Trump and Biden: Little room for climate change in US election (excerpt): DW

The White House

As the US faces wildfires and storms, climate change remains one of the most divisive topics among voters. Yet despite the high stakes, so far, it has played a minor role in the upcoming election. 

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

However, climate change doesn't even make the top 10 concerns among registered voters, even as the US faces extreme weather from wildfires to storms, scientists say are more prevalent by global warming. It ranks 11th behind the economy, health care, Supreme Court appointments and the pandemic, according to a survey conducted by the Pew Research Center published in August. 

While climate doesn't top the voters' agenda, it's still one of the most divisive issues among Trump and Biden supporters. Some 68% of Democratic voters see climate change as high priority compared to 11% of Republicans, found the Pew survey. 

Following a storm in Iowa last month, estimates suggested that almost a third of the state's crop-growing land was affected

Wildfires are becoming more frequent in California, where the ground and vegetation has suffered from long, dry summers

But what are the Biden and Trump campaigns promising to do on climate change and the environment — and how does it tally with what voters want?

Go to complete DW article

 Related: Donald Trump is hampering fight against climate change, WEF warns (excerpt) : The Guardian (2 years ago)

Trump, Biden, #USA, USA, voters, #climate crisis, #climatecriminals, #jailclimatecriminals, 

How realistic a goal is decarbonizing the economy?: Medium

An analysis of the size of the US green economy shows that despite the subsidies to the oil and coal industry by the world’s most vocal denier of the climate emergency, sales and employment figures for the 24 economic subsectors that make up renewable energies, environmental protection and the provision of low-carbon goods and services, represent more than $1.3 trillion dollars in turnover, and is growing by around 20% annually, and employs some 9.5 million people, giving it a much greater economic impact than the entire fossil fuel industry.
  

Enrique Dans

Oct 28 · 3 min read

Read the Medium article 

Related:

Just 20 Companies Are Responsible for 35% of All Greenhouse Gas Emissions: Medium

Thousands Of Scientists Declare A Climate Emergency

It's only Tuesday, but more than 11,000 scientists around the world have come together to declare a climate emergency. Their paper, published Tuesday in the journal Bioscience, lays out the science behind this emergency and solutions for how we can deal with it.

Scientists aren’t the first people to make this declaration. A tribal nation in the Canadian Yukon, the U.K., and parts of Australia have all come to the same grim conclusion. 

In the U.S., members of Congress have pushed the government to do the same, but y’know, they got Donald Trump. Ain’t shit happening with that fool in office. Anyway, this proclamation from scientists is significant because they’re not doing it out of a political agenda or as an emotional outcry. They’re declaring a climate emergency because the science supports it.

Read the article 

 Related:

Just 20 Companies Are Responsible for 35% of All Greenhouse Gas Emissions: Medium

#criminales climáticos de la cárcel

#criminalesclimáticosdelacárcel

#jailclimatecriminals

#gaolclimatecriminals

'People are dying': how the climate crisis has sparked an exodus to the US : The Guardian

"As part of the Running Dry series, the Guardian looks at how drought and famine are forcing Guatemalan families to choose between starvation and migration
by Nina Lakhani in Camotán

At sunrise, the misty fields around the village of Guior are already dotted with men, women and children sowing maize after an overnight rainstorm.

After several years of drought, the downpour brought some hope of relief to the subsistence farmers in this part of eastern Guatemala.

But as Esteban Gutiérrez, 30, takes a break from his work, he explains why he is still willing to incur crippling debts – and risk his life – to migrate to the United States.

“My children have gone to bed hungry for the past three years. Our crops failed and the coffee farms have cut wages to $4 a day,” he says, playing nervously with the white maize kernels in a plastic trough strapped to his waist."

Read The Guardian article

Related:  

Heatwave: think it’s hot in Europe? The human body is already close to thermal limits elsewhere :The Conversation

How to erase 100 years of carbon emissions? Plant trees—lots of them.

