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<p><i><font size="+1"><b>January 27, 2021</b></font></i></p>
[year 2020]<br>
<b>Fire Year 2020 Overview</b><br>
Nov 20, 2020<br>
National Interagency Fire Center<br>
A brief summary of #FireYear2020 provided by the National
Interagency Fire Center.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://youtu.be/aVOAbQkjczw">https://youtu.be/aVOAbQkjczw</a><br>
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</p>
[Keeping oil in the ground 44 second video]<br>
<b>Skip Pruss on Fossil Fuel Stranded Assets</b><br>
Jan 26, 2021<br>
greenmanbucket<br>
Stanley "Skip" Pruss is former Chief Energy Advisor to newly
appointed Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AQe3Sm9QBEA">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AQe3Sm9QBEA</a>
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<p>[Press release]<br>
<b>COP26 calls for groups to bring climate summit to life</b><br>
Applications have opened today to help shape the COP26 venue in
Glasgow ahead of the crucial climate change talks later this year.<br>
Published 21 January 2021<br>
</p>
<p>-Call for groups to bring climate action to life in an
interactive setting<br>
Chance to engage with key audiences and make a real change in the
fight against climate change<br>
Two-week showcase opportunity when world leaders gather in Glasgow<br>
Applications have opened today to help shape the COP26 venue in
Glasgow ahead of the crucial climate change talks later this year.<br>
<br>
Businesses, civil society, academia, trade unions, indigenous
groups, and young people have the opportunity to bring climate
action to life through fun and lively events, displays and
workshops in the areas where many of the world’s leaders will be
meeting in November.<br>
<br>
This is likely to include demonstrations of virtual reality
technology; showcasing innovation helping to tackle global climate
change; opportunities for local voices from around the world
through culture and arts; and youth groups provided a platform to
show the impact they are making.<br>
<br>
With demand expected to be high for this unique opportunity,
organisations are being encouraged to work together with
collaborative proposals wherever possible with a focus on
profiling the voices of those most impacted and on the front line
of climate change.<br>
<br>
COP26 President Alok Sharma said:<br>
<br>
COP26 will be the largest summit the UK has ever hosted and this
is an exciting opportunity for all of society to be involved.<br>
<br>
I would encourage those who are interested, to join with us to
inspire climate action around the world.<br>
<br>
This is part of a wider call for action from individuals,
organisations and businesses to get involved in committing to and
inspiring others to act on climate change in the run-up to COP26
through the Together for Our Planet campaign.<br>
<br>
Background<br>
Further guidance and a link to the online form can be found here.
A downloadable PDF guidance pack can also be found here.<br>
<br>
The Expression of Interest process closes at 17:00 GMT on Friday 5
March 2021.<br>
<br>
The Expression of Interest process includes a range of
opportunities for businesses and organisations to get involved
within the UK Government managed spaces at COP26. This includes
the UK Pavilion within the Blue Zone and the Green Zone.<br>
<br>
The Blue Zone is a UN-managed space which hosts the negotiations.
