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<p><i><font size="+1"><b>May 22, 2021</b></font></i></p>
[NYTimes report]<br>
<b>Scientists Predict an ‘Above Normal’ Atlantic Hurricane Season</b><br>
The forecast, which follows a record season in 2020, arrives as
hurricanes are becoming more destructive over time.<br>
By John Schwartz - May 20, 2021<br>
Federal scientists on Thursday forecast that 2021 could see in the
range of 13 to 20 named storms, six to 10 hurricanes, and three to
five major hurricanes of Category 3 or higher in the Atlantic. Ben
Friedman, the acting administrator of the National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration, said, “an above-normal season is most
likely.”<br>
<br>
Hurricane season runs from June 1 until Nov. 30, though the last six
years have seen storms form before its official start.<br>
<br>
This year’s announcement comes after a record-shattering 2020 season
of 30 named storms — so many that we ran through the alphabet for
only the second time and resorted to using Greek letters.<br>
<br>
Hurricanes have become more destructive over time, in no small part
because of the influences of a warming planet. Climate change is
producing more powerful storms, and they dump more water because of
heavier rainfall and a tendency to dawdle and meander; rising seas
and slower storms can make for higher and more destructive storm
surges. But humans play a part in making storm damage more
expensive, as well, by continuing to build in vulnerable coastal
areas...<br>
- -<br>
One way that people oversimplify climate change, Dr. Camargo said,
is asking whether climate change “caused” a storm. That “is not the
right way to frame the problem,” she said. Instead, it should be
“how much has climate change contributed to this hurricane?”...<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/20/climate/atlantic-hurricane-outlook.html">https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/20/climate/atlantic-hurricane-outlook.html</a><br>
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[must be electric]<br>
<b>Your Uber and Lyft driver must go electric. California’s latest
climate change mandate</b><br>
MAY 21, 2021 <br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.sacbee.com/news/local/environment/article251574748.html">https://www.sacbee.com/news/local/environment/article251574748.html</a><br>
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[not to mention living in your car]<br>
<b>Stop Worrying and Love the F-150 Lightning</b><br>
Here are seven ways Ford’s first electric pickup truck signals that
decarbonization has entered a new era.<br>
ROBINSON MEYER - MAY 19, 2021<br>
<blockquote>4. An electric vehicle is, at a mechanical level, a
giant battery on wheels. Ford is pitching this not only as a
technical necessity but as a feature: They want you to plug stuff
into the car. “Let’s say you’re at a tailgate or at work. You can
set up a cement mixer, a band, or lights and draw only half the
power the truck is capable of producing at a time,” Linda Zhang,
the chief engineer on the Lightning, told me. Like all electric
vehicles, the F-150 replaces the hefty internal-combustion engine
with a much smaller electric motor, and like many EVs therefore
has a storage compartment under its front hood: a “frunk.” Except
the F-150 has a “power frunk”—the most marvelous three-syllable
phrase American marketing has produced since “half-priced
apps”—meaning that it both opens to the touch of a button and has
multiple plugs for appliances...<br>
</blockquote>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2021/05/f-150-lightning-fords-first-electric-truck/618932/">https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2021/05/f-150-lightning-fords-first-electric-truck/618932/</a><br>
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[responsible action]<br>
O<b>regon weighs new rules to protect workers as climate change
makes wildfires, extreme heat more prevalent</b><br>
Updated May 20, 2021<br>
Oregon OSHA will host listening sessions Thursday and next Tuesday
to give workers the opportunity to share their thoughts on the
potential rules and their own experiences working in excessive heat
and amid wildfire smoke. They’ll likely hear from workers and their
advocates that the rules can’t come soon enough.<br>
<br>
“Workers should not be in a position of choosing between their
health and a paycheck,” said Nora Apter, climate program director at
the Oregon Environmental Council. “We’re at the table to ensure that
doesn’t happen in the future.”<br>
<br>
WILDFIRE SMOKE<br>
The air quality in many parts of Oregon reached hazardous levels
last September as wildfires raged throughout the state. Air quality
levels in some places topped 500, the very highest measurement,
signifying an immediate risk to public health.<br>
<br>
In California, when the Air Quality Index reaches an unhealthy level
of 151, employers are required to either halt operations or provide
workers with particulate respirators, such as N95 masks.<br>
