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<p><i><font size="+1"><b>January 18, 2021</b></font></i></p>
[Reuters]<br>
<b>Biden may cancel Keystone XL pipeline permit as soon as his first
day in office: source</b><br>
By Reuters Staff - JANUARY 17, 2021<br>
(Reuters) - U.S. President-elect Joe Biden is planning to cancel the
permit for the $9 billion Keystone XL pipeline project as one of his
first acts in office, and perhaps as soon as his first day,
according to a source familiar with his thinking.<br>
- -<br>
The words "Rescind Keystone XL pipeline permit" appear on a list of
executive actions likely scheduled for the first day of Biden's
presidency, according to an earlier report bit.ly/3nP4993 by the
Canadian Broadcasting Corp (CBC)...<br>
more at -
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-biden-keystone/biden-to-cancel-keystone-xl-pipeline-permit-on-first-day-in-office-cbc-idUSKBN29N00A">https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-biden-keystone/biden-to-cancel-keystone-xl-pipeline-permit-on-first-day-in-office-cbc-idUSKBN29N00A</a><br>
<p><br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
[Activism report - Katharine Hayhoe and other Moms]<br>
<b>Science Moms On Climate Change — Now It’s Personal!</b><br>
January 17, 2021 by Steve Hanley <br>
Science Moms is an amalgamation of 6 female climate scientists
spearheaded by Katharine Hayhoe who have one thing in common. They
are all mothers concerned about bequeathing a sustainable planet to
their kids. Their objective is to educate other mothers and
encourage them to work together to promote a progressive climate
agenda locally, nationally, and internationally.<br>
<br>
Working with Potential Energy, a nonprofit marketing firm, Science
Moms is planning a $10 million outreach campaign to encourage more
mothers to work for a sustainable planet. In Katharine Hayhoe’s
words, their message to women is “Channel your fear into action.
Talk to your friends and family. Advocate for change in your town,
your church, your school, your state.” The group’s work is funded in
part by a grant from MacKenzie Scott, the former spouse of Jeff
Bezos, who has recently begun an extraordinary $5 billion
philanthropy program.<br>
<br>
Potential Energy’s motto is that existential problems call for
extraordinary creativity. Its mission is to “bring together
America’s leading creative, analytic and media agencies to shift the
narrative on climate change. Together, we are using the power of
marketing to develop new narratives, engage new audiences, and build
demand for a better, cleaner, more prosperous world.”<br>
<br>
<b>Katharine Hayhoe And Friends</b><br>
CleanTechnica readers are familiar with the work of Katharine
Hayhoe, who has created the widely acclaimed video entitled Global
Wierding. But most of you will be less familiar with the 5 women who
have joined her to form Science Moms. They are:<br>
<blockquote>--Dr. Melissa Burt, a research scientist in the
Department of Atmospheric Science at Colorado University with a
focus on arctic clouds, radiation, and sea ice, as well as the
Assistant Dean for Diversity and Inclusion in the Walter Scott,
Jr. College of Engineering at Colorado State University.<br>
<br>
-- Dr. Emily Fischer, an Associate Professor in the Department of
Atmospheric Science at Colorado State University (CSU). She is
also an affiliate faculty member of the CSU School of Global
Environmental Sustainability.<br>
<br>
-- Dr. Ruth DeFries, a professor of ecology and sustainable
development at Columbia University in New York.<br>
<br>
-- Dr. Tracey Holloway, who serves as the Team Lead for the NASA
Health and Air Quality Applied Sciences Team that focuses on air
quality management and public health.<br>
<br>
-- Dr. Joellen Russell, chair of the Integrative Science and
Professor at the University of Arizona in the Department of
Geosciences. She currently serves as chair of the NOAA Science
Advisory Board’s Climate Working Group.<br>
</blockquote>
The Science Moms website features an assortment of facts about
global heating and resources to help people understand the issues in
personal way. It includes links to books that teach kids about the
Earth’s climate and has a form that makes it simple for people to
contact their elected officials. In an interview with the Washington
Post, Hayhoe says, “One of the most powerful ways for us to connect
over climate change is … this fundamental value that we share. We
all want to ensure a better and safer future for our child.”<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://cleantechnica.com/2021/01/17/science-moms-on-climate-change-now-its-personal/">https://cleantechnica.com/2021/01/17/science-moms-on-climate-change-now-its-personal/</a><br>
- -<br>
[here it is]<br>
<b>Science Moms is a nonpartisan group of climate scientists and
mothers.</b><br>
<br>
We founded Science Moms to help mothers who are concerned about
their childrens’ planet, but aren’t confident in their knowledge
about climate change or how they can help. Together, we aim to
demystify climate science and motivate urgent action to protect our
children’s futures.<br>
<br>
As scientists, we have collectively spent decades studying our earth
and what human activity is doing to it. We are steeped in this
reality every day and know that to solve this problem, it will take
all of us moms joining forces to demand change from our leaders.
