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Animalkind – Ingrid Newkirk

by Myrna Posted on January 26, 2020

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Animalkind

Remarkable Discoveries About Animals and Revolutionary New Ways to Show Them Compassion

Ingrid Newkirk

Genre: Nature

Price: $12.99

Publish Date: January 7, 2020

Publisher: Simon & Schuster

Seller: SIMON AND SCHUSTER DIGITAL SALES INC


The founder and president of PETA, Ingrid Newkirk, and bestselling author Gene Stone explore the wonders of animal life and offer tools for living more kindly toward them. In the last few decades, a wealth of new information has emerged about who animals are—intelligent, aware, and empathetic. Studies show that animals are astounding beings with intelligence, emotions, intricate communications networks, and myriad abilities. In Animalkind , Ingrid Newkirk and Gene Stone present these findings in a concise and awe-inspiring way, detailing a range of surprising discoveries: that geese fall in love and stay with a partner for life, that fish “sing” underwater, and that elephants use their trunks to send subsonic signals, alerting other herds to danger miles away. Newkirk and Stone pair their tour of the astounding lives of animals with a guide to the exciting new tools that allow humans to avoid using or abusing animals as we once did. They show readers what they can do in their everyday lives to ensure that the animal world is protected from needless harm. Whether it’s medicine, product testing, entertainment, clothing, or food, there are now better options to all the uses animals once served in human life. We can substitute warmer, lighter faux fleece for wool, choose vegan versions of everything from shrimp to sausage and milk to marshmallows, reap the benefits of medical research that no longer requires monkeys to be caged in laboratories, and scrap captive orca exhibits and elephant rides for virtual reality and animatronics. Animalkind is a fascinating study of why our fellow living beings deserve our respect, and moreover, the steps every reader can take to put this new understanding into action.

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Animalkind – Ingrid Newkirk

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STIs can save the planet. No, not those STIs.

by LouisaMichalski Posted on January 24, 2020

The words “climate tipping point” brings to mind collapsing ice shelves, rainforests burning to a crisp, and other irreversible environmental disasters. But what if I told you that not all climate tipping points are bad?

A recent study in the Proceedings of the National Academies of Sciences outlines the positive “tipping elements” needed to address climate change — society-wide shifts that could reduce greenhouse gas emissions enough to avert disaster. Each tipping elements, researchers say, can be triggered by one or more “social tipping interventions” (regrettably abbreviated to “STIs”) — smaller changes that pave the way for societal transformation.

The challenge ahead seems almost insurmountably difficult. Global emissions (which rose every one of the past three years), need to reach net-zero by mid-century in order for the planet to stay below 2 degrees C of warming — the threshold between “bad but manageable” warming and “time to get in the bunker” warming.

But the interdisciplinary team of researchers with backgrounds in earth systems analysis, geosustainability, philosophy, and other fields, say these STIs can keep humanity not just below that threshold, but substantially so. The team surveyed more than 1,000 international experts in the fields of climate change and sustainability, and asked them to identify the tipping elements needed for rapid decarbonization. By aggregating the results, the researchers identified seven interventions that have the potential “to spark rapid yet constructive societal changes towards climate stabilization and overall sustainability.” The biggest takeaway, aside from the fact that there actually is a way (well, seven ways) to avoid climate catastrophe, is that financial markets hold the key to keeping us in the black.

Here are the two interventions that the researchers say can be achieved very rapidly, i.e. within a few years.

Divestment from fossil fuels. If national banks and insurance companies warn the public that fossil fuel reserves are “stranded assets” — that is, resources that no longer have value — companies and people could start withdrawing investments in industries that contribute to climate change en masse, and the flow of money to polluting companies could quickly dry up. We’re seeing the potential of the divestment movement already — BlackRock’s announcement that it’s shedding its investments in coal last week sent a tremor through the financial industry.
Emission disclosures from companies and politicians. People need to know how their actions affect the planet. That means more transparency in things like food labeling — the carbon footprint of a banana, say — as well as corporate and political transparency. Voters need to know if their politicians are bankrolled by fossil fuels, and corporations need to disclose their carbon assets. Once the public can clearly make the connection between their consumer choices and the environment, or their vote and the environment, it could trigger political action and lifestyle change on a massive scale, the study says.

