[✔️] January 13, 2023- Global Warming News Digest - deceit, disinformation battles - Exxon knew, Gas stove culture wars
Richard Pauli
Richard at CredoandScreed.com
Fri Jan 13 06:51:22 EST 2023
/*January 13 , 2023*/
/[ where the fox guards the hen house? ]/
*UAE names oil company boss as president of COP28 climate talks**
*By Rosie Frost • Jan 12, 2023
The United Arab Emirates has chosen the CEO of one of the world’s
biggest oil companies to lead climate talks at COP28 later this year.
Sultan Al Jaber is the country’s Minister of Industry and Advanced
Technology and the chief executive officer of the Abu Dhabi National Oil
Company (ADNOC). He has also served as the UAE’s climate envoy and is
the chairman of Masdar, a government-owned renewable energy company...
- -
https://www.euronews.com/green/2023/01/12/uae-names-oil-boss-as-cop28-president-critics-say-it-could-torpedo-climate-talks
/[ Exxon's deliberate malfeasance ] /
*Revealed: Exxon made ‘breathtakingly’ accurate climate predictions in
1970s and 80s*
Oil company drove some of the leading science of the era only to
publicly dismiss global heating
Oliver Milman in New York
@olliemilman
Thu 12 Jan 2023
The oil giant Exxon privately “predicted global warming correctly and
skilfully” only to then spend decades publicly rubbishing such science
in order to protect its core business, new research has found.
A trove of internal documents and research papers has previously
established that Exxon knew of the dangers of global heating from at
least the 1970s, with other oil industry bodies knowing of the risk even
earlier, from around the 1950s. They forcefully and successfully
mobilized against the science to stymie any action to reduce fossil fuel
use.
A new study, however, has made clear that Exxon’s scientists were
uncannily accurate in their projections from the 1970s onwards,
predicting an upward curve of global temperatures and carbon dioxide
emissions that is close to matching what actually occurred as the world
heated up at a pace not seen in millions of years.
Exxon scientists predicted there would be global heating of about 0.2C a
decade due to the emissions of planet-heating gases from the burning of
oil, coal and other fossil fuels. The new analysis, published in
Science, finds that Exxon’s science was highly adept and the
“projections were also consistent with, and at least as skillful as,
those of independent academic and government models”.
Tugboats tow the oil tanker Exxon Valdez off Bligh Reef in Prince
William Sound 05 April 1989
Exxon knew of climate change in 1981, email says – but it funded deniers
for 27 more years
Read more
Geoffrey Supran, whose previous research of historical industry
documents helped shed light on what Exxon and other oil firms knew, said
it was “breathtaking” to see Exxon’s projections line up so closely with
what subsequently happened.
“This really does sum up what Exxon knew, years before many of us were
born,” said Supran, who led the analysis conducted by researchers from
Harvard University and the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact
Research. “We now have the smoking gun showing that they accurately
predicted warming years before they started attacking the science. These
graphs confirm the complicity of what Exxon knew and how they misled.”
The research analyzed more than 100 internal documents and peer-reviewed
scientific publications either produced in-house by Exxon scientists and
managers, or co-authored by Exxon scientists in independent publications
between 1977 and 2014.
Exxon-modeled climate projections from 1982 with observed data overlaid
Photograph: Supran, et al., 2023, “Assessing ExxonMobil’s global
warming projections”
The analysis found that Exxon correctly rejected the idea the world was
headed for an imminent ice age, which was a possibility mooted in the
1970s, instead predicting that the planet was facing a “carbon dioxide
induced ‘super-interglacial’”. Company scientists also found that global
heating was human-influenced and would be detected around the year 2000,
and they predicted the “carbon budget” for holding the warming below 2C
above pre-industrial times.
Armed with this knowledge, Exxon embarked upon a lengthy campaign to
downplay or discredit what its own scientists had confirmed. As recently
as 2013, Rex Tillerson, then chief executive of the oil company, said
that the climate models were “not competent” and that “there are
uncertainties” over the impact of burning fossil fuels.
“What they did was essentially remain silent while doing this work and
only when it became strategically necessary to manage the existential
threat to their business did they stand up and speak out against the
science,” said Supran.
