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<font size="+1"><i>August 7, 2018</i></font><br>
<br>
[From an academic study]<br>
<b><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/science/2018/08/06/hothouse-earth-runaway-global-warming-threatens-habitability-planet/916521002/">Hothouse
Earth: Runaway global warming threatens 'habitability of the
planet for humans'</a></b><br>
Doyle Rice, USA TODAY<br>
We've been warned. <br>
Runaway global warming on our planet remains a distinct possibility
in the decades and centuries ahead, scientists reported Monday in a
new study, warning that a "hothouse Earth" threatens the very
"habitability of the planet for human beings."<br>
Such a hothouse Earth climate would see global average temperatures
some 6 to 8 degrees Fahrenheit higher than they are now, with sea
levels 30 to 200 feet higher than today, the paper said.<br>
In addition, even if the carbon emission reductions called for in
the Paris Agreement are met - meaning a rise of no more than 3.6
degrees above preindustrial levels - that still may not be enough...<br>
- - - -<br>
The feedbacks include methane release from thawing permafrost, loss
of snow cover in the Northern Hemisphere, loss of Arctic summer sea
ice, and dramatic reduction of Antarctic sea ice and polar ice
sheets. <br>
"These tipping elements can potentially act like a row of dominoes,"
said study co-author Johan Rockstrom of the Stockholm Resilience
Centre, an independent research institute that specializes in
sustainable development and environmental issues.<br>
"It may be very difficult or impossible to stop the whole row of
dominoes from tumbling over. Places on Earth will become
uninhabitable if 'hothouse Earth' becomes the reality," he said.<br>
Steffen added that these feedbacks would be difficult to influence
by human actions. They could not be reversed, steered or
substantially slowed...<br>
<font size="-1"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/science/2018/08/06/hothouse-earth-runaway-global-warming-threatens-habitability-planet/916521002/">https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/science/2018/08/06/hothouse-earth-runaway-global-warming-threatens-habitability-planet/916521002/</a></font><br>
<br>
[Serious fires]<br>
<b><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://www.mercurynews.com/2018/08/06/california-fires-14000-firefighters-now-battling-16-major-blazes-across-state/">California
Fires: 14,000 firefighters now battling 16 major blazes across
state</a></b><br>
The Mendocino Complex Fire has become the largest wildfire in
recorded California history<br>
California's traditional fire season is not yet half over, but on
Monday an army of more than 14,000 firefighters battled 16 major
blazes around the state - fires that already have destroyed more
than 2,000 homes and killed nine people...<br>
- - - -<br>
More fire danger looms. A coming heat wave across Southern
California prompted the National Weather Service to issue a red flag
warning for large parts of Santa Barbara, Ventura and Los Angeles
counties through Tuesday.<br>
Temperatures were forecast to reach 95 degrees in downtown Los
Angeles and up to 108 degrees in the San Fernando Valley.
Forecasters said the high temperatures, very low humidity and gusty
winds up to 50 miles an hour would create extreme fire risk for the
mountain areas around Southern California, including the Los Padres
National Forest and Angeles National Forest...<br>
- - - - -<br>
Smoke across the state led to air quality advisories in the Sierra
and Central Valley. The Bay Area Air Quality Management District
also extended an air quality advisory through Thursday, urging
people who smell smoke to stay inside with windows and doors closed
and set air conditioning systems in their homes and cars to
re-circulate to prevent outside air from moving inside...<br>
<font size="-1"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.mercurynews.com/2018/08/06/california-fires-14000-firefighters-now-battling-16-major-blazes-across-state/">https://www.mercurynews.com/2018/08/06/california-fires-14000-firefighters-now-battling-16-major-blazes-across-state/</a><br>
</font>- - - - -<br>
PBS News Hour video <br>
<b><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a0heBE3IuOw">Climate
change is making wildfires more extreme. Here's how</a></b><br>
PBS NewsHour Published on Aug 6, 2018<br>
High winds, high temperatures, pervasive drought. These extreme
conditions are driving two enormous fires in California, and many
more throughout the American West and much of Northern and Western
Europe. William Brangham talks with Michael Mann of Pennsylvania
State University about the ways climate change is contributing to
the danger and destruction.<br>
Find more from PBS NewsHour at <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour">https://www.pbs.org/newshour</a><br>
<font size="-1"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a0heBE3IuOw">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a0heBE3IuOw</a></font><br>
<br>
<br>
[Trump tweetings]<br>
<b><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-hiltzik-trump-fires-20180806-story.html">In
a strikingly ignorant tweet, Trump gets almost everything about
California wildfires wrong</a></b><br>
What he overlooked, plainly, is the increasing agreement among
experts that intensifying climate change has contributed to the
intensity of the wildfire season. California's woodlands have been
getting drier and hotter. As my colleagues Rong-Gong Lin II and
Javier Panzar reported over the weekend, "California has been
getting hotter for some time, but July was in a league of its own."<br>
<blockquote>The idea that there isn't enough water is the craziest
thing in the world.<br>
PETER GLEICK, PACIFIC INSTITUTE <br>
</blockquote>
The current wildfires, which have killed nine people and consumed
