<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>July 11, 2020</b></font></i></p>
[Audio with New Yorker from Bill McKibben]<br>
<b>A Good Week for the Climate Movement</b><br>
July 9, 2020<br>
Bill McKibben, an activist in the environmental movement for three
decades, joins Dorothy Wickenden to discuss whether the United
States has hit a turning point in the battle against global warming.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.newyorker.com/podcast/political-scene/a-good-week-for-the-climate-movement">https://www.newyorker.com/podcast/political-scene/a-good-week-for-the-climate-movement</a>
<p><br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<p>[Press release Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL)
]</p>
<b>Debt-Driven Dividends and Asset Fire Sales: New Briefing Details
Latest Signs of Oil and Gas Industry's Decline</b><br>
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE<br>
July 9, 2020<br>
Washington, DC--Amidst the ongoing pandemic crisis, the oil majors
are racking up debt and selling off assets, in moves that aim to
project stability but instead reveal the industry's increasing
fragility. A new brief released today by the Center for
International Environmental Law (CIEL) highlights the latest signals
that the oil and gas industry is reaching its end game and is not a
sound investment for private funds or taxpayer resources. <br>
<br>
Pandemic Crisis, Systemic Decline: Additional Warnings Against
Investing in Oil & Gas, Debt-Driven Dividends and Asset Fire
Sales examines oil and gas companies' deepening debt, dwindling
dividends, and decreasing assets as further evidence of the
industry's collapse. It cautions that the petrochemical sector and
plastics production, on which many oil and gas companies have staked
their future growth, do not offer the industry a way out of its
long-term decline.<br>
<br>
"The game is up: Oil and gas companies can no longer mask their
financial frailty," says Nikki Reisch, Director of CIEL's Climate
& Energy Program and co-author of the brief. "Companies such as
ExxonMobil and BP are racking up debt to maintain their payments to
shareholders. At the same time, the oil majors are selling off and
writing down their assets, reflecting a pressing need for cash flow
today and growing skepticism about the value of fossil fuels
tomorrow. The industry knows its future prospects are grim; so, too,
should investors and policymakers." <br>
<br>
"It's past time to recognize this industry is beyond recovery," says
Steven Feit, Senior Attorney at CIEL and co-author of the brief.
"The writing has been on the wall for a long time now, and the
pandemic has made the signs that much more stark--investors should
stay away from fossil fuel companies and policymakers must stop
bailing them out. To continue to throw money at an industry that is
not only causing environmental destruction but also facing economic
decline is as imprudent as it is indefensible." <br>
###<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.ciel.org/news/debt-driven-dividends-and-asset-fire-sales-new-briefing-details-latest-signs-of-oil-and-gas-industrys-decline/">https://www.ciel.org/news/debt-driven-dividends-and-asset-fire-sales-new-briefing-details-latest-signs-of-oil-and-gas-industrys-decline/</a><br>
- - -<br>
[Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL)]<br>
<b>Additional Warnings Against Investing in Oil & Gas:
Debt-Driven Dividends & Asset Fire Sales (July 2020)</b><br>
<b>Key Findings:</b><br>
- For years, major oil and gas companies have attracted investors by
paying them steady dividends. But the practice has masked the
industry's financial frailty and inherent instability.<br>
- Following a decade of declining profits exacerbated by the
COVID-19 pandemic, some oil majors, such as Shell, have slashed
dividends, while others, including ExxonMobil and BP, are racking up
debt to maintain their shareholder payments and sustain their image
as sound investments.<br>
- Oil and gas companies are also writing-down and selling off their
assets at heavily discounted prices, in a move that reflects a
desperate need for cash and growing skepticism about the future
value of fossil fuels.<br>
- Petrochemicals and the plastic they produce do not offer oil and
gas companies a way out of their economic troubles. Dovetailing
trends of lowered plastic resin prices, increased plastic
regulation, and decreased capital spending threaten the fundamentals
of the petrochemical industry, on which many oil and gas companies
have staked their future growth.<br>
- Dwindling dividends, deepening debt, and decreasing assets are
just the latest evidence that the oil and gas industry is in an
endgame that began well before COVID-19. Fiduciaries have a duty to
re-evaluate the soundness of continued investments in a sector in
longterm decline, and policymakers have a duty not to pour public
funds into companies that are both economically unstable and
environmentally destructive.<br>
- The longer pension funds stay invested in fossil fuels despite
