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<i><font size="+1"><b>May 14, 2020</b></font></i><br>
<br>
[Time Magazine tells us]<br>
<b>The Economic Principle That Tells Us a Lot About Coronavirus and
Climate</b><br>
- - -<br>
Of course, the coronavirus pandemic has come about too quickly to
expect the administration to have made a formal calculation of the
cost of addressing it. But a University of Chicago economist used a
rough cost-benefit analysis to estimate that the U.S. should be
willing to spend $65 trillion on lockdowns to prevent deaths. That's
equivalent to roughly three years of U.S. economic output. "COVID-19
has prompted a slew of benefit-cost analyses," writes Gernot Wagner,
an economist at New York University, in a Bloomberg column. "The
verdict in virtually all of them is clear: shutting down the economy
to contain the spread of the virus is worth the costs."...<br>
- - <br>
The National Climate Assessment, a report from more than a dozen
federal agencies, suggests that unchecked climate change will cost
the U.S. $500 billion annually by the end of the century. Globally,
we're talking about tens of trillions of dollars saved in the next
30 years if we act to keep temperatures from rising more than 2C
above pre-industrial levels, the target outlined in the Paris
Agreement, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change.<br>
<br>
"Delayed climate action will cost us vastly more each year in terms
of lost lives and livelihoods, crippled businesses, and damaged
economies," UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said late last
month. "The highest cost is the cost of doing nothing." The rest of
the world is starting to get this. Now it's the U.S.'s turn.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://time.com/5835931/climate-change-coronavirus-cost-benefit/">https://time.com/5835931/climate-change-coronavirus-cost-benefit/</a><br>
<br>
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[Roll Call politics]<br>
<b>Farmers are coming around on climate change</b><br>
Flooded fields, persistent droughts or ravaging wildfires are giving
many a change of heart..<br>
- -<br>
Agriculture may still have a long way to go before it can become a
climate hero. While the majority of scientists agree on climate
change and the forces driving it, researchers continue to evaluate
the best tools to curb emissions. Scientific estimates differ, for
example, about how much carbon certain soil types can store and for
how long.<br>
Even Moore-Kucera of American Farmland says more funding for
research is needed to understand which soil types work best for
sequestration. She says more tools and methodologies are needed to
monitor the effectiveness of management practices on soil carbon
storage and quantify which land and animal practices best control
nitrous oxide and methane emissions.<br>
<br>
This research is critical to ensure agricultural greenhouse gas
mitigation is built on a sustainable foundation, Moore-Kucera says.<br>
<br>
In Ohio, Yoder says the more comprehensive the science on
agriculture and climate mitigation is, the more likely U.S. farmers
are to adopt climate friendly practices.<br>
<br>
"I think one of the most valid critiques of us as American
agriculture is that we're chronic overproducers," Yoder says. "If
you give us something to produce, we will produce the heck out of
it. My thought is if you were to take that same approach to
sequestering carbon imagine, what can come out of that? We're
optimizers."<br>
<br>
At the Environmental Defense Fund, special project director Callie
Eideberg says the organization believes the best way to involve
farmers is to talk about climate change in business terms.<br>
<br>
"Farmers are interested in staying in business so they can raise
their own families," Eideberg says.<br>
<br>
"When an organization starts talking about eliminating your way of
life, that is not going to endear you to their message," she adds.
