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<p><i><font size="+1"><b>July 31, 2020</b></font></i></p>
[melting ice consequence]<br>
<b>Sea Level Rise Alone Threatens to Crush the Global Economy</b><br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://earther.gizmodo.com/sea-level-rise-alone-threatens-to-crush-the-global-econ-1844557915">https://earther.gizmodo.com/sea-level-rise-alone-threatens-to-crush-the-global-econ-1844557915</a><br>
<br>
<br>
[Press release]<br>
<b>Sixty-Nine Organizations Tell the Federal Reserve to Stop Buying
Fossil Fuel Debt</b><br>
BY COLLIN REESNEWS, PRESS RELEASES<br>
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE<br>
July 30, 2020<br>
<b>Sixty-Nine Organizations Tell the Federal Reserve to Stop Buying
Fossil Fuel Debt</b><br>
In letter, groups outline how the Fed has prioritized fossil fuels
in its response to the pandemic<br>
<br>
New York, NY -- Today in a letter to the Federal Reserve (the Fed),
69 public accountability, environmental, economic justice, science,
health, and religious organizations and private companies called on
the Fed to stop purchasing corporate debt from the fossil fuel
sector through its emergency facilities created to address
COVID-19's economic fallout.<br>
<br>
"As the pandemic continues to exacerbate existing racial
inequalities, the Fed should not be boosting the sector responsible
for climate change, which will impact communities of color the
hardest." said Ericka Taylor, Popular Education Manager at Take on
Wall Street. "The Fed fails in its financial stability
responsibilities when it is supporting fossil fuel firms that are
both deeply culpable in environmental racism and responsible for the
growing climate crisis."<br>
<br>
The letter highlights the Fed's failure to promote systemic
financial stability by its continued investment in the debt of a
sector responsible for the ongoing climate crisis. The organizations
note that the Fed's overweighting in the fossil fuel sector relative
to market benchmarks, despite the increased risks to financial
stability this creates, leads to questions about its independence
and autonomy.<br>
<br>
A recent report from nonpartisan think tank InfluenceMap shows that
the Fed's purchases through its Secondary Market Corporate Credit
Facilities (SMCCF) are heavily overweight in oil, gas, and coal
companies when compared to several market benchmarks.<br>
<br>
According to InfluenceMap, roughly 8% ($748 million) of the Fed's
$9.5 billion of bond purchases through July 10 are in the fossil
fuel sector. From that, $134 million has occurred through the direct
purchase of corporate debt, the rest through the purchase of
Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) that track corporate debt markets. As
of July 10, $124 million of the $748 million (17%) of purchased
energy bonds were junk-rated, compared to $856 million of 9.3
billion (9%) for purchases overall across sectors.<br>
<br>
"The Fed has previously warned of the financial risks of fossil
fuels, as well as the monetary damages associated with environmental
catastrophe. But the Fed is now investing public dollars in the debt
of the same companies it warned others about," said Collin Rees,
Senior Campaigner at Oil Change International. "Instead of
intensifying risks to financial stability by supporting the fossil
fuel sector, the Fed needs to reduce systemic risk during this
health and economic crisis and stop boosting the industry driving
climate devastation."<br>
<br>
The signing groups called on the Fed to: <br>
End the purchase of corporate debt from the fossil fuel sector
through the SMCCF, the Primary Market Corporate Credit Facility, or
any other emergency facility; <br>
Analyze and disclose the climate risks of all firms represented in
the emergency lending portfolio, including the level of greenhouse
gas emissions;<br>
Apply meaningful conditions on the credit facilities: a ban on
participating companies issuing dividends or buying back its shares,
restrictions on executive compensation, and the retention of workers
well beyond making a "commercially reasonable effort";<br>
Focus on mitigating climate risks in the Fed's role as regulator,
instead of exacerbating them in the Fed's role as lender of last
resort.<br>
In late March, 30 groups sent a letter to the Fed after the
announcement of the facilities expressing concerns about the lack of
conditions on public financial support for an industry whose
practices harm the public good, as well as the absence of adequate
analysis of climate financial risk in the management and strategy of
this program.<br>
<br>
In April, U.S. Senators Brian Schatz, Sheldon Whitehouse, Sherrod
Brown (Senate Banking Committee Ranking Member), and six other
Senators urged the Fed's Board to consider the long-term financial
risks associated with climate change, and warned that the U.S.
