What's New in Climate Change Acceptance and Action

[Sigmetnow]

Leather-seat maker for car companies targeted in widening probe
Congress steps up investigations that cast doubt on the sustainability and ethics of auto supply chains

The maker of leather seats for some of the world’s largest automakers is the latest target of expanding congressional probes into environmental and human rights abuses in the supply chains that fuel production of cars and SUVs.

Senate Finance Committee chair Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) on Monday sent a letter to the Lear Corporation, the world’s biggest supplier of leather car seats, demanding that the company account for its relationships with firms suspected of engaging in Amazon deforestation and forced labor. In the letter, Wyden expressed skepticism of Lear’s claims that it meticulously monitors the practices of the Brazilian cattle firms that supply it, with a list of pointed questions about how Lear polices those businesses.
…

Wyden wrote in his letter to Lear chief executive Ray Scott that his committee is investigating hide producers the company buys from that are “known to source cattle from areas of the Amazon that have been illegally used for cattle production and which receive weak oversight from the Brazilian government.” Wyden cited a 2022 report from the nonprofit Environmental Investigation Agency that traced transport permits to show thousands of cattle were illegally ranched in one of the most protected areas of the Amazon.
 …

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/07/25/leather-car-supply-chain-forced-labor/

Or, for a limited time:  https://wapo.st/3QmL2oN

[kassy]

Soy bean importers next?

[gerontocrat]

This article tells you how far the far right in the USA wants to go in reversing growth in renewable energy to increasing the use of and reliance on fossil fuels and, in more general terms, completely change how the USA is governed.

One should not underestimate how well organised and powerful this movement is.

https://www.eenews.net/articles/battle-plan-how-the-far-right-would-dismantle-climate-programs/
Conservatives have already written a climate plan for Trump’s second term

Conservative groups have crafted a plan for demolishing the federal government’s efforts to counter climate change — and it wouldn’t stop with President Joe Biden’s policies.

The 920-page blueprint, whose hundreds of authors include former Trump administration officials, would go far beyond past GOP efforts to slash environmental agencies’ budgets or oust “deep state” employees.

Called Project 2025, it would block the expansion of the electrical grid for wind and solar energy; slash funding for the Environmental Protection Agency’s environmental justice office; shutter the Energy Department’s renewable energy offices; prevent states from adopting California’s car pollution standards; and delegate more regulation of polluting industries to Republican state officials.

If enacted, it could decimate the federal government’s climate work, stymie the transition to clean energy and shift agencies toward nurturing the fossil fuel industry rather than regulating it. It’s designed to be implemented on the first day of a Republican presidency.

“Project 2025 is not a white paper. We are not tinkering at the edges. We are writing a battle plan, and we are marshaling our forces,” said Paul Dans, director of Project 2025 at the Heritage Foundation, which compiled the plan as a road map for the first 180 days of the next GOP administration. “Never before has the whole conservative movement banded together to systematically prepare to take power day one and deconstruct the administrative state.”

The initiative has previously drawn attention for its efforts to prepare a systematic conservative takeover of the federal bureaucracy, in contrast to the perceptions of chaos that marked much of former President Donald Trump’s term. Those include plans to assemble a database of as many as 20,000 people who could serve in the next administration — “a right-wing LinkedIn,” as The New York Times described it in April — and proposals to impose sweeping Oval Office control over spending decisions, civil service employees and independent federal agencies.

But its implications for U.S. climate policy — at a time of record heat waves sweeping the globe — have drawn far less attention.

The comprehensive plan covers virtually all operations of the federal government, not just energy and climate programs.

It’s much more ambitious than the pledges that all the Republican presidential primary candidates have made so far to roll back Biden’s signature climate law. It also wouldn’t simply nullify Biden’s climate executive orders, something that a Republican president could easily do just after taking office.

Instead, the ideas laid out in Project 2025 show that conservative organizations want to achieve a more fundamental shift — moving federal agencies away from public health protections and environmental regulations in order to help the industries they have been tasked with overseeing, said Andrew Rosenberg, who was a senior official at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration during the Clinton administration.

“What this does is it basically undermines not only society but the economic capacity of the country at the same time as it’s doing gross violence to the environment,” said Rosenberg, who’s now a senior fellow at the University of New Hampshire’s Carsey School of Public Policy.

‘Governing conservatism’
The proposals are laser-like in their precision. They also indicate that Republican operatives learned a lesson from the chaotic nature of the earliest days of the Trump administration, when former Republican New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie was fired from overseeing the transition, said Neil Chatterjee, who chaired the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission under Trump.

“Even if we lose the election and don’t get the opportunity to govern, I still think this defined strategy is important because we know what we’re for and what we can showcase to the American people even if we’re out of power,” said Chatterjeee, who was not involved in the plan. “We can say this is what we would do, this is how we would handle these really complex issues.”

A plan to deconstruct the government is just the beginning of what Republicans will expect from their presidential candidate, said Newt Gingrich, the former House speaker who crafted a sweeping “Contract With America” on the way to the GOP takeover of Congress in the 1994 elections. Releasing it before the primary race heats up can give people “time to absorb the new idea, think it through and then embrace it.”

“What you’re about to see is a dramatic shift in the landscape of solutions away from the Left and toward a kind of creative, governing conservatism,” Gingrich (R-Ga.) said.

More than 400 people participated in crafting Project 2025’s details. Former Trump administration officials played a key role in writing the chapters on dismantling EPA and DOE.

The plan to gut the Department of Energy was written by Bernard McNamee, a former DOE official whom Trump appointed to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. McNamee, who did not have regulatory experience, was one of the most overtly political FERC appointees in decades. He was a director at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, a conservative think tank that fights climate regulations, and was a senior adviser to Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas).

McNamee outlines cutting key divisions at DOE, including the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, the Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations and the Loan Programs Office. He has called climate change a “progressive policy.”

He also calls for cutting funding to DOE’s Grid Deployment Office, in part to stop “focusing on grid expansion for the benefit of renewable resources or supporting low/carbon generation.” Instead, he calls for strengthening grid reliability, which he describes as expanding the use of fossil fuels and slowing or stopping the addition of cleaner energy. Part of his plan includes a massive expansion of natural gas infrastructure.

