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<p><i><font size="+1"><b>March 27, 2021</b></font></i></p>
[big promotion for science]<br>
<b>A Biden Administration Strategy: Send In the Scientists</b><br>
Gavin Schmidt, a leading climate scientist, will fill a newly
created job of climate adviser to NASA, in a prominent example of
Biden’s pledge to focus on climate policy.<br>
- -<br>
Today Dr. Schmidt is one of the most prominent scientists warning
the world about the risks of a warming world. Recently he was named
to a newly created position as senior climate adviser to NASA, a job
that comes with the challenge of bringing NASA’s climate science to
the public and helping figure out how to apply it to saving the
planet.<br>
<br>
Dr. Schmidt, who since 2014 had headed NASA’s Goddard Institute for
Space Studies, will be working with an administration that is making
the fight against climate change one of its priorities. The Biden
team is adding positions throughout the government for policymakers
and experts like Dr. Schmidt who understand the threats facing our
planet.<br>
<br>
“Climate change is not only an environmental issue that belongs to
the E.P.A., it’s not only a science issue that belongs to NASA and
NOAA,” said Katharine Hayhoe, a climate scientist at Texas Tech
University. “Climate change is an everything issue,” she said, and
“it needs to be considered by every single federal agency.”<br>
- -<br>
“Climate change changes what you need to worry about,” he said, and
the space agency can help the nation, and the world, figure out what
we all need to know. That includes things like “How do we accelerate
the information that you need to build better defenses against
coastal flooding?” and “What do we really understand about
intensifying precipitation — How do we predict that going forward?”<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/26/climate/gavin-schmidt-climate-change-nasa.html#commentsContainer">https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/26/climate/gavin-schmidt-climate-change-nasa.html#commentsContainer</a><br>
<p><br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<p>[Big 3]</p>
<b>Biden invites Russia, China to first global climate talks</b><br>
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden is including rivals Vladimir
Putin of Russia and Xi Jinping of China among the invitees to the
first big climate talks of his administration, an event the U.S.
hopes will help shape, speed up and deepen global efforts to cut
climate-wrecking fossil fuel pollution, administration officials
told The Associated Press.<br>
<br>
The president is seeking to revive a U.S.-convened forum of the
world’s major economies on climate that George W. Bush and Barack
Obama both used and Donald Trump let languish. Leaders of some of
the world’s top climate-change sufferers, do-gooders and backsliders
round out the rest of the 40 invitations being delivered Friday. It
will be held virtually April 22 and 23...<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://apnews.com/article/joe-biden-donald-trump-climate-climate-change-xi-jinping-1135c0a543afdbb500f0a10498eb5406">https://apnews.com/article/joe-biden-donald-trump-climate-climate-change-xi-jinping-1135c0a543afdbb500f0a10498eb5406</a>
<br>
<p><br>
</p>
[Kerry]<br>
<b>Kerry: 'No government is going to solve' climate change</b><br>
BY ZACK BUDRYK - 03/26/21 <br>
- -<br>
“The solution is going to come from the private sector, and what
government needs to do is create the framework within which the
private sector can do what it does best, which is allocate capital
and innovate and begin to take the framework that’s been created.
