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<font size="+2"><i><b>December 9, 2022</b></i></font><br>
<br>
[ NYT opinion ]<br>
<b>Climate Change Will Destroy Arabs and Israelis Before They
Destroy Each Other</b><br>
Dec. 6, 2022<br>
THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN<br>
JERICHO, West Bank — There are two dramas playing out today along
the banks of the River Jordan, representing the two most powerful
forces shaping politics in and around Israel. Tell me which one
dominates, and I’ll tell you what relations between Jews and Arabs
will look like.<br>
<br>
One is the logic of tribalism. It was starkly manifested in Israel’s
newly elected ultrareligious, ultranationalist government, which was
propelled into office by a surge in clashes between West Bank
Palestinians and Israelis in general and a surge of criminal
activity by Israeli Arabs against other Israeli Arabs and Jews in
particular. It’s all driven by the tribalist motto “Me and my
brother against my cousin. Me, my brother and my cousin against the
outsider.”<br>
<br>
The Israeli leader of this coalition is Benjamin Netanyahu, who won
election with a campaign focused on spreading fear of, and resisting
power sharing with, Palestinian residents of the West Bank and
Palestinian citizens of Israel. Netanyahu’s main message was to
Jewish Israelis: Only I can protect you from the other.<br>
<br>
But while that election was unfolding, another logic was also at
work: the logic of nature, which says that when the climate changes,
as it is doing now, it is not the strongest or smartest species that
survive. It’s the most adaptive. And the most adaptive ecosystems
are usually the most diverse, rich with species offering different
ways to adapt. They thrive because they’re able to forge healthy
interdependencies among the different plants and animals and, in
doing so, maximize their resilience and growth. <br>
Their motto is “Me, my brother, my cousin and the outsider all
collaborating naturally so we rise together, not fall together.”<br>
<br>
An example of this kind of thinking was the tacit environmental
alliance forged by Israel’s previous national unity government — led
by Yair Lapid and Naftali Bennett — in collaboration with leaders
from Jordan, Palestine and the United Arab Emirates.<br>
<br>
To be sure, the previous Israeli government was dedicated to
resistance thinking where needed — deterring Iranian and Palestinian
attacks on Israelis. But it was also engaged in some very creative
resilience thinking, based on this logic: Climate change and drought
are going to kill us all long before we kill each other, unless we
produce more sustainable sources of water. That has to start with
nursing back to life the Jordan River that has nourished this region
for millenniums.<br>
Today that requires unprecedented forms of Jewish-Arab
collaboration.<br>
<br>
I came here to the lowest spot on earth, where the ancient town of
Jericho, the Jordan River and the Dead Sea all meet, to highlight
this emerging nature-climate coalition. My tour guide was Gidon
Bromberg, a co-founder of EcoPeace Middle East, a regional
environmental organization consisting of Jordanians, Palestinians
and Israelis striving to sustain one of the most water-stressed
regions on the planet.<br>
<br>
Bromberg began by pointing out two surprising things that are
interrelated. This Jordan Valley region used to be dominated by
farms growing a wide range of fruits and vegetables. Today, alas,
most of the land is covered by palm trees growing dates.<br>
<br>
Hearty Beans, Tender Lamb and a Menu to Remember<br>
Second, the bend in the Jordan River where we were standing — the
spot where tradition says John the Baptist baptized Jesus — used to
be roughly 100 meters wide, with rushing rapids. Today it’s only
five to 10 meters wide, with no rapids, which was why we could watch
Christian pilgrims comfortably standing in the middle of the Jordan
being baptized by their priest.<br>
<br>
The connection? It is now so hot down here for so much longer each
year (almost 115 degrees last August) that essentially the only crop
that can be reliably grown anymore is dates. But that’s possible
only if the palms have a lot of water, and that is now in danger.<br>
<br>
Without a healthy Jordan River, even date palms won’t be able to
survive here. Middle East Eye recently quoted a Jordanian farmer
about how haywire his planting season has become: “We used to start
planting in July, but now we start in September or even October”
because the summer months are too hot. “But then it gets cold very
quickly” — too quickly sometimes for vegetables to survive.<br>
<br>
How to get more water? The old method was resistance, zero-sum
thinking — “everyone just grabbing water for what they thought were
their legitimate security needs,” explained Bromberg. Back in the
1960s, Israel constricted the flow of the Jordan from the Sea of
Galilee so it could divert more water through a national water
carrier to thirsty Tel Aviv and down to the Negev to make the desert
bloom. Syria choked its Jordan River tributary the Yarmouk River,
and Jordan limited what was left of its portion of the Yarmouk and
other tributaries feeding the river from its territory.<br>
<br>
