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<p><i><font size="+1"><b>December 5, 2020</b></font></i></p>
[Climate agency]<br>
<b>Under Biden, NOAA's profile is set to rise as climate change
takes center stage</b><br>
Transition team is working to set goals and identify leaders for
agency.<br>
By Andrew Freedman and Jason Samenow<br>
Dec. 4, 2020<br>
<br>
When President-elect Joe Biden takes office in January, the National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is expected to rise to
new prominence as the premier climate research agency in an
administration that intends to place climate change at the top of
its agenda.<br>
<br>
The Biden transition team is mapping out key priorities and
identifying potential leaders for an agency whose responsibilities
also include weather forecasting, ocean research, the health of the
nation's fisheries and protection of endangered marine species.<br>
<br>
NOAA's next leader will have the critical task of shaping the
agency's climate research agenda so it can effectively serve as an
information clearinghouse to policymakers charged with planning for
the consequences of climate change and mitigating its effects...<br>
- -<br>
A blueprint for the Biden administration prepared by issue experts
and former Obama administration officials, known as the Climate 21
Project, instructs the incoming administration to shore up the
agency's scientific integrity policy to better deter against another
Sharpiegate incident. It also identifies a need to rebuild the
morale of the agency's rank-and-file scientists and policy
specialists...<br>
- -<br>
Julie Campbell, who owns a management consulting company in the
earth science market and worked at NOAA for a decade, said
additional areas of emphasis will probably include investments in
data accessibility and cloud computing as well as operational
efficiencies while "balancing mission critical technological
developments in such areas as space remote sensing and new and
exciting capabilities in observations and data sources in the
commercial sector."<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2020/12/04/noaa-biden-transition-climate-leaders/">https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2020/12/04/noaa-biden-transition-climate-leaders/</a><br>
- -<br>
[Source material]<br>
<b>Climate 21 Project</b><br>
The Climate 21 Project taps the expertise of more than 150 experts
with high-level government experience, including nine former cabinet
appointees, to deliver actionable advice for a rapid-start,
whole-of-government climate response coordinated by the White House
and accountable to the President.<br>
<br>
The memos below contain the Climate 21 Project's recommendations for
11 White House offices, federal departments, and federal agencies,
as well as cross-cutting recommendations on personnel and hiring.<br>
<br>
Importantly, the Climate 21 Project is not offering a policy agenda.
Rather, the memos below contain recommendations that can help the
President hit the ground running and build the capacity of his
administration to tackle the climate crisis quickly with the
existing tools at hand.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://climate21.org/">https://climate21.org/</a><br>
- -<br>
<b>Climate 21 Project - Attracting and Hiring Climate Change
Talent</b><br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://climate21.org/hiring/">https://climate21.org/hiring/</a><br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://climate21.org/documents/C21_Hiring.pdf">https://climate21.org/documents/C21_Hiring.pdf</a><br>
<br>
<br>
[Foreign Policy]<br>
<b>How Biden's Climate Plans Will Shake Up Global Energy Markets</b><br>
The new administration will use foreign policy tools to promote
climate goals, boost clean energy, and punish carbon-intensive
production.<br>
BY JASON BORDOFF - DECEMBER 4, 2020...<br>
- -<br>
Given that Biden will be more constrained in passing new legislation
if Republicans retain control of the Senate in the Georgia runoff
elections on Jan. 5, he may lean even more heavily on areas where
the executive branch has existing legislative or constitutional
authority. Among the most significant is the conduct of foreign
policy. Selecting someone of Kerry's stature as climate envoy and
giving that person cabinet rank and a seat on the National Security
Council signal that the Biden administration intends to go far
beyond just rejoining the Paris climate agreement to make climate
change a top foreign-policy priority. The policy shifts that
result--in areas as diverse as international trade, development
finance, nonproliferation, and diplomacy--will do at least as much
as his domestic agenda to shake up global energy markets and give a
boost to clean energy firms and technologies...<br>
- -<br>
The Biden administration's ability to drive ambitious climate action
abroad is, of course, linked to its domestic agenda. Progress at
home will enhance its credibility abroad and effect certain tools
like border carbon adjustments. At the same time, domestic policies,
even if limited by a divided Congress, can be amplified on the
global stage through Biden's authority in the international realm to
use foreign policy tools to help deliver both clean-energy growth
and domestic economic renewal. As a result, one of the Biden
administration's most enduring legacies in global energy markets may
be how diplomacy and geoeconomic tools in international finance,
development assistance, trade, and innovation will have brightened
the outlook for clean energy and expanded opportunities for U.S.
