[✔️] January 4, 2023- Global Warming News Digest - important, significant changes

[Richard Pauli]

/*January  4, 2023*/

/[/ /After nearly 4 decades, 60-Minutes discovers global warming  ]/
*Scientists say planet in midst of sixth mass extinction, Earth's 
wildlife running out of places to live*
60-minutes
BY SCOTT PELLEY
JANUARY 1, 2023
- -
Scott Pelley: Is it too much to say that we're killing the planet?

Liz Hadly: No.

Tony Barnosky: I would say it is too much to say that we're killing the 
planet, because the planet's gonna be fine. What we're doing is we're 
killing our way of life.

The worst of the killing is in Latin America where the World Wildlife 
Fund study says the abundance of wildlife has fallen 94% since 1970. But 
it was also in Latin America that we found the possibility of hope.

Mexican ecologist Gerardo Ceballos is one of the world's leading 
scientists on extinction. He told us the only solution is to save the 
one third of the Earth that remains wild. To prove it, he's running a 
3,000-square-mile experiment. In the Calakmul Biosphere Reserve near 
Guatemala, he is paying family farmers to stop cutting the forest...
- -
Scott Pelley: So what would the world have to do?

Gerardo Ceballos: What we will have to do is to really understand that 
the climate change and the species extinction is a threat to humanity. 
And then put all the machinery of society: political, economic, and 
social, towards finding solutions to the problems.

Finding solutions to the problems was the goal, two weeks ago, at the 
U.N. Biodiversity Conference, where nations agreed to conservation 
targets. But at the same meeting in 2010, those nations agreed to limit 
the destruction of the Earth by 2020—and not one of those goals was met. 
This, despite thousands of studies including the continuing research of 
Stanford biologist Paul Ehrlich.

Scott Pelley: You know that there is no political will to do any of the 
things that you're recommending.

Paul Ehrlich: I know there's no political will to do any of the things 
that I'm concerned with, which is exactly why I and the vast majority of 
my colleagues think we've had it; that the next few decades will be the 
end of the kind of civilization we're used to.

In the 50 years since Ehrlich's population bomb, humanity's feasting on 
resources has tripled. We're already consuming 175% of what the Earth 
can regenerate. And, consider, half of humanity, about four billion, 
live on less than $10 a day. They aspire to cars, air conditioning and a 
rich diet. But they won't be fed by the fishermen of Washington's Salish 
Sea, including Armando Brionez...
- -
Scott Pelley: why do you feel so emotionally attached to this?

Armando Brionez: It's everything we know. I'm fortunate enough to know 
where I know a lot of different things. I've done a lotta different 
things in my life. I've gotten good at evolving and changing. But not 
everybody here is built like that. To some of us this is what they know, 
this is all they know.

The five mass extinctions of the ancient past were caused by natural 
calamities—volcanoes, and an asteroid. Today, if the science is right, 
humanity may have to survive a sixth mass extinction in a world of its 
own making.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/earth-mass-extinction-60-minutes-2023-01-01/



/[ Political attacks on global warming politics may backfire as climate 
destabilizations continue ]/
*Republicans Are Primed to Take on ‘Woke Capitalism’ in 2023, with 
Climate Disclosure Rules for Corporations in Their Sights*
Conservative politicians argue that environmental, social and governance 
principles—known as "ESG"—are diverting asset managers from their duties 
to investors, and may even amount to illegal collusion.
By Marianne Lavelle
January 3, 2023
It has only been a decade since climate activists launched campaigns to 
get financial institutions and money managers to see that dollars pumped 
into the fossil fuel industry were a risk to both the planet and 
investor portfolios.

That effort has had some success but remains a work in progress. All of 
Wall Street now talks about environmental, social and governance (ESG) 
principles in investing, and that’s a problem. Claims of a commitment to 
that philosophy are ubiquitous among corporations and investment funds, 
and investors are left to figure out which declarations amount to mere 
greenwashing. Only within the last year have government watchdogs moved 
to set standards on what companies must disclose about climate risks.

Before those rules are set, Republicans have decided the time is right 
for an anti-ESG backlash. In 2023, they are preparing on multiple fronts 
to take on Wall Street, corporate America and U.S. financial regulators 
for, in their view, paying too much attention to environmental concerns 
and not enough to making money.

