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<p><i><font size="+1"><b>November 27, 2020</b></font></i></p>
[Black Friday realization]<br>
<b>Rein in advertising to help tackle climate crisis, report urges</b><br>
Industry promotes materialism and lifts sales of climate-harming
products, study says<br>
- -<br>
Researchers say the promotion of consumerism, materialism and a
work-and-spend cycle, and the industry’s role in pushing sales of
beef, tobacco, high-polluting SUVs and flights, are all part of that
indirect role.<br>
<br>
The report says the advertising industry has so far escaped scrutiny
about its role in contributing to climate change. Tim Kasser, an
emeritus professor of psychology at Knox College in Illinois, who
co-authored the report, said there was a body of evidence to show
that in order to make progress in addressing and reversing climate
and ecological degradation, it would be prudent to rein in and
change the practices of the advertising industry...<br>
- -<br>
"This report argues that enough sound empirical evidence exists to
support the conclusion that the advertising industry indirectly
contributes to climate and ecological degradation through its
encouragement of materialistic values and goals, the
consumption-driving work and spend cycle, and the consumption of two
illustrative products, namely beef and tobacco," Kasser wrote...<br>
- - <br>
Tobacco production also has a direct impact on the environment.
"Each stage in the life cycle of a cigarette, from growing the
tobacco to manufacturing the cigarette to smoking the cigarette to
disposing of the cigarette, is associated with specific climate and
ecological risks: deforestation, chemical pollution of water and
soil, CO2 and other noxious emissions."...<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/nov/27/rein-in-advertising-to-help-tackle-climate-crisis-report-urges">https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/nov/27/rein-in-advertising-to-help-tackle-climate-crisis-report-urges</a><br>
<p><br>
</p>
[brief video - expect more precip in future]<br>
<b>Daniel Swain on Increased Precipitation Events</b><br>
Nov 10, 2020<br>
greenmanbucket [Peter Sinclair]<br>
Researcher Daniel Swain at UCLA has found that larger precipitation
events are an increasing feature of climate change impacts.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zLcp7hWAH_k">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zLcp7hWAH_k</a><br>
<p><br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
[Adapting to the future]<br>
<b>The U.S. Fight Against Climate Change Has to Start at Its Center:
The Midwest</b><br>
By WYATT SCOTT<br>
NOV 26, 20205<br>
- -<br>
Just as the Midwest became a political battleground that national
candidates ignore at their peril, this region will be crucial to the
success of any national climate change plan. When it comes to
cutting greenhouse gases, however, what works for San Francisco or
New York City is not necessarily going to fly in the middle of the
country.<br>
<br>
"The United States is not losing the climate change conversation on
the coasts," said Rolf Nordstrom, CEO of the Great Plains Institute.
"One reason that previous attempts at federal climate policy have
faltered is in part because we have not managed to galvanize the
middle of the country. … We need a center-out strategy." A strategy,
in other words, that starts at the country's core, calibrating to
what works there, and then carries out to other parts of the
country, customizing as it goes.<br>
<br>
A center-out strategy speaks to the Midwest's particular
character--and its economic importance. The region is a global
breadbasket, the source of most of America's amber waves of grain,
as well as soybeans and other staple crops. In 2019, it accounted
for almost half of all farm income in the United States, generating
$162 billion. And while the Midwest is maybe not quite the
manufacturing powerhouse it once was, it still produces most of the
cars and auto parts made in the United States, among other goods.<br>
<br>
With all of that manufacturing and agriculture come greenhouse
gases; the Midwest produces one-quarter of the country's emissions.
