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<font size="+2"><font face="Calibri"><i><b>December </b></i></font></font><font
size="+2" face="Calibri"><i><b>19, 2023</b></i></font><br>
<i><br>
[ evidence that people are moving ]</i><br>
<b>Americans abandoning neighborhoods due to rising flood risk,
study finds</b><br>
BY SAUL ELBEIN - 12/18/23<br>
Rising risk of floods is hollowing out counties across the United
States — creating abandoned pockets in the hearts of cities, a new
report has found. <br>
<br>
These abandoned areas tend to map onto regions of historic
disinvestment — and flight out of them is accelerating, according to
findings published in Nature Climate Change<br>
In cities across the country, but particularly concentrated in the
Midwestern states such as Indiana, Ohio, Michigan and Minnesota,
increasing flood risk has driven this “climate abandonment” of
individual census tracts, sometimes quite rapidly...<br>
- -<br>
In most cases, this decline is on the order of 10 percent. <br>
<br>
But in the most extreme cases — such as Staten Island’s Midland
Beach neighborhood — the drop in population was more like a
collapse. <br>
<br>
In that census block, First Street found that a 2000-era population
of 93 people had fallen by two-thirds, to 31 people by 2020...<br>
- -<br>
Areas in the second category, Porter argued, can be saved by timely
investment in public infrastructure. <br>
<br>
Without such intervention — and in some areas, even with it — the
exodus may become unstoppable, he said. <br>
<br>
The end state of this process is a situation where “the people that
can afford to leave, leave, and people [who] can’t afford to leave
end up staying in the community,” Porter said. <br>
<br>
“You end up with a lot of vulnerable populations at risk.”<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://thehill.com/policy/equilibrium-sustainability/4362948-americans-abandoning-neighborhoods-due-to-rising-flood-risk-study-finds/">https://thehill.com/policy/equilibrium-sustainability/4362948-americans-abandoning-neighborhoods-due-to-rising-flood-risk-study-finds/</a><br>
<p>- -<br>
</p>
<i>[ gathering data makes more reports ]</i><br>
<b>Defining America's Climate Risk</b><br>
New Research Highlights the Emergence of “Climate Abandonment Areas<br>
<blockquote>PRESS RELEASE<br>
<b>Over 3.2 Million Americans Have Left High Flood Risk
Neighborhoods Creating “Climate Abandonment Areas"</b><br>
Today the First Street Foundation published new research in the
journal Nature-Communications, which integrates observed historic
trends of population change, along with flood risk information, to
uncover climate migration trends that are occurring in many high
flood risk areas across the country. The research highlights the
emergence of “Climate Abandonment Areas”, which are locations that
have lost population from 2000 - 2020 and can be directly
attributed to climate change related flood risk. <br>
</blockquote>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://firststreet.org/">https://firststreet.org/</a><br>
- -<br>
Full Press release PDF:
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://assets.firststreet.org/uploads/2023/12/Climate-Abandonment-Areas-Press-Release.pdf">https://assets.firststreet.org/uploads/2023/12/Climate-Abandonment-Areas-Press-Release.pdf</a><br>
- -<br>
<i>[ abandonment, the refugee, the migrant, desperadoes, ]</i><br>
<b>Climate migration may become "abandonment" as people flee
flooding</b><br>
Andrew Freedman, author of Axios Generate<br>
<br>
Climate migration is already taking place within American
communities, new data finds, as people flee flood-prone areas, and
create "climate abandonment" zones.<br>
<br>
Why it matters: Fresh research published Monday morning from a team
of scientists at the nonprofit First Street Foundation and their
outside partners includes population data down to the census block
level. It reveals climate change-related shifts underway, at a local
scale.<br>
<br>
Threat level: The study constitutes the latest warning sign of the
effects of climate change. Population shifts, and a larger reckoning
