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<p><i><font size="+1"><b>February 27, 2021</b></font></i></p>
[Bill Gates speaks frankly - in the first minute of this video]<br>
<b>Bill Gates on Climate Crisis, Texas Freeze, Bezos Partnership</b><br>
Feb 22, 2021<br>
Bloomberg Technology<br>
Feb.22 -- Bill Gates, co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates
Foundation and co-founder of Microsoft, discusses the importance of
addressing climate change, the recent extreme-weather event in
Texas, and his collaboration with Amazon.com Inc. Chief Executive
Officer Jeff Bezos. He speaks with Bloomberg's Emily Chang on
"Bloomberg Technology."<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pP38xsIq6_A">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pP38xsIq6_A</a><br>
<br>
<p><br>
</p>
[Optimistic outlook ]<br>
<b>How Biden Can Tackle the Climate Crisis</b><br>
Joe Biden has promised to ensure climate justice, but will his
administration rise to the challenge? With the Biden Administration
pledging to take the climate crisis seriously, some grounds for
optimism exist.<br>
February 25, 2021 - Tina Gerhardt - THE PROGRESSIVE<br>
A first auspicious sign was President Joe Biden’s creation of two
new positions: the U.S. Special Presidential Envoy for Climate, the
first climate-focused appointment to the National Security Council,
and the first National Climate Adviser, who will coordinate climate
policy across the federal government. To the first post, Biden
appointed John Kerry, former Secretary of State (2013-2017) and
Senator from Massachusetts (1985-2013); and to the second, he
appointed Gina McCarthy, who ran the Environmental Protection Agency
during the Obama Administration. <br>
<br>
In addition to these two posts, Biden has rounded out his climate
team with the following nominations: Jennifer Granholm for Secretary
of Energy; Deb Haaland for Secretary of the Interior; Brenda Mallory
for chair of the Council on Environmental Quality; and Michael S.
Regan for head of the EPA. This team confirms that the
administration will focus not only on addressing climate change but
also on ensuring climate justice.<br>
- -<br>
Most importantly, by centering the climate crisis the Biden
Administration makes clear it views it not as a single issue,
narrowly construed, but as a lens through which to view all else.
Being mindful of how the climate crisis intersects with other
issues—such as defense, education, foreign policy, health care,
housing, and labor, to name a few—will be key to addressing it.<br>
<br>
The Green New Deal exemplifies this approach with a call to provide
“all people of the United States with—high-quality health care;
affordable, safe, and adequate housing; economic security; and clean
water, clean air, healthy and affordable food, and access to
nature.”<br>
<br>
The Biden Administration has both the need and the potential to move
forward quickly on the climate crisis. So much depends on how well
it does.<br>
<br>
[Tina Gerhardt is an environmental journalist and academic who
covers climate change, international climate negotiations and
domestic energy policy, hurricanes and sea level rise. Her work has
been published by Common Dreams, Grist, The Nation, The Progressive,
Sierra and the Washington Monthly. Twitter: @TinaGerhardtEJ]<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://portside.org/2021-02-25/how-biden-can-tackle-climate-crisis">https://portside.org/2021-02-25/how-biden-can-tackle-climate-crisis</a><br>
<br>
<p><br>
</p>
[evolving language - climate refugee]<br>
UNHCR - UN Refugee Agency<br>
<b>Environment, Disasters and Climate Change</b><br>
Climate change and disaster displacement<br>
Research indicates that the Earth’s climate is changing at a rate
that has exceeded most scientific forecasts. Some families and
communities have already started to suffer from disasters and the
consequences of climate change, which has forced them to leave their
homes in search of a new beginning.<br>
<br>
UNHCR recognizes that the consequences of climate change are
extremely serious, including for refugees and other people of
concern. The Global Compact on Refugees, affirmed by an overwhelming
majority in the UN General Assembly in December 2018, directly
addresses this growing concern. It recognizes that ‘climate,
environmental degradation and natural disasters increasingly
interact with the drivers of refugee movements.’...<br>
- -<br>
<b>‘Climate refugees’?</b><br>
The term “climate refugee” is often used in the media and other
discussions. However, this phrase can cause confusion, as it does
not exist in international law. A “refugee” is defined as a person
who has crossed an international border “owing to well-founded fear
of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality,
membership of a particular social group or political opinion” (1951
Convention relating to the Status of Refugees). In some contexts,
the definition extends to persons fleeing “events seriously
disturbing public order” (1969 OAU Convention; 1984 Cartagena
Declaration). Climate change affects people inside their own
countries, and typically creates internal displacement before it
reaches a level where it displaces people across borders. There may
be situations where the refugee criteria of the 1951 Convention or
broader refugee criteria of regional refugee law frameworks may
apply, for example if drought-related famine is linked to situations
of armed conflict and violence – an area known as “nexus dynamics.”
