[✔️] January 10, 2022 - Daily Global Warming News Digest
👀 Richard Pauli
richard at theclimate.vote
Mon Jan 10 09:50:27 EST 2022
/*January 10, 2022*/
[ known and important from the UN ]
*5 things you should know about the greenhouse gases warming the planet*
https://news.un.org/en/story/2022/01/1109322
/[ Did we *really* expect ONE movie to completely cure global
warming?? clips from the New Yorker ]/
*The Crude Demagogy of “Don’t Look Up”*
Adam McKay’s star-studded allegory of climate change has a cynically
apolitical view of politics.
By Richard Brody
January 6, 2022
Adam McKay’s satire “Don’t Look Up” is a clever film that’s short on
wit. The difference is that wit is multifaceted, like a gem that,
however small, offers different glimmers at different angles. Cleverness
exhausts itself in a single glint and then repeats itself to infinity.
“Don’t Look Up,” for the record, tells the story of the discovery of a
huge comet that’s heading for a direct strike on Earth that would end
life on the planet; the degraded journalistic environment that
trivializes the discovery and minimizes the danger; and the feckless
President whose self-interested blunders allow the comet to strike,
catastrophically. It’s a raucous comedy in which a tale built of
near-plausible elements is told by way of exaggerated character traits,
absurd situations, and high-wattage star performances. It’s also a movie
about the blighted mediasphere—yet, even with the best of intentions,
the movie only adds to the blight.
The comet is discovered by Kate Dibiasky (Jennifer Lawrence), a graduate
student in astronomy at Michigan State; its trajectory toward Earth is
discovered by her adviser, Dr. Randall Mindy (Leonardo DiCaprio), and
they calculate that it will strike in a mere six months. They reach out
to nasa and are put in touch with Dr. Teddy Oglethorpe (Rob Morgan), the
head of the Planetary Defense Coordination Office (a real federal
bureau, as a supertitle informs viewers), who rushes them to the White
House to deliver the news in person to the President, Janie Orlean
(Meryl Streep). Her political party isn’t specified (nobody’s is—there’s
no reference to real-world politics in the film) but her actions
resemble those of Donald Trump: she nominates a Supreme Court Justice of
dubious qualification and sexual scandal, falsifies scientific data to
seek advantage in the midterm elections, and leaves an underling’s
public racist remarks unchallenged.
- -
When President Orlean treats the evidence and the three scientists
dismissively, they go public with the news that the world is about to
end. Kate and Randall talk to journalists from the New York Herald (its
logo uses the same typeface as the Times) and go on a morning talk show,
where they’re admonished to “keep it light.” Amid the quippy chat of the
hosts, Jack (Tyler Perry) and Brie (Cate Blanchett), Kate and Randall’s
apocalyptic warnings are brushed aside until Kate starts yelling on the
air, making enemies of the hosts and becoming a derided social-media
meme. When the President finds it politically expedient to do so, she
mounts a mission to deflect the comet, exactly as the best science
recommends—and then, at the urging of a tech billionaire named Peter
Isherwell (Mark Rylance), she cancels the mission and lets Peter attempt
to harvest an untold fortune in rare-earth minerals from the comet
instead. Meanwhile, the public is divided between those who trust the
science and those who call the comet a hoax—between realists who implore
their neighbors to look up at the comet and acknowledge the looming
menace, and denialists whose slogan lends the movie its title.
- -
The movie’s comedic energy comes mainly from its asides and
sidebars—from the brazen rich-bully snark of the President’s fratty,
young chief of staff, Jason (Jonah Hill), who’s also her son, and the
promotion of a disaster film called “Total Devastation” that’s scheduled
for release on the day that that comet is expected to hit, to the
Internet shitposter charging that “Jewish billionaires invented this
comet threat so the government can confiscate our liberty and our guns,”
and the national obsession with the love life of the pop star Riley Bina
(Ariana Grande), who ultimately joins Kate and Randall at the “For Real
Last Concert to Save the World,” where she croons a romantic ballad with
such grimly hilarious lyrics as, “Get your head out of your ass, listen
to the goddam qualified scientists. We really fucked it up . . . You’re
about to die soon, everybody.”
