[✔️] January 26, 2022 - Daily Global Warming News Digest

Wed Jan 26 08:59:04 EST 2022

/*January 26, 2022*/

/[  tactically significant legal move   ] /
*Lawsuit alleging oil companies misled public about climate change moves 
forward*
January 25, 2022
Rebecca Hersher at NPR

A federal appeals court in Virginia heard a landmark case Tuesday that 
seeks to hold major fossil fuel companies accountable for their role in 
climate change. The court's decision in the case will have implications 
for a raft of similar cases brought by cities, counties and states 
across the country.

The case was brought by the city of Baltimore against some of the 
biggest oil and gas companies in the world, and it hinges on alleged 
disinformation by the corporations. The Baltimore city government argues 
that the companies must help pay for the costs of climate change, 
because they misled the public about how their products contribute to 
global warming.

Like many cities in the United States, Baltimore has borne enormous and 
escalating climate costs, including millions of dollars of damage from 
floods and expensive infrastructure upgrades to address dangerous heat 
waves and rising seas.

Baltimore was one of the first places to file a lawsuit seeking damages 
from fossil fuel companies. Since then, numerous cities, including 
Oakland, Calif., New York, N.Y., Annapolis, Md., Charleston, S.C. and 
Honolulu, Hawaii have pursued similar suits. So have several states, 
including Minnesota, Delaware and Rhode Island...
- -
The National Association of Manufacturers, an industry group, made an 
even more sweeping argument in a brief filed in support of the 
companies, writing, "state courts are not positioned to decide who, if 
anyone, is to be legally accountable for climate change, how energy 
policies should change to address it, and how local mitigation projects 
should be funded."
Karen Sokol, a law professor at Loyola University New Orleans who 
studies climate liability cases, says that argument doesn't hold water, 
because the allegations against the companies hinge on state laws that 
are meant to protect the public from misleading marketing.

Baltimore is asking state courts to weigh in on what Sokol calls a 
"long-standing, systematic deceptive marketing campaign designed to hide 
the catastrophic dangers," of fossil fuels. Cases about consumer 
protection, including landmark lawsuits involving alleged corporate 
misinformation campaigns by tobacco companies, have historically been 
tried in state court.

In his statement on behalf of Baltimore's government on Tuesday, 
attorney Vic Sher argued the case is about "disinformation and lack of 
disclosure."

Because the question of jurisdiction is still unresolved, neither side 
presented any evidence Tuesday about the underlying question: whether 
oil and gas companies are liable for misleading the public about how 
burning fossil fuels causes catastrophic climate change. The appeals 
court is expected to announce its decision about jurisdiction later this 
year.
https://www.npr.org/2022/01/25/1075560742/oil-lawsuit-climate-change-baltimore 

/[  Great podcast - Drilled --talking about Exxon  ]/
*Exxon Takes Its First Amendment Battle to Texas Supreme Court*
Drilled
INFO
Guardian journalist Chris McGreary joins to discuss ExxonMobil's 
attempts in Texas to cast litigation against it as a conspiracy to 
muzzle its free speech rights.

Read Chris's story: 
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/jan/18/exxon-texas-courts-critics-climate-crimes
https://www.spreaker.com/user/15244480/drilled-chrismcgreary-mix-1

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/drilled/id1439735906?i=1000548571882

- -

/[ from the Department of Deeply Sarcastic Truths - video from Australia ]/
*Honest Government Ad | Net Zero by 2050 (feat. Greta Thunberg)*
Nov 6, 2021
thejuicemedia
The Government™ has made an ad about Net Zero by 2050 and it’s 
surprisingly honest and informative.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1FqXTCvDLeo

- -

/[ Humor, from the Department of the Classic Sarcastic Attack -- video 
30 sec.]/
*Exxon Hates Your Children*
Dec 5, 2012
other98
FINALLY: A TV ad that tells it like it is: EXXON HATES YOUR CHILDREN. Go 
to http://ExxonHatesYourChildren.com if you want to see it on national 
television! (And go straight to http://bit.ly/XuuWsK to donate.)

