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<font size="+1"><i>September 28, 2018</i></font><br>
<br>
[Skeetzilla] <br>
<b><a
href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/hurricane-florence-aftermath-north-carolina-flooding-large-aggressive-mosquitoes-2018-09-27/">"A
bad science fiction movie": Large, aggressive mosquitoes swarm
N.C. city after Florence</a></b><br>
FAYETTEVILLE, N.C. -- A North Carolina city dealing with fallout
from Hurricane Florence has been swarmed by aggressive mosquitoes
nearly three times larger than regular mosquitoes. One resident,
Robert Phillips, describes their rise as "a bad science fiction
movie."<br>
North Carolina State University entomology professor Michael
Reiskind told The Fayetteville Observer that Florence's floodwater
has caused eggs for mosquito species such as the Psorophora ciliata
to hatch. These mosquitoes, often called "gallinippers," are known
for their painful bite and often lay eggs in low-lying damp areas.<br>
The eggs lie dormant in dry weather and hatch as adults following
heavy rains. Reiskind said the state has 61 mosquito species, and
"when the flood comes, we get many, many billions of them."<br>
<font size="-1"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/hurricane-florence-aftermath-north-carolina-flooding-large-aggressive-mosquitoes-2018-09-27/">https://www.cbsnews.com/news/hurricane-florence-aftermath-north-carolina-flooding-large-aggressive-mosquitoes-2018-09-27/</a></font><br>
- -- - -<br>
[Keep a pet spider or learn to slap faster]<br>
<b><a
href="https://www.biospace.com/article/cp8r-mosquitoes-will-rule-the-earth-as-climate-change-expands-disease-vectors/">Mosquitoes
Will Rule the Earth as Climate Change Expands Disease Vectors</a></b><br>
By Mark Terry - Published: Sep 26, 2018 <br>
Although many U.S. politicians insist on denying climate change,
most scientists worldwide are believers. And the U.S. Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) even has a page describing
concerns over climate change and the likelihood it will increase the
risk of vector-borne diseases. Those include Lyme disease
(increasing), West Nile virus (increasing), Zika virus (increasing),
and malaria (increasing).<br>
And, in fact, given the flooding and destruction caused in the
Carolinas by Hurricane Florence, the CDC notes that mosquitoes and
as a result, mosquito-borne illnesses, often increase after a
hurricane. Although mosquitoes don't typically survive the high
winds of a hurricane, "Immediately following a hurricane, flooding
occurs. Mosquito eggs laid in the soil by floodwater mosquitoes
during previous floods hatch. This results in very large populations
of floodwater mosquitoes."<br>
Generally, these are "nuisance mosquitoes" that don't spread
illness-causing viruses. The disease-carrying types, however,
usually increase two weeks to two months after a hurricane.<br>
- - - - <br>
Bottom line? Politicians might deny climate change, but
disease-carrying insects and their pathogens aren't--they're
exploiting it. There might be a joke there about the difference
between politicians and disease-carrying parasites, but let's not go
there.<br>
<font size="-1"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.biospace.com/article/cp8r-mosquitoes-will-rule-the-earth-as-climate-change-expands-disease-vectors/">https://www.biospace.com/article/cp8r-mosquitoes-will-rule-the-earth-as-climate-change-expands-disease-vectors/</a></font><br>
<br>
<br>
[Peter Sinclair asks:]<br>
<b><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://climatecrocks.com/2018/09/26/dear-abbey-should-i-tell-my-republican-friend-about-climate-change/">Dear
Abbey: Should I Tell my Republican Friend about Climate Change?</a></b><br>
If someone is tipsy and about to step in a hole, should you tell
them?<br>
Common courtesy would say yes, but what if the person is an angry,
delusional, abusive drunk?<br>
<font size="-1"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://climatecrocks.com/2018/09/26/dear-abbey-should-i-tell-my-republican-friend-about-climate-change/">https://climatecrocks.com/2018/09/26/dear-abbey-should-i-tell-my-republican-friend-about-climate-change/</a></font><br>
[Why not?]<br>
<b><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://www.yaleclimateconnections.org/2018/09/advice-should-i-warn-my-friend-about-rising-sea-levels/">Should
I tell my Republican friend that her Florida mansion is doomed
by sea-level rise? </a></b><br>
<b>In this new advice column</b>, climate journalist Sara Peach
answers your questions about how climate change could affect you and
the people you love.<br>
Dear Sara,<br>
My friend is a Republican who owns a very expensive mansion on
Fisher Island in Miami. I'm fairly sure my friend believes that
climate change is real but does not know how serious the situation
may get within her or her children's lifetimes. What year will I
tell her is the last I'll be able to visit her there, because it
will be underwater? How many years ahead of that will she need to
sell it before it'll be rendered worthless? I'm thinking of getting
her a garden gnome wearing a snorkel. – Climate Concerned in New
York City<br>
<br>
Let's begin with the facts, which are straightforward. Sea-level
rise is not just a problem for 50 or 100 years from now. It's
already begun. Today, under certain conditions – when there's an
unusually high tide, for example – water spills into basements and
low-lying streets across South Florida.<br>
<br>
The problem will get worse. Another 6 to 10 inches of sea-level rise
is expected in South Florida by 2030, and perhaps more than two feet
by the time today's high-school seniors turn 60. In response, Miami
Beach, a wealthy community on a barrier island just north of your
friend's home on Fisher Island, is spending hundreds of millions of
dollars to elevate roads, raise seawalls, and install pumps to suck
the water away.<br>
<br>
But the construction projects bring their own problems: "Constant
detours, constant dust, constant pounding," said Dan Kipnis, a
retired fishing captain and Miami Beach native, when I visited him
last November. "It makes me grumpy and agitated and angry, and
sometimes I say or do things that I probably shouldn't."<br>
<br>
Kipnis told me he's decided to sell his house and leave the area
rather than put up with ever-worsening flooding and construction.
