<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8">
</head>
<body text="#000000" bgcolor="#FFFFFF">
<p><font size="+2"><i><b>September 21, 2021</b></i></font></p>
<i>[ a World War? then why not call it global warming? ]</i><br>
<b>Climate change is biggest global problem we’ve seen since World
War II, says PwC chairman</b><br>
-- Climate change is the most formidable challenge humanity has had
to face since World War II and will require a similar level of
individual mobilization and collective cooperation, said Robert
Moritz, chairman of PricewaterhouseCoopers.<br>
-- “We need 8 billion people to make this a personal cause. The
world has never seen a challenge like this probably since World War
II,” said Moritz.<br>
-- “Let me square this up for everybody: We are behind,” Moritz
said. The globe has to increase decarbonization efforts by fivefold,
he said.<br>
“Let me square this up for everybody: We are behind,” he said.<br>
<br>
“The reality is, when you look at the numbers, when you look at the
academic studies, at least our research would say we don’t
necessarily need to double the efforts, triple the efforts, we
actually have to fivefold the increase of the change we need to do
to decarbonize the world that is going on right now,” Moritz said.<br>
<br>
To do that will require collaboration and cooperation across
industries, sectors, stakeholders and leaders.<br>
<br>
“How do we pull together all of the puzzle pieces and start to
connect them, sector by sector, section by section, country by
country, to do this?” Moritz said.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.cnbc.com/2021/09/20/climate-change-largest-global-problem-since-world-war-ii-pwc-chair.html">https://www.cnbc.com/2021/09/20/climate-change-largest-global-problem-since-world-war-ii-pwc-chair.html</a>
<p><br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<p><i>[ Global climate destabilization can also mean colder ]</i><br>
<b>How climate change is making winters colder</b><br>
Sep 17, 2021<br>
Simon Clark<br>
A recent paper makes the extraordinary claim that climate change
has been making North American winters colder and snowier.
Specifically via a mechanism I have some history with, the polar
vortex...<br>
<br>
In this video I talk about Cohen et al (2021), a recent paper
linking climate change in the Arctic to changes in the
stratospheric polar vortex, which itself causes changes in winter
weather. As I studied this mechanism in some detail I thought that
I knew what to expect, but it turns out that via machine learning
techniques, a new way in which the polar vortex influences surface
weather has been discovered!<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vxKcqM5aSA4">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vxKcqM5aSA4</a></p>
<p><br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<i>[track the data]</i><br>
<b>Analysis: Despite “Code Red” on climate, target update momentum
at a standstill</b><br>
The momentum on updating 2030 targets for climate action has stalled
since May, with no major emitters putting forward stronger climate
targets, and the 2030 emissions gap has barely changed, according to
new analysis released today by the Climate Action Tracker.<br>
- -<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://climateactiontracker.org/media/images/CAT_2021-09_RatingsSummary-1-Overall.width-1000.png">https://climateactiontracker.org/media/images/CAT_2021-09_RatingsSummary-1-Overall.width-1000.png</a><br>
- -<br>
“In May, after the Climate Leaders’ Summit and the Petersburg
dialogue, we reported that there appeared to be good momentum with
new climate action commitments, but governments then had only closed
the emissions gap by up to 14 percent,” said Niklas Höhne, of
NewClimate Institute, a CAT partner organisation.<br>
<br>
“But since then, there has been little to no improvement: nothing is
moving. Governments have now closed the gap by up to 15%, a minimal
improvement since May. Anyone would think they have all the time in
the world, when in fact the opposite is the case.”<br>
<br>
The CAT has updated all of the country ratings under its new ratings
system, launched today, where it now gives ratings on a wide range
of actions: an overall rating, the domestic target, policies and
action, fair share, climate mitigation finance (either on providing
mitigation finance, or detailing what international support is
needed), and land use and forestry (where relevant). The CAT has
also begun rating net zero targets.<br>
<br>
Of the 37, countries assessed by the CAT only one - The Gambia – is
rated as having overall climate action that is 1.5°C Paris Agreement
compatible.<br>
In another seven, overall climate action is nearly sufficient,
meaning they are not yet consistent with the Paris Agreement’s 1.5°C
temperature limit, but could be with moderate improvements. Three
countries, the EU, Germany and the US, have significantly updated
their targets with a raft of new policies, and while the UK’s
domestic target is 1.5˚C compatible, its policies and international
support don’t match.<br>
This leaves three quarters of the countries the CAT assesses with
significant gaps in climate action.<br>
“Of particular concern are Australia, Brazil, Indonesia Mexico, New
