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<font size="+2"><font face="Calibri"><i><b>December 21</b></i></font></font><font
size="+2" face="Calibri"><i><b>, 2023</b></i></font><font
face="Calibri"><br>
</font>
<p><i>[ Go Directly to Jail ]</i><br>
<b>DETECTIVE WHO HIRED HACKERS TO TARGET CLIMATE ACTIVISTS
RECEIVES PRISON SENTENCE: ‘WOULD STILL LOVE TO KNOW WHO PAID
HIM’</b><br>
He pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit computer
hacking, one count of wire fraud, and one count of aggravated
identity theft.<br>
By Jeremiah Budin<br>
December 1, 2023<br>
A private detective who organized a hacking campaign against
climate activists has been sentenced to over six years in federal
prison — but the entire saga has left more questions than answers.<br>
<br>
Aviram Azari, an Israeli police officer–turned–private
investigator, was hired by German payment processor Wirecard to
target critics of the company with phishing and identity theft
scams. Wirecard has since filed for insolvency. <br>
<br>
Azari also spied on climate activists, with stolen emails ending
up in the hands of dirty energy giant ExxonMobil, prosecutors
said. The prosecutors stopped short of saying that Exxon had hired
Azari and his firm to target its critics. Exxon has denied having
a relationship with Azari.<br>
<br>
“From his home in Israel, Aviram Azari played a major role in
orchestrating and facilitating an international hacking-for-hire
spearphishing campaign. The conspiracy targeted individuals and
companies in the U.S. and abroad, resulting in the theft of data
and netting Azari over $4.8 million in criminal proceeds,” U.S.
attorney Damian Williams said.<br>
<br>
Azari pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit computer
hacking, one count of wire fraud, and one count of aggravated
identity theft. He was sentenced to 80 months (six-and-two-thirds
years) in U.S. federal prison and was also ordered to pay
forfeiture of $4,844,968.<br>
<br>
According to a Department of Justice press release, “Clients hired
Azari to manage ‘Projects’ that were described as intelligence
gathering efforts but were, in fact, hacking campaigns
specifically targeting certain groups of victims, including
climate change activists.” What is not specifically known,
however, is who exactly those clients were, apart from Wirecard.<br>
Three of Azari’s victims who spoke in court, including two climate
activists, said they still want to know who had paid Azari to spy
on them and steal their information.<br>
<br>
“While it’s satisfying to see Azari sentenced for these crimes
committed many years ago, we would still love to know who paid him
to target me and my climate activist and lawyer colleagues,” Kert
Davies, director of investigations at the Center for Climate
Integrity, told Reuters.<br>
<br>
If ExxonMobil did hire a private investigator to target its
critics — which, to be clear, the company denies doing — it would
certainly not be the first time that the company engaged in
unethical, underhanded tactics to protect the profits of its
planet-destroying business.<br>
<br>
Exxon has spread misinformation to downplay the pollution that its
product creates, attempted to cover up negative health impacts
that it has caused, employs an army of lobbyists to undermine new
legislation that would protect the environment, and has no plans
of stopping any of this anytime soon.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.thecooldown.com/green-business/aviram-azari-former-police-officer-hacking/">https://www.thecooldown.com/green-business/aviram-azari-former-police-officer-hacking/</a>
</p>
<p>- -<br>
</p>
<i>[ Unfair fights ]</i><br>
<b>Israeli private detective sentenced in US to 6-2/3 years for
hacker-for-hire scheme</b><br>
By Luc Cohen<br>
November 16, 2023<br>
NEW YORK, Nov 16 (Reuters) - A U.S. court on Thursday sentenced an
Israeli private detective to 6-2/3 years in prison for organizing
global hacking campaigns against thousands of people including
climate change activists and critics of German company Wirecard.<br>
<br>
Aviram Azari, a former policeman detained in the United States since
