[✔️] April 17, 2024 Global Warming News | Dubai flooding, Disinfo, Climate activists, Wildland firefighting, 2008 Nancy and Newt on the couch

[Richard Pauli]

/*April 17*//*, 2024*/

/[ unexpected images 2 mins ]/
*Nature has brought the UAE to its knees! The worst flooding in decades 
in Dubai*
Painful Earth Short
  Apr 17, 2024  ДУБАЙ
Nature has brought the UAE to its knees! The worst flooding in decades 
in Dubai. Natural disaster 16 April 2024.

A powerful hurricane has struck the United Arab Emirates, causing severe 
flooding in the capital and one of the country's leading metropolises, 
Dubai.
Heavy rains have submerged major roads in the city, with water reaching 
into shopping centers as well.
The city's metro system is already inundated, adding to the chaos caused 
by the deluge.
The inclement weather persists in the Emirates' capital, with the storm 
showing no signs of abating.
Authorities are working to manage the crisis and ensure the safety of 
residents amidst the ongoing tempest.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mne4FFJYhAg



/[ Big Oil tries to hide the climate crisis ]/
*How to spot five of the fossil fuel industry’s biggest disinformation 
tactics*
Amy Westervelt and Kyle Pope have covered climate disinformation for a 
combined 20-plus years – here’s their guide on how to decode it
Increasingly sophisticated and better-funded disinformation is making 
climate coverage trickier both for journalists to produce and for the 
public to fully understand and trust.

But telling the story, and understanding it, has never been more urgent 
with half of Earth’s population eligible to vote in elections that could 
decisively impact the world’s ability to act in time to stave off the 
worst of the climate crisis.

Swayed for 30 years by fossil fuel industry propaganda, the media has 
been as likely to unknowingly amplify falsehoods as they were to bat 
them down. It’s only in recent years that more journalists started to 
shy away from “both-sides-ing” the climate crisis – decades after 
scientists reached an overwhelming consensus on the scope of the problem 
and its causes.

The good news is that while the fossil fuel industry’s PR tactics have 
shifted, the stories they’re telling don’t change much from year to 
year, they are just adapted depending on what’s happening in the world.

When politicians talk about how much it will cost to act on climate 
change, for example, they almost always refer to economic models 
commissioned by the fossil fuel industry, which leave out the cost of 
inaction, which rises with every passing year. When politicians say that 
climate policies will increase the cost of gas or energy, they count on 
reporters having no idea how gas or energy pricing works, or how much 
fossil fuel companies’ production decisions, not to mention lobbying for 
particular fossil fuel subsidies or against policies that support 
renewable energy, impact those prices.

*1  Energy security*
 From fueling wars to preserving national security, the fossil fuel 
industry loves to trumpet its role in keeping the world safe, even when 
it is engaging in geopolitical brinksmanship that makes everyone 
decidedly less so. In the context of national security, it’s worth 
noting that the US military started funding net-zero programs back in 
2012 and listing climate change as a threat multiplier in its 
Quadrennial Defense Review a decade ago. But oil companies and their 
trade groups ignore that reality and instead insist the threat is in 
reducing fossil fuel dependence.
We’ve seen this recently in the industry’s messaging around the 
Russia-Ukraine war, when it mobilized even before Putin to push the idea 
that a global liquified natural gas (LNG) boom was a fix to short-term 
energy shortages in Europe. The industry has been noticeably quiet on 
the Israel-Palestine war, but is pushing general “we keep you safe” 
messaging that emphasizes global instability. In the US, energy security 
narratives often have nationalistic undertones, with messages pushing 
the global environmental and security benefits of US fossil fuel over 
that from countries like Qatar or Russia.

It is true that energy self-sufficiency contributes to any nation’s 
stability, but there’s no rule that says energy has to come from 
hydrocarbons. In fact, it’s well-documented that depending on an energy 
source vulnerable to the whims of world commodity markets and global 
conflicts is a recipe for volatility.