(As of this writing, his home has been on the market for more than
two years.)<br>
<br>
All of this is to say that it's impossible to know precisely when,
if ever, your friend's home will be fully submerged. But if she had
sent me this question, I would tell her that so-called "nuisance"
flooding is the more serious near-term threat to many coastal homes.<br>
<br>
Within the next 30 years -- that is to say, during the term of a new
30-year mortgage, more than 300,000 properties in the contiguous
U.S. could be at risk of chronic, disruptive flooding, according to
the Union of Concerned Scientists. And long before real estate
actually goes underwater, people will start selling, because their
quality of life will be degraded. In fact, one recent analysis found
that sea-level rise has already begun to affect coastal real-estate
markets, shaving off more than $7 billion in property values in
Florida, Georgia, Virginia, and the Carolinas. "If those homes
become uninsurable and unmarketable, the values of the homes will
plummet, perhaps to zero," warned mortgage giant Freddie Mac.
"Unlike the recent experience, homeowners will have no expectation
that the values of their homes will ever recover."<br>
<br>
So how might you talk about all of this with your friend? This is
the hard part. If you grew up in the U.S., you may have been taught
to avoid talking about gloomy social problems, especially with those
with whom you might disagree. You've also been trained to stay out
of other people's business – and in many ways, your friend's choices
about where to live and how to manage her property are fundamentally
Not Your Business.<br>
And yet.<br>
Many of us are quietly worrying but politely not talking about a
crisis unlike any humanity has yet faced. CLICK TO TWEET<br>
All of this staying-out-of-others'-business contributes to an ugly
phenomenon called the climate change "spiral of silence," identified
by my colleagues at the Yale Program on Climate Communication.
Briefly: Climate change is personally important to most Americans,
but we rarely talk about it with our friends or family. Because
we're not talking about it, those around us also shy away from the
subject. The result is that many of us are quietly worrying but
politely not talking about a crisis unlike any humanity has yet
faced.<br>
<br>
For that reason, my advice is to start talking.<br>
<b>Suggestions</b><br>
<blockquote>- I keep daydreaming about what would happen if you
scheduled a visit to your friend to coincide with unusually high
tides and street flooding -- and used that as a conversation
starter. (A good bet would be to visit on the date of the full
moon in September or October, when the alignment of the sun, the
Earth, and the moon give an extra tug to the tides.)<br>
- However, you'll probably get better results if you avoid a
single blow-out conversation in which you present your friend with
a garden gnome sporting a snorkel and then confront/overwhelm her
with all of the facts.<br>
- Instead, try chatting about sea-level rise in small doses that
fit within the natural flow of your relationship.<br>
- Ask questions. Has she noticed any flooding? How does that
affect her day-to-day life? What does she think she might do if
the flooding gets worse in the future?<br>
- Ideally, your discussions will shift into a mode in which she
starts asking you questions. What you're aiming for is
conversation in which both of you are curious about what the other
has to say, and neither of you is lecturing -- in other words, a
normal conversation between two humans who like each other.<br>
</blockquote>
You may find that your friend responds defensively. If she shuts
down your attempts at conversation, take comfort in the fact that
ultimately, she is in charge of her house and her life. And assuming
that not all of her equity is tied up in her expensive mansion, she
will have the resources to take care of herself – unlike many
low-income residents of South Florida and other coastal communities
worldwide.<br>
<font size="-1">Wondering how climate change could affect you or
your loved ones? Send your questions to <a
class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated"
href="mailto:sara@yaleclimateconnections.org">sara@yaleclimateconnections.org</a>.
</font><br>
<font size="-1"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.yaleclimateconnections.org/2018/09/advice-should-i-warn-my-friend-about-rising-sea-levels/">https://www.yaleclimateconnections.org/2018/09/advice-should-i-warn-my-friend-about-rising-sea-levels/</a></font><br>
<br>
<br>
[It's not the fault of giant cows]<br>
<b><a
href="https://www.livescience.com/63688-methane-lake-farts-fire.html">There's
So Much Methane in This Arctic Lake That You Can Light the Air
on Fire</a></b><br>
By Brandon Specktor, Senior Writer - September 27, 2018<br>
All day long, the surface of Esieh Lake in northern Alaska shudders
with indigestion. This Arctic lake never fully freezes. Stand next
to it, and you'll hear it hiss. Watch it, and you'll see it boil
with ancient, bubbling gas. Light a fire over it, and the lake will
fart a tower of flame higher than your head.<br>
That's exactly what Katey Walter Anthony, an aquatic ecosystem
ecologist at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, did in a popular
YouTube video from 2010. Walter Anthony has been studying Esieh Lake
for the better part of a decade (she also named it). Now, according
to a profile written by Chris Mooney for The Washington Post,
sheknows the causeof the lake's odd behavior. The culprit is a
constant seep of the greenhouse gas methane --a lot of methane --
spilling out of an ancient reservoir of permafrost (or permanently
frozen ground) deep below the tundra.<br>
<br>
Thanks to rising global temperatures, that permafrost is thawing,
Walter Anthony said, and it's carving a hole through the bottom of
the lake. While most of Esieh Lake has an average depth of about 3
feet (1 meter), the sections where the biggest methane bubbles are
seeping out plunge down to up to 50 feet (15 m).<br>
<br>
From these holes in the bottom of the lake, huge amounts of methane
come gushing out -- more than 2 tons of gas every day, according to
one of Walter Anthony's colleagues -- an amount that's equivalent to
the emissions of about 6,000 dairy cows (cow farts are one of the
world's largest methane sources).<br>
<br>
Thawing Arctic permafrost is a huge concern for climate scientists.