2019, pleaded guilty last year to three counts of wire fraud,
conspiracy to commit hacking and aggravated identity theft.<br>
In sentencing Azari in federal court in Manhattan, U.S. District
Judge John Koeltl said the hacking had a "devastating impact" on its
victims.<br>
<br>
Prosecutors had asked that Azari, 51, get eight to nine years in
prison, saying that his firm earned nearly $5 million dollars over
five years for managing hacking campaigns which targeted many public
interest groups among other victims.<br>
<br>
His defense lawyer, Barry Zone, asked for a sentence of no more than
five years, arguing that Azari had accepted responsibility and
contracted a "debilitating medical condition" while jailed in New
York.<br>
"Your Honor, I made a mistake," Azari said in court through a Hebrew
interpreter before the sentence was handed down. "I take
responsibility, full responsibility, for my actions. I regret with
all of my heart for all of the victims."<br>
<br>
Prosecutors said now-defunct payment processor Wirecard, which was a
member of Germany's blue chip DAX index before filing for insolvency
in 2020, hired Azari to target individuals and financial firms that
had criticized the company.<br>
According to prosecutors, Azari also used hackers to steal emails
from climate activists who were campaigning against U.S. oil company
Exxon Mobil Corp (XOM.N), which then cited media articles based on
those messages to fend off probes by U.S. state attorneys general.<br>
<br>
Prosecutors did not allege any link between Azari and Exxon, which
denied any connection to Azari or his hacking campaign. Three
victims who spoke in court, including two climate activists, said
they still wanted to learn his clients' identities.<br>
<br>
Azari was the subject of an investigation last year by Reuters that
revealed how he and other private eyes used mercenary hackers in
India to help wealthy clients gain an advantage in court battles.<br>
<br>
Addressing his victims after sentencing, Azari said, "There will
come a day" when he could provide more information. "You don't know
everything," he said.<br>
<br>
Reporting by Luc Cohen in New York; Editing by Cynthia Osterman<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.reuters.com/technology/cybersecurity/israeli-private-detective-sentenced-us-6-23-years-hacker-for-hire-scheme-2023-11-16/">https://www.reuters.com/technology/cybersecurity/israeli-private-detective-sentenced-us-6-23-years-hacker-for-hire-scheme-2023-11-16/</a>
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<i>[ an early folk song about global warming 4+ mins]</i><br>
<b>Global Warming by Vermillion Lies</b><br>
Vermillion Lies<br>
3,229 views Aug 10, 2015<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_0vclv5w34">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_0vclv5w34</a>
(2008 recording)<br>
Vermillion Lies - <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated"
href="http://www.vermillionlies.com">www.vermillionlies.com</a> <br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://youtu.be/J2d1jNwpDAQ?si=MFDqtG6d84C4NdRl">https://youtu.be/J2d1jNwpDAQ?si=MFDqtG6d84C4NdRl</a><br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J2d1jNwpDAQ&list=RDJ2d1jNwpDA">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J2d1jNwpDAQ&list=RDJ2d1jNwpDA</a><br>
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<p><br>
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<i>[ Activists in discussion ]</i><br>
<b>Bill McKibben: "Climate, Movements, and Power" | The Great
Simplification #102</b><br>
Nate Hagens<br>
Dec 20, 2023 The Great Simplification - with Nate Hagens<br>
Show Summary: <br>
On this episode, environmental activist and author Bill McKibben
joins Nate for a reflection on the last few decades of climate
education and movements – and the possibilities and challenges that
we’ll face ahead. Among a system that is dependent on growth and
embedded in a biosphere full of limits (which we continue to
surpass), working towards shifting our societies to be ecologically
balanced is potentially the most important mission to which an
individual can contribute - yet this is much easier said than done.
