<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8">
</head>
<body text="#000000" bgcolor="#FFFFFF">
<p><i><font size="+1"><b>June 19, 2020</b></font></i><br>
</p>
[Remember 30 years ago, now look ahead]<br>
<b>Rising Seas Threaten an American Institution: The 30-Year
Mortgage</b><br>
Climate change is starting to transform the classic home loan, a
fixture of the American experience and financial system that dates
back generations...<br>
- -<br>
In new research this month, Dr. Ouazad found that, since the housing
crash, the share of homes with fixed-rate, 30-year mortgages has
declined sharply -- to less than 80 percent, as of 2016 -- in areas
most exposed to storm surges. In the rest of the country, the rate
has stayed constant, at about 90 percent of home loans..<br>
- -<br>
The tougher question, according Carolyn Kousky, executive director
of the Wharton Risk Center at the University of Pennsylvania, is
what happens after that, when people quite simply no longer want to
live in homes that keep flooding. "What happens when the water
starts lapping at these properties, and they get abandoned?" she
said.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/19/climate/climate-seas-30-year-mortgage.html"
moz-do-not-send="true">https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/19/climate/climate-seas-30-year-mortgage.html</a><br>
<br>
<br>
<p><br>
</p>
[Wildfire today]<br>
<b>Bighorn Fire north of Tucson burns past Mt. Lemmon</b><br>
June 18, 2020C<br>
The fire grew by over 31,000 acres Wednesday<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://wildfiretoday.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Bighorn-Fire-1033-pm-MDT-June-17-2020.jpg"
moz-do-not-send="true">https://wildfiretoday.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Bighorn-Fire-1033-pm-MDT-June-17-2020.jpg</a><br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://wildfiretoday.com/2020/06/18/bighorn-fire-north-of-tucson-burns-past-mt-lemmon/"
moz-do-not-send="true">https://wildfiretoday.com/2020/06/18/bighorn-fire-north-of-tucson-burns-past-mt-lemmon/</a><br>
[smoke map US]<br>
<b>This is the forecast for the distribution of vertically
integrated and near surface smoke at 7 p.m. MDT June 17, 2020. By
NOAA.</b><br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://wildfiretoday.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Forecast-for-wildfire-smoke-7-pm-MDT-June-17-2020.jpg"
moz-do-not-send="true">https://wildfiretoday.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Forecast-for-wildfire-smoke-7-pm-MDT-June-17-2020.jpg</a><br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://wildfiretoday.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Forecast-for-wildfire-smoke-7-pm-MDT-June-17-2020.jpg"
moz-do-not-send="true">https://www.ospo.noaa.gov/Products/land/hms.html</a>
<p><br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
[See the data first - Climate Prediction Center]<br>
<b>NOAA Climate Prediction Center</b><br>
See the 3 month outlook <br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/" moz-do-not-send="true">https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/</a><br>
[You want to bookmark this site]<br>
<p><br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
[TIME Magazine says]<br>
<b>Scientists Alarmed About Siberia's Record Breaking Winter and
Spring Temperatures</b><br>
Scientists say that Siberia's unusually warm weather through winter
and spring is "an alarming sign" -- illustrating some of the most
notable effects of global climate change as the world warms. In May,
surface temperatures "were up to 10 degrees Celsius above average in
parts of Siberia," according to research by a climate agency
affiliated with the European Commission.<br>
<br>
"It is undoubtedly an alarming sign, but not only May was unusually
warm in this region," says Freja Vamborg, Senior Scientist at the
Copernicus Climate Change Service in a statement on Wednesday. "The
whole of winter and spring had repeated periods of
higher-than-average surface air temperatures."<br>
<br>
The program reported just days earlier that May 2020 was "globally
the warmest May on record," with the most "above-average
temperatures (…) recorded over parts of Siberia." Marina Makarova,
the chief meteorologist at Russia's Rosgidromet weather service
said, "This winter was the hottest in Siberia since records began
130 years ago" and that "average temperatures were up to 6 degrees
Celsius higher than the seasonal norms," The Guardian reported.<br>
<br>
Vamborg points out that while the entire world is getting warmer,
some regions -- like Western Siberia -- stand out for just how much
hotter the area is getting. It's not unheard of for regions to
experience "large temperature anomalies" like this, she notes.
