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<font size="+1"><i>November 9, 2017<br>
</i></font> <br>
<b><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-11-08/climate-change-costs-a-lot-more-than-we-recognize">Climate
Change Costs a Lot More Than We Recognize</a></b><br>
Most estimates ignore the sociopolitical repercussions. <br>
The latest U.S. government report on climate change illustrates how
expensive the phenomenon can be: It estimates that more frequent
flooding, more violent hurricanes and more intense wildfires, among
other things, have cost the country $1.1 trillion since 1980.<br>
What's particularly striking, though, is how much the report and
others like it are still missing.<br>
For two decades, researchers have been working hard to figure out
the potential monetary consequences of climate change. They
typically look at things that are relatively easy to measure, such
as flood damage from more intense rainfall, real estate losses along
coastlines and reduced economic growth. Yet as a new review of the
most widely used models points out, they also leave out some pretty
big things, such as greater damage from wildfires, worsening water
scarcity and the potential for shifting climate patterns to trigger
social and political instability by disrupting agriculture and
ecology.<br>
Estimating such effects is inherently difficult, but ignoring them
is worse. Serious consequences are already evident, in the recent
string of U.S. hurricanes and rampant wildfires in California and
elsewhere. In West Africa, persistent changes in the amount and
timing of rainfall have caused a mass migration, primarily of young
men, to Europe and elsewhere. The uprising in Syria came just after
a crippling four-year drought caused widespread food shortages. In
Europe, a surge of migrants from Syria and elsewhere has played a
significant role in the rise of populist parties and a spreading
backlash against democracy.<br>
In other words, the U.S. Defense Department was prescient two years
ago when it concluded that "climate change is an urgent and growing
threat to our national security, contributing to increased natural
disasters, refugee flows, and conflicts over basic resources such as
food and water." Although climate change hasn't necessarily caused
such ills, it has certainly exacerbated them.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-11-08/climate-change-costs-a-lot-more-than-we-recognize">https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-11-08/climate-change-costs-a-lot-more-than-we-recognize</a><br>
<br>
<br>
<b><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://home.kpmg.com/xx/en/home/media/press-releases/2017/10/companies-not-noting-financial-risk-of-climate-change.html">Three-quarters
of companies yet to acknowledge financial risks of climate
change, survey reveals</a></b><br>
As COP23 kicks off in Bonn, KPMG's latest survey shows that almost
three-quarters of companies worldwide are yet to acknowledge the
financial risks of climate change in their annual financial reports.<br>
KPMG's 2017 Survey of Corporate Responsibility Reporting analyzed
financial and sustainability reporting by almost 5,000 companies
around the world.<br>
It found that,of the minority of companies that do acknowledge
climate-related risk, fewer than one in 20 (4 percent) currently
provides investors with analysis of the potential business value at
risk.<br>
The research identified only five countries in the world where a
majority of the top 100 companies mention climate-related financial
risks in their financial reports: Taiwan (88 percent), France (76
percent), South Africa (61 percent), US (53 percent)and Canada (52
percent<br>
KPMG member firm analysts also looked at carbon reduction target
setting by the world's largest 250 companies (G250). They found that
while two thirds of reports from these companies disclose carbon
reduction targets, the majority of those targets are not aligned
with national or global climate targets such as INDCs or the Paris
Agreement.<br>
Download the survey, watch the video and explore the results on an
interactive map at <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated"
href="http://www.kpmg/com/crreporting">www.kpmg/com/crreporting</a><br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://home.kpmg.com/xx/en/home/media/press-releases/2017/10/companies-not-noting-financial-risk-of-climate-change.html">https://home.kpmg.com/xx/en/home/media/press-releases/2017/10/companies-not-noting-financial-risk-of-climate-change.html</a><br>
-<br>
<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://home.kpmg.com/xx/en/home/insights/2017/10/executive-summary-the-kpmg-survey-of-corporate-responsibility-reporting-2017.html">Executive
Summary: The KPMG Survey of Corporate Responsibility Reporting
