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<p><i><b>October 29, 2020</b></i></p>
[Geo-engineering]<br>
<b>As Climate Disasters Pile Up, a Radical Proposal Gains Traction</b><br>
The idea of modifying Earth's atmosphere to cool the planet, once
seen as too risky to seriously consider, is attracting new money and
attention.<br>
- - <br>
But as global warming continues, producing more destructive
hurricanes, wildfires, floods and other disasters, some researchers
and policy experts say that concerns about geoengineering should be
outweighed by the imperative to better understand it, in case the
consequences of climate change become so dire that the world can't
wait for better solutions.<br>
<br>
"We're facing an existential threat, and we need to look at all the
options," said Michael Gerrard, director of the Sabin Center for
Climate Change Law at the Columbia Law School and editor of a book
on the technology and its legal implications. "I liken
geoengineering to chemotherapy for the planet: If all else is
failing, you try it."...<br>
- - <br>
"The whole idea of the research we're doing," she said, "is to make
sure you don't go out and inadvertently change things in a way
that's going to cause damage."<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/28/climate/climate-change-geoengineering.html">https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/28/climate/climate-change-geoengineering.html</a><br>
<br>
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[McKibben opines]<br>
<b>On Climate Change, We're Entirely Out of Margin</b><br>
By Bill McKibben - October 28, 2020<br>
<br>
The U.S. government and the world have done far too little on
climate change, and so now we must move far faster than is
comfortable or convenient.<br>
In 1959, when humans began measuring the carbon-dioxide
concentration in the atmosphere, there was still some margin. That
first instrument, set up on the side of Hawaii's Mauna Loa volcano,
showed that the air contained about three hundred and fifteen parts
per million of CO2, up from two hundred and eighty p.p.m. before the
Industrial Revolution. Worrisome, but not yet critical. In 1988,
when the nasa scientist James Hansen first alerted the public to the
climate crisis, that number had grown to three hundred and fifty
p.p.m., which we've since learned is about the upper safe limit.
Even then, though, we had a little margin, at least of time: the
full effects of the heating had not yet begun to manifest in ways
that altered our lives. If we'd acted swiftly, we could have limited
the damage dramatically.<br>
<br>
We didn't, of course, and we have poured more carbon into the
atmosphere since 1988 than in all the years before. The atmospheric
concentration of CO2 has topped four hundred and fifteen
p.p.m.--that's much too high, something that we know from a thousand
indicators. Last week came the news that the Arctic is stubbornly
refusing to refreeze at its normal rate as the long northern night
descends. The second biggest fire in Colorado history has closed
Rocky Mountain National Park. California is white-knuckling its way
through yet another siege of high winds in a record fire season that
refuses to end. Tropical Storm Zeta formed in the Gulf of
Mexico--and the next big storm will take us deeper into the Greek
alphabet than we've ever gone before. And that's just in the one per
cent of the planet's surface that's covered by the continental
United States. It's a lot worse in a lot of other places, because
they lack the money that keeps us fairly resilient. In Vietnam this
week, rainfall described as "extraordinarily out of the normal"--so
heavy that "it far exceeded the government's midrange predictions of
how climate change might increase precipitation in central Vietnam
by the end of this century"--has left more than a hundred people
dead. "Everywhere we look, homes, roads, and infrastructure have
been submerged," the head of Vietnam's Red Cross said.<br>
<br>
We are out of space in the atmosphere, and we are out of time on the
clock. The U.S. government, and the world, have done far too little
on climate change, and so now we must move far faster than is
comfortable or convenient. Plenty of pundits treated it as a "gaffe"
when, in the last Presidential debate, Joe Biden said that we would
need to "transition" away from oil. But that's not a gaffe; it's
just the mildest sort of truth-telling. Because we've wasted so much
time, that transition has to be sharp, and it has to be global. We
are capable of doing it--the rapid fall in the price of renewable
energy means that, if we wanted to go all out, we could make rapid
progress. But this is not an offer that will last forever; indeed,
it won't last four more years.<br>
<br>
In the famous story of the king who offered a reward to one of his
advisers, the man asked for a single grain of wheat on the first
square of a chessboard, and two on the next square, and four on the
next, and, by the last doubling, he was due more wheat than would
ever be grown on the planet. The climate is not changing