“Prevent socializing costs for customers who do not benefit from the projects or justifying such cost shifts as advancing vague ‘societal benefits’ such as climate change,” McNamee wrote in the report.

McNamee did not respond to requests for comment.

Preventing the expansion of the electric grid would slow down renewable energy projects, threatening U.S. climate goals while cooling the sector’s economic growth, said Mike O’Boyle, a senior director at the nonpartisan policy firm Energy Innovation and head of its electricity program.

“If we totally step away from the role of the federal government, our economy is going to miss out in a big way because the rest of the world is moving on climate, so they’re poised to reap the benefits both for their energy consumers but also in terms of manufacturing,” he said.

‘A conservative EPA’
Mandy Gunasekara, who was EPA’s chief of staff under Trump, wrote a chapter within the plan to move the agency away from its focus on climate policy and reducing carbon dioxide emissions.

It outlines eliminating or downsizing agency functions including the Office of Environmental Justice and External Civil Rights, the Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assistance, and the Office of Public Engagement and Environmental Education. It also would also relocate regional EPA offices and would “downsize by terminating the newest hires in low-value programs.”

The overarching theme in remaking federal agencies is to shift power away from the federal government and toward states, in an effort to diminish regulations.

“The challenge of creating a conservative EPA will be to balance justified skepticism toward an agency that has long been amenable to being coopted by the Left for political ends against the need to implement the agency’s true function: protecting public health and the environment in cooperation with states,” Gunasekara wrote.

She declined to comment for this story.

But that increase in state power wouldn’t apply to California, which has a history of setting more aggressive environmental standards than those of the federal government under a Clean Air Act waiver. The Project 2025 plan would “ensure that other states can adopt California’s standards only for traditional/criteria pollutants, not greenhouse gasses.”

Another key goal is to restructure how EPA uses science, particularly research that supports regulations by showing risks to public health from industrial pollution. The plan would require scientific studies to be “transparent and reproducible,” making it impossible to use key public health studies that rely on private data that cannot be disclosed to the public.

As part of that effort, one idea is to offer incentives for the public “to identify scientific flaws and research misconduct,” which might encourage opponents of regulations to target research.

[kiwichick16]

the flat earth society isn't dead yet , apparently

[Sigmetnow]

U.S. state of Montana.  In recent decades, a big source of coal.
 
Youths sued Montana over climate change and won. Here’s why it matters.
The ruling, the first of its kind, is reverberating worldwide, especially among young climate activists. But it still faces hurdles.
Published August 16, 2023
 
The Montana case centered on a particular circumstance — a provision in the state’s constitution — but legal experts said the case could make waves beyond Montana’s borders. The experts said judges could look to Seeley’s ruling in making their own decisions, and the win for the plaintiffs could also inspire others to bring their own cases. And though only a handful of states have a constitutional provision guaranteeing a similar right to Montana’s, lawmakers in states such as Iowa, Connecticut and Maine have introduced legislation to add a “green amendment,” as they are known, to their state constitutions. Monday’s ruling could energize those efforts, experts said.

In a decision that made headlines around the world, a Montana judge on Monday ruled in favor of the young plaintiffs who took to the courts to argue that the state violated their right to a clean environment.

In doing so, the district court struck down a provision in the Montana Environmental Policy Act that barred the state from considering climate impacts when permitting energy projects. The court also affirmed that climate is included in the state constitution’s guarantee of a right to a “clean and healthful environment.”

Climate activists hailed the landmark decision in Held v. Montana as a major victory for using the courts to challenge governmental policies and industrial activities they say are harming the planet. Allies of the fossil fuel industry dismissed it as a judicial aberration that is unlikely to survive on appeal.

What is known is that the Montana ruling changed the legal landscape overnight and could have sweeping implications for climate litigation across the country.

 
Who are the youths, and why are they suing?
The case was brought by 16 young Montanans, ranging in age from 5 to 22. (The youngest was 2 years old when the case was first filed in March 2020.) The named plaintiff is Rikki Held, the oldest, who detailed in her testimony how extreme weather has hurt her family’s ranch.
The plaintiffs say climate change has jeopardized their recreation, traditions, mental health and physical health. For the Indigenous plaintiffs, such as 20-year-old Sariel Sandoval, climate change further threatens their land and culture. The state, the plaintiffs say, is partially to blame for these harms through its promotion of fossil fuels, particularly coal, which produces significantly more greenhouse gas emissions than natural gas.
As of 2021, Montana was the nation’s fifth-largest coal producer, and many state leaders are proud of that. But the state also has a provision in its constitution guaranteeing a right to a “clean and healthful environment,” and the young litigants argued that the state’s actions were unconstitutional.

What makes this case significant?
Even before a decision was made, the case had already made history for being the first youth-led and first constitutional climate case to go to trial in the nation.

Now, experts say the ruling from Judge Kathy Seeley is one of the strongest decisions on climate change ever issued by a court — both in the United States and worldwide. Seeley determined that the litigants had standing to bring the case. She also ruled that the government played a role in harming the youths — as they had detailed in their lawsuit — because of a statute prohibiting the state from considering climate change when permitting energy projects.

How have previous youth climate cases fared in the U.S.?
They have been largely unsuccessful (the Montana case was not the first of its kind for lack of trying). At least 14 of these suits have been dismissed in the United States, according to a July report from the U.N. Environment Program and Columbia University’s Sabin Center for Climate Change Law.

However, there are signs the tide may be turning. Already, the nonprofit group that represented the youths, Our Children’s Trust, has legal action pending in four other states, including a constitutional case in Hawaii that is scheduled to go to trial next year. And in June, a judge cleared a path for a 2015 case brought by the firm against the federal government, Juliana v. United States, to go to trial.

How is climate litigation faring internationally?
The amount of climate litigation — and successes — is growing rapidly worldwide. The cumulative number of climate cases has more than doubled in the past five years, driven in part by an increase in cases brought by youths, women’s groups, local communities and Indigenous people.

According to the report from the U.N. and Columbia, as of the end of 2022, about 34 rights-based climate cases have been brought by and on behalf of youths. And among the approximately 550 cases that have been decided, more than half have had outcomes favorable to climate action, according to a 2023 report from the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment.
   …

https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2023/08/17/montana-climate-lawsuit-impact/
Alternative link, if needed: https://wapo.st/3KKauRj

[kassy]

Thanks, i was wondering how they won.

