This what I found for this roundup:
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Climate Brief: Climate activists, now is NOT the time to despair
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COP26: Draft deal calls for stronger carbon cutting targets by end of 2022
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COP26: UAE climate official says young are leading efforts to tackle global warming
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Plans To Dig the Biggest Lithium Mine in the US Face Mounting Opposition
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Denmark and Costa Rica Launch Anti-Oil and Gas Alliance at COP26
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NASA Participates in UN Climate Change Conference
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200+ Global Scientists Say Urgent and 'Large-Scale Actions' Mandatory to Keep 1.5°C Goal Alive
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At COP26, Youth Activists From Around the World Call Out Decades of Delay
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UAE climate official says young are leading efforts to tackle global warming
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COP26 Presented Forests as a Climate Solution, But May Not Be Able to Keep Them Standing
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Biden Makes Climate Pledge at Glasgow While Pushing Oil, Gas Leasing in U.S.
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Say Goodbye to Your National Parks Road Trips?
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Climate change: most people unhappy with their leaders
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New research shows how Alaska subsistence harvesters are having to adapt to climate change
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Climate Coalition Demands Biden Halt 'Outrageous' Offshore Drilling Auction—Largest in US History
This Is An Open Thread
Climate Brief: Climate activists, now is NOT the time to despair
On climate, I am pessimistic about the facts. The physics of the matter. The politics of the matter. The little time left to us to do something with any possibility of preventing, mitigating, or adapting to at least some of the myriad dire impacts imposed by our reckless spew of greenhouse gases. The immense clout of the political forces arrayed against us because needed change dings their bottom line. Bill McKibben’s short essay about COP26 tends to reinforce this pessimism of the facts.
But, just like his, my heart remains hopeful. I see the fierce activism of courageous and justifiably worried young people pushing hard on climate issues and for reform of a host of other matters that need a new way of doing things because the old ones don’t work so well anymore, if they ever did. I think they and their allies will do all they can to make good policy happen because they know that every minute truly serious climate action continues being postponed means far more draconian measures will be needed to shield us from the worst future impacts, assuming we can be shielded after so many delays. I think they have the optimism of will required to stay persistent and relentless in the face of great odds, in the face of those pessimistic facts.
But if there’s one thing certain to kill the impetus to change things, the spirit for sticking with the struggle for the long haul, it’s despair. Despair creates apathy, and apathy kills activism. Despair encourages inaction. Despair is highly contagious. Despair makes the merely probable unescapable.
COP26: Draft deal calls for stronger carbon cutting targets by end of 2022
Countries are being urged to strengthen their carbon-cutting targets by the end of 2022 in a draft agreement published at the COP26 Glasgow climate summit.
The document says vulnerable nations must get more help to cope with the deadly impacts of global warming.
It also says countries should submit long-term strategies for reaching net-zero by the end of next year.
Critics have said the draft pact does not go far enough but others welcomed its focus on the 1.5C target.
The document, which has been published by the UK COP26 presidency, will have to be negotiated and agreed by countries attending the talks.
Plans To Dig the Biggest Lithium Mine in the US Face Mounting Opposition
Deep below the tangled roots of the old-growth sagebrush of Thacker Pass, in an extinct super-volcano, lies one of the world’s largest deposits of lithium—a key element for the transition to clean energy. But above ground, a cluster of tents has risen in the Northern Nevada desert where, for eight months, environmental and tribal activists are protesting plans to mine it for “green” technologies.
“We are not leaving until this project is canceled,” said Max Wilbert, of the Protect Thacker Pass campaign. “If need be, this will come down to direct action. We mean to put ourselves in between the machines and this place.”
Plans to dig for the element known as “white gold” have encountered a surge of resistance from tribes, ranchers, residents and activists who say they believe the repercussions of the mine will outweigh the lithium’s contributions to the nation’s transition to less-polluting energy sources than fossil fuels.
Denmark and Costa Rica Launch Anti-Oil and Gas Alliance at COP26
A group of countries and regions led by Denmark and Costa Rica have pledged to phase out oil and gas production in a new initiative launched today at the COP26 climate talks in Glasgow.