*2 The economy v the environment*
In 1944, when it looked like the second world war would end soon, PR 
guru Earl Newsom pulled together his corporate clients–including 
Standard Oil of New Jersey (ExxonMobil today), Ford, GM and Procter & 
Gamble – and crafted a top secret post-war strategy to keep the US 
public convinced of the “worth of the free enterprise system”.

 From school curricula to Hollywood-crafted animated shorts to industry 
presentations to media interviews, the fossil fuel industry has hammered 
these themes repeatedly for decades. And, in a classic move, industry 
spokespeople point to studies that industry groups, like the American 
Petroleum Institute, commission as proof that taking care of the 
environment is bad for the economy.
In 2021, a peer-reviewed paper entitled “Weaponizing Economics” tracked 
the activity of a group of economic consultants who were hired by the 
petroleum industry for decades. “They produced analyses that were then 
used by both companies and politicians … to tell the public that it 
would just be way too expensive to act on climate, and that in any case, 
climate change was not going to be a big deal, so the best thing to do 
would be to do nothing,” the paper’s co-author Ben Franta, head of the 
Climate Litigation Lab at Oxford University, said.

These tactics also show up in ads that remind us to balance a desire for 
reduced emissions with the need to keep the economy going. One BP ad 
recently running on NPR, New York Times and Washington Post podcasts 
states that oil and gas equals jobs and argues for adding renewables, 
rather than replacing fossil fuels.

*3 ‘We make your life work’*
The fossil fuel industry loves to argue that it makes the world work – 
from keeping the lights on to keeping us riveted by smart phones and TV, 
and clothed in fast fashion. It’s genius: create a product, create 
demand for the product, and then shift the blame to consumers not just 
for buying it but also for its associated impacts.
“Basically it’s a propaganda campaign,” said Brown University 
environmental sociologist Robert Brulle. “And you don’t have to use the 
words ‘climate change’. What they’re doing is they’re seeding in the 
collective unconscious the idea that fossil fuels equals progress and 
the good life.”

Advertisements like Energy Transfer Partners’ “Our Lives Are Petroleum” 
campaign, which has been running since 2021, also serve the purpose of 
shaming people into keeping quiet on climate unless they have 
successfully rid their own lives of hydrocarbons. The logic goes: if you 
use a phone or drive a car, or really, if you live in the modern world 
at all, you’re the problem. Not the companies that have worked for 
decades to make their products seem indispensable and block any 
alternatives to them.

*4 ‘We’re part of the solution’*
Nothing keeps away regulation like promises of voluntary solutions that 
make it seem like the fossil fuel industry is really trying. In a 2020 
exposé, Greenpeace’s investigative newsroom, Unearthed, caught an Exxon 
lobbyist on camera explaining this tactic had worked with a carbon tax 
to head off emissions regulations and how the company was pursuing the 
same strategy with plastic. Working with the American Chemistry Council 
to roll out voluntary measures like “advanced recycling”, the lobbyist, 
Keith McCoy, said the goal was to “get ahead of government intervention”.

As with climate change, McCoy explained, if the industry can make it 
seem as though it was working on solutions, it could keep outright bans 
on single-use plastics at bay. Today, this narrative shows up in the 
industry’s push for carbon capture, biofuels, and methane-based hydrogen 
solutions like blue, purple, and turquoise hydrogen. We also see it in 
the industry’s embrace of the term “low carbon” to describe not only 
fossil fuel–enabling solutions like carbon capture, but also “natural 
gas”, which industry lobbyists are successfully selling to politicians 
as a climate solution.

*5 ‘The world’s greatest neighbor’*
Just in case people still aren’t accepting of dirty air, dirty water and 
climate change, the fossil fuel industry funds museums, sports, 
aquariums, and schools, serving the dual purpose of cleaning up its 
image and making communities feel dependent on the industry and thus 
less likely to criticize it.