<br>
Oregon didn’t have a similar mandate last year...<br>
- -<br>
“I would like to see some common-sense safety rules and stricter
enforcement,” he said. “When the air quality reaches a certain
threshold, employers should be required to provide N95s, provide
ventilation. If they can’t bring down the particulates in the air
with a ventilation system, then workers shouldn’t be working. We’re
talking about human lives.”<br>
<br>
EXTREME HEAT<br>
Last year’s wildfires were extraordinary in their scale and impact,
but farmworkers and others who work outside routinely face a much
more common hazard: a very hot day.<br>
<br>
Ira Cuello-Martinez, climate policy associate at PCUN, Oregon’s
largest farmworker union, said he has heard stories from workers who
have had to duck behind cars and trucks during their breaks simply
to access shade during the hottest days of the summer. In other
cases, he said workers have complained that they haven’t been
provided breaks or water, even as temperatures topped 90 degrees.<br>
<br>
Cuello-Martinez said many farmworkers wear layers, even when it’s
hot, to protect their skin from the sun. Many are also paid by how
much they pick, incentivizing them to work quickly even in extreme
heat. That can put them at significant risk for heat-related
illness...<br>
- -<br>
Apter, of the Oregon Environmental Council, said the state at a
minimum needs to ensure that employers provide access to drinkable
water, shade or cooling stations, regular breaks and time to
acclimate to heat. She said those working during wildfires should be
provided with respirators and the option to relocate to a safer
location...<br>
- -<br>
Suisman, though, said many workers are skeptical about whether the
rules will make a meaningful difference.<br>
<br>
Oregon OSHA only inspects 2.5% of workplaces in a typical year and
can dismiss complaints without visiting a workplace, though the
agency does prioritize visiting high-risk workplaces like farms.<br>
<br>
Oregon also has a history of handing out fines to employers who
violate rules that are significantly smaller than the national
average, according to annual reports from the U.S. Department of
Labor.<br>
<br>
Violations are often downgraded on appeal, too. A total of 1,629
Oregon OSHA violations were resolved through the appeals process
over the last three years, with 43% amended on appeal and 12%
rescinded, according to Oregon OSHA data.<br>
<br>
“These rules are only step one,” Suisman said. “They will hopefully
empower workers to be able to tell their supervisors, ‘We have the
right to these protections.’ But then there also has to be
meaningful enforcement.”...<br>
-- <br>
Jamie Goldberg | <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:jgoldberg@oregonian.com">jgoldberg@oregonian.com</a> | @jamiebgoldberg<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.oregonlive.com/business/2021/05/oregon-weighs-new-rules-to-protect-workers-as-climate-change-makes-wildfires-extreme-heat-more-prevalent.html">https://www.oregonlive.com/business/2021/05/oregon-weighs-new-rules-to-protect-workers-as-climate-change-makes-wildfires-extreme-heat-more-prevalent.html</a><br>
- -<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://osha.oregon.gov/rules/advisory/smoke/Pages/default.aspx">https://osha.oregon.gov/rules/advisory/smoke/Pages/default.aspx</a><br>
<br>
<p><br>
</p>
[having been losing battles for decades now]<br>
<b>Climate change disinformation is evolving. So are efforts to
fight back</b><br>
Researchers are testing games and other ways to help people
recognize climate change denial<br>
By Carolyn Gramling - MAY 18, 2021<br>
<br>
Over the last four decades, a highly organized, well-funded campaign
powered by the fossil fuel industry has sought to discredit the
science that links global climate change to human emissions of
carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. These disinformation
efforts have sown confusion over data, questioned the integrity of
climate scientists and denied the scientific consensus on the role
of humans.<br>
<br>
Such disinformation efforts are outlined in internal documents from
fossil fuel giants such as Shell and Exxon. As early as the 1980s,
oil companies knew that burning fossil fuels was altering the
climate, according to industry documents reviewed at a 2019 U.S.
House of Representatives Committee on Oversight and Reform hearing.
Yet these companies, aided by some scientists, set out to mislead
the public, deny well-established science and forestall efforts to
regulate emissions...<br>
- -<br>
Cook and van der Linden have also been testing ways to get out in
front of disinformation, an approach known as prebunking, or
inoculation theory. By helping people recognize common rhetorical
techniques used to spread climate disinformation — such as logical
fallacies, relying on fake “experts” and cherry-picking only the
data that support one view — the two hope to build resilience
against these tactics.<br>
<br>
This new line of defense may come with a bonus, van der Linden says.