The next two can be achieved in 5 to 10 years.

Decentralized energy. Transitioning to locally controlled power systems, like community solar co-ops or community-owned power plants, could lead the way to total decarbonization. The biggest obstacle at the moment is cost. It’s expensive to move energy generation off the main grid. But as technologies develop and more communities invest in local energy initiatives, those costs will come down.
Green cities. The energy needed to construct and power buildings contributes 20 percent of the world’s carbon emissions. Tweaks to building codes all over the globe, particularly in poor and developing countries, could spark demand for fossil-fuel-free resources and tech, like laminated timber. One of the ways to inspire such a shift would be for governments to make massive infrastructure investments in carbon-neutral cities, which could stand as an example to other cities and have a “spillover” effect on developing urban areas.

Flipping the next switches will take longer — 10 to 20 years.

Subsidies for green power. If governments redirect national subsidy programs to existing green technologies like wind and solar and eliminate tax breaks for fossil fuels, renewables can become more profitable than other fuel sources. “Our expert group believes that the critical mass that needs to be reached is the moment when climate-neutral power generation generates higher financial returns than fossil-based power generation,” second lead author Jonathan Donges said in a statement.
Widespread climate education. If educators incorporated climate change into their curricula it could have enormous implications for students, parents, and public decision-making, once those kids enter the workforce and the voting booth. Mass media campaigns, like the one targeting tobacco companies in the U.S. in the 1970s, can work alongside educational campaigns to trigger social transformation.

The final STI will require upward of 30 years of efforts to take effect.

Moral reckoning. Once humans understand the moral case for ditching fossil fuels — aka the devastating effect of carbon emissions on vulnerable communities and future generations — societal norms could change and fossil fuels could become, in effect, taboo. But in order to achieve this, a majority of social and public opinion leaders would have to “recognize the ethical implications of fossil fuels and generate pressure in their peer groups to ostracize the use of products involving fossil fuel burning.”

All of this may seem a bit far-fetched at first. Will stamping foods with their carbon footprints really persuade shoppers to make more climate-friendly choices? Will teaching third-graders about carbon cycles really inspire them to vote for green politicians in a decade? The cool thing about this study, which incorporates findings from previous climate, health, and behavioral studies, is that the researchers found historical parallels for each of the interventions they recommend. The perceived health benefits of eating organic in the early aughts spurred shoppers to look for that label in the grocery store, boosting the global market for organic products by 10 percent every year. A literacy campaign in Cuba in the 1950s slashed illiteracy rates from 24 percent to 3.9 percent in less than a year. Progress is possible — it’s just a matter of opening the right floodgates.

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STIs can save the planet. No, not those STIs.

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Sold: Bankrupt Philadelphia oil refinery goes to a real estate company

by ethan966336461 Posted on January 23, 2020

Last Friday, 35 Philadelphians rose early to board a charter bus bound for New York City at 6:30 a.m. That day, a closed-door auction held in Manhattan would determine the new owner of the 1,300-acre plot that housed Philadelphia Energy Solutions, the largest oil refinery on the East Coast, which filed for bankruptcy after an explosion and fire tore through the complex last summer. Though they wouldn’t be allowed to attend the auction, the Philadelphians on the bus — members of a grassroots environmental justice group called Philly Thrive — were determined to have a say in the fate of the land. Their hope? To prevent it from ever operating as a refinery again.

Alongside New York-based climate activists, Philly Thrive set up shop in the lobby of the building where the auction was taking place on the 50th floor. One by one, the activists walked up to the security guards and asked if they could go upstairs. They said things like “My life is at stake here” and “I have as much of a say as the men in suits upstairs.” Later, the protestors sang, told stories about how the refinery affected their health, and recited poems as office workers stepping out for lunch navigated their way through.

“These polluting industries think they can come into our communities and just set up shop,” Cameron Powell, a Philly Thrive organizer, told Grist. “They’re destroying the environment, and they think that’s okay. We as residents of the city of Philadelphia and New York are simply here to let them know that it’s not.”