It’s “woke capitalism,” in the words of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, 
widely seen as a possible challenger to former President Donald Trump 
for leadership of the Republican Party. DeSantis’ administration 
announced last month that it was pulling out all Florida State Treasury 
funds—some $2 billion—that were invested with BlackRock, the Wall Street 
firm that has become most closely associated with ESG.
“We are reasserting the authority of republican governance over 
corporate dominance and we are prioritizing the financial security of 
the people of Florida over whimsical notions of a utopian tomorrow,” 
DeSantis said when he began his anti-ESG campaign last August. And 
Republicans are preparing to make much more noise about ESG, using the 
new platforms that they gained in the 2022 midterm elections:

With Republicans in control of the House of Representatives, the 
congressman expected to head the Committee on Financial Services, Rep. 
Patrick McHenry of North Carolina, plans close oversight of the 
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and its proposed climate-risk 
disclosure rules, which he sees as part of a “far-left social agenda.”
Red-state attorneys general have signaled their readiness to go to court 
to challenge both the SEC and corporate and Wall Street ESG policies. 
Notably, they suggested in a letter to BlackRock last year that its 
activities with net-zero emissions groups raised antitrust concerns.
The American Legislative Exchange Council, or ALEC, an association of 
state legislators that gets most of its funding from corporate sources 
and right-leaning foundations, is pushing for laws barring state pension 
funds from considering social and environmental factors in their 
investment decisions.
Republicans may not be able to turn back the ESG movement, which has 
taken such a firm hold that 90 percent of companies say they either have 
or are developing a formal strategy to manage corporate environmental, 
social and governance practices, according to the mutual fund research 
firm Morningstar. But the politicization of ESG could make it something 
like school textbooks, mask-wearing and Covid vaccines. Where investors 
stand on the nation’s political divide—and to a large extent, what state 
they live in—could determine whether their savings are exposed to the 
risks of climate change or the opportunities of the clean energy transition.

“This is clearly kind of a bizarre effort to open up a new front in the 
culture wars, and it’s really at odds with how the market works and the 
fundamentals of capitalism,” said Gregory Wetstone, president and CEO of 
the American Council on Renewable Energy. “They’re sacrificing other 
people’s financial well-being for their political agenda.”

It’s not surprising that ESG caught the attention of politicians, since 
sustainable investing has clearly moved from a niche market into the 
mainstream. The year 2021 was a watershed, with flows into ESG-focused 
mutual funds and exchange-traded funds rising 53 percent to $2.7 
trillion, according to Morningstar. The trend slowed dramatically in 
2022 with the market downturn, but Morningstar’s tracking showed that by 
the third quarter ESG funds were rebounding far more quickly than the 
rest of the funds market.

Bloomberg Intelligence projects that, even accounting for the recent 
slowdown, ESG assets under management will grow to $50 trillion by 2025 
and account for one-third of all assets under management.

But clouding the future for ESG—and undermining its effectiveness as a 
driver in the clean energy transition—are unsupportable green claims by 
both companies and investment funds. Some companies and asset managers 
have faced enforcement actions in egregious cases of false statements to 
investors. Even more difficult for climate-conscious investors to 
navigate are the different definitions of ESG. BlackRock has become the 
favorite target of anti-ESG Republicans, but some environmentalists have 
not been happy with the asset management company’s approach, either. 
Some BlackRock energy transition funds can invest in fossil fuel 
companies, and the firm’s chairman and CEO, Laurence Fink, favors 
engagement within fossil fuel companies rather than divestment.

*A Demand for Truth About Emissions Compliance*
More than 70 percent of institutional investors believe there is a need 
for standardization and stronger ESG disclosure and regulatory 
requirements, according to a recent PriceWaterhouseCoopers survey. But 
the first proposed climate risk disclosure regulations for publicly 
traded companies in the United States, now pending before the SEC, will 
be one of the key targets for Republicans as they take control of the 
House of Representatives.

McHenry, who is expected to replace Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) as 
chair of the Financial Services committee, has been a vocal critic of 
the SEC proposal, which would seek to establish “consistent, comparable, 
and reliable” reporting of greenhouse gas emissions. Companies would 
also have to provide information to investors on how climate-related 
risks are likely to shape their strategies and business outlook.

Although McHenry has said he sees climate change as a real threat to 
communities, he does not think it is the SEC’s role to make climate 
policy. “The SEC should focus on its core mission—protecting investors; 
maintaining fair, orderly, and efficient markets; and facilitating 
capital formation,” he said.

Through hearings and subpoenas, Republicans will be able to pressure 
regulators and investment firms as well as showcase the narrative that 
ESG has harmed small investors. But because Democrats retain control of 
the Senate, the GOP will not have the power in Congress to derail the 
SEC’s plan to impose standards on climate risk disclosure.

That job may fall to Republican state attorneys general, who are poised 
to take the SEC to court once the rules are finalized. West Virginia 
Attorney General Patrick Morrisey, who won a Supreme Court ruling last 
year curbing the Environmental Protection Agency’s power to regulate 
greenhouse gas emissions, has said that the same legal principles should 
limit SEC climate action.
Attorneys general also are zeroing in on what they say are the antitrust 
concerns raised by investment firms participating in coalitions like the 
Net Zero Asset Managers, a group formed in 2020 to support the global 
drive to reduce carbon emissions to zero by 2050. They argue that such 
efforts are preventing certain industries—primarily coal—from obtaining 
financing.