exponentially--the accelerating linear growth in heating is bad
enough--but the principle is the same. Long before you expect it,
you run out of room. The entire climate debate has unfurled in real,
living time--I was born the year after that first monitor went up on
Mauna Loa. We think we always have time and space to change, but in
this case we do not. If November 3rd doesn't mark the start of a
mighty effort at transformation, subsequent November Tuesdays will
be less important, not more--our leverage will shrink, our chance at
really affecting the outcome will diminish. This is it. Climate
change "is the No. 1 issue facing humanity, and it's the No. 1 issue
for me," Biden said in an interview on Saturday. With luck, we'll
get a chance to find out if the second half of that statement is
true. The first half is already clear.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/annals-of-a-warming-planet/on-climate-change-were-entirely-out-of-margin">https://www.newyorker.com/news/annals-of-a-warming-planet/on-climate-change-were-entirely-out-of-margin</a><br>
<p><br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
[from DeSmogBlog]<br>
<b>The Koch Operatives Behind the Trump Energy Department's
Renewables Research Censorship</b><br>
Ben Jervey | October 28, 2020<br>
Two Trump Energy Department appointees with deep ties to Koch
Industries and the Koch donor network have been burying reams of
agency research that looks favorably on renewable energy, according
to an in-depth investigation by Grist and InvestigateWest. Published
October 26, the investigation reveals how the appointed high-ranking
officials mandated political review of research, watered down
reports, and slow-walked or shelved scientific findings and studies
when they favored renewable deployment over continued reliance on
fossil fuels.<br>
<br>
Documents obtained by InvestigateWest reveal clear political
interference in the Department of Energy's (DOE) Office of Energy
Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE), much of it coordinated by
Dan Simmons, the office's Assistant Secretary, and Alex Fitzsimmons,
the former Chief of Staff to Simmons. While the article notes the
lobbying histories of DOE's top brass, Simmons and Fitzsimmons also
have recent ties to the Koch network. <br>
<br>
Daniel Simmons and Alex Fitzsimmons: Career Koch Cadets Leading
Trump's Renewable Energy Office<br>
Before being tapped by the Trump team to run lead on renewable
energy policy, Simmons had a long career promoting fossil fuels,
bashing renewables, and even calling for the elimination of the very
office he was tapped to run.<br>
<br>
From 2008 until he took over EERE in 2017, Simmons worked at the
Institute for Energy Research (IER), a free-market think tank that
receives the majority of its funding from dark money groups
associated with the Koch network and from oil refinery trade groups.
Simmons was vice president of policy at IER and had the same title
at IER's lobbying arm, the American Energy Alliance (AEA). In 2015,
while Simmons was in charge of policy, AEA actually recommended that
Congress eliminate EERE...<br>
- - <br>
Simmons' antagonism to renewable energy before he joined the DOE
cannot be overstated.<br>
<br>
As the utility industry watchdog Energy and Policy Institute has
noted, he routinely traveled the country for IER and AEA to bash
renewable portfolio standards, relying on inaccurate and
cherry-picked data. Before joining IER, Simmons served as the
director of the American Legislative Exchange Council's (ALEC)
Natural Resources Task Force, where he "helped to write [ALEC's]
anti-clean energy playbook." ALEC functions to connect state
legislators with corporations and create mock legislation that
serves as models for actual bills.<br>
<br>
Simmons' prior employers share extremely close ties to petrochemical
billionaire Charles Koch and the extensive Koch donor network. <br>
<br>
The Institute for Energy Research was founded by Charles Koch
himself and is currently run by the former top lobbyist for Koch
Industries. The AEA and IER both receive funding from foundations in
the Koch donor network, and the country's leading oil refiners trade
group, the American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers (AFPM),
gives three times more to AEA than it does to any other group. <br>
<br>
The ties between ALEC and the Koch network are well documented, with
the pro-business group receiving at least $3.3 million from
Koch-controlled foundations and Koch Industries maintaining a
longstanding and influential membership. <br>
<br>
Before his time at ALEC, Simmons was also a fellow at the Mercatus
Center at George Mason University, the prototype for Koch influence
in academia, a research center which has been funded and controlled
by Charles Koch and his associates since the 1980s. <br>
<br>
Simmons tapped Alex Fitzsimmons to serve as his chief of staff when
he took over EERE. The two had worked together at IER and AEA, where
Fitzsimmons worked as the Manager of Policy and Public Affairs. In
