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Looking for a CNN Climate Crisis Town Hall drinking game? Bingo!

by DannLavater Posted on September 4, 2019

So you’ve decided to watch CNN’s Climate Crisis Town Hall on Wednesday evening. That means you’re either a climate wonk who’s willing to spend seven hours of your precious free time listening to politicians prattle about global warming, or you can’t figure out how to change the channel. Either way, hello and welcome!

The town hall’s rules of engagement are simple. Ten presidential candidates will have 40 minutes each to share their ideas for fixing humanity’s biggest and scariest problem ever. And what better way to prepare you to digest that marathon strategy-fest than a little climate action aperitif?

That’s right, we’ve come up with the ultimate drinking game to complement the delicate aroma of the world bursting into flames. (Though abstainers should feel free to stick with us and sub a couple of Marianne Williamson’s pre-debate yoga moves).

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If you follow our nifty drinking guide, our goal is to leave you sober enough to decipher Bernie’s thick Brooklyn accent but drunk enough to keep the TV on when Biden promises to unlock the power of “American innovation.” (Drink!)

Ready? Let’s go.

How to play

The game itself is simple: climate candidate bingo! Keep tabs on each presidential wannabe’s quotable quotes and take a sip for each phrase that gets mentioned. We’re sure the multiple hours of dense, environmental policy proposals will just fly by. (You can download a PDF version of the bingo board here.)

Grist

The games begin at 5 p.m. Eastern with former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julián Castro. The “fun” won’t end until Cory Booker closes out starting at 11:20 p.m., so consider chugging some water at least every time CNN switches moderators or you’ll be Wolf Blitzer-ed by the time Amy Klobuchar rolls up.

5:00 p.m. Julián Castro
5:40 p.m. Andrew Yang
6:20 p.m. Kamala Harris
7:00 p.m. Amy Klobuchar
8:00 p.m. Joe Biden
8:40 p.m. Bernie Sanders
9:20 p.m. Elizabeth Warren
10:00 p.m. Pete Buttigieg
10:40 p.m. Beto O’Rourke
11:20 p.m. Cory Booker

Pregame idea: Raise a glass to the dearly (Democratically) departed.

Your brain (and liver) should probably be grateful that not all of the original 20-some Democratic candidates have made it this far in the election cycle. But a few drop-outs had some interesting climate ideas along the way. If you’re up for pregaming, consider pouring one out for the following candidates:

Jay Inslee — Ah, the original “climate candidate.” The Washington governor’s impressive environmental record and, um, crowd appeal will be sorely missed during this town hall. I would tell you to take a shot for every climate plan Inslee released during his run for president but there are six of them and I’m not trying to kill you. So slowly sip a sustainable beverage for dear old Jay as you scan the remaining candidates for your new “climate daddy.” (Google if you dare.)

John Hickenlooper — The former Colorado governor is gone from the presidential foray but not forgotten (because he’s running for Senate). His climate plan, however, which didn’t do much to offset his history of boosting fracking in his state, might merit a little forgetting. If you do drink to his memory, just make sure it’s not fracking fluid — that’s John’s job.

Kirsten Gillibrand — The #metoo candidate was the most recent campaign casualty in the rapidly thinning Democratic primary. She is survived by her impressive $10 trillion climate plan, which includes a tax on carbon pollution. Raise a glass of whiskey, Gillibrand’s “favorite comfort food,” to that.

Bonus doomsday dares

Need some additional entertainment? Spice up the evening with a few of the following challenges:

Phone your grandma when Joe Biden calls one of the other full-grown adults on stage “kid.”
Shotgun a Michelob Ultra every time Elizabeth Warren gets raucous applause for one of her six climate plans.
Have a friend go into another room and read last year’s entire 2,000-page Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report. Whoever cries themselves to sleep first wins!
Scream “Ask not what your country can do for you — ask what you can do for your country” at the TV when someone uses JFK’s moon landing project as a metaphor for taking on climate change.

Seven hours of climate policy might feel like a poor substitution for, say, an official climate debate, but it’s a major step up for broadcast media. Last year, national broadcast networks spent only 142 combined minutes discussing the issue.

