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<p><i><font size="+1"><b>March 22, 2021</b></font></i></p>
[see Australian TV news coverage flooding]<br>
<b>NSW flood emergency - Coverage on 7NEWS - March 2021 | 7NEWS</b><br>
Mar 22, 2021<br>
7NEWS Australia<br>
NSW Flood Emergency: There are warnings for low-lying areas around
the Hawkesbury and Nepean rivers with the Warragamba Dam spilling
this afternoon. <br>
More Details: <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZJ5Q2r74cU">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZJ5Q2r74cU</a><br>
<br>
<p><br>
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[climate modeling lecture video with policy presentations]<br>
<b>How Can Climate Models Help Us Respond to Climate Change? - with
Vicky Pope</b><br>
Feb 25, 2021<br>
The Royal Institution<br>
Vicky Pope describes what goes into a cutting-edge climate model,
how it is used to provide information on how and why the climate is
changing and how it might change in the future.<br>
Watch the Q&A: <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://youtu.be/gEcFsYQQ1WU">https://youtu.be/gEcFsYQQ1WU</a><br>
<br>
Prof Vicky Pope is a climate scientist specialising in climate
modelling and providing science to help both governments and the
general public to understand the implications of climate change.<br>
<br>
Her work has helped to provide the information that the government
and others need to reduce the worst impacts of climate change. She
has also helped to encourage evidence-based decisions on diverse
issues including drought and the interaction between air quality and
climate change.<br>
<br>
Her current interests are very diverse, encouraging wider
appreciation and protection of the environment and improved access
to science and mathematics education. She is the Chair and trustee
for a number of charities and an honorary professor at University
College London.<br>
<br>
Subscribe for regular science videos: <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://bit.ly/RiSubscRibe">http://bit.ly/RiSubscRibe</a><br>
This talk was livestreamed by the Ri on 14 January 2021.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-XrpTWxoOw">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-XrpTWxoOw</a><br>
<br>
<p><br>
</p>
[Racism and global warming]<br>
<b>The Unbearable Whiteness of Climate Anxiety</b><br>
Is it really just code for white people wishing to hold onto their
way of life or get “back to normal?"<br>
By Sarah Jaquette Ray on March 21, 2021<br>
The climate movement is ascendant, and it has become common to see
climate change as a social justice issue. Climate change and its
effects—pandemics, pollution, natural disasters—are not universally
or uniformly felt: the people and communities suffering most are
disproportionately Black, Indigenous and people of color. It is no
surprise then that U.S. surveys show that these are the communities
most concerned about climate change.<br>
<br>
One year ago, I published a book called A Field Guide to Climate
Anxiety. Since its publication, I have been struck by the fact that
those responding to the concept of climate anxiety are
overwhelmingly white. Indeed, these climate anxiety circles are even
whiter than the environmental circles I’ve been in for decades.
Today, a year into the pandemic, after the murder of George Floyd
and the protests that followed, and the attack on the U.S. Capitol,
I am deeply concerned about the racial implications of climate
anxiety. If people of color are more concerned about climate change
than white people, why is the interest in climate anxiety so white?
Is climate anxiety a form of white fragility or even racial anxiety?
Put another way, is climate anxiety just code for white people
wishing to hold onto their way of life or get “back to normal,” to
the comforts of their privilege?<br>
<br>
The white response to climate change is literally suffocating to
people of color. Climate anxiety can operate like white fragility,
sucking up all the oxygen in the room and devoting resources toward
appeasing the dominant group. As climate refugees are framed as a
climate security threat, will the climate-anxious recognize their
role in displacing people from around the globe? Will they be able
to see their own fates tied to the fates of the dispossessed? Or
will they hoard resources, limit the rights of the most affected and
seek to save only their own, deluded that this xenophobic strategy
will save them? How can we make sure that climate anxiety is
harnessed for climate justice?<br>
<br>
My book has connected me to a growing community focused on the
emotional dimensions of climate change. As writer Britt Wray puts
it, emotions like mourning, anger, dread and anxiety are “merely a
sign of our attachment to the world.” Paradoxically, though, anxiety
about environmental crisis can create apathy, inaction and burnout.
Anxiety may be a rational response to the world that climate models
predict, but it is unsustainable. <br>
<br>
And climate panic can be as dangerous as it is galvanizing. Dealing
with feelings of climate anxiety will require the existential tools
I provided in A Field Guide to Climate Anxiety, but it will also
require careful attention to extremism and climate zealotry. We
can’t fight climate change with more racism. Climate anxiety must be
directed toward addressing the ways that racism manifests as
environmental trauma and vice versa—how environmentalism manifests
as racialized violence. We need to channel grief toward collective
liberation.<br>
<br>
The prospect of an unlivable future has always shaped the emotional
terrain for Black and brown people, whether that terrain is racism
or climate change. Climate change compounds existing structures of
injustice, and those structures exacerbate climate change.