The once mighty Jordan turned into a freshwater trickle, which
episodic droughts only exacerbated, leading to a large swath of the
Dead Sea drying up. Worse, they used the Jordan as a dumping ground
for human waste.<br>
<br>
The good news is that Israel and Jordan recognized that this was
self-defeating and as part of their 1994 peace accord agreed that
Israel would turn the tap back on from the Sea of Galilee and give
Jordan a bigger allotment of water from the river. But the Jordan
River could not keep up. With the climate getting hotter and drier
in the valley — and 700,000 Jordanians, 30,000 Israelis and 60,000
Palestinians trying to make a living from agriculture there — a more
sustainable solution was needed.<br>
<br>
In October 2021, I wrote about the outlines of what I hoped could
become a new kind of peace treaty between Arabs and Israelis — a
treaty fostering resilience among the parties rather than just
ending resistance between the parties.<br>
<br>
It was initialed by Jordan, Israel and the U.A.E. at a conference in
Dubai, with the help of the U.S. climate envoy, John Kerry. Last
month, at the Sharm el-Sheikh climate conference, those countries
took a step further and signed a new memorandum to complete the
feasibility study for this unique collaboration.<br>
<br>
The draft deal calls for the U.A.E. to bring investment capital that
would enable Jordan to build a 600-megawatt capacity solar plant in
its vast desert to produce clean energy that Israel would tap to
expand its coastal desalination plants (which will soon provide 90
percent of Israel’s fresh water) and pump some of that desalinated
water into the Sea of Galilee and then down the expanded and
properly filtered Jordan River, so it can once again be the regional
water carrier that nature designed it to be.<br>
<br>
If President Biden can help shepherd this concept to fruition, it
could be the biggest U.S. contribution to Middle East peace since
Camp David. An EcoPeace study argues that the rehabilitation of the
Jordan River and Jordan Valley could, over time, give a
multibillion-dollar boost to the combined G.D.P. of the Israeli,
Palestinian and Jordanian residents there — from its current paltry
$4 billion annual level.<br>
<br>
To put it bluntly, with the old peace process now as dead as the
Dead Sea, we need to hope that naked self-interest in response to
natural challenges will propel massive collaboration around clean
energy and water.<br>
<br>
I like the analogy offered by Bromberg: The European Union, he
noted, was forged after World War II “to harness the two most
important natural resources in Europe at that time, coal and steel,
to create peace and prosperity.” Indeed, when the union was founded,
it was called the European Coal and Steel Community.<br>
<br>
“What is the coal and steel of our day?” asked Bromberg. “It’s the
sea, the sun and the sand.”<br>
<br>
We need to help the parties here collaborate to forge those three
into a healthy interdependency whose byproduct is not just clean
water that can nourish agriculture but also trust that can be plowed
back into their politics.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/06/opinion/how-biden-can-help-save-the-middle-east.html">https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/06/opinion/how-biden-can-help-save-the-middle-east.html</a><br>
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<i>[ global warming deniers take note - from the Boston Globe ] </i><br>
<b>New England winters are getting much warmer, data show</b><br>
Burlington, Vt. has seen more winter warming in the last 50 years
than any other place in America, according to the analysis, by
independent research organization Climate Central.<br>
By Dharna Noor Globe Staff, December 7, 2022<br>
It’s December in New England, but if it still feels too warm out to
drink hot cocoa, it’s not just you. Federal forecasters say
December, January, and February temperatures will be milder than
normal across the region, and this year isn’t an anomaly.<br>
<br>
Thanks to climate change, winters are getting warmer across the
country, but a new analysis of federal temperature data shows the
trend is particularly strong in parts of the Northeast. In fact
Burlington, Vt., has seen more winter warming in the last 50 years
than any other place in America, according to the analysis, by
independent research organization Climate Central.<br>
The researchers analyzed temperature data from 238 sites across the
United States to see how much winters have warmed since 1970. All
but six of those locations saw an increase in average winter
temperatures, they found.<br>
<br>
The average winter warming they observed nationally was 3.3 degrees
Fahrenheit. Burlington winters have warmed by a stunning 7.1
degrees. Concord, N.H., meanwhile, has warmed by 6 degrees, and
Portland, Maine, has warmed by 5 degrees. Boston came in slightly
below the national average, with 3 degrees of warming.<br>
- -<br>
Climate Central also examined the long-term change in the number of
warmer-than-normal winter days across the United States. They found
that 80 percent of locations had at least seven more days when
temperatures were higher than “normal” than they did in 1970. The
authors based their standards for “normal” weather on temperature
