‘Code Red’ on climate doesn’t mean spit to all-too-many u.s. politicians
As you may have heard, we have a very short time left to stop everything we’re doing that has us on a trajectory toward intolerable temperatures and a plethora of other impacts that the timid term “climate crisis” inadequately describes. To defend ourselves and other species from the growing perils that our greed and environmental recklessness have generated, we need immediate action yesterday. Not exactly news, I know.
In fact, more than 30 years of yesterdays ago, the warning went out from a few scientists that waiting years to take steps to deal with climate changes caused by human behavior would mean that future actions would have to be more hurried, more draconian. And here we are, just as they said. As blogger Pakalolo wrote recently, these are our final precious moments to take actions that have at least a chance of softening the worst impacts of the disruption we humans have wrought and continue to feed with the greenhouse gas emissions of our energy, industrial, agricultural, and transportation systems.
Which brings us to the U.S. Congress and the social infrastructure bill that President Joe Biden and other Democratic leaders hope can be passed despite having no Republican votes.
The top-line of the bill started out at $3.5 trillion. Faced with the tightest of Senate margins and a few stubbornly backward Democrats determined to use the leverage that margin gives them to whack big chunks off the bill, the Biden administration has accepted slashing its original figure to around $2 trillion. Which means Sen. Joe Manchin only has to agree to add another half-trillion to his alternative proposal of $1.5 trillion. Meanwhile, Biden and the scores of supportive congressional Democrats will have to swallow $1.5 trillion in cuts from their original proposal.
The details are yet to come. But it’s obvious that climate-related measures will receive a lot less than half of that $2 trillion since other crucial items in the bill also need funding. From this story, you can get a sense of what specific items may get slashed or spared. Suppose, however, that $1 trillion got approved for climate. Since it’s planned for the money to be allocated over a decade, that works out to $100 billion a year. A laughable amount far from able to accomplish the desperately needed acceleration of the green transformation already underway. As inadequate as that would be, the final actual figure might well be just $50 billion a year.
Politicians across the spectrum have no problem voting every year for a trillion-dollar defense budget (the annual total when the Veterans Administration is included). But propose a matching trillion dollars a year invested in climate defense? Outrageous, they will say. “Fiscal insanity” as Manchin would have it.
So instead of really stepping up to what is required, the bill we finally get—assuming we do get it—is likely to provide 10% as much for climate defense as gets turned over to the Pentagon every year. You can count on some politicians to argue that if 10% isn’t enough, more funding can be added later. That’s supremely optimistic whether we’re talking climate matters or other elements of the soft infrastructure included in the bill, like child care or pre-K funding. The odds are against getting a second bite anytime soon, as was the case with any second economic stimulus under President Barack Obama.
Obviously, we’re not going to get anywhere near a trillion a year for climate defense. We climate hawks are told—as we have been for decades—to be realistic and patient. The problem is that the political reality of the Senate margin doesn’t mesh with the reality of the latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that labels our current situation as “code red for humanity.”
The counsel of delay is a favorite of those in Congress who pretend they accept what climate scientists are warning us about but don’t act like it. If they really trusted the warnings, they would be demanding the president call a climate emergency and scrambling to take immediate action. They don’t. That delay is just another form of denial.
Six years ago in the first Democratic presidential nominee debate, when each candidate was asked what they thought was the biggest national security threat, Sen. Bernie Sanders did not hesitate: "The scientific community is telling us if we do not address the global crisis of climate change, transform our energy system away from fossil fuel to sustainable energy, the planet that we're going to be leaving our kids and our grandchildren may well not be habitable. That is a major crisis."
We’re further along the trajectory to disaster than in 2015 when he caught flak for saying what he did. And yet we still have a number of Democrats in Congress (and it’s more than the two obvious ones) who show by their tepid addressing of climate change that they just don’t get it. The only path to more aggressive measures on climate is electing more candidates who do get it. However, that path is strewn with countless obstacles, including, of course, the shameless Republican leaders who are jack-hammering democracy. As Ezra Klein writes, now “might be the high-water mark of power [Democrats will] have for the next decade.” But fight we must no matter how slim the odds in our favor.</p>
ILLINOIS’ Climate and Equitable Jobs Act.
Late last month, Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker signed into law an act that puts the state in the lead in the Midwest when it comes to mitigating climate change impacts and doing so in a way that doesn’t increase the burden of people already most heavily affected by carbon and other pollution. It’s been called “one of the most environmentally ambitious, worker-friendly, justice-focused energy bills of any state in the country.”
