[✔️] May 15, 2022 - Daily Global Warming News Digest

Sun May 15 08:58:48 EDT 2022

/*May 15, 2022*/

/[ the check is in the mail --  text, transcript and audio ]/
*The U.S. pledged billions to fight climate change. Then came the 
Ukraine war*
May 14, 2022
REBECCA HERSHER
The U.S. has repeatedly promised to pay billions of dollars in climate 
funding to help less wealthy nations and has repeatedly failed to pay. 
Now developing countries fear the war in Ukraine is yet another delay, 
even as climate change causes mounting deaths around the world. NPR's 
Rebecca Hersher reports.

REBECCA HERSHER, BYLINE: This money is not charity. It's more like 
reparations. Fossil fuels were the engine that made America rich and 
caused climate change that's hitting developing countries the hardest. 
So the U.S. and other wealthy countries agreed it's only fair that they 
help foot the bill to protect developing nations. The number that world 
leaders agreed on was $100 billion per year, but the money has never 
fully materialized, in part because the U.S. has contributed very, very 
little...
- -
Trevor Houser is a climate analyst at the Rhodium Group, a climate think 
tank in the U.S.

TREVOR HOUSER: It is a good example of how much more we prioritize 
immediate crises over long-term threats like climate.

HERSHER: He says it's not that Congress took dollars that would have 
gone to climate projects and gave them to Ukraine instead. It's more 
about bandwidth.

HOUSER: Policymakers in any country have limited attention. They can 
only focus on so many things at a given time. And the war in Ukraine is 
a giant crisis that requires a lot of focus and attention. And so the 
biggest risk for U.S. climate action is just a lack of focus and attention.

HERSHER: And when it comes to climate change, getting distracted is 
really dangerous, because every day of delay means hotter temperatures 
and more lives lost. Rebecca Hersher, NPR News.
[transcript https://www.npr.org/transcripts/1098000374 ]
https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2022/05/14/1098000374/the-u-s-pledged-billions-to-fight-climate-change-then-came-the-ukraine-war

/[  Everything is connected to our environment  ] /
*Supply chain issues are getting worse — and climate change is a main 
culprit*
The baby formula shortage is one manifestation of a supply chain crisis 
worsened by climate change
By MATTHEW ROZSA
PUBLISHED MAY 14, 2022
As the economy continues to falter, the name of the game is product 
shortages. Supply chain disruptions have left grocery store shelves 
bare, forced gamers to suffer console and headset shortages and led to 
microchip shortages across the electronics industry. Higher prices for 
consumer goods are partly a result of such shortages. Now that 
Republicans are drawing attention to a baby food shortage, the question 
seems to have been politicized: Should the supply chain issues be blamed 
on the party which holds power?

The answer is that our supply chain issues are global in scope — and in 
more ways than one. The product shortages are caused by the fact that 
most of our goods are transported across long distances to be used for 
manufacturing, sold or otherwise utilized. Imagine a giant spiderweb 
stretching all across the planet. Like a baseball smashing through each 
strand, unexpected problems can destroy key routes that allow our supply 
chains to operate...
- -
In addition to altering consumer behavior, scientists agree that climate 
change will alter the physical landscape in a profound and 
transformative fashion. For one thing, sea levels are expected to rise; 
even as that happens, heat waves will cause widespread droughts. Both of 
these things will have consequences for the economy.
As is so often the case when it comes to climate change, marginalized 
communities are expected to take a disproportionate hit. As Shahram 
Azhar, an assistant professor of economics at Bucknell University, wrote 
to Salon last year that "climate change has a demonstrably negative 
effect on the planet's natural ecosystem (pests, coral bleaching etc.) 
which is pivotal for agrarian production. For working-class people, this 
basically means more food insecurity, malnourishment, and poverty 
through rising food prices on the one hand and instability in jobs and 
incomes on the other."
It is tragically unsurprising that climate change, is going to hit 
marginalized groups most hard when it starts to shut down supply chains. 
These expansive supply chains exist in large part because wealthy 
interest groups wanted to exploit cheap labor, says University of 
Massachusetts Amherst economist emeritus Richard Wolff. That is why the 
supply chain breakdown can be described as a "global" problem in more 
ways than one. Not only is it heavily impacted by global events like 
climate change, but supply chain breakdowns exist because of 
globalization...
- -
"When we created dust bowls in various areas back in the 1920s and 
1930s, it permanently altered the landscape of this country in terms of 
where people live and work and so forth," Wolff explained, referring to 
a series of dust storms that swept the American midwest due to poor 
agricultural practices. "Once you make the thing global by moving 
abroad, then you obviously become vulnerable to droughts and floods and 
anything else that happens now, not just in the continental US, but on a 
global scale. You either have to take the steps to avoid climate change, 
or you spend the money to accommodate the adjustment process that is 
involved."