Zealand, Russia, Singapore, Switzerland and Viet Nam: they have
failed to lift ambition at all, submitting the same or even less
ambitious 2030 targets than those they put forward in 2015. These
countries need to rethink their choice,” said Bill Hare, CEO of
Climate Analytics, a CAT partner.<br>
<br>
“The IPCC has given the world a ‘code red’ warning on the dangers of
climate change reinforcing the urgent need for the world to halve
emissions by 2030. An increasing number of people around the world
are suffering from ever more severe and frequent impacts of climate
change, yet government action continues to lag behind what is
needed. While many governments have committed to net zero, without
near-term action achieving net zero is virtually impossible,” said
Hare.<br>
<br>
On the policy front, coal remains an issue, with China and India
both with huge coal pipelines. South East Asia is also of concern,
with Indonesia, Viet Nam, Japan and South Korea still planning to
forge ahead with the most polluting of fossil fuels.<br>
<br>
Gas is still falsely being promoted as a “bridging fuel” and needs
to be phased out as soon as possible, yet Australia, the world’s
largest gas exporter, is still pouring cash into expanding gas. Even
the EU still has plans to commit funding to new gas infrastructure.<br>
<br>
“Gas is a fossil fuel, and any investment into gas today risks
becoming a stranded asset. And while interest in green hydrogen has
grown exponentially, there is still a large number of hydrogen
projects in the pipeline where it’s produced from gas. Hydrogen
produced from gas still produces carbon, and is inconsistent with
reaching net zero,” said Hare.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://climateactiontracker.org/press/analysis-despite-code-red-on-climate-target-update-momentum-at-a-standstill/">https://climateactiontracker.org/press/analysis-despite-code-red-on-climate-target-update-momentum-at-a-standstill/</a><br>
<p><br>
</p>
<br>
[report on changing our ways. ]<br>
<b>Changing our ways? </b><b>Behaviour change and the climate
crisis</b><br>
The report of the Cambridge Sustainability Commission on Scaling
Behaviour Change<br>
[From the Introduction]<br>
Behaviours change. That much we know. And if we were in any doubt<br>
about the speed with which they can change and the scale of their
effects, the<br>
Covid-19 pandemic has served as a sharp reminder. But beyond such
times of crisis,<br>
behaviours also change at key moments in our lives, when we have
children,<br>
retire or move home. They are shaped by a range of family,
community, regional<br>
and broader societal influences and physical infrastructures. But
there is little<br>
consensus about how best to deliberately shape and directly
influence everyday<br>
behaviours around transport, food and energy use in more sustainable
directions<br>
and where responsibility and agency to effect that change lies.<br>
This is particularly true of discussions about how best to scale
behaviour change. Government policy,<br>
economic incentives and broader cultural change all have a role to
play. But can they achieve the<br>
scale of change over short-term time frames within which
‘transformative action’ needs to take place<br>
to meet the goals of the Paris Agreement? In climate and broader
sustainability terms, some<br>
behaviours matter more than others. Carbon footprints are closely
correlated with income levels,<br>
highlighting the need for targeted and differential strategies
within and between societies. Tools,<br>
strategies, levers and entry points, to be effective, have to
recognise important cultural differences,<br>
uneven capacity to affect and enact change and very different levels
of responsibility. There are few<br>
one-size-fits-all solutions to delivering change at this scale
across and between divided and unequal<br>
societies. Multi-pronged approaches are required...<br>
full report is a PDF named -
Cambridge-Sustainability-Commissions-report-FINAL.pdf<br>
<p><br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
[follow bank talk - here is a new word -- “Underwaterwriting” ]<br>
<b>Banks consider climate risk for home loans, a process called
‘underwaterwriting’ or ‘blue-lining’</b><br>
-- “Underwaterwriting” is when banks consider external climate data
in mortgage decisions.<br>
-- “Blue-lining,” from the consumer’s perspective, is when banks or
mortgage lenders draw lines of risk around certain streets or
neighborhoods, often without clear disclosure.<br>
Underwaterwriting is a neologism that combines “underwriting” with
“underwater.” It refers to the process of banks considering external
climate data, including business analytics, climate science,
catastrophe modeling and insurance modeling, when making loans and
assessing a home’s value, according to Kennan. His research found
that smaller, more local community banks have a better understanding
of local flooding risks than large banks, which helps them better
understand risk and resilient investment strategies.<br>
<br>
Blue-lining, on the other hand, is when banks or mortgage lenders
draw lines of risk around certain neighborhoods and streets based on
their susceptibility to flooding or other climate-related disasters.
