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<p><i><font size="+1"><b>October 23, 2020</b></font></i> <br>
</p>
[Axios early coverage]<br>
<b>Climate change goes mainstream in presidential debate</b><br>
Amy Harder, author of Generate<br>
The most notable part of Thursday's presidential debate on climate
change was the fact it was included as a topic and assumed as a
fact.<br>
<br>
<b>The big picture:</b> This is the first time in U.S. presidential
history that climate change was a featured issue at a debate. It
signals how the problem has become part of the fabric of our
society. More extreme weather, like the wildfires ravaging Colorado,
is pushing the topic to the front-burner.<br>
<br>
<b>Flashback:</b> Until now, climate change either was wholly absent
from presidential general elections or debate was fleetingly focused
on whether or not it is real -- it is and humans are the driving
factor, most scientists agree.<br>
<b>My thought bubble:</b> It's a (good) sign that politics has
finally caught up with reality and the debate didn't focus on
whether or not climate change is real.<br>
But, Trump has largely denied the science and hired people with
similar views to run the federal government, which is having a major
impact on policy. So a question about Trump's record of climate
change denial would have helped put him on the record.<br>
<b>The intrigue: </b><br>
Moderator Kristen Welker of NBC asked how the candidates would
create jobs while also tackling climate change and how to combat
environmental justice.<br>
The latter is the concept that communities of color often live
closest to polluting facilities, a dilemma receiving renewed
attention as the nation focuses more on system racism in the wake of
police brutality toward people of color.<br>
<b>The highlights:</b><br>
- Prompted by Trump asking whether he would "close down the oil
industry," Biden said: "I would transition the oil industry because
the oil industry pollutes significantly." That incited Trump to
remark: "That's a big statement." Expect this to come back again in
remainder of the campaign.- The candidates' sparring over whether
Biden opposes fracking made another appearance Thursday evening,
which cued the moderator to ask whether Biden would rule out banning
fracking. Biden responded: "I do rule out banning fracking." He then
said he would ban fracking of oil and gas on federal lands.
Actually, his plan bans new leasing of oil and gas on federal lands
(not current production).<br>
- One of the odder parts of the exchange came when Trump indicated
Biden wants no windows in buildings as part of the Green New Deal.<br>
<b>Reality check: </b><br>
Biden has said he doesn't support the Green New Deal and windows
actually make buildings more energy efficient.<br>
Trump largely deflected when asked about environmental justice,
diverting to talk instead about how he helped get oil-producing
nations like Saudi Arabia and Russia to agree to curb production in
the depths of the pandemic. "Everybody has very inexpensive
gasoline," said Trump.<br>
<b>My quick take:</b> When gasoline prices are high, that's pretty
much the only thing politicians will talk about when it comes to
energy policy. With low prices, it affords the political room to
talk about longer term problems like climate change...<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.axios.com/climate-change-mainstream-presidential-debate-677cd651-e7c1-44c9-9ce3-f29e4d0a4a6a.html">https://www.axios.com/climate-change-mainstream-presidential-debate-677cd651-e7c1-44c9-9ce3-f29e4d0a4a6a.html</a><br>
<p><br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
[Washington Post issue posted before the debate]<br>
<b>'It's a sea change': How climate went from the back burner to a
central issue in this year's debates</b><br>
The last time there was a substantive discussion at a presidential
debate about the climate was 20 years ago. And Democrat Al Gore's
predictions have pretty much come true.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/10/22/climate-change-biden-trump-debate/">https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/10/22/climate-change-biden-trump-debate/</a><br>
<p><br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
[money is the method]<b><br>
</b><b>Aggressive push to 100% renewable energy could save Americans
billions – study</b><br>
As much as $321bn could be saved with complete switch to clean
energy sources, Rewiring America analysis finds<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/oct/22/us-renewable-energy-costs-savings-study-report">https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/oct/22/us-renewable-energy-costs-savings-study-report</a><br>
<p><br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
[later arrival of winter]<br>
<b>Alarm as Arctic sea ice not yet freezing at latest date on record</b><br>
For the first time since records began, the main nursery of Arctic
sea ice in Siberia has yet to start freezing in late October.<br>
<br>
The delayed annual freeze in the Laptev Sea has been caused by
freakishly protracted warmth in northern Russia and the intrusion of
Atlantic waters, say climate scientists who warn of possible
knock-on effects across the polar region.<br>
<br>
Ocean temperatures in the area recently climbed to more than 5C
above average, following a record breaking heatwave and the
unusually early decline of last winter's sea ice.<br>
<br>
The trapped heat takes a long time to dissipate into the atmosphere,
even at this time of the year when the sun creeps above the horizon
for little more than an hour or two each day.<br>
<br>
Graphs of sea-ice extent in the Laptev Sea, which usually show a
healthy seasonal pulse, appear to have flat-lined. As a result,
there is a record amount of open sea in the Arctic...<br>
- -<br>
The warmer air temperature is not the only factor slowing the
formation of ice. Climate change is also pushing more balmy Atlantic
currents into the Arctic and breaking up the usual stratification
between warm deep waters and the cool surface. This also makes it
difficult for ice to form.<br>
"This continues a streak of very low extents. The last 14 years,
2007 to 2020, are the lowest 14 years in the satellite record
starting in 1979," said Walt Meier, senior research scientist at the
US National Snow and Ice Data Center. He said much of the old ice in
the Arctic is now disappearing, leaving thinner seasonal ice.
