[✔️] July 13, 2022 - Daily Global Warming News Digest

[Richard Pauli]

/*July 13, 2022*/

/[ Washington Post reports serious talk ]/
*Republicans threaten Wall Street over climate positions*
BlackRock, JPMorgan Chase and other asset managers face complaints from 
the left — and threats from the right
By Steven Mufson
July 12, 2022
Republican officials across the country, tearing a page from the ongoing 
culture wars, are launching a broad assault on the movement by big 
financial firms to use their economic power to curb climate change and 
address other politically sensitive national issues.
In recent years, big finance companies have used their clout to advance 
causes that are popular among liberals. The giant asset manager 
BlackRock, for instance, has voted against the candidacies of hundreds 
of corporate board members over their lackluster records on climate 
issues and called climate change “a defining factor in companies’ 
long-term prospects.” JPMorgan Chase, the nation’s largest bank, has 
stopped lending to new coal mines or coal-fired power plants.

Even though the positions don’t satisfy many left-leaning activists, GOP 
officials are intensifying their counteroffensive, attacking the 
campaigns — often referred to as “environmental-social-governance,” or 
ESG — by threatening to retaliate against financial firms for their 
positions on the climate and other issues, including firearms sales...
https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/07/12/republicans-threaten-wall-street-over-climate-positions/ 


- -

/[ Swaggering Joe ]/
*Manchin, Playing to the Home Crowd, Is Fighting Electric Cars to the End*
The West Virginia senator, who holds the swing vote in negotiations for 
a budget plan, wants to cut incentives. The president and most Senate 
Democrats say buyer credits are crucial to fight climate change.
- -
Mr. Manchin’s opposition to tax credits for electric vehicles mirrors 
that of the oil industry, which would be threatened by a wholesale shift 
away from gas-powered cars and trucks. The American Petroleum Institute, 
the fossil fuel industry’s lobbying arm, has warned against a “rushed 
E.V. transition,” saying government action to support electric vehicles 
could limit transportation choices for Americans and leave them “high 
and dry.”

“Bottom line: efforts to subsidize E.V. adoption can be costly for 
taxpayers and consumers,” Mike Sommers, the group’s president, said last 
year.

But a fast transition to electric vehicles is exactly what scientists 
say is needed to quickly and sharply cut the emissions that are 
dangerously heating the planet. Pollution from transportation is the 
leading source of greenhouse gas emissions in the United States...
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/12/climate/electric-vehicle-tax-credits-manchin.html

- -

/[ candidate idiocy ]/
*GOP Senate Candidate Herschel Walker Floats A Jaw-Dropping Air 
Pollution Theory*
We shouldn't battle pollution because our good air will just "decide" to 
go to China, the Trump-backed Georgian told supporters, drawing massive 
blowback.
Mary Papenfuss - - Jul 11, 2022,
Problem-plagued U.S. Senate candidate Herschel Walker has presented an 
astounding argument for not enacting laws against air pollution: 
America’s “good air” will simply “decide” to go to China, he told 
supporters in Georgia.

A viral video clip of the speech by the Republican — who has been 
endorsed by Donald Trump — during a campaign stop in Hall County, 
Georgia, on Saturday, is making the rounds on Twitter and has triggering 
a tsunami of criticism. (Even Fox News conceded Walker’s mangled 
perspective “drew criticism.”)...
- -
"Since we don’t control the air, our good air decided to float over to 
China’s bad air, so when China gets our good air, their bad air got to 
move,” Walker explained. “So it moves over to our good air space. Then 
now we got to clean that back up,” he added."

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/herschel-walker-good-air-decides-to-move-to-china_n_62cc9255e4b0d740198761ff



/[  NYT produced a strong video opinion  $ubscription or registration ] /

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/12/opinion/net-zero-global-warming.html



/[  Yale Climate Connections] /
*Recklessness defined: breaking 6 of 9 planetary boundaries of safety*
The author’s imaginative fictional intro opens the way for better 
understanding how humanity has pushed past planetary boundaries of safe 
living with respect to climate change, biosphere integrity, land-system 
change, biogeochemical flows, freshwater, and more.

JEFF MASTERS  - - JULY 12, 2022...
*Humanity is pushing boundaries of our finite Earth in dangerous ways*
When we drive a vehicle at high speed, disaster is always a split second 
away. An accident can occur when crossing any one of at least nine 
boundaries of safe operation – the engine, tires, brakes, lights, and 
seat belts must be functioning properly, the driver must be sober and 
not distracted, and the vehicle must be operated at a safe speed and not 
in adverse weather conditions.
- -
Mother Earth has given us nine planetary credit cards to assist in our 
development. We’ve charged six of those nine credit cards to the hilt, 
and are pushing the credit limit on two others. We’ve used the oceans, 
land, and atmosphere as dumping grounds for our wastes, pumped Earth’s 
precious groundwater reserves to exhaustion, depleted her soils, razed 
her forests, and exterminated countless species. We are desperately 
trying to borrow more from Mother Earth, but there is precious little 
credit available.

