[✔️] December 21, 2023- Global Warming News Digest | Hacking targets activists, folk song, Bill McKibben, Inaction costs, Andres Malm overshoot, 2015 campaign "fuzzy math"

[Richard Pauli]

/*December 21*//*, 2023*/

/[ Go Directly to Jail ]/
*DETECTIVE WHO HIRED HACKERS TO TARGET CLIMATE ACTIVISTS RECEIVES PRISON 
SENTENCE: ‘WOULD STILL LOVE TO KNOW WHO PAID HIM’*
He pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit computer hacking, 
one count of wire fraud, and one count of aggravated identity theft.
By Jeremiah Budin
December 1, 2023
A private detective who organized a hacking campaign against climate 
activists has been sentenced to over six years in federal prison — but 
the entire saga has left more questions than answers.

Aviram Azari, an Israeli police officer–turned–private investigator, was 
hired by German payment processor Wirecard to target critics of the 
company with phishing and identity theft scams. Wirecard has since filed 
for insolvency.

Azari also spied on climate activists, with stolen emails ending up in 
the hands of dirty energy giant ExxonMobil, prosecutors said. The 
prosecutors stopped short of saying that Exxon had hired Azari and his 
firm to target its critics. Exxon has denied having a relationship with 
Azari.

“From his home in Israel, Aviram Azari played a major role in 
orchestrating and facilitating an international hacking-for-hire 
spearphishing campaign. The conspiracy targeted individuals and 
companies in the U.S. and abroad, resulting in the theft of data and 
netting Azari over $4.8 million in criminal proceeds,” U.S. attorney 
Damian Williams said.

Azari pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit computer 
hacking, one count of wire fraud, and one count of aggravated identity 
theft. He was sentenced to 80 months (six-and-two-thirds years) in U.S. 
federal prison and was also ordered to pay forfeiture of $4,844,968.

According to a Department of Justice press release, “Clients hired Azari 
to manage ‘Projects’ that were described as intelligence gathering 
efforts but were, in fact, hacking campaigns specifically targeting 
certain groups of victims, including climate change activists.” What is 
not specifically known, however, is who exactly those clients were, 
apart from Wirecard.
Three of Azari’s victims who spoke in court, including two climate 
activists, said they still want to know who had paid Azari to spy on 
them and steal their information.

“While it’s satisfying to see Azari sentenced for these crimes committed 
many years ago, we would still love to know who paid him to target me 
and my climate activist and lawyer colleagues,” Kert Davies, director of 
investigations at the Center for Climate Integrity, told Reuters.

If ExxonMobil did hire a private investigator to target its critics — 
which, to be clear, the company denies doing — it would certainly not be 
the first time that the company engaged in unethical, underhanded 
tactics to protect the profits of its planet-destroying business.

Exxon has spread misinformation to downplay the pollution that its 
product creates, attempted to cover up negative health impacts that it 
has caused, employs an army of lobbyists to undermine new legislation 
that would protect the environment, and has no plans of stopping any of 
this anytime soon.
https://www.thecooldown.com/green-business/aviram-azari-former-police-officer-hacking/ 


- -

/[ Unfair fights ]/
*Israeli private detective sentenced in US to 6-2/3 years for 
hacker-for-hire scheme*
By Luc Cohen
November 16, 2023
NEW YORK, Nov 16 (Reuters) - A U.S. court on Thursday sentenced an 
Israeli private detective to 6-2/3 years in prison for organizing global 
hacking campaigns against thousands of people including climate change 
activists and critics of German company Wirecard.

Aviram Azari, a former policeman detained in the United States since 
2019, pleaded guilty last year to three counts of wire fraud, conspiracy 
to commit hacking and aggravated identity theft.
In sentencing Azari in federal court in Manhattan, U.S. District Judge 
John Koeltl said the hacking had a "devastating impact" on its victims.

Prosecutors had asked that Azari, 51, get eight to nine years in prison, 
saying that his firm earned nearly $5 million dollars over five years 
for managing hacking campaigns which targeted many public interest 
groups among other victims.

His defense lawyer, Barry Zone, asked for a sentence of no more than 
five years, arguing that Azari had accepted responsibility and 
contracted a "debilitating medical condition" while jailed in New York.
"Your Honor, I made a mistake," Azari said in court through a Hebrew 
interpreter before the sentence was handed down. "I take responsibility, 
full responsibility, for my actions. I regret with all of my heart for 
all of the victims."

Prosecutors said now-defunct payment processor Wirecard, which was a 
member of Germany's blue chip DAX index before filing for insolvency in 
2020, hired Azari to target individuals and financial firms that had 
criticized the company.
According to prosecutors, Azari also used hackers to steal emails from 
climate activists who were campaigning against U.S. oil company Exxon 
Mobil Corp (XOM.N), which then cited media articles based on those 
messages to fend off probes by U.S. state attorneys general.

