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<font size="+2"><i><b>September 7, 2021</b></i></font><br>
<br>
[Health researchers don't scream, they publish]<br>
<b>More than 200 health journals call for urgent action on climate
crisis</b><br>
Editorial in publications worldwide urges leaders to take measures
to stop ‘greatest threat to public health’<br>
PA Media -Sun 5 Sep 2021<br>
More than 200 health journals worldwide are publishing an editorial
calling on leaders to take emergency action on climate change and to
protect health.<br>
<br>
The British Medical Journal said it is the first time so many
publications have come together to make the same statement,
reflecting the severity of the situation.<br>
The editorial, which is being published before the UN general
assembly and the Cop26 climate summit in Glasgow this November,
says: “Ahead of these pivotal meetings, we – the editors of health
journals worldwide – call for urgent action to keep average global
temperature increases below 1.5C, halt the destruction of nature,
and protect health.<br>
<br>
“Health is already being harmed by global temperature increases and
the destruction of the natural world, a state of affairs health
professionals have been bringing attention to for decades.<br>
“The science is unequivocal; a global increase of 1.5C above the
pre-industrial average and the continued loss of biodiversity risk
catastrophic harm to health that will be impossible to reverse.<br>
<br>
“Despite the world’s necessary preoccupation with Covid-19, we
cannot wait for the pandemic to pass to rapidly reduce emissions.<br>
<br>
“Reflecting the severity of the moment, this editorial appears in
health journals across the world.<br>
<br>
“We are united in recognising that only fundamental and equitable
changes to societies will reverse our current trajectory.”<br>
<br>
It adds: “The greatest threat to global public health is the
continued failure of world leaders to keep the global temperature
rise below 1.5C and to restore nature.<br>
<br>
“Urgent, society-wide changes must be made and will lead to a fairer
and healthier world.<br>
<br>
“We, as editors of health journals, call for governments and other
leaders to act, marking 2021 as the year that the world finally
changes course.”<br>
Dr Fiona Godlee, editor-in-chief of the BMJ, and one of the
co-authors of the editorial, said: “Health professionals have been
on the frontline of the Covid-19 crisis and they are united in
warning that going above 1.5C and allowing the continued destruction
of nature will bring the next, far deadlier crisis.<br>
<br>
“Wealthier nations must act faster and do more to support those
countries already suffering under higher temperatures. 2021 has to
be the year the world changes course – our health depends on it.”<br>
<br>
The editorial will appear in the BMJ, the Lancet, the New England
Journal of Medicine, the East African Medical Journal, the Chinese
Science Bulletin, the National Medical Journal of India, the Medical
Journal of Australia, and 50 BMJ specialist journals including BMJ
Global Health and Thorax.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/sep/06/more-than-200-health-journals-call-for-urgent-action-on-climate-crisis">https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/sep/06/more-than-200-health-journals-call-for-urgent-action-on-climate-crisis</a><br>
<p><br>
</p>
<br>
[not surprising, distressing]<br>
<b>Climate disasters will strain our mental health system. It’s time
to adapt.</b><br>
As the effects of climate change become severe, more people than
ever may experience mental health challenges. To provide solutions,
experts say the system will need to evolve.<br>
By Camille Baker - September 4, 2021<br>
<br>
The resonances were eerie as Hurricane Ida, a Category 4 storm,
broached Louisiana’s coast on Sunday, 16 years to the day after
Hurricane Katrina ravaged the same area.<br>
<br>
“It’s very painful to think about another powerful storm like
Hurricane Ida making landfall on that anniversary,” Louisiana Gov.
John Bel Edwards (D) said on the eve of Ida’s arrival. As residents
of the state braced for a battering of wind and water, many were
preparing for another assault — the unbearable emotional toll of
living through another such storm.<br>
<br>
This kind of re-traumatization may become increasingly common.
Experts say that as the planet continues to warm, and climate
change’s effects become more apparent and severe across the globe,
more people than ever could experience serious challenges to their
mental health as a result.<br>
New methods for addressing these challenges are emerging in the
United States, though some experts believe a surge in mental health
issues related to climate change could overwhelm the system —
leading them to consider how to radically remake it.<br>
<br>
Why we shouldn’t give in to climate despair<br>
<br>
Just the past few months have spelled a handful of devastating
weather extremes in the United States. Record-breaking temperatures
scorched the country, prompting heat warnings to be issued for 150
million people. The Dixie Fire, which grew to over 868,000 acres
this week, has become the largest single fire in California history.