- -
What is surprising is that the script was written before the covid
pandemic—the movie is a startlingly accurate view of the willful and
venal denialism that afflicted responses to the crisis at all levels of
government and business, and that has been matched throughout by the
cultlike rejection of medical counsel by individuals in all strata and
sectors of society...
--
Those cognate details, and the fast comedic dialogue (the President’s
vain babble, Brie’s coldly cynical bedroom banter), make “Don’t Look Up”
stand out, at the very least, as an on-target political cartoon expanded
to the scale of a grandiose mural, with all the pomposity and monotony
that such an inflation suggests. The movie lives by its place in the
discourse, such as that discourse is. It satirizes the trivializing flow
of celebrity gossip and light-toned frivolity, of clickbait pushing
aside investigative reporting and of tech moguls not only usurping
government power but commandeering public discourse. Yet its own
anti-aesthetic of neutral images and predigested narrative efficiency,
its celebrity feast of star turns and flashy performances, and its
simplistic anger-stoking and pathos-wringing mask the movie’s
fundamental position of getting itself talked about while utterly
eliding any real sense of politics or political confrontation. It is set
largely in and around government, but suggests nothing like any
political opposition, such as in Congress or state houses, to President
Orlean’s actions and inaction regarding the comet. (The closest to it is
the wishful radical populism of Orlean supporters’ spontaneous uprising
at a rally where they realize they’ve been lied to.)
- -
The movie’s built-in ambition appears to be simply crude demagogy,
reaching an apotheosis in viewers who’ve just watched at home opening
their poorly insulated windows and yelling into the street, “Climate
change is real!,” without any demand of policy or awareness of actions
that the need to slow it might demand...
- -
There’s no sense of political psychology, of the tendency of people to
look first to immediate personal interest and needs—whether employment
or income, convenience or sustenance—and either consider climate change
to be distantly abstract or suspect that their present-tense well-being
would be sacrificed to climate-favorable policies.
Instead of a political movie, “Don’t Look Up” is a cynical one. It’s
basically a Jill Stein movie, a shrug that there’s no difference between
the parties, that government is in the corrupt pocket of business and
that the élites of all sorts are indifferent to the country’s actual
interests...
- -
The movie’s merits and flaws are independent of any public remarks by
McKay and the movie’s co-creator, David Sirota, including of their
tweets suggesting, respectively, that anyone who thinks negatively of it
is unconcerned about climate change, and that its detractors are exactly
the oblivious media fools that the film is lampooning. Such remarks
should be understood as part of the ad campaign, as skew to the merits
of the film itself—even if the filmmakers’ assertion that their zippy
entertainment is a contribution to society at large is itself a defining
feature of the movie’s demagogic aesthetic. Even Marvel executives
weren’t vain enough to accuse critics of “Avengers: Infinity War” of
endorsing Thanos’s apocalyptic madness.
- -
Climate scientists have endorsed the film enthusiastically as an
accurate representation of the obstacles they face in attempting to
persuade politicians, the public, and even journalists of the urgency of
the crisis...
- -
Seems to me that, if the scientists don’t want film critics to quibble
with the science, the scientists should stop meddling with the art. Yes,
I’m joking; but, no, I’m not. The failure of topicality in “Don’t Look
Up” is, not least, that the movie’s cynically apolitical view of
politics contributes to the frivolous and self-regarding media
environment that it decries—starting with the very celebrity power that
the movie marshalls to score its points. Its blustery hectoring and
colossally wide purview is most notable for its omissions and its blind
spots. Its civic ambitions reflect, above all, the inside-Hollywood
tunnel vision that it mocks.
https://www.newyorker.com/culture/the-front-row/the-crude-demagogy-of-dont-look-up
- -
/[ In the same genre, the movie "Dr. Strangelove..." does a far
superior job of making nuclear weapons doom hilarious. ]/
/[ Nine nations survey results - video ]/
*We've got climate change under control...apparently!*
Jan 9, 2022
Just Have a Think
When it comes to climate change, the majority of us think we're
personally doing our bit, but that we're being let down by everyone
else, including our own neighbours. That's just one of the findings of a
new survey conducted across nine western nations in November. So, what
else does the survey tell us, and what conclusions can we draw?