averages from 1991 to 2020 for consistency, because weather
“normals” — or 30-year averages — are slightly warmer now than they
were back then.<br>
The cities with the greatest increase in warmer-than-average days
were San Francisco and Las Vegas. They experienced 28 and 32 more
days of above-normal winter temperatures, respectively. But Concord,
N.H., with an increase of 22 more above-normal days, wasn’t far
behind. Burlington saw 21 more above-normal days, Portland, Maine,
saw 19 more, and Boston saw an increase of 13.<br>
Experts say New England is warming faster than the rest of the
planet — a change they attribute to changes in atmospheric
conditions and rising temperatures in coastal waters, such as the
rapidly heating Gulf of Maine. Winter temperatures are rising
especially quickly — twice as fast as summer temperatures, one 2021
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration analysis found.<br>
<br>
The milder winter weather might feel pleasant, but it’s expected to
take a major toll on the region, rendering coastal waters
inhospitable to iconic species such as cod and lobster, leaving the
ski industry to suffer amid a decrease in snow, and making it harder
to produce winter agricultural products such as maple syrup. In warm
winters, rats and other rodents are also able to reproduce at higher
rates, and invasive insects are able to expand their ranges. Plus,
it just feels wrong to sing carols and bake holiday cookies in the
balmy weather.<br>
<br>
The good news is, by swiftly curbing planet-warming greenhouse gas
emissions, future winter warming can be limited.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.bostonglobe.com/2022/12/07/science/new-england-winters-are-getting-much-warmer-data-shows/">https://www.bostonglobe.com/2022/12/07/science/new-england-winters-are-getting-much-warmer-data-shows/</a><br>
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<i>[ Powerful force of disinformation - NYTimes audio and text ]</i><br>
<b> The Texas Group Waging a National Crusade Against Climate Action</b><br>
The Texas Public Policy Foundation is shaping laws, running
influence campaigns and taking legal action in a bid to promote
fossil fuels.<br>
By David Gelles<br>
Gelles is writing a series of articles about groups working to
promote fossil fuels and block climate action.<br>
Published Dec. 4, 2022<br>
When a lawsuit was filed to block the nation’s first major offshore
wind farm off the Massachusetts coast, it appeared to be a
straightforward clash between those who earn their living from the
sea and others who would install turbines and underwater cables that
could interfere with the harvesting of squid, fluke and other fish.<br>
<br>
The fishing companies challenging federal permits for the Vineyard
Wind project were from the Bay State as well as Rhode Island and New
York, and a video made by the opponents featured a bearded fisherman
with a distinct New England accent.<br>
<br>
But the financial muscle behind the fight originated thousands of
miles from the Atlantic Ocean, in dusty oil country. The group
bankrolling the lawsuit filed last year was the Texas Public Policy
Foundation, an Austin-based nonprofit organization backed by oil and
gas companies and Republican donors.<br>
With influence campaigns, legal action and model legislation, the
group is promoting fossil fuels and trying to stall the American
economy’s transition toward renewable energy. It is upfront about
its opposition to Vineyard Wind and other renewable energy projects,
making no apologies for its advocacy work.<br>
<br>
Even after Democrats in Congress passed the biggest climate law in
United States history this summer, the organization is undaunted,
and its continued efforts highlight the myriad forces working to
keep oil, gas and coal companies in business.<br>
<br>
In Arizona, the Texas Public Policy Foundation campaigned to keep
open one of the biggest coal-fired power plants in the West. In
Colorado, it called for looser restrictions on hydraulic fracturing,
or fracking. And in Texas, the group crafted the first so-called
“energy boycott” law to punish financial institutions that want to
scale back their investments in fossil fuel projects, legislation
adopted by four other states.<br>
<br>
At the same time, the Texas Public Policy Foundation has spread
misinformation about climate science. With YouTube videos, regular
appearances on Fox and Friends, and social media campaigns, the
group’s executives have sought to convince lawmakers and the public
that a transition away from oil, gas and coal would harm Americans.<br>
They have frequently seized on current events to promote dubious
narratives, pinning high gasoline prices on President Biden’s
climate policies (economists say that’s not the driver) or claiming
the 2021 winter blackout in Texas was the result of unreliable wind
energy (it wasn’t).<br>
They travel the nation encouraging state lawmakers to punish
companies that try to reduce carbon emissions. And through an
initiative called Life:Powered, the group makes what it calls “the
moral case for fossil fuels,” which holds that American prosperity
is rooted in an economy based on oil, gas and coal and that poor