2017 </a><br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://home.kpmg.com/xx/en/home/insights/2017/10/executive-summary-the-kpmg-survey-of-corporate-responsibility-reporting-2017.html">https://home.kpmg.com/xx/en/home/insights/2017/10/executive-summary-the-kpmg-survey-of-corporate-responsibility-reporting-2017.html</a><br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://home.kpmg.com/xx/en/home/insights/2017/10/the-kpmg-survey-of-corporate-responsibility-reporting-2017.html">https://home.kpmg.com/xx/en/home/insights/2017/10/the-kpmg-survey-of-corporate-responsibility-reporting-2017.html</a><br>
-<br>
Video:<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://home.kpmg.com/xx/en/home/insights/2017/10/video-the-kpmg-survey-of-corporate-responsibility-reporting-2017.html">https://home.kpmg.com/xx/en/home/insights/2017/10/video-the-kpmg-survey-of-corporate-responsibility-reporting-2017.html</a><br>
<b><br>
<br>
<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/08/climate/senate-confirmation-climate-epa.html">Democrats
Assail Environmental Nominees Over Climate Change<br>
</a></b>WASHINGTON - A Senate hearing on nominees for two top
environmental posts on Wednesday quickly turned testy over the Trump
administration's ambivalence on climate change science.<br>
<font size="-1"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/08/climate/senate-confirmation-climate-epa.html">https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/08/climate/senate-confirmation-climate-epa.html</a></font><br>
<br>
<b><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/nov/08/seven-megatrends-that-could-beat-global-warming-climate-change"><br>
The seven megatrends that could beat global warming: 'There is
reason for hope'</a></b><br>
Until recently the battle to avert catastrophic climate change -
floods, droughts, famine, mass migrations - seemed to be lost. But
with the tipping point just years away, the tide is finally turning,
thanks to innovations ranging from cheap renewables to lab-grown
meat and electric airplanes<br>
<font size="-1"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/nov/08/seven-megatrends-that-could-beat-global-warming-climate-change">https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/nov/08/seven-megatrends-that-could-beat-global-warming-climate-change</a></font><br>
<br>
<b><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://www.npr.org/2017/11/08/562721401/potential-trump-adviser-suggests-climate-change-regulations-are-communist-conspi"><br>
(audio) Potential Trump Adviser Suggests Climate Change
Regulations Are Communist Conspiracy</a></b><br>
President Trump has tapped a former Texas regulator to be his senior
adviser on environmental policy. Like a string of other
controversial picks, she questions the science behind climate
change.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.npr.org/2017/11/08/562721401/potential-trump-adviser-suggests-climate-change-regulations-are-communist-conspi">https://www.npr.org/2017/11/08/562721401/potential-trump-adviser-suggests-climate-change-regulations-are-communist-conspi</a><br>
<br>
<br>
<b><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2017/11/james-hansen-fight-climate-change-sue-pollutors-cop23/">Fight
Climate Change by Suing Polluters, Says Scientist</a></b><br>
Prominent climate scientist James Hansen has a message for world
leaders gathering in Germany for the United Nations conference on
global warming.<br>
<div class="parbase smartbody section text" style="box-sizing:
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-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255,
255); text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color:
initial;">In fact, climate lawsuits are already happening. Last
year, a Filipino government body called the Commission on Human
Rights of the Philippines<span> </span><a
href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/jul/27/worlds-largest-carbon-producers-face-landmark-human-rights-case"
style="box-sizing: border-box; background: transparent;
border-bottom: 2px solid rgb(255, 204, 0); color: inherit;
text-decoration: none;">accused 47 carbon</a><span> </span>majors
of human rights violations because of their role in climate
change.<span> </span><a
href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/18072017/oil-gas-coal-companies-exxon-shell-sued-coastal-california-city-counties-sea-level-rise"
style="box-sizing: border-box; background: transparent;
border-bottom: 2px solid rgb(255, 204, 0); color: inherit;
text-decoration: none;">Three California coastal communities</a><span> </span>sued
31 fossil-fuel companies in July. Last month, four municipalities
on Canada's west coast asked Chevron, Exxon, Shell, and others to<span> </span><a
href="https://www.wcel.org/media-release/colwood-vancouver-island-municipalities-join-new-movement-fossil-fuel-company"
style="box-sizing: border-box; background: transparent;
border-bottom: 2px solid rgb(255, 204, 0); color: inherit;
text-decoration: none;">pay their share</a><span> </span>of the
climate costs those communities are facing. There is now even a
nascent movement called<span> </span><a
href="http://www.climatelawinourhands.org/" style="box-sizing:
border-box; background: transparent; border-bottom: 2px solid
rgb(255, 204, 0); color: inherit; text-decoration: none;">Climate
Law in our Hands</a><span> </span>that helps communities go
