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<i><font size="+1"><b>July 7, 2020</b></font></i><br>
<br>
[Reuters video]<b><br>
</b><b> </b><b>U.S. court orders shutdown of Dakota Access pipeline</b><br>
Reuters<br>
A U.S. District Court ordered the shutdown of the Dakota Access oil
pipeline, in a big win for the Native American tribes who have
fought the line's route across a crucial water supply.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fa0MRiz-Pl4">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fa0MRiz-Pl4</a><br>
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[get ready to vote]<br>
<b>Biden's Big Climate Decision: Will He Embrace His Task Force's
Goals?</b><br>
The former vice president's allies and some of the Democratic
Party's leading progressives have quietly started to forge common
ground to shape a climate plan before Election Day...<br>
- - <br>
These days, the average cost of new wind or solar power is cheaper
than the costs to keep running most coal-fired plants, according to
an analysis last year by two energy research groups. And renewable
energy generation in the United States has now surpassed coal,
according to the federal Energy Information Agency.<br>
<br>
Yet in places like Pennsylvania, a state Mr. Trump won by less than
one percentage point in 2016, the natural gas industry is
responsible for thousands of high-paying union jobs. So when Mr.
Biden, during a pointed exchange with Mr. Sanders on the debate
stage in March, declared "no new fracking," some allies were
alarmed, including former Gov. Edward G. Rendell, who said he called
the campaign to voice concern.<br>
<br>
Mr. Biden has proposed ending new fracking leases on federal lands,
but not a national ban, something his campaign quickly clarified.<br>
<br>
Andrew Baumann, a Democratic strategist and pollster, said that
there were limits to how far Mr. Biden could push on climate matters
without encountering political risk -- but that he was "pretty far
away from that."<br>
<br>
"It is possible to go too far," he said. "But the amount that is
there to go bolder before you reach that level is really a lot
bigger than people think."<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/06/us/politics/joe-biden-climate-change.html">https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/06/us/politics/joe-biden-climate-change.html</a><br>
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[look to the North at sunset]<br>
<b>Rare night clouds may be warning sign of climate crisis</b><br>
Noctilucent clouds, on the edge of the atmosphere, are increasingly
seen outside of polar regions...<br>
- -<br>
Noctilucent clouds form in the mesosphere, the rarefied upper
atmosphere with little moisture and intensely low temperatures. The
scant water vapour there can freeze on to specks of smoke from
meteors burning up in the atmosphere, creating the crystals that
form noctilucent clouds. The mesosphere is coldest in summer,
allowing the crystals to form...<br>
- -<br>
Much of the moisture needed to form the clouds comes from methane, a
potent greenhouse gas that produces water vapour when it breaks down
in the upper atmosphere. And as methane pollution has increased, so
noctilucent clouds have grown more common and more widespread.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.theguardian.com/news/2020/jul/06/rare-night-clouds-may-be-warning-sign-of-climate-crisis">https://www.theguardian.com/news/2020/jul/06/rare-night-clouds-may-be-warning-sign-of-climate-crisis</a><br>
<p><br>
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<p><br>
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[misinformation battleground]<br>
<b>Climate Denial Spreads on Facebook as Scientists Face
Restrictions</b><br>
The company recently overruled its scientific fact-checking group,
which had flagged information as misleading<br>
By Scott Waldman, E&E News on July 6, 2020<br>
A climate scientist says Facebook is restricting her ability to
share research and fact-check posts containing climate
misinformation.<br>
<br>
Those constraints are occuring as groups that reject climate science
increasingly use the platform to promote misleading theories about
global warming.<br>
<br>
The groups are using Facebook to mischaracterize mainstream research
by claiming that reduced consumption of fossil fuels won't help
address climate change. Some say the planet and people are
benefitting from the rising volume of carbon dioxide that's being
released into the atmosphere...<br>
Facebook is an effective way to expand their reach to larger
audiences, say members of the groups, which have traditionally been
tied to conservative media outlets. In recent weeks, tens of
thousands of people have been exposed to misleading and false claims
about rising temperatures, according to an E&E News analysis.<br>
<br>
Now, Facebook appears to be weakening a firewall it has built to
fact-check such climate denialism. The company recently overruled a
fact-check from a group of climate scientists, in a move that
concerns researchers about a potentially new precedent by the
platform that permits inaccurate claims to be promoted if they're
