[✔️] February 26, 2023- Global Warming News Digest | Massive Media Cuts, VP Kamala talks space industry, Cocaine Bear and activism, Burping cow cartoon

[Richard Pauli]

/*February 26, 2023*/

/[ Drilled, where  are the climate journalists? ] /
*Massive Media Cuts = Less Climate Coverage*
FEB 25, 2023
//Climate Coverage Roundup
If you don't work in media, you might have missed the steady drumbeat of 
layoff announcements from various newsrooms over the past six months or 
so. With 100 layoffs here, 20 there, they have also been overshadowed by 
the thousands of jobs cut from the tech industry. But there are way 
fewer reporters than there are tech workers, and the steady loss of them 
is going to eventually mean a decline in climate reporting and 
particularly a decline in the most time-consuming and expensive type of 
reporting: investigative journalism, which also tends to be the one with 
the best shot at actually catalyzing change.

Late last year, CNN, BuzzFeed, Gannett, and Vice announced layoffs. News 
in particular saw a massive 20 percent spike in job cuts from 2021 to 
2022. Now, just two months into 2023, Vox, Adweek, NBC News, and MSNBC 
have announced major cuts. This week NPR joined the wave, announcing a 
10% reduction in its workforce (around 100 positions) and a hiring 
freeze. The Washington Post started bracing for layoffs in December, and 
they have now officially begun.

At the same time, all those great climate reporting initiatives that 
were announced in late 2021 and early 2022 seem to have mostly resulted 
in a handful of essays, opinion pieces, and newsletters. Nothing against 
any of those, but they don't tend to be the pieces that arm senators 
with the documents or context they need to argue for substantial policy 
change.

What does all this mean for climate coverage? So far, a lot of climate 
reporters have survived the cuts. That's great news. But at the same 
time that newsrooms are losing staff, disinformation just keeps gaining 
steam. Plus those remaining reporters are now working with editors who 
are being tasked with twice the work in the same amount of time. I've 
seen the difference myself, starting about the middle of last year: it 
takes longer to get a green light on a story, longer to get an edit 
back, longer to get a story published. And there are fewer outlets these 
days too. In addition to the layoffs, the past 12 months have brought 
quite a few announcements of outlets shutting down altogether. Protocol, 
the tech arm of Politico, which was starting to do some great climate 
reporting under the steady hand of former Earther editor Brian Kahn, 
suddenly anounced its departure last fall. Around the same time, The 
Washington Post shut down its magazine and laid off the entire staff.

It's also telling that the media industry, like most other industries, 
is seeing a union boom. The jobs that remain pay less than they ever 
have, for an increasing amount of work. It's not unusual to see salaries 
and hourly wages for reporters that are lower than what I've seen posted 
for cashiers at fast-food restaurants. And a huge number of outlets have 
continued the long-standing shift towards using more contract labor, 
making these jobs as unstable as they have ever been.

Meanwhile, every month or so I hear from an "investigator" working for a 
team within an NGO. A team with more funding and stability than any 
newsroom in the world, but also with a very specific mandate that's 
usually not just informing the public. Now look, NO ONE is saying that 
mainstream media in particular is some bias-free utopia with no 
influence or agenda. The corporate hold over media in the U.S. in 
particular has been well documented (yes, I've read Ben Bagdikian and 
Manufacturing Consent!). But I don't know that the solution is to let 
NGOs take over investigative journalism entirely. Encouraging 
journalists to get comfortable with simply being fed scoops—whether 
they're coming from corporations or organizations funded by wealthy 
philanthropists—feels like a dangerous path, not just for climate 
reporting, but for democracy in general.

If it continues to be relatively easy to use the media as a tool, no 
matter who's doing the using, who exactly does that benefit? Probably 
not the public. So...what's the solution? I don't know! But it seems 
increasingly obvious to me that we really need to grapple with the 
business model of media and the role it plays in society to have any 
hope of tackling the climate crisis.

https://www.drilledpodcast.com/massive-media-cuts-less-climate-coverage/



/[ VP to face the issue ]/
*SpaceX, Amazon, US space industry to talk climate change with VP Kamala 
Harris (exclusive)*
By Elizabeth Howell
2-24-2024
Climate change will be raised with VP Kamala Harris after the debut 
meeting of a group advising the Harris-run National Space Council on 
government policy direction
US Vice-President Kamala Harris will speak with big space companies 
today (Feb. 23) about addressing climate change through space 
technologies, along with other administration priorities.