Moms, united, can give our children the safe and prosperous future
they deserve.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://sciencemoms.com/">https://sciencemoms.com/</a><br>
- -<br>
[for example]<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://sciencemoms.com/the-facts/">https://sciencemoms.com/the-facts/</a><br>
<br>
<p><br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<p>[early skirmishes of information wars]<br>
</p>
<p><b>Oil Industry’s Public Climate Denial Campaign Dates Back to at
Least 1980, Nearly a Decade Earlier Than Previously Thought</b><br>
Read time: 6 mins<br>
By Nick Cunningham - January 15, 2021<br>
</p>
<p>The American Petroleum Institute (API), the leading oil and gas
industry trade group, publicly pushed misleading information on
climate change as early as 1980 – much earlier than previously
thought – according to newly discovered archival documents.<br>
<br>
API “was promulgating false and misleading information about
climate change in 1980, nearly a decade earlier than previously
known,” wrote Benjamin Franta, a JD/PhD candidate at Stanford
University’s Law School and Department of History, in a new
peer-reviewed paper published this month in Environmental
Politics.<br>
<br>
An organized campaign of climate disinformation is generally
thought to have begun around 1989 with the formation of the Global
Climate Coalition, an industry front group aimed at protecting
fossil fuel interests, before it coalesced into a more active
campaign of climate denial in the 1990s, which included attacking
climate scientists, muddying the waters on climate science, and
promoting climate deniers. API was one of the coalition’s leading
members, along with Exxon (later ExxonMobil). <br>
<br>
But Franta points to a policy booklet published by API in 1980 as
evidence that the lobby group not only knew then about the
negative impact fossil fuel combustion had on the climate, but
actively sought to obscure that fact to the public.<br>
<br>
“This contradicts the idea that the industry was a good-faith
player at that time, and only later turned to disinformation
efforts,” Franta told DeSmog of his findings, which he stumbled
across when doing archival research.<br>
<br>
In API’s booklet, “Two Energy Futures: A National Choice for the
80s,” the industry acknowledged that carbon dioxide was a
“pollutant,” but cast doubt on the role of CO2 in global warming
by misrepresenting what prominent scientists said at the time.<br>
<br>
For instance, API pointed to popular astronomer Carl Sagan who
wrote about global warming in science journals and in his 1980
book “Cosmos.” “Other scientists are more sanguine about the
presence of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Some scientists,
including Dr. Carl Sagan, Cornell University astronomer, see a
cooling phenomenon as counteracting the greenhouse effect,” API
wrote.<br>
<br>
But suggesting that Sagan was “sanguine” about CO2 is false. Sagan
explored the albedo effect from land use change – he proposed that
deforested areas increase the planet’s albedo, which meant that
disturbed land would reflect more sunlight because of its lighter
color, thus potentially causing a cooling effect. Ultimately,
though, Sagan warned that the dangers of warming from fossil fuels
was much more significant than any cooling effect from an
increased albedo. Misrepresenting some of Sagan’s work on albedo,
API jumped to the conclusion that warming from fossil fuels was
nothing to worry about.<br>
<br>
After dismissing the dangers of fossil fuels, API went on to
promote the expansion of fossil fuel production in its booklet,
citing the 1980 World Coal Study. The coal study, although
published by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), was
funded by the industry and set out to promote the expansion of
coal in order to produce synthetic fuels.<br>
<br>
API pointed to the coal study to argue that expanding coal would
have “no significant damage to the environment.”<br>
<br>
The lobby group further claimed that doubling coal production
would be “consistent” with the conclusions of the 1979 World
Climate Conference. But, that conference – the first major
international climate conference attended by top scientists from a
variety of fields – recommended no such thing. Far from endorsing
coal, it warned of the dangers of “man-made changes in climate.”
