What's New in Climate Change Acceptance and Action

[Sigmetnow]

Positive Social Media On Climate Action Up 700%

From business leaders, to government policymakers around the world, to economists, to mayors, to the general public, there is a deepening understanding that climate action is not only necessary, but it can also be good for development and growth

http://cleantechnica.com/2015/12/16/positive-social-media-climate-action-700/

[Sigmetnow]

Surreal Spring: The Cognitive Dissonance of Our Climate Emergency

It’s a glorious spring day showing off Northern California at its finest: daffodils unfurl, while fragrant pink and white blossoms adorn the trees announcing that summer is on its way. Only one problem: it’s actually mid-February. We’re supposed to be in the depths of winter. We’re supposed to be getting regular storms and fighting the occasional frost. It’s a surreal spring.

Yesterday, the mercury hit 84° F in Berkeley, California. The previous record, set nearly forty years ago, was 73° F. Could be just a chance event, of course. But we know it’s not. It’s the new reality of a climate out of control. We got news the same day that the month of January 2016 was the planet’s hottest month in recorded history.

In the new language of the Anthropocene, this is known as blissonance: the cognitive dissonance of a terrifying world where the bliss of the daffodils is an omen of impending doom. Surreal as it is, this passing moment of beauty tinged with dread is small fry compared with the cognitive dissonance facing our global civilization.

http://patternsofmeaning.com/2016/02/16/surreal-spring-the-cognitive-dissonance-of-our-climate-emergency/

[Sigmetnow]

16 US governors agree they like the idea of clean energy.   

Governor Jerry Brown and 16 other governors say they’ll pull together under a new pact to speed up the transition to clean energy and transportation in their states.

Called a “work in process,” the Governors’ Accord for a New Energy Future, lacks specific, measurable targets. The agreement uses broad language, saying the states will “embrace” and “encourage” clean energy options.

Brown pointed to three of the cooperative’s broad goals that he says will benefit from interstate cooperation: a “highly sophisticated” regional energy grid, combined state purchasing power for zero-emission vehicles and joint lobbying of the federal government for research and development money aimed at energy storage, clean fuels and the grid.

http://ww2.kqed.org/science/2016/02/16/jerry-brown-and-16-u-s-governors-vow-to-ramp-up-renewable-energy/

[TerryM]

In the new language of the Anthropocene, this is known as blissonance: the cognitive dissonance of a terrifying world where the bliss of the daffodils is an omen of impending doom. Surreal as it is, this passing moment of beauty tinged with dread is small fry compared with the cognitive dissonance facing our global civilization.

http://patternsofmeaning.com/2016/02/16/surreal-spring-the-cognitive-dissonance-of-our-climate-emergency/

Blissonance, What a wonderful term for what this winter is producing.

My neighbors are delighted by the warn and virtually snowless winter here in Southern Ontario Canada. The Grand River as it flows by my window is yet again unfettered by ice, (although just 40 years ago there was a huge contest each year to guess the exact time the ice jam would burst). (I've been told that the contest began before the first bridge was built in 1807 to mark the moment when traversing the frozen river became untenable).

I've detected no panic in any sector of society, even those academics who are certainly aware of recent climatic changes seem loath to mention the future of the path we're on. Perhaps the Paris accord relieved whatever anxieties they had suffered?
Those accustomed to back yard rinks and pond curling may bemoan their unhappy lot, but then inevitably they end their lament with joyful observations about heating costs, and how wonderful driving conditions have been.

Blissonance is certainly a word I'll be incorporating into my own sparse vocabulary as it more accurately describes what might otherwise be termed as an insouciant attitude.

Terry

[Sigmetnow]

Apple issues $1.5 billion in green bonds in first sale

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Apple has issued $1.5 billion in bonds dedicated to financing clean energy projects across its global business operations, the largest green bond to be issued by a U.S. corporation, the company's head of environmental policy said Wednesday.

The Cupertino, California-based tech giant said proceeds from the green bond sales will be used to finance renewable energy, energy storage and energy efficiency projects, green buildings and resource conservation efforts.
...
In October, the company announced steps to green its operations in China by bringing on over 200 megawatts of renewable energy and working with its suppliers, including Foxconn, to switch to cleaner energy sources.

http://mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSKCN0VQ2K2

[Sigmetnow]

COAL VERSUS RECREATION IN UTAH
Haze from Utah's coal-fired power plants threatens its vibrant outdoor-recreation industry.

