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<p><font size="+2"><i><b>April 5, 2022</b></i></font><br>
</p>
<i>[ video recording of IPCC press conference from Monday] </i><br>
<b>CLIMATE CHANGE 2022: Mitigation of Climate Change</b><br>
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=STFoSxqFQXU">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=STFoSxqFQXU</a><br>
<p>- -</p>
<i>[ Opinion from Nexus Hot News]</i><br>
<b>IPCC Report: Fossil Fuels Must End To Prevent 'Unlivable World'</b>:
Humanity must act quickly and decisively to avert the worst
climate-fueled disasters — and it has the technological and economic
tools to do so, if entrenched "status quo" actors and political
barriers can be overcome, the world's top body of climate scientists
said yesterday. Humanity must phase out fossil fuel extraction and
combustion and immediately cease constructing new fossil fuel
infrastructure, the UN's IPCC report said. Pledges by the world's
governments, even if fulfilled, will not limit global warming to
1.5°C above preindustrial levels, and the report represents "a
litany of broken climate promises … a file of shame, cataloging the
empty pledges that put us firmly on track toward an unlivable
world,” UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told reporters...<br>
- -<br>
Often described as "low-hanging fruit," immediate action to plug
methane leaks from gas wells, pipelines, and stoves are some of the
most efficient ways to limit near-term warming because methane traps
heat so much more potently than carbon dioxide but stays in the
atmosphere for a much shorter period of time. The report, and its
authors, also stressed the necessity of equitably cutting greenhouse
gas emissions and implementing carbon drawdown policies. "If you do
that at the expense of justice, of poverty eradication and the
inclusion of people," Fatima Denton, one of the report's 278
authors, told Thomson Reuters, "then you're back at the starting
block."<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://newsletter.climatenexus.org/20220405-ipcc-ar6-wg3-french-wine-valley-fever">https://newsletter.climatenexus.org/20220405-ipcc-ar6-wg3-french-wine-valley-fever</a><br>
<p>- -<br>
</p>
<p><i>[ Associated Press to ABC news]</i><br>
<b>No obituary for Earth: Scientists fight climate doom talk</b><br>
Scientists say climate change is bad, and getting worse, but it is
not game over for planet Earth or humanity..<br>
By SETH BORENSTEIN AP Science Writer<br>
April 4, 2022,<br>
It’s not the end of the world. It only seems that way.<br>
<br>
Climate change is going to get worse, but as gloomy as the latest
scientific reports are, including today’s from the United Nations,
scientist after scientist stresses that curbing global warming is
not hopeless. The science says it is not game over for planet
Earth or humanity. Action can prevent some of the worst if done
soon, they say...<br>
- -<br>
“We are not doomed, but rapid action is absolutely essential,”
Andersen said. “With every month or year that we delay action,
climate change becomes more complex, expensive and difficult to
overcome.”<br>
<br>
“The big message we’ve got (is that) human activities got us into
this problem and human agency can actually get us out of it
again,” James Skea, co-chair of Monday’s report, said. “It’s not
all lost. We really have the chance to do something.”<br>
<br>
Monday’s report details that it is unlikely, without immediate and
drastic carbon pollution cuts, that the world will limit warming
to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) since
pre-industrial times, which is the world’s agreed upon goal. The
world has already warmed 1.1 degrees Celsius (2 degrees
Fahrenheit). And earlier IPCC reports have shown that after 1.5
degrees, more people die, more ecosystems are in trouble and
climate change worsens rapidly.<br>
<br>
“We don’t fall over the cliff at 1.5 degrees," Skea said, "Even if
we were to go beyond 1.5 it doesn’t mean we throw up our hands in
despair.”<br>
<br>
IPCC reports showed that depending on how much coal, oil, and
natural gas is burned, warming by 2100 could be anywhere from 1.4
to 4.4 degrees Celsius (2.5 to 7.2 degrees Fahrenheit) above
pre-industrial times, which can mean large differences in
sickness, death and weather disasters.<br>
<br>
While he sees the increase in doom talk as inevitable, NASA
climate scientist Gavin Schmidt said he knows first-hand that
people are wrong when they say nothing can be done: “I work with
people and I’m watching other people and I’m seeing the
administration. And people are doing things and they’re doing the
right things for the most part as best they can. So I’m seeing
people do things.”<br>
<br>