[NeilT]

Perhaps the legal bodies are slowly realising that these young people today will be the lawyers and judges and politicians of the future.  So there is an accountability thing going on here. 

As the Nazi's found out there are dedicated people out there who will never stop coming after you if you knowingly do something horribly wrong.

It would be nice if the FF lobby clued into the same thing.

[kassy]

Well they judge existing law so in this case: The court also affirmed that climate is included in the state constitution’s guarantee of a right to a “clean and healthful environment.”

This does not work for the whole of the US and in the Netherlands winning lawsuits did not help because no one is committing to a policy.

[Sigmetnow]

Prof Michael E. Mann ⁦‪@MichaelEMann‬⁩
 
This is really a fantastic presentation by my friend and hero ⁦‪@algore‬⁩ for ⁦‪@TEDTalks‬⁩. It emphasizes--as I like to say--both urgency AND agency (w/ a kind mention of yours truly at the end). Worth a half hour of your time!

8/8/23, https://twitter.com/michaelemann/status/1688965984743264261

Al Gore: What the fossil fuel industry doesn't want you to know | TED Talk
➡️ https://www.ted.com/talks/al_gore_what_the_fossil_fuel_industry_doesn_t_want_you_to_know

“In a blistering talk, Nobel Laureate Al Gore looks at the two main obstacles to climate solutions and gives his view of how we might actually solve the environmental crisis in time. You won't want to miss his searing indictment of fossil fuel companies for walking back their climate commitments -- and his call for a global rethink of the roles of polluting industries in politics and finance.”

[kassy]

Why India is rebuffing a coal-to-clean deal with rich nations


More than a year ago, leaders of the G7 group of big wealthy countries announced they were working on a series of deals to move emerging economies away from fossil fuels, particularly coal.

With South Africa’s Just Energy Transition Partnership (JETP) already underway, they said at the summit in Germany that they were negotiating with Indonesia, Vietnam and India.

Since then, Indonesia and Vietnam have signed JETP deals — but not India. Experts familiar with the issue said that no Indian deal is expected in the near future.

Swati D’Souza, an energy analyst with the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA) said that for a number of reasons, “there is considerable resistance within India [to the JETP]”.

Those reasons include the JETP’s emphasis on phasing out coal, which is the mainstay of India’s energy mix, and the relatively small amount of financing involved, as well as the debt nature of that finance.

There is also scepticism about adding a new and parallel negotiation on climate funding, when old ones haven’t come to much, says D’Souza.

At the UN climate talks, India has repeatedly but unsuccesfully urged wealthy countries like the G7 to fulfil their promise to provide $100 billion a year in funding for developing countries to help tackle and adapt to climate change.

Ultimately, the JETP is seen as a political statement that will be played as a win for G7 countries seeking to show they are helping developing nations wean off fossil fuels.

But it won't necessarily be seen as a win for India, especially ahead of national elections next year. “If India has to make a political declaration, what are the returns for it?” asks D’Souza.

A key obstacle appears to be the JETP’s emphasis on coal. The deals with South Africa, Indonesia and Vietnam focused on transitioning energy systems away from coal power towards renewables.

At the UN climate talks, India has repeatedly but unsuccesfully urged wealthy countries like the G7 to fulfil their promise to provide $100 billion a year in funding for developing countries to help tackle and adapt to climate change.

Ultimately, the JETP is seen as a political statement that will be played as a win for G7 countries seeking to show they are helping developing nations wean off fossil fuels.

But it won't necessarily be seen as a win for India, especially ahead of national elections next year. “If India has to make a political declaration, what are the returns for it?” asks D’Souza.

A key obstacle appears to be the JETP’s emphasis on coal. The deals with South Africa, Indonesia and Vietnam focused on transitioning energy systems away from coal power towards renewables.

But India has long resisted deadlines for ending use of this fossil fuel - famously changing the phrase “phaseout” of coal to “phasedown” at the Cop26 talks at Glasgow.

...

https://www.climatechangenews.com/2023/09/13/why-india-is-rebuffing-a-coal-to-clean-deal-with-rich-nations/

[sidd]

Re: JETP, India, coal

Adani is one reason. Coal India is another.

But more importantly, india is far too reliant on coal, cannot deploy renewable on China scale, and will not bow to the west on this. So a couple decades more of coal in India.

sidd

[morganism]

(over 2500 folks have signed up for interest in the Climate Corps.)

https://www.whitehouse.gov/climatecorps/

[kassy]

So the government is hiring. Maybe fase out fracking first?

[gerontocrat]

It seems that we should first look at how humankind's demands on the Earth's resources exceed Earth's capacity to regenerate those resources.

Then we need to look at how we got there. To quote:- "neuropsychology, social signalling and norms have been exploited to drive human behaviours which grow the economy, from consuming goods to having large families. ...Ancient drives to belong in a tribe or signal one’s status or attract a mate have been co-opted by marketing strategiesto create behaviours incompatible with a sustainable world."

I like this.....
“Is it ethical to exploit our psychology to benefit an economic system destroying the planet?” asks Barnard. “Creativity and innovation are driving overconsumption. The system is driving us to suicide. It’s conquest, entitlement, misogyny, arrogance and it comes in a fetid package driving us to the abyss.”

The authors of the paper believe we should use the same social engineering tools to change human behaviour away from consumption and even attitudes to family size, education of girls and women, and many other shibboleths that are meat and drink to so many of those who presume to govern our societies.

I thought of posting this in "if not capitalism, then what". But the scope of the article and the paper on which it is based is far wider than simply capitalism.

Trouble is, apart from perhaps Bhutan, NONE of the actions proposed in the paper are accepted by any Government. Even gains in energy efficiency are seen as an opportinity to expand economic activity. Efforts to reduce world population as recommended by the authors, which of necessity involves womens liberation, are resisted in most parts of the world.