When outsiders think of Utah, they usually picture Korenblat's stomping ground in the southeastern part of the state: redrock cliffs, flood-cut canyons, and improbable arches that sometimes glow green in the snow. But it's the pine-covered Wasatch mountains, cutting through the center of the state, that have defined Utah's economy for more than a century. The Wasatch Range fed and watered Mormon settlers who built their capital on its western front, and provided coal to fuel their industries. A county just east of the mountains is even named for the stuff: It's called Carbon.

Directly south of Carbon County is Emery County, where the Hunter and Huntington coal-fired power plants provide electricity for the half million customers of Rocky Mountain Power, a division of utility giant PacifiCorp. Nearly 400 workers and their families depend on the plants; without them, the small towns of Castle Dale and Huntington might cease to exist.

The plants' pollution, however, drifts south into the five national parks—Arches, Bryce Canyon, Capitol Reef, Canyonlands, and Zion—for which Utah is famous, and which draw some 2.5 million visitors every year.

"The prevailing winds blow emissions from those two coal plants smack into us," says Chris Baird, a former director of the Canyonlands Watershed Council. The resulting haze, says the EPA, cloaks the towering red rocks in a milky film more than 300 days a year.

http://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/2016-2-march-april/feature/coal-versus-recreation-utah

[Sigmetnow]

News Roundup: Clinton and Sanders Go Head to Head On Nevada PUC Decision, Clean Energy Funding Announced for Tribal Nations

An overwhelming majority of [electric utility] respondents – all but three percent – acknowledged that their business model needs to evolve to accommodate changes in the industry. More than half see energy storage and distributed generation as areas for expansion, and 56 percent of respondents are actively exploring community solar options for their ratepayers.

http://news.energysage.com/news-roundup-clinton-and-sanders-go-head-to-head-on-nevada-puc-decision/

[Sigmetnow]

Remember the wind and solar tax credit extensions the U.S. Congress passed last December?

They could be responsible for reducing "electricity-sector greenhouse gas emissions ... by as much as 1.4 billion metric tons by 2030 compared with what they would have been without the extension, the study found. That's roughly the savings you'd get if you removed every passenger car from US roads for two years."

In other words, the tax breaks—2.3 cents per kilowatt-hour of electricity produced by a wind turbine and about 30 percent off the total cost of solar systems—add up to "one of the biggest investments in clean energy in our nation's history," Dan Utech, deputy assistant to President Barack Obama on climate, told reporters today.

http://m.motherjones.com/environment/2016/02/congress-actually-did-something-pretty-great-climate-change

[Sigmetnow]

Scientists calculate our debt to the Earth

LONDON, 24 February, 2016 – Perhaps for the first time, scientists have put a direct cash value on the metaphor that conservationists call “natural capital”.

This is, in effect, the money humans don’t have to spend on services that nature supplies for free – such as crop pollination, water purification, and coastal protection by wetlands, sandbanks and reefs.

And one high value transaction supplied gratis by nature is groundwater. For farmers, water in subterranean aquifers represents money in the bank, as groundwater underwrites 40% of world food production.

Eli Fenichel, assistant professor at the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, and colleagues looked at withdrawals from the Kansas High Plains Aquifer and report in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that between 1996 and 2005, Kansas lost approximately $110 million a year.

The losses represented the depletion of the aquifer as farmers withdraw this ultimate natural capital to support food production. And the total for the decade was $1.1 billion.

http://climatenewsnetwork.net/scientists-calculate-our-debt-to-the-earth/

[Sigmetnow]

No Bill Gates, We Don’t Need ‘Energy Miracles’ To Solve Climate Change
By Joe Romm

For six years, Bill Gates has been arguing that we need “energy miracles” to avoid catastrophic climate change. For six years, he has been wrong.

In fact, Gates is more wrong now than he was in 2010. Why? Because in the last six years, we have seen that aggressive deployment of clean energy technology driven by government policies has — as was predicted — led to precisely the kind of game-changing cost-slashing innovation that Gates mistakenly thinks happens primarily from basic energy research and development (R&D).

For six years, Gates has claimed we were wildly under-investing in basic energy R&D. Yet, somehow the very thing Gates says he wanted — huge price drops in key low-carbon technologies (like renewables and efficiency) and key enabling technologies (like batteries for storage) — kept happening. The fact is that accelerated deployment policies around the world created economies of scale and brought technologies rapidly down the learning curve, as the DOE reported last November....