It’s payback time, and Mother Nature is a very unforgiving lender. She 
abides by the laws of physics, and defaulting on just one of the loans 
we’ve taken out could be catastrophic. To avoid crashing civilization, 
we must take the next exit ramp – the one for the Paris Agreement – and 
work hard to keep global warming well below two degrees Celsius, by 
reducing carbon emissions through a rapid transition to a clean energy 
economy.

What is needed is a global effort similar to the proposed EU “Nature 
Restoration Law”, which would set legally binding targets and provide 
over $100 billion for nature restoration in agriculture, forests, oceans 
and urban areas, as reported by EurActiv. The aim of the proposal is to 
restore degraded ecosystems, “in particular those with the most 
potential to remove and store carbon, and to reduce the impact of 
natural disasters linked to global warming”. If economic development is 
done with renewable energy, forest protection, regenerative agriculture, 
sustainable groundwater pumping, and the like, it can increase jobs, 
build a healthier economy and world, and give us more of what we really 
care about: time to experience nature, engage in creative endeavors, and 
be with family and friends.
https://yaleclimateconnections.org/2022/07/recklessness-defined-breaking-6-of-9-planetary-boundaries-of-safety/



/[The news archive - looking back at how Pres Bush hid the science ]/
/*July 13, 2003*/
*washingtonpost.com
**How Bush and Co. Obscure the Science
*Jeremy Symons -  July 13, 2003
Christine Todd Whitman's tenure at the Environmental Protection Agency 
(EPA) ended last month much
the way it began, amid controversy over the Bush administration's 
unwillingness to craft an effective
response to global warming. Whitman arrived just before the president 
reversed a campaign promise to
reduce global warming pollution from power plants. As she leaves, leaked 
EPA documents suggest that
the White House attempted to rewrite an EPA report to play down the 
risks of global warming.
Regardless of who replaces Whitman as EPA administrator, a change in 
direction is needed from the
White House itself. What began with the Bush administration exercising 
its discretion over policy
choices on global warming has devolved into attempts to suppress 
scientific information. These efforts
jeopardize the credibility of federal agencies and the information they 
provide to Congress and the
public.

The administration's commitment to protecting the environment has been 
an issue from the outset, when
the Bush team made a number of policy decisions on global warming that 
matched those advocated by
the coal and oil industries.

At EPA, where I was then serving as a climate policy adviser, we 
believed one of Whitman's first tasks
would be to make good on the president's campaign promise to seek new 
laws to reduce pollution from
power plants, the largest U.S. source of carbon dioxide emissions that 
trap heat in the atmosphere. But as
soon as Whitman publicly reiterated the president's pledge in late 
February 2001, a debate ensued within
the administration. White House aides drafted a six-page memorandum to 
John Bridgeland, who was
then the president's deputy assistant for domestic policy. It listed the 
potential impacts on the coal
industry, but devoted only six sentences to the science of global 
warming. Two weeks later, the president
sent a letter to Congress announcing that he would no longer support new 
controls on global warming
pollution from power plants. His letter left no room for compromise.
Whitman, who had argued throughout the brief but intense debate that the 
White House should at least
leave its options open, had been publicly undermined. Secretary of State 
Colin L. Powell compared her
to a "wind dummy," a military term for a dummy that is pushed out of an 
airplane to determine which
way the wind is blowing. When Vice President Cheney noted that Whitman 
was being a "good soldier,"
the tone for the EPA's role in the administration was set.

Since U.S. power plants alone account for 10 percent of global carbon 
dioxide emissions, the Bush
administration next had to address the issue on the international stage. 
A State Department options paper in March 2001 outlined potential next 
steps for dealing with our allies on the Kyoto Protocol, an
international agreement to reduce greenhouse gas emissions that the 
president opposed. According to the paper, the United States could 
"repudiate the Kyoto negotiating process" altogether. Or, the
administration could advance its own proposal in order to "give us time 
to develop a credible alternative
approach to Kyoto, rather than simply blowing up the current 
negotiations." But the paper warned that
leaving the door open to an alternative agreement "may not fully satisfy 
domestic groups that wish to
drive the final stake in the heart of the Protocol." The United States 
subsequently walked away without
offering an alternative.

With more than 80 percent of the nation's global warming pollution 
coming from the use of fossil fuels,
the Bush energy plan dashed all hope for proposals to ease global 
warming. The plan, released in May
2001, made increased supplies of coal, oil and natural gas the priority 
in the coming decades.
In the few months that I worked under Whitman, I represented the EPA on 
the interagency working
group that had been charged by Cheney with drafting the energy plan. 
Cheney's staff refereed the
meetings, which were attended by representatives from other federal 
agencies and the White House.
During the sessions I attended, the Energy Department continually pushed 
plans to increase coal and oil
supplies while paying little heed to promoting energy efficiency and 
clean energy sources, options that
could help meet the nation's growing energy needs without increasing 
pollution.
The issue of energy conservation came to a head at a Cabinet-level 
meeting hosted by Cheney on April 3,
2001. Whitman recommended that the government set a national goal for 
energy efficiency measured as
a reduction in the nation's energy use relative to the size of the 
economy over the next two decades.
People who attended the meeting told me later that Secretary of Energy 
Spencer Abraham spoke against
the proposal, noting that it would only invite unwelcome scrutiny of the 
energy plan's modest energy
efficiency provisions. He prevailed.