The space brings together delegations from 197 countries,
alongside observer organisations to share their stories at panel
discussions, side events, exhibits, and cultural events.<br>
<br>
The Green Zone is managed by the UK Government, and is a platform
for the general public, youth groups, civil society, academia,
artists, business and others to have their voices heard through
events, exhibitions, workshops and talks that promote dialogue,
awareness, education and commitments.<br>
<br>
More information on the Together for Our Planet campaign here.<br>
<br>
Eligibility<br>
Criteria for organisations and businesses participating in the
UK-Government spaces of COP26 are as follows. More information can
be found here.<br>
<br>
Large businesses with over 250 employees to sign up to Science
Based Targets and/or the Race to Zero.<br>
<br>
SMEs, cities, regions and local governments signing up to the Race
to Zero. By joining this campaign, organisations show they are
committed to a clean future, and allows us to show in one place
the collective global momentum to net zero.<br>
<br>
Civil society organisations (such as NGOs, activists and faith
based organisations), schools, universities & colleges, and
individuals do not require specific commitments.<br>
</p>
<p><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.gov.uk/government/news/cop26-calls-for-groups-to-bring-climate-summit-to-life">https://www.gov.uk/government/news/cop26-calls-for-groups-to-bring-climate-summit-to-life</a><br>
</p>
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[Just think... 10 min video]<br>
<b>India's Solar Canals. Lateral thinking at its finest!</b><br>
Jan 24, 2021<br>
Just Have a Think<br>
Solar Power is set to be the dominant transformative form of power
on the mighty subcontinent of India as it moves away from its
dependence on coal and towards a more sustainable future. But land
is at a heavy premium there, so the engineers put their thinking
caps on and came up with a solution so effective it has solved more
problems than even they anticipated!<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ix9LNZIbTpc">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ix9LNZIbTpc</a><br>
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[Yale offers 12 books]<br>
<b>REVIEW12 new books explore fresh approaches to act on climate
changeAuthors explore scientific, economic, and political avenues
for climate action given 'new possibilities' in 2021.</b><br>
By Michael Svoboda, Ph.D. | Friday, January 22, 2021<br>
Book collage<br>
<br>
Despite a journey to this moment even more treacherous than
expected, Americans now have a fresh opportunity to act, decisively,
on climate change.<br>
<br>
The authors of the many new books released in just the past few
months (or scheduled to be published soon) seem to have anticipated
this pivotal moment.<br>
<br>
Their number includes a scientist, an entrepreneur, and a
journalist, each of whom has published among the first calls to
action on climate change: Michael Mann, Bill Gates, and Elizabeth
Kolbert.<br>
<br>
But all the authors recognize that our repeated failures to seize
previous opportunities says something about our market economy, our
mindsets, and our political institutions. Thus the solutions offered
in these new titles are as often political as they are scientific
and technical, and psychological as often as they are environmental.<br>
<br>
Americans succeeded in making a critical change: a climate denier no
longer presides over the United States. With the 12 titles listed
below, Americans can now consider new possibilities – at all levels
– made possible by that first change.<br>
<br>
As always, the descriptions of the 12 titles listed below are
adapted from copy provided by the publishers.<br>
<br>
<b>The New Climate War: The Fight to Take Back Our Planet</b>, by
Michael E. Mann (Public Affairs 2021, 368 pages, $29.00) (Editor’s
note: A separate book review on this title will be posted soon at
this site.)<br>
<br>
In The New Climate War, renowned climate scientist Michael Mann
shows how fossil fuel companies have waged a thirty-year campaign to
deflect blame and responsibility and delay action on climate change.
But all is not lost. In his new book, Mann outlines a plan for
forcing our governments and corporations to wake up and make real
change, by allowing renewable energy to compete fairly against
fossil fuels, by debunking the false narratives and arguments that
have worked their way into the climate debate, and by combatting
climate doomism. The societal tipping point necessary to win the new
climate war won’t happen without the active participation of
citizens everywhere aiding in the collective push forward.<br>
<br>
<b>How to Avoid a Climate Disaster: The Solutions We Have and the
Breakthroughs We Need</b>, by Bill Gates (Penguin Random House
2021, 272 pages, $26.95)<br>
<br>
In this urgent, authoritative book, Bill Gates sets out a
wide-ranging, practical – and accessible – plan for how the world
can get to zero greenhouse gas emissions in time to avoid a climate
catastrophe. Drawing on his understanding of innovation and what it
takes to get new ideas into the market, he describes the areas in
which technology is already helping to reduce emissions, where and
how the current technology can be made to function more effectively,
where breakthrough technologies are needed, and who is working on
these essential innovations. As Bill Gates makes clear, achieving
zero emissions will not be simple or easy to do, but if we follow
the plan he sets out here, it is a goal firmly within our reach.<br>
<br>
<b>Under a White Sky: The Nature of the Future</b>, by Elizabeth
Kolbert (Penguin Random House 2021, 256 pages, $28.00)<br>
<br>
In Under a White Sky, Elizabeth Kolbert takes a hard look at the new
world we are creating. Along the way, she meets biologists who are
trying to preserve the world’s rarest fish, which lives in a single
tiny pool in the middle of the Mojave; engineers who are turning
carbon emissions to stone in Iceland; Australian researchers who are
trying to develop a “super coral” that can survive on a hotter
globe; and physicists who are contemplating shooting tiny diamonds
into the stratosphere to cool the earth. One way to look at human
civilization, says Kolbert, is as a ten-thousand-year exercise in
defying nature. By turns inspiring, terrifying, and darkly comic,
Under a White Sky is an utterly original examination of the
challenges we face.<br>
<br>
<b>There Is No Planet B,</b> Updated Edition, by Mike Berners-Lee
(Cambridge University Press 2021, 321 pages, $12.95 paperback)<br>
<br>
Hunger, climate change, biodiversity, antibiotics, plastics,
pandemics – the list of concerns seems endless. But what is most
pressing, and what should we do first? Do we all need to become
vegetarian? How can we fly in a low-carbon world? How can we take
control of technology? And, given the global nature of these
challenges, what can any of us do as individuals? Mike Berners-Lee
has crunched the numbers and plotted a course of action that is full
of hope, practical, and enjoyable. He offers a big-picture
perspective on the environmental and economic challenges of our day.
