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AbruptSLR

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Re: Money and Politics: The Drive for Climate Change Action
« Reply #550 on: November 06, 2016, 06:28:09 PM »
The linked article is entitled: "Nicholas Stern: cost of global warming ‘is worse than I feared’".  Stern's (developed & issued by the UK's Treasury department) original report erred on the side of least drama, ESLD, and his updated report 10-years later continues to do so, while pointing-out that in that 10-year period less was done to fight climate change than Stern had wishfully hoped would be achieved when his department issued the first report.  As climate change is a non-linear problem delayed action to fight climate change is possibly the single most expensive (i.e. the worse benefit to cost ratio) course of action.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/nov/06/nicholas-stern-climate-change-review-10-years-on-interview-decisive-years-humanity?CMP=twt_a-science_b-gdnscience

Extract: "Ten years ago the leading economist warned about climate change in a landmark report – he says while there is cause for optimism, the picture is still grim."
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Sigmetnow

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Re: Money and Politics: The Drive for Climate Change Action
« Reply #551 on: November 08, 2016, 11:46:54 PM »
This really is a climate change election in the U.S.
Quote
...
These activists birddogged Clinton in early states like Iowa and New Hampshire, and later, with a more settled strategy in place, they turned to the bigger primaries like Pennsylvania and New York. At about 80 percent of Clinton’s campaign events, they took some kind of action; some of it was gimmicky, like posing with Clinton for a photo to call her out on her silence on Keystone XL.

But their most useful work took place on the rope-line, where activists often asked Clinton or a surrogate a pointed question about her climate policies, catching the whole thing on camera. Even when these mostly young activists didn’t get an answer, you started to see the issues they were pushing become bigger flashpoints, especially as they moved beyond Keystone XL to Clinton’s positions on fracking and offshore drilling.
...
After it was clear Sanders would lose the nomination, he managed to insert the strongest platform language we’ve ever seen the Democratic Party formally adopt on climate change. It included an endorsement for “every tool available to reduce emissions now,” including a carbon tax. And it called for ensuring that infrastructure projects and federal actions “don’t ‘significantly exacerbate’ global warming.” The platform fight reflected Sanders’ and his climate supporters’ newfound strength. ...
http://grist.org/election-2016/this-really-is-a-climate-change-election/
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abbottisgone

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Re: Money and Politics: The Drive for Climate Change Action
« Reply #552 on: November 11, 2016, 10:03:13 AM »
The linked Rolling Stone article is entitled: "Why Republicans Still Reject the Science of Global Warming", and points-out that is you want to know why the Republican Party denies climate change then you only need to follow the fossil fuel campaign money trail:

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/features/why-republicans-still-reject-the-science-of-global-warming-w448023

Extract: "Only one major political party in the world denies climate change, and it's in charge of the most important political body in the world."
The Liberal Party of Australia also denies Climate Change!
..
But I left school and grew my hair
They didn't understand
They wanted me to be respected as
A doctor or a lawyer man
But I had other plans..........

Sigmetnow

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Re: Money and Politics: The Drive for Climate Change Action
« Reply #553 on: November 12, 2016, 07:46:54 PM »
States May Drive U.S. Climate Policy Under Trump
Quote
What we do know is the Clean Power Plan is just one factor driving a market that is already undergoing significant transformation,” Ganesan said. “Utilities, regional grid operators, and state regulators are already working to integrate advanced energy technologies to make our electric power system more reliable and affordable, and that also happen to reduce carbon emissions.”

Ganesan said he sees Trump’s election as a business opportunity for those who want to create jobs by improving the nation’s energy infrastructure.
http://www.climatecentral.org/news/us-climate-policy-under-trump-20866
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Sigmetnow

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Re: Money and Politics: The Drive for Climate Change Action
« Reply #554 on: November 12, 2016, 09:39:15 PM »
"I don't know if any American bank would finance another coal plant."

How businesses and cities can drive climate action if the federal government fails.
Quote
Last week, Walmart announced a new target to cut its emissions in line with the Paris agreement, making an 18% reduction in its own operations by 2025. By 2030, all of its suppliers will have to do the same thing, reducing emissions by a gigaton.

It's one of hundreds of major corporations to commit to climate action. Many, like Apple, Facebook, and General Motors, have committed to transitioning to 100% renewable energy (by 2015, Apple had already reached 93% renewable energy). That offsets a large amount of power that otherwise might have come from fossil fuels, and it's also beginning to reshape how state governments think about their power grids.

"If you're the governor of a state and you want companies to build plants and run facilities, and you know they're committed to 100% renewable energy, it changes the politics of renewable portfolio standards," says Topping. "That's jobs and it's tax. It's a political decision, not an environmental one."

The business and finance communities may also resist a push for more support for the coal industry from Trump. "The fact of the matter is, I don't think coal is really cost-competitive anymore," says Ken Berlin, president and CEO of the Climate Reality Project, Al Gore's organization dedicated to fighting climate change. "I don't know if any American bank would finance another coal plant. I think the day of coal is really coming to an end, unless [Trump] figures out a way to give it subsidies, which I think he'd probably have a very hard time justifying."

Trump may also change his mind about coal if he listens to experts. "The coal industry is dying globally, so to invest federal money in trying to revive a dying industry—rather than trying to invest in communities that have worked in coal for generations to reskill and retrain for transition—would be a bad business decision," says Topping.
https://www.fastcoexist.com/3065508/ceos-and-mayors-are-now-our-only-hope-for-saving-the-climate
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Sigmetnow

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Re: Money and Politics: The Drive for Climate Change Action
« Reply #555 on: November 18, 2016, 01:12:58 PM »
Science Leader Hopes Donald Trump Starts Respecting Facts
Quote
"This election is said to have been about rejecting the political establishment. We cannot let that mean rejecting established facts," Rush Holt, a physicist and former Democratic representative for New Jersey, wrote in a commentary in his organization's flagship journal, Science.

