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<font size="+2"><i><b>November 4, 2021</b></i></font><br>
<br>
<i>[at COP26 - BBC has excellent coverage]</i><br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-59054696">https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-59054696</a><br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/w172xv5fbrh0jlv">https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/w172xv5fbrh0jlv</a><br>
<p><i>- -<br>
</i></p>
<i>[ clips from Scientific American and Nature ] </i><br>
<b>Top Climate Scientists Are Skeptical That Nations Will Rein in
Global Warming</b><br>
A Nature survey reveals that many authors of the latest IPCC climate
science report are anxious about the future and expect to see
catastrophic changes in their lifetime<br>
By Jeff Tollefson, Nature magazine on November 3, 2021<br>
<br>
As a leading climate scientist, Paola Arias doesn’t need to look far
to see the world changing. Shifting rain patterns threaten water
supplies in her home city of Medellín, Colombia, while rising sea
levels endanger the country’s coastline. She isn’t confident that
international leaders will slow global warming or that her own
government can handle the expected fallout, such as mass migrations
and civil unrest over rising inequality. With such an uncertain
future, she thought hard several years ago about whether to have
children.<br>
<br>
“My answer was no,” says Arias, a researcher at the University of
Antioquia in Medellín, who was one of the 234 scientists who wrote a
climate-science report published by the Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change (IPCC) in August (see go.nature.com/3pjupro). That
assessment, which makes clear that the world is running out of time
to avoid the most severe impacts of climate change, will figure
prominently in climate negotiations over the next two weeks at the
COP26 meeting in Glasgow, UK.<br>
<br>
Many other leading climate researchers share Arias’s concerns about
the future. Nature conducted an anonymous survey of the 233 living
IPCC authors last month and received responses from 92
scientists—about 40% of the group. Their answers suggest strong
scepticism that governments will markedly slow the pace of global
warming, despite political promises made by international leaders as
part of the 2015 Paris climate agreement.<br>
<br>
Six in ten of the respondents said that they expect the world to
warm by at least 3 °C by the end of the century, compared with what
conditions were like before the Industrial Revolution. That is far
beyond the Paris agreement’s goal to limit warming to 1.5–2 °C...<br>
<br>
Most of the survey’s respondents—88%—said they think global warming
constitutes a ‘crisis’, and nearly as many said they expect to see
catastrophic impacts of climate change in their lifetimes. Just
under half said that global warming has caused them to reconsider
major life decisions, such as where to live and whether to have
children. More than 60% said that they experience anxiety, grief or
other distress because of concerns over climate change...<br>
- -<br>
For Arias, who frequently sees the impacts of political instability
out of her office window as immigrants from strife-torn Venezuela
wander the streets seeking food and shelter, the choice about
children came naturally. She says many friends and colleagues have
arrived at the same conclusion. “I’m not saying that that is a
decision that everyone should make,” she says, “but it’s not
something I am struggling with much any more.”...<br>
- -<br>
The pessimism expressed by some IPCC panellists underscores the vast
gulf between hopes and expectations for the climate summit that
began this week in Glasgow. In advance of the meeting, the United
States, the European Union, China and others have announced new
plans to curb greenhouse-gas emissions, although scientific analyses
suggest those plans still fall well short of the Paris goals. Over
the next two weeks, countries will formalize—and perhaps even
strengthen—those commitments. But making them a reality will require
as-yet-unprecedented political mobilization at the national level
once leaders return home.<br>
- -<br>
“Right now, governments are just at the stage of providing green
promises, but so far we have not seen any actions to curb
greenhouse-gas emissions,” says Mouhamadou Bamba Sylla, an IPCC
author and climate modeller at the African Institute for
Mathematical Sciences in Kigali, Rwanda. Sylla says his home country
of Senegal has gone through all the motions and developed adaptation
plans for a warming climate, but is anything changing on the ground?
“I don’t think so,” he says.<br>
<br>
CLIMATE ANXIETY<br>
The scientists surveyed by Nature are part of the IPCC working group
charged with assessing the causes and extent of climate change.