Pennsylvania State University climate scientist Michael Mann said
scientists used to think Earth would be committed to decades of
future warming even after people stopped pumping more carbon
dioxide into the air than nature takes out. But newer analyses in
recent years show it will only take a few years after net zero
emissions for carbon levels in the air to start to go down because
of carbon being sucked up by the oceans and forests, Mann said.<br>
<br>
Scientists' legitimate worries get repeated and amplified like in
the kids game of telephone and “by the time you’re done, it’s
‘we’re doomed’ when what the scientist actually said was we need
to reduce or carbon emissions 50% within this decade to avoid 1.5
(degrees of) warming, which would be really bad. Two degrees of
warming would be far worse than 1.5 warming, but not the end of
civilization," Mann said.</p>
<p>
Mann said doomism has become far more of a threat than denialism
and he believes that some of the same people, trade associations
and companies that denied climate change are encouraging people
who say it is too late.</p>
<p><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/obituary-earth-scientists-fight-climate-doom-talk-83867228">https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/obituary-earth-scientists-fight-climate-doom-talk-83867228</a><br>
</p>
- - <br>
<i>[ a major release from IPCC -- these are some notes from Climate
Nexus ]</i><br>
<b>Climate Nexus Messaging to Greet the IPCC WG3 Report</b><br>
Monday, April 4, 2022<br>
The big takeaways: We must ramp down fossil fuels, quickly and
dramatically, and start phasing out existing fossil fuel
infrastructure. This is a significant shift for the IPCC.<br>
- -2025 is now a make-or-break year. The IPCC finds that globally we
must reach peak greenhouse gas emissions by 2025 in order to limit
warming to 1.5°C, and that delaying a peak past 2025 means
unavoidable and unnecessary economic losses...<br>
- -<br>
<b>Talking Points</b><br>
This report is both a storm warning and a rescue beacon. And it may
be the final report by the IPCC that will matter.<br>
<br>
By the time the next IPCC report on the pathways forward is
published, 7-8 years from now, we will already know whether we
secured a decent chance for a sustainable future - or if we face a
devil’s bargain that offers only ruinous costs no matter which way
we go from there.<br>
<br>
We’re in a deep hole. This report makes clear that operating just
our current fossil fuel infrastructure will drive warming above
1.5°C. In order to meet a 1.5°C target, the report finds that we
will need to decommission many existing fossil fuel power plants and
cancel most new fossil fuel infrastructure in the power sector, and
that fossil fuels largely need to be phased out. The takeaway here
is clear: no more fossil fuel infrastructure in the United States.
And subsidies for fossil fuels must end. The best time to stop
digging ourselves into a deeper hole was yesterday; the next-best
time to stop digging is today.<br>
<br>
Time is of the essence. The faster we move to reduce climate-harming
pollution, the more likely we are to effectively limit warming to
1.5°C. Reducing methane pollution from our energy system provides
one of the biggest bangs for our buck: We already have the
technological capability to act quickly and cost-effectively to
eliminate most leaks and other fugitive methane emissions from oil
and gas production.<br>
<br>
2025 is the key year. The IPCC finds we must reach peak greenhouse
gas emissions globally by 2025 in order to limit warming to 1.5°C,
and that delaying a peak past 2025 means unavoidable and unnecessary
economic losses.<br>
<br>
The primary barriers to making the switch to clean energy are
political. They are not technical or economic....<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://climatenexus.org">https://climatenexus.org</a><br>
<p>- -<br>
</p>
<i>[ too few agree with reality ]</i><br>
<b>5 Takeaways From the U.N. Report on Limiting Global Warming</b><br>
Current pledges to cut emissions, even if nations follow through on
them, won’t stop temperatures from rising to risky new levels.<br>
<br>
By Raymond Zhong - - April 4, 2022<br>
Nations are not doing nearly enough to prevent global warming from
increasing to dangerous levels within the lifetimes of most people
on Earth today, according to a new report by the Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change, a group of researchers convened by the
United Nations. Limiting the devastation won’t be easy, but it also
isn’t impossible if countries act now, the report says.<br>
<br>
The panel produces a comprehensive overview of climate science once
every six to eight years. It splits its findings into three reports.