"We hope that President Trump will be more grounded in specific facts than was candidate Trump and pay more attention to the process of careful, open vetting of hypotheses and claims," Holt added.

"We must make clear that an official cannot wish away what is known about climate change, gun violence, opioid addiction, fisheries depletion, or any other public issue illuminated by research."
http://www.nbcnews.com/science/environment/science-leader-hopes-donald-trump-starts-respecting-facts-n685616
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Sigmetnow

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AbruptSLR

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Re: Money and Politics: The Drive for Climate Change Action
« Reply #557 on: November 21, 2016, 06:28:24 PM »
The 2017 RTCC magazine "Respond" is out with a theme of "After Paris, It's Time to Deliver".

http://www.rtcc.org/magazine/respond2017/#p=1
“It is not the strongest or the most intelligent who will survive but those who can best manage change.”
― Leon C. Megginson

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Re: Money and Politics: The Drive for Climate Change Action
« Reply #558 on: November 24, 2016, 02:54:25 PM »

Sigmetnow

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Re: Money and Politics: The Drive for Climate Change Action
« Reply #559 on: November 27, 2016, 02:53:13 PM »
California’s Democrats Are Ready for Political War
“We’re going to do everything in our power to protect our people and our values.”
Quote
Democrats have dominated all branches of California’s government since 2011, when Jerry Brown succeeded Arnold Schwarzenegger as governor. With the largest economy in the U.S. and the sixth-largest in the world, the state enjoys greater independence from Washington than most. It was the first state to adopt its own vehicle emissions standards, in 2002. In 2012, California created the only state-level cap-and-trade system for limiting greenhouse gas emissions after Republicans in Congress rejected a national model. ...
...
Governor Brown has devoted himself to strengthening California’s carbon pollution rules, already the nation’s toughest. “We will protect the precious rights of our people and continue to confront the existential threat of our time—devastating climate change,” Brown said in a statement that also referred to finding common ground with Trump and the GOP where possible. Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf says cities should be willing to uphold the Paris commitments at the local level. “You have 70 percent of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions coming from cities,” she says. “If all mayors agree to take action, we can actually render federal action irrelevant.”
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-11-18/california-s-democrats-are-ready-for-political-war
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AbruptSLR

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Re: Money and Politics: The Drive for Climate Change Action
« Reply #560 on: November 28, 2016, 12:20:35 AM »
The linked article is entitled: "The 13 impossible crises that humanity now faces", and I note that as climate change is a caused by human behavior, the cited political trends are not reassuring w.r.t. our shared futures:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/nov/25/13-crises-we-face-trump-soil-loss-global-collapse?CMP=share_btn_tw

Extract: "From Trump to climate change, this multiheaded crisis presages collapse. And there’s no hope of exiting the ‘other side’ if political alternatives are shut down."
“It is not the strongest or the most intelligent who will survive but those who can best manage change.”
― Leon C. Megginson

Sigmetnow

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Re: Money and Politics: The Drive for Climate Change Action
« Reply #561 on: November 28, 2016, 08:46:51 PM »
 :o  Oy.

Senator Malcolm Roberts:  This afternoon the Senate will be debating the “Robust Health of the Great Barrier Reef and the threat of environmental alarmism.”
https://twitter.com/senatormroberts/status/803019032139993088


Eric Holthaus: "New data reported today by the Townsville-based team, collected in the post-bleaching environment of the past few months, confirmed that while the *entire* reef isn't dead, large sections of it are. The team is calling what happened "the largest die-off of corals ever recorded on Australia’s Great Barrier Reef." It's hard to sugar-coat or qualify that kind of finding. It's really, really bad."
http://tinyletter.com/sciencebyericholthaus/letters/today-in-weather-climate-great-barrier-reef-mortality-edition-monday-november-28th
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Sigmetnow

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Re: Money and Politics: The Drive for Climate Change Action
« Reply #562 on: November 30, 2016, 09:11:28 PM »
The Koch brothers, big oil, and Texas utilities are already shaping Trump’s environmental agenda
The Fueling Freedom Project is the climate-denying voice at the Trump transition table.
Quote
The early sign is that Trump ran as a climate denier and is starting to surround himself with climate deniers, and that’s just the wrong direction to go,” said Shannon Fisk, managing attorney for the coal program at Earthjustice. “The science is clear on this: Climate change is happening and human activity is causing it.”

Despite the fact that, as Fisk told ThinkProgress, “there are many Republicans out there who do not deny the climate science, who are on board with realizing the economic promise of clean energy,” Trump’s budding administration seems tightly linked to a Texas-based fossil fuel advocacy group and it’s parent organization, the far-right Texas Public Policy Foundation.

The chair of TPPF’s Fueling Freedom Project, Doug Domenech, has already been tapped by the incoming administration as head of the Interior Department transition team, and a senior fellow, Kathleen Hartnett White, is a rumored candidate for head of the EPA.
https://thinkprogress.org/trump-transition-fueling-climate-change-514fd9f2c5c7
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AbruptSLR

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Re: Money and Politics: The Drive for Climate Change Action
« Reply #563 on: December 01, 2016, 12:12:10 AM »
The linked article is entitled: "How Trump Can Quash Obama's Last Effort to Fight the Coal Industry

http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2016/11/trump-obama-stream-protection-rule-coal