financial system's "blindness to climate financial risks means that
our response to the current economic crisis will make a future
climate crisis more likely."<br>
<br>
"Ultimately, through these debt purchases, the Fed is exposing the
public to financial losses through credit risk, market risk, and
operational risk due to exacerbation of the climate crisis," said
David Arkush, Climate Program Director at Public Citizen. "The Fed
should be doing everything it can to slow and ultimately halt the
freight train of economic risk bearing down on us because of the
climate crisis. But with actions like these, it's shoveling coal
into the boiler."<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://priceofoil.org/2020/07/30/fed-letter-fossil-fuel-debt/">http://priceofoil.org/2020/07/30/fed-letter-fossil-fuel-debt/</a><br>
###<br>
The full letter to the Fed and list of signers
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://priceofoil.org/fed-letter">http://priceofoil.org/fed-letter</a><br>
The letter sent to the Fed by 30 groups in March regarding
BlackRock's involvement in COVID-19 relief funds <br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://d17a0173-b97b-4c08-a2e3-f8ea72c0874b.usrfiles.com/ugd/d17a01_62f18f6e12614fddac890d692066aea8.pdf">https://d17a0173-b97b-4c08-a2e3-f8ea72c0874b.usrfiles.com/ugd/d17a01_62f18f6e12614fddac890d692066aea8.pdf</a><br>
Senator Brian Schatz's letter to Fed on Corporate Credit Facilities
from April 20, 2020
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.schatz.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/Letter%20to%20Fed%20on%20Corporate%20Credit%20Facilities%2004.20.2020.pdf">https://www.schatz.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/Letter%20to%20Fed%20on%20Corporate%20Credit%20Facilities%2004.20.2020.pdf</a>
<br>
InfluenceMap's Financial Analysis of the US Federal Reserve's
Corporate Bond Market Interventions
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://influencemap.org/report/Is-the-Fed-Being-Sector-Neutral-3a1294e4de3b6275fae9370d6f68cc70">https://influencemap.org/report/Is-the-Fed-Being-Sector-Neutral-3a1294e4de3b6275fae9370d6f68cc70</a><br>
<p><br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
[The Nation]<br>
<b>It's Time to Bring the Carbon Barons to Justice--and Take Their
Money</b><br>
Climate liability cases are gaining ground just as Big Oil is going
broke. Who do you think will be left holding the bag?<br>
By Jason Mark - July 29, 2020<br>
Ready To Fight Back?<br>
<br>
The carbon barons are in trouble. Landmark lawsuits against
ExxonMobil and other fossil fuel giants charging that they have
caused--and lied about--the climate crisis are making real headway.
Unfortunately, they're doing so just as Big Oil is in danger of
going broke, which jeopardizes the chances to make these companies
pay for the damage they've caused.<br>
<br>
Since 2017, more than a dozen states, counties, and municipalities
across the United States have filed lawsuits against the biggest oil
producers--ExxonMobil, Chevron, Shell, BP, et al.--alleging that the
companies harmed communities by selling products they knew to be
dangerous. While these lawsuits are particular to place--some cite
the damage from rising sea levels, others focus on the destruction
caused by climate-fueled wildfires and flooding--all seek to recover
the costs to those communities as they adapt to climate chaos.<br>
<br>
At one point, it looked like the oil giants would receive a "get out
of jail free" card. In 2018, a federal judge in San Francisco
dismissed climate liability suits brought by San Francisco and
Oakland, ruling that the issue needed to be settled by Congress, and
a federal court in Manhattan subsequently tossed out a New York City
claim. The carbon barons then petitioned to move the other lawsuits
from the state courts where they were filed to federal courts.
