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<p><i><font size="+1"><b>November 3, 2020</b></font></i></p>
[Washington Post]<br>
<b>The U.S. will leave the Paris climate accord on Nov. 4. But
voters will decide for how long.</b><br>
Under Trump, the United States will be the only country to drop out
of the international agreement to cut pollution linked to climate
change. If he wins the White House, Joe Biden has pledged to rejoin
the accord.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2020/10/30/us-paris-climate-agreement-trump-biden/">https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2020/10/30/us-paris-climate-agreement-trump-biden/</a><br>
<p><br>
</p>
[NYT & Siena College Poll]<br>
<b>What Voters in Battleground States Think About Climate Change</b><br>
Nov. 1, 2020<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/11/01/climate/polls-what-voters-think-climate-global-warming.html">https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/11/01/climate/polls-what-voters-think-climate-global-warming.html</a>
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</p>
[rapper Baba Brinkman gives us some history of the science]<br>
<b>Greenhouse Effect - Baba Brinkman Music Video</b><br>
Nov 2, 2020<br>
Baba Brinkman<br>
<b>A hip-hop history of the past two centuries of climate science
discoveries.</b><br>
Lyrics by Baba Brinkman<br>
<blockquote>So how should we talk about climate change?<br>
I asked my friend Bill Nye to give us some advice<br>
the thing to focus on is the last two and a half centuries<br>
since the steam engine was everywhere - ubiquitous.<br>
That's when we put all this carbon dioxide in the air that would
normally not be there.<br>
So what we need is the last 200 years of climate science
discoveries<br>
matched up with some hip-hop slang all right?<br>
Try this, let's take it back 200 years to the 1800s up in here
when we only had<br>
290 CO2 parts per million in the atmosphere<br>
We had one billion homo sapiens on the planet trying to get the
groove on<br>
and soon lots of them would thanks to industrial revolution.<br>
Back when the steam engine had just been invented<br>
and nothing was electric except the spirit of the times progress<br>
Driven by the scientific method Joseph Fourier was a Frenchman<br>
a physicist and a mathematician he discovered the fact that the
atmosphere<br>
acts like a blanket for heat retention - the greenhouse effect
first described in 1824<br>
visible light from the sun meets little resistance inbound because
the size of<br>
the wavelengths is held attack but then when it hits the earth it
emits<br>
infrared radiation with longer waves and they get trapped and
bounce back<br>
when they try to escape on their way back up into space. Climate
skeptics today<br>
from Ted Cruz to Rand pile to Bobby Jindal<br>
might say bounce back off of what introducing John Tindall<br>
in the 1860s. Tyndall investigated methane and CO2<br>
and water vapor to see whether any of them block infrared
radiation and they all do<br>
But methane and water vapor don't stick around in the atmosphere
for long<br>
it took a Swedish genius to identify carbon dioxide as a regulator
-- Svante Arrhenius<br>
1896 Svante did the math if you cut the CO2 levels in half<br>
you'll end up with the four to five degree temperature dropped<br>
all across the map but if you double it you calculated a
temperature escalation<br>
of five or six degrees cause water vapor increases with<br>
heat radiation and that feeds back to increase the heat.<br>
Of course in 1896 CO2 emissions were pretty moderate.<br>
So they thought it would take a couple thousand years to double
the<br>
concentration when they thought of it but you gotta<br>
give it to Svante, he predicted five or six degrees<br>