Increasing the Earth’s forests by an area the size of the United States would cut atmospheric carbon dioxide 25 percent.

 PUBLISHED July 4, 2019

An area the size of the United States could be restored as forests with the potential of erasing nearly 100 years of carbon emissions, according to the first ever study to determine how many trees the Earth could support.

Published today in Science, "The global tree restoration potential” report found that there is enough suitable land to increase the world’s forest cover by one-third without affecting existing cities or agriculture. However, the amount of suitable land area diminishes as global temperatures rise. Even if global warming is limited to 1.5 degrees Celsius, the area available for forest restoration could be reduced by a fifth by 2050 because it would be too warm for some tropical forests.

“Our study shows clearly that forest restoration is the best climate change solution available today,” said Tom Crowther, a researcher at ETH Zürich, and senior author of the study.

That does not alter the vital importance of protecting existing forests and phasing out fossil fuels since new forests would take decades to mature, Crowther said in a statement.

Read the complete National Geographic article 

Read also:

Exaggerating how much carbon dioxide can be absorbed by tree planting risks deterring crucial climate action

Related: 6 Glimmers of Climate Optimism for the End of a Dark Year: Medium

 

Article Comments (5) NJ could need 2,700 miles of sea walls to defend against rising waters: NJ Spotlight

"New study says building defenses along Jersey Shore would cost billions and suggests the fossil-fuel industry should pay

New Jersey would have to pay almost $25 billion to build almost 2,700 miles of seawalls to protect its coastal communities from anticipated sea-level rise by 2040, according to the latest study on the state’s vulnerability to rising ocean levels. 

The Center for Climate Integrity, a Washington, DC-based advocacy group, said New Jersey faces the sixth-biggest bill for sea-wall construction of any state, while low-lying Cumberland County would have to pay the most — $5.8 billion for 532 miles of seawalls — among New Jersey’s counties." 


June 21, 2019           Read the NJ Spotlight article 

Related: 

Climate change and sea-level rise in the Australian region

We’re All Responsible for Climate Change — and That’s a Good Thing: Medium

We're all responsible for climate change

".......  That brings us to the issue of population growth. In 2017, the American Institute of Biological Sciences published an open letter signed by over 15,000 scientists, including Jane Goodall and E.O. Wilson, titled “World Scientists’ Warning to Humanity: A Second Notice.” It states, “We are jeopardizing our future by not reining in our intense but geographically and demographically uneven material consumption and by not perceiving continued rapid population growth as a primary driver behind many ecological and even societal threats.” It was the most scientists to ever co-sign a published journal article.

Climate breakdown to trigger debate over which cities to protect from rising sea levels:The Independent

New York

‘You realise we’re just not going to protect a lot of these places’

"As disaster costs keep rising across the United States, a troubling new debate has become urgent: if there’s not enough money to protect every coastal community from the effects of human-caused global warming, how should we decide which ones to save first?

After three years of brutal flooding and hurricanes, there is growing consensus among policymakers and scientists that coastal areas will require significant spending to ride out future storms and rising sea levels — not in decades but now and in the very near future.

There is also a growing realisation that some communities, even sizeable ones, will be left behind."

Read complete Independent article 

Related: 

Sea Level Rise Can No Longer Be Stopped, What Next? - with John Englander

Polls Suggest the GOP's Climate and Environment Disinformation Efforts are Beginning to Falter : TGMO

"As reported in the Atlantic, several recent polls reveal that there is a nearly 10-point surge in concern about climate change among Americans."

"We’ve not seen anything like that in the 10 years we’ve been conducting the study," Anthony Leiserowitz, a researcher at Yale, told the Atlantic's Robsinson Meyer.

Extreme weather events are driving concern about climate change. Depending on where you live, flooding, hurricanes, droughts, superstorms and Nor’easters are all making it hard for people to ignore climate change."

Climate change: Where we are in seven charts and what you can do to help: BBC

Average Warming projected by 2100

"The UN has warned that the goal of limiting global warming to "well below 2C above pre-industrial levels" is in danger because major economies, including the US and the EU, are falling short of their pledges.