after these carbon-emitting companies....<br>
Could Puerto Rico sue the carbon majors for the billions in
damages caused by Hurricane Maria? Legal experts say this is a
difficult question. "You need to establish a sufficiently direct
relationship between an act or omission by the entity sued and a
significant impact," says Jorge Vinuales, Professor of Law and
Environmental Policy at the University of Cambridge.<br>
However, some cases along these lines are starting at the UN Human
Rights Committee, says Vinuales, who said he couldn't yet provide
further details because they aren't public. For low-lying, small
island nations whose existence is threatened by rising seas, a
better approach might be to bring an action against some major
polluters before either the International Court of Justice or the
International Tribunal on the Law of the Sea, Vinuales says. "I'm
quite confident that such a suit could be formulated in terms that
could work," he says...<br>
Lawsuits against governments and carbon majors could force what
Hansen and many climate activists have long advocated: a carbon
fee or tariff system on fossil fuels to raise their cost and
provide funding. "As long as we allow fossil fuels to be cheap
energy, and not required to pay their costs to society, we cannot
kick our fossil fuel addiction," he says.<br>
</div>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2017/11/james-hansen-fight-climate-change-sue-pollutors-cop23/">https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2017/11/james-hansen-fight-climate-change-sue-pollutors-cop23/</a><br>
<br>
<br>
<b><a
href="https://www.lionsroar.com/5-practices-to-help-you-skillfully-contemplate-climate-change/">5
Practices to Help Accept the Immense Challenge of Climate Change
</a></b><br>
<i>(edited for brevity)</i><br>
Climate change can feel so immense that it hurts just to think
about. Lama Willa Miller offers five meditations to help bring the
truth of climate change into your awareness and lay the ground for a
skillful response...<br>
Here are five tried and true contemplative practices from the
Buddhist tradition that can help us hold the truths of climate
change, species extinction, and the ecological crisis in our hearts
and minds... these practices are timely as we encounter the truth of
suffering on a global scale.<br>
<b>1. Find a grounding in ethics</b><br>
Some people see climate change as an ecological issue. Some see it
as an economic issue. Some see it as a social issue. But, we know
that human actions are at fault. In this sense, climate change is an
ethical issue....<br>
...Later Buddhist traditions developed rules of conduct, oriented
towards compassion, such as the Bodhisattva precepts. These precepts
extend from the idea that bodhicitta, or wise compassion, is the
ground of ethical action and speech. We too can ground our activism,
social engagement, and resistance in wise compassion. We can make
our activism not about what we are working against, but what we are
working for.<br>
If we place our activism and relationship to the earth squarely
among our deepest values and beliefs, we are more likely to turn
again and again to the issue - not out of obligation, but out of
genuine commitment.<br>
<b>2. Get comfortable with uncertainty</b><br>
If there is one thing that climate scientists agree on, it is that
we don't know for certain what will happen as the earth warms.
Evidence indicates that tipping points and crises cannot be averted.
We have no how idea how much we can slow or ameliorate the
suffering. We do not even know how long our species - and others -
can survive changes that destabilize the conditions necessary for
life. We are stepping into the void...<br>
...There is good reason to embrace the uncertainty of climate change
as a liberating practice. The more we fear uncertainty, the more
likely we are to avoid thinking about climate change. In fact, our
worst enemy might not be climate denial, but rather a subtle,
subconscious rejection of climate change, based on our fear of the
unknown.<br>
If, however, we embrace the truth of uncertainty, we can develop the
courage to stay open and engage with the world. If we can accept the
fragility of life on earth, we can invest ourselves in the
possibility of collective action.<br>
<b>3. Work with emotions</b><br>
Along with the discomfort of uncertainty, climate change can evoke
many other difficult emotions. Witnessing ecosystem destruction and
mass extinction, we respond with grief and sorrow. Encountering
denial and global apathy, we experience anger. When we consider our
children's future, we experience trepidation and worry....<br>
...In contemplative practice, anger can become an inspiration for
empathy. We discover that uncomfortable states, while they belong to
us, are not to our's alone. Many others also feel anger, including
the people we have othered. When we recognize that this is how so
many others feel, we can commune with the suffering of others. We
redirect our attention from the story stimulating anger to our
empathy for all those impacted by climate change - even the deniers.