A crucial element in making this happen? In 2018, Democrats gained a trifecta, majorities in both houses of the state legislature and the governorship. That and the doggedness of the Illinois Clean Jobs Coalition—which, Laura Goldberg writes, comprises hundreds of environmental groups, eco- justice activists, business and community leaders, labor groups, consumer advocates, and faith-based organizations—brought the law into being.
A few specifics:
• Mandate the state to achieve 100% zero-emissions in the power sector by 2045 (joining California, Hawaii, New Mexico, New York, Virginia, and Washington).
• Expand renewable energy in the state 500%. Double investments to $580 million a year to generate 40% of Illinois' energy from wind and solar by 2030 and 50% by 2040. Today that figure is less than 10%.
• Extend energy-efficiency programs that save state residents hundreds of millions of dollars on their electric bills each year.
• Expand economic opportunities for disadvantaged communities and people of color in the clean energy sector—both as workers and as business owners. Invest $115 million per year to create job training hubs, create career pipelines, incubate and grow small clean energy businesses in marginalized communities.
• Spur electrification by providing rebates for electric vehicles and electric vehicle charging infrastructure.
• Support communities and workers negatively affected by the transition away from fossil fuels. Create a “bill of rights” for displaced workers and provide them with services and training.
• Establish stronger ethics rules and reforms for utilities by replacing rate formulas to make utility profits contingent on achieving equity and clean energy goals.
RISING SEA SURFACE TEMPERATURES HAVE CAUSED LOSS OF 14% OF CORALS SINCE 2009
Last week, the Global Coral Reef Monitoring Network released the sixth edition of its Status of Coral Reefs of the World: 2020. The report, the most extensive and detailed ever, shows us how much higher temperatures have harmed the world’s reefs. All told, a 14% loss between 2009 and 2018. Warmer temperatures are the drivers of coral bleaching. While bleaching alone doesn’t kill coral, this makes it more vulnerable to dying. While coral reefs cover only 0.2% of the ocean floor, they are home to at least a quarter of all marine species. Said Inger Andersen, executive director of the U.N. Environment Program, “Since 2009 we have lost more coral, worldwide, than all the living coral in Australia. We are running out of time: we can reverse losses, but we have to act now. At the upcoming climate conference in Glasgow and biodiversity conference in Kunming, decision-makers have an opportunity to show leadership and save our reefs, but only if they are willing to take bold steps. We must not leave future generations to inherit a world without coral.”
Caesar’s Palace to Host 3-day climate denier conference
Caesar’s Entertainment, which owns the giant Caesar’s Palace casino in Las Vegas, will host the climate science-denying Heartland Institute’s conference this year, despite Caesar’s public “commitment to science-based goals” and self-touting of its “climate leadership,” including a pledge to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions and take other measures to mitigate the impacts of climate change. The conference is titled “The Great Reset: Climate Realism Vs. Climate Socialism.” While Caesar’s hosts all kinds of events, HuffPost reporters Chris D'Angelo and Alexander C. Kaufman point out that two months ago. it canned a conference of QAnon, the wackos who spread lies claiming that satanic pedophiles, child sex traffickers, and cannibals are colluding with the “deep state.” Though its coffers are not so full these days, Heartland has in the past received funding from the Koch Brothers and other sources eager to spread fabrications about what’s happening with the climate and why.
Among the speakers scheduled for the conference are William Happer, a retired Princeton University physics professor who was an adviser to the former occupant of the White House, and has declared Earth is undergoing a “CO2 famine,” once claiming that attempts to curb the greenhouse gas was akin to Hitler's attacks on the Jews. Others include: Myron Ebell, director of the right-wing Competitive Enterprise Institute who led the Trump EPA transition team and was a major influence on Trump’s withdrawing the U.S. from the Paris climate agreement: and Steve Milloy, a former cigarette and coal lobbyist who also served on the Trump EPA transition team. Tickets are $250.
David Roberts: Climate Economists Have Blown It “pretty comprehensively”
From his 10-month-old platform at Volts, David Roberts, long one of my favorite progressive climate and energy policy analysts, takes frequent deep dives. His latest essay—A rant about economist pundits, and other things, but mostly economist pundits—is typical of the depth he provides when so many others stick to the shallows. An excerpt can scarcely do justice to his work, but here are a few paragraphs to whet your appetite:
There are those in climate circles who lay most of the blame for the failure of climate action to date at the feet of economists. I’m not one of those people. I just lay … some of the blame at their feet. The fact is, rapidly transforming the entire industrial base of every country on earth was always going to be difficult — lots of extremely powerful interests stand to lose a great deal of money and power — and was probably going to go slowly no matter what economists did.