It took 30 years for COP28 to state that the the world should "transition away" from fossil fuels.
How many years for a COP to even consider an approach that aims a dagger at the beating heart of modern capitalism (and a lot of other stuff)?

link to paper....https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/00368504231201372

link to aricle..... #https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/jan/13/human-behavioural-crisis-at-root-of-climate-breakdown-say-scientists

Human ‘behavioural crisis’ at root of climate breakdown, say scientists

New paper claims unless demand for resources is reduced, many other innovations are just a sticking plaster[/b]

Rachel Donald
Sat 13 Jan 2024 12.00 GMT
Record heat, record emissions, record fossil fuel consumption. One month out from Cop28, the world is further than ever from reaching its collective climate goals. At the root of all these problems, according to recent research, is the human “behavioural crisis”, a term coined by an interdisciplinary team of scientists.

“We’ve socially engineered ourselves the way we geoengineered the planet,” says Joseph Merz, lead author of a new paper which proposes that climate breakdown is a symptom of ecological overshoot, which in turn is caused by the deliberate exploitation of human behaviour.

“We need to become mindful of the way we’re being manipulated,” says Merz, who is co-founder of the Merz Institute, an organisation that researches the systemic causes of the climate crisis and how to tackle them.

Merz and colleagues believe that most climate “solutions” proposed so far only tackle symptoms rather than the root cause of the crisis. This, they say, leads to increasing levels of the three “levers” of overshoot: consumption, waste and population.

They claim that unless demand for resources is reduced, many other innovations are just a sticking plaster. “We can deal with climate change and worsen overshoot,” says Merz. “The material footprint of renewable energy is dangerously underdiscussed. These energy farms have to be rebuilt every few decades – they’re not going to solve the bigger problem unless we tackle demand.”

“Overshoot” refers to how many Earths human society is using up to sustain – or grow – itself. Humanity would currently need 1.7 Earths to maintain consumption of resources at a level the planet’s biocapacity can regenerate.

Where discussion of climate often centres on carbon emissions, a focus on overshoot highlights the materials usage, waste output and growth of human society, all of which affect the Earth’s biosphere.

“Essentially, overshoot is a crisis of human behaviour,” says Merz. “For decades we’ve been telling people to change their behaviour without saying: ‘Change your behaviour.’ We’ve been saying ‘be more green’ or ‘fly less’, but meanwhile all of the things that drive behaviour have been pushing the other way. All of these subtle cues and not so subtle cues have literally been pushing the opposite direction – and we’ve been wondering why nothing’s changing.”

The paper explores how neuropsychology, social signalling and norms have been exploited to drive human behaviours which grow the economy, from consuming goods to having large families. The authors suggest that ancient drives to belong in a tribe or signal one’s status or attract a mate have been co-opted by marketing strategiesto create behaviours incompatible with a sustainable world.

“People are the victims – we have been exploited to the point we are in crisis. These tools are being used to drive us to extinction,” says the evolutionary behavioural ecologist and study co-author Phoebe Barnard. “Why not use them to build a genuinely sustainable world?”

Just one-quarter of the world population is responsible for nearly three-quarters of emissions. The authors suggest the best strategy to counter overshoot would be to use the tools of the marketing, media and entertainment industries in a campaign to redefine our material-intensive socially accepted norms.

“We’re talking about replacing what people are trying to signal, what they’re trying to say about themselves. Right now, our signals have a really high material footprint –our clothes are linked to status and wealth, their materials sourced from all over the world, shipped to south-east Asia most often and then shipped here, only to be replaced by next season’s trends. The things that humans can attach status to are so fluid, we could be replacing all of it with things that essentially have no material footprint – or even better, have an ecologically positive one.”

The Merz Institute runs an overshoot behaviour lab where they work on interventions to address overshoot. One of these identifies “behavioural influencers” such as screenwriters, web developers and algorithm engineers, all of whom are promoting certain social norms and could be working to rewire society relatively quickly and harmlessly by promoting a new set of behaviours.

The paper discusses the enormous success of the work of the Population Media Center, an initiative that creates mainstream entertainment to drive behaviour change on population growth and even gender violence. Fertility rates have declined in the countries in which the centre’s telenovelas and radionovelas have aired.

Population growth is a difficult topic to broach given the not-too-distant history of eugenics and ethnic cleansing practised in many nations around the world. However, Merz and colleagues insist it is important to confront the issue as population growth has cancelled out most climate gains from renewables and efficiency over the past three decades.

“It’s a question of women’s liberation, frankly,” says Barnard. “Higher levels of education lead to lower fertility rates. Who could possibly claim to be against educating girls – and if they are, why?”

The team calls for more interdisciplinary research into what they have dubbed the “human behavioural crisis” and concerted efforts to redefine our social norms and desires that are driving overconsumption. When asked about the ethics of such a campaign, Merz and Barnard point out that corporations fight for consumers’ attention every second of every day.

“Is it ethical to exploit our psychology to benefit an economic system destroying the planet?” asks Barnard. “Creativity and innovation are driving overconsumption. The system is driving us to suicide. It’s conquest, entitlement, misogyny, arrogance and it comes in a fetid package driving us to the abyss.”

The team is adamant that solutions that do not tackle the underlying drivers of our growth-based economies will only exacerbate the overshoot crisis.

“Everything we know and love is at stake,” says Barnard. “A habitable planet and a peaceful civilisation both have value, and we need to be conscious about using tools in ethical and justice-based ways. This is not just about humanity. This is about every other species on this planet. This is about the future generations.”

“I do get frustrated that people sit in paralysis thinking, what do I do? Or what must we do? There are moral hazards everywhere. We have to choose how to intervene to keep us working on a path forward as humanity, because everything right now is set up to strip us of our humanity.”

[ArgonneForest]

It seems that we should first look at how humankind's demands on the Earth's resources exceed Earth's capacity to regenerate those resources.

Then we need to look at how we got there. To quote:- "neuropsychology, social signalling and norms have been exploited to drive human behaviours which grow the economy, from consuming goods to having large families. ...Ancient drives to belong in a tribe or signal one’s status or attract a mate have been co-opted by marketing strategiesto create behaviours incompatible with a sustainable world."

I like this.....
“Is it ethical to exploit our psychology to benefit an economic system destroying the planet?” asks Barnard. “Creativity and innovation are driving overconsumption. The system is driving us to suicide. It’s conquest, entitlement, misogyny, arrogance and it comes in a fetid package driving us to the abyss.”

The authors of the paper believe we should use the same social engineering tools to change human behaviour away from consumption and even attitudes to family size, education of girls and women, and many other shibboleths that are meat and drink to so many of those who presume to govern our societies.

