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<font size="+1"><i>March 30, 2018</i></font><br>
<br>
[Exxon loses in court]<br>
<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://www.climateliabilitynews.org/2018/03/29/exxon-climate-fraud-lawsuit-ny-mass-schneiderman-healey/"><b>Federal
Judge Dismisses Exxon Lawsuit Challenging State Climate Probes</b></a><br>
By Karen Savage<br>
A federal judge dismissed Exxon's lawsuit attempting to stop
investigations by two state attorneys general into potential climate
fraud by the company, which the company claimed are politically
motivated and in violation of its Constitutional rights.<br>
Ruling that Exxon's allegations against Massachusetts Attorney
General Maura Healey and New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman
are "implausible" and brought "on the basis of extremely thin
allegations and speculative inferences," U.S. District Court Judge
Valerie Caproni dismissed the suit with prejudice on Thursday.<br>
In the suit, Exxon claimed the investigations are an abuse of the
AGs' political positions and violated the oil giant's First, Fourth
and Fourteenth amendment rights. The case was first filed in the
U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas in June 2016,
but was transferred to New York last year.<br>
In Thursday's decision, Caproni called Exxon's allegations that the
investigations are politically motivated a "wild stretch of logic."<br>
She wrote that the company's claims all centered around a single
press conference and a handful of meetings with climate activists.
Caproni said the company relied on a narrative that was "the result
of cherry-picking snippets from the transcript of the press
conference."<br>
To further illustrate her point, Caproni included the complete
quotes from Healey and Schneiderman in her ruling.<br>
"Nothing that was said can fairly be read to constitute declaration
of a political vendetta against Exxon," wrote Caproni, who said
Exxon's arguments also fail "to tie the AGs to any improper motive,
if it exists" among activists.<br>
Caproni said while Exxon says it shares Schneiderman's and Healey's
belief that climate change is real, that does not erase the
possibility that Exxon may have "sowed confusion" to fraudulently
bolster its bottom line.<br>
She said the company's communications with outside groups are
potentially relevant, particularly if Exxon "knowingly helped
climate-change deniers craft a messaging strategy that was
consistent with Exxon's political desire to avoid regulations
harmful to its economic interests but inconsistent with its internal
understanding of climate change."<br>
The ruling was welcome news for the attorneys general, who have
expended significant energy defending themselves from Exxon's legal
pushback. At one point the Texas federal judge nearly required
Healey to submit to a deposition by Exxon.<br>
"Exxon has run a scorched earth campaign to avoid answering our
basic questions about the company's awareness of climate change,"
Healey said in a statement. "Today, a federal judge has thoroughly
rejected the company's obstructionist and meritless arguments to
block our investigation. Massachusetts customers and investors
deserve answers from Exxon about what it has known about the impact
of burning fossil fuels on its business and the planet, and whether
it hid this information from the public." More at:<br>
<font size="-1"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.climateliabilitynews.org/2018/03/29/exxon-climate-fraud-lawsuit-ny-mass-schneiderman-healey/">https://www.climateliabilitynews.org/2018/03/29/exxon-climate-fraud-lawsuit-ny-mass-schneiderman-healey/</a></font><br>
<br>
<br>
[PR industry opinion]<br>
<b><a
href="http://www.odwyerpr.com/story/public/10414/2018-03-29/epa-pushes-misinformation-climate-change.html"
moz-do-not-send="true">EPA Pushes Misinformation on Climate
Change</a></b><br>
Mar. 29, 2018 - By Kevin McCauley<br>
Hey EPA chief, Scott Pruitt! The good guys won the "debate" on
whether humans contribute to global warming, which is not exactly
"hot news."<br>
In 2014, the US National Academy of Sciences and UK's Royal Society
issued a report called "Climate Change: Evidence and Causes," which
stated: "Scientists know that recent climate change is largely
caused by human activities from an understanding of basic physics,
comparing observations with models and fingerprinting the detailed
patterns of climate change caused by different human and natural
influences."<br>
And how about: "All major climate changes, including natural ones,
are disruptive. Past climate changes led to extinction of many
species, population migrations, and pronounced changes in the land
surface and ocean circulation. The speed of the current climate
change is faster than most of the past events, making it more
difficult for human societies and the natural world to adapt."<br>
Wait, there's more: "Earth's lower atmosphere is becoming warmer and
moister as a result of human-emitted greenhouse gases. This gives
the potential for more energy for storms and certain severe weather
events. Consistent with theoretical expectations, heavy rainfalls
and snowfall events (which increase flooding) and heatwaves are
generally becoming more frequent."<br>
Let's shift to EPA fantasyland, in which the emaciated federal