Their latest report, approved by 195 governments in August,
concluded that fossil-fuel emissions are driving unprecedented
planetary changes, threatening both people and the ecosystems that
humans rely on for food and other resources. “Unless there are
immediate, rapid and large-scale reductions in greenhouse gas
emissions, limiting warming to close to 1.5 °C or even 2° C will be
beyond reach,” the IPCC said. But in announcing the report, IPCC
scientists stressed that these goals could still be achieved.<br>
<br>
A separate report from the United Nations Environment Programme last
week projected that the climate commitments already announced by
nations would put the world on a path towards 2.7 °C of warming by
the end of the century (see go.nature.com/3vphvtu). Other
projections raise the possibility of even more reductions. The
Climate Action Tracker, a consortium of scientific and academic
organizations, estimates that warming would be limited to 2.4 °C if
countries follow through on their latest pledges under the Paris
agreement. One of the goals of the climate negotiations is to prompt
more-ambitious steps for limiting greenhouse-gas emissions, but most
respondents to the Nature survey seemed to be pessimistic about
future policies and the amount of warming (see Supplementary
information for survey data tables).<br>
<br>
Do you think you will see catastrophic impacts of climate change in
your lifetime poll results.<br>
Credit: Nature <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-021-02990-w">https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-021-02990-w</a>;
Source: Nature analysis<br>
The survey results might not be surprising given the decades of
limited progress in tackling climate change, but the opinions of
climate researchers should raise alarms, says Diana Liverman, a
geographer who studies climate at the University of Arizona in
Tucson. “I suppose the fact that they’re pessimistic should make us
even more worried.”<br>
<br>
The Nature survey has limitations: it doesn’t capture the views of
60% of the IPCC authors, and two scientists wrote separately to
Nature expressing concerns about the poll precisely because it taps
into opinions rather than science. Those who took part did so in a
personal capacity, not as representatives of the IPCC. Still, the
survey provides a snapshot of the views of a significant proportion
of the researchers who wrote the report.<br>
<br>
POSITIVE SIGNALS<br>
Although the results indicate that many harbour deep concerns, the
survey also revealed signs of optimism. More than 20% of the
scientists said they expect nations to limit global warming to 2 °C,
and 4% said the world might indeed meet its most aggressive goal of
limiting warming to 1.5 °C—a target that many scientists and
academics wrote off from the moment the Paris agreement was signed
in 2015...<br>
- -<br>
Charles Koven, a climate scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National
Laboratory in California, draws hope about the future because of
advances in science and technology, and rapidly evolving public
opinion. One positive development, he says, is that results in the
past few years indicate that global average temperatures will level
off quickly once humanity stops emitting greenhouse gases into the
atmosphere. This is contrary to long-held expectations that warming
would continue for decades even if emissions were halted, owing to a
lag in the climate system. He also cites plummeting costs of
clean-energy technologies, as well as rising public demand for
action in the face of increasingly visible climate impacts—such as
the wildfires that he and his family have grown accustomed to each
year in California.<br>
<br>
“Fundamentally, I believe that the majority of people really do care
about the future, and that it is possible for governments to
coordinate and avoid the worst climate outcomes,” Koven says.<br>
<br>
Two-thirds of the respondents said they engage in climate advocacy,
and almost all of those who do said they promote climate science
through speeches, publications or videos. Some 43% of those who
engage said they have signed letters or petitions, and 40% said they
have contacted lawmakers to advocate for climate policies.
One-quarter said they have joined demonstrations...<br>
- -<br>
The tables turned, however, when scientists considered whether the
IPCC should take on more of an advocacy role, which would be a sharp
break from its remit of neutrally assessing the science: nearly
three-quarters of the respondents said the IPCC should refrain from
climate advocacy. One survey respondent gave the IPCC credit for
sticking to its core mission. “By focusing on the best available
scientific information, it has avoided the politicization that has
occurred with other scientific issues, such as masking and
vaccinating for COVID-19,” the respondent said.<br>
- -<br>
Like Arias, Sylla sees the impacts of political and economic
instability as people pile aboard small boats leaving Senegal for a
perilous journey in search of a better future. He also fears the
situation will only get worse as the climate warms. Although he is
currently planning to build a house for his family—far from the sea
and in a location that is unlikely to flood—Sylla isn’t convinced
that Senegal is where he wants to ride out the climate storm. But he
is keenly aware of the fact that Europe and the United States are
also vulnerable to the inevitable impacts of global warming. “So the
question is, where do you go?”<br>
<p><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/top-climate-scientists-are-skeptical-that-nations-will-rein-in-global-warming/">https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/top-climate-scientists-are-skeptical-that-nations-will-rein-in-global-warming/</a><br>
</p>
<p>- -</p>
<p> <i>[RollingStone rolls out the optimism - subscription required
$]</i></p>
<b>Ten Reasons for Optimism on Climate Change</b><br>
These are dark times, but hope is not lost nor foolish, and change
has already begun<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/political-commentary/climate-change-optimism-glasgow-cop26-1252377/">https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/political-commentary/climate-change-optimism-glasgow-cop26-1252377/</a><br>
<br>
<p><br>
</p>
<i><br>
</i><i>[One opinion report from COP26 video ]</i><br>
<b>COP 26: End the Cynicism and Denial - Pt1</b><br>
Nov 1, 2021<br>
theAnalysis-news<br>
The global elites call for technology and market “solutions” they
know will not reach the necessary targets. They are condemning human
society to its demise. A mass movement to demand real solutions is
urgently needed. Patrick Bond and Paul Jay discuss the climate
crisis on theAnalysis.news. <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1tWyoqo13Lk">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1tWyoqo13Lk</a><br>
<br>
<br>
<i>[ Oh not good, even the rumor of this is bad ]</i><br>
<b>Secretive court system poses threat to Paris climate deal, says
whistleblower</b><br>
Treaty allows energy corporations to sue governments for billions
over policies that could hurt their profits<br>
Jennifer Rankin in Brussels - 3 Nov 2021 <br>
A secretive investor court system poses a real threat to the Paris
climate agreement, activists have said, as governments taking action
to phase out fossil fuels face a slew of multimillion-dollar
lawsuits for lost profits.<br>
<br>
New data seen by the Guardian shows a surge in cases under the
energy charter treaty (ECT), an obscure international agreement that
allows energy corporations to sue governments over policies that
could hurt their profits.<br>
<br>
Coal and oil investors are already suing governments for several
billions in compensation for lost profits over energy policy
changes. For example, the German energy company RWE is suing the
Netherlands for €1.4bn (£1.2bn) over its plans to phase out coal,
while Rockhopper Exploration, based in the UK, is suing the Italian
government after it banned new drilling near the coast.<br>
<br>
“It’s a real threat [to the Paris agreement]. It’s the biggest
threat I am aware of,” said Yamina Saheb, a former employee of the
ECT secretariat who quit in 2018 to raise the alarm...<br>
- -<br>
“The Paris agreement … means that we need to decarbonise in the
current decade before 2030,” said Saheb, also a co-author of the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s report on mitigation.
