<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>September 9, 2020</b></font></i></p>
<b>National fire and smoke map</b><br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://fire.airnow.gov/?lat=47.7167616&lng=-122.3262208&zoom=10">https://fire.airnow.gov/?lat=47.7167616&lng=-122.3262208&zoom=10</a><br>
- - <br>
<b>Fires: Current Conditions</b><br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://cfpub.epa.gov/airnow/index.cfm?action=topics.smoke_wildfires">https://cfpub.epa.gov/airnow/index.cfm?action=topics.smoke_wildfires</a><br>
- - <br>
<b>PM2.5 Air Quality Intex</b><br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://tools.airfire.org/airtools/v1/pnw-smoke.html?lat=44.0&lng=-118.2&zoom=6">https://tools.airfire.org/airtools/v1/pnw-smoke.html?lat=44.0&lng=-118.2&zoom=6</a><br>
- -<br>
<b>Wind and heat mapped by Earth NullSchool</b><br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://earth.nullschool.net/#current/wind/surface/level/overlay=temp/orthographic=-115.26,41.88,3000">https://earth.nullschool.net/#current/wind/surface/level/overlay=temp/orthographic=-115.26,41.88,3000</a>
<p><br>
</p>
[NYTimes offers live updates]<br>
<b>Wildfires Lead to Helicopter Rescues in California and
Destruction in Washington</b><br>
Extreme weather is battering the Western United States, with fires
raging along the Pacific Coast and snow falling in Colorado.<br>
<br>
Here's what you need to know:<br>
- Wildfires, winds and extreme temperatures are battering several
Western states.<br>
- Helicopters have flown people to safety as the Sierra National
Forest burns.<br>
- Malden, Wash., is 'pretty much devastated throughout.'<br>
- In Colorado, 'We switched from summer to winter in a day.'<br>
- PG&E has shut off power to tens of thousands of customers over
wildfire fears.<br>
- There is a strong link between California's wildfires and climate
change, experts say.<br>
- 'We lost our home': A small California town was hit hard by the
Creek Fire.<br>
<br>
<b> </b><br>
<b>Wildfires, winds and extreme temperatures are battering several
Western states.</b><br>
Raging wildfires, windy conditions and a heat wave with temperatures
reaching upward of 100 degrees converged in a dangerous combination
over the weekend, as extreme weather continued to batter much of the
Western United States on Tuesday.<br>
<br>
In California, helicopters battled smoky skies overnight in an
attempt to rescue dozens of people trapped in the fiery depths of
the Sierra National Forest and at least 148 people had been flown to
safety by Tuesday morning.<br>
<br>
In Oregon, whipping winds and dry conditions have helped fuel fire
outbreaks. South of Portland, officials in Marion County implored
some residents to "please leave now" as fires that have burned
through more than 27,000 acres approached more densely populated
areas.<br>
<br>
And in Washington State, officials said that 80 percent of homes and
structures in Malden, a town of 200 in the eastern part of the
state, had been destroyed by fire. Deputies began going door to door
and announcing evacuations, but officials said many buildings,
including the fire station, post office, city hall and the library,
were completely burned to the ground.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/08/us/wildfires-live-updates.html">https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/08/us/wildfires-live-updates.html</a><br>
<br>
<p><br>
</p>
[Governor Gavin Newsom]<br>
<b>Newsom: 'No patience for climate change deniers' amid historic
wildfires</b><br>
The Democratic governor's statement seemed to be a determined retort
to California critics.<br>
By COLBY BERMEL 09/08/2020<br>
SACRAMENTO -- As California battles another round of
life-threatening wildfires, Gov. Gavin Newsom emphasized Tuesday
that the state will continue to pursue policies that combat climate
change as it faces a prolonged vortex of disasters...<br>
- -<br>
"I say this lovingly -- not as an ideologue, but as someone who
prides himself on being open to argument, interested in evidence --
but I quite literally have no patience for climate change deniers,"
Newsom said. "It's completely inconsistent, that point of view, with
the reality on the ground, the facts as we are experiencing. You may
not believe it intellectually, but your own eyes, your own
experiences tell a different story."<br>
<br>
The Democratic governor's statement seemed to be a determined retort
to California critics -- President Donald Trump chief among them --
who have blamed the state's power outages on its aggressive push to
eliminate fossil fuels. Trump and others have likewise suggested the
state's environmental protections have deterred tree removal and
other steps to prevent forest fires.<br>
<br>
Newsom, along with climate experts, instead say that California is
suffering from unusual weather cycles caused by global warming.