nearly 400,000 acres of woodland, destroyed 1,100 homes and forced
the evacuation of thousands of residents, are among the worst in the
state's history. They're unrelated to water supplies or
environmental laws.<br>
<font size="-1"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="http://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-hiltzik-trump-fires-20180806-story.html">http://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-hiltzik-trump-fires-20180806-story.html</a></font><br>
- - - -<br>
[largest in state history]<br>
<b><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/california-fire-officials-plenty-water-fight-wildfires-trumps/story?id=57064370">California
fire officials say they have plenty of water to fight wildfires,
despite Trump's tweet</a></b><br>
By STEPHANIE EBBS Aug 6, 2018<br>
<a moz-do-not-send="true" href="https://gma.abc/2OqikRv">video</a> -
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://gma.abc/2OqikRv">https://gma.abc/2OqikRv</a><br>
<font size="-1"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/california-fire-officials-plenty-water-fight-wildfires-trumps/story?id=57064370">https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/california-fire-officials-plenty-water-fight-wildfires-trumps/story?id=57064370</a></font><br>
- - - -<br>
<b><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2018/08/trumps-nonsense-california-wildfires-water-shortages.html">Trump
Throws Word Salads at California Wildfire Crisis</a></b><br>
By Ed Kilgore<br>
It's hardly unprecedented for the president of the United States to
say nonsensical or completely mendacious things on Twitter, worded
strangely. But this tweet over the weekend was especially odd:<br>
<blockquote>California wildfires are being magnified & made so
much worse by the bad environmental laws which aren't allowing
massive amount of readily available water to be properly utilized.
It is being diverted into the Pacific Ocean. Must also tree clear
to stop fire spreading!<br>
- Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 5, 2018<br>
</blockquote>
As, well, just about every expert noted immediately, you don't stop
wildfires by spraying them with water like you'd do with a house
fire in a city.<br>
<br>
For wildland firefighters, the tools of the trade are Pulaskis,
rakes, shovels, and flamethrowers that burn clearings ahead of
towering infernos. Instead of fire engines, they use bulldozers.
Since these firefighters aren't usually using pump trucks and fire
hoses, they aren't limited by water. When they need to snuff out an
area, they often do it by air.<br>
And to the extent California firefighters do use water, they've got
plenty of it: Scott McLean, deputy chief for Cal Fire, tells me
there's no basis, "at all," for Trump's suggestion that firefighters
there are short of water: "I can reassure you we have water. There
is plenty of water."<br>
<br>
The business about water "being diverted in the Pacific Ocean" is
almost too weird to mock. After all, as one tweeter noted: "Water
running into the Pacific Ocean is called a river." And it's unclear
what any of this has to do with "bad environmental laws."<br>
Perhaps aware that readers did not seem to understand his meaning,
Trump weighed in a second time to make his complaint a personal one:<br>
<blockquote>Governor Jerry Brown must allow the Free Flow of the
vast amounts of water coming from the North and foolishly being
diverted into the Pacific Ocean. Can be used for fires, farming
and everything else. Think of California with plenty of Water -
Nice! Fast Federal govt. approvals.<br>
Donald J. Trump - - @realDonaldTrump 10:43 AM - Aug 6, 2018</blockquote>
You get a mental image of Brown as some sort of mythic giant bending
the course of huge cataracts of water and sending them past parched
farmlands and burning forests to dribble off into the distant
coastlands inhabited by the hippies and illegal immigrants who are
his party's base, in the imagination of MAGA people. But the
reference to farmers does provide a hint of where Trump is getting
his misinformation:<br>
Formally known as California Water Fix, the controversial project
would construct two tunnels beneath the Sacramento-San Joaquin River
Delta to connect freshwater from the river to aqueducts conveying
water south. It's been championed by Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown,
who is in his final year in office, but vehemently opposed by many
conservation groups and other Democratic politicians.<br>
<br>
No Republican pol is more closely associated with the demands for
more water for Central Valley farmers than Trump's staunch ally on
the Russian Front, Representative Devin Nunes. But Nunes should
probably explain to the president that it's Brown's refusal to
"divert" more water to the Central Valley via dams and pumping
stations that's his main beef. Farms already account for
three-fourths of California's water consumption, and
non-agricultural users have been subjected to mandatory conservation
measures that exclude farmers. Yes, California Republicans (like
their colleagues elsewhere) routinely demagogue about Brown and his
hippies protecting useless endangered fish species instead of
insatiably tapping the water that supports them. But with trout and
salmon now in serious trouble, that argument seems a little less
compelling than before...<br>
<font size="-1"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2018/08/trumps-nonsense-california-wildfires-water-shortages.html">http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2018/08/trumps-nonsense-california-wildfires-water-shortages.html</a></font><br>
<br>
<br>
[Wildfire report on PBS]<br>
<b><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/climate-change-is-making-wildfires-more-extreme-heres-how">Climate
change is making wildfires more extreme. Here's how</a></b><br>
Aug 6, 2018<br>
High winds, high temperatures, pervasive drought. These extreme
