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<p><i><font size="+1"><b>September 25, 2020</b></font></i></p>
[NPR report on the new young Republicans]<br>
<b>'Light Years Ahead' Of Their Elders, Young Republicans Push GOP
On Climate Change</b><br>
September 25, 2020<br>
Think "climate change activist" and a young, liberal student may
come to mind.<br>
<br>
A recent NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll showed climate change is the
top issue for Democratic voters. For Republicans, it barely
registers overall, but there is a growing generational divide.<br>
<br>
A recent Pew Research Center survey shows Republicans 18 to 39 years
old are more concerned about the climate than their elders. By a
nearly two-to-one margin they are more likely to agree that "human
activity contributes a great deal to climate change," and "the
federal government is doing too little to reduce the effects of
climate change."<br>
<br>
Some of these young conservatives are starting environmental groups
and becoming climate activists. And now they're pushing their party
to do more.<br>
<br>
Benji Backer started the American Conservation Coalition in 2017,
after his freshman year in college, and says his love of nature
comes in part from his family.<br>
<br>
"They were Audubon members, Nature Conservancy members. But they
were conservative, and I grew up not thinking that the environment
should be political at all," says Backer.<br>
<br>
Yet these days, environmental politics dominates his life. From now
until the November election Backer is driving an electric car across
the country, talking about his group's climate agenda and posting
videos along the way.<br>
<br>
Backer is promoting his group's American Climate Contract, which is
a conservative, market-focused response to the Green New Deal.<br>
<br>
He's critical of fellow conservatives who ignore climate change. He
praised Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg when they both
testified before Congress last year. And Backer says he wants to
work with liberal climate activists to pass legislation.<br>
<br>
So, how will he vote in November?<br>
<br>
"If President Trump wants to get my vote, he's going to have to
prioritize climate change in a way that he has not done over the
past four years," says Backer.<br>
<br>
While he's undecided so far, Backer says he was disappointed climate
change wasn't even discussed at the Republican National Convention.<br>
<br>
In a statement to NPR the Trump campaign said, "President Trump's
record on the environment proves you can have energy independence
and a clean, healthy environment without destroying the economy,
overregulating, or burdening American taxpayers." The statement
never mentions climate change.<br>
<br>
"Young Republicans are light years ahead of their elder counterparts
on this issue," says Kiera O'Brien, founder and president of Young
Conservatives for Carbon Dividends, which supports a carbon tax
proposal to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.<br>
<br>
O'Brien grew up in Alaska and says young conservatives are motivated
by mounting evidence that the climate is changing.<br>
<br>
"They're seeing the impacts first-hand, whether it's myself in
Alaska with algal blooms that are turning the ocean weird colors, or
with flooding in the Gulf Coast, or hurricanes that are
unprecedented at this point," says O'Brien. She calls her generation
"the climate generation," and says effects they were told were far
off are happening now.<br>
<br>
Some liberal climate activists are encouraged to see young
conservatives join them.<br>
<br>
"It means a real hope for the future because it speaks to our
generationally shared values: truth, empathy, and patriotism," says
Nikayla Jefferson, with the Sunrise Movement. "Climate change knows
no party lines."<br>
<br>
Former South Carolina Republican Congressman Bob Inglis says young
conservative climate activists are being faithful to their age
cohort.<br>
<br>
"I think it's that they, along with their progressive friends, plan
on living on the earth longer than, say, their parents or
grandparents," says Inglis, Executive Director of the conservative
climate group republicEn.<br>
<br>
Inglis says for this generation, addressing climate change is
becoming a moral issue more than a political one. And that makes him
optimistic the country will eventually take more action to address
the problem.<br>
<br>
"The demographics are definitely going to deliver a win for climate
change. I am absolutely certain we are going to win on climate
policy. The question is whether we win soon enough to avoid the
worst consequences," says Inglis.<br>
<br>
Scientists say that time line is short, but Inglis believes the
country is more likely to succeed if both sides of the aisle are
focused on the challenge.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.npr.org/2020/09/25/916238283/light-years-ahead-of-their-elders-young-republicans-push-gop-on-climate-change">https://www.npr.org/2020/09/25/916238283/light-years-ahead-of-their-elders-young-republicans-push-gop-on-climate-change</a><br>
- - <br>
<b>American Conservation Coalition </b><br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.acc.eco/blog/2020/9/3/electric-election-announcement">https://www.acc.eco/blog/2020/9/3/electric-election-announcement</a><br>
- - <br>
<b>Young Conservatives for Carbon Dividends</b><br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.yccdaction.org/">https://www.yccdaction.org/</a><br>
- - <br>
<b>republicEn</b><br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://republicen.org/">https://republicen.org/</a>
<p><br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
[MIT Technology review - report]<br>
<b>Climate scientists are terrified of a second Trump term</b><br>
And climate change is only one of the reasons.<br>
by James Temple - September 24, 2020<br>
Daniel Schrag has spent most of his life working on climate change.
