2021
Even as we begin to emerge from the stress of the pandemic year, 
mental-health professionals are noting a steady uptick in a different 
form of anxiety—the worry over climate change and the future that it 
will bring. The latest survey research from Yale and George Mason 
universities shows about forty per cent of Americans feeling “disgusted” 
or “helpless” about global warming; a poll from the American Psychiatric 
Association last autumn found that fifty-five per cent of respondents 
were concerned about the effects of climate change on their own mental 
health. The effects seem particularly harsh on new mothers, and, indeed, 
a fear of adding to the climate problem and of the disintegration it 
might cause seems to be deterring large numbers of young people from 
having kids of their own. Understandably, the fear of a wrecked future 
increases as you descend the age scale: a March survey of Gen-Z 
Americans aged between fourteen and twenty-four found that eighty-three 
per cent are concerned about the health of the planet (although nearly 
half said that they have been feeling a little better since Biden took 
office).

Perhaps there are ways in which this fear is a luxury—Sarah Jaquette 
Ray, who literally wrote the book on climate anxiety, noted recently 
that it is an “overwhelmingly white” phenomenon. Not because people of 
color care less about the climate crisis (in fact, they care more), but 
because they’ve faced other existential crises. “The prospect of an 
unlivable future has always shaped the emotional terrain for Black and 
brown people, whether that terrain is racism or climate change,” Ray 
wrote. “Exhaustion, anger, hope—the effects of oppression and resistance 
are not unique to this climate moment. What is unique is that people who 
had been insulated from oppression are now waking up to the prospect of 
their own unlivable future.” Eric Holthaus, in his always interesting 
Substack newsletter on climate, echoed some of these thoughts, after 
describing his own anxiety as so crippling that, during attacks that 
lasted weeks, he’d “been unable to write, unable to interact with 
friends, unable to function normally.” But, he said, since those “who 
have already been marginalized by centuries of oppression will be hurt 
the worst . . . our job, as the climate anxious, is to repair that 
oppression, repair that marginalization, to make sure you’re not 
offloading your anxiety onto someone else in ways that are causing more 
harm.”

That’s fair enough—action has always seemed the best salve to me. (And 
for those for whom it is not enough, the Climate Psychology Alliance 
North America has published a directory of “climate-informed 
therapists.”) But I think there’s another reason that climate change can 
be so uniquely anxiety-producing: we’re not used to dealing with fights 
that we don’t know we can win. Martin Luther King, Jr.,’s statement, 
quoting the abolitionist Theodore Parker, that “the arc of the moral 
universe is long, but it bends toward justice” was comforting in a 
civil-rights fight that required—and requires—enormous courage: they 
meant, I think, “this may take a while but we’re going to win.” But a 
different kind of courage is needed for the climate battle, because the 
arc of the physical universe is short and it bends toward heat. If we 
don’t win soon, we will never win, because the Earth is rushing toward 
irrevocable tipping points. We’ve already passed some—there’s no plan 
afoot to refreeze the Arctic. And clearly things will get much worse 
before they (possibly) start to stabilize; we’ve raised the temperature 
a degree Celsius already, and the most optimistic thinkers on the planet 
reckon that we might just be able to top out at 1.5 degrees.

All of which is to say that we are right to be anxious. There are 
profound reasons to hope that we’re about to make serious progress: the 
sudden arrival of cheap renewable energy; the shifting zeitgeist. (As is 
often the case, Rebecca Solnit sums them up with particular power.) Even 
if we catch some breaks from physics, though, it’s going to be a tough 
few decades. And what will make it toughest may be the (very American) 
assumption that we have to endure the anxiety by ourselves, in our own 
heads. I’ve found the simple solidarity of movements at least as useful 
as the opportunities for action that they provide; just knowing that 
lots of other people are at work on the same problem is a solace, and a 
goad to keep working. It’s one reason that I’m glad that vaccinations 
are proceeding apace. It’ll be strategically useful to be back in the 
streets, but it will also be psychologically useful: we are shoulder to 
shoulder on Zoom, but it’s not quite the same.
https://www.newyorker.com/news/annals-of-a-warming-planet/climate-anxiety-makes-good-sense
[full disclosure - The curator or this newsletter is a board member of 
Climate Psychology Alliance North America]- -

- -

[one psychology research paper]
*Fear Appeal Theory*
February 2012International Journal of Economics and Business Research 
5(February):63-82
Authors: Kaylene C Williams California State University, Stanislaus