The region is already suffering the effects of climate change;
average annual temperatures, the number of rain days, and the
frequency of heavy rainfall events are all on the rise. According to
the most recent U.S. National Climate Assessment, released by the
Trump administration in 2018, climate change will mean increases in
extreme heat, humidity, soil erosion, rainfall, and flooding across
the region. The report also warns of possible declines in crop
yields, as high as 20 percent. That could mean higher food prices or
empty shelves not just in other parts of the United States, but
around the world...<br>
- -<br>
The private sector has played a role as well. Tom Linebarger, CEO of
the Indiana-based Fortune 500 company Cummins, said that he takes
climate change seriously, both for moral reasons and as a matter of
good business. He has customers around the world, for example, and
has to be competitive in countries with carbon markets. Further, one
of St. Louis's most famous companies, Anheuser-Busch, has committed
to 100 percent renewable electricity for its own operations no later
than 2025.<br>
<br>
The key, according to leaders across the region, is to tailor
climate policies to the can-do Midwestern culture, and that means
opting for measures that are practical and focused on local
solutions and benefits. "This is not Seattle or California," said
Howard Learner of the Environmental Law and Policy Center. "If you
want to be effective in a place like the Midwest, where the
manufacturing base is so significant, you simply cannot say we want
to put the environment first and economy and jobs second."<br>
<br>
Some approaches that can fight climate change don't even require
people to believe it's real. Hughes, the farmer and state
politician, practices no-till cultivation and other carbon
sequestration techniques that also improve soil conditions and water
retention, even though he doesn't believe human activity causes
climate change. "I'm very protective of my environment because
that's where my living comes from," he said, adding that local
solutions and "problem solving on the ground seems a better fit with
Nebraska..<br>
- - <br>
That preference for local flavor can extend to education. Learner
said that a scientist from the University of California, Berkeley,
might not get an entirely warm reception in the Midwest, but local
talent is another story. Fortunately, the university system in the
United States has reservoirs of talent and research that do both
globally significant and locally relevant climate and disaster
resilience research in every state, including the Midwest.<br>
<br>
David Fike is one of those Midwestern scientists (from Washington
University in St. Louis), and he reports that he does, indeed, work
collaboratively with farmers around the state. They share
information with him about "changes they see in rain and crops, or
in the spread of pests," and in turn, he helps them "understand the
context within which those changes are happening." Fike says that
this kind of dialogue creates a "shared understanding, as opposed to
science talking down to the public."<br>
<br>
Although the Midwest has a significantly larger white majority than
the nation writ large, both the pandemic and environmental pollution
more strongly affect the region's Black population. Any center-out
strategy has to take that disparity into account, and that can be a
win-win proposition. Cutting emissions from transportation, for
example, means increasing mass transit options, which in turn
benefits disadvantaged communities. Currently, these same
communities are underserved when it comes to transportation options,
even though nationwide, according to the American Public
Transportation Association, about 60 percent of mass transit riders
are people of color.<br>
<br>
These transit and environmental inequities are tied to the systemic
racism that has provoked unrest in Midwestern cities, such as
Minneapolis and Kenosha, Wisconsin. As St. Louis Alderman Lewis Reed
said, "When you look at a lot of climate issues and sustainability
issues, we also need to talk about social and economic justice
because it all plays together. It's all one subject matter." One way
to close the gap, community advocates told us, is to include local
residents in the design process upfront, whether the policies are
focused on cutting emissions, growing jobs, or improving resilience.