I thought of posting this in "if not capitalism, then what". But the scope of the article and the paper on which it is based is far wider than simply capitalism.

Trouble is, apart from perhaps Bhutan, NONE of the actions proposed in the paper are accepted by any Government. Even gains in energy efficiency are seen as an opportinity to expand economic activity. Efforts to reduce world population as recommended by the authors, which of necessity involves womens liberation, are resisted in most parts of the world.

It took 30 years for COP28 to state that the the world should "transition away" from fossil fuels.
How many years for a COP to even consider an approach that aims a dagger at the beating heart of modern capitalism (and a lot of other stuff)?

link to paper....https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/00368504231201372

link to aricle..... #https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/jan/13/human-behavioural-crisis-at-root-of-climate-breakdown-say-scientists

Human ‘behavioural crisis’ at root of climate breakdown, say scientists

New paper claims unless demand for resources is reduced, many other innovations are just a sticking plaster[/b]

Rachel Donald
Sat 13 Jan 2024 12.00 GMT
Record heat, record emissions, record fossil fuel consumption. One month out from Cop28, the world is further than ever from reaching its collective climate goals. At the root of all these problems, according to recent research, is the human “behavioural crisis”, a term coined by an interdisciplinary team of scientists.

“We’ve socially engineered ourselves the way we geoengineered the planet,” says Joseph Merz, lead author of a new paper which proposes that climate breakdown is a symptom of ecological overshoot, which in turn is caused by the deliberate exploitation of human behaviour.

“We need to become mindful of the way we’re being manipulated,” says Merz, who is co-founder of the Merz Institute, an organisation that researches the systemic causes of the climate crisis and how to tackle them.

Merz and colleagues believe that most climate “solutions” proposed so far only tackle symptoms rather than the root cause of the crisis. This, they say, leads to increasing levels of the three “levers” of overshoot: consumption, waste and population.

They claim that unless demand for resources is reduced, many other innovations are just a sticking plaster. “We can deal with climate change and worsen overshoot,” says Merz. “The material footprint of renewable energy is dangerously underdiscussed. These energy farms have to be rebuilt every few decades – they’re not going to solve the bigger problem unless we tackle demand.”

“Overshoot” refers to how many Earths human society is using up to sustain – or grow – itself. Humanity would currently need 1.7 Earths to maintain consumption of resources at a level the planet’s biocapacity can regenerate.

Where discussion of climate often centres on carbon emissions, a focus on overshoot highlights the materials usage, waste output and growth of human society, all of which affect the Earth’s biosphere.

“Essentially, overshoot is a crisis of human behaviour,” says Merz. “For decades we’ve been telling people to change their behaviour without saying: ‘Change your behaviour.’ We’ve been saying ‘be more green’ or ‘fly less’, but meanwhile all of the things that drive behaviour have been pushing the other way. All of these subtle cues and not so subtle cues have literally been pushing the opposite direction – and we’ve been wondering why nothing’s changing.”

The paper explores how neuropsychology, social signalling and norms have been exploited to drive human behaviours which grow the economy, from consuming goods to having large families. The authors suggest that ancient drives to belong in a tribe or signal one’s status or attract a mate have been co-opted by marketing strategiesto create behaviours incompatible with a sustainable world.

“People are the victims – we have been exploited to the point we are in crisis. These tools are being used to drive us to extinction,” says the evolutionary behavioural ecologist and study co-author Phoebe Barnard. “Why not use them to build a genuinely sustainable world?”

Just one-quarter of the world population is responsible for nearly three-quarters of emissions. The authors suggest the best strategy to counter overshoot would be to use the tools of the marketing, media and entertainment industries in a campaign to redefine our material-intensive socially accepted norms.

“We’re talking about replacing what people are trying to signal, what they’re trying to say about themselves. Right now, our signals have a really high material footprint –our clothes are linked to status and wealth, their materials sourced from all over the world, shipped to south-east Asia most often and then shipped here, only to be replaced by next season’s trends. The things that humans can attach status to are so fluid, we could be replacing all of it with things that essentially have no material footprint – or even better, have an ecologically positive one.”

The Merz Institute runs an overshoot behaviour lab where they work on interventions to address overshoot. One of these identifies “behavioural influencers” such as screenwriters, web developers and algorithm engineers, all of whom are promoting certain social norms and could be working to rewire society relatively quickly and harmlessly by promoting a new set of behaviours.

The paper discusses the enormous success of the work of the Population Media Center, an initiative that creates mainstream entertainment to drive behaviour change on population growth and even gender violence. Fertility rates have declined in the countries in which the centre’s telenovelas and radionovelas have aired.

Population growth is a difficult topic to broach given the not-too-distant history of eugenics and ethnic cleansing practised in many nations around the world. However, Merz and colleagues insist it is important to confront the issue as population growth has cancelled out most climate gains from renewables and efficiency over the past three decades.

“It’s a question of women’s liberation, frankly,” says Barnard. “Higher levels of education lead to lower fertility rates. Who could possibly claim to be against educating girls – and if they are, why?”

The team calls for more interdisciplinary research into what they have dubbed the “human behavioural crisis” and concerted efforts to redefine our social norms and desires that are driving overconsumption. When asked about the ethics of such a campaign, Merz and Barnard point out that corporations fight for consumers’ attention every second of every day.

“Is it ethical to exploit our psychology to benefit an economic system destroying the planet?” asks Barnard. “Creativity and innovation are driving overconsumption. The system is driving us to suicide. It’s conquest, entitlement, misogyny, arrogance and it comes in a fetid package driving us to the abyss.”

The team is adamant that solutions that do not tackle the underlying drivers of our growth-based economies will only exacerbate the overshoot crisis.

“Everything we know and love is at stake,” says Barnard. “A habitable planet and a peaceful civilisation both have value, and we need to be conscious about using tools in ethical and justice-based ways. This is not just about humanity. This is about every other species on this planet. This is about the future generations.”

“I do get frustrated that people sit in paralysis thinking, what do I do? Or what must we do? There are moral hazards everywhere. We have to choose how to intervene to keep us working on a path forward as humanity, because everything right now is set up to strip us of our humanity.”