He studied the planet's ancient warming periods early in his career,
served as a climate advisor to President Barack Obama, and is now
director of Harvard's Center for the Environment.<br>
<br>
But when he imagines the possibilities if President Donald Trump is
reelected, climate change isn't the issue he's most concerned about.<br>
<br>
"I immediately worry about democratic institutions," he says. "I
worry about profound and deep corruption at all levels, including
the Justice Department."<br>
<br>
"The good news is that four years later, or whenever this ends,
there are still a lot of things you can do for climate," says
Schrag. "But that's not true if we have decimated the basic
institutions of democracy."<br>
<br>
I heard similar responses again and again as I polled climate
scientists and policy experts on what a Trump reelection would mean.
After years of watching the administration unravel climate policies,
subvert the rule of law, stack courts, politicize a pandemic,
undermine the election process, and hint about third and fourth
terms, the people I asked are terrified of what the president may do
if he remains in office for another four years or more.<br>
<br>
Ken Caldeira, a climate scientist at the Carnegie Institution, said:
"Well, first of all, there's the question of 'Will the US become a
dictatorial, totalitarian regime?'"<br>
<br>
Danny Cullenward, a lecturer at Stanford's law school, replied:
"There's no climate policy angle to that story. The United States is
then a failed state."<br>
<br>
Indeed, today's heated academic debates among climate experts over
the most effective mix of US policies and technologies could soon
seem quaint, and beside the point.<br>
<br>
New policies are effectively off the table. Old ones are very likely
doomed. And climate change itself will only continue to accelerate
as the time left to avoid extremely dangerous levels of warming
ticks away.<br>
<br>
"If he's not elected, it won't make me stop worrying about climate
change; it will still be horribly hard to address," says Jane Long,
a former associate director at Lawrence Livermore National Lab. "But
if he's elected, the human race is not immune from extinction. You
could make a bunch of really bad decisions and wipe out a whole lot
of life."<br>
<br>
Still, I asked the experts to think beyond their fears and political
views, and talk in specifics about what a second Trump term could
mean for climate change. Several clear themes emerged.<br>
<br>
Regulatory rollbacks<br>
Four more years would allow the White House to lock in place many of
the environmental rollbacks it's already enacted or is pursuing,
which cover nearly every major federal tool available for cutting
climate emissions.<br>
<br>
The very long list of policies the administration has tried to
weaken or reverse include rules requiring oil, gas, and landfill
companies to prevent leaks of methane, a highly potent greenhouse
gas; restrictions on hydrofluorocarbons, greenhouse gases used in
refrigeration and air conditioning; federal vehicle emissions
standards; and the ability of states like California to set stricter
rules of their own.<br>
<br>
All these efforts face legal challenges, but a Trump reelection
would give the administration more time to fight those battles,
revise legal arguments and strategies, and stack courts in its
favor, says Leah Stokes, an environmental policy expert at the
University of California, Santa Barbara.<br>
<br>
It's also another four years to force out or muzzle scientists in
federal agencies and replace them with pro-industry staff.<br>
<br>
The death of Supreme Court justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg late last
week ensures that the president will be able to swing the court
further to the right. It appears Republican senators are preparing
to replace Ginsburg with Trump's nominee before the election and
have the votes to do so.<br>
<br>
So even if Biden wins, Democrats secure majorities in both houses of
Congress, and they manage to enact sweeping climate laws, such
legislation is now at greater risk of failing to pass Supreme Court
scrutiny.<br>
<br>
Meanwhile, if Trump wins, subsequent Supreme Court or federal court
rulings could cement any number of the White House's regulatory
policies and establish precedents in environmental law that could
last for decades.<br>
<br>
That will have a very real impact on climate progress. The
regulatory changes cited above alone would send the equivalent of
another 1.8 billion tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere by
2035, according to a recent analysis by the Rhodium Group . That's
more than the annual fossil-fuel emissions from Russia.<br>
<br>