conditions are driving two enormous fires in California, and many
more throughout the American West and much of Northern and Western
Europe. William Brangham talks with Michael Mann of Pennsylvania
State University about the ways climate change is contributing to
the danger and destruction...<br>
- - - <br>
Dr. Michael Mann:<br>
<blockquote> Yes, so we're not saying that climate change is
literally causing the events to occur.<br>
<br>
What we can conclude with a great deal of confidence now is that
climate change is making these events more extreme. And it's not
rocket science. You warm up the atmosphere, it is going to hold
more moisture, you get larger flooding events, you get more
rainfall.<br>
You warm the planet, you're going to get more frequent and intense
heat waves. You warm the soils, you dry them out, you get worst
drought. You bring all that together, and those are all the
ingredients for unprecedented wildfires...<br>
</blockquote>
<font size="-1"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/climate-change-is-making-wildfires-more-extreme-heres-how">https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/climate-change-is-making-wildfires-more-extreme-heres-how</a><br>
</font>- - - -<br>
[Vox]<br>
<b><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://www.vox.com/2018/8/6/17655626/trump-wildfire-twitter-mendocino-complex-carr-california">Donald
Trump has some thoughts on fighting wildfires. They're nonsense.</a></b><br>
Humans are increasing wildfire risks, but "bad environmental laws"
aren't the problem.<br>
<font size="-1"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.vox.com/2018/8/6/17655626/trump-wildfire-twitter-mendocino-complex-carr-california">https://www.vox.com/2018/8/6/17655626/trump-wildfire-twitter-mendocino-complex-carr-california</a></font><br>
<br>
<br>
[lessons not learned, will be repeated]<br>
<b><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://www.salon.com/2018/08/05/on-climate-change-its-time-to-start-panicking/">On
climate change, it's time to start panicking</a></b><br>
The crisis over global warming warrants an unparalleled response<br>
MATTHEW ROZSA - AUGUST 5, 2018 - Salon<br>
It is time for us to panic about global warming. Indeed, a proper
state of panic is long overdue.<br>
Global warming has made the news for a number of reasons this week:
The<span> </span><a
href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-07-30/u-s-supreme-court-won-t-halt-teenagers-climate-change-lawsuit"
style="box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing:
antialiased; color: rgb(238, 44, 29); text-decoration: none;
background-color: transparent;">Supreme Court rejected a request
by President Donald Trump</a><span> </span>to halt a lawsuit by
children and teenagers to force the federal government to address
man-made climate change; Trump's Environmental Protection Agency and
Department of Transportation took new steps to<span> </span><a
href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/02/opinion/trumps-biggest-climate-move-yet-is-bad-for-everyone.html"
style="box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing:
antialiased; color: rgb(238, 44, 29); text-decoration: none;
background-color: transparent;">reverse President Barack Obama's
rules</a><span> </span>requiring car manufacturers to steadily
reduce greenhouse gas pollution from their vehicles;<span> </span><a
href="https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2018/08/02/politics/arnold-schwarzenegger-trump-environment/index.html"
style="box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing:
antialiased; color: rgb(238, 44, 29); text-decoration: none;
background-color: transparent;">former California Gov. Arnold
Schwarzenegger</a><span> </span>denounced those same Trump
policies as "stupid"; and The New York Times ran a<span> </span><a
href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/08/01/magazine/climate-change-losing-earth.html#main"
style="box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing:
antialiased; color: rgb(238, 44, 29); text-decoration: none;
background-color: transparent;">brilliant piece</a><span> </span>documenting
how, between 1979 and 1989, the world had the opportunity to
effectively address man-made climate change... and squandered it.<br>
Yet this is one of those issues in which - because there are so many
twists and turns and overwhelming details - it is easy to lose sight
of a crucial fact: If we do not resolve the problem of man-made
climate change, it could quite literally spell the end of human
civilization.<br>
"There will be and already is major consequences and they grow over
time. It does not look good,"<span> </span><a
href="http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/staff/trenbert/" style="box-sizing:
border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; color: rgb(238,
44, 29); text-decoration: none; background-color: transparent;">Kevin
Trenberth</a>, a a Distinguished Senior Scientist in the Climate
Analysis Section at the National Center for Atmospheric Research at
the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research, told Salon by
email. "The effects are always local but there are more and more of
them and the consequences are major. These includes floods and
drought, heat waves and wild fires." He also pointed Salon in the
direction of a paper he co-authored that elaborated on how<span> </span><a
href="http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/staff/trenbert/trenberth.pdf/2018_Trenberth_et_al-Earths_Future.pdf"
style="box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing:
antialiased; color: rgb(238, 44, 29); text-decoration: none;
background-color: transparent;">Hurricane Harvey in particular
could be linked to climate change</a>.<br>
Indeed, the California wildfires that ravaged America's most
populous state last month provide a major example of the dangers of