Blaming capitalism is an intellectually lazy argument

[Sigmetnow]

John Kerry to step down as top U.S. climate change negotiator

John F. Kerry, who has served as the U.S. special climate envoy for nearly three years, will leave the Biden administration by the spring, according to three people close to the situation.
…
Kerry, who turned 80 during the U.N. Climate Change Conference in Dubai last month, helped clinch a landmark agreement at the summit. For the first time, the deal calls for phasing out fossil fuels, the primary driver of rising temperatures around the globe.

Kerry also played a pivotal role in restarting formal climate talks between the United States and China, the world’s two largest greenhouse gas emitters. He enjoyed a close relationship with his Chinese counterpart, Xie Zhenhua, who recently stepped down due to health reasons. …

Over the last three years, Kerry has kept up a fast-paced schedule, flying around the world to cajole other countries to curb their planet-warming pollution. He contracted the coronavirus at the U.N. climate talks in 2022 in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, and was sidelined to his hotel room during the final days of negotiations. …

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/01/13/john-kerry-resigns-climate-change-envoy/
 
No subscription required to read.

[SeanAU]

It seems that we should first look at how humankind's demands on the Earth's resources exceed Earth's capacity to regenerate those resources.

link to paper....https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/00368504231201372

link to aricle..... #https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/jan/13/human-behavioural-crisis-at-root-of-climate-breakdown-say-scientists

Human ‘behavioural crisis’ at root of climate breakdown, say scientists

New paper claims unless demand for resources is reduced, many other innovations are just a sticking plaster[/b]

Rachel Donald
Sat 13 Jan 2024 12.00 GMT
Record heat, record emissions, record fossil fuel consumption. One month out from Cop28, the world is further than ever from reaching its collective climate goals. At the root of all these problems, according to recent research, is the human “behavioural crisis”, a term coined by an interdisciplinary team of scientists.

“We’ve socially engineered ourselves the way we geoengineered the planet,” says Joseph Merz

“Overshoot” refers to how many Earths human society is using up to sustain – or grow – itself. Humanity would currently need 1.7 Earths to maintain consumption of resources at a level the planet’s biocapacity can regenerate.


Just one-quarter of the world population is responsible for nearly three-quarters of emissions.

Population growth is a difficult topic to broach given the not-too-distant history of eugenics and ethnic cleansing practised in many nations around the world. However, Merz and colleagues insist it is important to confront the issue as population growth has cancelled out most climate gains from renewables and efficiency over the past three decades.

The team is adamant that solutions that do not tackle the underlying drivers of our growth-based economies will only exacerbate the overshoot crisis.

“Everything we know and love is at stake,” says Barnard. “A habitable planet and a peaceful civilisation both have value, and we need to be conscious about using tools in ethical and justice-based ways. This is not just about humanity. This is about every other species on this planet. This is about the future generations.”

Blaming capitalism is an intellectually lazy argument

Pity it is the Truth of it ... when all the cultural BS is stripped away.

"Realize that everything connects to everything else."

― Leonardo da Vinci.

The world economy as measured by GDP has tripled since 2000. Not an accident, a whole series of entrenched Systemic Choices that had no other Options. That's what the Human Superorganism is as it's eating it's way through the planet's life giving resources and ecosystems and the remaining biosphere.

https://read.realityblind.world/view/975731937/

https://www.thegreatsimplification.com/

And it's global systemic capitalist norms and the human superorganism that is driving the Meta-Crisis. Everything, including Extinctions, is feeding the Superorganism.

https://www.thegreatsimplification.com/episodes

https://www.thegreatsimplification.com/episode/73-joslin-faith-kehdy

https://www.thegreatsimplification.com/episode/53-william-rees

“Bend not Break #4: Modeling the Drivers of the Metacrisis”
https://www.thegreatsimplification.com/episode/42-daniel-schmachtenberger

"Artificial Intelligence and The Superorganism"
https://www.thegreatsimplification.com/episode/71-daniel-schmachtenberger

[gerontocrat]

Blaming capitalism is an intellectually lazy argument

One component of over consumption is Planned Obsolescence, invented by Capitalists for Capitalists. Despite pressure to make products repairable, Planned Obsolescence is certainly alive & well, flourishing even.

https://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/2021-4-fall/material-world/planned-obsolescence-what-it-and-how-overcome-it#:~:text=Planned%20obsolescence%20is%20why%20we,can't%20sell%20fast%20enough.&text=In%202020%2C%20people%20worldwide%20bought,million%20of%20them%20from%20Apple.

Planned Obsolescence: What Is It and How to Overcome It
Since the 1920s, when lightbulb manufacturers teamed up to purposefully limit the life spans of their products, companies have been locked into a business model rooted in the concept of planned obsolescence. To "grow," at least the way economists define it, corporations have to sell us more stuff every year—which is why there are ever-cheaper products made from low-quality or even toxic materials by people working in unjust conditions.

Planned obsolescence is why we see software mysteriously slow down, furniture designed with hollow legs and cheap staples, and clothing burned because it can't sell fast enough. As repair shops close, landfills expand. How did we get here? How can we change course?

The Components of Planned Obsolescence
Design
Planned obsolescence is determined largely by the materials a manufacturer chooses to use and how they're put together (think phones with screens glued in place). If a company's main source of revenue is selling more stuff every year, there's little incentive to design for durability, longevity, and repair.

Linear Growth Models
Our reigning economic model's limited definition of growth means that businesses don't invest in alternative revenue streams, like repair, service, and resale. "Negative externalities" like pollution aren't factored into the bottom line, and shareholder profit trumps all.

Low wages
The economic model that demands nonstop growth rests on a foundation of wage inequality and human rights abuses. Without international labor standards, it is easier to make new, cheap items than to service old ones.

Product Logistics
In addition to basic design, a host of secondary characteristics and logistical quagmires make it hard to keep an object in use—for example, accessories that aren't interchangeable, parts or manuals that aren't readily available, and warranties and service policies that prioritize replacement over repair.

 
Marketing
Marketing
Advertising reinforces the notion that we should run out and get shiny new models. Cultural messages teach us to devalue our attachment to the things we already have.

Disconnection
As globalization increasingly separates end users from the making of products, our sense of value becomes distorted, creating both physical and psychological distance between the manufacture and the use of our stuff.

