[✔️] February 9, 2022 - Daily Global Warming News Digest..

[👀 Richard Pauli]

/*February 9, 2022*/

/[  Arctic methane mess - video 18 min]
/*Permafrost Time Bomb*
Feb 6, 2022
Peter Carter
Interview of three experts on dangers of permafrost as it thaws
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p7P6ypOtgrA/
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/[ Politico consultant survey says ] /
*The world is on fire and our leaders are failing, poll finds*
Poll respondents voice frustration at being left to take on climate 
action on their own after governments and companies fail to act.
By RYAN HEATH  -- 02/08/2022
Adults across the United States and globally have damning opinions about 
the performance of their political leaders when it comes to climate 
change, and say they are noticing an escalation in extreme weather 
events and natural disasters.

A new POLITICO Morning Consult Global Sustainability Poll reveals 
frustration from citizens that they are being left to take on climate 
action on their own, when they believe governments and the companies 
with the most resources (which also tend to bear the most responsibility 
for carbon emissions) should shoulder the burden...
- -
Surprisingly, climate may be the only issue where President Joe Biden is 
getting higher marks from the right than from the left. That's not 
necessarily because Republican voters are concerned that Biden is doing 
enough, but because they’re satisfied that he is legislatively constrained.

Biden’s base, meanwhile, is furious. Though the administration has made 
climate action a centerpiece of its rhetoric, executive action and 
legislative agenda, 80 percent of Americans who labeled themselves 
left-leaning said that the Biden administration is doing too little to 
address climate change, including 64 percent of Democrats surveyed.

The United States is home to the largest ideological divide on climate 
action. Among Americans, 97 percent of left-leaning voters expressed 
concern about climate change, compared to 51 percent of right-leaning 
voters.

All segments of the political spectrum give the Biden team poor marks 
for their climate approach: Overall, less than 1 in 5 say Biden is doing 
“the right amount to combat climate change.” But 26 percent of 
right-leaning voters say Biden is doing the right amount, compared to 
just 10 percent of those identifying as left-leaning.
Majorities in all 13 countries surveyed said they are “very concerned” 
or “somewhat concerned” about climate change. That includes majorities 
among right-leaning voters in every country, except Australia where only 
49 percent of right-leaning voters said they are concerned...
- -
*Who’s unhappiest with their government?*
Respondents in South Africa expressed a deep concern and dissatisfaction 
around how climate change is handled in their country. Among European 
countries, French voters are the most skeptical of their government’s 
climate efforts. Right-leaning and centrist French voters say by a 
margin of 2 to 1 that their government is not doing enough on climate 
change. Among left-leaning voters, that balloons to 66 percent who say 
too little is being done compared to just 17 percent who think the right 
amount is being done.

While less critical of their governments, Brazilians and Mexicans are 
also among the most climate concerned.

"It's clear by this point that public opinion across the world wants 
governments and corporations moving far faster — that they're 
increasingly enraged by the slow-walking of the worst crisis we've ever 
stumbled into," said Bill McKibben, co-founder of 350.org, the world's 
longest-running climate campaign.

*Invest in infrastructure, rather than ban cars and coal, consumers say*
Aside from funding climate action directly and through taxation, 
respondents appear uncertain what role businesses should play in the 
fight against climate change.

Environmentally-friendly infrastructure is the most popular immediate 
climate investment in all 13 countries surveyed, well ahead of banning 
coal and gasoline-powered cars...

While left-leaning voters are overall most likely to express concern 
about the climate, the ideological divide is small in most of the 
countries surveyed...
- -
Large majorities in every country surveyed support holding fossil fuel 
companies accountable for their climate impact. Russia topped the list: 
90 percent agreed that fossil fuel companies should “definitely” or 
“probably” be held responsible for the impacts their products have on 
the environment.

But when it comes to whether banks and insurance companies should 
disentangle themselves from fossil fuel projects, the support is softer: 
Around one-third of citizens, including 51 percent in Japan, suggested 
they did not have enough information to offer an opinion.

Morning Consult is a global data intelligence company, delivering 
insights on what people think in real time by surveying tens of 
thousands across the globe every single day.

