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The best zingers from Greta Thunberg, 16-year-old Nobel Peace Prize nominee

by MadelineLiddell Posted on March 14, 2019

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Kids don’t get nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize for skipping school — with the exception of Greta Thunberg. The 16-year-old climate activist has been playing hooky every Friday since last August to protest outside Sweden’s parliament building.

On Friday, hundreds of thousands of students inspired by Thunberg are expected to walk out of class as part of the worldwide Youth Climate Strike.

“We have proposed Greta Thunberg because if we do nothing to halt climate change it will be the cause of wars, conflict, and refugees,” Norwegian politician Freddy André Øvstegård told international news agency AFP. “Greta Thunberg has launched a mass movement which I see as a major contribution to peace.”

Thurnberg is among some 300 candidates for the 2019 prize, the Guardian reports. There’s a precedent for the Nobel Peace Prize going to a courageous teen who speaks truth to power: The 2014 prize was given to Malala Yousafzai, 17 years old at the time, who survived a Taliban assassination attempt and advocates for girls’ education.

Over the past half year, Thunberg has been taking world leaders to task over climate inaction with blunt, fiery speeches. Here are some of the best moments:

“For way too long, the politicians and the people in power have gotten away with not doing anything to fight the climate crisis, but we will make sure that they will not get away with it any longer,” Thunberg told the crowd at a school strike in Antwerp, Belgium this month. “We are striking because we have done our homework and they have not.”
Thunberg became the icon of the United Nations climate talks in Katowice, Poland, in December. Not that she was too impressed by them. “I expected it to be more action and less talking — it’s mostly just small-talking,” she said during the event. “This is an amazing opportunity. But if it continues the way it is now, we are never going to achieve anything.”
At the end of the climate talks, Thunberg delivered a firecracker speech condemning inaction. “You say you love your children above all else, and yet you’re stealing their future in front of their very eyes,” she told the gathered leaders.
The activist took another swipe at the global elite during a rousing speech in Davos, Switzerland, in January. “At places like Davos, people like to tell success stories,” Thunberg said at the World Economic Forum. “But their financial success has come with an unthinkable price tag.” Ouch.
Thunberg showed off her knack for metaphor, too. “Yes, we are failing, but there is still time to turn everything around — we can still fix this,” she said in Davos. “I want you to act as if the house was on fire. Because it is.”

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The best zingers from Greta Thunberg, 16-year-old Nobel Peace Prize nominee

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Beto O’Rourke is running for president. Now about that environmental record …

by CiaraPikegestwd Posted on March 14, 2019

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After a handful of trips across the country, a few shaky Facebook live streams, 10 angst-ridden, stream-of-consciousness Medium posts, at least one trip to the dentist, and a Vanity Fair cover about wanting to be “in it,” Beto O’Rourke is now … in it.

Last night, the former congressman from Texas confirmed to an El Paso TV station that he is running for the White House, and then made the official announcement on Twitter this morning.

In the launch video, O’Rourke called voters “the last great hope of Earth” and said that we’re in a “moment of maximum peril and maximum potential.”

“Perhaps, most importantly of all, because our very existence depends on it, we can unleash the ingenuity and creativity of millions of Americans who want to ensure that we squarely confront the challenge of climate change before it’s too late,” he said.

So what does his presidential bid mean for the environment and tackling climate change? It’s complicated. First, the good news: O’Rourke is no climate denier. Even in deep-red Texas, O’Rourke, who had no name recognition nationally until he launched a grassroots, seat-of-your-pants campaign against Senator Ted Cruz in 2017, was clear from the get-go that climate change is real, that it’s happening now and humans are driving it. O’Rourke also sports a lifetime score of 95 from the League of Conservation Voters.

In his unsuccessful campaign to unseat Cruz, climate change was rarely part of the discussion. Over two debates, Cruz and O’Rourke clashed over energy and climate just once. In response to a question about ExxonMobil acknowledging climate change, O’Rourke said, “Three hundred years after the Enlightenment, we should be able to listen to the scientists.”

In Texas, campaigns are awash in money from Big Oil, and his campaign was no different. Last year, he was taken off a list of politicians who’d signed a “No Fossil Fuel Money” pledge, after he received $430,000 from people working in the oil and gas industry. Three-fourths of the donations were larger than $200 and 29 of them were from oil and gas executives.