"However, what is unusual in this case is how long the
warmer-than-average anomalies have persisted for," Vamborg says.<br>
<br>
Negative impacts of warmer weather are already being felt in the
region. Media reports have also revealed an "exceptionally early
break-up of ice in Siberia's rivers," Copernicus notes. Moreover,
just last month, Russian President Vladimir Putin declared a state
of emergency in the city of Norilsk after a massive oil spill in the
Arctic region. The incident was caused by the collapse of a power
plant. (Copernicus says this was "thought to be due to melting
permafrost beneath the tank's supports.") Last year, the Siberian
region also experienced devastating wildfires in which millions of
acres burned.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://time.com/5855604/siberia-climate-change/"
moz-do-not-send="true">https://time.com/5855604/siberia-climate-change/</a><br>
<p><br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
[AP notices]<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://apnews.com/093fb315c9164da3cfae5c7cff4dc70d">https://apnews.com/093fb315c9164da3cfae5c7cff4dc70d</a><br>
<b>Vatican: Climate change efforts go forward even without US</b><br>
By FRANCES D'EMILIO<br>
VATICAN CITY (AP) -- The Vatican stressed Thursday that the movement
to combat climate change is unstoppable and worldwide, although it
said it would welcome a U.S. return to the Paris agreement.<br>
<br>
The Holy See's foreign minister, Monsignor Paul Gallagher, at a news
conference marking five years since Pope Francis' encyclical
"Laudato Si'" decrying human damage to the environment, insisted
that "humanity will not be blown off course" by any one player's
decision.<br>
<br>
Last year, U.S. President Donald Trump's administration formally
began the process to exit the climate deal, in which nearly 200
nations pledged to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and assist poor
nations struggling with the consequences of a warming Earth.<br>
<br>
"We do believe that U.S. engagement in many fields is vital to the
future of the world's environment," Gallagher said in response to a
question about the U.S. pullout.<br>
<br>
Still, as efforts on climate change go, "it's an irresistible world
movement, a social movement, a movement of faith," and so "humanity
will not be blown of course by any decision" to withdraw from the
accords, he said...<br>
- -<br>
The worldwide COVID-19 outbreak struck as various Vatican
departments were well into drafting a document calling on the
faithful to carry out concrete local actions to mark the fifth
anniversary of the encyclical that denounced the environment's
exploitation and strongly recommended caring for the Earth.<br>
<br>
In the anniversary document, the Vatican said the pandemic also laid
bare the need to rethink political policies that have been aimed at
reducing welfare programs. It didn't identify specific countries.<br>
<br>
The document says that, provoked by the pandemic, "the health
emergency, the solitude, the isolation to combat contagion, have put
us suddenly face-to-face with our fragility as finite creatures."<br>
<br>
Essentially, the document takes stock of how Catholics worldwide
have responded to the pope's encyclical. The Vatican cites examples
of concrete projects and grass-roots initiatives taken in recent
years by local churches, charities or parishes to prevent
environmental damage or save natural resources. Among them is a
charity's project in Mongolia to reduce carbon dioxide emissions and
another to help small-scale farmers in India reduce use of excessive
fertilizer...<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://apnews.com/093fb315c9164da3cfae5c7cff4dc70d">https://apnews.com/093fb315c9164da3cfae5c7cff4dc70d</a><br>
<p><br>
</p>
<p> </p>
[clearly so]<br>
<b>Big corporate climate pledges often can't work without policy
changes</b><br>
<b> </b>Ben Geman, author of Generate<br>
Lyft's newly announced plan to go 100% electric by 2030 blends
ambition on climate with an admission that making good relies on
variables it can perhaps influence but can't control.<br>
<br>
Why it matters: The ride-hailing giant is admirably open about
something that can get lost in the avalanche of big pledges over the
last two years. They need policy changes to make it work.<br>
<br>
Lyft outlined a pathway that starts with more near-term electric
vehicle deployment through its driver rental program and more slowly
spurring electrification of driver-owned cars used for the vast
majority of Lyft rides.<br>
But it cites the need for "unprecedented leadership from
policymakers and regulators to align market rules and incentives for
businesses and consumers alike."<br>
This sort of acknowledgment is hardly unique in the burgeoning world