Within these frozen sheets of past plant life, thousands of years of
greenhouse gases are thought to lie trapped. As global temperatures
rise and permafrost begins to melt, that gas is slowly released into
the atmosphere. Researchers' greatest fear is that this Arctic
off-gassing will start a feedback loop: The more greenhouse gases
released by permafrost today, the higher temperatures will climb and
the more gases will be released tomorrow.<br>
<br>
"These lakes speed up permafrost thaw," Walter Anthony told The
Washington Post. "It's an acceleration."<br>
<br>
While many climate models focus on the effects of carbon dioxide
being released from thawing permafrost, methane emissions in lakes
like Esieh have been largely overlooked until very recently. In a
study of several underground Arctic lakes published Aug. 15 in the
journal Nature Communications, Walter Anthony and her colleagues
estimated that methane-seeping lakes could double previous estimates
of permafrost-caused warming.<br>
<br>
According to a 2014 study led by the National Snow and Ice Data
Center in Colorado, carbon released from thawing permafrost could
increase global warming by about 8 percent, contributing about 0.6
degrees Fahrenheit (0.3 degrees Celsius) to the predicted increase
of 7 to 9 degrees F (4 to 5 degrees C) by the year 2100. If Arctic
methane emissions are as serious as Walter Anthony and her
colleagues predict, that increase in temperature could come much,
much sooner.<br>
<font size="-1"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.livescience.com/63688-methane-lake-farts-fire.html">https://www.livescience.com/63688-methane-lake-farts-fire.html</a></font><br>
<br>
<br>
[one month?]<br>
<b><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://imazon.org.br/publicacoes/boletim-do-desmatamento-da-amazonia-legal-agosto-2018-sad/">Amazon
deforestation in Brazil up 199 percent in August 2018</a></b><br>
By Stefania Costa <br>
24 September 2018<br>
(Imazon) – In August 2018, SAD detected 545 square kilometers of
deforestation in the Amazon rainforest, an increase of 199% in
relation to August 2017, when deforestation totaled 182 square
kilometers. In August 2018, deforestation occurred in Pará (37%),
Mato Grosso (20%), Amazonas (19%), Rondônia (16%), Acre (7%),
Roraima (1%) and Tocantins %). The degraded forests in the Legal
Amazon totaled 118 square kilometers in August 2018, presenting a
reduction of 70% compared to August 2017, when the detected forest
degradation totaled 392 square kilometers. In August 2018,
degradation was detected in the states of Mato Grosso (89%), Pará
(10%) and Rondônia (1%).<br>
<font size="-1"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="http://imazon.org.br/publicacoes/boletim-do-desmatamento-da-amazonia-legal-agosto-2018-sad/">http://imazon.org.br/publicacoes/boletim-do-desmatamento-da-amazonia-legal-agosto-2018-sad/</a></font><br>
<br>
<br>
[better jerky]<br>
<b><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-09-26/even-in-dry-australia-politics-mean-climate-change-gets-ignored">In
a Country So Dry Even Cows Take Showers, Climate Change Gets
Ignored</a></b><br>
Australia's government is as far from a plan of action as it's ever
been.<br>
From cooling showers for cows to airport runways designed for higher
sea levels, businesses and parts of Australia's A$2.7 trillion ($2
trillion) pension industry are starting to find ways to live with
rising temperatures.<br>
In the world's driest inhabited continent, enduring a devastating
drought that arrived in mid-winter, private action to prepare for
climate change contrasts with years of division on energy and
environmental policies. Australia's latest climate casualties are
its farmers, who are being forced to slaughter livestock and watch
crops wither amid one of the worst droughts on record...<br>
- - - -<br>
"It's akin to having one's fingers crossed and head buried in the
sand."<br>
<blockquote>For Australia's pension funds, the lack of certainty
surrounding climate policy is a problem because they often need to
plan decades ahead. With infrastructure assets in particular,
which investors may wish to hold indefinitely, ensuring they'll
still be operational and profitable in a changed climate is vital.<br>
<br>
"Climate change is here and the impacts are being felt," said Emma
Herd, chief executive officer of the Investor Group on Climate
Change, whose members control about A$2 trillion in investments.