But scientists at the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) - the leading international body on global warming - argue the 2C pledge in the 2015 Paris accord didn't go far enough. The global average temperature rise actually needs to be kept below 1.5C, they say.


So how warm has the world got and what can we do about it?"

Read the article

Study: Sea level rise causes Texas coastal homeowners to lose millions in potential property value: Houston Chronicle

"Sea level rise has cost Texas homeowners $76.4 million in potential property value, with Galveston hit the hardest, a new study released Tuesday found.

First Street Foundation and Columbia University analysts examined about 3 million coastal properties in Texas. Using a combination of real estate transactions and tidal flooding exposure, they found that from 2005 to 2017, homes in Galveston lost $9.1 million in potential value, followed by Jamaica Beach (which lost $8.6. million) and the Bolivar Peninsula ($8.1 million). It’s not necessarily that these coastal homes decreased in value by these amounts, the authors say, but that they didn’t appreciate as much as similar homes not exposed to tidal flooding. Researchers factored in square footage, proximity to amenities and economic trends like the 2008 housing recession."

Read the full article

California votes to extend cap-and-trade climate law to 2030

Greenhouse gas pollution

 "California is challenging Mr Trump's decision to scrap his predecessor's environmental policies" July 2017

 

"California legislators have voted to extend a law to cut carbon emissions, weeks after President Donald Trump said the US would withdraw from the Paris climate accord. 

The policy, which requires firms to purchase permits to release pollutants, will be extended to the year 2030.

California Governor Jerry Brown said Republicans and Democrats had taken "courageous action" with the move.
The US state aims to cut greenhouse gases by 40% from 1990 levels by 2030."


"California is the second-biggest producer of carbon dioxide through fossil fuels among US states."

Read the BBC article

Related:

BBC: climate-change-next-generation-will-bear-the-cost

Climate Change Deniers have anti-science funding

Climate Science Denier says DESMOG

"In 2016, retired Princeton physicist Professor Will Happer accepted an invitation from conspiracy theorist G. Edward Griffin to give a keynote at his conference to talk about the “positive effects of CO2.”

Griffin thinks the science behind global warming is a scam. He also thinks there is “no such thing” as the HIV virus and that some plane contrails are part of a political plot to spray the population with poisons.

A Huge Climate Change Movement Led By Teenage Girls Is Sweeping Europe: BuzzFeed

Climate action march Eric Lalmand / AFP / Getty Images

"LONDON — A huge student protest movement led almost exclusively by teenage girls and young women is sweeping Europe, and it's on the brink of breaking through in the US."


"The protests are injecting a new urgency into the debate around climate change, and calling attention to a lack of action by governments. They are also a sign of the new political power of young women, especially in Europe. 
Climate strikes have also been organized by students in Australia, and US organizers are planning to participate in an international day of action on March 15.
Jamie Margolin, the 17-year-old founder and executive director of Zero Hour, a group working on the March 15 protest in the US, told BuzzFeed News that climate activism has given young women like her a chance to be heard."

Read the BuzzFeed article 

Rolling Stone: What’s Another Way to Say ‘We’re F-cked’? One of the leading climate scientists of our time is warning of the horrifying possibility of 15-to-20 feet of sea-level rise

Climate Action Now

 #climateactionnow  #climate action now  #climate catastrophe  #climatecatastrophe

Jay Inslee, the ‘Climate Candidate,’ Joins the 2020 Race : Rolling Stone

Jay Inslee (Ted S Warren/AP/REX/Shutterstock)

WASHINGTON — Jay Inslee, the Democratic governor of Washington state, has entered the 2020 presidential race. And he’s betting his candidacy on the idea that Americans care enough about the existential threat of our time — climate change — to elect a president with a laser-like, almost singular focus on that issue.