When he traveled to parts of Texas dependant on fossil fuel extraction during his Senate campaign, O’Rourke promoted fracking as fundamental to national security. In the heart of the Permian Basin, for instance, he told the Midland Reporter-Telegram that he didn’t want the United States to be dependent on other countries for energy but that fracking should be done “in a responsible, safe way that does not jeopardize the environment.” At a debate with Cruz, he called the decision between renewables and fossil fuels “a false choice.”

Environmental advocates have also been troubled by a handful of votes in favor of the oil and gas industry during his time in Congress. O’Rourke was one of few Democrats in the House to vote to lift the ban on oil exports in 2015. And he backed a Republican bill to fast-track natural gas exports and opposed a bill to limit offshore drilling.

Maybe this campaign will be different. There’s the prominent mention of climate change in the launch video, along with his support for the Green New Deal. In an interview with BuzzFeed last month, O’Rourke said that it’s “the best proposal that I’ve seen to ensure that this planet does not warm another 2 degrees C, after which we may lose the ability to live in places like El Paso.”

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Beto O’Rourke is running for president. Now about that environmental record …

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The Arctic’s ticking ‘carbon bomb’ could blow up the Paris Agreement

by MeridithShade5 Posted on March 13, 2019

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Even in a dream-come-true scenario where we manage to stop all the world’s carbon emissions overnight, the Arctic would inevitably get hotter and hotter. That’s according to a new report by U.N. Environment, which says the the region is already “locked in” to wintertime warming of 4 to 5 degrees C (7.2 to 9 degrees F) over temperatures of the late 1900s.

The report, released at the U.N. Environment conference in Kenya on Wednesday, says that the Arctic is warming twice as fast as the planetary average, and models show that it’s on track to become ice-free during the summer as soon as 2030.

That’s the bad news. So here’s even worse news. The Arctic contains much of the world’s permafrost, which holds what the report calls a “sleeping giant” made of greenhouse gases. As the ground warms, the microbes in the soil wake up and start belching greenhouse gases. Estimates vary, but the report says 1.5 trillion tons of carbon dioxide lurk beneath the Earth’s permafrost. That’s more than 40 times as much CO2 as humans released into the atmosphere last year, and double the amount of the gas in the atmosphere today.

If that permafrost stayed permanently frozen, as the word itself suggests it should, we could continue worrying about other stuff. But researchers expect Arctic permafrost to shrink 45 percent compared to today. Unleashing that stored-up carbon dioxide and methane would obviously “derail efforts” to limit warming to 2 degrees C (3.6CK degrees F) as outlined in the Paris Agreement, the report says. But then again, it would derail pretty much everything.

“New evidence suggests that permafrost is thawing much faster than previously thought, with consequences not just for Arctic peoples and ecosystems, but for the planet as a whole because of feedback loops,” the report states.

This is one of the runaway warming scenarios, often called the “carbon bomb” or “methane bomb.” (Permafrost holds both greenhouse gases.) Unlike a real bomb, however, it wouldn’t explode all at once. And at least one recent study suggests that we still have time to defuse it.

Within the Arctic, the soil formerly known as permafrost — let’s call it “meltafrost” — could pose a danger to 70 percent of current infrastructure by 2050, as well as the region’s 4 million inhabitants, 10 percent of whom are indigenous. Recent studies have shown that permafrost thaw could cause houses to collapse, lead to uneven roads, and threaten important cultural and archaeological sites.

The North Pole runs warmer than the rest of the planet because of a phenomenon called “Arctic amplification” — basically a region-specific term for feedback loops. “[W]hen sea ice melts in the summer, it opens up dark areas of water that absorb more heat from the sun, which in turn melts more ice,” the report explains.

These rapid changes in the Arctic might seem far away, but you will feel them, too. For those of you on the coasts, keep in mind that the melting of Arctic glaciers and Greenland’s ice sheet makes up a third of sea-level rise around the globe. Rising seas will wreak havoc in coastal regions as they deal with flooding, damaged buildings, and the saltwater contamination of drinking water sources.

And for those further inland, there’s the wild weather. The melting of the Arctic causes changes in the jet stream and disrupts weather patterns much further south. It’s been linked to worsening drought across the western United States, stalled hurricanes in the East, and the polar vortex that occasionally dips down over North America to turn us all into popsicles.

