Friday, 4 January 2019

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

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

Policymakers have severely underestimated the risks of ecological tipping points, according to a study that shows 45% of all potential environmental collapses are interrelated and could amplify one another.

The authors said their paper, published in the journal Science, highlights how overstressed and overlapping natural systems are combining to throw up a growing number of unwelcome surprises.

Read The Guardian article

#amazonforest #ecologicaltippingpoints #dominoeffect #climatechange #climatecrisis

Thursday, 3 January 2019

2018: the 8 biggest moments in climate change: Climate Council

To say that 2018 has been a huge year in climate change would be an understatement. From climate change-fuelled extreme weather – record-breaking heat, dangerous bushfires, severe drought – to political action (and inaction), both internationally and home on Australian soil; to climate leaders popping up in surprising places – there’s been no shortage of memorable events in the climate change space.

Here are the Climate Council’s eight biggest moments in climate change for 2018, in order of appearance:

One person’s recycling won’t stop climate change in itself. We must act collectively: The Guardian

"It is liberalism’s most dangerous lie that an individual’s action can solve problems of this scale."

"It’s not surprising that in response to a problem this huge, this existential, people seek out something they can do, from using a keep cup to being fastidious with the recycling. It makes us feel better, it gives us something tangible to do, it stops us from despairing. But we need to admit that even if every plastic bottle and tin can ever produced was recycled, we’d still be on track for catastrophic climate change. No matter how many plastic straws are declined or ocean plastic turned into shoes, every indication points to our children never knowing coral reefs, the Arctic melting and the seas rising."

So what should we be doing?"

Read more:

One person’s recycling won’t stop climate change in itself. We must act collectively | Emily Mulligan

#climateaction #plastic #Adani #coalmining # coralbleaching #coralreefs

Wednesday, 2 January 2019

Will China Save the Planet? A Medium article

"As climate studies grow more urgent and the Trump administration continues to undermine climate action, all eyes are on the world’s biggest country — and currently its biggest polluter — to model the way forward."

"As a U.S.–based environmental advocate whose focus is on China, I’m in a unique position to compare and contrast the trajectories of both countries — the world’s two biggest emitters of carbon — as they grapple with the enormous threat of climate change and take steps to combat it. In my new book, Will China Save The Planet?, I explore one key difference in how the governments of the two nations are addressing the issue. While the United States under President Trump has shamefully stalled on the very real climate progress that was made during the Obama administration, China has owned up to its oversize role in putting greenhouse gases into the earth’s atmosphere. Accordingly, it has committed itself to play an oversize role in slowing the CO2 juggernaut and establishing the groundwork for a 21st-century clean-energy economy."

#china #greenhousegaspollution #climate crisis #trumpadministration #climatecrisis

Will China Save the Planet?

As climate studies grow more urgent and the Trump administration continues to undermine climate action, all…

Barbara Finamore in Natural Resources Defense Council6 min read

Drilled: The Climate Crime of the Century, a Climate Investigation Centre post

Photo by Kevin Harris on Unsplash

A newly released podcast, Drilled, “investigates the crime of the century — the creation of climate denial.”

The eight part series takes listeners back in time to the inception of climate change denial. It tells the story of the special interests that launched campaigns against evolving climate science and the momentum created by this science, starting in the late 1980s and sustained through the 2000s. Guided by documents uncovered by reporters, academics, and activists in recent years, Drilled exposes the campaign of climate denial as a successful public relations endeavor undertaken by the fossil fuel industry and allies.

The podcast utilizes primary source documents, such as internal corporate correspondence, leaked plans, government records, and interviews with former fossil fuel industry scientists to illuminate this little known history. The collection of documents hosted on Climate Files and featured in Drilled outline a story of corporate knowledge and deceit.

This history is critical in understanding why climate science has become a “political” issue today and the origin of denial rhetoric that permeates society today, right up to President Trump.

#climatedenial #climate deniers #climatecriminals #climatechange #climatecrisis