"However, if we can talk with agriculture about ways to remain
profitable while making changes that help the environment and then
put us on the right path to net zero carbon emission by 2050, they
are on board. The language is key."<br>
<br>
The Environmental Defense Fund sees large-scale agriculture as an
effective platform to tackling greenhouse gas emissions.<br>
<br>
"We know as a society we need to get to net-zero carbon emission by
2050," Eideberg says. "The way the climate is changing now, we're
not going to do that unless we find ways to be resilient. Resilience
is a lot about adaptation and sustainability is about stopping us in
our tracks and keeping the water as beautiful as it is now."<br>
<br>
"Everything is pointing in the right direction. We just have to make
sure the momentum increases," she adds.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.rollcall.com/2020/05/13/farmers-are-coming-around-on-climate-change/">https://www.rollcall.com/2020/05/13/farmers-are-coming-around-on-climate-change/</a><br>
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<p><br>
</p>
[Count the ways]<br>
|64 completed |34 in progress |98 total rollbacks<br>
<b>The Trump Administration Is Reversing Nearly 100 Environmental
Rules. </b><br>
- -<br>
Many of the rollbacks have faced legal challenges by states,
environmental groups and others, and some could remain mired in
court beyond November, regardless of the outcome of the election.<br>
<br>
Hillary Aidun, who tracks deregulation at Columbia University's
Sabin Center for Climate Change Law, said many of the rollbacks had
not been adequately justified, leaving them vulnerable to legal
challenge.<br>
<br>
The New York Times analysis identified 10 rules that were initially
reversed or suspended but later reinstated, often following lawsuits
and other challenges. Other rollbacks were rebuffed by the courts
but later revised by the administration and remain in effect.<br>
<br>
All told, the Trump administration's environmental rollbacks could
significantly increase greenhouse gas emissions and lead to
thousands of extra deaths from poor air quality each year, according
to energy and legal analysts.<br>
<br>
Below, we have summarized each rule that has been targeted for
reversal over the past three years.<br>
<br>
Are there rollbacks we missed? Email <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:climateteam@nytimes.com">climateteam@nytimes.com</a> or
tweet @nytclimate.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/climate/trump-environment-rollbacks.html">https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/climate/trump-environment-rollbacks.html</a><br>
<p><br>
</p>
<p><br>
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[Podcast]<br>
<b>Naomi Klein, Coronavirus Capitalism, and a People's Bailout Now!</b><br>
For our first podcast episode of the pandemic, we take a step back
and examine the big picture -- and who better to guide us than The
Leap's co-founder Naomi Klein. In a wide-ranging conversation, we
explore the perils and possibilities of this political moment, from
the unprecedented ways that Silicon Valley is benefiting from the
pandemic, to the radicalizing power of "essential work."...<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://change-everything.simplecast.com/episodes/naomi-klein-coronavirus-capitalism-and-a-peoples-bailout-now">https://change-everything.simplecast.com/episodes/naomi-klein-coronavirus-capitalism-and-a-peoples-bailout-now</a><br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://theleap.org/change-everything/">https://theleap.org/change-everything/</a><br>
<p><br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
[for the castle]<br>
<b>How to protect your home from disasters amplified by climate
change</b><br>
Individuals and communities can prepare for flooding, fires and
drought...<br>
By Mary Caperton Morton<br>
In the coming decades, regions of the United States will be affected
in different ways by flooding, severe storms, droughts and
wildfires. Millions may be forced from their homes. But what about
the people who choose to stay? What can they do to harden their
homes, to improve the chance the structure will stand up against
water and fire? How can people help their communities adapt to the
everyday realities of climate change?<br>
<b>Predictive flood maps</b><br>
Flooding is already the most common natural disaster in the United
States, occurring in every state and killing more people each year
than hurricanes, tornadoes or lightning. As warming drives sea
levels higher, intensifies hurricanes and fuels more heavy rain
events, more U.S. residents should expect to deal with flooding,
even at inland locations that have not flooded historically, says
Glenn McGillivray, managing director of the Institute for
Catastrophic Loss Reduction in Toronto. Climate models predict more
extreme rainfall events over the next 80 years, across both wet and
dry regions, according to a 2016 report in Nature Climate Change.<br>
<br>
"There's a perception that your house will only flood if you live on
the coast or right next to a big river. But some of the most
destructive flooding events have occurred from heavy rainfall, which
can happen anywhere," McGillivray says. "Pretty much everybody is at
risk of overland flooding, but most people have no clue what their
level of risk really is."<br>
<br>
Flood risk for U.S. homeowners has traditionally been calculated by
the Federal Emergency Management Agency as part of the National
Flood Insurance Program. FEMA software lumps properties into three
categories: inside a 100-year floodplain (an area with at least a 1
percent chance of flooding in a given year) or outside the
floodplain in areas of moderate or minimal risk. A 2018 study in
Environmental Research Letters found that FEMA's maps are outdated
and underestimate the flood risk for over 28 million Americans.<br>
<br>
"FEMA's maps create an illusion of safety for people outside the
100-year floodplain," says Sharai Lewis-Gruss, lead adaptation
specialist for the First Street Foundation, a nonprofit in Brooklyn,
N.Y.<br>
<br>
"The maps are also historical -- they only draw data from past
flooding events," she says. And the databases are sometimes decades
old. The maps don't account for projections of sea level rise, more
intense hurricanes or increased rainfall...<br>
- -<br>
<b>Ready for the flood</b><br>
After assessing your property's flood risk, the next step to prepare
for flooding is to buy flood insurance, says Melissa Roberts,
executive director of the American Flood Coalition, a nonprofit
advocacy group in Washington, D.C. Flood damage is not usually
covered by homeowners insurance, and federal law requires only
people living inside 100-year floodplains to buy supplemental flood
insurance.<br>
<br>
"But we're seeing more flooding events outside of that zone, often
from heavy rainfall," Roberts says. The American Flood Coalition
"now recommends that everybody get flood insurance. The good news
is, if you live outside that 100-year flood zone, it's often pretty
affordable."<br>
<br>
Homeowners who take steps to physically protect their homes from
flooding may get discounts on flood insurance premiums.