What would YOU spend the $10 Billion on instead?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uXV6FW9Vg0I

/[  Cement - Concrete is a huge source of C02 ]/
*Our aggregate makes concrete carbon negative, transforming the built 
environment from a carbon burden, to a carbon sink.*
Carbon Negative, Climate Positive
Blue Planet's patented mineralization technology is the only known 
scalable method for capturing and permanently sequestering billions of 
tonnes of CO2. Our process can use dilute CO2 from any source, at any 
concentration, and turn it into valuable building materials to enable 
carbon capture at a profit. Each tonne of our aggregate permanently 
mineralizes 440 kg of CO2, preventing it from ever leaking or 
accumulating in the atmosphere.
Blue Planet Systems  Permanent Carbon Capture
https://www.blueplanetsystems.com/

/[ Succinct, current and educational briefing update - video ]/
*What NASA Knows from Decades of Earth System Observations*
Jan 24, 2022
NASA Climate Change
NASA has the world’s largest Earth-observing fleet and has an 
uninterrupted record and observed evidence of climate change. Increased 
greenhouse gases trap heat in Earth’s atmosphere.

Trapped atmospheric greenhouse gases warm the planet – our land, ocean, 
and atmosphere. Most of the global warming goes into the ocean, delaying 
the full impact of global warming. Ocean currents move the heat around 
the globe, impacting your local weather and climate. The warmer ocean 
accelerates melting of ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica.

Rising seas are a major consequence of climate change, impacting coastal 
communities, infrastructure, and economy. Warmer climate amplifies 
Earth’s water cycle. Dry areas are getting drier and wet areas are 
getting wetter. Wet areas are experiencing more flooding and extreme 
storms, such as typhoons and hurricanes. Drought-prone areas will see 
less rainfall, affecting agriculture.

NASA data are used for projections that can help inform actions for the 
future. More extreme conditions are occurring due to climate change, 
such as wildfires. NASA data and knowledge are open and free, enabling 
informed decision-making. NASA information aids preparation and recovery 
from natural hazards around the world.

Download the video: https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/31168
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q-Zsu1__tPU

/[  More than you ever want to know about salt marshes.... video ]/
*Blue Carbon - UK salt marshes and climate change mitigation*
Jan 16, 2022
Dave Webb
Marine ecosystems like seagrass meadows, salt marshes and mangroves 
absorb or ‘draw down’ carbon dioxide from the water and atmosphere. The 
storage of carbon in marine habitats is called blue carbon.
--  Globally, salt marshes and seagrass – blue carbon sinks – draw down 
and store between them 235-450 million tonnes of carbon a year; almost 
half the emissions from the entire global transport sector.
-- Scientists estimate that salt marsh and seagrass habitats fix and 
store carbon at two to four times the rate of mature tropical forests. 
This means the UK’s salt marshes and seagrass beds have the carbon 
storage potential of between 1,000 and 2,000 km2 of tropical forests.
Yet despite these impressive numbers and the obvious importance of 
coastal wetlands for climate change mitigation and carbon sequestration, 
there is still much global scarcity in understanding the patterns and 
drivers of salt marsh carbon storing. In particular, little is known 
about how salt marsh carbon store will react to changes in marsh 
elevation due to sea level rise (SLR), and the drivers which determine 
variations of carbon store at depth levels below 50 cm are also not well 
described.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qDFqlJ2mXTE

/[   Cli-Fi clips from New Yorker about top Cli-Fi author ] /
*Can Science Fiction Wake Us Up to Our Climate Reality?*
Kim Stanley Robinson’s novels envision the dire problems of the 
future—but also their solutions.
By Joshua Rothman - January 24, 2022...
Last summer, the science-fiction writer Kim Stanley Robinson went on a 
backpacking trip with some friends. They headed into the High Sierra, 
hiking toward Deadman Canyon—a fifty-mile walk through challenging 
terrain. Now sixty-nine, Robinson has been hiking and camping in the 
Sierras for half a century...
- -
I moved along. We reached the rock rib and crossed it to the long slope 
of talus. We glissaded down in zigzags through the lunar powder. At the 
bottom lay the ocean of rocks, small and sharp. They cast harsh shadows, 
creating pockets of darkness, and crossing them required intense 
attention. I had to remember to breathe, and to blink. Hours passed. I 
stopped to finish my water and looked ahead to see our destination, a 
lake glittering in the far distance. Almost all Robinson’s novels 
involve an experience of this kind—a long, difficult, rocky journey 
through a mountain landscape, on Earth or elsewhere, accomplished 
through sustained concentration that lifts one out of time. The main 
thing is to start, then to keep going, finding your way one step at a 
time. It never occurs to you to stop. Even if the path isn’t set, the 
job before you is clear: you have to get down the mountain before dark.

Robinson had been right. The descent had been difficult and doable—an 
ideal combination. Back in Dusy Basin, we watched the sun set from atop 
a high rocky outcropping. The lakes far below us glowed silver in the light.

“What a planet!” Robinson said.

