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

[Richard Pauli]

/*May 13, 2022*/

/[ humor -- Click to see the New Yorker cartoon for this text//]/

    */“I know that it comes earlier every year, and is destroying the
    future for our grandchildren, but I’ll be damned if that extra bit
    of warmth isn’t nice.”/*

https://www.newyorker.com/cartoons/daily-cartoon/thursday-may-12th-dragon-warming



/[  space tech innovation deployed - see the video - but the music comes 
from Earth ] /
*Earth from Orbit: NOAA Debuts First Imagery from GOES-18*
May 11, 2022
https://youtu.be/ECjEHbcydDA see the video
GOES-18 orbits 22,236 miles above the equator at the same speed the 
Earth rotates. This allows the satellite to constantly view the same 
area of the planet and track weather conditions and hazards as they 
happen...

GOES-18, NOAA’s newest geostationary satellite, launched on March 1. The 
ABI views Earth with sixteen different channels, each measuring energy 
at different wavelengths along the electromagnetic spectrum to obtain 
information about Earth’s atmosphere, land, and ocean...
https://www.nesdis.noaa.gov/news/earth-orbit-noaa-debuts-first-imagery-goes-18



/[ The big question - once humans learn, we are easiest to change ]/
*The Climate Crisis is a Social Crisis | Richard Heinberg*
4 views  May 12, 2022  Richard Heinberg, senior fellow at Post Carbon 
Institute, on the dangerous lack of social cohesion which threatens our 
global capacity to collaborate in the face of the climate crisis. We 
discuss energy rationing, political division, the effect of increasing 
economic inequality, and the knowledge gap between the public and leaders.

We’re living in the anthropocene — a geological period defined by the 
impact of human activity on the planet’s climate and ecosystems. 
Essentially, it’s our behaviour that’s at the root of the problem. But 
so often this isn’t addressed as the root. Our economic system claims 
tech will save us from ourselves—but imagine we do find a silver bullet, 
do we have the social cohesion in place to implement that solution, or any?

Richard’s devoted his life to understanding the crisis and its 
solutions, authoring 14 books and hundreds of articles on the topic. 
Richard’s a big picture thinker, and he believes it is our behaviour and 
our current political division which is the real threat to climate progress.

Bonus available on Friday: https://youtu.be/0Lexb6EK9ME
Discover Richard's work: https://richardheinberg.com/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XRp_3HnbLs8

- -

/[ now for a printed essay ]/
*Museletter #350: The Failure of Global Elites*
In the 1970s, global political and corporate elites had all the 
information they needed to put the world on a path toward long-term 
stability. Systems science was sufficiently advanced that a team of its 
practitioners organized a scenario study to see how trends in industrial 
production, population, food, pollution, and resource usage might 
interact over the next few decades; the study showed that continued 
growth in population and industrial production would prove 
unsustainable. Political scientists were beginning to sort demographic, 
economic, and historical social data for clues to understanding why 
societies sometimes descend into internal violence; data seemed to show 
that there was a rough correlation between rising economic inequality 
and declining social stability. Also, the science of ecology was 
revealing that forest, ocean, desert, freshwater, and soil ecosystems 
are inherently complex and resilient, but that they are subject to 
catastrophic tipping points when subjected to high enough levels of 
pollution or loss of habitable space. It was clear what should be done 
in order to put society on a sound footing: discourage population 
growth, cap the scale of industrial production, reduce economic 
inequality, clean up past pollution, reduce current and future 
pollution, and leave plenty of space for nature to regenerate.

Elites didn’t do those things. Initially, during the Nixon and Carter 
years, US politicians enacted some thoughtful, far-reaching policies. 
Then, increasingly, and regardless of the party in power, they simply 
found excuses to stop pressing ahead or to backtrack. They set their pet 
economists to work writing books and reports insisting that growth is 
always good; that economic inequality is excusable because eventually 
the wealth of the few will surely “trickle down” as benefits to the 
many; and that, in President Ronald Reagan’s feel-good but tragically 
misleading words, “There are no such things as limits to growth, because 
there are no limits to the human capacity for intelligence, imagination, 
and wonder.”...
- -
Looking back at complex societies around the world through the past few 
millennia, it’s clear that the failure of elites is nothing new. Indeed, 
given enough time, elites nearly always fail. They get too greedy, they 
overestimate their own intelligence, and they discourage people around 
them from conveying bad news. When they do fail, societies sometimes 
just descend to a lower level of social organization. People dust 
themselves off and move on, returning to a simpler village-based way of 
life. Other times, when crisis comes, elites divide, with factions 
taking advantage of failure by presenting themselves as problem solvers 
or avengers. This rarely leads to a peaceful outcome. But it’s a pretty 
good summary of what’s happening now.

The best strategic response for ordinary people would probably be to 
build grassroots horizontal power networks and get out ahead of the 
failing elites by doing whatever will minimize the crisis ahead. This 
makes sense especially at a time when global integration is unraveling, 
supply chains are broken, and there are plenty of opportunities and 
incentives for substituting local products for imports. Nevertheless, 
institutions of horizontal power—coops, citizen assemblies, intentional 
communities—take time to organize.