Wolff added, "The problem with capitalism is these issues take time and 
money, and they don't want to do either."
https://www.salon.com/2022/05/14/supply-chain-issues-are-getting-worse--and-climate-change-is-a-main-culprit/

/[  Australian video campaign -- classy sarcasm ] /
*Honest Government Ad | 1 Week Left!*
May 14, 2022  The Australien Government made an ad for the final week 
leading to the election, and it's surprsingly honest and informative.
👉 PODCAST: https://www.thejuicemedia.com/podcast
👉 PG VERSIONS: https://www.thejuicemedia.com/teachers
👉 STORE: https://shop.thejuicemedia.com
thejuicemedia
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=imuTUxBu-kQ

/[ You talkin' to me??    Is this true or is this a "Pay no attention to 
the man behind the curtain"  message?  ] /

*You Should Abandon Your Climate Nihilism*
December 28, 2021  by Zoha Malik

Possibly the worst part about being a part of Generation Z is inheriting 
all of our predecessors’ mistakes, particularly the deteriorating 
climate — a disaster that only looms closer and closer. A recent U.N. 
report paints a grim picture of what our future looks like: The 
best-case scenario, in which countries sharply curb emissions 
immediately, would have a billion people exposed to life-threatening 
heat waves, hundreds of millions to droughts and countless species of 
plants and animals leaving the face of the planet forever.

This sort of (i.e. extremely depressing) report makes it easy to 
understand why people are subscribing more and more to climate nihilism. 
This form of belief promotes people to think nothing can feasibly be 
done or that any action taken on their part would be meaningless when it 
comes to climate change. There are a couple of names for this line of 
thought: doomism, denialism, defeatism — all leading to the same 
conclusion of hopelessness. Besides the obvious cause of our planet’s 
persistent rise in temperature, why are people attracted to this way of 
thinking?

The answer is a lot more complex than what we might think, especially 
since people are experiencing the climate crisis from the average 
citizen’s point of view. According to The Guardian, amateurs and 
newcomers have a tendency to be more alarmist and defeatist than experts 
who have been working on the climate crisis for years. This tends to 
cause a lot of terrifying headlines appearing in the news, kindly 
letting us know we’ll all be dead in 10 years.

The idea that we’re doomed undermines the work of people who are 
actually trying to fix the mess we’re in. It cannot be understated that 
there are many expert voices that express hope; in fact, climate 
scientist Michael Mann compares alarmist takes on climate change to 
outright denialism, as both end up leading to disengagement and 
inaction. To him, such takes are “dismissive of the actions that 
countries, states, cities, companies, and individuals are taking every 
day to move us off fossil fuels” and even act as a great obstacle to 
climate action. In his book, “The New Climate War: The Fight to Take 
Back Our Planet,” Mann said that “the solution is already here. We just 
need to deploy it rapidly and at a massive scale.”

So, while there is political gridlock and pushback from the fossil fuel 
industry, things don’t have to seem so grim and absolute. Though it may 
be difficult to keep up with, legislative change is slowly but surely 
occurring. Such change can even be seen within our own fossil 
fuel-guzzling country, where President Joe Biden is advocating for $300 
billion to aid the transition to renewable energy. Activists and climate 
groups are fighting the fight against climate change every day, with 
some even here at UC Santa Barbara such as Fossil Free UCSB and the UCSB 
Environmental Justice Alliance along with other organizations working 
towards sustainability, and in the greater Santa Barbara area including 
the Sunrise Movement, 350 Action and Citizens’ Climate Lobby.