for real estate, are only expected to worsen as global average
surface temperatures rise.<br>
<br>
As the world warms, sea levels are increasing, causing more coastal
flooding.<br>
On Sunday, for example, a nontropical low pressure center flooded
large parts of Charleston, S.C., bringing the city its
fourth-highest tide on record.<br>
Floods like this are now more likely as land subsidence combines
with sea level rise to turn even nontropical storms into major
flooding threats.<br>
At the same time, storms are carrying more moisture, with the
frequency and severity of heavy rainfall events on the increase as
well. This is increasing the likelihood of inland flooding.<br>
The big picture: At a macro level, Americans are leaving the Rust
Belt in droves and heading to areas of greater climate risk in the
South and Southwest, said Jeremy Porter, a study coauthor and head
of climate change implications for First Street Foundation.<br>
<br>
But this has masked other changes taking place at the local level,
which is where more moves occur as people try to stay close to their
support networks, Porter said in an interview.<br>
The research was presented in a report on the foundation's website,
with the underlying methodology published Monday in the
peer-reviewed journal Nature Communications. It shows that during
the 2000-2020 period, about 818,000 Census blocks experienced
flood-related population declines.<br>
The researchers classify these areas as climate abandonment areas;
they show that nationwide, about 3.2 million people have fled flood
risk from these zones.<br>
When counting risky areas expected to become abandonment areas, the
researchers found those places are likely to lose a total of 7.5
million residents over the next 30 years due to flood risk (on top
of the 3.2 million they have already lost).<br>
What they're saying: "This research is the first to find a
systematic pattern in the historic population change data that shows
climate migration is not something that will happen in the future,
but it's something that is already happening in the case of the most
likely type of migration (local moves)," Porter told Axios in an
email.<br>
<br>
"Our research is the first to dig into population change at that
more micro scale... and when you do that, the narrative flips from
'People are moving to risk' to 'People are taking climate into
account when choosing where to live.'"<br>
Between the lines: The study is particularly significant since it
examines both population "pull" and "push" factors, from flooding to
the quality of school systems, to try to determine drivers of
population shifts.<br>
<br>
The intrigue: Some cities with high flood risks, like Miami and
Houston, are still pulling in more people than they are losing, the
research shows. But these areas are growing more slowly than they
would be if flooding weren't such a threat, the study shows.<br>
<br>
First Street Foundation calculated that 34.5% of the U.S. population
lives in census blocks that are already being affected by
flood–related population declines, or slowed growth.<br>
Future projections show abandonment areas expanding, particularly in
the Midwest and Northeast. In fact, metro areas of Minneapolis,
Milwaukee and Washington, D.C. (specifically, Alexandria, Va.) were
identified as being among the top 10 counties with the largest
increase in climate abandonment areas through 2053.<br>
How they did it: Researchers took census block data, First Street
Foundation's high-resolution flood model and information from actual
flood events. They incorporated data on social, political and
economic characteristics of an area to better understand what may
attract people and keep them in a particular geographic area.<br>
<br>
What's next: During the next three decades, some risky growth
regions — like Miami — could pass points where they become climate
abandonment zones, as sea levels increase and the threat of flooding
goes up as well, the data suggests.<br>
<p>The study did not look at insurance prices, which is another
factor that may force people to move as insurers consider key