California's blazes have reached a crisis level weeks before the
typical peak of wildfire season in October and November.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.politico.com/states/california/story/2020/09/08/newsom-no-patience-for-climate-deniers-amid-historic-heat-fires-1316014">https://www.politico.com/states/california/story/2020/09/08/newsom-no-patience-for-climate-deniers-amid-historic-heat-fires-1316014</a><br>
<p><br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
[Follow the money]<br>
<b>Federal Report Warns of Financial Havoc From Climate Change</b><br>
A report commissioned by President Trump's Commodity Futures Trading
Commission issued dire warnings about climate change's impact on
financial markets.<br>
- -<br>
The new report asserts that doing nothing to avert climate change
will do the opposite.<br>
<br>
"This is the first time a government entity has looked at the
impacts of climate change on financial markets in the U.S.," said
Robert Litterman, the chairman of the panel that produced the report
and a founding partner of Kepos Capital, an investment firm based in
New York. "Rather than saying, 'What's the science?' this is saying,
'What's the financial risk?'"<br>
<br>
The commodities regulator, which is made up of three Republicans and
two Democrats, all of whom were appointed by President Trump, voted
unanimously last summer to create an advisory panel drawn from the
world of finance and charged with producing a report on the effects
of the warming world on financial markets. The initial proposal for
the report came from Rostin Behnam, one of the panel's two
Democrats, but the report is written by dozens of analysts from
investment firms including Morgan Stanley, S&P Global and
Vanguard; the oil companies BP and ConocoPhillips; and the
agricultural trader Cargill, as well as academic experts and
environmental groups.<br>
<br>
It includes recommendations for new corporate regulations and the
reversal of at least one Trump administration policy.<br>
<br>
"It was shocking when they asked me to do this," Mr. Litterman said.
"This is members of the entire community involved in financial
markets saying with one voice, 'This is a serious problem, and it
has to be addressed.'"<br>
<br>
A White House spokesman, Judd Deere, declined on Tuesday to comment
on the report because the White House had not yet seen it...<br>
- -<br>
"I appreciate Commissioner Behnam's leadership on convening various
private sector perspectives on the important topic of climate risk,"
Mr. Tarbert said in a statement. "The subcommittee's report
acknowledges that 'transition risks' of a green economy could be
just as disruptive to our financial system as the possible physical
manifestations of climate change, and that moving too fast, too soon
could be just as disorderly as doing too little, too late. This
underscores why it is so important for policymakers to get this
right."<br>
<br>
The authors of the report acknowledged that if Mr. Trump is
re-elected, his administration is all but certain to ignore the
report and its recommendations.<br>
<br>
Instead, they said they saw the document as a policy road map for a
Joseph R. Biden Jr. administration.<br>
<br>
Mr. Biden's climate policy proposals are the most ambitious and
expensive ever embraced by a presidential candidate, and most of
them would meet resistance in Congress. But even without
legislation, he could press forward with regulatory changes. Lael
Brainard, a Federal Reserve governor who is seen as a top contender
to be Treasury secretary in a Biden administration, has called for
financial regulators to treat climate change as a significant risk
to the financial system.<br>
<br>
In calling for climate-driven policy changes, the report's authors
likened the financial risk of global warming to the threat posed by
the coronavirus today and by mortgage-backed securities that
precipitated the financial crash in 2008... <br>
- - <br>
"Climate change is linked to devaluing home values," said Jesse
Keenan, an editor of the report and a professor of real estate at
Tulane University in New Orleans.<br>
<br>
"If in your town, your house is devalued, that makes it harder for
your local government to raise money," he said. "That's one set of
risks that could lead to a contagion and broader instability across
financial markets."...<br>
more at -
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/08/climate/climate-change-financial-markets.html">https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/08/climate/climate-change-financial-markets.html</a><br>
<br>
<p><br>
</p>
[discussion between John Cook and the head of Yale Climate
Communication]<br>
<b>Anthony Leiserowitz talks climate communication</b><br>
Sep 8, 2020<br>
[23 min video]<br>
These two are the heroically great climate communicators.<br>
<blockquote>John Cook<br>
SkepticalScience<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.skepticalscience.com/">https://www.skepticalscience.com/</a><br>
<br>
Anthony Leiserowitz<br>
Yale Climate Communication <br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://yaleclimateconnections.org/">https://yaleclimateconnections.org/</a><br>
</blockquote>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=398tGbFcqOs">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=398tGbFcqOs</a><br>
[brilliant conclusion at <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://youtu.be/398tGbFcqOs?t=1216">https://youtu.be/398tGbFcqOs?t=1216</a> Kahan
argues]<br>
<p><br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
[alarming video and transcript below]<br>
<b>'A world with no ice': Confronting the horrors of climate change
| Big Think</b><br>
Jul 27, 2020<br>
Big Think<br>
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
<br>
Climate change is often framed as a debate that has split society
down the middle and that requires more evidence before we can act.