    Abstract
    A fear appeal posits the risks of using and not using a specific
    product, service, or idea such that if you don't "buy," some
    particular dire consequences will occur. That is, fear appeals rely
    on a threat to an individual's well-being that motivates him or her
    toward action, e.g., increasing control over a situation or
    preventing an unwanted outcome. While threat and efficacy clearly
    are important for fear appeal effectiveness, these two ingredients
    alone are not sufficient. Additionally, empirical results regarding
    fear appeal effectiveness are not conclusive. However, the
    literature conventionally agrees that more effective fear appeals
    result from a higher fear arousal followed by consequences and
    recommendations to reduce the negativity. The purpose of this
    article is to review and examine the fear appeal literature with the
    aim of understanding the current overall fear appeal theory. In
    particular, this paper includes the following sections:
    introduction, definition of a fear appeal, use of fear appeals,
    theories of fear appeals, overall findings from the fear appeal
    theories and literature, and summary.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/265807800_Fear_Appeal_Theory




[Digging back into the internet news archive]*
**On this day in the history of global warming  May 30, 2013
*May 30, 2013: In a controversial Huffington Post article, climate 
scientist James Hansen suggests that neither Republicans nor Democrats 
can be relied upon to combat carbon pollution in a market-based manner.

    Dr. James Hansen, Contributor Climatologist and Adjunct Professor,
    Columbia University Earth Institute
    The American Party -5/30/2013
    My remarks when receiving the Ridenhour Courage Award were written
    in Union Station on my way to the event. But my concluding comment —
    that we are near a point when the American people should contemplate
    a centrist third party — was not an idle spur-of-the-moment reflection.

    I was in government 40 years, long enough to understand how aging
    organizations can evolve into self-licking ice cream cones1,
    organizations whose main purpose becomes self-perpetuation rather
    than accomplishment of their supposed objectives. The public can see
    this tendency in our politicians, our Congress, and our major
    political parties.

    Our government has failed to address climate, energy, and economic
    challenges. These challenges, addressed together, actually can be a
    great opportunity. Our democracy and economic system still have
    great potential for innovation and rapid adoption of improved
    technologies, if the government provides the right conditions and
    gets out of the way.

    The Solution is Not Rocket Science
    Conservatives and liberals alike can recognize the merit of honest
    pricing of fossil fuels. Fossil fuels today receive subsidies and do
    not pay their costs to society. Human health costs of pollution from
    fossil fuel burning and fossil fuel mining are borne by the public.
    Climate disruption costs are borne by the victims and all taxpayers.

    This market distortion makes our economy less efficient and less
    competitive. Fixing this problem is not rocket science. The solution
    can be simple and transparent.
    - -
    Citizens Climate Lobby
    Implausible dreaming, you scoff. Not so fast. For example, consider
    Citizens Climate Lobby. If you don’t know about them read today’s
    article in the New York Times. These are honest, hard- working
    people trying to educate politicians and the public about the need
    for a revenue-neutral carbon fee via op-eds, letters-to-the-editor,
    meetings with editorial boards, meetings with congressional
    staffers, and meetings with congress people.

    Citizens Climate Lobby is made up largely of volunteers, with
    continual training of new recruits. They have doubled in size each
    year for the past several years and are active in most states. They
    are positive, dedicated and respectful, creating a good impression
    with congress people.

    What is the chance that they can compete against the well-heeled
    fossil fuel lobby? Hard to say. But if they fail to move our present
    government by 2015, and by then have doubled in size a few more
    times, they just may be a democratic force to be reckoned with. They
    seek to persuade and are unfailingly respectful and polite, but
    determined. So, if in a few years the two major parties remain
    uncompromising and unsupportive of a carbon fee, it would not
    surprise me if Citizens Climate Lobby became a major force for a
    centrist third party.

    Everybody is welcome to join Citizens Climate Lobby — a link to an
    introductory call is at http://www.tfaforms.com/275537.

- -
-- A self-licking ice cream cone is a self-perpetuating system with no 
purpose other than to sustain itself. The phrase was used first in 1992 
in On Self-Licking Ice Cream Cones, a paper by Pete Worden about NASA’s 
bureaucracy.

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/the-american-party_b_3358546 *
*https://citizensclimatelobby.org/


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

/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/20210530/b7e1aaa4/attachment.htm>