What have been the largest barriers towards actual effective climate
action since emissions have continued in a straight line up since
the 20th century? What power structures stand as a barrier to
proactive initiatives, and which ones could we utilize to propel
movements forward? How can we prepare and organize at the
individual, community, and national levels, as we look ahead to
climate - and other - challenges we’re likely to face in the coming
decades?<br>
<br>
About Bill McKibben:<br>
Bill McKibben is founder of Third Act, which organizes people over
the age of 60 for action on climate and justice. His 1989 book The
End of Nature is regarded as the first book for a general audience
about climate change, and has appeared in 24 languages. He’s gone on
to write 20 books, and his work appears regularly in periodicals
from the New Yorker to Rolling Stone. McKibben helped found 350.org,
the first global grassroots climate campaign, which has organized
protests on every continent, including Antarctica, for climate
action. He played a leading role in launching the opposition to big
oil pipeline projects like Keystone XL, and the fossil fuel
divestment campaign, which has become the biggest anti-corporate
campaign in history.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qCrgpdHCO3U">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qCrgpdHCO3U</a>
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<i>[ European Central Bank (ECB) Blog ]</i><br>
<b>The price of inaction: what a hotter climate means for monetary
policy</b><br>
18 December 2023<br>
By Friderike Kuik, Wolfgang Modery, Christiane Nickel and Miles
Parker<br>
This is the sixth post in our series accompanying COP28.<br>
<blockquote>
<blockquote> The ECB’s primary mandate is to maintain price
stability. So why do we talk about climate change? In this post
on The ECB Blog, we show how a hotter climate affects prices and
the economy and discuss how this impacts the task of central
banks.<br>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
A hotter climate leads to more frequent and more devastating extreme
climate events – at significant economic costs. Current global
efforts to prevent climate change fall far short of what is
necessary to prevent catastrophic consequences. This blog describes
how a changing climate adversely affects the economy. As such,
climate change could hinder central banks as they go about
delivering on their primary mandate of price stability.<br>
<br>
<b>Hot summers mean higher food prices</b><br>
Hotter-than-usual summers can affect both inflation and inflation
volatility, which are deeply relevant for price stability. Usually,
there is a direct upward impact through higher food prices for
several months. For example, ECB research estimates that the extreme
summer heat in 2022 increased food inflation in Europe by around 0.7
percentage points (Figure 1, blue bar). Looking further ahead, this
effect may be even more pronounced: we estimate that food inflation
could rise by around 1.8 percentage points in an extreme summer in
2060’s climate, relative to a hypothetic scenario without any
climate change. Services inflation can also be affected, presumably
because higher food prices increase prices in restaurants and cafés,
and because tourism-related services are more strongly affected by
hotter temperatures...<br>
- -<br>
There is evidence that climate change can reduce potential output
growth. Here are a few examples of how continued climate change
could weaken our economies:<br>
<br>
<b>Floods and storms can destroy factories, machinery and
infrastructure.</b><br>
Reduced snowfall will jeopardise the viability of ski fields in
Europe, and many Mediterranean regions may become too hot for summer
tourism. They are also threatened by rising sea levels.<br>
Agricultural yields will likely be depressed by higher average
temperatures. While changing crops can help alleviate some of the
effects, greater variability of temperatures and changing rainfall
patterns are also likely to dampen agricultural output.<br>
People are getting less productive in the heat. We work most
efficiently within a temperature range of around 19-22°C. Global
warming means more days above critical thresholds, particularly in
countries that are currently hotter on average. Indeed, the Cypriot
Government issued a decree in summer 2023 limiting outdoor work on
certain days in order to protect workers.<br>
Droughts affect more sectors than agriculture: the Rhine has become
almost impassable for river freight on several occasions in recent
years, with an impact on supply chains, and the Panama Canal faced
similar restrictions in summer 2023.<br>
The aggregate economic impact of these channels is uncertain, also
in part because climate change adaptation – such as air
conditioning, irrigation, and coastal defences – can alleviate the
impacts. Insurance provides a further tool for adaptation, although
there is already a substantial climate insurance protection gap in
Europe...<br>
- -<br>
Continued global warming makes inflation more volatile because it
affects inflation differently across various components, countries
and seasons. For instance, while hotter summers increase inflation,
an unusually warm winter can result in lower inflation as there is
lower demand for heating. Such volatility poses a challenge for
central banks since it may make it difficult to separate temporary
from more permanent shocks. This makes it even harder to forecast
inflation accurately. Moreover, the uneven impact of climate change
on countries makes it more challenging to conduct monetary policy in
the euro area, since it may increase inflation differentials between
Member States.<br>
<br>
In a low potential output growth scenario, opportunities for future
profit are rarer, and businesses will no longer be prepared to
borrow at as high interest rates for investment. Banks could
consequently lower their interest rates for borrowers and savers.