environmental watchdog ignores science and spreads misinformation
about the jury being out on global warming.<br>
On March 27, EPA's public affairs shop distributed eight "talking
points" for guidance on global warming. Its purpose was to have its
communicators spread a consistent message. A consistent but flat out
wrong message.<br>
Among talking point gems:<br>
<blockquote><i>+ Human activity impacts our changing climate in some
manner. The ability to measure with precision the degree and
extent of that impact, and what to do about it, are subject to
continuing debate and dialogue.</i><i><br>
</i><i><br>
</i><i>+ While there has been extensive research and a host of
published reports on climate change, clear gaps remain including
our understanding of the role of human activity and what we can
do about it.</i><br>
</blockquote>
And the whopper: "Administrator Pruitt encourages an open,
transparent debate on climate science."<br>
The April 2 New Yorker profiles Pruitt as a man on a mission to
please Donald Trump, who, of course, says climate change is a hoax
invented by the Chinese to Keep America from Becoming Great Again.<br>
In the short-term, Pruitt, who was Attorney General of Oklahoma, is
keeping on Trump's good guy list in the hope of succeeding Jeff
Sessions, once he is bounced from the AG job.<br>
TNY reports Pruitt's longer-term goal is to succeed Trump as
president in 2024.<br>
God help both us and Mother Earth. <br>
<font size="-1"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="http://www.odwyerpr.com/story/public/10414/2018-03-29/epa-pushes-misinformation-climate-change.html">http://www.odwyerpr.com/story/public/10414/2018-03-29/epa-pushes-misinformation-climate-change.html</a></font><br>
[OK, time to check the science]<br>
<b><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory/ap-fact-check-science-contradicts-epa-warming-memo-54106679">AP
FACT CHECK: Science contradicts EPA warming memo</a></b><br>
By SETH BORENSTEIN AND MICHAEL BIESECKER, ASSOCIATED PRESS<br>
WASHINGTON - Mar 29, 2018<br>
Climate scientists say an internal U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency memo on how officials should talk to the public about global
warming doesn't reflect reality.<br>
EPA's public affairs office put out "a set of talking points about
climate change" to help the agency have a consistent message, the
Huffington Post reported this week.<br>
The Associated Press, which also obtained the memo, contacted 15
climate scientists. They all said EPA wasn't accurately portraying
the degree of knowledge that researchers know about climate change
and humanity's role. For decades, scientists have being saying that
the burning of fossil fuels increases greenhouse gases, such as
carbon dioxide, which trap heat and change the planet's climate in
many ways.<br>
EPA defended the memo.<br>
<b>THE MEMO</b><br>
"Human activity impacts our changing climate in some manner. The
ability to measure with precision the degree and extent of that
impact, and what to do about it, are subject to continuing debate
and dialogue."<br>
<b>THE SCIENCE</b><br>
"To say that 'human activity impacts our changing climate 'in some
manner', is analogous to saying the Germans were involved in WW II
'in some manner'," David Titley, a professor of meteorology at
Pennsylvania State University and retired U.S. Navy admiral, said in
an email.<br>
The EPA memo contradicts a November 2017 federal science report,
signed off by 13 government agencies, including the EPA. That report
says the world has warmed 1.2 degrees (0.65 Celsius) since 1950 and
that the likely human contribution to this was between 92 and 123
percent.<br>
It's more than 100 percent on one end, because some natural forces —
such as volcanoes and orbital cycle — are working to cool Earth, but
are being overwhelmed by the effects of greenhouse gases, said study
co-author Katharine Hayhoe of Texas Tech.<br>
Hayhoe, one of the scientists who criticized the EPA memo, said the
debate now is more about whether humanity's role is merely close to
100 percent of the warming or if it is it much more and offsetting
natural cooling.<br>
<b>THE MEMO</b><br>
"While there has been extensive research and a host of published
reports regarding climate change, clear gaps remain including our
understanding of the role of human activity and what we can do about
it."<br>
<b>THE SCIENCE</b><br>
Two scientists, Jonathan Overpeck, dean of environmental science at
the University of Michigan, and Michael Oppenheimer at Princeton
University each described the idea of gaps in scientific knowledge
as "flat out wrong." Scientists said there are some details that
aren't completely known, but not gaps in knowledge about what is
causing the problem and humanity's role.<br>
"Suggesting that there are gaps that remain in our understanding of
the role of human activity and possible solutions to the problem is
false equivalence at its finest," said Kathie Dello, an Oregon State
University climate scientist. "We know it's us and we know what we
have to do about it."<br>
Asked to provide any sources for the agency's contention that the
contribution of man-made carbon emissions in climate change is
unsettled, EPA spokeswoman Enesta Jones issued this statement:<br>
"The talking points were developed by the Office of Public Affairs.