Carol Hemingway asking security if she could enter the building where the closed-door auction is being held. Rachel Ramirez / Grist

Though details are still scarce, it looks like Philly Thrive’s members may have gotten their way. According to court documents filed on Wednesday, Philadelphia Energy Solutions has agreed to sell its refinery complex for $240 million to Hilco Redevelopment Partners, a Chicago-based real estate company that has a history of acquiring defunct fossil fuel infrastructure for redevelopment, often turning the sites into logistics centers. Although the company’s plans for the site have not yet been disclosed, a Philadelphia city official who attended the auction told the Philadelphia Inquirer on Wednesday that Hilco does not intend to reopen the refinery.

When rumors emerged on Tuesday that Hilco was the buyer, Alexa Ross, one of the founders of Philly Thrive, said the group was “cautiously pleased” that it wasn’t a fossil fuel company but still had many questions about Hilco’s plans. “We want Hilco to know for a fact that leasing out land to operate the refinery or other polluting industries is not going to fly with us, and we’re going to keep up the same level of opposition to any kind of plans to lease with polluting companies,” Ross told Grist on Tuesday.

Philly Thrive Organizer Alexa Ross speaking at St. Bartholomew’s Church before the rally. Rachel Ramirez / Grist

Recent projects by Hilco offer insight into what that fight might look like. In 2017, the company purchased a retired coal-fired power plant in Little Village, a neighborhood on the west side of Chicago, with plans to turn it into a million-square-foot warehouse and distribution center.

The coal plant closed after it could not afford upgrades to meet federal air quality standards and under mounting pressure from grassroots groups concerned about air pollution. That’s not so different from the situation in Philadelphia. But now, those same groups are worried that Hilco’s Chicago warehouse will bring more diesel trucks to the area, replacing one major polluter with many smaller sources of pollution. Hilco CEO Roberto Perez told Block Club Chicago that the company would build electric vehicle charging stations at the development and encourage prospective tenants to use electric trucks but said Hilco ultimately doesn’t have control over tenant operations.

The Chicago project also illuminates how long it might be before any development on the site in Philadelphia is up and running. Hilco initially expected the development to be ready to lease in early 2020, but now, two years after the sale was approved, they are still in the demolition phase.

Climate activists gather in the streets of New York City to protest the closed-door auction to sell PES land. Rachel Ramirez / Grist

The Philadelphia refinery is laden with more than 150 years of contamination, and a complex web of players are involved in the remediation process.

Sunoco, an earlier owner of the refinery, is responsible for cleaning up hazardous waste accumulated on the site through 2012, and that clean-up process is ongoing. Through its purchase agreement, PES became responsible for any new contamination to the site after 2012, and will now pass that responsibility on to Hilco under the terms of the sale. But the remediation process is further complicated by a potential land use change under Hilco’s ownership. Under Pennsylvania’s Land Recycling and Environmental Remediation Standards Act, Sunoco was responsible for restoring the site to a standard appropriate for an oil refinery. If Hilco decides to redevelop the land for a different use, which seems likely, the company may need to remediate the site to a higher standard.

Despite the complicated nature of the cleanup, there are signs the company intends to turn the site around quickly. Brian Abernathy, the city of Philadelphia’s managing director, who attended the auction on Friday, told the Philadelphia Inquirer that Hilco’s timeline is aggressive, and that the company has already been in talks with Sunoco, the EPA, and the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection. He said the company planned to redevelop the property in phases.

In a press release issued Wednesday, Philly Thrive stated that its members will continue raising their voices as the sale is finalized. The group provided an initial list of requests for Hilco, including barring any new refining operations on the site, involving the public in plans for redevelopment, and setting aside union jobs for folks in surrounding neighborhoods like Grays Ferry.

“Good jobs for young people in Grays Ferry would change lives,” former refinery worker and Philly Thrive member Rodney Ray said in the statement. “Let’s get some apprenticeship programs started. I know there will be less violence and less crime if people have the option to make a decent paycheck. That’s what I want for my community: the right to breathe clean air and good jobs.”

