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<i><font size="+1"><b>April 20, 2020</b></font></i><br>
<br>
[political action]<br>
<b>Former Inslee staffers pitch climate plan to Biden, Congress</b><br>
Ex-campaign staffers for former presidential candidate Jay Inslee
are reviving the Washington governor's ambitious climate plan by
pitching an updated proposal to congressional Democrats and the
Biden campaign.<br>
<br>
The new plan is a condensed version of Inslee's 200-page climate
manifesto but contains many of the same objectives: transitioning to
100 percent clean electricity by 2035, slashing subsidies for the
fossil fuel industry, creating a Climate Conservation Corps, and
revitalizing the economy through investment in green technology and
clean energy...<br>
- - <br>
"Essentially the concept was: How can we take the assets of a
presidential campaign, including smart, thoughtful policy and
communications and media and organizing capacity, but put it in
service of policy and the movement rather than an individual?" said
Bracken Hendricks, a former Inslee staffer who authored the plan
alongside two other colleagues from the campaign...<br>
- - <br>
Biden's climate plan, which received a B+ from Greenpeace, lagged
proposals from Inslee and former White House hopeful Sen. Bernie
Sander (I-Vt.), who both called for spending trillions more to
address climate change in plans that were described as the "gold
standard" for tackling the issue.<br>
<br>
Some environmental groups have said they'd like to see Biden call
for 100 percent clean energy sooner than his 2050 deadline, and
commit to rejecting new permits for fossil fuel infrastructure such
as pipelines.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/493436-former-inslee-staffers-pitch-climate-plan-to-biden-congress">https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/493436-former-inslee-staffers-pitch-climate-plan-to-biden-congress</a><br>
-- <br>
[AOC too]<br>
<b>AOC lays out progressive wish list for Biden</b><br>
The congresswoman also weighed in on the presumptive Democratic
nominee's choice of running mate.<br>
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Wednesday called for Joe Biden, the
presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, to shift leftward on
four key policy issues in a bid to earn the trust of his party's
progressive wing.<br>
<br>
"There are very real, tangible areas where Democrats even fell short
perhaps during the Obama administration that I think I would like
for us to have a plan to improve," the New York Democrat told
POLITICO Playbook in a virtual interview -- citing federal treatment
of Puerto Rico, immigration, health care and climate change...<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/15/aoc-joe-biden-progressive-wishlist-187678">https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/15/aoc-joe-biden-progressive-wishlist-187678</a><br>
<p><br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
[exuberant video podcast with Gavin Schmidt and Katharine Hayhoe]<br>
<b>StarTalk Podcast: Coronavirus and Climate Change, with Neil
deGrasse Tyson</b><br>
Apr 16, 2020<br>
StarTalk<br>
On this episode of StarTalk Radio, Neil deGrasse Tyson is
investigating the link between coronavirus and climate change
alongside comic co-host Chuck Nice and expert guests. How has
coronavirus impacted climate change? Can methods used to track
climate change be used to track the spread of coronavirus? We
explore these topics and a lot more. <br>
<br>
Our first guest is Gavin Schmidt, PhD, Director of the NASA Goddard
Institute for Space Studies. To start, we get a little background on
CO2 emissions. How has the air quality changed over the current
quarantined period? You'll learn how the decrease of car and air
travel have impacted our climate. We explore how climate modeling is
similar to modeling the spread of coronavirus. You'll also learn the
benefits of "simple" vs "complex" modeling. Gavin tells us why
models are fundamental to scientific enterprise. <br>
<br>
Then we welcome our second guest, Katharine Hayhoe, PhD, director of
the Climate Center at Texas Tech University. She also has her own
YouTube channel called @Global Weirding with Katharine Hayhoe.