of aggressive corporate climate pledges.<br>
The big picture: Look closely at various pledges and you'll see that
a number -- though not all -- rely on a mix of corporate
decision-making, technology advancements and policy changes to help
meet the goals.<br>
<br>
For instance, consider Duke Energy, one of the largest utilities in
the nation and among a growing number of power giants pledging
net-zero emissions or 100% carbon-free electricity by midcentury.<br>
Its plan to be net-zero emissions by 2050 is shot-through with
policy discussion, such as "permitting reforms" that will enable
deployment of new technologies.<br>
One level deeper: All the giant European oil companies are now
setting targets for steeply cutting "Scope 3" emissions -- that is,
emissions from the use of their products in the economy, not just
the comparatively small emissions from their own operations.<br>
<br>
This either explicitly or tacitly acknowledges the role of policy in
addition to their own business practices (and indeed the companies
are also vowing to boost their advocacy).<br>
Take the French multinational giant Total, which points out that
it's aiming for net-zero overall emissions by 2050 "together with
society" and that it will develop "active advocacy" around carbon
pricing and more.<br>
The bottom line: It's another lens onto something we've written
about before that's getting a lot of attention as President Trump
scales back federal efforts.<br>
<br>
The burst of state, local and business emissions efforts can do a
lot -- but they're not a substitute for national policy.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.axios.com/corporate-climate-pledges-need-policy-changes-2545bf66-cfbe-43bb-8176-f9b71171b50d.html"
moz-do-not-send="true">https://www.axios.com/corporate-climate-pledges-need-policy-changes-2545bf66-cfbe-43bb-8176-f9b71171b50d.html</a><br>
<p><br>
</p>
<br>
[US heatwave]<br>
<b>Scientists Predict Scorching Temperatures to Last Through Summer</b><br>
Hotter than normal temperatures are expected across almost all of
the United States into September, government researchers said.<br>
<br>
By Henry Fountain and John Schwartz<br>
June 18, 2020<br>
Following a May that tied for the hottest on record, the United
States is heading into a potentially blistering summer, with hotter
than normal temperatures expected across almost the entire country
into September, government researchers said on Thursday.<br>
<br>
Dan Collins, a meteorologist with the National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration's Climate Prediction Center, said that
for July, August and September across almost the entire United
States "the average temperatures are likely to be above normal,"
especially in the West and Northeast.<br>
<br>
The trends over the last few decades are clear. The most recent
figures are in line with a general warming trend: Each decade since
the 1960s has been warmer than the one before, and the five hottest
years occurred in the second half of the last decade.<br>
<br>
High temperatures were likeliest in the Mid-Atlantic states,
Northeast and New England, and across much of the West, Rocky
Mountains and Southwest. Only a small part of the Midwest, centered
around Missouri, has an equal chance of lower-than-normal
temperatures, according to an analysis by the Climate Prediction
Center.<br>
- - <br>
That warmth will likely mean that drought conditions, currently
experienced by nearly one-fourth of the country, will persist
through the summer, NOAA scientists said.<br>
<br>
Globally, last month was tied with 2016 for the hottest May on
record, with average land and sea temperatures that were 0.95
degrees Celsius, or 1.71 degrees Fahrenheit, above the average
dating back more than a century.<br>
<br>
Areas with the warmest average temperatures included Alaska, the
Southwestern United States, the Caribbean, parts of Western Europe
and northern Asia.<br>
<br>
But May was also cooler than average across much of the Plains and
the East Coast, said Karin Gleason, a NOAA climatologist.<br>
<br>
It is now virtually certain that globally, 2020 will be one of the
five hottest years on record, she said. But it's less likely that
2020 will eclipse 2016 as the hottest ever. NOAA now estimates there
is about a 50 percent chance that 2020 will be a record breaker,
down from about 75 percent a month ago.<br>
- - -<br>
Gavin A. Schmidt, the director the Goddard Institute for Space
Studies at NASA, said that the new information is in line with what
is known about climate change: "There is a long-term trend in
temperatures driven by human activity that is going to lead to more
and more records being broken," he said. "Not every month, not every
year -- but this will keep happening as long as we continue to emit
carbon dioxide."<br>