Wales, Ireland, France, Greenland, Québec and Sweden have joined the Beyond Oil and Gas Alliance (BOGA) as “core” members, which requires winding down any existing projects by a Paris Agreement-aligned date and not issuing new licences.
California, Portugal, and New Zealand are associate members of the initiative, having adopted policies to restrict fossil fuel supply but not yet banned licensing of further developments.
Italy has signed up as a “friend” of the alliance, signalling its support for BOGA’s objectives but not taking action to cut fossil fuel production at this time.
NASA Participates in UN Climate Change Conference
NASA is participating in the 26th United Nations Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP26) in Glasgow, Scotland, which began Oct. 31, and runs through Friday, Nov. 12. The COP26 summit brings parties together to accelerate action towards the goals of the Paris Agreement and the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change.
NASA’s unique vantage point from space provides critical information to advance understanding of our changing planet, while highlighting NASA’s free and open data policy, which the agency strongly encourages all partners to follow.
“NASA is constantly innovating and bringing our indispensable resources in space to bear to confront the climate crisis,” said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson. “NASA’s Earth-observing satellites and instruments provide the United States and the world with an unparalleled understanding of our home planet, and we are excited to help deliver urgent change for humanity by taking part in COP26.”
200+ Global Scientists Say Urgent and 'Large-Scale Actions' Mandatory to Keep 1.5°C Goal Alive
As a global group of hundreds of scientists urged negotiators at COP26 to acknowledge the latest climate science by committing to "immediate, strong, rapid, sustained, and large-scale actions," the head of the United Nations expressed pessimism Thursday that the talks will end with an agreement limiting warming to the key threshold of 1.5°C.
In an interview with The Associated Press a day before the summit is scheduled to end on Friday, U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres said the goal of capping temperature rise to 1.5 by the end of the century "is still on reach but on life support."
"The exceptional climate emergency we are living in requires equally exceptional national commitments and actions."
Nevertheless, he added, "until the last moment, hope should be maintained."
At COP26, Youth Activists From Around the World Call Out Decades of Delay
Jon Bonifacio was on his way to becoming a doctor when the urgency and seriousness of the climate crisis began to sink in. The Philippines, where the 24-year-old was in medical school, was already feeling global warming’s effects, with more intense cyclones striking the low-lying archipelago. Projections of sea level rise indicated that even the hospital he expected to intern in would be underwater by 2050.
“The reality of it really makes you want to do something,” he said.
What he did was to drop out of medical school earlier this year to devote himself full-time to addressing climate change. Last week, he headed for the climate meetings in Glasgow, representing Youth Advocates for Climate Action Philippines, an organization he founded in 2019 with a small group of friends and that now counts hundreds of members all over the country.
Thousands of diplomats, policy wonks, scientists and activists from all over the world have flocked to Scotland for the 26th United Nations Conference of the Parties, known as COP26. Some of the most outspoken and visible participants are, like Bonifacio, also among the youngest. On Nov. 5, Bonifacio took the stage alongside Greta Thunberg of Sweden and Vanessa Nakate of Uganda as part of the school strike staged by Fridays for Future outside the COP26 meeting halls.
UAE climate official says young are leading efforts to tackle global warming
Young people are leading efforts to tackle global warming, a senior UAE climate official said, as initiatives backed by a global coalition of nations, businesses and scientists were announced on Tuesday on Science and Innovation Day at Cop26.
Hana AlHashimi, Head of the Office of the UAE Special Envoy for Climate Change, said the UAE was proud that engaging young people was at the heart of its bid to host Cop28.
She told a panel at Cop26 that often, when engaging young people is mentioned, “we talk about how they will lead in the future”.
“I think what we’re seeing, quite clearly, is that young people are already leading today,” Ms AlHashimi said.
COP26 Presented Forests as a Climate Solution, But May Not Be Able to Keep Them Standing
The first week of the COP26 climate talks in Glasgow, Scotland, saw a global pledge to cut emissions of the climate super-pollutant methane, more than 40 countries promise to phase out coal and 20 agree to stop public funding for some fossil fuel projects.