And in August, an unprecedented amount of rain battered Tennessee,
leading to floods that killed at least 21 people.<br>
<br>
Climate change is suddenly feeling a lot more real for many
Americans who have not seen it up close until now, clinicians say,
leading many to seek one-on-one therapy.<br>
<br>
“Mental health professionals help people face reality, because we
know living in denial can ruin a person’s life. As the climate
crisis unfolds, we see people whose anger, anxiety, and depression,
caused by the shortcomings of a previous generation, prevent them
from leading productive lives themselves,” reads a contribution by
Lise Van Susteren to a report by the American Psychological
Association and ecoAmerica.<br>
<br>
Katharine Wilkinson, an author and strategist who co-edited an
anthology about climate solutions called “All We Can Save,” said
that over the past year more than 600 people had signed up to lead
book discussion circles she designed as an outlet for climate grief,
signaling a growing demand for climate-related support in group
formats. And Daniel Masler, a Washington-based therapist, says
requests for climate-related care have only grown since he began his
work in 2012.<br>
<br>
“We’ve been for so long in social denial. Now, with the smoke
drifting all the way back East and the phenomenal fluctuations in
temperature, people can’t deny it anymore.”<br>
<br>
Sign up for the latest news about climate change, energy and the
environment, delivered every Thursday<br>
<br>
Other groups for dealing with climate grief have emerged in recent
years, too.<br>
<br>
A nonprofit organization called the Good Grief Network, a 10-step
program inspired by the structure of Alcoholics Anonymous whose
meetings provide “social and emotional support to people who feel
overwhelmed about the state of the world,” says it has reached over
a thousand people in four years. Steps in the program range from
accepting “the severity of the predicament” to reinvesting “into
meaningful efforts.”<br>
<br>
The Makepeace family stand in the street outside their home, which
was flooded by Hurricane Ida on Aug. 30, 2021, in LaPlace, La.
(Michael Robinson Chavez for The Washington Post)<br>
Young adults are among the groups most vulnerable to feelings of
depression and anxiety related to climate change, said Leslie
Davenport, a climate psychology educator and consultant who is a
member of a directory of climate-aware therapists. “It is this sense
of looking at their personal future in a way that, in much of the
U.S., has not had to be viewed this way before. ‘Does it make sense
for me to think about starting a family? Does it make sense for me
to start thinking about college?’”<br>
<br>
Therapy sessions can allow people a space to relieve their stresses
through disclosure and reflect on what they can do to slow the
earth’s warming, which can also be alleviating. “A lot of us tend to
go into strong feelings of self blame, and [therapy can] help to
shift the blame into something that’s more activating,” said Masler,
another member of the directory.<br>
<br>
The effects of climate change on mental health can range from the
frightening to the acutely dangerous. Some studies have linked
extreme temperatures with an increased risk of suicide, as well as
increased hospital admissions for mood and behavioral disorders. One
study found that nearly half of mostly young, low-income, African
American mothers exposed to Hurricane Katrina likely suffered from
post traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, following the storm.
According to estimates, millions, or even over a billion people
could be displaced by the climate crisis by 2050.<br>
<br>
The race to rescue Florida’s diseased corals<br>
<br>
An article in the medical journal The Lancet emphasizes climate
change’s disproportionate effect on the world’s most vulnerable
people — who are more likely to live in countries the least
responsible for greenhouse gas emissions.<br>
<br>
“Populations with pre-existing chronic health conditions, low
socioeconomic status, children, older people, and some ethnic
minority groups are particularly vulnerable,” the article reads.