Exhaustion, anger, hope—the effects of oppression and resistance are
not unique to this climate moment. What is unique is that people who
had been insulated from oppression are now waking up to the prospect
of their own unlivable future.<br>
<br>
It is a surprisingly short step from “chronic fear of environmental
doom,” as the American Psychological Association defines ecoanxiety,
to xenophobia and fascism. Racism is not an accidental byproduct of
environmentalism; it has been a constant reference point. As I wrote
about in my first book, The Ecological Other, early
environmentalists in the U.S. were anti-immigrant eugenicists whose
ideas were later adopted by Nazis to implement their “blood and
soil” ideology. In a recent, dramatic example, the gunman of the
2019 El Paso shooting was motivated by despair about the ecological
fate of the planet: “My whole life I have been preparing for a
future that currently doesn’t exist.” Intense emotions mobilize
people, but not always for the good of all life on this planet.<br>
<br>
Today’s progressives espouse climate change as the “greatest
existential threat of our time,” a claim that ignores people who
have been experiencing existential threats for much longer. Slavery,
colonialism, ongoing police brutality—we can’t neglect history to
save the future.<br>
<br>
I recently gave a college lecture about climate anxiety. One of the
students e-mailed me to say she was so distressed that she’d be
willing to submit to a green dictator if they would address climate
change. Young people know the stakes, but they are not learning how
to cope with the intensity of their dread. It would be tragic and
dangerous if this generation of climate advocates becomes willing to
sacrifice democracy and human rights in the name of climate change.<br>
<br>
Oppressed and marginalized people have developed traditions of
resilience out of necessity. Black, feminist and Indigenous leaders
have painstakingly cultivated resilience over the long arc of the
fight for justice. They know that protecting joy and hope is the
ultimate resistance to domination. Persistence is nonnegotiable when
your mental, physical and reproductive health are on the line.<br>
<br>
Instead of asking “What can I do to stop feeling so anxious?”, “What
can I do to save the planet?” and “What hope is there?”, people with
privilege can be asking “Who am I?” and “How am I connected to all
of this?” The answers reveal that we are deeply interconnected with
the well-being of others on this planet, and that there are
traditions of environmental stewardship that can be guides for where
we need to go from here.<br>
<br>
Author’s Note: I want to thank Jade Sasser, Britt Wray, Janet
Fiskio, and Jennifer Atkinson for rich discussions about this topic,
which inform this piece.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-unbearable-whiteness-of-climate-anxiety/">https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-unbearable-whiteness-of-climate-anxiety/</a><br>
<p><br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
[Reuters]<br>
<b>Global warming could cut over 60 countries' credit ratings by
2030, study warns</b><br>
By Marc Jones<br>
LONDON (Reuters) - A new algorithm-based study by a group of UK
universities has predicted that 63 countries – roughly half the
number rated by the likes of S&P Global, Moody’s and Fitch -
could see their credit ratings cut because of climate change by
2030.<br>
Researchers from Cambridge University, the University of East Anglia
and London-based SOAS looked at a “realistic scenario” known as RCP
8.5, where carbon and other polluting emissions continue rising in
coming decades.<br>
<br>
They then looked at how the likely negative impact of rising
temperatures, sea levels and other climate change effects on
countries’ economies and finances might affect their credit ratings.<br>
<br>
"We find that 63 sovereigns suffer climate-induced downgrades of
approximately 1.02 notches by 2030, rising to 80 sovereigns facing
an average downgrade of 2.48 notches by 2100," the study here
released on Thursday said.<br>
<br>
The hardest hit countries included China, Chile, Malaysia, and
Mexico which could see six notches of downgrades by the end of the
century, as well as the United States, Germany, Canada, Australia,
India, and Peru that could see around four.<br>
“Our results show that virtually all countries, whether rich or
poor, hot or cold, will suffer downgrades if the current trajectory
of carbon emissions is maintained.”<br>
<br>
The study also estimated that as rating cuts usually increase
countries’ borrowing costs in international markets the
climate-induced downgrades would add $137–$205 billion to countries’
annual debt service payments by 2100.<br>
<br>
In an alternative ‘RCP 2.6’ scenario where CO2 emissions start
falling and go to zero by 2100, the rating impact would be just over
half a notch on average and the combined additional cost would be a
more modest $23–34 billion.<br>
<br>
As companies’ borrowing costs generally track those of the countries
they operate in, their combined annual debt bills were predicted to
rise $35.8–$62.6 billion in the higher emissions scenario by 2100
and $7.2–$12.6 billion in the lower one...<br>
“There are caveats, there are no scientifically credible
quantitative estimates of how climate change will impact social and
political factors,” the paper said. “Thus, our findings should be
considered as conservative.”<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-climate-change-ratings-idUSKBN2BA2XW">https://www.reuters.com/article/us-climate-change-ratings-idUSKBN2BA2XW</a><br>