and that's within the warming range predicted today by the IPCC.<br>
Now in 1927 arenas died a celebrated Swedish civilian.<br>
And three years later the population of planet earth exceeded<br>
2 billion. In 1938 a British engineer by the name of Guy Callendar
discovered a<br>
rise in carbon dioxide and also measured a rise in temperature.<br>
In 1958 Roger Revell demonstrated that the oceans couldn't take
care of it<br>
he said humans are now carrying out a massive geophysical
experiment.<br>
In 1960 Charles Keeling did some measurements on Mauna<br>
Loa of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and every year the level<br>
appeared to go up. It was rising at a steady rate the same<br>
rate as emissions from us burning oil and coal.<br>
Also in 1960 the population hit 3 billion souls.<br>
Now we got 7.5 billion individuals in the same globe<br>
All hooked on fossil fuels like a drug and how we're gonna quit<br>
Just saying no there's no easy answers. This is the truth and it's
inconvenience<br>
but the scientific evidence is not recent. Just ask Svante
Arrhenius.<br>
Now we got 417 parts per million and that's an increase in CO2
density 40%<br>
in just two centuries so either we set a carbon budget<br>
we set a cap and we stay within the limit or else we can expect a<br>
catastrophic greenhouse effect. <br>
And that's physics. <br>
And on and on<br>
[Music]<br>
And on and on and on.<br>
</blockquote>
Featuring Bill Nye (filmed at NECSS 2016, New York, NY)<br>
Original Backing Video by Olivia Sebesky<br>
Edited by Buck Bowen<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1FTD2DDwSMw">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1FTD2DDwSMw</a><br>
<p><br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<p>[an opinion from The Verge]<br>
<b>WHAT WE'RE VOTING FOR: INFRASTRUCTURE</b><br>
Let's build the cities we want to see in 100 years<br>
By Andrew J. Hawkins Nov 2, 2020<br>
Some of the most important parts of our country are literally
falling apart. Our airports are crumbling. Our buses and rail
networks are hemorrhaging riders and falling into disrepair. Many
of our bridges are so old they're eligible for Medicare. And with
the global pandemic crisis driving cities into an unprecedented
budget crisis, things are likely to get worse before they get
better.<br>
<br>
Every four years, the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE)
releases its "Infrastructure Report Card," which assesses
everything from ports and dams to transit, schools, and hazardous
waste management. In 2017, the group gave the country a D+, the
same grade it delivered in 2013. The US is on track to receive the
same grade (or worse) in 2021...<br>
- - <br>
At this point, a standard bundle of infrastructure money from
Congress is no longer enough. We're facing an array of distinct,
interconnected crises -- the COVID-19 pandemic, climate change,
rampant income inequality, a national protest movement against
white supremacy and police violence -- that require enormous
changes in our politics as well as our infrastructure. And with
technology accelerating a shift in energy generation,
transportation, automation, and the nature of work itself, it's
fair to assume that any old infrastructure plan isn't going to cut
it.<br>
<br>
In short, we need an infrastructure revolution -- and soon.<br>
<br>
When we spend that money, we should do it with an eye toward the
future -- not just the next election, but the next generation.
More than almost anything else the government does, infrastructure
is about building for the future. Power plants and bridges and
waste treatment facilities need to last for decades, up to and
beyond 100 years sometimes. It forces us to answer a hard
question: what do we think the country will look like in 2100?