In a keynote address, Robert White, the conference chairman, said
that “the growing dependence of the world on coal may create the
most serious threat to the world's climate.”<br>
<br>
After the publication of the MIT study in 1980, the director of
the study lobbied President Jimmy Carter’s administration. That
same year, the Carter administration adopted a goal of doubling
coal production by 1990 – a policy goal that was also adopted by
the G7 in 1980. “So, it does look like that study was very
influential, in shaping the entire energy future of the world,
really,” Franta told DeSmog.<br>
<br>
API, however, wasn’t just mischaracterizing what outside experts
were saying about climate change at the time – it also publicly
contradicted its own knowledge on the issue. According to Franta’s
paper, the industry trade group’s own internal task-force knew at
the time that production trends for fossil fuels put the world on
track for several degrees of warming, which could potentially be
catastrophic.<br>
<br>
Six months before API published its “Two Energy Futures” booklet,
Stanford engineer John Laurmann told API’s climate change task
force that 2.5-degrees Celsius of warming could “bring world
economic growth to a halt,” and that 5-degrees would have
“globally catastrophic effects.” Avoiding such outcomes would
require prompt action, Laurmann said. Despite this information,
API made no mention of this in the booklet, and instead argued
that a massive expansion of coal production would not harm the
environment. <br>
<br>
The American Petroleum Institute did not respond to a request for
comment.<br>
<br>
Franta’s report into what API knew about the connection between
fossil fuels and climate change – and when it knew it – adds to a
growing understanding about the industry’s decades-long effort to
discredit the science on climate change.<br>
<br>
In 2015, InsideClimate News revealed that ExxonMobil knew about
climate change in the late 1970s – decades earlier than previously
thought, and yet, starting in 1989, it went on to actively mislead
the public about that fact for more than a decade. InsideClimate
News also showed that API’s task force was aware of climate change
and discussed various responses during the task force’s existence
between 1979 and 1983.<br>
<br>
Over the past five years, additional reporting by news outlets,
including DeSmog, has added more detail to this history. But until
now, it was generally thought that the public disinformation
campaign began around 1989. The newly uncovered API booklet moves
this history back nearly 10 years.<br>
<br>
The booklet shows “the earliest public disinformation about
climate change from the petroleum industry that we know of now,”
said Franta.<br>
<br>
“Big Oil now has another decade of lost time to answer for – and
arguably to pay for,” climate science historian Geoffrey Supran, a
research associate at Harvard University, wrote in a statement to
DeSmog. He added that this new paper shows that “despite all we
already know about fossil fuel interests' history of misleading
Americans about climate change, we're still just scratching the
surface. There are more documents out there – more skeletons in
the closet, waiting to be found.”<br>
</p>
<p><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.desmogblog.com/2021/01/15/api-american-petroleum-institute-oil-industry-public-climate-denial-campaign-1980">https://www.desmogblog.com/2021/01/15/api-american-petroleum-institute-oil-industry-public-climate-denial-campaign-1980</a><br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<br>
[warming becomes heating]<br>
<b>Global Average Temperatures in 2020 Reached a RECORD HIGH of 1.55
C above PreIndustrial in 1750.</b><br>
Jan 16, 2021<br>
Paul Beckwith<br>
The numbers are out, and they are not pretty. Global average
temperature in 2020 was 1.25C above the turn-of-the-previous-century
average (1880-1910), thus set a new record for the warmest year. <br>
<br>
Relative to the year 1750, you need to add 0.3C for the baseline
shift, so 2020 was actually 1.55C warmer than 1750, which is termed
the real pre-industrial, and the Paris climate agreement in 2015 had
numerous countries promise to strive to work together to keep this
global average rise, relative to preindustrial (1750) below 2C, with
aspirations to stay below 1.5C.<br>
<br>
Thus, 2020 blew past the 1.5C number, hitting 1.55C. <br>
<br>
What is amazing about this is that is happened in the year of the
coronavirus industrial shutdowns, in which global greenhouse gas
emissions from burning fossil fuels decreased by about 7%. <br>
<br>
Also, 2020 was a weak La Niña year. The effect of this ENSO (El Niño
Southern Oscillation) La Niña depressed global temperatures by an
estimated 0.1C (my estimate). This, if 2020 was ENSO neutral, the
global average temperature would have hit 1.65C. Even worse, if 2020
had been a strong El Niño year, add 0.2C to that temperature (by my
estimate). This would have resulted in global average temperature
