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<p><i><font size="+1"><b>February 8, 2021</b></font></i></p>
[glacier melt and collapse, avalanche catastrophe in India]<br>
<b>Himalayan glacier bursts in India; dozens feared dead</b><br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=buyBVlwYVdE">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=buyBVlwYVdE</a><br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1TLUXW2oGI">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1TLUXW2oGI</a><br>
<b>Himalayan glacier causes deadly flood</b><br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxhVB9hcWMQ">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxhVB9hcWMQ</a><br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P8lNTPlsRtI">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P8lNTPlsRtI</a><br>
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</p>
<p>[Industry]</p>
<p><b>A Disillusioned ExxonMobil Engineer Quits to Take Action on
Climate Change and Stop ‘Making the World Worse’</b><br>
After 16 years of working for the oil giant, Dar-Lon Chang said
Exxon would not address climate change. So he quit the sector for
good, and began a new low-carbon life.<br>
By Nicholas Kusnetz<br>
February 8, 2021<br>
</p>
<p>- -</p>
<p>He’d had an interest in alternative energy since his college
days, and thought science and technology would blaze a path
towards a future without fossil fuels. Exxon, he believed, could
help lead the way. When he could, Chang tried to nudge the company
along in small ways, holding out the hope that change would
come...</p>
<p>- -</p>
<p>But with each passing year, Chang watched the climate crisis grow
more urgent, while the company he had devoted his career to only
deepened its commitment to oil and gas. Eventually, he became
disillusioned.<br>
<br>
So in 2019, without any prospect of future employment, he
resigned, packed up with his wife and daughter, who had known no
home other than Houston, and moved to a net-zero community outside
Denver built around environmentally-conscious living.<br>
<br>
He had hoped to find a job in the renewable energy sector, but
meanwhile, he poured himself into his new Geos Neighborhood, where
residents hold monthly meetings to discuss how to lighten their
load on the planet. A small herd of goats graze on undeveloped
lots, the community’s fossil-free answer to weed control. A blue
Nissan Leaf and a black Tesla Model 3 sit side-by-side in his
garage, plugged into chargers fed by solar panels on his roof. <br>
<br>
“I didn’t want the rest of my career to be wasted on something
that I felt was making the world worse, when there was all the
possibility to make things better,” he said recently. <br>
<br>
Chang belongs to a generation of engineers, environmental
scientists and computer developers who entered the fossil fuel
sector just as the world was waking up to the grave threat posed
by the industry’s products. While oil companies are already under
pressure from investors, governments and society at large, Chang’s
story reflects another emerging challenge for the industry: a
younger generation of workers who are worried about climate change
and their own role in determining what kind of future their
children will inherit...</p>
<p>- -<br>
</p>
<p>There is no evidence of any formal movement within Exxon’s ranks
agitating for change. But Inside Climate News spoke with people
who have worked at Exxon who expressed views similar to Chang’s. <br>
<br>
One worker, who asked not to be named because she was not
authorized to speak to the media, described a generational schism,
saying she guessed that most employees under the age of 50 thought
climate change was a serious issue. She recently left the company.
<br>
<br>
Another former employee, Enrique Rosero, has said in interviews
that he left Exxon last year after being punished for speaking out
about climate change. Exxon’s announcements in October that
cratering oil prices would force it to cut thousands of jobs
globally has delivered more cause for anxiety.<br>
<br>
Exxon is not the only company under pressure. At Royal Dutch
Shell, a split over how fast the oil giant should pivot towards
clean energy has contributed to the departure of several
executives in recent months, according to a report by the
Financial Times. And BP’s chief executive, Bernard Looney, said
last year that concern about climate change on the part of his
workforce was part of why he announced a new direction for the
company, which has pledged to reduce oil and gas production as it
ramps up spending on low-carbon energy.<br>
<br>
One of the greatest appeals of a career at Exxon, Chang said, was
the chance to work on a diverse range of projects that could help
supply the world with energy. But as the climate crisis grew more
dire, he said, the company’s management showed no interest and
resisted calls to move into lower-carbon products.<br>
<br>
Exxon spokesman Casey Norton, responding to questions about the
company’s attitude toward employees who pushed for more aggressive
action on climate change, said, “We encourage an open dialogue and
employees can share their ideas with their supervisors, human
resources and colleagues.” He pointed to the company’s efforts to
reduce its own emissions, and added that oil and natural gas will
continue “to play a significant role for decades in meeting
increasing energy demand of a growing and more prosperous global
population.”...</p>
<p>more at -