 
A History of Planned Obsolescence
1924
An international group of lightbulb manufacturers called the Phoebus Cartel agrees to limit the life span of bulbs by 1940 to around 1,000 hours—significantly shorter than the previous standard in 1924 of 2,500 hrs.

1927
General Motors head Alfred P. Sloan introduces "dynamic obsolescence" to maintain sales as the automobile market begins to reach a saturation point. GM unveils the industry's first design studio to foster demand for updated car styles and colors.

1929
Christine Frederick publishes Selling Mrs. Consumer, which champions "progressive obsolescence," a plan to stoke consumption by tapping people's love of changing fashions: "The same thrill that women have always had over new clothes, women are now also obtaining over replacement, changes, reconstruction, new colors and forms in all types of merchandise."

1932
Bernard London publishes a series of essays that call for ending the Depression through "planned obsolescence," a scheme similar to Frederick's but centrally managed. After a predetermined amount of time, manufactured objects would be "legally 'dead'" and recalled. People would then buy new goods, "and the wheels of industry would be kept going."

1954
Brooks Stevens popularizes the notion of planned obsolescence through advertising, "instilling in the buyer the desire to own something a little newer, a little better, a little sooner than is necessary."

1989
The New York Times coins the term "fast fashion" upon the opening of a flagship Zara store in New York.

1996
IKEA launches the Chuck Out Your Chintz campaign, encouraging British women to dispose of their stodgy old furniture and embrace the "freedom" of regularly replacing living room sets.

2001
Apple's newly introduced iPod has an unreplaceable battery that lasts only about 18 months, sparking outrage.

[Sigmetnow]

This is ... hilarious? Depressing? Both? A massive study -- almost 60K participants in 63 countries -- tested the efficacy of a bunch of interventions meant to change behavior in climate-positive ways.

What works to change behavior? Pretty much nothing!

Addressing climate change with behavioral science: A Global Intervention Tournament in 63 countries
 https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adj5778
  —
"we tested 11 expert-crowdsourced interventions on four climate mitigation outcomes: beliefs, policy support, information sharing intention, and an effortful tree-planting behavioral task."
 
And the results? [drum roll ...]
  —
"Across 59,440 participants from 63 countries, the interventions’ effectiveness was small, largely limited to nonclimate skeptics, and differed across outcomes."
 
[sad trombone]
  —
"Beliefs were strengthened mostly by decreasing psychological distance (by 2.3%), policy support by writing a letter to a future-generation member (2.6%), information sharing by negative emotion induction (12.1%), and no intervention increased the more effortful behavior..."
  —
I used to be very into this stuff, all this tweaking & nudging to change beliefs & behaviors. But the science has been pretty clear that almost none of it works, certainly at any scale.

My conclusion: change policy, change infrastructure, behaviors & beliefs will follow.

2/8/24, https://x.com/drvolts/status/1755684889406632199
 
 < I think positioning "improving climate" with "making personal sacrifices" was (and remains) a terrible idea. Supporting growth, not degrowth, via new infrastructure seems like a win/win, but for whatever reason activists don't think that way
Conservatives mock things like solar and wind power, but the point of those technologies is so that you can crank up the AC in the summer when it's hot, not that you go without energy and roast all summer 🤷
 
<< Partly true, but sometimes it does require personal sacrifices. There is no technological, infrastructural way around eating less beef and incentivizing people to do so is not supporting degrowth.
 
< [Eating less beef] is one way to lower emissions.  It is not "a required aspect of lowering emissions."

[Rodius]

This is ... hilarious? Depressing? Both? A massive study -- almost 60K participants in 63 countries -- tested the efficacy of a bunch of interventions meant to change behavior in climate-positive ways.

What works to change behavior? Pretty much nothing!

Addressing climate change with behavioral science: A Global Intervention Tournament in 63 countries
 https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adj5778
  —
"we tested 11 expert-crowdsourced interventions on four climate mitigation outcomes: beliefs, policy support, information sharing intention, and an effortful tree-planting behavioral task."
 
And the results? [drum roll ...]
  —
"Across 59,440 participants from 63 countries, the interventions’ effectiveness was small, largely limited to nonclimate skeptics, and differed across outcomes."
 
[sad trombone]
  —
"Beliefs were strengthened mostly by decreasing psychological distance (by 2.3%), policy support by writing a letter to a future-generation member (2.6%), information sharing by negative emotion induction (12.1%), and no intervention increased the more effortful behavior..."
  —
I used to be very into this stuff, all this tweaking & nudging to change beliefs & behaviors. But the science has been pretty clear that almost none of it works, certainly at any scale.

My conclusion: change policy, change infrastructure, behaviors & beliefs will follow.

2/8/24, https://x.com/drvolts/status/1755684889406632199
 
 < I think positioning "improving climate" with "making personal sacrifices" was (and remains) a terrible idea. Supporting growth, not degrowth, via new infrastructure seems like a win/win, but for whatever reason activists don't think that way
Conservatives mock things like solar and wind power, but the point of those technologies is so that you can crank up the AC in the summer when it's hot, not that you go without energy and roast all summer 🤷
 
<< Partly true, but sometimes it does require personal sacrifices. There is no technological, infrastructural way around eating less beef and incentivizing people to do so is not supporting degrowth.
 
< [Eating less beef] is one way to lower emissions.  It is not "a required aspect of lowering emissions."

This pretty much backs up my belief... that people wont change until it personally affects them.

Almost all the people to fundraise for cancer have been affected by it.
Only after a massive flooding event happens does the infrastructure get improved.
When the super massive fires happen in places that affect many people, that is when the means of combating fire happen.
When the Great Barrier Reef dies in the next five or so year, then we will take radical action to try to save the reef.

This human behavior is why we wont combat climate change, environmental degradation, or anything close to saving our species until a super huge global event happens. Of course, when that happens, it is already game over.

[kassy]

Money on the ground.

Smallholder farmers worldwide spending $368bn annually adapting to climate change, nature loss

A global survey across 13 countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America suggests smallholder farmers are spending US$368 billion of their own income every year on measures to adapt to climate change including through conserving or restoring biodiversity, according to the Forest and Farm Facility and IIED.