Ginsburg's death "was earth-shattering for the course of events for
the next decades, really," says Ann Weeks, legal director at the
Clean Air Task Force.<br>
<br>
The end of regulation<br>
The administration has already telegraphed where it's headed next,
attacking not just specific rules but the very underpinnings of
environmental regulation. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
is now rewriting the rules of regulatory accounting in ways that
undercut the ability of government to justify restrictions on
industry in service of the public good.<br>
<br>
EPA administrator Andrew Wheeler has announced plans to skew the
cost-benefit math done on any proposed regulation, by essentially
ignoring tens of billions of dollars' worth of indirect benefits for
public health. Using the new results, he has already argued for
rolling back rules on mercury emissions from coal plants. Mercury is
a neurotoxin that pollutes waterways and poisons seafood.<br>
<br>
Separately, the EPA is finalizing a rule that would require any
regulatory analysis to exclude scientific research where the
underlying raw data isn't available. It's an effort to disregard
science involving human subjects, where either personal medical data
can't be shared or such disclosures would require expensive
redaction efforts. It would require public policy to effectively
ignore landmark studies clearly demonstrating the devastating health
effects and premature deaths associated with air pollution.<br>
<br>
In both cases, the Trump administration is attempting to shrink or
eliminate the benefits side of the ledger in regulatory
calculations, in ways that could be used to justify unraveling all
sorts of existing air, water, species, or climate protections.<br>
<br>
"If you can't do a cost-benefit analysis, then how do you justify
any environmental regulation?" Weeks says. "It's all very
insidious."<br>
<br>
International progress<br>
The US directly contributes about 14% of the world's total
fossil-fuel emissions. But the election could have far wider effects
on what the world does, or doesn't do, to address climate change as
well.<br>
<br>
Trump announced plans to withdraw from the Paris climate agreement
during his early months as president and will be able to officially
do so in early November. If he's reelected, what may have been
excused as an aberration in America politics will instead look to
the rest of the world like the permanent loss of any US leadership
on the issue.<br>
<br>
Under Trump, one of the world's richest nations is effectively
saying you're a sucker if you slow economic growth for the sake of
global concerns.<br>
<br>
"That's going to send a signal to the rest of the world that 'Look,
it's each nation for themselves, so let's just go for the cheapest
development trajectory and screw everyone else,'" Caldeira says.<br>
<br>
Indeed, the leaders of Brazil and Australia are now openly rejecting
calls for more aggressive climate efforts, India seems to tightening
its embrace of coal again, and ultranationalist sentiments are
rising across major parts of the globe. But other regions, notably
the European Union and China, are stepping up efforts to cut
emissions or boost domestic clean-energy manufacturing, spotting
geopolitical and market opportunities that the US is ceding. This
week, at the UN General Assembly, China announced a pledge to become
carbon neutral by 2060.<br>
<br>
The wild cards<br>
There still could be a few constraints on the president's ability to
halt all US climate progress.<br>
<br>
If Trump is reelected but the Democrats take control of the Senate
and hold onto the House, it could limit the administration's ability
to push through court appointments and laws. It could also spark
fresh investigations, and even renew the possibility of impeaching
the president and removing him from office.<br>
<br>
In addition, California, New York, Washington, and other states
could continue to lead the way on climate, providing regional
markets and test beds for regulations and technologies to drive down
emissions.<br>
<br>
The maturing of the clean-tech marketplace means the costs of
renewables, batteries, and EVs will continue to fall, and demand
will rise. Regardless of regulations, growing numbers of companies
are taking greater steps to reduce their corporate carbon footprints
and manage the climate risks to their businesses. Even oil and gas
companies are facing rising market and public pressures given
softening demand, falling prices, and greater difficulty raising
capital for projects.<br>
<br>
But if these all sounds like thin and desperate reasons to feel a
little optimistic, it's because they are. The US is on the brink of
a calamity. It's one short step away from self-inflicted crises from