“Similarly, these populations often lack the financial, social, or
community resilience needed to cope, manage, and recover from new
environmental hazards or climate stress.”<br>
<br>
In parallel, the people most vulnerable to climate change’s effects
may also be the least able to access mental health care, especially
in a future that exacerbates existing inequalities. In Colorado,
Kritee Kanko, a climate scientist and Zen Buddhist teacher,
discussed the need to develop more accessible forms of mental health
care for that very reason.<br>
<br>
“Whenever I speak about climate grief, I always say that one-to-one
psychotherapy has helped me personally, and it’s great. We need
great therapists,” she said. But she added that one-on-one therapy
can be prohibitively expensive, and that in the future, individual
therapists may not be able to keep up with an increase in demand due
to climate change.<br>
<br>
“It is not going to be enough, at all, for what we are facing. It
will never be enough because of the scale of trauma we face,” she
said. “I’m thinking about marginalized, racialized communities here
who don’t have the financial privilege.”<br>
<br>
A reform to the mental health care system to prepare for climate
change “has to be community wide,” echoed Van Susteren, a
psychiatrist and a co-founder of the Climate Psychiatry Alliance,
who helped organize the therapist directory. “It has to be
culturally based so that it isn’t a one size fits all. It has to be
geared towards building resilience.”<br>
<br>
Gary Belkin, a psychiatrist, founder of the Billion Minds Institute
and a visiting scientist at the Harvard School of Public Health, has
also been vocal on the demand that climate change will place on
mental health resources.<br>
<br>
“We are all psychologically unprepared to face the accelerating
existential crisis of climate and ecological change that will
further deepen other destructive fault lines in our society,” Belkin
wrote in Psychiatric News in February. “The future will extract
enormous social and emotional costs and suffering and require
enormous social and emotional strengths to combat. We must sound
that alarm and put our own house in order.”<br>
<br>
Costa Rica’s environmental minister wants to build a green economy.
She just needs time.<br>
<br>
He too believes ambitious reform to the very way mental health care
is administered will be necessary to meet the moment. Belkin
described his work with the Social Climate Leadership Group, a
coalition of 17 health and climate organizations announced last
August that intends to deepen mental health professionals’
relationships with the communities they serve, among other goals.
Intermittent therapy sessions will not be able to “solve” the
negative mental health effects of climate change, Belkin said, so
health systems, grass roots organizations and other entities need to
mobilize to empower communities to bolster their own emotional
resilience and mental health.<br>
<br>
“The mental health system works on the idea of discrete illnesses
that are treated and have a distinct beginning and end, whereas,
mass population effects like climate change … are relentless,” said
Belkin, who served as the deputy health commissioner of New York
City in 2019.<br>
<br>
One innovation Belkin says could be useful for distributing
therapeutic knowledge is “task sharing” — an evidence-based process
by which peers, teachers, parents, clergy, health workers and other
nonspecialists provide mental health support to others under the
supervision of trained clinicians.<br>
<br>
He suggests this could be one of the pillars of a new model of
community-based mental health care that can rise to the challenge of
the climate crisis.<br>
<br>
“This is no small task, and I know this. But the methods are there.
It’s not a complex formula. It’s really about the will to do it,”
Belkin added.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-solutions/2021/09/04/climate-change-mental-health-hurricane/">https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-solutions/2021/09/04/climate-change-mental-health-hurricane/</a>
<p><br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
[Time to call U-Haul]<br>
<b>What part of the US is safest from climate change?</b><br>
By Camille Squires -- updated on September 5, 2021<br>
Researchers looked at multiple factors from sea level rise to heat
to assess the least risky place to live in the US as the climate
warms. Nowhere will escape climate change unscathed. Yet one region
emerged well ahead of the rest: the northeastern US.<br>
Of the 10 lowest risk counties, seven were located in Vermont, and
most of the remaining were in northeastern states like Maine and New
York, according to a study by ProPublica and the New York Times
Magazine. Data on relative risk for US counties threatened by
climate change was compiled from data collected by the Rhodium
Group, an independent data-analytics firm, as well as several
academic studies.<br>
<blockquote>
<blockquote>Lamoille County, Vermont<br>
Franklin County, Vermont<br>
Orange County, Vermont<br>
Essex County, Vermont<br>
Piscataquis County, Maine<br>
Summit County, Colorado<br>
Grand County, Colorado<br>
Orleans County, Vermont<br>
Hamilton County, New York<br>
Franklin County, Maine<br>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
The study accounted for how six factors—heat, wet bulb temperatures,
