Climate Change

BlackRock Wields Its $6 Trillion Club To Combat Climate Risks

December 11, 2017 Emily Chasan, bloomberg.com Educate! Activism, Banks, Climate Change, Divestment

BlackRock, along with investors such as UBS Asset Management and JPMorgan Chase & Co., is a participant in the task force led by Bloomberg LP founder Michael Bloomberg. The group concluded in June that companies affected by climate change should conduct scenario analyses and include those results in their financial reports. BlackRock sees this framework as “a means to achieve the comparability and consistency of reporting that is important to us as investors,” it said in the letter. The move is the latest by BlackRock on climate change after casting its first votes this year in favor of shareholder proposals asking companies such as Occidental Petroleum Corp. and Exxon Mobil Corp. to provide more detail on the topic. Chief Executive Officer Larry Fink said in his annual letter to CEOs earlier this year that the New York-based firm would not be “infinitely patient” with companies on environmental and social issues that carry long-term risks.

A New Hedonism: A Post-Consumerism Vision

December 8, 2017 Kate Soper, thenextsystem.org Create! Climate Change, Consumerism

By Kate Soper for The Next System Project - But the shopping-mall culture is also in many ways bad even for those who live in affluent societies. What the economist, John Maynard Keynes, condemned as the pathology of monetary greed is now not only regarded as a normal response to our times but also an essential driver of national well-being. Its effect is to subordinate everyone to a time economy and work ethic that sees free time as a threat to human prosperity rather than a form in which it can be realized. Despite the huge gains in productivity, time scarcity, stress at work, and insecurity remain the dominant life experience of huge numbers of people. An existence devoted to the creation of ever more stuff, most of it unneeded other than to enhance corporate profits or to secure the reproduction of the consumerist economic infrastructure, leaves all too little time and energy for actually having a life. Indeed, it functions as a major constraint on the self-development and political awareness required to enjoy a fuller and freer life. Everything that should be central to human pleasure and well-being has become marginal, whether it be convivial time with family or friends, engagement in civic and political projects, the enjoyment of hobbies and educational activities, making music, reading, gardening, being in nature, or just idling.

Fossil Fuel Donors Shaped Anti-Climate Agenda Of Congressional Committee

December 7, 2017 Marianne Lavelle and David Hasemyer, insideclimatenews.org Educate! Climate Change, Congress, Fossil Fuels, Lobbying

By Marianne Lavelle and David Hasemyer for Inside Climate News - FREDERICKSBURG, Texas—It's midway through fall, and cold has yet to settle over the Eckhardt family orchard. So, Diane Eckhardt waits with rising apprehension. Cold is the switch that triggers the growing sequence that by summer has limbs sagging with ripe, juicy peaches. The reliable chill season in Texas Hill Country allowed Eckhardt's grandfather, Otto, to start the family business here in the 1930s. But last year, with temperatures the warmest since 1939, Eckhardt's trees produced just 10 percent of their usual yield. And the year before, warm weather reduced production between 60 and 70 percent. Now, Eckhardt worries not only about the next crop, but about the future of a business she hopes will be passed on to her niece and nephews. "We know climate change is happening," she said. But while the Eckhardts face that certainty, their congressman sows uncertainty, casting doubt on the consensus science that greenhouse gases are the dominant cause of rising global temperatures, and opposing government action to curb them. Sixteen-term Republican Lamar Smith has used his power as chairman of the House Science, Space and Technology Committee for the past five years to do battle on behalf of the fossil fuel industry. Embracing the arguments of a small group of climate contrarians, Smith acknowledges that warming is happening but says more research is needed to determine the amount and causes, and whether it does more good than harm.

“Apocalyptic” Melting Transpires In Antarctica As Earth Ends Scorching Year

December 7, 2017 Dahr Jamail, truth-out.org Educate! Climate Change, Global Warming

By Dahr Jamail for Truthout - The signs of runaway anthropogenic climate disruption (ACD) continue to mount with each passing month. 2016 saw a record surge in the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere, according to the World Meteorological Organization. This means that last year's increase was a stunning 50 percent higher than the average over the last decade. Scientists said this makes obtaining global temperature targets -- such as the often-mentioned 1.5°C and 2°C limits -- largely unattainable. The combination of the increase of CO2 and El Niño have driven atmospheric CO2 to levels not seen for 800,000 years. How is this playing out around the planet? The Arctic Ocean is now starting to look more and more like the Atlantic Ocean, a shift that is threatening to turn the entire Arctic food web on its head. This is due to the fact that the summer Arctic sea ice is melting rapidly and the waters are warming, leading to encroachment by animals from warmer climates and a reorganization of Arctic biodiversity. Meanwhile, a recent report highlights the fact that planetary warming of just 3°C (a level we are currently on a trajectory to easily exceed before 2100) will be enough warming to lock in irreversible sea-level rise that will impact hundreds of millions of people. This year is already on track to be in the top three hottest years ever recorded, bearing in mind that the last three years have been the warmest three years ever recorded for the planet.