Katharine explains how coronavirus made the jump from animals to
humans (zoonosis) and why this is not the first, or last, time it
will happen. You'll hear why the current pandemic is like a
microcosm of climate change. <br>
<br>
We investigate the role that government has played in this pandemic
so far and what governments can learn from dealing with this
situation. Katharine explains how this pandemic and climate change
are similar in the fact that they both impact the poorest people the
hardest. <br>
<br>
We take a look at the spread of conspiracy theories during this
pandemic and how they come from the same places that spread climate
change conspiracies. Lastly, you'll also hear about
climatefeedback.org, a website run by a network of scientists to
bring you truthful climate change news. All that, plus, Katharine
shares a hopeful message for the future.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kSjTsInyveE">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kSjTsInyveE</a><br>
<p><br>
</p>
<br>
[Unequal]<br>
<b>Covid-19 and Climate Change Threats Compound in Minority
Communities</b><br>
Port Arthur, Texas, is a case in point: disproportionately hit by
hurricanes, fossil-fuel pollution and now, the coronavirus.<br>
- - -<br>
The heavy presence of industry--a common theme among poor and mostly
black and brown communities across the country--may be one reason
residents of Port Arthur, in a region once dubbed "the cancer belt,"
have higher rates of cancer, asthma and cardiovascular disease when
compared to state averages, according to a 2016 report from
Southeast Nonprofit Development Center. It's also why Kelley, who
for decades has watched his family, friends and neighbors die from
invisible culprits, is now sounding the alarm over coronavirus.<br>
<br>
Jefferson County, which includes Port Arthur, has seen a spike in
Covid-19 infections since mid-March, the number increasing from 1 to
at least 100 by mid-April. But what worries Kelley most is that he
and his neighbors, based on a recent study that links higher
coronavirus death rates to past exposure to air pollution, are at
particularly high risk to the virus...<br>
- - -<br>
In Michigan, black people make up 41 percent of the state's total
Covid-19 deaths, despite making up just 14 percent of the state
population. Illinois' black residents also make up 41 percent of the
state's coronavirus deaths, when they account for just 14.6 percent
of the total population. And in Louisiana, nearly 60 percent of the
people who died of coronavirus in the state are black, while the
group is just a third of the state's population.<br>
<br>
These statistics come as no surprise to public health experts, many
of whom have long pointed to persistent health and socioeconomic
disparities in the country that continually put low-income
communities and communities of color at greater risk of what they
call "high fatality events," such as natural disasters.<br>
<br>
A 2018 federal report concluded that low-income communities already
have higher rates of myriad health conditions, are more exposed to
environmental hazards and take longer to bounce back from natural
disasters, such as hurricanes, flooding and wildfires.<br>
<br>
It's now clear that the frontline communities most vulnerable to the
effects of climate change are the same communities most at risk of
contracting and dying from Covid-19, said Sabrina McCormick, a
professor of environmental and occupational health at the George
Washington University Milken Institute School of Public Health.<br>
<br>
To McCormick, the pandemic has simply highlighted something public
health officials have declared for decades: Directly or indirectly,
burning fossil fuels is harmful to human health. Globally, "eight
million people die annually because of air pollution-related
diseases," she said. "Those are just the facts."...<br>
- -<br>
<b>Environmental Rollbacks 'A Death Sentence' to Some</b><br>
The Trump administration's move to suspend enforcement of U.S.
environmental laws could also be playing a deadly role as vulnerable
communities attempt to navigate the era of coronavirus.<br>
<br>
By allowing polluting facilities to report their own emissions to
the federal government and potentially exceed their emissions limits
without recourse, the administration is putting many African
American communities at higher risk of infection and death, said
Adrienne Hollis, senior climate justice and health scientist for the
Union of Concerned Scientists.<br>
<br>
African Americans are three times more likely to die from asthma
than white Americans, Hollis said, and they also have the highest
rate of deaths from heart disease--all of which compounds the
group's susceptibility to coronavirus.<br>
<br>
"By him [Trump] relaxing these laws and regulations, it's a sure
nail in the coffin for a lot of folks here in the Jefferson County
area," said Port Arthur's Kelley. "It is a death sentence is what it
is. We are already dying."<br>
<br>
It's not the only recent action the administration has taken that is
likely to harm communities most vulnerable to both Covid-19 and
climate change. In 2018, the Trump administration proposed a rule
that would place limits on the science used in decision-making by
the Environmental Protection Agency, including studies that could
hold clues to Covid-19. <br>
<br>
And this week, the administration ignored the advice from government
scientists to strengthen the national air quality standard for fine
soot, despite recent research linking exposure to the particles with
higher coronavirus death rates.<br>
<br>
"In the last four years, the actions engineered by this
administration to put profits over people have been especially
detrimental to environmental justice communities, which include
people of color, poor people and our indigenous brothers and
sisters," Hollis said in a statement.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/16042020/coronavirus-climate-environmental-justice-oil-refinery-hurricanes-port-arthur-texas">https://insideclimatenews.org/news/16042020/coronavirus-climate-environmental-justice-oil-refinery-hurricanes-port-arthur-texas</a>