man-made climate change discussed by Trenberth. A number of
scientists have come out to argue that the devastating blazes were
at the very least exacerbated by climate change,<span> </span><a
href="https://www.sfchronicle.com/science/article/Scientists-see-fingerprints-of-climate-change-all-13128585.php"
style="box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing:
antialiased; color: rgb(238, 44, 29); text-decoration: none;
background-color: transparent;">according to the San Francisco
Chronicle</a>. As Jennifer Francis, a professor at Rutgers
University who studies atmospheric circulation, told the newspaper
regarding the searing heat weave and weaker wind patterns, "We're
seeing this mix of conditions across North America and Europe, but
they're all connected. The weather patterns are just stuck. They're
trapped."<br>
The good news is that humanity hasn't passed the point of no return,
at least when it comes to the total destruction of our species (we
have definitely passed that point when it comes to avoiding any
kinds of lasting consequences). If we are to stave off even worse
examples of extreme weather than the hurricanes, wildfires, floods,
droughts and heat waves we've already experienced, however, we need
to start implementing intelligent policies - and do so now.<br>
"I would place a price on carbon," Michael E. Mann, a Distinguished
Professor of Atmospheric Science at Penn State, told Salon by email.
"Whether this takes the form of a carbon tax (a revenue-neutral
carbon tax? fee and dividend? cap-and-trade?), I leave that to the
policymakers to determine as long as they accept, as the premise for
policy, what the science has to say about the reality and threat of
climate change. The price on carbon needs to be set such that it
leads to a reduction in carbon emissions of several percent a year
for the next few decades. If we do that, we can avoid a catastrophic
2C (~3.5 F) warming of the planet."<br>
He also rejected the idea promoted by many on the left that a
lasting solution to global warming is impossible under a free-market
capitalist economic system.<br>
<br>
"I'm unconvinced that is true," Mann explained. "In the past, market
mechanisms for pricing environmental externalities have worked. We
acted on acid rain and ozone depletion within a market economy
framework. The real problem, in my view, isn't the nature of our
economic system, it's the way that special interests and plutocrats
have blocked the sort of common-sense market approaches to dealing
with environmental problems that were once supported by democrats
and republicans alike. The problem is the moral and ethical rot that
now lies at the very center of the republican establishment, the
lack of good faith and the total sellout to special interests and
plutocrats."<br>
Ken Caldeira from the Carnegie Institute for Science's Department of
Global Ecology offered another observation about the economic
considerations that need to be taken into account when trying to
develop an energy policy that effectively confronts global warming.<br>
<br>
"We will also need to have policies that wisely balance competing
interests based on some sort of rational analysis of the facts. No
energy technology is without its downsides," Caldeira told Salon by
email. "Solar farms in the desert will disrupt desert ecosystems,
and we will need new power lines. Many think, and with some good
reason, that nuclear power could be an important tool for solving
the climate problem, but nuclear is expensive and has other
problems. These kind of permitting issues require good public policy
and thoughtful decision making. There will be no consensus so we
need good government to balance competing interests."<br>
<br>
He added, "Lastly, this can't happen only in the United States or
Europe. The whole world needs to develop based on near-zero emission
technologies, and so would need to enact similar policies. Of
course, with so many demands on limited resources, and such
inequitable distribution of wealth, this remains a challenge."<br>
<br>
Perhaps most important of all, at least in the immediate sense, is
that Americans need to elect a president who will renew this
country's participation in the Paris climate accord.<br>
"It was a huge setback," Trenberth told Salon regarding Trump's
decision to pull the United States out of that agreement. "The US
has to lead and set an example and this is lacking. Under Obama
progress was evident but the Congress is hopeless and in the pocket
of fossil fuels. This is more than a setback, it has major
consequences and is already costly hundreds of billions of dollars
(witness Harvey etc)."<br>
<font size="-1">MATTHEW ROZSA<br>
Matthew Rozsa is a breaking news writer for Salon. He holds an MA
in History from Rutgers University-Newark and is ABD in his PhD
program in History at Lehigh University. His work has appeared in
Mic, Quartz and MSNBC.<br>
<font size="-2"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.salon.com/2018/08/05/on-climate-change-its-time-to-start-panicking/">https://www.salon.com/2018/08/05/on-climate-change-its-time-to-start-panicking/</a></font></font><br>
<br>
<br>
[and possibly, the future]<br>
<b><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://climatecrocks.com/2018/08/06/more-evidence-for-a-hot-ancient-earth/">More
Evidence for a Hot Ancient Earth</a></b><br>
August 6, 2018<br>
Actually not that ancient, geologically.<br>
[brief video explains it well <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://youtu.be/5wiC4uhvDvA">https://youtu.be/5wiC4uhvDvA</a>
]<br>
<blockquote><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://youtu.be/5wiC4uhvDvA">Dr. Aradhna Tripati on
Undersea Methane</a><br>
greenmanbucket - Published on Oct 15, 2014<br>
Dr Aradhna Triipati is a paleoclimate expert with many years of
research on undersea sediments and the paleo temperature record.