But, there can be times when this doesn’t feel like enough, or when you 
still feel incapable of helping at all. The best way to feel better 
about our prospects, as a species, is to do so with other people. 
According to Humboldt State’s Ray, the author of “A Field Guide to 
Climate Change: How to Keep Your Cool on a Warming Planet,” Americans 
tend to believe the myth of individualism, which can make us feel 
powerless.

We must reframe the way we think about crises. There are many groups 
working on communal solutions and joining them, even for a protest or 
two, can put your unease about the future to ease. But, not only does 
getting involved with your community aid the cause, working towards a 
common goal can be fulfilling, even joyous. Attending protests, working 
on political campaigns and even working within environmental 
organizations can help you understand that you’re not alone in this.

Climate change should generally not be viewed as something with a 
singular fix. The process is going to be arduous, slow and rife with 
disagreement if our congressional floor meetings are any indication. 
Individual people may feel less helpless if they understand that this is 
a situation that they’re going to have to deal with for a long time. No 
matter what we do now, we’re still going to see major effects from 
climate change in the coming years. This doesn’t mean that we need to 
give up, only that we should adapt and move forward.

It might also help to remember who’s benefiting if defeatist attitudes 
towards climate change are widely adopted. It’s certainly not you or I — 
it’s the people making bank by pillaging the planet. Old shareholders 
with properties in Newport Beach and gentrified Hawai’i couldn’t care 
less about what the future looks like if they’re going to be dead in a 
decade or so. Corrupt politicians whose campaigns are funded by oil and 
gas companies probably carry a similar point of view. If we passively 
watch on as if it’s all inevitable, these kinds of people profiting off 
our environment’s demise are going to keep “winning,” so to speak. It’s 
a lot better to be angry than desensitized entirely.

Humans have faced a lot of existential threats and, for better or for 
worse, we’re still here. As a second-year college student, I’d fail 
miserably if I tried to tell you how the future of planet Earth looks. 
But if I had to choose between fearfully awaiting the apocalypse, versus 
actively trying to stave off both despair and heightening temperatures, 
I’d rather multitask.

Zoha Malik thinks you should make a mutual commitment with her to quit 
doom scrolling.

https://dailynexus.com/2021-12-28/you-should-abandon-your-climate-nihilism/

/
/

/[ Here's some interesting science that may improve your beach time ]/
*Sand mobilised during extreme storms could protect beaches by 
offsetting some impacts of sea-level rise*
Whether it comes from deeper waters or nearby beaches is still unknown.
Imma Perfetto -- 15 May 2022

Extreme storms can cause extensive damage to property, beaches, dunes 
and the surrounding infrastructure, but a new study led by Australian 
researchers has shown that they could also help protect beaches from the 
impact of sea-level rise.

For the first time, scientists have looked not just above the water – 
where the impacts of extreme storms are easy to see – but below the 
ocean’s surface to study the movement of sand in the wake of these events.

“What we found was that hundreds of thousands of cubic metres of sand 
were entering these beach systems during these events – that’s similar 
to the scale of what engineers use to nourish a beach artificially,” 
says lead author Dr Mitchell Harley from the University of New South 
Wales (UNSW) Water Research Laboratory.

“This could potentially be enough to offset some of the impacts of 
sea-level rises caused by climate change, such as retreating coastlines, 
and by several decades in the long-term. It’s a new way of looking at 
extreme storms.”

The study, published in Nature Communications, examined three coastlines 
across Australia, the United Kingdom and Mexico that had been subject to 
extreme storms or extended storm clusters, followed by a milder period 
of beach recovery.

In Australia, researchers studied Narrabeen Beach in Sydney in the wake 
of the 2016 extreme storm that eroded about 50 metres of beach and 
damaged waterfront properties.

Aerial view of narrabeen beach, nsw, where an extreme storm occurred in 
2016.
Narrabeen, NSW. Credit: Airphoto Australia/Getty Images
“For the first time, we were able to mobilise specialised monitoring 
equipment to get really accurate measurements before and after a storm,” 
explains Harley. “We used a combination of a twin-engine aeroplane 
equipped with a lidar scanner, drones and jet skis going back and forth 
along the beach taking measurements below the surface right before and 
after the storm hit.