addition to managing "research, communications, and outreach" at IER
and AEA, Fitzsimmons was also a "spokesman" and Communications
Director for Fueling U.S. Forward, a pro-fossil fuels campaign
exposed by DeSmog as being funded by Koch Industries. According to
its website, Fueling U.S. Forward was "dedicated to educating the
public about the value and potential of American energy, the vast
majority of which comes from fossil fuels," before it shuttered in
2017. <br>
<br>
Serving Koch's Interests by Stifling Clean Energy Research<br>
According to the Grist/InvestigateWest investigation, written by
journalist Peter Fairley, Simmons and Fitzsimmons created systems
and workflow that deliberately buried any of the Office of Energy
Efficiency and Renewable Energy's research that could be perceived
as supportive of a transition to renewable energy resources. <br>
<br>
"In all, the department has blocked reports for more than 40 clean
energy studies," Fairley reported. "The department has replaced them
with mere presentations, buried them in scientific journals that are
not accessible to the public, or left them paralyzed within the
agency, according to emails and documents obtained by
InvestigateWest, as well as interviews with more than a dozen
current and former employees at the Department of Energy, or DOE,
and its national labs." ...<br>
- - <br>
One document obtained by InvestigateWest shows how Fitzsimmons
established a system that enabled politically appointed officials to
intervene and, if necessary, consult their superiors before
politically sensitive reports went out. Researchers and scientists
were ordered to designate certain studies -- including those that
compared renewables to fossil fuel resources and those that
projected future penetration of renewable energy supplies -- be
flagged for review by Simmons and Fitzsimmons. The two could then
block the findings or request that the scientists and researchers
altered their results. <br>
<br>
"There are dozens of reports languishing right now that can't be
published," Stephen Capanna, a former director of strategic analysis
for the Energy Department's Office of Energy Efficiency and
Renewable Energy, told Grist. "This is a systemic issue."<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.desmogblog.com/2020/10/28/koch-simmons-fitzsimmons-trump-censor-renewable-energy-science">https://www.desmogblog.com/2020/10/28/koch-simmons-fitzsimmons-trump-censor-renewable-energy-science</a><br>
<p><br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
[a done deal - see why concern]<br>
<b>More Than 70 Science and Climate Journalists Challenge Supreme
Court Nomination of Amy Coney Barrett</b><br>
"Judge Coney Barrett has displayed a profound inability to
understand the ecological crisis of our times, and in so doing she
enables it."<br>
<br>
By JUSTIN NOBEL & ANTONIA JUHASZ<br>
The following op-ed has been signed by dozens of leading climate and
science journalists, listed below:<br>
<blockquote><b>We are science and climate journalists</b>. We are
researchers and weavers of information, creating a fabric that
explains the work of scientists who themselves are working to
describe our natural world and universe. We are published in the
nation's leading outlets, both large and small, including
Scientific American, Nature, National Geographic, MIT Technology
Review, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Guardian,
The Washington Post, The New Yorker and many more. Over decades of
reporting on the threats and now deadly and devastating harms of
worsening climate change, we have succeeded in at least one
respect. The vast majority of the world's people, including those
in the United States, not only acknowledge the scientific
certainty of climate change, but also want action taken to address
it.<br>
<br>
We have succeeded because the science is clear, despite there
being a massive well-orchestrated effort of propaganda, lies, and
denial by the world's largest fossil fuel corporations, including
ExxonMobil and Koch Industries and fossil-fuel-backed institutes
and think tanks. It is frightening that a Supreme Court nominee --
a position that is in essence one of the highest fact-checkers in
the land -- has bought into the same propaganda we have worked so
hard to dispel.<br>
<br>
And it is facts -- a word under repeated assault by the Trump
administration, which nominated Judge Amy Coney Barrett -- that
are at issue here. "I'm certainly not a scientist…I've read things
about climate change. I would not say I have firm views on it,"
Judge Coney Barrett told Sen. John Kennedy during the Senate
confirmation hearings on October 13th.<br>
<br>
The next day, Sen. Richard Blumenthal asked Judge Coney Barrett if
she believed "human beings cause global warming." She replied: "I
don't think I am competent to opine on what causes global warming
or not. I don't think that my views on global warming or climate
change are relevant to the job I would do as a judge."<br>
<br>
When asked that same day by Sen. Kamala Harris if she accepts that
"COVID-19 is infectious," Coney Barrett said yes. When asked if