The ideological gap is narrowest in the countries where citizens are 
most concerned about climate change: Brazil, South Africa and Mexico...
- -
Large majorities of voters believe that China is no longer a “poor” 
country and that it now needs to follow the same climate targets and 
timeline as wealthier nations. That view is consistent across the 12 
non-China populations surveyed: with as little as 3 percent of Canadians 
over 65, and 2 percent of Australian high-income earners believing China 
deserves flexibility to decide its timeline.

While clear majorities say they back wealthy countries financially 
supporting poorer countries to make a green transition, they do not 
believe that generosity should be extended to China.

Majorities in every country surveyed — ranging from 57 percent in Japan 
up to 80 percent in South Africa — agreed that China, with the world’s 
second-largest economy, should now be classed as a wealthy country.
https://www.politico.com/news/2022/02/08/citizens-politicians-combat-climate-change-00004590
- -
More details on the poll and its methodology can be found in this 
spreadsheet.
https://politico.com/f/?id=0000017e-d6f3-d095-affe-fff3b0560000



[  An important chemical   11 min video ]
*Decarbonising AMMONIA production. Could a revolutionary new process be 
the key?*
Feb 6, 2022
Just Have a Think
Ammonia is produced in large volumes each year and is in constant use in 
industries like agriculture, petrochemicals and pharmaceuticals. But it 
also has great potential as a fuel source, if only a way could be found 
to produce it without the huge carbon dioxide emissions it currently 
creates. Now a team at Monash University say they've found an 
economically viable way to do just that.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RkfpvajgM_w



[ Montana youth go to court ]
*Montana youth announce dates for historic climate trial*
2-7-2022
Today, the 16 youth plaintiffs and their attorneys in the constitutional 
climate case Held v. State of Montana announced dates for what will be 
the first children’s climate trial in U.S. history.

Trial in Held v. State of Montana will begin on Monday, February 6, 2023 
at the First Judicial District Court in Helena, Montana. The trial will 
conclude Friday, February 17, 2023.

“Montana is one of only a handful of states that recognizes a 
fundamental right to a clean and healthful environment, and that 
includes the climate,” said Melissa Hornbein, senior attorney at the 
Western Environmental Law Center. “Montana has a long history of 
promoting fossil fuels and exacerbating the climate crisis, and we are 
hopeful our case could turn over a new leaf for the state and its youth. 
We’re not only talking about ‘future generations.’ The people who we 
need to take action to protect from the climate crisis are already here 
in our schools, daycares, and cribs.”

“This trial is an unprecedented opportunity to present a full factual 
record before the court establishing how the State of Montana’s ongoing 
actions to promote fossil fuels are causing and contributing to the 
climate crisis, and resulting in grave injuries to these 16 youth 
plaintiffs,” said Nate Bellinger, Our Children’s Trust senior staff 
attorney and co-counsel for the plaintiffs. “Through this trial, we will 
have an opportunity to prove that the State of Montana’s actions 
promoting a fossil fuel-based energy system are violating the 
fundamental constitutional rights of the plaintiffs.”

Grace, one of the /Held v. State of Montana/ youth plaintiffs, noted, 
“Going to trial means a chance for me and my fellow plaintiffs to have 
our climate injuries recognized and a solution realized. It means our 
voices are actually being heard by the courts, the government, the 
people who serve to protect us as citizens and Montana’s youth. Knowing 
that we have the dates for the first youth constitutional climate case 
ever, I feel hopeful that finally our government may begin to serve our 
best interest.”

The youth plaintiffs in Held v. State of Montana, which was filed in 
March 2020, assert that by supporting and promoting a fossil fuel-driven 
energy system that contributes to the climate crisis, Montana is 
violating the constitutional rights of the youth plaintiffs. Those 
rights include a clean and healthful environment; the ability to seek 
safety, health, and happiness; and individual dignity and equal 
protection of the law. In addition, the suit alleges that Montana’s 
fossil fuel energy system degrades and depletes constitutionally 
protected public trust resources, including the atmosphere, rivers, 
lakes, fish, and wildlife.