Extract: "According to Thom Kay of the environmental group Appalachian Voices, congressional Republicans who oppose the new rule may now be able to use an obscure law called the Congressional Review Act to overturn it. Under the CRA, Congress has 60 days after receiving a finalized rule to file a resolution disapproving it. If both houses pass the resolution, it goes to the president's desk, where it can be vetoed. (Last year, for example, Republicans in Congress attempted to use the CRA to overturn Obama's Clean Power Plan. Obama simply vetoed the resolutions.) But there will be a new president and a new Congress just days after Interior says the new Stream Protection Rule will be finalized. Trump—who has promised to revitalize the coal industry and to "rescind all the job-destroying Obama executive actions"—is unlikely to veto a resolution sent by majorities of his own party."
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Sigmetnow

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Re: Money and Politics: The Drive for Climate Change Action
« Reply #564 on: December 03, 2016, 12:38:14 AM »
Tesla hosts a party for new energy division of the conservative lobbying powerhouse ALEC

Quote
Tesla’s decision to open its D.C. showroom for the ALEC partygoers raised eyebrows among oil, gas and electric companies that are members of the group and already skeptical of its new Energy Innovation Project, funded in part by the environmentally minded ClearPath Foundation. ClearPath and its founder, entrepreneur Jay Faison, are dedicated to persuading conservatives to fight climate change and support clean energy. And in a previous role at another organization, the head of ALEC’s Energy Innovation Project, Sarah Hunt, opined in favor of carbon taxes as "a more elegant, cost-efficient way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions."
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/tesla-hosts-lobbying-group-shunned-202417431.html
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Sigmetnow

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Re: Money and Politics: The Drive for Climate Change Action
« Reply #565 on: December 04, 2016, 08:02:37 PM »
Patagonia Had $10 Million In Sales On Black Friday And Is Donating Every Cent To Save The Planet
Quote
Patagonia saw an astounding $10 million in Black Friday sales  ― five times its own expectations ― and, as promised, will donate every cent toward helping save the environment.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/patagonia-black-friday-record-sale_us_583ca8dbe4b0860d61162813
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sidd

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Re: Money and Politics: The Drive for Climate Change Action
« Reply #566 on: December 08, 2016, 09:45:56 PM »
Piketty does it again:

"Distributional National Accounts: Methods and Estimates for the United States"

" ... the bottom half of the income distribution in the United States has been completely shut off from economic growth since the 1970s. From 1980 to 2014, average national income per adult grew by 61 percent in the United States, yet the average pre-tax income of the bottom 50 percent of individual income earners stagnated at about $16,000 per adult after adjusting for inflation.[5] In contrast, income skyrocketed at the top of the income distribution, rising 121 percent for the top 10 percent, 205 percent for the top 1 percent, and 636 percent for the top 0.001 percent."

"To understand how unequal the United States is today, consider the following fact. In 1980, adults in the top 1 percent earned on average 27 times more than bottom 50 percent of adults. Today they earn 81 times more. This ratio of 1 to 81 is similar to the gap between the average income in the United States and the average income in the world’s poorest countries, among them the war-torn Democratic Republic of Congo, Central African Republic, and Burundi. Another alarming trend evident in this data is that the increase in income concentration at the top in the United States over the past 15 years is due to a boom in capital income. It looks like the working rich who drove the upsurge in income concentration in the 1980s and 1990s are either retiring to live off their capital income or passing their fortunes onto heirs."

I attach two graphs.

The paper is at

http://gabriel-zucman.eu/files/PSZ2016.pdf

the data is linked from

http://gabriel-zucman.eu/usdina/

Read the whole thing.

sidd


Sigmetnow

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Re: Money and Politics: The Drive for Climate Change Action
« Reply #567 on: December 10, 2016, 05:45:55 PM »
Bill McKibben:  Weekend reading: huge new report finds clean energy conversion would save US $40 bn annually, create million jobs:

From Risk to Return
Investing in a Clean Energy Economy

The U.S. economy faces significant risks from unabated climate change. Every year of inaction serves to broaden and deepen those risks. Founded by co-chairs Michael R. Bloomberg, Henry M. Paulson, Jr., and Thomas F. Steyer, the Risky Business Project examines the economic risks presented by climate change and opportunities to reduce them.
http://riskybusiness.org/fromrisktoreturn/

Edit: Here is the Executive Summary:

"In our 2014 inaugural report, “Risky Business: The Economic Risks of Climate Change in the United States,” we found that the economic risks from unmitigated climate change to American businesses and long-term investors are large and unacceptable. Subsequent scientific data and analysis have reinforced and strengthened that conclusion. As a result, we, the Co-Chairs and Risk Committee of the Risky Business Project, are united in recognizing the need to respond to the risk climate change poses to the American economy.

Now we turn to the obvious next question: how to respond to those risks. Seriously addressing climate change requires reducing greenhouse gas emissions by at least 80 percent by 2050 in the U.S. and across all major economies. We find that this goal is technically and economically achievable using commercial or near-commercial technology. Most important, we  find that meeting the goal does not require an energy miracle or unprecedented spending.

The transition to a cleaner energy economy rests on three pillars: moving from fossil fuels to electricity wherever possible, generating electricity with low or zero carbon emissions, and using energy much more efficiently. This means building new sources of zero- and low-carbon energy, including wind, solar, and nuclear; electrifying vehicles, heating systems, and many other products and processes; and investing in making buildings, appliances, and manufacturing more energy efficient.

Meeting these targets requires a large-scale shift away from ongoing spending on fossil fuels and toward up-front capital investments in clean energy technologies. Many of those, such as wind and solar, have little or no fuel cost once built. Given an appropriate policy framework, we expect these investments to be made largely by the private sector and consumers, and to yield significant returns. Because of the large capital investments and the long-term savings in fuel costs, this shift presents significant opportunities for many American investors and businesses. Notably, shifting the U.S. to a low-carbon, clean energy system presents not just long term benefits but also immediate, near-term opportunities, particularly for those actors best positioned to capitalize on these trends."
« Last Edit: December 10, 2016, 06:30:13 PM by Sigmetnow »
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Sigmetnow

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Re: Money and Politics: The Drive for Climate Change Action
« Reply #568 on: December 12, 2016, 02:37:59 AM »
Interesting development.

“Billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk plans to be in attendance at President-elect Donald Trump’s meeting of tech-industry executives this Wednesday in New York, according to people familiar with the matter.”

Tesla CEO Elon Musk to meet Donald Trump for tech-industry summit, says WSJ
Quote
The agenda of the meeting has not been made clear at this point, but it is suspected to revolve around job creation in the tech industry.
...
Peter Thiel, a venture capitalist and member of Trump’s transition team, is expected to act as a liaison for the meeting. Thiel is an old friend of Musk and the duo co-founded Paypal together when they merged their startups in 2000.
https://electrek.co/2016/12/11/tesla-elon-musk-meet-donald-trump-tech/
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Sigmetnow

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Re: Money and Politics: The Drive for Climate Change Action
« Reply #569 on: December 14, 2016, 10:02:59 PM »

Realists don't expect this high-profile meeting to change Trump's views on climate change.  At all.

“Trump is going to tell the tech people what they want to hear, praising their genius and encouraging them to keep up the good work of driving innovation in the US economy.”

Elon Musk and Uber CEO Travis Kalanick are joining Trump's economic advisory team
Quote
Elon Musk and Travis Kalanick, the chief executives of Tesla and Uber, are joining US President-elect Donald Trump's new economic advisory board.

The two tech-transportation executives have been named as members of Trump's Strategic and Policy Forum, it was announced on Wednesday, alongside PepsiCo chairman and CEO Indra Nooyi.

Launched in early December, the forum will provide economic advice and will "be called upon to meet with the president frequently to share their specific experience and knowledge as the president implements his plan to bring back jobs and Make America Great Again," the initial announcement said.
http://www.businessinsider.com/tesla-ceo-elon-musk-uber-travis-kalanick-join-donald-trump-strategic-policy-forum-economic-team-2016-12


Mr. Musk goes to Trump Tower — but that doesn't mean he's walking away with a deal
Quote
But Musk is unique in that his vision is so vast and so tied to the specific operations of his businesses. If Tesla succeeds, million of electric cars will hit the road and the demise of the internal-combustion engine will be hastened. If SolarCity succeeds, clean power will replace dirty energy, spelling the end of the coal- and natural-gas-burning power plants. If SpaceX succeeds, we'll colonize Mars.
...
Musk shouldn't judge Trump by his words, which are reliably unreliable. Musk should look at the team Trump has put in charge of the country's climate-and-energy future and draw the obvious conclusions: Valid climate science is now officially under siege, and sustainable or renewable energy sources are about to lose out big-time to Big Oil.
http://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-could-make-deal-with-trump-2016-12
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AbruptSLR

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Re: Money and Politics: The Drive for Climate Change Action
« Reply #570 on: December 15, 2016, 12:27:14 AM »
The linked CEPII paper is entitled: "Climate and Finance Systemic Risks, more than an Analogy?  The Climate Fragility Hypothesis". 

This paper indicates that current policy makers (including signatories to the COP21 Paris Pact) do not adequately understand systemic climate risks.  The paper notes that there is a possible positive feedback between climate change and financial fragility that could lead to system collapse without adequate mitigation measures.


http://www.cepii.fr/PDF_PUB/wp/2016/wp2016-10.pdf

Abstract: "In this paper, we develop the notion of climate systemic risk. Climate change is usually considered as a negative externality, against which society can insure itself through a carbon tax or an emission trading market. But except under the unrealistic efficient market hypothesis, there is little chance that such a simple approach to climate policy succeeds in mitigating climate damages. Financial and climate fragility reinforce each other. We argue that in concrete economies, a collective insurance approach to climate change has to target the financial sector, as well as its articulation with monetary policy. As in the financial world, climate change thus constitutes a systemic risk against which specific ex ante and ex post monetary policies and financial regulations should be deployed. The Paris Agreement of COP21 ignores the policy consequences of such an approach to the climate threat, but the exegesis of the text still offers some indispensable pillars to promote a new financial order mitigating climate systemic risk."
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Sigmetnow

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Re: Money and Politics: The Drive for Climate Change Action
« Reply #571 on: December 15, 2016, 09:59:47 PM »
Over $5.2 trillion in assets now committed to be divested from fossil fuels – almost doubled over the last year
Quote
The Divestment movement, which aims at convincing people to remove their money from fossil fuel investments, has been picking up steam over the past year. A new report that came out this week claims that it has reached a commitment of over $5.2 trillion in assets from 688 institutions and 58,399 individuals across 76 countries over the last 5 years.

According to Arabella Advisors, a research and guidance firm for philanthropic groups, the total value of the assets taking part in the movement doubled over the last 15 months alone – showing that it might become an effective way to slow the production of CO2 emissions if it can keep its momentum.

The movement originally targeted universities, charitable foundation funds, and faith-based organizations, but it has since outgrown the strategy and it is now affecting the traditional financial sector.
https://electrek.co/2016/12/15/divestment-movement-trillion-assets-fossil-fuels/
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Re: Money and Politics: The Drive for Climate Change Action
« Reply #572 on: December 18, 2016, 08:55:09 PM »
Apparently, the U.S. has perfected Democracy.