This is from a longer interview I conducted earlier this year.<br>
</blockquote>
50 or so million years ago, things were pretty damn hot. Problem is
we are not sure why, as climate models have trouble reproducing the
temperatures that rocks show prevailed at that time - so some kind
of as-yet-not understood feedback may have been in play. Methane?
Possibly, but does that mean we are headed for that future?<br>
Again, unclear. Aradhna Tripati (above), and James Hansen (below)
above walk thru the known unknowns.<br>
<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/08/earths-scorching-hot-history/566762/">The
Atlantic:</a> <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/08/earths-scorching-hot-history/566762/">https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/08/earths-scorching-hot-history/566762/</a><br>
<blockquote>But the most striking feature of this early age of
mammals is that it was almost unbelievably hot, so hot that around
50 million years ago there were crocodiles, palm trees, and sand
tiger sharks in the Arctic Circle. On the other side of the
blue-green orb, in waters that today would surround Antarctica,
sea-surface temperatures might have topped an unthinkable 86
degrees Fahrenheit, with near-tropical forests on Antarctica
itself. There were perhaps even sprawling, febrile dead zones
spanning the tropics, too hot even for animal or plant life of any
sort.<br>
<br>
This is what you get in an ancient atmosphere with around 1,000
parts per million (ppm) of carbon dioxide. If this number sounds
familiar, 1,000 ppm of CO2 is around what humanity is on pace to
reach by the end of this century. That should be mildly
concerning.<br>
<br>
"You put more CO2 in the atmosphere and you get more warming,
that's just super-simple physics that we figured out in the 19th
century," says David Naafs, an organic geochemist at the
University of Bristol. "But exactly how much it will warm by the
end of the century, we don't know. Based on our research of these
ancient climates, though, it's probably more than we thought."...<br>
</blockquote>
<font size="-1"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://climatecrocks.com/2018/08/06/more-evidence-for-a-hot-ancient-earth/">https://climatecrocks.com/2018/08/06/more-evidence-for-a-hot-ancient-earth/</a></font><br>
<br>
<br>
[BBC radio]<br>
<b><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0bd6y5p#play">Domino-effect
as Earth moves to 'hothouse' state</a></b><br>
from about 1:50 for 7 mins or so. [even prayer at 1:48]<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0bd6y5p#play">https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0bd6y5p#play</a><br>
<br>
<br>
[More reaction to the NYTimes blunder]<br>
<b><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2018/aug/06/the-gop-and-big-oil-cant-escape-blame-for-climate-change-dana-nuccitelli">The
GOP and Big Oil can't escape blame for climate change</a></b><br>
Dana Nuccitelli<br>
The New York Times magazine blames 'human nature,' but the true
culprits have already been fingered<br>
<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/08/01/magazine/climate-change-losing-earth.html">Last
week's issue of the New York Times magazine</a> was devoted to a
single story by Nathaniel Rich that explored how close we came to an
international climate agreement in 1989, and why we failed. The
piece is worth reading - it's a well-told, mostly accurate, and very
informative story about a key decade in climate science and policy
history. But sadly, it explicitly excuses the key players
responsible for our continued failure.<br>
<br>
Culprit #1: The Republican Party<br>
Rich's piece immediately goes off the rails in its Prologue, where
he argues that the GOP isn't responsible - at least not for the
climate failures up to 1989:<br>
<blockquote>Nor can the Republican Party be blamed…during the 1980s,
many prominent Republicans joined Democrats in judging the climate
problem to be a rare political winner: nonpartisan and of the
highest possible stakes.<br>
</blockquote>
However, his story is peppered with examples that contradict this
narrative. The world's foremost climate scientists had published the
groundbreaking<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://www.nap.edu/catalog/12181/carbon-dioxide-and-climate-a-scientific-assessment">
National Academy of Sciences 'Charney Report'</a> in 1979,
concluding that a doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxide would most
likely cause 3°C of global warming (still the consensus today), and
as Rich summarizes:<br>
<blockquote>The last time the world was three degrees warmer was
during the Pliocene, three million years ago, when beech trees
grew in Antarctica, the seas were 80 feet higher and horses
galloped across the Canadian coast of the Arctic Ocean.<br>
</blockquote>
But Ronald Reagan was elected president the next year and came in
with a stark anti-environment agenda, including an effort to
eliminate the Energy Department's carbon dioxide program. In 1983,
the National Academy of Sciences published yet another major climate
report. It mostly reiterated the Charney report findings, but this
time the press briefing was run by Reagan appointee William
Nierenberg. In a glaring omission, Rich's story failed to note that
in 1984, Nierenberg founded the fossil fuel-funded, climate-denying
George C. Marshall Institute and proceeded to publish a variety of
reports denying mainstream scientific findings.<br>