In the coming months, SpaceX, Amazon and other private, non-profit, or 
educational organizations making up the National Space Council's (NSpC) 
users' advisory group(opens in new tab) will discuss priorities like 
climate change and economic opportunity for jobs to support the fight 
against global warming, a White House official told Space.com 
exclusively. (Harris is chair of the NSpC as well, and will talk with 
representatives of the users' advisory group after their debut meeting 
today.)

Not all members of the users' advisory group were at the first meeting 
Thursday (Feb. 23), however. SpaceX was not in attendance. A 
representative from Amazon was, but left before meeting with the 
Vice-President. Member companies that were there throughout included 
Boeing, Blue Origin and Lockheed Martin, while representatives from 
other sectors were in attendance, such as a teacher, the White House 
background briefing said...
- -
While the discussions are early-stage and the results will come after 
the users' advisory group has its say, Chirag Parikh, the NSpC's 
executive secretary, told Space.com that one large goal would be to make 
sense of the amount of data collected by satellites and other Earth 
observation systems to address issues.

"We have this enormity of data that's collected in space. What's the 
best way to be able to coordinate that information?" asked Parikh, who 
is also deputy assistant to President Joe Biden.

"What's the best way to be able to make that information accessible—not 
just to the climate researchers, which are incredibly important people 
around the world—but also state and local governments, to communities, 
to urban planners. so they can actually make that information accessible 
and usable," he added...
- -
The discussions are part of the Biden administration's larger push to 
address climate change and other ways in which space technology can 
benefit Earth, according to background information provided by the White 
House. The meeting also aims to build on past discussions by the NSpC, 
which has also focused on how to bring the benefits of space 
infrastructure to more people, the White House says.

More generally, the users' advisory group aims to recommend actions to 
the Harris-led NSpC concerning space policy and strategy and to align 
corporate activities with government policies. Climate change, however, 
is among the Biden administration's priorities.

The administration has a goal of reaching "net zero" in United States 
carbon emissions no later than 2050, and reducing greenhouse gas 
emissions by as much as 52% by 2030. Harris, as NSpC chair, has been 
discussing international agreements to address climate change with 
leaders around the world...
- -
Twinned with this climate push is a desire by the Biden administration 
to create new kinds of jobs and opportunities in the space sector, 
opening up participation to a larger segment of the US population. 
Amazon and SpaceX are among the signatories to a September 2022 
agreement among several companies, announced by Harris and her office, 
to provide training for community college students in space tech.

At the time, the Vice-President's office said their goal is to increase 
diversity and require less training to participate in the space sector, 
which typically attracts graduates from the Ivy League or highly 
expensive technical or engineering schools.

The NSpC users' advisory group has six subcommittees, including one 
focused on science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) and 
potential workforce opportunities, the White House background briefing 
told Space.com.

The Space.com briefing indicated one goal of the NSpC is to partner 
closely with industry to grow the workforce in targeted areas like 
electricians and welding, which have high demand, in concert with the US 
Department of Labor's national apprenticeship accelerator(opens in new 
tab) program that aims to start people in the workforce swiftly...
- -
To be sure, space launches are a contributor to climate change, but 
private industry is also looking for ways to offset that through 
offering tech like precision mapping (which allows vehicles like planes 
or tractors to map out better routes, to reduce emissions) or purchasing 
renewable energy.

For example, Amazon purchased 6.5 gigawatts of renewable electricity 
production capacity as of 2020(opens in new tab), or the equivalent 
amount of energy to supply 1.7 million US households.

The White House briefing acknowledged that the space economy is 
fast-growing and also encompasses numerous sectors, including civil, 
defense, intelligence and commercial, some of which is backed by 
lucrative venture investment.

The US government is also seeking to bring in more voices among its 
departments, with roughly 14 departments and agencies collaborating with 
senior officials inside the White House on space issues, the briefing 
indicated to Space.com.

An example is the Department of Commerce, which works with other 
government entities on matters ranging from space traffic management 
(there are more satellites in space than ever, leading to worries about 
space debris or signal interference) to how space satellites can monitor 
the effects of climate and weather on infrastructure.

The goal of the users' advisory group, however, is to provide more 
perspectives outside of government, to help inform the Biden 
administration's approach to space issues, the White House background 
briefing added.

https://www.space.com/vice-president-kamala-harris-spacex-amazon-climate-change



/[ Human climate refugees  - book review ]/
*'The Great Displacement' looks at communities forever altered by 
climate change*
February 24, 20235:00 AM ET
MICHAEL SCHAUB

The climate crisis doesn't care if your state is red or blue," President 
Joe Biden said in his State of the Union address earlier this month. "It 
is an existential threat. We have an obligation to our children and 
grandchildren to confront it."

