<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8">
</head>
<body text="#000000" bgcolor="#FFFFFF">
<p><i><font size="+1"><b>December 6, 2020</b></font></i></p>
[Strong Beginning]<br>
<b>Denmark becomes first major oil-producing nation to set deadline
to end extraction</b><br>
Dec. 4, 2020<br>
<br>
COPENHAGEN -- Denmark on Friday became the first major oil-producing
nation to announce an end to state-approved exploration in the North
Sea, with the aim of phasing out all extraction by 2050.<br>
<br>
The decision was applauded by some environmental activists, with
Greenpeace celebrating it as a "watershed moment," although other
groups had hoped for a faster timeline.<br>
<br>
Denmark's new rules mean companies will be barred from receiving new
licenses to search for and extract oil and gas resources. Previously
issued licenses will remain valid until 2050.<br>
<br>
Denmark is the top oil producer in the European Union, but it has
come under mounting pressure as the E.U. aims to become
carbon-neutral within the next 30 years...<br>
- -<br>
In a tweet, Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg said: "The real
news here is that Denmark will apparently go on extracting fossil
fuels for another 3 decades. To us children, this is not the 'good
news' that some people seem to think."...<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/denmark-phaseout-oil-production/2020/12/04/c5559eb4-35b0-11eb-9699-00d311f13d2d_story.html">https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/denmark-phaseout-oil-production/2020/12/04/c5559eb4-35b0-11eb-9699-00d311f13d2d_story.html</a><br>
<br>
<p><br>
</p>
[New organization will track nations progress]<br>
<b>Climate Tracker has inspired, trained and mentored over 8000
Climate Journalists around the world.</b><br>
Who is Climate Tracker?<br>
Climate Tracker works to support, train and develop young climate
journalists from around the world. We have had more than 15,000
young journalists enter our trainings and competitions since 2016,
and want to highlight their work here.<br>
<br>
What is this publication?<br>
The Climate Weekly will be written by a new young climate reporter
each week, as they highlight the biggest climate change news in
their country.<br>
<br>
Can you get involved<br>
Sure. All our newsletters are written by guest writers from around
the world. Feel free to join our community and let us know you'd be
keen to guest write one week...<br>
- -<br>
Since 2015 we have delivered cutting edge training, innovative media
campaigns, and brought incredibly talented teams of young reporters
to the UN climate negotiations.<br>
<br>
We have delivered in-person trainings in more than 30 countries,
hundreds of online webinars, and awarded travel scholarships to more
than 350 young journalists.<br>
<br>
We have run participatory media research in over 20 different
countries, and are developing a unique data-analytics tool to give
journalists the best possible chance to "cut through" national
debates.<br>
<br>
These young journalists have published more than 6000 articles in
their national media, covering more than 114 countries and 24
languages...<br>
We have supported young journalists from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe,
Costa Rica to Fiji. More than 90% of our opportunities have gone to
young people from developing countries who can make big impacts in
their national media. If you are a first time writer or a seasoned
journalist, this is your chance to win a career-changing
opportunity.<br>
<br>
More than 60% of our awarded trackers have been women. Our global
team is over 75% women.<br>
<br>
If you are interested in partnering with us and inspiring young
voices around the world develop innovative skills in data
journalism, or connecting your brand to a global network of great
writers, please let me know.<br>
Chris Wright - Director, Climate Tracker - <a
class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://climatetracker.org/">https://climatetracker.org/</a><br>
<br>
<p><br>
</p>
[recent video with transcript \ Harvard Law School]<br>
<b>Noam Chomsky at HLS</b><br>
Dec 1, 2020<br>
Harvard Law School<br>
On Nov. 20, Noam Chomsky, Laureate Professor of Linguistics at the
University of Arizona and Institute Professor Emeritus at MIT, spoke
to first-year students at Harvard Law School about prospects for a
better tomorrow. In a conversation moderated by HLS student Michael
Lehavi, Chomsky touched on topics ranging from linguistics to
activism to climate change.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zs-k1npk0Q8">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zs-k1npk0Q8</a><br>