Sigmetnow

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Re: Money and Politics: The Drive for Climate Change Action
« Reply #573 on: December 19, 2016, 08:16:04 PM »
Fossil-fuel subsidies dropped sharply last year by 35%, still more than double the money spent on renewable energy subsidies
Quote
In its latest ‘World Energy outlook’ report, the International Energy Agency (IEA) found that fossil-fuel subsidies dropped sharply by 35% last year – from almost $500 billion in 2014 to $325 billion in 2015. It’s a significant improvement, but the industry remains largely over-subsidized relative to the renewable energy industry, which receives about half the monetary value in subsidies – $150 billion.

The IEA wrote in the paper’s executive summary:

“The value of fossil-fuel consumption subsidies dropped in 2015 to $325 billion, from almost $500 billion the previous year, reflecting lower fossil-fuel prices but also a subsidy reform process that has gathered momentum in several countries.”

It’s important to note here that we are only talking about direct financial incentives. To this day, the fossil fuel industry is still strongly subsidized by taxpayers’ money even before accounting for the cost they make society incur due to health and climate impacts of the emissions they produced.
...
The agency expects that fossil-fuel subsidies will keep declining and eventually catch up with renewable energy subsidies, which should peak at $240 billion in the 2030s and start declining from there.
https://electrek.co/2016/12/19/fossil-fuel-subsidies-vs-renewable-energy-subsidies/
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Sigmetnow

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Re: Money and Politics: The Drive for Climate Change Action
« Reply #574 on: December 21, 2016, 12:03:24 AM »
Portland, Oregon Bans New Fossil Fuel Infrastructure in Stand Against Climate Change
Using a zoning ordinance, the city shuts the door to new projects and forbids expansion of existing facilities.
Quote
This is likely the first time an American city has wielded its zoning code to halt such a large array of fossil fuel projects. Under the new ordinance, which will take effect next month, new large terminals for transporting and storing coal, methanol and various natural gas and oil products can't be built in the city. The rules also forbid expansion of Portland's 11 existing facilities—one liquefied natural gas (LNG) plant and 10 terminals for petroleum fuels. ...
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/14122016/portland-oregon-ban-fossil-fuels-oil-and-gas-pipelines-coal-global-warming
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Sigmetnow

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Re: Money and Politics: The Drive for Climate Change Action
« Reply #575 on: December 23, 2016, 10:31:39 PM »
U.S. Congress:

"The League of Conservation Voters maintains a scorecard of every legislator in Congress: for 2015, the most recent year available, the average of all the Democratic members on the science committee is 92.75 percent (with 100 being a perfect environment-friendly score). On the GOP side of the aisle, the average is just over three percent."

What It's Like Being a Sane Person on the House Science Committee
http://gizmodo.com/what-its-like-being-a-sane-person-on-the-house-science-1790387102
« Last Edit: December 23, 2016, 10:41:21 PM by Sigmetnow »
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Sigmetnow

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Re: Money and Politics: The Drive for Climate Change Action
« Reply #576 on: December 24, 2016, 09:07:34 PM »
On Climate Change, Obama Lays Down a Scientific Gauntlet for Trump Administration
Unveiling a sobering state-of-the-climate report, President Obama makes clear the dire consequences of unabated global warming.
Quote
As if parading its best evidence against an expected onslaught of climate denial, the Obama Administration released on Thursday an updated compendium of the accepted science about global warming.

The science review is intended to guide the preparation of the government's next National Climate Assessment, a periodic comprehensive report scheduled to be released in in 2018. The last assessment was published in 2014.

With the entire Obama climate agenda expected to come under assault by the Donald Trump regime, this report, released in draft form for comment by experts, lays down a marker for the climate consensus. It may well become a benchmark against which the next administration will be measured.

It is not just a map of the known climate science. It is also a political chessboard on which a high-stakes tug of war over science, energy policy and ideology may play out in the months ahead.

"This report is a comprehensive and updated assessment of the state of knowledge on human-induced climate change," the White House said as it announced the draft, "including observed and future projected changes in temperatures, precipitation patterns, extreme-weather events, sea-level rise, and ocean acidification, focused primarily on the United States." ...
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/23122016/climate-change-effects-global-warming-science-donald-trump
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Sigmetnow

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Re: Money and Politics: The Drive for Climate Change Action
« Reply #577 on: December 28, 2016, 06:35:59 PM »
“Conservative politics and profitable clean energy go hand-in-hand. Governor Kasich gets it and Ohioans owe him a big thanks.”

Kasich breaks with GOP, keeps renewable energy standards
Quote
In a victory for clean energy advocates, Gov. John Kasich Tuesday again broke with fellow Ohio Republicans, vetoing their attempt to put a halt to the state's requirements that utility companies get more and more energy from renewable sources. ...
http://www.cincinnati.com/story/news/politics/2016/12/27/kasich-breaks-gop-keeps-renewable-energy-standards/95347022/
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6roucho

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Re: Money and Politics: The Drive for Climate Change Action
« Reply #578 on: December 29, 2016, 05:19:52 AM »
[Sorry if this is off-topic, but it seemed like the best thread to put it]

A good article on Vox by David Roberts, on the social nature of science denial.

Quote
For most people, most of the time, social bonds matter far more than any particular bit of knowledge, any fact or belief. This is especially true when it comes to the kinds of things defined as political “issues,” like inequality, climate change, and other societal risks, which tend to be somewhat abstract and distant from daily experience. Most people don’t have settled, coherent opinions on issues at all, just bits and bobs they’ve picked up from their tribes. They certainly don’t have enough invested in issues to warrant risking their tribal ties on behalf of particular beliefs.

Most people will settle for their parochial, inherited tribal beliefs most of the time. Humans gonna human...

http://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2016/12/28/14074214/climate-denialism-social

So: climate denial is a social process, about trust, rather than a cognitive one, about information.

I wasted some time these holidays arguing by email with a conservative commentator on an American political website. He'd written an article that included the assertion that climate change was a project of liberal elites.