Climate Activists Delay U.S. Gas Pipeline Approvals: Regulator

December 4, 2017 Timothy Gardner, reuters.com Resist! Activists, Climate Change, Courts, Pipelines

By Timothy Gardner for Reuters - WASHINGTON (Reuters) - National environmental groups waging legal battles against energy projects are delaying approval of U.S. natural gas pipelines, a top federal energy regulator said on Thursday. The groups have lawyers who “understand how to use all of the levers of federal and state law to frustrate pipeline development,” Neil Chatterjee, the chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), told a meeting of natural gas industry officials. Some recent approvals of natural gas pipelines, such as the Atlantic Coast Pipeline from West Virginia to North Carolina, have taken two years or more. Chatterjee said he hoped a timeline of two-plus years would not become the new industry norm. While industry officials have often complained about climate activists, Chatterjee’s comments, which he said reflected his opinion, are rare for a regulator. He did not identify any specific green groups, but the Sierra Club and 350.org both have campaigns to reject pipelines filled with gas from hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, projects. The groups are fighting development of fossil fuels including oil, coal and fracked natural gas, because they say the production slows the transition to cleaner sources, like wind and solar power, and the conservation and storage of energy. The Trump administration is trying to boost output of the fuels to increase jobs in the industry and sell energy exports to allies.

Demand The Impossible

December 3, 2017 Anne Cummings Jacopetti, www.popularresistance.org Strategize! Book Review, Climate Change, Education, Wildfires

By Anne Cummings Jacopetti for Popular Resistance. I read Ayers’ book last summer and was so impressed that I bought three more copies, one for each of my sons. Now, raw from my trial by fire and touched to the core by the suffering and losses in my community, wondering how we can influence the recovery process towards a new vision, one that takes into consideration the looming threat of climate change in its various guises - flood, drought and fire - I turned again to this manifesto, reading it out loud and savoring with Roland its spirit of hopeful resilience in the face of daunting challenge. He calls on us to imagine a different world – a world in which our resources are shared to provide for the basic needs of all people, a world that recovers our humanity from the soul-destroying grip of greed and allows us all to find a role in building a better, more just and hopeful world for our children.

I Shut Down An Oil Pipeline

November 26, 2017 Emily Johnston, www.theguardian.com Resist! Climate Change, Necessity defense, Pipelines

By Emily Johnston for the Guardian. A little over a year ago, four friends and I shut down all five pipelines carrying tar sands crude oil into the United States by using emergency shut-off valves. As recent months have made clear, climate change is not only an imminent threat; it is an existing catastrophe. It’s going to get worse, and tar sands oil—the dirtiest oil on Earth—is one of the reasons. We did this very, very carefully—after talking to pipeline engineers, and doing our own research. Before we touched a thing, we called the pipeline companies twice to warn them, and let them turn off the pipelines themselves if they thought that was better; all of them did so. We knew we were at risk for years in prison. But the nation needs to wake up now to what’s coming our way if we don’t reduce emissions boldly and fast; business as usual is now genocidal.

UN Climate Talks Wrap Up With World Leaving Trump Behind

November 19, 2017 John H. Cushman Jr., www.insideclimatenews.org Resist! Climate Change, COP 23, Donald Trump

By John H. Cushman Jr. for Inside Climate News. Two weeks of international climate talks in Bonn made only incremental progress toward resolving disputes that have been lingering since the Paris Agreement of 2015. The main achievement may have been cementing a firebreak to prevent the Trump administration from torching the whole process. The strategy is to assert a broad new leadership among nations big and small, to bolster their resolve with high-profile commitments from American cities and states, to muster corporations and financial institutions in an attempt to kickstart renewable energy and assist poor countries, and to leave Washington isolated on the world stage. It's a strategy pinned on the hopes—although diplomats would never put it so bluntly—that either Donald Trump will change his mind or that the United States will change its leader.