<br>
It's always hot in summer. How is this any different?<br>
Yes, summer has always been the sweltering season. But like all the
months of the year, summer months have been getting hotter, a
consequence of human-caused emissions of heat-trapping gases.<br>
<br>
July is the hottest month of all on a global average (even though it
is winter in the Southern Hemisphere). July 2019 was the hottest
ever, with an average temperature that was 1.7 degrees Fahrenheit
(about 1 degree Celsius) higher than the 20th century average for
the month.<br>
<br>
Could last July have been an anomaly, an extreme swing in a variable
climate? No -- it's the continuation of a trend. The five hottest
Julys have occurred in the last five years, and nine of the 10
hottest have occurred since 2005.<br>
<br>
So I'll swelter during the day. But I'll get some relief at night,
right?<br>
Yes, the air will cool after dark, when the Earth's surface is no
longer absorbing sunlight and giving off heat as a result. But on
average you will not get as much relief as you used to because even
the nights are warmer now, and they are warming faster than days.<br>
<br>
That somehow seems contradictory, doesn't it? But scientists have
offered several explanations.<br>
<br>
For a given geographical area or season, changes in nighttime cloud
cover may play a role (more clouds trap more heat), as could changes
in precipitation or the moisture content of soils.<br>
- -<br>
But there is another explanation that applies globally, involving
the boundary layer, the lowest part of the atmosphere that is
directly affected by the surface. During the day this layer can be a
half-mile thick or more, but at night it becomes much thinner, about
500 feet or less. With a much lower volume of air, the boundary
layer at night warms more from the heat trapped by greenhouse gases.<br>
<br>
I live in a city, and the summer heat always seems worse for me than
in the suburbs. Why is that?<br>
No doubt you appreciate the vibrancy of your city, with its densely
packed apartments and houses and its many shops, restaurants,
theaters and other cultural venues, all easily accessible through a
network of streets.<br>
But to make way for all those buildings and streets, open space was
destroyed. Trees and other vegetation disappeared. The few remaining
vacant lots were gradually paved over to become parking lots.<br>
And those buildings and streets absorb more of the sun's energy and
radiate more heat than open spaces do. Densely packed, they also can
block cooling winds. The trees and shrubs that disappeared? They
used to provide shade and a cooling effect through
evapotranspiration. All of that, plus the waste heat that results
from transportation, industry and cooling, because engines and other
energy-consuming equipment are not completely efficient, makes
cities hotter.<br>
Even within a city, research shows that temperatures on a hot summer
day can vary as much as 20 degrees across different areas, with poor
or minority neighborhoods often bearing the brunt of that heat.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/18/climate/summer-weather-prediction.html"
moz-do-not-send="true">https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/18/climate/summer-weather-prediction.html</a><br>
<br>
<br>
[Heat in Siberia]<br>
<b>Climate crisis: alarm at record-breaking heatwave in Siberia</b><br>
Unusually high temperatures in region linked to wildfires, oil spill
and moth swarms<br>
<br>
A prolonged heatwave in Siberia is "undoubtedly alarming", climate
scientists have said. The freak temperatures have been linked to
wildfires, a huge oil spill and a plague of tree-eating moths.<br>
<br>
On a global scale, the Siberian heat is helping push the world
towards its hottest year on record in 2020, despite a temporary dip
in carbon emissions owing to the coronavirus pandemic.<br>
<br>
Temperatures in the polar regions are rising fastest because ocean
currents carry heat towards the poles and reflective ice and snow is
melting away.<br>
<br>
Russian towns in the Arctic circle have recorded extraordinary
temperatures, with Nizhnyaya Pesha hitting 30C on 9 June and
Khatanga, which usually has daytime temperatures of around 0C at
this time of year, hitting 25C on 22 May. The previous record was
12C.<br>
<br>
In May, surface temperatures in parts of Siberia were up to 10C
above average, according to the EU's Copernicus Climate Change
Service (C3S). Martin Stendel, of the Danish Meteorological
Institute, said the abnormal May temperatures seen in north-west
Siberia would be likely to happen just once in 100,000 years without
human-caused global heating.<br>
<br>
Freja Vamborg, a senior scientist at C3S, said: "It is undoubtedly
an alarming sign, but not only May was unusually warm in Siberia.