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2016/02/23/3752421/bill-gates-wrong-energy-miracles/

[AbruptSLR]

The article discusses how lobbyist influence Republican-led House of Delegates voted to block new science standards in schools:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/energy-environment/global-warming-doubts-spur-push-to-block-science-standards/2016/02/26/9ac7c1da-dcba-11e5-8210-f0bd8de915f6_story.html

Extract: "Doubt over man’s contribution to global warming, particularly through burning coal for power, is fueling a push by West Virginia lawmakers to block new science standards in schools.

In a state defined by a coal industry that is now on life support, the Republican-led House of Delegates voted 73-20 on Friday to delay the new science standards related to Common Core."

[Sigmetnow]

Rural electric co-ops, traditionally bastions of coal, are getting into solar

A new story out of Wisconsin illustrates that a slow, tentative shift is underway, as rural electricity consumers and the utilities that serve them take a new look at the benefits of solar power.

http://www.vox.com/2016/2/26/11116230/rural-electric-co-ops-solar

[Sigmetnow]

A review of some carbon capture and sequestration methods.

The suddenly urgent quest to remove carbon dioxide from the air
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2016/02/26/weve-reached-the-point-where-we-need-these-bizarre-technologies-to-stop-climate-change/

[Sigmetnow]

New (February 2016) TED talk by Al Gore, on climate change and solutions.  25 minute video.
http://www.ted.com/talks/al_gore_the_case_for_optimism_on_climate_change

[Sigmetnow]

Peter Gleik: "You're in front of a crowd. Talk about #climate. In 62 secs. Make it personal. Use facts. Go.
@LeoDiCaprio #Oscars "

"Thanks @LeoDiCaprio for highlighting #climate change in your #Oscar  speech. (Here is the speech via @grist)"
https://twitter.com/petergleick/status/704189518505611264

[Sigmetnow]

Are climate-change adaptations tied to protecting property or people? Study follows the money.

As climate change continues, scientists have observed a disturbing trend: The money that megacities spend to adapt to climate change seems to be linked more to protecting valuable capital, and less to protecting vulnerable people.

The study, published in the journal Nature Climate Change, reveals that cities in developing nations may be even less equipped to protect residents against future health, environmental and economic effects than those in developed countries.

“Current adaptation activities are insufficient in major population centers in developing and emerging economies,” the study authors wrote.

http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-climate-change-cities-gdp-20160229-story.html

[Sigmetnow]

How do you address your school's relation to fossil fuels when they are a major benefactor?

MIT’s long-running divestment sit-in ends, but the fight isn’t over
http://grist.org/climate-energy/david-kochs-impact-on-the-longest-fossil-fuel-sit-in-ever/

[Sigmetnow]

Oregon lawmakers approve far-reaching climate change bill

Oregon lawmakers have approved a bill to slash coal-fired power in their state, a measure hailed by environmentalists as a major victory in the fight against climate change.

The legislation would have ratepayers for the state’s two largest utilities stop paying for power produced at out-of-state coal plants by 2030 and set a renewable energy standard of 50 percent by 2040.

http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/271611-oregon-approves-far-reaching-climate-change-bill

[Sigmetnow]

Trudeau, Obama set to endorse continental strategy on climate change

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is poised to sign on to a continental environment and climate-change strategy with outgoing President Barack Obama when the two leaders hold their first formal bilateral meeting in the Oval Office next Thursday.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/trudeau-obama-set-to-endorse-continental-strategy-on-climate-change/article28991505/

[Sigmetnow]

Vancouver, Copenhagen, Helsinki mayors brainstorm on building greener cities
http://www.nationalobserver.com/2016/03/04/news/vancouver-copenhagen-helsinki-mayors-brainstorm-building-greener-cities

[Sigmetnow]

Bill McKibben

Tweet: Our planet is running the highest fever humans have ever witnessed. The only possible antibody is...us. In action.
https://twitter.com/billmckibben/status/706476006987735040

Article:
The mercury doesn’t lie: We’ve hit a troubling climate change milestone
https://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2016/03/04/why-degree-temperature-jump-more-important-than-trump-hands/lCyz5MHZkH8aD0HIDJrcYJ/story.html

[Sigmetnow]

A new study explores the staggering spending gap between developed and developing megacities struggling to adapt to global warming.

Megacities in developing nations spent about double the amount of rich megacities on agriculture and forestry, while the wealthiest nations tended to make energy a higher priority.

http://www.takepart.com/article/2016/02/29/megacities-climate-change-adaptation

[Sigmetnow]

U.K.:  Ed Miliband calls for law to make CO2 emissions target legally binding
Ex-Labour leader assembles group of MPs and NGOs to demand UK legislation on net zero emissions agreed at Paris climate talks

“Specifically, it can build on the momentum from Paris by supporting the idea of enshrining net zero emissions in UK domestic law, with the date to be advised by the independent Committee on Climate Change.