firms in the sector.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/12/04/biden-climate-energy-markets/">https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/12/04/biden-climate-energy-markets/</a><br>
<p><br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
[Worry about the future]<br>
<b>Climate 'apocalypse' fears stopping people having children -
study</b><br>
Survey of 600 people finds some parents regret having offspring for
same reason<br>
Damian Carrington - Fri 27 Nov 2020 <br>
People worried about the climate crisis are deciding not to have
children because of fears that their offspring would have to
struggle through a climate apocalypse, according to the first
academic study of the issue...<br>
- -<br>
The researchers surveyed 600 people aged 27 to 45 who were already
factoring climate concerns into their reproductive choices and found
96% were very or extremely concerned about the wellbeing of their
potential future children in a climate-changed world. One
27-year-old woman said: "I feel like I can't in good conscience
bring a child into this world and force them to try and survive what
may be apocalyptic conditions."<br>
<br>
These views were based on very pessimistic assessments of the impact
of global heating on the world, the researchers said. One
respondent, for example, said it would "rival world war one in its
sheer terror". The research also found that some people who were
already parents expressed regret over having their children.<br>
<br>
Having a child also potentially means that person going on to
produce a lifetime of carbon emissions that contribute to the
climate emergency, but only 60% of those surveyed were very
concerned about this carbon footprint...<br>
"The fears about the carbon footprint of having kids tended to be
abstract and dry," said Matthew Schneider-Mayerson, of Yale-NUS
College in Singapore, who led the study. "But the fears about the
lives of existing or potential children were really deep and
emotional. It was often heartbreaking to pore through the responses
- a lot of people really poured their hearts out."<br>
<br>
The number of people factoring climate change into their
reproductive plans was likely to grow, Schneider-Mayerson said, as
the impacts of global heating became more obvious. "To address this,
we really need to act immediately to address the root cause, which
is climate change itself," he said.<br>
<br>
The study, published in the journal Climatic Change, found no
statistically significant difference between the views of women and
men, though women made up three-quarters of respondents. A
31-year-old woman said: "Climate change is the sole factor for me in
deciding not to have biological children. I don't want to birth
children into a dying world [though] I dearly want to be a mother."<br>
<br>
The researchers found that 6% of parents confessed to feeling some
remorse about having children. A 40-year-old mother said: "I regret
having my kids because I am terrified that they will be facing the
end of the world due to climate change."<br>
<br>
Schneider-Mayerson said: "I was surprised - for parents, this is an
extremely difficult statement to make."<br>
The study is the first peer-reviewed academic study of the issue and
analysed a large group of concerned people. The survey was done
anonymously so people could express themselves freely.<br>
<br>
"It is an unprecedented window into the way that [some people] are
thinking and feeling about what many consider to be the most
important decision in their lives," said Schneider-Mayerson.<br>
<br>
Other findings were that younger people were more concerned about
the climate impacts their children would experience than older
respondents, and that adoption was seen as a potential alternative
to having biological children.<br>
<br>
The study indicated that climate-related fears for their children's
lives were rooted in a deeply pessimistic view of the future. Of the
400 respondents who offered a vision of the future, 92.3% were
negative, 5.6% were mixed or neutral, and just 0.6% were positive.<br>
<br>
One 42-year-old father wrote that the world in 2050 would be "a
hot-house hell, with wars over limited resources, collapsing
civilisation, failing agriculture, rising seas, melting glaciers,
starvation, droughts, floods, mudslides and widespread devastation."
Schneider-Mayerson said he thought the pessimistic views held were
all within the range of possibilities, if not necessarily the most
likely outcome.<br>
<br>
However, he said further research was needed on a more diverse group
of people and in other parts of the world. The self-selecting group
in the study all lived in the US and were largely white, more highly
educated and liberal.<br>
<br>
Previously, opinion polls of the general public indicated people
were connecting the climate crisis and reproduction, with one poll
in 2020 finding that among 18- to 44-year-old US citizens without
children, 14% cited climate change as a "major reason" for not
having children. In 2019, scores of women in the UK said they were
starting a "birth strike" until the climate crisis was resolved.<br>
<br>
Seth Wynes, of Concordia University in Canada, whose 2017 study
found having one less child was the greatest impact individuals can
have in fighting climate change, said the researchers had properly
stressed that the sample was not representative of all Americans.
