Mother Jones
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On Thursday, President Donald Trump portrayed his decision to pull the United States out of the historic Paris climate deal as a key part of his campaign pledge to put America first. “I was elected to represent the citizens of Pittsburgh, not Paris,” the president said.
“I was elected to represent the citizens of Pittsburgh, not Paris,” Trump says of pulling out of a deal that’ll affect every person on Earth pic.twitter.com/4jPTuCqbSG
— David Mack (@davidmackau)
There’s just one problem: The citizens of Pittsburgh are strongly supportive of climate action. According to a recent study from the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication, 68 percent of adults in the Pittsburgh metro area support strict limits on carbon emissions from coal-fired power plants—a key element of the US commitment under the Paris deal. For Allegheny County, which includes Pittsburgh, that number is 74 percent. For Pennsylvania’s 14th Congressional District, which also includes Pittsburgh, it’s 78 percent.
Roughly two-thirds of Pennsylvanians—and Americans as a whole—believe the United States should remain in the Paris agreement, according to the Yale research.
There doesn’t appear to be any data on the popularity of the Paris agreement within Pittsburgh itself, but it’s worth noting that the city’s mayor, Bill Peduto, actually traveled to Paris during the 2015 negotiations to help press for an agreement. “Pittsburgh and other cities are on the front lines of the climate change crisis, and it is our responsibility to address the deep challenges it is creating for us, our children and our grandchildren,” he said in a statement at the time, according to the Pittsburg Post-Gazette.
Peduto took to Twitter Thursday to express his displeasure with Trump’s comments:
Fact: Hillary Clinton received 80% of the vote in Pittsburgh. Pittsburgh stands with the world & will follow Paris Agreement @HillaryClinton https://t.co/cibJyT7MAK
— bill peduto (@billpeduto)
As the Mayor of Pittsburgh, I can assure you that we will follow the guidelines of the Paris Agreement for our people, our economy & future. https://t.co/3znXGTcd8C
— bill peduto (@billpeduto)
Read More:
Sorry, Donald: Pittsburgh Thinks You Are Wrong About Climate Change
Mother Jones
This story was originally published by HuffPost and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.
SKYGLOWPROJECT.COM: KAIBAB ELEGY from Harun Mehmedinovic on Vimeo.
A stunning time-lapse video of the Grand Canyon shows the carved formation as it may have looked millennia ago — but instead of water, it’s filled with what has the appearance of an ocean of fog.
Filmmaker Harun Mehmedinovic has set up his camera at the canyon 30 different times since 2015. During one visit, he managed to witness and film the dramatic changes of a full cloud inversion, which occurs when warm air traps cold air beneath and creates a sea of fog. The inversion lasted the entire day, allowing time for Mehmedinovic to film fog “crashing” on the “shores” of the canyon and swirling through winding passages.
The film made its debut on BBC Earth in early May and has been viewed online millions of times.
The video is part of the Skyglow Project, a crowdfunded operation to record the effects of light pollution from urban areas and contrast them with stunning vistas.
Mehmedinovic is a Bosnian-American who went into hiding in his war-wracked hometown of Sarajevo for three years when he was 9. His family stayed indoors in a cellar of their home to escape the Serbs. He moved to the U.S. when he was 13 and went to film school in Los Angeles.
Check out the Reuters video below for more information about background:
Reuters TV interviews Harun Mehmedinovic from Harun Mehmedinovic on Vimeo.
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Mother Jones
President Donald Trump has been a climate change denier for years, alleging that global warming is a Chinese invention and declaring that cold winter days prove that it’s a hoax. Perhaps not surprisingly, his staff seems to share these views.
According to Politico, Deputy National Security Advisor K.T. McFarland recently tried to get Trump riled up about climate change with a bit of fake news. McFarland reportedly slipped Trump two Time magazine cover stories. One was supposedly from the 1970s and warned about a coming ice age. The other, from 2007, discussed how to survive global warming. But there was one glaring problem: The 1970s cover was a hoax.
In 2007, Time published a cover story titled, “The Global Warming Survival Guide.” Sometime after that, internet hoaxers doctored the cover to instead say “How to Survive the Coming Ice Age” and alleged that it was a 1977 cover. The hoax spread quickly, and climate deniers used it to argue that in the 1970s, scientists were actually worried about global cooling—and since it didn’t happen then, the public shouldn’t believe warnings about global warming now.
The hoax seems to have had its intended effect on Trump, who, according to Politico, “quickly got lathered up about the media’s hypocrisy.” A White House official defended McFarland in an interview with Politico, calling the Time hoax “fake but accurate.” The White House didn’t respond to a request for comment from Mother Jones.
