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<p><i><font size="+1"><b>October 3, 2020</b></font></i> <br>
</p>
[future closer to now]<br>
<b>Americans are becoming climate migrants before our eyes</b><br>
While the US closes the doors on climate migrants from abroad, it
must acknowledge that the problem has already come home<br>
Alex Domash - 2 Oct 2020 <br>
In November 2018, I traveled with a caravan of thousands of Central
American migrants as they marched across Mexico towards the US
border. While some were seeking refuge in the US from gang violence
or political persecution, many others were looking to escape
something much more subtle: climate change. The Trump administration
decried these climate migrants as "invaders" and attempted to build
a wall to keep them out.<br>
<br>
But today, as much of the western US burns, and the country looks on
in horror as San Francisco suffocates in an orange cloud of ash, we
see that the US way of life is also gravely threatened by climate
change. More than 8,100 wildfires have burned over 3.9m acres in
California this year. The fires have killed 30 people, destroyed
more than 7,500 structures, and displaced thousands in the state.
Meanwhile in Oregon, half a million people were put under an
evacuation order.<br>
<br>
The message from the visceral scenes unfolding in the western US is
clear: climate displacement isn't something that happens only
outside of our borders. It has already begun in the US, and we can
no longer turn our backs on the more than 20 million climate
migrants worldwide.<br>
- - <br>
But the American dream of tomorrow is also under great stress. The
climate displacement of the Dust Bowl era is already here - and has
been here for many, many years.<br>
<br>
In Louisiana, the coast has been losing at least a football field's
worth of land every 100 minutes, which has prompted thousands of
coastal Louisianans to migrate from the state. The Urban Institute
estimated that in 2018 more than 1.2 million Americans left their
homes for climate-related reasons. One 2018 study, published in the
Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists,
predicts that one in 12 Americans in the southern half of the
country will relocate over the next 45 years due to slow-onset
climate influences alone. While mega-disasters like the wildfires in
the western US capture our attention, slow-onset disasters such as
sea-level rise or annual flooding are even more likely to cause
permanent displacement...<br>
- - <br>
When the Dust Bowl ravaged the United States in the 1930s, a mass
exodus of 2.5 million midwestern farmers migrated towards
California. These climate migrants, just like the ones today, were
derided as "aliens" and "undesirables". The state of Colorado even
deployed its militia for 10 days to stop the migrants from entering.
Ultimately, this act was deemed unconstitutional, as it was declared
that "the citizens of each state shall be entitled to all privileges
and immunities of citizens in the several states".<br>
<br>
The US response to climate displacement today must recognize a
similar collective responsibility towards all those affected by
climate change. Many of today's climate migrants are, after all,
American.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/oct/02/climate-change-migration-us-wildfires">https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/oct/02/climate-change-migration-us-wildfires</a><br>
<br>
<p><br>
</p>
[follow the money]<br>
<b>San Francisco rents plunge, showing strain from pandemic and
wildfires</b><br>
OCT 1 2020<br>
- Rent prices continued to plunge in big U.S. cities last month,
with San Francisco leading the decline, according to data from
Zumper, a real-estate start-up. <br>
- In September, the median rent for a one-bedroom apartment in San
Francisco dropped more than 20% from a year ago, to $2,830.<br>
- That's the largest decline the company has recorded. <br>
Houses in the city are still selling, CNBC reported Sunday. They're
just on the market for longer periods of time, and not receiving as
many bids as they did in recent years. The city reached its highest
number of home listings in August, at 1,483, and price cuts have
become more common.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.cnbc.com/2020/10/01/san-francisco-one-bedroom-rent-dropped-20percent-from-sept-2019-to-2020.html">https://www.cnbc.com/2020/10/01/san-francisco-one-bedroom-rent-dropped-20percent-from-sept-2019-to-2020.html</a><br>
<p><br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
[California lightning]<br>
<b>What Made This a Record Fire Season? It Started With Lightning</b><br>
By Tim Arango and Mike Baker - Oct. 2, 2020<br>
An unusual confluence of weather conditions sent nearly 14,000 bolts
of lightning into the dry, hot forests of Northern California in
August. But that was only the beginning...<br>
- -<br>
Officials in Oregon and Washington State have provided more detailed
data than California on the causes of wildfires this year. In
Oregon, there have been 614 human-caused fires and 600 that were
caused by nature. Washington has reported 765 human-caused fires and
69 caused by nature.<br>
<br>
Arson is rarely the cause of a large wildfire, officials say. Often,
arsonists are quickly caught and their fires extinguished before
growing out of control. In Oregon this year, authorities reported
several fires being deliberately set, many of them quickly put
out...<br>
- - <br>
Mark Wallace, a former state fire marshal in Oregon, said arson
wildfires, when stacked up against other causes -- lightning,
unattended campfires, fireworks and other things -- tend to make up
only a sliver of cases in most years.<br>
<br>
"In the whole scope of things," he said, "that's pretty rare."<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/10/02/us/fire-california-oregon-start.html">https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/10/02/us/fire-california-oregon-start.html</a><br>
<p><br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
[internationally]<br>
<b>Wildfires tear through drought-racked Paraguay amid record heat</b><br>
Country faces more than 5,000 fires, with yellow smoke reaching the
capital as neighbouring Brazil and Argentina face blazes<br>
William Costa in Asuncion - 2 Oct 2020<br>
Devastating wildfires have broken out across across Paraguay, as
drought and record high temperatures continue to exacerbate blazes
across South America.<br>
<br>
A total of 5,231 individual wildfires broke out across the country
on 1 October - up 3,000 on the previous day. Most of were
concentrated in the arid Chaco region in the west of the country,
but thick yellow smoke had reached as far as the capital, Asunción.<br>
<br>
Paraguay's outbreak came as the southern hemisphere heads into
summer and neighbouring countries also face unprecedented wildfires.
