[✔️] March 1, 2024 Global Warming News | Bad air bad death, Climate migrations, Exxon sues activists, 80mph glacier, 2001 Dick Cheney

[Richard Pauli]

/*March*//*1, 2024*/

/[ nothing personal, just business ]/
FEBRUARY 28, 2024
*Better air quality is linked to reduced suicide rates, study finds*
by University of California - Santa Barbara
Researchers in the United States and China have discovered a curious 
link between air pollution and suicide rates that prompts us to 
reconsider how to approach this issue. China's efforts to reduce air 
pollution have prevented 46,000 suicide deaths in the country over just 
five years, the researchers estimate. The team used weather conditions 
to tease apart confounding factors affecting pollution and suicide 
rates, arriving at what they consider to be a truly causal connection.

The results, published in Nature Sustainability, unearth air quality as 
a key factor influencing mental health.

Issues like air pollution are often framed as a physical health problem 
leading to a spectrum of acute and chronic illnesses such as asthma, 
cardiovascular disease and lung cancer. But co-lead author Tamma 
Carleton, an assistant professor at UC Santa Barbara's Bren School of 
Environmental Science & Management, knows these environmental factors 
can take a toll on mental health as well. She's previously studied the 
effect of temperature on suicide rates in India, finding that excessive 
heat drives those rates up...
- -
*The team faced a tricky task.*
"One of the bigger challenges with prior work on this problem is that 
air pollution is correlated with a lot of things," said Carleton. For 
instance, economic activity, commuting patterns, even industrial output 
correlate with pollution. And these activities can also affect suicide 
rates. "Our goal was to isolate just the role of pollution on suicide as 
opposed to all the other things that might be correlated with air 
pollution."
To this aim, they took advantage of an atmospheric condition called an 
inversion, where warm air traps a layer of cold air beneath it like a 
lid on a pot. This can concentrate air pollution near the surface, 
leading to days with higher pollution levels that aren't correlated with 
human activity. This relatively random phenomenon enabled Carleton, 
Zhang and their co-authors to isolate the effects of air pollution on 
suicide rates. By decoupling pollution levels from human activity—which 
influences human behavior—the authors believe they've truly identified a 
causal effect.
https://phys.org/news/2024-02-air-quality-linked-suicide.html



/[  "We have met the enemy, and he is us" ]/
*People displaced by climate crisis to testify in first-of-its-kind 
hearing in US*
Inter-American Commission on Human Rights will hear how climate is 
driving forced migration across the Americas
Communities under imminent threat from rising sea level, floods and 
other extreme weather will testify in Washington on Thursday, as the 
region’s foremost human rights body holds a first-of-its-kind hearing on 
how climate catastrophe is driving forced migration across the Americas.

The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) will hear from 
people on the frontline of the climate emergency in Mexico, Honduras, 
the Bahamas and Colombia, as part of a special hearing sought by human 
rights groups in Latin America, the US and the Caribbean.
A growing number of migrants and refugees trying to seek sanctuary in 
the US and other countries are being displaced by hurricanes, heatwaves 
and drought, as well as slow-onset climate disasters such as ocean 
acidification, coastal erosion and desertification.
The witnesses will include Higinio Alberto Ramírez from Honduras, who 
last year suffered life-altering injuries when a fire razed a detention 
center in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, killing 43 migrants from Latin America. 
Ramírez is from Cedeño, a coastal fishing town that is disappearing 
under rising sea levels, and was trying to reach the US to pay off 
family debts after tidal waves destroyed the shrimp nursery where he and 
his father worked.

“The case of the Ramírez family is a tragic reminder that forced 
migration is not an issue for the future. Sea levels have been rising 
due to climate change for decades. States and humanitarian systems must 
catch up and ensure that protections are in place,” said Gretchen 
Kuhner, director of the Mexico based Institute for Women in Migration 
(Imumi), one of the groups which requested the hearing.

The climate crisis poses an existential threat to coastal communities 
such as Cedeño, where at least 300 metres of land – and with it scores 
of hotels, restaurants, shops, schools and homes – have been submerged 
over the past few years amid increasingly frequent and destructive tidal 
floods and storm surges.

Honduras, and the vast majority of countries and island nations in the 
region, have contributed minimally to the greenhouse gases driving 
global heating. Yet they are among some of the world’s most vulnerable, 
thanks to a mix of geography, poverty, political instability and limited 
access to climate adaptation and mitigation measures.