Flood-control strategies can range from temporary measures that cost
hundreds of dollars to pricier home redesigns. Not every homeowner
needs to brace for historic hurricanes, but even heavy rain can do a
lot of damage if water finds a way inside, Roberts says...<br>
- -<br>
"Flood control isn't something that should be left to individuals to
deal with. Solutions have to involve everybody."...<br>
- -<br>
<b>From floods to wildfires</b><br>
When it comes to climate-driven natural disasters, fires are as
frightening as floods. In 2017 and 2018, California wildfires killed
147 people, burned 3.5 million acres and destroyed over 34,000
structures in two of the worst fire seasons on record. And wildfires
are expected to become more severe across the West, says Max Moritz,
a wildfire specialist at the University of California, Santa
Barbara. "Warming temperatures are melting snow sooner and drying
out vegetation so that we're already seeing longer fire seasons and
more available fuel."<br>
<br>
Between 1990 and 2010, more than 12 million homes across the United
States were built in what's known as the wildland-urban interface,
where flammable vegetation meets human development and sources of
ignition, such as vehicles or power lines, according to a 2018
analysis in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (SN:
12/22/18 & 1/5/19, p. 8).<br>
<br>
All Western states are prone to wildfire, Moritz says, and he's seen
upward trends in the Midwest and Southeast, too, due to long-term
drought, tree blights, insect-killed trees and a history of fire
suppression that has allowed forest fuels to build up.<br>
<br>
California has long led the charge in wildfire management, with the
Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, or Cal Fire, overseeing
more than 31 million acres of fire-prone landscapes. Since 2008, new
construction in high and very high hazard zones must use
noncombustible exterior materials and fire-resistant features such
as covered gutters that prevent the accumulation of flammable leaves
and needles. A few other states, such as Oregon and Washington, have
adopted similar building codes.<br>
<br>
The November 2018 Camp Fire that swept through Paradise, Calif.,
showed the benefits of fire-hardened homes: Fifty-one percent of
homes that were built to code after 2008 survived; only 18 percent
of older homes escaped serious damage. "Those numbers are stunning.
Building codes really do work," says Robert Raymer, an engineer with
the California Building Industry Association in Sacramento...<br>
- -<br>
Making fire-hardening improvements may lower insurance costs. Unlike
flood insurance, fire insurance has traditionally been part of
homeowners insurance. But with insured losses from the 2017 and 2018
fires totaling over $24 billion, insurers are scrambling to figure
out how to stay in business.<br>
<br>
Some insurance companies have responded by drastically raising
premiums or dropping high-risk customers. In December 2019, the
state insurance commissioner imposed a one-year moratorium on policy
nonrenewals. And the California Fair Access to Insurance
Requirements Plan expanded to provide fire insurance to homeowners
when all other insurance options have failed.<br>
<br>
<b>Ready for fire</b><br>
In a wildfire, most houses are ignited not by walls of flames but by
embers -- small sparks that can travel far from the main fire, Hawks
says. House fires can start when one or a few of these sparks land
on combustible material, such as dry leaves in a gutter, or if
embers find their way inside the house through a roof vent or open
window.<br>
<br>
For homes built before 2008, Cal Fire suggests some low-cost
retrofitting strategies, including sealing any gaps with caulk,
weather stripping or fine metal mesh screens; removing dead or dry
vegetation from around the house and regularly cleaning leaves and
other flammable material from gutters and under decks. More
expensive investments include replacing roofs and decks with
fire-resistant materials and upgrading windows to multipaned
tempered glass that can withstand high temperatures.<br>
<br>
One of the most important strategies, required by law in some
fire-prone states, is a 100-foot (30.5-meter) radius of defensible
space around the home that is kept free of dead or dry plant matter.
