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

[👀 Richard Pauli]

/*September 30, 2021*/

/[after an outed man was deceived and trapped]/
*Bye, Bye, Mr. Exxon Guy*
The Exxon lobbyist who got caught on tape talking about how the company 
manipulates politicians is no longer employed.
Molly Taft - Sept29, 2021
Remember the Exxon lobbyist who got caught on tape admitting that the 
company had poured money into “shadow groups” in order to fight against 
climate science? He’s officially out of a job. E&E News confirmed with 
Exxon on Tuesday that Keith McCoy, the lobbyist in question, was no 
longer at the company.

“Mr. McCoy no longer works for the company,” Exxon spokesperson Casey 
Norton said in an email to E&E News. “This is a private personnel 
matter, and we will decline to comment further.”

For those who need a refresher, investigators at Unearthed posed as 
recruitment consultants looking to hire a DC lobbyist for a major client 
and set up interviews with two then-Exxon employees (the other 
interviewee left the company before the exposé aired). The secret tapes 
were released in July, and McCoy’s interview was far and away the more 
explosive of the two.

In addition to talking about the company’s history of perpetuating 
climate denial, McCoy also openly admitted that Exxon sees a carbon tax, 
which it has vocally supported, as nothing more than an “advocacy tool” 
He talked up all the politicians he’s regularly in touch with. His 
metaphor for capturing them—“you have bait, you fill that bait out and 
they say, ‘oh you want to talk about infrastructure,’ and then you start 
to reel them in”—is a pretty stunning admission of how things work. In a 
separate video released a day after the first, McCoy laid out in detail 
how Exxon is working behind-the-scenes to fight plastics regulation. 
McCoy later apologized on LinkedIn, the number one social network for 
Oil Guys Who Love To Post. But apparently it wasn’t enough to save his job.

Exxon wouldn’t tell E&E News when exactly McCoy left, and his LinkedIn 
still lists him as employed at Exxon. McCoy still seems to have a role 
at the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation, but, per web archives 
recovered by E&E News, sometime between August 14 and September 8, the 
website changed his affiliation from “ExxonMobil Corporation” to 
“Community Advocate.”
While it wouldn’t be my personal choice to work for a company that has 
done more than most to advance our planet’s quickly approaching heat 
death, I have to admit that I feel a little bad for McCoy. His comments 
lifted the veil on Exxon, but they confirmed what’s been clear Exxon and 
other Big Oil boys have been trying to do for a while. Namely, do 
everything they can to delay meaningful climate regulations, hyping the 
small parts of their business that are relatively clean, and investing 
in PR spin while making a killing digging up oil. McCoy just said the 
quiet part out loud in a fake job interview.

Exxon made quick work of distancing itself from McCoy following the 
debacle. After the interview aired, the company claimed in a statement 
from CEO Darren Woods that McCoy’s comments “in no way represent the 
company’s position on a variety of issues” and that McCoy was “never 
involved in developing the company’s policy positions on the issues 
discussed.”

“We condemn the statements and are deeply apologetic for them, including 
comments regarding interactions with elected officials,” Woods’s 
statement continued. “We were shocked by these interviews and stand by 
our commitments to working on finding solutions to climate change.” OK, 
Darren. We get it.

After McCoy’s interview aired, the House Oversight and Reform Committee 
asked him to testify about his comments as part of their larger 
investigation into oil companies—which makes sense, given that McCoy 
basically openly bragged about how the company manipulates politicians 
into doing what they want. Exxon declined to comment to E&E whether or 
not McCoy would be covered by legal representation if he’s called to 
testify. (The House committee hasn’t confirmed whether or not McCoy 
accepted their invitation to testify.)

No matter! Dirty oil executives always seem to find a way to land on 
their feet after a scandal. Maybe there’s a future career for McCoy in 
utilities or something.
https://gizmodo.com/exxon-lobbyist-caught-on-tape-sharing-climate-strategy-1847767033 


- -

[see for yourself in the 9 minute video]
*Revealed: ExxonMobil’s lobbying war on climate change legislation*
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5v1Yg6XejyE



/[ Mental health for firefighters - video]/
*NWCG video about firefighter mental health*
The National Wildfire Coordinating Group has published a video for 
firefighters about about mental health. It features several former or 
current firefighters who have been trained as critical incident stress 
management peer supporters or CISM Clinicians.

It was posted July 19, 2021 but as of today it has only been viewed 83 
times, perhaps because it is “unlisted”.  @DOIWildlandFire tweeted about 
the video today. We suggested to them that the status be changed, which 
should make it possible to search for it and also show up on lists of 
NWCG videos.

The presenters make an interesting point comparing physical fitness and 
mental fitness. As a firefighter you have to work at both of them, and 
they lay out several ways to stay mentally fit.

If you are a firefighter or the spouse or family member of one, spend 18 
minutes watching this video.
https://wildfiretoday.com/2021/09/29/nwcg-video-about-firefighter-mental-health/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yTVHn2rFuAw

- -

/[important report ] /
*Born into the Climate Crisis: Why we must act now to secure children’s 
rights*
The threat posed to children and their rights by the climate crisis is 
not theoretical: it is real, and it is urgent. Save the Children has 
partnered with an international team of leading climate researchers led 
by the Vrije Universiteit Brussel to quantify the extent to which 
children will experience extreme weather events as a manifestation of 
climate change, the disparities between generations, and the widening 
inequality between high-income and low- and middle-income countries.