The Brazilian Amazon is recording its worst blazes in a decade, with
numbers up 61% on the widely reported fires of last year, and
separate fires in the southern Pantanal region.<br>
- - <br>
Late on Thursday, Paraguay's Congress approved Bills to declare a
state of national emergency and to transfer more resources to the
fire service. The decision came shortly after the government said it
was overwhelmed by the situation and would request international
assistance from Chile and Brazil...<br>
- - <br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/oct/02/paraguay-wildfires-drought-heat">https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/oct/02/paraguay-wildfires-drought-heat</a><br>
<p><br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
[Prof Michael Mann says "Results in 3 years"]<br>
<b>A second Trump term would be 'game over' for the climate, says
top scientist</b><br>
'Our destiny is determined by our behavior'<br>
<br>
Fortunately, there is encouraging news about climate science as
well. It was long thought that Earth's climate system carried a
substantial lag effect, mainly because carbon dioxide remains in the
atmosphere, trapping heat, for many decades after being emitted.
Even if all CO2 emissions were halted overnight, global temperatures
would keep rising and heatwaves, droughts, storms and other impacts
would keep intensifying "for about 25 to 30 years", Sir David King,
the former chief science advisor to the British government, said in
2006.<br>
<br>
Mann says research over the last decade has overturned this
interpretation.<br>
<br>
Using new, more elaborate computer models equipped with an
interactive carbon cycle, "what we now understand is that if you
stop emitting carbon right now … the oceans start to take up carbon
more rapidly," Mann says. Such ocean storage of CO2 "mostly" offsets
the warming effect of the CO2 that still remains in the atmosphere.
Thus, the actual lag between halting CO2 emissions and halting
temperature rise is not 25 to 30 years, he explains, but "more like
three to five years".<br>
<br>
This is "a dramatic change in our understanding" of the climate
system that gives humans "more agency", says Mann. Rather than being
locked into decades of inexorably rising temperatures, humans can
turn down the heat almost immediately by slashing emissions
promptly. "Our destiny is determined by our behavior," says Mann, a
fact he finds "empowering".<br>
<br>
This reprieve will not necessarily spare polar ice sheets or evade
tipping points that cannot be recrossed, the scientist cautions, and
Earth is already experiencing "much more extreme weather … than we
expected 10 years ago". Greenland and Arctic ice is already melting
after the current temperature rise of 1C, or 2.7F, above
preindustrial levels, and it will continue melting even without
further warming. The resulting possibility of "massive sea level
rise" is one example of why Mann says that humanity is "walking out
on to a minefield" of tipping points: "The more we warm the planet,
the more of those unwelcome surprises we might encounter."<br>
<br>
In the face of this urgency, Mann broadly supports implementing a
Green New Deal. This he defines as a vast government effort that
deploys both regulations - for example, no more coal plants - and
market mechanisms like carbon pricing to transition away from fossil
fuels as rapidly as possible. In the coming weeks, he adds, there is
no more important way for US citizens to exercise agency than to
vote - vote for candidates who support such a transition, such as
Joe Biden, and against Donald Trump and other Republicans who
obstruct it.<br>
<br>
"The future of this planet is now in the hands of American
citizens," he says. "It's up to us. The way we end this national and
global nightmare is by coming out and voting for optimism over
pessimism, for hope and justice and progress over fear and malice
and superstition. This is a Tolkienesque battle between good and
evil, and Sauron needs to be defeated on election day here in the
United States."<br>
<br>
Mark Hertsgaard, the executive director of Covering Climate Now and
the environment correspondent for the Nation, has covered climate
change since 1990 for leading outlets around the world and in books
including Hot: Living Through the Next Fifty Years on Earth.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/oct/02/donald-trump-climate-change-michael-mann-interview">https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/oct/02/donald-trump-climate-change-michael-mann-interview</a><br>
<br>
<p><br>
</p>
[new batch of law students take charge]<br>
<b>Introducing ls4ca.org</b><br>
The world is on fire, and the legal industry bears some of the
blame.<br>
With forests ablaze, hurricanes crashing ashore, entire island
nations and a third of the animal world facing imminent extinction,
and the skies periodically turning blood-red, the climate crisis has