She has estimated that foreign investors could sue governments for
€1.3tn until 2050 in compensation for early closure of coal, oil and
gas plants – a sum that exceeds what the EU hopes to spend on its
green deal in the next decade.<br>
<br>
As compensation to companies is paid by public funds, governments
would have less money to pay for new technology to make buildings,
transport and industry greener. Saheb argued these payments could
endanger the green transition. “It’s impossible to do everything,”
she said.<br>
<br>
Separate analysis of the treaty shared exclusively with the Guardian
showed a 269% increase in cases in 2011-20 compared with the
previous decade. “We are going to see in future many more cases,”
said Lucía Bárcena, of the Amsterdam-based Transnational Institute,
who compiled the data. Since 2013, two-thirds of the cases have been
brought against western European governments.<br>
<br>
“The energy charter treaty … has no cohesion at all with [EU]
climate policies,” Bárcena said. “Trade and investment agreements
are binding on states, which means if they break the contract then
they have to pay huge amounts of money, while there is no other
mechanism that binds countries to the goals that they are setting at
Cop26. There is a big asymmetry.”<br>
<br>
Representatives from the ECT’s 54 members are meeting next week for
a ninth round of talks on modernising the treaty...<br>
- -<br>
Signed in 1994, the treaty was intended to protect western companies
investing in the oil- and gas-rich countries of the former Soviet
Union. Only foreign investors, rather than domestic ones, can use
the system, prompting longstanding complaints of privileged access.
Campaigners now fear it could stymie the green transition.<br>
<br>
“We obviously have to get out of the fossil field quite quickly and
the energy charter treaty is in the way because it protects fossil
fuels,” said Cornelia Maarfield, a senior trade and investment
policy coordinator at the Climate Action Network Europe. “Our main
concern is that once governments start taking decisions to phase out
coal, gas and oil, they will run into difficulties with the
investment protection chapter of this agreement.”<br>
<br>
Germany’s RWE is suing the Netherlands for €1.4bn after the Dutch
government decided to close all coal-fired power plants by 2030,
including RWE’s Eemshaven plant, which began operating in 2015 with
an expected life-span of 40 years. RWE said it supported the energy
transition in the Netherlands, and “the only issue is therefore the
fact that the coal ban law does not provide for adequate
compensation”.<br>
<br>
Another German utility, Uniper, is reported to be seeking between
€850m and €1bn for the early closure of its Maasvlakte coal-fired
power plant near Rotterdam, which opened in 2016. The company
declined to confirm the damages it was seeking, saying: “Uniper is
convinced that shutting down our power plant in Maasvlakte after
only 15 years of operation would be unlawful without adequate
compensation.”<br>
<br>
The London-listed Rockhopper is suing Italy after MPs in 2016
reintroduced restrictions on drilling for oil and gas within 12
nautical miles of the coast. Rockhopper, which has never revealed
the size of its claim, said in September it was suing for “very
significant monetary damages on the basis of lost profits” after the
Italian government rejected its oil exploration plans on the Ombrina
Mare project in the Adriatic Sea.<br>
<br>
Rockhopper said: “The Italian government issued licences and
encouraged significant investment in oil and gas exploration based
on this platform. Clearly it is not equitable to change the rules
halfway through. It is also important to note that Italy continues
to produce significant quantities of oil and gas within 12 miles of
the coast.”<br>
<br>
Investors are known to have filed 142 cases against governments
since the ECT came into force in 1998. But these are only the known
cases. Even the ECT’s Brussels-based secretariat acknowledges it
does not have a complete picture, because investors are not obliged
to reveal legal action under the ECT.<br>
<br>
Urban Rusnák, the secretary general of the Energy Charter
Secretariat, rejected the view that the treaty would hamper
governments getting out of fossil fuels, saying it did not proscribe
energy policy. “The treaty does not ban the governments [from
stopping fossil fuels] There is nothing like automatic punishment.”<br>
<br>
He suggested governments could quit fossil fuels without disputes
under the ECT if they took a smart approach. “If the government is
clever enough and they care about their investment climate, they can
manage around,” he said.<br>
<br>
Rusnák, who grew up in communist Czechoslovakia, stressed the
importance of the ECT in upholding the rule of law. “Some recent
requests of climate activists to ban all fossil fuels without any
compensation are coming very close to what happened in
Czechoslovakia … when the regime in 1948 decided to expropriate all
industries for a good reason of social justice,” he said. “My point
here is not about individual cases. It’s about the system. Either we
as a western civilisation really believe what we have agreed: we
have to honour our agreements, and if conditions change we have to
sit down and negotiate how we will get out of it.”<br>
<br>
Neither did he agree with a proposal by NGOs that EU governments
should quit the ECT en masse. “It is legally possible but the
consequences are dire,” he said, referring to a 20-year sunset
clause that meant signatories remained bound for two decades.