Training people in these techniques could build a more general
resilience to disinformation, whether related to climate, vaccines
or COVID-19.<br>
<br>
Science News asked Cook and van der Linden about debunking
conspiracies, collaborating with Facebook and how prebunking is (and
isn’t) like getting vaccinated. The conversations, held separately,
have been edited for brevity and clarity.<br>
<br>
<b>We’ve seen both misinformation and disinformation used in the
climate change denial discussion. What’s the difference?</b><br>
<br>
van der Linden: Misinformation is any information that’s incorrect,
whether due to error or fake news. Disinformation is deliberately
intended to deceive. Then there’s propaganda: disinformation with a
political agenda. But in practice, it’s difficult to disentangle
them. Often, people use misinformation because it’s the broadest
category.<br>
<br>
<b>Has there been a change in the nature of climate change denialism
in the last few decades?</b><br>
Cook: It is shifting. For example, we fed 21 years of [climate
change] denial blog posts from the U.K. into a machine learning
program. We found that the science denialism misinformation is
gradually going down — and solution misinformation [targeting
climate policy and renewable energy] is on the rise [as reported
online in early March at SocArXiv.org].<br>
<br>
As the science becomes more apparent, it becomes more untenable to
attack it. We see spikes in policy misinformation just before the
government brings in new science policy, such as a carbon pricing
bill. And there was a huge spike before the [2015] Paris climate
agreement. That’s what we will see more of over time.<br>
<br>
<b>How do you hope Facebook’s new climate change misinformation
project will help?</b><br>
Cook: We need tech solutions, like flagging and tagging
misinformation, as well as social media platforms downplaying it, so
[the misinformation] doesn’t get put on as many people’s feeds. We
can’t depend on social media. A look behind the curtain at Facebook
showed me the challenge of getting corporations to adequately
respond. There are a lot of internal tensions.<br>
<br>
van der Linden: I’ve worked with WhatsApp and Google, and it’s
always the same story. They want to do the right thing, but don’t
follow through because it hurts engagement on the platform.<br>
<br>
But going from not taking a stance on climate change to taking a
stance, that’s a huge win. What Facebook has done is a step forward.
They listened to our designs and suggestions and comments on their
[pilot] test.<br>
<br>
We wanted more than a neutral [label directing people to Facebook’s
information page on climate change], but they wanted to test the
neutral post first. That’s all good. It’ll be a few months at least
for the testing in the U.K. phase to roll out, but we don’t yet know
how many other countries they will roll it out to and when. We all
came on board with the idea that they’re going to do more, and more
aggressively. I’ll be pleasantly surprised if it rolls out globally.
That’s my criteria for success.<br>
<br>
<b>Scientists have been countering climate change misinformation for
years, through fact-checking and debunking. It’s a bit like
whack-a-mole. You advocate for “inoculating” people against the
techniques that help misinformation spread through communities.
How can that help?</b><br>
van der Linden: Fact-checking and debunking is useful if you do it
right. But there’s the issue of ideology, of resistance to
fact-checking when it’s not in line with ideology. Wouldn’t life be
so much easier if we could prevent [disinformation] in the first
place? That’s the whole point of prebunking or inoculation. It’s a
multilayer defense system. If you can get there first, that’s great.
But that won’t always be possible, so you still have real-time
fact-checking. This multilayer firewall is going to be the most
useful thing.<br>
<br>
<b>You’ve both developed online interactive tools, games really, to
test the idea of inoculating people against disinformation
tactics. Sander, you created an online interactive game called Bad
News, in which players can invent conspiracies and act as fake
news producers. A study of 15,000 participants reported in 2019 in
Palgrave Communications showed that by playing at creating
misinformation, people got better at recognizing it. But how long
does this “inoculation” last?</b><br>
van der Linden: That’s an important difference in the viral analogy.