Counsel for the Montana plaintiffs include Nate Bellinger of Our 
Children’s Trust, Roger Sullivan and Dustin Leftridge of McGarvey Law, 
and Melissa Hornbein of the Western Environmental Law Center.
https://westernlaw.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/Press-Kit-Held-v.-State-of-Montana.pdf


/[ video interview with mathematician ]/
*On Being A Doomer- Author Prof. Eliot Jacobson  blog*
Jan 7, 2022
Environmental Coffeehouse
Welcome Eliot Jacobson- Ph.D. in Mathematics.
#climatecasino #climatechange
"As a former professor of computer science (at UC Santa Barbara), I 
understand the theoretical foundations behind many of the climate 
computer models.
As a consultant to the casino industry, I was creating risk models for 
unlikely events. When someone reports that a particular weather event 
was a “once per thousand year” flood or heatwave (or some other climate 
disaster), I understand how that risk estimate was computed.
I have a strong background in the tools climate science uses and 
consider myself a fair and independent analyst of climate science research."
Blog-  https://www.climatedisaster.net/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZlUKOEERDSE

/- -
/

/[ excellent blog ]/
*Watching the World Go Bye*
Eliot Jacobson's Climate Change Blog
https://www.climatedisaster.net/



/[   Fun information activist attacks "cooking with gas"  21 min video] /
*It’s Time To Break Up With Our Gas Stoves | Climate Town*
Nov 18, 2021
Climate Town
Cooking with gas! Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/ClimateTown
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hX2aZUav-54



/[  avoids traffic jams too  ]/
*More Zoom, less climate gloom as conferences move online, study finds*
By Elizabeth Claire Alberts
January 4, 2022
A new study found that moving conferences online can reduce the carbon 
footprint by 94% and energy use by 90%.
It also found that hybrid events, in which some participants attend in 
person while others attend online, could reduce carbon footprint and 
energy by two-thirds by taking measures like carefully choosing a 
location and only serving plant-based foods.
While some professionals are dissatisfied with online conferences, 
mainly due to poor networking opportunities, others have expressed 
satisfaction with these formats’ accessibility, and the lowering of 
carbon footprints and costs.
The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted many aspects of everyday life, 
including the way we work. Now, more than ever, professionals are 
working from home due to health and safety concerns and local 
restrictions. The pandemic has also forced the trillion-dollar events 
industry to undergo a fundamental shift as many organizers move 
conferences from physical halls to online platforms like Zoom.

Shifting conferences online can be a significant change for those 
accustomed to interacting with their peers while nibbling canapés in 
auditorium hallways. But a new study published in Nature Communications 
argues that keeping conferences virtual or employing a hybrid format, in 
which some participants attend in person while others attend online, can 
be a productive strategy in mitigating climate change.

In 2017, business events alone involved 1.5 billion participants from 
180 countries, and contributed $2.5 trillion of spending while 
supporting 26 million jobs, according to a 2018 study by Oxford 
Economics. A report by Allied Market Research also found that the events 
industry will grow from an estimated $1.1 billion in 2019 to $1.5 
billion by 2028.

Prior to the start of the pandemic, the global conference industry was 
contributing to ​​0.138 to 5.31 billion tons of CO2 equivalent (GT CO2e) 
per year, or the same as the annual greenhouse gas emissions of the 
entire United States, says Fengqi You, co-author of the new study and a 
systems engineering professor at Cornell University.

“There are significant carbon emissions incurred in the event industry 
globally,” You told Mongabay in an emailed statement. “We believe 
shifting the conferences fully or partially online can slash a 
considerable amount of global carbon emissions.”

According to the new study, shifting conferences from meeting halls to 
online platforms can reduce the carbon footprint by 94% and energy use 
by 90%. The little carbon and energy that is still emitted during 
virtual conferences stem from things like home electricity consumption, 
although this is just a fraction of what’s emitted during a full 
in-person event.

The IUCN World Conservation Congress used a hybrid format for its 2021 
event, with some participants attending in-person and others attending 
online. Image by IUCN / Ecodeo / Margarita Corporan.
The study also found that a hybrid system could reduce a conference’s 
carbon footprint and energy use by two-thirds while maintaining more 
than 50% in-person participation. Conference organizers can help reduce 
an event’s carbon footprint and energy by doing things like carefully 
choosing a hub that makes it possible for in-person participants to only 
travel a short distance, or choosing to only serve plant-based foods, 
the authors suggest.