which the nation and the climate may well never recover.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/09/24/1008848/climate-scientists-terrified-of-trump-victory-democracy/">https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/09/24/1008848/climate-scientists-terrified-of-trump-victory-democracy/</a><br>
<p><br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
[which means CO2 emissions]<br>
<b>Ocean Heat Waves Are Directly Linked to Climate Change</b><br>
The "blob" of hotter ocean water that killed sea lions and other
marine life in 2014 and 2015 may become permanent.<br>
By Henry Fountain<br>
Sept. 24, 2020<br>
Six years ago, a huge part of the Pacific Ocean near North America
quickly warmed, reaching temperatures more than 5 degrees Fahrenheit
above normal. Nicknamed "the blob," it persisted for two years, with
devastating impacts on marine life, including sea lions and salmon.<br>
<br>
The blob was a marine heat wave, the oceanic equivalent of a deadly
summer atmospheric one. It was far from a solitary event: Tens of
thousands have occurred in the past four decades, although most are
far smaller and last for days rather than years. The largest and
longest ones have occurred with increasing frequency over time.<br>
<br>
On Thursday, scientists revealed the culprit. Climate change, they
said, is making severe marine heat waves much more likely.<br>
<br>
The study, published in the journal Science, looked at the blob and
six other large events around the world, including one in the
Northwest Atlantic in 2012. Human-caused global warming made these
events at least 20 times more likely, the researchers found.<br>
"Some of these couldn't even have occurred without climate change,"
said Charlotte Laufkotter, a marine scientist at the University of
Bern in Switzerland and the lead author of the study.<br>
<br>
In a world with no human-caused warming, a large marine heat wave
would have had about a one-tenth of 1 percent chance of occurring in
any given year -- what is called a thousand-year event. But with the
current rate of global warming, an ocean heat wave like that could
soon have as much as a 10 percent chance of occurring, the study
found.<br>
<br>
Dr. Laufkotter said the likelihood of these large events would
continue to increase as the world keeps warming. And if emissions of
greenhouse gases continue at a high level for decades and average
global temperatures reach about 5 degrees above preindustrial
levels, some parts of the oceans may be in a continuous state of
extreme heat.<br>
<br>
In effect, the blob may become permanent. Already, a marine heat
wave resembling the blob has emerged in the past year off
northwestern North America.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/24/climate/ocean-heat-waves-blob.html">https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/24/climate/ocean-heat-waves-blob.html</a><br>
<p><br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
[heat helps combustion]<br>
<b>California wildfire trend 'driven by climate'</b><br>
By Matt McGrath<br>
Environment correspondent<br>
Climate change is driving the scale and impact of recent wildfires
that have raged in California, say scientists.<br>
<br>
Their analysis finds an "unequivocal and pervasive" role for global
heating in boosting the conditions for fire.<br>
<br>
California now has greater exposure to fire risks than before humans
started altering the climate, the authors say.<br>
<br>
Land management issues, touted by President Donald Trump as a key
cause, can't by themselves explain the recent infernos.<br>
The worst wildfires in 18 years have raged across California since
August.<br>
<br>
They have been responsible for more than 30 deaths and driven
thousands of people from their homes.<br>
<br>
The cause of the fires have become a political football, with
California Governor Gavin Newsom blaming climate change for the
conflagrations.<br>
<br>
President Trump, on the other hand, has dismissed this argument,
instead pointing to land management practices as the key driver.<br>
Now, a review of scientific research into the reasons for these
fires suggests rising temperatures are playing a major role.<br>
<br>
Earlier this year, the same research team published a review of the
origins of Australia's dramatic fires that raged in the 2019-2020
season.<br>
<br>
That study showed that climate change was behind an increase in the
frequency and severity of fire weather - defined as periods of time
with a higher risk of fire due to a combination of high
temperatures, low humidity, low rainfall and high winds.<br>
<br>
The new review covers more than 100 studies published since 2013,