Prosecutors did not allege any link between Azari and Exxon, which 
denied any connection to Azari or his hacking campaign. Three victims 
who spoke in court, including two climate activists, said they still 
wanted to learn his clients' identities.

Azari was the subject of an investigation last year by Reuters that 
revealed how he and other private eyes used mercenary hackers in India 
to help wealthy clients gain an advantage in court battles.

Addressing his victims after sentencing, Azari said, "There will come a 
day" when he could provide more information. "You don't know 
everything," he said.

Reporting by Luc Cohen in New York; Editing by Cynthia Osterman
https://www.reuters.com/technology/cybersecurity/israeli-private-detective-sentenced-us-6-23-years-hacker-for-hire-scheme-2023-11-16/ 




/[ an early folk song about global warming 4+ mins]/
*Global Warming by Vermillion Lies*
Vermillion Lies
3,229 views  Aug 10, 2015
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_0vclv5w34 (2008 recording)
Vermillion Lies - www.vermillionlies.com
https://youtu.be/J2d1jNwpDAQ?si=MFDqtG6d84C4NdRl
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J2d1jNwpDAQ&list=RDJ2d1jNwpDA



/[ Activists in discussion  ]/
*Bill McKibben: "Climate, Movements, and Power" | The Great 
Simplification #102*
Nate Hagens
Dec 20, 2023  The Great Simplification - with Nate Hagens
Show Summary:
On this episode, environmental activist and author Bill McKibben joins 
Nate for a reflection on the last few decades of climate education and 
movements – and the possibilities and challenges that we’ll face ahead. 
Among a system that is dependent on growth and embedded in a biosphere 
full of limits (which we continue to surpass), working towards shifting 
our societies to be ecologically balanced is potentially the most 
important mission to which an individual can contribute - yet this is 
much easier said than done. What have been the largest barriers towards 
actual effective climate action since emissions have continued in a 
straight line up since the 20th century? What power structures stand as 
a barrier to proactive initiatives, and which ones could we utilize to 
propel movements forward? How can we prepare and organize at the 
individual, community, and national levels, as we look ahead to climate 
- and other - challenges we’re likely to face in the coming decades?

About Bill McKibben:
Bill McKibben is founder of Third Act, which organizes people over the 
age of 60 for action on climate and justice. His 1989 book The End of 
Nature is regarded as the first book for a general audience about 
climate change, and has appeared in 24 languages. He’s gone on to write 
20 books, and his work appears regularly in periodicals from the New 
Yorker to Rolling Stone. McKibben helped found 350.org, the first global 
grassroots climate campaign, which has organized protests on every 
continent, including Antarctica, for climate action. He played a leading 
role in launching the opposition to big oil pipeline projects like 
Keystone XL, and the fossil fuel divestment campaign, which has become 
the biggest anti-corporate campaign in history.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qCrgpdHCO3U



/[  European Central Bank (ECB) Blog ]/
*The price of inaction: what a hotter climate means for monetary policy*
18 December 2023
By Friderike Kuik, Wolfgang Modery, Christiane Nickel and Miles Parker
This is the sixth post in our series accompanying COP28.

        The ECB’s primary mandate is to maintain price stability. So why
        do we talk about climate change? In this post on The ECB Blog,
        we show how a hotter climate affects prices and the economy and
        discuss how this impacts the task of central banks.

A hotter climate leads to more frequent and more devastating extreme 
climate events – at significant economic costs. Current global efforts 
to prevent climate change fall far short of what is necessary to prevent 
catastrophic consequences. This blog describes how a changing climate 
adversely affects the economy. As such, climate change could hinder 
central banks as they go about delivering on their primary mandate of 
price stability.

*Hot summers mean higher food prices*
Hotter-than-usual summers can affect both inflation and inflation 
volatility, which are deeply relevant for price stability. Usually, 
there is a direct upward impact through higher food prices for several 
months. For example, ECB research estimates that the extreme summer heat 
in 2022 increased food inflation in Europe by around 0.7 percentage 
points (Figure 1, blue bar). Looking further ahead, this effect may be 
even more pronounced: we estimate that food inflation could rise by 
around 1.8 percentage points in an extreme summer in 2060’s climate, 
relative to a hypothetic scenario without any climate change. Services 
inflation can also be affected, presumably because higher food prices 
increase prices in restaurants and cafés, and because tourism-related 
services are more strongly affected by hotter temperatures...
- -
There is evidence that climate change can reduce potential output 
growth. Here are a few examples of how continued climate change could 
weaken our economies:

*Floods and storms can destroy factories, machinery and infrastructure.*
Reduced snowfall will jeopardise the viability of ski fields in Europe, 
and many Mediterranean regions may become too hot for summer tourism. 
They are also threatened by rising sea levels.
Agricultural yields will likely be depressed by higher average 
temperatures. While changing crops can help alleviate some of the 
effects, greater variability of temperatures and changing rainfall 
patterns are also likely to dampen agricultural output.
People are getting less productive in the heat. We work most efficiently 
within a temperature range of around 19-22°C. Global warming means more 
days above critical thresholds, particularly in countries that are 
currently hotter on average. Indeed, the Cypriot Government issued a 
decree in summer 2023 limiting outdoor work on certain days in order to 
protect workers.
Droughts affect more sectors than agriculture: the Rhine has become 
almost impassable for river freight on several occasions in recent 
years, with an impact on supply chains, and the Panama Canal faced 
similar restrictions in summer 2023.
The aggregate economic impact of these channels is uncertain, also in 
part because climate change adaptation – such as air conditioning, 
irrigation, and coastal defences – can alleviate the impacts. Insurance 
provides a further tool for adaptation, although there is already a 
substantial climate insurance protection gap in Europe...
- -
Continued global warming makes inflation more volatile because it 
affects inflation differently across various components, countries and 
seasons. For instance, while hotter summers increase inflation, an 
unusually warm winter can result in lower inflation as there is lower 
demand for heating. Such volatility poses a challenge for central banks 
since it may make it difficult to separate temporary from more permanent 
shocks. This makes it even harder to forecast inflation accurately. 
Moreover, the uneven impact of climate change on countries makes it more 
challenging to conduct monetary policy in the euro area, since it may 
increase inflation differentials between Member States.

In a low potential output growth scenario, opportunities for future 
profit are rarer, and businesses will no longer be prepared to borrow at 
as high interest rates for investment. Banks could consequently lower 
their interest rates for borrowers and savers. This would reduce the 
policy space available to central banks to stimulate the economy during 
downturns. In such a world, monetary policy makers might have to turn 
more frequently to negative interest rates.

Climate change can also cause losses in the financial system. Banks in 
particular play a crucial role in transmitting changes in monetary 
policy to households and businesses. The ECB’s first economy-wide 
climate stress test found a substantial increase in the probability of 
default of loans made by euro-area banks in a “hot house world” 
scenario. Such losses would likely impair credit provision of commercial 
banks. This can harm the effectiveness of monetary policy.

The longer we delay the transition of our economies, the greater the 
damage will be. In turn, procrastination will complicate the ECB’s task 
of delivering price stability.

The views expressed in each article are those of the authors and do not 
necessarily represent the views of the European Central Bank and the 
Eurosystem.
https://www.ecb.europa.eu/press/blog/date/2023/html/ecb.blog231218~6291e67d1e.en.html



/[  different interpretation   Andreas Malm ]/
*Andreas Malm: "Overshoot: Climate Politics When It's Too Late"*
Futures of Sustainability, Universität Hamburg
Oct 25, 2023
Annual Conference 2023 "THE FAILURE OF GREEN CAPITALISM: FINDINGS, 
OBJECTIONS, ALTERNATIVES"
Chair: Sighard Neckel (Spokesperson DFG Humanities Centre for Advanced 
Studies "Futures of Sustainability")
Keynote Lecture by Andreas Malm (Lund University): "Overshoot: Climate 
Politics When It's Too Late"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gl-iLt6KdhU



/[The news archive - who won?  ]/
/*December 21, 2015*/
December 21, 2015:
New York Times columnist Paul Krugman discusses the political and 
cultural dynamics that fueled the rise of climate-change denier and 
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump:

    "Why don’t Republican voters seem to care?

    "Well, part of the answer has to be that the party taught them not
    to care. Bluster and belligerence as substitutes for analysis,
    disdain for any kind of measured response, dismissal of inconvenient
    facts reported by the 'liberal media' didn’t suddenly arrive on the
    Republican scene last summer. On the contrary, they have long been
    key elements of the party brand. So how are voters supposed to know
    where to draw the line?

    "Let’s talk first about the legacy of He Who Must Not Be Named.

    "I don’t know how many readers remember the 2000 election, but
    during the campaign Republicans tried — largely successfully — to
    make the election about likability, not policy. George W. Bush was
    supposed to get your vote because he was someone you’d enjoy having
    a beer with, unlike that stiff, boring guy Al Gore with all his
    facts and figures.

    "And when Mr. Gore tried to talk about policy differences, Mr. Bush
    responded not on the substance but by mocking his opponent’s 'fuzzy
    math' — a phrase gleefully picked up by his supporters. The press
    corps played right along with this deliberate dumbing-down: Mr. Gore
    was deemed to have lost debates, not because he was wrong, but
    because he was, reporters declared, snooty and superior, unlike the
    affably dishonest W."

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/21/opinion/the-donald-and-the-decider.html?ref=opinion 




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