“Just as the 2008 UK Climate Change Act, prompted by business and civil society, and passed with all-party support, sent a signal to the world, so we would do so again.”

Before Christmas, Miliband said that having stood down as Labour leader after the election in May, he had decided throw his energy behind building a “high-ambition coalition” of UK businesses, trade unions and civic society to challenge the government’s “backward” environmental policies.

“This is the thing my kids will judge me on,” he told the Guardian at the time. “Did you do something about this? Were you the last generation not to get it or the first generation to get it? I think that is in the balance now.”

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/mar/06/ed-miliband-calls-for-law-co2-emissions-target-legally-binding-paris-climate-talks

[Sigmetnow]

Building Resilient Cities in a Changing Climate
By Katharine Hayhoe

Yes, there have been warmer conditions and higher sea levels in the distant past. But there weren't any people on the planet at that time, and there definitely weren't any megacities within just a few feet of sea level; trillions of dollars of valuable infrastructure vulnerable to flooding; extensive agricultural systems that could be decimated by drought; or preexisting threats to water supply, disease, and even political instability, all of which are exacerbated by a changing climate.

My colleagues and I at the Texas Tech Climate Science Center spend a lot of our time figuring out how to look ahead, down the climate highway, to see what might be coming up. Lacking a crystal ball, we use the fundamental laws of physics, chemistry, and even biology to calculate how human choices may be affecting our planet today and in the future.

Over the last 10 years, I've worked with a broad range of cities, states, and other planning organizations, from state water agencies to transportation and port authorities. Throughout this work, I've seen how climate projections can help planners make more informed decisions, even when facing an uncertain future.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/katharine-hayhoe/building-resilient-cities_b_9378126.html

[Sigmetnow]

Bill McKibben joins protesters blocking the entrance to a gas storage facility in the Finger Lakes region of New York this morning:

Tankers backed up as arrests continue #wearesenecalake
https://twitter.com/billmckibben/status/706825905755262976

Some mornings fighting for the future means heading off to jail. That's okay.
https://twitter.com/billmckibben/status/706828260773072896

https://www.facebook.com/WeAreSenecaLake/

[Sigmetnow]

Surprise! A third of U.S. Congress members are climate change deniers

An annual tally of climate deniers in Congress just came out, and there’s good news and bad news. The good news: You’re smarter than 34 percent of Congress. The bad news: You’re smarter than 34 percent of Congress.

http://grist.org/climate-energy/surprise-a-third-of-congress-members-are-climate-change-deniers/

[Sigmetnow]

How the shipping industry is preparing for its decarbonisation voyage

Along with highlighting a host of potential consequences of climate change for the shipping industry, such as rising sea levels at key ports and increased extreme weather risk, the new roadmap sets out a number of core areas where sustainability performance needs to improve and attention needs to be focused.

One key area is the diversification of energy sources and boosting of energy efficiency, alongside drastic emissions reductions.

"Currently shipping is essentially almost wholly dependent on carbon fuel, fuel oil, and in terms of emissions going forward and contribution to global climate change mitigation, it's not going to be able to continue," Alastair Fischbacher, chief executive of the SSI, tells BusinessGreen. "We will see a transition towards a multitude of fuels, initially depending upon ability to change and suitability, but [the industry] will have to make a significant change in the future both in how we transport things and how we power that transportation."
...
Good progress by a handful of shipping operators continues to be undermined by large swathe of the industry continuing to operate old and inefficient ships.

http://www.businessgreen.com/bg/feature/2450368/how-the-shipping-industry-is-preparing-for-a-decarbonisation-voyage

[Sigmetnow]

Don’t Put a Price Tag on Nature
The ‘ecosystem services’ idea devalues the natural world by trying to monetize it.

But make-believe markets are highly likely to fail when people are otherwise relentlessly focused on nickel-and-dime realities. The market mentality also degrades nature by attempting to turn it into a commodity. “People are not allowed to sell their organs or their children,” Silvertown writes, citing the 2012 book What Money Can’t Buy: The Moral Limits of Markets. “These have intrinsic value that is beyond price.” That’s true of species and habitats too.

http://www.takepart.com/article/2016/03/11/dont-put-price-nature

[Sigmetnow]

Climate Change and Conservative Brain Death

During Thursday night’s Republican debate, a moderator — finally! — asked about climate change, and Marco Rubio supplied an answer that, while banal and dogmatic, was fascinating in its own way. The regular Republican policy apparatus has been frozen for nearly a year as its Establishment has desperately fended off the Trump insurgency. Presented with a plea from Miami’s Republican mayor, whose city is already coping with the flooding that results from elevated sea levels, Rubio repeated his formulaic and un-categorical opposition to any policy to limit the greenhouse-gas emissions that are in the process of sinking his home city. Rubio’s reply was not just the last gasp of a dying campaign, but a state-of-the-art expression of party doctrine. Trump is what the regular Republicans are trying to stave off; Rubio represents what they are fighting to preserve: a delusional anti-government ideology unable to process or cope with real-world conditions.