markets like Florida and California too risky to conduct business.</p>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.axios.com/2023/12/18/climate-change-migration-us">https://www.axios.com/2023/12/18/climate-change-migration-us</a><br>
<p>- -<br>
Full Press release PDF:
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://assets.firststreet.org/uploads/2023/12/Climate-Abandonment-Areas-Press-Release.pdf">https://assets.firststreet.org/uploads/2023/12/Climate-Abandonment-Areas-Press-Release.pdf</a><br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<i>[ an important question -- article in Grist ]</i><br>
<b>Why people still fall for fake news about climate change</b><br>
It was the hottest year on Earth in 125,000 years, and #climatescam
is taking off.<br>
Kate Yoder, Staff Writer<br>
Dec 18, 2023<br>
<i>[ clips from text and full audio
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.adauris.ai/?utm_source=widget&utm_medium=internal&utm_content=narration_widget_aa_logo">https://www.adauris.ai/?utm_source=widget&utm_medium=internal&utm_content=narration_widget_aa_logo</a>
]</i><br>
In 1995, a leading group of scientists convened by the United
Nations declared that they had detected a “human influence” on
global temperatures with “effectively irreversible” consequences. In
the coming decades, 99.9 percent of scientists would come to agree
that burning fossil fuels had disrupted the Earth’s climate.<br>
<br>
Yet almost 30 years after that warning, during the hottest year on
Earth in 125,000 years, people are still arguing that the science is
unreliable, or that the threat is real but we shouldn’t do anything
about climate change. Conspiracies are thriving online, according to
a report by the coalition Climate Action Against Disinformation
released last month, in time for the U.N. climate conference in
Dubai. Over the past year, posts with the hashtag #climatescam have
gotten more likes and retweets on the platform known as X than ones
with #climatecrisis or #climateemergency. <br>
<br>
By now, anyone looking out the window can see flowers blooming
earlier and lakes freezing later. Why, after all this time, do 15
percent of Americans fall for the lie that global warming isn’t
happening? And is there anything that can be done to bring them
around to reality? New research suggests that understanding why fake
news is compelling to people can tell us something about how to
defend ourselves against it.<br>
<p>People buy into bad information for different reasons, said Andy
Norman, an author and philosopher who co-founded the Mental
Immunity Project, which aims to protect people from manipulative
information. Due to quirks of psychology, people can end up
overlooking inconvenient facts when confronted with arguments that
support their beliefs. “The more you rely on useful beliefs at the
expense of true beliefs, the more unhinged your thinking becomes,”
Norman said. Another reason people are drawn to conspiracies is
that they feel like they’re in on a big, world-transforming
secret: Flat Earthers think they’re seeing past the illusions that
the vast majority don’t.</p>
The annual U.N. climate summits often coincide with a surge in
misleading information on social media. As COP28 ramped up in late
November, conspiracy theories circulated claiming that governments
were trying to cause food shortages by seizing land from farmers,
supposedly using climate change as an excuse. Spreading lies about
global warming like these can further social divisions and undermine
public and political support for action to reduce emissions,
according to the Climate Action Against Disinformation report. It
can also lead to harassment: Some 73 percent of climate scientists
who regularly appear in the media have experienced online abuse.<br>
<br>
Part of the problem is the genuine appeal of fake news. A recent
study in Nature Human Behavior found that climate change
disinformation was more persuasive than scientific facts.
Researchers at the University of Geneva in Switzerland had
originally intended to see if they could help people fend off
disinformation, testing different strategies on nearly 7,000 people
from 12 countries, including the United States, India, and Nigeria.
