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<p><i><font size="+1"><b>December 4, 2020</b></font></i></p>
[set more records]<br>
<b>The U.S. is on track to shatter the record for the average size
of wildfires this year</b><br>
The number of fires is decreasing, but fires are growing larger<br>
While all the wildfire statistics for 2020 are not yet available,
the data through December 2, 2020 shows that the United States is on
track to shatter the record for the average size of wildfires.
Looking at the last 35 years, the average size of fires this year
was the highest ever, 168 acres. This number has been growing
rapidly year to year (see the chart above). The second highest was
145 acres in 2018, and third highest was 132 in 2017. From 1985
through 1990 the average size was 31 acres...<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://wildfiretoday.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Average-wildfire-size-US-except-Alaska-1985-2020.jpg">https://wildfiretoday.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Average-wildfire-size-US-except-Alaska-1985-2020.jpg</a><br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://wildfiretoday.com/2020/12/03/the-u-s-is-on-track-to-shatter-the-record-for-the-average-size-of-wildfires-this-year/">https://wildfiretoday.com/2020/12/03/the-u-s-is-on-track-to-shatter-the-record-for-the-average-size-of-wildfires-this-year/</a><br>
<p><br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
[Exciting video overview with some science- watch in full screen
size]<br>
<b>FASTEST MOVING TORNADO - New World Record</b><br>
Dec 3, 2020<br>
Pecos Hank<br>
Introducing the fastest moving tornado ever recorded. In this video
we discuss 5 scary fast tornadoes, each one with a forward moving
velocity faster than the previous including a mind blowing NEW world
record for the fastest tornado ever recorded. <br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gMws8ueXJ7U">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gMws8ueXJ7U</a><br>
<p><br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
[showdown]<br>
<b>'Historic Moment' as Climate Movement Takes on Big Oil at The
Hague</b><br>
Dec. 02, 2020<br>
Friends of the Earth vs. Shell: 'Historic Moment' as Climate
Movement Takes on Big Oil at The Hague<br>
"This is actually 'the People versus Shell,' a company that has got
away with greenwashing for too long."<br>
<br>
Representing more than 17,000 claimants who support climate action,
the international organization Friends of the Earth on Tuesday
opened its case against fossil fuel giant Shell at The Hague by
demanding that a judge order the corporation to significantly reduce
its carbon emissions in the next decade.<br>
<br>
Milieudefensie, the Dutch arm of Friends of the Earth, says Shell
has broken the law in The Netherlands by knowingly standing in the
way of the country's phase-out of fossil fuels. Shell says it has
set a goal of cutting its emissions to net zero by 2050, but the
group is demanding a more rapid reduction.<br>
<br>
"We are relying on the Dutch courts to protect communities around
the globe," tweeted Nils Mollema, a policy advisor at ActionAid,
which is supporting Milieudefensie in the case.<br>
- -<br>
"The main argument of Shell is that everybody is responsible: the
consumer, the state, the international community, everybody is
responsible except Shell, except the biggest polluter of the
Netherlands, one of the 10 biggest polluters in the world," said
Donald Pols, director of Milieudefensie, on Monday. "And we are
going to change that."<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/12/01/friends-earth-vs-shell-historic-moment-climate-movement-takes-big-oil-hague">https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/12/01/friends-earth-vs-shell-historic-moment-climate-movement-takes-big-oil-hague</a><br>
- -<br>
[Shell's Twitter Blunder]<br>
<b>What are you willing to change to help reduce emissions?
#EnergyDebate</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>
[Considering Activist groups - video]<br>
<b>Will YOU be the next AOC??</b><br>
Dec 3, 2020<br>
Sunrise Movement<br>
Do you want to run for office, or do you know someone who would be
perfect for this? Go to <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://smvmt.org/run">https://smvmt.org/run</a> to learn more and
apply! <br>
<br>
From the beginning, Sunrise Movement set out to elect a new
generation of leaders who will fight to stop climate change and
create millions of good jobs in the process. Just this year, our
army of volunteers worked tirelessly to elect Jamaal Bowman, Marie
Newman, and Cori Bush, defend Senator Ed Markey, defeat Trump, and
more. Now, it's our turn: it's time for the takeover. <br>
<br>
Leaders in our movement have already stepped up to run for office,
but as young, first-time candidates who are often taking on
entrenched politicians, it can be hard to win without skills, money,
and a support system. But if we fail to elect Green New Deal
champions at every level of government, climate change and injustice
will accelerate. That's why we're launching a candidate recruitment
and training program to support more young leaders to take this
leap.<br>
<br>
Today we're accepting applications for a young, diverse,
working-class cohort of Sunrise leaders who have a bold vision to
transform our economy and democracy by running for local or state
office in 2021 or 2022. Apply or nominate someone today.