His climate-change response, in particular, recapitulated almost word for word the denialist stance he has stubbornly maintained for years, as though nothing has changed. A casual listener might have gotten the impression that the world Rubio is describing, or mis-describing, is more or less the same one that existed a few years ago. But it isn’t. It is in the midst of a green-energy revolution that is proceeding with astonishing and increasing speed, and rendering the backward orthodoxy mouthed by Rubio increasingly comic.

Discussing the U.S. economic impact:

All of these innovations have allowed the economy to decarbonize quickly without imposing noticeable costs on consumers. The coal industry is in a state of collapse. In just the last year alone, its share of U.S. electrical generation fell from 36 percent to 28 percent.  The four largest American coal-mining firms, which were worth a combined $34 billion five years ago, are now worth $150 million — a loss of more than 99 percent of their value.

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2016/03/climate-change-and-conservative-brain-death.html#

[Sigmetnow]

Greenpeace USA:

The fed oil lease sale for 43 million acres is at a standstill. People are chanting Stop the leases. Stop the greed.

https://twitter.com/greenpeaceusa/status/712641161878499328

[Sigmetnow]

2015:  Global coal and gas investment falls to less than half that in clean energy

Global investment in coal and gas-fired power generation plants fell to less than half that in renewable energy generation last year, in a record year for clean energy.

It was the first time that renewable energy made up a majority of all the new electricity generation capacity under construction around the world, and the first year in which the financial investment by developing countries in renewables outstripped that of the developed world.

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/mar/24/global-coal-and-gas-investment-falls-to-less-than-half-that-in-clean-energy

[Sigmetnow]

Australia announces A$1 billion clean energy fund, in break with past

Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull on Wednesday said the country would establish a A$1 billion ($761.60 million) clean-energy innovation fund, in a major departure from his predecessor's much maligned approach to combating climate change.
...
"This will be investing in storage, in new battery technology, in smart grids, in some of the exciting solar visions that people have hoped for and imagined for Australia but which are only now really becoming reality," he said.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-australia-climatechange-idUSKCN0WP03N

[Sigmetnow]

Australian town of Port Augusta 'busting a gut' to reinvent itself as a solar city when coal-fired power is switched off
As the deadline for power stations to shut down approaches, the community rallies around a future in renewable solar energy.
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/mar/24/port-augusta-busting-a-gut-to-reinvent-itself-as-a-solar-city-when-coal-fired-power-is-switched-off

[Sigmetnow]

Meteorologist Eric Holthaus interviews people waiting in line at a Donald Trump rally.
"Surprise! It wasn’t all paranoia and xenophobia."

What Do Trump Supporters Think About Climate Change? I Went to a Rally and Asked.
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2016/03/what_do_trump_supporters_think_about_climate_change_i_went_to_a_rally_and.html

[Sigmetnow]

The New York Times made the Pollard Antarctic paper findings front page news, "1,500 words, plus pictures, graphics and plenty of links."  But most media outlets just yawned.

Attention Must Be Paid (Except to Climate Change)

A bombshell dropped the other day. But if nobody heard it explode, did that make it a dud?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/marty-kaplan/attention-must-be-paid-except-to-climate-change_b_9596958.html

[Sigmetnow]

Why Evangelicals — Yes, Evangelicals — Are Rallying For Action On Climate Change In North Carolina

A group of evangelical Christians are organizing, demonstrating, and praying for action on climate change in North Carolina this week, bringing an unusual, faith-focused, “pro-life” brand of environmentalism to the Tar Heel State.
...
“We had a prayer of repentance, recognizing that we have participated in degrading creation,” Lamb said. “Then we had prayers for those most impacted by climate change, and also spent some time praying for our political leaders, hoping that they would take bold, courageous action — that people on both sides of the aisle will continue to recognize that climate change impacts us, here, and our generation disproportionately.”

Also in attendance was Dr. Katharine Hayhoe, a leading climate scientist, influential environmental activist, and devout evangelical Christian.
...

