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<font size="+2" face="Calibri"><i><b>April 15</b></i></font><font
size="+2" face="Calibri"><i><b>, 2024</b></i></font><font
face="Calibri"><br>
</font> <br>
<i>[ Well, DUH ]</i><br>
<b>‘Grownup’ leaders are pushing us towards catastrophe, says former
US climate chief</b><br>
Paris agreement negotiator Todd Stern attacks premiers who say that
decarbonisation programmes are unrealistic and should be slowed down<br>
Fiona Harvey Environment editor<br>
Sun 14 Apr 2024<br>
Political leaders who present themselves as “grownups” while slowing
the pace of climate action are pushing the world towards deeper
catastrophe, a former US climate chief has warned.<br>
<br>
“We are slowed down by those who think of themselves as grownups and
believe decarbonisation at the speed the climate community calls for
is unrealistic,” said Todd Stern, who served as a special envoy for
climate change under Barack Obama, and helped negotiate the 2015
Paris agreement.<br>
<br>
“They say that we need to slow down, that what is being proposed [in
cuts to greenhouse gas emissions] is unrealistic,” he told the
Observer. “You see it a lot in the business world too. It’s really
hard [to push for more urgency] because those ‘grownups’ have a lot
of influence.”<br>
<br>
But Stern said the speed of take-up of renewable energy, its falling
cost, and the wealth of low-carbon technology now available were
evidence that the world could cut emissions to net zero by 2050.
“Obviously it’s difficult – we’re talking about enormous change to
the world economy – but we can do it,” he said.<br>
Stern would not name any world leaders, but he said the UK was in
“retrenchment” over climate issues. Rishi Sunak and Claire Coutinho,
the energy secretary, made several U-turns on climate policy last
year, and have repeatedly said climate policies imposed
“unacceptable costs on hard-pressed British families” and that by
slowing such action they were “being pragmatic and protecting family
finances”.<br>
<br>
Stern said that, in fact, delaying action to cut greenhouse gas
emissions was leading to disaster, given the rapid acceleration of
the climate crisis, which he said was happening faster than
predicted when the Paris agreement was signed. “Look out your window
– look at what’s happening,look at the preposterous heat. It’s
ridiculous.”<br>
<br>
Leaders who claimed to be grownups by saying the pace of action had
to be slowed had to be honest about the alternatives, he said. Just
as political leaders took swift action to prevent the spread of
Covid-19 in 2020, so must they confront the consequences of slowing
climate action now.<br>
<br>
“All hard questions of this magnitude should be considered by way of
a ‘compared to what’ analysis. The monumental dangers [the climate
crisis] poses warrant the same kind of ‘compared to what’ argument
when leaders in the political and corporate worlds balk at what
needs to be done.”<br>
<br>
He warned of the backlash against climate action by “rightwing
populism” in Europe. “Hopefully, it doesn’t go very far,” he said.
“If that kind of attitude gets some purchase among parts of the
population, that’s not helpful.”<br>
<br>
Stern praised Joe Biden for “an extraordinarily good first term”,
including the Inflation Reduction Act, which he called “far and away
the most significant climate legislation ever in the US, and it’s
quite powerful”.<br>
<br>
But he warned that if Donald Trump were to be elected this November,
the US would exit the Paris agreement and frustrate climate action
globally.<br>
He will try to reverse whatever he can in terms of domestic policy
[on climate action],” he warned. “I don’t think anybody else is
going to pull out of Paris because of Trump, but it’s highly
disruptive to what can happen internationally, because the US is a
very big, very important player. So [without the US] you don’t move
as fast.”<br>
<br>
Stern called for stronger demonstration from civil society of
support for climate action. “What we need, broadly, is normative
change, a shift in hearts and minds that demonstrates to political
leaders that their political future depends on taking strong,
unequivocal action to protect our world,” he said.<br>
<br>
“Normative change may seem at first blush like a weak reed to carry
into battle against the defenders of the status quo, but norms can
move mountains. They are about a sense of what is right, what is
acceptable, what is important, what we expect and what we demand.”<br>
<br>
Stern first gave his warning in a lecture at the London School of
Economics on Friday night, in honour of the British civil servant
Pete Betts, who served as the EU’s chief climate negotiator for the
Paris agreement. He died last year.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/apr/14/grownup-leaders-are-pushing-us-towards-catastrophe-says-former-us-climate-chief">https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/apr/14/grownup-leaders-are-pushing-us-towards-catastrophe-says-former-us-climate-chief</a><br>
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<i>[ British Isles wind farm explanation - video - 13 min ]</i><br>
<b>Ocean Electricity Grid. How do they do that?</b><br>
Just Have a Think<br>
Apr 14, 2024<br>
Pylons are ugly and nobody likes them! Filling up our countryside
