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<p><i><font size="+1"><b>April 14, 2020</b></font></i><br>
</p>
[in the Salt Lake Tribune]<br>
<b>Commentary: Coronavirus response is how we should be facing
climate change</b><br>
We live in frightening times. Shelves stand barren in grocery
stores, whilst an invisible enemy threatens our lives and the lives
of our loved ones. Yet, the COVID-19 pandemic is not the only
catastrophe affecting Utah right now.<br>
<br>
We are 11 students from the University of Utah's Honors College
studying the climate changes that Utah is experiencing. Our class
met with the Kem Gardner Institute's director, researched climate
displacement and worked to assist the university's ongoing efforts
toward carbon neutrality. Now we find ourselves in a pandemic that
has surprising parallels to the climate emergency that motivated us
in the first place. Speaking as students, youths and concerned
community members, we want to say that the coronavirus has changed
the world seemingly overnight, and it offers a new perspective to
understand the culture surrounding climate change.<br>
<br>
In the past decade, climate change has played a role in disastrous
global events, posing a threat to Utah's youth, economy, and
environment. Fortunately, our current response to COVID-19 has
provided two lessons that can be used to address the climate crisis:
the remarkable power of working together and the benefits of a swift
response.<br>
<br>
We are capable of coming together to benefit their community. The
CDC warns that the number of COVID-19 cases will rise dramatically
in the coming weeks, thereby overwhelming the current medical
infrastructure. To prevent this, Utahns have been asked to
participate in social distancing. By and large, we have successfully
implemented this collective task relatively early in the crisis.<br>
<br>
Acting in the collective interest is a lesson Utah should apply to
the impending climate crisis. Currently, we are acting to protect
our families and friends, but when the coronavirus subsides this
energy can be dedicated to carbon neutrality and global warming.
Investing in renewable energy, purchasing carbon offsets and
supporting environmental legislation are ways we can help mitigate
the effects of the climate crisis and create a healthier future for
all of Utah.<br>
<br>
The coronavirus pandemic shows the importance of quick and decisive
action in the face of catastrophe. Our leaders mobilized our
infrastructure, and proved the state can protect its citizens. In
preparation for future crises, these practices should be taken to
heart, particularly the need to mitigate before issues bloom into
threats. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports
limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius will reduce global
environmental and economic threats to all our futures. To achieve
this, large-scale collective responses are required.<br>
<br>
Utah can create the building blocks to prepare for the climate
crisis. The 2019 Utah Legislature, at the request of students from
across the state, asked the Kem C. Gardner Policy Institute to
create solutions for Utah's air quality and climate crisis. The
result was the Utah Roadmap. This policy recommendation formally
recognizes the impacts that poor air quality and climate disruption
have on local and global communities. It provides expert-recommended
solutions to make Utah a leader in environmental and economic
stewardship. It was introduced as a bill this past legislative
session and enjoyed widespread support from students, businesses and
Utahns. Despite the support, it was blocked by the House Rules
Committee.<br>
<br>
Climate change will affect Utah snow, air quality, agriculture and
water. Innovative, bold solutions need to be implemented to
transition our state towards sustainability and resilience. This
virus emergency shows we can cooperate for the broader good and
cooperate at all levels of government. Utah needs to respond to the
long-term threat of climate change with the same seriousness as the
imminent threat of COVID-19. We students hope the momentum of
solving coronavirus can also carry us to climate solutions.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.sltrib.com/opinion/commentary/2020/04/11/commentary-coronavirus/">https://www.sltrib.com/opinion/commentary/2020/04/11/commentary-coronavirus/</a><br>
<p><br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
[Journal ]<br>
<b>American Imago Special issue: Ecological Grief</b><br>
Volume 77, Number 1, Spring 2020<br>
Johns Hopkins University Press<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://muse.jhu.edu/issue/42141">https://muse.jhu.edu/issue/42141</a><br>
<br>
<p><br>
</p>
[good to know]<br>
<b>Coronavirus Shows How to Fight Lies About Climate Change</b><br>
Americans have stayed vigilant against conspiracy theories about the
coronavirus. Experts say there are lessons for how we deal with
climate change.<br>
With both the coronavirus and climate change, misconceptions abound.
In each instance, people have downplayed the impact or blamed China,
and many believe that news outlets are exaggerating the threat.<br>
But with the coronavirus, news outlets and tech companies have done
a much better job of quashing misinformation, experts say, which
could provide lessons on how to fight conspiracy theories about
climate change<br>
<br>
"The big difference between coronavirus and climate change is that
peoples' bullshit detectors are on high alert on this issue compared
to climate change," said John Cook, a cognitive psychologist at the
George Mason University Center for Climate Change Communication and
co-author of a new handbook on how to debunk conspiracy theories.
"They just have a much lower tolerance for misinformation -- both
the public and the media."<br>
<b><br>
</b><b>Here are the big takeaways.</b><br>
The coronavirus is an urgent crisis. Climate change has to feel the
same way for people to take misinformation seriously.<br>
With the coronavirus rapidly spreading through the United States,
correcting misinformation has become a matter of life and death.