"Large sections of the private sector are moving in concert with
global change and not being driven by domestic regulatory
pressures."<br>
</blockquote>
- - - <br>
"All our decisions have a long-term aspect to them, otherwise it's
not worth investing the money," she says. How the climate will look
in a decade or more "is always in the back of your mind."<br>
<font size="-1"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-09-26/even-in-dry-australia-politics-mean-climate-change-gets-ignored">https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-09-26/even-in-dry-australia-politics-mean-climate-change-gets-ignored</a></font><br>
<br>
<br>
[willful ignorance not allowed]<br>
<b><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://www.desmogblog.com/2018/09/25/oil-gas-industry-seismic-survey-offshore-exploration-kill-zooplankton">'Mud
and Confusion': Oil and Gas Industry Goes On Defense as Studies
Show Offshore Exploration Could Kill Zooplankton</a></b><br>
Graham Readfearn - September 25, 2018<br>
"We knew it was going to cause a stir," said Australian marine
scientist Dr. Robert McCauley.<br>
<br>
McCauley was referring to the results of an experiment testing the
impacts of a common oil and gas industry technique in waters off
southern Australia, which were reported in a scientific paper in
June 2017.<br>
<br>
The world's powerful offshore oil and gas industry has used seismic
surveys for decades as the primary way to locate fossil fuels under
the ocean floor.<br>
<b>Impacts of Seismic Surveys</b><br>
Seismic surveys involve an underwater air gun pulled behind a boat
and fired at intervals, and as the shock waves bounce off the sea
floor and return to sensors, they help reveal where oil and gas
might be. <br>
<br>
McCauley, an associate professor at Curtin University in Western
Australia, and his colleagues wanted to know what these seismic
surveys did to zooplankton -- an organism at the base of the marine
food web.<br>
<br>
According to their results, published in the Nature journal Ecology
and Evolution, there was a two to three-fold increase in the number
of dead zooplankton at a distance of at least 1.2 kilomenters (about
three-quarters of a mile) from the air gun after the blasts. That is
much farther than previous reports of impacts out to only 10 meters
or so (roughly 33 feet).<br>
- - - - -<br>
Commercial fishers in Australia's state of Victoria and Tasmania are
also concerned that planned seismic surveys could impact their
lobster, abalone, scallop, and crab industries.<br>
<br>
In a response to the concerns in North Carolina, the American
Petroleum Institute (API) and the International Association of
Geophysical Contractors (IAGC) wrote to the U.S. National Marine
Fisheries Service and the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, saying
the zooplankton results were "of questionable scientific merit."<br>
<br>
The letter, signed by IAGC president and API policy advisor Andy
Radford, claimed that McCauley and Semmens had "concurred with many
of the shortcomings" which the industry groups' unnamed reviewers
had identified with the zooplankton study.<br>
<br>
But McCauley and Semmens have strongly rejected this version of
events, saying they had only agreed their work needed replicating by
other researchers -- a point made in the original research paper.<br>
- - - -<br>
<br>
She added: "While we found the study interesting and worthy of
additional research, we remain troubled by its small sample sizes,
the large day-to-day variability in both the baseline and
experimental data, and the large number of speculative conclusions
that appear to be inconsistent with the data collected over a
two-day period."<br>
<br>
"As a result, both statistically and methodologically, we stand by
our initial assertion that this project falls short of what would be
needed to provide a convincing case for adverse effects from
geophysical survey operations."<br>
<font size="-1"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.desmogblog.com/2018/09/25/oil-gas-industry-seismic-survey-offshore-exploration-kill-zooplankton">https://www.desmogblog.com/2018/09/25/oil-gas-industry-seismic-survey-offshore-exploration-kill-zooplankton</a></font><br>
<br>
<br>
[but climate is NOT a fiction event]<br>
<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2017/oct/18/clifi-a-new-way-to-talk-about-climate-change">CliFi
– A new way to talk about climate change</a><br>
If you're not familiar with the new genre of climate fiction, you
might be soon.<br>
John Abraham<br>
Wed 18 Oct 2017 06.00 EDT Last modified on Thu 22 Feb 2018 07.37 EST<br>
Cli-Fi refers to "climate fiction;" it is a term coined by
journalist Dan Bloom. These are fictional books that somehow or
someway bring real climate change science to the reader. What is
really interesting is that Cli-Fi books often present real science
in a credible way. They become fun teaching tools. There are some
really well known authors such as Paolo Bacigalupi and Margaret
Atwood among others. A list of other candidate Cli-Fi novels was
provided by Sarah Holding in the Guardian.<br>
<br>
What makes a Cli-Fi novel good? Well in my opinion, it has to have
some real science in it. And it has to get the science right.