But this week’s religious activism also has a far more localized goal: helping build energy around climate change legislation in North Carolina. The Evangelical Environmental Network (EEN), another sponsor of Tuesday’s prayer breakfast, announced a petition signed by 15,000 self-identified evangelicals in North Carolina that demands a “pro-life” energy plan and calling for clean electricity in the state by 2030.

“As a pro-life Christian, I believe pollution harms the unborn, causing damage that lasts a lifetime,” the petition reads. “Dirty water and air have serious consequences for the health of our children and other vulnerable populations, like the elderly. So, I ask Governor McCrory and other elected officials to support a plan for clean electricity that will: free our children from pollution by relying entirely on clean electricity from renewable resources like wind and solar by 2030; defend our freedom to create our own electricity from sunshine, without fees championed by monopolistic utilities; free our communities from regulations that prevent us from joining together to create our own electricity; and free businesses from such regulations so that they, too, can create and sell clean electricity.”

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2016/04/05/3766781/evangelicals-climate-north-carolina/

[Sigmetnow]

Many Meteorologists Still Doubt Human-Driven Climate Change

Another reason for the low acceptance rates may have to do with who AMS members actually are. One thing they’re not is all formally educated meteorologists—they’re involved in a variety of weather-related fields (like local emergency management or teaching high school science). Just 32 percent of respondents held a bachelor’s degree or greater in meteorology, and only 37 percent considered themselves experts in climate science. And meteorology degrees may not even help, as they typically do not require coursework in climate change science—though of course that shouldn’t stop meteorologists and weather communicators from accepting the consensus of their more rigorously climate science–focused colleagues. Additionally, respondents also skewed older (62 percent over age 50) and strongly male (82 percent), roughly in line with AMS membership. Previous surveys have shown that’s also the demographic most likely to be skeptical of mainstream climate science, partly because of a bias known as the “white male effect”—the group is less risk averse than the general public.

Add to that the fact that television meteorologists—which are just around one-fifth of overall AMS membership—have a vested interest in not alienating the politically conservative portion of their viewership. This leads to self-censorship. During that ridiculous Christmas Eve heat wave last year, a comprehensive review of local newscasts found that only one meteorologist mentioned a connection to climate change on air.

http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2016/04/meteorologists_and_regular_people_still_aren_t_sure_humans_cause_climate.html

[Sigmetnow]

San Diego Republican mayor shows how there can be bipartisan consensus to move away from fossil fuels

The Republican mayor didn’t take a hatchet to [his Democratic predecessor’s] plan, or even a red pen. He shepherded the project to passage late last year with only a few minor changes.
...
Faulconer’s embrace of the plan comes as Republicans running for the party’s presidential nomination have questioned the reality of warming and whether it’s caused by human action. Front-runner Donald Trump in a South Carolina rally at the end of December called climate change a “hoax.”

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/can-republicans-act-on-climate-change/

[Sigmetnow]

Think Tank With Fossil-Fuel Ties Subpoenaed in AG's Climate Inquiry

CEI receives a subpoena for a decade's worth of communications, emails, statements, drafts, and other documents regarding their work on climate change and energy policy, including private donor information.

The Competitive Enterprise Institute, a conservative Washington, D.C., think tank and one of the fossil fuel industry's most steadfast allies, disclosed on Thursday that the attorney general of the U.S. Virgin Islands is demanding to see records of the group's donors and activities involving climate policy.

The subpoena represents a broadening of a multifaceted legal inquiry into whether fossil fuel companies broke any laws as they sought for decades to undermine the scientific consensus and head off forceful action to address the climate crisis.

For the first time, the investigation now appears to touch on the actions of third parties supported by the industry—and perhaps into their joint lobbying actions.

http://insideclimatenews.org/news/08042016/think-tank-fossil-fuel-ties-competitive-enterprise-institute-subpoena-attorney-general-climate-change-exxon

[opensheart]

The Santa Fe Strategy: How Small Cities Can Act on Climate and Inequality


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/justin-zorn/the-santa-fe-strategy-how_b_9647712.html?ir=Green

[Sigmetnow]

In Detroit, Fighting Hopelessness With a Climate Plan
As the city struggles to emerge from bankruptcy, a citizens group has decided climate change is not a problem that can wait for brighter days.

DETROIT, Mich.—As major cities across the globe begin to take a leading role in the world's response to climate change, one U.S. metropolis has a decidedly grassroots approach to preparing for a wetter, warmer world.