labeled as opinions.<br>
<br>
At the same time, Facebook has placed restrictions on one of the
country's most visible climate scientists, Katharine Hayhoe, of
Texas Tech University and a lead author of the Fourth National
Climate Assessment. She has been blocked from promoting videos
related to climate research, a move that has limited her efforts to
refute false claims.<br>
<br>
Facebook has previously identified Hayhoe's educational climate
videos as "political." As a result, they are categorized by the
platform as a social issue that requires Hayhoe to register them by
in part providing personal information that she fears could expose
her to personal attacks.<br>
<br>
Hayhoe said Facebook is a valuable platform for reaching people
outside of partisan boundaries. She said it's where she is connected
to friends and family, former college roommates, and other people
who might be skeptical about climate change...<br>
It's a way to share science with them that doesn't feel like a
political attack, she said. Placing her work on the same level as
groups that seek to confuse the public about climate science gives
climate denial organizations equal footing that's unwarranted, she
said.<br>
<br>
"What I share on Facebook is explicitly for the purpose of people
feeling comfortable sharing it with their family, information on
positive hopeful solutions, information on unexpected messengers
from faith groups, the military, conservative spokespeople," Hayhoe
said. "Facebook is a place where people are connected across tribal
lines in a way they aren't connected from other platforms."<br>
<br>
A sampling of recent posts from groups that reject climate science
reveal their use of misleading claims to reach tens of thousands of
followers, who often reshare the content with their own contacts.<br>
They include groups that have received funding from the fossil fuel
industry as well as foundations that oppose environmental
regulations. Some of them have worked to confuse the public about
the scientific consensus around climate change.<br>
<br>
The Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow is one of these groups. It
has used Facebook to claim that burning more fossil fuels will help
ocean life.<br>
Scientists long ago determined that human-caused climate change was
harming sea life by acidifying the ocean, which absorbs about a
quarter of the CO2 pollution and 90% of excess heat caused by global
warming.<br>
<br>
In one post, the group wrote "our Oceans, all of them, are
benefitting enormously by the increase in carbon dioxide which man's
industrialization has produced. The global warming scaremongers have
falsely preached that additional carbon dioxide could lower the pH
of the oceans to where they become acidic, killing off ocean life."<br>
<br>
The Heartland Institute, which has received funding from fossil
fuels companies and foundations opposed to regulations, also made
questionable claims.<br>
<br>
"If you believe that sea level rise is a massive problem, you've
bought into the corporate media's alarmist narrative," the group
claimed, linking to a video making a series of false climate claims
that are in opposition to the world's major science agencies.
Sea-level rise has accelerated in the last century and could rise by
3 feet or more in some regions within the next 80 years, scientists
say.<br>
<br>
'A MILLION DEAD'<br>
Heartland has taken advantage of Facebook's permissible system,
spending almost $20,000 in recent years to promote dozens of posts
that inaccurately describe the Green New Deal and promote coal-fired
power plants. In one post, Heartland attempts to diminish people's
role in causing global warming.<br>
"Manmade climate crisis promoters reject inconvenient evidence of
natural climate change. They're the real deniers," it said.<br>
<br>
The Texas Public Policy Foundation, which has a number of former
employees working in senior positions across the Trump
administration, recently posted that banning fossil fuels wouldn't
stop climate change. In another post, the group claimed that
Democratic climate policies carry mortal risks.<br>
<br>
"Had the Green New Deal been enacted 20 years ago, we might have
been looking at a million dead from COVID due to mass transit use,"
the group wrote.<br>
<br>
E&E News previously reported that Facebook intervened to reverse
a fact-check that prevented a group--which claims that human-caused
carbon dioxide is beneficial--from advertising on the site. By
labeling the false claim as "opinion," Facebook permitted the group,
named the CO2 Coalition, to resume promoting misinformation
(Climatewire, June 23).<br>
<br>
The claim in question, posted last year, was taken from an editorial
in the conservative Washington Examiner in which two members of the
CO2 Coalition argued that climate models were overblown. The
assertion was not supported by consensus, peer-reviewed climate
science.<br>
In response, a group of scientists with Climate Feedback--a part of
Facebook's approved fact-checking network--evaluated the post and
found that it relied on "cherry-picked" evidence and was misleading.