and shows that extreme fires occur when natural variability in the
climate is superimposed on increasingly warm and dry background
conditions resulting from global warming.<br>
<br>
"In terms of the trends we're seeing, in terms of the extent of
wildfires, and which have increased eight to ten-fold in the past
four decades, that trend is driven by climate change," said Dr
Matthew Jones from the University of East Anglia in Norwich, UK, who
led the review.<br>
"Climate change ultimately means that those forests, whatever state
they're in, are becoming warmer and drier more frequently," he told
BBC News.<br>
<br>
"And that's what's really driving the kind of scale and impact of
the fires that we're seeing today."<br>
<br>
In the 40 years from 1979 to 2019, fire weather conditions have
increased by a total of eight days on average across the world.<br>
<br>
However, in California the number of autumn days with extreme
wildfire conditions has doubled in that period.<br>
<br>
The authors of the review conclude that "climate change is bringing
hotter, drier weather to the western US and the region is
fundamentally more exposed to fire risks than it was before humans
began to alter the global climate".<br>
<br>
The researchers acknowledge that fire management practices in the US
have also contributed to the build-up of fuel.<br>
<br>
Normally, fire authorities carry out controlled burnings in some
areas to reduce the amount of fuel available when a wildfire strikes
- but these have also suffered as a result of rising temperatures.<br>
"When you do prescribed burns, you can only do it when the
conditions aren't too hot and dry, because you need to be able to
control the fire," said Prof Richard Betts from the UK Met Office in
Exeter, who was part of the review team.<br>
<br>
"But once you've passed the point where you've got hot, dry
conditions for much of the year, you've lost your opportunity to do
lots of prescribed burnings. So that makes matters worse and makes
the land management challenge even greater."<br>
<br>
Another factor in California has been the encroachment of human
settlements into forested areas. This has put many more homes at
risk of these blazes.<br>
<br>
Between 1940 and 2010, there was around a 100-fold increase in the
number of houses built in dangerous fire zones in the western US.<br>
<br>
"It's like building on floodplains as well, you know, people are
putting themselves in harm's way, based on past statistics, which
are no longer true," said Prof Betts.<br>
<br>
"The past is no longer a guide to the future, for flooding and for
fire and lots of other ways in which climate change is played out."<br>
<br>
The researchers say that the conditions for wildfire are likely to
continue to grow into the future, and according to Dr Jones, the
resulting fires will likely get worse.<br>
<br>
"It's pointing towards increases in fire weather that become
increasingly intense, widespread and dramatic in the future," he
said.<br>
<br>
"And the more that we can do to limit the degree to which
temperatures rise, is fundamental to how frequently we see dangerous
fire weather in the future."<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-54278988">https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-54278988</a><br>
<p><br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
[know the exponential function - audio interview]<br>
<b>Climate Change Podcast: Peter Wadhams | Climate Vaccines, Carbon
Removal & COVID 19 Go Exponential</b><br>
Premiered Sept 24, 2020<br>
Nick Breeze<br>
Climate Change Podcast Series:
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://climateseries.com/climate-cha">https://climateseries.com/climate-cha</a>...<br>
Welcome to Shaping The Future - this interview is with author and
Cambridge polar ice scientist Professor Peter Wadhams. <br>
We discuss the common exponential factors that exist between the
COVID-19 pandemic and in the positive feedbacks of the changing
climate system. <br>
<br>
WE also discuss the urgent need for carbon drawdown or greenhouse
gas removal as it also known, to tackle the excess burden of 1
trillion tonnes of pollution that humanity has pumped into the
biosphere.<br>
<br>
Professor Wadhams is a leading authority on polar ice climate and is
currently guest lecturing in Turin Polytechnic in Italy. This
interview was recorded in May 2020 during the lockdown but has
relevant input from Peter about how we must consider action to shape
a better future.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zfH9zHxiyRg">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zfH9zHxiyRg</a><br>
<br>
<p><br>
</p>
[Yale Program on Climate Change Communication]<br>
Map · Sep 2, 2020<br>
<b>Yale Climate Opinion Maps 2020</b><br>