communities and developing nations deserve the same opportunities to
grow...<br>
- - -<br>
“Just as the tobacco industry had front groups and the opioid
industry had front groups, this is part of the fossil fuel
disinformation playbook,” said David Michaels, an epidemiologist at
the George Washington School of Public Health who has studied
corporate influence campaigns. “The role of these so called policy
organizations is not to provide useful information to the public,
but to promote the interests of their sponsors, which are often
antithetical to public health.”<br>
<br>
Robert Henneke, the foundation’s executive director, disputed the
assertion that it was a front for fossil fuel interests. “That
characterization is inaccurate,” he said. He also said that most of
the policies the foundation promotes have nothing to do with
energy..<br>
- -<br>
<b>Taking on New Fights</b><br>
Since President Biden came to office pledging to make climate action
a top priority, the organization has only increased its efforts to
combat what it sees as the overblown response to global warming —
disputing broadly accepted models that project an uptick in
temperatures, questioning the viability of wind and solar energy and
dismissing the 2015 Paris climate agreement as a political stunt
that will “will push more people into poverty.”<br>
<br>
When a storm led to blackouts across Texas in February 2021, the
foundation blamed the blackouts on frozen wind turbines, even though
utility officials said the primary cause was the state’s natural gas
providers. The message was echoed by Republican politicians across
the country and commentators including Tucker Carlson...<br>
The Texas Public Policy Foundation continues to campaign against
wind power despite the fact that Texas now generates almost a third
of its energy from wind power...<br>
- -<br>
It is also helping shape the law. When a Texas oil executive
complained that he couldn’t get a bank loan to expand drilling
operations, Mr. Isaac, a former state lawmaker who previously
co-founded a nonprofit that promotes natural gas, drafted a bill
directing the state to stop doing business with banks and companies
that were divesting from the fossil fuel industry. Gov. Greg Abbott
of Texas signed the law last year.<br>
<br>
With encouragement from Mr. Isaac and a network of Republican state
treasurers, four other states — West Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee
and Oklahoma — have passed similar laws. That has led some states to
stop doing business with major financial institutions including
Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan and BlackRock.<br>
<br>
Meanwhile, the foundation is suing the Environmental Protection
Agency, challenging its designation of greenhouse gases as a danger
to human health and welfare, and this summer lodged its objection to
a proposal at the Securities and Exchange Commission that would
require public companies to disclose the financial risks they face
from climate change.<br>
<br>
As Republicans take control of the House of Representatives in
January, the Texas group is poised to regain influence in
Washington.<br>
<br>
“It gives us a leg up,” Mr. Isaac said. “We’ve been educating staff
on the Hill on our research, our positions and our messaging. We’re
going to have more of an impact in Washington not only over the next
two years, but over the next six years. It’s great.”<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/04/climate/texas-public-policy-foundation-climate-change.html">https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/04/climate/texas-public-policy-foundation-climate-change.html</a><br>
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<br>
<i>[ E&E News - ClimateWire -- the misinformed leading a
disinformation squad ]</i><br>
<b>Climate foes push Great Reset conspiracy theory</b><br>
By Scott Waldman | 12/06/2022<br>
People being forced to eat bugs. Confiscated cars. Cities going dark
as electric lights are turned off. Climate lockdowns.<br>
<br>
<b>Welcome to the conspiratorial world of the “Great Reset” theory.</b><b><br>
</b><br>
Its followers claim that government officials want to impose
draconian lockdowns similar to the worst days of Covid-19 in order
to cut greenhouse gas emissions. The conspiracy theory holds that a
global elite is planning to shut down society and restrict personal
freedoms, such as eating meat and driving gas-powered cars in their
zeal to address climate change.<br>
<br>
The Great Reset has been boosted by climate deniers, right-wing
media and conservative think tanks that oppose regulations on fossil
fuels.<br>
<br>
It all began in June 2020 during the depths of Covid-19 lockdowns.
Car traffic and industrial activity worldwide fell sharply, leading
to lower levels of air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions.
Then-Prince Charles described that moment in time as a new beginning
for the planet. The world had seen what was possible for the
environment, and now renewable energy, clean cars and altered
methods of commuting could help make those changes permanent.<br>
<br>
<b>It was called the Great Reset.</b><br>
<br>
Before long it was turned into a rallying cry against Covid-19
lockdowns and, then, as a warning against climate action.