“Please be serious about the reform … Otherwise you will be locked
in a treaty that you don’t like for 20 years.”<br>
<br>
Saheb argues the treaty is beyond reform because central Asian
member states will veto any weakening of protection for fossil
fuels. “The EU countries should withdraw altogether as one,” she
said. “If we withdraw altogether we could agree to cancel this
clause and then we could move on with our energy transition.”<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/nov/03/secretive-court-system-poses-threat-to-climate-deal-says-whistleblower">https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/nov/03/secretive-court-system-poses-threat-to-climate-deal-says-whistleblower</a><br>
<br>
<p><i><br>
</i> </p>
<i> [ Battleground of misinformation ]</i><br>
<b>Report links most climate change denial on Facebook to 10
publications</b><br>
'The Toxic Ten' includes Breitbart, Russia Today and Media Research
Center.<br>
I. Bonifacic -- Nov 2nd, 2021<br>
Most climate change misinformation comes from only a handful of
sources. That’s according to a new report from the Center for
Countering Digital Hate (CCDH). The organization found that ten
publishers are responsible for 69 percent of all interactions with
climate change denial content on Facebook. Included in the group,
which the CCDH titled “The Toxic Ten,” are Breitbart, Russia Today
and Media Research Center, which has ties to the fossil fuel
industry.<br>
<br>
The findings broadly mirror that of another report the CCDH
published earlier in the year, which found that as much as 73
percent of vaccine misinformation on Facebook can be linked to only
12 individuals dubbed the “disinformation dozen.” That study has
been widely cited by US lawmakers who have called on social media
platforms to do more to address the “urgent threat” misinformation
represents to public health.<br>
<br>
As it did with the earlier disinformation dozen report, Meta,
Facebook’s parent company, disputed the methodology the CCDH used to
compile its latest study. “The 700,000 interactions this report says
were on climate denial represent 0.3 percent of the over 200 million
interactions on English public climate change content from Pages and
public groups over the same time period,” a spokesperson for the
company said. It also pointed to the recently announced expansion of
features like the Climate Change Information Center as evidence of
its commitment to tackling misinformation on the topic.<br>
<br>
In an interview with The Washington Post, Imran Ahmed, the chief
executive of the CCDH, said the organization looked at approximately
7,000 articles published between October 2020 and October 2021. He
called the sample “robust” and said there was enough data “to derive
representative finds of trends.”<br>
<br>
Additionally, the report examined the financial incentives involved
in publishing climate change denial content. The CCDH estimates
eight of the companies included in the Toxic Ten made $5.3 million
in Google ad revenue over the last six months, with $1.7 million
going to the search giant. "We recently announced a new policy that
explicitly prohibits publishers and YouTube Creators from monetizing
content that promotes climate change denial. This policy will go
into effect on November 8 and our enforcement will be as targeted as
removing ads from individual pages with violating content," a
spokesperson for Google told Engadget.<br>
<br>
“When you put it all together, you’ve got these two industries, Big
Oil and Big Tech, and they are the two industries that pose the
greatest threat to the survival of our species,” Ahmed told The
Post.<br>
<br>
The timing of The Toxic Ten report comes as delegates from around
the world meet at the UN’s COP26 climate summit in Scotland in
what’s been described as “the world’s last best chance” to curb
greenhouse gas emissions. Without dramatic reductions, the planet is
currently on track for a “catastrophic” 2.7 degree Celsius rise in
global temperatures. With every additional degree of warming beyond
the 1.5-degree target put forward by the Paris Agreement, there’s a
greater risk of the planet passing specific tipping points that
could lead to even more dramatic changes to the climate.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.engadget.com/climate-change-denial-report-ccdh-205333083.html">https://www.engadget.com/climate-change-denial-report-ccdh-205333083.html</a><br>
<p>- -<br>
<i>[ Who are the Toxic Ten? ]</i><br>
<b>The Toxic Ten</b><br>
How 10 fringe publishers fuel 69% of digital climate change denial<br>
The science is undeniable - human activity is warming our planet
at an ever-accelerating rate and leading to catastrophic climate
change.<br>
<br>
Yet, ten publishers - The Toxic Ten - are spreading baseless,
unscientific climate denial on their own websites and across
social media. They are responsible for 69% of all interactions
with climate denial content on Facebook.<br>
<br>
It's a climate denial propaganda machine funded in part by Google
via ad revenue, and spread across the world via social media, in
particular Facebook, who allow them to pay to promote their
denial. <br>
<br>
We are calling on Facebook and Google to stop promoting and
funding climate denial, start labelling it as misinformation, and
stop giving the advantages of their enormous platforms to lies and
misinformation.<br>
<br>
The Toxic Ten have a huge digital footprint with 186 million
direct followers.<br>
The Toxic Ten account for 69% of interactions with climate denial
on Facebook<br>
Facebook failed to label 92% of Toxic Ten posts<br>
The Toxic Ten have generated $5.3 million in Google Ads revenue<br>
Download the full report <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://252f2edd-1c8b-49f5-9bb2-cb57bb47e4ba.filesusr.com">https://252f2edd-1c8b-49f5-9bb2-cb57bb47e4ba.filesusr.com</a><br>
</p>
<blockquote><b>Breitbart </b><b><br>
</b><b> The Western Journal</b><b><br>
</b><b> Newsmax</b><b><br>