As many are fond of saying, “What happens in the Arctic does not stay in the Arctic.”

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New York City public schools will adopt ‘Meatless Mondays’

by cherihomer74079 Posted on March 13, 2019

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Bye-bye, sloppy joes. Hello, tofu! Earlier this week New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio announced that starting next school year, New York City’s public school lunchrooms will not serve meat on Mondays.

“Cutting back on meat a little will improve New Yorkers’ health and reduce greenhouse gas emissions,” Mayor Bill de Blasio said in a statement (which was released, naturally, on a Monday.) “We’re expanding Meatless Mondays to all public schools to keep our lunch and planet green for generations to come.”

The New York City school district is the nation’s largest and includes more than 1,800 schools and  1.1 million students. The city’s “Meatless Monday” effort started out as a pilot program in 15 Brooklyn schools, where it proved to be both cost-effective and popular with students.

The fact that kids in NYC are down to munch on vegetarian or vegan meals once per week isn’t really a shocker; plant-based diets are more common among young people. Plus, the younger generation is pretty riled up about climate change, and there is no shortage of evidence that large-scale meat production plays a significant role in greenhouse gas emissions.

“Reducing our appetite for meat is one of the single biggest ways individuals can reduce their environmental impact on our planet,” said Mark Chambers, Director of the NYC Mayor’s Office of Sustainability, in a statement. “Meatless Mondays will introduce hundreds of thousands of young New Yorkers to the idea that small changes in their diet can create larger changes for their health and the health of our planet.”

New York Public Schools is not the first district to adopt the policy — more than 100 other districts across the country have also signed on. So, so long, Monday mystery meat! You will not be missed.

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New York City public schools will adopt ‘Meatless Mondays’

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‘We won’t stop striking’: The New York 13-year-old taking a stand over climate change

by TobyTheodore Posted on March 13, 2019

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This story was originally published by the Guardian and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

Alexandria Villasenor looks a slightly incongruous figure to stage a lengthy protest over the perils of catastrophic global warming. The 13-year-old, wrapped in a coat and a woolen hat, has spent every Friday since December seated on a frigid bench outside the United Nations headquarters in New York City with signs warning of climate change’s dire consequences.

Most passersby, probably hardened to confronting New York street scenes, scurry past, eyes diverted downwards. But some mutter words of support, while the odd passing driver rolls down their window to offer a thumbs up.

There is media interest, too. On a recent Friday protest stint, a microphone was being pinned to a shivering Villasenor by an NBC crew. “I stayed out there for four hours and I lost circulation in my toes for the first time,” she said afterwards.

Cold weather in winter is routinely used by President Donald Trump to disparage climate science — in January, the president tweeted: “Wouldn’t be bad to have a little of that good old fashioned Global Warming right now!” — but Villasenor has experienced enough in her nascent years to grasp the scale of the threat.

Her concern has driven her to help organize the first nationwide strikes by U.S. school students over climate change, on March 15. More than 100,000 young people are expected to skip school on the day and attend rallies demanding radical cuts in greenhouse gas emissions.

Villasenor was born and raised in Davis, California, in the teeth of the state’s fiercest drought in at least 1,200 years. She recalls seeing the dead and dying fish on the shores of nearby Folsom Lake as it dried up. In November, Davis was shrouded in a pall of smoke from record wildfires that obliterated the town of Paradise, 100 miles to the north.

“I have asthma so it was a very scary experience for me, I couldn’t leave my house at all,” Villasenor said. “Just walking to the car would make my eyes sting. We rolled up towels and put them under the windows. A lot of my friends were going out in the smog and I was texting them to see if they were OK, as I’m the mom of the group.”

Villasenor’s family subsequently moved to New York, the switch hastened by concerns over her health due to the smoke. The young student then swiftly became an activist after reading how warming temperatures are making the western U.S. far more prone to the sort of huge wildfires that menaced her hometown.

After bouncing around a few youth-led climate groups, Villasenor struck up a rapport with fellow students Isra Hirsi, in Minnesota, and Haven Coleman, from Colorado. The trio set about creating Youth Climate Strike U.S., the first major American response to the recent mass school walkouts by European students frustrated by adults’ sluggish response to climate change.