<blockquote>The GMI put out, for example, one report, authored by N
himself, arguing that global warming was caused by the sun, and
another that CFCs weren't bad for ozone, and yet another claiming
that secondhand smoke was fine to breathe. <br>
</blockquote>
In the key 1983 press briefing, Nierenberg basically lied about the
climate report's findings, claiming it found no urgent need for
action. Nierenberg's false summary made headlines around the world
and stymied climate policy efforts for years to come. Only after
1985 when the discovery of ozone depletion captured worldwide
attention was climate change able to ride its coattails back into
serious policy discussions.<br>
<br>
Rich's story culminates with the first major global climate
conference in Noordwijk, the Netherlands, in 1989. More than 60
countries were deciding whether to endorse a framework for a global
climate treaty. George H.W. Bush had been elected president after
promising on the campaign trail, "Those who think we are powerless
to do anything about the greenhouse effect are forgetting about the
White House effect." But once he was in the White House, Bush
expressed little interest in global warming and appointed John
Sununu as his chief of staff. Sununu had earned a PhD in engineering
from MIT, but developed a conspiratorial view towards mainstream
science:<br>
<blockquote>Since World War II, he believed, conspiratorial forces
had used the imprimatur of scientific knowledge to advance an
"anti-growth" doctrine.<br>
</blockquote>
When the Swedish minister briefly emerged from a long and ongoing
closed-door negotiation at Noordwijk and was asked by an American
environmental activist what was going on, he answered, "Your
government is fucking this thing up!" Sununu had pressured the Bush
administration representative to force the conference to abandon a
commitment to freeze carbon emissions, and the Noordwijk conference
became the first in a long line of international climate
negotiations failures, thanks largely to the Republican
administration.<br>
<br>
Culprit #2: the fossil fuel industry<br>
In his unfortunate Prologue, Rich also describes the fossil fuel
industry as "a common boogeyman." He argues that the fossil fuel
industry didn't mobilize to kill the 1989 Noordwijk negotiation.
That's true, because it didn't have to; had the treaty even
succeeded, it would have just been the very first step in global
efforts to cut carbon pollution.<br>
<blockquote>Leah Stokes @leahstokes<br>
Yet, the facts in his article show Exxon was already planning to
resist policy in 1979. He quotes someone inside Exxon saying then:
It behooves us to start a very aggressive defensive program."<br>
<br>
Of course Exxon wasn't running a denial campaign until the 1990s.
They didn't need to yet. The threat of policy action was remote.
When action became more likely, that's when fossil fuel companies
started their lying in earnest.<br>
</blockquote>
Immediately after the Noordwijk shot came across its bow, the fossil
fuel industry launched a decades-long, many-million-dollar campaign
to undermine public trust of climate science and support for climate
policy. For example, the Global Climate Coalition (GCC) fossil fuel
industry group formed in 1989. By the time the 1992 Rio Earth Summit
rolled around, these polluter industry organizations began heavily
investing in disinformation campaigns to undermine international and
domestic climate policies. Speaking about the Rio summit, Bush
sounded like Donald Trump, saying:<br>
<blockquote>I'm not going to go to the Rio conference and make a bad
deal or be a party to a bad deal.<br>
</blockquote>
Bill Clinton proposed an energy tax to try and meet the treaty goals
anyway, but the GCC invested $1.8m in a disinformation campaign, and
Congress voted it down. The GCC then spent $13m to weaken support
for the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, and the Senate voted 95-0 to
pre-emptively declare its opposition to the treaty. Since then,
Exxon alone has given $31m to climate-denying organizations.<br>
<br>
It's been three decades since 1989<br>
The fossil fuel industry is one exceptionally wealthy, influential,
and powerful 'boogeyman.' As Rich notes in his Epilogue, it's also
been quite successful:<br>
<blockquote>More carbon has been released into the atmosphere since
the final day of the Noordwijk conference, Nov. 7, 1989, than in
the entire history of civilization preceding it<br>
</blockquote>
Apparently at a private dinner the night before his piece was
published, Rich described the fossil fuel industry as being "guilty
of crimes against humanity." It's a shame that his story took on
such a different tone. As Benjamin Franta, PhD student in the
history of science at Stanford summarized it:<br>
<blockquote>One common mistake in this NYT magazine piece is the
idea that companies like Exxon somehow changed from "good" (doing
research in the 1970s and '80s) to "bad" (promoting denial in the
'90s and 2000s). Exxon's own memos show that the purpose of its
research program was to influence regulation, not to solve the
climate problem per se. The industry-organized disinformation
campaign that emerged at the end of the 1980s was in response to
binding policies that were just then being proposed. If such
policies were proposed earlier, it stands to reason that the
industry response would have occurred earlier as well. To say that