Regardless, the term “climate refugee” is not endorsed by UNHCR, and
it is more accurate to refer to “persons displaced in the context of
disasters and climate change.”<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.unhcr.org/en-us/climate-change-and-disasters.html">https://www.unhcr.org/en-us/climate-change-and-disasters.html</a><br>
<p><br>
</p>
[Social disruption opinions]<br>
<b>Covid and the climate crisis show why we need a new social
contract between old and young</b><br>
Minouche Shafik<br>
The burden to pay for people in retirement is too great on those
facing debt, job insecurity and an uncertain future<br>
Covid-19 continues to bring many inter-generational tensions to the
fore. Older people bear the brunt of the disease’s impact on health;
younger people have to make economic and social sacrifices to
protect them. But the pandemic is just one reason why the social
contract between the generations is under pressure.<br>
<br>
Within families, the social contract between the generations is easy
to understand. Parents want to give their children the capabilities
and means to have a good life; children want their parents to have a
comfortable old age. But at a societal level, the social contract
between the generations is more complex. The legacy we leave to
future generations has many dimensions – the stock of human
knowledge and culture, inventions, infrastructure and institutions,
and the state of the natural world. We owe a great deal to previous
generations and most would agree that we also owe something to
future generations we will never meet, and that each generation
should leave the next at least as well off, and preferably better
off than they were...<br>
In many advanced economies, those born between the end of the second
world war and the early 1960s benefited from decades of sustained
economic growth, secure jobs with benefits and major gains in health
and social conditions. The generations that followed have faced a
world of more flexible and precarious work, rising house prices and
a period of fiscal austerity after the 2008 financial crisis that
reduced social spending in many countries. Many carry large debt
burdens from student loans and credit cards, which limit their
ability to afford a mortgage to buy a home, or start a family. The
income gains and the prospect of security in old age experienced by
past generations have stalled and, in some countries, reversed. The
risks of poverty are shifting from older people to younger people.
Today, there are many in advanced economies who believe the next
generation will be worse off than their parents.<br>
<br>
Meanwhile, so-called Generation Z (those born after 2000) are at the
forefront of the youth protest about the climate crisis. “You will
die of old age; we will die of climate change,” read the sign of a
young protester at the climate strike in London in September 2019.
These young people are not convinced that older generations are
doing enough to leave them with an inhabitable planet or viable
livelihoods...<br>
How, then, can we rebalance the social contract between the
generations? The best way we can improve the economic prospects of
future generations is through education. A massive investment in
early years is the most effective way to equalise opportunity for
all young people. Ideally, each young person would start with an
educational endowment to enable to them to develop skills throughout
their lives. More investment in re-skilling is also needed to enable
people to adapt as jobs change over time. The resulting economic
gains would also help pay for the elderly care needs of an ageing
population and make debt more sustainable in the future.<br>
<br>
To reduce the fiscal burden on future generations, today’s older
people will need to work longer. In most middle- and high-income
countries, workers today can expect to spend about a third of their
adult life in retirement. The basic problem is that the years in
retirement relative to the years in work have grown too much. By
2060, all the G20 countries will have shrinking populations and the
number of people over 65 who need to be supported by the working age
population will have at least doubled. To avoid an undue burden on
today’s young people, we need to link retirement ages explicitly to
life expectancy, so that the ratio of time working and time in
retirement comes into better balance. There must be a sensible way
to finance social care that prevents destitution in old age and asks
the better off to contribute.<br>
<br>
We must also do as much as we can to redress environmental damage. A
good start would be to eliminate the $4-6 trillion in annual
government subsidies to agriculture, water, fisheries and fossil
fuels that actively encourage the exploitation of the environment.