... We need to go after this as if we’re really at war.”<br>
- -<br>
“It’s a transition, yes, some people are going to have do things
differently and begin to shift expenditure, shift priority and
infrastructure transition and so forth,” he said. “But in all of
that, none of that happens without jobs ... without people working,
whether it’s pipefitters, electricians, construction workers across
the board.”<br>
<br>
Kerry predicted a “race to the new technology, whether it’s
direct-air capture or better and more affordable storage, more
effective geothermal ... there are technology opportunities that are
going to create enormous wealthy for those that are venturesome and
go out and chase those gold pots.”<br>
<br>
The former secretary of State added that infrastructure and grid
modernization “is critical to our remaining a powerful force, to
jump-starting our economy post-COVID.”<br>
<br>
Kerry emphasized the need to “reassert American leadership” on
climate, noting that the U.S. comprises 15 percent of worldwide
emissions, while “China is about 30 percent and when you add the
[European Union] you’re well over 50 percent.”...<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/545125-kerry-no-government-is-going-to-solve-climate-change?rl=1">https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/545125-kerry-no-government-is-going-to-solve-climate-change?rl=1</a><br>
<p><br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
[new leadership]<br>
<b>'A bold agenda': hopes rise for US climate change reversal as Deb
Haaland sworn in</b><br>
Experts say new interior secretary will renew focus on climate
emergency and public lands after years of cuts under Trump<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/mar/25/deb-haaland-us-interior-policy-climate-change">https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/mar/25/deb-haaland-us-interior-policy-climate-change</a><br>
<p><br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
[in war, the first task is to define the enemy]<br>
<b>HOW THE DEFENSE DEPARTMENT CAN MOVE FROM ABSTRACTION TO ACTION ON
CLIMATE CHANGE</b><br>
March 26, 2012<br>
- -<br>
Senior defense officials need to translate the abstraction of the
climate threat into decisions that meaningfully address cascading
risks. The best way to do that on an accelerated basis is to convene
a high-level tabletop exercise in order to make an abstract concept
like climate change seem more concrete. Tabletop exercises have
proven utility in generating a common picture of the future among
leaders to inform decisions and highlight tradeoffs. These exercises
also highlight new perspectives across the defense enterprise that
can inform overall strategy. Moreover, they are a low-risk learning
opportunity for participants to understand gaps in existing
knowledge and institutional capacities.<br>
<br>
<b>Enduring Obstacles</b><br>
The two key challenges to climate action at the Defense Department
are the complexity of accurately modeling future risks and the
deteriorated state of the department’s strategic foresight
capabilities. The department will need to translate complex
forecasts on the environmental impacts of climate change to issues
that affect the Department of Defense mission set, such as regional
conflicts, force readiness, and humanitarian and disaster relief at
home and abroad.<br>
- -<br>
For more than a decade, the Defense Department has studied how
climate will affect the viability of military installations and the
military’s carbon footprint. Climate was elevated as a strategic
priority under the Obama administration, with detailed mentions in
both the 2010 and 2014 Quadrennial Defense Reviews, the 2014 Climate
Change Adaptation Roadmap, and the creation of the Office of the
Assistant Secretary of Defense for Operational Energy. Even during
the climate-denial era of the Donald Trump administration, some
limited progress was made. Despite a National Defense Strategy that
made no mention of “climate change,” there was continued recognition
across the Department of Defense that it would need to manage the
threat to military installations and operational readiness posed by
the threat. Congress also has been increasingly active on the topic,
with explicit reference to climate change threats in the past three
National Defense Authorization Acts and directed studies. None of
these efforts, however, tackle the sprawling complexity of the
climate challenge.<br>
<br>
Now, the White House is pushing the department to go further by
focusing on how climate change will affect everything the joint
force needs to prepare for. The good news for Defense Department
leaders is that while they may be scrambling to answer the novel
guidance they’ve been given, important and serious work has been
done on this topic for more than a decade by the broader policy
community. For example, CNA’s 2007 and 2014 Military Advisory Board
— under the direction of former Deputy Undersecretary of Defense
(Environmental Security) Sherri Goodman — identified a range of
concrete potential considerations. These included accelerating
preparations for military operations in the arctic, integrating
climate impacts into the National Infrastructure Protection Plan,
and conducting comprehensive assessments of climate impacts on
mission and operational resilience.<br>
<br>
However, climate action in the Defense Department could become mired
in its bureaucracies’ underperforming strategic foresight process,
including the fragmented Analytic Agenda and Defense Planning
Scenarios and its suboptimal use of wargames. This will take some
time to fix. Embedding considerations of climate change from the
120-day review into this process will be an even tougher task. A
tabletop exercise (or series of exercises) can serve as a bridge
while these slower processes catch up with an increasingly urgent
problem.<br>
<br>
<b>Lessons From Climate Change Tabletop Exercises</b><br>
The Defense Department should host a series of tabletop exercises to
explore implications of climate change for future force readiness,
contingency operations, and resilience. The series should be
designed around a single, compelling scenario and ideally run on a
repeat basis with multiple audiences. However, the first exercise
should be optimized for the high-level members of the Climate
Working Group.<br>
<br>
The tabletop exercises would help senior leaders build a common,
more concrete understanding of how climate challenges will affect
the Department of Defense and its particular responsibilities within
the enterprise. For busy leaders coping with multiple issues, a
tabletop exercise can afford an immersive, uninterrupted learning
experience. Certainly, it is not meant to substitute for the years
of work ahead to implement the intent of the Biden administration’s
guidance on addressing climate change as a national security threat.
