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<p><i><font size="+1"><b>August 19, 2020</b></font></i></p>
[we know]<br>
<b>From 'firenadoes' to record heat, California extreme weather a
glimpse of future</b><br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-08-18/california-heat-wave-brings-extreme-weather-and-a-glimpse-at-our-future-with-climate-change">https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-08-18/california-heat-wave-brings-extreme-weather-and-a-glimpse-at-our-future-with-climate-change</a>
<p><br>
</p>
[also called global warming]<br>
<b>The tropics are expanding, and climate change is the primary
culprit</b><br>
by American Geophysical Union<br>
Earth's tropics are expanding poleward and that expansion is driven
by human-caused changes to the ocean, according to new research.<br>
- - <br>
A new study in AGU's ,Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres
argues that the failure to agree on an exact mechanism has been, in
part, because most researchers have been looking in the wrong place.
The new study found tropical expansion is driven primarily by ocean
warming caused by climate change rather than direct changes to the
atmosphere. A bigger shift is happening in the Southern Hemisphere
because it has more ocean surface area, according to the new study.<br>
- - <br>
A 2006 paper published in the journal Science announced a troubling
finding: in some parts of the world, the tropics were expanding.
Researchers have attempted to figure out the culprit ever since that
paper was published. Scientists estimate from satellite observations
that this widening is happening at a rate of 0.25 to 0.5 degrees
latitude per decade. But without pinpointing a root cause, they
cannot accurately model how quickly the expansion will occur in the
future or what regions it will impact.<br>
<br>
Some researchers have suggested greenhouse gas emissions, ozone
depletion and aerosols in the atmosphere are driving the expansion.
But climate models using these variables to explain the expansion
consistently underestimate the speed of the shift and do not account
for why expansion is happening in some regions but not others. This
has led some researchers to theorize that tropical expansion can
simply be explained by natural oscillations in Earth's climate. But
natural variation does not quite fit the patterns scientists have
already observed.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://phys.org/news/2020-08-tropics-climate-primary-culprit.html">https://phys.org/news/2020-08-tropics-climate-primary-culprit.html</a>
<p>- - <br>
</p>
[source material]<br>
<b>Tropical Expansion Driven by Poleward Advancing Midlatitude
Meridional Temperature Gradients</b><br>
<b>Abstract</b><br>
<blockquote>An abundance of evidence indicates that the tropics are
expanding. Despite many attempts to decipher the cause, the
underlying dynamical mechanism driving tropical expansion is still
not entirely clear. Here, based on observations, multimodel
simulations from the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project phase 5
(CMIP5) and purposefully designed numerical experiments, the
variations and trends of the tropical width are explored from a
regional perspective. We find that the width of the tropics
closely follows the displacement of oceanic midlatitude meridional
temperature gradients (MMTG). Under global warming, as a
first‐order response, the subtropical ocean experiences more
surface warming because of the mean Ekman convergence of
anomalously warm water. The enhanced subtropical warming, which is
partially independent of natural climate oscillations, such as the
Pacific Decadal Oscillation, leads to poleward advance of the MMTG
and drives the tropical expansion. Our results, supported by both
observations and model simulations, imply that global warming may
have already significantly contributed to the ongoing tropical
expansion, especially over the ocean‐dominant Southern Hemisphere.<br>
</blockquote>
<b>Plain Language Summary</b><br>
<blockquote>Both observations and climate simulations have shown
that the edges of tropics and associated subtropical climate zone
are shifting toward higher latitudes under climate change. The
underlying dynamical mechanism driving this phenomenon that has
puzzled the scientific community for more than a decade, however,
is still not entirely clear. A number of investigations argued
that the atmospheric processes, in the absence of the ocean
dynamics, lead to the tropical expansion. For example, increasing
greenhouse gases, decreasing ozone and increasing aerosols are
suggested to be the dominant factors contributing to expanding the
tropics. However, these investigations are mostly based on model
simulations, and observations show a much more complex evolution
of expanding tropics. By examining the tropical width individually
over each ocean basin, in this study, we find that the width of
the tropics closely follows the displacement of oceanic
midlatitude meridional temperature gradients (MMTG). Under global
warming, as a first‐order response, the subtropical convergence
zone experiences more surface warming due to background
convergence of surface water. Such warming induces poleward shift