This updated edition has new material on protests, pandemics,
wildfires, investments, carbon targets and of course, on the key
question: given all this, what can I do?<br>
<br>
<b>How to Prepare for Climate Change: A Practical Guide to Surviving
the Chaos</b>, by David Pogue (Simon & Schuster 2021, 624
pages, $24.00 paperback)<br>
<br>
In How to Prepare for Climate Change, bestselling self-help author
and beloved CBS Sunday Morning science and technology correspondent
David Pogue offers sensible, deeply researched advice for how we
should start to ready ourselves for the years ahead. Pogue walks
readers through what to grow, what to eat, how to build, how to
insure, where to invest, how to prepare your children and pets, and
even where to consider relocating when the time comes. He also
provides wise tips for managing your anxiety. Timely and
enlightening, How to Prepare for Climate Change is an indispensable
guide for anyone who read The Uninhabitable Earth or The Sixth
Extinction and wants to know how to make smart choices for the
upheaval ahead.<br>
<br>
<b>The Story of CO2: Big Ideas for a Small Molecule</b>, by Geoffrey
A. Ozin and Mireille F. Ghoussoub (University of Toronto Press 2020,
280 pages, $34.95)<br>
<br>
The climate crisis requires that we drastically reduce carbon
dioxide emissions across all sectors of society. The Story of CO2
contributes to this challenge by highlighting the cutting-edge
science and emerging technologies that can transform carbon dioxide
into a myriad of products such as feedstock chemicals, polymers,
pharmaceuticals, and fuels. This approach allows us to reconsider
CO2 as a resource, and to add “carbon capture and use” to our other
tools in the fight against catastrophic climate change. The Story of
CO2 seeks to inspire readers with the latest carbon utilization
technologies and explain how they fit within the broader context of
carbon mitigation strategies in the shift towards a sustainable
energy economy.<br>
<br>
<b>To Know the World: A New Vision for Environmental Learning</b>,
by Mitchel Thomashow (The MIT Press 2020, 288 pages, $30.00
paperback)<br>
<br>
How can we respond to the current planetary ecological emergency? In
To Know the World, Mitchell Thomashow proposes that we reinvigorate
how we think about our residency on Earth. Mixing memoir, theory,
mindfulness, pedagogy, and compelling storytelling, Thomashow
discusses how to navigate the Anthropocene’s rapid pace of change
without further separating psyche from biosphere; how to achieve
constructive connectivity in both social and ecological networks;
and why we should take a cosmopolitan bioregionalism perspective
that unites local and global. Throughout, Thomashow invites readers
to participate as explorers, encouraging them to better understand
how and why environmental learning is crucial to human flourishing.<br>
<br>
<b>Deep Time Reckoning: How Future Thinking Can Help Earth Now,</b>
by Vincent Ialenti (The MIT Press 2020, 208 pages, $25.00)<br>
<br>
We live on a planet careening toward an environmental collapse that
will be largely brought about by our own actions. And yet we
struggle to grasp the scale of the crisis, barely able to imagine
the effects of climate change just ten years from now, let alone the
multi-millennial timescales of Earth’s life span. In this book,
political economist Vincent Ialenti takes on two overlapping crises:
the Anthropocene, our current moment of human-caused environmental
transformation, and the deflation of expertise – today’s popular
mockery and institutional erosion of expert authority. The second
crisis, he argues, is worsening the effects of the first. Hearing
out scientific experts who study a wider time span than a Facebook
timeline is key to tackling our planet’s emergency. This is the kind
of time literacy we need if we are to survive the Anthropocene.<br>
<br>
<b>The Untold Story of the World’s Leading Environmental
Institution: UNEP at Fifty</b>, by Maria Ivanova (The MIT Press
20201, 384 pages, $30.00 paperback)<br>
<br>
The United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) was founded in
1972 as a nimble, fast, and flexible entity at the core of the UN
system – a subsidiary body rather than a specialized agency. In this
book, Maria Ivanova offers a detailed account of UNEP’s origin and