Climate activists gather in the streets of New York City to protest the closed-door auction to sell PES land. Rachel Ramirez / Grist

As Philly Thrive members wrestle with what the sale will mean for their community and health, former employees of the refinery have also been left hanging. Prior to the explosion and closure, the United Steelworkers Union had more than 600 members employed at the refinery.

“The nail’s probably in the coffin for the refinery,” Ryan O’Callaghan, the president of the USW Local 10-1, told the Inquirer. “We’re waiting to see what Hilco’s plans are.”

While the prospect of a deal with USW seems unlikely, the development is sure to bring new jobs to the area. In 2012, the parent company of Hilco Redevelopment Partners bought the Sparrows Point steel mill near Baltimore, Maryland, and began transforming it into “Tradepoint Atlantic,” a logistics center. The 3,100-acre site now houses operations for companies like Amazon and FedEx, as well as a 100,000-square-foot indoor farm, and a total of 10,000 new jobs are expected to be created on the site by 2025.

The Philadelphia sale is still contingent on approval by PES’s creditors and U.S. Bankruptcy Court Judge Kevin Gross. A confirmation hearing is scheduled for February 6th. Philly Thrive — in collaboration with Youth Climate Strike leaders — is mobilizing for another rally at the refinery on Saturday to emphasize their demands ahead of the bankruptcy hearing.

Philly Thrive “has been a part of creating this wave against fossil fuels,” said Ross. “We’re going to see it all the way to the end until healthy land use is occurring over there and residents are really at the center of final decisions and negotiations of how that business is going to operate.”

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Sold: Bankrupt Philadelphia oil refinery goes to a real estate company

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The Math of Life and Death – Kit Yates

by Myrna Posted on January 17, 2020

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The Math of Life and Death

7 Mathematical Principles That Shape Our Lives

Kit Yates

Genre: Mathematics

Price: $13.99

Publish Date: January 7, 2020

Publisher: Scribner

Seller: SIMON AND SCHUSTER DIGITAL SALES INC


A brilliant and entertaining mathematician illuminates seven mathematical principles that shape our lives. “Kit Yates shows how our private and social lives are suffused by mathematics. Ignorance may bring tragedy or farce. This is an exquisitely interesting book. It’s a deeply serious one too and, for those like me who have little math, it’s delightfully readable.” —Ian McEwan, author of Atonement “Kit Yates is a natural storyteller. Through fascinating stories and examples, he shows how maths is the beating heart of so much of modern life. An exciting new voice in the world of science communication.” —Marcus du Sautoy, author of The Music of the Primes From birthdays to birth rates to how we perceive the passing of time, mathematical patterns shape our lives. But for those of us who left math behind in high school, the numbers and figures hurled at us as we go about our days can sometimes leave us scratching our heads and feeling as if we’re fumbling through a mathematical minefield. In this eye-opening and extraordinarily accessible book, mathemati­cian Kit Yates illuminates hidden principles that can help us understand and navigate the chaotic and often opaque surfaces of our world. In The Math of Life and Death , Yates takes us on a fascinating tour of everyday situations and grand-scale applications of mathematical concepts, including exponential growth and decay, optimization, statistics and probability, and number systems. Along the way he reveals the mathematical undersides of controversies over DNA testing, medical screening results, and historical events such as the Chernobyl disaster and the Amanda Knox trial. Readers will finish this book with an enlightened perspective on the news, the law, medicine, and history, and will be better equipped to make personal decisions and solve problems with math in mind, whether it’s choosing the shortest checkout line at the grocery store or halting the spread of a deadly disease.

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The Math of Life and Death – Kit Yates

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The Philippines volcanic eruption is harming public health, but not the climate — yet

by cazaremamaiavile Posted on January 17, 2020

When Mount Pinatubo erupted in the Philippines in 1991, it plunged the surrounding area into darkness as an avalanche of hot ash and lava poured down. Ash buried homes, smoke blocked the sunlight, and deadly mudslides swallowed nearby cities. So when the Taal volcano, located 90 miles south of Mount Pinatubo, exploded on Sunday, many Filipinos feared the worst. It felt like déjà vu.