Federal courts are generally considered a more sympathetic venue for
Big Oil, because suits there may get tangled up in knotty
constitutional questions. The plaintiffs want to keep their cases in
the state courts and argue that their lawsuits are uncomplicated
tort claims not unlike the successful lawsuits against the tobacco
companies.<br>
<br>
In the last few months, federal judges have been agreeing with the
plaintiffs. In July, the US Appeals Court for the 10th Circuit
rebuffed ExxonMobil and other defendants in a Colorado case. In late
May, a Ninth Circuit panel ruled unanimously that suits filed by six
California counties and cities should be settled by the California
courts. Judges with the US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit
came to the same conclusion in a Baltimore case, at one point
slapping Chevron and other defendants with a terse, "They are
wrong."<br>
<br>
Other jurisdictions are now piling on. In late June, the District of
Columbia and the State of Minnesota announced lawsuits against
ExxonMobil, the oil refining Koch Industries, and the American
Petroleum Institute. Those suits go beyond earlier complaints by
arguing that the carbon barons' decades-long campaign to sow
uncertainty about the science of global warming violates local
statutes against consumer fraud, deceptive trade practices, and
false advertising.<br>
<br>
The new lawsuits and procedural wins arrive as Democrats are showing
strengthened resolve to hold the fossil fuel giants accountable for
their crimes. Not long ago, the carbon barons were operating under
the delusion that they could strike a grand political bargain in
which they would agree to support a price on carbon in exchange for
blanket legal immunity. (Congress has the constitutional power to
give an industry or a company a "liability waiver"; gun
manufacturers enjoy such immunity.) That pipe dream is now
crumbling. House Democrats recently released a comprehensive plan
for addressing the climate crisis that includes a pointed rebuke to
the idea of a congressional liability waiver: "Congress should not
offer liability relief…to cut pollution in exchange for a carbon
price." Joe Biden's climate plan includes a promise that should he
be elected, the federal government will become an ally of the state,
county, and municipal lawsuits.<br>
<br>
Calls to bring the carbon barons to justice are smart politics. A
2019 survey by the Yale Program on Climate Change Communications
found that 57 percent of Americans favor having the fossil fuel
companies pay for climate-related damages. A poll released in July
by Data for Progress found that more than three-quarters of
Democratic voters and 63 percent of independents want to hold the
oil companies responsible for climate damages. More than 60 percent
of Republicans who are younger than 45 agree.<br>
<br>
Here's where things get tricky. The progress in the courts and the
shift in politics and public opinion are occurring just as the
carbon barons' fortunes are dwindling.<br>
<br>
For years now, oil and gas giants have been struggling against an
oversupply of a commodity the world is trying to turn away from. In
December, Chevron was forced to write down $10 billion in assets, a
move that signaled, according to The New York Times, that the shale
gas "boom has given way to bust." By the end of 2019, North American
oil and gas companies were saddled with an estimated $200 billion of
debt, and Wall Street was starting to look askance at an industry
that has underperformed the S&P in four of the last five years.
In January, loudmouth market guru Jim Kramer went on a rant in which
he said the oil giants are in a death spiral because "the world has
turned on them."<br>
<br>
Then the pandemic arrived. As businesses shut down and streets
emptied, demand for oil fell off a cliff; at one point this spring,
there was such a glut that oil briefly traded at negative prices.
While the oil and gas companies are still an economic behemoth--the
total capitalization of the industry is around $1 trillion--the
pandemic appears to have accelerated their decline. Today, Apple
alone is worth more than all of the oil and gas majors combined. The
pandemic-related recession has even sparked chatter that we might
have reached the historic peak of global oil demand. "Could it be
peak oil?" the CEO of BP mused in May, not long before announcing
sweeping layoffs. "Possibly."<br>
<br>
The raft of climate tort cases are, above all, a demand for justice.
