[✔️] Jan 12, 2024 Global Warming News | Davos wealthy, Climate disinfo, 24 villains by Greg Olear, Year 2000 reality defined

[Richard Pauli]

/*January*//*12, 2024*/

/[ //talking of risks at the //World Economic Forum, by the tremendously 
wealthy - audio  ]/
*Global Risks Report: the big issues facing leaders at Davos 2024*
Scroll down for full podcast transcript - click the ‘Show more’ arrow
As leading figures from government, business, academia and civil society 
head to Davos for the Annual Meeting 2024, what are the big global 
challenges they will be discussing?

The World Economic Forum's Global Risks Report sets out the biggest 
issues over the short and medium terms, based on a survey of more than 
1,400 global risks experts, policy-makers and industry leaders.

This year, the impact of artificial intelligence is felt throughout the 
report, with rising concern about disinformation and cyberinsecurity.

Gayle Markovitz hears from two of the people who put the report 
together, Carolina Klint, Managing Director at Marsh McLennan, and Peter 
Giger, Group Chief Risk Officer at Zurich Insurance.
Links:
Read the Global Risks Report 2024: 
https://www.weforum.org/publications/global-risks-report-2024/

Follow all the action from the World Economic Forum's Annual Meeting 
2024 in Davos at wef.ch/wef24 and across social media using the hashtag 
#WEF24.

Forum Agenda blogs:
Global Risk Report 2024: The risks are growing — but so is our capacity 
to respond

How to build business resilience in an era of risk turbulence
*Welcome to the age of the polycrisis: the Global Risks Report 2023*
https://www.weforum.org/podcasts/radio-davos/episodes/global-risks-report-davos-2024/



/[ Waves of Disinformation ]/
*Foresight Dialogues 2023. Climate change and disinformation*
CMCC Channel
  Jan 10, 2024
Speakers:
John Cook, Senior Research Fellow at the Melbourne Centre for Behaviour 
Change, University of Melbourne and founder of Skeptical Science
Paula Gori, Secretary General and Coordinator of the European Digital 
Media Observatory, European University Institute

Moderator:
Mauro Buonocore, Head Communication & Outreach, CMCC

The radical transformation triggered by climate change has generated a 
vast amount of information that might be difficult to navigate.
Disinformation can hinder climate action and create distrust in the 
scientific basis of climate change. Cognitive sciences have developed 
different techniques to counter this tendency, such as deconstruction 
and debunking. Experts share best practices on how the communication 
sectors can positively influence the climate discourse on different 
platforms.

“Foresight Dialogues” is an initiative by the CMCC Foundation – 
Euro-Mediterranean Center on Climate Chang
Under the patronage of:  Consulat Honoraire de Monaco à Venise 
Ca’Foscari University of Venice
Partner:  ETE, Earth Technology Expo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=klPQATZ-dWM



/[Perspectives  Ideas   ]/
*What’s the “right” way to communicate about climate change?*
When doom, gloom, and unbridled optimism don’t work, what’s left? 
Everything.
By Alison Smart
December 18, 2023
“Doom and gloom” is a phrase you will invariably hear in conversations, 
meetings, and articles about climate change. During this year’s Climate 
Week NYC (one of the two biggest annual gatherings of people working on 
climate change, along with COP), I heard the words at every panel or 
event I attended. Most commonly, speakers assured audiences that they 
wouldn’t be focusing on the impacts of climate change, how dangerously 
fast it’s moving, or what it might look like to live in a 1.5 or even 
2-degree world. Instead, they promised to focus on hopeful topics. The 
familiar refrain brought me back to a memorable period in my career when 
I was a newcomer to the climate change space, working hard to make sense 
of the issue and figure out how to talk about it.

Almost a decade ago, I took a new role as a senior leader in 
communications, fundraising, and strategy at the Woodwell Climate 
Research Center. I came in wide-eyed and eager to learn all of the best 
practices of climate communications, having no formal education in a 
climate-related field—I spent the prior decade working in museums. 
Though I felt confident that this background would serve me well in this 
new role, I still needed to get up to speed on the topic of climate. So 
I read countless articles and books, sought lessons from my new climate 
science and policy-expert colleagues, and followed mainstream 
environmental organizations and thought leaders on social media and 
elsewhere. Through these resources, I gleaned that there was a fairly 
broad alignment on conventional wisdom and best practices.

The conventional wisdom was that talking about the risk of climate 
change was likely to paralyze people with fear and lead them to denial 
or apathy, instead of the intended outcome: taking action.