What do we want it to look like?...<br>
- - <br>
In practical terms, that may look less like skyports for flying
Ubers and more like bike lanes, pedestrian bridges, and high-speed
rails. Facing the grim reality of climate change, infrastructure
can help us shift to more sustainable, less polluting means of
transportation. That means walking and biking in cities, alongside
commuter rail and public transportation in suburban and rural
areas.<br>
<br>
We also need to focus on not losing the transit systems we already
have. Transit agencies in the US are facing historic budget
shortfalls as a result of the pandemic. Without at least $32
billion in additional emergency funding, many public transit
agencies will soon be forced to cut services and routes for
essential workers as well as furlough frontline workers, leaving
our communities without service and jobs during an unparalleled
pandemic.<br>
<br>
This doesn't mean abandoning highways and other auto
infrastructure, but it does mean treating it differently. We can
require states to "fix it first" before expanding highways -- or
even replace most highway-widening projects with bus rapid transit
systems. We can renew the electric vehicle tax credit but also
give tax breaks for other, lighter weight EVs, like e-bikes and
scooters. The tax credit for electrics will go even further if
it's paired with a higher gas tax, as a kind of a one-two punch
against gas-powered cars.<br>
<br>
Infrastructure won't save us from climate change or future
disruptions to our economy and public health. But how our
infrastructure evolves over the next 50 years will be a major
determinant of the impact that climate change will have on
civilization. By ignoring that infrastructure, we've dug ourselves
into a hole. It's time to support leaders who can dig us out.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.theverge.com/21530294/election-day-2020-infrastructure-bridge-roads-climate-transportation">https://www.theverge.com/21530294/election-day-2020-infrastructure-bridge-roads-climate-transportation</a></p>
<p><br>
</p>
<br>
[take note]<br>
<b>Trump's Attacks on Climate Science Are Coming to Fruition</b><br>
A long-gestating idea to limit the use of climate modeling at the US
Geological Survey is about to be realized<br>
ADAM FEDERMAN - 11.02.2020 <br>
"IF YOU VOTE for Biden, he'll listen to the scientists," Donald
Trump told a crowd of thousands at a recent campaign rally in Carson
City, Nevada. The current president, on the other hand, has
routinely taken pride in dismissing the recommendations of federal
scientists, whether on the handling of the pandemic or the risks of
climate change. On both topics, his contention is the same: that the
sorts of policies they might recommend--from measures to control the
spread of Covid to participation in international climate
accords--would only hamper economic growth. "If I listened to
scientists," Trump said at the rally, "we'd have a country in a
massive depression instead of--we're like a rocket ship."<br>
Now, in the final days of his first term, there are signs that the
Administration's disregard for scientific expertise may be morphing
into outright meddling. On climate change, in particular, the White
House seems to be taking increasingly aggressive steps to undermine
government research as Election Day draws near. Last month, the
acting chief scientist of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration was removed from his position after asking political
appointees to acknowledge the agency's scientific integrity policy,
according to the New York Times. That news comes in the context of a
recent, broader effort to fill out top positions at NOAA, the
government's leading climate research agency, with hard-line climate
skeptics. And just last week, WIRED learned that a Trump appointee's
long-standing plan to distort the use of climate models at the US
Geological Survey may at last be coming to fruition.<br>
<br>
That plan, which I've previously described in detail, would reframe
the way the agency uses climate models in its research, in many
cases narrowing its time horizon to just 10 or 20 years while
leaving out the catastrophic outcomes that might follow in the
decades after. This effort has been led by Trump's USGS director,
Jim Reilly, a former astronaut and petroleum geologist who assumed
the role in mid-2018. For two years, though, Reilly's ideas on
modeling, viewed as marginal by his agency's own scientists, have
only lived in memos and proposals. They were never made into formal
policy.<br>
<br>
That may be about to change. On October 19, Reilly's office sent
around a draft of a new chapter for the US Geological Survey Manual
called, "Application of Climate Change Models to Scientific
Investigation and Policy." The Survey Manual serves as an
operational handbook for agency employees, and includes bureau
directives and policies on everything from budgeting and contracting
to the agency's Fundamental Science Practices, which govern its
publishing and peer review process. Survey Manual chapters,
according to the USGS website, "establish long-standing policies,
standards, instructions, and general procedures with Bureauwide
applicability."<br>
<br>
The draft chapter, which was obtained by WIRED after it was
circulated to senior USGS employees as part of what's called a
"fatal flaw review," hews closely to a memo Reilly had prepared in
2018 for Ryan Zinke, then the Secretary of the Interior. It defines
a set of controversial assumptions and best-practices for
climate-modeling work that includes an "initial assessment range" of
potential climate impacts that stops at 2045, and prescribed "best
case" and "worst case" scenarios for the climate that some
scientists consider pollyannaish. Top scientists and advisors at the
agency were given five days to respond to the draft.<br>
<br>
Some of their responses were scathing. A three-page letter from the
agency's chief scientist and other top advisors , also obtained by
WIRED, argued that the new chapter would "cause substantial harm to
both the USGS ability to carry out sound, peer-reviewed, impartial
science, and to the USGS reputation." The letter also suggested that
the drafting of the chapter--which it said had not been
peer-reviewed and lacked sufficient citations and attributions--did
not meet agency standards and that it likely violated the USGS
scientific integrity policy. (Their "fatal-flaw review" of the
document, carried out over just a handful of days, was not
equivalent to the more rigorous and deliberative process of formal
peer review, according to a senior USGS employee.) The same
respondents also noted numerous scientific flaws in the proposed
chapter, and recommended that it be subject to a "professional copy
edit" for clarity.<br>
The agency did not respond to requests for comment.<br>
<br>
Reilly is under no obligation to heed any of this criticism. As the
USGS director, he is authorized to sign and approve Survey Manual
chapters. If that happens, Reilly's proposed restrictions on the use
of climate modeling would finally be made to stick. "The Survey
Manual has the force of policy," the senior USGS employee told me.