Scientists have been saying the same for decades, although that hasn't 
stopped the issue of climate change from becoming a political football, 
with self-styled skeptics waving away the data that show rising 
temperatures and sea levels, melting glaciers, and increasingly severe 
droughts.

Climate change is reshaping the U.S. in another way, as journalist Jake 
Bittle explains in his new book, The Great Displacement: "Each passing 
year brings disasters that disfigure new parts of the United States, and 
these disasters alter the course of human lives, pushing people from one 
place to another, destroying old communities and forcing new ones to 
emerge."

Bittle's book takes a look at several communities that have been 
affected by climate change, and how the lives of their residents — the 
ones who have survived — have been altered by extreme weather. The first 
section of the book focuses on the Florida Keys, "the first flock of 
canaries in the coal mine of climate change." Bittle profiles Patrick 
Garvey, who bought a neglected grove on Big Pine Key, and fixed it up 
into "a bona fide community resource" that grew fruits rare in the 
continental U.S.: longans, jackfruits, soursops
Then came Hurricane Irma. Patrick and some friends decided to stay on 
the island during the 2017 storm, and ended up sheltering at a nearby 
school. They survived — a dozen people in the Keys didn't — but the 
grove wasn't as lucky. When Patrick returned after the storm passed, he 
found "tree stumps scattered across the grass at random intervals, wood 
and metal strewn around like bird feed."

Patrick's story is a harrowing one, and although he was fortunate to 
survive Irma alive, Bittle strikes a pessimistic note about the future 
of the Keys' ability to sustain human life. "Many of the islands in the 
archipelago, perhaps all of them, could go underwater altogether by the 
end of this century," he writes. "More so than almost any other place in 
the United States, they are doomed." Some Keys residents decided to stay 
after Irma; others, unable to bear the thought of going through that 
kind of trauma again, left.

Hurricanes aren't the only weather phenomena that climate change has 
made more frequent. In another section of the book, Bittle turns his eye 
to California's wine country. Just about a month after Irma ravaged the 
Caribbean and Florida, a fire broke out in the town of Calistoga; a 
combination of high winds and drought caused the fire to turn into a 
conflagration that quickly reached the city of Santa Rosa.

Vicki and Mark Carrino were among the Santa Rosa residents whose lives 
were thrown into disarray by the Tubbs Fire, named after a street near 
where it started. The couple was asleep when their daughter called them, 
urgently warning them to evacuate; they did, and less than ten minutes 
later, the firestorm engulfed their home, destroying it. They were able 
and willing to rebuild their home in the wake of the fire, but many of 
their neighbors weren't, leaving their subdivision feeling "downright 
lonely, even almost abandoned."

Bittle takes a deep dive into the factors that go into people's 
decisions to stay or to leave once their neighborhoods have been 
affected by climate change. In California, it's the affordable housing 
crisis plus the increased fire risk that has led to many residents 
moving to Nampa, Idaho; in other parts of the country, rising insurance 
premiums and weather risks have forced people to relocate elsewhere, 
including cities like Buffalo, New York, and Dallas, Texas. "In the 
United States alone," Bittle writes, "at least twenty million people may 
move as a result of climate change, more than twice as many as moved 
during the entire span of the Great Migration."

Bittle covers the people whose lives have been altered by climate change 
— from drought in Arizona to coastal erosion in the bayous of south 
Louisiana — with real compassion, explaining why economic inequality 
makes many people unable to relocate, even if it were easy for them to 
simply pack up and leave the places where they've spent their whole 
lives behind.

He's an empathetic writer, but also one with a real gift for explaining 
the fraught issues — economic, scientific, political — that make the 
climate crisis and its effect on the population so complex. It sometimes 
feels too pat to call a book "necessary," but this one really is.