Ideally, an uptick in coverage would be spread out over the course of several months, not concentrated in one brutally long political masterclass. But the occasion seems to have prompted a number of 2020 procrastinators to release climate plans ahead of the event. On Tuesday, Warren, Klobuchar, and Booker unveiled proposals, and Buttigieg slid in just under the wire, releasing his climate plan Wednesday morning. Harris said she also intended to release a plan pre-town hall.

But you know what? We’ll take what we can get, even if it’s too little too — Ding dong! Who’s there? The delivery guy with the baked potato you drunkenly ordered in honor of Amy Klobuchar.

Go to bed.

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Looking for a CNN Climate Crisis Town Hall drinking game? Bingo!

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Poll: Democrats are getting worried about climate change. Republicans? Not so much.

by MargherU64 Posted on August 29, 2019

Climate change is scoring some major points with Democrats — polling points, that is. That’s according to a recent survey from the Pew Research Center that found the growing, year-round effects of our warming planet have not gone unnoticed by the members of at least one of the two major U.S. political parties compared to even six years ago.

Since 2013, the portion of Democrats who consider climate change a “major threat” has risen by 26 percentage points — a whopping 84 percent of Democrats surveyed this year are worried about it. That increase was even bigger among people who identify as liberal Democrats — 94 percent consider rising temperatures a major threat to the nation now, up 30 points from 2013.

Meanwhile, across the aisle, Republican opinions on the matter remain relatively unchanged. A little more than a quarter of GOPers consider climate change a major threat. Between 2013 and 2019, the share of conservative Republicans who consider climate change a major threat has risen only a few percentage points, an uptick Pew called “not statistically significant.”

There is one spot of good news: a different survey conducted by Amsterdam-based polling group Glocalities shows concern about the effect of human behavior on the environment is rising among young Republicans. Sixty-seven percent of Republican voters aged 18 to 34 are worried about the damage humans cause the planet, up 18 percent since 2014.*

But despite some movement among young Republicans on this issue, the Pew poll shows that climate change remains incredibly divisive. The concern gap between the two parties on climate is wide even when compared to other politically charged issues. Democrats and Republicans have more common ground when discussing the threat posed by Russia’s power and influence — one of the most divisive issues of the 2016 presidential election.

That may be because GOP leaders have remained impressively steadfast in their opposition to virtually any kind of climate action since the early ‘90s. The party that produced much of America’s environmental conservation policy throughout the 20th century has since stood by President Trump as he has worked to dismantle the building blocks of that legacy. It’s no wonder a measly 27 percent of Republicans are worried about climate change — unless you happen to live in Florida, there is little daylight between party leadership and base on this issue.

Conversely, as rank-and-file Democrats grow increasingly preoccupied with rising temperatures, their party leaders are still clapping on the one and the three. The Democratic establishment is only now fumbling to set up some kind of comprehensive response to the crisis, thanks in no small part to pointed encouragement from a certain freshman representative from New York. But despite Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez et al.’s efforts, the Democratic National Committee just voted not to hold a climate-themed debate. It’s not the first time the party has ignored the outspoken opinions of much of its progressive base: Last year, the same committee decided to reject donations from fossil fuel companies, only to reverse its decision a couple months later.

As usual, the GOP has succeeded in keeping its base in line. If Democratic leaders are out of step with their army, maybe it’s time they adjusted their messaging to match the scale of the crisis.

*This post has been updated to include the survey from Glocalities, published Thursday.

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Poll: Democrats are getting worried about climate change. Republicans? Not so much.

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Donald ‘I’m an environmentalist’ Trump skips G7 climate meeting

by DarrellMulgrave Posted on August 26, 2019

World leaders met in France on Monday to discuss some of the most pressing issues of our time: climate change, biodiversity, and warming oceans. The members of the G-7 — the world’s richest nations — walked away from that meeting with a plan to release $20 million in aid to the countries battling historic blazes in the Amazon. But one leader was notably absent: Donald Trump.