While many professionals have complained of “Zoom fatigue” after 
spending countless hours on online platforms, a poll conducted by Nature 
in 2021 found that 74% of its 900 survey respondents agreed that virtual 
conferences should continue after the pandemic. The main reason for 
wanting to continue virtual conferences was accessibility, followed by 
the lowering of carbon footprints and costs. The primary reason for not 
wanting to continue virtual conferences was the poor networking 
opportunities.

You said he personally attended numerous virtual and hybrid conferences 
during 2021, and that while he missed in-person interactions with 
colleagues, he said these modes worked “quite well” for him.

“I saved time by traveling to the conference venues/locations and 
avoided some potential logistics hassles in finding hotels and 
accommodations,” You said. “I am glad that the ‘avoided’ transportation 
steps could help with climate change mitigation in general. Yet, I found 
that conference organizers were required to put in more effort to 
organize online/hybrid events due to the new way of operations.”

One conference that adopted a hybrid approach was the IUCN World 
Conservation Congress, which took place in Marseille, France, in 
September 2021, after the pandemic delayed the original conference date 
in 2020. There were 5,700 registered in-person participants and 3,200 
online participants, as well as 25,000 public visitors, according to the 
IUCN.

“Overall, it proved to be a very good solution, because it maximized the 
event’s accessibility,” Marc Magaud, head of global convenings and 
events for the IUCN, told Mongabay in an emailed statement. “It allowed 
those who were able to travel to Marseille to gather in person, which 
remains very important according to the participants’ feedback we 
received through a comprehensive survey. It also made it possible for 
those who could not make the trip to have a voice in the Congress. Going 
forward, as the technology — and our ability to use it to its fullest 
extent — improves, we think this model will increasingly become the new 
standard for major environmental conferences.”

You said he hopes the new study will help raise public awareness about 
the climate change benefits of shifting conferences online or even 
adopting a hybrid format. He also points out that moving conferences 
online can help reduce 0.13 to 5 GT CO2e, equal to 0.3% to 14% of global 
carbon emissions, which can help the world meet targets crucial in 
mitigating the worst effects of climate change.

“The 2021 IPCC report indicates that if no reductions are made, the 
remaining carbon budget of 300-350 GT CO2 to remain with 1.5℃ [2.7°F] 
global warming will run out in 8.3-9.7 years,” he said. “The reduction 
from virtual events can extend the deadline by around 1.5 more years.”

Citations:
Global Economic Significance of Business Events. (2018). Retrieved from 
Events Industry Council and Oxford Economics website: 
https://insights.eventscouncil.org/Portals/0/OE-EIC%20Global%20Meetings%20Significance%20%28FINAL%29%202018-11-09-2018.pdf

Tao, Y., Steckel, D., Klemeš, J. J., & You, F. (2021). Trend towards 
virtual and hybrid conferences may be an effective climate change 
mitigation strategy. Nature Communications, 12(1). 
doi:10.1038/s41467-021-27251-2

Vig, H., & Deshmukh, R. (2021). Events Industry by type, organizer, and 
age group: Global Opportunity Analysis and Industry Forecast, 2021–2028. 
Retrieved from Allied Market Research website: 
https://www.alliedmarketresearch.com/events-industry-market

Remmel, A. (2021). Scientists want virtual meetings to stay after the 
COVID pandemic. Nature, 591(7849), 185-186. doi:10.1038/d41586-021-00513-1
https://news.mongabay.com/2022/01/more-zoom-less-climate-gloom-as-conferences-move-online-study-finds/




/[  Why and How do we change our emotions  - from Gaslit - 
https://www.desmog.com/gaslit/ ] /
*How the PR Industry Has Helped Big Oil Transform the Way We Think About 
the Environment*
Powered by fossil fuel funding, PR agents have used astroturfing, 
“manufactured consent,” and other techniques to furtively shape public 
perceptions in favor of their polluting clients.
OPINION - ANALYSIS

By Stella Levantesi --  Feb 3, 2022

Since 2008, the American Petroleum Institute (API), which is the U.S.’s 
largest oil and gas trade group, has paid the world’s largest PR firm, 
Edelman, $439.7 million. API isn’t the only group in the oil and gas 
sector to have paid a PR firm for its services. And Edelman isn’t the 
only PR firm to have received money from the oil and gas sector.