And it ought to be taken in tandem with the ongoing 120-day
assessment of climate risks as a foundation for the department’s
overall climate efforts.<br>
<br>
We speak from firsthand experience. The Center for Strategic and
International Studies used tabletop exercises at its annual Global
Security Forum this past September. One of the three scenarios
considered by participants was the effects of runaway climate change
using the tabletop exercise format. We posited a very challenging
future scenario of compounding first- and second-order consequences
of climate change, and asked questions about the interests at stake,
the tools the United States and its allies and partners had to meet
the challenges at hand, and how to take actions today that could
reduce future risks. The tabletop exercise proved immediately useful
in helping illuminate future uncertainty through structured dialogue
without the need to toil endlessly in “exactly” forecasting the
future.<br>
<br>
The “2030 scenario” used at the event — a once-in-a-1,000-year
drought precipitating shortages in key agricultural commodities and
a migration crisis on the southern border, with much of the rest of
the world similarly reeling — helped illustrate, quite vividly, the
complexities of climate change as a national security threat. It
also revealed several weaknesses in U.S. government and
international coordination mechanisms and in existing security
paradigms.<br>
<br>
The broader benefit from this exercise was its effect on
participants’ imaginations. Back-casting from a scenario — that is,
positing a potential future and asking what specific steps would
have to be taken today to create or avoid that future — helped shift
from an understanding in the abstract that climate change is a
“threat multiplier” to understanding how it might strain future
force readiness for overlapping contingency operations.<br>
<br>
The scenario used during the exercise was far from a worst-case
scenario, yet its deep and broad consequences took several experts
by surprise. The multidimensional nature of cascading crises was
particularly challenging for participants to take on all at once.
The many unprecedented ways in which climate change is likely to
affect the national security environment and Department of Defense
capabilities requires imaginative thinking and exercises that push
analysts and leaders alike out of their comfort zones and frames of
reference.<br>
<br>
The first clear takeaway from the tabletop was how no single
participant was an expert in the overlapping and interconnected
issues raised by the exercise. Challenges of migration, global food
security, and border security cut across different areas of
expertise and made prediction of consequences more difficult. Many
climate experts have devoted their attention to mitigation alone,
while few resilience experts were sufficiently versed in global food
security issues, for example, to be able to predict the consequences
of a wheat shortage in North America. Where the phrase
“whole-of-government” is thrown around a lot in climate
conversations, the exercise painted a vivid portrait of why greater
bureaucratic collaboration has to be a strategic priority.<br>
<br>
Second, in a world of increasingly dire and compounding climate
change effects, environmental issues shift from being moral concerns
in developed nations to national security issues with global
consequences. A drought of Dust Bowl proportions would likely create
a humanitarian as well an ecological crisis in the United States,
and could open windows of opportunity for adversaries and non-state
actors to “weaponize” natural resources like water and agricultural
staples like wheat. In our scenario, Russia withheld wheat from
global markets to drive a wedge between U.S. allies, transforming an
environmental disaster into a geopolitical crisis...<br>
- -<br>
While it may seem hard to believe now, in time climate change may be
the most formidable and unpredictable adversary the Department of
Defense has ever faced. U.S. adversaries typically have motivations
that can be scrutinized and resource limitations that can be
exploited. Their actions can be deterred. Runaway climate change
would be merciless. The planet has no regard for borders or
conventions or theaters of war. The changing climate will affect
every aspect of life on Earth, and by extension, every facet of
America’s strategic operating environment. In some instances, it
will amplify existing security risks, while in others it will force
the national security apparatus to consider new risks entirely. It
will drain resources from military readiness and modernization
within Defense Department budgets and as tradeoffs are made to fund
other federal priorities in response to climate change.<br>
<br>
Protecting the nation’s interests means proactively building a
long-term climate action strategy with other branches of government,
segments of society, and global partners — a theme ably picked up on
by the newly released Interim National Security Strategic Guidance.