“They could have endorsed their science rather than deny it. It would
have been a much harder case to deny it if the king of big oil was
actually backing the science rather than attacking it.”
Climate scientists said the new study highlighted an important chapter
in the struggle to address the climate crisis. “It is very unfortunate
that the company not only did not heed the implied risks from this
information, but rather chose to endorse non-scientific ideas instead to
delay action, likely in an effort to make more money,” said Natalie
Mahowald, a climate scientist at Cornell University.
Mahowald said the delays in action aided by Exxon had “profound
implications” because earlier investments in wind and solar could have
averted current and future climate disasters. “If we include impacts
from air pollution and climate change, their actions likely impacted
thousands to millions of people adversely,” she added.
Drew Shindell, a climate scientist at Duke University, said the new
study was a “detailed, robust analysis” and that Exxon’s misleading
public comments about the climate crisis were “especially brazen” given
their scientists’ involvement in work with outside researchers in
assessing global heating. Shindell said it was hard to conclude that
Exxon’s scientists were any better at this than outside scientists, however.
The new work provided “further amplification” of Exxon’s misinformation,
said Robert Brulle, an environment policy expert at Brown University who
has researched climate disinformation spread by the fossil fuel industry.
“I’m sure that the ongoing efforts to hold Exxon accountable will take
note of this study,” Brulle said, a reference to the various lawsuits
aimed at getting oil companies to pay for climate damages.
Exxon was approached for comment.
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/jan/12/exxon-climate-change-global-warming-research
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/[ document is paywall free for a few weeks
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abk0063 ]/
*Assessing ExxonMobil’s global warming projections*
G. SUPRAN, S. RAHMSTORF, AND N. ORESKES
SCIENCE
13 Jan 2023
*Insider knowledge*
For decades, some members of the fossil fuel industry tried to convince
the public that a causative link between fossil fuel use and climate
warming could not be made because the models used to project warming
were too uncertain. Supran et al. show that one of those fossil fuel
companies, ExxonMobil, had their own internal models that projected
warming trajectories consistent with those forecast by the independent
academic and government models. What they understood about climate
models thus contradicted what they led the public to believe. —HJS
*Structured Abstract*
*BACKGROUND*
In 2015, investigative journalists discovered internal company memos
indicating that Exxon oil company has known since the late 1970s that
its fossil fuel products could lead to global warming with “dramatic
environmental effects before the year 2050.” Additional documents then
emerged showing that the US oil and gas industry’s largest trade
association had likewise known since at least the 1950s, as had the coal
industry since at least the 1960s, and electric utilities, Total oil
company, and GM and Ford motor companies since at least the 1970s.
Scholars and journalists have analyzed the texts contained in these
documents, providing qualitative accounts of fossil fuel interests’
knowledge of climate science and its implications. In 2017, for
instance, we demonstrated that Exxon’s internal documents, as well as
peer-reviewed studies published by Exxon and ExxonMobil Corp scientists,
overwhelmingly acknowledged that climate change is real and
human-caused. By contrast, the majority of Mobil and ExxonMobil Corp’s
public communications promoted doubt on the matter.
*ADVANCES*
Many of the uncovered fossil fuel industry documents include explicit
projections of the amount of warming expected to occur over time in
response to rising atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations. Yet, these
numerical and graphical data have received little attention. Indeed, no
one has systematically reviewed climate modeling projections by any
fossil fuel interest. What exactly did oil and gas companies know, and
how accurate did their knowledge prove to be? Here, we address these
questions by reporting and analyzing all known global warming
projections documented by—and in many cases modeled by—Exxon and
ExxonMobil Corp scientists between 1977 and 2003.
Our results show that in private and academic circles since the late
1970s and early 1980s, ExxonMobil predicted global warming correctly and
skillfully. Using established statistical techniques, we find that 63 to
83% of the climate projections reported by ExxonMobil scientists were
accurate in predicting subsequent global warming. ExxonMobil’s average
projected warming was 0.20° ± 0.04°C per decade, which is, within
uncertainty, the same as that of independent academic and government
projections published between 1970 and 2007. The average “skill score”
and level of uncertainty of ExxonMobil’s climate models (67 to 75% and
±21%, respectively) were also similar to those of the independent models.