The first, on what’s driving global warming, came out last August.
The second, on climate change’s effects on our world and our ability
to adapt to them, was released in February. This is No. 3, on how we
can cut emissions and limit further warming.<br>
<br>
<b>Without swift action, we’re headed for trouble.</b><br>
The report makes it clear: Nations’ current pledges to curb
greenhouse-gas emissions most likely will not stop global warming
from exceeding 1.5 degrees Celsius, or 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit,
within the next few decades. And that’s assuming countries follow
through. If they don’t, even more warming is in store.<br>
<br>
That target — to prevent the average global temperature from
increasing by 1.5 degrees Celsius over preindustrial levels — is one
many world governments have agreed to pursue. It sounds modest. But
that number represents a host of sweeping changes that occur as
greenhouse gases trap more heat on the planet’s surface, including
deadlier storms, more intense heat waves, rising seas and extra
strain on crops. Earth has already warmed about 1.1 degrees Celsius
on average since the 19th century...<br>
- -<br>
On the whole, it is the richest people and wealthiest nations that
are heating up the planet. Worldwide, the richest 10 percent of
households are responsible for between a third to nearly half of all
greenhouse gas emissions, according to the report. The poorest 50
percent of households contribute around 15 percent of emissions.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/04/climate/ipcc-report-explained.html">https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/04/climate/ipcc-report-explained.html</a><br>
<p><br>
</p>
<br>
<i>[ Scientist speaking up -- text ] <br>
</i><b>I’m a Scientist in California. Drought Is Worse Than We
Thought.</b><br>
By Andrew Schwartz - April 4, 2022<br>
Dr. Schwartz is the lead scientist and station manager at the
University of California, Berkeley, Central Sierra Snow Lab.<i>..</i><br>
<i>- -<br>
</i>Droughts may last for several years or even over a decade with
varying degrees of severity. During these types of extended
droughts, soil can become so dry that it soaks up all new water,
which reduces runoff to streams and reservoirs. Soil can also become
so dry that the surface becomes hard and repels water, which can
cause rainwater to pour off the land quickly and cause flooding.
This means we no longer can rely on relatively short periods of rain
or snow to completely relieve drought conditions the way we did with
past droughts.<i><br>
</i><i>- -<br>
</i>Many storms with near record-breaking amounts of rain or snow
would be required in a single year to make a significant dent in
drought conditions. October was the second snowiest and December was
the snowiest month on record at the snow lab since 1970 thanks to
two atmospheric rivers that hit California. But the exceptionally
dry November and January to March periods have left us with another
year of below average snowpack, rain and runoff conditions.<br>
<br>
This type of feast-or-famine winter with big storms and long, severe
dry periods is expected to increase as climate change continues. As
a result, we’ll need multiple above-average rain and snow years to
make up the difference rather than consecutive large events in a
single year.<br>
<br>
Even with normal or above-average precipitation years, changes to
the land surface present another complication. Massive wildfires,
such as those that we’ve seen in the Sierra Nevada and Rocky
Mountains in recent years, cause distinct changes in the way that
snow melts and that water, including rain, runs off the landscape.