</b><b> Townhall Media</b><b><br>
</b><b> Media Research Center</b><b><br>
</b><b> The Washington Times</b><b><br>
</b><b> The Federalist Papers</b><b><br>
</b><b> The Daily Wire</b><b><br>
</b><b> Russian State Media</b><b><br>
</b><b> The Patriot Post</b><br>
</blockquote>
/ugd/f4d9b9_277d4dc5f1f84858a6a2dc149f00b759.pdf<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.counterhate.com/toxicten">https://www.counterhate.com/toxicten</a><br>
<p><br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<i>[ reports from the history of battlegrounds ]</i><br>
<b>How the fossil fuel industry got the media to think climate
change was debatable</b><br>
By Amy Westervelt<br>
Late last year, the Trump administration released the latest
national climate assessment on Black Friday in what many assumed was
an attempt to bury the document. If that was the plan, it backfired,
and the assessment wound up earning more coverage than it probably
would have otherwise. But much of that coverage perpetuated a
decades-old practice, one that has been weaponized by the fossil
fuel industry: false equivalence.<br>
<br>
Although various business interests began pushing back against
environmental action in general in the early 1970s as part of the
conservative “war of ideas” launched in response to the social
movements of the 1960s, when global warming first broke into the
public sphere, it was a bipartisan issue and remained so for years.
On the campaign trail in 1988, George H.W. Bush identified as an
environmentalist and called for action on global warming, framing it
as a technological challenge that American innovation could address.
But fossil fuel interests were shifting as the industry and its
allies began to push back against empirical evidence of climate
change, taking many conservatives along with them.<br>
<br>
Documents uncovered by journalists and activists over the past
decade lay out a clear strategy: First, target media outlets to get
them to report more on the “uncertainties” in climate science, and
position industry-backed contrarian scientists as expert sources for
media. Second, target conservatives with the message that climate
change is a liberal hoax, and paint anyone who takes the issue
seriously as “out of touch with reality.” In the 1990s, oil
companies, fossil fuel industry trade groups and their respective PR
firms began positioning contrarian scientists such as Willie Soon,
William Happer and David Legates as experts whose opinions on
climate change should be considered equal and opposite to that of
climate scientists. The Heartland Institute, which hosts an annual
International Conference on Climate Change known as the leading
climate skeptics conference, for example, routinely calls out media
outlets (including The Washington Post) for showing “bias” in
covering climate change when they either decline to quote a skeptic
or question a skeptic’s credibility.<br>
<br>
Data on how effective this strategy has been is hard to come by, but
anecdotal evidence of its success abounds. In the early 1990s, polls
showed that about 80 percent of Americans were aware of climate
change and accepted that something must be done about it, an opinion
that crossed party lines. By 2008, Gallup found a marked partisan
divide on climate change. By 2010, the American public’s belief in
climate change hit an all-time low of 48 percent, despite the fact
that those 20 years saw increased research, improved climate models
and several climate change predictions coming true.<br>
<br>
By demanding “balance,” the industry transformed climate change into
a partisan issue. We know that was a deliberate strategy because
various internal documents from ExxonMobil, Shell, the American
Petroleum Institute and a handful of now-defunct fossil fuel
industry groups reveal not only the industry’s strategy to target
media with this message and these experts, but also its own
preemptive debunking of the very theories it went on to support.<br>
<br>
It need not have been such a successful strategy: If news purveyors
really wanted to be evenhanded on coverage of climate change, they
could certainly weave in the insights of more conservative
scientists — those whose predictions err on the sunnier side of
apocalypse. Instead, many took the industry’s bait, routinely
inserting denialist claims into stories about climate science in the
interest of providing balance: In an analysis of 636 articles
covering climate change that appeared in “prestige U.S. outlets”
from 1988 to 2002, researchers from the University of California at
Santa Cruz and American University found that 52.65 percent
presented climate science and contrarian theories as equal. The
practice continued into the mid-2000s. As recently as 2007, PBS
NewsHour invited well-known (and widely debunked) former weatherman
Anthony Watts on to counterbalance Richard Muller, a former
Koch-funded skeptic who had shifted his view.<br>
<br>
By about 2008, most mainstream print outlets had moved past the
notion that “balance” means including climate contrarians in
coverage of climate science. These outlets do still trip up
occasionally, though. In 2017, ProPublica published a remarkably
uncritical Q&A with Happer, for example, describing him as
“brilliant and controversial,” and characterizing his view that
global warming is good for the planet as merely “unusual.” That same
year, the New York Times was roundly criticized for hiring climate
contrarian Bret Stephens as a regular editorial columnist (and his
first column didn’t help).<br>
<br>
While print outlets aren’t perfect, TV news has lagged further
behind on climate, often presenting climate contrarians as an equal
and opposite balance to climate scientists. In coverage of the
national climate assessment, for example, multiple cable news shows
featured both climate scientists and climate deniers, as though the
two are simply opposite sides of a debate. “Meet the Press,”
“Anderson Cooper 360” and “State of the Union” all brought on
