We Want Climate Action Now: #climateaction

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Sunday, 22 November 2020

Photo & Video: Climate Justice Activists Conclude 24-Hour Occupation at Dnc, Demand President-Elect Biden Be Brave (excerpt): Common Dreams

"WASHINGTON - A coalition of grassroots groups, Black, Indigenous, and Brown leaders from across the nation occupied the Democratic National Committee Headquarters in Washington for 24 hours to demand that President-Elect Biden and his administration follow through on a bold agenda to address the climate crisis. They were joined at an afternoon rally by members of Congress who are leading the effort in the House and Senate to hold the incoming administration to its promises.

The occupation was led by youth, movement leaders, frontline activists, and artists collectively representing a range of identities and communities confronting the interlocking crises in front of us. For 24 hours, the group marched, created art, and called on Biden to live up to his mandate to invest in Black, Indigenous, Brown, and working-class communities.

Photos and videos from the event, including speeches from frontline leaders and progressive allies in Congress, are available at: https://media.greenpeace.org/collection/27MDHUS546A

As Jennifer K. Falcon of the Indigenous Environmental Network put it: “We are beyond the tipping point with climate chaos. We must act quickly to mitigate the climate chaos we are experiencing for the sky, land and water. The people demand President-elect Biden move to a just transition centered in Indigenous knowledge so that Mother Earth can heal. We can't afford to continue to fight climate change with false solutions and carbon mechanisms that allow big polluters to pollute. It's time to divest from fossil fuels and invest in a regenerative economy that allows us to thrive.” ..."

See complete Common Dreams article

Wednesday, 18 November 2020

Climate Ad Project

Stopping climate and ecological breakdown is a task of cosmic importance, and there is a place for each and every one of us in the movement. #IAmAClimateActivist

Wednesday, 11 November 2020

A record hurricane season (excerpt): New York Times

Satellite image of the Atlantic on November 10th, 2020.

Image: NOAA

"Subtropical Storm Theta, which formed in the open waters of the Atlantic this week, became the 29th named storm of this year’s hurricane season, surpassing the total count from 2005. Scientists can’t say for sure whether global warming is causing more hurricanes, but they are confident that it’s changing the way storms behave. Here’s how.

Higher winds. There’s a solid scientific consensus that hurricanes are becoming more powerful. Hurricanes are complex, but one of the key factors that determines how strong a given storm ultimately becomes is ocean surface temperature, because warmer water provides more of the energy that fuels storms.

More rain. Warming also increases the amount of water vapor that the atmosphere can hold. In fact, every degree Celsius of warming allows the air to hold about 7 percent more water. That means we can expect future storms to unleash larger amounts of rainfall.

Slower storms. Researchers do not yet know why storms are moving more slowly, but they are. Slower, wetter storms worsen flooding.

Wider-ranging storms. Because warmer water helps fuel hurricanes, climate change is enlarging the zone where hurricanes can form. That could mean more storms making landfall in higher latitudes, like in the United States or Japan.

More volatility. As the climate warms, researchers also say they expect storms to intensify more rapidly. Researchers are still unsure why it’s happening, but the trend appears to be clear."

Go to New York Times

Thursday, 5 November 2020

State Backers of Anti-Protest Bills Received Campaign Funding from Oil and Gas Industry, Report Finds (excerpt): DeSmog

"Politicians responsible for drafting laws criminalizing pipeline protests in Louisiana, West Virginia, and Minnesota did so after receiving significant funding from the fossil fuel industry, according to a new report by the Institute for Policy Studies, a progressive think tank based in Washington, D.C.

The major pipelines studied in the report disproportionately impact historically disenfranchised communities who, in turn find themselves potentially targeted by the protest criminalization measures, often framed as efforts to protect “critical infrastructure,” the report details.

“Under the premise of protecting infrastructure projects,” the Institute wrote, “these laws mandate harsh charges and penalties for exercising constitutional rights to freely assemble and to protest.”

Marathon Petroleum, one of three large fossil fuel companies the report names as driving state-level efforts to criminalize pipeline protests, is also facing new allegations of electoral wrong-doing in the form of a Federal Election Commission complaint alleging that the company made over $1 million in contributions to Republican super PACs that are barred by rules preventing federal contractors from providing that sort of funding."