Conservative activists used it to claim that environmental laws and
regulations were an attack on their personal freedoms, said John
Cook, a postdoctoral research fellow at the Climate Change
Communication Research Hub at Monash University in Australia and an
expert on climate disinformation.<br>
<br>
“Combining the claim ‘climate policy limits freedom’ with ‘climate
change is a conspiracy’ is a potent combination as it combines
conservative ideology with the conspiratorial mindset of a science
denier,” he said. “So the climate lockdown conspiracy theory has the
potential to resonate with climate deniers and spread further.”<br>
<br>
Now, increasingly, the Great Reset is being introduced to Americans
who watch Fox News, or who follow Republicans like Reps. Paul Gosar
of Arizona or Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, who have promoted
the conspiracy theory’s shifting claims.<br>
<br>
The Great Reset could come to the halls of Congress next year, when
Republicans take control of the House. Party leaders have threatened
to launch a series of investigations, including into President Joe
Biden’s energy policies.<br>
<br>
Steve Milloy, who was part of the Trump administration’s EPA
transition team, was one of the first to push the Great Reset as a
climate-related conspiracy theory. Milloy said he expects the idea
to be part of the discussion if Congress conducts climate-related
investigations, including one on net zero that he has privately
urged Republican aides to take up.<br>
<br>
Milloy said upcoming regulations from EPA, such as tighter vehicle
emissions rules and methane reductions, could be framed as evidence
of the Great Reset.<br>
<br>
“I cannot wait to see what the Biden EPA rolls out over the next two
years,” he said. “It’s going to be totally consistent with the Great
Reset, it’s going to be about control over what we do, control of
industry, control, control, control.”<br>
<br>
The conspiracy theory became a familiar phrase in right-wing media
after Democrats passed the Inflation Reduction Act, the most
aggressive climate bill in U.S. history, in August. Former Trump
White House adviser Steve Bannon has talked about it on his
influential podcast, the “War Room.” The conservative Heritage
Foundation has framed it as “global elites who are trying to
restructure our civilization.” Newsmax, OANN and Breitbart News are
increasingly talking and writing about the Great Reset. Fox News
hosts Tucker Carlson and Laura Ingraham have pushed it during their
nightly shows.<br>
<br>
Many of those who have worked to push the theory are affiliated with
groups that fight energy regulations or that have received funding
from fossil fuel companies. That includes the Heartland Institute;
E&E Legal; and the Committee For a Constructive Tomorrow, whose
employee, Marc Morano, has promoted the conspiracy theory for two
years. He wrote a book called “The Great Reset: Global Elites and
the Permanent Lockdown.”<br>
<br>
C-SPAN recently aired a talk with Morano in which he told viewers
that elites want to use climate policy to “collapse” American
society so they can expand their control over it.<br>
<br>
“The idea here is that in order to reset, build back better, you
have to essentially collapse the current system,” he said.<br>
<br>
Lawmakers and far-right influencers are talking about it, too.<br>
<br>
Earlier this year, Greene, the Georgia lawmaker, told conspiracy
theorist Alex Jones that liberal politicians from around the world
were adherents to the Great Reset. She warned that it would bring
socialism to the U.S.<br>
<br>
“They are very serious about the Great Reset, they are very serious
about globalism, and this is something that America was never meant
to be a part of,” she said.<br>
<br>
In September, Turning Point USA hosted a two-day event in Phoenix,
Ariz., called “Defeating the Great Reset.” Speakers included Bannon;
Pizzagate conspiracy theorist Jack Posobiec; and the group’s
founder, Charlie Kirk.<br>
<br>
“Are we here to learn about, or understand, or compromise or
accommodate the Great Reset?” Bannon told the screaming sold-out
crowd. “We are here to defeat it.”<br>
<br>
“Defeat the Great Reset!” the crowd chanted.<br>
<br>
<b>The beginning</b><br>
Police officers walk in front of a demonstration against measures to
battle the coronavirus pandemic in Vienna, Austria, Saturday, Nov.
20, 2021. Thousands of protesters are expected to gather in Vienna
after the Austrian government announced a nationwide lockdown to
contain the quickly rising coronavirus infections in the country.