Overall the average thickness is half what it was in the 1980s.<br>
<br>
The downward trend is likely to continue until the Arctic has its
first ice-free summer, said Meier. The data and models suggest this
will occur between 2030 and 2050. "It's a matter of when, not if,"
he added...<br>
Delayed freeze in Laptev Sea could have knock-on effects across
polar region, scientists say<br>
more at -
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/oct/22/alarm-as-arctic-sea-ice-not-yet-freezing-at-latest-date-on-record">https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/oct/22/alarm-as-arctic-sea-ice-not-yet-freezing-at-latest-date-on-record</a><br>
<br>
<p><br>
</p>
[view from above]<br>
<b>Severe burn damage from California wildfires seen from space</b><br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/b5tN7KcVqrVbvggwttXuoN-1024-80.jpg.webp">https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/b5tN7KcVqrVbvggwttXuoN-1024-80.jpg.webp</a><br>
The maps derived from the satellite data show how far two major
fires spread as well as how badly each region burned. Darker colors
represent near-complete loss -- charred landscapes with little to no
living vegetation left. Lighter tan regions represent areas where
the fire was severe, but some trees and plants still survive. <br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/qix9oGJvEoc9ctsWNjGbyT-970-80.jpg">https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/qix9oGJvEoc9ctsWNjGbyT-970-80.jpg</a><br>
"It is disturbing to see how much of the redwood forest was burned,"
Potter said. <br>
<br>
The SCU Complex fire burned grassland and oak woodlands. <br>
<br>
"It is rare that we get more than one large lightning-induced fire
in a year in California; this year, we had 10 lightning complex
fires," Potter told the Earth Observatory. "Some researchers think
these lightning storms may be related to climate change. If global
warming means more lightning storms like this in California, then we
are in trouble."<br>
more at - <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.space.com/california-wildfire-damage-2020.html">https://www.space.com/california-wildfire-damage-2020.html</a><br>
<p><br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
[not smart to hinder solar]<br>
<b>Trump pulls tariff exemption for bifacial panels – again</b><br>
The U.S. president issued a proclamation on Oct. 10 that cites the
impact of imported bifacial panels on U.S. solar manufacturing,
while also raising the scheduled fourth-year tariff rate from 15% to
18%.<br>
<br>
From pv magazine USA OCTOBER 13, 2020<br>
<br>
With the U.S. election just weeks away, President Donald Trump has
issued a proclamation once again imposing trade tariffs on bifacial
solar panels, effectively rolling back the exemption he originally
granted in June 2019.<br>
<br>
As previously reported, the proclamation is the latest skirmish in
the president's ongoing battle with the U.S. solar industry over the
panels, which produce power on both sides and are increasingly used
in large utility-scale projects. Quietly released on Oct. 10, its
main argument is that "bifacial modules are likely to account for a
greater share of the market in the future and can substitute for
monofacial products in the various market segments, such that
exempting imports of bifacial modules from the safeguard tariff
would apply significant downward pressure on prices of domestically
produced (bifacial) modules."<br>
<br>
Trump also cited the impact of bifacial's growing share of the U.S.
market as his reason for putting a hold on the fourth year step-down
of the solar tariffs from 20% to 15%, resetting the rate for all
imported solar panels instead at 18%. When first imposed in 2018 as
part of Trump's trade war with China, the tariffs were set at 30%,
to be decreased 5% each year for four years.<br>
<br>
Abigail Ross Hopper, president and CEO of the Solar Energy
Industries Association (SEIA), told Bloomberg that Trump's
proclamation "counters critical needs of our country right now,
jeopardizing jobs, economic recovery in the face of a pandemic and a
clean environment." SEIA would, she said, "evaluate every option to
reverse this harmful approach."<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.pv-magazine.com/2020/10/13/trump-pulls-tariff-exemption-for-bifacial-panels-again/?utm_source=Bibblio&utm_campaign=Internal">https://www.pv-magazine.com/2020/10/13/trump-pulls-tariff-exemption-for-bifacial-panels-again/?utm_source=Bibblio&utm_campaign=Internal</a><br>
<br>
<p><br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
[Time to think bigger]<br>
<b>Breaking through Big Oil's "regime of obstruction"</b><br>
An interview with William Carroll about Canada's fossil fuel power
elite--its networks, public and private support, and climate
denialism--as exposed and examined in his important new anthology
for the Corporate Mapping Project.<br>
OCTOBER 15, 2020<br>
William K. Carroll is a critical sociologist at the University of
Victoria with research interests in the political economy/ecology of
corporate capitalism, social movements and social change, and
critical social theory and method. His current research is focused
around the relationships between corporate power, fossil capitalism
and the climate crisis. Carroll co-directs the SSHRC-funded
Corporate Mapping Project with CCPA-BC Director Shannon Daub in
partnership with the CCPA, Parkland Institute and several
universities. His edited anthology, Regime of Obstruction (AU Press,
November 2020), is a culmination of research from the first three
years of the Corporate Mapping Project and represents a midway point
in its work. The Monitor reached Carroll by Skype at his Vancouver
Island home this July.<br>
- -<br>
The Monitor: In your introduction to Regime of Obstruction, you
write: "Corporate control of the production of energy (most of which
takes the form of fossil fuels), and the reach of corporate power
into other social fields, pose the greatest obstacles to addressing
the ecological and economic challenges humanity faces today."