Moreover, we show that ExxonMobil scientists correctly dismissed the
possibility of a coming ice age in favor of a “carbon dioxide induced
‘super-interglacial’”; accurately predicted that human-caused global
warming would first be detectable in the year 2000 ± 5; and reasonably
estimated how much CO2 would lead to dangerous warming.*
*
*OUTLOOK*
Today, dozens of cities, counties, and states are suing oil and gas
companies for their “longstanding internal scientific knowledge of the
causes and consequences of climate change and public deception
campaigns.” The European Parliament and the US Congress have held
hearings, US President Joe Biden has committed to holding fossil fuel
companies accountable, and a grassroots social movement has arisen under
the moniker #ExxonKnew. Our findings demonstrate that ExxonMobil didn’t
just know “something” about global warming decades ago—they knew as much
as academic and government scientists knew. But whereas those scientists
worked to communicate what they knew, ExxonMobil worked to deny
it—including overemphasizing uncertainties, denigrating climate models,
mythologizing global cooling, feigning ignorance about the
discernibility of human-caused warming, and staying silent about the
possibility of stranded fossil fuel assets in a carbon-constrained world.
-- https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abk0063#.Y8CERWBVOko.mailto
Historically observed temperature change (red) and atmospheric carbon
dioxide concentration (blue) over time, compared against global warming
projections reported by ExxonMobil scientists.
(A) “Proprietary” 1982 Exxon-modeled projections. (B) Summary of
projections in seven internal company memos and five peer-reviewed
publications between 1977 and 2003 (gray lines). (C) A 1977 internally
reported graph of the global warming “effect of CO2 on an interglacial
scale.” (A) and (B) display averaged historical temperature
observations, whereas the historical temperature record in (C) is a
smoothed Earth system model simulation of the last 150,000 years.
*Abstract*
Climate projections by the fossil fuel industry have never been
assessed. On the basis of company records, we quantitatively
evaluated all available global warming projections documented by—and
in many cases modeled by—Exxon and ExxonMobil Corp scientists
between 1977 and 2003. We find that most of their projections
accurately forecast warming that is consistent with subsequent
observations. Their projections were also consistent with, and at
least as skillful as, those of independent academic and government
models. Exxon and ExxonMobil Corp also correctly rejected the
prospect of a coming ice age, accurately predicted when human-caused
global warming would first be detected, and reasonably estimated the
“carbon budget” for holding warming below 2°C. On each of these
points, however, the company’s public statements about climate
science contradicted its own scientific data.
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abk0063
/[ VICE learned ]/
*Here Come the Gas Stove Culture Wars*
The debate over gas stoves is going the way of guns, cars, and masks.
By Aaron Gordon
January 12, 2023
On Monday, Richard Trumka Jr., a commissioner with the U.S. Consumer
Product Safety Commission, used the “B” word. “Any option is on the
table,” Trumka Jr. said in an interview with Bloomberg News. “Products
that can’t be made safe can be banned.”
On its own, there is nothing objectionable about what Trumka Jr. said.
The CPSC is a government agency that enforces recalls while also
standardizing and banning the sale of products that are not safe to use.
The problem for Trumka Jr. is he was talking about gas stoves. And some
people get weird about cooking with gas.
Although Trumka Jr. later clarified that CPSC doesn’t have the power to
take anything away from anyone, only to regulate the sale of new
products, the cat was out of the bag. Elected officials came out of the
woodwork to decry the government overreach of unelected bureaucrats, a
favorite talking point among Republicans and honorary Republican spirit
brother Joe Manchin.
The most striking—and viral—reaction naturally came from Texas, where
Congressman Ronny Jackson seemingly took his thoughts on guns and ran a
mental find-and-replace command: “I’ll NEVER give up my gas stove. If
the maniacs in the White House come for my stove, they can pry it from
my cold dead hands. COME AND TAKE IT!!” ...
- - https://twitter.com/RonnyJacksonTX/status/1612839703018934274 ...
Like most culture—and many actual—wars, the root of the conflict is a
fundamental misunderstanding about what we’re actually arguing about.
When most people think of “electric stoves,” they’re thinking of the
ones that develop a red hue from heating coils. These have been around
for a very long time and I completely agree that they suck ass. It
fundamentally works the same way as gas, by having a heating mechanism
get real hot whereby some of that heat also heats the pot and food and
also anything else that happens to be close by.