history and a vision for its future. Ivanova counters the common
criticism that UNEP was deficient by design, arguing that UNEP has
in fact delivered on much (though not all) of its mandate. UNEP’s
fiftieth anniversary, Ivanova argues, presents an opportunity for
reinvention. She envisions a future UNEP that is the go-to
institution for information on the state of the planet, a normative
vision of global environmental governance, and support for domestic
environmental agendas.<br>
<br>
<b>How Are We Going to Explain This? Our Future on a Hot Earth</b>,
by Jelmer Mommers (Simon & Schuster 2020, 224 pages, $16.95
paperback)<br>
<br>
If climate change is the biggest threat humanity has ever faced,
then why are we doing so little about it? Journalist Jelmer Mommers
knows most people prefer not to talk or even think about climate
change, and that is exactly why he wrote this book. Denial and
despair are not the only possible responses to the current crisis.
Drawing on the latest science, Mommers describes how we got here,
what possible future awaits us, and how you can help make a
difference. Five years in the making, How Are We Going to Explain
This was an instant bestseller in the Netherlands. This updated
translation, which includes responses to the COVID-19 pandemic,
brings Mommers’ unique blend of realism and hope to the wider world.<br>
<br>
<b>The Good Ancestor: A Radical Prescription for Long-Term Thinking</b>,
by Roman Krznaric (The Experiment 2020, 288 pages, $25.95)<br>
<br>
“Are we being good ancestors?” asked Jonas Salk, who developed the
polio vaccine in 1953 but refused to patent it – forgoing profit so
that more lives could be saved. Salk’s generosity to future
generations should inspire us. But when philosopher Roman Krznaric
examines society today, he sees just the opposite: Our short term
mindsets have “colonized the future.” In The Good Ancestor, Krznaric
reveals six practical ways we can retrain our brains to think of the
long view, including Deep-Time Humility (recognizing our lives as a
cosmic eyeblink) and Cathedral Thinking (starting projects that will
take more than one lifetime). He aims to inspire more “time rebels”
like Greta Thunberg – to shift our allegiance from this generation
to all humanity.<br>
<br>
<b>Hope Matters: Why Changing the Way We Think Is Critical to
Solving the Environmental Crisis</b>, by Elin Kelsey (Greystone
Books 2020, 240 pages, $22.95 paperback)<br>
<br>
We are at an inflection point: today, more people than ever before
recognize that climate change and biodiversity loss are urgent and
existential threats. Yet constant reports of climate doom are
fueling an epidemic of eco-anxiety. Hope Matters boldly breaks
through the narrative of doom and gloom that has overtaken
conversations about our future to show why hope, not fear, is our
most powerful tool for tackling the planetary crisis. Award-winning
author, scholar, and educator Elin Kelsey describes effective
campaigns to support ocean conservation and species resilience, and
rewilding. And she shows how we can build on these positive trends
and harness all our emotions about the changing environment into
effective personal and political action.<br>
<br>
We encourage readers to suggest titles for future bookshelves by
contacting the bookshelf editor. We welcome review copies but
suggest first contacting the editor prior to sending PDFs or print
copies.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://yaleclimateconnections.org/2021/01/12-new-books-explore-fresh-approaches-to-act-on-climate-change/">https://yaleclimateconnections.org/2021/01/12-new-books-explore-fresh-approaches-to-act-on-climate-change/</a><br>
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[Michael Mann about his book]<br>
<b>Climate scientist Michael Mann: Deniers are shifting tactics</b><br>
Maxine Joselow, E&E News reporter - January 25, 2021<br>
- - <br>
<b>In the book, you write that the fossil fuel industry wants people
to think that individual actions will solve climate change. Why is
that?</b><br>
<br>
Well, when I was growing up in the early 1970s, there was a very
effective advertisement that showed a Native American with a tear
rolling down his cheek. He was crying because of bottles and cans
littering the road. And a voice-over said, "People cause pollution.