The news does not come as much of a surprise. Last month, Inslee first spoke to Rolling Stone about the need for a Democratic candidate in 2020 who would put climate change at the forefront of his or her campaign — a role for which he refused to rule himself out. “I do think that it is absolutely imperative that the Democratic Party put forth a candidate who will make climate change a principal, front-burner issue, rather than some peripheral back burner,” he said. “I believe it’s a potentially winning issue to run on, and we need a candidate who will do that.” 

Read Rolling Stone article

See also The Guardian article: Risks of 'domino effect' of tipping points greater than thought, study says

#USA #climatecatastrophe #politicians #JayInslee 

Good climate news: the fossil fuel industry is weaker than ever

Some rare good climate news: the fossil fuel industry is weaker than ever 

 If you’re looking for good news on the climate front, don’t look to the Antarctic. Last week’s spate of studies documenting that its melt rates had tripled is precisely the kind of data that underscores the almost impossible urgency of the moment.

And don’t look to Washington DC, where the unlikely survival of the EPA administrator, Scott Pruitt, continues to prove the political power of the fossil fuel industry. It’s as if he’s on a reality show where the premise is to see how much petty corruption one man can get away with.

But from somewhat less likely quarters, there’s been reason this month for hope – reason, at least, to think that the basic trajectory of the world away from coal and gas and oil is firmly under way.

Read The Guardian article 

#fossilfuelindustry #1.5degrees #polaricemelt  #USA #coal #oilcompanies  #methane gas

Rolling Stone: The Truth About These Climate Change Numbers

"A new report shows carbon emissions are moving in the wrong direction, and we’re running out of time."

"A new report issued this week by the Global Carbon Project shows that, far from making progress, we’re going in exactly the opposite direction. After several years when global carbon emissions flatlined, giving hope to some that the turning point had come, the new report shows that carbon emissions are projected to increase by 2.7 percent in 2018. That may not sound like a lot, but given what’s at stake with our rapidly changing climate, it’s the equivalent of an alcoholic who had sworn to go cold turkey taking a couple of shots of Jack Daniels at lunch."

 #carbon #china #usa #coalmining #globalwarming #climateaction #carbondioxide #1.5 degrees

Read the Rolling Stone Article

BBC News: Climate change: COP24 fails to adopt key scientific report

"Attempts to incorporate a key scientific study into global climate talks in Poland have failed. 

The IPCC report on the impacts of a temperature rise of 1.5C, had a significant impact when it was launched last October.

Scientists and many delegates in Poland were shocked as the US, Saudi Arabia, Russia and Kuwait objected to this meeting "welcoming" the report."

Read BBC News article 

Related: Australia's silence during climate change debate shocks COP24 delegates

The Guardian: Policies of China, Russia and Canada threaten 5C climate change, study finds

"Ranking of countries’ goals shows even EU on course for more than double safe level of warming."

"China, Russia and Canada’s current climate policies would drive the world above a catastrophic 5C of warming by the end of the century, according to a study that ranks the climate goals of different countries.
The US and Australia are only slightly behind with both pushing the global temperature rise dangerously over 4C above pre-industrial levels says the paper, while even the EU, which is usually seen as a climate leader, is on course to more than double the 1.5C that scientists say is a moderately safe level of heating.

The study, published on Friday in the journal Nature Communications, assesses the relationship between each nation’s ambition to cut emissions and the temperature rise that would result if the world followed their example."

Read the full the Guardian article

NY Times: U.S. Report Says Humans Cause Climate Change, Contradicting Top Trump Officials

"WASHINGTON — Directly contradicting much of the Trump administration’s position on climate change, 13 federal agencies unveiled an exhaustive scientific report on Friday that says humans are the dominant cause of the global temperature rise that has created the warmest period in the history of civilization.

Over the past 115 years global average temperatures have increased 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit, leading to record-breaking weather events and temperature extremes, the report says. The global, long-term warming trend is “unambiguous,” it says, and there is “no convincing alternative explanation” that anything other than humans — the cars we drive, the power plants we operate, the forests we destroy — are to blame."

Nov, 2017

Read original NY Times article