For decades, fossil fuel companies have been using PR firms to polish, 
reinvent, and fabricate their image; protect their reputation; and 
greenwash their activities, in ways that we are still trying to fully 
understand.

It’s not just that they need to, it’s also that they have the power and 
money to do so.

“When you make a fortune producing fossil fuels and you don’t wanna give 
it up, you will spend a lot of money to be able to do that. You’ve got 
ample funding, so you can afford the best PR firms and huge campaigns,” 
Oklahoma State University emeritus professor and sociologist Riley 
Dunlap said. “So, that’s why they do it. To protect their interests and 
because they can easily afford it.”

And because oil and gas companies and their trade groups know that PR 
agents will carry out their work in the shadows. PR firms have developed 
what authors Melissa Aronczyk and Maria I. Espinoza refer to in their 
book Strategic Nature as “strategies of silence”: the role of PR agents 
has been to create and execute strategies for their clients while 
remaining completely invisible.

In fact, they have done this so well that, to this day, there is very 
little literature on the role of PR firms in shaping climate policy and 
discourse.

As DeSmog has reported, a recent study, co-authored by Brown University 
researchers Robert Brulle and Carter Werthman, has begun “lifting the 
veil of secrecy that envelops PR firms and their work.” Their study 
challenges the notion that PR agents are neutral mediators merely 
working to carry out their clients’ wishes. To the contrary, PR agents 
are actors involved in the processes of shaping environmental culture, 
policy, and public discourse, as well as creating corporate-image and 
marketing strategies.

“The PR agencies themselves are the active developers of these 
techniques,” Brulle said. “We’re not giving the whole picture if we 
don’t include them.”

According to the study, the origins of PR in the political context can 
be found, among others, in the work of Edward Bernays, often referred to 
as “the father of public relations” (although Ivy Ledbetter Lee, who 
started his PR firm 25 years before Bernays, might be better suited to 
hold this title). Developing his ideas in the 1920s, Bernays’ thought 
built on existing theories about the role of the public and its 
relationship to PR within the democratic political context.

He was the first to imagine the public as a “strategic resource,” 
Aronczyk and Espinoza write in Strategic Nature. The public, in other 
words, was not an end in itself but “a means for other ends.”

Using the public as a “strategic resource” would become a popular 
strategy for corporate propaganda. PR firms developed a tactic which 
engaged “third-party mobilization” such as grassroots involvement in 
order to create the perception of widespread support for an issue, 
position, campaign, or policy. According to the study by Brulle and 
Werthman, third-party mobilization is the second-most common PR tactic.

“The idea of a third party spokesperson is that you get somebody else 
that’s credible to say what you want them to say,” Brulle said. “It 
creates this idea that there’s grassroot support for [something], when 
in reality, it’s all a fabrication of the PR agency or the corporation.”

Bernays also transformed the phrase “manufacturing consent,” which 
writer Walter Lippmann originally intended as a critique of political 
propaganda. One of Bernays’ publicity ideas was so effective that it 
became a way of life.

Working on behalf of the tobacco industry in 1929, he hired women to 
march in the Easter Sunday Parade in New York City while smoking their 
“torches of freedom,” a symbolic phrase used to push women to smoke in 
public despite social taboos at the time. The “Torches of freedom” 
campaign was created to target women consumers and exploit their desires 
for freedom, when freedom was, in fact, considered transgression. 
Campaigns like this one led to higher rates of smoking among women.

Not only did Bernays make “manufacturing consent” possible, he made it 
“desirable,” Aronczyk and Espinoza argue. The public was PR’s best 
resource. Even Bruce Harrison, a pioneer of “corporate environmentalism” 
—  when companies consider environmental themes in their decision-making 
process — thought that grassroots involvement was crucial for building 
public support for the oil and gas industry and that without it, the 
industry would suffer.

