[✔️] September 14, 2021 - Daily Global Warming News Digest

Tue Sep 14 14:33:01 EDT 2021

/*September 14, 2021*/

/[follow the money]/
*The climate advocates who refuse to divest from big oil*
As Harvard sheds its fossil fuel investments, some argue it’s dangerous 
to limit leverage over oil and gas companies
Chris McGreal -- 14 Sep 2021
Even as climate activists celebrated Harvard University’s promise to 
cleanse its multibillion-dollar investment fund of holdings in fossil 
fuel companies last week, others dedicated to the fight against the 
climate crisis wondered if the real winner was the oil industry.

Harvard bowed to pressure from students and advocacy groups who likened 
their campaign to the push to divest from apartheid South Africa in the 
1980s. The group, Fossil Fuel Divest Harvard, described the decision as 
a “massive victory” and “proof that activism works, plain and simple”...
- -
The difference over strategies hinges on sharply opposing views of the 
future of oil and gas firms. The Harvard activists, alongside national 
environmental groups such as 350.org, want to see the fossil fuel 
companies put out of business as quickly as possible.

Simpson and other institutional investors say the oil and gas industry 
will remain essential to the US economy for some time and will probably 
contribute to the transition to green energy, and so it is more 
important to force the business to change the way it operates.

Morgen Whitten, an environmental science and public policy student at 
Harvard who was one of the organizers of the divestment campaign, is 
skeptical.

“There’s no evidence right now that fossil fuel companies can be 
changed. If engagement is an effective strategy, why hasn’t it already 
worked?” she said. “There are plenty of studies that show that no major 
fossil fuel company is aligned with the Paris climate accords. Investors 
like Harvard have had a seat at the table for decades, and companies 
have not changed course at all.”

CalPers, the combined pension and health scheme for 2 million public 
workers in California, is experimenting with new approaches toward 
changing oil and gas companies from within. In May, it was a key player 
in helping the activist investor fund Engine No 1 force three new 
directors on to the board of ExxonMobil to press the company to take the 
climate crisis seriously...
- -
Bill McKibben, a founder of 350.org, said this was all too little, too 
late and risked providing cover for the fossil fuel industry to appear 
to take the climate crisis seriously while dragging its heels. He said 
that shareholder engagement could be effective in getting a company to 
pay its workers more or adapt its business model – but that was not what 
was at stake with the oil and gas industry.

“The problem with fossil fuel is that it’s not like there’s a flaw in an 
excellent business plan. The business plan is that these are companies 
that essentially exist for one purpose, which is to dig stuff up and 
burn it. That’s all they know how to do,” he said. “Their track record, 
both as companies and as political actors over the last three decades, 
has been that they will do whatever they can maintain that business 
model, even in the case of the planet breaking.”

McKibben said that far from divestment relinquishing leverage, it had 
added to the pressure on fossil fuel companies.

“Shell oil announced that divestment had become a material risk to its 
business,” he said.

CalPers did stop investing in coal under pressure from the California 
state government and because it was hard to see any kind of future for 
coal companies. Simpson argues that oil and gas producers are different 
because, like it or not, they will remain important fuels for years to come.

Some institutional investors also fear that a rush to kill oil and gas 
risks collapsing parts of the economy if there are insufficient sources 
of green energy for large industries such as steel, with a knock-on 
effect for other manufacturers, such as car makers.

They want to see the fossil fuel firms pouring resources into solving 
the problem, not dying out. McKibben, like others, doubts that Exxon and 
Chevron will ever commit to that.

Whitten sees another benefit of divestment: stigma.

“It clearly points to who the villain is. Companies for decades have 
been trying to shape the narrative on climate change and make 
individuals feel like they’re responsible and the fossil fuel companies 
are honest actors in this fight. But they’re not,” she said.

“They were undermining science. Exxon was attacking scholars, including 
at Harvard. So when divestment makes clear who is perpetrating the 
harms, we think that there’s got to be a financial impact to them as well.”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/sep/14/fossil-fuel-divestment-harvard-oil-exxon-shell

/[politics gets very serious]/
*‘We will have a really long, long memory’: Greens calling businesses’ 
bluff on climate change
*Activists want the companies that have called for federal climate 
action to get behind the $3.5 trillion package: "We will have a really 
long, long memory."
Green groups backing the Democrats’ $3.5 trillion spending package are 
aiming their fury at one of the bill’s most powerful opponents: 
corporate business lobbies that claim to support action on climate change.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Business Roundtable and the National 
Association of Manufacturers all support the much smaller bipartisan 
infrastructure bill championed by the Biden White House, which includes 
tens of billions of dollars for responding to climate disasters and 
promoting green power. They also backed billions in new spending last 
year for wind, solar and renewable energy...
- -
But climate activists said they would not go along with any attempt by 
moderates to strip the non-climate provisions from the $3.5 trillion 
bill in hopes of enhancing its bipartisan appeal. They said progress on 
climate change would be incomplete without the full sweep of progressive 
programs.