<p><br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
[Precarity - a word first used in 1952 - audio discussion - "Climate
precarity"?]<br>
<b>Rhodes Center Podcast: How Precarity Puts Capitalism on Edge</b><br>
Mar 19, 2021<br>
Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs<br>
On this episode Mark talks with Albena Azmanova, IWM Visiting Fellow
at the Institute for Human Studies in Vienna and author of
‘Capitalism on Edge: How Fighting Precarity Can Achieve Radical
Change Without Crisis or Utopia’. In the book, Albena explains how
precarity (not inequality) is the central driver of our current
political, economic, and social woes. Mark and Albena explore the
roots of economic precarity, the reasons it’s more dangerous and
destabilizing than inequality alone, and why addressing it will
require mixing tried-and-true economic policies with a radical
rethinking of how our economy is structured.<br>
You can learn more about Albena Azmanova's book here:
[cup.columbia.edu/book/capitalism-…ge/9780231195379]<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gq67zwxylm4">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gq67zwxylm4</a><br>
<br>
<p><br>
</p>
[New swamps forming]<br>
<b>NORTHEAST ‘GHOST FORESTS’ MULTIPLY AS WATERS RISE</b><br>
MARCH 17TH, 2021 - POSTED BY TODD BATES-RUTGERS<br>
New research indicates two factors behind the emergence of “ghost
forests” filled with dead trees along the mid-Atlantic and southern
New England coast.<br>
- -<br>
Coastal forests in the mid-Atlantic and southern New England (from
Virginia through Massachusetts) have a mix of hardwoods and
evergreen trees. They provide habitat for an array of rare plants
and wildlife, store carbon, and are valuable timber resources.
Coastal forests along with adjacent salt marshes also help buffer
inland areas from coastal storms. But sea-level rise is altering
coastal forest ecosystems and “ghost forests” filled with dead trees
are becoming a growing phenomenon in parts of the Northeast.<br>
- -<br>
The likely reasons for the death of coastal forests vary by
location. But the most important factors appear to be rising
groundwater levels that saturate soils in low-lying areas,
especially during periods of high rainfall, stressing forest
vegetation; and increasing saltwater inundation from very high tides
and storm surges. Accelerated sea-level rise is expected to worsen
these impacts, which can leave areas inhospitable for trees...<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.futurity.org/ghost-forests-dead-trees-2533252-2/">https://www.futurity.org/ghost-forests-dead-trees-2533252-2/</a><br>
<p><br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
[over-population a self-resolving problem - a chemo-technical
opinion]<br>
Daily Impact<br>
<b>Genocide by Spermicide</b><br>
By Tom Lewis | March 20, 2021 <br>
- -<br>
As with other scenarios that have been advanced, I do not buy the
notion of total extinction — the world is a big place, with lots of
nooks and crannies and people, plenty of room for exceptions. Still,
it seems entirely possible that declining sperm counts could do what
global climate change has been threatening to do, only sooner: cause
a catastrophic collapse of the human population. <br>
<br>
The source of this existential threat is, of course, industrial: a
class of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances — PFAs for short —
called the “forever chemicals” because they do not break down. They
persist in the soil, in the water, in the human body, for unknown
decades. They have been linked to several cancers and they disrupt
the human endocrine system especially in males, reducing sperm
count, penis size and testicular volume. <br>
<br>
But they are devilishly useful to industry and since the 1950s some
5,000 of them have been put to use in plastic containers and food
wrapping, waterproof clothes and fragrances in cleaning products,
soaps and shampoos including baby products, electronics and
carpeting — in short, they play a role in damn near everything, they
have been accumulating for seven decades, and now they are poised to
wipe out mankind.<br>
<br>
Does anybody remember the Precautionary Principle? It holds that
before industry introduces a new product or chemical into the
environment, it must first prove the substance does no harm. Yeah, I
know — cue the hysterical laughter...<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.dailyimpact.net/2021/03/20/genocide-by-spermicide/">http://www.dailyimpact.net/2021/03/20/genocide-by-spermicide/</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 -
March 22, 2014 </b></font><br>
<p>The New York Times reports on EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy's
tour to discuss her agency's efforts to address carbon pollution.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/22/us/as-listener-and-saleswoman-epa-chief-takes-to-the-road-for-climate-rules.html">http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/22/us/as-listener-and-saleswoman-epa-chief-takes-to-the-road-for-climate-rules.html</a><br>
<br>
The Boston Globe reports on the collapse of the coal industry in
the United States.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2014/03/21/coal-plants-closing-here-and-across-nation/B3m6a0ABuLTF7xrse0eBoM/story.html">http://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2014/03/21/coal-plants-closing-here-and-across-nation/B3m6a0ABuLTF7xrse0eBoM/story.html</a><br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
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