It was marked as "false."<br>
<br>
But weeks later that label was quietly removed. Officials with the
CO2 Coalition said they were helped by a "conservative contact" at
Facebook whose intervention resulted in getting the decision
reversed.<br>
<br>
Facebook is now in a position where it has to explain why it allowed
its fact-check to be rolled back, said Brendan Nyhan, a political
science professor at Dartmouth College who has studied the
effectiveness of fact-checking.<br>
<br>
Among the questions the decision raises is whether the reversal
signals a broad change of policy or a unique episode, he said. Nyhan
also said the company needs to ascertain whether the reversal
created a loophole in its fact-checking initiative.<br>
<br>
"Facebook needs to articulate clear standards for its fact-checking
and define and justify any exceptions to those policies," Nyhan
said. "If fact-checkers are not the ones making determinations about
content on the platform, the public and Facebook users have the
right to know."<br>
<br>
Facebook's explanation for its fact-check of the CO2 Coalition is
disputed by groups on both sides.<br>
<br>
Facebook spokesman Andy Stone said Science Feedback made the
decision to roll back the fact-check. He said opinion pieces are not
subject to the same level of scrutiny as scientific posts. He said
Science Feedback, not Facebook, made the decision to reverse the
"false" label.<br>
<br>
"Opinion is separate and apart; there is an opinion rating but it is
separate and apart from false or true, or partly false or partly
true," Stone said.<br>
<br>
Both the CO2 Coalition and Science Feedback said Facebook made the
decision to pull back the fact-check because it was an opinion
piece.<br>
<br>
"The Facebook team informed us that it should not be subject to a
fact check and we should remove the rating," said Scott Johnson of
the Science Feedback network, which includes Climate Feedback, in an
email.<br>
<br>
On Wednesday, a coalition of environmental and political groups
wrote a letter to Facebook's oversight board asking the company to
crack down on climate denial and to close the opinion loophole that
allows climate misinformation to be posted on the platform
(Climatewire, July 1).<br>
<br>
Facebook's rollback of an accurate fact-check came several years
after it imposed restrictions on Hayhoe, a lead author of the Fourth
National Climate Assessment who has a verified Facebook page with
about 40,000 followers.<br>
<br>
She has used the platform to educate the public about climate
science for more than a decade. Two years after Trump's election,
Facebook developed restrictions on her ability to promote her posts
and videos about climate change, even though some of them have been
peer-reviewed by NOAA.<br>
<br>
It started in 2018, Hayhoe said, when she was abruptly blocked from
promoting a video in which she explained the climate benefits of
clean energy on her Facebook page. A few weeks later, she was
blocked from promoting a video that explained climate science for a
general audience. The company told her that she had to be a
"registered political organization."<br>
<br>
The rules changed again after 2018.<br>
<br>
Facebook revised its policy and considers climate change to be in
the "environmental politics" advertising category. Users who want to
pay to promote their pages, so they are seen by larger audiences,
are no longer required to register as a political organization. But
they must register using their legal name, social security number,
and other information from their passport or driver's license.<br>
<br>
That could expose scientists, especially women, to harassment, said
Hayhoe, who has been threatened online. One critic recently sent her
pornographic videos.<br>
<br>
Hayhoe has declined to comply with Facebook's requirements for
promoting her posts. She says the platform created inappropriate
burdens for scientists who want to share objective information about
climate change.<br>
<br>
"These are the facts," she said. "These videos have been
peer-reviewed, and I still can't boost them on Facebook."<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/climate-denial-spreads-on-facebook-as-scientists-face-restrictions/">https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/climate-denial-spreads-on-facebook-as-scientists-face-restrictions/</a><br>