These maps show how Americans' climate change beliefs, risk
perceptions, and policy support vary at the state, congressional
district, metro area, and county levels.<b><br>
</b><b>Estimated % of adults who think global warming is happening
(72%), 2020</b><br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://climatecommunication.yale.edu/visualizations-data/ycom-us/">https://climatecommunication.yale.edu/visualizations-data/ycom-us/</a><br>
<p><br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
[the new Lockdown]<br>
<b>Bay Area officials have a plan to combat climate change: force
people to work from home</b><br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.sfchronicle.com/business/article/Bay-Area-planning-agency-advances-60-work-from-15592276.php">https://www.sfchronicle.com/business/article/Bay-Area-planning-agency-advances-60-work-from-15592276.php</a><br>
- - <br>
[with your cat]<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://i1.wp.com/sf.streetsblog.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2020/09/motleyworkfromhome.jpg?w=800&ssl=1">https://i1.wp.com/sf.streetsblog.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2020/09/motleyworkfromhome.jpg?w=800&ssl=1</a><br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://sf.streetsblog.org/2020/09/23/make-60-work-from-home-permanently/">https://sf.streetsblog.org/2020/09/23/make-60-work-from-home-permanently/</a><br>
<p><br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
[important misinformation video]<br>
<b>How to spot and tag misinformation</b><br>
Sep 24, 2020<br>
John Cook<br>
How do you tell the difference between facts and misinformation?
This Critical Thinking About Climate video explains how to
deconstruct arguments so you can spot if it's misinformation and tag
any misleading fallacies. This is a skill we all need these days as
misinformation is everywhere!<br>
<br>
This video is based on a paper coauthored by John Cook, Peter
Ellerton and David Kinkead, outlining a step-by-step method to
deconstruct denialist claims about climate change and identify
reasoning fallacies. The paper is freely available at
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://sks.to/criticalclimate">http://sks.to/criticalclimate</a><br>
<br>
Thanks also to the UQx crew who filmed our original critical
thinking cafe video. You can watch the original video via
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://youtu.be/XAp1Foj7BzY">https://youtu.be/XAp1Foj7BzY</a><br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cH9V98mHMB8">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cH9V98mHMB8</a>
<p><br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
[break the fake]<b><br>
</b> <b>Fake news is killing us. How can we stop it?</b><br>
By Kate Yoder on Jul 1, 2020<br>
Salmon Arm is a little town of 17,000 in central British Columbia,
not far from busy ski slopes in the Canadian Rockies. It's home to
stunning blue lakes, tree-covered mountains, and a worrying number
of signs claiming that COVID-19 is a hoax.<br>
<br>
But maybe less than there used to be. Tim Walters, a professor of
English at Okanagan College, has been tearing down the signs one by
one since they started appearing a few months ago. The signs demand
B.C. "wake up" and sport a hashtag tied to QAnon, a far-right
conspiracy movement. By June, Walters was walking three or four
hours a day, wandering in ever-widening circles, yanking down the
signs wherever he went.<br>
<br>
It's become a "low-level obsession," he said. "Because of how crazy
they are, people don't take these conspiracy theories seriously
enough."<br>
<br>
The conspiracy theorists responded by putting their signs higher, 8
or 9 feet off the ground. But Walters is 6 feet 6 inches tall with
long arms to match. People have been sending him directions to new
signs in their neighborhoods that they can't reach.<br>
<br>
The reality is that fake news is killing people. Research shows that
wearing masks could reduce the spread of COVID-19 by half, yet
misleading claims about the safety of mask-wearing have
proliferated. If everyone wore face masks in public, according to a
model from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the
University of Washington, it could save an estimated 33,000 American
lives by October.<br>
<br>
"Misinformation about COVID is spreading faster than the virus
itself," said Gale Sinatra, a professor of education at the
University of Southern California who's writing a book about fake
news and the public's understanding of science. Epidemiological
experts say that a pandemic is as much of a communications crisis as
it is a public health emergency. It's reminiscent of climate change