industry disinformation isn't the whole story is to knock down a
straw man: the fact remains that it is a major--and perhaps the
most important--part of the story.<br>
</blockquote>
In the alternative universe where the Bush administration didn't
sabotage the Noordwijk climate treaty, the fossil fuel industry
would still have crippled global climate policies through its
misinformation campaign and by <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2016/jun/13/the-grand-oil-party-house-republicans-denounce-a-carbon-tax">purchasing
the Republican Party's climate denial complicity</a>. 1989 was a
missed opportunity, but the fossil fuel industry and GOP can't
escape responsibility for the ensuing three decades of climate
failures.<br>
<font size="-1"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2018/aug/06/the-gop-and-big-oil-cant-escape-blame-for-climate-change-dana-nuccitelli">https://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2018/aug/06/the-gop-and-big-oil-cant-escape-blame-for-climate-change-dana-nuccitelli</a></font><br>
<br>
<br>
<a
href="https://www.ft.com/content/78e652f6-9744-11e8-b747-fb1e803ee64e">https://www.ft.com/content/78e652f6-9744-11e8-b747-fb1e803ee64e</a><br>
<b><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://www.ft.com/content/78e652f6-9744-11e8-b747-fb1e803ee64e">ExxonMobil
avoids action from SEC on climate reporting</a></b><br>
Conclusion of two-and-a-half-year investigation disappoints
environmental groups<br>
Ed Crooks in New York AUGUST 3, 2018 <br>
ExxonMobil has escaped any enforcement action from the Securities
and Exchange Commission, the US financial regulator, over its
disclosures on its reserves and the impact of climate change on its
business, concluding an investigation lasting two and a half years.<br>
The decision is a setback for environmental campaigners, who had
hoped that an SEC action could force Exxon to change the ways it
discusses the risks created by climate change.<br>
The investigation was launched in January 2016, and since then the
leadership of the SEC has changed. Jay Clayton took over as chairman
in May last year, after being nominated by President Donald Trump.<br>
A decision to take action against Exxon could have prompted a
wide-ranging reassessment of disclosures related to climate change
and reserves among oil and gas companies reporting in the US.<br>
- - - <br>
<b>The Trump administration is the fossil fuel industry's fairy
godmother</b><br>
- - -<br>
Elliott Negin, Union of Concerned Scientists<br>
The regulator had been looking into what the company said about
climate change and the possible effects of policies to tackle the
threat of global warming, as well as Exxon's valuation of its assets
and reporting on its oil and gas reserves.<br>
<br>
After the fall in oil prices that began in 2014, Exxon initially
took much smaller charges for writing down the values of its assets
than its US rival Chevron.<br>
<br>
In February 2017, about a year after the SEC inquiry had been
launched, the company cut its reported oil and gas reserves by 19
per cent, as it revised away 3.5bn barrels of heavy bitumen at the
Kearl oil sands project in Canada.<br>
In a letter to Exxon's law firm on Thursday, the Fort Worth regional
office of the SEC said it had concluded its investigation, and
"based on the information we have as of this date, we do not intend
to recommend an enforcement action".<br>
It added the standard legal caveat that "this notice 'must in no way
be construed as indicating that the party has been exonerated or
that no action may ultimately result from the staff's
investigation'".<br>
Exxon said in a statement it had co-operated fully with the inquiry,
providing more than 4.2m pages of documents.<br>
The company added: "As we have said all along, the SEC is the
appropriate entity to examine issues related to impairment, reserves
and other communications important to investors. We are confident
our financial reporting meets all legal and accounting
requirements."<br>
The attorneys-general of New York and Massachusetts are pursuing
similar but separate investigations of Exxon's disclosures on
climate change.<br>
The company has recently shaken up its disclosures on climate risk,
under pressure from investors: in February it published its first
report exploring the implications for its business of policies
designed to limit the increase in global temperatures to 2C.<br>
Elliott Negin of the Union of Concerned Scientists, an environmental
group, said: "The Trump administration is the fossil fuel industry's
fairy godmother, so it's no surprise that the SEC dropped its
investigation of ExxonMobil's questionable accounting practices
right after proposing to roll back vehicle fuel economy standards."<br>
<font size="-1"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.ft.com/content/78e652f6-9744-11e8-b747-fb1e803ee64e">https://www.ft.com/content/78e652f6-9744-11e8-b747-fb1e803ee64e</a></font><br>
<br>
<br>
[opinion]<br>
<b><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://www.sixdegreesnews.org/archives/25544/extreme-weather-renews-focus-on-adaptation">Extreme
weather renews focus on adaptation</a></b><br>
CHINADIALOGUE 08/06/2018<br>
CATHERINE EARLY<br>
Governments need to step up action on climate change adaptation and
resilience planning<br>
This summer has seen multitude of extreme weather events. Wildfires
have raged in the United States, Sweden, and the United Kingdom, and