hitting 1.85C higher than 2050, by my best estimate. This will
happen, no doubt, in a few short years when we have another powerful
El Niño similar to that in 2015-2016 which caused us to have the
record setting temperature year that was just broken in 2020. <br>
<br>
Climate warming is spiralling out of control. We urgently must
deploy my so called three-legged barstool solution triage:<br>
<blockquote> 1) Slash fossil fuel emissions.<br>
2) Remove CO2 and methane from the atmosphere/ocean system (CDR).<br>
3) Deploy Solar Radiation Management (SRM) technologies to cool
the Earth.<br>
</blockquote>
We could quickly do these emergency things by using the 700 to 900
billion $US military budget and defence industry scientists and
engineers to work on these last ditch solutions to stabilize
climate. Without this, our global food supply will be crushed like a
bug within the next 5 to 10 years, causing global strife. <br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O0lgTAEUYyA">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O0lgTAEUYyA</a><br>
<br>
<p><br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
[Video - click CC for translation]<br>
<b>Permafrost melts due to climate change. Are we doomed? /
Documentary</b><br>
Oct 20, 2020<br>
<b>Bad Planet Документальные фильмы</b><br>
SUBSCRIBE, don't miss new movies: <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://bit.ly/3cCCWRv">https://bit.ly/3cCCWRv</a><br>
Bad Planet Instagram: <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.instagram.com/bad.planet/">https://www.instagram.com/bad.planet/</a><br>
I wanted to document the effects of climate change and the melting
of permafrost in the warmest place on Earth - in the Russian Arctic.
I went on a trip along the Kolyma River to talk to the locals and
find out how their lives have changed in recent years. And most
importantly, how the nature around them has changed. And I made
amazing and frightening discoveries.<br>
<br>
The film was shot with the support of Greenpeace Russia<br>
More information on climate change on the website: <a
class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://act.gp/2FzPPBd">https://act.gp/2FzPPBd</a><br>
Request a Green New Deal for Russia: <a
class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://act.gp/3jZKsdo">https://act.gp/3jZKsdo</a><br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HkMX_hYdo-w">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HkMX_hYdo-w</a><br>
<p><br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
[Book review <b><u>The New Climate War</u></b> Michael E. Mann
Public Affairs, $29]<br>
<b>‘The New Climate War’ exposes tactics of climate change
‘inactivists’</b><br>
Climate scientist Michael Mann argues outright denialism has morphed
into inactivism<br>
By Carolyn Gramling - <br>
<br>
Sometime around the fifth century B.C., the Chinese general and
military strategist Sun Tzu wrote in his highly quotable treatise
The Art of War, “If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need
not fear the result of a hundred battles.”<br>
<br>
In The New Climate War, climate scientist Michael Mann channels Sun
Tzu to demystify the myriad tactics of “the enemy” — in this case,
“the fossil fuel companies, right-wing plutocrats and oil-funded
governments” and other forces standing in the way of large-scale
action to combat climate change. “Any plan for victory requires
recognizing and defeating the tactics now being used by inactivists
as they continue to wage war,” he writes.<br>
<br>
Mann is a veteran of the climate wars of the 1990s and early 2000s,
when the scientific evidence that the climate is changing due to
human emissions of greenhouse gases was under attack. Now, with the
effects of climate change all around us (SN: 12/21/20), we are in a
new phase of those wars, he argues. Outright denial has morphed into
“deception, distraction and delay.”<br>
<br>
Such tactics, he says, are direct descendants of earlier public
relations battles over whether producers or consumers must bear
ultimate responsibility for, say, smoking-related deaths. When it
comes to the climate, Mann warns, an overemphasis on individual
actions could eclipse efforts to achieve the real prize:
industrial-scale emissions reductions.<br>
<br>
He pulls no punches, calling out sources of “friendly fire” from
climate advocates who he says divide the climate community and play
into the “enemy’s” hands. These advocates include climate purists
who lambaste scientists for flying or eating meat; science
communicators who push fatalistic visions of catastrophic futures;
and idealistic technocrats who advocate for risky, pie-in-the-sky
geoengineering ideas. All, Mann says, distract from what we can do
in the here and now: regulate emissions and invest in renewable
energy.<br>
<br>
The New Climate War’s main focus is to combat psychological warfare,
and on this front, the book is fascinating and often entertaining.