<p><br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
[Media breakthrough, will this happen in the US?]<br>
<b>A change in the weather: new demand for TV presenters to include
climate in forecasts</b><br>
The ABC's Graham Creed says new climate change research could 'fill
a big gap' in public understanding...<br>
<br>
"Firstly, it's just that information that climate change is already
happening and is influencing extreme temperatures.<br>
<br>
"It's important to talk about how much more [temperature extremes]
are looking to increase in the next 20 or 30 years. Those
unprecedented extreme conditions in 2019 and 2020 end up in 20
years' time being almost normal."<br>
<br>
Both Creed and Holmes says the bureau's work could represent a major
breakthrough in the ability to communicate the affects of climate
change to the general public.<br>
<br>
Holmes says: "What this is doing is saying we can forecast how much
of an upcoming event was due to greenhouse gases, and that's a whole
new level of attribution. I think it can be a game-changer."<br>
<br>
Creed spends much of his time in and around newsrooms, and he says
by the time scientists have analysed extreme weather events for
attribution studies, the news cycle has moved on.<br>
<br>
So the potential to be able to refer to reliable information about
the contribution of climate change to events as they happen "fills a
big gap."<br>
<br>
"It's phenomenal. The missing link has been us being able to say
that this coming heatwave will be a degree warmer because of climate
change."<br>
<br>
Has Creed seen the climate change since he started presenting the
weather 20 years ago?<br>
<br>
"Yes, the weather is changing," he says. "Climate change used to be
this big ethereal thing that was hard to understand. But we are now
looking at the weather patterns changing.<br>
<br>
"I think I should be talking about it."<br>
<p><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/dec/05/a-change-in-the-weather-new-demand-for-tv-presenters-to-include-climate-in-forecasts">https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/dec/05/a-change-in-the-weather-new-demand-for-tv-presenters-to-include-climate-in-forecasts</a></p>
- -<br>
<p>[A classic essay published long ago by Ross Gelbspan]</p>
<b>U.S. Press Coverage of the Climate Crisis: A Damning Betrayal of
Public Trust</b><br>
By Ross Gelbspan <br>
<p>I'm a reporter -- not an environmentalist -- so I came to this
subject from a very peculiar angle. After I retired from The
Boston Globe and was working on my second consecutive unpublished
novel, there came to me Dr. Paul Epstein, of Harvard Medical
School, with a series of articles he had published in The Lancet
on climate change and the spread of infectious disease.</p>
<p>Since the work struck me as important, we collaborated on a piece
for the Outlook section of The Washington Post. While writing the
piece, I became very alarmed about the larger issue of climate
change and began to consider writing a book on the subject. </p>
But after the piece ran in the Post, I received several letters from
readers who said that, the disease information notwithstanding, they
didn't believe the climate was changing and they referred me to the
work of a few scientists. <br>
So I read Bob Balling's book, The Heated Debate, several issues of
Pat Michaels' journal and papers by Fred Singer and Richard Lindzen.
And I was persuaded that global warming was a non-issue. I told my
wife there's no book here. And emotionally, I was very relieved not
to have to deal with such a heavy issue. But I had scheduled
interviews with four other scientists, and, just as a courtesy, I
decided to keep those interviews. <br>
<br>
Those scientists completely turned my head around. They showed me
how Singer, Michaels and the others were manipulating data and
misrepresenting the situation. That made me quite angry. Not because
I love trees - I tolerate trees -- but because I had spent 31 years
in a career predicated on the belief that in a democracy we need
honest information on which to base our decisions. What these few
scientists were doing was stealing our reality. <br>
<br>
It was also strange that none of the mainstream scientists I
interviewed knew where the skeptics' money was coming from. <br>
<br>
By a very lucky coincidence, I soon learned that Singer, Michaels
and Balling had received about a million dollars in undisclosed
money from the coal industry in a three-year period.<br>
<br>
(Parenthetically, the issue of disclosure is very important.