The loss of forest canopy from fires can result in greater wind
speeds and temperatures, which increase evaporation and decrease the
amount of snow water reaching reservoirs...<br>
- -<br>
We are looking down the barrel of a loaded gun with our water
resources in the West. Rather than investing in body armor, we’ve
been hoping that the trigger won’t be pulled. The current water
monitoring and modeling strategies aren’t sufficient to support the
increasing number of people that need water. I’m worried about the
next week, month, year, and about new problems that we’ll inevitably
face as climate change continues and water becomes more
unpredictable.<br>
<br>
It’s time for policymakers who allocate funding to invest in
updating our water models rather than maintaining the status quo and
hoping for the best. Large-scale investment in the agencies that
maintain and develop these models is paramount to preparing for the
future of water in the West.<br>
<br>
Better water models ultimately mean more accurate management of
water, and that will lead to greater water security and availability
for the millions of people who now depend on the changing water
supply. It is an investment in our future and, further, an
investment in our continued ability to inhabit the water-scarce
regions in the West. It’s the only way to ensure that we’re prepared
when the trigger is pulled.<i><br>
</i><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/04/opinion/environment/california-drought-wildfires.html">https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/04/opinion/environment/california-drought-wildfires.html</a><br>
<p>- -</p>
<i>[ Data source for snowpack ]</i><br>
<b>Snow Surveys</b><br>
Established in 1929 by the California Legislature, the California
Cooperative Snow Surveys (CCSS) program is a partnership of more
than 50 state, federal, and private agencies. The cooperating
agencies not only share a pool of expert staff but share in funding
the program, which collects, analyzes and disseminates snow data
from more than 265 snow courses and 130 snow sensors located
throughout the Sierra Nevada and Shasta-Trinity mountains.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://water.ca.gov/Programs/Flood-Management/Flood-Data/Snow-Surveys">https://water.ca.gov/Programs/Flood-Management/Flood-Data/Snow-Surveys</a><br>
<p><br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<p><i>[ calling for wisdom ]</i><br>
<b>Poor policy and short-sightedness: how the budget treats
climate change and energy in the wake of disasters</b><br>
March 30, 2022 <br>
- -<br>
From the devastating bushfires of 2019-2020 to this year’s
shocking floods, unprecedented climate-related disasters have
wrought havoc across Australia.<br>
<br>
It is deeply regretful that the budget and forward estimates do
not specifically recognise the ongoing, and escalating, scale and
the fiscal impact of these disasters...<br>
- -<br>
<b>Short-term climate thinking</b><br>
Frydenberg’s budget acknowledged the devastation wrought in
Australia by floods, drought and bushfires. Yet it failed to
acknowledge the future cost of such disasters on the budget under
climate change.<br>
<br>
The budget includes measures to make regional Australia more
resilient, to mitigate the impact of these disasters and support
insurance coverage. But these are short-term commitments.<br>
Even if we manage to stop global warming beyond 1.5℃ this century,
the frequency and severity of natural disasters will only worsen.
Australia is already feeling the damage.<br>
<br>
The economic and fiscal consequences of these disasters will only
increase. And there will be other risks from a changing climate
such as rising health spending and reduced government revenues
from key exports, including liquefied natural gas.<br>
<br>
<b>So what should the government do differently?</b><br>
At the very least, the federal government should move to better
understand and quantify the fiscal risks from climate change.<br>
<br>
First, it should include some of the immediate risks of climate
change in the budget’s “Statement of Risks”, which outlines the
general fiscal risks that may affect the budget.<br>
<br>
Second, it should adjust medium-term fiscal projection models to
factor in declining revenue from fossil fuels, higher cost of
debt, and higher expenditure on health and natural disaster
supports.<br>
<br>
Third, the longer-term impacts of climate change on the budget
must be modelled. This should inform the next Intergenerational
Report in 2025, which provides an economic outlook for Australia
over coming decades.<br>
<br>
Climate change ultimately challenges governments to reconsider
their fiscal strategy. The many climate-related uncertainties make
a strong case for preserving fiscal flexibility and firepower to
cushion the direct impacts of climate change, including natural
disasters.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://theconversation.com/poor-policy-and-short-sightedness-how-the-budget-treats-climate-change-and-energy-in-the-wake-of-disasters-180179">https://theconversation.com/poor-policy-and-short-sightedness-how-the-budget-treats-climate-change-and-energy-in-the-wake-of-disasters-180179</a></p>
<p><br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<i>[ appropriate propaganda ]</i><br>
<b>Climate Optimism</b><br>
We have reason for hope on climate change.<br>
German Lopez - - April 3, 2022<br>
Among the headline-grabbing wildfires, droughts and floods, it is
easy to feel disheartened about climate change.<br>
<br>
I felt this myself when a United Nations panel released the latest
major report on global warming. It said that humanity was running
out of time to avert some of the worst effects of a warming planet.