Quote
As president, [Trump] will have command of the executive branch and a veto to check Congress. It’s hard to see how Republicans in Congress will go to the trouble of addressing entitlements if their efforts can’t succeed. And it will be hard for liberal elites to frustrate his policies.

He’s on particularly strong ground on climate change. Global-warming alarmists proclaim that their dire scenarios are certain to occur, and they would be clearly right if the only thing affecting temperatures were carbon dioxide emissions. But many other things (e.g., the sun) affect climate as well, and the interactions among them and their differing effects are not fully understood, as the failure of climate scientists’ models to explain past observations shows.

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/443345/donald-trump-climate-change-entitlement-reform-action-torpedoed

I made some obvious arguments about climate change being a project of nature, but he was having none of it. He made his case so serenely that I was convinced he believed it completely. He wasn't even overtly anti-science: he simply (and infuriatingly) accused the liberal elites of distorting science in pursuit of their own social agenda.

Science is an unrelated system to social belief. We can believe what we want, but when the time comes to build a plasma television set, or a nuclear weapon, we turn to science for real information. No amount of tribalism can cause an electron to behave in a certain way. When it comes to the universe of things, it's what happens that matters.

But what happens when people start to dispute the facts we use to validate outcomes? What happens when people insist the faith-based TV showed a picture in experiments but the electron-powered one didn't, and believe it?

What can we do about that? It seems like a new dark ages to me.

Roberts, in Vox concludes:

Quote
How can conservative elites be persuaded to think and communicate differently about climate change? That’s a subject for another post, but here’s a spoiler: The answer won’t be found in clever arguments or skillful persuasion, but in money, power, and material interests.

That seems correct. The contest for public opinion by the dissemination of scientific information is already lost. It simply isn't worth arguing with people who trust sources of misinformation, because any case you can make can be defeated by the same misinformation.

It has to be made directly about money. A lot of conservative opinion about climate change is simply the result of vested interests shaping the opinions of conservative influencers. The reality is that electricity from solar sources is now as cheap or cheaper than from coal in many parts of the world, including the United States and Europe. When that starts to shape balance sheets beyond the reach of subsidies then we’ll see an immediate change.

Provided governments don't intervene to prevent this happening. It's a trivial matter for governments to make electricity generation from clean sources more expensive to the point where investment in production becomes unprofitable.
« Last Edit: December 29, 2016, 09:13:07 AM by 6roucho »

Sigmetnow

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Re: Money and Politics: The Drive for Climate Change Action
« Reply #579 on: January 20, 2017, 07:32:02 PM »
And so it begins:

"11:59 am eastern, the official White House website had a lengthy information page about the threat of climate change and the steps the federal government had taken to fight it. At noon, at the instant Donald Trump took office, the page was gone, as well as any mention of climate change or global warming. ..."
http://motherboard.vice.com/read/all-references-to-climate-change-have-been-deleted-from-the-white-house-website
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Sigmetnow

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Re: Money and Politics: The Drive for Climate Change Action
« Reply #580 on: January 20, 2017, 09:59:59 PM »
From the Insurance Industry thread:  fossil fuel divestitures continue.

California Insurance Commissioner discloses insurers' carbon investments facing climate risk
Insurers divested billions in response to Commissioner’s first in nation request
Quote
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Today Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones announced the results from his Climate Risk Carbon Initiative, which required insurance companies with $100 million in annual premium doing business in California to disclose investments in fossil fuels and asked all insurance companies doing business in California to divest from investments in thermal coal.

According to the financial data disclosed, insurers surveyed have $521 billion in fossil fuel-related securities, which include investments in coal, oil, gas and utilities that rely on coal, oil and gas, $10.5 billion of which consists of investments in thermal coal enterprises.

Since the announcement of Commissioner Jones' Initiative, insurers have already divested more than $4 billion in thermal coal and other fossil fuel investments, and have committed to disposing of an additional $881 million in thermal coal investments. The data also showed that 303 insurance companies have already analyzed the concentration of carbon risk in their investment portfolio, and another 81 agreed to do so in the next 12 months. Insurer responses revealed that 670 companies divested some or all of their coal holdings, or had no coal holdings to divest, and 325 companies acknowledged that they would refrain from making future investments in thermal coal. ...
https://www.insurance.ca.gov/0400-news/0100-press-releases/2017/release004-17.cfm
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sidd

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Re: Money and Politics: The Drive for Climate Change Action
« Reply #581 on: January 21, 2017, 12:34:09 AM »
the bit about "future coal investments" makes a virtue out of necessity. The only large new coal mine is carmichael by adnani which is hemorraging even before production starts.

something tells me that adnani is not long for this world. couldnt happen to a buncha nicer guys.

Sigmetnow

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Re: Money and Politics: The Drive for Climate Change Action
« Reply #582 on: January 21, 2017, 07:57:16 PM »
Bill McKibben:  Nice! #WomensMarch Antarctic style!
https://twitter.com/billmckibben/status/822873123032690688
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DrTskoul

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Re: Money and Politics: The Drive for Climate Change Action
« Reply #583 on: January 21, 2017, 08:05:20 PM »
+1

Sigmetnow

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Re: Money and Politics: The Drive for Climate Change Action
« Reply #584 on: January 21, 2017, 11:34:37 PM »
Women's march: Women hate Donald Trump so much they are even marching against him in Antarctica
A group of demonstrators will be marching in a part of Antarctica normally inhabited by only penguins, seals and whales
Quote
“I set it up because I wanted to participate in the Women’s March,” she said. “I spent a month after the election mourning the impending damage to the earth that will be done. I felt like I needed to do something to be part of the global movement.”
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/womens-march-antarctica-donald-trump-inauguration-women-hate-donald-trump-so-much-they-are-even-a7538856.html
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Sigmetnow

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Re: Money and Politics: The Drive for Climate Change Action
« Reply #585 on: January 22, 2017, 01:01:46 AM »
So since the new U.S. president is so adamant about bringing factories and jobs back to the U.S., that means the country's overseas carbon footprint will lessen, right?