In Detroit—a city that faces a myriad of pressing socioeconomic and environmental challenges—local residents are working on a plan to mitigate the long-term impacts of climate change.

Unlike the climate action plans drafted by city governments in places like New York, Chicago and Boston, Detroit's green roadmap is spearheaded by the Detroit Climate Action Collaborative (DCAC), a non-profit coalition of residents, business leaders, institutions, and others, convened by the Detroiters Working for Environmental Justice.

"Even with [Detroit's] challenges we decided that we had no other choice but to move forward in developing a climate action plan," Kimberly Hill Knott, DCAC's project director, told InsideClimate News. "Because we couldn't wait on the city to come out of bankruptcy. We couldn't wait on the city to get its business in order."

http://insideclimatenews.org/news/24042016/detroit-environmental-justice-climate-change-action-plan-solar

[Sigmetnow]

U.S:  Many More Republicans Now Believe in Climate Change
Poll shows a big leap from two years ago

In this presidential race, climate change hasn’t come up on the Republican side at all,” he said. “It means that none of the political discourse, the discussion among the Republican Party right now, is addressing climate change at all. That’s actually an improvement in the discourse.”

That might have dulled the partisanship around global warming, he suggests, and made it easier for some conservatives to shift their views “because they’re not hearing a constant barrage of ‘This is a liberal hoax.’”

Despite the change, the findings don’t point to a shift in conservative views on the reasons behind warming. There hasn’t been a rise in the number of Republicans who believe that people are causing climate change.

The poll also found broad support for government policies to expand renewable energy and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Eighty-four percent of all registered voters support more funding for energy sources like wind and solar, including 91 percent of Democrats and 75 percent of Republicans. A similar number, 81 percent of all voters, support giving tax rebates to people who buy energy-efficient cars or solar panels, including 91 percent of Democrats and 70 percent of Republicans.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/many-more-republicans-now-believe-in-climate-change/

[AbruptSLR]

People around the world need to start thinking (and speaking) more systemically (& in my opinion including understanding "moral hazards" of human actions within systems) about climate change:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2016/04/27/this-key-psychological-factor-could-explain-why-you-care-about-the-environment/

Extract: "When it comes to the role of systems thinking in environmentalism, “the idea is that it’s encouraging people to think about longer chains of causality, nuanced aspects of a complex system, and how any behavior in that system can have both intended and unintended consequences, and those can be hard to predict,” said Oberlin College psychologist Paul Thibodeau, author of a new study on the matter just published in the Journal of Environmental Psychology, and co-authored with his colleague Stephen Lezak.
If there’s any icon of systems thinking, it might be the founder of evolutionary theory, Charles Darwin. At the close of “On the Origin of Species,” he famously described an ecological system and how evolution had managed to create its diversity and complexity:
It is interesting to contemplate an entangled bank, clothed with many plants of many kinds, with birds singing on the bushes, with various insects flitting about, and with worms crawling through the damp earth, and to reflect that these elaborately constructed forms, so different from each other, and dependent upon each other in so complex a manner, have all been produced by laws acting around us.
…
The paper concludes by suggesting that systems thinking can be prompted in part by metaphors that are used to describe environmental issues. For instance, the study suggests that describing a natural park as a beautiful “pearl” may not put people in a systems-oriented mind-set, whereas describing it as the “backbone” of a larger system might have that effect.
“By using language that highlights more nuanced aspects of causality, and more complex interrelationships between humans and the environment, I think we can encourage people to think more systemically about the human-environment relationship,” said Thibodeau."

[Sigmetnow]

   

“For every couple of articles I read in science journals about the melting poles, the hottest year on record, the worst fire season on record, the flooding, I try to look at what’s happening on the solutions side: the growth in solar and wind, the improvements in the economics of renewable energy, the ambitious action taking place in cities, states and countries around the world.”

We're over being bummed about climate change and ready for solutions.
http://climate.nasa.gov/blog/2438

[Sigmetnow]

U.S. Interior chief: ‘We will have climate refugees’

Interior Secretary Sally Jewell is warning that, regardless of governments’ work to combat climate change, the United States and other countries will have to deal with populations displaced by its effects.

“We can stem the increase in temperature. We can stem some of the effects, perhaps, if we act on climate as we are committed to do through the Paris accords,” Jewell said in Ottawa on Thursday, the Canadian Press reports. “But the changes are underway and they are very rapid. We will have climate refugees.”

Jewell pointed to far-flung communities in Alaska, noting that rising sea levels in the Arctic are expected to force the relocation of hundreds of Alaskans from their homes.

http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/278192-interior-chief-we-will-have-climate-refugees

[Sigmetnow]

Some calculations to go with your extinction scenarios. 