...................

“Micheal Hennigan and the oil corporations lobbying for these bills are obviously trying to criminalize dissent, not protect public health,” said Jesse Coleman, a senior researcher with Documented, a watchdog group. “Look at what has actually caused pipeline explosions, leaks, and other problems — it's not the oil industry critics.”

“These projects are dangerous by design,” Coleman added, “and trying to shift the focus to boogeymen protesters is a cheap trick to avoid scrutiny.”

Go to original DeSmog article by Sharon Kelly

also

Meet the Money Behind The Climate Denial Movement (excerpt): Smithsonian Mag

Saturday, 31 October 2020

NSW urges climate action as bushfire royal commission's recommendations tabled (excerpt): ABC News

Pics from this blog

"A former New South Wales fire chief is among those calling on the Federal Government to take urgent action on climate change as the Black Summer royal commission's findings hit Parliament.

Eighty recommendations feature in the report, which acknowledges the evidence that climate change will continue to increase the frequency and intensity of natural disasters.

Former top firefighter Greg Mullins is leading calls for the Government to act on the recommendations.

"We need the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition to immediately endorse all 80 recommendations, to commit to fund them no matter who is in government, and to take urgent action to cut greenhouse gas emissions," he said."

...............................

"Key recommendations:

Go to ABC story

Friday, 16 October 2020

Florida Sees Signals of a Climate-Driven Housing Crisis (excerpt): NYT

"Home sales in areas most vulnerable to sea-level rise began falling around 2013, researchers found. Now, prices are following a similar downward path."

In Florida, home sales in areas at high risk from sea-level rise

have fallen compared to areas at low risk.

"The idea that climate change will eventually ruin the value of coastal homes is neither new nor particularly controversial. In 2016, the then-chief economist for the federal mortgage giant Freddie Mac warned that rising seas “appear likely to destroy billions of dollars in property and to displace millions of people.” By 2045, more than 300,000 existing coastal homes will be at risk of flooding regularly, the Union of Concerned Scientists concluded in 2018.

The question that has occupied researchers is how soon, and how quickly, people will respond to that risk by demanding price discounts or fleeing the market. Previous research has begun to tackle that question, showing that climate change, far from being a distant threat, is already starting to hurt real estate values."

Credit...Rose Marie Cromwell for The New York Times

"Then, starting in 2013, something started to change. While sales in safer areas kept climbing, sales in vulnerable ones began to fall. By 2018, the last year for which Dr. Keys and Mr. Mulder obtained data, sales in vulnerable areas trailed safer areas by 16 percent to 20 percent.

A few things happened around that time that might have made prospective home buyers more worried about climate risk, Dr. Keys said. An international report the previous year highlighted the risks of extreme weather events. After that report came out, Google searches in Florida for “sea level rise” spiked.

And people from the Northeast, who account for a significant portion of Florida home buyers, had just lived through Hurricane Sandy, which damaged some 650,000 homes and caused 8.5 million people to lose power, some for months."

Go to NYT original full length story

Tuesday, 6 October 2020

Anxiety Mounts Abroad About Climate Leadership and the Volatile U.S. Election (excerpts): InsideClimate News

"VIENNA, Austria—Whenever artist Michael Aschauer returns home after an extended stay in the United States, people here pepper him with questions about the direction America is heading.

With gallows humor typical of the city, they often ask, "Will it fall apart slowly, or very fast?" he said, adding that Vienna has plenty of experience with how rising and falling empires can destabilize global systems.

Aschauer is married to an American and keenly watches climate and energy politics on both sides of the Atlantic while trying to imagine a post-carbon future. In an informal social media art project, he documents gas stations that have been abandoned or converted to other uses.

He said it's hard to imagine that Americans would re-elect the

incumbent president, but that it can't be ruled out, either, given the current volatility of U.S. politics. "The outcome will have profound consequences for the future of Earth's climate," he added.

Carbon budgets detailed in recent climate reports show that four more years of pro-fossil fuel policies in the U.S. would make it much harder for the world to reach the Paris climate agreement goal of preventing catastrophic global warming, he said. On the other hand, Biden's decarbonization plan would accelerate demand for renewable energy in the world's biggest consumer economy and speed the global shift to a zero-carbon economy. "

.................