of the oceanic MMTG and drives the tropical expansion.<br>
</blockquote>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2020JD033158">https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2020JD033158</a><br>
<p>- -</p>
[interesting statistical study]<br>
<b>Climate change has been influencing where tropical cyclones rage:
study</b><br>
- data visualization
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://scx2.b-cdn.net/gfx/news/hires/2020/5eb02a078d6ae.jpg">https://scx2.b-cdn.net/gfx/news/hires/2020/5eb02a078d6ae.jpg</a><br>
While the global average number of tropical cyclones each year has
not budged from 86 over the last four decades, climate change has
been influencing the locations of where these deadly storms occur,
according to new NOAA-led research published in Proceedings of the
National Academy of Sciences.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://phys.org/news/2020-05-climate-tropical-cyclones-rage.html">https://phys.org/news/2020-05-climate-tropical-cyclones-rage.html</a>
<p><br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<p>[press release]<br>
We are delighted to announce that a new Climate Policy paper is
now available free to access. This article is part of our next
special issue on fossil fuels and explores the impacts of
divestment in the sector and the transition of the energy system
on investment performance.<br>
<b>The financial impact of fossil fuel divestment</b><br>
By Auke Plantinga & Bert Scholtens <br>
Read it here: bit.ly/FFdivestment<br>
The fossil fuel divestment movement tries to increase awareness
about the need for climate action and heralds divestment from
fossil fuel producers as a means to combat climate change.
Financial investors are increasingly showing interest in the
non-financial impact of companies they invest in, i.e. responsible
investing. However, they also want to be assured of sufficient
returns and limited risks to support the living costs of their
ultimate beneficiaries. In this context, we investigate the impact
of divestment and the transition of the energy system on
investment performance. We rely on an international sample of
almost seven thousand companies and study a period of forty years.
Further, we investigate scenarios with very different pathways to
the transition of the energy system. We find that the investment
performance of portfolios that exclude fossil fuel production
companies does not significantly differ in terms of risk and
return from unrestricted portfolios. This finding holds even under
market conditions that would benefit the fossil fuel industry. We
conclude that divesting from fossil fuel production does not
result in financial harm to investors, even when fossil fuels
continue to play a dominant role in the energy mix for some time.<br>
<br>
Key policy insights<br>
- Financing the exploration and exploitation of fossil fuel
resources is increasingly being regarded as controversial, leading
to divestment from this industry.<br>
- Fossil fuel divestment does not seem to significantly harm
financial investors and is not at odds with the fiduciary duty of
institutional investors. This paves the way for more extensive
initiatives to promote fossil fuel divestment.<br>
- A smooth energy transition will most likely erode the
profitability of fossil fuel firms and their ability to invest.
Therefore, governments cannot rely on the fossil fuel industry to
finance the energy transition.<br>
Read it here: bit.ly/FFdivestment<br>
With best wishes, <br>
Miguel Saldivia<br>
Editorial Assistant, Climate Policy Journal<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://climatestrategies.wordpress.com/climate-policy-collections/">https://climatestrategies.wordpress.com/climate-policy-collections/</a><br>
- - <br>
Climate Policy is a leading international peer-reviewed academic
journal, publishing high quality research and analysis on all
aspects of climate change policy, including adaptation and
mitigation, governance and negotiations, policy design,
implementation and impact, and the full range of economic, social
and political issues at stake in responding to climate change. It
provides a platform for new ideas, innovative approaches and
research-based insights that can help advance climate policy in
practice. <br>
<br>
<br>
</p>
[New Yorker August 17th issue ]<br>
<b>How Suffering Farmers May Determine Trump's Fate</b><br>
As rural Wisconsin's fortunes have declined, its political
importance has grown.<br>
By Dan Kaufman - August 10, 2020...text and audio<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/08/17/how-suffering-farmers-may-determine-trumps-fate">https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/08/17/how-suffering-farmers-may-determine-trumps-fate</a><br>
<p>- -<br>
</p>
[Reap what we sow - from American Prospect]<br>
<b>Farmers Reject Biden's Pro-Corporate Rural Advisers</b><br>
Heidi Heitkamp and Tom Vilsack are promoting a failed strategy for
rural America. Biden would win support if he broke from that and
took on Big Ag.<br>
BY DAVID DAYEN AUGUST 17, 2020<br>
Political conventions traditionally feature an orgy of corporate
lobbyists and big money courting public officials. You'd think such
displays wouldn't factor into a convention-at-home setup in 2020.