The Agency's work on climate adaptation continues under the
leadership of Dr. (Joel) Scheraga."<br>
<font size="-1"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory/ap-fact-check-science-contradicts-epa-warming-memo-54106679">http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory/ap-fact-check-science-contradicts-epa-warming-memo-54106679</a></font><br>
<br>
<br>
[Gaps need attention]<br>
<b><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2018/mar/28/climate-scientists-debate-a-flaw-in-the-paris-climate-agreement">Climate
scientists debate a flaw in the Paris climate agreement</a></b><br>
Ultimately the only thing that matters: we need to cut carbon
pollution as much as possible, as fast as possible<br>
In September 2017, a team led by the University of Exeter's Richard
Millar published a paper in Nature Geoscience, which was widely
reported as suggesting that the Paris climate agreement's
aspirational goal of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees C above
pre-industrial temperatures is still technically within our reach.
Many other climate scientists were skeptical of this result, and the
journal recently published a critique from a team led by the
University of Edinburgh's Andrew Schurer.<br>
The debate lies in exactly how the Paris climate target is defined
and measured, which has not been precisely established. Millar's
team used the UK Met Office and Hadley Centre global surface
temperature dataset called HadCRUT4, which begins in 1850 and
estimates global surface temperatures have warmed about 0.9 degrees
C since that time. The team thus calculated the remaining carbon
budget that will lead to an additional 0.6 degrees C warming.<br>
The three issues underlying the vague Paris target<br>
But HadCRUT4 has some significant flaws. First, it only covers 84%
of Earth's surface. There are large gaps in its coverage, mainly in
the Arctic, Antarctica, and Africa, where temperature monitoring
stations are relatively scarce. And the Arctic is the
fastest-warming part of the planet, which means that HadCRUT4
somewhat underestimates global warming...<br>
[video]<br>
<a moz-do-not-send="true" href="https://youtu.be/GhJR3ywIijo">Coverage
bias in the HadCUT4 temperature series and its impact o recent
temperature trends</a><br>
Coverage bias in the HadCRUT4 temperature series and its impact on
recent temperature trends.<br>
Cowtan & Way (2013) <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://youtu.be/GhJR3ywIijo">https://youtu.be/GhJR3ywIijo</a>
<br>
A second issue is that over the oceans, HadCRUT4 uses sea surface
temperatures, which haven't warmed quite as fast as air temperatures
directly above the ocean surface. There's also a third issue -
what's the start date from which we want to stay below 1.5 or 2
degrees C warming? The starting point in HadCRUT4 is 1850, but
another recent study led by Schurer found that starting even earlier
would add up to 0.2 degrees C to the warming we've already caused,
and thus shrink the remaining carbon budget.<br>
Taken all together, these three issues could mean that we've already
warmed 0.2-0.3 degrees C more than estimated in the Millar study,
which would mean a significantly smaller carbon budget. Each
additional 0.1 degrees C warming shrinks the remaining 2 degrees C
carbon budget by about 20%, so in that sense even one-tenth of a
degree is important in answering this question about our chances of
meeting the Paris targets...<br>
- - - - - - - <br>
Tackling climate change boils down to risk management. Global
temperatures are likely already hotter than at any time in the
history of human civilization, and warming at a rate 20 to 50 times
faster than Earth's fastest natural climate changes. Climate
contrarians like Trump's EPA administrator Scott Pruitt often ask
what's Earth's ideal temperature - the answer is that an ideal
climate is a stable one. Rapid climate changes like the one humans
are currently causing create problems that are difficult for species
to adapt to. We need to shift away from dangerously rapid climate
change to a stable climate as soon as possible...<br>
The ideal Paris target would thus have simply been "cut carbon
pollution as much as possible, as fast as possible." However,
governments need a concrete target on which to base their climate
policies. "As much and as fast as possible" is vague and subjective,