Link to Survey https://kantar.turtl.co/story/public-journal-04/page/1
Video Transcripts available at our website
http://www.justhaveathink.com
Help support this channels independence at
http://www.patreon.com/justhaveathink
- -
[Survey results]
Kantar Public
*Our Planet issue: Accelerating behavior change for a sustainable future*
https://kantar.turtl.co/story/public-journal-04/page/1
/[ Professor with opinions ]/
*Rupert Read: What next now that COP26 has failed us?*
Dec 16, 2021
Rupert Read
This talk is from Engage Earth’s launch event. You can watch the full
event here:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bKUrE4Nf4fc
- -
For more on the failure of COP26, you can watch Rupert’s Glasgow press
conference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HNlY-HRGEh4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0GYVQ63Ov8
/[ "why don't people care?" This is the End talks about a cathartic
movie - podcast - audio ]/
*DON’T LOOK UP, Hyperobjects, and How to Make People Look Up*
Jan 8, 2022
THIS IS THE END Podcast
Source: https://www.podbean.com/media/share/pb-fbate-1173811
Since the very day of its release, Don’t Look Up has been spurring
intense discussion and debate about its symbolic depiction of climate
change as an existential threat, and the struggle of climate activists
to get governments and people to mobilize and take action against it. In
this episode, I explain why it is so difficult for people to understand
the urgency of the threat, and what we must do to rectify this before
it’s too late.
LINKS:
Don’t Even Think About It: Why Our Brains Are Wired to Ignore
Climate Change, by George Marshall
https://amzn.to/3GaZqbJ
“At the End of the World, It’s Hyperobjects All the Way Down.”
https://www.wired.com/story/timothy-morton-hyperobjects-all-the-way-down/
$
Hyperobjects: Philosophy and Ecology after the End of the World, by
Timothy Morton
https://amzn.to/3teUyPf
Being Ecological, by Timothy Morton
https://amzn.to/3r1p38w
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XtKeQjFn-DI/
/https://www.podbean.com/media/share/pb-fbate-1173811/
/
/
/
/
/
/[ book author makes new observation ]/
*A World of Mounting Disarray*
Jan 6, 2022
RICHARD HAASS
From climate change to public health to geopolitical rivalry and the
security of cyberspace, the gap between global challenges and responses
is large and growing. And the resources needed to turn things around –
especially collective will and skillful diplomacy – are in short supply.
NEW YORK – My book, A World in Disarray, was published five years ago
this month. The book’s thesis was that the Cold War’s end did not usher
in an era of greater stability, security, and peace, as many expected.
Instead, what emerged was a world in which conflict was much more
prevalent than cooperation...
- -
What would it take to avoid a future defined by disarray? A short list
would include widespread vaccination against COVID-19 and new vaccines
effective against future variants; a technological or diplomatic
breakthrough that would dramatically reduce the use of fossil fuels and
slow climate change; a political settlement in Ukraine that promotes
European security and an outcome with Iran that prevents its becoming a
nuclear or even near-nuclear power; a US-China relationship able to put
in place guardrails to manage competition and avoid conflict; and a US
that managed to repair its democracy sufficiently so that it had the
capacity to focus on world events.
As always, little is inevitable, for better or for worse. What is clear,
though, is that trends will not improve by themselves. Innovation,
diplomacy, and collective will are needed to turn things around.