The Taal volcano, surrounded by the waters of the Taal Lake in the province of Batangas, just 40 miles from Manila, is a famous tourist destination. Visitors and residents alike were caught off guard this week when Taal spat enormous clouds of ash into the air. Tens of thousands of people living within a 9-mile radius of the volcano were ordered to evacuate, some finding shelter in classrooms and gymnasiums. No casualties have yet been reported, but houses and farms were destroyed, and thousands of animals were left behind by their owners.

Nearby regions are still experiencing small earthquakes, while seismologists warn of a possible volcanic tsunami, where water surging from the lake could deluge nearby villages. As of Friday, areas around the volcano still remain on Alert Level 4, which means another eruption could be imminent.

Amid all the bright lava and towering ash plumes, it’s easy to overlook that volcanic eruptions can dramatically affect air quality. Shortly after Taal erupted, air quality in the province of Batangas and nearby areas spiked to unhealthy levels, and face masks disappeared off the shelves. (Local business owners saw an opportunity in the tragedy, with some pricing face masks at five times their normal cost.) When aerosols like sulfur dioxide are inhaled, they can lead to asthma or respiratory diseases.

You can even see Taal’s volcanic emissions from space. Satellite imagery shows that strong winds pushed emissions from the eruption northward, leaving a trail of red, yellow, and blue.

Volcanoes can also affect global temperatures — though Taal isn’t expected to have much of an effect unless there’s a bigger explosion. During Mount Pinatubo’s 1991 eruption, for instance, 20 million tons of sulfur dioxide and ash particles were released into the air, blowing all the way into the stratosphere. The catastrophic event also emitted tens of millions of tons of greenhouse gases, like carbon dioxide and water vapor. But thanks to sulfur dioxide, which reacts with water to form aerosols that reflect the sunlight back to space, the eruption ended up temporarily cooling global temperatures, which fell as much as 1 degrees F for about three years following the eruption.

Taal — which is currently releasing an average of 6,500 tons of sulfur dioxide per day — probably won’t have a noticeable effect on the climate, unless there’s a much bigger explosion. For comparison, Pinatubo spewed 20 million tons of sulfur dioxide into the air.

The Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology warned residents that Taal’s immense tremors could last from three days to seven months. But Mariton Bornas, chief of volcano monitoring and eruption prediction division in the Philippines, told CNN that the alert level would be lowered if there’s no activity within two weeks.

“We’re still measuring high levels of sulphur dioxide,” she said. “We’re still having earthquakes, new fissures are developing, and the volcano is swollen. So, the potential for an explosive eruption is still there.” Let’s hope the volcano settles down before it becomes another Mount Pinatubo.

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The Philippines volcanic eruption is harming public health, but not the climate — yet

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Climate change is forcing a rift in the Murdoch family

by LillieClifford6 Posted on January 16, 2020

As wildfires spread across Australia last November, newspapers and television networks owned by conservative media tycoon Rupert Murdoch started pushing a false narrative: Arson, not climate change, was responsible for the crisis.

That wasn’t the only inaccurate claim being bandied about by Murdoch’s conservative news outlets in Australia and the U.S. while millions of acres burned and an estimated billion animals perished. Fox News spread the incorrect claim that 200 arsonists had set Australia on fire. News Corp, the linchpin of Murdoch’s media empire, also pushed the false ideas that environmentalists were opposed to fire prevention measures and that this year’s fires were not out of line with what’s occurred in previous years. The latter claim is diametrically contrary to the science, which indicates rising temperatures are creating conditions ripe for prolonged mega-wildfires.

Murdoch is no stranger to criticism. In a recent op-ed, climate scientist Michael Mann called the mogul an “arsonist.” A six-month New York Times investigation found the Murdoch family turned their outlets into “political influence machines” that “destabilized democracy in North America, Europe, and Australia.” In 2011, Murdoch was denounced left and right when a tabloid he owned called News of the World shuttered after employees hacked into a number of phones, including the device of a recent murder victim.