Banner reads: Great exchange, Great Reset, Stop the globalist
filth'. (AP Photo/Florian Schroetter)<br>
Police officers walk in front of a demonstration against measures to
battle the coronavirus pandemic in Vienna, Austria, on Nov. 20,
2021. The banner reads: “Great exchange, Great Reset, stop the
globalist filth.” | AP Photo/Florian Schroetter<br>
The conspiracy theory’s origins can be traced to a video launched by
Charles and the World Economic Forum to promote a Covid-19 economic
recovery plan. The video said a paradigm shift was needed to inspire
“action at revolutionary levels and pace.” It showed images of ice
shelves collapsing, solar panels, wind turbines, wildfires and
hurricanes.<br>
<br>
“We need to evolve our economic model, putting people and planets at
the heart of global value creation,” Charles said in the video. “If
there is one critical lesson we have to learn from this crisis, we
need to put nature at the heart of how we operate.”<br>
<br>
Not long afterward, Catholic Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, a
far-right former Vatican official, wrote letters to then-President
Donald Trump that included false Covid-19 claims and anti-Black
Lives Matter rhetoric. In October 2020, Viganò wrote an open letter
to Trump that claimed a “global elite” was plotting to take over the
world through the Great Reset and pleaded with him to stop “the
final assault of the children of darkness.”<br>
<br>
“A global plan called the Great Reset is underway,” he wrote. “Its
architect is a global élite that wants to subdue all of humanity,
imposing coercive measures with which to drastically limit
individual freedoms and those of entire populations.”<br>
<br>
The Great Reset is unique among conspiracy theories in that it
sprung from a public campaign to explore carbon reductions from
Covid-19 lockdowns. It was then twisted into a dark narrative,
according to a comprehensive report from the London-based Institute
for Strategic Dialogue. The group concluded that “climate lockdowns”
is a case study of how “a message can be seized upon by reactionary
media actors and adapted to serve existing agendas.”<br>
<br>
“‘Climate Lockdown’ is not a story of outsider threats to popular
discourse, but a lesson in how any message can be weaponised by
those intent on harm — whether to profit from disinformation and
manufactured outrage, to fuel mistrust in institutions, or to
confirm existing biases about certain groups and causes,” the group
concluded.<br>
<br>
The video’s clear environmental themes also turned it into something
that climate denialists could exploit. The Heartland Institute,
which has received funding from the fossil fuel industry and
foundations that oppose environmental regulations, has repeatedly
returned to the theme to warn its audience that their freedoms are
under threat by Biden’s climate policies.<br>
<br>
The Great Reset’s imagined climate lockdowns are an example of
misinformation that is increasingly being found in mainstream
political discourse, said Cook, the climate communication
researcher. He said studies show that politicians can shape public
opinion on climate change, so it’s concerning that more lawmakers
are promoting the Great Reset.<br>
<br>
“I anticipate culture war narratives such as ‘climate lockdown’ will
be part of the misinformation landscape for a while,” he said.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.eenews.net/articles/climate-foes-push-great-reset-conspiracy-theory/">https://www.eenews.net/articles/climate-foes-push-great-reset-conspiracy-theory/</a><br>
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<i>[ Australian activist sentenced to 15 months ]</i><br>
<b>Violet Coco: Climate activist's jailing ignites row in Australia</b><br>
By Tiffanie Turnbull<br>
BBC News, Sydney<br>
For 28 minutes in April, Deanna "Violet" Coco blocked a single lane
of rush hour traffic on the Sydney Harbour Bridge, calling for
greater action on climate change.<br>
<br>
Those 28 minutes would cost her a 15-month jail sentence.<br>
<br>
Last week - in a move that has drawn international criticism - an
Australian judge sent Coco to prison after she pleaded guilty to
breaching traffic laws, lighting a flare and disobeying police
orders to move on.<br>
<br>
The climate activist had made an "entire city suffer" with her
"selfish emotional actions", Magistrate Allison Hawkins said. "You
do damage to your cause when you do childish stunts like this."<br>
<br>
Coco will be eligible for parole in eight months, but her lawyer
plans to challenge the sentence, which he says is "extraordinarily
harsh" and "baseless".<br>
<br>
"There are five lanes on that bridge. She blocked one, and not for
very long," Mark Davis told the BBC. Her co-accused avoided jail, he
pointed out.<br>
<br>
"This is almost without precedent."<br>
<br>
Which 'way of life'?<br>
The outcome of the case quickly sparked uproar. Small protests were
held across Australia, and the sentence was condemned by human
rights groups and some politicians.<br>
<br>
Human Rights Watch researcher Sophie McNeill said the case sends a
terrible message to the globe.<br>
<br>
"We're always calling on these authoritarian governments to treat
peaceful protesters respectfully and to not jail them… [but] a
country like Australia - who should be leading on human rights in
the region, as a democracy - is also jailing peaceful activists,"
she said...<br>
- -<br>
The protest on the Sydney Harbour Bridge was shut down by police<br>
The UN's special rapporteur on peaceful assembly Clément Voule said
he was "alarmed" by Coco's sentence.<br>
<br>
"Peaceful protesters should never be criminalised or imprisoned," he
said.<br>
<br>
Others disagree. There's been much debate in Australia about whether