The term is meant to be reminiscent of redlining, a product of
institutionalized racism that restricted loan availability to
homeowners in minority-dominated neighborhoods. Some climate
advocates feel that blue-lining is creating a new class of victims
who have their climate risk determined by banks with little
transparency.<br>
<br>
“The direct comparison between redlining and blue-lining is that
it’s targeting some of the same groups. Those who are most at risk
with climate change and climate disasters are the same ones who have
been struggling and advocating for their societal rights,” said
Jasmine Sanders, executive director of Our Climate, a youth climate
activist group.<br>
<br>
“People are having a double whammy,” she said. “The redlined
communities that are still being impacted are now going to be
impacted by this blue-lining going on.”<br>
Nevertheless, climate risk is now an integral part of the value of a
home. Find out your risk at websites such as the Insurance
Information Institute’s freehomerisk.com or First Street
Foundation’s floodfactor.com and watch the video to learn more about
how some homeowners are tackling climate risk.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.cnbc.com/2021/09/20/blue-lining-and-underwaterwriting-banks-consider-climate-change-risk.html">https://www.cnbc.com/2021/09/20/blue-lining-and-underwaterwriting-banks-consider-climate-change-risk.html</a>
<p><br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<i>[sort of a day-in-the-life overview]</i><b><br>
</b><b>What It's Like Trying to Contain Over 200K Acres of Wildfire</b><br>
VICE News<br>
So far this year's wildfire season in California is on track to
match last year's-- which was the worst on record. That's created a
need for more manpower-- not just on the ground but in the skies
above them. Vice New's Michael Anthony Adams embedded with Firewatch
Cobra—a team of pilots, mechanics, and data specialists organized by
the US Forest Service. <br>
<br>
Together, they man a Vietnam-era combat chopper retrofitted with
hi-tech computers, cameras, and infrared sensors hovering thousands
of feet above the flames. Acting as a communication relay station in
the sky, the Firewatch team helps coordinate the more than 40
helicopters and other aircraft called in to help.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bw78imI_euY">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bw78imI_euY</a><br>
<p><br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<i>[ what's going on, thanks for asking]</i><br>
<b>A World Without Children</b><br>
A generation facing an intractable problem debates whether to bring
a new generation into the world.<br>
By Emma Green<br>
SEPTEMBER 20, 2021<br>
<br>
Miley Cyrus vowed not to have a baby on a “piece-of-shit planet.”
Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez mused in an Instagram video
about whether it’s still okay to have children. Polls suggest that a
third or more of Americans younger than 45 either don’t have
children or expect to have fewer than they might otherwise because
they are worried about climate change. Millennials and Gen Z are not
the first generations to face the potential of imminent,
catastrophic, irreversible change to the world they will inherit.
But, it seems, they are the first to seriously entertain whether
that means they should stop having children.<br>
This question tends to cleave people into two camps: those who think
considering climate change is reasonable and necessary when making
decisions about having children, and those who find this premise
unthinkable. “There’s a difference in caring about our climate … and
asking a legitimate question about doing away with the human race,”
the conservative television personality Abby Huntsman said on The
View of Ocasio-Cortez’s comments...<br>
- -<br>
Meghan Kallman and Josephine Ferorelli started hosting house parties
and collecting testimonies about this topic roughly half a decade
ago, in a project called Conceivable Future. They wanted people, and
especially women, to be able to share deeply held and often silent
worries, and to connect with the climate issue from a personal
perspective. I talked with Kallman and Ferorelli about why the
climate crisis is different from any other crisis in human history,
whether they’re planning to have kids, and how that’s related to
their hope for the future...<br>
- -<br>
<b>Ferorelli: </b>One thing that revealed itself to us pretty early
is that, for a lot of white, middle-class people, climate is this
stunner of an issue. It’s the first time a lot of us have noticed
that our well-being is not cherished by our leadership. But for
almost everybody else, demographically, that’s not a surprise...<br>
- -<br>
<b>Kallman:</b> First of all, neither of us have chosen to have
children or to not have children. We’re both in our 30s. We both
have a little bit of time to make this decision. And for both of us,
there are personal considerations...<br>
<br>
There is a really, really gross class—and by extension,
race—underpinning of the premise that you should have children. Your
children will save X. Your children will invent the cure for Y. That
comment seems to mean: Because you are privileged, because you are
white, because you are educated, your kids are more valuable and
therefore you should have them (a) because you’re a woman, and (b)
because they’ll fix everything. The stuff to unpack in there is
dense as a brick, and it’s really destructive.<br>
<br>
The point is that everybody’s kids deserve a chance at a healthy
life.<br>
- -<br>
<b>Ferorelli: </b>There are a lot of moral evasions that people
practice in order to not engage with the climate crisis as an issue.