“My generation knows that climate change will be the biggest problem we’ll have to face,” Villasenor said. “It’s upsetting that my generation has to push these leaders to take action. We aren’t going to stop striking until some more laws are passed.”

The American students preparing to join a global wave of school strikes on March 15 have been spurred by the actions of Greta Thunberg, a 15-year-old Swede who started taking every Friday off school to call for more rapid action by her country’s leaders.

In a gently excoriating speech, Thunberg told governments at U.N. climate talks in December that “You say you love your children above all else, and yet you are stealing their future in front of their very eyes.”

Those under 20 years old have never known a world where the climate isn’t rapidly heating, ensuring that their lifetimes will be spent in average temperatures never before experienced by humans.

For someone getting their first taste of politics it can be hard to digest that precious little has been done to avert a future of disastrous droughts, floods, and storms since James Hansen, then of NASA, delivered his landmark warning on climate change to Congress 30 years ago.

“It was confusing at first because I expected politicians to be on to this, given what the scientists were saying,” said Chelsea Li, a 17-year-old at Nathan Hale high school in Seattle and local strike organizer. “But I didn’t see any action. We are going to have to do the things the adults are too afraid to do because it’s our futures we are fighting for.”

The American strikers’ challenge appears particularly steep. It’s one thing protesting in the U.K., where carbon dioxide emissions have plummeted to levels not seen since Queen Victoria’s reign, or Germany, where the government has pledged to phase out all coal use within 20 years.

It’s quite another to appeal to Trump, who has called climate science an elaborate Chinese hoax and has overseen the dismantling of Obama-era efforts to reduce emissions from coal plants and vehicles.

Youth-led groups like the Sunrise Movement and Zero Hour have seized the initiative from traditional green groups but have been met with the same unyielding political establishment. In a videoed exchange since parodied on Saturday Night Live, Senator Dianne Feinstein, the veteran Democrat, clasped her hands behind her back and patiently told a group of middle and high schoolers that they weren’t yet able to vote for her and their demands on climate were unrealistic.

There was no way to pay for the Green New Deal, a plan to decarbonize the economy championed by progressives, according to Feinstein. “I’ve been doing this for 30 years,” she said, an assurance alluding as much to political inertia as political experience.

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“I think she was trying to dismiss me,” said Isha Clarke, a 16-year-old from Oakland who had confronted Feinstein. “I think she was making excuses for why she didn’t have to listen to us. For older people there’s no urgency, they are used to the system and compromising.”

Clarke said the interaction with Feinstein was disappointing but the backlash was “amazing,” with the California senator releasing and then dropping her own climate plan after it was savaged for being too weak. Feinstein also offered Clarke an internship, which she has yet to accept.

“It’s sort of tricky because you have to play the game to change it but I don’t want it to cover up everything that happened,” Clarke said. “Most young people are very aware of climate change, a lot of them are super passionate about it but they don’t have the resources to make their voices heard. They don’t realize they have the power to create change.”

That voice will be heard on March 15 when students forgo their classes in order to make a plea that they hope won’t be dismissed as indulgent truancy. Parents and teachers may have to brace themselves for future walkouts.

“My parents are very supportive, they understand my beliefs,” said Villasenor, as she repositioned her placards for the cameras. “If we’re not going to have a future, then school won’t matter anymore.”

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‘We won’t stop striking’: The New York 13-year-old taking a stand over climate change

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Ilhan Omar’s 16-year-old daughter is co-leading the Youth Climate Strike

by Marita9856 Posted on March 13, 2019

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Freshman Congresswoman Ilhan Omar is championing one of the boldest climate policies in America. The Minnesota representative grew up in Somalia before immigrating to the United States as a refugee, so she was able to see firsthand the consequences of drought and make deep connections between climate change and all aspects of human society.

“I’m one who is urging my colleagues to really take this opportunity to not just issue resolutions and talking points, but for us to actually put a real bill on the table and to allow us to have a real conversation on this issue,” Omar recently told Minnesota Public Radio.

But Omar is not the only environmental influencer in her family — her daughter Isra Hirsi, 16, is one of the three youth leaders planning the U.S. component of Friday’s International Youth Climate Strike, in which young people will walk out of class in order to call for urgent climate action.