Fortunately, there is a far superior cooking method called induction. It
also uses electricity but works in a completely different way. It uses
magnetism to heat the cookware directly, creating little heat around the
surface. This is super efficient and wastes very little energy heating
things you don’t want to be heated. It also heats the cookware instantly
and precisely. I can set the exact temperature I want the cookware to be
set to. It also boils a pot of pasta in about half the time as my gas
range. And when I’m done cooking, the surface is cool to the touch
within minutes. The cooking area remains close to a normal
temperature—unlike with gas where the flame will heat the surrounding
area as much as the cookware itself—making the cooking experience much
more pleasant, especially in the summer. And because the surface never
gets very hot, spills don’t burn onto the cooking surface, making
cleanup easier.
Induction cooktops are far more efficient than gas. And any chef,
barbeque expert, or meat smoking professional worth a damn will tell you
that flavor doesn’t come from the flame. I blame Burger King, which used
“flame broiled” as an early marketing gimmick, for this myth. I cannot
repeat this enough: Chefs who actually try induction cooking like it!
I felt no particular way about induction cooking before I got the
portable cooktop. I bought it out of curiosity more than anything else.
The only thing I feel about it now is confusion over why people love
their gas stoves so much. Without fail, when I’m talking to someone who
says they will never give up gas, I find they are completely unfamiliar
with induction and are basing their opinion solely on the comparison
with coil-style electric ranges. This is like declaring you will never
buy an electric car because you drove a 1980 Commuta-Car once and it sucked.
Now, it is true that induction cooktops are more expensive than gas or
coil electric ranges for now. That is because they are newer. The price
will go down over time, especially now that the federal government will
subsidize a new one up to $840.
But I am not naive. I know just because something is better doesn’t mean
it will be without controversy. Few Americans have experience with
induction cooktops. As gas hookup bans become more popular, the culture
war fight over gas stoves will intensify because, if you squint hard
enough and ignore as many salient facts as possible, it’s a story of big
government intruding on people’s personal preferences. Nuanced
differences like induction versus coil or bans on new construction
versus retroactive do not resonate with the Cold Dead Hands crowd, who
trade in slogans and absolutes. And it is a lucrative trade. They do
well for themselves, because nobody likes being told what to do or even
the appearance of being told what to do. We’re going to be hearing more
concern trolling about how it is actually racist to ban gas stoves
because it will kill Korean BBQ restaurants. We’re going to be hearing a
lot more about how Democrats are coming for your gas stoves and your
fundamental freedom to cook however you like.
https://www.vice.com/en/article/m7gyv8/here-come-the-gas-stove-culture-wars
...
- -
/[ Are we surprised? NYT reveals Matt Blashaw, an HGTV fixture, is a
paid influencer for a fossil fuel industry group that has become one of
the biggest opponents of government efforts to wean U.S. homes and
businesses off oil and gas in favor of cleaner electricity ]/
*The New Soldiers in Propane’s Fight Against Climate Action: Television
Stars*
An industry group is spending millions of dollars to push back against
efforts to move heating away from oil and gas.
By Hiroko Tabuchi
Jan. 11, 2023
For D.I.Y. enthusiasts, Matt Blashaw is a familiar face, judging
bathroom remodels or planning surprise home makeovers on popular cable
television shows.
Mr. Blashaw also has an unusually strong opinion about how Americans
should heat their homes: by burning propane, or liquid petroleum gas.
“When I think of winter, I think of being inside. I think of cooking
with the family, of being by a roaring fire — and with propane, that is
all possible,” he said on a segment of the CBS affiliate WCIA, calling
in from his bright kitchen. “That’s why we call it an energy source for
everyone.”
Less well known is the fact that Mr. Blashaw is paid by a fossil fuel
industry group that has been running a furtive campaign against
government efforts to move heating away from oil and gas toward
electricity made from wind, solar and other cleaner sources...
The Propane Education and Research Council, or PERC, which is funded by
propane providers across the country, has spent millions of dollars on
“provocative anti-electrification messaging” for TV, print and social
media, using influencers like Mr. Blashaw, according to the group’s
internal documents viewed by The New York Times.