“If you have collusion between a large portion of the financial sector 
such that financing is only available to certain preferred industries, 
or if there’s proxy voting moving in a direction that’s functionally 
regulation, that is people with money deciding how the world is going to 
look,” said Tennessee’s attorney general, Jonathan Skrmetti, at an ESG 
forum hosted last month by the National Association of Attorneys 
General. “And that’s oligarchy.”

Just by raising the antitrust issue, the GOP AGs may have had an impact. 
Last month, the world’s biggest mutual fund manager, Vanguard, said it 
would leave the Net Zero coalition in order “to make clear that Vanguard 
speaks independently on matters of importance to our investors.” The 
move came days after Republican attorneys general filed an unusual 
challenge to Vanguard’s application before U.S. regulators to expand its 
holdings in utilities.

In addition to Florida, five other Republican-led states have pulled 
state Treasury funds out of BlackRock over ESG concerns. For BlackRock, 
it’s an insignificant $3 billion drop from its $7.9 trillion bucket of 
assets under management. But such moves could spread, especially with 
the ALEC-led campaign to change state laws to bar state pension funds 
from considering ESG factors in investing.

“I would say at least 25 state legislatures, maybe more, are going to 
consider votes on ESG bills in 2023,” said Kris Kobach, the Republican 
attorney general-elect of Kansas at the attorneys general forum last 
month. “This is probably one of the hottest topics in state legislatures 
right now.”

It’s not clear that the Republican politicians’ anti-ESG drive resonates 
with GOP voters. A recent survey of more than 1,200 voters by Penn 
State’s Center for the Business of Sustainability and the communications 
firm ROKK Solutions found that a majority of both Republicans and 
Democrats oppose restrictions on ESG investments. That’s not surprising, 
since sustainability initiatives at corporations are correlated with 
better financial performance, according to a review of more than 1,000 
studies on the subject by researchers at New York University’s Stern 
Center for Sustainable Business.

But the anti-ESG moves now underway could mean less information for 
investors on what companies are really doing on the climate front, and 
less access to ESG options for pensioners in some states.

“What’s going on in the political arena is not just disappointing, it’s 
sad and it’s disruptive,” said Kristina Wyatt, senior vice president for 
global regulatory climate disclosure at the climate data firm Persefoni. 
She served as senior counsel for climate and ESG at the SEC in the first 
year of the Biden administration and worked on the agency’s climate risk 
disclosure proposal.

“There’s so much urgency to the climate crisis,” Wyatt said. “And 
investors deserve to have climate risks and opportunities associated 
with climate change properly factored into the investment decisions that 
are being made on their behalf.”

Marianne Lavelle Reporter, Washington, D.C.
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/03012023/republicans-disclosure-rules-esg/



/[ from Reuters, reports on a World predicament  ] /
*Exclusive: World Bank seeks more funds to address climate change, other 
crises -document*
By David Lawder
January 3, 20231
WASHINGTON, Jan 2 (Reuters) - The World Bank is seeking to vastly expand 
its lending capacity to address climate change and other global crises 
and will negotiate with shareholders ahead of April meetings on 
proposals that include a capital increase and new lending tools, 
according to an "evolution roadmap" seen by Reuters on Monday.

The roadmap document - sent to shareholder governments - marks the start 
of a negotiation process to alter the bank's mission and financial 
resources and shift it away from a country- and project-specific lending 
model used since its creation at the end of World War Two...
- -
A World Bank spokesman said that the document aimed to provide details 
on the scope, approach, and timetable for the evolution, with regular 
updates for shareholders and decisions later in the year...
- -
But environmental campaign group Friends of the Earth said the proposal 
did not go far enough and World Bank shareholders needed to ensure the 
lender was not "part of the problem".

"A true evolutionary roadmap must commit to ending financing for fossil 
fuels, industrial animal agriculture, petrochemical infrastructure, 
corporate-friendly false solutions, and harmful activities in biodiverse 
areas," Luisa Abbott Galvao, Senior International Policy Campaigner for 
Friends of the Earth, said in an emailed statement.

The World Bank also said that the evolution of its mission to increase 
climate lending while maintaining good development outcomes will require 
additional staff and budget resources, which have declined 3% in real 
terms over the past 15 years.
https://www.reuters.com/business/sustainable-business/world-bank-seeks-more-funds-address-climate-change-other-crises-document-2023-01-03//
/



/[ Maybe call it the "Anthro-sarcopha-oscene" - the age when human 
impact on all soils, rocks, waters and atmosphere are monumental 
evidence of our human overshoot  ]/
*‘There’s been a fundamental change in our planet’: hunt on for spot to 
mark the start of the Anthropocene epoch*
Scientists are to pick a location that sums up the current epoch when 
Homo sapiens made its mark
Robin McKie Science editor
Sun 1 Jan 2023
In a few weeks, geologists will select a site that demonstrates most 
vividly how humans have changed the structure of our planet’s surface. 
They will choose a place they believe best illustrates when a new epoch 
– which they have dubbed the Anthropocene – was born and its 
predecessor, the Holocene, came to an end.