The whole of winter and spring had repeated periods of
higher-than-average surface air temperatures.<br>
<br>
"Although the planet as a whole is warming, this isn't happening
evenly. Western Siberia stands out as a region that shows more of a
warming trend with higher variations in temperature. So to some
extent large temperature anomalies are not unexpected. However, what
is unusual is how long the warmer-than-average anomalies have
persisted for."<br>
<br>
Marina Makarova, the chief meteorologist at Russia's Rosgidromet
weather service, said: "This winter was the hottest in Siberia since
records began 130 years ago. Average temperatures were up to 6C
higher than the seasonal norms."<br>
<br>
Robert Rohde, the lead scientist at the Berkeley Earth project, said
Russia as a whole had experienced record high temperatures in 2020,
with the average from January to May 5.3C above the 1951-1980
average. "[This is a] new record by a massive 1.9C," he said.<br>
<br>
In December, Russia's president, Vladimir Putin, commented on the
unusual heat: "Some of our cities were built north of the Arctic
Circle, on the permafrost. If it begins to thaw, you can imagine
what consequences it would have. It's very serious."<br>
<br>
Thawing permafrost was at least partly to blame for a spill of
diesel fuel in Siberia this month that led Putin to declare a state
of emergency. The supports of the storage tank suddenly sank,
according to its operators; green groups said ageing and poorly
maintained infrastructure was also to blame.<br>
<br>
Wildfires have raged across hundreds of thousands of hectares of
Siberia's forests. Farmers often light fires in the spring to clear
vegetation, and a combination of high temperatures and strong winds
has caused some fires to burn out of control.<br>
<br>
Swarms of the Siberian silk moth, whose larvae eat at conifer trees,
have grown rapidly in the rising temperatures. "In all my long
career, I've never seen moths so huge and growing so quickly,"
Vladimir Soldatov, a moth expert, told AFP.<br>
<br>
He warned of "tragic consequences" for forests, with the larvae
stripping trees of their needles and making them more susceptible to
fires.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jun/17/climate-crisis-alarm-at-record-breaking-heatwave-in-siberia"
moz-do-not-send="true">https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jun/17/climate-crisis-alarm-at-record-breaking-heatwave-in-siberia</a><br>
<br>
<p><br>
</p>
[BBC tries]<br>
<b>Who is to blame for climate change?</b><br>
We know that climate change is caused by human activity, but pinning
down exactly who is responsible is trickier than it might seem.<br>
<br>
One of the most frustrating things about the climate crisis is that
the fact that earlier action could have prevented it. With every
passing year of inaction, the emissions cuts needed to limit global
warming to relatively safe levels grow steeper and steeper.<br>
<br>
Many groups have been accused of being at blame for this ongoing
lack of action, from fossil fuel companies and wealthy countries, to
politicians, rich people and sometimes even all of us...<br>
- -<br>
Amy Westervelt is a climate journalist who has spent years exploring
the thinking behind big oil's strategy over the past decades, most
recently in her podcast Drilled. She says there was a point in the
late 1970s when oil companies in the US like Exxon appeared to be
embracing renewables and increasingly viewing themselves energy
companies, rather than just oil companies. But this mindset had
changed completely by the early 1990s due to a series of oil crises
and changing leadership, she says. "There was this real sort of
shift in mindset from 'If we have a seat at the table, we can help
to shape the regulations,' to 'We need to stop any kind of
regulation happening.'"<br>
Fossil fuel firms have since done "a great job" of making any kind
of environmental concerns seem elitist, adds Westervelt. For
example, Rex Tillerson, the Exxon chief executive who went on to be
US secretary of state, repeatedly argued that cutting oil use to
fight climate change would make poverty reduction harder. "They have
this talking point that they've been trotting out since the 1950s,
that if you want to make that industry cleaner in any way, then
you're basically unfairly impacting the poor. Never mind that the
costs don't actually have to be offloaded on to the public."<br>
<br>
At the same time, fossil fuel companies have long employed PR
tactics in a bid to control the narrative around climate change,
says Westervelt, pushing doubts about the science and working to
influence how people understand the role of fossil fuels in the
economy. "They have put a real emphasis on creating materials for
social studies, economics and civics classes that all centre the
fossil fuel industry," says Westervelt. "I think there's a real lack
of understanding about just how much that industry has shaped how
people think about everything, and very deliberately so."<br>
<br>
A small group of scientists with links to right-wing think tanks and
industry have for decades distorted public debate by sowing doubt on
well-established scientific knowledge in the US, including on
climate, according to Merchants of Doubt, the 2010 exposé by
historians Naomi Oreskes and Erik Conway. "Ever since scientists
first began to explain the evidence that our climate was warming –
and that human activities were probably to blame – people have been
questioning the data, doubting the evidence and attacking the
scientists who collect and explain it," they write...<br>
- - <br>
But it is not only through their ongoing extraction of fossil fuels
that these companies have had such a huge impact on climate action.