The president’s team said Trump had to skip the meeting because of scheduled talks with Germany and India. Except the leaders of those two countries, Chancellor Angela Merkel and Prime Minister Narendra Modi, were unable to meet with Trump. They were busy … attending the climate meeting he skipped. But wait! There’s more. When reporters asked Trump about the climate session later in the day, he said, and I quote, “We’re having it in a little while.” (Note: The session had already taken place.)

Trump’s decision to skip the climate meeting didn’t stop the president from calling himself “an environmentalist” at a press conference mere hours later. Remember, Trump has called climate change a Chinese “hoax,” falsely claimed that the noise from wind power causes cancer, and bemoaned the absence of “so-called global warming” in the dead of winter. Nevertheless, he proclaimed, “I think I know more about the environment than most people.” And this isn’t even the first time he’s called himself an environmentalist.

Granted, Trump isn’t your typical eco-warrior. Over the weekend, Axios reported that the leader of the free world has on two separate occasions asked senior officials whether the government could use nuclear bombs to stop hurricanes from hitting the United States. (Trump later denied the report.) The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association’s Hurricane Research Division has a whole factsheet on why nuking hurricanes is a bad idea. Turns out, a nuclear bomb can’t even put a dent in a tropical cyclone — but a tropical cyclone can carry nuclear radiation all over the damn place.

But there’s no need to worry. The scientists over at NOAA can relax. Trump clearly knows what he’s doing. The man is an environmentalist.

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Donald ‘I’m an environmentalist’ Trump skips G7 climate meeting

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Rising temperatures pose ‘extreme danger’ to Muslims on Hajj pilgrimage

by mtibkz48 Posted on August 26, 2019

It’s not always easy to have faith — especially when your faith might involve trekking through temperatures upwards of 120 degrees Fahrenheit.

For the world’s estimated 1.8 billion Muslims — roughly a quarter of the world’s population — making a once-in-a-lifetime pilgrimage to Mecca is considered a religious duty. Hajj, as the ritual is called, brings millions of people to the Saudi Arabian holy city each year. But according to a new study, climate change could lead to an increase in temperatures and humidity along the heart of the route, putting many devotees in “extreme danger” of developing heat-related illnesses.

“When it comes in the summer in Saudi Arabia, conditions become harsh, and a significant fraction of these activities are outdoors,” Elfatih Eltahir, MIT engineering professor and lead author of the study, said in a press release.

When the Hajj falls in the summer — the timing of the annual migration changes every year due as it depends on the lunar calendar — it may not be safe for participants to remain outdoors during the trip. This year, the Hajj fell in August, and temperatures in Mecca averaged about 109 degrees F (43 degrees C). Saudi officials cautioned visitors that temperatures could reach as high as 122 degrees F (50 degrees C) on some days.

While rising temperatures along the traditional holy route are worrying, Saudi Arabia has some time to prepare for the increased danger. Each year the Hajj occurs about 11 days earlier, so there will only be the occasional stretch of five to seven years where the pilgrimage falls during the hottest summer months. According to the study, the Hajj won’t fall during the summer again until 2047. In the meantime, researchers are arguing for Saudi Arabia to introduce countermeasures or restrictions on participation in the pilgrimage, warning of an even more severe toll on human health. But even with mitigation measures in place, Eltahir says, “it will still be severe.”

“It is time for the Muslim community to become the leaders in the fight, with not just countries such as Bangladesh and Pakistan under threat now, but increasingly the holy site of Mecca.” Tufail Hussain, director of Islamic Relief U.K. told Sky News in response to the study.

“If we don’t act now, not only will people suffer the impact of more frequent and intense disasters, but our children born from today will no longer be able to perform the sacred duty of Hajj.”

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Rising temperatures pose ‘extreme danger’ to Muslims on Hajj pilgrimage

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Bernie Sanders’ ‘Green New Deal’ looks like a trillion bucks (OK, 16 trillion)

by Rachel06Hscjsgt Posted on August 22, 2019

Washington Governor Jay Inslee vacated the role of “climate candidate” in the 2020 Democratic presidential primary when he dropped out of the race Wednesday night. By Thursday morning, it appeared Bernie Sanders was poised to fill it.