As a federally-sanctioned trade association, PERC is allowed to collect
fees on propane sales, which helps fund its marketing campaigns. But
according to the law that created this system, that money is supposed to
be used for things like research and safety.
In 2023, the organization plans to spend $13 million on its
anti-electrification campaign, including $600,000 on “influencers” like
Mr. Blashaw, according to the documents, which were obtained from PERC’s
website as well as a public records request by the Energy and Policy
Institute, a pro-renewables group...
The overwhelming majority of scientists around the globe agree that the
burning of coal, gas and oil produces greenhouse gases that are
dangerously heating the planet. Scientists commissioned by the United
Nations have warned that nations must deeply and quickly cut those
emissions to avoid a catastrophic escalation of deadly flooding, heat
waves, drought and species extinction.
“The movement to electrify everything is rapidly gaining momentum, and
poses a substantial threat to the sustainability of our industry,” he
said, according to meeting minutes.
Erin Hatcher, who heads communications at PERC, said its campaign
“asserts propane’s role in a clean energy future” and “promotes the
advantages of a wide path to decarbonization.” Influencers like Mr.
Blashaw, she said “use and specify propane in their construction
projects and are very familiar with propane’s advantages.” Ms. Hatcher
would not say how much her group has paid Mr. Blashaw.
Mr. Weidie said that his fundamental belief in the importance of a
low-carbon future had been “lost in out-of-context conversation.” He
said he believed electrification was set to “play a big role but is not
the only answer,” and that propane was “a great energy for generations
to come.”
Mr. Blashaw referred questions to PERC.
Most American homes are heated by natural gas or oil. But in states
where the energy grid is increasingly powered by wind, solar and other
renewables, electric heat pumps are fast becoming a lower-carbon
alternative to gas and oil. They heat as well as cool.
Researchers at Princeton University found that for the United States to
stop adding greenhouse gases to the atmosphere by 2050, nearly
one-quarter of American homes would need to switch to heat pumps. That’s
double the number today.
But such a shift would reduce demand for propane, which is used in 50
million American homes, in furnaces, stoves, fireplaces and a range of
appliances, according to the National Propane Gas Association. Propane,
like natural gas, doesn’t emit as much planet-warming greenhouse gases
as coal, gasoline or diesel. But it’s still derived from fossil fuels.
“If you’re burning gas to heat your house anywhere in a northern
climate, it’s a huge amount of emissions, probably the largest part of
your emissions,” said Forrest Meggers, an associate professor at Princeton.
The propane industry’s anti-electrification campaign has been
particularly well funded because of PERC’s status as a
federally-sanctioned trade association.
A 1996 law authorized the creation of PERC and allowed it to collect a
half-cent fee on every gallon of propane it sells, an example of what is
known as a federal “checkoff program” designed to support specific
industry sectors, typically agricultural commodities. Those fees are
supposed to be used for safety and consumer education, training, or
research and development projects.
But ambiguous language in the original bill, together with limited
oversight by the Department of Energy, has meant the group has diverted
millions of dollars from the fee toward marketing, including its
anti-electrification campaigns. The Government Accountability Office,
the investigative arm of Congress, has repeatedly raised concerns that
PERC has been misusing the funds it raises from the fee, which comes to
more than $40 million a year, and criticized lax government oversight.
PERC has also funded groups working on campaigns in response to federal
and state climate policies, possibly violating a provision in the 1996
law that bans the organization from lobbying, the G.A.O. has warned.
- -
Still, by the New York propane group’s own accounting, its social media
ads reached 2 million people, and its videos were shown more than 2.8
million times. “PERC is running the largest national
anti-electrification campaign I’ve encountered anywhere in the United
States," said Charlie Spatz, a researcher at the Energy and Policy
Institute. “Propane customers, whether they’re buying fuel for their
home heating or for their grill, they’re unwittingly funding PERC’s
anti-climate agenda.”...
- -
“The good news is that there are now better alternatives for cleaner
school buses today, like propane school buses,” she said, which could
reduce tailpipe emissions for a far lower cost...
Experts question that claim. For tailpipe emissions that could both harm
kids’ lungs and warm the planet, “electric buses are going to change the
game,” said Hailin Li, a professor at West Virginia University. And with
the federal government providing $5 billion toward electric school
buses, there is little reason to go with propane, he said...