stark warning signs about financial precarity and climate exposure,
the more fiduciary risks accrue.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.ciel.org/reports/debt-driven-dividends-asset-fire-sales/">https://www.ciel.org/reports/debt-driven-dividends-asset-fire-sales/</a><br>
- - -<br>
[Read the full report]<br>
<b>Pandemic Crisis, Systemic Decline</b><br>
<b>Additional Warnings Against Investing in Oil & Gas</b><br>
Debt-Driven Dividends & Asset Fire Sales<br>
"One of the main ways major oil and<br>
gas companies have attracted investors over the years has been by
paying steady dividends to shareholders.<br>
This practice has masked their financial frailty and the industry's
inherent instability. For at least a decade,<br>
those payouts have been propped up<br>
not by strong earnings, but by a precarious combination of debt and
asset sales"<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.ciel.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Debt-Driven-Dividends-Asset-Fire-Sales.pdf">https://www.ciel.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Debt-Driven-Dividends-Asset-Fire-Sales.pdf</a><br>
<br>
<br>
<p><br>
</p>
[smoke, cough, smoke, cough]<br>
<b>Pandemic sidelines more than 1,000 incarcerated wildfire fighters
in California</b><br>
Low-paid inmates have become a vital part of state's firefighting
efforts, sparking concern over exploitation<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jul/10/california-wildfire-coronavirus-prison-incarcerated-firefighters">https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jul/10/california-wildfire-coronavirus-prison-incarcerated-firefighters</a><br>
<p><br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
[major changes]<br>
<b>A 'regime shift' is happening in the Arctic Ocean, scientists say</b><br>
by Stanford University<br>
<br>
Scientists at Stanford University have discovered a surprising shift
in the Arctic Ocean. Exploding blooms of phytoplankton, the tiny
algae at the base of a food web topped by whales and polar bears,
have drastically altered the Arctic's ability to transform
atmospheric carbon into living matter. Over the past decade, the
surge has replaced sea ice loss as the biggest driver of changes in
uptake of carbon dioxide by phytoplankton.<br>
- -<br>
Phytoplankton require light and nutrients to grow. But the
availability and intermingling of these ingredients throughout the
water column depend on complex factors. As a result, although Arctic
researchers have observed phytoplankton blooms going into overdrive
in recent decades, they have debated how long the boom might last
and how high it may climb...<br>
- - -<br>
Phytoplankton are absorbing more carbon year after year as new
nutrients come into this ocean. That was unexpected, and it has big
ecological impacts."....<br>
- - -<br>
By assembling a massive new collection of ocean color measurements
for the Arctic Ocean and building new algorithms to estimate
phytoplankton concentrations from them, the Stanford team uncovered
evidence that continued increases in production may no longer be as
limited by scarce nutrients as once suspected. "It's still early
days, but it looks like now there is a shift to greater nutrient
supply,...<br>
<p>The difficulty stems in part from a huge volume of incoming
tea-colored river water, which carries dissolved organic matter
that remote sensors mistake for chlorophyll. Additional complexity
comes from the unusual ways in which phytoplankton have adapted to
the Arctic's extremely low light. "When you use global satellite
remote sensing algorithms in the Arctic Ocean, you end up with
serious errors in your estimates," said Lewis.<br>
<br>
Yet these remote-sensing data are essential for understanding
long-term trends across an ocean basin in one of the world's most
extreme environments, where a single direct measurement of NPP may
require 24 hours of round-the-clock work by a team of scientists
aboard an icebreaker, Lewis said. She painstakingly curated sets
of ocean color and NPP measurements, then used the compiled
database to build algorithms tuned to the Arctic's unique
conditions. Both the database and the algorithms are now available
for public use.<br>
<br>
The work helps to illuminate how climate change will shape the
Arctic Ocean's future productivity, food supply and capacity to
absorb carbon. "There's going to be winners and losers," Arrigo
said. "A more productive Arctic means more food for lots of
animals. But many animals that have adapted to live in a polar
environment are finding life more difficult as the ice retreats."<br>
<br>
Phytoplankton growth may also peak out of sync with the rest of
the food web because ice is melting earlier in the year. Add to
that the likelihood of more shipping traffic as Arctic waters open
up, and the fact that the Arctic is simply too small to take much
of a bite out of the world's greenhouse gas emissions. "It's
taking in a lot more carbon than it used to take in," Arrigo said,
"but it's not something we're going to be able to rely on to help