climate deniers to provide balance to their shows. Republican
politicians made the cable news rounds, too, spouting familiar tall
tales about climate change being normal and cyclical or sun spots
and volcanoes being the real culprits. Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa)
repeated the “the climate always changes” story on CNN, while Rick
Santorum, informal White House adviser Stephen Moore and British
politician Nigel Farage pushed the “climate scientists getting rich”
narrative.<br>
<br>
Though some outlets have moved to extricate deniers from the
conversation, too many television news programs continue to bring on
“contrarian” experts, giving a platform to tired lies. I say “lies”
because fossil fuel industry scientists debunked these theories
themselves decades ago, so they are knowingly perpetuating
falsehoods. In a “global warming primer” prepared in the 1990s by
the Global Climate Coalition, a since-disbanded consortium of fossil
fuel producers, utilities, manufacturers, and other U.S. business
interests (including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce), a Mobil
scientist debunked all of the prevailing contrarian theories of the
day on climate change. That part of the primer was left unprinted,
of course, and oil companies went on to fund scientists promoting
those very theories — the same ones that industry spokesmen and
conservative politicians spout today.<br>
<br>
In addition to propping up experts and leaning on media to use them
as sources, oil companies have spent millions on advertising and
advertorials over the years. Which seems innocuous — most companies
advertise — but oil companies don’t sell a consumer product so much
as a commodity. Most people aren’t loyal to a particular brand of
gas; they buy whatever is most convenient or cheapest. So, when oil
companies take out ads, it’s with the intention of shifting the
opinions of the voting public, policymakers, and the media.<br>
<br>
In an exhaustive survey of ExxonMobil’s advertorials from 1977 to
2014, science historian Naomi Oreskes and researcher Geoffrey Supran
found that these pieces often took the form of “op-ads” that look
and read a lot like op-eds but are paid for by an advertiser. Some
simply presented positive stories about the company (heavily focused
on their investments in algal biofuels, for example), but others
argued for more relaxed policies on offshore drilling or a “common
sense” approach to climate change regulation. The researchers found
that “83 percent of peer-reviewed papers and 80 percent of internal
documents acknowledge that climate change is real and human-caused,
yet only 12% of advertorials do so, with 81 percent instead
expressing doubt.”<br>
<br>
A 1981 internal Mobil memo discovered by the Climate Investigations
Center is an evaluation of the first decade of Mobil’s advertorial
program, and it makes the company’s goals clear: “Not only is the
company presenting its opinion to key opinion leaders, but it has
been engaging in continuing debate with the New York Times itself.
In fact, the paper has even changed to positions similar to Mobil’s
on at least seven key energy issues.”<br>
<br>
Granted, Mobil communications staff are giving themselves a lot of
credit here, but whether they accomplished their goal is almost
beside the point. This document shows the intention of these
campaigns, and that’s something that should be taken seriously by
any media outlet agreeing to run them, especially because many still
do today. Campaigns that bring in big money at a time when the
business of news is struggling are surely hard to turn down, but
media outlets need to seriously consider the impact these campaigns
have on their ability to inform the public, and work to mitigate
that impact, above and beyond the usual “church and state” division
between advertising and editorial. They could stop running these
campaigns alongside climate reporting, do a better job of labeling
campaigns, or refuse to run them altogether.<br>
<br>
It’s well past time the media stopped allowing itself to be a tool
in the fossil fuel industry’s information war. Oreskes likens the
push for “balance” on climate change to journalists arguing over the
final score of a baseball game. “If the Yankees beat the Red Sox
6-2, journalists would report that. They would not feel compelled to
find someone to say actually the Red Sox won, or the score was 6-4,”
she says.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2019/01/10/how-fossil-fuel-industry-got-media-think-climate-change-was-debatable/">https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2019/01/10/how-fossil-fuel-industry-got-media-think-climate-change-was-debatable/</a><br>
<br>
<p><br>
</p>
<i>[ hear the discussion at COP26 ]</i><br>
<b>Building Materials and Bio-economy in the Global Climate Agenda
—The panel debates</b><br>
Streamed live Nov 3, 2021<br>
We Don't Have Time<br>
From the Nordic Pavilion: The panel debates:<br>
- The importance of embodied carbon in building materials in climate
mitigation<br>
- The challenges of using local materials in emerging economies<br>
- Global opportunities for circularity<br>
- Good case study examples from around the globe<br>
<br>
UN 2030 Agenda-based assessment framework for the circular built
environment.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D3AUtLxtWxs">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D3AUtLxtWxs</a>
<p>- -<br>
</p>
COP26 Backdoor<br>
<b>Daily live broadcasts from COP26 in Glasgow, and from hubs in
Stockholm, Helsinki, Washington DC </b>and Nairobi. November
1-12, 2021<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.wedonthavetime.org/event/cop26">https://www.wedonthavetime.org/event/cop26</a><br>
<p><br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<i>[ media misleading - a bit of history in brief video]</i><br>
<b>How Big Oil Has Misled the Public on Climate Change Since the
1970s | Amanpour and Company</b><br>