It means more than hardening assets and bolstering resilience but
building strategies to prevail in this new and uncertain future.
Like many other entities in both the public and private sectors, the
Department of Defense has been thinking about climate change as one
item in a long list of global challenges, but not as the dominant
global trend that will frame all other issues. The Biden
administration’s early charge to make climate change a central
priority gives the Department of Defense an opportunity to better
understand a future that will create compounding stresses and
challenges affecting its future as much if not more than a rising
China.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://warontherocks.com/2021/03/how-the-defense-department-can-move-from-climate-change-abstraction-to-action/">https://warontherocks.com/2021/03/how-the-defense-department-can-move-from-climate-change-abstraction-to-action/</a><br>
<br>
- - <br>
[24 page - released by the White House]<br>
<b>Interim National Security Strategic Guidance</b><br>
March 2021<br>
<blockquote><b>Conclusion</b><br>
This moment is an inflection point. We are in the midst of a
fundamental debate about the<br>
future direction of our world. To prevail, we must demonstrate
that democracies can still<br>
deliver for our people. It will not happen by accident – we have
to defend our democracy,<br>
strengthen it and renew it. That means building back better our
economic foundations.<br>
Reclaiming our place in international institutions. Lifting up our
values at home and speaking<br>
out to defend them around the world. Modernizing our military
capabilities while leading with<br>
diplomacy. Revitalizing America’s network of alliances, and the
partnerships that have made<br>
the world safer for all of our peoples.<br>
No nation is better positioned to navigate this future than
America. Doing so requires us to<br>
embrace and reclaim our enduring advantages, and to approach the
world from a position of<br>
confidence and strength. If we do this, working with our
democratic partners, we will meet<br>
every challenge and outpace every challenger. Together, we can and
will build back better. <br>
</blockquote>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/NSC-1v2.pdf">https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/NSC-1v2.pdf</a><br>
<br>
<p><br>
</p>
[Yes, we are moving in an RCP 8.5 world]<br>
<b>RCP 8.5—A scenario of comparatively high greenhouse gas emissions</b><br>
Keywan Riahi & Shilpa Rao & Volker Krey &<br>
Cheolhung Cho & Vadim Chirkov & Guenther Fischer &<br>
Georg Kindermann & Nebojsa Nakicenovic & Peter Rafaj<br>
Published online: 13 August 2011<br>
<blockquote><b>Abstract </b><br>
This paper summarizes the main characteristics of the RCP8.5
scenario. The<br>
RCP8.5 combines assumptions about high population and relatively
slow income growth<br>
with modest rates of technological change and energy intensity
improvements, leading in<br>
the long term to high energy demand and GHG emissions in absence
of climate change<br>
policies. Compared to the total set of Representative
Concentration Pathways (RCPs),<br>
RCP8.5 thus corresponds to the pathway with the highest greenhouse
gas emissions. Using<br>
the IIASA Integrated Assessment Framework and the MESSAGE model
for the<br>
development of the RCP8.5, we focus in this paper on two important
extensions compared<br>
to earlier scenarios: 1) the development of spatially explicit air
pollution projections, and 2)<br>
enhancements in the land-use and land-cover change projections. In
addition, we explore<br>
scenario variants that use RCP8.5 as a baseline, and assume
different degrees of greenhouse<br>
gas mitigation policies to reduce radiative forcing. Based on our
modeling framework, we<br>
find it technically possible to limit forcing from RCP8.5 to lower
levels comparable to the<br>
other RCPs (2.6 to 6 W/m2). Our scenario analysis further
indicates that climate policy induced <br>
changes of global energy supply and demand may lead to significant
co-benefits for other <br>
policy priorities, such as local air pollution<br>
</blockquote>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s10584-011-0149-y.pdf">https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s10584-011-0149-y.pdf</a><br>
<br>
<p><br>
</p>
[Digging back into the internet news archive for important lessons
for today]<br>
<font size="+1"><b>On this day in the history of global warming -