In reality, 97 percent of scientists agree that it is real and only
3 percent are skeptical. A sticking point for some is the estimated
timeline, but as Columbia University professor Philip Kitcher points
out, a 4-5 Celsius temperature increase that makes the planet
uninhabitable is a disaster no matter when it happens.<br>
<br>
In this video, 9 experts (including professors, astronomers,
authors, and historians) explain what climate change looks like, how
humans have already and are continuing to contribute to it, how and
why it has become politicized, and what needs to happen moving
forward for real progress to be made.<br>
<br>
David Wallace-Wells, journalist and New America Foundation National
Fellow, says that the main goal of climate action is not to win over
the skeptical minority, but to "make those people who are concerned
but still fundamentally complacent about the issue to be really
engaged in a way that they prioritize climate change in their
politics and their voting and make sure that our leaders think of
climate change as a first-order political priority."<br>
<br>
Read David Wallace-Wells' latest book The Uninhabitable Earth: Life
After Warming at <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://amzn.to/2CMDSGI">https://amzn.to/2CMDSGI</a><br>
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
<br>
Transcript <br>
GINA MCCARTHY: Climate is always portrayed on newscasts as being
some kind of big debate. You know, the big debate among the
scientists is that 97 percent of them know it's happening and are
really worried about it. Three percent are skeptical. That's not a
balance. That's an overwhelming majority and that needs to drive the
decision, especially in a democracy.<br>
<br>
BILL NYE: The more you think about it everybody, 97 percent of the
world's scientists – not 97 percent of some institute that somebody
started in a remote part of the world and is releasing press
releases. Ninety-seven percent of the scientists in the world are
very concerned about climate change.<br>
<br>
PHILIP KITCHER: Climate science is built on views about the
atmosphere that have been developed very successfully and in a very
rigorous way from the nineteenth century to the present. There isn't
any doubt about the mechanisms of the greenhouse effect. There isn't
really any doubt about the evidence behind the consensus that says
we have contributed enormously to the warming effects that are now
becoming apparent not only in the present but also from the record
of the earth's average temperature.<br>
<br>
NYE: You can look at the graphs. You can study the stuff for
yourself. If nothing else do this. Wherever you live, get access to
the coldest temperature of each year for the last century. And
unless you live in just very few places you will see the coldest
temperature where you live has steadily increased. They'll be some
dips. There'll be some ups, but overall you'll find it – and that's
just one that almost everybody who has internet access can get those
data, they're available. And just look at that one thing and you'll
see the world's getting warmer everybody.<br>
<br>
MICHELLE THALLER: Now the reason our atmosphere is getting warmer
and warmer and warmer is because we humans are putting lots of
carbon dioxide up into the atmosphere. And this acts as what we call
a greenhouse gas. Sunlight can get through the atmosphere, but the
carbon dioxide traps it and it can't release itself back into space
so it gets warmer and warmer over time. Carbon dioxide doesn't just
warm the atmosphere. It also affects our oceans. When ocean water
combines with carbon dioxide to create something called carbonic
acid and it makes the oceans more and more acidic over time. And
this is a really big problem for marine life. There are things like
algae. The algae in the oceans are responsible for most of the
oxygen that we breathe. And the algae are having trouble forming
because of the higher acid levels in the ocean. So even if the one
thing you solved was cooling the earth down, if we continue to put
more and more carbon dioxide into our atmosphere there will be other
serious repercussions. We could end up killing the ocean life
system, for example.<br>
<br>
NYE: The earth is getting warmer faster than it has ever gotten
before and that's the problem. It's not that the world hasn't had
more carbon dioxide. It's not that the world hasn't been warmer. The
problem is the speed at which things are changing. We are inducing a
sixth mass extinction event kind of by accident and we don't want to
be the extinctee if I may coin this noun.<br>
<br>
DAVID WALLACE-WELLS: Climate change challenges, threatens to
undermine the entire infrastructure of our modern world, all of our
political institutions, all of our social institutions, our national
institutions. Everything is vulnerable to the transformations of
climate because we all live within climate. There's basically no