By redirecting our focus from a polarizing narrative to a uniting
one, we start building a more sustainable platform for action.<br>
<b>4. Access new wisdom</b><br>
In discussions about climate change, we seem to primarily access one
way of knowing - the intellect. The climate issue is couched in the
language of conceptual knowing. This conceptual approach - typified
by Al Gore's documentary, An Inconvenient Truth - is critically
important. We need to know what is happening, and why.<br>
However, our response will be much more powerful and resilient if we
begin to access other ways of knowing, transforming
conceptually-motivated activism into an activism of the heart....<br>
...There are two alternative ways of knowing that Buddhist practice
and meditation generally rely on: bodily wisdom and non-conceptual
wisdom.<br>
BODILY WISDOM<br>
To encounter our human body is to encounter the natural world. We
tend to forget that we are mammalian primates! The closer we come to
the body, the closer we draw to the truth of our own wildness. This
connects us to the planetary wildness that we aspire to protect.<br>
While the mind is tugged into the past and future, the body is fully
present. The body's present wakefulness is one of its great wisdoms,
and we can easily access that wisdom. It is as close to us as this
moment's inhale and exhale. While we want to stay mindful of
creating a sustainable future, we don't want to do that at the
expense of missing our life. The body reminds us that we are here,
now, and our presence is our most powerful resource.<br>
NON-CONCEPTUAL WISDOM<br>
Buddhist meditation also introduces us to the life beyond the
conceptual mind - non-conceptual ways of knowing. The wider truth is
that human experience is not just mental content. While we spend a
great deal of time enmeshed in our world of ideas, there is more to
the mental-emotional life than what we think and believe. There is a
non-conceptual space in which all of this content arises, and that
space can be sensed and widened through the experiences of body. In
the practice of the Great Perfection, this space is identified as
naked awareness, a part of our mind that is just experiencing, prior
to forming ideas about our experiences. The space of awareness can
be cultivated until it becomes a holding-environment for relative
issues such as climate change.<br>
We can make our activism not about what we are working against, but
what we are working for.<br>
As we begin to identify with non-conceptual space, we access a
non-dual mode of perception. In the non-dual mode of perception, the
illusion of separateness is perforated. This illusion of
separateness may be one of the root causes of the crisis we are in.
When we are caught up in that illusion, it becomes somehow okay that
my consumption happens at your expense. If we are to live
sustainably, we need to get used to the idea - nay, the reality -
that we are all intimately connected. Meditation leads us there.<br>
<b>5. Find community</b><br>
A friend of mine once attended a City Council meeting in her local
community and ran into a woman who was repeatedly raising the issue
of banning plastic bags. Discouraged, the woman said that she could
not seem to earn the respect of the city council. My friend replied:
"You don't need respect. You need a friend. One person is a nut. Two
people are a wake-up call. Three people are a movement."...<br>
...By practicing with ethics, uncertainty, emotion, wisdom, and
community, we develop an intimate understanding that being human is
about what we think and what we believe - and we deepen our ability
to embody our work.<br>
Embodiment sends an indelible message that peace and sustainability
can become a lived reality. Even when they are imperfectly realized,
we can inspire the sense that our lives have meaning, and that we
are living our way into ever-increasing integrity with - and service
to - our beautiful, unfathomable and sacred world.<font size="-1"><br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.lionsroar.com/5-practices-to-help-you-skillfully-contemplate-climate-change/">https://www.lionsroar.com/5-practices-to-help-you-skillfully-contemplate-climate-change/</a></font><br>
<br>
<br>
<b><a
href="https://climatecrocks.com/2017/11/08/news-flash-fox-news-gets-climate-right/">News
Flash: Fox News Gets Climate Right </a></b><br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://climatecrocks.com/2017/11/08/news-flash-fox-news-gets-climate-right/">https://climatecrocks.com/2017/11/08/news-flash-fox-news-gets-climate-right/</a><br>
<br>
<br>
<b><a href="https://www.sitra.fi/en/blogs/bill-gates-wrong/">(opinion)
Why Bill Gates Is Wrong</a></b><br>
Oras Tynkkynen SENIOR ADVISOR, CARBON-NEUTRAL CIRCULAR ECONOMY,
SITRA<br>
Bill Gates, billionaire philanthropist and technology visionary, has
been a strong advocate of low-carbon technology. Most recently, he
teamed up with colleagues such as Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg
to launch the<span> </span><a
href="http://www.breakthroughenergycoalition.com/"
style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent;
text-decoration: underline; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); transition:
opacity 0.3s;">Breakthrough Energy Coalition</a><span> </span>- a
massive effort to speed up radical innovation.<br>
As strong as his faith in innovation is his lack of trust in
existing technologies. He claimed to the <a
href="http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/4f66ff5c-1a47-11e5-a130-2e7db721f996.html#axzz3tBHdRN4v"
target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing:
inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration:
underline; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); transition: opacity 0.3s;">Financial
Times</a> that current technologies could only reduce global
carbon emissions at a "beyond astronomical" economic cost.<br>
In an interview for <a
href="http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/11/we-need-an-energy-miracle/407881"
target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing:
inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration:
underline; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); transition: opacity 0.3s;">The
Atlantic</a> he claimed the world needs "an energy miracle". He
continued: "If we just have today's technologies, will the world run
the scary climate-change experiment of heating up the atmosphere and
seeing what happens? You bet we will."<br>
Mr Gates is wrong. And that is good news for people and the planet.<br>
The Finnish Innovation Fund Sitra, together with distinguished
partners from 10 countries, recently released the study <a
href="http://www.greentoscale.net/" target="_blank" rel="noopener
noreferrer" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color:
transparent; text-decoration: underline; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);
transition: opacity 0.3s;">Green to Scale</a>. The report strived
to answer a simple question: how far can the world go by simply
scaling up proven low-carbon solutions?<br>
What makes the analysis unique is the approach. Instead of
theoretical potentials, we only applied existing solutions to the
extent that some countries have already achieved today.<br>
Let me give you an example. China is the undisputed leader in solar
water heating. We analysed the extent to which emissions can be
reduced if countries in similar circumstances reached the same level
of solar collector deployment by 2030 that China already has today.