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<p><br>
</p>
[to younger generations: the shifting bell curve and apologies]<br>
<b>It's All Hunky-Dory, but…</b><br>
06 July 2020<br>
James Hansen and Makiko Sato<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://mcusercontent.com/0ebaeb14fdbf5dc65289113c1/images/ae789b95-208d-4cc8-a462-45b80023b656.png">https://mcusercontent.com/0ebaeb14fdbf5dc65289113c1/images/ae789b95-208d-4cc8-a462-45b80023b656.png</a><br>
Well-meaning souls, rightfully concerned about the effect of
"gloom-and-doom" talk on young people, say that everything is
hunky-dory, climate change impacts are exaggerated (they often are)
and climate change is not a serious threat (unfortunately, it is).<br>
<br>
Let's look at reality, real data for the real world. The bell
curves refer to summer average temperatures in the Northern
Hemisphere, relative to what they were in the base period,
1951-1980. The bell curve shows the frequency of occurrence of
local temperature anomalies in units of the standard deviation,
which is the magnitude of typical year-to-year fluctuations. The
natural, year-to-year, variability leads to a symmetric bell curve
about the average during the base period.<br>
<br>
The bell curve also defines the likelihood (probability) of a season
being perceived as relatively cool, normal or hot. One of us, in
the 1980s, colored dice with two sides blue, two white and two red,
to represent those chances. The dice are now loaded, really
loaded. The past decade has summer temperatures that yield only one
side of a die being part blue and part white. Four sides of the die
are now red (hot) and one side is deep red for extreme heat, more
than three standard deviations warmer than in 1951-1980. Dark red
(22%) is creeping onto another side (one side is 1/6, which is about
16.7%).<br>
<br>
The shift depends on where you live and the season. We updated
graphs in our longer "Regional Climate Change and National
Responsibilities." The subtropics in summer and the tropics all
year are becoming uncomfortably hot, and will become unlivable if we
stay on our present fossil fuel emissions course.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/2020/20200706_ShiftingBellCurvesUpdated.pdf">http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/2020/20200706_ShiftingBellCurvesUpdated.pdf</a><br>
Old people should not apologize for revealing such facts. They
should apologize for letting political leaders accept bribes to stay
the fossil fuel course. Young people deserve more responsible
leadership.<br>
<br>
There is no reason to panic. It all can be hunky-dory, if we use
common sense. Don't let politicians milk your anxiety about the
future to fund their ideology, a sure-fire path to more fruitless
ideological warfare.<br>
<br>
A focus on personal emissions, or even national emissions, has
little effect. The underlying requirement is a steadily rising
carbon fee, readily accepted by the public if the funds are
distributed uniformly to all.<br>
<br>
International technological cooperation will be required. We are
all together in the same boat.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.columbia.edu/~mhs119/">http://www.columbia.edu/~mhs119/</a><br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://mailchi.mp/caa/its-all-hunky-dory-but?e=c4e20a3850">https://mailchi.mp/caa/its-all-hunky-dory-but?e=c4e20a3850</a><br>
<p><br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
[See this video - thanks to Dr Renee Lertzman: "this short beautiful
film on these themes of personal and collective grief, body and
earth"]<br>
<b>BECOMING OCEAN</b><br>
When climate-change journalist Eiren Caffall was diagnosed with
chronic kidney disease, she realized that, like the planet, she was
slowly drowning. But instead of allowing the nearly invisible
effects of her condition to overwhelm or paralyze her, Caffall uses
her illness to look at the crisis of climate change in a way that
makes "…problems we so often push away because of… their apparent
distance from daily life, suddenly become intimate and human-scale."