-- despite a mountain of evidence showing the devastating effects on
our overheating planet, only two-thirds of Americans say they're
worried about it. That's a sign that these messages aren't reaching
people, or perhaps that fake news resonated with them more.<br>
<br>
As an added challenge, the climate crisis and COVID-19 have both
gotten sucked into the vortex of polarization in America. And as the
pandemic has stretched on, becoming the background of our lives,
it's activating many of the same psychological barriers that people
face when confronted with climate change. "Everyone's got COVID
fatigue now," Sinatra said.<br>
<br>
Coronavirus denial shares many similarities to climate denial, the
dismissal of the scientific consensus around global warming. It's
spread by many of the same people, and the arguments for these
bonkers theories often sound a lot alike: a rejection of mainstream
science, a story of governments plotting to manufacture a crisis,
and a message that the best thing to do is just continue business as
usual. So why should I wear a face mask?<br>
<br>
Studies have shown that fake news spreads faster on social media
than real news does. People on Twitter are 70 percent more likely to
share false news than the real stuff. And it's difficult to shut
down. "Misinformation is unfortunately a bit more compelling than
regular information," Sinatra said. Conspiracists spin tales that
are surprising and dramatic, like a plot twist in a movie -- a
contrast to the drumbeat of "COVID-19 cases are rising!" seen on the
news every day. So short of tearing down posters, what can people do
to shut down the spread of misinformation?<br>
<br>
Taking misconceptions head-on is one option, Sinatra said. But it
has to be done carefully, or it can backfire, because repeating
wrongheaded claims in the course of refuting them risks spreading
them even further. Repeating things makes them stick. As the
linguist George Lakoff pointed out, when you tell people "Don't
think of an elephant" they can't help but picture an elephant.<br>
<br>
"Just saying 'You're wrong'" -- that does not work," Sinatra said.
You have to explain why something is incorrect and offer a good
explanation for a convincing counterpoint.<br>
<br>
"My thing is, you always have to confront them head-on," said
Walters, who incorporates rebuttals into his English classes. He
recently taught a college course about the climate crisis and found
that many of his students were on the fence about the science at
first, unsure of what was true, before reading assignments like
David Wallace-Wells' The Uninhabitable Earth, which educated (and
terrified) them. Walters equipped his students with the facts about
climate change and encouraged them to discuss what they learned with
their friends and family.<br>
<br>
One resource that could help them is the new Conspiracy Theory
Handbook, written by two cognitive scientists, Stephan Lewandowsky
and John Cook. It's a free online source that offers tips on how to
debunk conspiracy theories and talk to people who believe in them.<br>
<br>
Even so, the best way to counter fake news might be to equip people
with the tools to evaluate what's fake and what's real from the
get-go. "It's better to inoculate people preemptively against
conspiracy theories rather than trying to go in afterward and undo
the damage," said Cook, a professor at George Mason University, in a
recent interview with The Verge.<br>
<br>
The problem, of course, is that those under the sway of
misinformation aren't willing to take the vaccine.<br>
<br>
One nonprofit, the News Literacy Project, aims to help students
across the country get savvy when it comes to identifying fake news
and think critically about what they come across online. There's
evidence that this approach helps for people of all ages. One study
from the University of Michigan found that people are less likely to
trust, "like," or share fake climate change news on Facebook if they
read a few questions beforehand such as "Do I recognize the news
organization that posted the story?" and "Does the information in
the post seem believable?"<br>
<br>
Scientists and public health experts are having a tough time in the
COVID-19 pandemic, because they're learning basic facts about the
virus and how it spreads from week to week. They're trying to
communicate new findings to the public in real time, and evolving
recommendations are bound to sow confusion. That's one big
difference between the two crises: Climate scientists got the basic
story nailed down ages ago. "The science around climate change has
been developing for decades," Sinatra said. "COVID's only been on
