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<font size="+2"><i><b>September 5, 2021</b></i></font><br>
<br>
[the last go first]<br>
<b>‘Gray greens’: Grandparents are being arrested in London climate
protests</b><br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/climate-protests-london-arrests/2021/09/04/8e6cf6be-0bf1-11ec-a7c8-61bb7b3bf628_story.html">https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/climate-protests-london-arrests/2021/09/04/8e6cf6be-0bf1-11ec-a7c8-61bb7b3bf628_story.html</a><b><br>
</b>
<p><b><br>
</b></p>
<p><b><br>
</b></p>
[a little history and a rising opinion]<b><br>
</b><b>Climate change deniers are as slippery as those who justified
the slave trade</b><br>
Nick Cohen<br>
Global warming sceptics should be hiding in corners. But still some
defend the indefensible<br>
4 Sep 2021<br>
No one seems as defeated as the global warming “deniers” who
dominated rightwing thinking a decade ago. Like late 18th-century
opponents of abolishing the slave trade, Lord Lawson and the claque
of Conservative cranks who filled the comment pages of the Tory
press are remembered today as dangerous fools – assuming they are
remembered at all.<br>
<br>
The billions of dollars spent by the fossil fuel industry on
propaganda and its acceptance by know-nothing elements on the right
caused incalculable damage. They might have followed Margaret
Thatcher, who warned in 1989 of C02 admissions leading to climate
change “more fundamental and more widespread than anything we have
known”. The desire of business to protect profits and the vanity of
politicians and pundits, who saw themselves as dissidents fighting
the consensus rather than fanatics enabling destruction, helped to
waste two decades of valuable time.<br>
Every argument they advanced has been disproved, as much by the
experience of everyday life as science. Journalists are advised: “If
someone says it is raining and another person says it’s dry, it’s
not your job to quote them both. Your job is to look out the window
and find out which is true.” The world only had to look at the
weather outside to know who was trying to fool it.<br>
<br>
To pick from the dozens of examples in Richard Black’s history of
the conspiracy theory (Denied: The Rise and Fall of Climate
Contrarianism) , global warming is not a “swindle”, as a Channel 4
documentary informed its viewers in 2007. Glaciers and ice sheets
are shrinking and the seas are becoming more acidic. If there was
swindling, it was at Channel 4, as Ofcom suggested when it found the
station guilty of several breaches of the broadcasting rules. It is
not “erroneous” to assume that humanity is driving the climate
catastrophe, as the Spectator assured its readers as late as 2017.
The pace of man-made climate change is faster than anything in the
Earth’s history and all attempts to invent other explanations have
failed.<br>
<br>
Viscount Ridley, who presided over the collapse of Northern Rock,
and now dismisses the collapse of the planet in the pages of the
Times, said climate change was doing “more good than harm”. We
should adapt to a warmer Earth and celebrate the reduction in deaths
from the winter cold. But the seas and icecaps cannot adapt, nor can
cities threatened with flooding and countries facing
desertification. The lights did not go out as we switched to
renewable energy, as so many pundits said they would. And energy
bills have fallen rather than risen, despite the assertions of the
noble Lawson to the contrary. Rightwing denialism appears buried so
deep in the dustbin of history it can never be recycled.<br>
<br>
And yet there is nervousness among the impressively large number of
Conservative politicians who are serious about pushing for net zero.
