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<p><font size="+2"><i><b>December 10, 2022</b></i></font></p>
<i>[ fossil fuel unable to change ]</i><br>
<b>Oil firms have internally dismissed swift climate action, House
panel says</b><br>
Documents show the fossil fuel industry ‘has no real plans to clean
up its act’ and took steps to continue business as usual<br>
Oliver Milman<br>
Fri 9 Dec 2022<br>
Some of the world’s largest oil and gas companies have internally
dismissed the need to swiftly move to renewable energy and cut
planet-heating emissions, despite publicly portraying themselves as
concerned about the climate crisis, a US House of Representatives
committee has found.<br>
<br>
Documents obtained from companies including Exxon, Shell, BP and
Chevron show that the fossil fuel industry “has no real plans to
clean up its act and is barreling ahead with plans to pump more
dirty fuels for decades to come”, said Carolyn Maloney, the chair of
the House oversight committee, which has investigated the sector for
the past year.<br>
- -<br>
Climate campaigners said the committee’s work showed that the fossil
fuel industry was continuing to lie over global heating by
pretending to act on the issue.<br>
<br>
“The key revelation in this report is that big oil has no intention
of actually following through on its climate commitments,” said
Jamie Henn, director of Fossil Free Media.<br>
<br>
“It isn’t transitioning to clean energy, it’s doubling down on
methane gas, and it’s actively lobbying against renewable energy
solutions. This is the big tobacco playbook all over again: pretend
you care about a problem, but continue your deadly business as
usual.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/dec/09/oil-gas-companies-fossil-fuel-industry-house-committee">https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/dec/09/oil-gas-companies-fossil-fuel-industry-house-committee</a><i><br>
</i>
<p><i>- -<br>
</i></p>
<i>[ Not a surprise ]</i><br>
<b>US panel accuses ‘Big Oil’ of disinformation over climate plans</b><br>
House Oversight Committee says oil companies are ‘lying’ about
promises to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. <br>
9 Dec 2022<br>
A United States congressional committee has accused oil companies of
spreading “disinformation” and “lying” about their climate change
mitigation efforts by obscuring their long-term investments in
fossil fuels.<br>
<br>
The House Oversight Committee released internal industry documents
from major oil companies on Friday that it said showed that the
firms were not acting on their public pledges to reduce emissions
and instead engaging in “greenwashing”.<br>
“Today’s new evidence makes clear that these companies know their
climate pledges are inadequate, but are prioritizing Big Oil’s
record profits over the human costs of climate change,” the panel’s
chairwoman, Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney, said in a statement.<br>
<br>
“It’s time for the fossil fuel industry to stop lying to the
American people and finally take serious steps to reduce emissions
and address the global climate crisis they helped create.”<br>
<br>
The panel said a “key part” of the oil companies’ climate plans has
been to sell off, or divest, oil and gas fields to smaller firms to
lower their own emissions – a move that simply shuffles those
emissions to the next company and “will not actually reduce
emissions”.<br>
<br>
“Even as it publicly announced support for Paris Agreement goals, BP
continues to invest in a future dependent on fossil fuels,” the
committee also found...<br>
It pointed to an internal review document in which the company
described its plan to significantly “increase development in regions
with oil potential” in the US, and to “focus primarily on projects
in current basins that generate the highest rate of return”.<br>
<br>
The documents were obtained by Congressional subpoenas as part of
the committee’s broader investigation into “the fossil fuel
industry’s role in spreading climate disinformation and preventing
action on climate change”.<br>
In an internal email, “one BP executive asserted … that BP had ‘no
obligation to minimize GHG [greenhouse gas] emissions’ and that the
company should only ‘minimize [GHG emissions] where it makes
commercial sense’,” the panel said on Friday.<br>
<br>
“The same BP executive concluded that ‘the benefits of any proposal
to adopt a lower GHG option needs to be balanced against the cost to
do so.'”...<br>
BP did not respond immediately to a request for comment from the
Reuters news agency.<br>
<br>
At Shell, spokesperson Curtis Smith, in an internal email released
by the panel, said about divesting from assets in Canada’s oil
sands, “True, we transfer CO2 liability when we divest.”<br>
<br>
On Friday, Reuters cited Smith as saying that the House panel’s
probe failed to uncover evidence of a climate disinformation
campaign....<br>
“In fact, the handful of subpoenaed documents the Committee chose to
highlight from Shell are evidence of the company’s extensive efforts
to set aggressive targets, transform its portfolio and meaningfully
participate in the ongoing energy transition,” Smith said...<br>
The Democratic-led House panel’s memo comes as scientists and the
United Nations continue to warn of catastrophic consequences if the
climate crisis is not addressed.<br>
<br>
In November, the UN said the past eight years are on track to be the
hottest ever recorded. And experts have blamed the climate crisis
for intensifying national disasters, including hurricanes, heatwaves
and wildfires.<br>
<br>
“Big Oil has misled the American public for decades about the
reality of the climate crisis,” Ro Khanna, chair of the subcommittee
on the environment, said in Friday’s statement. “It’s past time to