Thursday’s hearing is part of a push for the IACHR to formally recognise 
forced displacement as a consequence of the climate crisis, to carry out 
country visits, and to establish guidelines to protect people internally 
displaced and those seeking refuge in other countries.
As immigration and refugee policies in the US, Mexico and beyond become 
increasingly cruel, and the criteria for asylum increasingly narrow, 
experts will also push for the IACHR to remind states of the 
non-refoulement principle, which prohibits returning displaced persons 
to situations that put their lives or freedoms at risk due to the 
effects of climate crisis.

“The testimonies of people directly impacted show that the slow and 
rapid onset effects of climate change are negatively impacting the most 
basic rights of entire communities, particularly those already 
marginalized and racialized, and the so-called sacrifice zones,” said 
Adeline Neau, Amnesty International’s researcher for Central America.

“We ask the IACHR to show the states the correct path putting human 
rights at the center, instead of more measures of contention, detention 
and criminalization measures that only increase the risks to the lives 
of these people.”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/feb/29/hearing-forced-migration-climate-change-us-central-america



/[ the sue me, sue you blues ]/
*ExxonMobil is suing investors who want faster climate action*
FEBRUARY 29, 2024
By Michael Copley
ExxonMobil faces dozens of lawsuits from states and localities alleging 
the company lied for decades about its role in climate change and the 
dangers of burning fossil fuels. But now, ExxonMobil is going on the 
offensive with a lawsuit targeting investors who want the company to 
slash pollution that's raising global temperatures.

Investors in publicly-traded companies like ExxonMobil try to shape 
corporate policies by filing shareholder proposals that are voted on at 
annual meetings. ExxonMobil says it's fed up with a pair of investor 
groups that it claims are abusing the system by filing similar proposals 
year after year in an effort to micromanage its business.
ExxonMobil's lawsuit points to growing tensions between companies and 
activist investors calling for corporations to do more to shrink their 
climate impact and prepare for a hotter world. Interest groups on both 
sides of the case say it could unleash a wave of corporate litigation 
against climate activists. It is happening at a time when global 
temperatures continue to rise, and corporate analysts say most companies 
aren't on track to meet targets they set to reduce their heat-trapping 
emissions.
"Exxon is really upping the ante here in a big way by bringing this 
case," says Josh Zinner, chief executive of an investor coalition called 
the Interfaith Center on Corporate Accountability, whose members include 
a defendant in the ExxonMobil case. "Other companies could use this 
tactic not just to block resolutions," Zinner says, "but to intimidate 
their shareholders from even bringing these [climate] issues to the table."

ExxonMobil said in an email that it is suing the investor groups Arjuna 
Capital and Follow This because the U.S. Securities and Exchange 
Commission (SEC) isn't enforcing rules governing when investors can 
resubmit shareholder proposals. A court is the "the right place to get 
clarity on SEC rules," ExxonMobil said, adding that the case "is not 
about climate change."
Other corporations are watching ExxonMobil's case, says Charles Crain, a 
vice president at the National Association of Manufacturers, which 
represents ExxonMobil and other industrial companies.

"If companies are decreasingly able to get the SEC to allow them to 
exclude proposals that are obviously politically motivated, then the 
next question is, well, can the courts succeed where the SEC has failed 
— or, more accurately, not even tried?," Crain says.
Activists push companies for more aggressive climate strategies
The shareholder proposal from Arjuna and Follow This called for 
ExxonMobil to cut emissions faster from its own operations and from its 
supply chain, including the pollution that's created when customers burn 
its oil and natural gas. That indirect pollution, known as Scope 3 
emissions, accounts for 90% of ExxonMobil's carbon footprint, according 
to Arjuna and Follow This. The proposal is similar to others that the 
investor groups submitted to ExxonMobil in recent years and which 
ExxonMobil says received scant support from other shareholders.
After ExxonMobil sued the groups in federal court in Texas in January, 
Arjuna and Follow This withdrew the proposal and promised not to submit 
it to ExxonMobil again. But ExxonMobil refuses to drop its case.

Arjuna declined to comment. The firm said in a court filing that 
ExxonMobil''s climate targets aren't as ambitious as those of other big 
oil and gas companies, and that its shareholder proposal was meant to 
"foster better investment outcomes by addressing the material threat 
that climate change poses" to the company.

Mark van Baal, founder of Follow This, said in a statement that 
ExxonMobil is trying to stifle shareholders.

"Apparently, Exxon does not want shareholders to vote on whether the 
company should accelerate its efforts to reduce emissions," van Baal 
said. "This is the concern of more and more investors who want [to] 
safeguard the long-term future of the company and the global economy in 
view of the climate crisis."
Companies are offering more transparency on climate, but activists say 
they need to see action
Last year was the hottest ever recorded on Earth, and the effects were 
devastating. Rising temperatures are driving more extreme weather, from 
heat waves to floods and droughts. And scientists say the impacts will 
only get worse because humans keep putting more greenhouse gasses into 
the atmosphere, mainly from burning fossil fuels like coal, oil and 
natural gas.