life on Earth I think that will be untouched by the force of climate
in the decades ahead and in most cases that means deformed, damaged,
transformed. The UN says that the track we're on now, the trajectory
we're on now is likely to take us to about 4.3 degrees Celsius of
warming by the end of the century if we don't change course. So, 4.3
degrees would mean $600 trillion in global climate damages. That's
double all the wealth that exists in the world today. It would mean
parts of the world could be hit by six climate driven natural
disasters at once. It would mean more than double the warfare that
we see today. And the impacts would be in our economic activity. It
would be in flooding and the refugee crisis. There are so many
impacts that we have not really been able to think clearly about
because all of us are so reluctant to consider these horrifying
outcomes. But the fact that they are horrifying should not make us
turn away. They should make us focus on them more intently. We all
have all of these psychological reflexes that make us reluctant to
consider horrible possibilities. And for that reason it's more
important for us to take seriously the science because we need to
fight against those impulses to do better planning, to take more
aggressive action than we would if we allowed ourselves to slip back
into complacency.<br>
<br>
KITCHER: Now we can't say, for example, how much the temperature of
the Earth is going to rise by 2100. The one that's really important
to understand here is that 2100 isn't some magical moment. I mean
it's not really going to matter that much if the temperature rises
say four or five degrees Celsius. If that comes in 2100 or whether
it comes in 2120 or whether it comes in 2150 or whether it comes in
2200. That's going to be a real disaster for human beings on our
planet because five degree Celsius above preindustrial temperatures
is a world in which there's no ice whatsoever and in which you've
got reptiles that are able to live within both polar circles. It's
that hot. That would be a world in which lots of the Earth's surface
might become quite uninhabitable for us.<br>
<br>
WALLACE-WELLS: Many of the biggest cities in south Asia and the
Middle East would be lethally hot in summer at two degrees which
could happen as soon as 2050. These are cities like Calcutta, five,
ten, twelve million people. You wouldn't be able to go outside,
certainly work outside without incurring a lethal risk and that
could happen again just by 2050 which is one reason why the UN
expects that we could have 200 million climate refugees by that same
date, 2050, 200 million. They think it's possible that we get as
many as one billion which is as many people as live today in North
and South America combined. I think those numbers are realistic. I
think they're too high, but even if we get 100 million or 150
million climate refugees it's important to remember that the Syrian
refugee crisis which totally destabilized European politics, led in
its way to Brexit and has transformed our politics globally through
the way it's affected Europe was the result of just one million
Syrian refugees coming to the continent. We're talking about a
refugee crisis that is almost certain to be a hundred times as large
and it comes at a time when most nations of the world are retreating
from our commitments to one another, retreating from our
organizations and alliances, retreating from the UN, retreating from
the EU and embracing xenophobia and nativism and nationalism. That's
especially concerning when you think about what's ahead because
there are going to be many more people in much more desperate need
in the decades ahead.<br>
<br>
KITCHER: Some of the forecasts about the future – rising sea levels,
much more frequent heat waves, much bigger storms are really very
serious dangers for the habitability of some parts of the world,
droughts. All of that sort of stuff in general is very, very well
supported by the evidence.<br>
<br>
CHARLES FERGUSON: If we let this problem continue to worsen then 20,
30, 40, 50 years from how our children are going to suffer a lot.
About half of the world's largest cities are on coastlines and if
the Greenland ice melts then the sea is going to rise by over 20
feet and half of the world's cities will be underwater literally.<br>
<br>
JON GERTNER: In fact, our civilization has been built on the idea
that sea levels are relatively stable and we know that they're not.
We know that they're not by looking back in time that ice sheets
have melted before, that vast floods have covered our coasts. But we
also know now by just watching our tidal gauges, by using our
satellites to measure how the tides are going up that sea levels are
rising. They're rising at an accelerating rate and that the future
bodes poorly for this idea that we can kind of keep colonizing the
coast and stake out on these coastal cities.<br>
<br>
WALLACE-WELLS: But there are cases that are worse than 4.3 degrees.