The Great Displacement is a fascinating look at how America has changed, 
and will continue to change, as climate change wreaks havoc on the 
nation and the people who live there. Bittle ends the book on a hopeful 
note, but still recognizes the extent of the damage already done: "When 
a community disappears, so does a map that orients us in the world."
https://www.npr.org/2023/02/24/1158940219/jake-bittle-the-great-displacement-communities-people-and-climate-change



/[ Cocaine Bear was a real bear, is now a real movie - consensus is a 
must see - and it relates to climate ]/
*The Case for Cocaine Bears*
Maybe a deadly beast hopped up on nose candy is exactly what the 
environmental movement needs.
BY TYLER AUSTIN HARPER
FEB 24, 2023...
- -
Yet, what is most compelling about this lowbrow blockbuster is not its 
titular bear-on-blow rampaging through the Georgia wilds. What is most 
interesting about the film is its off-kilter environmentalism. Elizabeth 
Banks, Cocaine Bear’s director, has insisted that her seemingly 
unserious film is about humanity’s hubristic desire to dominate its 
environment. “If you fuck with nature, nature will fuck with you,” she 
summarizes. This ecological angle might surprise viewers who came to the 
theaters lured by the promise of a black bear hopped up on nose candy 
and raising hell...
- -
Recognizing this kind of environmental despair in herself and among her 
own students, Nicole Seymour—an environmentalist and English professor 
at California State University—has asked a provocative question: If 
pious messaging doesn’t inspire change, what if environmentalism might 
“work” better by becoming more irreverent? More ribald and less 
self-righteous? Silly rather than somber? More about giggles than guilt? 
Seymour calls this cheeky posture “bad environmentalism,” which she 
defines as “environmentalism with the ‘wrong’ attitude— without 
reverence or seriousness—and while also having a sense of humor about 
oneself.” It is an attitude that Cocaine Bear is shot through with...
- -
Yet, though the film is often grotesquely violent, there is also a weird 
kind of consolation in its bloodlust. If the bear is a metaphor for our 
current climate crisis—the murderous embodiment of nature out of 
control, fueled up on human abuse—I found myself drawing some small 
measure of comfort from its conclusion. The bear lives. So do some of 
the people. Life goes on and the sun rises. Of course, there is nothing 
especially nuanced to any of that. The whole of the film is predicated 
on a sort of tautology: Cocaine Bear works because there is a bear on 
cocaine. But there is also a pure and uncut delight in watching a 
vaguely green film that is neither obnoxiously sermonizing nor 
unremittingly depressing. Cocaine Bear is bad environmentalism at its 
finest, cranked up to 11 and rolling in the devil’s dandruff. And there 
is value in that...
- -
In this sense, it may be beside the point whether or not Elizabeth 
Banks’ film about a black bear who rides the white lightning is quality 
“cinema.” (The inevitable “is this a good bad movie or a bad bad movie?” 
debate has already started). Ultimately, Banks’ film may prove too 
polished to enter the pantheon of other preposterous cult classics—like 
Sharknado or The Room—whose creators straddle a delicate line between 
inept and idiot savant. Likewise, I would not go so far as to suggest 
that Cocaine Bear makes for game-changing environmental propaganda: I do 
not imagine most audience members will come away from the film with an 
awakened ecological consciousness. But in an atmosphere in which it is 
all too easy to feel suffocated by climate anxiety, Elizabeth Banks’ 
film cuts through our ecological malaise. And when you’re that worn 
down, who couldn’t use a little pick-me-up?

https://slate.com/culture/2023/02/cocaine-bear-movie-review-elizabeth-banks-climate-change.html

- -

/[ really, you mean this is based on a true event and a real bear? ]/
*They’re Making a Movie About the Cocaine Bear! Wait, What?*
Here is the true story of the cocaine bear.
https://slate.com/culture/2021/03/cocaine-bear-elizabeth-banks-lord-miller-warden-andrew-carter-thornton.html

- -

/[ see a few trailers and reviews  ]/
*Cocaine Bear - Movie Review*
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AYUJrUQP30M
*The Untold Story of the Cocaine Bear*
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cz6eGYbd_Bg



/[ some more delightfully childish humor - with a correct and clear 
message --  1 minute video cartoon ]/
*Vega_Film_ClimateHealers*
Introducing Vega, the Cow in the Room...
https://vimeo.com/639434716?cmid=b458d516-c38d-4c78-898c-71dc453b2712


/[The news archive - looking back - is it humorous hubris?  or outrage? ]/
/*February 26, 2001*/
February 26, 2001: In a tense exchange with CNN "Crossfire" co-host 
Robert Novak, EPA Administrator Christine Todd Whitman states that 
President George W. Bush will follow through on his September 2000 
campaign pledge to set firm limits on carbon emissions--a statement that 
Bush himself would effectively disavow a month later. Footage of the CNN 
exchange is included in the 2007 PBS "Frontline" documentary "Hot Politics."

http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0102/26/cf.00.html

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/hotpolitics/


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