But to succeed, fossil fuel companies also needed to be seen as 
“trustworthy” and “socially responsible,” Brulle said. In other words, 
they needed legitimacy.

At its core, PR is about legitimacy, and about using “the concepts of 
truth or facts to persuade others that your view is the best one” as a 
way to garner support, according to Strategic Nature. Ideas and 
information, in this context, aren’t absolute categories; they need to 
be constructed and shaped in order to appeal to different “publics” — or 
audiences — in different contexts.

This is why PR isn’t only invested in communication. It also creates 
dimensions where certain ideas and information, such as “clean coal” or 
“carbon footprints,” can be chosen over others and made to seem 
legitimate — what Aronczyk and Espinoza call the creation of “contexts 
of communication.”

Third-party mobilization was especially popular after Barack Obama was 
elected U.S. President in 2008, when fossil fuel companies funded — and 
PR firms designed — so-called astroturf campaigns to create the 
perception of existing grassroots efforts to oppose climate change 
policies. Astroturfing hit a peak around 2009, when Congress was about 
to pass climate legislation, which is generally when they “crank up 
their PR machines,” Brulle said.

But recently, such PR frenzies around legislative efforts have become 
less common. According to Dunlap, this is because obstruction efforts 
have become so effective that astroturf campaigns just aren’t as 
necessary these days.

“I think one of the reasons we’ve seen some decline in the importance of 
astroturf groups is that the oil corporations and big conservative 
philanthropists like the Koch brothers have been so successful in 
getting the Republican party to buy into their agenda and do their 
bidding that perhaps there’s no need for these other activities,” Dunlap 
said.

One of the reasons Big Oil’s disinformation campaign has been, in fact, 
so effective is that it has succeeded in turning a physical problem — 
the planet warming — into political propaganda by means of “social 
technology,” as Brulle calls it. According to Strategic Nature, the 
environmental problem became “the wrong kind of problem” when PR firms 
turned it into a problem of politics, of “individual attention,” of 
information — of anything other than what it actually was: “a problem of 
existence.”

However, before the environment could become any kind of problem, the 
notion of “the environment” had to be created in the first place. This 
wording implies that there is something “the environment” is, in fact, 
external to, that it is separated from human beings. And not only that 
the environment is separate, but that it can be legitimately used, 
exploited, owned.

Separation from “the environment,” encouraged by what is historically 
defined in Western thought as dualism — basically, nature on one side, 
humankind on the other — has promoted the illusion that there is an 
“outside.” (This idea sits in contrast to many Indigenous perceptions of 
human-nature relationships). British philosopher Timothy Morton says 
that if you begin to think of the biosphere as a dreaming mind, you will 
find that everything in that biosphere is a symptom and expression of 
the biosphere itself. There is no outside. The environment is only 
perceived as external.

This framing was convenient for PR firms who needed to put space between 
“the environment” and its degradation and those responsible for it — 
especially, corporations.

Some PR agents in the early 1970s understood that managing environmental 
problems wasn’t enough. If they wanted to control the social perception 
of companies’ responsibility for the environment, and consequent 
political action for it, they had to anticipate problems, and construct 
them.

Aronczyk and Espinoza write that W. Howard Chase, founding member of the 
Public Relations Society of America, was one of the proponents of this 
idea of “issue management.”

Chase’s idea for the 1970s Crying Indian ad campaign can be considered a 
key moment in constructing one of the most flawed cultural narratives 
around the climate crisis: that just like individuals are singularly 
responsible for emissions and pollution, it’s individuals — not 
corporations — who are singularly responsible for solving these problems.

In the ad, a caricature of an American Indian man (played by an 
Italian-American actor) paddles a canoe into an industrial waterway. 
Coming upon a littered shoreline, he sheds a single tear when a person 
tosses trash out of a passing vehicle and it lands at his feet. A 
narrator proclaims, “People start pollution. People can stop it.”

The oil, gas, and plastics industry was more than happy to deviate 
attention from production (its sphere) to consumption (the general 
public’s). And we know today that the myth of individual responsibility, 
which PR agents developed — by using the public as a resource, 
nonetheless — has been one of the most successful communications 
strategies of all time.