Only people can stop it."<br>
<br>
<u>"The New Climate War: The Fight to Take Back Our Planet." </u><br>
<br>
The ad had a fundamental impact on me and a whole generation. We
felt empowered to go clean up those bottles and cans. But it turned
out we'd all been had. It was actually a [public relations] stunt
hatched on Madison Avenue by [Coca-Cola Co.] and the beverage
industry in an effort to convince us that bottle legislation wasn't
necessary — we just needed to be better individuals and clean up
after ourselves.<br>
<br>
The fossil fuel industry has run with that playbook big time. For
example, in the early 2000s, [BP PLC] gave us the concept of the
individual carbon footprint and the first carbon footprint
calculator. It was a classic deflection campaign to divert attention
away from systemic solutions and toward individuals. And just like
the beverage industry doesn't want bottle bills, the fossil fuel
industry doesn't want regulations.<br>
<br>
<b>You're not saying that individual actions and lifestyle changes
don't matter, right?</b><br>
<br>
Right. Let me be clear — and I'm clear in the book — that we should
all do things in our everyday lives to minimize our own carbon
footprints. Many of those things make us healthier, save us money,
make us feel better and set a good example for others. What we can't
allow is for us to think those things are a substitute for the
needed systemic actions.<br>
<br>
You know, even some of our most trusted news sources have fallen for
this framing. A lot of the articles that The New York Times has run
about climate solutions in the past few years have been about your
diet or your travel. And I don't think there's any malicious intent
on the part of the Times. But even well-intentioned people,
institutions and media organizations have fallen prey to this
tactic.<br>
<br>
<b>You also write that people should disregard "doomsayers" who
argue that it's too late to act on climate change. Who are the
"doomsayers"?</b><br>
<br>
There are some people who are convinced that we're going to see
runaway global warming that's going to render all life extinct in a
decade. They have argued that we'll all be extinct in 10 years, and
we should really just try to live our lives and accept our fate.<br>
<br>
The fossil fuel interests and those doing their bidding have
actually promoted that message. They like that message because it
potentially leads us down the path of inaction. If you feel there's
nothing you can do anymore about the problem, then why do anything?<br>
<br>
<b>Is that message consistent with the scientific consensus on
climate change?</b><br>
<br>
No. It all goes back to this erroneous argument that we're committed
to this massive release of methane from the Arctic that will lead to
runaway warming. There is no credible scientific evidence whatsoever
for that.<br>
<br>
There is evidence that methane is being released by melting
permafrost and it's increasing the warming in the Arctic. That
process is represented in climate models. But there's no evidence
for any sort of runaway warming scenario, and yet that bad science
underlies pretty much all of these doomsday narratives.<br>
<br>
<b>Have you received any pushback on the book since it came out?</b><br>
<br>
A little bit online. You know, the book is about how bad actors try
to create divisiveness online. So it would be ironic if that didn't
happen. [Laughs]<br>
<br>
Some of the people who are criticized in the book have complained.