The Holocene began at the conclusion of the last ice age 11,700 years 
ago as the great glaciers that had previously covered the Earth began to 
retreat. In their wake, modern humans spread inexorably across the planet.

Homo sapiens flowered during the Holocene but our expansion had 
geological consequences. The minerals we mined, the gases we released by 
burning fossil fuels and the radioactive material we have produced have 
begun to make fundamental changes to Earth’s geology...
- -
“If you look at some measures of the Anthropocene – such as aluminium – 
you see steady growth in amounts over the past century,” said Professor 
Colin Waters of the University of Leicester. “But until the end of the 
second world war, there was no plutonium in the ground. Then, abruptly, 
there was lots of it. That makes it a very good marker for the beginning 
of the Anthropocene and suggests a date in the early 1950s for its birth.”

Another clear signal that indicates we have entered a new geological 
epoch is provided by the species we have helped spread round the globe, 
homogenising Earth’s biology in the process. Examples include the 
Pacific oyster and the zebra mussel, the latter having spread from 
Eurasia via ballast water discharged by large ships, displacing native 
shellfish over much of the planet, including North America.

“Another indicator is provided by plastics which became widespread in 
use in the 1950s – which most of us point to as the dawn of the 
Anthropocene,” added Waters. “The main thing we now have to decide is 
which of the sites we have shortlisted provides the clearest signal 
among the measures we have selected – plutonium, aluminium, plastics, 
and other variables – that demonstrate a fundamental epoch change.”

This point was backed by Zalasiewicz. “In the distant future, tens of 
millions of years from now, advanced species will still be able to 
detect how we changed the Earth. We need to realise that now.

“All our buildings and roads will have crumbled to dust long before then 
but the subtle changes that we made to sediments will persist, and show 
that a global civilisation once dominated this planet with lasting effects.”
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2023/jan/01/theres-been-a-fundamental-change-in-our-planet-hunt-on-for-spot-to-mark-the-start-of-the-anthropocene-epoch 



/[The news archive - looking back when we began to notice the extent of 
our predicament ]/
/*January  4, 1996*/
January 4, 1996: The New York Times reports:

    "The earth's average surface temperature climbed to a record high
    last year, according to preliminary figures, bolstering scientists'
    sense that the burning of fossil fuels is warming the climate.

    "Spells of cold, snow and ice like the ones this winter in the
    northeastern United States come and go in one region or another, as
    do periods of unusual warmth. But the net result globally made 1995
    the warmest year since records first were kept in 1856, says a
    provisional report issued by the British Meteorological Office and
    the University of East Anglia.

    "The average temperature was 58.72 degrees Fahrenheit, according to
    the British data, seven-hundredths of a degree higher than the
    previous record, established in 1990.

    "The British figures, based on land and sea measurements around the
    world, are one of two sets of long-term data by which surface
    temperature trends are being tracked.

    "The other, maintained by the NASA Goddard Institute for Space
    Studies in New York, shows the average 1995 temperature at 59.7
    degrees, slightly ahead of 1990 as the warmest year since
    record-keeping began in 1866. But the difference is within the
    margin of sampling error, and the two years essentially finished
    neck and neck.

    "The preliminary Goddard figures differ from the British ones
    because they are based on a somewhat different combination of
    observations around the world.

    "One year does not a trend make, but the British figures show the
    years 1991 through 1995 to be warmer than any similar five-year
    period, including the two half-decades of the 1980's, the warmest
    decade on record.

    "This is so even though a sun-reflecting haze cast aloft by the 1991
    eruption of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines cooled the earth
    substantially for about two years. Despite the post-Pinatubo
    cooling, the Goddard data show the early 1990's to have been nearly
    as warm as the late 1980's, which Goddard says was the warmest
    half-decade on record.

    "Dr. James E. Hansen, the director of the Goddard center, predicted
    last year that a new global record would be reached before 2000, and
    yesterday he said he now expected that 'we will still get at least a
    couple more' by then.

    "Dr. Hansen has been one of only a few scientists to maintain
    steadfastly that a century-long global warming trend is being caused
    mostly by human influence, a belief he reiterated yesterday."

http://www.nytimes.com/1996/01/04/world/95-is-hottest-year-on-record-as-the-global-trend-resumes.html?pagewanted=print


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