Nov 1, 2021<br>
Amanpour and Company<br>
Last Thursday's House Oversight Committee hearing featured testimony
from six major fossil fuel companies and trade associations about
their part in climate change, and whether they misled the public
about the reality of the crisis. Rep. Ro Khanna helped lead this
historic hearing. He joins Hari Sreenivasan to explain the
disconnect between what these companies say and what they do. <br>
Originally aired on November 1, 2021.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qtRZszvvlxU">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qtRZszvvlxU</a>
<p>- -</p>
<i>[DeSmog uncovers ]</i><br>
<b>In Their Own Words: The Dirty Dozen Documents of Big Oil’s Secret
Climate Knowledge</b><br>
Science historian Ben Franta unpacks some of the most critical
documents exposing what the fossil fuel industry knew and when they
knew it.<br>
Oct 29, 2021 <br>
By Paul D. Thacker<br>
<br>
“Did we aggressively fight against some of the science? Yes,” said
ExxonMobil lobbyist Keith McCoy. “Did we join some of these ‘shadow
groups’ to work against some of the early efforts? Yes, that’s true.
But there’s nothing illegal about that.”<br>
<br>
These are the words McCoy was caught saying on a secretly recorded
video released by Unearthed, Greenpeace U.K.’s investigative
journalism arm, and the British Channel 4 News this summer exposing
how the oil giant and lobby groups such as the American Petroleum
Institute seed doubt about climate change and undermine legislation
to stop global warming. <br>
<br>
These revelations quickly spurred calls for Congress to investigate
Exxon’s and other fossil fuel companies’ efforts to obstruct climate
action. On July 26, the House Committee on Oversight and Reform sent
a letter to McCoy requesting his voluntary appearance before the
committee. And on October 28, Congress questioned the CEOs of
ExxonMobil, Chevron, BP America, Shell, and the American Petroleum
Institute on their history of blocking climate policy.<br>
<br>
For years, academics, journalists, and activists have been
unearthing documents proving that the fossil fuel industry knew
about the dangers of climate change since the late 1950s. That’s
many, many years before McCoy was even twinkle in his daddy’s eye
and decades before he came to Washington to join in Exxon’s campaign
to deny science and delay action to save the planet from
“catastrophic climate change” — a term Exxon used back in 1981.<br>
<br>
These documents show how companies worked to erode public acceptance
of climate science over the years — including Exxon corporate
reports from the late 1970s, revealed by DeSmog in 2016, which
stated “There is no doubt” that CO2 from the burning of fossil fuels
was a growing “problem.”<br>
<br>
To explain the long history of what the fossil fuel industry knew
and when they knew it, Stanford University science historian Ben
Franta has collected a dozen of his favorite documents....<br>
more at: <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.desmog.com/2021/10/29/dirty-dozen-documents-big-oil-secret-climate-knowledge-part-1/">https://www.desmog.com/2021/10/29/dirty-dozen-documents-big-oil-secret-climate-knowledge-part-1/</a><br>
<p>- - <br>
</p>
[ even more history of misinformation ]<br>
<b>Part 2: The Dirty Dozen Documents of Big Oil’s Secret Climate
Knowledge</b><br>
Industry documents from the 1980s reveal how fossil fuel companies
promoted climate denial and avoided action to limit catastrophic
climate impacts. <br>
- -<br>
By 1980, industry published its first attempt at deceiving the
public on what it knew about greenhouse gases — a booklet that
downplayed climate change’s dangers and argued that scientists were
divided on the research. Throughout the ‘80s, fossil fuel companies
began accumulating more evidence that climate change was going to be
a disaster in the future and that governments were going to start
regulating their industry. Records show that they began to plot ways
to deceive the public and undermine policies, and in 1989 they
created a coalition of American companies to fight policies and deny
that climate change was real.<br>
<br>
Stanford science historian Ben Franta and I continue our discussion
of these key documents, what they say, how they were found, and what
this means for the fossil fuel industry. This conversation is part
two in our series and has been edited and condensed for clarity.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://disinformationchronicle.substack.com/p/part-2-the-dirty-dozen-documents">https://disinformationchronicle.substack.com/p/part-2-the-dirty-dozen-documents</a><br>
<br>
<p><br>
</p>
<i>[ TV Humor, 12 min video ] </i><br>
<b>World Leaders Try To Wish Away Climate Change, Bezos Skips
Halloween To Party With Bill Gates</b><br>
<b> </b>Nov 1, 2021<br>
The Late Show with Stephen Colbert<br>
Trick-or-treaters were turned away from Jeff Bezos's house this
year, because the Amazon founder skipped town for a yacht party with
fellow billionaire Bill Gates. Over in Europe, G20 leaders tossed
coins into a fountain to celebrate their agreement on a target date
for global net zero carbon emissions<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://youtu.be/meUe2Vg4pOo?t=134">https://youtu.be/meUe2Vg4pOo?t=134</a><br>
<p><br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
[ Economist Films. What would three degrees look like? 16 min
video]<br>
<b>This is what 3°C of global warming looks like</b><br>
It’s an entirely plausible scenario. This film shows the
catastrophic consequences<br>
Oct 30th 2021<br>
Arise of 3°C in global temperatures above pre-industrial levels by
2100 would be disastrous. Its effects would be felt differently
around the world, but nowhere would be immune. Prolonged heatwaves,
droughts and extreme weather events could all become increasingly
common and severe. Worryingly, slow progress from governments in
cutting emissions make this an uncomfortably plausible scenario.