"Debate Debacle

But it's not all fear and loathing—people here say they feel a cultural, social and economic affinity with the U.S. And the interest is even more intense this year, after extensive international media coverage of the escalating cycle of police violence and destructive protests, as well as wildfires, hurricanes, the botched pandemic response and potential election chaos all painted a picture of a country in turmoil.

Last week's presidential debate reinforced global concerns about the direction of the U.S., said Reimund Schwarze, an environmental economist with the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research in Germany. Trump's recent statements questioning the legitimacy of the election process raise the specter of widespread unrest, he said." "

................................

" "From what I see in the Democratic Party, there is a lot of movement, a lot of mobilization from the other side." Even with time running short for meaningful climate action, he said, there is a hopeful scenario that a generational shift in politics in the U.S. could upend the political landscape for many years to come, leading to fundamental changes in U.S. policy.

All over the world, people are waiting in suspense to see if Nov. 3 marks the start of that shift.

"I don't want to put any pressure on anyone," Austrian ecologist Sarah Höfler posted on Twitter recently, "but the American election will, in my opinion, decide whether humanity has still a chance in the #ClimateCrisis. It is as simple as that." "

Go to complete story by Bob Berwyn in InsideClimate News

Pics from this blog

Trump,Biden,#climateaction,voters,#USA,European Union,#jailclimatecriminals,

Sunday, 4 October 2020

Exxon Touts Carbon Capture as a Climate Fix, but Uses It to Maximize Profit and Keep Oil Flowing (excerpts): Inside Climate News

Is Carbon Capture a tax scam?

"The company sells the CO2 to other companies that use it to revive depleted oil fields and has relentlessly fought EPA oversight of the practice.

Sprawled across the arid expanse of southwestern Wyoming is one of the world's largest carbon capture plants, a hulking jumble of pipes, compressors and exhaust flues operated by ExxonMobil.

The oil giant has long promoted its investments in carbon capture technology—a method for reducing greenhouse gas emissions—as evidence that it is addressing climate change, but it rarely discusses what happens to the carbon captured at the Shute Creek Treating Facility.

The plant's main function is to process natural gas from a nearby deposit. But in order to purify and sell the gas, Exxon must first strip out carbon dioxide, which comprises about two-thirds of the mix of gases extracted from nearby wells.

The company found a revenue stream for this otherwise useless, climate-warming byproduct: It began capturing the CO2 and selling it to other companies, which injected it into depleted oil fields to help produce more oil.

In 2008, when concerns about climate change led Congress to pass a tax credit meant to encourage companies to capture and store carbon dioxide, Exxon was presented with another way to make money from the technology. The massive amounts of carbon dioxide captured at its Wyoming facility put the oil and gas giant in a position to claim more credits under the tax break than any other company.

In the ensuing years, Exxon may have claimed hundreds of millions of dollars in tax credits, according to estimates based on publicly available data from the Internal Revenue Service, the Securities and Exchange Commission, and a global think tank that tracks the technology."

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"For skeptics of carbon capture and storage, the lobbying battle highlights the risks of devoting government resources to propping up the technology.

"Using public money to subsidize carbon dioxide enhanced oil recovery doesn't seem like a climate solution from where I'm sitting," said Doukas, of Oil Change International. "By doing that, we're enriching the industry that's done the most to delay climate action. And Exxon is the perfect example." "

Go to Nicholas Kusnetz's story in Inside Climate News

ExxonMobil, carbon capture, tax, #climateaction ,#climatechange ,#climatecriminals ,#jail the climate criminals,

Friday, 2 October 2020

America's year of fire and tempests means climate crisis just got very real (excerpt): Guardian

Climate Fire 2018

(Pics from this blog)

"In a flurry of recent fires and storms, the climate crisis has left unmistakable wounds on America. Even in a tumultuous year not short of anguish elsewhere, scientists warn the climate-fueled disasters of 2020’s summer point to major shifts that will upend Americans’ lives like no other threat.

The American west has experienced its biggest year of fire on record, with blazes the collective size of Connecticut roaring across a tinderbox-dry landscape, consuming thousands of buildings, claiming several dozen lives and turning the Bay Area’s sky an eerie orange.