activists - peaceful or otherwise - should have the right to disrupt
businesses or the lives of ordinary people.<br>
<br>
The New South Wales (NSW) state government has said it is "on the
side of climate change action" but could not allow "a handful of
anarchist protesters" to "bring this city to a halt".<br>
<br>
Premier Dominic Perrottet lauded the decision to jail Coco, saying
this week: "If protesters want to put our way of life at risk, then
they should have the book thrown at them."<br>
<br>
A political opponent, David Shoebridge, countered: "Wait till the
premier hears about how badly climate change will put our way of
life at risk."<br>
<br>
But Coco's own uncle Alister Henskens - a minister in the state
government - also welcomed the decision, saying "nobody is above the
law". And social media was filled with similar comments on both
sides.<br>
<br>
In a video posted online, Coco said she didn't want to be protesting
like this, but the climate emergency required "getting in people's
way".<br>
<br>
"Obviously, it's not comfortable and it's not fun, but I recognise
that it is necessary because lives are at stake," she said.<br>
<br>
Trend of tightening laws<br>
But some argue the real issue with Coco's case is that it
underscores a broader crackdown on protests nationwide.<br>
<br>
She is among the first to be sentenced under new state laws which
introduced harsher penalties for protests on critical infrastructure
- like roads, rail lines, tunnels and bridges.<br>
<br>
Earlier this year, Victoria and Tasmania also introduced laws
increasing jail sentences and fines for some kinds of obstructive
protests.<br>
<br>
The pandemic era has seen many flashpoints of controversy. Hundreds
of people were arrested - some for violent offences - while
protesting against Australia's strict lockdown rules.<br>
<br>
In another instance, two women who organised a peaceful Black Lives
Matter march in Melbourne were also taken to court for breaching
public health rules.<br>
<br>
Such crackdowns will challenge some Australians' faith in the
country's liberal democratic protections, says politics and law
researcher Ron Levy.<br>
<br>
Protestors holding signs criticising the jailing of protestor Violet
Coco<br>
IMAGE SOURCE,ZEBEDEE PARKES<br>
But Australia is a "utilitarian" society that tends to elevate the
"public good" above individual rights, he says. That means laws like
these often have popular support.<br>
<br>
"It may be that the more there are physical consequences to your
speech, the less robustly we're going to protect it," Dr Levy tells
the BBC.<br>
<br>
But Ms McNeill says the issue isn't that law breakers can't be
punished, it's how disproportionate the punishments are.<br>
<br>
"People who are charged with drunk driving, assault or drug
offences… receive no custodial sentences - fines or just suspended
sentences - but then you see a peaceful climate activist like Violet
Coco given 15 months," she says.<br>
<br>
'Chilling effect'<br>
Ms McNeill is among those who believe the laws are "politically
motivated" and specifically aimed at intimidating climate activists.<br>
<br>
Regardless of their target, there is general agreement they may have
a chilling effect on protests more broadly.<br>
<br>
Dr Levy says that could see the courts intervene to strike down
legislation. Two NSW women have already launched a bid for the High
Court of Australia to do just that.<br>
<br>
It has happened before. Australia's top court abolished an earlier
version of Tasmania's rules in 2017, finding them unconstitutional.<br>
<br>
But higher courts have also upheld what experts say are similar
laws. In 2019, two anti-abortion activists lost a challenge to laws
banning them from protesting within 150m of abortion clinics.<br>
<br>
"The decision tends to be based on how well tailored the law is - is
it too vague, does it go too far?" Dr Levy says.<br>
<br>
The use of significant jail terms will be a key issue, he says.<br>
<br>
"As a former criminal prosecutor myself, I can tell you that prison
time is relatively rare and it should be used in limited
circumstances. This does seem rather extreme."<br>
<br>
Mr Davis said the "real slap" is that his client was denied bail
before her appeal - something that is unusual for a non-violent
offender.<br>
<br>
"You've normally got to be a pretty monstrous person to be denied."<br>
<br>
He will challenge the bail decision next week, but in the meantime
he says Coco is "stuck in a cell".<br>
"It's a bitter outcome."<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-63883430">https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-63883430</a><br>
<p><br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<i>[ Important opinion from Nexus newsletter ]</i><br>
<b>Don't Militarize Climate Discourse: Common Defense Explains Why
National Security Is A Bad Frame For Climate Communications</b><br>
There are a lot of great ways to talk about climate change. Framing
it as a national security threat and telling Americans that they
should take climate action to prevent a flood of climate migrants is
not one of them. That's the very short version of a new brief from
Common Defense, one of the US's largest veteran-based advocacy
organizations, which worked with human rights experts, defense
policy wonks, and some of the absolute smartest and most impressive
climate communicators (us here at Climate Nexus) to explain the
pitfalls of the national security frame. <br>
<br>
Given that the Russian invasion of Ukraine has turbocharged the
relevance of right-wing arguments that fossil fuels are a national
security priority, it may be tempting to respond with the opposite
claim that it is actually climate action that's good for national
security. This may be true, but military security shouldn't be our