But it is unusual for Murdoch to catch heat from his own family. In a dramatic turn of events, a spokesperson for Murdoch’s son, James, said the scion felt “frustration” over the way his father’s business covered the crisis on Wednesday. James and his wife Kathryn Murdoch are “particularly disappointed with the ongoing denial among the news outlets in Australia given obvious evidence to the contrary,” according to the spokesperson’s statement, which was first reported by the Daily Beast. Murdoch’s decision to distance himself from his family’s views on climate are notable in no small part because he was recently in line to take over the company — his brother, Lachlan, got the gig — and is on the News Corp board of directors.

The spokesperson’s statement says that “Kathryn and James’ views on climate are well established,” and that’s true. As chief executive of Sky, James pushed the British television service to go carbon-neutral. He invited former vice president Al Gore to give a lecture on climate change at a Fox corporate retreat. Meanwhile, Kathryn is, by any definition, a climate advocate. She’s a trustee of the Environmental Defense Fund and Climate Central, and was the director of strategy and communications for the Clinton Climate Initiative for four years.

Now that James is no longer directly involved with his family’s company apart from sitting on News Corp’s board of directors, his comments will likely have little bearing on whether News Corp and Fox News continue to sow disinformation. But fans of HBO’s blockbuster TV drama Succession, a thinly veiled dramatization of the Murdoch family’s exploits, know the younger Murdoch’s public stand would make for extremely good television.

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Climate change is forcing a rift in the Murdoch family

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Another legacy of redlining: Unequal exposure to heat waves

by HeikeM764257 Posted on January 15, 2020

Severe heat kills more people in the United States than any other hazardous weather-related event. As climate change accelerates, the sweltering heat will become much more extreme, and the associated mortality rate will rise.

Like so many aspects of the climate crisis, heat doesn’t affect all people equally. Marginalized low-income communities of color, especially those in larger cities such as New York and Los Angeles, bear the brunt of heat waves. These concrete jungles with barely any green space to cool them down are drastically hotter than their surrounding suburbs and rural areas — a phenomenon known as the “urban heat island effect.”

And that’s not an accident. It’s the result of decades-old policy choices that are still reverberating today. A new study published in the journal Climate found that the historical practice of “redlining” is a strong predictor of which neighborhoods are disproportionately exposed to extreme heat.

“Our zip codes are also one of the major predictors of our health,” said Vivek Shandas, one of the authors of the study and a professor of climate adaptation at Portland State University. “By separating housing policy from climate change, we’re doing a disservice to our ability to create safe spaces, particularly among those communities who don’t have a choice about where to live.”

Historically, redlining was an effort to segregate communities of color by refusing to give them housing loans and insurance. The federal government, faced with affordable housing shortages in the early 1930s, designed a housing plan that helped middle- and lower-class white families afford homes but left communities of color — particularly African-American communities — out of new suburban housing developments.

Although the practice of redlining was banned in the late 1960s, remnants of the discriminatory practice are still evident till this day — and are now being linked to the biggest existential threat of our time. The analysis examined 108 urban areas across the country, and found that 94 percent of historically redlined neighborhoods are consistently hotter than the rest of the neighborhoods in their cities, underscoring a major environmental justice issue. Portland, Oregon, showed one of the largest heat disparities between redlined and non-redlined communities — up to 12.6 degrees F.

Ongoing policy decisions make the disparities worse. For instance, the study points out that many vulnerable communities lack green spaces, which cool surface temperatures and provide significant health benefits to residents. Instead, city officials tend to invest in safe green parks built in wealthier neighborhoods. And without a social safety net, vulnerable communities may face financial burdens due to high energy consumption from air conditioner use and medical bills from conditions caused or exacerbated by heat.

Shandas hopes that his and his colleagues’ study will help policymakers understand the intersectionality of both housing and climate issues and help them create more equitable housing policies.

“The impacts of climate change are largely mediated by the way we build our cities and the places we call home,” Shandas said. “By ignoring the question of housing in climate change, we’re unable to understand who faces some of the greatest impacts.”

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Another legacy of redlining: Unequal exposure to heat waves

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New emails show the Justice Department is helping Big Oil fight climate lawsuits

by AntwanHockensmi Posted on January 14, 2020

Three years ago, a first-of-its-kind legal case argued that fossil fuel companies were liable for climate change — and should pay up to help cities adapt. That case, filed in July 2017 by two counties and one city in California against 20 fossil fuel companies, alleged that emissions from those companies will be responsible for an estimated 7.4 feet of sea-level rise in coming years.