After all, where would the lobbyists and hangers-on congregate? The
answer is, apparently, on Zoom.<br>
<br>
An invite obtained by the Prospect from "Leaders of American
Agriculture, LLC" touts a virtual symposium on Tuesday night, with
"welcome rooms" about such topics as "Ag Value Chain Resiliency
Through Innovation." The sponsors of this event include two major
farm lobbying organizations (the National Farmers Union and the
American Farm Bureau Federation); trade groups representing biotech,
ethanol, agrochemicals, corn, cotton, beet sugar, and seeds; AgTech
company Indigo; farm lender CoBank; animal health company Zoetis;
soybean agribusiness Bunge; and seed giants Corteva (formed through
the merger of Dow and DuPont) and Bayer, which merged with Monsanto
in 2018.<br>
<br>
This gala is a perennial at the Democratic National Convention,
bringing together "Democratic agricultural leaders" and the
corporate interests that fund their campaigns. Philip Karsting, a
former administrator of the Foreign Agricultural Service under
President Obama, sent out the invite. He's now a K Street lobbyist
with Olsson Frank Weeda Terman Matz. And he's the co-chair of Joe
Biden's rural advisory committee. The other co-chair has yet to be
filled.<br>
<br>
Biden's rural advisers, with deep ties to corporate agriculture,
have advocates for family farmers concerned. They cite in particular
the influence of former Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, now a
lobbyist for the dairy industry, and former North Dakota Sen. Heidi
Heitkamp, whose new organization One Country claims to speak for
rural America. "The Biden team has too few voices in their ear
claiming to represent rural and ag issues," says Joe Maxwell,
president of Family Farm Action and a leading critic of Big Ag
monopolies.<br>
<br>
At the heart of the dispute is a conception of how to revitalize
rural America. Business-friendly ag advisers emphasize trade,
believing that promoting overseas markets will translate to
prosperity for family farmers and ranchers. But "farmers do not
export, Cargill exports," Maxwell counters, arguing that Big Ag
domination is a far greater challenge. If you don't profit from what
you produce, he reasons, more trade won't fix the problem.<br>
<br>
Export strategies force farmers into monoculture crops and
overproduction, which pushes down prices. Add to that increasing
input costs for seed and machinery and you squeeze working farmers,
who must compete with industrial-sized Big Ag operations. Small
livestock producers are forced to sell low to concentrated
meatpackers and watch as they pass on inflated prices to groceries,
enjoying the middleman profits. "The big guys won't process for the
little guys and are putting the little guy out of business," says
Carrie Balkcom, executive director of the American Grassfed
Association and a family rancher in South Florida.<br>
<br>
Standing up against farmer abuse from ag monopolies would be popular
in battleground Midwest states with farm districts, like Minnesota,
Wisconsin, Michigan, and Iowa, and advocates for a prairie populist
strategy are armed with polling that says so. One poll shows that
over 80 percent of rural voters reject ag monopolies and factory
farms. The Biden team, by toeing the corporate ag line, is "leaving
votes on the table that perhaps they shouldn't," Maxwell says.<br>
Farmers are increasingly desperate to deliver this message. "We've
pleaded for years and years that the farmers are being screwed and
our independence is being ripped away from us," says Chris Petersen,
a specialty hog farmer in Clear Lake, Iowa. "You can talk to Vilsack
and Heitkamp all you want, but more corporate control of ag is not
the answer."<br>
<br>
The Biden campaign has not yet responded to a request for comment.<br>
<br>
PRESIDENT TRUMP HAS tried to lump in farmers with his "forgotten men
and women" rhetoric, but his policies have pounded rural
communities. Years of trade wars slowed exports and left meat and
produce frozen in storage. Farm bailouts intended to counteract this
damage increasingly flowed to the top. Over half of the money went
to the richest 10 percent of farmers, according to a study from the
Environmental Working Group, with the bottom 80 percent getting on
average just $5,000. Assistance for corn growers was an insulting
penny per bushel. JBS, the Brazilian meatpacker and one of the
largest companies for beef and pork, received $78 million. A more
recent bailout to cope with the effects of the coronavirus crisis
was similarly tilted toward the top.<br>
<br>
The biggest blow in the Trump years came when the U.S. Department of
Agriculture (USDA) rolled back rules that would have banned Big Ag
retaliation against small farmers and given them stronger legal
tools to prevent abuse. USDA chief Sonny Perdue, himself tied to
chicken industry interests, then dissolved the agency that protects
small farms, known as the Grain Inspection, Packers and Stockyards
Administration (GIPSA), folding it into a PR division called the
Agricultural Marketing Service. Perdue wrote the epitaph for the
family farmer when he said at a dairy expo last year, "In America
the big get bigger and the small go out."<br>
<br>
That accurately describes agriculture today. The top four hog firms
control two-thirds of the market; the top four cattle firms, 85
percent. Ninety percent of all chickens are raised through the
brutal "tournament" system, where farmers are pitted against one
another. Producers specify how farmers must house, feed, and care
for chicks, and the fattest ones get sold; farmers that lose the
tournament get nothing. Seeds and dairy producers and farm machinery
and farm credit companies are all concentrated, as are cafeteria
services and grocery stores on the food distribution side.