These subsidies mean it is not just free for companies to deplete
the natural world, the taxpayer actually pays for them to do it.
There needs to more investment in conservation and restoration of
the biosphere, such as planting trees. Current public and private
spending on conservation is about $91bn, less than 2% of what is
spent on subsidies to degrade the environment. The next step is to
measure things properly: where market prices do not convey the true
value of environmental services, we must find other ways to factor
them into our calculations and decisions. Finally, governments
should use fiscal policy to change incentives, such as taxing carbon
or incentivising green technologies.<br>
Finding cohesion between the generations is complicated by the fact
that older people tend to be more effective at exercising political
power than young people. Research has shown that the share of older
people in the population has a significant impact on the pattern of
public spending. Put simply, more older people means more spending
on pensions and less on education. Older voters are more averse to
policies, such as low interest rates, that are intended to increase
economic demand and maintain full employment but that lower returns
on savings and risk more inflation. Having retired, they generally
care less about unemployment, relative to the average citizen.
Political parties in ageing societies are increasingly forced to
cater to these demands.<br>
<br>
One way or another, we must find a way to give more weight to the
voices and interests of younger and future generations. Otherwise
the social contract that shapes the future will be designed
exclusively by those who will not live to see it, without the input
of those who will. Investing more in education and skills, finding
ways to manage the costs of pensions, health and social care, and
redressing environmental damage would be enlightened investments by
one generation in the next: this would benefit all of us and provide
a new social contract for our time.<br>
<br>
Minouche Shafik is director of the London School of Economics and
Political Science, and the author of What We Owe Each Other: A New
Social Contract<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/feb/25/covid-climate-crisis-new-social-contract-old-young">https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/feb/25/covid-climate-crisis-new-social-contract-old-young</a>
<p><br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
[Video volley in the Disinformation War]<br>
<b>Honest Government Ad | News Corp Bargaining Code</b><br>
Feb 25, 2021<br>
thejuicemedia<br>
The Australien Government has made an ad about the new Media
legislation it just passed, and it's surprisingly honest and
informative.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uqj2z3QaRyU">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uqj2z3QaRyU</a><br>
<p><br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
[AGU helps with preparing for Information battles - at 29:30 author
speaks of her showdown with Trump on a climate report]<br>
<b>Strengths and Limitations of Scientific Integrity Policies</b><br>
Feb 26, 2021<br>
AGU<br>
Scientific integrity protections in the federal government have
become an increasingly important topic over the past few years. Many
government agencies have scientific integrity policies to protect
against violations of scientific and ethical standards, but these
policies vary widely in breadth, strength, and clarity. In
particular, issues of censorship and political interference, while
clear violations of basic scientific integrity principles, are not
always fully addressed by agency scientific integrity policies.
Climate scientist Dr. Maria Caffrey will speak about her personal
experience with scientific integrity issues in the federal
government. Attorneys from the Climate Science Legal Defense Fund
(CSLDF) will also discuss what scientists should know when
encountering potential censorship or political interference. They
will discuss what constitutes a violation of scientific integrity at
various agencies, how different agencies handle scientific integrity
complaints, what scientists should do when considering filing a
scientific integrity complaint, and other recourse options for
scientists seeking to address censorship and political interference.