with thousands more of them to facilitate a massive electricity grid
expansion is proving to be a very tricky challenge with lots of
local opposition. But what if you could build your electricity grid
out at sea and just bring cables to shore where they’re needed?<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=daGqWqvvtVs">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=daGqWqvvtVs</a><br>
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<br>
<i>[ Michael Mann lecture ]</i><br>
<b>Can Lessons from Earth’s Past Help Us Survive Our Current Climate
Crisis?</b><br>
Belfer Center<br>
Apr 2, 2024<br>
In his latest book, Our Fragile Moment, award-winning climate
scientist Michael E. Mann explores innovative approaches to
combating climate change by examining Earth’s climate history and
how the planet has coped with - and survived - extreme events in the
past. Climate variability has at times created new opportunities for
innovation. Mann argues that the greatest threat to meaningful
action today is not denialism but despair among those who feel it is
too late to do anything about rising temperatures and seas resulting
from fossil fuel consumption. While the window is narrowing, he
believes there is still time to take significant political, societal
and technological steps to avert catastrophic global climate change.<br>
<br>
Henry Lee, Director of the Belfer Center's Environment and Natural
Resources Program, provides introductory remarks. Cristine Russell,
ENRP Senior Fellow, moderates.<br>
<br>
For more information:
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.belfercenter.org/event/can-lessons-earths-past-help-us-survive-our-current-climate-crisis-talk-renowned-scientist">https://www.belfercenter.org/event/can-lessons-earths-past-help-us-survive-our-current-climate-crisis-talk-renowned-scientist</a><br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LxVlyD9DZlA">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LxVlyD9DZlA</a><br>
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<i>[ NYT book review ]</i> <br>
<b>Climate Change Is Making Us Paranoid, Anxious and Angry</b><br>
From dolphins with Alzheimer’s to cranky traffic judges, writes
Clayton Page Aldern, the whole planet is going berserk.<br>
By Nathaniel Rich<br>
Nathaniel Rich is the author, most recently, of “Second Nature:
Scenes From a World Remade.”<br>
April 9, 2024<br>
<b>THE WEIGHT OF NATURE: How a Changing Climate Changes Our Brains,</b>
by Clayton Page Aldern<br>
<br>
We know, often with abject precision, what climate change is doing
to our coasts, rainforests, wildfires and hurricanes; our
immigration patterns, crop yields and insurance premiums. But what
is it doing to our brains?<br>
<br>
This question, for Clayton Page Aldern, is not rhetorical but
bleakly literal. Aldern is a Rhodes Scholar who, in defiance of
career counselors everywhere, abandoned a promising career in the
field of neuroscience to become a journalist. He traces his
conversion to a pair of reports showing a correlation between
climate change and increased violent conflict. “It wasn’t just that
a warmer world would hurt us,” writes Aldern, “it was that a warmer
world would make us hurt one another.”...<br>
- -<br>
Most of the violence cited in those reports derives from the effect
of higher temperatures on natural resources and weather disasters. A
report from the Pentagon describes, for instance, how drought and
reduced agricultural yields helped prime the Syrian civil war, and
how Hurricane Sandy necessitated the mass mobilization of the U.S.
military. But it is also true that heat makes people irritable. How
much more anger — how many more shootings, road-rage accidents,
sporting-event brawls, declarations of war — is stimulated by a
warming of one-and-a-half degrees Celsius? How about two degrees, or
three? Warmer temperatures also tend to make us more cruel,
depressed and dumb.<br>
<br>
“The Weight of Nature” observes most of the narrative conventions of
advocacy writing. A set of alarming problems is introduced and
bemoaned, the dramatic stakes are raised to dizzying extremes,
solutions are presented, and the reader is encouraged to act. But
the weight of the “Weight of Nature” falls heavily on the problems,
which draw from a survey of experimental findings so terrifying that
they elicit the prose equivalent of nervous laughter; many of them,
as Aldern writes in reference to the prospect of
global-warming-induced mass dementia, are “almost comically
apocalyptic.”<br>
<br>
The book’s exposition, drawing from a selection of recent scientific
studies, reads like a demonic Harper’s “Findings” column. Naegleria
fowleri, the brain-eating amoeba, has begun infecting swimmers in
lakes as far north as Iowa and Minnesota, and may already be present
in all fresh water; as lakes and ponds warm, writes Aldern,
channeling Vincent Price, “more N. fowleri are waking up.”<br>
<br>
Neurodegenerative diseases will affect some 14 million more people
annually by 2050. As landscapes reconfigure and cultural practices
vanish, the mind becomes less able to retain information, which
Aldern translates as: “Climate change causes amnesia.”<br>
<br>
In hotter climates, a high school student’s chance of graduating on
time decreases by a percentage point for every extra degree
Fahrenheit on the day of a final exam. On warmer days immigration