And some colleagues have expressed honest disagreement with some of
my points. But the reviews have been mostly positive. And I don't
think anyone can claim that my views aren't grounded in facts or
that they're not offered in good faith.<br>
<br>
<b>What is it like dealing with trolls and critics on Twitter?</b><br>
<br>
I would be sort of insulted if they weren't a little bit upset by
something. I would feel like I hadn't been successful. [Laughs]<br>
<br>
You know, when I went to graduate school for theoretical physics, I
never imagined that I'd be at the center of one of the most
fractious debates we've ever had as a society. But I consider myself
privileged to be in this position of public advocacy.<br>
<br>
And I've been at this for a couple of decades — ever since I
published the first study presenting the "hockey stick" curve back
in the late 1990s. So I've grown a thick skin. I'm like a rhino at
this point. The animal, not a "Republican in name only." [Laughs]<br>
<br>
<b>When you published the "hockey stick" paper in the '90s, you were
subjected to harassment and death threats. Is that still the case?</b><br>
<br>
A lot of those attacks were aimed at discrediting me before I really
had a chance to establish myself. And ultimately, I think they
failed. In fact, they sort of backfired. I wouldn't be nearly as
prominent a voice in this conversation today if it weren't for the
platform that my detractors helped provide by making me into sort of
a public figure.<br>
<br>
In terms of the death threats and the efforts to have me fired, most
of that stuff is behind me now. As I said, the new climate war is
much less about trying to discredit the science and the scientists —
and much more about these insidious tactics that we all have to be
on the lookout for.<br>
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.<br>
Twitter: @maxinejoselowEmail: <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:mjoselow@eenews.net">mjoselow@eenews.net</a><br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.eenews.net/stories/1063723201">https://www.eenews.net/stories/1063723201</a>
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[Auto magazine JALOPNIK opinion]<br>
<b>Big Oil Knows How This Is Going To Go</b><br>
Erik Shilling<br>
Jan 26, 2021<br>
The “supermajor” oil companies collectively known as Big Oil are
having a time of it, in large part because of the pandemic,
obviously, but also because we are swiftly moving towards a post
Peak Oil era. Big Oil knows this, and it’s doing what it can to get
in on what’s next.<br>
<br>
Take Royal Dutch Shell, one of the seven so-called “supermajor” oil
companies that comprise Big Oil, who got pretty shook this summer
after it had to write down $22 billion following cratering of
demand. And while at the time that was largely attributed to the
pandemic, Shell and other oil and gas companies have also been
trying to diversify.<br>
<br>
This has meant investments in the electric supply chain, the latest
being Shell’s purchase of Ubitricity, which operates the biggest car
charging network in Great Britain.<br>
<br>
From the Financial Times Monday:<br>
<br>
Shell said on Monday it would buy 100 per cent of the company for an
undisclosed amount. Ubitricity, founded in Germany, is a leading
European provider of on-street charging for electric vehicles.<br>
<br>
The company, which integrates electric car charging into street
infrastructure such as lamp posts, has more than 2,700 charge points
in the UK, giving it a market share of 13 per cent.<br>
<br>
Shell said the acquisition would help it expand into on-street
charging. It already has more than 1,000 fast and ultrafast charging
points at 430 Shell retail stations and a greater number including
those owned by partners and affiliates at forecourts and motorway
service stations.<br>
<br>
Subject to regulatory approval, the deal is expected to close later
this year.<br>
<br>
Twenty-seven hundred charge points are not that many, and 13 percent
of the market is also not that much since “the market” for EVs in
Great Britain is a single-digit percentage compared to internal
combustion cars, but when big multinational corporations move their
money that’s always the truest indication where they think the
future is going.<br>
<br>
One of the biggest oil companies in the world thinks this electric
thing has legs, or at least enough to hedge its bets a little. See
you at the Shell station in 2050, plugging in our vintage Teslas.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://jalopnik.com/big-oil-knows-how-this-is-going-to-go-1846129084">https://jalopnik.com/big-oil-knows-how-this-is-going-to-go-1846129084</a><br>
<br>
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[musical interlude]<br>
<b>Climate Change Is Worsening. So the Weather Station Is Singing
About It.</b><br>
The 36-year-old Canadian musician Tamara Lindeman’s piercing new
album, “Ignorance,” explores the emotional impacts of a global
problem.<br>
By Lindsay Zoladz<br>
Jan. 25, 2021<br>
Some musicians are compelled to write a song after a lovers’
quarrel, an encounter with a great work of art or a particularly
resonant overheard exchange. Tamara Lindeman, the 36-year-old
Canadian singer and songwriter who records under the name the
Weather Station, was recently driven to write one immediately after