Biological vaccines give more or less lifelong immunity, at least
for some kinds of viruses. That’s not the case for a psychological
vaccine. It wears off over time.<br>
<br>
In one study, we followed up with people [repeatedly] for about
three months, during which time they didn’t replay the game. We
found no decay of the inoculation effect, which was quite
surprising. The inoculation remained stable for about two months. In
[a shorter study focused on] climate change misinformation, the
inoculation effect also remained stable, for at least one week.<br>
<br>
<b>John, what about your game Cranky Uncle? At first, it focused on
climate change denial, but you’ve expanded it to include other
types of misinformation, on topics such as COVID-19, flat-earthism
and vaccine misinformation. How well do techniques to inoculate
against climate change denialism translate to other types of
misinformation?</b><br>
Cook: The techniques used in climate denial are seen in all forms of
misinformation. Working on deconstructing [that] misinformation
introduced me to parallel argumentation, which is basically using
analogies to combat flawed logic. That’s what late night comedians
do: Make what is obviously a ridiculous argument. The other night,
for example, Seth Meyers talked about how Texas blaming its
[February] power outage on renewable energy was like New Jersey
blaming its problems on Boston [clam chowder].<br>
<br>
My main tip is to arm yourself with awareness of misleading
techniques. Think of it like a virus spreading: You don’t want to be
a superspreader. Make sure that you’re wearing a mask, for starters.
And when you see misinformation, call it out. That observational
correction — it matters. It makes a difference.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.sciencenews.org/article/climate-change-disinformation-denial-misinformation">https://www.sciencenews.org/article/climate-change-disinformation-denial-misinformation</a>
<p><br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
[for instance - Exxon makes the most plastic]<br>
<b>Who’s Making — and Funding — the World’s Plastic Trash?</b><br>
ExxonMobil, Dow, Barclays, and more top lists in a new report
ranking the companies behind the single-use plastic<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.desmog.com/2021/05/18/companies-banks-making-funding-the-worlds-single-use-plastic-trash/">https://www.desmog.com/2021/05/18/companies-banks-making-funding-the-worlds-single-use-plastic-trash/</a><br>
<p><br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
[of course]<br>
<b>Climate Justice Is About More Than Just Fossil Fuels</b><br>
A true commitment to climate justice is much broader: It necessarily
entails building local resilience to climate impacts.<br>
By Matthew Sehrsweeney - MAY 7, 2021<br>
<br>
In the fight for a better world, universities are becoming critical
sites of conflict. In the past year, graduate student unions from
New York University to the University of California–Santa Cruz have
gone on strike to demand basic cost-of-living adjustments in cities
where skyrocketing rent is pushing working-class people to the
fringes. Shortly after the murder of George Floyd last May, after
intense pressure from the student body, the University of Minnesota
cut ties with the Minneapolis Police Department. And at an
ever-increasing clip, student organizers are successfully pushing
their university administrations to divest from fossil fuels.<br>
<br>
Far from being isolated sites of esoteric academic debate,
universities must be seen for what they are: vast, powerful
institutions with tens of thousands of students and workers, the
actions of which have deep implications for both local communities
and the rest of the world...<br>
- -<br>
For example, in March, after nearly a decade of intense pressure
from student organizers, the University of Michigan announced full
divestment from fossil fuels. The week prior to the announcement,
the university released its carbon neutrality plan—also the subject
of intense pressure—which aims to achieve university-wide true
carbon neutrality by 2040.<br>
<br>
At first glance, it looks like UM is acknowledging its massive
responsibility in mitigating the climate crisis and charting a bold
path to make good on it—and indeed, these steps are monumental:
Michigan’s endowment is the first of the world’s top 10 largest
university endowments to divest.<br>
<br>
But campus climate activists here and elsewhere should not be so
easily satisfied.<br>
While these victories are worth celebrating, neither reflect
universities’ full capacity—or responsibility—to mobilize their
resources to address the climate crisis, and neither are sufficient
for advancing climate justice.<br>
<br>
As climate organizers on the University of Michigan’s campus, we
observed numerous examples of the dangerous implications of this
incomplete framing in the creation of the university’s carbon
neutrality plan. In addressing commuting emissions, for example, the
plan focuses heavily on electric vehicle charging infrastructure—a
strategy that is biased toward those wealthy enough to own electric
vehicles and inattentive to the profound environmental injustices
associated with lithium mining.<br>
<br>
A more holistic, climate justice–informed approach, on the other
hand, could address commuting emissions in a manner that
simultaneously builds community resilience: by meaningfully
addressing the housing crises that universities often produce...<br>
- -<br>