Quite a lot, we found: equal to the current emissions of Belgium.<br>
In all, we included 17 proven solutions from five different sectors.
We looked at concrete cases of success stories from different
countries - from Colombia to the US, from Denmark to China.<br>
Put together, scaling up just this set of solutions can cut global
emissions by a quarter compared with today's levels. If coupled with
other existing solutions, this would take us to pathways compatible
with limiting global warming to a maximum of 2°C.<br>
Would this happen at a "beyond astronomical" economic cost? Not at
all.<br>
The annual costs, averaged over time, would be at most $94 billion
by 2030. That is equal to the GDP of the Slovak Republic or less
than a fifth of the global direct fossil fuel subsidies today.<br>
This is the pessimistic end of the cost range. The average estimate
suggests that the world could actually save money by implementing
these solutions.<br>
To be clear: no new technology is required - only what we already
have today. No new levels of achievement are assumed - only others
achieving what some have done already today.<br>
The Green to Scale findings are largely supported by various other
studies, from the <a href="http://newclimateeconomy.net/"
target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing:
inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration:
underline; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); transition: opacity 0.3s;">New
Climate Economy reports</a> to the <a
href="http://deepdecarbonization.org/" target="_blank"
rel="noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: inherit;
background-color: transparent; text-decoration: underline; color:
rgb(0, 0, 0); transition: opacity 0.3s;">Deep Decarbonization
Pathways Project</a>. We can reduce emissions to sustainable
pathways in the short and medium term with what we have today. We do
not - and we most definitely should not - wait for miracle
technologies and breakthroughs.<br>
Mr Gates is of course right about the importance of innovation.
Through innovation we can make existing low-carbon technologies
cheaper and more effective. We can also uncover the solutions we
will need in the long run, when the world has to reach zero and
eventually negative emissions.<br>
We need to scale up existing low-carbon solutions rapidly. And at
the same time we need to invest heavily in innovation, just like Mr
Gates is suggesting (and doing).<br>
This is the recipe for winning the climate fight.<br>
<em style="box-sizing: inherit; font-style: italic;"><strong
style="box-sizing: inherit; font-weight: bold;">Oras Tynkkynen</strong></em><br>
<em style="box-sizing: inherit; font-style: italic;">This post was <a
href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/oras-tynkkynen/why-bill-gates-is-wrong_b_8747108.html"
target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing:
inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration:
underline; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); transition: opacity 0.3s;">originally
published</a> as part of a "Nordic Solutions" series produced by
The Huffington Post, in conjunction with the U.N.'s 21st
Conference of the Parties (COP21) in Paris (Nov. 30-Dec. 11), aka
the climate-change conference. The series will put a spotlight on
climate solutions from the five Nordic countries, and is part of
Huffington Post's <a
href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/news/whats-working/"
target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing:
inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration:
underline; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); transition: opacity 0.3s;">What's
Working</a> editorial initiative. To view the entire series,
visit <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/news/paris-cop21/"
target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing:
inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration:
underline; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); transition: opacity 0.3s;">here</a>.</em><br>
<font size="-1"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.sitra.fi/en/blogs/bill-gates-wrong/">https://www.sitra.fi/en/blogs/bill-gates-wrong/</a></font><br>
<br>
<br>
Can Fossil Fuel Companies Be Held Liable for Climate Change Source<br>
Tobacco litigator talks about RICO against Oil Industry<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://youtu.be/2QzWRVtP31A?t=25m33s">https://youtu.be/2QzWRVtP31A?t=25m33s</a><br>
After 15 years of climate change litigation, the question of whether
anybody can be held legally liable for the adverse impacts of
climate change remains unanswered. However, the Trump
administration's effort to roll back climate regulation in the
United States; the devastation caused by Hurricanes Maria, Irma and
Harvey; developments in the science of climate change attribution;
and a handful of recent lawsuits filed by cities and counties in
California have put the question front and center. This panel
discussion will look at one particular set of defendants - companies