“This was how we were able to get an accurate picture of the volume of 
sand moving for each storm.”

They found that the gains in sediment measured were enough to 
theoretically offset decades of projected shoreline retreat.

Scientists now understand that, despite causing upper beach and dune 
erosion, extreme waves can potentially contribute positively to a 
coast’s overall sand budget – though whether this extra sand has come 
from offshore, from around the corner, or both, is still unknown.

Extreme storms should be considered in long-term projections
This is important because predicting how coastlines might change due to 
sea-level rise is a key question in the face of the escalating impacts 
of climate change.

In the past, this has been estimated using a simple approach known as 
the Bruun rule – for a given metre of sea-level rise, the coastline 
retreats between 20 and 100 metres depending on the steepness of the coast.

However, this rule doesn’t take into account many other complex 
contributing factors – such as the presence of sand stored in deeper 
water immediately off the coast and its potential to be mobilised during 
extreme storms.

These new findings highlight that extreme storms need to be considered 
in long-term projections of sediment movements on beaches.

But more research is still needed, according to Harley, because there 
are so few measurements of the seabed immediately off our coastlines 
that it’s hard to tell how much sand could potentially be mobilised in 
the future.

“We’re only scraping the surface here. We need to repeat these types of 
monitoring measurements for more storms and different types of coastal 
settings under various conditions,” he says. “Only then will we be able 
to get a clearer understanding of how much sand is stored off the coast 
that could potentially help buffer the impacts of sea-level rise – and a 
clearer picture of what our beaches could look like in the year 2100 and 
beyond.”

Originally published by Cosmos as Sand mobilised during extreme storms 
could protect beaches by offsetting some impacts of sea-level rise
https://cosmosmagazine.com/earth/extreme-storms-could-help-protect-coasts/

- -

/[ source material in Nature]/
*Single extreme storm sequence can offset decades of shoreline retreat 
projected to result from sea-level rise*
https://www.nature.com/articles/s43247-022-00437-2

/[  Harvard Business Review said how in 2018 ]
/*Why People Aren’t Motivated to Address Climate Change*
by Art Markman
October 11, 2018...
Ultimately, we have to be willing to be explicit about the values we are 
acting on. If we choose to enrich our lives in the present at the cost 
of the quality of life of future generations, that is a choice of values 
that we rarely like to make explicitly. We have to be willing to look in 
the mirror and say that we are willing to live our lives selfishly, 
without regard to the lives of our children and grandchildren. And if we 
are not willing to own that selfish value, then we have to make a change 
in our behavior today. /[end of article]/
https://hbr.org/2018/10/why-people-arent-motivated-to-address-climate-change

/[The news archive - looking back at the power of direct action]/
/*May 15, 2013*/

In a courageous act of civil disobedience that calls attention to coal's 
contamination of the climate, activists Ken Ward and Jay O'Hara 
forestall a coal shipment headed for the Brayton Point Power Plant in 
Somerset, Massachusetts.

http://lobsterboatblockade.org/
- -
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2013/05/15-2
- -
http://www.treehugger.com/corporate-responsibility/lobster-boat-successfully-blockades-40000-ton-coal-shipment.html

- -

    *Anticoal activists block path of freighter*
    By Evan Allen Globe Correspondent - May 15, 2013

    SOMERSET — Activists in a lobster boat flying an American flag
    blocked the delivery of 40,000 tons of central Appalachian coal to
    Brayton Point Power Station Wednesday, bobbing for hours in the path
    of a freighter nearly 690 feet long.

    “The climate crisis is real, and it’s staring us in the face, and
    we’re not doing anything,” said Marla Marcum, the on-land
    spokeswoman for the activists, who said she was there to bail them
    out of jail if the need arose.

    The activists were not arrested, a Coast Guard spokesman said.

    The lobster boat Henry David T. looked almost quaint, and certainly
    out of place, against the backdrop of the hulking power plant.