For starters, doom and gloom was considered a big “no-no” in climate 
communications. The conventional wisdom was that talking about the risk 
of climate change was likely to paralyze people with fear and lead them 
to denial or apathy, instead of the intended outcome: taking action. 
This approach can be neatly summarized as, “Down with fear, up with 
hope.” I also constantly received advice such as, “You have to show 
people how climate change is going to hit their wallets—that’s what 
people really care about.” Or, “Don’t talk too much about adapting to 
climate change—people will think we don’t really have to stop using 
fossil fuels.” Or even, “We don’t need to learn any more about climate 
change. You have to tell people what to do, or, better yet, the top 
thing that they can do—people are busy.”

These beliefs and best practices were broad, and there was little nuance 
about the audiences and contexts in which they might work best. Given my 
newcomer mindset, I took it all at face value and followed the rules. 
That is, until I started having experiences that conflicted with the rules.

Around six years ago, I was part of a group, including colleagues at the 
Woodwell Climate Research Center and Spencer Glendon (who would become 
the founder of Probable Futures), that decided to experiment with the 
ways in which climate science could be useful in decision-making. We 
began to show small groups of people maps of projected climate impacts 
(heat, drought, precipitation, and wildfire) that were likely to 
materialize over the coming few decades.

The maps drew from climate model data that was well established and had 
been around for some time. However, these models had largely been used 
for scientific research that ended up in scholarly journals geared 
toward the science community rather than the general public. The 
“experiment” was to mine climate model data and see if we could turn it 
into a communications tool that presented the urgency and impacts of 
climate change in a way that was resonant, relevant, and motivating to 
non-experts. Our first target audience included leaders in the finance 
community.

One core memory from that time is when my colleagues revealed newly 
generated maps of drought probabilities at different warming scenarios 
in the Mediterranean and northern Africa. In short, the results were 
shocking—even to my colleagues and I. Scanning the room, I observed 
people’s jaws dropping while others audibly gasped. The map required 
little interpretation or translation into what these changes might mean 
for the people, plants, animals, and industries in these regions.

I considered that, by the standards of climate communications, these 
were “doom and gloom” maps. Yet people’s demeanors and comments 
thereafter didn’t look at all like apathy or paralysis. “I truly didn’t 
know,” some said. “Everyone on Earth needs to see these maps,” said 
others. And more quickly than I thought possible, the conversations 
turned toward action. Plans were made for public communications 
campaigns and new initiatives within influential organizations. For some 
individuals, entire career paths changed direction.

Today, some of the people in those rooms are passionately and publicly 
leading their companies, organizations, and communities in climate 
action. And those early maps formed the foundation for what is now 
Probable Futures; a climate literacy initiative working to democratize 
climate science and educate people across disciplines and geographies.

*Getting to the bottom of the rules*
How could my experience be in such conflict with “the rules” around 
climate communications? It was truly one of the most surprising and 
baffling periods of my career. Clearly, I needed to re-ground myself in 
my understanding of what is known to work when it comes to motivating 
people to take climate change seriously and take action. I started 
wondering if the climate communications rules might actually be limiting 
conversation around climate change, or, further, if they could be boxing 
out new people from the climate movement.

So I started to dig into climate-related social science literature. As 
one might imagine, the answers are more complicated than the various, 
aforementioned “You have to,” advice might suggest. Take, for example, 
the hope vs. fear topic. Research results on which is the better 
motivator are mixed and sometimes even entirely inconclusive.

The results of a 2021 study in which participants were shown videos 
about climate change with hopeful or fearful messages “suggest that the 
impacts of a single hope or fear appeal can be overstated,” and the 
authors cautioned against “claims that either hopeful or fear-driven 
climate change communication strategies are necessarily optimal.” A 2017 
paper in Nature Climate Change found that “the current evidence base” on 
emotion in climate change communication “[does] not support definitive, 
simplistic, and overly broad assertions about the effect of specific 
emotions on climate change responses”—in fact, the authors held that any 
responses to climate change messages “are influenced by the beliefs, 
worldviews, and existing emotions each individual brings to the table.” 
If you want to explore further, these articles in Vox and Grist are 
thorough and quite thoughtful.

However, this is not to say we know nothing about what makes for 
effective messaging, but what we do know is nuanced and typically 
specific to a certain audience. Initiatives such as the Potential Energy 
Coalition, Environmental Voter Project, and Yale Program on Climate 
Change Communication (to name a few) have done important work to 
understand the motivators and attitudes of specific audiences within the 
United States, typically framed around voting outcomes. Another example 
is a recent study by Earth Alliance and Harmony Labs that categorizes 
audiences by values and provides messaging recommendations based on 
those values. These kinds of context-specific insights can be critically 
important when understood accurately and used thoughtfully.