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://smvmt.org/run">https://smvmt.org/run</a><br>
<br>
Are you or someone you know interested in running, but don't know
how to take that first step? Has running for office crossed your
mind, but always seemed out of reach? As a young person who was
terrified before I launched my campaign, I know the feeling. Young
people face countless barriers to running, which is why we're
launching this program. <br>
<br>
If selected, candidates will have full wrap-around support from
beginning to end: from a candidate bootcamp training, support
creating videos and creative materials to fundraise and get out the
word, ongoing training for themselves and their campaign team, and
more.<br>
<br>
Apply or nominate someone at <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://smvmt.org/run">https://smvmt.org/run</a><br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OhV4hDdwNuQ">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OhV4hDdwNuQ</a><br>
<p>- -<br>
</p>
<b>[before you donate to any organization - check their background]</b><br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.desmogblog.com/global-warming-denier-database">https://www.desmogblog.com/global-warming-denier-database</a><br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=SourceWatch">https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=SourceWatch</a><br>
<br>
<p><br>
</p>
[Associated Press]<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://apnews.com/article/un-calls-end-war-nature-go-carbon-free-d144cda34053abbd0758e22d9ff8f7c6">https://apnews.com/article/un-calls-end-war-nature-go-carbon-free-d144cda34053abbd0758e22d9ff8f7c6</a><br>
<b>UN calls on humanity to end 'war on nature,' go carbon-free</b><br>
By SETH BORENSTEIN and FRANK JORDANS<br>
December 2, 2020<br>
As an extreme year for hurricanes, wildfires and heat waves comes to
an end, the head of the United Nations challenged world leaders to
make 2021 the year that humanity ends its "war on nature" and
commits to a future free of planet-warming carbon pollution.<br>
<br>
With new reports highlighting 2020's record-breaking weather and
growing fossil fuels extraction that triggers global warming, U.N.
Secretary-General Antonio Guterres delivered yet another urgent
appeal to curb climate change. It was tinged with optimism but
delivered dire warnings, as the UN gears up for a Dec. 12 virtual
climate summit in France on the 5th anniversary of the landmark 2015
Paris climate agreement.<br>
"The state of the planet is broken," Guterres said in a speech at
Columbia University. "Humanity is waging war on nature. This is
suicidal."<br>
<br>
"Apocalyptic fires and floods, cyclones and hurricanes are
increasingly the new normal," he said.<br>
<br>
In a report, the World Meteorological Organization said this year is
set to end about 1.2 degrees Celsius (2.2 degrees Fahrenheit) warmer
than the last half of the 1800s, which scientists use as a baseline
for warming caused by heat-trapping gases from the burning of coal,
oil and natural gas. Most trapped heat goes into the world's seas,
and ocean temperatures now are at record levels. It also means 2020
will go down as one of the three hottest years on record.<br>
<br>
"There is at least a one-in-five chance of it temporarily exceeding
1.5 degrees Celsius by 2024," WMO Secretary-General Petteri Taalas
said. The Paris climate accord set a goal of not exceeding
1.5-degree (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) warming since pre-industrial
times...<br>
- -<br>
Among the dozens of extremes the report highlighted:<br>
<br>
-- A record 30 Atlantic named tropical storms and hurricanes.<br>
<br>
--Death Valley, California, hit 129.9 degrees (54.4 degrees
Celsius), the hottest the world has seen in 80 years.<br>
<br>
--Record wildfires struck California and Colorado in the western
United States, following a major fire season and record heat in
Australia.<br>
<br>
--The Arctic had record wildfires and a prolonged heat wave
culminating in a 100-degree mark (38 degrees Celsius) in Siberia in
June.<br>
<br>
--Record low Arctic sea ice was reported for April and August and
the yearly minimum, in September, was the second lowest on record.<br>
<br>
--More than 2,000 people died in record summer rains and flooding in
Pakistan and surrounding nations.<br>
<br>
While these events can't solely be blamed on climate change, "these
are the types of events scientists fear will increase due to climate
change," said Cornell University climate scientist Natalie Mahowald,
who wasn't part of the report.<br>
<br>
"Human activities are at the root of our descent towards chaos,"
Guterres said. "But that means human action can solve it."<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://apnews.com/article/un-calls-end-war-nature-go-carbon-free-d144cda34053abbd0758e22d9ff8f7c6">https://apnews.com/article/un-calls-end-war-nature-go-carbon-free-d144cda34053abbd0758e22d9ff8f7c6</a>
<p><br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
[harsh commentary]<br>
<b>The "war on nature"</b><br>
Apocalyptic weather is the new normal because humans are "waging war
on nature," the UN declared on Wednesday.<br>
<br>
What they're saying: "The state of the planet is broken," said UN
Secretary-General António Guterres, reports AP. "This is suicidal."<br>
<br>
The big picture: 2020 will go down as one of the three warmest years
on record.<br>
<br>
The World Meteorological Organization said this year is set to end
about 2.2°F warmer than the last half of the 1800s.<br>
That's a half degree away from the limit set by the Paris climate
