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<p><i><font size="+1"><b>November 4, 2020</b></font></i></p>
[harsh]<br>
<b>Climate change: US formally withdraws from Paris agreement</b><br>
<b>After a three-year delay, the US has become the first nation in
the world to formally withdraw from the Paris climate agreement.</b><br>
<br>
President Trump announced the move in June 2017, but UN regulations
meant that his decision only takes effect today, the day after the
US election.<br>
<br>
The US could re-join it in future, should a president choose to do
so.<br>
<br>
The Paris deal was drafted in 2015 to strengthen the global response
to the threat of climate change.<br>
<br>
It aims to keep the global temperature rise this century well below
2C above pre-industrial levels and to pursue efforts to limit the
temperature increase even further to 1.5C.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-54797743">https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-54797743</a><br>
<p><br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<p>[Oily PR blunder]<b><br>
</b><b>Shell's climate poll on Twitter backfires spectacularly</b><br>
Oil giant accused of gaslighting after asking users: 'What are you
willing to change?'<br>
</p>
<p>Damian Carrington Environment editor<br>
3 Nov 2020 <br>
</p>
<p>A climate poll on Twitter posted by Shell has backfired
spectacularly, with the oil company accused of gaslighting the
public.<br>
<br>
The survey, posted on Tuesday morning, asked: <b>"What are you
willing to change to help reduce emissions?"</b></p>
<blockquote>
<p>💨 Offset emissions 23.1%<br>
✈️ Stop flying 6.5%<br>
🚗 Buy electric vehicle 25.6%<br>
⚡️ Renewable electricity 44.7%<br>
</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Though it received a modest 199 votes the tweet still went viral
– but not for the reasons the company would have hoped. The US
congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was one high-profile
respondent, posting a tweet that was liked 350,000 times.<br>
</p>
<blockquote>
<p><b>Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez @AOC</b><br>
Nov 2<br>
US House candidate, NY-14<br>
I'm willing to hold you accountable for lying about climate
change for 30 years when you secretly knew the entire time that
fossil fuels emissions would destroy our planet 😇</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Greta Thunberg accused the company of "endless greenwash", while
the climate scientist Prof Katharine Hayhoe pointed out Shell's
huge contribution to the atmospheric carbon dioxide that is
heating the planet. Shell then hid her reply, she said.<br>
</p>
<blockquote>
<p><b>Prof. Katharine Hayhoe @KHayhoe</b><br>
Replying to @Shell<br>
What am I willing to do? Hold you accountable for 2% of
cumulative global GHG emissions, equivalent to those of my
entire home country of Canada. When you have a concrete plan to
address that, I'd be happy to chat about what I'm doing to
reduce my personal emissions.<br>
</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In 2017, the Guardian revealed that a "confidential" Shell report
in 1986 noted the large uncertainties in climate science at the
time but nonetheless stated: "The changes may be the greatest in
recorded history."<br>
<br>
A Shell film released in 1991 said: "Global warming is not yet
certain, but many think that to wait for final proof would be
irresponsible. Action now is seen as the only safe insurance."<br>
<br>
However, the company's recent investments in low-carbon energy
have remained tiny compared with its fossil fuel investments. Its
plan to become net carbon zero covers only about 65% of the
emissions from the oil and gas it produces, according to Follow
This, a group of more than 5,800 green shareholders in oil and gas
companies...<br>
</p>
<p><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/nov/03/shells-climate-poll-on-twitter-backfires-spectacularly">https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/nov/03/shells-climate-poll-on-twitter-backfires-spectacularly</a><br>
</p>
<p>- -</p>
[comment to Shell on Twitter]<br>
<b>SHELL - What are you willing to change to help reduce emissions?</b><br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://twitter.com/Shell/status/1323184318735360001">https://twitter.com/Shell/status/1323184318735360001</a><br>
<br>
<p><br>
</p>
[Where your Amazon dollar is spent]<br>
<b>The Weekly Planet: How Jeff Bezos Is Spending His $10 Billion
Earth Fund</b><br>
These nine environmental groups are some of his first grantees.<br>
Back in February, Jeffrey Bezos posted a picture of the Earth on
Instagram. In the caption, the world's richest man announced his new
project to save the world: the Bezos Earth Fund, an initiative to
support scientists, activists, nonprofits, and anyone else who seems
to have a good idea to fight climate change. "Climate change is the
biggest threat to our planet," the Amazon chief executive said. He
committed $10 billion to the effort, and said he would begin issuing
grants in the summer.<br>
The fund portended a revolution: In pledging what was then more than
7 percent of his net worth, Bezos was, by any measure, eclipsing the
total sum spent by American philanthropists on climate change in
recent years.<br>
<br>
Then the pandemic arrived. Amazon became a kind of private utility,
and Bezos's attention was diverted. Little has been heard about the
fund. Months came and went without any grant announcements.<br>
<br>
But that is soon to change. Throughout the summer, Bezos--sometimes
joined by his girlfriend, Lauren Sanchez, a television producer--met
via phone with environmental nonprofits and other advisers in the
field, according to two people who work in climate philanthropy and
have knowledge of the situation. He is now ready to start giving.<br>
<br>
But Bezos's gifts indicate that he isn't trying something new on
climate so much as boosting an ancien régime. Bezos is prepared to
give $100 million each to four of the most established environmental
groups in the country--the Nature Conservancy, the Environmental
Defense Fund, the Natural Resources Defense Council, and the World
Wildlife Fund, according to my two sources, who were granted
anonymity so that they could speak candidly about the small world of
climate giving.<br>
<br>
Bezos has also committed $100 million to the World Resources
Institute, a sustainability-research organization that operates