The carbon barons amassed some of the largest fortunes in history
through deception and the manufacturing and marketing of a product
they knew was dangerous. Basic fairness requires that they pay for
the damage they have caused. Adapting to rising temperatures, higher
seas, and more climate-related disasters will likely cost trillions
of dollars (with a t) in the course of this century. Someone will
have to pick up the tab. Either that someone will be you and me--or
it will be the companies that have done the most to imperil
civilization.<br>
<br>
The danger now is that as oil company officials see justice closing
in, they will try to grab for themselves as much of the remaining
profits as they can. Look for a wave of executive bonuses, stock
buybacks, and asset liquidations designed to transfer oil company
wealth to those at the top. ExxonMobil, for example, has been on a
multiyear stock buyback binge, a scheme that enriches executives
even as a company suffers.<br>
<br>
All of which intensifies the urgency of demands for climate
reparations. All calls for justice are urgent, but this one is
especially so, because it's racing against a clock--driven by the
implacable force of atmospheric chemistry. This year is on track to
be the hottest or second-hottest in history. Siberia is on fire;
much of Australia has already burned to a crisp. There is no time to
wait.<br>
<br>
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. famously said, "The arc of the moral
universe is long, but it bends toward justice." With Earth beginning
to boil, we can't afford to wait for the long touchdown at justice.
We need--to use a term of 2020--to flatten the curve of the moral
arc. We need accountability now. The longer the courts wait to
address the carbon barons' crimes, the greater the chance that the
oil executives and their shareholders will make off with their
ill-gotten gains and leave the rest of us holding an empty bag.
Justice demands better than that.<br>
<br>
Jason MarkJason Mark is the editor in chief of Sierra magazine and
the author of Satellites in the High Country: Searching for the Wild
in the Age of Man.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.thenation.com/article/environment/oil-companies-climate-lawsuits/">https://www.thenation.com/article/environment/oil-companies-climate-lawsuits/</a><br>
<br>
<p><br>
</p>
[Energy for cooling]<br>
<b>Energy is a basic need, and many Americans are struggling to
afford it in the COVID-19 recession</b><br>
Several months into the COVID-19 pandemic crisis, lower-income
families are struggling to pay their energy bills. That's a big
concern during extreme events like summer heat waves, which can be
deadly – especially for elderly people, young children, people of
color and the poor.<br>
<br>
We ran a nationally representative survey in May 2020 of U.S.
low-income households to measure energy insecurity. We found that
13% of respondents had been unable to pay an energy bill during the
prior month, 9% had received an electricity utility shutoff notice
and 4% had had their electric utility service disconnected.<br>
<br>
More than half of the states temporarily barred utilities from
disconnecting customers who were unable to pay their bills due to
financial hardship in the early months of the economic downturn.
Still, extrapolating our findings to the national level suggests
that approximately 800,000 low-income households may have recently
had their electricity disconnected.<br>
<br>
And the problem could get worse as the economy continues to
struggle. As scholars who study energy policy, the environment and
energy justice, we believe energy assistance should be a central
part of ongoing state and federal relief efforts...<br>
- -<br>
Governments should also consider increasing funding for the
Department of Energy's Weatherization Assistance Program. This
program represents a longer-term solution that can help low-income
households save money on energy bills by repairing and upgrading key
components like furnaces and ducts, and ensuring that houses are
well insulated, sealed and ventilated.<br>
<br>
So far in the pandemic, federal and state governments have focused
on Americans' immediate material needs. But millions of households
are currently struggling to cover their energy costs, and living
without energy could be a matter of life or death. Governments have
the ability to help prevent this kind of secondary disaster, and
more generally to recognize that energy is a basic and essential
human need.<br>
<br>
Michelle Graff and Trevor Memmott, doctoral students at the O'Neill
School at Indiana University, are primary contributors to this
ongoing research effort and authors of publications associated with
this work.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://theconversation.com/energy-is-a-basic-need-and-many-americans-are-struggling-to-afford-it-in-the-covid-19-recession-140416">https://theconversation.com/energy-is-a-basic-need-and-many-americans-are-struggling-to-afford-it-in-the-covid-19-recession-140416</a><br>
- - <br>
<b>The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Weatherization Assistance
Program</b><br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.energy.gov/eere/wap/weatherization-assistance-program">https://www.energy.gov/eere/wap/weatherization-assistance-program</a><br>
<p><br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
[From Nature - methods include the Fermi paradox - 10% chance]<br>
<b>Deforestation and world population sustainability: a quantitative
analysis</b><br>
Mauro Bologna & Gerardo Aquino <br>
Scientific Reports volume 10, Article number: 7631 (2020) <br>
<b>Abstract</b><br>
In this paper we afford a quantitative analysis of the
sustainability of current world population growth in relation to the
parallel deforestation process adopting a statistical point of view.