accord, which could be exceeded by 2024, the WMO said today.<br>
Among the dozens of extremes of 2020, from the WMO report:<br>
<br>
Record 30 Atlantic named tropical storms and hurricanes.<br>
Death Valley had the hottest temperature on Earth in the last 80
years.<br>
Record wildfires in the western U.S. and record heat in Australia.<br>
Record wildfires and a prolonged heat wave in the Arctic.<br>
Record low Arctic sea ice was reported for April and August, and the
yearly minimum, in September, was the second lowest on record.<br>
Between the lines: It's projected to get worse before it gets
better, judging by current fossil fuel production projections,
reports Axios' Ben Geman.<br>
The bottom line: Guterres urged American students and citizens to do
"everything you can" to get their governments to curb emissions more
quickly, because no climate plan works without the U.S. playing a
major role.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.axios.com/war-nature-weather-warming-climate-change-c10f442a-abe3-48e7-8a08-9b306254dbb5.html">https://www.axios.com/war-nature-weather-warming-climate-change-c10f442a-abe3-48e7-8a08-9b306254dbb5.html</a><br>
<p><br>
</p>
<br>
[most radical of actions]<br>
<b>The case for climate reparations</b><br>
By Mimi Sheller | November 6, 2020<br>
- -<br>
Reframing climate debt. By understanding climate displacement as
something driven by our fossil-fueled way of life in the Global
North, we begin on a better footing to discuss the reception of
people displaced by climate change. For mobility is not just about
movement, but is also loaded with meanings, values, and forms of
justification. The term "climate refugees" has been appropriated by
reactionary politicians into discourses about national security that
drive a fear of refugees "flooding our shores." Fear spirals
downward into wall-building, internment camps, separation of
children from their parents at the border, and the deaths of
thousands of people in the Sonoran desert or on the Mediterranean
Sea...<br>
- - <br>
Instead of thinking of people displaced by heat, drought, or natural
disaster as 'climate refugees' coming to inundate 'us,' we should
think of a relationship in which some people's everyday mundane
mobilities drives other people's more extreme need to move. Both can
be considered part of "Anthropocene mobilities," indicating the
permanent human transformation of the Earth system. It is
"fossil-fueled infrastructures of air travel, automobility,
suburbanization and consumerism…" that drive climate disruption and
lead to migration, as Andrew Baldwin, Christiane Frölich and Delf
Rothe wrote in From Climate Migration to Anthropocene Mobilities:
Shifting the Debate. Picking up and moving under duress is not just
a natural calamity, but the social and political outcome of other
people's high-energy mobile lifestyles.<br>
<br>
This subtle change in framing the problem generates new
conversations and potentially new policies around the responsible
reception of climate migrants, and what it might mean to have open
borders in a world beset by climate disasters. We already have an
ethical and legal obligation to adhere to United Nations'
conventions around the right to movement, the reception of refugees,
and the protection of people from having to return to deadly
situations. Now climate instability has made life in many parts of
the Earth deadly. Don't we in the Global North also have a moral
obligation of reparations for loss and damage because of our climate
debt?<br>
<br>
Rather than the exclusionary lockdown of borders that is happening
around the world, we should focus on the question of responsibility
and reparations, in a moral, legal, and financial framework under
international law. The growth of a system of deadly corridors,
detention camps, and spaces of confinement at our borders is an
illegal, ineffective, and immoral response that needs to be
subjected to critical analysis and alternative frameworks before it
becomes the de facto response to all future migrations...<br>
- -<br>
The case for climate reparations. There are two pathways that can be
taken, when it comes to climate reparations.<br>
<br>
The first is known as "corrective justice," and refers to a
negotiation between governments within an international
jurisdiction. Under this scenario, the collective moral
responsibility of high greenhouse gas-emitters to make financial
recompense to climate creditors forms the legal basis for holding
the United States or the European Union morally accountable for a
calculable and bearable share of the harms of climate change. This
approach offers a financial mechanism by which the reception of
migrants could be handled through an international Green Climate
Fund.<br>
<br>
Climate reparations between nations would enable "creditor
countries"--such as small island states--to strengthen their
resilience by funding disaster risk reduction, insurance, and
adaptation to help people remain in place. One practical mechanism
for this would be an international compensation commission, which
would receive claims from countries that have incurred adaptation
expenses, using as a template the United Nations Claims
Commission--which was established after the first Iraq War to handle
claims against Iraq for war-related damages.<br>
<br>
The second and quite different pathway to climate compensation is
through tort litigation for loss and damage against the major fossil
fuel companies--in other words, suing the oil companies. (A tort is
an act or omission that gives rise to injury or harm to another.)