March 27, 2007 </b></font><br>
<br>
March 27, 2007: In a post on CallingAllWingnuts.com about a recent
confrontation with Competitive Enterprise Institute honcho Myron
Ebell, blogger Mike Stark observes:<br>
<blockquote>By Mike Stark<br>
<b>Global Warming? Phooey!</b><br>
03/27/2007 -- Updated May 25, 2011<br>
<br>
It’s just not sound science. <br>
<br>
Yeah, that’s what I expected to hear when I went to a Federalist
Society’s event that featured Myron Ebell of the Competitive
Enterprise Institute. <br>
<br>
Well, that’s not what he said. I’m not really sure what he said,
actually. And I think that’s the point.<br>
<br>
You see, there’s a new tactic being used by those obsessed with Al
Gore and new ways of obtaining Exxon-Mobil’s money.<br>
<br>
Confuse. Confuse. Confuse.<br>
<br>
It works like this: <br>
<br>
Global warming is a huge, multidisciplinary science involving
atmospheric scientists, astronomers, biologists, ecologists,
physicists, chemists and a whole bunch of scholars that come with
6-syllable titles I just can’t pronounce. For me, and just about
everyone else, we’re forced to accept that we can’t possibly know
everything, but when over 10,000 peer-reviewed papers are
published and they all point to the same conclusion, well... we
trust that the scientists are correct.<br>
<br>
Not the folks at the Competitive Enterprise Institute. Instead,
they look at the forest, find a mushroom and say, “Sheesh, that’s
not a tree!! How can this possibly be a forest? Oh, I see...
well, so it is. Aha! That proves my I think point!! This
mushroom is growing on a dead tree! This forest cannot possibly
be a threat if the trees are dead! In fact, this dead tree makes
for wonderful fertilizer. We should all celebrate dead trees!!
Oh, yes, I see. There are a lot of live, sturdy trees around
here, aren’t there? Well, you know, all the same, this isn’t a
forest - it’s merely a grove. And, by the way, if it was a
forest, it’d cost a lot of money to chop it down.”<br>
<br>
Seriously. That’s Myron Ebell’s strength of argument...<br>
- -<br>
"Upon reflection, I really think there are a couple of lessons for
progressives to be found in this five minute exchange.<br>
<br>
"First of all, when arguing with somebody that either has no
credibility or is not arguing a credible position, don't donate
the credibility they need to be seen as your equal."<br>
<br>
"You see, by calling his credibility into question immediately -
and not letting him up for air - well, I've got no proof, but I
really think that everyone in the room knew that Mr. Ebell had
been bettered. When we ask policy or science questions of these
charlatans, we give the impression that we care what they think.
We don't. We know they are rank liars, we're just wondering if
they'll be able to spin a sufficient answer. But these guys get
millions of dollars a year from the largest corporate titans
precisely because they have the skill to ink up the issue. Why let
them show off?<br>
<br>
"Secondly, don't go out of your way to be nice or polite. Hell, I
won't afford these profit-gandists any respect on my blog, why the
hell should I do it face to face? A large part of their
professional career derives from their ability to mock me and the
things I believe in. The Competitive Enterprise Institute once
liked global warming to 'being invaded by space aliens' for
example. By addressing these people with the indignant scorn they
deserve, you project the moral superiority of your position. To
many times it seems that Democratic and progressive pundits are
more interested in being our opponents' friends than we are in
vigorously arguing the issues. In this media environment - when
equal time is given to global warming deniers... well, we just
can't afford the small talk.<br>
<br>
"In the end, these guys are not good people. This isn't a case of
principled people disagreeing. At this point in the global warming
debate, the only principled disagreements to be had revolve around
what we should be doing to address the crisis. The Myron Ebells of
the world - the die-hard denialists... well, we need to move them
off the stage by marginalizing them at every opportunity."<br>
</blockquote>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mike-stark/global-warming-phooey_b_44407.html">http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mike-stark/global-warming-phooey_b_44407.html</a>
<br>
<br>
<p><br>
</p>
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