reading an article about the oil and gas corporation Exxon Mobil.<br>
<br>
“When I say that, it sounds very esoteric or political or strange,
but it’s very personal to me,” she said on a video call from her
Toronto home one Monday morning in January, her sandy-blond bangs
hanging as long as the fringe on her brown suede jacket. Call the
songs on her piercing record “Ignorance,” due Feb. 5, anthems of
ambivalence: Lindeman wrote most of them over what she calls “a
weird winter where I was obsessively reading about climate change”
and enamored of a particular toy keyboard with a built-in drum
machine.<br>
<br>
Around that time, she also began attending Fridays for Future
demonstrations in Toronto and hosting a series called Elephant in
the Room, for which she interviewed other musicians and activists
about climate change.<br>
<br>
“Her eyes are open,” said Ben Whiteley, who has played bass on her
records and in her touring band since 2017. “She’s an incredibly
nuanced thinker, very aware of the human emotional state. So she was
like, ‘We need to address the emotional side of climate change.’”<br>
“I feel as useless as a tree in a city park, standing as a symbol of
what we have blown apart,” Lindeman sighs on the poignant “Tried to
Tell You,” which sets its poetic, observational melancholy to an
insistent beat. (She found the band she needed to achieve the
album’s push and pull between weight and lightness in Toronto,
including two percussionists, the jazz saxophonist Brodie West and
Tegan and Sara’s keyboardist Johnny Spence.) Atop that sturdy,
percussive foundation, Lindeman’s nimble voice moves from airy
falsetto to an earthy alto with the grace and daring of a diving
bird.<br>
<br>
When listening to the Weather Station, Joni Mitchell often comes to
mind; Lindeman also cites the more recent work of the indie musician
Weyes Blood for giving her “permission” to explore, in songs, her
relationship to an ailing planet with an almost romantic intensity.<br>
<br>
The song that was kindled after the Exxon Mobil article is “Robber,”
the striking leadoff track. Newly flushed with feelings of anger and
betrayal, Lindeman revisited a droning chord progression to which
she’d previously written an entirely different set of lyrics. She
began with a phrase that popped into her mind: “I never believed in
the robber.” It meant a few different things to her at once — the
lies at the heart of so many collective cultural myths; the ease
with which individuals are blamed for problems caused by larger
institutions — which was a sign that she was moving in the right
direction.<br>
“I think the metaphors or the emotions that lead me to want to write
or finish a song are always the ones that are complicated,” she
said. “When I can’t fully get to the bottom of an idea, that’s when
I’m most likely to make a song.”<br>
Though Lindeman’s music sounds nothing like Drake’s, their origin
stories are oddly similar: Both are former Canadian child actors who
managed to reinvent themselves, in adulthood, as respected
musicians. Under the stage name Tamara Hope, Lindeman acted steadily
throughout her teens, and her IMDb page is a slightly surreal trip —
a role as Tilda Swinton’s daughter in the thriller “The Deep End”;
the title character in “Guinevere Jones,” a Canadian-Australian TV
show about a high schooler with magical powers bestowed by Merlin
himself. “I think if I could go back in time, I would be like, ‘This
is not for you,’” she said with a laugh, before suddenly turning
more ruminative.<br>
<br>
“I was grateful to it in many ways, but I think for me personally it
was a dangerous profession, because it’s very psychologically
strange,” she said, especially for an actor who isn’t the star. “You
have to show up and say your lines and hit your marks, and people
just come up and touch you, put clothes on you, touch your face. You
have no autonomy. It made me very protective of my selfhood, because
I did have that experience of it, being dissolved by my job.”<br>
Music provided a more freeing outlet. By her early 20s Lindeman
devoted herself to her first passion, singing and composing songs.
She put out a series of increasingly bold and well-received folk
albums as the Weather Station (“I’m lucky that the moniker I chose
when I was 20 wasn’t terrible”) on Canadian labels.<br>
“Ignorance,” her first album for the American label Fat Possum, is
likely to bring an even larger audience. It also gave her an
opportunity to make peace with her professional past by directing
her own music videos. The results are dazzling and disarming: They
restage banal indoor activities in the middle of a forest, as
Lindeman’s finely calibrated facial expressions communicate a subtle
sense of surrealism and unease.<br>
<br>
“I forgot she had this whole other life,” said the bassist Whiteley,
who also worked on the videos. “I was like, ‘She knows how to do
this. This is her old world.’ As people get older and more
comfortable with themselves, it’s easier to bring back old parts of
you.”<br>
While touring tirelessly for her 2017 self-titled album, with
strangers’ eyes on her night after night, though, Lindeman had
started to feel pangs of that loss of selfhood that troubled her as
a young actress. She kept asking herself, “What can I wear onstage
that would make me feel less exposed?” She went through a men’s wear