Unfortunately, the last two are in short supply.
https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/geopolitical-disarray-spreading-and-dangerous-trends-worsening-by-richard-haass-2022-01
/[ RollingStone video interview 28 minutes ] /
*Elizabeth Kolbert: RS Interview Special Edition*
Feb 4, 2021
Rolling Stone
Jeff Goodell spoke with Pulitzer Prize-winning author Elizabeth Kolbert
about her new book "Under a White Sky: The Nature of the Future," how
coral reefs have sex, and why there won't be a quick solution to climate
change.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a7J53Mzc55s
- -
[ book referenced ]
*Under a White Sky*
THE NATURE OF THE FUTURE
By ELIZABETH KOLBERT
PRAISE
“Riveting . . . Under a White Sky expertly mixes travelogue, science
reporting and explanatory journalism.”—The Washington Post
“To be a well-informed citizen of Planet Earth, you need to read
Elizabeth Kolbert. . . . It’s a tribute to Kolbert’s skills as a
storyteller that she transforms the quest to deal with the climate
crisis into a darkly comic tale of human hubris and imagination that
could either end in flames or in a new vision of Paradise.”—Jeff
Goodell, Rolling Stone
“A superb and honest reflection of our extraordinary time.”—Nature
https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/617060/under-a-white-sky-by-elizabeth-kolbert/
/[ Homeland Security News Wire] /
*Antarctica’s “Doomsday” Glacier: How Its Collapse Could Trigger Global
Floods and Swallow Islands*
By Ella Gilbert
Published 3 January 2022
*Driven by global warming, sea level has risen around 20cm since 1900,
an amount which is already forcing coastal communities out of their
homes and exacerbating environmental problems such as flooding,
saltwater contamination and habitat loss. The massive Thwaites glacier
in West Antarctica is similar in size to Great Britain, and it contains
enough ice to raise global sea levels by 65cm if it were to completely
collapse. The worry is that Thwaites might not be the only glacier to go.*
The massive Thwaites glacier in West Antarctica contains enough ice to
raise global sea levels by 65cm if it were to completely collapse. And,
worryingly, recent research suggests that its long-term stability is
doubtful as the glacier hemorrhages more and more ice.
Ultimately, if the ice shelves retreat, it means there is less holding
the West Antarctic glaciers back – allowing them to accelerate and add
more to global sea levels.
However, scientists are still getting to grips with MICI and questions
remain about the future of West Antarctic glaciers. While the collapse
of Thwaites certainly could trigger a wholesale collapse event, not
everyone believes this will happen.
Other work suggests that the destabilization of the Thwaites ice shelf
and glacier may not lead to the kind of catastrophic outcomes that some
fear. Sea ice and chunks of ice that break away from the collapsing ice
shelf and glacier might have a similar restraining effect to the intact
ice shelf, nipping the chain-reaction in the bud and preventing the
sustained collapse of the entire West Antarctic ice sheet.
But while uncertainty remains about exactly what will happen in West
Antarctica, one thing is for sure – the retreating Thwaites glacier will
continue to add to global sea levels for many years to come.
Ella Gilbert is Postdoctoral Research Associate in Climate Science,
University of Reading. This article is published courtesy of The
Conversation.
https://www.homelandsecuritynewswire.com/dr20220103-antarctica-s-doomsday-glacier-how-its-collapse-could-trigger-global-floods-and-swallow-islands
/[The news archive - looking back just 5 years ago]/
*On this day in the history of global warming January 10, 2016*
January 10, 2016:
The Los Angeles Times reports:
"Hundreds of San Fernando Valley residents crowded into a high school
gymnasium Saturday to express outrage over a gas leak that has
sickened and displaced thousands from the Porter Ranch area.
"'You need to shut it down. It’s killing us,' Maureen Capra told South
Coast Air Quality Management District officials.
"Capra, who has lived in Porter Ranch for four decades, said she and
her family have suffered headaches, bloody noses and asthma because of
the damaged storage well in Aliso Canyon.
"The gas 'is in my house. It’s in my furniture. It’s in our bodies,'
she said.
http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-residents-to-demand-porter-ranch-gas-facility-shut-down-20160109-story.html
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