They have also worked hard to shape the public narrative. In 2015,
an investigation by US website Inside Climate News revealed that the
oil firm Exxon knew about climate change for decades and led efforts
to block measures to cut emissions. Revelations like this have
contributed to strong public anger at fossil fuels firms. Many now
think that such companies have said and done everything they could
to be able to continue extracting and burning fossil fuels – no
matter the cost...<br>
- - <br>
Whether we label it blame or not, the question of who is responsible
for the climate crisis is a necessary one. It will inevitably impact
the solutions we propose to fix things.<br>
<br>
But it's also important to acknowledge that allocating emissions to
someone – the extractors of fossil fuels, the manufacturers who make
products using them, the governments who regulate these products,
the consumers who buy them – does not necessarily mean saying they
are responsible for them.<br>
- -<br>
It's also worth remembering that the very concept of a personal
carbon footprint was popularised by a wide-reaching 2005 BP media
campaign. "It was the most brilliant example of 'It's your fault,
not ours,'" says Westerwelt. "It's a framework that serves them
really well because they can just say 'Oh well, if you really care
then why are you driving an SUV?'"<br>
<br>
Rich people<br>
Concentrating on the influence of fossil fuel companies in the
failure to reduce emissions means focusing on where the supply chain
starts and the push to keep extracting fossil fuels. But we can also
look at where it ends – the people who consume the final products
from fossil fuels, and, more specifically, those who consume a fair
bit more than the rest...<br>
- -<br>
But it is crucial to also acknowledge that we are all part of a
bigger system that not everyone is equally complicit in holding up.
"The we responsible for climate change is a fictional construct, one
that's distorting and dangerous," writes climate scholar and author
Genevieve Guenther. "By hiding who's really responsible for our
current, terrifying predicament, [the pronoun] we provides political
cover for the people who are happy to let hundreds of millions of
other people die for their own profit and pleasure."<br>
<br>
What Guenther is saying boils down to the question of who holds the
power to create and change the systems that cause climate change. If
you can only afford a home in an edge-of-town housing estate without
access to public transport, is it really your fault for becoming
dependent on a car?...<br>
- - <br>
Power differences between countries also play a strong role in the
outcomes of international climate talks, says Adow. "Sadly, the
countries that have the greatest historical responsibility for
climate change continue to have the greatest influence on the
climate regime," he says. "They are effectively abusing their
power."<br>
<br>
But even viewing climate inaction through this lens of power, those
who have less of it can still act to confront it. Climate activist
Greta Thunberg embodied this when in 2019 she told elites gathered
in Davos that many of them were to blame for the climate crisis by
sacrificing "priceless values" to "continue making unimaginable
amounts of money". As one academic essay puts it: "To avoid
[confronting] power is to risk condoning a system that is inherently
unsustainable and unjust."<br>
<br>
We may or may not feel that the blame for the climate crisis should
be placed at someone's door. But whether we call it blame or not, it
is still crucial that we untangle the structures of power and
decision-making that continue to promote climate inaction. Only by
better understanding how to change these can we hope to make the
emissions cuts we now need so badly.<br>
--<br>
Jocelyn Timperley is a freelance climate change reporter. You can
find her on Twitter @jloistf.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200618-climate-change-who-is-to-blame-and-why-does-it-matter"
moz-do-not-send="true">https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200618-climate-change-who-is-to-blame-and-why-does-it-matter</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 -
June 19, 2003 </b></font><br>
The New York Times reports<br>
<b>REPORT BY E.P.A. LEAVES OUT DATA ON CLIMATE CHANGE</b><br>
By Andrew C. Revkin With Katharine Q. Seelye<br>
"The Environmental Protection Agency is preparing to publish a draft
report next week on the state of the environment, but after editing
by the White House, a long section describing risks from rising
global temperatures has been whittled to a few noncommittal
paragraphs."<br>
- -<br>
Among the deletions were conclusions about the likely human
contribution to warming from a 2001 report on climate by the
National Research Council that the White House had commissioned and
that President Bush had endorsed in speeches that year. White House
officials also deleted a reference to a 1999 study showing that
global temperatures had risen sharply in the previous decade
compared with the last 1,000 years. In its place, administration