Another report is coming tomorrow. So I called experts to find out
whether my sense of doom was warranted.<br>
<br>
To my relief, they pushed back against the notion of despair. The
world, they argued, has made real progress on climate change and
still has time to act. They said that any declaration of inevitable
doom would be a barrier to action, alongside the denialism that
Republican lawmakers have historically used to stall climate
legislation. Such pushback is part of a budding movement: Activists
who challenge climate dread recently took off on TikTok, my
colleague Cara Buckley reported.<br>
<br>
“Fear is useful to wake us up and make us pay attention,” Katharine
Hayhoe, a climate scientist at Texas Tech University, told me. “But
if we don’t know what to do, it paralyzes us.”...<br>
- -<br>
<b>Channeling despair</b><br>
Experts and advocates want to capture legitimate concerns and funnel
them into action. The world’s governments and biggest businesses
have set goals to reduce greenhouse emissions in the coming decades,
but they will need the public’s help and support.<br>
<br>
One model for this is road safety. Drivers can reduce their chances
of crashes by driving carefully, but even the safest can be hit. The
U.S. reduced car-crash deaths over several decades by passing
sweeping laws and rules that required seatbelts, airbags and
collapsible steering wheels; punished drunken driving; built safer
roads and more — a collective approach.<br>
<br>
The same type of path can work for climate change, experts said.
Cutting individual carbon footprints is less important than systemic
changes that governments and companies enact to help people live
more sustainably. While individual action helps, it is no match for
the impact of entire civilizations that have built their economies
around burning carbon sources for energy...<br>
The need for a sweeping solution can make the problem feel too big
and individuals too small, again feeding into despair.<br>
<br>
But experts said that individuals could still make a difference, by
playing into a collective approach. You can convince friends and
family to take the issue seriously, changing what politicians and
policies they support. You can become involved in politics
(including at the local level, where many climate policies are
carried out). You can actively post about global warming on social
media. You can donate money to climate causes.<br>
<br>
The bottom line, experts repeatedly told me: Don’t give up on the
future. Look for productive ways to prevent impending doom.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/03/briefing/climate-optimism-ukraine-week-ahead.html">https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/03/briefing/climate-optimism-ukraine-week-ahead.html</a><br>
<p><br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<i>[ try local first ]</i><br>
<b>Many N.H. communities are turning to local solutions in the
global fight against climate change</b><br>
April 04, 2022<br>
Mara Hoplamazian, New Hampshire Public Radio<br>
Jessica Dunbar has cared about the environment for as long as she
can remember. She went to school for environmental science. She
recycles. She even worked for the New Hampshire Department of
Environmental Services for a while.<br>
<br>
But she didn’t dwell on climate change, or the threat it posed to
her life and her community, until she had kids. Then, she said, it
was like her life had been extended by a hundred years.<br>
<br>
“I don't know why, but it just hit me all of a sudden,” she said. “I
had this all too clear vision in my mind of how fragile the world
was.”<br>
<br>
As Dunbar started paying more attention to climate news, she found
herself feeling scared for the future and for her children. So she
started looking into what she could do to make a difference, like
getting a heat pump or a more fuel efficient car.<br>
<br>
“I was in a panic. And what got me through that panicked moment was,
'OK, what can I do to try to make a difference?' Because I have to
at least try.”<br>
- -<br>
New Hampshire has passed legislation in the last few years to give
communities more options for energy transitions at the municipal
level. But Melissa Elander, who works with communities in the North
Country to implement energy projects through Clean Energy New
Hampshire, said the state has provided little support for energy
committees.<br>
<br>
“I would have to say that most of what I see happening at the
municipal level is happening largely without state support,” she
said. “It’s a very, very small percentage of funds that can come
from the state.”<br>
<br>
When asked about the critiques that the state has not done enough to
take action on these issues, New Hampshire Department of Energy
spokesperson Rorie Patterson said the agency “recognizes the risk
posed by climate change and that actions are required to mitigate
those risks.” Patterson also pointed to the department’s efforts to
implement clean energy programs authorized by lawmakers and Gov.