hold the entire industry accountable for its role in funding and
facilitating that disinformation.”<br>
<br>
Democrats are set to become a minority in the House of
Representatives early next month after Republicans, who have pushed
for increased domestic energy production, narrowly won control of
the chamber in November’s midterm elections.<br>
<br>
Despite the congressional Democrats’ call for oil companies to
reduce emissions, President Joe Biden last month urged the firms to
“expand supply and lower prices at the pump”.<br>
<br>
The White House also moved to release millions of barrels of oil
from the country’s strategic reserves before the elections earlier
this year amid soaring prices partly sparked by Russia’s invasion of
Ukraine.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/12/9/us-panel-accuses-big-oil-of-disinformation-over-climate-plans">https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/12/9/us-panel-accuses-big-oil-of-disinformation-over-climate-plans</a><br>
<p><br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<i>[ where are people moving ? ]</i><br>
<b>Despite a Changing Climate, Americans Are ‘Flocking to Fire’</b><br>
Over the past decade, Americans have migrated to areas of the
country with high wildfire risk, indicating that climate disasters
are not yet prioritized in moving decisions.<br>
By Grace van Deelen<br>
December 8, 2022<br>
Despite an increase in wildfire risk spurred by climate change,
Americans are moving to wildfire-prone areas and prioritizing lower
housing costs and amenities such as temperate weather and
recreational opportunities over risk of natural disasters.<br>
<br>
An analysis of U.S. migration data from the past decade published
today, “Flocking to fire: How climate and natural hazards shape
human migration across the United States,” shows that Americans have
been moving into certain “migration hot spots” in the West, Pacific
Northwest and South that have high risk of wildfires, as well as to
metro areas with high summer temperatures. <br>
<br>
The authors write that this “dangerous public health trend” is
“increasing the number of people in harm’s way,” especially as both
fires and heat waves increase in frequency due to climate change.
Experts concerned about public safety in these high-risk population
centers urge Americans to understand their environmental risks
before moving.<br>
<br>
Migration trends are influenced by a number of factors such as job
availability, housing costs, and cultural or political fit.
Americans also consider so-called “natural amenities,” like a mild
climate, variation in the landscape and water bodies, when they
determine where to move. Such amenities act as migration “pulls,”
and incentivize people to live nearby...<br>
According to the study, led by a team from the University of Vermont
and published in the journal Frontiers in Human Dynamics, the areas
pulling Americans most strongly are also those where residents are
at higher risk of natural disasters like wildfires and summer heat.
Cities identified as migration hotspots included Seattle, Portland,
Las Vegas, Phoenix, Denver, Austin, Dallas, Nashville, Atlanta,
Charlotte and Washington, D.C., while large swaths of the Pacific
Northwest, Rocky Mountains and the South also received a higher
influx of people than surrounding areas. <br>
<br>
Places with high wildfire risk, said Clark, tend to also have
dramatic, varied landscapes, and might be farther outside of urban
areas, both qualities attractive to people looking to move. The
Rockies and Pacific Northwest, both named as migration hotspots,
offer plenty of opportunities for outdoor recreation and have a
milder, drier climate than other parts of the U.S. The hotspots in
the South, such as Nashville, Charlotte, Atlanta and parts of Texas,
could be attracting people due to historically lower living costs,
said Clark.<br>
<br>
“It’s not that people are attracted to wildfires,” said Mahalia
Clark, a doctoral student at the University of Vermont and the lead
author on the study. “Something else about those counties is
attractive in spite of wildfires.”..<br>
Americans aren’t only moving towards places with high wildfire
risk—they’re also moving into metro areas that face high summer
temperatures. Heat in urban areas can be particularly deadly, as the
urban heat island effect can exacerbate temperatures, causing
dehydration, heat stroke and other public health concerns. Cooler
“climate havens” in the Midwest and Northeast have not been
receiving much migration, according to the analysis.<br>
<br>
The study shows that “the public has not fully acknowledged the
climate emergency,” said Elizabeth Fussell, a professor of
population studies and the environment at Brown University who was
not involved in the study, in an email. <br>
<br>
<b>Risk Perception and Priorities</b><br>
The research found that all things being equal, hurricane risk and
probability of heat waves seemed to influence migration more than
wildfire risk, with hurricanes and heat waves deterring migration to
certain parts of the country.<br>
<br>
One reason why Americans aren’t taking fire into account, said
Clark, could be a simple lack of awareness about where fires are
most likely to occur. For example, she said, wildfire risk is high
in the mountain West, but wildfires also frequently impact parts of
the South and Midwest, as well. People might be “totally unaware”
that there is any risk at all in the city they’re moving to, she
said. <br>
<br>
Fires tend to be more random than other natural disasters, too, said
Gillian Galford, a professor of environmental science at UVM and a
co-author on the study. Fire’s randomness could be a reason why
people perceive the risk of fire to be lower, though more research
is needed to fully answer the question of risk perception, she said.