At least five to 20 meters of cleared space around a structure can
slow or stop the spread of a wildfire and protect a home from
catching fire from direct flame contact or radiant heat, according
to a 2014 study in the International Journal of Wildland Fire. "I
don't stop at 100 feet. I clear everything around my ranch out to
500 feet. Defensible space is the most effective tactic I've seen
for protecting property," says retired Kern County firefighter
Carrie Shreffler, a resident of Posey, Calif...<br>
- -<br>
In densely built areas, the houses themselves can fuel fires.
"You've probably seen aftermath photos where a fire has swept
through a town and all the homes have burned, but there are still
trees standing and green vegetation," Moritz says. "That's what
happens when the homes themselves are the fuel. It's not a land
management problem where you should have cleared more brush. You
can't thin the fuels because the homes were the fuel."<br>
<br>
As more homes are built in fire-prone areas across the United
States, community-level fire safety approaches will be needed,
Moritz says. "A whole suite of risk-reduction measures can be
applied at the community scale," he says. "We need to pay attention
to how we lay out communities, with buffer zones between houses and
between the community and the surrounding landscape."<br>
<br>
In a report published in April by the University of California
Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources, Moritz and colleagues
also recommend burying power lines, creating water storage
facilities for fighting fires, hardening emergency facilities and
creating community refuges where people can take shelter.<br>
<br>
Some communities are already taking steps to prepare for
emergencies. In Sequoia National Forest, the Posey Area Fire
Auxiliary has been meeting every month for over two decades to
educate residents about fire prevention. In 2016, the Cedar Fire
burned right to the edge of the mountain community, located within
the national forest, but no lives were lost and of about 300 homes,
only three abandoned cabins burned, in part due to the community's
diligence. "We all learned a long time ago that we need to be our
own first line of defense," Shreffler says.<br>
<br>
After the Cedar Fire, Posey and other surrounding communities were
struck by several rain-triggered floods. Flooding after a wildfire
is common, Moritz says, because the charred ground cannot absorb
water as readily as it once did. These flood events can sometimes
evolve into highly destructive debris flows, a thick slurry created
when ash mixes with floodwater.<br>
<br>
Homeowners living in fire-prone regions near creeks or drainages
should consider the possibility of needing to fire- and flood-proof
their homes, Moritz says. "The vision is that someday, we will build
such hardened and sustainable homes that natural hazards will just
be something that happens outside," Moritz says. "We'll [be able to]
watch fires go by like violent rainstorms."<br>
<br>
<b>Old-fashioned self-sufficiency</b><br>
Adapting to climate change may seem daunting, but for many in the
United States, the impacts won't come in the form of devastating
floods or fires. Instead the seasons will gradually get hotter. For
those not facing catastrophe, many of the most effective climate
resiliency tactics are rooted in common sense and self-sufficiency,
says Alexandra von Meier, an electrical engineer at the University
of California, Berkeley.<br>
<br>
"A small amount of preparation can go a long way to making any
situation more livable," von Meier says. For example, a solar power
array and battery bank, or an emergency generator or portable solar
setup, "can make a big difference" in maintaining basic home systems
and lines of communication. Installing rainwater collection barrels
can help see your garden through a dry season and help you keep
water on hand in emergencies. And making upgrades for a better
insulated, more energy-efficient home will help lower home operating
costs, as well as your carbon footprint, Raymer says.<br>
<br>
That preparation is key, von Meier says. "Whether people will be
able to stay in their own homes in the aftermath of a natural
disaster or a long-term power outage will ultimately depend on their
level of preparedness. Do you have enough food and water on hand? Do
you have a plan for when the lights don't work or water stops coming
out of the faucet? Do you have ways to communicate with the outside
world? These are very basic needs that people should know how to
meet."<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.sciencenews.org/article/how-to-protect-your-home-from-disasters-climate-change">https://www.sciencenews.org/article/how-to-protect-your-home-from-disasters-climate-change</a><br>
<br>
<br>
[Political power]<br>
<b>Bargaining for the Common Good | Bargaining for Climate Justice</b><br>
Todd E. Vachon , Saket Soni , Judith Le Blanc , and Gerry Hudson<br>
- -<br>
Communities seeking to rewrite the rules of disaster response to
achieve greater resilience and equity can begin by drafting a
"disaster recovery bill of rights" to inform and help move
"contracts for recovery" for workers and local communities. These
could be drafted collaboratively by local unions in partnership with
community organizations and pushed for adoption in contract
bargaining campaigns and at the municipal, county or state level of