Both journalists and their audiences have more power to combat climate 
disinformation than it might feel when they’re awash in it. 
Understanding the industry’s classic narratives is a good starting point.

Debunking false claims is a critical next step.

/Amy Westervelt is an award-winning investigative climate journalist, 
founder of Critical Frequency, and executive editor of Drilled Media
Kyle Pope is executive director of strategic initiatives and co-founder 
of Covering Climate Now, and a former editor and publisher of the 
Columbia Journalism Review/

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/apr/14/climate-disinformation-explainer



/[ information causes change ]/
*These Climate Activists Make People Uncomfortable — And It’s Working*
Last week, guerilla activists at Climate Defiance recounted the powerful 
people they’ve made uncomfortable, and used that power to raise real money
BY ANDREW PEREZ
APRIL 14, 2024
Outside of the Climate Emergency Fund, a Los Angeles-based nonprofit 
that funds organizations that lead disruptive climate actions, Greenberg 
told the crowd, there are few foundations willing to finance his group’s 
work, which has included bird-dogging politicians like coal baron Sen. 
Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) or ExxonMobil CEO Darren Woods.

“If we are to keep doing this work, it will be because people in this 
room give us money,” he said, calling on one donor in the room to give 
$20,000. His rationale for that number was a bit convoluted — honestly, 
it was a lot to follow — yet powerful nonetheless.

Climate Defiance’s targeted, disruptive activism played a key role in 
convincing the Biden administration to pause a decision on whether to 
approve CP2, a liquefied natural-gas (LNG) export terminal that would be 
the largest in the United States — and also temporarily pause all 
pending decisions on new LNG export projects. As Greenberg noted at the 
event, the White House specifically included a quote from Climate 
Defiance in a press release about its decision to pause new LNG decisions.

“If you stopped all proposed LNG build-out, that’s the equivalent of 
stopping 500 coal plants,” Greenberg said, extrapolating from there to 
suggest his group’s activities last year ultimately “had the impact of 
shutting down 25 coal plants.”

He continued: “Our annual budget is about $500,000 per year. So 
$500,000, divided by the 25 coal plant equivalents we’ve shut down, 
shows that for every $20,000, you have the impact of shutting down the 
equivalent of one coal plant.”
When he finally made the ask, it worked almost immediately: A man 
pledged $20,000 on the spot.

“That is incredible. I am blown away,” Greenberg said, before asking if 
anyone else was ready to give $20,000. It worked, again, as a foundation 
executive pledged to give that much, too.

Greenberg asked again: “Is there one more person ready to make a $20,000 
commitment to Climate Defiance?”

After some awkward silence, Steven Donziger — an environmental justice 
lawyer who was imprisoned and held under house arrest for nearly three 
years due to his role in a $9.5 billion judgment against Chevron — 
stepped in and joked, “The discomfort is part of the strategy.”

“The New Republic ran a piece on Climate Defiance, which was otherwise a 
very nice piece,” Greenberg said, “but they said that I am ‘lanky and 
awkward.’ So then I quote tweeted [them] and said, ‘Nobody has ever 
called me ‘lanky.’” He explained, “I think part of why I’m able to do 
this is that I don’t always get too concerned about social norms.”

After lowering the ask to $10,000, Greenberg joked that Sen. Amy 
Klobuchar (D-Minn.) “once told me that I take things too far — but 
tonight, I am ready to prove her absolutely right.”
When he finally made the ask, it worked almost immediately: A man 
pledged $20,000 on the spot.

“That is incredible. I am blown away,” Greenberg said, before asking if 
anyone else was ready to give $20,000. It worked, again, as a foundation 
executive pledged to give that much, too.

Greenberg asked again: “Is there one more person ready to make a $20,000 
commitment to Climate Defiance?”

After some awkward silence, Steven Donziger — an environmental justice 
lawyer who was imprisoned and held under house arrest for nearly three 
years due to his role in a $9.5 billion judgment against Chevron — 
stepped in and joked, “The discomfort is part of the strategy.”