The next day, we hiked out. It was a long, easy walk, over Bishop Pass 
and through the picture-postcard forest. Robinson was sad to leave, and 
worried about the wildfires.

“What do you think?” I asked, finally, as we made our way down an 
ordinary rocky slope. “Will we be all right?”

“We’ll have to make some big changes,” he said. “I just hope that we 
won’t have to make them so quickly that we break everything.”

I wondered what he meant by “everything.” Jobs? Currencies? Supply 
chains? Coastal cities? Beaches? Food? Ecologies? Societies? I looked 
around at the Sierras. Water stretched wide to my left, and pines framed 
a blue sky overhead. Songbirds were in the trees. It occurred to me that 
he meant everything. The whole world. All of it could break. Then, lost 
in thought, I slipped.
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/01/31/can-science-fiction-wake-us-up-to-our-climate-reality-kim-stanley-robinson

[ Disinformationist entry from DeSmogBlog ]
*Willie Soon *
*Fossil Fuel Funding*
As part of a March 2018 legal case between the cities of San Francisco 
and Oakland and fossil fuel companies, Soon was asked to disclose any 
connections he had to connected parties. He offered the following 
response (emphasis added):

“I have not received any funding for the climate-sensitivity research 
led by Christopher Monckton of Brenchley. In the past, I have received 
scientific research grants from Exxon-Mobil Foundation, Southern Company 
and the Charles G. Koch Foundation for my work on various topics, 
including scientific research on the Sun-climate connection.” [98]
https://www.desmog.com/willie-soon/

[  Artists  ]
*‘It’s a slow catastrophe’: artists try to tackle the dangers of rising 
sea levels*
In two new exhibitions, shocking photography and video simulations give 
an idea of the effects of the climate crisis
David Smith in Washington
24 Jan 2022

    /https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/e450715103be649b95fc052fbc28d10ab44d6bea/0_182_2800_1680/master/2800.jpg?width=620&quality=45&auto=format&fit=max&dpr=2&s=5e6ffbc93aa95dfb5b6f5787badf9a92/
    /Greta Pratt (American, b. 1955) Chairs on Dock, from the series
    Tidewater, 2020 Archival pigment print. Photograph: Greta
    Pratt/Courtesy of the artist/

But before climate anxiety turns to despair, visitors to the museum will 
find a companion exhibition: Waters Rising, which includes scientific 
models, video simulations, photos and artwork examining sea-level rise 
in coastal communities across Norfolk and other parts of the Hampton 
Roads region – and some potential solutions...
- -
Feman says: “We really wanted to put this in people’s hands to give them 
a sense that they’ve seen something pretty horrific but they can leave 
the museum thinking about what they can do.”...
- -
“That really goes hand-in-hand with Anastasia’s work because she is 
visually expressing this strange emotion of fear and anxiety but also 
there are moments of real beauty. How do you hold this all together at 
the same time?”

The threat to Norfolk from sea level rise is comparable to that facing 
Miami and New Orleans. The Chrysler Museum overlooks an inlet from the 
Elizabeth River, a tidal estuary at the southern end of Chesapeake Bay. 
During storms, the museum itself can be cut off, effectively becoming an 
island.

“Every day I have to look at the weather and make a decision on how I’m 
going to walk into the office, how I’m going to walk my dog,” says 
Feman, 42, who lives four blocks away. “There are roads that are 
impassable depending on what’s happening.

“If there’s a flood or if there’s been heavy rains or sometimes if 
there’s been heavy winds, it can cause water to pile up in certain 
areas. So sometimes I have to go right instead of left because I can see 
from where I’m coming that the road will be impassable if I go down that 
way. It’s anecdotal, it’s not scientific, but it’s to my mind much worse 
than it was nine years ago when I got here.”...
- -
“Sometimes fear works, but oftentimes people will just turn the page or 
look away and finding artists who can really invite people in to think 
seriously and effectively about about the world around them is immensely 
valuable.”...
- -
FloodZone: Photographs by Anastasia Samoylova and Waters Rising: A View 
 From Our Backyard are on display at the Chrysler Museum of Arts in 
Norfolk until 29 May
https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2022/jan/24/climate-crisis-floodzone-anastasia-samoylova-exhibition

/[The news archive - looking back]/
*On this day in the history of global warming January  26, 2015*
The Boston Globe reports on the dubious ethics of notorious 
climate-change denier Willie Soon.
http://www.bostonglobe.com/news/nation/2015/01/26/harvard-smithsonian-climate-change-skeptic-accused-violating-academic-disclosure-agreement/Y1uMQ8yuLpYCjOHGckRArO/story.html

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