UNION LOCAL ADDS ITS VOICE TO THOSE SEEKING CLIMATE EMERGENCY DECLARATION:
At least 38 countries have officially declared climate emergencies. And since last December, many activists have called upon President Biden to do the same in hopes this will provide the White House with means to address the situation in ways that Republicans and a few Democratic enablers in Congress absolutely refuse to do. In Glasgow last week, Indigenous activists repeated their call for this. But activists aren’t the only ones seeking such a move. In January, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer told Rachel Maddow Biden should do so. “If there ever was an emergency, the climate crisis is one,” he said:
Proponents argue that calling climate change an “emergency” could pressure governments to take sweeping and immediate action on global warming. Treating the crisis like a war or a pandemic, the thinking goes, would focus governments on a single objective — and, in the U.S., could even mobilize billions of dollars in funding. But even after dozens of national declarations, there’s limited consensus on what the term means, or whether it actually leads to cutting CO2 emissions. “It can be quite useful to have people declare emergencies,” said Tom Burke, the co-founder of E3G, a European climate change think tank. “The downside is it also allows people to declare an emergency and then not do anything.”
Now the union local in Chicago that represents Environmental Protection Agency employees in the Midwest is seeking an emergency declaration. In a letter to EPA Administrator Michael Regan, the union urged a ban on exports of crude oil, a moratorium on permits for fossil fuel pipelines and facilities, and a move to a carbon-free power system by 2035. The American Federation of Government Employees Local 704 represents about 1,000 EPA scientists, engineers and other staff across six states. “At a time of crisis, EPA’s workforce must speak out forcefully for urgent reductions in greenhouse gasses and for eradicating the racial injustice that comes with the impacts of that crisis,” Local 704 President Nicole Cantello said in the letter to Regan. “To tackle the climate emergency, we need to protect, empower and rebuild our workforce of dedicated scientists and engineers.”
But opposition to the idea is strong, and some of it comes from unexpected sources. Soon after Sen. Schumer said he favored declaring a climate emergency, Elizabeth Goitein co-director of the liberty and national security program at the Brennan Center for Justice argued in an Op-Ed at The Washington Post that the law governing emergency declarations are not meant for emergencies like the climate crisis:
Emergency powers are designed for events such as terrorist attacks, epidemics and natural disasters — earthquakes, tornados and the like. They aren’t intended to address persistent problems, no matter how dire. And they aren’t meant to be an end-run around Congress. If lawmakers have had ample time to consider a problem and have chosen not to authorize certain solutions, declaring a national emergency to bypass Congress is a misuse of power. This principle applies whether the issue is unlawful border crossings or the warming of the planet.
We ignore this principle at our peril. These powers carry significant potential for abuse, given how easily they can be invoked and the vast authorities that some of them provide. If we concede that they are available as a congressional workaround, policy disputes could become an excuse for presidential power grabs.
QUICK HITS
Southern Co. will build a small nuclear reactor: For many years, proponents have called for expanding U.S. nuclear power with safer, smaller reactors based on different technology than the aging light water and boiling water machines that make up the nation’s nuclear-power infrastructure and produce 20% of U.S. electricity. Now, Southern Co. plans to build an experimental molten chloride fast reactor in Idaho. An MCFR uses liquid salts as a coolant and as a fuel. "The Molten Chloride Reactor Experiment will support the commercialization of a revolutionary technology on a timescale that addresses climate change benchmarks and delivers on Southern Co’s goal of net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050,” said Mark Berry, Southern’s vice president of research and development, in a news release Thursday.
The Godmother of ‘Plant-Based’ Living: Frances Moore Lappé, the author of Diet for a Small Planet, which was published 50 years ago and persuaded many people to choose vegetarianism, looks back on her legacy:
Frances Moore Lappé’s last hamburger was in 1971, the same year she published “Diet for a Small Planet,” her hugely influential book about food and sustainability, which virtually created the publishing category of food politics and turned Ms. Lappé into what she once self-deprecatingly called “the Julia Child of the soybean circuit.”
In “Diet,” Ms. Lappé argued that Americans eat too much meat, especially beef, and that our meat-centered meals are an enormous waste of resources. Both our bodies and the planet would be healthier if we ate a plant-focused diet instead.
Californian looks at what it must do to prepare for a sea-level rise of 10 feet by century’s end: The California Coastal Commission has released a draft document created to guide local governments in their efforts to adapt to rising water levels from climate change. The rise is projected to increase storm flooding, coastal erosion, and the intrusion of saltwater into groundwater. “In many cases, California’s aging infrastructure is reaching the end of its useful life and will need major maintenance, upgrades, or replacement over the coming decades,” the report states. “Proactive, collaborative, and thoughtful adaptation planning will be the key to successfully addressing the State’s coastal infrastructure needs and protecting coastal resources, now and in the future.”