“We’re pushing for the full Build Back Better package,” said Tiernan 
Sittenfeld, senior vice president of the League of Conservation Voters. 
“We’re not negotiating with ourselves.”
https://www.politico.com/news/2021/09/13/greens-tighten-vise-on-businesses-to-back-climate-bill-511549

/[time to adjust our diets]/*
**Climate: When Plants Can't Help Us - Katharyn Duffy on Radio Ecoshock*
Alex Smith
Scientist Katharyn Duffy reveals a tipping point for plants - where they 
become a source of CO2.  We are approaching a temperature bridge where 
photosynthesis is cut back. Plants currently absorb about 30% of our 
carbon emissions, but within a few decades they may add to it instead.  
This is important science about imminent danger.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yi6zFY7tMn8

/[a social/philosophical discussion]/
*The Zeitgeist of this Moment: Marianne Williamson with author Peter Joseph*
Sep 2, 2021
Marianne Williamson
Subscribe to Marianne's Substack, TRANSFORM: MarianneWilliamson.Substack.com

Williamson and Joseph discuss the economic and social systems prevailing 
in the world today and what is needed to heal society.

Learn more about Peter Joseph: https://www.peterjoseph.info

Read Peter's Book: The New Human Rights Movement: Reinventing the 
Economy to End Oppression
https://www.indiebound.org/book/9781942952657
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DacbQDV3o-s

- -

/[The book ]/
*The New Human Rights Movement*
Reinventing the Economy to End Oppression
Peter Joseph
Description
Society is broken. We can design our way to a better one.
In our interconnected world, self-interest and social-interest are 
rapidly becoming indistinguishable. If current negative trajectories 
remain, including growing climate destabilization, biodiversity loss, 
and economic inequality, an impending future of ecological collapse and 
societal destabilization will make personal success virtually 
meaningless. Yet our broken social system incentivizes behavior that 
will only make our problems worse. If true human rights progress is to 
be achieved today, it is time we dig deeper--rethinking the very 
foundation of our social system.
In this engaging, important work, Peter Joseph, founder of the world's 
largest grassroots social movement--The Zeitgeist Movement--draws from 
economics, history, philosophy, and modern public-health research to 
present a bold case for rethinking activism in the 21st century.
Arguing against the long-standing narrative of universal scarcity and 
other pervasive myths that defend the current state of affairs, The New 
Human Rights Movement illuminates the structural causes of poverty, 
social oppression, and the ongoing degradation of public health, and 
ultimately presents the case for an updated economic approach. Joseph 
explores the potential of this grand shift and how we can design our way 
to a world where the human family has become truly sustainable.
The New Human Rights Movement reveals the critical importance of a 
unified activism working to overcome the inherent injustice of our 
system. This book warns against what is in store if we continue to 
ignore the flaws of our socioeconomic approach, while also revealing the 
bright and expansive future possible if we succeed.
Will you join the movement?
https://www.indiebound.org/book/9781942952657

[Some noble eco-history in a fine documentary of suffering - with rare 
voices, unique songs and historical images.]
*Stinging Dust & Forgotten Lives: The Dust Bowl (2008)*
posted on Aug 31, 2011
TCPFilms
Ponder for a moment that you are huddled around a dimly lit lamp in a 
vast dusty room with your family. All eyes have a look of fear from the 
gusty winds shaking your home. The next morning, after the storm blows 
over, you look outside to find your house, barn, animals, fence, and 
water well have all been buried by feet of soil. All is lost. You must 
live...but how?

Over a hundred years ago people left the American east to find a better 
life. They migrated and established homestead throughout the Great 
Plains. There, they would prosper with fields of plenty, until, they 
exhausted the land. Again, they migrated westward to find a better life 
and provide opportunities for their starving children. STINGING DUST & 
FORGOTTEN LIVES presents the effects of the Dust Bowl on humanity during 
the 1930s. Meteorological conditions are often the first to blame, 
however, it was economic gain of the nation that doubled the unfortunate 
fate of the dusters.

For more information visit tcpfilms.com/sdfl
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tzo9wtXfHGk

/[The news archive - looking back]/
*On this day in the history of global warming September  14, 2004*

September 14, 2004: British Prime Minister Tony Blair declares that 
climate change is "...a challenge so far-reaching in its impact and 
irreversible in its destructive power, that it alters radically human 
existence." He further notes:

"The problem...is that the challenge is complicated politically by two 
factors. First, its likely effect will not be felt to its full extent 
until after the time for the political decisions that need to be taken, 
has passed. In other words, there is a mismatch in timing between the 
environmental and electoral impact. Secondly, no one nation alone can 
resolve it. It has no definable boundaries. Short of international 
action commonly agreed and commonly followed through, it is hard even 
for a large country to make a difference on its own.

"But there is no doubt that the time to act is now. It is now that 
timely action can avert disaster. It is now that with foresight and will 
such action can be taken without disturbing the essence of our way of 
life, by adjusting behaviour not altering it entirely."

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2004/sep/15/greenpolitics.uk

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