[✔️] September 7, 2021 - Daily Global Warming News Digest

[👀 Richard Pauli]

/*September 7, 2021*/

[Health researchers don't scream, they publish]
*More than 200 health journals call for urgent action on climate crisis*
Editorial in publications worldwide urges leaders to take measures to 
stop ‘greatest threat to public health’
PA Media -Sun 5 Sep 2021
More than 200 health journals worldwide are publishing an editorial 
calling on leaders to take emergency action on climate change and to 
protect health.

The British Medical Journal said it is the first time so many 
publications have come together to make the same statement, reflecting 
the severity of the situation.
The editorial, which is being published before the UN general assembly 
and the Cop26 climate summit in Glasgow this November, says: “Ahead of 
these pivotal meetings, we – the editors of health journals worldwide – 
call for urgent action to keep average global temperature increases 
below 1.5C, halt the destruction of nature, and protect health.

“Health is already being harmed by global temperature increases and the 
destruction of the natural world, a state of affairs health 
professionals have been bringing attention to for decades.
“The science is unequivocal; a global increase of 1.5C above the 
pre-industrial average and the continued loss of biodiversity risk 
catastrophic harm to health that will be impossible to reverse.

“Despite the world’s necessary preoccupation with Covid-19, we cannot 
wait for the pandemic to pass to rapidly reduce emissions.

“Reflecting the severity of the moment, this editorial appears in health 
journals across the world.

“We are united in recognising that only fundamental and equitable 
changes to societies will reverse our current trajectory.”

It adds: “The greatest threat to global public health is the continued 
failure of world leaders to keep the global temperature rise below 1.5C 
and to restore nature.

“Urgent, society-wide changes must be made and will lead to a fairer and 
healthier world.

“We, as editors of health journals, call for governments and other 
leaders to act, marking 2021 as the year that the world finally changes 
course.”
Dr Fiona Godlee, editor-in-chief of the BMJ, and one of the co-authors 
of the editorial, said: “Health professionals have been on the frontline 
of the Covid-19 crisis and they are united in warning that going above 
1.5C and allowing the continued destruction of nature will bring the 
next, far deadlier crisis.

“Wealthier nations must act faster and do more to support those 
countries already suffering under higher temperatures. 2021 has to be 
the year the world changes course – our health depends on it.”

The editorial will appear in the BMJ, the Lancet, the New England 
Journal of Medicine, the East African Medical Journal, the Chinese 
Science Bulletin, the National Medical Journal of India, the Medical 
Journal of Australia, and 50 BMJ specialist journals including BMJ 
Global Health and Thorax.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/sep/06/more-than-200-health-journals-call-for-urgent-action-on-climate-crisis



[not surprising, distressing]
*Climate disasters will strain our mental health system. It’s time to 
adapt.*
As the effects of climate change become severe, more people than ever 
may experience mental health challenges. To provide solutions, experts 
say the system will need to evolve.
By Camille Baker - September 4, 2021

The resonances were eerie as Hurricane Ida, a Category 4 storm, broached 
Louisiana’s coast on Sunday, 16 years to the day after Hurricane Katrina 
ravaged the same area.

“It’s very painful to think about another powerful storm like Hurricane 
Ida making landfall on that anniversary,” Louisiana Gov. John Bel 
Edwards (D) said on the eve of Ida’s arrival. As residents of the state 
braced for a battering of wind and water, many were preparing for 
another assault — the unbearable emotional toll of living through 
another such storm.

This kind of re-traumatization may become increasingly common. Experts 
say that as the planet continues to warm, and climate change’s effects 
become more apparent and severe across the globe, more people than ever 
could experience serious challenges to their mental health as a result.
New methods for addressing these challenges are emerging in the United 
States, though some experts believe a surge in mental health issues 
related to climate change could overwhelm the system — leading them to 
consider how to radically remake it.