We consider a simplified model based on a stochastic growth process
driven by a continuous time random walk, which depicts the
technological evolution of human kind, in conjunction with a
deterministic generalised logistic model for humans-forest
interaction and we evaluate the probability of avoiding the
self-destruction of our civilisation. Based on the current resource
consumption rates and best estimate of technological rate growth our
study shows that we have very low probability, less than 10% in most
optimistic estimate, to survive without facing a catastrophic
collapse...<br>
- - <br>
<b>Conclusions</b><br>
In conclusion our model shows that a catastrophic collapse in human
population, due to resource consumption, is the most likely scenario
of the dynamical evolution based on current parameters. Adopting a
combined deterministic and stochastic model we conclude from a
statistical point of view that the probability that our civilisation
survives itself is less than 10% in the most optimistic scenario.
Calculations show that, maintaining the actual rate of population
growth and resource consumption, in particular forest consumption,
we have a few decades left before an irreversible collapse of our
civilisation (see Fig. 5). Making the situation even worse, we
stress once again that it is unrealistic to think that the decline
of the population in a situation of strong environmental degradation
would be a non-chaotic and well-ordered decline. This consideration
leads to an even shorter remaining time. Admittedly, in our
analysis, we assume parameters such as population growth and
deforestation rate in our model as constant. This is a rough
approximation which allows us to predict future scenarios based on
current conditions. Nonetheless the resulting mean-times for a
catastrophic outcome to occur, which are of the order of 2–4 decades
(see Fig. 5), make this approximation acceptable, as it is hard to
imagine, in absence of very strong collective efforts, big changes
of these parameters to occur in such time scale. This interval of
time seems to be out of our reach and incompatible with the actual
rate of the resource consumption on Earth, although some
fluctuations around this trend are possible35 not only due to
unforeseen effects of climate change but also to desirable
human-driven reforestation. This scenario offers as well a plausible
additional explanation to the fact that no signals from other
civilisations are detected. In fact according to Eq. (16) the mean
time to reach Dyson sphere depends on the ratio of the technological
level T and therefore, assuming energy consumption (which scales
with the size of the planet) as a proxy for T, such ratio is
approximately independent of the size of the planet. Based on this
observation and on the mediocrity principle, one could extend the
results shown in this paper, and conclude that a generic
civilisation has approximately two centuries starting from its fully
developed industrial age to reach the capability to spread through
its own solar system. In fact, giving a very broad meaning to the
concept of cultural civilisation as a civilisation not strongly
ruled by economy, we suggest that only civilisations capable of a
switch from an economical society to a sort of "cultural" society in
a timely manner, may survive.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-63657-6">https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-63657-6</a><br>
<p><br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
[satire, with an Aussie bite]<br>
<b>Honest Government Ad | A message from the White House</b><br>
Jul 30, 2020<br>
thejuicemedia<br>
The US Government has made an ad about its response to the pandemic,
and it's surprisingly honest and informative.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dpIkl2QnJeI">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dpIkl2QnJeI</a><br>
<br>
<br>
[Digging back into the internet news archive]<br>
<font size="+1"><b>On this day in the history of global warming -
July 31, 2013 </b></font><br>
<p>On MSNBC's "All In with Chris Hayes," climate scientist Michael
Mann discusses what it was like to be targeted and harassed by
Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli II.<br>
<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="http://www.msnbc.com/all-in/watch/right-wing-gubernatorial-candidate-waged-war-on-science-39494723774">http://www.msnbc.com/all-in/watch/right-wing-gubernatorial-candidate-waged-war-on-science-39494723774</a><br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
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