It’s a habit that people have developed in this privileged world to
say, “Oh, these are first-world problems.” It’s a way to discredit
concern but also to protect inaction. “Oh, I don’t have it that bad;
climate change doesn’t affect me personally. Do I have a right to
talk about this?” I think that a lot of people stall out at that
point.<br>
<br>
The mis-framing of our work as “These are eccentric women who are
vowing not to have children, and they’re hysterical”—that was
something we got a lot in the early days. Some groups have organized
around a pledge not to have children, and I understand why they do
that, but that’s not what we’ve ever done. What we’re saying is:
There’s a generation of people who are looking at the world around
us and saying, “Oh shit. It might not be safe for me to have a
child,” or, “Oh shit, if I commit to activism, I won’t have time to
parent a child during the next decade.” To us, it has no political
significance whether you have one child, five children, or none. The
political significance comes from seeing the threats, naming the
threats, and organizing to address them in a systemic way.<br>
- -<br>
<b>Kallman: </b>There are two concerns that people at our house
parties frequently show up with. One is: What kind of harm will my
child do to the world? The number of diapers these kids produce
would eventually circle the Earth; they’ll create X tons of carbon,
X tons of trash. And then the other question is: What kind of harm
would a hotter and less stable and more potentially violent world do
to my kid? It’s thinking about entering this system that feels so
very fragile and so very unstable. We’re living in a time of
entwined, unending crisis...<br>
And there’s a really strong sense of intergenerational grief and
tension around this. There are folks who are grandparent-age who are
watching their adult children struggle with this and feeling the
grief and sorrow and guilt of the whole system...<br>
For me, at least, it’s not about if you’re ever comfortable enough.
I can’t promise any child a safe future.<br>
<br>
I want to be really clear that my decision around this is unmade.
What I want to see is a sign that people are taking this
seriously—that there is a good-faith, collaborative effort to make
the world safe.<br>
<br>
Is there a threshold? No. For every single person, this is a complex
assessment of partner or partners and financial security, age,
whatever. To me, it’s not a useful framing, either to myself or to
say out loud to you: “Is there a threshold? What’s the threshold?”
We don’t know what’s going to happen. We’re already in the age of
uncertainty. The question is: Can we use the collective power that
we have to push that uncertainty into the best possible outcome?...<br>
- -<br>
<b>Ferorelli: </b>People who have children are doing so because
they know they have to have hope located in the future. It’s a way
of staking a claim in the future that you care about on a really
deep level. There is no one right outcome. If we were advocating an
outcome, I think we would have closed up shop years ago. We’re
advocating broad participation in a conversation that gets people to
engage with the levers of power.<br>
<br>
<b>Kallman: </b>It’s the fact of the question, not the answer. The
outcome doesn’t matter in any individual case...<br>
- -<br>
<b>Ferorelli: </b>I think it’s a really beautiful question. I tend
to find philosophical meaning in stuff that a lot of people
experience as prosaic. I teach yoga, and I find that my experience
of my physical body connects me to the world around me. There’s an
idea of God in my life, and the succession of generations, and the
ongoing power of life. I don’t believe in a literal reincarnation,
but I do believe in a woven thing that is life, that makes us
deeply, intrinsically responsible for each other and what comes
next. I feel often that I’m coming up short that way, and I feel
like having these conversations about a future we can imagine
together is a spiritual practice...<br>
- -<br>
<b>Kallman: </b>Rebecca Solnit has a definition of hope as living
in the unstuck place between optimism and pessimism where action is
possible. Optimists think everything’s going to be fine, no matter
what happens, and they excuse themselves from action. And pessimists
think we’re fucked no matter what happens, and they excuse
themselves from action. But hope lives in the unstuck middle place
where agency is possible. I believe that what I do matters. So, by
that definition, yes, I feel hopeful...<br>
- -<br>
Emma Green is a staff writer at The Atlantic, where she covers
politics, policy, and religion.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2021/09/millennials-babies-climate-change/620032/">https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2021/09/millennials-babies-climate-change/620032/</a><br>
<p>- -<br>
</p>
<i>[Here is the group - members interveiwed above ]</i><br>