I had a chance to talk with Isra about how her efforts are already making a huge impact, and how her passion for the environment has influenced her family.

Update: In response to this piece, Omar wrote on Twitter: “Proud mom here! I hope other Members of Congress will join me in this strike. We need to listen to the wisdom of our kids!”

This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

Q. What’s it been like for you getting this all together?

A. It’s been a lot. There’s just a lot going on. Every 10 seconds there’s something else that pops up that you wouldn’t expect. It’s been crazy. There are so many people involved and so many things you have to do. It’s been really stressful. It definitely does interfere with school. I respond to texts and messages during the school day, and then I come home at four and that’s when I start doing all my calls. I have calls every single night. It’s kind of go-time. It’s all over the place. It’s a lot of work, more than I expected.

Q. How have you influenced your family by taking this on? Have you been able to teach them things about why you feel so strongly about this?

A. My parents are already kind of on top of it, a little bit less so my siblings. But my little sister is really young and so she kind of gets it. I told her that she should go to the strikes and she’s was like, “yeah I want to go.” So my dad is going to take her to the capital. She’s really interested. My parents definitely understand and are up with everything.

Q. How old is your sister?

A. She’s 6.

Q. Are you going to be speaking at the strike at the capital?

A. I’m going to D.C.

Q. Oh cool. With your mom?

A. Yeah.

Q. She just announced she’s going to be attending. (Editor’s note: so far, Omar is the only member of Congress who has confirmed she will be attending this Friday’s nationwide school strike for climate change)

A. Yeah, she’ll be speaking too.

Q. How do you feel about that?

A. I mean, I kind of got her to. It’s good. I kind of wanted to get people there. We invited some other people like [Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez] and Bernie Sanders and we’re just hoping they all come.

Q. How was that conversation with your mom to get her to speak there?

A. It was just a matter of, she wanted to go — she was probably speaking about it that weekend, and she said, “I’ll be in D.C., I’ll go speak.” So I’m going to fly out from Minneapolis and then fly back with her, so it’s just perfect.

Q. How has your family influenced you? You said both of your parents “get it.” Where do you feel most of your inspiration is coming from?

A. I wouldn’t say it would be my parents. I would say more of the spaces that I’m in. Learning more about climate change and what it does, all of the different things that impact it. I learned about things like Line 3, and wildfires in California. There are so many things that got me realizing how important this is. It’s important to talk about what climate change does to marginalized communities, what it could do to your community. I think that’s a really great way to get more people involved.

Q. And watching the whole national conversation over the past few months.

A. Especially Sunrise. They’re very big now. Reading about the Green New Deal, it’s inspiring. Learning about all these things is kind of interesting. And Sunrise has helped put women of color at the forefront.

Q. Why do you think it’s important to have women of color leading the climate change movement?

A. People of color are disproportionately affected by climate change and that kind of just gets ignored. People are living with these things right now. Accessibility, when it comes to fighting for climate change, also gets ignored. Every interview I have, they’re like, “Are you striking every Friday?” And I’m like, no, I can’t. There’s no way. People say, “Oh you’re not vegetarian!” And I say, “Well, my family is not from this country. They grew up as meat-eaters, I can’t control those things.”

It’s important for people to step back and realize that they’re not the only people. Environmental racism is a really big thing. The environmental movement is still predominantly white, how do we change that conversation? Having women of color leading is one way to do that.

Q. How is your school reacting? Is your school supporting you?

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A. I recently sent an email to my teachers explaining the climate strikes and what I was doing. A lot of them brushed past it and were kind of ignoring it. Some were really interested. It’s also awareness for them to understand that students won’t be in school on Friday and this is definitely a conversation we should be having. My peers and I are going around to science classes and talking about the climate strike and all the teachers are letting us. Some teachers are even giving kids extra credit if they go to the marches.

Q. There are some high schools that are actively supporting kids who go. Has your principal made any sort of announcement?

A. The problem isn’t my principal; it’s my district. They’ll definitely count it as unexcused. But my school is really supportive. A lot of the students are also apolitical, they don’t care. It’s not really a question of the teachers or the principal, it’s more like will the high school students actually attend.