taken on a new and frightening urgency. Yet, in the face of this
unprecedented catastrophe, many individuals and organizations have
seen an opportunity to make a little extra money. The names of many
of these actors are well-known: Exxon, BP, Peabody Energy, the Koch
Brothers. But others might be more surprising: Paul Weiss, Hogan
Lovells, Allen & Overy, Latham & Watkins, and Gibson, Dunn
& Crutcher. Indeed, of the Vault Law 100 Firms--a national
ranking of the hundred most influential law firms--a majority are
actively profiting from the climate crisis.<br>
<br>
If you find this hard to believe, you are not alone. The legal
industry's culpability in perpetuating the climate crisis is not
well-known. No one has systematically studied the environmentally
destructive clients that law firms take on, the transactional work
these firms undertake on behalf of polluters, or the lobbying that
these firms do for companies like Chevron and Shell. Until now...<br>
more at - <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.ls4ca.org/blog/introducing-ls4caorg">https://www.ls4ca.org/blog/introducing-ls4caorg</a><br>
<p>- -<br>
</p>
[following the money]<br>
<b>Top Law Firms Called Out for Serving Fossil Fuel Industry Clients
in New Climate 'Scorecard'</b><br>
By Dana Drugmand - October 1, 2020<br>
With lawsuits against major fossil fuel producers over climate
damages on the rise, a new report and initiative examines how
prestigious law firms are enabling climate breakdown. The
student-led initiative, Law Students for Climate Accountability,
calls for holding the legal industry accountable for profiting from
work defending and lobbying for fossil fuel clients as the world
faces what scientists say is a climate emergency. This campaign is
emerging as industries ranging from finance to insurance are facing
greater scrutiny in a rapidly warming world.<br>
<br>
"Law firms write the contracts for fossil fuel projects, lobby to
weaken environmental regulations, and help fossil fuel companies
evade accountability in court. Our research is the first to expose
the broad extent of firms' role in driving the climate crisis,"
Alisa White, a student at Yale Law School and a lead author on the
report, said in a press release.<br>
The 2020 Law Firm Climate Change Scorecard, as the report is titled,
looks at the top 100 most prestigious law firms in the U.S. (known
as the Vault 100) and grades them according to their work in service
of the fossil fuel industry. According to the analysis, the top 100
firms "worked on ten times as many cases exacerbating climate change
as cases addressing climate change; were the legal advisors on five
times more transactional work for the fossil fuel industry than the
renewable energy industry;" and "lobbied five times more for fossil
fuel companies than renewable energy companies."<br>
<br>
Overall, per this scorecard, only four firms received an "A" grade
while 41 firms scored a "D," and 26 received an "F."...<br>
- -<br>
"The fossil fuel industry does everything it can to avoid
responsibility for the massive damage it's done to our planet," Sen.
Whitehouse said in the press release. "One of the strongest weapons
in that fight is litigation carried out by some of the most
established law firms in the legal world. It's past time these firms
reconsidered how they represent one of the most destructive
industries in history, and there's no reason law students should not
consider this representation in deciding how to direct their
careers. I applaud this important effort."<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.desmogblog.com/2020/10/01/law-students-climate-accountability-scorecard-fossil-fuels">https://www.desmogblog.com/2020/10/01/law-students-climate-accountability-scorecard-fossil-fuels</a><br>
- -<br>
[Search for a law firm]<br>
<b>Top law firms conduct 5 to 10 times more work to exacerbate
climate change than mitigate it.</b><br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.ls4ca.org/climate-change-scorecard">https://www.ls4ca.org/climate-change-scorecard</a><br>
<br>
<p><br>
</p>
[NYTimes does amazing opinion reportage]<br>
<b>THE AMAZON HAS SEEN OUR </b><b>FUTURE</b><br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/10/02/opinion/amazon-rainforest-future.html">https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/10/02/opinion/amazon-rainforest-future.html</a><br>
<p><br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
[Digging back into the internet news archive]<br>
<font size="+1"><b>On this day in the history of global warming -
October 3, 1970 </b></font><br>
<p>The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is
established.<br>
<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.federalregister.gov/agencies/national-oceanic-and-atmospheric-administration">https://www.federalregister.gov/agencies/national-oceanic-and-atmospheric-administration</a><br>
</p>
<p><br>
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