"Not following it could be considered misconduct."<br>
Changes to the Survey Manual are easier to undo than secretarial
orders; and if Trump loses the election, a Biden Administration
could have the potential chapter withdrawn in short order. If Trump
prevails, however, USGS employees might be obligated to follow its
guidelines over the long term.<br>
<br>
Reilly has recently come under fire for interfering with science
elsewhere at the agency. In September, the Washington Post revealed
that he'd stalled publication of a research paper on polar bear
population dynamics on Alaska's North Slope. (After the story came
out, Reilly reversed course.) The USGS director has also blocked
agency research into how Covid interacts with wildlife.<br>
<br>
Yet Reilly's effort to push through his chapter on climate modeling,
while circumventing formal peer review, could be taken as an
escalation. "I've never seen anything like this before," said one
long-serving scientist who asked not to be identified for fear of
reprisal. "We're being asked to follow bad science."<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.wired.com/story/trumps-attacks-on-climate-science-are-coming-to-fruition/">https://www.wired.com/story/trumps-attacks-on-climate-science-are-coming-to-fruition/</a><br>
<p><br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
[Noam Chomsky has an opinion and a new book]<br>
<b>Trump's denial of climate change represents worse threat to
humanity than Hitler, says activist Noam Chomsky</b><br>
Exclusive: Veteran intellectual tells The Independent there is
barely a decade to avert environmental catastrophe <br>
- - <br>
Chomsky also makes a highly controversial comparison between Trump
and Adolf Hitler - one that was strongly rebutted by experts on the
Holocaust who told The Independent such a suggestion was wrong and
offensive.<br>
<br>
The public intellectual and activist, whose many celebrated works
include Manufacturing Consent, is now aged 91. He is adamant the
threat represented by the heating planet is unprecedented...<br>
"The facts are pretty straight; there is almost universal consensus
among serious scientists that we are racing towards the cataclysm,
if current tendencies persist," he says.<br>
<br>
"By the end of this century, you might have reached the level three,
maybe four degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. And every
analysis concludes that's a total cataclysm. Organised human
societies - nothing survives."<br>
He adds: "We are moving towards cataclysm. There is one country in
the world, the United States, that wants to put its foot on the
accelerator."<br>
<br>
Asked about the specific role played by the president, and the
Republican Party, he says the global coronavirus pandemic, which has
so far killed more than 1 million people and infected more than 43
million, can be tackled, but not with "malignant cancer in charge of
the policies - someone who moves to destroy anything that doesn't
improve his electoral chances"...<br>
- -<br>
The president has repeatedly dismissed the climate crisis and spent
much of his term overturning environmental standards imposed by
Barack Obama. He also withdrew the US from the 2015 Paris Accord.<br>
<br>
This autumn, as wildfires ravaged much of the US west with a scale
and intensity not seen for a century, the president sought to blame
bad forest management.<br>
<br>
In September, Trump visited California and spoke with government
officials. One of them, Wade Crowfoot, California’s secretary for
natural resources, said to the president: "If we ignore the science
and put our head in the sand and think it’s all about vegetation
management, we’re not going to succeed together protecting
Californians." Mr Trump replied: "It’ll start getting cooler. You
just watch."<br>
<br>
By contrast, a 2018 assessment by the Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change (IPCC) warned policy makers of the necessity of
seeking to limit warming to 1.5C to avoid even more catastrophe. One
of its authors wrote: "Every extra bit of warming matters,