Nonetheless, I think there’s a good argument to be made that, when it comes to the interface of economics and politics, climate economics and climate economists have blown it pretty comprehensively — and have not necessarily learned all the lessons they should have learned. [...]
[B]ad climate economics has reigned for quite a while, long enough that it has developed into a kind of folk wisdom among the US chattering classes, who are convinced that climate change is a problem, but don’t understand how vast the costs of inaction are compared to the costs of action. It will take time to root out all the lingering fallacies and myths in the body politic, and for that, economists share some blame.
These failures of economics have created a deficit of trust among climate hawks. Advocates have spent years pushing against economists in pursuit of ambitious industrial policy. That trust deficit is relevant as we contemplate how economists approach current political debates. [...]
CLIMATE QUOTE
"Climate change is a development issue. It's a human rights issue. It's a social issue. The most vulnerable are women and children ..." Ndivile Mokoena, Project Coordinator for GenderCC in South Africa
CLIMATE ACTION
Supporters of Build Back Fossil Free, a coalition of Indigenous and Front-Line people, will be in the District of Columbia all next week to urge President Biden to call a climate emergency and stop the construction of future pipelines and other fossil fuel infrastructure. Activists involved in the effort are calling for peaceful civil disobedience to underscore their view that the White House is not moving fast enough on climate action. Many of them expect to be arrested. Under the name People vs. Fossil Fuels, the week’s activities will start on Monday, Indigenous Peoples Day. Casey Camp-Horinek, a Ponca elder, long-time political activist, and leader of Movement Rights, has written a letter explaining why people should participate. You can read or hear the entire letter that begins in the image below.
Legislation Tracker: The folks at Colorado State University’s Center for the New Energy Economy have created an Advanced Energy Legislation Tracker. You can sign up to create a personalized list of bills to track. The team explains tracker’s purpose: “U.S. states are the laboratories of innovation for advanced energy policy. Tracking national trends in advanced energy therefore requires proficiency in 50 state legislative websites. The AEL Tracker solves this challenge by collecting all advanced energy legislation into one database, assigning each bill to one of ten policy categories and providing a searchable, visual database complete with trend analysis and reporting.”
Climate Data Online: The CDO provides free access to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Climate Data Center’s archive of global historical weather and climate information. These data include daily, monthly, seasonal, and yearly measurements of temperature, precipitation, wind, as well as radar data and 30-year climate normals.
CLIMATE BRIEFS FOR THE PAST TWO WEEKS
• Climate Brief: 'Nature could pull 11 billion metric tons of carbon from the atmosphere,' by boatsie
• Climate Brief: Declining birth rates are good news now for life on Earth, by Angmar
• Climate Brief: News Roundup, Another Oil Spill In Texas this time, by eeff
• Climate Brief: Fossil Fools Wheel & Deal in "Wild West" of CO2 Gaming, by boatsie
• Climate Brief: I'm With Greta. "Blah Blah Blah" Isn't Cutting It. We must DEMAND more, by SninkyPoo
• Climate Brief: News Roundup, by eeff
• Climate Brief - Don't be a Mitch! Be a Greta! October 2, 2021, by Rise above the swamp
• Climate Brief:"Upcoming UN Climate Talks in Glasgow Are a Make-or-Break Moment"and The Week That Was, by boatsie
• Climate Brief: Forecasting Future Weather Extremes, by billlaurelMD
• Climate Brief: Global poll- 74% want Climate Crisis & Nature prioritised over jobs/ profit, by Angmar
• Climate Brief: Record-breaking heat blisters the high plains with triple-digit temperatures, by Pakalolo
• Climate Brief: News Roundup, Insulate Britain: Climate protester, 82, prepared to go to jail, by eeff
• Climate Brief: Displacement is here, and sorry, but the Great Lakes watershed is no refuge, by Pakalolo
• Climate Brief: Let's Talk Climate Change!, by boatsie
• Climate Brief: Beware False Hope... The Siren Song of Greenwashing, by SninkyPoo
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The writers in Climate Brief work to keep the Daily Kos community informed and engaged with breaking news about the climate crisis around the world while providing inspiring stories of environmental heroes, opportunities for direct engagement, and perspectives on the intersection of climate activism with spirituality, politics, and the arts.