"smoking causes cancer," Coney Barrett said yes. But when asked if
"climate change is happening, and is threatening the air we
breathe and the water we drink," Judge Coney Barrett said that
while the previous topics are "completely uncontroversial,"
climate change is instead, "a very contentious matter of public
debate." She continued: "I will not express a view on a matter of
public policy, especially one that is politically controversial
because that's inconsistent with the judicial role, as I have
explained."<br>
<br>
Judge Coney Barrett repeatedly refused to acknowledge the
scientific certainty of climate change. This is an untenable
position, particularly when the world's leading climate scholars
warned in 2018 that we have just 12 years to act to bring down
global average temperature rise and avert the most dire
predictions of the climate crisis.<br>
<br>
At the moment when the facts of the case were presented to her,
this arbiter of justice freely chose to side with mistruths. Judge
Coney Barrett's responses are factually inaccurate, scientifically
unsound, and dangerous.<br>
<br>
How can Judge Coney Barrett rule on pending issues of climate
change liability, regulation, finance, mitigation, equity,
justice, and accountability if she fails to accept even the
underlying premise of global warming? The answer is that she
cannot.<br>
<br>
Judge Coney Barrett's ties to the fossil fuel industry have
already proved problematic, forcing recusal from cases involving
Shell Oil entities related to her father's work as a long-time
attorney for the company. She may also need to recuse herself from
future cases due to her father's former position as chairman of
the Subcommittee on Exploration and Production Law of the American
Petroleum Institute -- the nation's leading fossil fuel lobby.<br>
<br>
Climate change is already an increasingly dominant aspect of
American life, and an issue of growing import in American law. On
the Supreme Court docket is BP P.L.C v. Mayor and City Council of
Baltimore -- a case that involves Shell, Chevron, ExxonMobil, and
other major oil companies, and could impact about a dozen U.S.
states and localities suing Big Oil over its contribution to
climate change.<br>
<br>
Judge Coney Barrett says, "I'm certainly not a scientist," but she
does not need to be a scientist, rather she needs to have faith in
science. Pope Francis, the head of the Roman Catholic Church, is
an ardent supporter of action on climate change, releasing in 2015
the "Encyclical on Climate Change & Inequality: On Care for
Our Common Home." The Pope embraces hard science in order to keep
close to his faith.<br>
<br>
Judge Coney Barrett has displayed a profound inability to
understand the ecological crisis of our times, and in so doing she
enables it.<br>
Signed,<br>
<br>
Bill McKibben, journalist and author, the Schumann Distinguished
Scholar in environmental studies at Middlebury College<br>
Rebecca Solnit, author and journalist<br>
Sonia Shah, science journalist and author<br>
Jonathan Weiner, Pulitzer Prize winning author, science
journalist, and professor at Columbia Journalism School<br>
Jeff Goodell, climate journalist and author of The Water Will Come<br>
Naomi Klein, journalist and author<br>
Michelle Nijhuis, science journalist and author<br>
Amy Westervelt, climate journalist<br>
Rachel Ramirez, environmental justice reporter<br>
Iris Crawford, climate justice journalist<br>
Anoa Changa, movement and environmental justice journalist<br>
Tiên Nguyễn, multimedia science journalist<br>
Eric Holthaus, meteorologist, climate journalist at The Phoenix<br>
Jenni Monet (Laguna Pueblo), climate affairs journalist and
founder of Indigenously<br>
Nina Lakhani, environmental justice reporter<br>
Samir S. Patel, science journalist and editor<br>
Clinton Parks, freelance science writer<br>
Meehan Crist, writer in residence in biological sciences, Columbia
University<br>
Elizabeth Rush, science writer, author of Rising: Dispatches from
the New American Shore<br>
Anne McClintock, climate journalist, photographer and author,
professor of environmental humanities and writing at Princeton
University<br>
Ruth Hopkins (Oceti Sakowin, Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate), tribal
attorney, Indigenous journalist<br>
Wade Roush, science and technology journalist and author<br>
Kim Stanley Robinson, New York Times bestselling author of climate
science fiction, Hugo, Nebula, and Locus Awards<br>
Jason Mark, editor in chief, Sierra<br>
Kate Aronoff, climate journalist<br>
Richard Louv, journalist and author<br>
Heather Smith, science journalist<br>
Judith Lewis Mernit, California climate editor, Capital & Main<br>
Madeline Ostrander, climate journalist<br>
Julie Dermansky, multimedia environmental and social justice
journalist<br>
Kenneth Brower, environmental journalist and author<br>
Alexander Zaitchik, science and political journalist and author<br>
Hillary M. Rosner, science journalist and scholar in residence,
University of Colorado<br>
Wudan Yan, science journalist<br>