Just kidding. 

No.
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Sigmetnow

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Re: Money and Politics: The Drive for Climate Change Action
« Reply #586 on: January 22, 2017, 01:10:54 AM »
Dana Nuccitelli:  Soooo many people at women's march & climate mobilization event in Sacramento [California] ❤️
https://twitter.com/dana1981/status/822951604051546116


Edit:  more:

Women's March events take place in Washington and around the world – as it happened
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/live/2017/jan/21/womens-march-on-washington-and-other-anti-trump-protests-around-the-world-live-coverage
« Last Edit: January 22, 2017, 03:07:35 AM by Sigmetnow »
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Sigmetnow

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Re: Money and Politics: The Drive for Climate Change Action
« Reply #587 on: January 22, 2017, 02:38:44 AM »
Bill McKibben:  They say LA is a car city, no one walks anywhere. #womensmarch
https://twitter.com/billmckibben/status/822972547914469376

Edit: removed prior photo, which was not from the women's march.  This one is.
Women's March Los Angeles, January 21, 2017. Photo: @jaykimjpg
« Last Edit: January 24, 2017, 02:14:29 AM by Sigmetnow »
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Sigmetnow

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Re: Money and Politics: The Drive for Climate Change Action
« Reply #588 on: January 22, 2017, 02:54:04 AM »
"Around the world, people are witnessing our resistance and hearing us reject him. That's important, too."

The Guardian:  Observer front page, Sunday 22 January 2017: Hundreds of thousands of US women unite to voice defiance over Trump

https://twitter.com/guardian/status/822943660438355968


Edit: articles:
Protesters rally worldwide in solidarity with Washington march
http://www.cnn.com/2017/01/21/politics/trump-women-march-on-washington/

Women's Marches Go Global: Postcards From Protests Around The World
http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/01/21/510940708/womens-march-on-washington-goes-worldwide-snapshots-from-around-the-globe
« Last Edit: January 22, 2017, 03:05:29 AM by Sigmetnow »
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solartim27

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Re: Money and Politics: The Drive for Climate Change Action
« Reply #589 on: January 22, 2017, 03:02:57 AM »
The San Diego scene:
FNORD

Sigmetnow

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Re: Money and Politics: The Drive for Climate Change Action
« Reply #590 on: January 22, 2017, 03:54:10 AM »
Alice Anderson:  Combined totals of 2.9 million make the Womens March on January 21, 2017 the single biggest political protest in US history. #resist
https://www.facebook.com/alice.anderson/posts/10209813052017265
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Sigmetnow

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Re: Money and Politics: The Drive for Climate Change Action
« Reply #591 on: January 22, 2017, 04:12:07 AM »
Womens marches in U.S. and around the world, January 21, 2017 (day after Trump's inauguration).
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Sigmetnow

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Re: Money and Politics: The Drive for Climate Change Action
« Reply #592 on: January 22, 2017, 01:08:50 PM »
Here we go!

@gen_deg: @EricHolthaus we need mass action/protest for the climate and planet a la the #WomensMarch

Eric Holthaus:  Mark your calendars:
Hundreds of thousands of people will be back in DC on April 29th to call for climate action.


https://350.org/april-29-2017-lets-march/ 

https://twitter.com/ericholthaus/status/823023351627010049


Has the sleeping giant finally awakened?
« Last Edit: January 22, 2017, 01:16:09 PM by Sigmetnow »
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Sigmetnow

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Re: Money and Politics: The Drive for Climate Change Action
« Reply #593 on: January 22, 2017, 01:50:00 PM »
It's Time to Stand Up for the Climate — and for Civilization
By Bill McKibben
https://www.wired.com/2017/01/stand-up-for-the-climate-and-civilization/
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Sigmetnow

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Re: Money and Politics: The Drive for Climate Change Action
« Reply #594 on: January 28, 2017, 07:16:35 PM »
Elon Musk Has Trump’s Ear, and Wall Street Takes Note
Quote
The election of Donald Trump and the accompanying rehabilitation of fossil fuels should have been, by all rights, devastating for Tesla Motors.
...
So why have Tesla shares surged since Mr. Trump’s election, closing this week within striking distance of a record high?
...
One reason for that shift seems to be a budding bromance between Mr. Trump and Mr. Musk. The president-elect invited Mr. Musk to Trump Tower in December as part of a group of technology executives and named him to his strategic and policy forum of business leaders.

And Mr. Musk was with a group of manufacturing executives at a White House meeting this week at which, according to a participant, he broached the subject of a carbon tax. Surprisingly, Mr. Trump didn’t reject it out of hand.
...
A major fear of investors in solar power was that a Trump administration would end the federal subsidies so reviled by fossil fuel proponents. While that remains a concern, the most recent jobs data suggests that the subsidies have led to a surge in new well-paid jobs, exactly what the president has advocated.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/26/business/elon-musk-donald-trump-wall-street.html
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Sigmetnow

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Re: Money and Politics: The Drive for Climate Change Action
« Reply #595 on: February 01, 2017, 05:17:20 PM »
In an earlier debate on the bill, Green Party leader Eamon Ryan said this would a strong message to US President Donald Trump and oil man-turned-secretary of state Rex Tillerson.

“We are going to be selling your Exxon Mobil shares, sir, because we don’t believe in the future that you stand for,” said Ryan.


Irish lawmakers  vote to divest from fossil fuels
Quote
Ireland could become the first country in the world to fully divest its sovereign wealth fund from fossil fuels3, after a parliamentary vote on Thursday.