These initiatives constitute a critical component of universities’
fundamental responsibility to advance local climate justice. As
probably one of the most powerful institutions in their communities,
they have a duty to build community resilience by ensuring that
everyone’s basic needs are met. An honest commitment to advancing
climate justice also extends far beyond addressing present, local
harms. Universities must meaningfully account for their role in
dispossession of Indigenous land and continued complicity in
environmental racism perpetrated by investor-owned utilities,
exploring material reparative action informed by the needs of
oppressed communities...<br>
And while divesting from the purveyors of climate catastrophe is
crucial, doing so while maintaining investments in, for example, the
prison industrial complex, or, in UM’s case, palm oil plantations
implicated in horrific human rights abuses only enables the
destruction that they purportedly have divested from. It’s not just
fossil fuels, and it’s not just melting icebergs: Climate justice
demands categorical divestment from all harm.<br>
<br>
But that requires a fundamental reevaluation of university financial
governance: Multibillion-dollar endowments should not be managed in
secret by cloistered corporate boards; in determining how to
mobilize resources for a just transition, students, faculty, staff,
and the local community deserve a seat at the table.<br>
<br>
The institutional intransigence of wealthy research institutions
poses a daunting set of barriers. But these barriers are not
insurmountable. Indeed, the success of recent student movements—not
just in divestment—should indicate to organizers that sustained
pressure can effect appreciable, sometimes profound, change.<br>
<br>
But to push universities beyond the traditional focuses of campus
climate organizing campaigns to address these interrelated harms,
student organizers need to abide by a concomitantly broad approach
to organizing. We need to reimagine the boundaries of the coalitions
we can build.<br>
<br>
Take graduate student labor organizing: In the past few decades, it
has gained appreciable traction, all while increasingly engaging in
the bargaining strategies that advance goals to benefit the broader
community. These are powerful potential allies. Student climate
organizers can—and have—also built power by working in solidarity
with campus racial justice movements and other divestment movements.
And organizers should look beyond the boundaries of the university,
building relationships and trust with longtime community organizers
with deep institutional knowledge—especially important because of
the inherent challenge of sustaining a movement with an ephemeral
student population.<br>
<br>
Of course, the onus should not be on student organizers;
administrations should relieve students of this unpaid burden of
accountability by acting proactively to align their institutional
policies with their espoused commitment to serving the common good.
They should be taking drastic action to build resilience in their
local communities; push toward a swift, just transition to a green,
regenerative economy; and, more broadly, engage in efforts to
redistribute their immense resources and power.<br>
<br>
Divestment from fossil fuels and carbon neutrality are a step in the
right direction, but not nearly enough—now is not a moment for
partial measures; it is a moment for radical transformation.<br>
<br>
Matt Sehrsweeney is a recent graduate of the University of Michigan
School of Environment and Sustainability and Ford School of Public
Policy, and an organizer with the Climate Action Movement<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.thenation.com/article/environment/climate-justice/">https://www.thenation.com/article/environment/climate-justice/</a><br>
<br>
<p><br>
</p>
[Digging back into the internet news archive]<br>
<font size="+1"><b>On this day in the history of global warming May
22 , </b></font><br>
<p>Boston Globe columnist Scot Lehigh reports on Republican
presidential candidate Jeb Bush's devotion to denial and scorn of
solutions:<br>
<br>
"First he asserted that the government shouldn’t try to pick
winners and losers when it comes to energy sources, citing
fracking as an example of the market’s ability to find solutions.
<br>
<br>
"But as economists will tell you, for the market to work
efficiently, it’s important to get prices right. If the cost of
carbon-based fuels reflected the environmental harm caused, higher
prices would reduce greenhouse gas emissions while also rendering
cleaner energy more cost competitive. Bush didn’t do a media
availability, but afterward, I did squeeze in this query: Given
his belief in the market’s ability to find the best solution, does
he favor a tax on carbon emissions?<br>
<br>
"His one-word answer corresponded with the quick shake of his
head: 'No.'"<br>
<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2015/05/21/jeb-bush-good-and-bad/IOe0h7GNuTWInlQuyz0iXM/story.html#">http://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2015/05/21/jeb-bush-good-and-bad/IOe0h7GNuTWInlQuyz0iXM/story.html#</a>
<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2015/05/21/3661573/jeb-bush-climate-change-intellectual-arrogance/">http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2015/05/21/3661573/jeb-bush-climate-change-intellectual-arrogance/</a>
<br>
<br>
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</p>
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