This film shows what that world would look like.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uynhvHZUOOo">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uynhvHZUOOo</a><br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.economist.com/films/2021/10/30/this-is-what-3degc-of-global-warming-looks-like">https://www.economist.com/films/2021/10/30/this-is-what-3degc-of-global-warming-looks-like</a><br>
<p>- -</p>
<i>[ See the view of 3 degrees from a 2008 video ]</i><br>
YouTube from 2008<br>
<b>3 Degrees Warmer: Heat Wave Fatalities | National Geographic</b><br>
Jan 29, 2008<br>
National Geographic<br>
If the world warms <br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6rdLu7wiZOE">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6rdLu7wiZOE</a><br>
<p>- -</p>
<i>[ points posted on Richard Pauli's web site in 2007 </i><i>From
</i><i><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="http://localsteps.org/howbad.html">http://localsteps.org/howbad.html
</a></i><i>]</i><br>
<b>Three Degrees</b><br>
The Kalahari desert spreads across Botswana, engulfing the capital
in sand dunes, and driving millions of refugees out to surrounding
countries.<br>
A permanent El Nino grips the Pacific, causing weather chaos around
the world, and drought in the Amazon.<br>
The whole Amazonian ecosystem collapses in a conflagration of fire
and destruction – desert and savannah eventually take over where the
world’s largest rainforest once stood.<br>
Huge amounts of carbon pour into the atmosphere, adding another
degree to global warming. Water runs short in Perth, Sydney and
other parts of Australia away from the far north and south.<br>
Hurricanes strike the tropics half a category stronger than today’s,
with higher windspeeds and rainfall.<br>
Agriculture shifts into the far north – Norway’s growing season
becomes like southern England is today. But with declines in the
tropics and sub-tropics due to heat and drought, the world tips into
net food deficit.<br>
The Indus river runs dry due to glacial retreat in the Himalayas,
forcing millions of refugees to flee Pakistan.<br>
Possible nuclear conflict with India over water supplies.<br>
Notes from Mark Lynas author of <u>Six Degrees: Our Future on a
Hotter Planet</u><br>
Three Degrees video description from National Geographic<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="http://localsteps.org/3degreemap.html">http://localsteps.org/3degreemap.html</a><br>
<p><br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<i>[The news archive - looking back]</i><br>
<font size="+1"><b>On this day in the history of global warming
November 4, 1988</b></font><br>
Discussing the conflict of visions at the heart of the 1988
presidential campaign, the New York Times notes:<br>
<blockquote>"Neither candidate has a record in office as a committed
environmentalist. [Vice President George] Bush, for example,
headed a Reagan Administration task force that recommended
relaxing many environmental regulations. [Massachusetts Governor
Michael] Dukakis sought waivers of Federal requirements that
Boston Harbor be cleaned up. Yet both candidates are campaigning
as strong conservationists, and protection of the environment has
become a widely discussed issue for the first time in a
Presidential campaign.<br>
<br>
"Mr. Bush ran a series of television advertisements attacking Mr.
Dukakis for pollution in Boston Harbor. Mr. Dukakis, saying he was
not at fault, responded with ads blaming Reagan budget cuts for
the harbor's pollution and criticizing the Vice President for
opposing renewal of the Clean Water Act and strong regulation of
corporate polluters.<br>
<br>
"Mr. Dukakis has won the endorsement of most national
environmental organizations. The League of Conservation Voters,
the political arm of the main environmental groups, gives Mr.
Dukakis a rating of B, Mr. Bush a grade of D+, based on their
records and stated positions.<br>
<br>
"Neither man has promised to spend much new money on the
environment. But both have endorsed a program to reduce pollution
that causes acid rain, both say they would bring an end to ocean
dumping and both promise to call a meeting of world leaders to
address the threat of global warming caused by man-made gases."<br>
</blockquote>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="http://www.nytimes.com/1988/11/04/us/emotional-issues-are-the-1988-battleground.html?pagewanted=print&src=pm">http://www.nytimes.com/1988/11/04/us/emotional-issues-are-the-1988-battleground.html?pagewanted=print&src=pm</a><br>
<br>
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