Speakers: Augusta Wilson, Climate Science Legal Defense Fund Maria
Caffrey, Climate Scientist<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4MQCSw3pX0c">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4MQCSw3pX0c</a><br>
<p>- -</p>
[news article in 2018]<br>
<b>Wipeout: Human role in climate change removed from science report</b><br>
By Elizabeth Shogren / April 2, 2018<br>
<br>
National Park Service officials have deleted every mention of
humans’ role in causing climate change in drafts of a long-awaited
report on sea level rise and storm surge, contradicting Interior
Secretary Ryan Zinke’s vow to Congress that his department is not
censoring science....<br>
- -<br>
Reveal obtained almost 2,000 pages of drafts of the report showing
tracked changes and dating back to August 2016 – along with dozens
of pages of other documents about the report and preparations to
release it – in response to a public records request to the state of
Colorado.<br>
<br>
The lead author, University of Colorado geological sciences research
associate Maria Caffrey, worked full time on the report on contract
with the park service from 2013 through 2017.<br>
<br>
Caffrey declined to discuss the editing and long delay in releasing
her report, instead referring questions to the park service. Asked
whether she has been pressured to delete the terms “anthropogenic”
and “human activities,” she replied, “I don’t really want to get
into that today.”<br>
<br>
“I would be very disappointed if there were words being attributed
to me that I didn’t write,” she said. “I don’t think politics should
come into this in any way.”<br>
<br>
Although references to human-induced change were deleted, data and
maps showing the severity of impacts on the parks were unchanged.<br>
<br>
In drafts dated January 2017 to May 2017, the executive summary
starts: “Changing relative sea levels and the potential for
increasing storm surges due to anthropogenic climate change present
challenges to national park managers.”<br>
<br>
But editing dated Feb. 6, 2018, changed that to: “Ongoing changes in
relative sea levels and the potential for increasing storm surges
present challenges to national park managers.”<br>
<br>
In a section about 2012’s Hurricane Sandy, one of the costliest
storms to hit the U.S., this sentence was deleted: “This single
storm cannot be attributed to anthropogenic climate change, but the
storm surge occurred over a sea whose level had risen due to climate
change.”...<br>
The introduction also was substantially altered in February. These
two sentences were deleted: “While sea levels have been gradually
rising since the last glacial maximum approximately 21,000 years
ago, anthropogenic climate change has significantly increased the
rate of global sea level rise. Human activities continue to release
carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere, causing the Earth’s
atmosphere to warm.”<br>
<br>
Other scientists who reviewed the draft reports said the deletions
about the cause of climate change were alarming.<br>
<br>
“It’s hiding from the public the reality of the causes and the
possible options to<br>
<br>
choose or influence what scenario plays out,” Lubchenco said.<br>
<br>
Some of the editing apparently remained in play. Caffrey has pushed
back on at least some of the deletions, according to a March draft.<br>
<br>
Editing notes in a draft obtained by Reveal indicate that many of
the deletions were made by Larry Perez, a career public information
officer who coordinates the park service’s climate change response
program.<br>
<br>
Perez declined to comment on why the changes were made. Watchdog
groups say that in some cases, career officials within the
administration may be self-censoring to avoid angering Trump
appointees. In others cases, they may be responding to verbal orders
from superiors who have been told to avoid creating records that
eventually could be made public.<br>
<br>
The National Park Service’s scientific integrity policy prohibits
managers from engaging in “dishonesty, fraud, misrepresentation,
coercive manipulation, censorship, or other misconduct that alters
the content, veracity, or meaning or that may affect the planning,
conduct, reporting, or application of scientific and scholarly
activities.” It also requires employees to differentiate between
their opinions or assumptions and solid science.<br>
<br>
Marcia McNutt, president of the National Academy of Sciences, said
“the edits are glaringly in violation” of the science cited in the
report and “such alterations violate” the policy.<br>
<br>
“The individual who edited the document is making a personal
opinion/assumption that runs counter to the scientific consensus
that greenhouse gas emissions responsible for sea level rise are of
anthropogenic origin and that the threat to the National Park
Service assets arises primarily from human activities,” said McNutt,
who led the U.S. Geological Survey, the Interior Department’s main
scientific agency, from 2009 to 2013.<br>
<br>
Clement, who worked for seven years as a high-ranking director in
the Interior Department, said it would be unusual for such editing
to occur without an order from a top supervisor.<br>
<br>
“I can’t imagine a career man or woman would take those steps
without some sort of direction,” he said.<br>
<br>
The editing seemed to cross a line that Zinke drew during last
month’s hearing before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources
Committee.<br>
<br>
Sen. Mazie Hirono, a Democrat from Hawaii, pressed Zinke about