“The New Republic ran a piece on Climate Defiance, which was otherwise a 
very nice piece,” Greenberg said, “but they said that I am ‘lanky and 
awkward.’ So then I quote tweeted [them] and said, ‘Nobody has ever 
called me ‘lanky.’” He explained, “I think part of why I’m able to do 
this is that I don’t always get too concerned about social norms.”

After lowering the ask to $10,000, Greenberg joked that Sen. Amy 
Klobuchar (D-Minn.) “once told me that I take things too far — but 
tonight, I am ready to prove her absolutely right.”
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/climate-defiance-activism-uncomfortable-1235004241/?wpisrc=nl_climatecoach

/
/

/[ summer camp pays for youth to work ]/
*Low Wages and Health Risks Are Crippling the U.S. Wildland Firefighting 
Forces*
At the end of February, a curtain of flames engulfed the Texas 
Panhandle, eventually marking the state’s largest wildfire in history. 
The blaze was merciless, burning through more than 1 million acres of 
land and swallowing houses whole.

While many residents in this region fled to safer ground, a small 
contingent ran toward the inferno to help stifle it. After a grueling 
three-week battle, Texas firefighters managed to fully contain the epic 
wildfire in mid-March.

Each year, thousands of wildland firefighters put their lives on the 
line to face similar battles across the U.S., particularly along the 
West Coast. As climate change accelerates, warming temperatures and 
drier conditions are fueling longer and more severe fire seasons, which 
are pushing U.S. firefighters to their limits.

In the first three months of 2024, wildfires tore through around 2,660 
square miles of land, more than half of last year’s total annual area 
burned, reports the Associated Press. Many firefighters argue that they 
are not getting the government support they need to take on these 
increasingly dangerous conditions.

Burning Up: In March, ProPublica published a sprawling investigation 
about how top federal agencies are failing U.S. wildland firefighters. 
The main issues boil down to low wages and a lack of support for 
job-related health threats, of which there are many.

Beyond the obvious hazards of clocking into work in an active fire zone, 
wildland firefighters are exposed to a variety of long-term threats—from 
carcinogens in the smoke and ash to “forever chemicals” in firefighter 
foam known as PFAS, which has been linked to various types of cancer.

But another threat is silently simmering among the people who fight the 
flames: suicide risk. In 2022, my colleague Liza Gross wrote about the 
rising reports of suicide and depression among wildland firefighters—and 
the need to better study these risks.

“It’s a job skill to be able to manage personal discomfort, physical 
discomfort, emotional discomfort and stress while working in 
high-demand, high-consequence occupations,” Patricia O’Brien, who worked 
as a wildland firefighter for 15 years and now oversees the Bureau of 
Land Management’s mental health program, told Inside Climate News. “But 
it can be really difficult to shift gears and switch that off.”

Despite the high health costs associated with this job, compensation 
remains low, starting at around $15 an hour for permanent firefighters 
employed by the U.S. Forest Service, which manages the majority of the 
country’s wildfire response efforts. Now, the Forest Service is 
struggling to hold the frontlines of its firefighting brigades, with a 
45 percent attrition rate among its permanent employees in the past 
three years and fewer new individuals applying, according to 
ProPublica’s analysis.

“The ship is sinking,” Abel Martinez, a Forest Service engine captain in 
California and the national fire chair for the National Federation of 
Federal Employees, told ProPublica.

Firefighter Reform: Wildland firefighters are classified by different 
tiers based on their qualifications and areas of expertise, often 
requiring years of training to learn how to manage teams during large 
fires like those that ravaged the Texas Panhandle. In the past few 
years, however, employees with less experience have been forced to 
tackle more complex blazes than they are prepared for.