Second, it has to be fun to read. When done correctly, Cli-Fi can
connect people to their world; it can help us understand what future
climate may be like, or what current climate effects are.<br>
<br>
As I write this, we are getting a steady stream of stories out of
Puerto Rico the island was devastated by Hurricane Maria. It is hard
to imagine the devastation, what life is like without electricity,
food, or water. What is life like on an island of 3 million people,
each fending for themselves, just trying to survive.<br>
<br>
Another thing that is hard to imagine is the future. What will the
world be like decades from now when Earth temperatures have
continued to rise? What will agriculture be like? What will coastal
communities be like? What will international relations and armed
conflict be like?<br>
<br>
It is also hard to imagine what living a subsistence agriculture
life is like, today. What happens to lives and communities when the
rains change, or don't come at all? What would that world look like?<br>
<br>
Cli-Fi stories are vehicles that can help us imagine. The authors
get us to think about these what ifs – these future Earths. Cli-Fi
novels (and movies for that matter) can make experiences far more
real than endless graphs or plots of temperature variations. And
that, perhaps, is the most important contribution Cli-Fi can make to
the discussion of climate change in our everyday lives. These
authors get us to imagine what experiences are or would be like. <br>
<br>
One recent example of Cli-Fi literature is <a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://www.amazon.com/South-Pole-Station-Ashley-Shelby/dp/1250112826">South
Pole Station</a> by Ashley Shelby. In this book we follow an
artist, Cooper Gosling, who is traveling to a research location on
Antarctica to create paintings. Yes, an artist is sent to live with
researchers and crew – with funding from the National Science
Foundation. After arriving at the South Pole, Cooper has to become
acquainted with the strange social system that exists there. Ashley
writes the book in such a way that you actually feel you are huddled
in the cold with her and her co-workers.<br>
<br>
Cooper doesn't uplift her life to travel to the South Pole on a
whim. It is an outcome of a family tragedy and a history that
involves romanticized stories of adventure to this remote place.
While Cooper is stationed at the pole, she hears news that a radical
scientist is coming. This scientist claims that climate change is a
hoax – and his presence further upsets the delicate social balance
that exists at the research location. <br>
<br>
You see the expected reaction of the regular scientists when this
climate denier arrives to perform his research. There is
backstabbing and sabotage where in the end we find Copper helping
this climate-denying scientist carry out an experiment. The
experiment goes awry and there are repercussions all the way back to
the US mainland, and the halls of Congress.<br>
<br>
I liked this book because I don't like fiction. That is, I find it
really hard to get into fictional books because my mind always runs
back to science, or my email, or papers to grade, or kids' soccer
practices to get to. I never feel like I have time to just read for
fun. But this book was really engaging. It was the first fictional
book in a decade that I didn't want to put down.<br>
<br>
It is funny with really quick-witted humor that made me laugh. At
the same time, I was impressed by how I felt like I was there –
working amongst the staff and scientists. I enjoyed how Ashely
weaved in threads of real and accurate science. And this, perhaps,
is what makes the Cli-Fi genre so important. We can unintentionally
learn real science.<br>
<br>
Ashley's book is at the edge of this genre. It is not "dystopian"
and it is not about a post-apocalyptic world resulting from climate
change. It is topical and, though fiction, is as present-day as a
news headline. This book is about what people, dedicated to facts,
are really doing today. It doesn't seem futuristic. It seems like we
are at a point when a bunch of scientists and friends of facts could
take over a research station and say, "Stop the madness!"<br>
<br>
Salman Rushdie recently said that in the present day the country is
so filled with lies and fantasy and fiction surrounding the truth,
that it might require the fiction writer to plainly lay out what is
reality and what is not. I think Ashley's book fits that notion.<br>
<br>
So, take a look at this new (newish?) form of literature.
Particularly if you want a break from the usual genres. If you find
something you like that I didn't mention, please send it to me.<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
[Hidden Brain on NPR audio 35 mins - I listened twice]<br>
<b><a
href="https://www.npr.org/2018/09/17/648781756/the-cassandra-curse-why-we-heed-some-warnings-and-ignore-others">The
Cassandra Curse: Why We Heed Some Warnings, And Ignore Others</a></b><br>
SHANKAR VEDANTAM - September 17, 2018<br>
After a disaster happens, we want to know, could something have been
done to avoid it? Did anyone see this coming?<br>
Many times, the answer is yes. There was a person -- or many people
-- who spotted a looming crisis and tried to warn those in power. So
why didn't the warnings lead to action?<br>
This week on Hidden Brain, we look into the psychology of warnings.