Monopolists have grabbed a significant share of food profits.
Farmers used to earn 37 cents of every retail dollar; now it's down
to 15.<br>
"Iowa more and more is an outside service center for corporations,"
says hog farmer Chris Petersen. "We're being mined to make Big Money
more big money."<br>
<br>
The Trump administration's failure in rural America provides Biden
an opportunity to present a message of fairness against powerful
interests. According to polling taken this spring by Change
Research, a whopping 80 percent of rural voters believed that
"political elites impose their will on my life," and would be more
likely to vote for someone who supported breaking up the "handful of
corporate monopolies now run[ning] our entire food system." An
anti-corruption, anti–big business message that protected family
farms would play well in this region.<br>
The Obama-Biden rural plan gestured toward this strategy, to some
success. Its platform was notably aggressive on preventing
anti-competitive behavior, and won states like Iowa, Ohio, Indiana,
and North Carolina, with better-than-expected rural numbers. "I
thought Obama would be the next Teddy Roosevelt," says Mike
Callicrate, a cattle rancher in St. Francis, Kansas, for nearly 50
years.<br>
<br>
After the election, Obama's USDA (under Vilsack's control) and the
Justice Department set out on a five-city listening tour of farm
country, hearing stories about Big Ag price discrimination, abuse of
market power, and intimidation. Farmers who spoke out risked
retaliation from big producers who could crush them. But after the
hearings, no enforcement actions were taken, more mergers were
approved, and GIPSA rules were delayed and ultimately weakened.
Obama's team dubiously asserted that their hands were tied by the
antitrust laws.<br>
<br>
"He did nothing, and Vilsack did nothing and the Department of
Justice did nothing," says Callicrate. "They totally betrayed us."
This created a lack of trust that has now spread to both parties. If
Biden broke with this past and brought in new advisers with a
commitment to protecting family farms, that trust could begin to be
rebuilt. But instead, the Biden team has returned to the same old
corporate-ag well.<br>
AFTER LOSING SENATE races decisively in red states in 2018, Heitkamp
and Indiana's Joe Donnelly started the One Country Project, a
dark-money group dedicated to winning back rural voters. It starts
from the shaky premise that two senators who were trounced in rural
America hold the key to unlocking the region. That One Country's
website was registered by a corporate lobbying firm doesn't add
confidence either.<br>
<br>
One Country's issue guide has some decent material on increasing
health access, stopping climate change, protecting the Postal
Service, and building rural broadband. But on farm policy, it leads
with the need to "open markets and make it easier for farmers to
make a good living," neglecting how Big Ag intercepts trade revenues
and impoverishes family farmers. During the COVID-19 crisis, meat
companies have been exporting in record numbers, while blaming
shortages for rising grocery prices and cutting payments to farmers
and ranchers to the bone. An export-driven strategy, in other words,
has only led to outsized profit margins for industry giants.<br>
<br>
There's nothing in One Country's materials about corporate
concentration and monopoly power. "It's a mystery to me what they're
up to," says Chris Petersen, who is active in Iowa politics and has
spoken directly to Biden and vice-presidential nominee Kamala Harris
in the past. "With who Heidi Heitkamp is, with the corporate hat on,
it doesn't look good."<br>
<br>
Heitkamp's fingerprints are all over Biden's rural policy. She
endorsed Biden before the North Dakota primary in March, and has led
rural voter events for the campaign. Liberty Schneider, Heitkamp's
campaign manager in 2018, became the Democratic National Committee's
director of rural outreach and engagement last year. According to
trade publication Agri-pulse, One Country is working to help Biden
and Democratic congressional campaigns with rural outreach. Biden
has openly praised Heitkamp, and behind the scenes, he has floated
Heitkamp as a leading choice to run USDA, sources tell the Prospect.