judges more frequently rule against asylum applicants. When it’s
hotter than 100 degrees, one third of drivers honk more often, and
for longer. Heat exposure during early pregnancy is associated with
a higher risk of conditions like schizophrenia and anorexia.<br>
<br>
Dolphins appear to be getting Alzheimer’s disease. Mountaintop
removal makes Appalachians depressed. In Greenland, mercury, a
neurotoxin, is leaking from melting permafrost “like some kind of
cartoonish sludge zombie.” Florida will soon be swarmed by rabid
vampire bats.<br>
<br>
Some of the revelations in this “Pandora’s box of horrors” raise
practical questions. If students are 10 percent more likely to fail
an exam taken on a 90-degree day, should the test scores of children
in southern climates be rounded up accordingly? If higher
temperatures lead to outbursts of violence, should a hot day be
considered a mitigating factor when determining the guilt of a
defendant? Should parents be warned against raising children in
tropical zones?<br>
<br>
Like any kind of intoxication, indulgence in worst-case scenarios
can induce a hangover. Since many of these findings are predicated
on extrapolations, Aldern, the former scientist, is careful to
include qualifications. “It’s important not to overreach here,” he
writes, directly after quoting “Crime and Punishment” to demonstrate
the influence of heat on murderous rage. “Don’t pay attention to the
actual values,” he writes, after relaying an economist’s prediction
that, between 2010 and 2099, climate change will cause an additional
22,000 murders, 2.2 million cases of larceny and 180,000 cases of
rape. Brain-eating amoeba infections will “continue to remain
relatively rare,” he writes, shortly after cautioning readers who
might want to jump into a warm lake next summer to wear nose plugs.
In summary: “I know doomsday alarmism is tiresome. But you should
still be concerned.”<br>
<br>
It is impossible to submit to this barrage and not be concerned.
Then again one doesn’t need the threat of airborne A.L.S. to be
concerned about the effect of climate change on our minds, our
moods, our spirits. Any person who dares to stare down the behemoth
of climate change cannot escape its mind-altering influence. How
does one respond, intellectually or emotionally, to an unraveling
that seems both unobservably slow and teeth-chatteringly rapid; to
the unthinking and indiscriminate slaughter of billions of
creatures; to the ineptitude of our politics and the psychopathic
venality of our industries; to the assignation of the most
vulnerable among us to the gravest suffering; to the willful
destruction of a civilization? The scale of the physical
transformation alone overwhelms the mind.<br>
<br>
Aldern asserts that he has not written a book about climate anxiety
— or climate communication or neurophilosophy or politics — but one
about “direct interventions of environmental change on the brain.”
Nevertheless, as he puts it elsewhere, “bank shots still count in
billiards.” Regardless of whether you live in a wildfire zone or a
hurricane alley, or swim in warm ponds, his central insights hold,
and deserve emphasis. Aldern is the rare writer who dares to ask how
climate change has already changed us.<br>
<br>
“It is the job of your brain to model the world as it is,” writes
Aldern. “And the world is mutating.” We are mutating with it. We are
becoming more suspicious, paranoid, anxious, depressive, distracted,
nihilistic, angry. Not all of us, and not all the time. Some
respond, as Aldern instructs his readers to do, with greater
empathy, resilience, collective action and pipeline sabotage.<br>
<br>
But that is just another kind of mutation: an antibody response.
This great transformation is already deforming our inner lives in
ways we are only beginning to comprehend. Climate change isn’t only
here, writes Aldern. It is inside us. And it is spreading.<br>
<br>
THE WEIGHT OF NATURE: How a Changing Climate Changes Our Brains | By
Clayton Page Aldern | Dutton | 320 pp. | $30<br>
<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/09/books/review/the-weight-of-nature-clayton-page-aldern.html">https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/09/books/review/the-weight-of-nature-clayton-page-aldern.html</a><br>
<br>
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<font face="Calibri"><i>[The news archive - ]</i></font><br>
<font face="Calibri"> <font size="+2"><i><b>April 15, 1988 </b></i></font>
</font><br>
<font face="Calibri"> </font> April 15, 1988: In a speech at St.
John's University in New York, Democratic presidential candidate Al
Gore states (specifically in reference to the threat of nuclear
weapons, though the statement certainly applies to *another*
worldwide threat): "I believe that it is possible that future
generations will look back on this election year of 1988 and wonder
with amazement how we could have let these problems go unattended
for so long."<br>
(22:50--23:01)<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="http://c-spanvideo.org/program/GoreCampa">http://c-spanvideo.org/program/GoreCampa</a><br>
<font face="Calibri"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.c-span.org/video/?2241-1/gore-campaign-speech">https://www.c-span.org/video/?2241-1/gore-campaign-speech</a><br>
</font>
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