What happened next is reminiscent of what occurred in the 1990s, when states filed lawsuits against tobacco companies in droves and the public rapidly soured on the industry. More California cities filed climate liability lawsuits against Big Oil, seeking reparations for climate change and its effects. Then other cities and counties from across the country filed their own suits. Oil companies went to court over claims that they lied to investors and the public about climate change, damaged fisheries, and impinged on young people’s right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

At every turn, ExxonMobil, Chevron, BP, ConocoPhillips, and Shell fought tooth and nail against the wave of lawsuits, arguing that the plaintiffs should look to the federal government, not the private sector, for financial assistance related to climate change. Now, a new investigation from InsideClimate News has revealed that the federal government has been working with some of those oil companies to oppose the wave of lawsuits.

Some 178 pages of emails between U.S. Department of Justice attorneys and industry lawyers — obtained by the Natural Resources Defense Council — show the government has been planning to come to the aid of these lawsuit-afflicted companies since early 2018. Not only did the DOJ work on an amicus — “friend of the court” — brief in support of major oil companies shortly after the San Francisco and Oakland lawsuits were filed, but the department was also working with Republican attorneys generals from 15 states to come up with a plan to help those companies. Department of Justice attorneys had several phone calls with lawyers defending BP, Chevron, Exxon, and other oil companies, and even met some of them in person.

Curiously, the Department of Justice did not reach out to the plaintiffs in the cases, like the cities of Oakland and San Francisco, to collaborate. The department’s environmental division, which bills itself as “the nation’s environmental lawyer,” opted to covertly work with industry groups rather than the communities it’s supposed to represent.

“The Trump administration’s position is ‘We’re going to side with the fossil fuel interests in the nuisance cases over these cities,’” Phillip Gregory, co-council for the young people’s climate case, Juliana v. United States, told Grist.

“It’s very unusual for the federal government to be so aligned with industry on a damages case,” he said, particularly when the government isn’t implicated in the case. If the lawsuits were successful, oil companies, not the federal government, would be compelled to pay the damages.

Still, it’s unclear whether the DOJ crossed a line. “It wouldn’t pass the sniff test if the DOJ was trying to address substantive issues,” Justin Smith, former deputy assistant attorney general in DOJ’s Civil Rights Division, told InsideClimate News. “If the meetings were about the logistics, there’s nothing improper.”

To Gregory, the DOJ’s actions appear nothing if not political. “The Trump administration wants to control all dealings concerning fossil fuels, even though the fossil fuels are harming the youth of America,” he said. “It’s very capable of looking out for the fossil fuel industry — capable and willing.”

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New emails show the Justice Department is helping Big Oil fight climate lawsuits

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Photos: What D.C. really looked like when the White House was tweeting about snow

by CathernPower5 Posted on January 13, 2020

On the evening of Sunday, January 12, the official White House Twitter account sent out a seemingly innocuous tweet.

Of all the things the White House has tweeted, a lovely picture of snow has got to be among the least concerning, right? Wrong.

I love the first snow of the year as much as the next gal, but whoever was in charge of the White House Twitter account could only have been one of three things: mistaken, lying, or hallucinating. That’s because on Sunday, the weather in D.C. rose to a balmy 70 degrees F. The day before, January 11, was even warmer — 61 locations across the East Coast broke or tied their record high temperatures that day. The picture was actually taken about a week earlier, when a flurry of snow did reach D.C.

Here’s what actually happened in D.C. over the weekend.

This woman purchased herself a nice ice cream cone and probably ate it in the park because, again, it was t-shirt weather in January.

These people enjoyed a scooter ride. Notice how they’re smiling in the sunshine and not grimacing into the icy wind. Notice their lack of gloves.

Sarah Silbiger / Getty Images

Here’s a shirtless man showing off his cartwheel skills on the National Mall.