There are what are called feedback loops in the climate system that
could conceivably accelerate warming beyond what human action does.
So there's what's called the albedo effect which is a little
complicated to explain.<br>
<br>
GERTNER: As the ice sort of decreases, the albedo of the Arctic
changes and albedo is the reflectivity. Ice, of course, is white and
bright and it reflects solar energy back into space. When it exposes
dark open ocean that open ocean absorbs more sunlight and more
energy and it creates a kind of feedback loop that the more ocean
that's exposed, the more energy that's absorbed, the more heat
that's actually absorbed as well and it kind of builds on itself.<br>
<br>
WALLACE-WELLS: As Arctic ice melts the planet's ability to reflect
solar energy back into space would diminish and warming would
accelerate. There is froze in the Arctic permafrost a lot of methane
or I should say a lot of carbon which could be released into the
atmosphere as methane if that permafrost melts. Methane is depending
on how you count at least 30 and perhaps 80 times as powerful a
greenhouse gas as carbon dioxide and there is enough carbon in that
permafrost to double the concentration of carbon in the atmosphere
that we have today. If that were released it could accelerate
warming by a couple of degrees all on its own.<br>
<br>
FERGUSON: Weather will be far more extreme. The last time that the
world was as hot as it will get this century if we don't fix climate
change was about 100,000 years ago and scientists have found
evidence of extremely destructive storms. Storms that were strong
enough to lift very large boulders from the bottom of the ocean and
put them on top of mountains. So Hurricane Sandy is very, very minor
trouble compared to what we'll face if we don't handle this problem.<br>
<br>
THALLER: The problem is really getting at our emissions of carbon
dioxide and stopping those and stopping these dramatic changes that
we see coming. Some of them are going to be very difficult to stop.
I mean right now we're observing the icecaps a both poles of the
planet in Antarctica and in the North Pole melting very quickly.
That won't stop. Those icecaps will largely melt over many, many
centuries and the ocean levels will rise in accordance. And I do
think that the challenge right now is how are we going to deal with
the changes. We might not be able to change very many of them at
this point. We need to band together as people, make sure that we
have ways to deal with refugees. If people need to leave where they
are because the oceans are rising there's going to be a lot of
people that need homes and there's going to be a lot of support
needed for the changes in agriculture, in fishing, in so many parts
of our economy and our lives. There's no easy solution.<br>
<br>
DANIEL ESTY: I think this has to be understood as in some regards an
ethical issue, a moral issue and one has to see it as a wrong to
contaminate the planet and to put at risk the future of humanity on
the planet.<br>
<br>
ANDREW WINSTON: Often what people call sustainability which is not I
think always the perfect word but the things that fall under that
that are environmental or social challenges, there's this assumption
in business quite often that trying to tackle these issues will be
expensive. That there's this tradeoff, this fundamental tradeoff
between trying to manage these big challenges in a profitable way
and just managing your bottom line in a normal way and that it's
going to be expensive. This myth was based in some reality for a
long time. There were things that did cost more money and green
products or green services they weren't very good for a long time.
So there's the sense that green was somehow not good for business.
It wasn't out of nowhere but that's really a dated view.<br>
<br>
WALLACE-WELLS: There's a huge amount of new research in this area
that reverses that logic completely which says that faster action on
climate would actually be, would offer huge economic payoffs in a
quite short term way. There was one big study in 2018 that said we
could add $26 trillion to the global economy just by 2030 through
rapid decarbonization. I think that estimate may be a little rosy
but it suggests just how completely this conventional wisdom has
flipped just in the last few years. I don't think that understanding
has yet risen up to the level of our policymakers who are still a
little bit bound by the earlier perspective that we'd have to forego
economic growth to take action. But I think it will get to them soon
and I think our policy and our politics will change actually quite
dramatically when that happens. So I don't think it's a question of
money. I really think it's a question of political will through the
green energy we have now, through the knowledge we have about
infrastructure and agriculture. It is within our power to take
action and avert our worst case outcomes.<br>
<br>
WINSTON: We now have a situation where the challenges are so vast
and the world is changing so fundamentally that the only path we
have forward is to manage these issues. That's the point of the big
pivot so that we will find a profitable path to do it and we have so
many options now. There's a whole category of things that companies
do that save money very quickly. All things that fall under kind of
the banner of ecoefficiency or energy efficiency or using less. I
mean in part green is about doing more with less. That's just good
business.<br>
<br>
WALLACE-WELLS: And you do see Bill Gates doing exactly that. He's
made really significant investments in negative emissions
technologies and is, in fact, behind the most exciting research in
that area which is quite exciting. There's a company called Carbon
Engineering led by a guy named David Keith that has found that you
can take carbon out of the atmosphere at a cost of about $100 a ton.