Thousands of peoples' lives are disrupted or harmed by extreme weather, 
and the economic costs are enormous. Weather disasters in the United 
States last year inflicted at least $92.9 billion in damages, according 
to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Those threats put pressure on companies. Corporations regularly issue 
reports on climate change and sustainability. And many, including 
ExxonMobil, say they're trying to eliminate or offset their greenhouse 
gas emissions by midcentury. But independent researchers say few 
companies have shown credible plans to achieve their targets.

What we've seen, unfortunately, is that even in the face of disclosure 
and more transparency from these companies, not much has actually 
changed from a strategy perspective," says Kevin Chuah, an assistant 
professor at Northeastern University's D'Amore-McKim School of Business.
The impact of rising temperatures has also led states and municipalities 
to sue ExxonMobil and other oil and gas companies for the threats that 
their communities are facing, and the industry's alleged efforts to 
muddy the public's understanding of climate science. The latest lawsuits 
were filed by the city of Chicago and the state of California.

An industry group called the American Petroleum Institute says the 
lawsuits are meritless and politicized. ExxonMobil says it has 
acknowledged repeatedly that "climate change is real." The company noted 
in its statement to NPR that it is pursuing more than $20 billion of 
"low emission investments" between 2022 and 2027. ExxonMobil said that 
would be on top of the nearly $5 billion it recently spent buying a 
company that specializes in capturing carbon dioxide emissions and 
injecting them into oil wells to boost production.

However, those investments are a fraction of what the company is 
spending on its traditional energy business. A deal ExxonMobil struck 
last year to buy the oil and gas company Pioneer Natural Resources alone 
is valued at almost $60 billion.
*Critics say ExxonMobil's lawsuit is part of a broader effort to limit 
investor activism*
Activist investors like Arjuna and Follow This use shareholder proposals 
to push corporations to go further on climate. But they've struggled in 
recent years to get support from broader groups of shareholders. Experts 
say investors are hesitant to back new climate proposals when companies 
already have policies to disclose and cut emissions. And they say 
investors worry that proposals have gotten too prescriptive and might 
interfere with how companies are run.
Despite a drop in support for shareholder proposals on climate change, 
investors aren't giving companies a pass, according to an investor 
survey by the accounting firm EY. The firm said 56% of the investors it 
talked to still want companies to make climate change and environmental 
conservation a priority this year.

"I think these are financially material issues," says Chuah of 
Northeastern University. "And therefore many investors are bringing 
these concerns up."

ExxonMobil says it is committed to cutting emissions from its 
operations. But the idea that activist investors like Arjuna and Follow 
This can quickly push the company out of the oil and gas business with 
new climate policies is "simplistic and against the interests of the 
vast majority of ExxonMobil shareholders," the company said in a court 
filing in Texas.

ExxonMobil said in a statement to NPR that while shareholders are 
entitled to submit proposals to the company, they don't have "an 
unlimited right to put forth any proposal to do anything."

"Their intent is to advance their agenda rather than creating long-term 
value for shareholders," ExxonMobil said of Arjuna and Follow This.

Parts of corporate America have grown frustrated with the shareholder 
proposal process since the SEC issued guidance in 2021 that made it 
harder for companies to turn away some resolutions. The SEC specifically 
cited shareholder proposals that ask companies to set targets and 
timeframes to address climate change, saying it would no longer view 
those kinds of resolutions as inappropriate as long as companies are 
free to decide how to meet the goals.

The National Association of Manufacturers has argued that forcing 
companies to publish shareholder proposals that deal with "contentious 
issues unrelated to [their] core business or the creation of shareholder 
value," including climate change, violates their First Amendment right 
of free speech. And Republicans in Congress introduced legislation last 
year that would allow companies to reject shareholder proposals 
concerning environmental, social or political issues.

"Certainly, there are material climate-related topics that are going to 
be relevant for a company considering its growth into the future," Crain 
says. But he says activists too often pursue a "political goal" rather 
than try to help companies "understand and mitigate those climate 
related risks or opportunities for their operations."

Crain declined to discuss individual companies or shareholder proposals, 
and he says there isn't an objective way to determine when a shareholder 
proposal is politically motivated.