Chris Sununu.<br>
<br>
While Patterson did not directly address a question from NHPR about
how the state views the role of local communities in its energy
strategy, she noted that the agency oversees rebate and grant
programs that have supported energy projects at the municipal level.<br>
<br>
<b>Reframing climate conversations</b><br>
In some communities, those leading the way on local energy
committees have struggled to convince their neighbors to take an
interest in climate solutions — or talk about climate change at all.<br>
<br>
In Bethlehem, Van Houten said many people get interested in energy
issues when the price of fuel oil is high, but it can be hard to
keep attention sustained for the long haul.<br>
<br>
After realizing that some in his community were turned off by talk
of climate change, he started to reframe the conversation. Instead
of focusing on how projects like energy efficiency retrofits at the
town hall could slow down global warming, he’s tried to emphasize
how they save taxpayers money.<br>
<br>
“The whole Yankee independence and ingenuity and frugality thing
rings pretty strong up here,” he said.<br>
<br>
These days, Van Houten is working on bringing more solar to
Bethlehem: on the roof of the library, atop the highway garage and
behind the town’s elementary school. But he said it’s been a long
road, trying to find funding and rally community support while also
parsing through the complicated energy policies that might influence
these projects. He does this work as a volunteer, on top of all the
other obligations that make up his life.<br>
<br>
“I quit every year. I just don't tell anybody, and I show up at the
next meeting,” Van Houten said, wryly. “Sometimes I quit twice a
year.”<br>
<br>
But he knows his work is important — and that it could help spur
action elsewhere. Van Houten is part of a regional effort to
encourage the development of sustainable energy practices with a few
other towns in the region. The Ammonoosuc Regional Energy Team,
founded in 2008 by local energy committee members in the area, takes
lots of different approaches to encourage energy efficiency across
the North Country, from organizing educational fairs to advocating
for a solar array at the Profile High School in Bethlehem.<br>
<br>
Jim Fitzpatrick, the chair of Franconia’s energy commission and a
co-lead on that regional energy team, has seen firsthand how local
energy projects like the ones Van Houten is championing in Bethlehem
can inspire voters in other communities.<br>
<br>
When Fitzpatrick and others on Franconia's local energy committee
pitched a new solar array on this year’s town warrant, they expected
some debate. They gathered information for a detailed discussion
about how the town could pay for it and how it might benefit the
community, preparing to defend the plan to their fellow voters.<br>
<br>
But when the issue came up at town meeting, the community didn’t
need much convincing. Fitzpatrick thinks the visibility of similar
energy projects in the area helped to win voters over.<br>
<br>
“Bethlehem’s doing it, Sugar Hill’s doing it,” he said. “Why ain’t
Franconia doing it?”...<br>
- -<br>
To Fitzpatrick, it feels like a small drop in a big bucket.<br>
<br>
“I love the fact that we’re doing this in town,” he said. “It ain’t
gonna make any difference, in the big picture.”<br>
<br>
But the work that local energy volunteers are propelling in towns
like Franconia and Bethlehem is making some difference.<br>
<br>
According to data from Clean Energy New Hampshire, projects in Coos
and northern Grafton Counties alone are saving more than a million
kilowatt hours every year. That’s about enough to power about 125
New England homes — power that electricity generation plants no
longer have to provide.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.wbur.org/news/2022/04/04/nh-communities-local-solutions-climate-change">https://www.wbur.org/news/2022/04/04/nh-communities-local-solutions-climate-change</a><br>
<br>
<p><br>
</p>
<i>[ Tired of facts? Try fiction ]</i><br>
<b>Opinion: Facts Haven’t Spurred Us to Climate Action. Can Fiction?</b><br>
The emerging genre of climate fiction is portraying — in ways that
nonfiction can’t — the perils of a scorching planet.<br>
BY MARK JOHNSON 03.31.2022<br>
CLIMATE SCIENTISTS MUST BE wondering what it will take to scare us
straight. Watching flood waters submerge 80 percent of New Orleans
during Hurricane Katrina didn’t do it. Nor did videos shot by
Australians in 2019 as they fled walls of flame, a hellish orange
haze in all directions. Will the deaths of more than 6 million
people in the Covid-19 pandemic — a tragedy that has highlighted the