Fussell said fires tend to damage fewer human structures than
hurricanes, which could explain the discrepancy. A 2021 study by
Fussell found that only the most destructive wildfires caused a
migration response.<br>
<br>
Jesse Keenan, a professor at Tulane University who has studied
climate adaptation, said he’s not surprised that Americans aren’t
prioritizing wildfire risk. “When people are weighing environmental
risk or climate risks together with the opportunities for growth and
relative access to affordable housing,” he said, “the scale is just
heavily tipped in favor of the household economy.”<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/08122022/climate-change-migration-us/">https://insideclimatenews.org/news/08122022/climate-change-migration-us/</a><br>
<p>- -</p>
<i>[ published in Frontiers Journal of Original Research ]</i><br>
<b>Flocking to fire: How climate and natural hazards shape human
migration across the United States</b><br>
Mahalia B. Clark, Ephraim Nkonya and Gillian L. Galford<br>
As global climate change progresses, the United States (US) is
expected to experience warmer temperatures as well as more frequent
and severe extreme weather events, including heat waves, hurricanes,
and wildfires. Each year, these events cost dozens of lives and do
billions of dollars' worth of damage, but there has been limited
research on how they influence human decisions about migration. Are
people moving toward or away from areas most at risk from these
climate threats? Here, we examine recent (2010–2020) trends in human
migration across the US in relation to features of the natural
landscape and climate, as well as frequencies of various natural
hazards. Controlling for socioeconomic and environmental factors, we
found that people have moved away from areas most affected by heat
waves and hurricanes, but toward areas most affected by wildfires.
This relationship may suggest that, for many, the dangers of
wildfires do not yet outweigh the perceived benefits of life in
fire-prone areas. We also found that people have been moving toward
metropolitan areas with relatively hot summers, a dangerous public
health trend if mean and maximum temperatures continue to rise, as
projected in most climate scenarios. These results have implications
for policymakers and planners as they prepare strategies to mitigate
climate change and natural hazards in areas attracting migrants.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fhumd.2022.886545/full">https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fhumd.2022.886545/full</a>
<p><br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<i>[ Lithium is somewhat dangerous -- requiring careful handling
]</i><br>
<b>The state of the lithium-ion battery recycling market</b><br>
A conversation with battery analyst Yayoi Sekine of BNEF.<br>
David Roberts<br>
DEC 9, 2022<br>
The coming decade is going to see a rapid rise in demand for
electric vehicles and the batteries they contain. Currently, the
materials that compose those batteries are mined and processed in
countries with problematic environmental and labor standards.<br>
<br>
One part of crafting a more humane and secure battery supply chain
is working to reduce demand for virgin materials by recycling the
materials already in use. That means recycling the lithium-ion
batteries found in vehicles — lots of them.<br>
<br>
Since we are on the very front end of a rapid S-curve rise in demand
for EVs, a comparatively small number of such lithium-ion batteries
need recycling today. But that will change, soon, as early EVs tax
their original batteries.<br>
<br>
To get a grasp on the current state of play in the battery-recycling
market, I contacted Yayoi Sekine, an analyst who works as head of
energy storage at Bloomberg NEF. We talked about current demand for
battery recycling, the companies meeting that demand, the
technologies used to recycle batteries today, and the coming growth
in the industry.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.volts.wtf/p/the-state-of-the-lithium-ion-battery">https://www.volts.wtf/p/the-state-of-the-lithium-ion-battery</a><br>
<p><br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<i>[The news archive - looking back at video]</i><br>
<font size="+2"><i><b>December 10, 2008 </b></i></font> <br>
December 10, 2008: On MSNBC's "The Rachel Maddow Show," Brian
Hardwick of the Alliance for Climate Protection denounces a
borderline-blasphemous holiday marketing campaign by the coal
industry.<br>
<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TaGun1X8E2s">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TaGun1X8E2s</a><br>
<br>
<br>
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