Climate Risk in the Housing Market Has Echoes of Subprime Crisis, Study Finds: NYT

"Asaf Bernstein, an economist at the University of Colorado in Boulder, said the findings highlighted another problem: By agreeing to buy mortgages for homes at risk from climate change, without charging a premium that reflects that risk, the federal government had effectively encouraged home construction and purchases in vulnerable areas.

“It’s basically an implicit subsidy,” Mr. Bernstein, who was not involved in the study, said.

Economists at both Fannie and Freddie have warned in the past of the risks that climate-related increases in flooding pose to the mortgage industry. In 2016, Sean Becketti, then the chief economist at Freddie Mac, wrote that rising seas “appear likely to destroy billions of dollars in property.”

“The economic losses and social disruption may happen gradually, but they are likely to be greater in total than those experienced in the housing crisis and Great Recession,” he wrote. “It is less likely that borrowers will continue to make mortgage payments if their homes are literally underwater.”

See also:

'It doesn't feel justifiable': The couples not having children because of climate change: SMH

 

How the Climate Kids Are Short-Circuiting Right-Wing Media: NYT

Young people like Greta Thunberg are participating in the culture wars while also managing to float above the fray.

The kids aren’t just all right — they’re scrambling the brains of their political enemies.

Last Friday, millions of people, many of them children and teenagers, took to the streets during the Global Climate Strike, a protest inspired by Fridays for Future, the international youth effort started by the 16-year-old Swedish activist Greta Thunberg. The protesters’ call for broad action to combat global warming was powerful, as was the message sent by their numbers: Dynamic, frustrated young people are instilling in the climate movement a new urgency. 

Online, the climate kids’ impact can be measured in a different way — by how they’re short-circuiting the right-wing media ecosystem that’s partly responsible for the spread of climate skepticism. Since Friday’s strike, pro-Trump media and conservative cable news pundits have devoted significant resources to turning the children of the climate movement into Public Enemy No. 1.

Read the NYT article 

Related:

Sanders Vows, If Elected, to Pursue Criminal Charges Against Fossil Fuel CEOs for Knowingly 'Destroying the Planet': Common Deams

 

#jailclimatecriminals  #globalwarming  #climate catastrophe  #suethefossilfools

Sanders Vows, If Elected, to Pursue Criminal Charges Against Fossil Fuel CEOs for Knowingly 'Destroying the Planet': Common Deams

 "They knew that it was real. Their own scientists told them that it was real. What do you do to people who lied in a very bold-faced way, lied to the American people, lied to the media?"

by

Jake Johnson, staff writer

Published on

Friday, September 20, 2019

by

Common Dreams

During an MSNBC climate town hall at Georgetown University

on Thursday, Sen. Bernie Sanders said, if elected president in 2020, he would pursue criminal charges against fossil fuel executives for knowingly accelerating the ecological crisis while sowing doubt about the science to the American public.

"Duh, of course I would," Sanders said when asked by MSNBC's Chris Hayes if, as president, he would take legal action against fossil fuel companies.

"They knew that it was real," Sanders said, referring to fossil fuel CEOs' awareness of the climate crisis. "Their own scientists told them that it was real. What do you do to people who lied in a very bold-faced way, lied to the American people, lied to the media? How do you hold them accountable?"

"What do you do if executives knew that the product they were producing was destroying the planet, and they continue to do it?" the senator continued. "Do you think that that might be subject to criminal charges? Well, I think it's something we should look at."

Read the complete article 

See also:

Greta Thunberg condemns world leaders in emotional speech at UN : The Guardian

http://www.howglobalwarmingworks.org/ is worth a visit

This site's information helps people understand global warming's scientific mechanism.

How Global Warming Works: Climate Change's Mechanism Explained

by Professor Michael Ranney, Dr. Daniel Reinholz, and Dr. Lloyd Goldwasser (with help from Professor Ronald Cohen)

You may have heard of global climate change, which is often called “global warming.” Whether or not people accept that humans are causing global warming, most folks have an opinion about it. But how much do regular people understand the science of climate change? If you were asked to explain how global warming works, could you? Take a moment to try to explain to yourself how virtually all climate scientists think the Earth is warming. What is the physical or chemical mechanism?

Don’t feel bad; if you’re anything like the people we’ve surveyed in our studies, you probably struggled to come up with an explanation. In fact, in one study, we asked almost 300 adults in the US––and not a single person could accurately explain the mechanism of global warming at a pretty basic level. This is consistent with larger surveys that have shown that people often lack knowledge about climate change. But how can we make informed decisions without understanding the issues we’re debating?

Go to How Global Warming Works site to see videos etc

Five Types of Climate Change Deniers

Neil Van Leeuwen

 

20 February 2019 

"As I see it, there are at least five types of climate change denier. The word “denier” needs to be taken broadly here, because not all of these types are people who loudly proclaim that there is no anthropogenic climate change. But all five types do contribute to the wider phenomenon of denial. The types are these: The Deceiver, The Deceived, The Self-Deceived, The Skeptic, and the Truly Ignorant. These types overlap in interesting way, and it may be hard to tell in practice which type you’re talking to on any occasion. But listing them distinctly provides an intellectual tool for thinking about how to deal with deniers both theoretically and practically. So let’s spell them out.

Type 1: The Deceiver

This is type knowingly spreads misinformation about climate change. That could be denial that there is climate change, denial that humans are causing it, denial that the effects are as bad as scientists say, etc. But what is distinctive is that they are aware of what they are doing. They are willfully mendacious merchants of doubt—often with fancy degrees in the relevant sciences. They make good money from interests like oil and coal. The thing to know about the Deceivers is that they’re clever: they’ll know enough of the evidence for anthropogenic climate change that they can cherry-pick amongst it in order to present a distorted picture to those who are gullible. I think there are two ways to neutralize a Deceiver: (1) expose them for what they are by following the money (this is the one I recommend); (2) pay them more than what they’re getting from oil and coal (you have to have a lot of money for this one)."

Read the PhilosophyTalk article 

Related:

Trump's failure to fight climate change is a crime against humanity: CNN

Australian government seen globally as climate 'denialist', UN summit observers say

Experts at the meeting say Australia is seen as ‘engaging in greenwashing’ and using accounting tricks to meet targets

Read The Guardian Story 

See also:

Greta Thunberg condemns world leaders in emotional speech at UN : The Guardian

Trump's failure to fight climate change is a crime against humanity: CNN

"(CNN)President Donald Trump, Florida Gov. Rick Scott, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, and others who oppose action to address human-induced climate change should be held accountable for climate crimes against humanity. They are the authors and agents of systematic policies that deny basic human rights to their own citizens and people around the world, including the rights to life, health, and property. These politicians have blood on their hands, and the death toll continues to rise.