But he said the distress over the decision to have children made
sense. "Climate change is already affecting our world in frightening
ways and so it's certainly reasonable to account for the climate
crisis when thinking about the future of one's family.<br>
<br>
"As climate change continues to worsen, it is important to
understand how perceptions of the future can change the way everyday
people plan their lives," Wynes said. "This study is an initial step
in growing that understanding."<br>
<br>
There is also growing evidence of climate anxiety affecting mental
health and earlier in 2020 more than 1,000 clinical psychologists
signed an open letter warning of "acute trauma on a global scale".
Last week, a survey revealed that more than half of child and
adolescent psychiatrists in England were seeing patients distressed
about the state of the environment.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/nov/27/climate-apocalypse-fears-stopping-people-having-children-study">https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/nov/27/climate-apocalypse-fears-stopping-people-having-children-study</a><br>
<br>
<p><br>
</p>
[future food - 3 video talk]<br>
<b>The Ongoing Disruption to our Global Food Supply from Abrupt
Climate System Change: Parts 1,2,3 of 3</b><br>
Dec 3, 2020<br>
Paul Beckwith<br>
Many people inexplicably think that global climate change is a
future problem. In this first of a three video series, I explain
clearly how our global food supply is presently being hammered by
ongoing and accelerating climate system change. <br>
<br>
While potentially opening up some new crop growing regions dependent
on soil limitations, climate change is already directly impacting
well established growing regions, in at least 10 direct, or primary
ways and 10 indirect, or secondary ways:<br>
<br>
Direct Impacts<br>
1) Heat stress is reducing crop yields.<br>
2) Heat stress toll on farmers (sometimes fatal).<br>
3) Heat stress tolls on livestock (often fatal).<br>
4) Altered precipitation: not enough rain; drought.<br>
5) Altered precipitation: too much rain; flooding.<br>
6) Weather whiplashing between drought and flooding (or heat and
cold) ruining crops.<br>
7) Extreme weather physically damaging crops: hail storms, late
Spring frosts, early Fall frosts, early warmth confusing plants to
bud prematurely, followed by killing frosts.<br>
8) Wildfires physically destroying crops and livestock and polluting
water supplies.<br>
9) Smoke and other wildfire pollutants damage crops hundreds of km
from the burn areas.<br>
10) Extreme weather damaging food storage infrastructure, disrupting
food transportation systems, breaking down "cold chain" systems.<br>
<br>
All of these above effects are already cascading into a variety of
secondary effects.<br>
<br>
Secondary Impacts<br>
1) Crop and farm failures, financing challenges, farmer migration
and suicides, general strikes.<br>
2) Loss of agricultural labour and resource conflicts.<br>
3) Crop stress causes stress on seeds and seed viability damage,
causing poor crop yields in subsequent years.<br>
4) Drought and sea-level rise causes salinization contamination is
soils and farmland, reducing crop yields for years.<br>
5) Heat, drought, and overuse of pesticides wipes out good beetles,
butterflies, bees, and other pollinators.<br>
6) Changing precipitation patterns leads to increased breeding of
locusts and other crop harming pests.<br>
7) Drought dries out soils leading to wind blown soil loss and
desertification.<br>
8) Drought and decreases glacial water storage and groundwater
infiltration, drying up rivers and amplifying water stress in
subsequent years.<br>
9) Torrential rain leading to flooding caused soil erosion, destroys
crops and infrastructure, and carries over to subsequent growing
seasons.<br>
10) Crop losses impact feed prices and supply for the following
year.<br>
<br>
Hopefully, we do not have to take a "Soylent Green" approach to food
on the near future. Remember to check the ingredients of those
processed foods and cookies that you eat. <br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u4xK4Lx9Ils">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u4xK4Lx9Ils</a> [Part 1]<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oDHExlL6WFY">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oDHExlL6WFY</a> [Part2]<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fOF3b_cYuY4">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fOF3b_cYuY4</a> [Part 3]<br>
<p><br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
[like a game of killer chess]<br>
<b>Trump Administration Targets Banks Divesting From Fossil Fuels In
New Anti-Climate Rule</b><br>
By Sharon Kelly - Wednesday, November 25, 2020 <br>
A new proposed regulation that would bar large banks from declining
to do business with particular industries or groups of companies was
released on Friday by the Treasury Department's Office of the
Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) -- a move that could have major
implications for a wide array of divestment and boycott campaigns
nationwide, including efforts to divest from fossil fuels.<br>
<br>
Although framed as an effort to ensure "fair access" for all
businesses to major banks, the rule bars big banks from declining to
do business with any particular sector or industry. The Trump
administration proposal specifically cited efforts by banks to
respond to climate change risks or to comply with the Paris
Agreement, saying the rule would put those efforts off-limits.<br>
<br>
For years, climate activists have been pushing banks to divest from
fossil fuels -- and those campaigns have begun to gain steam as
major investment banks have begun to back away from oil, gas, and
coal because of climate concerns. But the oil and gas industry is
politically well-connected, donating heavily to Republican
candidates. The OCC's latest move also comes on the heels of a
February move by the Trump administration to block new requirements
that public companies disclose their climate risk and a June effort
to limit ways that pension plans can consider environmental, social,
and governance (ESG) factors. <br>
<br>
The OCC's new rule could stunt divestment campaigns by requiring
major banks to justify each individual decision to regulators using
"quantitative, impartial risk-based standards established by the
bank in advance" -- and it could also significantly impact the ways
that major financial institutions are allowed to consider or address
a wide array of other structural or societal risks as well...<br>
- -<br>
<b>Lame Duck Effort by Trump Administration</b><br>
The public comment period for the OCC's proposed rule runs just 45
days and ends on January 4. That pre-inauguration deadline means
that there's a small window in which it might be feasible for the
OCC to finalize its rule before the Biden administration arrives.<br>
<br>
Federal law generally requires regulators to respond to public
comments before finalizing new regulations.<br>
<br>
The OCC's proposed rule is expected to draw public comment from a
wide array of interests. The proposal cited ways that the regulation
could cast a very wide net, affecting a large range of businesses.