Industry-funded research is neutral - it can be good or bad. But
disclosure is critical so that the work in question can be reviewed
with an eye to commercial bias. If, for instance, a medical
researcher' work is funded by a pharmaceutical company, that funding
must be declared in the tagline as a condition of publication.
Unfortunately, those same guidelines do not apply to climate
science.)<br>
<br>
At that point, I thought if there's so much money going into a
cover-up, let's see what it is they're covering up. And that's when
I began to learn the science and many other aspects of the climate
issue.<br>
<br>
Thinking about the issue, it quickly became clear that the very
survival of the coal and oil industries - which together constitute
the biggest commercial enterprise in history - are threatened by
climate change. The science is unambiguous on one point: climate
stabilization requires that humanity cut its consumption of carbon
fuels by about 70 percent. The motivation behind the disinformation
campaign was very clear - as was the reporting imperative. In this
case, it was also the path into an amazing drama - a
once-in-a-lifetime story -- that, unfortunately, continues to unfold
just outside the spotlit arena of public awareness. <br>
<br>
There are a number of reasons for this - none of them, given the
magnitude of the story, justifiable. <br>
<br>
Let me run through a few.<br>
<br>
On a somewhat superficial level, the career path to the top at news
outlets normally lies in following the track of political reporting.
Top editors tend to see all issues through a political lens.<br>
<br>
For instance, while climate change has been the focus of a number of
feature stories (and small, buried reports of scientific findings),
the only times it has gained real news prominence is when it has
played a role in the country's politics. I think of the 1992
elections when the first President Bush slapped the label of "ozone
man" on Al Gore because of his book, "Earth in the Balance." (I
don't think it's a coincidence that Gore totally ran away from the
climate issue during the 2000 campaign.)<br>
<br>
The issue again received prominent coverage in 1997 when the Senate
voted overwhelmingly not to ratify the Kyoto Protocol - not because
of the substance but because it signaled a political setback for the
Clinton Administration at the hands of inside the Beltway
Republicans. <br>
<br>
Most recently, the issue surfaced when President Bush withdrew the
U.S. from the Kyoto process. And that coverage focused not on
climate change but on resulting diplomatic tensions between the US
and EU.<br>
<br>
Prior to his withdrawal from Kyoto, President Bush declared he would
not accept the findings of the IPCC - because they represented
"foreign science" (even though about half of the 2,000 scientists,
whose work contributes to the IPCC reports are American.) Instead,
Bush called for a report from the U.S. National Academy of Sciences
which would provide "American science."<br>
<br>
What I found astounding was this. Even as the Washington press corps
reported this story, not one reporter bothered to check the position
of the NAS. Had they done so, they would have found that as early as
1992, three years before the IPCC determined that that humans are
changing the climate by our burning of oil and coal, the NAS
recommended strong measures to minimize climate impacts.<br>
<br>
So that's just a quick nod to the culture of journalism - which is,
basically, a political culture which is not particularly hospitable
- in fact, institutionally arrogant -- toward non-political areas of
coverage.<br>
<br>
The next reason has to do with this campaign of disinformation
launched by the coal industry and most recently carried forward by
ExxonMobil, which is now the major funder of the greenhouse
skeptics. As I mentioned, the fossil fuel lobby paid a tiny handful
of scientists - many of whom had no standing in the mainstream
scientific community - to dismiss the reality of climate change.<br>
<br>
(Parenthetically, we had some fun last year with Fred Singer, who is
probably the most visible of the greenhouse skeptics. Singer
declared in a letter to the Washington Post, that he had not
received any money from the oil industry for at least 20 years -
when he had done some consulting for an oil company. Shortly
thereafter, we published the fact that Singer had received thousands
of dollars in 1998 from ExxonMobil. It was on their website.)<br>
<br>
In my book I go into some length about the public disinformation
campaign by the fossil fuel lobby. One proof of the success of that
campaign is reflected by two polls done by Newsweek Magazine. Back
in 1991, 35 percent of people surveyed by Newsweek said they thought
global warming was a very serious problem. By 1996, even though the
science had become far more robust and the IPCC declared it had
found the human influence on the climate, that 35 percent had shrunk
to 22 percent - because of the effectiveness of this public
relations campaign of deception by the fossil fuel lobby.<br>
<br>
It also had a profound effect on journalists.<br>
<br>
For the longest time, the press accorded the same weight to the "
skeptics" as it did to mainstream scientists. This was done in the
name of journalistic balance. In fact it was journalistic laziness.