Still, there was a real lack of evidence of any one-size-fits-all 
climate communications approach that is known to work in motivating 
long-term behavior change. Learning this put my experience with the 
drought maps in more context: This particular communications approach 
worked with this particular audience and these messengers at that moment 
in time—and we got there by experimenting.
https://probablefutures.org/perspective/whats-the-right-way-to-communicate-about-climate-change/



/[ Just the list -- clips counting down - the WRONG way to communicate   
-- 24 evil ones for 2024 ]/
*24 Villains for '24*
Two dozen of the very worst Americans, ranked.
GREG OLEAR
JAN 2, 2024...

    *And now, the dirty two dozen:*

*24. Roger Stone (previous rank: 16)*
“Since the days of Nixon,” I wrote last year, “this shameless rightwing 
operative has been a festering herpes blister on the genitals of our 
fair republic. Just when you think the rash is gone, it breaks out 
again.” This remains true, but the blister is less pussy. Stone is a 
year older, and frailer, and at war with so many people in the GOP, I’ve 
lost track.

*23. Matt Gaetz (previously unranked)*
A wretched traitor who carries water for the Kremlin, and is smart 
enough to cause real damage. Vintage 99 led the charge to expel McCarthy 
from the House—just when Ukraine was heating up and the Israel-Hamas war 
was beginning. When are the charges dropping? Or is Gaetz—like another 
notorious Florida resident with a yen for young girls, Jeffrey 
Epstein—immune from prosecution?
*
22. Marjorie Taylor Greene (previous rank: 17)*
The nicest thing we can say about this hateful, stupid troglodyte is 
that she didn’t get busted jerking off her new boyfriend at a 
performance of Beetlejuice: The Musical.
*
21. Rupert Murdoch (previous rank: 2)*
As I wrote last year, this purveyor of disinformation, fake news, and 
bilious hate is “unequivocally one of the worst human beings to ever 
draw breath on this planet.” But he’s sold his controlling interest in 
News Corp, and, I mean, in March he’ll turn ninety-fucking-three. I know 
that evil preserves these malevolent old geezers, like severed body 
parts in formaldehyde, but even Kissinger didn’t live forever.

*20. Ginni Thomas (previous rank: 5)*
When Moscow Never Sleeps wrote his prescient piece about Clarence Thomas 
on these pages in December of 2020, I had never heard of Virginia Lamp 
Thomas. Her anonymity is what made her so effective. We’re on to her 
now, and Clarence’s corruption problems ain’t going away.

*19. Leonard Leo (previous rank: 7)*
Knight of Malta and loser from Central Jersey who was the prime mover 
behind the Dobbs decision now has pockets so deep he may never run out 
of cash—but like his old chum Ginni, Leo operates best in the shadows. 
Diligent reporters like Heidi Przybyla, Nina Burleigh, and the team at 
ProPublica have put him under the microscope—where, yes, he does bear a 
striking resemblance to Yersinia pestis—and will continue to make him 
famous in 2024.
*
18. Scott Presler (previously unranked)*
With his long, flowing, well-Garnier Fructis’d locks, he looks like he 
should be cosplaying Tolkien and not MAGA activism. In 2016, he 
co-founded Gays For Trump—it may as well be Alderaanans for Vader—making 
Presler one of the few gays for Trump not cowering miserably in the 
closet. His campaign to take over the RNC from soulless Ronna Romney No 
More is less quixotic than it first appears; he’s very good at 
registering new voters, and is human catnip for middle-aged Republican 
women.

*17. Nick Fuentes (previously unranked)*
Like Presler, he is young and influential in far-right circles. Unlike 
Presler, he is an outspoken admirer of both Adolf Hitler and Vladimir Putin.

*16. Thought leaders of the NRx (previously unranked)*

    You can read about these authoritarian weirdos here:
    https://gregolear.substack.com/p/dark-enlightenment-part-one-the-cathedral
    Dark Enlightenment, Part One: The Cathedral & the Red Caesar
    .. a two-part series on the neo-reactionary fringe: the dissidents
    of the New Right, America's ascendant antidemocratic political movement.
    GREG OLEAR
    Conservative politics is not just for Evangelical Christians,
    anti-abortion crusaders, tax-averse libertarians, Q crazies, and
    MAGA cultists. There has emerged a New Right: young, smart, edgy,
    urbane—even hip. Its political philosophy is coherent and
    compelling. Its religion of choice, if it has one, is Catholicism...