In this sense, One Country looks like a vehicle for a Cabinet
appointment.<br>
- -<br>
"The track record of Heitkamp was not one that understood the
importance of certain issues to family farmers and ranchers," says
Maxwell, of Family Farm Action. He noted that Heitkamp was the top
Senate recipient of funds from the crop production industry in the
2018 cycle, with over $247,000, and she received money from
meatpacking giant Smithfield Foods and its Chinese-owned parent
company WH Group. In 2018, Heitkamp voted against an amendment to
the farm bill that would have added transparency to "checkoff"
programs intended for agricultural marketing, which have become
slush funds for lobbying organizations, used in campaigns that hurt
family farmers...<br>
- -<br>
Maxwell thinks that the platform language should be stronger,
returning to the initial intent of the Packers and Stockyards Act,
with stiff penalties for monopoly abuse of family farmers and
ranchers. But the real problem, he explains, is that Vilsack, "the
person that candidate Biden is listening to, has an eight-year
commitment of not living up to those issues."<br>
<br>
Cattle rancher Carrie Balkcom echoes this concern. "We're not going
to get anywhere as long as they are the voices in Washington," she
says. "They're representing the big people that keep the little
people trapped. I've been kicking the door in for 20-some years.
We've got to be at the table."<br>
<br>
ALL OF THE FARMERS interviewed for this article thought the
post-coronavirus moment was perfect for a message of shorter supply
chains and local processing. Petersen says his Berkshire Gold
non-confinement pork has six-month waiting lists. Balkcom adds that
family farmers are seeing upticks in sales. Whether because of
worker abuse in meatpacking plants or high grocery prices, a light
bulb has gone off that supporting family farmers makes moral and
economic sense.<br>
<br>
It's also a bridge to a more equal America. "If you could have
things processed locally, you bring back those economies, supporting
the local hardware store and local schools, and money stays in the
community," says Carrie Balkcom. In her hometown in South Florida,
there are three dollar stores and no grocery for fresh foods. "We've
become part of a secondhand economy," adds Mike Callicrate. "Farmers
are eating out of dollar stores, they can't even get good food."<br>
<br>
This is the fork in the road available to Biden: Break with
corporate agriculture and drum up support in communities ground down
by monopoly power, or maintain the corporate-ag model, and continue
the decades-long Democratic trend of bleeding support outside big
cities. "These issues are well known to rural America," Maxwell
says. "You don't have to convince them that corporate concentration
and monopolies are bad for them. They live through it every day."<br>
<br>
A lot of anti-monopoly work can be done unilaterally, outside of
Congress. Biden could rewrite the GIPSA rules and let family farmers
sue over abuses, while restoring the oversight agency's power. He
could rewrite merger guidelines and review markets under that higher
standard. He could restore country-of-origin labeling for beef and
pork.<br>
<br>
Callicrate believes that rural America turned to Trump because they
hate both parties. "Now we find out that Trump is worse than either
party," he says. "We have to go after concentrated power and wealth,
it's the greatest threat to any free society in history," he
explains. "We're scared shitless. We cannot survive with the policy
that exists. There is not going to be anything left of rural
America."<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://prospect.org/power/farmers-reject-bidens-pro-corporate-rural-advisers/">https://prospect.org/power/farmers-reject-bidens-pro-corporate-rural-advisers/</a><br>
<br>
<p><br>
</p>
[as Providence, Rhode Island goes, so should the world]<br>
<b>Transitioning from Climate Justice Planning to Climate Justice
Action</b><br>
The Providence Climate Justice Plan offers an exemplary approach to
prioritizing the communities and neighborhoods most impacted by the
environmental effects of development and industrial pollution.<br>
Joan Fitzgerald - August 10, 2020<br>
<br>
Like many cities, Providence has a long history of racial injustice
with an environmental dimension. South Providence, Washington Park,
Wanskuck, and the West End communities that border industrial areas
have multiple sources of pollution and the highest levels of
poverty, asthma, and lead poisoning in the state.<br>
<br>
Unlike many cities, Providence has put these frontline communities
at the forefront of its climate action. It is the only city in the
country with a Climate Justice Plan. The process has been exemplary.