That would mean, in theory, that we could completely neutralize all
global carbon emissions at a cost of about $3 trillion a year which
would mean that the economy could continue just as it is. Our
agriculture could continue just as it is. Our infrastructure, our
industry can continue just as they are and we could just completely
suck out all of the carbon that was being emitted for $3 trillion a
year which sounds like an enormous amount, but there are estimates
that about how much we subsidize the fossil fuel business today that
run as high as $5 trillion a year. In theory we could redirect those
subsidies to this technology and solve the problem already. That's
in theory. There are huge engineering problems. We'd have to find a
place to put the carbon which would require the experts say a new
industry two or three times the size of the oil and gas business
right now that's just to put the carbon back into the ground. But
nevertheless, there are really promising technological paths
forward.<br>
<br>
FERGUSON: In the last decade there's been remarkable progress in
renewable energy technology, in electric cars, in sustainable
agriculture and now we know how to solve this problem. And, in fact,
we could solve this problem in a way that would make the world more
prosperous and healthier and happier.<br>
<br>
WALLACE-WELLS: There are great technological opportunities for
people who are focused on solving the problem through technology.
The problem is the most powerful people who we've decided are our
technological leaders just seem not all that interested in this
problem and I think we really need to change those minds because we
need that money. We need that intellectual power. We need that
cultural cache focused on this problem. In fact, we need everything
we can get. This is really an all hands on deck problem and I don't
think we'll be able to address it without technology so we need all
those people.<br>
<br>
ESTY: The big divide which has often been framed around the science
with one side being called science deniers actually hasn't really
been about the science. The science is an excuse particularly for
some republicans who fear the implications of the science for
policy. By the mid-1990s there was a political divide that became a
partisan issue. In fact, worse than that it became a wedge issue
which the republicans used in one respect to enliven their base. The
democrats pushed in another direction and the two parties saw no
value in coming together. So I think we really have a serious
problem on our hands where this is a partisan issue because frankly,
the climate change problem in particular, but the need to move to a
sustainable future more broadly cannot be done on a one party basis.
Transformative change of the kind that's required here relaying the
energy foundation of our economy and our society can only be done
when you come up the middle with about 70 percent of the public and
the political sphere moving together. And that is by definition not
going to happen on a one party basis.<br>
<br>
NYE: On my side of it in the science education world, I mean this
whole thing is so frustrating. The United States used to be the
world leader in technology, but when you have this group of leaders,
elected officials who are anti-science you're setting the U.S. back
and then ultimately setting the world back.<br>
<br>
WALLACE-WELLS: Even though Americans are concerned about climate
change nobody wants to spend as much as $10 a month to address it.
The median commitment a recent poll found was just $1 a month. So
while people are concerned about climate change they're not
concerned enough. And my personal perspective is that the main goal
for climate action is to make those people who are concerned but
still fundamentally complacent about the issue to be really engaged
in a way that they prioritize climate change in their politics and
their voting and make sure that our leaders think of climate change
as a first order political priority, not a third or fourth order
political priority, and maybe even a political imperative that
governs all others because that is true. If you care about economic
inequality, if you care about violence basically every political
thing that you could worry about in this world bears the fingerprint
of climate change and will be made worse if climate change continues
unabated. So, addressing any of them on some level means addressing
climate change and that's the perspective I think we really need to
have or more of us need to have.<br>
<br>
ESTY: I think what you're seeing now is a recognition that the
problem is real and that's going to be increasingly accepted across
party lines, but that what's really required is a thoughtful new and
serious approach to policy. Almost certainly a portfolio approach
with a number of different strategies woven together, some price
signal. We're going to have to make people pay for the harm they're
causing which I think should be done with a slowly escalating carbon
charge starting at $5 per ton and going up by $5 per ton per year
for 20 years. So that at the end of a 20 years timeframe you'd have
$100 a ton price on greenhouse gas emissions and that would
immediately change behavior. Not just at year 20 but in year one
because people see that rising price and whether they're building a
powerplant or building a building or even buying a car, they'll
start to think about what it means to have to pay that charge for
their greenhouse gas emissions. They'll change behavior and it will
spur innovation. So I think there's actually a lot happening that we
can be quite excited about and I do see the parties coming together
and prospects for progress emerging out over the next several years.<br>
<br>
BILL NYE: Acknowledge that not wasting water bottles, not throwing
newspapers away, recycling them – that's all good and important.