In the face of growing fire risks—and shrinking firefighter staff—the 
Forest Service is testing a new business model this season by deploying 
44 leadership teams to help handle this next generation of infernos, 
reports the Associated Press. Additionally, as fire seasons become 
longer, federal offices say they will be hiring more permanent positions 
rather than seasonal crew members, which have traditionally made up more 
than a third of the wildland firefighting workforce.

Last year, the Forest Service launched a mental health support program, 
but it’s still within early planning stages and far behind similar 
programs run through the Bureau of Land Management, critics say. Within 
the Senate, there is a push to permanently increase pay for wildland 
firefighters, though the bill has not yet been voted on.

“By the time I left fire in 2020, half the temps on my crew were living 
in their cars and sleeping literally down by the river because 
gentrification from remote work had sent housing prices in mountain 
towns skyrocketing,” Christopher Benz, a former wildland firefighter and 
writer, recently wrote in an op-ed for The Washington Post. “If the 
nation wants experienced firefighters to stay in the job, it should just 
raise the base pay.”

However, in California, a new—and darkly ironic—issue is arising: 
Firehouses are struggling to get fire insurance as risks become too high 
for insurers. State senators and representatives from the California 
Department of Forestry and Fire Protection discussed this situation at a 
Senate budget subcommittee hearing in Sacramento on April 11, reports 
Politico.

Aside from the area burned already, the National Interagency Fire Center 
forecasts project a slow start to this fire season overall due to wet 
conditions across many parts of the country. However, the outlook shows 
high wildfire risk throughout the Midwest, Southwest and Hawaii, which 
has just started to recover from its last major wildfire last August.

With climate-fueled fires exposing the issues in of the nation’s 
firefighting system, it’s going to be difficult for reforms to match the 
pace that flames are spreading.
More Top Climate News

In March, I wrote about scientists predicting that rising ocean 
temperatures were pushing the world toward its fourth mass coral 
bleaching event.

Welp, the prediction has officially come true, the National Oceanic and 
Atmospheric Administration and international partners announced Monday. 
And federal officials say that this could be the most widespread mass 
coral bleaching event in history. Bleaching occurs when ocean water 
temperatures become too warm and cause corals to expel the algae living 
in their tissues, turning their color white.

Around the world, 54 countries and nations—from Kenya to Indonesia—have 
confirmed bleaching events in their waters, reports The New York Times. 
Last year, bleaching hit several previously unaffected reef areas and 
corals that were not deeply affected in the past, such as soft corals in 
Florida, which my colleague Bob Berwyn covered.

“That was completely unexpected,” Derek Manzello, coordinator of NOAA’s 
Coral Reef Watch, told Inside Climate News. “What ended up happening is, 
they got hit with so much heat so fast, they just kind of disintegrated. 
They started sloughing off their tissues. That was definitely one of the 
most shocking things to me last year.”

Meanwhile marine upwelling is driving cold snaps in other pockets of the 
ocean, which could be killing sharks, a new study suggests. In these 
events, strong winds and ocean currents can push cold water to the 
surface, causing a rapid change in temperature that some marine life may 
struggle to survive, the researchers say.

“Climate change is actually really complex,” Nicolas Lubitz, lead author 
of the study and a researcher at James Cook University in Queensland, 
Australia, told CNN. “It’s not just warming of the globe, but it’s 
really changing the way our oceans function.”
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/16042024/todays-climate-firefighters-climate-change-health/#:~:text=Burning%20Up%3A%20In%20March%2C%20ProPublica,of%20which%20there%20are%20many.


/[The news archive - the last moment when Republicans agreed with 
Democrats and facing reality.  ]/
/*April 17, 2008  -- *Nancy and Newt on the couch /
April 17, 2008:
Al Gore's Alliance for Climate Protection releases a commercial 
featuring House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat, and former House 
Speaker Newt Gingrich, a Republican, calling for a bipartisan effort to 
address human-caused climate change. Gingrich is rhetorically flogged by 
right-wing bloggers for participating in the commercial, and later 
disavows it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qi6n_-wB154
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1COYhkzEXPI




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