Q. But if they see role models, if they see you up there …

A. That’s true, but last year I tried to get 1,000 kids from my high school to go to something and I only got 200.

Q. That’s pretty good.

A. Well, there are 2,000 kids at my school. We’re in the middle of Minneapolis, we’re super close to the light rail, we can easily go over to the state capitol building.

Q. So, what’s your strategy? Do you double down on the kids that get it?

A. Yeah, we’re really just focused on the students who actually care. We go into those classes and get the teachers to talk to those students who are actually interested. It’s easier. It’s still worth it to get the kids who care. The climate strikes are a great way for young people to get involved pretty easily. It’s also a way for politicians to understand that young people really care.

These strikes are happening all over the world. Getting young people out, going to state capitols, going to city halls, going to the nation’s capital and talking about these things, that says something. That’s what we’re trying to do: Change the conversation not only about things like the Green New Deal but so much more. Obviously, one strike isn’t going to change everything, but this isn’t the last strike.

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Ilhan Omar’s 16-year-old daughter is co-leading the Youth Climate Strike

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In the Green New Deal era, everyone has a climate ‘plan’ (even the right)

by ClaudeBirchell Posted on March 13, 2019

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In a tweet re-upping her support for a Green New Deal, New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand pointed out that our political leaders have spent too long ignoring the topic of climate change. “Not one climate change question was asked in the 2016 presidential debates,” she wrote on Monday. “We can’t wait any longer to treat this like the urgent, existential threat it is, and to push bold ideas to transform our economy and save our planet.”

A lot can change in three years. Ever since New York Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Massachusetts Senator Ed Markey unveiled the targets of a Green New Deal — a national economic strategy to tackle warming and rising inequality — climate change has become a hot topic in Washington, D.C. Regardless of whether Congress ever passes any future Green New Deal legislation, the buzz around the plan has rocketed climate change near the top of the list of priorities for 2020 Democrats, Gillibrand included, and plopped the issue squarely on the national stage.

But not everyone is gung ho about the green utopia AOC and Markey outlined — a future in which workers are protected by unions, employed in high-paying green jobs, and covered by universal health care. Members of the GOP have not held back their disgust for the proposal. There’s already an endless reel of Fox News clips bashing Democrats for supporting a “socialist plot” to ban cows, airplanes, and everything else that sparks joy in the Republican party.

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Not to be outdone by social-media savvy progressives, a few moderates and right-wingers have come out with their own alternatives. Anything worth writing home about? Let’s take a look.

Michael Bloomberg

Much like his dream of putting a tax on Big Soda, the former Big Apple mayor’s presidential aspirations didn’t quite work out. He recently announced in an op-ed that he won’t enter the race, citing an overly crowded Democratic field as his main reason. His plan, instead, is to keep shoring up an initiative he started with the Sierra Club in 2016: a campaign to retire America’s coal plants called Beyond Coal. He’s also planning a new project called Beyond Carbon, although details on what exactly that entails are still fizzy, err, fuzzy.

Bloomberg took a minute to appraise the Green New Deal in his op-ed, boldly predicting what many others have already surmised: The current Senate will never pass it. “Mother Nature does not wait on our political calendar,”  he wrote, “and neither can we.”

John Kasich

The former governor of Ohio and once-and-maybe future Republican presidential candidate penned an op-ed of his own this week in USA Today. Of the Green New Deal, Kasich wrote, “Many Republicans and even some Democrats fear it would stifle economic growth and kill jobs, set off a massive redistribution of wealth, and dangerously centralize federal government power.”

Kasich makes the case that a more moderate series of market-based approaches will do a better job of tamping down rampant global warming. He calls for reducing methane emissions, continuing subsidies for electric vehicles, incentivizing more natural gas production, and doubling down on cap-and-trade.

Lisa Murkowski and Joe Manchin

The Alaska Republican and West Virginia Republ … [checks notes] … Democrat collaborated on an op-ed in the Washington Post calling for action on climate change. The senators did not mention the Green New Deal in their call to arms. Instead, they opted to emphasize the importance of bipartisanship in developing climate solutions. “We come from different parties, but we are both avid outdoorsmen and represent states that take great pride in the resources we provide to the nation and to friends and allies around the world,” the duo wrote.