<br>
<br>
The ethic of journalistic balance comes into play when there is a
story involving opinion: should abortion be legal? Should we invade
Iraq? Should we have bi-lingual education or English immersion? At
that point, a journalist is obligated to give each competing view
its most articulate presentation- and at equivalent length.<br>
<br>
But when it's a question of fact, it's up to a reporter to get off
her or his ass and find out what the facts are. The issue of balance
is not relevant when the focus of a story is factual.<br>
<br>
In the case of the climate issue, the former head of the IPCC, Dr.
Bert Bolin made a striking statement. In, I think 1997, Dr. Bolin -
a very conservatively-spoken scientist -- declared definitively that
there is no debate among any statured scientists working on this
issue about the larger trends of what is happening to the climate.
That is something you would never know from the press coverage.<br>
<br>
Granted there have been a few credentialed scientists - although
only Dick Lindzen comes to mind -- who are have published in the
peer-reviewed literature - who minimize climate change as relatively
inconsequential. <br>
In that case, if balance is required, I would think that would
suggest that a reporter spend a little time reviewing the
literature, talking to some scientists on background, learning where
the weight of scientific opinion lay -- and reflecting that balance
in his or her reporting. Were that to have happened, the mainstream
scientists would get 90 percent of the story -- and the skeptics a
couple of paragraphs at the end. <br>
<br>
Today, that is finally beginning to happen. <br>
<br>
One of the first impacts of climatic instability is an increase in
weather extremes - longer droughts, more heat waves, more severe
storms and the fact that we get much more of our rain and snow in
intense, severe downpours. <br>
That is reflected in the fact that weather extremes today constitute
a much larger portion of news budgets than they did 20 years ago.<br>
<br>
Given the dramatic increase of extreme weather events - you would
think that journalists, in covering these stories, would include the
line: "Scientists associate this pattern of violent weather with
global warming." They don't. <br>
A few years ago I asked a top editor at CNN why, given the
increasing proportion of news budgets dedicated to extreme weather,
they did not make this connection. He told me, "We did. Once." It
triggered a barrage of complaints from the Global Climate Coalition
at the top executives at CNN. (The GCC was the main lobby group
opposing action on global warming.) They argued that you can't
attribute any one extreme event to climate change -- just as you can
not attribute any one case of lung cancer to smoking. But even
though the connection has been accepted as a given by mainstream
science, nevertheless the industry intimidated CNN into dropping
this connection from its coverage.<br>
<br>
But I think there's a deeper betrayal of trust here by the media. By
now most reporters and editors have heard enough from
environmentalists to know that global warming could, at least, have
potentially catastrophic consequences. Given that reality, I think
it is profoundly irresponsible for an editor or reporter to pass
along the story with some counterposing quotes without doing enough
digging to satisfy herself or himself as to the bottom line gravity
of the situation. Their assessment needn't be the same as mine. But
simply to treat the story like any other -- without taking the time
to reach an informed judgment about its potential gravity -- is a
fundamental violation of the trust of readers and viewers who assume
a modicum of informed interpretation from their news providers. <br>
<br>
Finally, over and above the campaign of manufactured denial by the
fossil fuel public relations specialists, there is a natural human
tendency toward denial of this issue. When one is confronted by a
truly overwhelming problem - and one does not see an apparent
solution - the most natural human reaction is not to want to know
about it. And that applies to editors just as much as readers. <br>
So for that reason, I am trying very hard to promote a set of
policies that a group of us believe very strongly would achieve the
70 percent cuts required by nature, even as they would create huge
numbers of jobs and economic growth - especially in developing
countries.<br>
<br>
I think that only when a person sees that an intellectually honest
solution is really possible that he will then let the bad news in on
himself. Absent that realization, I think you will continue to see
either a complete denial of the reality, or a more sophisticated
form of denial which expresses itself as a minimization of the
magnitude and urgency of the problem.<br>
<br>
The U.S. press today is in what I call "stage-two" denial of the
climate crisis. They acknowledge its existence - and they minimize
its scope and urgency. You can see this from the pattern of coverage
that provides occasional feature stories about the decimation of the
forests in Alaska - but which continues to ignore the central
diplomatic, political and economic conflicts around the issue.<br>
<br>
So if there is a message in all this, I think, should be: this
problem is real. It threatens the survival of our civilization.