Debra Atlas, environmental journalist and author<br>
Rucha Chitnis, climate, environmental justice and human rights
documentarian<br>
Drew Costley, environmental justice reporter<br>
Jonathan Thompson, environmental author and journalist<br>
Carol Clouse, environmental journalist<br>
Brian Kahn, climate journalist<br>
Geoff Dembicki, climate journalist and author<br>
Peter Fairley, energy and environment journalist<br>
Nicholas Cunningham, energy reporter<br>
Nina Berman, documentary photographer focusing on issues of
climate and the environment, professor of journalism at Columbia
University<br>
Michele C. Hollow, freelance journalist<br>
Ben Depp, documentary photographer, focusing on issues of climate
and the environment<br>
Virginia Hanusik, climate photographer<br>
Philip Yam, science journalist and author<br>
Maura R. O'Connor, science journalist and author<br>
Chad J. Reich, audio and visual journalist covering energy and
environment in rural communities<br>
Steve Ross, environmental writer/editor, former Columbia
environmental reporting professor<br>
Starre Vartan, science journalist<br>
Michael Snyder, climate photographer<br>
Brandon Keim, science and nature journalist<br>
Tom Athanasiou, climate equity writer and researcher<br>
Hope Marcus, climate writer<br>
Jocelyn C. Zuckerman, freelance journalist<br>
Dana Drugmand, climate journalist<br>
Tom Molanphy, climate journalist<br>
Roxanne Szal, associate digital editor, Ms. Magazine<br>
Dashka Slater, author and climate reporter<br>
Jenn Emerling, documentary photographer, focusing on issues of
climate and culture in the American West<br>
Christine Heinrichs, science writer and author<br>
Clayton Aldern, climate and environmental journalist<br>
Karen Savage, climate journalist<br>
Charlotte Dennett, author, investigative journalist, attorney<br>
Carly Berlin, environmental reporter<br>
Ben Ehrenreich, author and journalist<br>
Ibby Caputo, science journalist<br>
Lawrence Weschler, former New Yorker staff writer, environmental
author, most recently with David Opdyke, of This Land: An Epic
Postcard Mural on the Future of a Country in Ecological Peril.<br>
Justin Nobel, science journalist<br>
Antonia Juhasz, climate and energy journalist and author<br>
James Temple, climate and energy journalist<br>
Josie Glausiusz, science journalist<br>
Tina Gerhardt, climate journalist<br>
Amar Bhardwaj, former editor in chief of Consilience: The Journal
of Sustainable Development<br>
Nano Riley, environmental historian, journalist<br>
Erin Biba, science journalist<br>
</blockquote>
more at -
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/political-commentary/amy-coney-barrett-climate-journalists-challenge-supreme-court-nomination-1080453/">https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/political-commentary/amy-coney-barrett-climate-journalists-challenge-supreme-court-nomination-1080453/</a><br>
<p><br>
</p>
<br>
[Digging back into the internet news archive]<br>
<b>On this day in the history of global warming - October 29, 2003 </b><br>
The New York Times reports:<br>
<b>The Warming Is Global but the Legislating, in the U.S., Is All
Local</b><br>
By Jennifer 8. Lee - Oct. 29, 2003<br>
"Motivated by environmental and economic concerns, states have
become the driving force in efforts to combat global warming even as
mandatory programs on the federal level have largely stalled."<br>
At least half of the states are addressing global warming, whether
through legislation, lawsuits against the Bush administration or
programs initiated by governors.<br>
<br>
In the last three years, state legislatures have passed at least 29
bills, usually with bipartisan support. The most contentious is
California's 2002 law to set strict limits for new cars on emissions
of carbon dioxide, the gas that scientists say has the greatest role
in global warming.<br>
<br>
While few of the state laws will have as much impact as
California's, they are not merely symbolic. In addition to caps on
emissions of gases like carbon dioxide that can cause the atmosphere
to heat up like a greenhouse, they include registries to track such
emissions, efforts to diversify fuel sources and the use of crops to
capture carbon dioxide by taking it out of the atmosphere and into
the ground...<br>
- -<br>
A number of states are trying to compel the federal government to
move sooner rather than later. On Thursday, 12 states, including New
York, with its Republican governor, and three cities sued the
Environmental Protection Agency for its recent decision not to
regulate greenhouse-gas pollutants under the Clean Air Act, a
reversal of the agency's previous stance under the Clinton
administration.<br>
<br>
''Global warming cannot be solely addressed at the state level,''
said Tom Reilly, the Massachusetts attorney general. ''It's a
problem that requires a federal approach.''<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/29/national/29CLIM.html">http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/29/national/29CLIM.html</a><br>
<br>
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