The survey of more than 1,800 farmers found that on average, each farming household was investing $838 every year. With 439 million smallholder farmers globally, it is likely that they are collectively investing $368 billion  annually on climate change adaptation, dwarfing the $230m pledged for the Adaptation Fund at last year’s COP27 climate negotiations. The hosts for this year’s negotiations, the United Arab Emirates, have said agriculture and food production will be a major focus of the discussions.

...

https://www.iied.org/smallholder-farmers-worldwide-spending-368bn-annually-adapting-climate-change-nature-loss

vs

EU spending up to €48bn on nature-harming activities each year, report says

With biodiversity declining at an unprecedented rate around the world, the EU intends to put nature on a “path to recovery” by 2030, in line with global goals.

Finance is a key part of this and the bloc has pledged to raise at least €20bn in nature funding each year by the end of the decade.

However, a new report estimates that EU countries could be spending between €34-48bn each year on projects that can end up damaging biodiversity in sectors such as agriculture, forestry and fisheries.

It is “pretty shocking” to see the potential scale of funding that EU countries are “pouring into harmful practices”, the lead author of the report tells Carbon Brief. 

A policy expert, who was not involved in the report, says the findings may increase pressure on the EU to track its harmful subsidies, but criticised some of what the report counted as ‘“harmful”.

...

https://www.carbonbrief.org/eu-spending-up-to-e48bn-on-nature-harming-activities-each-year-report-says/

[gerontocrat]

Florida goes backwards - quickly.
Louisiana is going the same way.

It is interesting how in the US, it seems the places that are the most vulnerable to climate change have the politicians most likely to deny its existence.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/may/16/desantis-climate-change-energy-bill

Ron DeSantis signs bill scrubbing ‘climate change’ from Florida state laws

(Florida) which just had its hottest year since 1895, will ban offshore wind power, boost natural gas and reduce gas pipeline rules

Climate change will be a lesser priority in Florida and largely disappear from state statutes under legislation signed on Wednesday by the state’s governor, Ron DeSantis, in a move which experts say ignores the reality of Florida’s climate threats.

The legislation, which comes after Florida had its hottest year on record since 1895, also bans power-generating wind turbines offshore or near the state’s lengthy coastline.

Florida is facing rising seas, extreme heat, flooding and increasingly severe storms.

The legislation takes effect on 1 July and also boosts expansion of natural gas, reduces regulations on gas pipelines in the state, and increases protections against bans on gas appliances such as stoves, according to a news release from the governor’s office.

“This purposeful act of cognitive dissonance is proof that the governor and state legislature are not acting in the best interests of Floridians, but rather to protect profits for the fossil fuel industry,” said Yoca Arditi-Rocha, executive director of the non-profit Cleo Institute, which advocates for climate change education and engagement.

DeSantis, who suspended his presidential campaign in January and later endorsed his bitter rival Donald Trump, called the bill a commonsense approach to energy policy. “We’re restoring sanity in our approach to energy and rejecting the agenda of the radical green zealots,” DeSantis said in a post on the X social media platform.

Florida is already about 74% reliant on natural gas to power electric generation, according to the US Energy Information Administration. Opponents of the bill DeSantis signed say it removes the word “climate’ in nine different places and moves the state’s energy goals away from efficiency and the reduction of greenhouse gases blamed for a warming planet.

Greg Knecht, director of the Nature Conservancy in Florida, told the Washington Post the new measure was “very much out of line with public opinion”, with polls showing that a majority of Floridians believe in climate change and want action. Knecht said: “We’re seeing flooding and we’re seeing property damage and we’re seeing hurricanes … [and] we’re turning around and saying, ‘Yeah, but climate change isn’t really real, and we don’t need to do anything about it.’”

The legislation also eliminates requirements that government agencies hold conferences and meetings in hotels certified by the state’s environmental agency as “green lodging” and that government agencies make fuel efficiency the top priority in buying new vehicles. It also ends a requirement that Florida state agencies look at a list of “climate-friendly” products before making purchases.

In 2008, a bill to address climate change and promote renewable energy passed unanimously in both legislative chambers and was signed into law by then governor Charlie Crist, at the time a Republican. Former governor Rick Scott, now a Republican US senator, took steps after taking the governor’s office in 2011 to undo some of that measure and this latest bill takes it even further.

The measure signed by DeSantis would also launch a study of small nuclear reactor technology, expand the use of vehicles powered by hydrogen and enhance electric grid security, according to the governor’s office.

The Associated Press contributed reporting

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/feb/14/ouisiana-governor-jeff-landry-climate-change-fossil-fuels

This article is more than 2 months old
What has Louisiana’s governor done his first month in office? Boost fossil fuels

Republican Jeff Landry, who has labeled climate change ‘a hoax’, has elevated fossil fuel executives to key environmental posts

In his first four weeks in office, Louisiana’s Republican governor, Jeff Landry, has filled the ranks of state environmental posts with executives tied to the oil, gas and coal industries.

Landry, who has labeled climate change “a hoax”, has also taken aim at the state’s climate taskforce for possible elimination as part of a sweeping reorganization of Louisiana’s environmental bureaucracy. The goal, according to Landry’s executive order, is to “create a better prospective business climate”.

And in his first month, Landry has hinted a new focus for the department of natural resources, the state agency with oversight of the fossil fuel industry, after changing the title to include the word “energy”.

[kassy]

Next up: scrub debt from financial statements and get rich! 

[kassy]

Rich countries met $100bn climate-finance goal by ‘relabelling existing aid’

Billions of dollars of foreign aid have been reclassified as “climate finance”, thereby helping rich countries to meet a long-overdue target, according to new analysis.

Newly released figures suggest that developed nations achieved their goal of raising $100bn in climate aid for developing countries in 2022 – two years after the deadline.

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) says these countries raised $115.9bn for climate-related projects, following a record surge in spending.

However, analysis conducted by the Center for Global Development (CGD) and shared with Carbon Brief suggests that around $27bn of the $94.2bn annual increase in public climate funds in 2022, compared to figures two decades ago, came from existing development aid.

Specifically, the CGD identified at least $6.5bn of climate aid within the record 2022 increase that was diverted from other bilateral development aid programmes. This is despite the widespread expectation that wealthy countries should provide climate finance that is “new and additional”.

...

https://www.carbonbrief.org/rich-countries-met-100bn-climate-finance-goal-by-relabelling-existing-aid/