phase, and toyed with the idea of making an outfit that looked like
it was made of grass (“didn’t work”). Then, while scrolling
Instagram, she saw someone wearing a suit made out of mirrors.<br>
<br>
“I was like, ‘Oh my God! This is it!’” she said. “Because it makes
you invisible. It felt like a visual metaphor for how it feels to
perform and to know that people are, for good and bad, bringing
their own emotions to you as a performer, and expecting you to
reflect them back to them.” She made her own to wear in the music
videos and on the cover of “Ignorance.” It is, however, about as
comfortable as an outfit made of glass shards can be: “I can’t sit
down in it. It’s heavy. It’s a pretty ridiculous thing.”<br>
<br>
But the mirror suit is also a way of blending into her natural
environment, becoming one with the flora and fauna that “Ignorance”
longs to preserve. “I tried to wear the world like some kind of
garment,” she sings on “Wear,” a sparse and slinky meeting of head
and heart.<br>
Making music has allowed Lindeman to feel like she’s gradually
regained her artistic autonomy, but it’s also made her wonder if all
songwriters are inherently somewhat selfless — walking mirrors
dissolving into their surroundings and reflecting back the shared
fears and joys of their times.<br>
<br>
“Something I realized about classic songwriting throughout history,
like Motown songs or Beatles songs, is that they take a feeling from
the air that everyone is feeling, and then they just give it into a
melody,” Lindeman said. “There’s something beautifully alchemical
about that.”<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/25/arts/music/weather-station-ignorance.html">https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/25/arts/music/weather-station-ignorance.html</a><br>
<p><br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
[Meat makes heat]<br>
<b>Episode 17 - Engineers Warning to Humanity : Vegan World 2026! -
The Moonshot of Our Generation</b><br>
Jan 26, 2021<br>
Sailesh Rao<br>
While scientists are trained to tease out nature’s processes using
the scientific method, engineers apply established scientific
knowledge to design, create and maintain products and processes that
solve problems. As such, engineers are trained to evaluate the
proposed solution in the Paris Climate Accord and determine whether
it meets our needs. Unfortunately, not only is the Paris Climate
Accord found wanting, its singular focus on fossil fuel reductions
to the exclusion of food and lifestyle systems makes the Paris
Climate Accord downright dangerous.<br>
<br>
It is engineers who designed and created the transportation and
life-support systems that safely conveyed humans to the moon and
back. It is engineers’ warnings on the temperature sensitivity of
the O-ring seals in the propulsion system that were ignored by NASA
managers resulting in the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster of Jan
28, 1986, which cost the lives of 7 human beings. If this present
warning is ignored, it might put in jeopardy the lives of 7 billion
human beings, not to mention all of spaceship Earth’s life-support
systems. Therefore, we urge global policymakers to pay heed to our
warning.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=az7o-nfYG78">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=az7o-nfYG78</a><br>
<p><br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
[didn't say when]<br>
<b>The U.S. Government's Entire 645,000-Vehicle Fleet Will Go
All-Electric</b><br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://jalopnik.com/the-u-s-governments-entire-645-000-vehicle-fleet-will-1846132563">https://jalopnik.com/the-u-s-governments-entire-645-000-vehicle-fleet-will-1846132563</a><br>
<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 -
January 27, 1995 </b></font><br>
<br>
The New York Times reports:<br>
<blockquote>"Whatever happened to global warming? The question was
on many lips a year ago, when the northeastern United States
suffered through its bitterest winter in years. Now an
exceptionally warm winter has whipsawed perceptions about the
world's climate once again.<br>
<br>
"An answer has become apparent in annual climatic statistics in
the last few days: global warming, interrupted as a result of the
mid-1991 eruption of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines, has
resumed -- just as many experts had predicted.<br>
<br>
"After a two-year cooling period, the average temperature of the
earth's surface rebounded in 1994 to the high levels of the
1980's, the warmest decade ever recorded, according to three sets
of data in the United States and Britain.<br>
<br>
"The earth's average surface temperature last year closely
approached the record high of almost 60 degrees measured in 1990.
That was the last full year before the Pinatubo eruption, which
cooled the earth by injecting into the atmosphere a haze of
sulfurous droplets that reflected some of the sun's heat."<br>
</blockquote>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.nytimes.com/1995/01/27/us/a-global-warming-resumed-in-1994-climate-data-show.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm">http://www.nytimes.com/1995/01/27/us/a-global-warming-resumed-in-1994-climate-data-show.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm</a><br>
<br>
<p><br>
</p>
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