Why we shouldn’t give in to climate despair

Just the past few months have spelled a handful of devastating weather 
extremes in the United States. Record-breaking temperatures scorched the 
country, prompting heat warnings to be issued for 150 million people. 
The Dixie Fire, which grew to over 868,000 acres this week, has become 
the largest single fire in California history. And in August, an 
unprecedented amount of rain battered Tennessee, leading to floods that 
killed at least 21 people.

Climate change is suddenly feeling a lot more real for many Americans 
who have not seen it up close until now, clinicians say, leading many to 
seek one-on-one therapy.

“Mental health professionals help people face reality, because we know 
living in denial can ruin a person’s life. As the climate crisis 
unfolds, we see people whose anger, anxiety, and depression, caused by 
the shortcomings of a previous generation, prevent them from leading 
productive lives themselves,” reads a contribution by Lise Van Susteren 
to a report by the American Psychological Association and ecoAmerica.

Katharine Wilkinson, an author and strategist who co-edited an anthology 
about climate solutions called “All We Can Save,” said that over the 
past year more than 600 people had signed up to lead book discussion 
circles she designed as an outlet for climate grief, signaling a growing 
demand for climate-related support in group formats. And Daniel Masler, 
a Washington-based therapist, says requests for climate-related care 
have only grown since he began his work in 2012.

“We’ve been for so long in social denial. Now, with the smoke drifting 
all the way back East and the phenomenal fluctuations in temperature, 
people can’t deny it anymore.”

Sign up for the latest news about climate change, energy and the 
environment, delivered every Thursday

Other groups for dealing with climate grief have emerged in recent 
years, too.

A nonprofit organization called the Good Grief Network, a 10-step 
program inspired by the structure of Alcoholics Anonymous whose meetings 
provide “social and emotional support to people who feel overwhelmed 
about the state of the world,” says it has reached over a thousand 
people in four years. Steps in the program range from accepting “the 
severity of the predicament” to reinvesting “into meaningful efforts.”

The Makepeace family stand in the street outside their home, which was 
flooded by Hurricane Ida on Aug. 30, 2021, in LaPlace, La. (Michael 
Robinson Chavez for The Washington Post)
Young adults are among the groups most vulnerable to feelings of 
depression and anxiety related to climate change, said Leslie Davenport, 
a climate psychology educator and consultant who is a member of a 
directory of climate-aware therapists. “It is this sense of looking at 
their personal future in a way that, in much of the U.S., has not had to 
be viewed this way before. ‘Does it make sense for me to think about 
starting a family? Does it make sense for me to start thinking about 
college?’”

Therapy sessions can allow people a space to relieve their stresses 
through disclosure and reflect on what they can do to slow the earth’s 
warming, which can also be alleviating. “A lot of us tend to go into 
strong feelings of self blame, and [therapy can] help to shift the blame 
into something that’s more activating,” said Masler, another member of 
the directory.

The effects of climate change on mental health can range from the 
frightening to the acutely dangerous. Some studies have linked extreme 
temperatures with an increased risk of suicide, as well as increased 
hospital admissions for mood and behavioral disorders. One study found 
that nearly half of mostly young, low-income, African American mothers 
exposed to Hurricane Katrina likely suffered from post traumatic stress 
disorder, or PTSD, following the storm. According to estimates, 
millions, or even over a billion people could be displaced by the 
climate crisis by 2050.

The race to rescue Florida’s diseased corals

An article in the medical journal The Lancet emphasizes climate change’s 
disproportionate effect on the world’s most vulnerable people — who are 
more likely to live in countries the least responsible for greenhouse 
gas emissions.

“Populations with pre-existing chronic health conditions, low 
socioeconomic status, children, older people, and some ethnic minority 
groups are particularly vulnerable,” the article reads. “Similarly, 
these populations often lack the financial, social, or community 
resilience needed to cope, manage, and recover from new environmental 
hazards or climate stress.”

In parallel, the people most vulnerable to climate change’s effects may 
also be the least able to access mental health care, especially in a 
future that exacerbates existing inequalities. In Colorado, Kritee 
Kanko, a climate scientist and Zen Buddhist teacher, discussed the need 
to develop more accessible forms of mental health care for that very reason.