The Vermont senator unveiled a plan to spend more than $16 trillion in federal dollars on “a ten-year, nationwide mobilization centered around justice and equity” to forestall the climate crisis. He’s calling it — stop us if you’ve heard this one before — the “Green New Deal.”

Yep, Sanders told the New York Times that he’s putting “meat on the bones” of the resolution, introduced in February by New York Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Massachusetts Senator Ed Markey, which called for a “10-year national mobilization” to essentially remake the U.S. into a clean-energy economy. The Ocasio-Cortez and Markey version of the Green New Deal (a.k.a. GND original flavor) is currently being constructed by the think tank New Consensus.

Sanders’ version calls for creating 20 million union jobs he says are necessary for averting climate disaster, phasing out fossil fuels by midcentury, providing $200 billion to the United Nations to aid developing countries in slashing emissions, and spearheading new projects in solar, wind, and geothermal energy. According to the senator’s campaign, the plan will pay for itself in 15 years, in part by levying massive taxes on the income of corporate polluters and increasing penalties for fossil-fuel company pollution. And Sanders said he would declare climate change a national emergency, a step that even Inslee was not ready to commit to. Last month, Sanders proposed a congressional resolution to do just that.

The language in Sanders’s plan indicates he’s ready to tussle with Big Oil: He says he would direct his Department of Justice to go after fossil fuel companies for both civil and criminal penalties. So far, cases winding through the state court systems have not been successful at holding the fossil fuel industry accountable.

“They have evaded taxes, desecrated tribal lands, exploited workers, and poisoned communities,” the proposal reads. “President Bernie Sanders will ensure that his Department of Justice and Securities and Exchange Commission investigate these companies and bring suits — both criminal and civil — for any wrongdoing, just as the federal government did with the tobacco industry in the 1980s.”

The 77-year-old presidential-hopeful also plans to ensure a “fair” and “just transition” for fossil fuel workers. Under Sanders’ Green New Deal, the federal government would provide five years of unemployment insurance, a wage guarantee, housing assistance, and job training to “any displaced worker” who loses their job during the transition to a clean-energy economy.

Moreover, Sanders’ plan pitches a ban on hydraulic fracturing — a.k.a. fracking — and mountaintop coal mining. He also plans on establishing a $40 billion Climate Justice Resiliency Fund specifically to help communities of color prepare for climate impacts.

While the Green New Deal of Ocasio-Cortez and Markey calls for transitioning to 100-percent zero-emission energy generation and slashing emissions from transportation “as much as is technologically feasible” within 10 years, Sanders’ plan ups the ante a bit. He calls for eliminating all emissions from the transportation sector by 2030. And while the original resolution doesn’t exclude the use of nuclear power or developing technologies like carbon capture, Sanders’ proposal prohibits so-called “false solutions,” specifically naming nuclear, carbon sequestration, and geoengineering among them.

But while the Green New Deal (original) and its effect in shifting the conversation on climate in politics has been up to this point most closely identified with Ocasio-Cortez, today’s announcement could essentially transfer the concept to Sanders. So if at the next round of debates, fellow candidate and Senator Kamala Harris utters her support for a “Green New Deal”, as she has in the previous two, she’ll essentially be saying she supports Sanders’ plan. It’s his now — both its transformative allure, as well as its heavy price tag.

But at least, according to Sanders’ estimates, he can get the job done for less than 20 percent of what the Republicans say a Green New Deal will cost.

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Bernie Sanders’ ‘Green New Deal’ looks like a trillion bucks (OK, 16 trillion)

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Why FEMA isn’t prepared for the next major U.S. disaster

by rosalindmajor84 Posted on August 20, 2019

According to every climate prediction model, our rapidly warming world is slated to experience more frequent and severe weather-related disasters. But according to a new investigation from E&E News, the Federal Emergency Management Agency is woefully unprepared for future catastrophes after misspending billions of dollars and countless hours of staff time on relatively minor disaster recovery efforts.

FEMA workers are an important resource for states in the wake of a disaster. They do everything from rescuing survivors to coordinating recovery efforts to providing emergency food and shelter. But they’re not for every occasion: The agency is only supposed to step in and supplement recovery efforts only when a disaster exceeds a state’s ability to cope. But according to the E&E article, FEMA tied up many of its key staffers’ time by responding to small-scale disasters such as undersized floods, storms and other events that states had the ability to bankroll themselves.