involved in the extraction, production and marketing of fossil
fuels. Panelists will summarize the current state of attribution
science, and present core legal arguments for and against liability.<br>
<br>
<br>
<b><a
href="https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2017/nov/07/fog-smog-and-eco-drag-performers-tackling-climate-change-shoot-the-breeze-festival">Fog,
smog and eco-drag: these climate change dramas are a breath of
fresh air</a></b><br class="Apple-interchange-newline">
From cabaret to a witty teenage odyssey, the Shoot the Breeze
festival at Camden People's theatre considers global warming and
pollution in striking style.<br>
Was Shakespeare a chronicler of climate-change disaster? A Midsummer
Night's Dream presents nature in crisis, brought about by the
disruptions of the fairy and human worlds. In Joe Hill-Gibbins'<span>
</span><a
href="https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2017/feb/24/a-midsummer-nights-dream-review-young-vic-london"
data-link-name="in body link" class="u-underline"
style="background: transparent; touch-action: manipulation; color:
rgb(0, 86, 137); cursor: pointer; text-decoration: none
!important; border-bottom: 0.0625rem solid rgb(220, 220, 220);
transition: border-color 0.15s ease-out;">glumly dark revival</a><span> </span>at
the Young Vic this year, the stage was covered in mud, suggesting
not only how relationships get bogged down but also a sliding-away
world of rotting crops and drowned fields. As Titania proposes, it
is down to us to acknowledge responsibility for this "progeny of
evils". But isn't it odd that what is seen by many as one of the
greatest challenges of our time receives so little theatrical
attention, particularly in the mainstream?<br>
<a
href="https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2014/nov/05/climate-change-theatre-2071-katie-mitchell-duncan-macmillan"
data-link-name="in body link" class="u-underline"
style="background: transparent; touch-action: manipulation; color:
rgb(0, 86, 137); cursor: pointer; text-decoration: none
!important; border-bottom: 0.0625rem solid rgb(220, 220, 220);
transition: border-color 0.15s ease-out;">Katie Mitchell</a><span> </span>has
vowed to make one work a year that addresses environmental issues;
at the Royal Court, her collaborations with scientists in the
dramatised lectures Ten Billion and 2071 presented the world that
our children - and theirs - will inherit. This year the remarkable
Slung Low have produced a three-part epic,<span> </span><a
href="https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2017/oct/01/flood-review-good-story-sadly-submerged-victoria-dock-hull-slung-low"
data-link-name="in body link" class="u-underline"
style="background: transparent; touch-action: manipulation; color:
rgb(0, 86, 137); cursor: pointer; text-decoration: none
!important; border-bottom: 0.0625rem solid rgb(220, 220, 220);
transition: border-color 0.15s ease-out;">Flood</a>, in Hull,
which is the 2017 city of culture and could also be one of the first<span> </span><a
href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/experts-fear-for-hulls-future-as-sea-levels-continue-to-rise-10285219.html"
data-link-name="in body link" class="u-underline"
style="background: transparent; touch-action: manipulation; color:
rgb(0, 86, 137); cursor: pointer; text-decoration: none
!important; border-bottom: 0.0625rem solid rgb(220, 220, 220);
transition: border-color 0.15s ease-out;">UK cities to be drowned
as sea levels rise</a>.<br>
Maybe it is hard to make audiences face the facts when theatre
companies can be part of the problem. Buildings gobble resources and
touring makes a carbon footprint. The carbon-neutral<span> </span><a
href="https://www.arcolatheatre.com/about/green/"
data-link-name="in body link" class="u-underline"
style="background: transparent; touch-action: manipulation; color:
rgb(0, 86, 137); cursor: pointer; text-decoration: none
!important; border-bottom: 0.0625rem solid rgb(220, 220, 220);
transition: border-color 0.15s ease-out;">Arcola</a><span> </span>in
east London is still the exception rather than the rule. Earlier
this year, the Royal Shakespeare Company staged a double bill,<span> </span><a
href="https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2017/may/28/the-earthworks-myth-review-rsc-the-other-place-stratford-upon-avon"
data-link-name="in body link" class="u-underline"
style="background: transparent; touch-action: manipulation; color:
rgb(0, 86, 137); cursor: pointer; text-decoration: none
!important; border-bottom: 0.0625rem solid rgb(220, 220, 220);
transition: border-color 0.15s ease-out;">Myth and Earthworks</a>,
that pointed the finger at personal and governmental inaction. In
Myth, written by Kirsty Housley, a dinner party turns bad as dead
birds flop from the ceiling and oil runs down the walls. But why
should we take this warning seriously when the RSC continues to take
sponsorship from BP?<br>
In a 12-day festival in London,<span> </span><a
href="https://www.cptheatre.co.uk/wp_theatre_season/shoot-the-breeze/"