“Whenever I speak about climate grief, I always say that one-to-one 
psychotherapy has helped me personally, and it’s great. We need great 
therapists,” she said. But she added that one-on-one therapy can be 
prohibitively expensive, and that in the future, individual therapists 
may not be able to keep up with an increase in demand due to climate change.

“It is not going to be enough, at all, for what we are facing. It will 
never be enough because of the scale of trauma we face,” she said. “I’m 
thinking about marginalized, racialized communities here who don’t have 
the financial privilege.”

A reform to the mental health care system to prepare for climate change 
“has to be community wide,” echoed Van Susteren, a psychiatrist and a 
co-founder of the Climate Psychiatry Alliance, who helped organize the 
therapist directory. “It has to be culturally based so that it isn’t a 
one size fits all. It has to be geared towards building resilience.”

Gary Belkin, a psychiatrist, founder of the Billion Minds Institute and 
a visiting scientist at the Harvard School of Public Health, has also 
been vocal on the demand that climate change will place on mental health 
resources.

“We are all psychologically unprepared to face the accelerating 
existential crisis of climate and ecological change that will further 
deepen other destructive fault lines in our society,” Belkin wrote in 
Psychiatric News in February. “The future will extract enormous social 
and emotional costs and suffering and require enormous social and 
emotional strengths to combat. We must sound that alarm and put our own 
house in order.”

Costa Rica’s environmental minister wants to build a green economy. She 
just needs time.

He too believes ambitious reform to the very way mental health care is 
administered will be necessary to meet the moment. Belkin described his 
work with the Social Climate Leadership Group, a coalition of 17 health 
and climate organizations announced last August that intends to deepen 
mental health professionals’ relationships with the communities they 
serve, among other goals. Intermittent therapy sessions will not be able 
to “solve” the negative mental health effects of climate change, Belkin 
said, so health systems, grass roots organizations and other entities 
need to mobilize to empower communities to bolster their own emotional 
resilience and mental health.

“The mental health system works on the idea of discrete illnesses that 
are treated and have a distinct beginning and end, whereas, mass 
population effects like climate change … are relentless,” said Belkin, 
who served as the deputy health commissioner of New York City in 2019.

One innovation Belkin says could be useful for distributing therapeutic 
knowledge is “task sharing” — an evidence-based process by which peers, 
teachers, parents, clergy, health workers and other nonspecialists 
provide mental health support to others under the supervision of trained 
clinicians.

He suggests this could be one of the pillars of a new model of 
community-based mental health care that can rise to the challenge of the 
climate crisis.

“This is no small task, and I know this. But the methods are there. It’s 
not a complex formula. It’s really about the will to do it,” Belkin added.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-solutions/2021/09/04/climate-change-mental-health-hurricane/ 




[Time to call U-Haul]
*What part of the US is safest from climate change?*
By Camille Squires -- updated on September 5, 2021
Researchers looked at multiple factors from sea level rise to heat to 
assess the least risky place to live in the US as the climate warms. 
Nowhere will escape climate change unscathed. Yet one region emerged 
well ahead of the rest: the northeastern US.
Of the 10 lowest risk counties, seven were located in Vermont, and most 
of the remaining were in northeastern states like Maine and New York, 
according to a study by ProPublica and the New York Times Magazine. Data 
on relative risk for US counties threatened by climate change was 
compiled from data collected by the Rhodium Group, an independent 
data-analytics firm, as well as several academic studies.