They are pleading with their colleagues to understand the advantages
to consumers and businesses that a determined remaking of the
economy would bring. The Conservative Environmental Network is
already in a fight with a small group of rightwing MPs, who claim
“the poorest will pay the highest price for net-zero fantasies”
(even though no measure is more likely to reduce fuel poverty than a
government home-insulation drive). That battle will only intensify.<br>
<br>
I put “denier” in quotes at the top of this piece because the
enemies of science (and of us all) are endlessly malleable
shapeshifters. Once they can no longer deny the existence of
man-made global warming, they shift and keet on shifting so no one
can ever pin them down. In this, they mirror the defenders of
slavery 230 years ago, who created the modern world’s first
corporate PR campaign and provided an example for all who have
followed.<br>
<br>
The comparison isn’t harsh. One day, the attack on climate science
will be seen as shocking as the defence of human bondage. Indeed,
that day should have long passed. They are overwhelmingly old men
or, in the case of Lawson, a very old man. They grew up in a 20th
century where the carbon economy was natural: the way the world was
and would always be. Slavery was equally natural to the plantation
owners and slave traders of Georgian Britain. It had always existed,
everywhere on Earth.<br>
<br>
The 18th century had its Viscount Ridleys who opined that slavery
did more good than harm. In 1789, during the hearings for the first
abolition bill in history, one witness told parliament that Africans
wanted to be enslaved and “nine out of 10 rejoice at falling into
our hands”. The pro-slavery lobby was as well funded as the
fossil-fuel lobby, and as relentless. The Telegraph comment pages
did not exist in 1789 so it commissioned The Benevolent Planters by
one Thomas Bellamy to appear at the Theatre Royal in London’s West
End. The play told the story of Oran and Selima, lovers who are
separated in Africa. Their capture by slavers is a blessing. Far
from being oppressors, kind slave owners bring the couple together
in the West Indies and allow them to live productive lives together.<br>
<br>
William Wilberforce was assailed by claims that if Britain abolished
slavery, “our manufactures will droop in consequence, our land-tax
will be raised, our marine destroyed, while France, our natural
enemy and rival, will strengthen herself by our weakness”. Today,
Nick Timothy, the man who destroyed Theresa May’s premiership, tells
Telegraph readers the British will be forced into penury by
“net-zero zealots” while other countries “break their promises” and
profit from our naivety.<br>
<br>
In the 18th and 21st centuries, as soon as one fake position was
exposed, another took its place. The arguments change. The intent
remains the same.<br>
<br>
It remains an open question as to whether Boris Johnson secretly
shares a denialist intent. Conservative environmentalists look on
him with approval as he prepares to host the Cop26 climate change
conference in November. He says all the right things, but the
investment and political will needed to electrify transport, reduce
meat eating and refit the housing stock are nowhere to be seen.
Denialism is a shapeshifter. Its latest form may be a bombastic
prime minister who promises the Earth but does next to nothing to
protect it.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/sep/04/climate-change-deniers-are-as-slippery-as-those-who-justified-the-slave-trade">https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/sep/04/climate-change-deniers-are-as-slippery-as-those-who-justified-the-slave-trade</a><br>
<p><br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
[Climate Cafe]<br>
<b>Anxiety and biscuits: the climate cafes popping up around the
world</b><br>
Organisers say showing people they are not alone in their fears is
key to instigating climate action<br>
4 Sep 2021<br>
Kathy Kilmer tried bringing up the climate crisis twice at a recent
dinner party, but it didn’t go well. Guests quickly turned the
conversation to other topics.<br>
<br>
“I just feel awful bringing it up,” said Kilmer, a retired
conservation group communications director from Denver, Colorado.
“And yet, I feel like talking about it is absolutely key to getting
people to understand it.”<br>
<br>
That is why Kilmer attended a virtual “climate cafe” earlier this
year – a meetup where talking about the climate crisis is not only
encouraged, it is the main event. As the effects of climate change
become harder to ignore, and climate anxiety continues to rise, more
and more such events are cropping up around the world for youth
activists and retirees alike to process their climate angst.<br>
<br>
“Climate change is happening, it exists already, and much of what is
coming is already baked in in terms of the science,” said Rebecca
Nestor, an Oxford-based organisational consultant who facilitated
the recent Climate Psychology Alliance cafe that Kilmer attended.
“So a lot of what I think we’re going to need to do … is [to
support] people to acknowledge this and manage their feelings about
it.”<br>
<br>
While the exact origins of climate cafes are murky, leaders say they
are loosely based on death cafes, which started in the UK as a space
for people to talk about mortality over tea and pastries.<br>
<br>
Jess Pepper, who in 2015 started what may have been the first
climate cafe in Dunkeld and Birnam, Scotland, said the idea came to
her after she gave a local presentation on climate change. Attendees
came up to her in the street afterwards, asking what they could do.