It’s an engrossing mix of footnoted history, acerbic political
commentary and personal anecdotes. As far as what readers can do to
assist in the battle, Mann advocates four strategies: Disregard the
doomsayers; get inspired by youth activists like Greta Thunberg;
focus on educating the people who will listen; and don’t be fooled
into thinking it’s too late to take action to change the political
system.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.sciencenews.org/article/new-climate-war-book-exposes-tactics-climate-change-inactivists">https://www.sciencenews.org/article/new-climate-war-book-exposes-tactics-climate-change-inactivists</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 -
January 18, 2015 </b></font><br>
The New York Times reports:<br>
<br>
"Before dawn one morning in October, a handful of Americans gathered
at a lonely pier on Samso, a small Danish island about four hours
from Copenhagen. Bundled in layers of fleece and wool, the
Americans, mostly from islands off the Maine coast, had come to get
a closer look at a wind farm — 10 mighty turbines spinning in the
Kattegat strait — that has helped make Samso a symbol for a greener
future, one powered entirely by renewable energy.<br>
<br>
"Among them was Marian Chioffi, the bookkeeper at the electric
company in Monhegan, Me., whose population of about 60 swells to
include hundreds of residents and thousands of tourists in the
summer. They — along with generations of artists like Edward Hopper,
Rockwell Kent and Jamie Wyeth — have been drawn by the island’s
lost-in-time charm and picturesque setting in the Gulf of Maine.<br>
<br>
"Monhegan faces challenges as stark as its beauty. Foremost among
them — and the spur for the journey to Denmark — is dependence on
expensive, dirty fuels for heating and electricity. Even with the
recent fall in oil prices, Monhegan residents pay among the highest
power rates in the nation — almost six times the national average —
and the electric company, locally owned and operated, struggles to
keep the lights on.<br>
<br>
"Twenty years ago, Samso faced similar problems. Its farming and
fishing industries were in decline, and its electricity and heating
costs, mostly from diesel and coal, were rising. Its young people
were leaving the island to attend high school and choosing not to
return.<br>
<br>
"But in 1997, the island began a long-term transformation. It won a
government-sponsored contest to create a model community for
renewable energy and, through a combination of wind and solar (for
electricity) and geothermal and plant-based energy (for heating),
the island reached green energy independence in 2005. That means
Samso actually generates more power from renewable sources than it
consumes over all. Attached by a power cable to the mainland 11
miles away, the island sells its excess electricity to the national
utility, bringing income to the hundreds of residents who own shares
in the island’s wind farms, both on land and at sea.<br>
<br>
"Samso has attracted global attention for its accomplishments. Soren
Hermansen, 55, and his wife, Malene Lunden, 49, worked for years to
develop the program on the island and now have created an institute,
the Samso Energy Academy, to spread their story and methods to
international visitors. <br>
<br>
"The Maine islanders, along with students from the College of the
Atlantic in Bar Harbor, had traveled to Samso to attend the academy
and hear the Danes’ advice. If all went well, each islander would go
home with a team of students dedicated to solving an energy problem
using ideas borrowed from Samso.<br>
<br>
"Beyond that, the planners hoped, new Maine island projects could
become templates for broader adoption of renewable energy. Because
of their particular geography, islands often lack the resources and
infrastructures to meet their own needs. Fuel, like other
necessities, is often imported — sometimes with great difficulty —
and electric grids, when they even exist, are often underdeveloped
or out of date, all of which leads to higher prices and less
reliable service. With residents open to cheaper and better
alternatives, islands are becoming seedbeds of innovation, living
labs in which to test and refine technologies and approaches that
are too new or expensive to establish on a mainland. And their small
size makes the systems easier to manage and analyze."<br>
<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/18/business/energy-environment/green-energy-inspiration-from-samso-denmark.html?ref=business">http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/18/business/energy-environment/green-energy-inspiration-from-samso-denmark.html?ref=business</a>
<br>
/-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------/<br>
<br>
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