    The freighter it blocked, more than 20 times its size, sat at the
    end of a long pier; the anchored lobster boat turned slowly in the
    current.

    “I choose to place my body between the exploding mountain tops of
    Appalachia and the burning fires of our consumption and greed as a
    witness to the new way of being in the world that we know is
    possible,” one of the boat’s captains, Jay O’Hara, 31, wrote on the
    website coalisstupid.org, where activists live-blogged the protest.

    O’Hara, of Bourne, and his cocaptain — Ken Ward, 57, of Jamaica
    Plain — called for Brayton Point to be shut down immediately for the
    sake of “planetary survival.”

    Ward and O’Hara arrived at Brayton Point around 9 a.m. and dropped
    anchor, activists said; the freighter, the Energy Enterprise,
    arrived at about 11:15.

    Coast Guard Petty Officer Robert Simpson said the two men cooperated
    with officials, but when the Coast Guard told them to move their
    boat, they realized that their anchor was stuck.

    The boat left at about 6:30 p.m., according to activists.

    A spokeswoman for the station said they planned to unload the
    freighter Wednesday evening.

    Spokeswoman Lisa Lundy Kusinitz called Brayton Point “one of the
    cleanest electricity generators of its kind” and said that in the
    past several years, more than $1 billion has been poured into
    improvements designed to reduce the plant’s impact on air and water.

    “We’re thankful no one has been hurt, but today’s action did nothing
    to lower electricity costs, promote reliability, or protect the
    environment,” she said.

    The station, which is one of New England’s largest fossil-fueled
    power-generating facilities, according to its website, provides
    about 8 percent of the region’s electricity, Kusinitz said.

    Wednesday’s action marked a departure from other climate protests in
    the Northeast, which have not been as confrontational.

    “We’ve been growing the climate movement, and it’s time to exercise
    some of that power,” Marcum said.

    The protest at Brayton Point, she said, was intended in part to draw
    attention to a round of actions planned by climate change groups
    around the country for the summer, including at Brayton Point.

    Curious residents arrived at the public overlook off Ripley Street,
    where activists had stationed themselves to watch the standoff.

    “Hate that place. Hate that boat,” said Bruce Correia, 52, staring
    across the water at the power plant, the freighter, and the
    mountains of coal sitting uncovered on the shore.

    “All that coal, on a windy day like this, we’ll wake up tomorrow
    and everything will be black,” he said. “They have to power-wash
    houses. We get free car washes.”

    On summer nights, he said, he watches the towers at the plant belch
    dark brown smoke. When he scoops up handfuls of sand on the beach,
    he said, it’s black with coal dust.

    Others, however, were skeptical.

    Joe Almeida, 64, greeted the explanation of the protest with a wry
    smile.

    “I’m all for protecting the environment; however, what right do they
    have to go against big business?” he said. “I’m a businessman
    myself, I don’t think it’s fair.”

    http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2013/05/15/climate-change-activists-say-they-blocked-freighter-from-delivering-coal-mass-power-plant/gjnEb86grXDaFflJPVynTI/story.html

- -

/[ four years later]/

*LobsterBoatBlockade.org*
On May 15, 2013, two men blockaded 40,000 tons of coal. In September 
2014, they're going on trial.

Posted on March 29, 2017 by Jay O'Hara
In 2013 Ken Ward and Jay O’Hara, with the support of a team on shore, 
blockaded 40,000 tons of coal being delivered to the Brayton Point 
generating station in Somerset, Massachusetts – the largest single 
source of climate changing carbon emissions in the northeast.

The two of us headed to trial intending to offer a climate necessity 
defense, which had been permitted by the judge. But to our surprise the 
prosecutor, District Attorney Samuel Sutter, dropped the criminal 
charges and on the steps of the courthouse in Fall River made a 
breathtaking statement about climate change, and pledged to join us for 
the People’s Climate March in New York City in two weeks.

Ken and I have gone on to help found the Climate Disobedience Center and 
were both subsequently involved in the October 2016 #ShutItDown tar 
sands valve turning action in four states.

https://lobsterboatblockade.org/

- -

https://www.climatedisobedience.org/

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