especially since warming of 1.5C or higher increases the risk
associated with long-lasting or irreversible changes, such as the
loss of some ecosystems."<br>
<br>
Nevertheless, some will be likely be troubled by Chomsky’s terms of
reference and the comparison of Trump to Hitler...<br>
- -<br>
Others were more directly critical. Deborah Lipstadt, a celebrated
US historian specialising in the Holocaust, and whose court battle
against Holocaust denier David Irving was featured in the 2015 movie
Denial, says Chomsky’s comments were counterproductive.<br>
<br>
"Look, I think climate change is a tremendous problem, [a] potential
catastrophe for many parts of this world. We see it repeatedly. It's
not a theory. It's not an unproven fact. I know of no serious
scientist who denies it," says Lipstadt, Professor of Modern Jewish
History and Holocaust Studies at Atlanta’s Emory University.<br>
<br>
"But to compare it to an attempt to annihilate a people, from one
end of the European continent to the other, and off the European
continent, and to annihilate a good proportion of the Roma
population of Europe … it serves no purpose. It's an unnecessary
comparison."<br>
<br>
She adds: "Could this be Chomsky once again saying the outrageous in
order possibly to get attention?"...<br>
more at -
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-election-2020/trump-climate-change-noam-chomsky-book-interview-hitler-robert-pollin-b1374789.html">https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-election-2020/trump-climate-change-noam-chomsky-book-interview-hitler-robert-pollin-b1374789.html</a><br>
<p><br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
[Weather computer data displays from METOFFICE]<br>
for US -
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.wxcharts.com/?panel=default&model=nam_3km,nam_3km,nam_3km,nam_3km®ion=usa&chart=overview,winteroverview,convective_overview,radarref&run=18&step=050&plottype=10&lat=51.500&lon=-0.250&skewtstep=0">https://www.wxcharts.com/?panel=default&model=nam_3km,nam_3km,nam_3km,nam_3km®ion=usa&chart=overview,winteroverview,convective_overview,radarref&run=18&step=050&plottype=10&lat=51.500&lon=-0.250&skewtstep=0</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 -
November 3, 2010</b></font><br>
In a post-midterm election press conference, President Obama
states:<br>
<br>
"With respect to the EPA, I think the smartest thing for us to do is
to see if we can get Democrats and Republicans in a room who are
serious about energy independence and are serious about keeping our
air clean and our water clean and dealing with the issue of
greenhouse gases -- and seeing are there ways that we can make
progress in the short term and invest in technologies in the long
term that start giving us the tools to reduce greenhouse gases and
solve this problem.<br>
<br>
"The EPA is under a court order that says greenhouse gases are a
pollutant that fall under their jurisdiction. And I think one of the
things that's very important for me is not to have us ignore the
science, but rather to find ways that we can solve these problems
that don't hurt the economy, that encourage the development of clean
energy in this country, that, in fact, may give us opportunities to
create entire new industries and create jobs that -- and that put us
in a competitive posture around the world.<br>
<br>
"So I think it's too early to say whether or not we can make some
progress on that front. I think we can. Cap and trade was just one
way of skinning the cat; it was not the only way. It was a means,
not an end. And I'm going to be looking for other means to address
this problem.<br>
<br>
"And I think EPA wants help from the legislature on this. I don't
think that the desire is to somehow be protective of their powers
here. I think what they want to do is make sure that the issue is
being dealt with."<br>
<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4F8e2Cye08">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4F8e2Cye08</a> - (35:15-38:48)<br>
<br>
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