There are solutions - which could hold the key to lots of other
problems facing this profoundly fractured world. And, most
important, this is by far the most dramatic and exciting story you
could ever want to work on.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.heatisonline.org/contentserver/objecthandlers/index.cfm?id=7743&method=full">http://www.heatisonline.org/contentserver/objecthandlers/index.cfm?id=7743&method=full</a><br>
<p><br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
[skirmish in the Information wars]<br>
<b>Study Against EVs Backed By Legacy Automakers Is Debunked In Epic
Way</b><br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://insideevs.com/news/458458/legacy-automakers-backed-study-against-evs-debunked/">https://insideevs.com/news/458458/legacy-automakers-backed-study-against-evs-debunked/</a>
<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 -
December 6, 2005 </b></font><br>
<p>At the American Geophysical Union meeting in California, James
Hansen delivers a speech entitled: "Is There Still Time to Avoid
'Dangerous Anthropogenic Interference' with Global Climate?"<br>
<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/2005/Keeling_20051206.pdf">http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/2005/Keeling_20051206.pdf</a>
<br>
</p>
<p>/-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------/<br>
</p>
/Archive of Daily Global Warming News <a
class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E"
href="https://pairlist10.pair.net/pipermail/theclimate.vote/2017-October/date.html"><https://pairlist10.pair.net/pipermail/theclimate.vote/2017-October/date.html></a>
/<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://pairlist10.pair.net/pipermail/theclimate.vote">https://pairlist10.pair.net/pipermail/theclimate.vote</a><br>
<br>
/To receive daily mailings - click to Subscribe <a
class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E"
href="mailto:subscribe@theClimate.Vote?subject=Click%20SEND%20to%20process%20your%20request"><mailto:subscribe@theClimate.Vote?subject=Click%20SEND%20to%20process%20your%20request></a>
to news digest./<br>
<br>
*** Privacy and Security:*This mailing is text-only. It does not
carry images or attachments which may originate from remote
servers. A text-only message can provide greater privacy to the
receiver and sender.<br>
By regulation, the .VOTE top-level domain must be used for
democratic and election purposes and cannot be used for commercial
purposes. Messages have no tracking software.<br>
To subscribe, email: <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated"
href="mailto:contact@theclimate.vote">contact@theclimate.vote</a>
<a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E"
href="mailto:contact@theclimate.vote"><mailto:contact@theclimate.vote></a>
with subject subscribe, To Unsubscribe, subject: unsubscribe<br>
Also you may subscribe/unsubscribe at <a
class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://pairlist10.pair.net/mailman/listinfo/theclimate.vote">https://pairlist10.pair.net/mailman/listinfo/theclimate.vote</a><br>
Links and headlines assembled and curated by Richard Pauli for <a
class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://TheClimate.Vote">http://TheClimate.Vote</a>
<a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="http://TheClimate.Vote/"><http://TheClimate.Vote/></a>
delivering succinct information for citizens and responsible
governments of all levels. List membership is confidential and
records are scrupulously restricted to this mailing list.<br>
<br>
<br>
</body>
</html>