Through class action law suits filed under multiple jurisdictions,
reparations could be sought for those harmed by greenhouse gas
emissions, and corporations could be held responsible for specific
injury, especially if they knew about it and covered it up--a
strategy that worked against tobacco companies. "The call for
compensation for loss and damage is also supported by
well-established rules and principles of international law,
including the right to reparations for injury resulting from
violations of international law" wrote Margaretha and Salili.
According to key legal arguments they issued on behalf of the
low-lying and vulnerable country of Vanuatu, the Warsaw
International Mechanism for Loss and Damage offers the best
opportunity for loss and damage finance, under the auspices of the
United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change...<br>
- -<br>
Under this "loss and damage" legal approach, states could also put
pressure on companies by adopting legislation making it mandatory
for fossil fuel companies to provide compensation through payment of
a so-called climate damages tax, under the rationale that such a tax
would be based upon how much carbon dioxide is embedded within each
ton of coal, barrel of oil, or cubic liter of gas that each fossil
fuel company extracts. Vanuatu's submission provides an indication
of the range of activities that could be covered by such a fund,
including:<br>
<br>
costs of relocation due to sea-level rise for coastal communities;
costs for climate resilient reconstruction after extreme weather
events; social and gender protection measures; livelihood safety net
programmes for the most vulnerable; livelihood transformation
programmes; pro-poor micro insurance, crop insurance and/or
insurance premium subsidies at various levels; national and local
level emergency finance reserves or contingency funds; contingency
planning and comprehensive risk management particularly at the local
level; capacity and institution building at all levels; and
technology cooperation and transfer, such as loss and damage
assessment tools.<br>
<br>
All of these actions could help people remain in their homes and
build climate resilience.<br>
<br>
Lastly, there is also a deeper moral case for climate reparations
based on the long-term effects of systems of colonial, racial
capitalism and the exclusion of Black, Brown and Indigenous people
from full citizenship. It turns out these groups are the most
vulnerable to climate displacement within the United States. The
call for "abolitionist climate justice" entails dealing with
historical environmental racism and intersectional drivers of
precarious lives, social trauma, and displacement beyond those
narrowly associated with "climate." It embeds climate debt in longer
historical timeframes of infrastructural reparations.<br>
<br>
Whether we take a state-centric climate reparations approach, a
market-centered climate damages approach, or a decolonial
abolitionist approach, we must reject the depiction of climate
refugees as a growing danger who will "flood" our borders. It is
"our" way of life that has put people in harm's way, both within the
United States and beyond our borders. One day we all may be climate
migrants, so we also owe it to ourselves to reduce our greenhouse
gas emissions and prepare fair international mechanisms for
temporary shelter and permanent resettlement.<br>
<br>
Editors note: This publication is based on a piece drafted for Perry
World House at the University of Pennsylvania and made possible in
part by a grant from Carnegie Corporation of New York. The views
expressed are solely the author's.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://thebulletin.org/2020/11/the-case-for-climate-reparations/">https://thebulletin.org/2020/11/the-case-for-climate-reparations/</a>
<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 -
December 4, 2008 </b></font><br>
<p>Washington Post writer Ezra Klein calls upon climate activists to
highlight the role meat consumption plays in fueling the climate
crisis.<br>
<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://prospect.org/article/are-cows-worse-cars-0">http://prospect.org/article/are-cows-worse-cars-0</a><br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
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