us out of our climate problem."<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://phys.org/news/2020-07-regime-shift-arctic-ocean-scientists.html">https://phys.org/news/2020-07-regime-shift-arctic-ocean-scientists.html</a><br>
</p>
<br>
<br>
[bias toward food or revenue?]<br>
<b>Farmers' climate change conundrum: Low yields or revenue
instability</b><br>
Climate change will leave some farmers with a difficult conundrum,
according to a new study by researchers from Cornell University and
Washington State University: Either risk more revenue volatility, or
live with a more predictable decrease in crop yields.<br>
As water shortages and higher temperatures drive down crop yields in
regions that depend heavily on seasonal snow, the choice to use more
drought-tolerant crop varieties comes at a cost, according to model
projections detailed in the paper "Water Rights Shape Crop Yield and
Revenue Volatility Tradeoff for Adaptation in Snow Dependent
Systems," published June 10 in Nature Communications...<br>
- - <br>
"Typical and best-case annual yields are much higher," said Jennifer
Adam, Berry Distinguished Professor of Engineering at Washington
State University and co-author of the study. "But climate change
still is likely to cause severe droughts where current water
management institutions in the Yakima River Basin simply cannot
provide enough water, and there are severe worst-case crop
failures."<br>
<br>
The researchers argue that the best outcomes for crop yield and
revenue volatility must be through a simultaneous improvement in
crop varieties--for example, by preserving agrobiodiversity--and in
water systems, such as through improvements in water-governing
institutions and infrastructure.<br>
<br>
It is important to carefully capture a snow-dependent region's
specific management constraints while being innovative with climate
adaptation strategies, the researchers said.<br>
<br>
"Otherwise, systems may unintentionally strike the wrong balance as
they trade off improving average yields and farmers' revenue
volatility," Reed said.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://phys.org/news/2020-07-farmers-climate-conundrum-yields-revenue.html">https://phys.org/news/2020-07-farmers-climate-conundrum-yields-revenue.html</a>
<br>
- - <br>
[source material Published: 10 July 2020]<br>
<b>Water rights shape crop yield and revenue volatility tradeoffs
for adaptation in snow dependent systems</b><br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-17219-z">https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-17219-z</a><br>
<p><br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
[Beckwith video talk - more lightning]<br>
<b>Lightning Bolt Science and How Lightning will be Affected by
Abrupt Climate System Change</b><br>
Jul 9, 2020<br>
Paul Beckwith<br>
In this 1st of a video series, I chat lightning science and on how
lightning properties will change as rapid climate mayhem continues.
In India alone, lightning has killed over 2,000 people each year
since 2005. The World Meteorological Organization just reported two
new lightning world records: a cloud-to-cloud bolt traversed 709 km
(previous record 321 km); a similar bolt lasted 16.73 seconds
(previous record 7.74 sec). Amazingly, there was a thunderstorm in
the high Arctic (85 degrees N) 500 km (300 miles) from the North
Pole with some lightning directly over sea ice. <br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=izt4TAyNxbI">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=izt4TAyNxbI</a><br>
<p><br>
</p>
<br>
[5 min video - Potholer54]<br>
<b>A short chronology of failed 'ice age' predictions</b><br>
Jul 9, 2020<br>
potholer54<br>
This is NOT a new video. I got lots of requests to re-post the final
part of my video "Are we headed for a Grand Solar Minimum?" -- and
complaints that the music was too loud -- so I have finally
acquiesced and I'm posting it here as a stand-alone. Feel free to
mirror, upload, tweet, share, whatever you want to do, as long as
it's attributed to me and not edited or voiced over without
permission.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h6eswiI3KLc">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h6eswiI3KLc</a><br>
<br>
<p><br>
</p>
[thoughtful essay]<br>
<b>As pandemic strips away accumulated inertia of decades, 'After
Coronavirus' may be a whole brave new world</b><br>
The coronavirus pandemic, like the World Wars, is a harbinger of
revolutionary changes. It is accelerating the destruction of the
old, and hastening the arrival of the new.<br>
Samrat - July 09, 2020<br>
Many years ago, I can't quite recall when, I saw a film called
Groundhog Day. It is a fantasy comedy film in which the principal
character gets stuck in a single day and cannot get out -- he goes
to bed one ordinary night, and wakes up the next morning to find
it's yesterday all over again. And again. And again. The film
released in 1993. It has become uncomfortably real for a lot of
people around the world in 2020. Our lives are now stuck in time, in
a kind of Groundhog Day where every day feels like the previous one.