It matters not only to have "a seat at the table," said Shalini
Gupta, a Minneapolis-based health and environment expert, but also
to have the right data and information "to be able to engage in
these very technical spaces."<br>
- -<br>
Indeed, there's a downside risk of being too pragmatic and too
polite, of letting uncomfortable or unscientific views go
unchallenged, supposedly in the name of local culture. The
Midwestern states rank among the lowest, for example, in percent of
the population that reports regularly wearing masks and have some of
the highest coronavirus infection rates in the country. So, while
local solutions and perceptions are the key to success with climate
change, the Midwest, like other regions, can't always be left to its
own devices.<br>
<br>
At the national level, a center-out strategy should follow two
tracks. The first relies on and respects local voices and is
designed in partnership with local communities, even if that means
never using the words climate change. The other track should use the
national bully pulpit and tools, be unflinching about the scientific
realities, and empower local champions, including the private
sector, universities, governments, and people of color, to talk
openly about climate change in their communities.<br>
<br>
Future Tense is a partnership of Slate, New America, and Arizona
State University that examines emerging technologies, public policy,
and society.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://slate.com/technology/2020/11/climate-change-midwest-agriculture-emissions.html">https://slate.com/technology/2020/11/climate-change-midwest-agriculture-emissions.html</a><br>
<p><br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
[New appointees]<br>
<b>Cancer Alley Community Leaders Are Cautious As Biden Picks Their
Fossil Fuel-Friendly Congressman for White House Role</b><br>
By Julie Dermansky - November 24, 2020<br>
Community leaders long at odds with the powerful petrochemical
industry in Louisiana took note when their Congressional
representative, Cedric Richmond, announced November 12 that he was
taking a new job in the Biden White House. In his announcement,
Richmond, a Democratic representative in Louisiana for most of the
heavily industrialized region stretching from New Orleans to Baton
Rouge, made no mention of his constituents' ongoing battle for
environmental justice.<br>
<br>
Richmond has taken hundreds of thousands of dollars in fossil fuel
campaign contributions during his career. Despite this history, some
fenceline communities in Louisiana are looking forward to the
potential of what Joe Biden's ascension to the White House with
Richmond by his side could mean for their majority-Black
neighborhoods which are impacted daily by air pollution from an
expanding petrochemical industry. <br>
<br>
On his campaign website, Biden has called for environmental justice
and "rooting out the systemic racism in our laws, policies,
institutions, and hearts," linking this cause to the pandemic, which
continues to disproportionately impact people of color. <br>
<br>
"Any sound energy and environmental policy must … recognize that
communities of color and low-income communities have faced
disproportionate harm from climate change and environmental
contaminants for decades," reads Biden's website. "It must also hold
corporate polluters responsible for rampant pollution … [and] means
officials setting policy must be accountable to the people and
communities they serve, not to polluters and corporations."<br>
<br>
Richmond will become a senior adviser to the President as the
director of the White House Office of Public Engagement, giving up
his seat in Louisiana's Second Congressional District that he has
held since 2011 -- a district which includes seven of the nation's
10 most polluted census tracts...<br>
- -<br>
This spring, Taylor and members of the Coalition Against Death
Alley, a grassroots group advocating for environmental justice in
Cancer Alley, protested in front of the newspaper The New Orleans
Advocate's office on April 24 when Richmond was there to do a
live-streamed town hall event. <br>
<br>
Confronted by the protesters when he left the building, Richmond
spoke to them for a few minutes until the exchange turned
contentious. He later reached out to Taylor directly by phone.
Taylor, unfortunately, missed the call and hasn't pressed Richmond
to set up an in-person meeting due to concerns about the pandemic. <br>
<br>
"Richmond made some promises to us and I'm hoping that he is in a
better position to make good on them," Taylor said. "He has fought
for criminal justice and health care reform, which we also need."...<br>
- -<br>
Over the years, both political parties have failed fenceline
communities in Louisiana, which is why the two leaders and their
scrappy groups plan to keep fighting for cleaner air. <br>
<br>
They hope that Biden's victory and the pending reviews of the
Formosa Plastics project will help usher in a new era of
environmental justice for their corner of Louisiana. <br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.desmogblog.com/2020/11/24/cancer-alley-cedric-richmond-louisiana-biden-white-house">https://www.desmogblog.com/2020/11/24/cancer-alley-cedric-richmond-louisiana-biden-white-house</a>
<p><br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
[Harvard wakes up and takes notice, pronounces]<br>
The Harvard Gazette<br>
<b>So how much change can Biden bring on climate change?</b><br>
Juan Siliezar & Harvard Staff Writers<br>
November 23, 2020<br>
- - <br>
When it comes to regulatory approaches, Stavins expects the Biden
administration to announce orders reversing rollbacks on new oil and
gas leasing on federal lands, possibly blocking the Keystone XL
pipeline; reversing Trump-era lowering of the Social Cost of Carbon,
an estimate regulators use in determining limits on greenhouse gas
emissions; and moving to reinstate or expand on President Barack
Obama's Corporate Average Fuel Economy standards. Biden could also
instruct the EPA to reverse the Trump administration's attempts to
deny California its waiver under the Clean Air Act, which seeks to
put in place more stringent air-quality regulations than are
required under federal law.<br>
<br>
These moves don't come without potential drawbacks, however.<br>
<br>
"The real challenge to the regulatory approach is that new
regulations are much more likely to be successfully challenged in
federal courts in 2021 than they were during the Obama years,"
Stavins wrote on his blog. "This is partly because there are now
more than 200 Trump-appointed federal judges. But more importantly,
the Supreme Court now has a 6-3 conservative majority, which is very
likely to favor literal reading of statutes, giving executive
departments and agencies much less flexibility to go beyond the
letter of the law or to interpret it in new 'innovative ways.'"...<br>
- - <br>
"It involves beginning to interact with other major countries in
discussing joint operations and joint opportunities," McElroy said.