sea level rise, crop yield, fires, and economic damage—combined to
impact people and economies. These safest areas were expected to
have the lowest combined impacts by mid-century. Temperatures,
fires, and sea-level rise will drive much of the damage. Rising
temperatures mean searing heat and humidity will shift the zone of
moderate climate and farmable land to the north. Places like Arizona
and Texas are expected to sizzle under combined heat and humidity,
known as “wet bulb” temperatures, which make it nearly impossible
for the human body to cool itself for part of the year. Sea level
rise on the coasts and fires in the US West, mean inland states in
the Northeast become prime locations.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://qz.com/2055291/what-part-of-the-us-is-safest-from-climate-change/">https://qz.com/2055291/what-part-of-the-us-is-safest-from-climate-change/</a><br>
<p><br>
</p>
<br>
[video discussion of transformative adaptation - "The Dodo, the
Phoenix or the Butterfly"]<br>
<b>Climate Adaptation - Interview with Prof. Rupert Read</b><br>
Aug 7, 2021<br>
Arkbound Media<br>
Arkbound Foundation interviews Prof. Rupert Read, experienced
activist and philosopher, to discuss transformative adaptation and
the importance of facing up to the future. Rupert is one of the
authors of the upcoming Climate Adaptations, a brave examination of
climate change from worldwide perspectives.<br>
<br>
Professor Rupert Read is an environmental philosopher based in
Norwich, and an expert of the Precautionary Principle. He was
previously the spokesperson for Extinction Rebellion, and a
councillor for the Green Party. He is the co-founder of Green House
Think Tank, and the author of several books, including This
Civilisation is Finished: Conversations on the End of Empire - and
what Lies Beyond, and Extinction Rebellion: Insights from the
Inside. He has also written articles for major media outlets, such
as The Guardian, The Independent, and The Conversation. <br>
<br>
Pre-order your copy of Climate Adaptations for October 25th:
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://arkbound.com/product/climate-adaptation-accounts-of-resilience-self-sufficiency-and-systems-change/">https://arkbound.com/product/climate-adaptation-accounts-of-resilience-self-sufficiency-and-systems-change/</a><br>
<br>
<b>Transformative Adaptation Collective: </b>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://transformative-adaptation.com">http://transformative-adaptation.com</a><br>
Rupert Read's website: <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://rupertread.net">https://rupertread.net</a><br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-FiA58M0izU">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-FiA58M0izU</a><br>
<p><br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
[after decades of deceit and lies, suddenly a new lie, or it is the
truth?]<br>
<b>Rupert Murdoch’s Australia News Outlets to Ease Their Climate
Denial</b><br>
The campaign, if sustained, could put pressure on Fox News, though
critics were skeptical that a sea change was in store.<br>
By Damien Cave<br>
Sept. 6, 2021, 5:58 a.m. ET<br>
SYDNEY, Australia — After years of casting doubt on climate change
and attacking politicians who favored corrective action, Rupert
Murdoch’s media outlets in his native Australia are planning an
editorial campaign next month advocating a carbon-neutral future.<br>
<br>
Depending on its content, the project, described by executives at
Mr. Murdoch’s News Corp on Monday, could be a breakthrough that
provides political cover for Australia’s conservative government to
end its refusal to set ambitious emission targets. If sustained, it
could also put pressure on Fox News and other Murdoch-owned outlets
in the United States and Britain that have been hostile to climate
science.<br>
<br>
But critics, including scientists who have been a target of News
Corp’s climate combat, warned that the effort could be little more
than window dressing that leaves decades of damage intact.<br>
<br>
“Color me skeptical,” said Michael E. Mann, director of the Earth
System Science Center at Pennsylvania State University. “Until
Rupert Murdoch and News Corp call off their attack dogs at Fox News
and The Wall Street Journal, who continue to promote climate change
disinformation on a daily basis, these are hollow promises that
should be viewed as a desperate ploy to rehabilitate the public
image of a leading climate villain.”<br>
<br>
As broadly outlined by News Corp executives, the project will
include features and editorials across the company’s influential
newspapers, along with Sky News, its 24-hour news channel. They will
explore a path to reaching net-zero emissions by 2050 — a target,
set by dozens of countries, that scientific studies show is crucial
to averting some of the most disastrous effects of global warming.<br>
<br>
News Corp executives in Australia have said little publicly about
their plans, which were reported earlier by The Sydney Morning
Herald. News Corp and a spokesman for Rupert Murdoch did not respond
to emailed requests for comment.<br>
On Monday, Paul Whittaker, the chief executive of Sky News,
appeared in the Australian Senate to answer questions at a public
hearing about misinformation in the media. He downplayed the
reported shift in climate change priorities.<br>
<br>