Now, you may be thinking, didn’t Murkowski recently revel in President Trump’s decision to slip a provision into the tax reform bill opening up the pristine Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for drilling? And hasn’t Joe Manchin voted anti-environment many times in the not-too-distant past? Correct on both fronts. So it’s not particularly surprising that the op-ed doesn’t offer much in the way of substantive climate solutions beyond the idea of “bipartisanship.”

The senators put their reaching-across-the-aisle plan in action by bashing the Green New Deal together at a global energy conference in Houston on Monday. Manchin said it had “no contents at all.” And Murkowski called the deal “distracting.” Instead, the two senators are laser-focused on a … carbon tax? Nope — in reply to a question posed by Axios’ Amy Harder, they each said they’re not ready to support that market-based solution yet, either.

Ernest Moniz and Andy Karsner

By contrast, a CNBC commentary co-written by Moniz, who served as secretary of energy under Obama, and Karsner, who was George W. Bush’s assistant secretary for the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, offers a slew of solutions. The authors propose a “Green Real Deal,” which prioritizes innovation, the need for region-specific climate solutions, and low-carbon technologies — including an increased reliance on natural gas and nuclear. (Editor’s note: Andy Karsner is a managing partner at Emerson Collective, one of Grist’s funders.)

“The mission is clear: Action is urgently needed to set and follow high-impact pathways to a low-carbon future,” Moniz and Karsner wrote on Monday. “We must, however, strive for a broader public consensus that respects local differences and allows all citizens equal opportunity to build a prosperous, fair, safe,and secure low-carbon future.”

John Barrasso

The Wyoming senator and chair of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works — who has labeled the Green New Deal “a raw deal” — published an op-ed in USA Today calling for more investment in nuclear and carbon-capture technologies. In it, he quoted an exorbitant price tag for the Green New Deal that, according to Politico, was effectively pulled from thin air by a conservative think tank. Barrasso also called the proposal “a gift to Russian President Vladimir Putin, weakening our economy and making us dependent on foreign energy.” Tell us how you really feel, buddy.

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In the Green New Deal era, everyone has a climate ‘plan’ (even the right)

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An Elegant Defense – Matt Richtel

by Myrna Posted on March 13, 2019

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An Elegant Defense – Matt Richtel

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The world lost environmental leaders on Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302

by MaynardChristie Posted on March 12, 2019

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The world lost environmental leaders on Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302

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Mama’s Last Hug: Animal and Human Emotions and What They Tell Us about Ourselves – Frans de Waal

by Myrna Posted on March 12, 2019

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Mama’s Last Hug: Animal and Human Emotions and What They Tell Us about Ourselves

Frans de Waal

Genre: Life Sciences

Price: $14.99

Publish Date: March 12, 2019

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company

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


New York Times best-selling author and primatologist Frans de Waal explores the fascinating world of animal and human emotions. New York Times best-selling author and primatologist Frans de Waal explores the fascinating world of animal and human emotions. New York Times best-selling author and primatologist Frans de Waal explores the fascinating world of animal and human emotions. Frans de Waal has spent four decades at the forefront of animal research. Following up on the best-selling Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are?, which investigated animal intelligence, Mama’s Last Hug delivers a fascinating exploration of the rich emotional lives of animals. Mama’s Last Hug begins with the death of Mama, a chimpanzee matriarch who formed a deep bond with biologist Jan van Hooff. When Mama was dying, van Hooff took the unusual step of visiting her in her night cage for a last hug. Their goodbyes were filmed and went viral. Millions of people were deeply moved by the way Mama embraced the professor, welcoming him with a big smile while reassuring him by patting his neck, in a gesture often considered typically human but that is in fact common to all primates. This story and others like it form the core of de Waal’s argument, showing that humans are not the only species with the capacity for love, hate, fear, shame, guilt, joy, disgust, and empathy. De Waal discusses facial expressions, the emotions behind human politics, the illusion of free will, animal sentience, and, of course, Mama’s life and death. The message is one of continuity between us and other species, such as the radical proposal that emotions are like organs: we don’t have a single organ that other animals don’t have, and the same is true for our emotions. Mama’s Last Hug opens our hearts and minds to the many ways in which humans and other animals are connected, transforming how we view the living world around us.

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Mama’s Last Hug: Animal and Human Emotions and What They Tell Us about Ourselves – Frans de Waal

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