Hurricane damage

Meanwhile, the Atlantic has been so festooned with hurricanes – atone stage this month five storms were strung out across the ocean at once – that meteorologists exceeded their 21 English-language names for major storms and for only the second time had to turn to the Greek alphabet. Appropriately, the two phenomena met on 15 September, when wildfire smoke pouring across the country wafted into Paulette, yet another tropical storm, off the eastern seaboard.

Erosion by rising sea level and storms

Such events are consistent with a heating-up planet, according to scientists, with studies showing that hurricanes are becoming stronger as ocean waters warm up and the atmosphere holds more water vapor. In the west, prolonged, intense heat – perhaps the hottest atmospheric temperature ever recorded on Earth occurred in California in August – has dried out forests and soils, making them more susceptible to huge conflagrations.

Add in the floods that have soaked swaths of the midwest and the Arctic sea ice that just shrank to its second lowest extent on record and it’s clear climate impacts are now piling upon America in multiples.

Rising sea levels will flood cities

“The changes from greenhouse gas emissions on the Earth’s climate system ain’t pretty and they do not come alone,” said Camilo Mora, an environmental scientist at the University of Hawaii and lead author of research that found climatic extremes are causing 400 different types of impacts upon humanity.

These threats are making people “unhealthy, thirsty, poor and homeless”, Mora said. “Climate change is like a horror movie with 400 endings to choose from.”.............."

30 Sep 2020

Go to complete Oliver Milman Guardian story

#jailclimatecriminals,#climateaction,#climatefires,#searise,#climatechange,

Saturday, 19 September 2020

Meet the Money Behind The Climate Denial Movement (excerpt): Smithsonian Mag

Nearly a billion dollars a year is flowing into the organized climate change counter-movement

The overwhelming majority of climate scientists, international governmental bodies, relevant research institutes and scientific societies are in unison in saying that climate change is real, that it's a problem, and that we should probably do something about it now, not later. And yet, for some reason, the idea persists in some peoples' minds that climate change is up for debate, or that climate change is no big deal.

Click to enlarge

Actually, it's not “for some reason” that people are confused. There's a very obvious reason. There is a very well-funded, well-orchestrated climate change-denial movement, one funded by powerful people with very deep pockets. In a new and incredibly thorough study, Drexel University sociologist Robert Brulle took a deep dive into the financial structure of the climate deniers, to see who is holding the purse strings.

According to Brulle's research, the 91 think tanks and advocacy organizations and trade associations that make up the American climate denial industry pull down just shy of a billion dollars each year, money used to lobby or sway public opinion on climate change and other issues. (The grand total also includes funds used to support initiatives unrelated to climate change denial, as explained in a quote Brulle gave to The Guardian: “Since the majority of the organizations are multiple focus organizations, not all of this income was devoted to climate change activities.”)

“The anti-climate effort has been largely underwritten by conservative

billionaires,” says the Guardian, “often working through secretive funding networks. They have displaced corporations as the prime supporters of 91 think tanks, advocacy groups and industry associations which have worked to block action on climate change.”

“This is how wealthy individuals or corporations translate their economic power into political and cultural power,” he said. “They have their profits and they hire people to write books that say climate change is not real. They hire people to go on TV and say climate change is not real. It ends up that people without economic power don't have the same size voice as the people who have economic power, and so it ends up distorting democracy.

Go to complete Smithsonian Magazine article

Related: European Thinktanks Repeating ‘Well-worn’ US Climate Denial Tropes (excerpt): DeSmog

#climateaction,#climate crisis,climate deniers,#jailclimatecriminals,global heating,political party donations from corporations,role of media,

Friday, 18 September 2020

A season of climate-fueled disasters (excerpt): NYT

Wildfires are still scorching the West as a hurricane hits the South

"It’s pretty scary out there these days. There are wildfires in the West and a hurricane causing

More severe climate fires

“catastrophic” flooding in the South. And the destructiveness of those disasters is being aggravated by climate change.

All of that is keeping those of us on The Times climate team very busy.