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/08022021/a-disillusioned-exxonmobil-engineer-quits-to-take-action-on-climate-change-and-stop-making-the-world-worse/">https://insideclimatenews.org/news/08022021/a-disillusioned-exxonmobil-engineer-quits-to-take-action-on-climate-change-and-stop-making-the-world-worse/</a><br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<br>
[top climate scientist]<br>
<b>Nine Years After Filing a Lawsuit, Climate Scientist Michael Mann
Wants a Court to Affirm the Truth of His Science</b><br>
The case raises difficult issues about free speech in an era of
online misinformation and disinformation.<br>
<br>
By Marianne Lavelle<br>
<br>
When Penn State climate scientist Michael Mann first threatened to
sue two conservative bloggers and their publishers for defamation in
2012, they seemed to welcome the opportunity for a face-off in
court.<br>
- -<br>
Now, with discovery in the case concluded, Mann is asking the court
to rule that the conservative outlets have failed to summon any
evidence to challenge the validity of his science.<br>
<br>
In a motion for partial summary judgment filed Jan. 22 in Superior
Court of the District of Columbia (the Washington, D.C. equivalent
of a state trial court), Mann’s lawyers have asked the court to bar
the Competitive Enterprise Institute, the National Review and their
authors from using as their defense an argument that their
accusations were true, or “substantially true,” and therefore could
not be defamatory. <br>
<br>
Mann’s case raises difficult issues regarding free speech in an era
of online misinformation and disinformation. If Mann prevails in his
motion, the blog publishers could still win the case, mounting other
defenses, including that their columns were protected by the First
Amendment, an argument they have made throughout the long history of
the litigation. But Mann also would gain an important victory: a
ruling supporting the validity of his science...<br>
- -<br>
A ruling in Mann’s favor could have implications for anyone
publishing smears based on falsehoods, giving the case, filed years
before the Trump era, a new salience amid the rapid spread of
dangerous and reputation-damaging conspiracy mongering and
disinformation on the Internet.<br>
<br>
“The American people are fed up with fake news and false
accusations,” Mann said in a statement emailed by his lawyers, “and
this case will hopefully prove that there are consequences for this
type of behavior.”<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/07022021/michael-mann-defamation-lawsuit-competitive-enterprise-institute-national-review/">https://insideclimatenews.org/news/07022021/michael-mann-defamation-lawsuit-competitive-enterprise-institute-national-review/</a><br>
<p><br>
</p>
<br>
[Important, hour-long gloom and doom video from a Unitarian
minister]<br>
<b>Unstoppable Collapse: How to Avoid the Worst (Dowd 1-8-21)</b><br>
Jan 8, 2021<br>
thegreatstory<br>
The first draft of this video -- "Irreversible Collapse: Accepting
Reality, Avoiding Evil": <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://youtu.be/iQeK04WOGaA">https://youtu.be/iQeK04WOGaA</a> -- garnered
8,000 views and 200 comments in one week, including suggestions for
improvement. So I revised it based on collective intelligence.
SUMMARY: The stability of the biosphere has been in decline for
centuries and in unstoppable, out of control mode for decades. This
“Great Acceleration” of biospheric collapse is an easily verifiable
fact. The scientific evidence is overwhelming. <br>
Evidence is also compelling that the vast majority of people will
deny this, especially those still benefitting from the existing
order and those who fear that “accepting reality” means “giving up.”
<br>
The history of scores of previous boom and bust (progress / regress)
societies clearly reveals how and why industrial civilization is
dying. Accepting that Homo colossus’ condition is incurable and
terminal may be key to not making a bad situation catastrophically
worse. <br>
<br>
APPLICATION — TO AVOID BECOMING EVIL on a geological timescale, we
must…<br>
1. Minimize deadliest toxicity (nuclear, methane, chemicals).<br>
2. Assist plants (especially trees) in migrating poleward.<br>
3. Invest time, energy, and resources in all things regenerative,
including thriving with LESS (less energy, stuff, stimulation),
learning from and supporting indigenous wisdom and experience, and
nurturing community eco-literacy and resilience.<br>
<br>
CORE MESSAGE: Without an understanding of ecology, energy, and
history, good people with the best of intentions will unknowingly
propose and support policies likely to make a bad situation
catastrophically worse. Or as an ecologist friend of mine likes to
say, “If you don’t 'get' overshoot, you’ll misinterpret or
misdiagnose virtually everything important.”<br>
<br>
PERSONAL NOTE: I consider this video to be the single most important
thing I've created. Thanks to all who helped me improve it!<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P8lNTPlsRtI">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P8lNTPlsRtI</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 -
February 8, 2014 </b></font><br>
<p>February 8, 2014: On MSNBC's "Craig Melvin," NASA climatologist
Gavin Schmidt discusses the consequences of extreme winter
weather.<br>
<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.msnbc.com/craig-melvin/watch/how-winter-is-testing-weak-infrastructure-142984259576#">http://www.msnbc.com/craig-melvin/watch/how-winter-is-testing-weak-infrastructure-142984259576#</a>
<br>
</p>
<p>/-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------/<br>
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