If we're living a comedy, it is of a very dark kind.<br>
<br>
It is now more than six months since the coronavirus pandemic began
its global spread. During this time, we have gone from disbelief to
panic to resignation, and some distance back again. Our daily lives
have been upended. We no longer know when -- and if -- we will get
our normal lives back. With the passage of time, many a new normal
is gradually establishing itself. A return to the world Before
Coronavirus will be difficult.<br>
<br>
"Normal" is a function of habits, small and big...<br>
- - <br>
The coronavirus pandemic has stripped the world of many of its
delusions and pretensions.<br>
<br>
It has forced us to reckon with what is real and what is not, what
matters and what does not. A lot -- work, education, leisure -- has
been stripped down to essence. The essence of work never was in
being the first to swipe in and the last to swipe out. The essence
of education never really lay in physical presence in any classroom,
as every student who has been mentally absent knows. The essential
pleasure of watching a good movie is in watching the movie -- not in
the overpriced popcorn. The essence of news is not in the newspaper.<br>
<br>
In retrospect, we actually knew all of this. We just didn't act like
we believed it. Our world moved and worked in old ways, from sheer
inertia. The force of habit of millions of people, established over
decades or centuries, kept things going as they had been before.
Changes in ways of life over the past 150 years were breathtakingly
fast by historical standards, but for the most part they were
incremental, wrought by technology and often resisted by society.
The pandemic, like the World Wars, is a harbinger of revolutionary
changes. It is accelerating the destruction of the old, and
hastening the arrival of the new.<br>
<br>
Although it may seem to us, living in Groundhog Day, that the
calendar itself has ceased to hold meaning and reality, the
monotonous rhythms of billions of suspended daily lives hides the
fact that the future is currently rushing into our lives at
unprecedented speed.<br>
<br>
Tomorrow may seem like yesterday, but After Coronavirus may be a
whole brave new world.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.firstpost.com/art-and-culture/as-pandemic-strips-away-accumulated-inertia-of-decades-after-coronavirus-may-be-a-whole-brave-new-world-8577131.html">https://www.firstpost.com/art-and-culture/as-pandemic-strips-away-accumulated-inertia-of-decades-after-coronavirus-may-be-a-whole-brave-new-world-8577131.html</a><br>
<br>
<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 11, 1990 </b></font><br>
The Los Angeles Times observes that President George H. W. Bush
seems to have dissociative identity disorder when it comes to
climate:<br>
<br>
"The tension is often explained as a dispute between Bush's
strong-willed chief of staff, John H. Sununu, who is deeply
suspicious of environmentalists, and his Environmental Protection
Agency chief, William K. Reilly.<br>
<br>
"That explanation, however, is an inaccurate characterization,
Administration officials say. Although Reilly has advocated a
stronger environmental policy, he has neither the clout nor the
access to Bush to challenge Sununu, the officials say. In fact,
Reilly has been conspicuous by his absence from the economic summit,
virtually the only senior Administration official with an interest
in the summit issues whom Bush left in Washington.<br>
<br>
"Instead, the disputes within the Administration reflect Bush's own
ambivalence about the issues. Throughout his Administration, he has
been pulled in opposite directions on the environment, tugged
between his desire to placate environmentally-conscious voters on
the one side and his instinct to protect business people from
government regulation on the other."<br>
<br>
The Times also notes:<br>
<br>
"Bush's top aides are unanimous in believing that the scientific
evidence is shaky on all aspects of global warming--the problem's
dimensions, its potential effects and its causes."<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="http://articles.latimes.com/1990-07-11/news/mn-224_1_global-warming-issue">http://articles.latimes.com/1990-07-11/news/mn-224_1_global-warming-issue</a><br>
<br>
<p><br>
</p>
/-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------/<br>
<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"><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">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"><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">contact@theclimate.vote</a>
<a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E"
href="mailto:contact@theclimate.vote"><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">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">http://TheClimate.Vote</a>
<a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="http://TheClimate.Vote/"><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>