while "an 80% carbon pollution cut by 2050" is concrete, specific,
and translates into policy...<br>
The scientific debate over these few tenths of a degree of warming
is in some ways important and in other ways unimportant. It's
unimportant because climate scientists are trying to assess our
chances of meeting the Paris targets, but the 2 degrees C itself is
somewhat arbitrary. However, the Paris targets are important because
they provide a concrete goal that governments and policies can aim
for. And each additional tenth of a degree represents a greater risk
that we'll trigger a dangerous climate feedback, like a large
release of methane from beneath the permafrost or oceans, or the
collapse of a major ice shelf...<br>
The one point to take away from this debate is that no matter who's
right, we still need to cut carbon pollution as much as possible, as
fast as possible. Using the choices in the Millar paper would
suggest that we have a better chance of successfully meeting the
Paris target, but even if the international community decides they
like those choices best, it will still take everything we've got to
stay below that definition of 2 degrees C warming. <br>
If governments decide that based on the Millar paper they have a
larger carbon budget and can thus afford to act less quickly, that
would be an incorrect and dangerous interpretation. Climate policies
need to keep progressing and improving at full steam ahead.<br>
<font size="-1"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2018/mar/28/climate-scientists-debate-a-flaw-in-the-paris-climate-agreement">https://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2018/mar/28/climate-scientists-debate-a-flaw-in-the-paris-climate-agreement</a></font><br>
<br>
<br>
MOVING UPSTREAM S1 • E11<br>
<b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yXf-xcR8bdA">Why 'Deaths
of Despair' May Be a Warning Sign for America | Moving Upstream</a></b><br>
Wall Street Journal Published on Feb 27, 2018<br>
Does a decades-long rise in suicide among white Americans signal an
emerging crisis for U.S. capitalism and democracy? Nobel
prize-winning economist Angus Deaton, and his wife, fellow Princeton
Prof. Anne Case, share their provocative theory with WSJ's Jason
Bellini in this episode of Moving Upstream.<br>
<font size="-1"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yXf-xcR8bdA">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yXf-xcR8bdA</a></font><br>
<br>
<br>
[Book Review]<br>
<b><a
href="https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/wAFQIKWrKaKhrWcTInaJ/full">Holding
the Un-grievable: A Psychoanalytic Approach to the Environmental
Crisis. Review of Climate Crisis, Psychoanalysis, and Radical
Ethics, by Donna M. Orange. New York, NY: Routledge, 2017. 148
pp.</a></b><br>
Elizabeth Allured , Psy.D.<br>
Pages 239-246 | Published online: Feb 2018<br>
In the unfolding timeline of the deep history of Earth, our human
epoch, or the "Anthropocene," is a mere blink of the eye, the tiny
dot of a period punctuating the most recent sentence in an epic
ballad. Yet, that tiny dot, like a traumatic event in a childhood
left unhealed, has flowered into a paralyzing, cultural madness in
which many of us are now immersed. Donna Orange's book, Climate
Crisis, Psychoanalysis, and Radical Ethics, calls us to use our
psychoanalytic sensibilities to understand how our cultural ontology
allowed us to at first blindly and now, with eyes opening, engage in
the dysfunctional process of suicide via ecocide. It is scientific
fact that we have only several years' time to begin a process of
radically reducing our carbon emissions for many decades to come, to
avoid the extinction of our species within a century or two, or
perhaps much sooner. Half-Earth: Our Planet's Fight for Life. New
York: Norton and Company...In her unique text, Orange sees a panic
about this fact as appropriate and necessary to lead to adequate
action.<br>
<br>
Orange steps out of the typical territory of psychoanalysis, and
invites us to deeply examine our unconscious and conscious beliefs
about our "rights" to own and use, however we see fit, the landscape
and resources of the earth. Orange ties the current environmental
crisis to roots in colonialism and chattel slavery. Most
contemporary environmentalists do not focus on causal effects from