Japan declared a state of emergency due to unprecedented high
temperatures.<br>
The extreme heat follows the extreme cold experienced by many
countries over the winter. Scientists point to climate change as a
factor increasing the risk of both trends. Over the winter,
temperatures in the Arctic were around 20 degrees Celsius above
normal, pushing colder air toward Europe...<br>
- - - - -<br>
"Longer-term planning for intensifying climate impacts can have
significant implications for the way essential resources such as
land and water are used, as well as for investment decisions. For
example, while sea level rise has so far been fairly minor in most
areas, recognising that this will change in the not-too-distant
future could lead to better decisions to build key infrastructure
such as new roads, schools and hospitals in areas unlikely to be
flooded during severe storms," she says.... <br>
- - - - <br>
Lawyers have issued a warning to governments and businesses who fail
to act. Sophie Marjanac, a lawyer at campaigning firm ClientEarth
says: "If decision-makers continue to stand still on climate change,
they can be sure that scientific improvements will spur on future
climate change cases as people seek to attribute responsibility for
the devastating consequences of extreme weather events."<br>
<font size="-1"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.sixdegreesnews.org/archives/25544/extreme-weather-renews-focus-on-adaptation">https://www.sixdegreesnews.org/archives/25544/extreme-weather-renews-focus-on-adaptation</a></font><br>
<br>
<br>
[past event carries forward great ideas]<br>
<b><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://www.acdi.uct.ac.za/acdi/events/erc-seminar-dr-yvette-abrahams">ERC
Seminar:"Cartesian Science & Uncertainty" with Dr Yvette
Abrahams</a></b><br>
Cartesian Science & Uncertainty<br>
An exceptional feminist academic, economic historian and organic
farmer, Dr Yvette Abrahams' work has in recent years explored the
ways in which our theories of knowledge must change in the light of
the spectacular failures of the positivist approach, not least its'
very well-documented role in legitimizing colonialism and slavery.<br>
To indigenous knowledge systems, dealing with uncertainty is nothing
new, but a long-standing way of life. While the variations on a
theme are many, four things unite Cartesian science:<br>
<blockquote>1. The notion that everything within the universe is
knowable by human beings.<br>
2. The idea that it is possible to know it through objective
methodologies'<br>
3. The process of separating the part from the whole,
abstracting its being to a form that can be studied in a
laboratory.<br>
4. The use of inductive logic, namely the concept that an
increase in the number of samples from a statistical universe
would improve the level of knowledge about the whole.<br>
</blockquote>
The second notion of objective science has been debunked thoroughly
(particularly in the last forty years) by many feminist theorists,
historians of science and philosophers. The third notion has been
subjected to decades of spirited critique from organic farming since
the end of World War II, not least by analysts who have used quantum
physics to define the interconnectedness of things and processes.
The fourth notion was mathematically indefensible from the start; a
fact that was only partly obscured by the use of probability theory.
But what of the first notion? Do we still believe that the universe
is ultimately knowable by man?<br>
<br>
Environmentalists have noted environmental catastrophes, from DDT to
chloroflourocarbons to persistent organic pollutants as examples
that, while the universe may be fully knowable in an abstract sense,
man is certainly not the species who can claim such knowledge.
Analysts such as Wendell Berry and Masanobu Fukuoka (both highly
educated organic farmers who forsook academia for more activist
forms of research) have considered the Cartesian approach to be as
superstitious in its way as medieval religion ever was. They have
long recommended more humility in the face of the unknowable and
less arrogance on the part of scientists as going a long way towards
safeguarding the ecosystem on which we all depend. Climate change,
of course, is a form of ultimate answer to Cartesian science and has
laid many debates to rest, even while raising new questions.<br>
<br>
How will we function as knowledge producers in a world marked by
uncertainty? The only knowledge which we can hold for sure is that
we cannot know it all.<br>
<font size="-1">Come and join this first of a two (or three) part
exploration into a facet of uncertainty, climate mitigation, and
development.</font><br>
<font size="-1"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="http://www.acdi.uct.ac.za/acdi/events/erc-seminar-dr-yvette-abrahams">http://www.acdi.uct.ac.za/acdi/events/erc-seminar-dr-yvette-abrahams</a></font><br>
<br>
<br>
<font size="+1"><b><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://on.msnbc.com/1so8XzG">This Day in Climate History
- August 7, 2014</a> - from D.R. Tucker</b></font><br>
August 7, 2014: MSNBC's Ed Schultz condemns the Republican Party's
refusal to recognize the severity of the climate crisis, even as two
hurricanes threaten Hawaii.<br>
<font size="-1"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://on.msnbc.com/1so8XzG">http://on.msnbc.com/1so8XzG</a></font><br>
<br>
<br>
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