"Organizations involved in politically controversial but lawful
businesses -- whether family planning organizations, energy
companies, or otherwise," the proposal said, "are entitled to fair
access to financial services under the law."<br>
<br>
The proposal also specifically references what it called the
"now-discredited Operation Choke Point," an Obama-era effort to curb
predatory lending, saying that "the OCC believes these criteria are
not, and cannot serve as, a legitimate basis for refusing to grant a
person or entity access to financial services."<br>
<br>
Brooks has previous professional ties to those sorts of lenders,
observers say. "Before serving as the [acting] comptroller of the
OCC, Brooks was the former chief legal officer and vice chair of
OneWest Bank, a predatory mortgage lender that was described as a
foreclosure machine," Jacobin Magazine noted.<br>
<br>
Framed as an effort to prevent discrimination, the OCC's proposal
cites landmark civil rights laws like the Fair Housing Act, the
Community Reinvestment Act and the Equal Credit Opportunity Act
(which prohibits credit discrimination on the basis of "race, color,
religion, national origin, sex, marital status, age, or because you
get public assistance," according to the Federal Trade Commission.)<br>
<br>
The reference to civil rights laws has drawn strong pushback from
environmental advocates, who noted that the Supreme Court has for
decades upheld laws that protect people from discrimination based on
gender or race specifically because those groups faced long
histories of organized legal discrimination in the U.S.<br>
<br>
"We're not talking about a protected class of people … we're talking
about fossil fuel corporations," said Ben Cushing, a Sierra Club
senior campaign representative told The Hill.<br>
<br>
Others argued that the rule would just be poor public policy.<br>
<br>
"There are huge risks that are difficult to pin a number on --
political risks, policy risks, technology risks, reputational
risks," Williams-Derry said. "If financial managers don't
continually keep an eye on these risks, they'll put their
institutions in peril. But this proposal essentially tells banks:
forget judgment, forget prudence. If you can't quantify a risk - or
if you didn't happen to quantify a risk before a new customer comes
in through the door -- it doesn't count."<br>
<br>
"These rules," he added, "seem to outlaw good judgement."<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.desmogblog.com/2020/11/25/trump-administration-banks-divest-fossil-fuels-climate">https://www.desmogblog.com/2020/11/25/trump-administration-banks-divest-fossil-fuels-climate</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 -
December 5, 2007 </b></font><br>
<p>In a monologue that clearly explains why he had spent the
previous nineteen years claiming that climate change was a hoax,
Rush Limbaugh declares:<br>
<br>
"Can I give you a real simple reality? It may be controversial,
but it's inarguable. This is a world that runs on fossil fuels,
folks, and it's going to run on fossil fuels long after you and I
and your grandkids are dead. Wind, solar, all pipe dream stuff, as
we sit here and speak now. Would somebody explain to me what is so
immoral about the leaders of this country attempting to maintain a
supply and access to the fossil fuel that runs the world and runs
our economy?...What I'm suggesting here is that even if a part of
all of the strategy here [with the Iraq War] is to maintain the
free flow of oil at market prices, what in the name of Sam Hill is
wrong with that? What's the crime? Where's the immorality in it?"<br>
<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/daily/2007/12/05/what_s_wrong_with_war_for_oil2">http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/daily/2007/12/05/what_s_wrong_with_war_for_oil2</a><br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
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