“It just dawned on me that people needed to be speaking with each
other, and not just in a one-off kind of session,” she said.<br>
<br>
Pepper says the climate cafes she has helped start around the UK are
meant to be less formal than activist groups – and, ideally, more
welcoming to people not already committed to climate advocacy. Some,
such as those held by Aberdeen Climate Action, serve as an informal
outreach arm of an existing climate group, with each cafe bringing
in guest speakers and connecting like-minded people.<br>
<br>
Sussex Green Ideas, meanwhile, is more like a fair, with booths and
stations to fill up reusable toiletry bottles. Carrie Cort, its
organiser, said her group recently adopted the festival-like format
and dropped “climate” from the event title because, with all the
hardships of the pandemic, they thought it was better to “focus on
the future that we can achieve if we take action”.<br>
<br>
Another breed of climate cafes are billed as “action-free” spaces.
These are smaller affairs, led by trained facilitators who guide the
attendees through free-flowing conversations about their
climate-related feelings.<br>
<br>
Nestor starts off each of the cafes by having attendees do a show
and tell with an object that connects them to the natural world.
“Typically, there might be one person who’s an activist in the group
and the others are often in that state of ‘I am the only one in my
family who was worried about this at all’,” she said. “And so this
is a massively important space for them.”<br>
<br>
Concerns about raising children – or whether to have children – in a
world that is heating up are a common topic of discussion. There are
also youth climate cafes cropping up specifically to help a
generation whose mental health, experts say, is especially
imperilled by the climate crisis.<br>
<br>
Kilmer said she was astonished by how good she felt at the end of
the first climate cafe she attended. “Even though I had shed a lot
of tears, and gotten in touch with some powerful feelings, there was
a sense of relief that I could share that with somebody,” she said.<br>
<br>
Dr Sarah Jaquette Ray, programme leader of the environmental studies
department at California’s Humboldt State University and author of a
book on climate anxiety, said making people feel less
individualistic was key to combating inertia and despair around the
climate emergency. “A sense of the collective is probably the most
important thing that will alleviate climate anxiety, but also
mitigate climate change,” she said.<br>
<br>
The concept of climate anxiety has faced accusations of being a
white phenomenon. Ray and others have pointed out that certain parts
of the world have been feeling the effects of climate change for
decades – they have just been largely ignored by wealthier nations.<br>
<br>
These concerns are on the minds of some climate cafe organisers. The
hosts of a new climate cafe in Boston, for example, say they are
holding meetups in more diverse parts of the city, which, not
incidentally, are also more vulnerable to climate change.<br>
<br>
Keerat Dhami, a community organiser, started a climate cafe in Peel,
Ontario, last March for activists to discuss the emotional
challenges of their work.<br>
<br>
Dhami said attendees of the online event, now open to everyone, had
been mostly white. But participants have also joined the cafe from
places at the frontlines of the climate crisis, such as the Middle
East and coastal Mexico.<br>
<br>
While Dhami understands concerns about the “whiteness” of climate
anxiety, she also feels that “when you give space for
underprivileged or under-represented folks to speak … everyone comes
in and learns from each other”.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/sep/04/anxiety-and-biscuits-climate-cafes-popping-up-around-world">https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/sep/04/anxiety-and-biscuits-climate-cafes-popping-up-around-world</a><br>
<p><br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
[ follow the money ]<br>
<b>Homebuyers aren’t taking climate change seriously, says Redfin
CEO</b><br>
SEP 3 2021<br>
Kevin Stankiewicz<br>
@KEVIN_STANK<br>
KEY POINTS<br>
<b>- - Redfin CEO Glenn Kelman believes there has yet to be a
serious reckoning among U.S. homebuyers about the dangers climate
change presents.</b><br>
- -“<b>The buyers just keep marching into the jaws of destruction,</b>”
he told CNBC on Friday.<br>
- -“<b>The most affordable places in America are the places that are
at the most risk of being affected by climate change</b>,” the
executive said.<br>
<br>
The CEO of real estate brokerage Redfin told CNBC on Friday he
believes there has yet to be a serious reckoning among U.S.