PR has played a key — and undeniable — role in both the way we perceive 
the fossil fuel industry and the way we understand environmentalism and 
environmental issues today. And it’s done so to the extent that, as 
Strategic Nature argues, it’s impossible to comprehend the role of the 
environment in our everyday lives “without understanding how something 
called ‘the environment’ has been invented and communicated to us 
throughout our lives” in the first place.

https://www.desmog.com/2022/02/03/pr-big-oil-attitudes-aronczyk-bernays/

- -

[ Series of reports ]
*About the Gaslit Series*
Gaslit is a regular column by Stella Levantesi that seeks to navigate 
society’s dysfunctional relationship with fossil fuel disinformation. 
She’ll be investigating past and present strategies of climate change 
denial and disinformation, exploring how obstruction on climate policies 
unfolds, and holding corporations and industry players accountable.
https://www.desmog.com/gaslit/





/[  OK, you have your electric car,  now what?  text and audio ]/
*EV batteries are toxic and weigh 900 pounds. Where do they get dumped?*
By Kathryn Barnes Feb. 07, 2022
New cars from Rivian, Volvo, and Lucid are turning heads, and economic 
watchers expect electric vehicles (EVs) to make up 40% of all cars sold 
in California by 2025. But with no EV battery recycling plants in 
California, what happens when millions of electric car batteries run out 
of juice?

“We're working on that,” says Meredith Williams, the director of the 
California Department of Toxic Substances Control, which is a branch of 
the California Environmental Protection Agency (CalEPA). “California's 
leadership in adopting electric vehicles is something to be really proud 
of, but we need to think about the end of life.”

While lead-acid batteries inside most gas-powered vehicles are roughly 
the size of a toaster oven, lithium-ion batteries run the full wheelbase 
of EV cars, weigh around 900 pounds, and contain toxic substances like 
nickel, cobalt, lithium, and manganese.
Williams estimates that CalEPA has about five years to get the 
infrastructure and procedures in place to extend the life of EV 
batteries and properly recycle them once they are no longer useful.

“There's been a group of people across business, academia, and federal 
agencies who have been giving this question a lot of thought,” she says, 
referring to the Lithium-ion Car Battery Recycling Advisory Group.

Formed in 2018, it advises the state legislature on policies pertaining 
to the recovery and recycling of lithium-ion vehicle batteries. Their 
draft report, which is open for public comment through Feb. 16, 2022, 
includes suggestions like finding lower-powered, secondary applications 
for retired batteries, such as storing energy from solar panels, and 
recovering recyclable materials using methods like mechanical 
pre-treatment, pyrometallurgical recycling, hydrometallurgical 
recycling, and direct recycling.

The panel also proposed policies requiring the vehicle manufacturer, 
like Tesla, to take back the battery and repurpose it or extract the 
valuable material responsibly.

“I do think, because of the renewable market and the storage needs, 
there's a market driver,” she says, but admits that five years will be 
here before we know it.
https://www.kcrw.com/news/shows/greater-la/ev-russia-ukraine/electric-car-batteries



/[ Oopsie, tiny emergency --  $ubscription only news ]/
*Gulf of Mexico: Serious incident at drillship working for Shell*
Transocean drillship has lost its blowout preventer
9 December 2021
By Ole Ketil Helgesen in Stavanger
https://www.upstreamonline.com/safety/gulf-of-mexico-serious-incident-at-drillship-working-for-shell/2-1-1118264



/[The news archive - looking back]/
*On this day in the history of global warming February 9, 2007*

February 9, 2007: Boston Globe columnist Ellen Goodman becomes the 
target of vicious online right-wing criticism for writing a piece in 
which she observes:

"By every measure, the U.N.‘s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change 
raises the level of alarm. The fact of global warming is 'unequivocal.' 
The certainty of the human role is now somewhere over 90 percent. Which 
is about as certain as scientists ever get.

"I would like to say we’re at a point where global warming is impossible 
to deny. Let’s just say that global-warming deniers are now on a par 
with Holocaust deniers, though one denies the past and the other denies 
the present and future."

https://www.truthdig.com/articles/political-climate-change-needed/


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