- -
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/11/climate/climate-propane-influence-campaign.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/11/climate/climate-propane-influence-campaign.html?unlocked_article_code=3j3igLiQDcJEQsfKnGxYcx2ZLvZbGHOTp1SRBqZ8yHcX1N-qE7pE5nDASt39WU3PgwfppsPy_cpXZYV0Q9H16GXzsGWX9JBONodq0-jJlIz5ySEOE0kDDESGT_Vhqu_c-qJyzQDPeQYtUcOERRkqGKWatk2Hc9noIYmMjm4SeM9Fgy2WLvnSn5mHU1SuPLf3PAXfc8q8xbWyt73ZKwf-g9VTJQR2UdxLdvJUDC8wPBHbQtq9i_xxS9Ag5FbxnxbJcKj5ZC8758iiKgzLCAO9aT2hmCTLz7XGbmJF8d_gu1lomiuqkU2AKe_k-PUFEbjl2GbcmiQMlQ8EgxOOYflR39NLeLaOt3bF1Q0zrQ&smid=share-url
- -
/[ mentioned above - pro-methane propaganda - notice that comments are
disallowed ]/
*CI Living HGTV's Matt Blashaw*
WCIA News
2,956 views Oct 7, 2022
CI Living learns about propane heating your home from HGTV's Matt Blashaw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sFEUxKzlwZk
/[ Knowing from the start ]/
*Goda lmighty, Exxon Knew Absolutely Everything*
Especially exactly how much they were going to heat the earth
Bill McKibben
Jan 12, 2023
An important new study that came out a few minutes ago makes painfully
clear precisely how much (and precisely how precisely) Exxon understood
climate change, back in the days when it could have made a huge
difference if they’d simply been honest.
It’s not, of course, as if we didn’t know a lot of this story already,
and in some depth. In 2015, the Pulitzer Prize-winning website Inside
Climate News published a landmark series of reports drawing on archives
and whistleblowers to demonstrate that Exxon had set its scientists to
work studying what we then called the greenhouse effect back in the
1970s, and that those scientists had reached the same conclusion as
researchers working at NASA and elsewhere: the carbon dioxide coming
from the fossil fuel industry was about to heat the earth in dramatic
fashion. That was huge news—and it explains the picture above, when I
staged a one-man sit-in at an Exxon station near me till the police took
me away in handcuffs. I was desperate that this story not go away—and it
didn’t. It helped fuel the massive fossil fuel divestment campaign, as
well as a score of lawsuits aimed at making Exxon pay up.
But this new study—from Harvard’s Naomi Oreskes and Geoffrey Supran, and
Stefan Rahmstorf of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact
Research—actually looks at the specific results that Exxon’s scientists
predicted back in those years, and sees how well they panned out.
Remarkably well: their temperature projections had an average “skill
score” of roughly 75%, which is higher than many government researchers.
“These findings corroborate and and add quantitative precision to
assertions by scholars, journalists, lawyers, politicians and others
that ExxonMobil accurately foresaw the threat of human-caused global
warming, both prior to and parallel to orchestrating lobbying and
propaganda campaigns to delay climate action action,” the authors write.
As lead author Geoffery Supran (who has just taken up a new post at the
University of Miami) put it,
“This is the nail-in-the-coffin of Exxon Mobil’s claims that it has been
fasely accused of climate malfeasance. Our analysis shows that
ExxonMobil’s own data contradicted its public statements, which included
exaggerating uncertainties, critizing climate models, mythologizing
global cooling, and feigning ignorance about when—or if—human-caused
global would be measurable.”
What Supran is referring to is the decades-long effort, organized by
Exxon and others, to minimize and obfuscate the reality of climate
change; its high point may have come when then CEO Lee Raymond went to
the World Petroleum Congress in Beijing, just weeks before the Kyoto
climate talks, and insisted that the world was cooling, and that even if
it wasn’t it would make no difference if people delayed action for a few
decades. We now know in greater detail just how precisely Exxon’s
scientists had been saying the opposite.