The jury is out on what changes it will produce in practice.<br>
<br>
I recently talked with the city's director or sustainability, Leah
Bamberger, to find out how the Climate Justice Plan came about. The
process started when Bamberger was recruited from Boston to lead the
Providence Office of Sustainability in 2015. When community
organizers immediately started pushing her to focus on the needs of
their neighborhoods, Bamberger was onboard. With grants from The
Funders Network, an organization of private foundations that invests
in building local capacity to create equitable and sustainable
communities in the U.S. and Canada, and the Rhode Island Foundation,
her team partnered with the Environmental Justice League and
Groundwork Rhode Island, and with One Square World facilitating, a
new kind of planning process began.<br>
<br>
The Office of Sustainability was an equal among partners in the
planning process. In addition to five members representing city
departments, representatives from the community were part of a
Racial and Environmental Justice Committee that would explore ways
to integrate racial equity into the city's sustainability and
resilience planning. After committee members, and city
officials--including Mayor Jorge Elorza--participated in Undoing
Racism trainings, the planning process began. Community
representatives committed to about ten hours of meetings per month,
for which they received a $1,300 honorarium.<br>
<br>
The committee's Equity in Sustainability report was released in June
2016. It listed 12 priorities identified by residents of frontline
communities, including clean streets, industrial hazards, safety,
public transit, and gentrification. A second year of funding allowed
the committee to develop a framework for an updated plan that would
establish equity goals, action items, and systemic evaluation of
these goals. Bamberger explains, "Our intent was to shift the
decision-making power to frontline communities, whose residents
really led the development of this work."<br>
<br>
In October 2019, with the Just Providence Framework as its guidance,
the city and committee released the Providence Climate Justice Plan.
It outlines a strategy for achieving Mayor Jorge Elorza's 2016
executive order calling for Providence to become a carbon-neutral
city by 2050 while prioritizing the needs of frontline communities.<br>
<br>
So the question is whether putting frontline communities first is
aligned with the aggressive measures needed to achieve carbon
neutrality. It's easier said than done. Bamberger offers the example
of increasing solar adoption. "The theory of change for many climate
plans is to design policies and programs that capture the most
people to reach the goals. This typically means starting with people
who can afford solar, electric vehicles, or heat pumps first,
leaving behind those who are most impacted by the climate
crisis--low income communities of color. We start with the challenge
of addressing the needs of these frontline communities
first--working towards affordable, clean energy, and mitigating
pollution in their neighborhoods, for example. We assume that
markets will take care of wealthier residents."<br>
<br>
Will all this city-blessed community involvement lead to real
change? One challenge is funding. One of the first elements of the
plan to be implemented is the creation of two green justice zones
for priority action, Olneyville and South Providence. Among the
potential projects in the zones are building microgrids in key
facilities to maintain power when outages occur, weatherization,
renewable energy development, job training, and zoning reform to
prevent polluting land uses, But to date, only $1 million of the
city's $222 million capital improvement plan, passed in January
2020, has been earmarked to support the zones. And with city and
state budgets in crisis, it isn't clear whether there will be
additional funding.<br>
<br>
Utility interests aren't on board with the environmental justice
goals and it appears that Governor Gina Raimondo isn't either. In
October 2018, regulators approved a controversial $180 million
National Grid liquefied natural gas (LNG) facility on the industrial
waterfront that is adding to the pollution mentioned above.