focus for talking about the climate crisis. <br>
<br>
In "Security For All: Demilitarizing Our Climate Narratives" and an
accompanying video, Common Defense lays out the "significant
dangers" of the security arguments that "directly endanger the
Black, Brown and Indigenous peoples most impacted by climate change–
especially immigrants and refugees." <br>
<br>
The report warns that "the 'climate migration as security threat'
narrative emboldens white supremacists" like the multiple mass
shooters who have murdered in the name of ecofascism. <br>
<br>
The document explains, "As racist conspiracy theories like the Great
Replacement Theory are mainstreamed by prominent figures such as
Tucker Carlson, persuadable young men will either see it as the
racist lie that it is, or as a credible viewpoint reinforced by
moderate voices legitimizing the concern that the US will be overrun
by immigrants (as a result of climate change)." <br>
<br>
Another reason to do literally any other kind of climate
communications is that security rhetoric is "being exploited by
defense corporations to militarize our borders." In exactly the same
way that climate change is a present crisis and not a future threat,
this issue "is not a future dystopia; thousands of people die every
year at increasingly militarized borders." Let's not give the arms
manufacturers profiteering off of "weapons, walls and surveillance"
the veneer of credibility that they seek when claiming that
increasingly hardened border control is a necessary response to the
climate crisis. <br>
<br>
On top of the threat of ecofascists and arms dealers exploiting the
national security-and-climate frame, this rhetoric will also hinder
climate protests. The Common Defense report notes that "police and
private security forces are increasingly using military weapons and
tools against domestic climate campaigners, particularly Indigenous
peoples protecting ancestral lands from fossil fuel infrastructure,
with associated policing, surveillance and legal barriers being
established to prevent effective climate action." <br>
<br>
And that's just the first section of the report! After establishing
the dangers of the national security frame, Common Defense points
out that (whoops!) this rhetoric doesn't really work that well,
anyway. Studies show it has a "limited persuasive impact" and that
the "framing can backfire by undermining existing bases of support
while entrenching the belief held by those who oppose climate action
that government resources would be better spent on conventional
security threats."<br>
<br>
Also, the climate community should be wary, to put it mildly, of
embracing military leaders. "Given the horrific and racist
consequences of the War on Drugs and the Global War on Terror," the
report says, "it should be clear why US climate advocates should
strive to prevent our leaders from declaring a 'War on Climate
Change'."<br>
<br>
So what should we do instead? After all, climate change does pose a
"clear and present danger" to every country. Instead of using
military leaders as climate messengers, we can turn to "veterans,
healthcare workers, and emergency personnel like firefighters and
paramedics," who are "equally trusted messengers who have served to
protect their communities, are directly impacted by climate change,
and can persuasively convey the dangers of inaction." <br>
<br>
As for the issue of immigration, "The climate movement should argue
for the redirection of substantial funds—especially those funds
being used to expand militarized borders in the name of climate
adaptation—towards protecting people, establishing safe pathways for
migrants, and enabling a just transition to post-fossil fuel
economies across the globe, while leveraging all the tools of
capital finance, aid, remediation, loss and damage payments and
investments, among others."<br>
<br>
We need to present a vision of a better world and the best pathway
to get there. As the report aptly states, "We should offer clear
solutions and alternatives – both immediate and visionary– and
assert that we have the tools, ambition, and expertise to build real
safeguards. If we fail to offer these solutions, reactionary voices
will continue to win the day and the world will continue to grow
hotter and less safe."<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://newsletter.climatenexus.org/hoosiers-paying-high-cost-of-utilities-fossil-fuel-dependence">https://newsletter.climatenexus.org/hoosiers-paying-high-cost-of-utilities-fossil-fuel-dependence</a><br>
<br>
<p>- - <br>
</p>
<br>
<i>[ important organization producing brief opinion videos ]</i><br>
<b>Veteran Climate Stories: Exposing Border Profiteers</b><br>
Common Defense<br>
7 views Dec 4, 2022<br>
Climate change will affect our globe and will have impacts across
borders. Our work to combat climate change must be human centered
and we must not let ourselves be distracted by narratives that pit
us against each other.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l1DiGKBGEVY">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l1DiGKBGEVY</a><br>
<p><br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<br>
<i>[The news archive - looking back at a video -- with </i>auto
generated transcript <i>]</i><br>
<font size="+2"><i><b>December 9, 2009</b></i></font> <br>
December 9, 2009: On MSNBC's "Countdown," Chris Hayes strongly
criticizes the Washington Post for running an article by Sarah Palin
peddling climate-denial conspiracy theories. <a
class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://youtu.be/R8rZ7YXHHfk">http://youtu.be/R8rZ7YXHHfk</a>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<p>======================================= <br>
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