It makes me think, once more, of what may be the greatest climate
counterfactual of all. What if, on the night in 1988 that NASA’s Jim
Hansen had told Congress about global warming, Exxon’s CEO had gone on
the nightly news (which was still a thing then) and said: “That’s what
our scientists have been telling us too. It’s a real problem.” That
seems the minimum any religious or ethical system would require, and it
would have had enormous impact—no one was going to accuse Exxon of
climate alarmism. We could have gotten down to work as a society.
They chose another course instead, and in certain ways it worked for
them: in some of the years that followed, Exxon set the record for
highest annual corporate profit. But that’s not what history is going to
remember about them.
Professor Daniel Mills, professor of Veterinary Behaviour Medicine at
the University of Lincoln, said: 'Our results clearly show that dogs
seem to be more relaxed in electric vehicles, particularly when looking
at behavioural traits such as restlessness.' Additionally, an
interesting and somewhat unintended revelation from the study came from
the dogs that we identified as having potential symptoms associated with
travel sickness.
'During their journeys in the electric vehicles, biometric recordings of
these dogs revealed their heart rates slowed markedly more than when
they were in diesel cars. This was of particular interest to us given an
increase in heart rate is commonly associated with motion sickness. It's
an intriguing result.'
+Dr. Rose Abramoff, a climate scientist at the federal government’s Oak
Ridge National Laboratory, took part in a small and nonviolent climate
demonstration at last month’s AGU meeting. So the federal government
fired her.
I used to be a well-behaved scientist. I stood quietly on melting
permafrost in Utqiagvik, Alaska, and measured how much greenhouse gas
was released into the atmosphere. I filled spreadsheets and ran
simulations about how warming temperatures would increase the carbon
emissions from soil.
To do my job, I dissociated the data I was working with from the
terrifying future it represented. But in the field, smelling the dense
rot of New England hemlock trees that were being eaten by a pest that
now survives the warming winters, I felt loss and dread. Only my peers
read my articles, which didn’t seem to have any tangible effects. Though
I saw firsthand the oncoming catastrophe of climate change, I felt
powerless to help.
+Pakistan continues to need international support to recover from
devastating flooding this autumn. Among other things, 23,000 schools and
clinics were destroyed. As the country’s prime minister wrote in the
Guardian this week:
Aid will reassure millions of imperilled people – who have already lost
everything – that they have not been forgotten; that the international
community will help them to rebuild their lives.
It will also remind us that we are all – increasingly – at the mercy of
forces of nature that do not respect borders and can only be tamed by
joining hands. It is, therefore, my sincere hope that our gathering in
Geneva comes to symbolise our common humanity and generosity of spirit –
a source of hope for all people and countries who may face natural
adversity in the future.
+The late Richard Trumka once led the coal miner’s union. Now his son,
Richard Trumka Jr., is on the Consumer Product Safety Commission and is
suggesting they may outlaw new gas stoves because—as I wrote last
week—the danger they pose to children in households where they burn is
becoming ever clearer. The reaction to his proposal is clear:
conservatives are determined to make gas stoves the next focus of the
culture wars, with Texas congressman Ronny Jackson (chief medicial
advisor to President Trump) expressing his allegiance to the blue flame
science be damaned, and promising that his range will only be taken from
his “COLD, DEAD FINGERS.” Meanwhile, the propane industry is scared
enough of heat pumps and induction cooktops that they’re hiring actors
to spread their message. Great coverage in the NYTimes
“When I think of winter, I think of being inside. I think of cooking
with the family, of being by a roaring fire — and with propane, that is
all possible,” Matt Blashaw said on a segment of the CBS affiliate WCIA,
calling in from his bright kitchen. “That’s why we call it an energy
source for everyone.”
Less well known is the fact that Mr. Blashaw is paid by a fossil fuel
industry group that has been running a furtive campaign against
government efforts to move heating away from oil and gas toward
electricity made from wind, solar and other cleaner sources.
+Finally, for those of you who enjoyed The Other Cheek, our serialized
nonviolent epic, I wrote a short account of the pleasures of publishing it.
https://billmckibben.substack.com/p/godalmighty-exxon-knew-absolutely?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
/[ Oxford sources ]/
*Compound Extreme Heat and Drought Will Hit 90% of World Population –
Oxford Study*
Published 10 January 2023
More than 90% of the world’s population is projected to face increased
risks from the compound impacts of extreme heat and drought, potentially
widening social inequalities as well as undermining the natural world’s
ability to reduce CO2 emissions in the atmosphere - according to a study
from Oxford’s School of Geography.