For decades, climate journalists focused on the science of climate change, which proves the planet is warming and forecasts the consequences. That goes back at least to 1988, when The Times published a front-page article about the NASA scientist James Hansen, who testified in the Senate and warned in an interview that “It is time to stop waffling so much and say that the evidence is pretty strong that the greenhouse effect is here.”

The government, as we all know, continued to waffle. And here we are. Now, to an ever increasing degree, being a climate reporter is all about catastrophes, reported in real time.

And so, we do what we do. We cover the news.

More severe hurricanes

In the West, more than 5 million acres have now burned, and fire season still has months to go. Our coverage has focused heavily on the links between wildfires and climate change.

.........................."

By John Schwartz (Images from this blog)

Read complete NYT article

#climatefires,#climatechange,#climateaction,#climate crisis,hurricanes,floods,science,

Friday, 11 September 2020

Joe Biden if president will push allies like Australia to do more on climate, adviser says (excerpt): The Guardian

tough conversations about Australia’s climate policies

Biden

Jake Sullivan says the former vice-president, if elected, won’t ‘pull any punches’ on what is a global problem

Joe Biden will not pull any punches with allies including Australia in seeking to build international momentum for stronger action on the climate crisis, an adviser to the US presidential candidate has said.

"If elected in November, Biden will hold heavy emitters such as

Biden and Harris

China accountable for doing more “but he’s also going to push our friends to do more as well”, according to Jake Sullivan, who was the national security adviser to Biden when he was vice-president and is now in the candidate’s inner circle.

In a wide-ranging podcast interview with the Sydney-based Lowy Institute, Sullivan also signalled that Biden would work closely with Australia and other regional allies in responding to the challenges posed by the rise of China.

While Australia’s prime minister, Scott Morrison, is likely to welcome the pledge of US coordination with allies on regional security issues, there may be unease in government ranks about the potential for tough conversations about Australia’s climate policies.

The Coalition government has resisted calls to embrace a target of net-zero emissions by 2050 and it proposes to use Kyoto carryover credits to meet Australia’s 2030 emission reductions pledge. Some Coalition backbenchers still openly dispute climate science......"

Pics are from this blog

Go to The Guardian article

by Daniel Hurst

Related:The Federal Government’s plan to use clean money to fund dirty projects - Video: The Climate Council

Biden, Harris, Trump, PM Morrison, #cambio-climatico, #climateaction, #Australia, #climateemergency,

Wednesday, 9 September 2020

Trump and Biden: Little Room for Climate Change in 2020 Election (excerpt 2): Deutsche Welle

The last generation who can do something about climate change

Trump digs coal.

(Pics by this blog)

"U.S. President Donald Trump has undone many major pieces of climate policy during his term, walking out on the 2015 Paris Agreement to limit global warming and eliminating numerous Obama-era environmental regulations.

Trump's Democratic opponent, Joe Biden, has promised as part of his presidential campaign to invest $1.7 trillion in a "clean energy revolution and environmental justice" over the next decade. It falls some $14 trillion short of what the progressive U.S. senator from Vermont, Bernie Sanders, pledged on climate action during the Democratic primaries.........................."

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Related: Trump will roll back more environmental regulations if reelected, says EPA chief: CNBC
..........................................................................................................

"...... Growing Impatience Among Young Republicans

Some younger Republicans are starting to become critical of their party's inattention to climate change. During the recent Republican National Convention, a small group turned to Twitter during the online event, to ask "#WhatAboutClimate"?

Another Pew study from June 2020 found that millennial and Gen Z Republicans, currently aged 18 to 39, are more likely than older GOP voters to think humans have a significant impact on the climate and that the federal government is doing too little to tackle the problem.

Trump and climate

That doesn't mean they're ready to switch allegiance to the Democrats, though.

"Being a Republican is very much rooted in my upbringing," said Kiera O'Brien, who founded the group Young Conservatives for Carbon Dividends (YCCD). "Conservatism at home in Ketchikan, Alaska, has a focus on community and nature."

O'Brien dislikes the Democrat's "regulatory approach to climate" and is instead lobbying for free market solutions to climate change through YCCD.

Biden and climate change

Reframing Climate Action

Environmental policies can be a complicated issue when it comes to federal elections and hard to address for presidential candidates. Many regions in the U.S. have unique challenges: from wildfires in California and storms wiping out harvests in Iowa to water pollution in Flint, Michigan.