We'll turn to an unusual source -- an ancient myth about the cursed
prophet Cassandra -- to understand why some warnings fail. We'll
travel 40 feet below the ground to talk to a modern-day Cassandra,
and we'll speak with a government official who managed to get his
warnings heard. There's also a gory (and fictional) murder plot, and
even some ABBA.<br>
Additional Resources:<br>
<blockquote>Christoph Meyer and Florian Otto,"<b><a
href="https://kclpure.kcl.ac.uk/portal/files/54917301/Meyer_Otto_How_to_warn_MWC_accepted_final_edits.pdf">How
to Warn: 'Outside-in Warnings' of Western Governments about
Violent Conflict and Mass Atrocities,</a></b>" Media, War
& Conflict<br>
Andrew Natsios, <a
href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/sudan-south-sudan-and-darfur-9780199764198?cc=us&lang=en&">Sudan,
South Sudan, and Darfur</a><br>
Translations of Aeschylus' Agamemnon and Euripides' Trojan Women
in<a
href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/216216/the-greek-plays-by-new-translations-edited-by-mary-lefkowitz-and-james-romm/9780812983098/">
The Greek Plays</a><br>
</blockquote>
Hidden Brain is hosted by Shankar Vedantam and produced by Jennifer
Schmidt, Rhaina Cohen, Parth Shah, Thomas Lu, Laura Kwerel, and
Camila Vargas Restrepo. Our supervising producer is Tara Boyle. You
can also follow us on Twitter @hiddenbrain.<br>
<a
href="https://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?storyId=648781756">Transcript
of the Show</a> <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?storyId=648781756">https://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?storyId=648781756</a><br>
<font size="-1"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.npr.org/2018/09/17/648781756/the-cassandra-curse-why-we-heed-some-warnings-and-ignore-others">https://www.npr.org/2018/09/17/648781756/the-cassandra-curse-why-we-heed-some-warnings-and-ignore-others</a></font><br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
[Major legal strategy shift]<br>
<b><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://www.climateliabilitynews.org/2018/09/25/necessity-defense-valve-turners-climate/">Trial
Will Test New Weapon Against Climate Change: Necessity Defense</a></b><br>
By Seamus McGraw<br>
No one--least of all the defendants--disputes the facts of the case
against four people known as valve-turners: activists who trespassed
on private property to shut down an oil pipeline in 2016. As their
otherwise straightforward case goes to trial in October, it's their
defense that has everyone's attention.<br>
<br>
It was a cool, gray and wet October morning two years ago, when four
people armed with a bolt cutter, cell phones, a video recorder and a
mission, slipped onto a piece of property in the sleepy,
conservative western Minnesota community of Leonard. Through it ran
a pipeline owned by the Canadian company Enbridge Energy, which
carries tar sands oil from Alberta.<br>
<br>
Part of a multi-state protest in 2016 dubbed #Shutitdown, their goal
was straightforward: to force Enbridge to shut down the pipeline,
which the activists viewed as a serious and imminent threat to the
global environment. If the company refused to do so, the activists
would turn the valves themselves. Enbridge did stop the flow safely,
until the trespassers were arrested.<br>
<br>
Annette Klapstein and Emily Johnson were both charged with multiple
felonies and could face up to 10 years in prison. Videographer Steve
Liptay and Benjamin Joldersma, who was on hand to lend support, are
both facing misdemeanor charges.<br>
<br>
Their defense is that their crime was part of preventing a greater
harm: climate change. It's called the necessity defense and when the
judge in archly conservative and rural Clearwater County ruled last
year (and was upheld by an appeals court in August) that the
defendants could use it in this trial, it threw an entirely new
wrinkle into the battle to force climate action through the courts.<br>
<br>
That battle has gathered steam in the past two years on multiple
fronts, with a landmark youth-led suit, Juliana v. United States,
also headed to trial in October, with 21 young people arguing the
federal government is robbing them of a safe climate and livable
future. A wave of communities and one state attorney general have
begun to sue the fossil fuel industry to pay for the spiraling costs
of climate impacts. And two states, New York and Massachusetts, are
using consumer and investor protection statutes to investigate
whether the biggest of the U.S. oil giants, Exxon, is guilty of
fraud.<br>
<br>
The Minnesota trial could add another weapon in that arsenal if 12
jurors rule that the tar sands oil flowing through that pipeline
posed such a critical and immediate threat to the climate that the
activists were justified in their dramatic action to shut it down. <br>
<br>
This would be no small feat. The 12 jurors are from a county that in
2016 voted 69.2 percent for a presidential candidate who claims
climate change is a hoax.<br>
<br>
But the very fact that the appeals court has allowed the defense to
be used at all is a victory, according to the valve turners'
defenders. <br>
<br>
Ever since six Greenpeace activists, charged with shutting down a
coal-fired power plant in Great Britain, successfully used a version
of it and were acquitted in 2008, activists in the United States
and elsewhere have been looking for opportunities to use the defense
in related cases.<br>
<br>
In Minnesota, they're getting their chance.<br>
<br>
The idea is to turn the courtroom into a classroom, said William
Quigley, a Loyola University law professor who has written
extensively on the necessity defense and who filed an amicus brief
in support of the Civil Liberties Defense Center's bid to use it in
Clearwater County. Quigley said in the brief that lawyers will place
every bit as much emphasis on hashing out the critical issue as they
do on winning acquittal.<br>
<br>
"Nonviolent civil disobedience is part of the American democratic
tradition," he wrote in the brief. "The four individuals named above
stand in the shoes of the American freedom fighters, the
abolitionists, the suffragettes, the civil rights campaigners of the
1960s, and the antiwar protesters that followed. Criminal trials in
which protesters have explained and argued their views are an
integral part of that tradition. The use of the necessity defense in
this case is not only doctrinally appropriate but strengthens the
constitutional bedrock on which our legal system rests. That bedrock
includes the right to trial by jury, freedom of expression and
debate, and a natural environment capable of providing for human
needs."<br>
<br>
Quigley argues that even if the defendants are convicted, there is
triumph in having put climate change itself on trial.<br>
<br>
Carroll Muffett, president and chief executive of the Washington,
D.C.-based Center for International Environmental Law agrees. "In
the face of inertia in policy making --particularly at the U.S.