        Lamoille County, Vermont
        Franklin County, Vermont
        Orange County, Vermont
        Essex County, Vermont
        Piscataquis County, Maine
        Summit County, Colorado
        Grand County, Colorado
        Orleans County, Vermont
        Hamilton County, New York
        Franklin County, Maine

The study accounted for how six factors—heat, wet bulb temperatures, sea 
level rise, crop yield, fires, and economic damage—combined to impact 
people and economies. These safest areas were expected to have the 
lowest combined impacts by mid-century. Temperatures, fires, and 
sea-level rise will drive much of the damage. Rising temperatures mean 
searing heat and humidity will shift the zone of moderate climate and 
farmable land to the north. Places like Arizona and Texas are expected 
to sizzle under combined heat and humidity, known as “wet bulb” 
temperatures, which make it nearly impossible for the human body to cool 
itself for part of the year.  Sea level rise on the coasts and fires in 
the US West, mean inland states in the Northeast become prime locations.
https://qz.com/2055291/what-part-of-the-us-is-safest-from-climate-change/



[video discussion of transformative adaptation - "The Dodo, the Phoenix 
or the Butterfly"]
*Climate Adaptation - Interview with Prof. Rupert Read*
Aug 7, 2021
Arkbound Media
Arkbound Foundation interviews Prof. Rupert Read, experienced activist 
and philosopher, to discuss transformative adaptation and the importance 
of facing up to the future. Rupert is one of the authors of the upcoming 
Climate Adaptations, a brave examination of climate change from 
worldwide perspectives.

Professor Rupert Read is an environmental philosopher based in Norwich, 
and an expert of the Precautionary Principle. He was previously the 
spokesperson for Extinction Rebellion, and a councillor for the Green 
Party. He is the co-founder of Green House Think Tank, and the author 
of several books, including This Civilisation is Finished: Conversations 
on the End of Empire - and what Lies Beyond, and Extinction Rebellion: 
Insights from the Inside. He has also written articles for major media 
outlets, such as The Guardian, The Independent, and The Conversation. 

Pre-order your copy of Climate Adaptations for October 25th: 
https://arkbound.com/product/climate-adaptation-accounts-of-resilience-self-sufficiency-and-systems-change/

*Transformative Adaptation Collective: * 
http://transformative-adaptation.com
Rupert Read's website: https://rupertread.net
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-FiA58M0izU



[after decades of deceit and lies, suddenly a new lie, or it is the truth?]
*Rupert Murdoch’s Australia News Outlets to Ease Their Climate Denial*
The campaign, if sustained, could put pressure on Fox News, though 
critics were skeptical that a sea change was in store.
By Damien Cave
Sept. 6, 2021, 5:58 a.m. ET
SYDNEY, Australia — After years of casting doubt on climate change and 
attacking politicians who favored corrective action, Rupert Murdoch’s 
media outlets in his native Australia are planning an editorial campaign 
next month advocating a carbon-neutral future.

Depending on its content, the project, described by executives at Mr. 
Murdoch’s News Corp on Monday, could be a breakthrough that provides 
political cover for Australia’s conservative government to end its 
refusal to set ambitious emission targets. If sustained, it could also 
put pressure on Fox News and other Murdoch-owned outlets in the United 
States and Britain that have been hostile to climate science.

But critics, including scientists who have been a target of News Corp’s 
climate combat, warned that the effort could be little more than window 
dressing that leaves decades of damage intact.

“Color me skeptical,” said Michael E. Mann, director of the Earth System 
Science Center at Pennsylvania State University. “Until Rupert Murdoch 
and News Corp call off their attack dogs at Fox News and The Wall Street 
Journal, who continue to promote climate change disinformation on a 
daily basis, these are hollow promises that should be viewed as a 
desperate ploy to rehabilitate the public image of a leading climate 
villain.”

As broadly outlined by News Corp executives, the project will include 
features and editorials across the company’s influential newspapers, 
along with Sky News, its 24-hour news channel. They will explore a path 
to reaching net-zero emissions by 2050 — a target, set by dozens of 
countries, that scientific studies show is crucial to averting some of 
the most disastrous effects of global warming.

News Corp executives in Australia have said little publicly about their 
plans, which were reported earlier by The Sydney Morning Herald. News 
Corp and a spokesman for Rupert Murdoch did not respond to emailed 
requests for comment.
On Monday, ​​Paul Whittaker, the chief executive of Sky News, appeared 
in the Australian Senate to answer questions at a public hearing about 
misinformation in the media. He downplayed the reported shift in climate 
change priorities.