links between climate change and infectious disease — jolt the world
into action? I wouldn’t count on it.<br>
<br>
The central problem is that climate change lacks a human face — a
vision of the people who will inhabit the world to come, and what
they will endure. When we look into the faces of our children and
grandchildren, we’re unable to form a mental picture of them
struggling to survive in the world we’ve bequeathed to them.<br>
<br>
Reexamining the Social Cost of Carbon<br>
Sure, news reports and scientific texts about climate change have
presented a clear-eyed view of what we’ve done to the planet over
the last century and where that’s left us. The most recent United
Nations report, for instance, painted an alarming portrait of Earth
in the grips of climate change. But even those warnings may not
capture the full extent of the brewing catastrophe: According to a
Washington Post investigation published in November of last year,
numerous countries continue to underreport their greenhouse gas
emissions. In any case, the more recent warnings quickly faded from
the news cycle, replaced by coverage of the crisis in Ukraine. While
the war in Ukraine is a unique event, the loss of focus on our
climate crisis is anything but.<br>
<br>
<b>So when will we be frightened into action?</b><br>
<br>
I suspect that won’t happen until we are shown what it will look and
feel like to live on a scorching, ocean-logged, and atmospherically
violent planet. In other words, I suspect we’ll need the climate
change equivalent of “The Day After.”<br>
<br>
Watched by more than 100 million television viewers on November 20,
1983, “The Day After” was a fictional but chillingly realistic movie
depiction of nuclear Armageddon. I remember watching it in a student
center at University of Toronto; it was probably the quietest event
I can remember from my five years on campus. Despite its flaws — the
movie downplayed the effects of a real nuclear war, for instance —
the film left us shaken. People talked about it for months.
Then-President Ronald Reagan watched the movie and wrote in his
diary that it “left me greatly depressed.” The film was followed in
1984 by the British film “Threads,” yet another graphic depiction of
the end that would await us if we followed the path to nuclear war.<br>
<br>
In the years that followed, momentum built for what would eventually
become The Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, which was signed in
1991. It’s impossible to say whether fictional depictions of nuclear
war played any role in bringing the U.S. and Soviet Union to the
bargaining table. But they forced humanity to view the
flesh-and-blood consequences that accompanied our pursuit of
world-ending weaponry (a lesson we need to remember given the
alarming war in Ukraine).<br>
<br>
What “The Day After” and “Threads” achieved through cinema, Nevil
Shute’s 1957 novel “On The Beach” accomplished with the written
word. Shute’s book imagines a group of ordinary Australians living
out their final months, marked for death by a slow-moving
radioactive cloud. The story’s power comes from its heartbreaking
depiction of real people ― men and women, babies and seniors ― all
forced to measure existence in weeks instead of years. Their lives
would last only as long as it took the winds to carry the deadly
cloud to their shores.<br>
<br>
When we look into the faces of our children and grandchildren, we’re
unable to form a mental picture of them struggling to survive in the
world we’ve bequeathed to them.<br>
<br>
I read “On The Beach” as a teenager growing up in Brookline,
Massachusetts, during the Cold War, a period that must seem strange
to students today. In hindsight, the duck-and-cover-drills and the
public service messages on our black and white television screens —
explaining what to do when a nuclear bomb is headed your way — seem
laughably inadequate. My town even printed a pamphlet depicting what
would happen if a bomb exploded over the commercial center just a
few blocks from my home. Somehow, though, the haunting narrative of
“On the Beach” succeeded where these other efforts failed. Fiction
transported us to an imagined place that was paradoxically more real
and relatable than the nonfiction world that our government tried to
show us.<br>
<br>
The same might be true of climate change. An emerging genre known as
climate fiction, or “Cli Fi,” has attempted to drag us where
nonfiction cannot go. Starting with J.G. Ballard’s “The Drowned
World” in 1962, which imagined a flooded, almost uninhabitable
planet, novelists began to carve out visions of a future in which