national level-- people are finding…that we are failing to respond
to the climate threat at anything approaching the speed and scale
that we have to do that.<br>
<br>
"This is what is pushing individuals toward ever stronger action,
including putting themselves on the line, to try to stop climate
change," he said. "If you have tried to change the law, if you've
tried…to prevent harm through every legal means, if you've opposed
permits, if you've filed suits, if you have thoughtfully intervened
in the political process and harm is still occurring… still
imminent, then that is precisely when taking….actions that violate a
law to avoid a larger harm, that's when the necessity defense is
relevant."<br>
<br>
"The fact that people are saying…if policy makers won't stop it then
we will put ourselves out there, and we will put ourselves in harm's
way to do so, is a really natural evolution in the face of a
pressing crisis," Muffett said. "I think…courts are grappling with
this increasingly, and I think…in a number of cases, judges have
recognized that these realities may be sufficiently pressing that
the necessity defense has a legal role to play."<br>
<br>
Expert witnesses expected to testify in Minnesota include Dr. James
Hansen, the former NASA scientist whose landmark Congressional
testimony about climate change in 1988 brought the issue to the
American public, and climate activist and 350.org co-founder Bill
McKibben.<br>
<br>
The defendants and their supporters lauded the appeals court ruling
that cleared the way for this defense in court.<br>
<br>
"The Minnesota Court of Appeals has upheld our right to present a
full defense to a Minnesota jury, including the facts of the ongoing
climate catastrophe caused largely by the fossil fuel industry,"
said Klapstein, herself a retired attorney. "I believe that many
judges are aware that our political system has proven itself
disastrously unwilling to deal with the catastrophic crisis of
climate change, which leaves as our only recourse the actions of
ordinary citizens like ourselves and the courts and juries of our
peers that stand in judgments of those actions."<br>
<br>
The valve turners are being represented by lawyers from the the
Civil Liberties Defense Center (CLDC), a Seattle-based legal
advocacy group. Lauren Regan, the group's lead attorney, said it
tried to use the necessity defense in similar cases over the last
few years in the states of Washington, North Dakota and Montana, but
the courts blocked it. In each of those cases, however, the
CDLC--working pro bono in rural counties every bit as conservative
as Clearwater--was able to work in enough evidence about the threat
of climate change and its clients' motives to win the sympathy of
the juries, if not outright acquittals.<br>
<br>
In one of those cases--against Ken Ward, who was charged with
sabotage in Washington in a #shutitdown action on the same day-- the
first trial ended in a hung jury and the second ended with an
acquittal on the most serious offense and a conviction, instead, of
second-degree burglary. Ward was sentenced in June 2017 to two days
in jail--which he had already served while awaiting trial--and 240
hours of community service.<br>
<br>
"All of those are on appeal right now," Regan said of that case and
the others.<br>
<br>
More important, she said, in the cases, jurors expressed a certain
respect for the defendants' principles. "In all three other
valve-turner trials, in rural Washington and rural Montana and rural
North Dakota, every single jury pool started off with jurors who
would literally say…climate change is a hoax perpetuated by the
Chinese. But at the end of the trials, when the judges gave us
permission to go talk with the jurors, they were shaking our
clients' hands and thanking us for educating them about climate
change.<br>
<br>
"I think the courtroom is a fairly intimate setting and I think
having our clients take the stand and having a fairly direct
conversation with 12 strangers…and especially in this case being
able to present expert testimony and have some of the top brains
working on these issues being able to sit down and explain things to
jurors, I think is an incredibly effective way to reach into
audiences and communities that we might not otherwise have access
to."<br>
<br>
Using the courtroom as a forum for educating the public on the risks
of climate change is certainly one of the principal objectives of
the strategy, said Quigley. "These are arguments that the prosecutor
always wants to exclude because the people who have the chance to
make these arguments often win their cases," Quigley said, "If it's
just, 'did you trespass onto somebody else's property and use a
wrench on their stuff?' well, a jury's gonna say, 'yeah, that's a
crime.'<br>
<br>
"But if the defendants can put on somebody from the local university
to say, 'look, let me tell you what this pipeline is doing to our
environment,' then this is a chance to send a message that there are
some things that are legal but they're not right."<br>
<br>
Still, Quigley and other supporters acknowledged that the defendants
would have a tough row to hoe to convince a jury that the peril of
climate change--which plays out over decades--meets the law's
definition of imminent danger. As Jordan Kushner, the Minnesota
attorney who co-authored the amicus brief with Quigley, put it, "You
can't say 'the world is going to be destroyed in 100 years.' That's
not going to cut it.'<br>
<br>
But others say there is enough flexibility in the language of the
Minnesota law for the valve turners to work with. Michael Noble, who
heads Fresh Energy, a Minnesota organization that advocates for
renewable energy policy, and has been monitoring the case closely,
said the word imminent "doesn't necessarily mean that the ax
murderer is chopping down your door with an ax and you're on the
other side of the door. That's not the only definition of the word
imminent."<br>
<br>
Indeed, Regan said she was confident that she could provide evidence
not just that the climate peril posed by the tar sands oil in the
Enbridge pipeline was immediate, but that the specific actions taken
by the valve turners--not just in Minnesota but in all the states
where the activists acted--would have been a reasonable and
effective response. "I'm sure you're aware that the five pipelines
that were shut down were all pipelines carrying tar sands into the
United States," she said. "If all of that tar sands flow had
actually stopped and the pipeline companies had not been permitted
to restart those pipelines, then the action would have achieved the