“I wouldn’t describe it as a campaign,” he said. “I would describe it, 
in terms of Sky News, as an exploration of what are very complex issues.”

Sky tends to be the most extreme of News Corp’s properties. Last month, 
YouTube suspended the conservative news channel for a week for breaching 
the platform’s coronavirus misinformation policy. Two years ago, one of 
its hosts labeled climate change “a fraudulent and dangerous cult” that 
was “driven by unscrupulous and sinister interests.”

At many of the company’s newspapers, where solid journalism often sits 
beside unrelenting ideology in articles that often do not carry an 
“opinion” label, the editorial project has been widely discussed over 
the past few weeks, often with a sense of relief...
A senior newspaper employee with News Corp, who requested anonymity 
because he was not permitted to describe internal decision-making, said 
the editorial effort reflected a growing recognition by the company that 
the world had moved to a stronger stance on climate change.

He said the project had been developing for months, with various 
political and business figures given advance notice, a signal that the 
turn toward endorsing net-zero emissions risked surprising conservative 
allies.

Coordinated campaigns are not uncommon for News Corp, which is the 
dominant commercial provider of news in Australia, with newspapers in 
major cities and regional areas. Several outlets are currently pushing 
for a rapid uptake in Covid-19 vaccination.

In the case of global warming, the campaign will begin just before a new 
round of international climate talks in Scotland.

The timing elicited both hope and cynicism among critics of News Corp’s 
climate coverage.

“If genuine, this could provide a critical boost to momentum needed for 
the Glasgow summit in November,” said Joëlle Gergis, a climate scientist 
at the Australian National University..
Richie Merzian, the climate and energy program director at the Australia 
Institute, a progressive research organization, said that News Corp 
should call for immediate action to reduce emissions...
“Really, they are moving from an F to a D student here,” he said. “The 
real risk is News Corp shifting from denying climate change to delaying 
climate action with nonsolutions and unaccountable long-term targets. 
Net zero by 2050 is almost useless if it is not enforced, if it has no 
short-term ambition and if there is no accompanying commitment to stop 
opening up new coal mines and new gas fields.”

Professor Mann, whose book “The New Climate War” looks closely at what 
he calls “inactivists” — the polluters, politicians and media outlets 
that have opposed climate action — said that News Corp may have simply 
realized that denial in the face of increasingly harsh climate events, 
especially the horrific 2019-20 bush fires in Australia, was no longer 
tenable.

“They’ve turned to other tactics — delay, distraction, deflection, 
division, etc. — in their effort to maintain the fossil fuel status 
quo,” he said by email. “Focusing on a target of 2050, three decades 
away, kicks the can so far down the road that it’s largely meaningless. 
It allows the cynics to appeal to promises of new technology (carbon 
capture, geoengineering, etc.) decades down the road as a crutch for 
continuing business-as-usual fossil fuel burning.”

Malcolm Turnbull, a former Australian prime minister who was often 
attacked by News Corp and was toppled in an intraparty dispute in 2018 
over climate policy, also warned that News Corp had a long track record 
that a few weeks of coverage could not erase.

News Corp’s newfound commitment, he said, should be believed only if the 
company’s journalists and editors stop beating up on supporters of 
climate action and stop protecting the conservative members of 
Parliament who have resisted climate policy...
“That right-wing populist climate-denying section of the coalition is 
very influential, and its foundation is the News Corp media,” Mr. 
Turnbull said in an interview. “That’s where they live and thrive. If 
there’s a change there, that would be significant.”

But, he added, “I’m not going to give them credit for something they 
haven’t done yet.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/06/business/news-corp-climate-change.html





[The news archive - looking back]
*On this day in the history of global warming September  7,*

On MotherJones.com, investigative journalist Brad Friedman, in part two 
of his report on a secretive June 2011 meeting in Colorado held by 
billionaire climate-change deniers Charles and David Koch, notes that 
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie spoke at the meeting--and that David Koch 
called him "my kind of guy."

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2011/09/audio-chris-christie-koch-brothers-seminar/ 



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