*15. Charlie Kirk (previous rank: 12)*
With his bedhead and his uncanny resemblance to the anthropomorphic moon 
from the “Mac Tonight” commercials, Kirk is probably the most 
influential young conservative media figure. As I wrote last year, he’s 
“up to his too-close-together eyeballs in the insurrection. During his 
deposition with the J6 Committee, he pleaded the Fifth to almost 
everything, including a question about his age.” Not much has changed, 
other than a marked loss of interest in brushes and combs.

*14. James Comer (previously unranked)*
As the GOP’s primary “Biden Crime Family” attack dog, Comer and his 
plump, unctuous face is on TV all the time, yammering on about Hunter 
Biden this, Hunter Biden that, promising new evidence that never turns 
up. How many of this past year’s 5,840 waking hours did this creep spend 
looking at pictures of Hunter Biden’s prodigious shlong? And how many of 
Comer’s 2,920 sleeping hours were spent dreaming of it?

*13. Greg Abbott, Dan Patrick, Ken Paxton (previous rank: 6)*
Last year’s entry on these corrupt, evil motherfuckers:

    The troika that rules the Lone Star State—and yes, I’m using troika
    because it’s a Russian word—is the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost of
    pure evil. There are banana republics less corrupt. What with the
    voter suppression and gerrymandering, the fascistic anti-abortion
    laws so draconian they harken back to the Fugitive Slave Act, the
    extreme vaccine and mask denial, the preponderance of guns, and the
    state power grid pooping out every time it gets too hot or too cold,
    Texas exemplifies the GOP attitude toward the people: “Fuck you, die.”

Nothing has changed except the egregiousness of their corruption and the 
number of people they’ve harmed. Paxton, an outright crook, is on the 
short list for Attorney General in a second Trump term.

*12. Charles McGonigal (previously unranked)*
How much damage did this filthy traitor do to the country he betrayed? 
How many people died, directly or indirectly, because of his treachery? 
Are we still in danger because of his treasonous activities while 
running counterintelligence at the FBI?

*11. Jared Kushner (previous rank: 1)*
As I wrote last year:

    Look, I kind of understand, if I don’t condone, letting Mark Meadows
    get away with voter fraud, and Erik Prince slide for perjury, and
    even giving FPOTUS a mulligan for the whole insurrection business.
    It’s like Yale handing Dubya the gentleman’s C. But once the death
    toll you’re directly responsible for hits seven digits, I feel like,
    I don’t know, maybe the DOJ should take some action?

The DOJ does not agree. For reasons beyond my understanding, Kushner is 
a made man. There are never any consequences for his actions. There may 
never be. The only silver lining is that he’s too busy managing Saudi 
billions to cause more harm to Americans.
*
10. Aileen Cannon (previously unranked)*
Jack Smith’s documents case is the most open-and-shut of the four Trump 
indictments, but Judge Flamenco Dancer—a Marco Rubio referral, by the 
way—has done everything in her considerable power to delay the trial. 
When Chunk put her in the opening credits of The Five 8, where she gives 
us the bird every week while strolling by, I never thought she’d have 
such staying power. But here we are.
*
9. Sam Alito (previous rank: 3)*
Every time a pregnant woman suffers or dies because she is denied access 
to a safe, legal abortion, Alito is responsible. There is blood on his 
hands, lots of it, and there will only be more in 2024. His pomposity is 
exceeded only by his delusions of grandeur. In what horrible ways will 
he fuck us over in 2024?

*8. Steve Bannon (previous rank: 15)*
In an election year—again: the most pivotal one this country has held 
since 1860—the failed screenwriter, sinister strategist, proud Leninist, 
fire-hoser of shit podcaster, and would-be dismantler of the 
administrative state takes on added importance. A good time to lock his 
leprous ass up to serve the four-month sentence for the crime he was 
convicted of last year would be August 15.

*7. Kash Patel (previously unranked)*
On Steve Bannon’s podcast, Patel, whom Trump would likely install at 
CIA, DOD, or a similar institution with a lot of power, a huge budget, 
and beaucoup weapons, promised that the incoming MAGA team would make 
vengeance a priority:

    We will go out and find the conspirators, not just in government but
    in the media. Yes, we’re going to come after the people in the media
    who lied about American citizens, who helped Joe Biden rig
    presidential elections.
    We’re going to come after you, whether it’s criminal or civilly,
    we’ll figure that out. But yeah, we’re putting you all on notice and
    Steve, this is why they hate us. This is why we’re tyrannical.