ExxonMobil's critics say its lawsuit is part of a broader effort to 
curtail shareholder activism, especially around social and environmental 
issues. "And the reason is because it's one of the few effective avenues 
left to hold companies accountable," says Zinner of the Interfaith 
Center for Corporate Accountability.
https://www.npr.org/2024/02/29/1234358133/exxon-climate-change-oil-fossil-fuels-shareholders-investors-lawsuit



/[ faster than a silly putty cracks ]/
*An 80-mph speed record for glacier fracture helps reveal the physics of 
ice sheet collapse*
by Hannah Hickey, University of Washington
FEBRUARY 28, 2024
There's enough water frozen in Greenland and Antarctic glaciers that if 
they melted, global seas would rise by many feet. What will happen to 
these glaciers over the coming decades is the biggest unknown in the 
future of rising seas, partly because glacier fracture physics is not 
yet fully understood.
A critical question is how warmer oceans might cause glaciers to break 
apart more quickly. University of Washington researchers have 
demonstrated the fastest-known large-scale breakage along an Antarctic 
ice shelf. Their study, recently published in AGU Advances, shows that a 
6.5-mile (10.5 kilometer) crack formed in 2012 on Pine Island Glacier—a 
retreating ice shelf that holds back the larger West Antarctic ice 
sheet—in about five and a half minutes. That means the rift opened at 
about 115 feet (35 meters) per second, or about 80 miles per hour.

"This is to our knowledge the fastest rift-opening event that's ever 
been observed," said lead author Stephanie Olinger, who did the work as 
part of her doctoral research at the UW and Harvard University, and is 
now a postdoctoral researcher at Stanford University. "This shows that 
under certain circumstances, an ice shelf can shatter. It tells us we 
need to look out for this type of behavior in the future, and it informs 
how we might go about describing these fractures in large-scale ice 
sheet models."
A rift is a crack that passes all the way through the roughly 1,000 feet 
(300 meters) of floating ice for a typical Antarctic ice shelf. These 
cracks are the precursor to ice shelf calving, in which large chunks of 
ice break off a glacier and fall into the sea. Such events happen often 
at Pine Island Glacier—the iceberg observed in the study has long since 
separated from the continent.
"Ice shelves exert a really important stabilizing influence on the rest 
of the Antarctic ice sheet. If an ice shelf breaks up, the glacier ice 
behind really speeds up," Olinger said. "This rifting process is 
essentially how Antarctic ice shelves calve large icebergs."

In other parts of Antarctica, rifts often develop over months or years. 
But it can happen more quickly in a fast-evolving landscape like Pine 
Island Glacier, where researchers believe the West Antarctic Ice Sheet 
has already passed a tipping point on its collapse into the ocean
https://scx2.b-cdn.net/gfx/news/2024/80-mph-speed-record-fo-1.jpg
Satellite images provide ongoing observations. But orbiting satellites 
pass by each point on Earth only every three days. What happens during 
those three days is harder to pin down, especially in the dangerous 
landscape of a fragile Antarctic ice shelf.

For the new study, the researchers combined tools to understand the 
rift's formation. They used seismic data recorded by instruments placed 
on the ice shelf by other researchers in 2012 with radar observations 
from satellites.

Glacier ice acts like a solid on short timescales, but it's more like a 
viscous liquid on long timescales.
"Is rift formation more like glass breaking or like Silly Putty being 
pulled apart? That was the question," Olinger said. "Our calculations 
for this event show that it's a lot more like glass breaking."

If the ice were a simple brittle material, it should have shattered even 
faster, Olinger said. Further investigation pointed to the role of 
seawater. Seawater in the rifts holds the space open against the inward 
forces of the glacier. And since seawater has viscosity, surface tension 
and mass, it can't just instantly fill the void. Instead, the pace at 
which seawater fills the opening crack helps slow the rift's spread.

"Before we can improve the performance of large-scale ice sheet models 
and projections of future sea-level rise, we have to have a good, 
physics-based understanding of the many different processes that 
influence ice shelf stability," Olinger said.

Study co-authors are Brad Lipovsky and Marine Denolle, both UW faculty 
members in Earth and space sciences who began advising the work while at 
Harvard University.

More information: Stephanie D. Olinger et al, Ocean Coupling Limits 
Rupture Velocity of Fastest Observed Ice Shelf Rift Propagation Event, 
AGU Advances (2024). DOI: 10.1029/2023AV001023

Journal information: AGU Advances
Provided by University of Washington
This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial 
process and policies.
Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the 
content's credibility:
fact-checked
peer-reviewed publication
trusted source
proofread
https://phys.org/news/2024-02-mph-glacier-fracture-reveal-physics.html


/[The news archive -  ]/
/*March 1, 2001 */
March 1, 2001:
Energy lobbyist Haley Barbour sends a memo to Vice President Dick Cheney 
calling on President George W. Bush to abandon his September 2000 
campaign pledge to cut CO2 emissions.
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/04/26/us/white-house-shifted-policy-after-lobbyist-s-letter.html 





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