Participants read a paragraph intended to strengthen their mental
defenses — reminders of the scientific consensus around climate
change, the trustworthiness of scientists, or the moral
responsibility to act, for example. Then they were subjected to a
barrage of 20 real tweets that blamed warming on the sun and the
“wavy” jet stream, spouted conspiracies about “the climate hoax
devised by the U.N.,” and warned that the elites “want us to eat
bugs.” <br>
<br>
The interventions didn’t work as hoped, said Tobia Spampatti, an
author of the study and a neuroscience researcher at the University
of Geneva. The flood of fake news — meant to simulate what people
encounter in social media echo chambers — had a big effect. Reading
the tweets about bogus conspiracies lowered people’s belief that
climate change was happening, their support for action to reduce
emissions, and their willingness to do something about it
personally. The disinformation was simply more compelling than
scientific facts, partly because it plays with people’s emotions,
Spampatti said (eliciting anger toward elites who want you to eat
bugs, for example). The only paragraph that helped people recognize
falsehoods was one that prompted them to evaluate the accuracy of
the information they were seeing, a nudge that brought some people
back to reality.<br>
<br>
The study attempted to use “pre-bunking,” a tactic to vaccinate
people against fake news. While the effort flopped, Norman said that
doesn’t mean it shows “inoculation” is ineffective. Spampatti and
other researchers’ effort to fortify people’s mental defenses used a
new, broader approach to pre-bunking, trying to protect against a
bunch of lines of disinformation at once, that didn’t work as well
as tried-and-true inoculation techniques, according to Norman.<br>
<br>
Norman says it’s crucial that any intervention to stop the spread of
disinformation comes with a “weakened dose” of it, like a vaccine,
to help people understand why someone might benefit from lying. For
example, when the Biden administration learned of Russia’s President
Vladimir Putin’s plans to invade Ukraine in late 2021, the White
House began warning the world that Russia would push a false
narrative to justify the invasion, including staging a fake, graphic
video of a Ukrainian attack on Russian territory. When the video
came out, it was quickly dismissed as fake news. “It was a wildly
successful attempt to inoculate much of the world against Putin’s
preferred narrative about Ukraine,” Norman said.<br>
<br>
For climate change, that approach might not succeed — decades of
oil-funded disinformation campaigns have already infected the
public. “It’s really hard to think about someone who hasn’t been
exposed to climate skepticism or disinformation from fossil fuel
industries,” said Emma Frances Bloomfield, a communication professor
at the University of Nevada, Los Vegas. “It’s just so pervasive.
They have talking heads who go on news programs, they flood media
publications and the internet, they pay lobbyists.”<br>
<br>
Bloomfield argues that disinformation sticks for a reason, and that
simply telling the people who fall for it that there’s a scientific
consensus isn’t enough. “They’re doubting climate change because
they doubt scientific authorities,” Bloomfield said. “They’re making
decisions about the environment, not based on the facts or the
science, but based on their values or other things that are
important to them.”<br>
<br>
While political identity can explain some resistance to climate
change, there are other reasons people dismiss the evidence, as
Bloomfield outlines in her upcoming book Science v. Story: Narrative
Strategies for Science Communicators. “In the climate change story,
we’re the villains, or at least partially blameworthy for what’s
happening to the environment, and it requires us to make a lot of
sacrifices,” Bloomfield said. “That’s a hard story to adopt because
of the role we’re playing within it.” Accepting climate change, to
some degree, means accepting inner conflict. You always know you
could do more to lower your carbon footprint, whether that’s
ditching meat, refusing to fly, or wearing your old clothes until
they’re threadbare and ratty.<br>
<br>
By contrast, embracing climate denial allows people to identify as
heroes, Bloomfield said. They don’t have to do anything differently,
and might even see driving around in a gas-guzzling truck as part of
God’s plan. It’s a comforting narrative, and certainly easier than
wrestling with ethical dilemmas or existential dread.<br>
<br>
Those seeking to amplify tensions around climate change or spread
doubt, such as fossil fuel companies, social media trolls, and
countries like Russia and China, get a lot of bang for their buck.
“It’s a lot easier and cheaper to push doubt than to push
certainty,” Bloomfield said. Oil companies including Shell,
ExxonMobil, and BP spent about $4 million to $5 million on Facebook
ads related to social issues and politics this year, according to
the Climate Action Against Disinformation report. To sow doubt, you
only need to arouse some suspicion. Creating a bullet-proof case for
something is much harder — it might take thousands of scientific
studies (or debunking hundreds of counterarguments one by one, as
Grist did in 2006).<br>
<br>
The most straightforward way to fight disinformation would be to
stop it from happening in the first place, Spampatti said. But even
if regulators were able to get social media companies to try to stop
the spread of conspiracy theories and falsehoods, dislodging them is
a different story. One promising approach, “deep canvassing,” seeks
to persuade people through nonjudgmental, one-on-one conversations.