officials added a reference to a new study, partly financed by the
American Petroleum Institute, questioning that conclusion.<br>
<br>
In the end, E.P.A. staff members, after discussions with
administration officials, said they decided to delete the entire
discussion to avoid criticism that they were selectively filtering
science to suit policy.<br>
<br>
Administration officials defended the report and said there was
nothing untoward about the process that produced it. Mrs. Whitman
said that she was ''perfectly comfortable'' with the edited version
and that the differences over climate change should not hold up the
broader assessment of the nation's air, land and water...<br>
- -<br>
''Political staff are becoming increasingly bold in forcing agency
officials to endorse junk science,'' said Jeremy Symons, a climate
policy expert at the National Wildlife Federation. ''This is like
the White House directing the secretary of labor to alter
unemployment data to paint a rosy economic picture.''...<br>
- - <br>
Other sections of the coming E.P.A. report -- on water quality,
ecological conditions, ozone depletion in the atmosphere and other
issues -- all start with a summary statement about the potential
impact of changes on human health and the environment, which are the
two responsibilities of the agency.<br>
<br>
But in the ''Global Issues'' section of the draft returned by the
White House to E.P.A. in April, an introductory sentence reading,
''Climate change has global consequences for human health and the
environment'' was cut and replaced with a paragraph that starts:
''The complexity of the Earth system and the interconnections among
its components make it a scientific challenge to document change,
diagnose its causes, and develop useful projections of how natural
variability and human actions may affect the global environment in
the future.''<br>
<br>
Some E.P.A. staff members defended the document, saying that
although pared down it would still help policy makers and the agency
address the climate issue.<br>
<br>
''This is a positive step by the agency,'' said an author of the
report, who did not want to be named, adding that it would help
someone determine ''if a facility or pollutant is going to hurt my
family or make it bad for the birds, bees and fish out there.''<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="http://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/19/us/report-by-epa-leaves-out-data-on-climate-change.html"
moz-do-not-send="true">http://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/19/us/report-by-epa-leaves-out-data-on-climate-change.html</a>
<br>
<br>
<p>/-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------/<br>
</p>
<br>
/Archive of Daily Global Warming News <a
class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E"
href="https://pairlist10.pair.net/pipermail/theclimate.vote/2017-October/date.html"
moz-do-not-send="true"><https://pairlist10.pair.net/pipermail/theclimate.vote/2017-October/date.html></a>
/<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://pairlist10.pair.net/pipermail/theclimate.vote"
moz-do-not-send="true">https://pairlist10.pair.net/pipermail/theclimate.vote</a><br>
<br>
/To receive daily mailings - click to Subscribe <a
class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E"
href="mailto:subscribe@theClimate.Vote?subject=Click%20SEND%20to%20process%20your%20request"
moz-do-not-send="true"><mailto:subscribe@theClimate.Vote?subject=Click%20SEND%20to%20process%20your%20request></a>
to news digest./<br>
<br>
*** Privacy and Security:*This is a text-only mailing that carries
no images which may originate from remote servers. Text-only
messages provide greater privacy to the receiver and sender.<br>
By regulation, the .VOTE top-level domain must be used for
democratic and election purposes and cannot be used for commercial
purposes.<br>
To subscribe, email: <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated"
href="mailto:contact@theclimate.vote" moz-do-not-send="true">contact@theclimate.vote</a>
<a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E"
href="mailto:contact@theclimate.vote" moz-do-not-send="true"><mailto:contact@theclimate.vote></a>
with subject subscribe, To Unsubscribe, subject: unsubscribe<br>
Also you may subscribe/unsubscribe at <a
class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://pairlist10.pair.net/mailman/listinfo/theclimate.vote"
moz-do-not-send="true">https://pairlist10.pair.net/mailman/listinfo/theclimate.vote</a><br>
Links and headlines assembled and curated by Richard Pauli for <a
class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://TheClimate.Vote"
moz-do-not-send="true">http://TheClimate.Vote</a> <a
class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="http://TheClimate.Vote/"
moz-do-not-send="true"><http://TheClimate.Vote/></a>
delivering succinct information for citizens and responsible
governments of all levels. List membership is confidential and
records are scrupulously restricted to this mailing list.<br>
<br>
<br>
</body>
</html>