Climate change doesn't share the same sense of urgency.<br>
"The media have been clamping down on misinformation much harder
than they normally would. The difference is that with coronavirus,
it's a much more immediate threat," Cook said. "It's like climate
change on fast forward."<br>
Thus, while brand-name news outlets like The New York Times have
been willing to run op-eds skeptical of climate science, they
wouldn't do the same with the coronavirus, said Cook's collaborator
Stephen Lewandowksy.<br>
"People in The New York Times might develop some edifice inside
their heads that justifies their denial -- by appealing to
uncertainty or whatever -- but that's very different from saying,
'No one is dying of coronavirus.' There is a qualitative difference
there," said Lewandowsky, a cognitive psychologist at the University
of Bristol and co-author of the handbook. "That makes it much harder
for well-adjusted people to engage in this nonsense."<br>
With the coronavirus, round-the-clock reporting has made the
extraordinary stakes of the pandemic clear, spurring people to be
more skeptical of conspiracy theories. Experts said that news
outlets have to do the same thing with climate change. We take their
cues on the scale and urgency of a problem from the volume of news
coverage.<br>
We also learn from the people around us. In response to the grim
news about the coronavirus, Americans are donning masks, stockpiling
food and canceling dinner plans, creating a new norm around the
illness, said Margaret Klein Salamon, a trained clinical
psychologist who now heads The Climate Mobilization Project. She
said we need to take a similar approach with climate change,
treating the issue with the seriousness it deserves, while staying
watchful for misinformation...<br>
more at -
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://nexusmedianews.com/the-coronavirus-is-a-case-study-in-how-to-fight-conspiracy-theories-865d11bd7506">https://nexusmedianews.com/the-coronavirus-is-a-case-study-in-how-to-fight-conspiracy-theories-865d11bd7506</a><br>
<br>
<p><br>
</p>
[Opinion]<br>
<b>Will the next great pandemic come from the permafrost?</b><br>
As the Arctic warms, 'zombie' viruses and microbes are rising from
the thawing ground. But infectious diseases migrating north could
pose an even bigger threat to human and animal health<br>
- - -<br>
'A gigantic reservoir of ancient microbes or viruses'<br>
In a 2017 paper, a team of Belgian researchers describe the threats
to human health from microbes that were previously frozen in
permafrost. <br>
<br>
"Over the past few years, there has been increasing evidence that
the permafrost is a gigantic reservoir of ancient microbes or
viruses that may come back to life if environmental conditions
change and set them free again," the authors write.<br>
<br>
The paper describes a separate study in which two viruses emerged
from a single sample of 700-year-old caribou droppings. They were
both able to be resurrected.<br>
<br>
In 2014, scientists discovered a giant virus (a classification only
discovered a decade earlier) frozen in a 30,000-year-old ice core.
Like a scene out of a sci-fi movie, the scientists thawed it and
watched it take over an amoeba. <br>
<br>
The scientists concluded in a paper that their ability to resurrect
the virus suggests that thawing permafrost -- as a result of global
warming or industrial exploitation of circumpolar regions -- might
pose a threat to human or animal health.<br>
<br>
Evolutionary ecologist Ellen Decaestecker, who co-authored the 2017
paper, says the increasing encroachment of people into natural areas
worldwide is presenting new opportunities for health crises. <br>
<br>
"We are changing the environment very fast at this moment in terms
of habitat fragmentation and climate change," she says, adding that
people are also travelling more and more (or at least they were
before COVID-19 hit). "The chance that [an outbreak] happens as a
result of the combination of these factors is quite high." ...<br>
more at - <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://thenarwhal.ca/next-great-pandemic-permafrost/">https://thenarwhal.ca/next-great-pandemic-permafrost/</a><br>
<p><br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
[important archive video]<br>
<b>"Arctic Amplification" of Global Warming | Prof. Philip Wookey |
TEDxHeriotWattUniversity</b><br>
Oct 16, 2015<br>
TEDx Talks<br>
24M subscribers<br>
As a region, the Arctic is warming faster than any other part of the
planet; it is both a sentinel of global change and a key component
of the climate system. In this talk Phil will highlight the powerful
linkages between the biosphere and the cryosphere (the frozen world)
in the Arctic, and how this matters to us all. <br>
<br>
Phil is Professor of Ecosystem Science at Heriot-Watt University,
Edinburgh. He holds a Combined Honours degree from the University of
Exeter (1984) and a PhD in air pollution effects research from
Lancaster University and the Institute of Terrestrial Ecology
(1988). His passion for "The North" and unwavering love of cold,
snowy and windswept places has inevitably led him to the Arctic,
where he continues to research its amplification on global warming.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5a5DJVcSh8A">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5a5DJVcSh8A</a><br>
<br>
<p><br>
</p>
<br>
[Digging back into the internet news archive]<br>
<font size="+1"><b>On this day in the history of global warming -
April 14, </b></font><br>
April 14, 1964: Writer and biologist Rachel Carson, whose 1962 book<br>
"Silent Spring" galvanized a generation to take environmental
concerns<br>
seriously, passes away at 56.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.nytimes.com/books/97/10/05/reviews/carson-obit.html">http://www.nytimes.com/books/97/10/05/reviews/carson-obit.html</a><br>
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