Human Extinction Isn't That Unlikely

Nuclear war. Climate change. Pandemics that kill tens of millions.

These are the most viable threats to globally organized civilization. They’re the stuff of nightmares and blockbusters—but unlike sea monsters or zombie viruses, they’re real, part of the calculus that political leaders consider everyday. And according to a new report from the U.K.-based Global Challenges Foundation, they’re much more likely than we might think.

In its annual report on “global catastrophic risk,” the nonprofit debuted a startling statistic: Across the span of their lives, the average American is more than five times likelier to die during a human-extinction event than in a car crash.

Partly that’s because the average person will probably not die in an automobile accident. Every year, one in 9,395 people die in a crash; that translates to about a 0.01 percent chance per year. But that chance compounds over the course of a lifetime. At life-long scales, one in 120 Americans die in an accident.

The risk of human extinction due to climate change—or an accidental nuclear war—is much higher than that. The Stern Review, the U.K. government’s premier report on the economics of climate change, estimated a 0.1 percent risk of human extinction every year. That may sound low, but it also adds up when extrapolated to century-scale. The Global Challenges Foundation estimates a 9.5 percent chance of human extinction within the next hundred years.

And that number probably underestimates the risk of dying in any global cataclysm. The Stern Review, whose math suggests the 9.5-percent number, only calculated the danger of species-wide extinction. The Global Challenges Foundation’s report is concerned with all events that would wipe out more than 10 percent of Earth’s human population.

http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2016/04/a-human-extinction-isnt-that-unlikely/480444/

[AbruptSLR]

fyi


Matthew J. Hornsey & Kelly S. Fielding (2016), "A cautionary note about messages of hope: Focusing on progress in reducing carbon emissions weakens mitigation motivation", Global Environmental Change, Volume 39 , Pages 26–34, doi:10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2016.04.003

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0959378016300450

Abstract: "For the first time this millennium, growth in carbon emissions has slowed. Indeed, the year 2014 was the first time in 40 years that the planet saw zero growth in emissions. We examine whether this message of progress can be effective in motivating people to engage in mitigation efforts. This question dovetails with commentary suggesting that gloomy messages about climate change risk fatiguing the population, and that alternative approaches are necessary. It is also informed by work suggesting that hope is a motivating force in terms of engaging in collective action and social change. Study 1 (N = 574) showed that negative emotions were strongly related to mitigation motivation and feelings of efficacy, but hope-related emotions had a much weaker relationship with these constructs. In the main experiment (Study 2: N = 431) participants read an optimistic, pessimistic, or neutral message about the rate of progress in reducing global carbon emissions. Relative to the pessimistic message, the optimistic message reduced participants’ sense that climate change represented a risk to them, and the associated feelings of distress. Consequently, the optimistic message was less successful in increasing mitigation motivation than the pessimistic message. In sum, predictions that the optimistic message would increase efficacy did not transpire; concerns that the optimistic message would increase complacency did transpire. Recent progress in curbing global carbon emissions is welcome, but we found no evidence that messages focusing on this progress constitute an effective communication strategy."

[Sigmetnow]

 So, "We are all in this together," works better than, "It's your fault!"?

Scientists May Have Found The Key To Motivating People To Act On Climate Change
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2016/05/04/3775202/for-climate-change-action-appeal-to-the-collective/

[Sigmetnow]

Australia:  Arrests at Newcastle anti-coal protest

Protesters say more than a dozen people were arrested at a Newcastle rally against the fuel industry.

A large anti-fossil fuel protest at Newcastle in which kayaks blocked the harbour and activists occupied a rail bridge has resulted in 66 arrests.

Police estimate about 1500 protesters were in action on Sunday, with 57 of them arrested for blocking a coal rail line at Sandgate in the city's northwest.

About 200 took to the water to impede coal ships from entering or leaving Newcastle Harbour since 11am.

http://www.skynews.com.au/news/national/nsw/2016/05/08/arrests-at-newcastle-anti-coal-protest.html

[Sigmetnow]

City and county governments versus state and federal.

Florida Mayors Rush To Prepare For Rising Seas

"When you can demonstrate and see, like we see, what’s going on in Florida, you can't stand there with a straight face and say there's no problem, when sunny day flooding is occurring," she said. "The reality exists and the public knows it exists, and anyone who says otherwise is just a shill for fossil fuel interests."

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2016/05/06/3775590/florida-mayors-climate-action/