It’s quite possible that whoever manages Trump’s social media prescheduled the tweet last week without bothering to take a look at the weekend forecast. But it’s also possible that the Trump administration — which has rolled back environmental regulations, gutted federal science agencies, propped up a dying coal industry, and slashed funding for renewable energy — is so deeply in climate change denial that it made a point of lying about snow falling on the hottest day of winter.

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Photos: What D.C. really looked like when the White House was tweeting about snow

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It’s not just Australia — Indonesia is facing its own climate disaster

by sandrathomason5 Posted on January 8, 2020

It’s not just Australia that’s having a rough start to the new year. Indonesia’s sinking capital of Jakarta and the surrounding areas have been inundated with rain, triggering landslides and floods that have killed dozens of people.

As of Tuesday, the torrential downpours have left at least 67 people dead as rising waters deluged more than 180 neighborhoods and landslides buried at least a dozen Indonesians. Search missions for survivors are still ongoing, and officials say the death toll is expected to rise as more bodies are found.

Indonesia’s national meteorological agency said the rainfall on New Year’s Day was the heaviest downpour in a 24-hour period since Dutch colonists began record-keeping in the 1860s. Although floodwaters are starting to subside, the Indonesian Red Cross Society warned people to expect more severe rainfall in the coming days.

Dasril Roszandi / NurPhoto via Getty Images

The communities most vulnerable to flooding are those in poor neighborhoods — especially slums located near wastewater, which can spread pathogens when combined with flooding. More than 1,000 soldiers and health workers were dispatched to use disinfectant sprays in these areas on Sunday to prevent the spread of disease.

Jakarta, which is home to about 10 million people, is extremely vulnerable to the effects of climate change, including rising sea levels and extreme weather. It also has dangerous levels of air pollution and the largest uncovered landfill in Southeast Asia. On top of that, the city’s rapidly growing population has faced major water shortages in recent years due to a dearth of groundwater. Meanwhile, rivers are polluted with garbage, and researchers say that at least 20 tons of trash are dumped in the Jakarta Bay each day.

Donal Husni / NurPhoto via Getty Images

The city is sinking as quickly as 9 inches a year in some neighborhoods, and about half of it is already below sea level. The country is also the world’s fifth-largest emitter of greenhouse gasses, mostly due to the country’s deforestation habit. And if Indonesia and the rest of the world don’t take measures to slash emissions drastically, researchers say that 95 percent of northern Jakarta will be submerged by 2050.

The country has pledged to cut its carbon emissions by 29 percent by 2030 as part of the Paris Agreement, but the government is still set to rely on coal to generate electricity for the next decade. And a recent survey from YouGov and the University of Cambridge revealed that a whopping 18 percent of Indonesians believe there’s zero link between human activity and the climate crisis.

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Last summer, Indonesian President Joko Widodo announced that the capital city will be relocated to the island of Borneo, hundreds of miles northeast of Jakarta, by 2023. But don’t assume that amounts to an acknowledgement of the climate crisis.

“I don’t think the climate is necessarily the reason for the Indonesian government to move the capital,” Rukka Sombolinggi, an indigenous leader from the Toraja ethnic group, said during a press conference at the United Nations General Assembly last year. “It’s simply because the capital is just so overwhelmed and crowded with people, making the traffic and the quality of air and water terribly alarming.”

The irony is that Indonesia also holds one of the most effective tools to fight against climate change: mangroves. These tall trees growing in coastal waters can remove and store carbon humans have emitted into the atmosphere. But instead of protecting and expanding mangrove ecosystems, the government has continued to allow corporations to slash and burn mangroves for palm oil production, thus producing more carbon emissions.

And even in the wake of devastating floods, the Indonesian government plans to stay the course. Two government ministers told Reuters this week that they have no plans to change their climate policy after the New Year’s flooding. But the head of the country’s meteorological agency minced no words about the impact of climate change on the floods’ severity. “The impact of a 1-degree increase can be severe,” Dwikorita Karnawati told reporters on Friday. “Among that is these floods.”

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It’s not just Australia — Indonesia is facing its own climate disaster

Posted in Accent, alo, FF, G & F, GE, LG, ONA, OXO, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on It’s not just Australia — Indonesia is facing its own climate disaster