“I wouldn’t describe it as a campaign,” he said. “I would describe
it, in terms of Sky News, as an exploration of what are very complex
issues.”<br>
<br>
Sky tends to be the most extreme of News Corp’s properties. Last
month, YouTube suspended the conservative news channel for a week
for breaching the platform’s coronavirus misinformation policy. Two
years ago, one of its hosts labeled climate change “a fraudulent and
dangerous cult” that was “driven by unscrupulous and sinister
interests.”<br>
<br>
At many of the company’s newspapers, where solid journalism often
sits beside unrelenting ideology in articles that often do not carry
an “opinion” label, the editorial project has been widely discussed
over the past few weeks, often with a sense of relief...<br>
A senior newspaper employee with News Corp, who requested anonymity
because he was not permitted to describe internal decision-making,
said the editorial effort reflected a growing recognition by the
company that the world had moved to a stronger stance on climate
change.<br>
<br>
He said the project had been developing for months, with various
political and business figures given advance notice, a signal that
the turn toward endorsing net-zero emissions risked surprising
conservative allies.<br>
<br>
Coordinated campaigns are not uncommon for News Corp, which is the
dominant commercial provider of news in Australia, with newspapers
in major cities and regional areas. Several outlets are currently
pushing for a rapid uptake in Covid-19 vaccination.<br>
<br>
In the case of global warming, the campaign will begin just before a
new round of international climate talks in Scotland.<br>
<br>
The timing elicited both hope and cynicism among critics of News
Corp’s climate coverage.<br>
<br>
“If genuine, this could provide a critical boost to momentum needed
for the Glasgow summit in November,” said Joëlle Gergis, a climate
scientist at the Australian National University..<br>
Richie Merzian, the climate and energy program director at the
Australia Institute, a progressive research organization, said that
News Corp should call for immediate action to reduce emissions...<br>
“Really, they are moving from an F to a D student here,” he said.
“The real risk is News Corp shifting from denying climate change to
delaying climate action with nonsolutions and unaccountable
long-term targets. Net zero by 2050 is almost useless if it is not
enforced, if it has no short-term ambition and if there is no
accompanying commitment to stop opening up new coal mines and new
gas fields.”<br>
<br>
Professor Mann, whose book “The New Climate War” looks closely at
what he calls “inactivists” — the polluters, politicians and media
outlets that have opposed climate action — said that News Corp may
have simply realized that denial in the face of increasingly harsh
climate events, especially the horrific 2019-20 bush fires in
Australia, was no longer tenable.<br>
<br>
“They’ve turned to other tactics — delay, distraction, deflection,
division, etc. — in their effort to maintain the fossil fuel status
quo,” he said by email. “Focusing on a target of 2050, three decades
away, kicks the can so far down the road that it’s largely
meaningless. It allows the cynics to appeal to promises of new
technology (carbon capture, geoengineering, etc.) decades down the
road as a crutch for continuing business-as-usual fossil fuel
burning.”<br>
<br>
Malcolm Turnbull, a former Australian prime minister who was often
attacked by News Corp and was toppled in an intraparty dispute in
2018 over climate policy, also warned that News Corp had a long
track record that a few weeks of coverage could not erase.<br>
<br>
News Corp’s newfound commitment, he said, should be believed only if
the company’s journalists and editors stop beating up on supporters
of climate action and stop protecting the conservative members of
Parliament who have resisted climate policy...<br>
“That right-wing populist climate-denying section of the coalition
is very influential, and its foundation is the News Corp media,” Mr.
Turnbull said in an interview. “That’s where they live and thrive.
If there’s a change there, that would be significant.”<br>
<br>
But, he added, “I’m not going to give them credit for something they
haven’t done yet.”<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/06/business/news-corp-climate-change.html">https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/06/business/news-corp-climate-change.html</a><br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
[The news archive - looking back]<br>
<font size="+1"><b>On this day in the history of global warming
September 7,</b></font><br>
<br>
On MotherJones.com, investigative journalist Brad Friedman, in part
two of his report on a secretive June 2011 meeting in Colorado held
by billionaire climate-change deniers Charles and David Koch, notes
that New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie spoke at the meeting--and that
David Koch called him "my kind of guy."<br>
<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2011/09/audio-chris-christie-koch-brothers-seminar/">http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2011/09/audio-chris-christie-koch-brothers-seminar/</a>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<p>/-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------/</p>
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