Inside COP23 Protest Involving Thousands Of Bikers

November 17, 2017 Sam Allen, transitionnetwork.org Resist! Climate Change, Environment, March

By Sam Allen for Transition Network - Gesa Maschkowski – co-founder of Transition Initiative Bonn im Wandel, researcher and Transition Trainer – reports from COP23. The November sun was shining when more than 10,000 people – some say 25,000 – from all over the world demonstrated for climate justice in Bonn, two days before this year’s UN Climate Change Conference, COP23 started. Three thousand cyclists joined the demonstration coming from Cologne on the “highway to COP23”. They put their messages on posters, bikes, cars, statues, they shouted and sang – “Planet first!”, “Stop Pretending – Start defending”, “Leave the coal in the hole” – old and young, people with hopes, fears, anger and love, showing the beauty of creativity, cooperation and diversity within a contradictory time. The 25,000 who demonstrated in Bonn are a symbol for meaningful collaborative action on a global level. We are proud and grateful to host guests from all over the world, to get requests from other organizations, to meet people we have never met before and to engage for the same common goals. There is also cooperation happening at the city administration level. The city of Bonn set up a Climate Tour with events and exhibitions during COP. They invited various civic organisations from Bonn. Our Transition Initiative is a cooperation partner in five of six events.

Natural Gas Has No Climate Benefit And May Make Things Worse

November 15, 2017 Joe Romm, thinkprogress.org Educate! Climate Change, Natural Gas

By Joe Romm for Think Progress - The evidence is overwhelming that natural gas has no net climate benefit in any timescale that matters to humanity. In fact, a shocking new study concludes that just the methane emissions escaping from New Mexico’s gas and oil industry are “equivalent to the climate impact of approximately 12 coal-fired power plants.” If the goal is to avoid catastrophic levels of warming, a recent report by U.K. climate researchers finds “categorically no role” to play for new natural gas production. Sadly, the International Energy Agency (IEA) has just published a “Commentary” on “the environmental case for natural gas,” that ignores or downplays key reasons that greater use of natural gas is bad for the climate. In the real world, natural gas is not a “bridge” fuel to a carbon-free economy for two key reasons. First, natural gas is mostly methane (CH4), a super-potent greenhouse gas, which traps 86 times as much heat as CO2 over a 20-year period. That’s why many, many studies find that even a very small leakage rate of methane from the natural gas supply chain (production to delivery to combustion) can have a large climate impact — enough to gut the entire benefit of switching from coal-fired power to gas for a long, long time.

Activists Disrupt White House’s Pro-Coal Panel At Bonn Climate Summit

November 15, 2017 Dharna Noor, therealnews.com Resist! Activists, Climate Change, Coal, White House

By Dharna Noor The Real News Network - The UN Framework Convention on Climate Change is in full swing in Bonn, Germany and all eyes are now on the US, now the only country in the world to reject the Paris Climate Accord. In Bonn on Monday, the Trump administration held a presentation they called "The Role of Cleaner and More Efficient Fossil Fuels and Nuclear Power in Climate Mitigation". The presentation sought to pose coal, natural gas and nuclear energy as the solutions to the climate crisis. Climate activists disrupted the panel during opening remarks. Joining us to talk a little bit about the Trump administration's Bonn panel, for the first time in our studio in Baltimore, is Steve Horn. Steve is a research fellow for Desmog.com and a freelance investigative journalist. His writing has appeared in Al Jazeera America, The Intercept, The Guardian, Vice News, The Young Turks Project: TYT Investigates and many others. Thanks for being here today, Steve. STEVE HORN: Good to finally be here. Thanks for having me. DHARNA NOOR: So, today during George David Banks opening remarks on this Trump administration panel, climate activists came in, they disrupted, they started singing songs. Talk a little bit about him and generally about this panel pushing clean coal and nuclear power as solutions to climate change.

Jerry Brown Lashes Out At COP23 Climate Protesters

November 14, 2017 Kate Aronoff, inthesetimes.com Resist! Climate Change, Protesters