<b>Conceivable Future </b><br>
<b>LONG-TERM LOVE OVER SHORT-TERM PROFIT</b><br>
90 testimonies and counting<br>
Who We Are<br>
Conceivable Future is a women-led network of Americans bringing
awareness to the threat climate change poses to reproductive
justice, and demanding an end to US fossil fuel subsidies.<br>
<br>
We believe that this country can’t take meaningful steps to mitigate
the changing climate without severing ties with the industry most
responsible. We also see a great need to build moral power for
climate action, and we believe that telling the stories of climate
change’s impact on our reproductive lives will bring public
perception of the crisis from “over there” in
science/economics/politics into the heart of our daily lives; from
consumer choices like lightbulbs and appliances to the intimate
choices that define our humanity.<br>
<br>
Our generation is in a unique, dangerous and powerful position. It’s
not ‘future generations’, it’s right now. Across the country we are
organizing house parties for people to meet, talk, testify and take
action. <br>
<br>
We are committed to providing an inclusive and welcoming environment
for all volunteers, partners, staff, and contractors. We aim to
build relationships with a wide spectrum of partner organizations as
we fight for climate justice...<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://conceivablefuture.org/mission">https://conceivablefuture.org/mission</a><br>
<p><br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
[The news archive - looking back]<br>
<font size="+1"><b>On this day in the history of global warming
September 21, 1998</b></font><br>
September 21, 1998: In an anecdote that explains the mainstream
media's skittishness about covering climate change, TIME's
international editor, Charles Alexander, is asked by the Wall Street
Journal if TIME's "Heroes for the Planet" series, which is sponsored
by Ford, will cover environmentalists critical of the automobile
industry's role in furthering climate change. Alexander responds
that those environmentalists won't be covered, noting, "We don't run
airline ads next to stories about airline crashes."<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://fair.org/extra-online-articles/fear-amp-favor-2000-the-first-annual-report/">http://fair.org/extra-online-articles/fear-amp-favor-2000-the-first-annual-report/</a><br>
<br>
<p><br>
</p>
<p>/-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------/</p>
<br>
/Archive of Daily Global Warming News <a
class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E"
href="https://pairlist10.pair.net/pipermail/theclimate.vote/2017-October/date.html"
moz-do-not-send="true"><https://pairlist10.pair.net/pipermail/theclimate.vote/2017-October/date.html></a>
/<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://pairlist10.pair.net/pipermail/theclimate.vote"
moz-do-not-send="true">https://pairlist10.pair.net/pipermail/theclimate.vote</a><br>
<br>
/To receive daily mailings - click to Subscribe <a
class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E"
href="mailto:subscribe@theClimate.Vote?subject=Click%20SEND%20to%20process%20your%20request"
moz-do-not-send="true"><mailto:subscribe@theClimate.Vote?subject=Click%20SEND%20to%20process%20your%20request></a>
to news digest./<br>
<br>
- Privacy and Security:*This mailing is text-only. It does not
carry images or attachments which may originate from remote
servers. A text-only message can provide greater privacy to the
receiver and sender. This is a hobby production curated by Richard
Pauli<br>
By regulation, the .VOTE top-level domain cannot be used for
commercial purposes. Messages have no tracking software.<br>
To subscribe, email: <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated"
href="mailto:contact@theclimate.vote" moz-do-not-send="true">contact@theclimate.vote</a>
<a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E"
href="mailto:contact@theclimate.vote" moz-do-not-send="true"><mailto:contact@theclimate.vote></a>
with subject subscribe, To Unsubscribe, subject: unsubscribe<br>
Also you may subscribe/unsubscribe at <a
class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://pairlist10.pair.net/mailman/listinfo/theclimate.vote"
moz-do-not-send="true">https://pairlist10.pair.net/mailman/listinfo/theclimate.vote</a><br>
Links and headlines assembled and curated by Richard Pauli for <a
class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://TheClimate.Vote"
moz-do-not-send="true">http://TheClimate.Vote</a> <a
class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="http://TheClimate.Vote/"
moz-do-not-send="true"><http://TheClimate.Vote/></a>
delivering succinct information for citizens and responsible
governments of all levels. List membership is confidential and
records are scrupulously restricted to this mailing list.<br>
<br>
<br>
</body>
</html>