data-link-name="in body link" class="u-underline"
style="background: transparent; touch-action: manipulation; color:
rgb(0, 86, 137); cursor: pointer; text-decoration: none
!important; border-bottom: 0.0625rem solid rgb(220, 220, 220);
transition: border-color 0.15s ease-out;">Shoot the Breeze</a>,
Camden People's theatre is addressing global warming, pollution and
the environment. The lineup has included a laid-back, cabaret-style
entertainment entitled<span> </span><a
href="https://www.cptheatre.co.uk/production/ffs/"
data-link-name="in body link" class="u-underline"
style="background: transparent; touch-action: manipulation; color:
rgb(0, 86, 137); cursor: pointer; text-decoration: none
!important; border-bottom: 0.0625rem solid rgb(220, 220, 220);
transition: border-color 0.15s ease-out;">FFS!!</a><span> </span>by
Timberlina, "the bearded drag lady who gives a shit", which gently
sends up eco-anxiety. The show teases rather than preaches as
Timberlina satirises middle-class and hipster concerns around
upcycling and wood-burning stoves. Anxiety was also the theme of<span> </span><a
href="http://www.louisewhitetheatrician.com/" data-link-name="in
body link" class="u-underline" style="background: transparent;
touch-action: manipulation; color: rgb(0, 86, 137); cursor:
pointer; text-decoration: none !important; border-bottom:
0.0625rem solid rgb(220, 220, 220); transition: border-color 0.15s
ease-out;">Louise White</a>'s work in progress<span> </span><a
href="https://www.cptheatre.co.uk/production/the-dead-sea/"
data-link-name="in body link" class="u-underline"
style="background: transparent; touch-action: manipulation; color:
rgb(0, 86, 137); cursor: pointer; text-decoration: none
!important; border-bottom: 0.0625rem solid rgb(220, 220, 220);
transition: border-color 0.15s ease-out;">The Dead Sea</a>, an
image-rich show about a marine biologist who is investigating the
effects of plastic in the oceans on the food chain, and has become
scared of the sea. The Dead Sea will tour the east Midlands early
next year, by which time its metaphor about how fear paralyses and
stops us changing the future should be a keener one.<br>
Later on at Shoot the Breeze, the all-female theatre ensemble Urban
Foxes Collective will consider the ethics of reproduction in an
overpopulated world in their show<span> </span><a
href="https://www.cptheatre.co.uk/production/floods/"
data-link-name="in body link" class="u-underline"
style="background: transparent; touch-action: manipulation; color:
rgb(0, 86, 137); cursor: pointer; text-decoration: underline;
border-bottom: 0.0625rem solid rgb(110, 153, 179); transition:
border-color 0.15s ease-out; outline: 0px; border-top-color:
rgb(110, 153, 179); border-right-color: rgb(110, 153, 179);
border-left-color: rgb(110, 153, 179);">Floods</a>. The festival's
centrepiece production is Fog Everywhere, directed by Guardian
journalist<span> </span><a
href="https://www.theguardian.com/profile/brianlogan"
data-link-name="in body link" class="u-underline"
style="background: transparent; touch-action: manipulation; color:
rgb(0, 86, 137); cursor: pointer; text-decoration: none
!important; border-bottom: 0.0625rem solid rgb(220, 220, 220);
transition: border-color 0.15s ease-out;">Brian Logan</a>, made in
collaboration with local teenagers and with scientific input from
the Lung Biology Group at King's College London. In the show, a
group of young people consider their future as they try to breathe
in a city that this year had breached its targeted annual limit on
air pollution<span> </span><a
href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/jan/06/london-breaches-toxic-air-pollution-limit-for-2017-in-just-five-days"
data-link-name="in body link" class="u-underline"
style="background: transparent; touch-action: manipulation; color:
rgb(0, 86, 137); cursor: pointer; text-decoration: none
!important; border-bottom: 0.0625rem solid rgb(220, 220, 220);
transition: border-color 0.15s ease-out;">by 5 January</a>. As in
The Dead Sea, mental health is an issue: could pollution be a factor
in the panic attacks one girl graphically describes?<br>
This is a show about personal responsibility that looks back to the
smog of the Victorian era and, in particular, Robert Louis
Stevenson's descriptions of it in<span> </span><a
href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2010/aug/16/ian-rankin-dr-jekyll-mr-hyde"
data-link-name="in body link" class="u-underline"
style="background: transparent; touch-action: manipulation; color:
rgb(0, 86, 137); cursor: pointer; text-decoration: none
!important; border-bottom: 0.0625rem solid rgb(220, 220, 220);
transition: border-color 0.15s ease-out;">The Strange Case of Dr
Jekyll and Mr Hyde</a>. But it also has its eye on the future. The
young people describe their own lives and the way they want to be
living in 2040 when they will be approaching the age of 40. Most of
them don't want to raise children in London.<br>
There are balloon-blowing competitions, personal revelations, an
attempt to sell us canned air and lots of irreverent teenage wit.