If I were to offer some advice for elites, it would be as follows. It 
was never going to be easy to do the right thing, and it will be even 
harder now. Start by telling the truth. You’re going to get blamed 
anyway. Why not use your position of influence to increase public 
awareness of what’s really happening and why? But, dear reader, don’t 
hold your breath waiting for elites to get it right. I’ve used this 
essay to channel my own exasperation at cowards in high places, some of 
whom have enriched themselves to obscene degrees even as so many others 
languished. Rail against them a little or some, based on your level of 
outrage, but I’d advise directing the bulk of your energy to moving on. 
Anything that further divides us makes it harder for humanity to do 
whatever is still possible. A better path would be building personal and 
community resilience ahead of what’s coming. Ease the suffering. Save 
what can be saved.
https://richardheinberg.com/museletter-350-the-failure-of-global-elites
https://richardheinberg.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/museletter-350.pdf



/[ either follow or redirect the money ] /
*Big Oil braces for shareholder revolt over climate plans in proxy 
voting season*
MAY 11 2022

    -- Oil and gas majors on both sides of the Atlantic are scheduled to
    hold their annual general meetings in the coming weeks.

    -- The forthcoming proxy season comes amid intensifying pressure on
    Big Oil to set short- and medium-term targets in line with the
    landmark Paris Agreement.

    -- At present, not a single oil and gas major is aligned with the
    Paris Agreement’s goal of curbing global heating to 1.5 degrees
    Celsius above pre-industrial levels.

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/05/11/climate-big-oil-braces-for-shareholder-revolt-in-proxy-voting-season.html


/[ 1 minute video - hurts my eyes to view one chart showing increase ] /
*A Brief History of Global Methane*
May 12, 2022
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g9Y-Rk035LQ



/[  an interesting interview with the author - 17 min video ] /
*Kurt Anderson: “Evil Geniuses: The Unmaking of America" | Amanpour and 
Company*
As the pandemic lays bare social, legal, racial and financial injustice 
in America, it is vital to examine how the system got its start. Kurt 
Andersen is a best-selling author and journalist whose latest book 
examines the origins of America’s hyper-capitalism. He speaks with 
Walter Isaacson about the genesis and propagation of the system--and the 
need to take a step back.

For more from Amanpour and Company, including full episodes, click here: 
https://to.pbs.org/2NBFpjf
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1BgGCu5N--I



/[The news archive - looking back - *with key words in bold below *]/
/*May 13, 2011*/
In an editorial, the Washington Post declares, "Climate change denial 
becomes harder to justify."
Climate change denial becomes harder to justify
By Editorial  May 15, 2011

    “CLIMATE CHANGE is occurring, is very likely caused by human
    activities, and poses significant risks for a broad range of human
    and natural systems.”

    So says — in response to a request from Congress — the National
    Research Council of the National Academy of Sciences, the country’s
    preeminent institution chartered to provide scientific advice to
    lawmakers.

    In a report titled “America’s Climate Choices,” a panel of
    scientific and policy experts also concludes that the risks of
    inaction far outweigh the risks or disadvantages of action. And the
    most sensible and urgently needed action, the panel says, is to put
    a rising price on carbon emissions, by means of a tax or
    cap-and-trade system. That would encourage innovation, research and
    a gradual shift away from the use of energy sources (oil, gas and
    coal) that are endangering the world.

    None of this should come as a surprise. None of this is news. But it
    is newsworthy, sadly, because the Republican Party, and therefore
    the U.S. government, have moved so far from reality and
    responsibility in their approach to climate change.

    Seizing on inevitable points of uncertainty in something as complex
    as climate science, and on misreported pseudo-scandals among a few
    scientists, Republican members of Congress, presidential candidates
    and other leaders pretend that the dangers of climate change are
    hypothetical and unproven and the causes uncertain.

    Not so, says the National Research Council. “Although the scientific
    process is always open to new ideas and results, the fundamental
    causes and consequences of climate change have been established by
    many years of scientific research, are supported by many different
    lines of evidence, and have stood firm in the face of careful
    examination, repeated testing, and the rigorous evaluation of
    alternative theories and explanation.”

    *Climate-change deniers, in other words, are willfully ignorant,
    lost in wishful thinking, cynical or some combination of the three.
    And their recalcitrance is dangerous, the report makes clear,
    because the longer the nation waits to respond to climate change,
    the more catastrophic the planetary damage is likely to be — and the
    more drastic the needed response.*

    That response, the panel concluded, ought to include not only a
    strong policy to begin reducing greenhouse gas emissions but also a
    plan to begin adapting to climate change, some amount of which is
    already inevitable; more research into climate science and
    alternative energies; and active engagement in international efforts
    to control climate change. Given the global nature of the problem,
    the report says, U.S. action can’t be sufficient, but “strong U.S.
    emission efforts will enhance our ability to influence other
    countries to do the same.”

    What happens when Congress asks a question and gets an answer it
    doesn’t like? The response from Texas Rep. Joe Barton, senior
    Republican on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, provides a
    clue. “I see nothing substantive in this report that adds to the
    knowledge base necessary to make an informed decision about what
    steps — if any — should be taken to address climate change,” Mr.
    Barton told the New York Times.

    He’s right, of course — there is essentially nothing new, and that’s
    the point. Every candidate for political office in the next cycle,
    including for president, should be asked whether they disagree with
    the scientific consensus of America’s premier scientific advisory
    group, as reflected in this report; and if so, on what basis they
    disagree; and if not, what they propose to do about the rising seas,
    spreading deserts and intensifying storms that, absent a change in
    policy, loom on America’s horizon.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/climate-change-denial-becomes-harder-to-justify/2011/05/13/AF44QQ4G_story.html

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