Within a few months of taking office, the administration had hung a "do 
not disturb" sign on U.S. policy
toward global warming. But the administration's position -- that new 
regulations would harm U.S.
industry -- is not shared by most Americans, who are optimistic about 
the ability of businesses to
innovate and adapt.

Concerned about public opinion, presidential counselor Karen Hughes 
called a White House
communications strategy meeting on the environment in April 2001, 
declaring that green issues "are
killing us," according to a Time magazine report. Having ruled out any 
significant policy change,
however, the administration's only choice was damage control.

One example was its effort to raise doubts about the international 
scientific consensus that carbon
dioxide pollution is causing global warming. In May 2001, the White 
House asked the National Research
Council, part of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, for a second 
opinion. But the effort backfired.
The council's report confirmed the scientific consensus that greenhouse 
gas emissions are major
contributors to global warming,

Then a June 2002 report by the EPA and the State Department concluded 
that "continuing growth in
greenhouse gas emissions is likely to lead to annual average warming 
over the United States that could
be as much as several degrees Celsius (roughly 3 to 9 degrees 
Fahrenheit) during the 21st century." The
report also detailed deleterious effects on public health and the 
environment in each region of the
country, warning, for example, that "drought is likely to be more 
frequent and intense" in the Great
Plains.

Pressed to respond, Bush dismissed the report as a product of "the 
bureaucracy," denigrating years of
work by scientists throughout the federal government.
Afterward, the administration took a much bolder approach to dodge such 
embarrassment by trying to
minimize awareness of the threat of global warming. In September 2002, 
it stripped a global warming
section from an annual EPA report on trends in air pollution. An annual 
update had been included for
years.

Most recently, internal EPA documents obtained by the National Wildlife 
Federation show that White
House officials tried to force the EPA to alter the scientific content 
of a report in order to play down the
risks of global warming. The EPA has billed the report, released in 
June, as "the first-ever national
picture of environmental quality and human health in the United States." 
An internal EPA decision paper
noted that White House officials were insisting on "major edits" to the 
climate change section and were
telling the EPA that "no further changes may be made" beyond the White 
House edits. In the internal
paper, EPA staff warned that the report "no longer accurately represents 
scientific consensus on climate
change." The EPA ultimately pulled the global warming section from the 
report to avoid publishing
information that is not scientifically credible.

Former EPA administrator Russell Train responded in a letter to the New 
York Times. "Having served as
EPA administrator under both Presidents Nixon and Ford, I can state 
categorically that there never was
such White House intrusion into the business of the EPA during my 
tenure," he wrote. "The EPA was
established as an independent agency in the executive branch, and so it 
should remain. There appears
today to be a steady erosion in its independent status."
Perhaps the most disturbing element of the leaked papers is that so far 
the White House has been
unapologetic.

The leaked EPA memo provides only one glimpse into the administration's 
recent efforts to control
information on global warming. The Washington Post reported this month 
that the EPA scrubbed its
analysis of a congressional plan to require power plants to reduce 
emissions of carbon dioxide and other
air pollutants. The EPA estimated the cost of the proposal, but withheld 
information that it would result
in 17,800 fewer premature deaths every year than would the president's 
air pollution plan (dubbed "Clear
Skies" by the administration's spin doctors). The EPA recently turned 
down Arizona Sen. John McCain's
request for an analysis of a global warming plan that he and Connecticut 
Sen. Joseph Lieberman intend
to add to pending energy legislation, breaking the agency's long 
tradition of providing such assistance to
Congress.

The administration's conduct illustrates a broader pattern of managing 
information to fend off criticism
on environmental initiatives such as weakening the Clean Air Act and 
lifting Clean Water Act
protections for wetlands. For example, the administration postponed an 
analysis requested by an EPA
advisory group reviewing toxic mercury emissions from power plants for 
fear it would discredit Bush's
proposed changes in the Clean Air Act.
When President Reagan pursued a more overt agenda of undermining the 
EPA's ability to regulate
industry, aggressive congressional oversight led to the resignation of 
the EPA head, Ann Gorsuch
Burford. Despite the similarly far reaching impact of the current 
administration's proposed rollbacks in
clean water and air protections, Congress has been largely held at bay 
by the White House's adept control
of information.

Soon Bush will pick a new head for the EPA. In the confirmation 
hearings, it will be incumbent upon
senators to demand accountability not just from the nominee, but from 
the White House itself.

Jeremy Symons left the Environmental Protection Agency, where he was 
serving as climate policy
adviser in the Office of Air and Radiation in April 2001. He currently 
manages the Climate Change &
Wildlife program at the National Wildlife Federation.
© 2003 The Washington Post Company
http://stephenschneider.stanford.edu/Publications/PDF_Papers/Symons.pdf?language=printer

see also 
http://stephenschneider.stanford.edu/Climate/Climate_Science/Science.html



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