the 16th through the 19th centuries, and instead place blame
primarily on the steep rise in fossil fuel consumption from the
early 20th century onwards, and on our addiction to lifestyles based
on this. Orange turns the psychoanalytic lens to explore the
psychological underpinnings of our current environmental crisis,
focusing on Enlightenment egoism and Descartes's splitting of the
human mind from nature. These Western developments allowed
individuals to objectify a formerly contiguous and often deified
nature, setting the stage for the large-scale objectification and
colonization of land (and later, waters) and contents. Both slavery
and colonization rendered people and nature as a means to wealth
acquisition...<br>
- - - - - - - <br>
An impediment to the appropriate sense of urgency regarding the
current environmental crisis is that it is difficult for many of us
in the developed world to look at the facts and feel that our own
basic safety is sufficiently threatened to warrant significant
personal action. This unconscious or dissociated understanding that,
as Orange points out so well, we ourselves are part of the problem,
limits our imagination of the impending catastrophe or of the coming
decades, with more environmental crises unfolding at a rapidly
accelerating pace. Many people feel a generalized helplessness amid
culturally sanctioned ecoblindness, and are unwilling to be a lone
ethical actor in the absence of a large-scale international
effort...<br>
- - - - - - - -<br>
Orange reminds us in her groundbreaking and scholarly text, it is
time for us to turn our focus to the nonhuman environment if we are
to save ourselves from suicide. We experience both great longings
for, and great fears of, the nonhuman environment (Allured, 2012
Allured, E. (2012). Lonely for the Other Mother: Nature and the
Relational Fourth. In Loneliness and Longing, Conscious and
Unconscious Aspects. New York: Routledge. [Google Scholar], 2014
Allured, E. (2014). Blind Spot in the Analytic Lens: Our Failure to
Address Environmental Uncertainty. In Understanding and Coping with
Failure: Psychoanalytic Perspectives. New York: Routledge.<br>
[Google Scholar]), which we aggress upon, at times mercilessly.
Using the analytic lens, widened to include a focus on our
environmental ground-of-being, we are uniquely positioned to help
our patients and ourselves know and come to terms with loving and
destructive feelings concerning the larger ecosystem, which sustains
us all, but which can no longer survive our current assaults.<br>
<font size="-1"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/wAFQIKWrKaKhrWcTInaJ/full">https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/wAFQIKWrKaKhrWcTInaJ/full</a></font><br>
<br>
<br>
[Audio - Soundcloud Grief and Hope]<br>
<b><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://soundcloud.com/orphan-wisdom/orphan-wisdom-stephen-jenkinson-on-grief-and-climate-change">Stephen
Jenkinson - On Grief And Climate Change</a></b><br>
The following excerpt is from a longer talk recorded at Simon Fraser
University in Vancouver, Canada. The topic of the evening was
"Wisdom Working for Climate Change." People of the world are
unconsciously mourning the devastating impact we are having on our
planet. Stephen Jenkinson answers the question "Is it too late to
avoid catastrophe?"<br>
<font size="-1"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://soundcloud.com/orphan-wisdom/orphan-wisdom-stephen-jenkinson-on-grief-and-climate-change">https://soundcloud.com/orphan-wisdom/orphan-wisdom-stephen-jenkinson-on-grief-and-climate-change</a></font><br>
<br>
<br>
<font size="+1"><b>This Day in Climate History - March 30, 2015
- from D.R. Tucker</b></font><br>
March 30, 2015: The Washington Post connects the dots between New
Jersey Governor Chris Christie's ties to the Koch brothers and his
state's abandonment of clean-energy efforts.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/wind-power-or-hot-air-foes-question-christies-shift-on-clean-energy/2015/03/29/f8faf97e-d3e3-11e4-a62f-ee745911a4ff_story.html">http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/wind-power-or-hot-air-foes-question-christies-shift-on-clean-energy/2015/03/29/f8faf97e-d3e3-11e4-a62f-ee745911a4ff_story.html</a>
<br>
<br>
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