But to stop global warming soon, the world needs to remove a lot of the greenhouse gases already in the atmosphere. In Glasgow, the gathered heads of state once again made it clear that they are counting on the world’s forests to do much of that work, with a new proclamation by 133 countries to halt global deforestation by 2030 and to try and restore degraded woodlands.
Environmental activists and foresters question whether world governments can make good on their pledge to stop cutting down trees and instead restore forests. Many governments that joined the proclamation have failed on such commitments in the past. And some scientists doubt that trees can do as much work for the climate as many claim, even if they remain standing.
Biden Makes Climate Pledge at Glasgow While Pushing Oil, Gas Leasing in U.S.
U.S. climate groups slammed the Biden administration today for ignoring climate impacts and refusing to stop oil and gas leasing on public lands despite President Biden’s Glasgow pledge to halve greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. The revised plans for February lease sales in seven western states, announced this week by the Bureau of Land Management, defer some acres to protect imperiled species but none for climate mitigation.
Groups filed formal objections to the plans in October, urging the administration to prevent additional climate pollution and harm to land, water, communities and endangered species by deferring or prohibiting new leases. The administration originally proposed to offer 734,000 acres of public lands for oil and gas leasing but has removed about 383,000 acres of greater sage grouse habitat in Wyoming.
“Just as it has the authority to stop leasing to protect imperiled species, the Biden administration has authority to stop leasing to protect our imperiled climate,” said Taylor McKinnon at the Center for Biological Diversity. “The administration’s refusal to halt fossil fuel expansion on federal lands and waters makes a mockery of the U.S. climate mission in Glasgow.”
Say Goodbye to Your National Parks Road Trips?
Climate change is already shaking up the natural world, changing the timing of seasonal snow melts, flower blooms and animal migrations. Now a new study from researchers at Utah State University suggests that, not surprisingly, it will also change when people interact with those landscapes.
The research, published in Global Environmental Change, projected how the use of state and federal public lands in the United States may change in the next 30 years under two different warming scenarios.
The biggest changes, they found, will come during the summer months. Their research showed that by 2050 it will simply be too hot to have fun outdoors in many places. As a result of these rising temperatures, they predict that outdoor recreation on public lands in the summer will fall 18% under medium emissions projections and 28% under a high emissions scenario.
Climate change: most people unhappy with their leaders
As COP26 takes place in Glasgow through Nov 12, individuals around the world believe that governments are not doing enough to fight global warming, a study reveals.
Of the 12,000 people surveyed, more than half have become aware in the last five years of the climate emergency and of actions to take.
A global study by Dynata on global consumer trends and the fight against global warming reports that nearly eight out of 10 people around the world believe that “governments need to act on, and hold one another accountable for, shared climate change goals.”
New research shows how Alaska subsistence harvesters are having to adapt to climate change
It’s no secret that climate change has affected how — and when — Alaskans harvest subsistence foods.
But what are the biggest impacts? How much has the warming climate changed things? And how are subsistence harvesters dealing with that change?
Well, a new study in the journal Ecology and Society aims to answer those questions, specifically as they pertain to the Northwest Alaska communities of Kotzebue and Kivalina.
Kristen Green is a co-author on the study and an Alaska-based Ph.D. student in environment and resources at Stanford University. She says a lot of research on subsistence adaptations due to climate change has been theoretical, so she and her fellow researchers went to interview the harvesters themselves.
Climate Coalition Demands Biden Halt 'Outrageous' Offshore Drilling Auction—Largest in US History
As the Biden administration prepares to auction off more than 80 million acres in the Gulf of Mexico for fossil fuel extraction, over 250 advocacy groups published an open letter on Wednesday imploring U.S. President Joe Biden to cancel the sale and fulfill his promises of bold climate action.
"Aside from breaking a campaign promise to ban new oil and gas leasing on public lands and waters, the Biden administration also violated federal law in deciding to open more of the Gulf to offshore drilling."
At least 267 organizations, including 36 representing Gulf of Mexico communities, sent the letter to Biden, who just last week promised the world at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Scotland—also known as COP26—that the United States will be "leading by the power of our example" in the fight against the planetary emergency.
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.