Harvard's Ansolabehere also pointed out that opposition to climate policies in the past were typically connected to the fear of losing jobs and that prohibiting coal or retooling the auto industry will "adversely affect employment" in places like Kentucky and Michigan.

How Climate Change is Killing Us: Book

Daron Shaw added that Republicans typically "try to frame environmental issues as a matter of high taxation and job killing proposals with the hope that they can peel off Democrats."

Biden might be trying to assuage fears that tackling climate change means job losses by framing his plan as an opportunity for employment in new industries and a reinvigorated green manufacturing sector.

But when it comes to the swing states of Pennsylvania, Virginia and Ohio, Trump's climate record and support for jobs in the fossil fuel sector might give him the upper hand. His backing for ethane cracker plants, which take natural gas and converts it into the basis for making plastics, has received a lot of support, said Ansolabehere, especially from local unions.

Go to original article.. By Julia Mahncke in Deutsche Welle

The last generation who can do something about climate change

Related: Trump will roll back more environmental regulations if reelected, says EPA chief: CNBC

Biden, Trump, #climateaction, Republicans, #methanegas, jobs, Paris Targets, Paris Agreement,

Tuesday, 8 September 2020

South Africa's Climate Action Rating by the 'Climate Action Tracker' (Excerpt)

At the Climate Action Tracker site countries are evaluated according to the sufficiency of climate action.
Check out your country at the site.

(Excerpt- Pics by this blog)

"At 2 Dec 2019 Rating: Highly Insufficient"

"The South African government finally approved its Integrated

Resource Plan (IRP2019) in October 2019, confirming the trend change in power sector planning indicated in the draft for comment from August 2018. The plan reduces the role of coal compared to previous planning and increases the adoption of renewables and gas. Unlike earlier drafts, the IRP2019 proposes extending the operational lifetime of South Africa’s sole nuclear power plant by 20 years, up to 2044.

The final plan marks a major shift in energy policy, which is remarkable for a coal-dominated country like South Africa. It aims to decommission over 35 GW (of 42 GW currently operating) of coal-fired power capacity from state-owned coal and utility giant Eskom by 2050.

remarkable for a coal-dominated country like South Africa.

Coal in South Africa - Wikipedia

However, it would still see South Africa complete nearly 6 GW of costly coal capacity currently under construction and commission another 1.5 GW of new coal capacity by 2030. IRP2019 includes a detailed phase-out plan for coal-fired power plants, which, despite improvements to earlier plans, still shows that substantial amounts of coal capacity will run beyond the year 2050. For Paris-compatibility, coal must be phased out globally, at the very latest by 2040.

The plan also proposes a significant increase in renewables-based generation from wind and solar as well as gas-based generation capacity by 2030 (an additional 15.8 GW for wind, 7.4 GW for solar and 2.5 GW for gas by 2030), with no further new nuclear capacity being procured.

Implementing the IRP2019 will enable South Africa to achieve its 2030 NDC target. However, we rate South Africa’s NDC target as “Highly Insufficient” based on the upper end of the NDC range. In this context, South Africa should consider revising its target downward for 2030 to be resubmitted to the UNFCCC as part of the Paris Agreement’s ambition raising cycle of 2020.

To be in line with the Paris Agreement goals, South Africa would need to adopt more ambitious actions by 2050 beyond the IRP2019, such as even further increasing renewable energy capacity by 2030 and beyond, fully phasing out coal-fired power generation by latest 2040, and substantially limiting natural gas use.

Although South Africa is one of the few countries that has put forward absolute emissions targets in their NDC, we still rate this target “Highly Insufficient”. ..........................

Go to Climate Action Tracker for more detail.

Related: This is what sea level rise will do to coastal cities: Video

...and in Australia: "While the federal government continues to repeatedly state that Australia is on track to meet its 2030 target “in a canter”, the Climate Action Tracker is not aware of any scientific basis, published by any analyst or government agency, that would support this. The OECD has warned the Australian Government that it will not achieve its target without intensified mitigation efforts. It describes current climate policy as a “piecemeal approach”." Climate Action Tracker

#climateaction, coal mining, South Africa, Paris Agreement, Paris Targets, #renewables,