(Naomi Klein, Author: This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the
Climate)<br>
Dir: Scott K. Foley<br>
Written: Eiren Caffall<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://vimeo.com/234066329">https://vimeo.com/234066329</a><br>
<br>
<br>
[fire returns to the desert]<br>
<b>Arizona reels as three of the biggest wildfires in its history
ravage state</b><br>
Extreme weather has contributed to the vast blazes – with the
pandemic complicating the emergency response<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jul/02/arizona-wildfires#img-1">https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jul/02/arizona-wildfires#img-1</a><br>
For residents of Tucson in southern Arizona, the Santa Catalina
Mountains in the Coronado national forest are known as a hub for
hiking, mountain biking and other outdoor recreation.<br>
<br>
But on 5 June lightning ignited a wildfire that has grown to engulf
over 118,000 acres. The fires are still only 58% contained. Called
the Bighorn fire, it is the eighth-biggest in state history, and it
has transformed the Catalinas into a hub for the study of the
impacts of climate change. Nasa satellite photos show large scar
marks left by the fire.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jul/02/arizona-wildfires">https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jul/02/arizona-wildfires</a><br>
<br>
<p><br>
</p>
[Important talk on misinformation and propaganda]<br>
<b>Prof Phil Howard & Nicola Aitken in conversation: "Lie
machines: misinformation from in a Post-Covid</b><br>
July 6, 2020<br>
Oxford Martin School<br>
In the age of Covid-19, the lie machine is working to undermine
trust in institutions like the World Health Organization, pushing a
narrative that scientists and experts should not be trusted. And
this has worrying implications for global health.<br>
<br>
Join us online as Professor Phil Howard, author of <b>Lie Machines:
How to Save Democracy from Troll Armies, Deceitful Robots, Junk
News Operations, and Political Operatives</b> and Nicola Aitken,
Policy Manger at Full Fact, discuss the implications, power and
effectiveness of these lie machines and how we can utilise them or
shut them down.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W_gHc3mQUZo">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W_gHc3mQUZo</a><br>
<p><br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
[destabilization video talks- pt 1 of 2]<br>
<b>High Risk of Simultaneous Crop Failures in North America, Europe,
and Asia From Stuck Jet Streams</b><br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xyJEBKwkljE">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xyJEBKwkljE</a><br>
[part 2 of 2]<br>
<b>Cascading Simultaneous Crop Failures a HUGE Risk from Unfortunate
Jet Stream Resonances with Earth</b><br>
Jul 5, 2020<br>
Paul Beckwith<br>
The latest science on jet stream changes shows that resonances with
the Earth (from topography; land-ocean temperature contrasts) are a
very high risk to cause simultaneous crop failures in North America,
Europe, and Asia which would spike food prices and cause immediate
geopolitical conflict and mayhem. Not only that, but near Greenland
we can expect more occurrences of blocking, and the first half of
2020 we have experienced a persistent block over Siberia giving
unprecedented long duration heat anomalies blowing away anything
that we have seen before. Blocking can also occur in the Southern
Hemisphere. <br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xyJEBKwkljE">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xyJEBKwkljE</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 -
July 7, 2005 </b></font><br>
Rick Piltz, who resigned from the US Climate Change Science Program
earlier in the year over the Bush Administration's aggravated
assault on climate science, appears on Air America's "The Al Franken
Show" to discuss the administration's hostility to science.<br>
<blockquote>Richard Pauli - 11 years ago<br>
This is valuable piece of history. Piltz was one of the first to
stand up to the Bush admin censoring and influencing science
reports on global warming He exposed the political influence on
science that still harms us today.<br>
<br>
Richard Pauli - 2 years ago<br>
Piltz died in 2014 - one of the original climate change martyrs -
he has made some solid history, important to notice.<br>
</blockquote>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://youtu.be/AhJAF6nODCU">http://youtu.be/AhJAF6nODCU</a><br>
<br>
<br>
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