Weaponizing the DOJ and the civil courts would supercharge the demise of 
our democracy. Political rivals would be rounded up and jailed pending 
trial. Media companies would be sued into paralysis. Like, if the 
Trumpers start doing this on January 20, 2025, the United States as we 
know it would be toast by next Thanksgiving.

*6. Mike Davis (previously unranked)*
Like Patel, but smarter, and with a law degree. He’d likely be Trump’s 
choice for Attorney General. Heaven help us. Here’s a taste:

    Unfazed and Determined  Happy Constitution Day
    The following was posted on X on Sunday, September 17, Constitution
    Day. https://mikedavis.substack.com/p/happy-constitution-day

*5. Elon Musk (previous rank: 8)*
 From last year:

    Once the world’s richest person, still the worst’s boringest, Epic
    Thread lost $200 billion last year. That’s a fuck-ton of apartheid
    emeralds. I’ve written extensively about this Pretorian fraud, and
    made many jokes at his expense, but let me be clear: his ownership
    of Twitter—and his failed ownership of the libs—will result in
    countless innocent people dying, in the U.S. and around the world.

Musk has successfully dismantled the most important communication 
network we had, dispersed the forces working against Trump, shadowbanned 
his enemies, and promoted his Nazi pals. Already bad, in an election 
year “X” will only serve to spread disinformation, much of it of the 
Kremlin variety.
*
4. Mike Flynn (previous rank: 4)*
Since Trump pardoned him, he’s been marshalling his antidemocratic 
forces. He scares the shit out of me, ngl.

*3. Whoever Trump Picks as VP (previously unranked)*
Elise Stefanik? Kari Lake? Nikki Haley? Someone worse? Whoever it is 
will be selected based on loyalty and a willingness to do anything—lie, 
cheat, steal, fellate—that Trump commands. At the moment of truth, Mike 
Pence sided with democracy over Donald. Trump won’t make the same 
mistake again.

*2. Mike Johnson (previously unranked)*
Two heartbeats from the presidency is a Christian nationalist zealot 
with a backstory that may as well be the redacted pages of the Mueller 
Report. Who is this guy? What’s up with his adopted Black “son?” Why 
does his wife think being gay is akin to bestiality? What techniques 
does Kelly Johnson use to “help” gay kids who use her counseling 
services? Does she use those techniques on her hubs? Why does he not 
have a bank account? When does he believe the Rapture will happen? How 
does that belief affect his style of governance? We’ve got a full year 
of Speaker Johnson to find out. Hallelujah.

    *The Revelation of Mike Johnson the Speaker*
    GREG OLEAR · OCTOBER 31, 2023
    The Revelation of Mike Johnson the Speaker
    The first time Mike Johnson spoke after his unlikely election as
    Speaker of the House, he had this to say: “I don’t believe there are
    any coincidences in a matter like this. I believe that Scripture,
    the Bible, is very clear: that God is the one who raises up those in
    authority. He raised up each of you. All of us. And I believe God
    has ordained and all…

*1. Donald Trump (previous rank: 9)*
What’s the worst thing a former president of the United States could do? 
I don’t know, but selling stolen nuclear secrets to the people who did 
9/11 has to be up there. If Jack Smith alleges and then shows, beyond 
reasonable doubt, that Trump peddled hot intel to the Saudis, how many 
of his supporters would be persuaded not to vote for him? They’ve stuck 
with him through the serial rape, the racism, the embrace of white 
nationalism, the Hitler comps, the insurrection. Would that be enough to 
puncture the Fox News bubble and move the needle? And if it wasn’t—how 
would our country survive?

In 2024, Trump tops the villain list. Let’s hope that this time next 
year, after a loss in the election and multiple convictions, he drops 
off the list completely.
https://gregolear.substack.com/p/24-villains-for-24



/[The news archive - So much we KNO-O-O in the year 2-0-0-0 ]/
/*January 12, 2000 */
January 12, 2000: The National Academy of Sciences issues a report 
indicating that "strong evidence exists to show that the warming of the 
Earth's surface is 'undoubtedly real,' and that surface temperatures in 
the past two decades have risen at a rate substantially greater than 
average for the past 100 years."
http://web.archive.org/web/20010726224601/http://clinton5.nara.gov/Initiatives/Climate/sciences.html 




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