climate disaster has already taken place. Octavia E. Butler’s
“Parable of the Sower,” published in 1993, looked ahead to the year
2024, now uncomfortably close at hand, and put readers into the mind
of a teenage girl living in the remnants of a California gated
community at a time of water shortages, crime, and destitution.<br>
<br>
This January, I entered the Cli Fi genre myself, with the
publication of my novel “Though The Earth Gives Way,” a retelling of
one of the oldest novels, Boccaccio’s “The Decameron.” In
Boccaccio’s book, noblemen and noblewomen who fled Florence during
the Black Death hole up in a villa outside the city and pass the
time by telling stories. I wondered what would happen if the men and
women were instead refugees of climate disasters who’d fled the
coasts and found their way by chance to an old retreat center in
Michigan. Like Boccaccio’s characters mine, too, fall back on one of
the oldest resources we have, one of the few destined to survive as
long as we do: storytelling.<br>
<br>
To be sure, nonfiction will continue to play an important role in
helping us understand what’s at stake with climate change. In its
2021 feature “Postcards From a World on Fire,” for instance, The New
York Times gave readers a climate tour of 193 countries: a sobering
kaleidoscope of hurricanes, sandstorms, droughts, floods, and
heatwaves that have turned our hottest cities into furnaces. With
fiction, however, we can also stretch our minds to imagine postcards
from the world that our children and grandchildren will inhabit if
we don’t take immediate action on climate change. I think you’ll
agree: It is not a place we want to go.<br>
<br>
Mark S. Johnson is the author of the novel “Though The Earth Gives
Way” and covers health and science for The Milwaukee Journal
Sentinel.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://undark.org/2022/03/31/opinion-facts-havent-spurred-us-to-climate-action-can-fiction/">https://undark.org/2022/03/31/opinion-facts-havent-spurred-us-to-climate-action-can-fiction/</a>
<p><br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<i>[The news archive - looking back]</i><br>
<font size="5"><b>April 5, 2002</b></font><br>
New York Times columnist Paul Krugman denounces White House press
secretary Ari Fleischer's "...use of a press conference on the
crisis in the Middle East to shill, once again, for the Bush energy
plan," observing:<br>
<blockquote>"Even if the United States weren't dependent on imported
oil, the Middle East would still be a strategically crucial
region, and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict would still be a
world nightmare.<br>
<br>
"But to the extent that oil independence would help -- and it
would, a bit, by reducing the leverage of Persian Gulf producers
-- the Bush administration has long since forfeited the moral high
ground. It has done so by vigorously opposing any serious efforts
at conservation, which would have to be the centerpiece of any
real plan to reduce oil imports.<br>
<br>
"There are many ways to make this case; here are two more. Even at
its peak, a decade or so after drilling began, oil production from
the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge would reduce imports by no
more than would a 3-mile-per-gallon increase in fuel efficiency --
something easily achievable, were it not for opposition from
special interest groups. Indeed, the Kerry-McCain fuel efficiency
standards, which the administration opposed, would have saved
three times as much oil as ANWR might produce. Or put it this way:
Total world oil production is about 75 million barrels per day, of
which the United States consumes almost 20; ANWR would produce, at
maximum, a bit more than 1 million.<br>
<br>
"Yet a few months ago, Republican activists ran ads with
side-by-side photos of Tom Daschle and Saddam Hussein, declaring
that both men oppose drilling in ANWR -- and Dick Cheney, when
asked, stood behind those ads. Administration critics could, with
rather more justification, run ads with side-by-side photos of
George W. Bush and Saddam Hussein, declaring that both men oppose
increased fuel efficiency standards. (Actually, I'm not aware that
Iraq's ruler has expressed an opinion on either issue.) Of course,
if such ads did run, there would be enormous outrage. After all,
turnabout wouldn't be fair play because, well, just because."<br>
</blockquote>
<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.nytimes.com/2002/04/05/opinion/at-long-last.html">http://www.nytimes.com/2002/04/05/opinion/at-long-last.html</a><br>
<br>
<p>======================================= <br>
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