A study in 2009 assumed that a 4.6-foot increase would mean that 3,500 miles of road and nearly 30 wastewater treatment plants would be threatened or damaged by a 100-year flood event under that scenario. Last year, the Coastal Commission voted for a plan that calls for addressing a minimum of 3.5 feet of sea-level rise by 2050. The latest guidance assumes global sea levels could rise 10-feet by 2100. Costs of adapting the state’s coastal infrastructure to deal with a potential rise this great “are in the billions, if not trillions of dollars, over time,” states the report.
CLIMATE QUOTE
“Thanks to the centrifugal pump, places like Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas had thrown on the garments of fertility for a century, pretending to greenery and growth as they mined glacial water from ten-thousand-year-old aquifers. They'd played dress-up-in-green and pretended it could last forever. They'd pumped up the Ice Age and spread it across the land, and for a while they'd turned their dry lands lush. Cotton, wheat, corn, soybeans—vast green acreages, all because someone could get a pump going. Those places had dreamed of being different from what they were. They'd had aspirations. And then the water ran out, and they fell back, realizing too late that their prosperity was borrowed, and there would be no more coming.” —Paolo Bacigalupi, The Water Knife
CLIMATE TWEET
CLIMATE ACTION
• 10 climate action groups to check out and maybe join, many led by youth:
Sunrise Movement
SustainUS
Uplift
Fridays for Future
Climate Mobilization
Chispa
The Red Nation
Together Restoring Economic Empowerment (TREE)
The Alliance of Climate Education (ACE)
350.org
• Together Restoring Economic Empowerment. Led by youth and young adults of color, Together Restoring Economic Empowerment is a civil rights organization that fights for both environmental and economic justice. TREE's Action Center has information on active and past direct actions, projects, and resources for you to become more involved in climate justice.
CLIMATE RESOURCES
Green Infrastructure and Post Disaster Recovery: This briefing paper shows how green infrastructure plays an important role in preparation for and recovery from natural disasters. By incorporating green infrastructure into post-disaster recovery, communities can become more resilient to future disasters.
The Essential Principles of Climate Literacy: This paper presents information about Earth’s climate, impacts of climate change, and approaches to adaptation or mitigation. The guide is designed to pave the way as discussion starters and launching points for scientific inquiry. It seeks to improve climate science literacy with an educational framework of principles and concepts.
CLIMATE BRIEFS FOR THE PAST TWO WEEKS
• Climate Brief: Is it selling out to buy them out?, by billlaurelMD
• Climate Brief: News Roundup, by eeff
• Climate Brief: Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty; Emergency Response Needed to Stay at 1.5°, by boatsie
• Climate Brief: A Call for New Climate Leadership in a post-COP World, by boatsie
• Climate Brief: COP26 Roundup, Youth Activists From Around the World Call Out Decades of Delay, by eeff
• Climate Brief: COP26 - Pact Agreed Upon: Update, by boatsie
• Climate Brief: Which temperature projection is it going to be?, by billlaurelMD
• Climate Brief: News Roundup, COP26, Why Climate Change Could Put New Conservation Areas in Jeopardy, by eeff
• Climate Brief: Belize emerges as a COP26 star; whale poop, blue carbon, and blah, blah, blah, by Pakalolo
• Climate Brief Cop26:Daylight Savings time is bad for the Environment, by Angmar
• Climate Brief: News Roundup, Draft deal calls for stronger carbon cutting targets by end of 2022, by eeff
• Climate Brief: News Roundup: Cop26: what do scientists think about the progress in Glasgow? by eeff
• Climate Brief: @COP26, Inadequate Climate Pledges,Gender Day, Global Health, by boatsie
• Climate Brief: News Roundup, Rainforests in the DRC: "a solution" for climate change, by eeff
• Climate Brief: News Roundup, More Eyes on Polluters: The Growth of Citizen Monitoring, by eeff
• Climate Brief: Music 4 Climate Justice - your streaming musical menu for November 8, by WarrenS
• Climate Brief: Week 2 @COP26; Limiting temperature rises to 1.5C not enough for African countries, by boatsie
• Climate Brief: News Roundup, One of the whitest' climate conferences in years, say environmentalist, by eeff
• Climate Brief: Music 4 Climate Justice — COP-26: The Soundtrack For November 7, by WarrenS
• Climate Brief: No, climate activism isn't a waste of time; Red New Deal; carbon offsetting denounced, by Meteor Blades
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.