Without drastic mitigation action to reduce emissions and limit warming 
to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels, led by high-income and 
high-emitting countries and informed by children’s best interests and 
identified priorities, the children of these low- and middle-income 
countries will be burdened with the most dangerous impacts of the 
climate crisis. They have inherited a problem not of their own making.

The window of opportunity to make a difference for children is quickly 
closing. Commitments to climate action and financing remain dangerously 
inadequate, and unless global leaders scale up their ambition now, 
current and future generations of children will suffer.

This report has been developed with the support of a dedicated Child 
Reference Group, comprised of 12 children aged between 12–17 years old 
from across the globe, to lay out how the intergenerational impacts of 
climate change are infringing on children’s rights to life, education, 
and protection.

PUBLISHED 2021-09-27
https://resourcecentre.savethechildren.net/library/born-climate-crisis-why-we-must-act-now-secure-childrens-rights

- -

/[full report is 50 pages]/
*Born into the Climate Crisis: Why we must act now to secure children’s 
rights*
https://resourcecentre.savethechildren.net/node/19591/pdf/born-into-the-climate-crisis.pdf


/[follow the money, or insure the money. ]/
*Climate Change Replaces Pandemic as Insurers’ Biggest Worry*
By Alexandre Rajbhandari
September 28, 2021,

Climate change has returned to the top of the list of insurers’ biggest 
concerns as the vaccine roll-out and gradual lifting of health 
restrictions see pandemic fears ease in many countries.

Global warming was ranked as the biggest risk to society over the next 
five to 10 years in a report released Tuesday by French insurance giant 
AXA SA. While that also topped the ranking in 2018 and 2019, it was 
outstripped by diseases and pandemics last year as the virus spread 
across the globe.

“Climate change is back at the top of the agenda,” AXA Chief Executive 
Officer Thomas Buberl said in a statement. “This is good news, since 
last year we feared that the explosion of health risks may overshadow 
the climate emergency.”...
- -
Insurers are being increasingly challenged by global warming as extreme 
weather events wrought by climate change are expected to keep rising. 
Just under a fifth of the 3,500 insurance professionals polled across 60 
countries expressed faith in public authorities to mitigate the crisis.

Axa, which chairs the Net Zero Insurance alliance, is trying to push the 
industry’s largest players to exclude polluting companies and focus on 
those that have clear and credible transition plans, both in their 
investment and underwriting universes. The latter policy is even more 
powerful, Buberl said in an interview with Bloomberg TV on Wednesday.

“On the investment side, we are one of many investors, and if you want 
to find funds for a coal factory today, you will”, Buberl said in the 
interview. But if a company can’t get insurance to protect against risk, 
then it won’t be able to secure investors, he said.

*Cyber risks on the rise*
The survey also found that cyber risks, which ranked second on the list, 
was a fast-growing fear for insurers. This year, some 61% of respondents 
put cybersecurity among their top five concerns, up from 54% in 2018. 
The pandemic dropped to third place.

“The pandemic and the lockdown have certainly accentuated the use of 
digital tools, and we insurers have seen that it has also intensified 
cyber risks and attacks,” AXA Deputy CEO Frederic de Courtois said at a 
press briefing with reporters.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-09-28/climate-change-replaces-pandemic-as-insurers-biggest-worry


/[The news archive - looking back]/
*On this day in the history of global warming September 30 ,*

September 30, 2004: In his first debate with President Bush, Democratic 
challenger and Massachusetts Senator John Kerry incurs the wrath of the 
right wing by declaring:

"The president always has the right, and always has had the right, for 
preemptive strike. That was a great doctrine throughout the Cold War. 
And it was always one of the things we argued about with respect to arms 
control. No president, though all of American history, has ever ceded, 
and nor would I, the right to preempt in any way necessary to protect 
the United States of America.

"But if and when you do it, Jim [Lehrer], you have to do it in a way 
that passes the test, that passes the global test where your countrymen, 
your people understand fully why you're doing what you're doing and you 
can prove to the world that you did it for legitimate reasons. Here we 
have our own secretary of state who has had to apologize to the world 
for the presentation he made to the United Nations.

"I mean, we can remember when President Kennedy in the Cuban missile 
crisis sent his secretary of state to Paris to meet with DeGaulle. And 
in the middle of the discussion, to tell them about the missiles in 
Cuba, he said, 'Here, let me show you the photos.' And DeGaulle waved 
them off and said, "No, no, no, no. The word of the president of the 
United States is good enough for me."

"How many leaders in the world today would respond to us, as a result of 
what we've done, in that way? So what is at test here is the credibility 
of the United States of America and how we lead the world. And Iran and 
Iraq are now more dangerous -- Iran and North Korea are now more dangerous.

"Now, whether preemption is ultimately what has to happen, I don't know 
yet. But I'll tell you this: As president, I'll never take my eye off 
that ball. I've been fighting for proliferation the entire time -- 
anti-proliferation the entire time I've been in the Congress. And we've 
watched this president actually turn away from some of the treaties that 
were on the table.

"You don't help yourself with other nations when you turn away from the 
global warming treaty, for instance, or when you refuse to deal at 
length with the United Nations.

"You have to earn that respect. And I think we have a lot of earning 
back to do."

http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/FullS  (59:20--61:22)

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