This would reduce the policy space available to central banks to
stimulate the economy during downturns. In such a world, monetary
policy makers might have to turn more frequently to negative
interest rates.<br>
<br>
Climate change can also cause losses in the financial system. Banks
in particular play a crucial role in transmitting changes in
monetary policy to households and businesses. The ECB’s first
economy-wide climate stress test found a substantial increase in the
probability of default of loans made by euro-area banks in a “hot
house world” scenario. Such losses would likely impair credit
provision of commercial banks. This can harm the effectiveness of
monetary policy.<br>
<br>
The longer we delay the transition of our economies, the greater the
damage will be. In turn, procrastination will complicate the ECB’s
task of delivering price stability.<br>
<br>
The views expressed in each article are those of the authors and do
not necessarily represent the views of the European Central Bank and
the Eurosystem.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.ecb.europa.eu/press/blog/date/2023/html/ecb.blog231218~6291e67d1e.en.html">https://www.ecb.europa.eu/press/blog/date/2023/html/ecb.blog231218~6291e67d1e.en.html</a><br>
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<p><i>[ different interpretation Andreas Malm ]</i><br>
<b>Andreas Malm: "Overshoot: Climate Politics When It's Too Late"</b><br>
Futures of Sustainability, Universität Hamburg<br>
Oct 25, 2023<br>
Annual Conference 2023 "THE FAILURE OF GREEN CAPITALISM: FINDINGS,
OBJECTIONS, ALTERNATIVES"<br>
Chair: Sighard Neckel (Spokesperson DFG Humanities Centre for
Advanced Studies "Futures of Sustainability")<br>
Keynote Lecture by Andreas Malm (Lund University): "Overshoot:
Climate Politics When It's Too Late"<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gl-iLt6KdhU">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gl-iLt6KdhU</a></p>
<p><br>
</p>
<font face="Calibri"><br>
<i>[The news archive - who won? ]</i><br>
<font size="+2"><i><b>December 21, 2015</b></i></font> <br>
</font>December 21, 2015:<br>
New York Times columnist Paul Krugman discusses the political and
cultural dynamics that fueled the rise of climate-change denier and
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump:<br>
<blockquote>"Why don’t Republican voters seem to care?<br>
<br>
"Well, part of the answer has to be that the party taught them not
to care. Bluster and belligerence as substitutes for analysis,
disdain for any kind of measured response, dismissal of
inconvenient facts reported by the 'liberal media' didn’t suddenly
arrive on the Republican scene last summer. On the contrary, they
have long been key elements of the party brand. So how are voters
supposed to know where to draw the line?<br>
<br>
"Let’s talk first about the legacy of He Who Must Not Be Named.<br>
<br>
"I don’t know how many readers remember the 2000 election, but
during the campaign Republicans tried — largely successfully — to
make the election about likability, not policy. George W. Bush was
supposed to get your vote because he was someone you’d enjoy
having a beer with, unlike that stiff, boring guy Al Gore with all
his facts and figures.<br>
<br>
"And when Mr. Gore tried to talk about policy differences, Mr.
Bush responded not on the substance but by mocking his opponent’s
'fuzzy math' — a phrase gleefully picked up by his supporters. The
press corps played right along with this deliberate dumbing-down:
Mr. Gore was deemed to have lost debates, not because he was
wrong, but because he was, reporters declared, snooty and
superior, unlike the affably dishonest W."<br>
</blockquote>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/21/opinion/the-donald-and-the-decider.html?ref=opinion">http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/21/opinion/the-donald-and-the-decider.html?ref=opinion</a>
<br>
<br>
<p><font face="Calibri"> <br>
</font><font face="Calibri"><br>
=== Other climate news sources
===========================================<br>
</font> <font face="Calibri"><b>*Inside Climate News</b><br>
Newsletters<br>
We deliver climate news to your inbox like nobody else. Every
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</font> <font face="Calibri"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://insideclimatenews.org/">https://insideclimatenews.org/</a><br>
--------------------------------------- <br>
*<b>Climate Nexus</b> <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
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Delivered straight to your inbox every morning, Hot News
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remain largely unexposed. 5 weekday <br>
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more at <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
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