censoring science. She asked him about department officials deleting
this line from a press release about a newly published scientific
article: “Global climate change drives sea-level rise, increasing
the frequency of coastal flooding.”<br>
<br>
In his testimony, Zinke differentiated editing press releases from
altering scientific reports. He also rebuffed suggestions that he
considers references to climate change unacceptable, saying “man has
been an influencer” on the warming climate.<br>
<br>
Sen. Lisa Murkowski, a Republican from Alaska and the committee’s
chairwoman, summarized Zinke’s comments: “I think you were pretty
clear … that within the department, you’re not altering the reports
that are coming out from the agencies.”<br>
<br>
Why the deletions matter<br>
Caffrey, the park service report’s lead author, said it’s crucial
that the report address the human role in climate change. One of her
key findings is that decisions about reducing greenhouse gases will
determine how much peril the coastal national parks face from sea
level rise and storm surge.<br>
<br>
The report calculates projected sea level rise in 2030, 2050 and
2100 under four scenarios for global emissions. For instance,
projections for the National Mall and Memorial Parks in Washington
in 2100 range from 1.74 feet to 2.62 feet. The low end envisions a
future in which people burn significantly less coal and other fossil
fuels, while the upper number reflects increases in use.<br>
<br>
“What scenario we choose to follow in the future will have a
significant impact on how we protect our resources, like the
National Park Service resources,” Caffrey said. “I feel it’s an
important part to include in the report because it’s an essential
part of those findings.”<br>
<br>
In an October 2016 webinar for park staff about her research,
Caffrey showed an aerial photo that depicts Washington in 2100 if
global emissions rise and a Category 3 hurricane hits the city. The
National Mall and Constitution Avenue are flooded. Water surrounds
museums.<br>
<br>
“We can see the results could potentially be quite catastrophic,”
Caffrey said in an interview.<br>
<br>
The report is intended to be released with an interactive website
that would allow the public and park managers to visualize rising
waters in their favorite parks.<br>
<br>
“You can zoom in and move around and see the underlying
infrastructure and see what’s at risk,” said William Manley, a
University of Colorado Boulder research scientist who worked on
data, maps and the online viewer.<br>
<br>
“The data and the viewer, if released, would help park
decision-makers to see more clearly what decisions they should make
to avoid costly mistakes,” he said. In addition, “the maps and
information would be helpful to resource managers in preparation for
any storms that were forecasted.”<br>
<br>
For instance, if the report had been released by late last summer,
park managers could have consulted it when Hurricanes Irma and
Maria, both Category 5 storms, headed toward the U.S. Virgin Islands
in September. The storm surge maps for Virgin Islands National Park
could have shown managers which areas were likely to flood. The
interactive viewer possibly could have helped evacuation planning.<br>
<br>
“It’s becoming clearer and clearer to most Americans that weather
patterns are changing, climate change is a real phenomenon, and it’s
affecting things they care about, people they love and places that
they love,” said Lubchenco, the former NOAA administrator.<br>
<br>
“I think what we are seeing is an effort to undermine that
realization in a very subtle way. And it’s very dangerous. It’s
counter to the best interests of a fully democratic society.”<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://revealnews.org/article/wipeout-human-role-in-climate-change-removed-from-science-report/">https://revealnews.org/article/wipeout-human-role-in-climate-change-removed-from-science-report/</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 27, 2001 </b></font><br>
<p>Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill sends a memo to President George
W. Bush urging him to take strong action to combat carbon
pollution. The memo is ignored, and O'Neill would be forced out as
Treasury Secretary a year later.<br>
</p>
<p>ISBN:9780743255462, 0743255461<br>
Published:September 2, 2004<br>
Publisher:Simon & Schuster<br>
Author:Ron Suskind<br>
Updated with a new afterword and including a selection of key
documents, this is the explosive account of how the Bush
administration makes policy on war, taxes, and politics -- its
true agenda exposed by a member of the Bush cabinet.<br>
This vivid, unfolding narrative is like no other book that has
been written about the Bush presidency. At its core are the candid
assessments of former Secretary of the Treasury Paul O'Neill, the
only member of Bush's cabinet to leave and speak frankly about how
and why the administration has come to its core policies and
decisions -- from cutting taxes for the rich to conducting
preemptive war.<br>
O'Neill's account is supported by Pulitzer Prize-winning
journalist Ron Suskind's interviews with numerous participants in
the administration, by trans...<br>
Source: Publisher<br>
</p>
<p><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Price_of_Loyalty/ijQLBeDklxcC">https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Price_of_Loyalty/ijQLBeDklxcC</a></p>
<p><br>
</p>
<p>/-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------/<br>
</p>
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