Opponents pointed out that it would increase the state's dependence
on dirty shale gas obtained by hydraulic fracturing and lock in
carbon emissions for the life of the facility. The Rhode Island
Department of Health and several environmental and community
organizations criticized the proposal as well. Governor Raimundo
fought having their environmental justice concerns included in the
proposal that went to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission for
approval. And despite his embrace of climate justice as a general
principle and his adamant opposition of the new LNG facility, even
Mayor Elorza supports the polluting energy infrastructure of the
industrial waterfront as a needed economic development driver.<br>
<br>
So while Providence is exemplary in bringing neighborhood groups and
environmental justice goals into the planning process, the usual
obstacles to real progress remain: inadequate funding, powerful
interest groups, and contradictory goals. The Climate Justice Plan
is a start in that it gives frontline communities a formal planning
role and a bigger megaphone--which they will surely need.<br>
<br>
As Scott Campbell pointed out in his classic 1996 article on the
contradictions of sustainable development in the Journal of the
American Planning Association, city (and state) officials will
almost always choose economic concerns over environmental ones. That
is the challenge of climate justice planning.<br>
<br>
Joan Fitzgerald is a professor in the School of Public Policy &
Urban Affairs at Northeastern University.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.planetizen.com/node/110144">https://www.planetizen.com/node/110144</a><br>
- - - <br>
[buy the book]<br>
<b>Greenovation: Urban Leadership on Climate Change,</b> was
published this March by Oxford Univ. Press.<br>
<br>
Collectively, cities take up a relatively tiny amount of land on the
earth, yet emit 72 percent of greenhouse gas emissions. Clearly,
cities need to be at the center of any broad effort to reduce
climate change.<br>
<br>
In Greenovation, the eminent urban policy scholar Joan Fitzgerald
argues that too many cities are only implementing random acts of
greenness that will do little to address the climate crisis. She
instead calls for "greenovation"--using the city as a test bed for
adopting and perfecting green technologies for more
energy--efficient buildings, transportation, and infrastructure more
broadly. Further, Fitzgerald contends that while many city mayors
cite income inequality as a pressing problem, few cities are
connecting climate action and social justice-another aspect of
greenovation. Focusing on the biggest producers of greenhouse gases
in cities, buildings, energy and transportation, Fitzgerald examines
how greenovating cities are reducing emissions overall and lays out
an agenda for fostering and implementing urban innovations that can
help reverse the path toward irrevocable climate damage. Drawing on
interviews with practitioners in more than 20 North American and
European cities, she identifies the strategies and policies they are
employing and how support from state, provincial and national
governments has supported or thwarted their efforts.<br>
<br>
A uniquely urban-focused appraisal of the economic, political, and
social debates that underpin the drive to "go green," Greenovation
helps us understand what is arguably the toughest policy problem of
our era: the increasing impact of anthropocentric climate change on
modern social life.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.amazon.com/Greenovation-Urban-Leadership-Climate-Change/dp/019069551X">https://www.amazon.com/Greenovation-Urban-Leadership-Climate-Change/dp/019069551X</a><br>
<p> </p>
<p><br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<br>
[aimed at the hobby farmer or indoor greenhouse]<br>
<b>Farmtrac Electric Tractor as featured on BBC Countryfile | 100%
Independent, 100% Electric</b><br>
Aug 17, 2020<br>
fullychargedshow<br>
LIKE if you think electric machinery is the way forward & SHARE
if you want more people to be aware of alternatives to polluting
combustion engines. See full description below...<br>
<br>
Robert heads down to Bemborough Farm in Gloucestershire to try out
the Farmtrac 25G electric tractor. The first of its kind in the
country, this 4x4 electric tractor is a brilliant first step towards
electrifying bigger and more powerful farming machinery. With
pressures on farmers to reduce their carbon footprint, a tractor
that can be powered by wind or solar energy generated on the farm
makes a lot of sense. <br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ClNdrJRan5k">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ClNdrJRan5k</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 -
August 19, </b></font><br>
<p>August 19, 2015: The New York Times reports:<br>
<br>
"A little-noted portion of the chain of pipelines and equipment
that brings natural gas from the field into power plants and homes
is responsible for a surprising amount of methane emissions,
according to a study on Tuesday.<br>
<br>
"Natural-gas gathering facilities, which collect from multiple
wells, lose about 100 billion cubic feet of natural gas a year,
about eight times as much as estimates used by the Environmental
Protection Agency, according to the study, which appeared in the
journal Environmental Science and Technology.<br>
<br>
"The newly discovered leaks, if counted in the E.P.A. inventory,
would increase its entire systemwide estimate by about 25 percent,
said the Environmental Defense Fund, which sponsored the research
as part of methane emissions studies it organized."<br>
<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/19/science/methane-leaks-in-natural-gas-supply-chain-far-exceed-estimates-study-says.html?mwrsm=Email">http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/19/science/methane-leaks-in-natural-gas-supply-chain-far-exceed-estimates-study-says.html?mwrsm=Email</a>
<br>
</p>
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