<p><br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
[Report from Agence France-Presse]<br>
<b>Ambitious 'Cloud Brightening' Experiment Was Just Carried Out
Over Great Barrier Reef</b><br>
In an attempt to cool waters around the reef by making clouds
reflect more sunlight, researchers said they used a boat-mounted fan
similar to a snow cannon to shoot salt crystals into the air.<br>
<br>
Results from the trial were "really, really encouraging", the
project's lead scientist Daniel Harrison from Southern Cross
University said on Friday.<br>
<br>
"All the research is theoretical... so this an absolute world first
to go out and actually try and take seawater and turn it into these
cloud condensation nuclei," he told AFP.<br>
- - -<br>
"If it works as well as we hope then maybe we could reduce the
bleaching stress by about 70 per cent... potentially nearly all of
the mortality."<br>
<br>
He also said the effectiveness of the cloud-brightening technique
would drop significantly as the ocean warms further.<br>
<br>
That means the process would be similar to putting the reef on
life-support while the underlying challenge of climate change was
addressed.<br>
<br>
"If we keep going on business-as-usual-type emission scenarios, then
at most this technology can just buy a couple of extra decades
before we see the complete loss of the reef," he warned.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.sciencealert.com/cloud-brightening-is-the-newest-experiment-to-protect-the-great-barrier-reef-from-warming">https://www.sciencealert.com/cloud-brightening-is-the-newest-experiment-to-protect-the-great-barrier-reef-from-warming</a><br>
<p><br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
[MIT follows the money]<br>
<b>Can financial disclosure of climate risk accelerate climate
action?</b><br>
Online panel discussion hosted by MIT explores best practices for
mitigating climate-related risk.<br>
The Covid-19 pandemic could be a dry run for future impacts of
climate change, with challenging and unprecedented situations
requiring rapid and aggressive responses worldwide. A proactive
approach to climate change aimed at minimizing such impacts will
inevitably involve significant cuts in greenhouse gas (GHG)
emissions and investment in more resilient infrastructure. Although
current global mitigation and adaptation efforts are proceeding
slowly, one emerging strategy could serve as an accelerant: the
financial disclosure of climate risk by companies. Such disclosure,
if practiced more widely and consistently, could lower the risks of
climate change by redirecting investments away from GHG-emitting
activities and pinpointing infrastructure that needs to be made more
resilient... <br>
- - <br>
Toward that end, the MIT Joint Program on the Science and Policy of
Global Change engaged dozens of decision-makers in the financial
sector and industry in a two-hour panel discussion on
climate-related financial risk. Held as a Zoom meeting on March 26
and facilitated by joint program Co-Director Ronald Prinn, the
discussion featured six finance and economics experts from the Bank
of England, the Bank of Canada, HSBC, BP, and MIT. Panelists
described how their organization has been affected by
climate-related financial risk and the steps it's taking to address
it, how climate and economic scenarios could be useful in better
understanding climate-related financial risks, and potential
research that an institution like MIT could pursue to advance the
state of knowledge in this area...<br>
- - <br>
"Generally, what we're finding is that there's a tradeoff between
physical and transition risks depending on the pathway you look at,"
said Craig Johnston, senior economist at the Bank of Canada. "If we
do nothing [to reduce emissions], we see very limited transition
risks, but the highest level of physical risks. On the other side of
things, a rapid transformation toward a low-carbon economy has the
highest transition risks, but it does mitigate physical risks to
some degree."...<br>
more at -
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://news.mit.edu/2020/can-financial-disclosure-climate-risk-accelerate-climate-action-0416">http://news.mit.edu/2020/can-financial-disclosure-climate-risk-accelerate-climate-action-0416</a><br>
<p><br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
[Digging back into the internet news archive]<br>
<font size="+1"><b>On this day in the history of global warming -
April 20, 2002</b></font><br>
The Guardian reports:<br>
<br>
"The head of the international scientific panel on climate change,<br>
which has called for urgent action to curb global warming, was
deposed<br>
yesterday after a campaign by the Bush administration, Exxon-Mobil
and<br>
other energy companies to get him replaced.<br>
<br>
"At a plenary session of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change<br>
(IPCC) in Geneva, Robert Watson, a British-born US atmospheric<br>
scientist who has been its chairman since 1996, was replaced by an<br>
Indian railway engineer and environmentalist, R K Pachauri.<br>
<br>
"Dr Pachauri received 76 votes to Dr. Watson's 49 after a<br>
behind-the-scenes diplomatic campaign by the US to persuade
developing<br>
countries to vote against Dr Watson, according to diplomats. The<br>
British delegation argued for Dr Watson and Dr Pachauri to share the<br>
chairmanship.<br>
<br>
"The US campaign came to light after the disclosure of a
confidential<br>
memorandum from the world's biggest oil company, Exxon-Mobil, to the<br>
White House, proposing a strategy for his removal."<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2002/apr/20/internationaleducationnews.climatechange">http://www.theguardian.com/world/2002/apr/20/internationaleducationnews.climatechange</a><br>
<br>
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