Lawmakers split 90 to 53 in favour of ditching coal, oil and gas holdings from the €8 billion (US$9bn) Ireland Strategic Investment Fund.1

The bill, brought by independent representative Thomas Pringle, is expected to pass into law in the next few months after consideration by the finance committee.

“National governments have an essential role to play in backing up their Paris pledges by ensuring public funds are well placed to support the clean energy transition, and protected from the inevitable decline of the fossil fuel industry,” said Pringle....
http://www.climatechangenews.com/2017/01/26/irish-lawmakers-vote-to-divest-from-fossil-fuels/
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AbruptSLR

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Re: Money and Politics: The Drive for Climate Change Action
« Reply #596 on: February 17, 2017, 02:56:12 AM »
The linked reference suggests that more progress could be made in the fight against climate change if we were to use a marketing-style campaign directed towards conservatives to indicate that we could reclaim the Earth's good old days by stepping-up and taking action now.

Matthew Baldwina & Joris Lammers (2016), “Past-focused environmental comparisons promote proenvironmental outcomes for conservatives”, PNAS, vol. 113 no. 52,  14953–14957, doi: 10.1073/pnas.1610834113

http://www.pnas.org/content/113/52/14953

Significance: “Political polarization on important issues can have dire consequences for society, and divisions regarding the issue of climate change could be particularly catastrophic. Building on research in social cognition and psychology, we show that temporal comparison processes largely explain the political gap in respondents’ attitudes towards and behaviors regarding climate change. We found that conservatives’ proenvironmental attitudes and behaviors improved consistently and drastically when we presented messages that compared the environment today with that of the past. This research shows how ideological differences can arise from basic psychological processes, demonstrates how such differences can be overcome by framing a message consistent with these basic processes, and provides a way to market the science behind climate change more effectively.”

Abstract: “Conservatives appear more skeptical about climate change and global warming and less willing to act against it than liberals. We propose that this unwillingness could result from fundamental differences in conservatives’ and liberals’ temporal focus. Conservatives tend to focus more on the past than do liberals. Across six studies, we rely on this notion to demonstrate that conservatives are positively affected by past- but not by future-focused environmental comparisons. Past comparisons largely eliminated the political divide that separated liberal and conservative respondents’ attitudes toward and behavior regarding climate change, so that across these studies conservatives and liberals were nearly equally likely to fight climate change. This research demonstrates how psychological processes, such as temporal comparison, underlie the prevalent ideological gap in addressing climate change. It opens up a promising avenue to convince conservatives effectively of the need to address climate change and global warming. “

See also:
https://arstechnica.co.uk/science/2016/12/wouldnt-it-be-great-if-the-planet-went-back-to-how-it-used-to-be/
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Sigmetnow

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Re: Money and Politics: The Drive for Climate Change Action
« Reply #597 on: February 19, 2017, 08:57:02 PM »
The linked reference suggests that more progress could be made in the fight against climate change if we were to use a marketing-style campaign directed towards conservatives to indicate that we could reclaim the Earth's good old days by stepping-up and taking action now. 


This article discusses two studies that show differences in the brains of Republicans/conservatives compared to Democrats/liberals.

The Surprising Brain Differences Between Democrats and Republicans
Two new studies further support the theory that our political decision making could have a neurological basis.
Quote
...First, in the American Journal of Political Science, a team of researchers including Peter Hatemi of Penn State University and Rose McDermott of Brown University studied the relationship between our deep-seated tendencies to experience fear—tendencies that vary from person to person, partly for reasons that seem rooted in our genes—and our political beliefs. What they found is that people who have more fearful disposition also tend to be more politically conservative, and less tolerant of immigrants and people of races different from their own. As McDermott carefully emphasizes, that does not mean that every conservative has a high fear disposition. "It's not that conservative people are more fearful, it's that fearful people are more conservative," as she puts it.
...
I also interviewed Schreiber for The Republican Brain. He's a scientist who was once quite cautious about the relevance of brain studies to people's politics. As he put it to me: "If you had called me four years ago and said, 'What is your view on whether Republicans and Democrats have different brains?' I would have said no." Now, his own published research suggests otherwise.

The current research suggests not only that having a particular brain influences your political views, but also that having a particular political view influences your brain....
http://m.motherjones.com/politics/2013/02/brain-difference-democrats-republicans
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rboyd

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Re: Money and Politics: The Drive for Climate Change Action
« Reply #598 on: April 10, 2017, 07:17:08 PM »
The human brain is incredibly plastic until about aged 10, so being brought up in a highly fearful environment (parents, teachers, siblings etc.) could wire it to be more fearful. Let's also remember that most republicans believed in climate change in the 1990's, then we had the counter-revolutionary onslaught of the right-wing against climate science and it all changed.

Dark Money, by Jane Mayer, shows in great detail how the rich and powerful in the US have used their money to fight against any climate change policies in the U.S. Even details how individual Republican politicians suddenly changed their stance once the floodgates for fossil fuel money was opened into US politics. The Koch and Mercer political operations rival that of the two official parties, and may now have a greater say over what politicians do.

Sigmetnow

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Re: Money and Politics: The Drive for Climate Change Action
« Reply #599 on: October 03, 2017, 06:14:22 PM »
Catholic church to make record divestment from fossil fuels
More than 40 Catholic institutions will make largest ever faith-based divestment, on the anniversary of the death of St Francis of Assisi
Quote
The sum involved has not been disclosed but the volume of divesting groups is four times higher than a previous church record, and adds to a global divestment movement, led by investors worth $5.5tn.
https://amp.theguardian.com/environment/2017/oct/03/catholic-church-to-make-record-divestment-from-fossil-fuels
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