"Clearly, China is the big player, but I would mention the
importance of a cooperative relationship between the United States
and India, in particular. Also, what are our responsibilities to
poorer countries? Let's take some of the African countries that have
not had the advantage of using fossil fuels to fuel their
development. Are we going to ask them to stay where they are or are
we going to take some responsibility to help them make a transition
to a to a new energy system that is more renewable?"<br>
<br>
Professor of the practice of public policy Joseph Aldy agreed. Since
climate change is a global problem, it's going to take a global
approach to combat it by the world's major economies, he said. But
those solutions have to start at home, and he believes all of
government will need to get involved.<br>
<br>
Aldy, who was a former special assistant to President Obama, sat on
the steering committee for the Climate 21 Project -- a 300-page
blueprint for a government-wide climate response. He said it will
all start with processes the incoming administration lays out and
personnel they appoint.<br>
<br>
"You need to use every lever throughout the federal government,"
Aldy said. That includes making sure even agencies such as the
Treasury or Defense Departments know they're responsible for
contributing to climate change policy. "It's going to be critically
important to make sure that people at the senior leadership in all
the different departments are thinking about climate in everything
they do and that they're accountable to the president for delivering
on his agenda."<br>
<br>
Freeman expects this, as well, she said. "That plan will be the
basis for a new U.S. pledge for the Paris Agreement," she said. She
also notes the administration might succeed in adding significant
clean energy investment to any COVID recovery package.<br>
Standing over it all, analysts say, is making up for the lost time.<br>
<br>
"It's hard to say 'made up' since climate change is fundamentally
different from other environmental problems," Freeman said. "You
can't quite clean up the upper atmosphere like you can a local
waterway, so four years of lost progress is real."<br>
<br>
She and others, including Peter Huybers, a Harvard professor of
earth and planetary sciences and of environmental science and
engineering, remain hopeful, however.<br>
<br>
"Our nation's experience with COVID-19 should be a warning," Huybers
said. "If we withdraw from international cooperation, ignore the
science, and shortchange America's capacity to reinvent, we'll bring
needless suffering upon ourselves.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2020/11/harvard-experts-on-whats-next-in-climate-policy/">https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2020/11/harvard-experts-on-whats-next-in-climate-policy/</a><br>
<br>
<br>
[Digging back into the internet news archive]<br>
<font size="+1"><b>On this day in the history of global warming -
November 27, 2014 </b></font><br>
The New York Times reports:<br>
<blockquote>"President Obama could leave office with the most
aggressive, far-reaching environmental legacy of any occupant of
the White House. Yet it is very possible that not a single major
environmental law will have passed during his two terms in
Washington.<br>
<br>
"Instead, Mr. Obama has turned to the vast reach of the Clean Air
Act of 1970, which some legal experts call the most powerful
environmental law in the world. Faced with a Congress that has
shut down his attempts to push through an environmental agenda,
Mr. Obama is using the authority of the act passed at the birth of
the environmental movement to issue a series of landmark
regulations on air pollution, from soot to smog, to mercury and
planet-warming carbon dioxide."<br>
</blockquote>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/27/us/without-passing-a-single-law-obama-crafts-bold-enviornmental-policy.html">http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/27/us/without-passing-a-single-law-obama-crafts-bold-enviornmental-policy.html</a><br>
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