The outreach method, invented by LGBTQ+ advocates, involves hearing
people’s concerns and helping them work through their conflicted
feelings. (Remember how accepting climate change means accepting you
might be a tiny part of the problem?)<br>
<br>
Research has shown that deep canvassing isn’t just successful at
reducing transphobia, but also that its effects can last for months,
a long time compared to other interventions. The strategy can work
for other polarizing problems, too, based on one experiment in a
rural metal-smelting town in British Columbia. After convincing
several local governments across the West Kootenay region to shift
to 100 percent renewable energy, volunteers with the nonprofit
Neighbors United kept running into difficulties in the town of
Trail, where they encountered distrust of environmentalists. They
spoke to hundreds of residents, listening to their worries about
losing jobs, finding common ground, and telling personal stories
about climate change like friends would, instead of debating the
facts like antagonists. A stunning 40 percent of residents shifted
their beliefs, and Trail’s city council voted in 2022 to shift to
100 percent renewable energy by 2050.<br>
<br>
Both facts and stories have a place, Bloomfield said. For
conservative audiences, she suggests that climate advocates move
away from talking about global systems and scientists with the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change — a “nameless, faceless,
nebulous group of people” — and toward local matters and people they
actually know. Getting information from friends, family, and other
trusted individuals can really help.<br>
<br>
“They’re not necessarily as authoritative as the IPCC,” Bloomfield
said. “But it helps you connect with that information, and you trust
that person, so you trust that information that they’re resharing.”<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://grist.org/politics/why-people-fall-for-climate-conspiracies-fake-news/">https://grist.org/politics/why-people-fall-for-climate-conspiracies-fake-news/</a><br>
<p><br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<i>[ Following the scientists - ]</i><br>
<b>What a record of Atmospheric CO2 Levels over Last 66 million
years tells us about our Future</b><br>
Paul Beckwith<br>
Dec 18, 2023<br>
A new peer reviewed paper published gives us the most up-to-date and
accurate record of atmospheric CO2 levels over the past 66 million
years.<br>
<br>
Knowing what has happened in the past gives us information as to
what we can expect as GHG levels continue to rise at accelerating
rates.<br>
<br>
For example, 51 million years ago CO2 levels peaked at 1600 ppm and
global average temperature was over 12C warmer than today. <br>
<br>
Today’s CO2 levels in the atmosphere (420 ppm) are higher than
anything until we go back to near the Miocene Climate Optimum (MCO)
about 16 million years ago. When we surpass 480 ppm, we will have to
go back to roughly 28 million years or so.<br>
<br>
By comparing these paleo-CO2 findings with global temperatures we
can see that the Equilibrium Climate Sensitivity (ECS) and
Equilibrium System Sensitivity (ESS) were higher in the past. <br>
<br>
I should note that this paper used the mainstream IPCC ECS of 3C
(for doubling of CO2) when the latest work from James Hansen argues
that the sensitivity is a much higher 4.8C (with a range from 3.6C
to 6.0C) which is a closer match to the higher sensitivities in the
past.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S_6W-Tb3qT0">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S_6W-Tb3qT0</a><br>
<p><br>
</p>
<font face="Calibri"><br>
</font><font face="Calibri"> <i>[The news archive - 2007 Bush
protects pollution. ]</i></font><br>
<font face="Calibri"> <font size="+2"><i><b>December 19, 2007 </b></i></font>
</font><br>
<font face="Calibri"> </font> December 19, 2007: <br>
EPA administrator Stephen Johnson, under orders from the Bush White
House, denies a request by seventeen states, including California,
for a Clean Air Act waiver that would allow the states to cut carbon
pollution from vehicles.<br>
<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/19/AR2007121902012.html">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/19/AR2007121902012.html</a><br>
<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/20/washington/20epa.html">http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/20/washington/20epa.html</a><br>
<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://youtu.be/hf_HYL92rgQ">http://youtu.be/hf_HYL92rgQ</a><br>
<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2008/05/19/174039/waxman-white-house-epa/">http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2008/05/19/174039/waxman-white-house-epa/</a><br>
<br>
<p><font face="Calibri"> <br>
</font><font face="Calibri"><br>
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