Explain why you think that is the case.<br>
<br>
<b>William K. Carroll: </b>Clearly the global ecological crisis is
broader than just the climate crisis, but I think that that crisis
is particularly urgent. And it's particularly difficult to address
because of the way capitalism has developed as a way of life that is
really fuelled by fossil fuels. Even after relatively half-hearted
attempts to move away from fossil fuels in the past few years, still
more than 80% of all the energy in the global economy is generated
from carbon. <br>
<br>
It's one of these wicked problems. It's intractable because there
are so many different aspects of corporate power, as we try to
develop in the book, that are reinforcing this way of life and
obstructing the kinds of relatively rapid changes that we need to be
making in order to avoid the worst effects of climate change. The
effects are already being felt and they're going to get worse. Even
if we were to radically reduce carbon emissions tomorrow, the
inertia in the climate system is such that it's going to be a rough
ride for humanity in the next number of years. <br>
<br>
But to avoid a really bad situation, we would need to shift away
from a way of life that really inscribes corporate power at its
centre and provides various kinds of attractions. There are
appealing aspects to this way of life for many people--if you happen
to have money (laughs). In my view it's a rather alienating way of
life, as our social relations are so commercialized and mediated by
markets, and the profit motive is so corrosive to healthy social
relations. But I think individuals who are financially secure
experience this as a very pleasant way of life. <br>
<br>
That in itself is a very difficult problem. It's a kind of first
world problem, but it's really a global problem. And it gets into
the question of hegemony that we explore in this book. How is it
that people end up supporting an ecologically, and in terms of
social justice issues, deeply problematic way of life? What is it
that pulls us into this and makes us consent and even often stand as
boosters of this way of life?...<br>
- -<br>
<b>Regime of Obstruction: How Corporate Power Blocks Energy
Democracy</b> will be released by AU Press in November.<br>
clip:<br>
<blockquote>The new denialism doesn't deny the science; it accepts
that there is a climate crisis, but it offers up solutions that
are obviously inadequate and that basically provide cover to
industry. So that rather than making the fairly dramatic changes
that need to be made, the argument is we can do this at a very,
very slow, incremental pace that doesn't in any way endanger the
profits and the investments that Ian Hussey and his co-authors
write about in the chapter you mentioned. And so it's an attempt
to solve the problem within the logic of capitalism, that is to
say, through the use of market mechanisms and by trying to steer
market decisions through putting a price on carbon, through
technological innovations that make carbon extraction less
intensive in terms of its emissions, and so on, but without
changing anything about the social relations and the logic of
endless growth on a finite planet. <br>
<br>
That is, I think, at the heart of the issue--whether this problem,
which in our view is endemic to the actual social logic of fossil
capitalism, whether it can actually be solved within the social
logic of fossil capitalism. Our argument would be that it really
can't. But of course, industry is entrenched, their interests are
in maintaining those structures and they do that in various ways.
And part of it is constructing these new-denialist narratives.<br>
</blockquote>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://policyalternatives.us18.list-manage.com/track/click?u=50ab80acdbcc30e47a51c061b&id=d20b843649&e=b223f6dbc9">https://policyalternatives.us18.list-manage.com/track/click?u=50ab80acdbcc30e47a51c061b&id=d20b843649&e=b223f6dbc9</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 -
October 23, 2007 </b></font><br>
<p>Dr. Julie Gerberding of the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention addresses a US Senate committee regarding the health
risks of climate change. Her testimony was extensively edited by
the Bush White House to dramatically downplay the severity of the
risks. <br>
<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2007/10/23/17139/gerberding-global-warming/">http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2007/10/23/17139/gerberding-global-warming/</a><br>
<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/25/science/earth/24cnd-climate.html?_r=1&pagewanted=print">http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/25/science/earth/24cnd-climate.html?_r=1&pagewanted=print</a><br>
<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2008/07/08/174078/burnett-cheney-boiling/">http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2008/07/08/174078/burnett-cheney-boiling/</a><br>
<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="http://www.c-span.org/video/?201698-1/HumanImp">http://www.c-span.org/video/?201698-1/HumanImp</a><br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
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