Driving less, driving smaller cars or more efficient cars – electric
car. But the main thing we can all do about climate change right now
is talk about it.<br>
<br>
MCCARTHY: And it's extremely important to recognize your own
limitations about who you're good at talking to and who's going to
believe you and who are the people you're trying to influence listen
to. Because we can talk all we want about the science at EPA, but
you need to put that into people's homes and ears in a way that
they're going to listen, absorb and know they can be part of the
solutions moving forward. That gets them off the dime and builds the
constituencies you need to succeed in something that is really as
big as this. The challenge of climate change is enormous for us and
so you need to attack that from all different angles and make sure
to get everybody engaged.<br>
<br>
WALLACE-WELLS: I think that there's a bigger risk of advocates and
activists talking to one another and not addressing the sort of
median concerned liberal who is worried but fundamentally
complacent. That, to me, is the main target of messaging and when I
look around the world I see many, many more people like that. Many
more societies like that than I see people who are really deeply
committed or who are really deeply in denial. And I say that as
someone who felt that way myself until quite recently and who was
awakened from that complacency by fear and alarm which is one reason
why I think that talking bluntly about the science and everything
that it projects for our near term future is really important. We
shouldn't shy away from the projections that science has made for
us. We should look as squarely at them as we can even if they
horrify us because fear can be mobilizing, can be motivating. We
know that from environmental history. We know that from advocacy
history. In this case I don't think it needs to be the only way that
we talk about climate change, but we shouldn't be scared of fear. We
should know that the impacts are terrifying and that we need to do
everything we can to avoid as many of them as we can.<br>
{read the full transcript <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://bigthink.com/videos/confronting-the-horrors-of-climate-change">https://bigthink.com/videos/confronting-the-horrors-of-climate-change</a>]<br>
video at - <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gzksqQDI_kE">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gzksqQDI_kE</a><br>
<p><br>
</p>
<br>
[Digging back into the internet news archive]<br>
<font size="+1"><b>On this day in the history of global warming -
September 9, 2005 </b></font><br>
At the National Sierra Club Convention in San Francisco, Al Gore
declares:<br>
<blockquote>"There are scientific warnings now of another onrushing
catastrophe. We were warned of an imminent attack by Al Qaeda; we
didn't respond. We were warned the levees would break in New
Orleans; we didn't respond. Now, the scientific community is
warning us that the average hurricane will continue to get
stronger because of global warming. A scientist at MIT has
published a study well before this tragedy showing that since the
1970s, hurricanes in both the Atlantic and the Pacific have
increased in duration, and in intensity, by about 50%. The
newscasters told us after Hurricane Katrina went over the southern
tip of Florida that there was a particular danger for the Gulf
Coast of the hurricanes becoming much stronger because it was
passing over unusually warm waters in the gulf. The waters in the
gulf have been unusually warm. The oceans generally have been
getting warmer. And the pattern is exactly consistent with what
scientists have predicted for twenty years. Two thousand
scientists, in a hundred countries, engaged in the most elaborate,
well organized scientific collaboration in the history of
humankind, have produced long-since a consensus that we will face
a string of terrible catastrophes unless we act to prepare
ourselves and deal with the underlying causes of global warming.
It is important to learn the lessons of what happens when
scientific evidence and clear authoritative warnings are ignored
in order to induce our leaders not to do it again and not to
ignore the scientists again and not to leave us unprotected in the
face of those threats that are facing us right now."<br>
</blockquote>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="http://web.archive.org/web/20050924210135/http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0912-32.htm">http://web.archive.org/web/20050924210135/http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0912-32.htm</a><br>
<br>
/-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------/<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 mailing is text-only. It does not
carry images or attachments which may originate from remote
servers. A text-only message can 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. Messages have no tracking software.<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>