homebuyers about the dangers climate change presents.<br>
<br>
“The buyers just keep marching into the jaws of destruction,”
Redfin’s Glenn Kelman said in an interview on “Closing Bell.”<br>
<br>
Wildfire season in the American West is becoming longer and more
intense as a result of human-induced climate change, fueled by
warmer temperatures and drier conditions. Similarly, scientists say,
hurricanes and floods are increasing in ferocity due to the warming
planet and rising sea levels.<br>
<br>
Homebuyers in vulnerable parts of the country are not deterred by
those realities, Kelman said. “The buyers themselves are driven by
affordability, and the most affordable places in America are the
places that are at the most risk of being affected by climate
change,” he said. “They’re going to be flooded by hurricanes.
They’re going to be affected by wildfires.”...<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.cnbc.com/2021/09/03/homebuyers-not-worried-about-climate-change-redfin-ceo.html">https://www.cnbc.com/2021/09/03/homebuyers-not-worried-about-climate-change-redfin-ceo.html</a><br>
<br>
<p><br>
</p>
[Steven Poole's word of the week- Hycean and nightmare]<br>
<b>‘Hycean’: a portmanteau of hydrogen and ocean that’s not so far,
far away</b><br>
This new class of planet hoped by scientists to harbour alien life
is a hot waterworld. Let’s stop Earth turning into one<br>
Astronomers have begun scrutinising a new class of planet that might
support alien life: the hycean. This is a portmanteau coinage
combining “hydrogen” and “ocean”, since the planets are hot
waterworlds with hydrogen-rich atmospheres.<br>
<br>
In ancient Greek, Oceanus was the great river encompassing the disc
of the Earth, personified as the son of Uranus and Gaia. Hydrogen,
meanwhile, is Greek for “water-generating”, as H indeed is when
combined with O2.<br>
<br>
That reaction also occurs in hydrogen fuel cells that produce
electricity, but where do we get the hydrogen from in the first
place? Mainly, as it turns out, from burning fossil fuels. One type
of this CO2-emitting process is called, in a truly marvellous act of
Unspeak, “blue hydrogen”, even though hydrogen is colourless –
presumably in the hope that the association with the colour of clear
skies will act as rhetorical greenwashing. (“Blue hydrogen” captures
and stores some but not all of the CO2 created, while your actual
“green hydrogen” is made with renewable energy.)<br>
<br>
But let’s not be too hard on human ingenuity: with enough sea-level
rise and global heating, we could even turn Earth itself into a
hycean for aliens to study.<br>
Steven Poole’s A Word for Every Day of the Year is published by
Quercus.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/sep/03/hycean-portmanteau-hydrogen-ocean-planet-hot-water-earth">https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/sep/03/hycean-portmanteau-hydrogen-ocean-planet-hot-water-earth</a>
<p>- -<br>
</p>
[defined by Wikipedia]<br>
<b>A hycean planet -</b> from the words hydrogen and ocean] - is a
hypothetical type of habitable planet described as a hot,
water-covered planet with a hydrogen-rich atmosphere that is
possibly capable of harboring life. According to researchers, hycean
planets, based on planet densities, may include rocky super-earths
as well as mini-Neptunes (such as K2-18b and TOI-1231 b),] and, as a
result, are expected to be numerous in the exoplanet population...<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hycean_planet">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hycean_planet</a><br>
<br>
<p><br>
</p>
[The news archive - looking back] <font size="+1"><b><br>
</b></font><font size="+1"><b>On this day in the history of global
warming September 5, 2009</b></font><br>
White House advisor Van Jones decides to resign after a series of
vicious rhetorical attacks on him by Fox News Channel host Glenn
Beck and other conservative pundits. <br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://youtu.be/_RuAFg0haCk">http://youtu.be/_RuAFg0haCk</a><br>
<br>
<br>
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