The total cost of that unnecessary aid? $3 billion.

For example, after July floods hit West Virginia — a state that was amassing over a billion dollars in budget surplus — FEMA not only staffed centers for residents to get emergency aid but provided 469 grants while the centers were open. And in 2017, FEMA responded to storms in Oklahoma that amounted to about $5 million in damage, while the state had over $450 million budget surplus.

FEMA helping out states hit by minor incidents may not sound like a terrible thing, but as a result of the misspending, E&E found that the agency failed to properly respond to the needs of communities hard-hit by major disasters, including Hurricane Maria. When Maria pummeled Puerto Rico two years ago FEMA was really not prepared. The U.S. territory’s disaster assistance progressed at a glacial pace, with the island not getting its first recovery center until Oct. 21, 2017 — a month after the hurricane, according to E&E News.

“FEMA is dying a death by 1,000 cuts,” Brock Long, former FEMA administrator, told E&E News. Long says that prior to Harvey, the agency already didn’t have enough emergency response staff to deploy. “We were out in the field staffing too many small to medium disasters.”

Making matters worse, when Governors (often) overestimate the costs of their states’ disaster recovery and get more FEMA funds than they need, there are no consequences.

The good news (and I use the word “good” loosely) is FEMA knows it has a problem. Last year, FEMA acknowledged that its disaster workforce “is historically over-committed to smaller disasters,” ultimately shrinking the agency’s capacity to prepare and respond to catastrophes.

In an effort to tackle this, FEMA administrators said they wanted to function as more of a block-grant agency, meaning it would be forced to prioritize disaster responses within a fixed budget. The agency also announced that rather than deploy its own staff for all disasters, it would reimburse states for minor disaster recovery — meaning states would need to buff up their own emergency response teams rather than relying on the federal agency to spearhead efforts.

But according to E&E, that policy has largely failed. FEMA is now facing a major staffing shortage at a time when the hurricane and wildfire seasons are about to hit their peaks. The agency currently has about 3,600 available emergency workers compared to about 6,000 at the same time two years ago — just before Hurricane Harvey hit. According to E&E, nearly three-quarters of the agency’s disaster workforce is currently tied up — meaning they are either assigned other disasters or on vacation.

“I cannot continue to send staff out to do every disaster for $2 million,” said former FEMA administrator Long during Senate Hearings last year. “The nation needs me to be ready to go for the Marias and the Harveys and Irmas.”

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Why FEMA isn’t prepared for the next major U.S. disaster

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The U.N. report calls for better farming. Which 2020 candidates have a plan for that?

by LottieHutson Posted on August 12, 2019

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The U.N. report calls for better farming. Which 2020 candidates have a plan for that?

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Climate change is making it more dangerous to eat certain fish

by LawrenceFitts3 Posted on August 9, 2019

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Climate change is making it more dangerous to eat certain fish

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Everything and More: A Compact History of Infinity – David Foster Wallace

by Myrna Posted on August 7, 2019

READ GREEN WITH E-BOOKS

Everything and More: A Compact History of Infinity

David Foster Wallace

Genre: Mathematics

Price: $2.99

Publish Date: October 4, 2010

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company

Seller: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc.


"A gripping guide to the modern taming of the infinite." —New York Times Part history, part philosophy, part love letter to the study of mathematics, Everything and More is an illuminating tour of infinity. With his infectious curiosity and trademark verbal pyrotechnics, David Foster Wallace takes us from Aristotle to Newton, Leibniz, Karl Weierstrass, and finally Georg Cantor and his set theory. Through it all, Wallace proves to be an ideal guide—funny, wry, and unfailingly enthusiastic. Featuring an introduction by Neal Stephenson, this edition is a perfect introduction to the beauty of mathematics and the undeniable strangeness of the infinite.

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Everything and More: A Compact History of Infinity – David Foster Wallace

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In Detroit, Democratic candidates actually did some climate debating

by KelleeCasanova Posted on August 1, 2019

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In Detroit, Democratic candidates actually did some climate debating

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