globally, the two sources said.<br>
<br>
And he has promised smaller amounts of $10 million to $50 million to
four nonprofits that specialize in climate and energy research, the
sources said. Those groups are the Energy Foundation, the Union of
Concerned Scientists, the ClimateWorks Foundation, and the Rocky
Mountain Institute...<br>
- -<br>
Managing that economic transition will take new institutions and a
new kind of economic expertise. Maybe that cause can receive some of
Bezos's remaining $9.3 billion...<br>
more at -
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.theatlantic.com/newsletters/archive/2020/11/how-jeff-bezos-spending-his-10-billion-earth-fund/616977/">https://www.theatlantic.com/newsletters/archive/2020/11/how-jeff-bezos-spending-his-10-billion-earth-fund/616977/</a><br>
<p><br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
[Opinion]<br>
<b>On the Existential Risks of Abrupt Climate Change and a chat on
Chomsky Election Thoughts</b><br>
Oct 31, 2020<br>
Paul Beckwith<br>
Hello Everybody,<br>
I agree completely with Chomsky on the following statements, and
have said these things for years:<br>
<br>
"Definitely the worst one I can think of in history, Adolf Hitler
was pretty hideous – [but] he wasn't trying to destroy organised
human society on earth," -- Chomsky<br>
<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," -- Chomsky<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." -- Chomsky<br>
<br>
Repeated for emphasis:<br>
"Definitely the worst one I can think of in history, Adolf Hitler
was pretty hideous – [but] he wasn't trying to destroy organised
human society on earth," -- Chomsky <br>
<br>
Challenged on this, with the fact that the Nazi Holocaust killed at
least six million Jewish people, Chomsky, whose parents were Jewish,
says Hitler also killed "30 million Slavs, but not human
civilisation".<br>
<br>
Here is the article link; please read it and think about it
carefully: <br>
<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>
<br>
I agree with Chomsky, and have been saying these exact things for
many years; it's why I study climate change and have done so for
many years. Presently, we are only 1.1 C above the 1880-1910 average
(1.4 C above 1750) and we already experience weather extremes, loss
of the Arctic ice and cold, mega-wildfires, and looming global food
shortages.<br>
<br>
We face civilization collapse. Global food shortages. Frequent
pandemics due to loss of global biodiversity. Collapsing political
systems. Fascism and lies. <br>
<br>
Climate destabilization is the fundamental root cause of all this
accelerating chaos.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pNyF0LJBZlk">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pNyF0LJBZlk</a><br>
<br>
- -<br>
<br>
[Noam Chomsky video interveiw]<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>
Noam Chomsky is not in the mood for holding back.<br>
<br>
The celebrated linguist and media critic watches the world
approaching a US election whose outcome he believes could send the
planet hurtling further towards environmental catastrophe.<br>
<br>
It is perhaps not surprising he has stark words about Donald Trump
and the Republican Party, which he says is the world's only large
conservative political grouping to deny the existence of climate
change.<br>
<br>
In an interview with The Independent to promote a new book about the
urgency of the crisis and a means to transition to a non-fossil fuel
economy as part of a so-called global green new deal, he says he has
identified several patterns over the course of the Trump
presidency...<br>
- - <br>
Chomsky recently caused some controversy when he essentially said
2020 was not a year for a protest vote and said Mr Biden, however
imperfect from the perspective of a progressive, was the only viable
option.<br>
<br>
"Every couple of years something comes up called an election. You
spend a few minutes deciding whether it's worth taking some time off
to participate," he said. <br>
<br>
"Sometimes it is so transparent that it shouldn't take five seconds
when you have a malignant cancer who is racing to destroy the world
and the alternative is a programme that's not great but at least
open to improvement. A rational person doesn't spend five seconds on
this decision."<br>
<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>
<br>
<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 4, 1988 </b></font><br>
<br>
November 4, 1988: Discussing the conflict of visions at the heart of
the 1988 presidential campaign, the New York Times notes:<br>
<blockquote> "Neither candidate has a record in office as a
committed environmentalist. [Vice President George] Bush, for
example, headed a Reagan Administration task force that
recommended relaxing many environmental regulations.
[Massachusetts Governor Michael] Dukakis sought waivers of Federal
requirements that Boston Harbor be cleaned up. Yet both candidates
are campaigning as strong conservationists, and protection of the
environment has become a widely discussed issue for the first time
in a Presidential campaign.<br>
<br>
"Mr. Bush ran a series of television advertisements attacking Mr.
Dukakis for pollution in Boston Harbor. Mr. Dukakis, saying he was
not at fault, responded with ads blaming Reagan budget cuts for
the harbor's pollution and criticizing the Vice President for
opposing renewal of the Clean Water Act and strong regulation of
corporate polluters.<br>
<br>
"Mr. Dukakis has won the endorsement of most national
environmental organizations. The League of Conservation Voters,
the political arm of the main environmental groups, gives Mr.
Dukakis a rating of B, Mr. Bush a grade of D+, based on their
records and stated positions.<br>
<br>
"Neither man has promised to spend much new money on the
environment. But both have endorsed a program to reduce pollution
that causes acid rain, both say they would bring an end to ocean
dumping and both promise to call a meeting of world leaders to
address the threat of global warming caused by man-made gases."<br>
</blockquote>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="http://www.nytimes.com/1988/11/04/us/emotional-issues-are-the-1988-battleground.html?pagewanted=print&src=pm">http://www.nytimes.com/1988/11/04/us/emotional-issues-are-the-1988-battleground.html?pagewanted=print&src=pm</a><br>
<br>
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