Great play is made of grime music and the griminess of the city. The
show constantly balances the perks of living in a city with the
perils, including its unseen pollution. During the work's 65-minute
duration, the roar of traffic on Hampstead Road can be clearly heard
inside the theatre.<br>
At one point, a teenager holds a torch up in the dark, trying to
show us what cannot be seen: the invisible particles that poison the
air. Maybe we haven't progressed as far as we like to think from the
dirty air of Victorian London: more than<span> </span><a
href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/jul/15/nearly-9500-people-die-each-year-in-london-because-of-air-pollution-study"
data-link-name="in body link" class="u-underline"
style="background: transparent; touch-action: manipulation; color:
rgb(0, 86, 137); cursor: pointer; text-decoration: none
!important; border-bottom: 0.0625rem solid rgb(220, 220, 220);
transition: border-color 0.15s ease-out;">9,000 Londoners die each
year from pollution</a>. These youngsters make you think about
every breath you take.<br>
<span class="bullet" style="font-size: 0.00625rem; line-height:
0.00625rem; color: transparent;">•</span><span> </span><a
href="https://www.cptheatre.co.uk/production/fog-everywhere/"
data-link-name="in body link" class="u-underline"
style="background: transparent; touch-action: manipulation; color:
rgb(0, 86, 137); cursor: pointer; text-decoration: none
!important; border-bottom: 0.0625rem solid rgb(220, 220, 220);
transition: border-color 0.15s ease-out;">Fog Everywhere</a><span> </span>and<span> </span><a
href="https://www.cptheatre.co.uk/" data-link-name="in body link"
class="u-underline" style="background: transparent; touch-action:
manipulation; color: rgb(0, 86, 137); cursor: pointer;
text-decoration: none !important; border-bottom: 0.0625rem solid
rgb(220, 220, 220); transition: border-color 0.15s ease-out;">Shoot
the Breeze festival</a><span> </span>continue at Camden People's
theatre, London, until 11 November. Box office: 020-7419 4841.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2017/nov/07/fog-smog-and-eco-drag-performers-tackling-climate-change-shoot-the-breeze-festival">https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2017/nov/07/fog-smog-and-eco-drag-performers-tackling-climate-change-shoot-the-breeze-festival</a><br>
<br>
<br>
<font size="+1"><b><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2014/11/09/scientists-speak-climate-change/Ht0r44A5PWPmr4uJL8167N/story.html">This
Day in Climate History November 9, 2014 </a> - from D.R.
Tucker</b></font><br>
November 9, 2014: Boston Globe columnist James Carroll observes: <br>
<blockquote>"What would it take for the public to get clear both on
the unanimity of climate scientists, and on the urgency of what
they see coming? An answer from the recent past suggests itself:
scientists, instead of merely providing activists and journalists
with irrefutable climate data, must leave their cloistered
laboratories to become activists themselves. Scientists must take
to the streets and lead, even if that means taking hits in the
contentious public square."<br>
</blockquote>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2014/11/09/scientists-speak-climate-change/Ht0r44A5PWPmr4uJL8167N/story.html">http://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2014/11/09/scientists-speak-climate-change/Ht0r44A5PWPmr4uJL8167N/story.html</a><br>
<br>
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