Warming is projected to intensify these hazards ten-fold globally under
the highest emission pathway, says the report, published in Nature
Sustainability.
In the wake of record temperatures in 2022, from London to Shanghai,
continuing rising temperatures are projected around the world. When
assessed together, the linked threats of heat and drought represent a
significantly higher risk to society and ecosystems than when either
threat is considered independently, according to the paper by Dr. Jiabo
Yin, a visiting researcher from Wuhan University and Oxford Professor
Louise Slater.
These joint threats may have severe socio-economic and ecological
impacts which could aggravate socio inequalities, as they are projected
to have more severe impacts on poorer people and rural areas.
According to the research, ‘The frequency of extreme compounding hazards
is projected to intensify tenfold globally due to the combined effects
of warming and decreases in terrestrial water storage, under the highest
emission scenario. Over 90% of the world population and GDP is projected
to be exposed to increasing compounding risks in the future climate,
even under the lowest emission scenario.’
Yin says, ‘By using simulations from a large model…and a new
machine-learning generated carbon budget dataset, we quantify the
response of ecosystem productivity to heat and water stressors at the
global scale.’
He maintains this shows the devastating impact of the compound threat on
the natural world – and international economies. He says, limited water
availability will hit the ability of ‘carbon sinks’ – natural biodiverse
regions – to take in carbon emissions and emit oxygen.
Professor Slater says, ‘Understanding compounding hazards in a warming
Earth is essential for the implementation of the UN Sustainable
Development Goals (SDGs), in particular SDG13 that aims to combat
climate change and its impacts. By combining atmospheric dynamics and
hydrology, we explore the role of water and energy budgets in causing
these extremes.’
limited water availability will hit the ability of ‘carbon sinks’ –
natural biodiverse regions – to take in carbon emissions and emit oxygen.
https://www.homelandsecuritynewswire.com/dr20230110-compound-extreme-heat-and-drought-will-hit-90-of-world-population-oxford-study
https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2023-01-06-compound-extreme-heat-and-drought-will-hit-90-world-population-oxford-study#:~:text=Warming%20is%20projected%20to%20intensify,report%2C%20published%20in%20Nature%20Sustainability.
- -
/[ from the journal _nature sustainability_ ]/
*Future socio-ecosystem productivity threatened by compound
drought–heatwave events*
Jiabo Yin, Pierre Gentine, Louise Slater, Lei Gu, Yadu Pokhrel, Naota
Hanasaki, Shenglian Guo, Lihua Xiong & Wolfram Schlenker
Published: 05 January 2023
*Abstract*
Compound drought–heatwave (CDHW) events are one of the worst
climatic stressors for global sustainable development. However, the
physical mechanisms behind CDHWs and their impacts on
socio-ecosystem productivity remain poorly understood. Here, using
simulations from a large climate–hydrology model ensemble of 111
members, we demonstrate that the frequency of extreme CDHWs is
projected to increase by tenfold globally under the highest
emissions scenario, along with a disproportionate negative impact on
vegetation and socio-economic productivity by the late twenty-first
century. By combining satellite observations, field measurements and
reanalysis, we show that terrestrial water storage and temperature
are negatively coupled, probably driven by similar atmospheric
conditions (for example, water vapour deficit and energy demand).
Limits on water availability are likely to play a more important
role in constraining the terrestrial carbon sink than temperature
extremes, and over 90% of the global population and gross domestic
product could be exposed to increasing CDHW risks in the future,
with more severe impacts in poorer and more rural areas. Our results
provide crucial insights towards assessing and mitigating adverse
effects of compound hazards on ecosystems and human well-being.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-022-01024-1
/[The news archive - looking back at early insights]/
/*January 13, 1988 */
December 13, 1988: The Boston Globe runs a front-page story entitled,
*"COASTAL REGIONS URGED TO PREPARE FOR RISING SEA LEVEL; PLANNERS DECRY**
**APATHY TOWARD GREENHOUSE EFFECT'S THREAT."*
[ unable to confirm source ]
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