15 percent reduction in carbon emissions that is required according
to scientists in order to regain control of the out-of-control
spiral that's currently going on in regards to carbon emissions."<br>
<br>
Whether that argument is compelling enough to persuade a jury in a
conservative county remains an open question. Regan said she is
optimistic. So is Kushner. Moderately. While the necessity defense
might find a more receptive audience in Hennepin or Ramsey counties
in the Minneapolis-St. Paul region, it could still work in
Clearwater. "Sometimes," Kushner said, "you get receptive views
from people that you wouldn't expect.",,<br>
h<font size="-1">ttps://www.climateliabilitynews.org/2018/09/25/necessity-defense-valve-turners-climate/</font><br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
TUE SEP 25, 2018 / 4:34 AM EDT<br>
<b><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://mobile.reuters.com/article/amp/idUSL8N1WA33F">Love
in the time of climate change: Indian film with a new take on
romance</a></b><br>
Annie Banerji, Thomson Reuters Foundation<br>
BHUBANESWAR, India Sept 25 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Eschewing
the typical Bollywood storyline of young lovers facing family
opposition, an upcoming Indian film instead features a couple
battling climate change in order to be together.<br>
<br>
"Kokoli", which is the name of the female protagonist and also a
type of fish, tells a story of a fishing community facing the loss
of livelihoods and land as sea levels rise in the eastern state of
Odisha. It will be released in November.<br>
<br>
The Oriya-language film centres on Kokoli and her boyfriend, who
sets out to build a wall to keep towering waves from destroying and
uprooting his village - a task he must succeed at in order to win
her mother's approval.<br>
<br>
"Fishing is the only livelihood for them and the only skill they
know. They are victims of climate change," filmmaker Snehasis Das
told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.<br>
<br>
"Simultaneously, I focus on how love - a relationship - can be
disturbed due to calamities," said the 43-year-old. "It is a lot
about how they adapt to love and climate change. Their future hinges
on adaptation."<br>
<br>
With a nearly 500 km (300 mile) coastline, Odisha is home to many
coastal communities that depend on the sea.<br>
<br>
The state is also one of India's most vulnerable to the effects of
global warming, hit by rising sea levels, cyclones and floods, with
vast stretches of the shoreline being lost to erosion.<br>
<br>
In June, the state government warned in a report that fishermen's
catches could plummet with rising temperatures.<br>
<br>
India faces the most severe threat from climate change, followed by
Pakistan, the Philippines and Bangladesh, HSBC showed in a March
survey of 67 countries.<br>
<br>
Changing weather, along with more frequent droughts and heat waves,
will hurt agricultural output and food security in developing
nations such as India, according to studies by HSBC, the World Bank
and the World Health Organization.<br>
<br>
Climate change will also lead to water shortages and outbreaks of
water and mosquito-borne diseases such as diarrhea and malaria,
according to their research.<br>
<br>
"The effects (of climate change) creep up on you and many of these
communities know there is something brewing - more tides, water
reaching their huts - but don't see any immediate danger," said Das.<br>
<br>
"But they have to understand that they must start adapting now,
before it is too late, which is something I have touched upon in my
film."<br>
<br>
CHANGE MAKERS<br>
In order to appeal to a wide audience, Das also threw a song
sequence into the mix, like Bollywood does, but he said the main aim
is to get a message across to people.<br>
"A good way to do this is through a human angle that says, 'If this
is happening to them, it can happen to you too,' - to make it
relatable. And what is better than a love story? Everybody likes a
good love story."<br>
<br>
He urged Bollywood - the world's largest film industry - to steer
away from glitz and glamour and make some movies about climate
change, even if the prospects of producing blockbusters about such
subjects are slim.<br>
<br>
"Bollywood has the power to reach the masses so easily. And it can
be challenging weaving in a social message in a commercial film, but
it can be done," said Das, who has made about 15 documentaries and
several music videos on the topic.<br>
<br>
More than anyone else, Das hopes his film reaches the country's
youth who he says are "future change makers".<br>
<br>
"This problem is only going to snowball and the younger generation
can help, perhaps by dedicating some of their work to this cause and
create awareness," he said.<br>
<br>
"They are my target audience." (Reporting by Annie Banerji
@anniebanerji, Editing by Jared Ferrie ; Please credit the Thomson
Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters that
covers humanitarian issues, conflicts, land and property rights,
modern slavery and human trafficking, gender equality, climate
change and resilience. Visit news.trust.org to see more stories)<br>
<font size="-1"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://mobile.reuters.com/article/amp/idUSL8N1WA33F">https://mobile.reuters.com/article/amp/idUSL8N1WA33F</a></font><br>
<br>
<br>
<font size="+1"><b><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2007/09/28/201917/bush-climate-speech-follows-luntz-playbook-technology-technology-technology-blah-blah-blah/">This
Day in Climate History - September 28, 2007</a> - from D.R.
Tucker</b></font><br>
September 28, 2007: President George W. Bush speaks at a
"conference" on climate change in Washington. The speech and the
"conference" are widely viewed as political efforts to obscure the
Bush administration's overall lack of interest in taking serious
steps to reduce carbon pollution. <br>
<font size="-1"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/28/world/americas/28iht-28climatesub.7674315.html">http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/28/world/americas/28iht-28climatesub.7674315.html</a><br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2007/09/28/201917/bush-climate-speech-follows-luntz-playbook-technology-technology-technology-blah-blah-blah/">http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2007/09/28/201917/bush-climate-speech-follows-luntz-playbook-technology-technology-technology-blah-blah-blah/</a></font><br>
<br>
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