government. They could include a set of protections for workers and
community members, such as the right to living wages for cleanup
workers and the right to return home for residents without eviction
or job loss. They could establish local water or land use codes by
local entities. They could also help to ensure a just transition for
workers who face job loss and communities that are economically
devasted by plant or factory closures. Fighting for these new rules
for recovery locally through BCG campaigns could coincide with and
reinforce ongoing union legislative efforts to expand the social
safety net, including more public money in unemployment insurance
and food stamps, new social supports such as universal healthcare
coverage, and a public jobs program as well as protections of tribal
sovereignty. These new rules - or disaster recovery rights - could
also reinvent housing, transportation, education, environmental
impact monitoring and healthcare systems to serve working class and
tribal communities... <br>
- -<br>
<b>Coming to a Contract Campaign Near You?</b><br>
As the climate catastrophe has shown us time and again, and that
more recently the Coronavirus outbreak is demonstrating, the
unchecked corporate and financial powers-that-be will always place
profit before human wellbeing. However, times of crisis can also be
times of opportunity for radical change, if action is taken. In
February, the Minneapolis janitors became the first U.S. union to go
on strike for climate justice. In recent weeks, local unions across
the country have responded to the global pandemic by articulating
demands that meet the needs of their members and the communities
they live and work in. By broadening labor's bargaining demands to
include these common good concerns, BCG campaigns can open an
important new front for challenging the corporate and financial
powers that drive inequality and help pave the road to building the
just, equitable, and sustainable economy we all need and deserve. <br>
A Call to Action in This Moment<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://forgeorganizing.org/article/bargaining-climate-justice">https://forgeorganizing.org/article/bargaining-climate-justice</a><br>
<p><br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
[even more distressing news]<br>
<b>Second wave of locusts in Africa expected to be 20 times worse |
DW News<br>
</b>May 11, 2020<br>
DW News<br>
A second wave of desert locusts has descended on East Africa.
Estimates indicate it will be 20 times worse than the swarms that
made their way through the region two months ago. The UN says the
locusts present "an unprecedented threat" to food security and
livelihoods. The coronavirus exacerbates the logistical challenges
of fighting the plague, as DW's Sella Oneko reports from Kenya.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PM58cANxUW0">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PM58cANxUW0</a><br>
<p><br>
</p>
<br>
[Over 30 years ago in the Washington Post]<br>
<font size="+1"><b>On this day in the history of global warming -
May 14, 1989 </b></font><br>
In a Washington Post op-ed, Sen. Al Gore (D-TN) notes:<br>
<blockquote>"As a nation and a government, we must see that
America's future is inextricably tied to the fate of the globe. In
effect, the environment is becoming a matter of national security
-- an issue that directly and imminently menaces the interests of
the state or the welfare of the people.<br>
<br>
"To date, the national-security agenda has been dominated by
issues of military security, embedded in the context of global
struggle between the United States and the Soviet Union -- a
struggle often waged through distant surrogates, but which has
always harbored the risk of direct confrontation and nuclear war.
Given the recent changes in Soviet behavior, there is growing
optimism that this long, dark period may be passing. This may in
turn open the international agenda for other urgent matters and
for the release of enormous resources, now committed to war,
toward other objectives. Many of us hope that the global
environment will be the new dominant concern...<br>
<br>
"When nations perceive that they are threatened at the strategic
level, they may be induced to think of drastic responses,
involving sharp discontinuities from everyday approaches to
policy. In military terms, this is the point when the United
States begins to think of invoking nuclear weapons. The global
environment crisis may demand responses that are comparatively
radical.<br>
<br>
"At present, despite some progress made toward limiting some
sources of the problem, such as CFCs, we have barely scratched the
surface. Even if all other elements of the problem are solved, a
major threat is still posed by emissions of carbon dioxide, the
exhaling breath of the industrial culture upon which our
civilization rests. The implications of the latest and best
studies on this matter are staggering. Essentially, they tell us
that with our current pattern of technology and production, we
face a choice between economic growth in the near term and massive
environmental disorder as the subsequent penalty."<br>
</blockquote>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/12/AR2007101200827_pf.html">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/12/AR2007101200827_pf.html</a><br>
<br>
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