the planet for the last six months."<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://grist.org/climate/fake-news-is-killing-us-how-can-we-stop-it/">https://grist.org/climate/fake-news-is-killing-us-how-can-we-stop-it/</a><br>
- -<br>
<b>News Literacy Project</b><br>
NLP, a nonpartisan national education nonprofit, provides programs
and resources for educators and the public to teach, learn and share
the abilities needed to be smart, active consumers of news and
information and equal and engaged participants in a democracy.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://newslit.org/">https://newslit.org/</a><br>
<br>
<p><br>
</p>
[Climate Ethics]<br>
<b>7 issues about climate change that citizens and the media need to
know to evaluate any nation's response</b><br>
<p>Seven Features of Climate Change That Citizens and the Media Need
to Understand To Critically Evaluate a Government's Response to
This Existential Threat and the Arguments of Opponents of Climate
Policies. <br>
<br>
ethicsandclimate.org<br>
<br>
<b>The seven issues discussed in this article are:</b><br>
<br>
1. Because of certain features of climate change, many
policy-making issues raise ethical/fairness questions that are
practically significant for global prospects of preventing
catastrophic climate harms.<br>
<br>
2. Issues that arise in four steps that the setting of a national
GHG emissions reduction target Implicitly takes a position on.<br>
<br>
3. Because all CO2e emissions are diminishing the carbon budget
that must constrain world emissions to achieve any warming limit
goal, the speed of reducing GHG emissions as well as the magnitude
of emissions reductions are crucial for achieving any warming
limit goal.<br>
<br>
4. Although the consensus scientific position on climate change is
extraordinarily strong, no nation may fail to comply with its
obligations under the 1992 UNFCCC on the basis of scientific
uncertainty because all nations expressly agreed under the 1992
treaty to be bound by the precautionary principle.<br>
<br>
5. No developed nation may fail to comply with Its obligations to
reduce Its GHG emissions to Its fair share of safe global
emissions under the UNFCCC on the basis of cost to the nation.<br>
<br>
6. Cost-benefit analysis is not an ethically acceptable tool for
limiting a government's climate change responsibilities.<br>
<br>
7. Developed nations under the 1992 UNFCCC acknowledged a duty to
assist developing nations with financing their adaptation and
mitigation costs and have a moral/legal responsibility to help
compensate developing nations for their climate change caused
losses and damages.<br>
See -
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://ethicsandclimate.org/2020/08/19/why-getting-nations-to-comply-with-ethical/https://ethicsandclimate.org/2020/08/19/why-getting-nations-to-comply-with-ethical/">https://ethicsandclimate.org/2020/08/19/why-getting-nations-to-comply-with-ethical/https://ethicsandclimate.org/2020/08/19/why-getting-nations-to-comply-with-ethical/</a><br>
</p>
<br>
<br>
<br>
[In Maine, so goes]<b><br>
</b><b>Maine company looks to tidal power as renewable energy's next
generation</b><br>
After years of development, tidal and river energy supporters say
the technology is on the cusp of wider commercial deployment,
especially if it can win federal support.<br>
With much of New England's attention on offshore wind, a Maine
company hopes to put itself on the map with tidal energy.<br>
<br>
Portland, Maine-based Ocean Renewable Power Company recently signed
a memorandum of understanding with the city of Eastport on a
five-year plan to develop a $10 million microgrid primarily powered
by tidal generation...<br>
- -<br>
Now that other resources are more established, "we're sort of next
in line," Ferland said. "And the industry needs the same public
sector policy and funding support that enabled those sectors to
begin to grow and thrive."<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://energynews.us/2020/09/23/northeast/maine-company-looks-to-tidal-power-as-renewable-energys-next-generation/">https://energynews.us/2020/09/23/northeast/maine-company-looks-to-tidal-power-as-renewable-energys-next-generation/</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 25, 2005 </b></font><br>
<p>TIME Magazine releases the October 3, 2005 cover-dated issue,
with the cover story: "Are We Making Hurricanes Worse?"<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://content.time.com/time/covers/0,16641,20051003,00.html">http://content.time.com/time/covers/0,16641,20051003,00.html</a><br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1109318,00.html">http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1109318,00.html</a><br>
</p>
<br>
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