By Kate Aronoff for In These Times - BONN, GERMANY—California Gov. Jerry Brown (D) is set to have a big week here in Bonn at the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change’s 23rd Conference of the Parties (COP23). He and former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg are key figures in the U.S. Climate Action Center (USCAC), an unofficial voice for the United States at the climate summit (the official U.S. delegation is keeping a low profile). With the Trump administration intending to withdraw from the Paris Agreement, the USCAC’s rallying cry is fairly clear: We Are Still In. A few minutes into a Saturday USCAC event featuring Wal-Mart’s Senior Vice President of Sustainability, Brown was interrupted by protestors asking, “Still In For Want?” A group of Californians and other delegates to COP23 from the United States—many involved in climate justice organizations—stood up as Brown started speaking, giving short testimonies about Brown’s close relationship to the fossil fuel industry, a major force in California’s economy. After protesters chanted “Keep It In The Ground,” in opposition to fossil fuel extraction, Brown replied, “Let’s put you in the ground so we can get on with the show here.” Clumps of interrupters continued to pop up and be escorted out through the rest of the presentation, prompting responses from Brown. “Unfortunately, in politics,” he said, “we don’t have a magic wand. … I can’t say ‘Stop, there’s no more coal, no more oil.’ ”

Scientists Give Warning About Fate Of World In ‘Letter To Humanity’

November 14, 2017 Andrew Griffin, independent.co.uk Educate! Climate Change, Climate Science, Environment, Global Warming

By Andrew Griffin for Independent - A new, dire "warning to humanity" about the dangers to all of us has been written by 15,000 scientists from around the world. The message updates an original warning sent from the Union of Concerned Scientists that was backed by 1,700 signatures 25 years ago. But the experts say the picture is far, far worse than it was in 1992, and that almost all of the problems identified then have simply been exacerbated. Mankind is still facing the existential threat of runaway consumption of limited resources by a rapidly growing population, they warn. And "scientists, media influencers and lay citizens" aren't doing enough to fight against it, according to the letter. If the world doesn't act soon, there be catastrophic biodiversity loss and untold amounts of human misery, they warn. Only the hole in the ozone layer has improved since the first letter was written, and the letter urges humanity to use that as an example of what can happen when it acts decisively. But every single other threat has just got worse, they write, and there is not long left before those changes can never be reversed. There are some causes for hope, the letter suggests. But humanity isn't doing nearly enough to make the most of them and soon won't be able to reverse its fate. "Soon it will be too late to shift course away from our failing trajectory, and time is running out," the letter warns.

Climate Activists Arrested Deploying 3-Story Banner At JPMorgan HQ

November 14, 2017 Staff, ran.org Resist! Activists, Climate Change, JP Morgan, Protesters Arrested

By Staff of RAN - NEW YORK – This morning, activists from Rainforest Action Network (RAN) dropped a 35 ft. banner from the headquarters of JPMorgan Chase to protest the bank’s investments in extreme fossil fuels, particularly tar sands oil. According to a recent report from RAN, JPMorgan Chase is the top U.S. funder of tar sands oil — one of the dirtiest fossil fuels on the planet due to the immense volume of deforestation, environmental impacts and increased greenhouse gas emissions from the point of extraction to refining to burning. Tar sands oil produces 20%more greenhouse gases than conventional oil. As NASA Scientist James Hansen famously said, further expansion of tar sands oil means “game over for the climate.” Despite the disastrous impacts of tar sands oil, JPMorgan Chase is actually ramping up its investments in the sector. The bank has poured nearly $2B into tar sands in the first three quarters of 2017 alone — already a 17% uptick from 2016. This includes funding for pipelines that slice through Indigenous lands, trample on human rights, and threaten clean water. “JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon talks a big game when it comes to addressing climate change,” said Tess Geyer, an organizer with Rainforest Action Network.

1,700 Scientists Issue Dire Warning To Humanity

November 14, 2017 Staff, academic.oup.com Educate! Climate Change, Climate Science, Environment, Global Warming

By Staff of BioScience - Twenty-five years ago, the Union of Concerned Scientists and more than 1700 independent scientists, including the majority of living Nobel laureates in the sciences, penned the 1992 “World Scientists’ Warning to Humanity” (see supplemental file S1). These concerned professionals called on humankind to curtail environmental destruction and cautioned that “a great change in our stewardship of the Earth and the life on it is required, if vast human misery is to be avoided.” In their manifesto, they showed that humans were on a collision course with the natural world. They expressed concern about current, impending, or potential damage on planet Earth involving ozone depletion, freshwater availability, marine life depletion, ocean dead zones, forest loss, biodiversity destruction, climate change, and continued human population growth. They proclaimed that fundamental changes were urgently needed to avoid the consequences our present course would bring. The authors of the 1992 declaration feared that humanity was pushing Earth's ecosystems beyond their capacities to support the web of life. They described how we are fast approaching many of the limits of what the biosphere can tolerate without substantial and irreversible harm.

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