While the Time global cooling cover story never existed, it’s certainly true that some media outlets, including Time, ran stories in the 70s warning about global cooling. One, published by Newsweek, is a favorite of climate deniers. Scientific American explained Newsweek‘s global cooling story in 2014:
The story observed—accurately—that there had been a gradual decrease in global average temperatures from about 1940, now believed to be a consequence of soot and aerosols that offered a partial shield to the earth as well as the gradual retreat of an abnormally warm interlude.
But global cooling was never a popular theory among scientists. Even as some news outlets were writing about it, notes Scientific American, a counter theory about a warming planet was already on the rise. In fact, a survey of peer-reviewed scientific papers from 1969 to 1975 shows that the majority of scientists predicted that carbon dioxide levels would rise, causing temperatures to rise as well.
Scientists have since reached an overwhelming consensus: The planet is getting warmer, and humans are to blame. But this hasn’t stopped climate deniers from citing the old stories as evidence that contemporary news reports about climate change shouldn’t be believed. This climate denier, for example:
Surprise? 1970’s global cooling alarmists were pushing same no-growth liberal agenda as today’s global warming http://t.co/U1e9OpO3Fi
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump)
Read this article:
Here’s a Crazy Story About Donald Trump Falling for an Internet Hoax
Two weeks ago, the New York Times took on Bret Stephens — who once called climate change an “imaginary” problem — as an op-ed columnist in an effort to reflect more political perspectives.
His first column came out on Friday, and — surprise — it casts doubt on the certainty of the scientific consensus on climate.
Previously, while some readers had threatened to cancel their subscriptions as a result of his controversial stances on science, Muslims, and campus rape, “relatively few” had done so, wrote Liz Spayd, the Times’ public editor.
The backlash to Spayd’s piece was real. Climatologist Michael Mann canceled his subscription and started the Twitter hashtag #ShowYourCancellation.
“There is no left-leaning or right-leaning climate science, just as there is no Democrat or Republican theory of gravity,” wrote Stefan Rahmstorf, head of Earth System Analysis at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, in his cancellation letter.
Other scientists joined in:
James Bennet, the paper’s editorial page editor, defended the decision to hire Stephens. We shouldn’t ignore the perspective of the “millions of people who agree with him,” he told HuffPost.
Well, yes — but millions of people have been wrong before. That doesn’t mean alternative facts should be given a platform.
Now that Stephens’ first piece is up, we’ll see if more cancellations follow.
View original article:
The Times is now publishing climate denial. Scientists are not having it.
Turns out, Americans may be making smart, eco-friendly decisions in the grocery store after all.
The National Resources Defense Council recently released a report on American food consumption, which found that Americans reduced their intake of beef famously the most carbon-intense food on the planet by 19 percent between 2005 and 2014. For anyone who cares about the environmental footprint of their food choices, this is decidedly good news.
Americas Changes in Consumption
Americans chose to eat a lot less meat in 2014 than they did in 2005. In fact, they ate about ⅕ less meat in the former year than they did in the latter. According to the NRDC, this will result in a huge reduction in carbon emissions from the US.
Americans consumed 19 percent less beef, avoiding an estimated 185 MMT of climate-warming pollution or roughly the equivalent of the annual tailpipe pollution of 39 million cars, the report states.
And it wasnt just beef that saw decreased consumption. Milk, pork, high-fructose corn syrup and shellfish consumption also went down.
Image via NRDC
The reason behind the shift is still up for debate. According to the New York Times, some industry experts attribute the changes to steeper prices of red meat. Droughts that plagued the region increased the cost of beef, as did increasing rates of export to other countries. Additionally, about one quarter of consumers attested that it was concerns about cholesterol and saturated fat that had them reaching for alternative protein sources.
Beef vs. Alternatives
Beef is notoriously horrible for the environment. In addition to the methane gasses released by cattle, numerous other factors make beef an unsustainable option (at least, beef as it is raised today). In order to feed cows, farmers must harvest millions of acres of corn and soy, resource-intensive crops that are often heavily treated with fossil fuel-based pesticides and insecticides. Then, of course, there is the loss of arable land associated with massive Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations, often known as CAFOs.
In fact, even just switching from beef to chicken can have a massive positive impact on the environment. In simplified terms, beef production emits 26.45 kilogram equivalents of CO₂ for every 1 kg of beef, which chicken only emits 5.05.
What Foods to Eat (And What Foods Not to Eat) To Save the Planet
When it comes to a diet that can improve the state of the planet by reducing carbon emissions, the waters are murky. One thing, however, is certain: Eating mainstream beef is bad for the planet. Swap out beef for plant-based proteins whenever possible, but dont swap it out for dairy. (In fact, most types of dairy have a C02 emissions rating higher than chicken or pork!). You should also avoid some resource-intensive vegetables, like asparagus (big shocker: asparagus is worse for the planet than chicken!), as much as possible. Here are some swaps you might consider making, according to the EWG:
Swap out salmon (11.9 kgs carbon emissions) for beans (2 kgs)
Swap out cheese (13.5 kgs) for eggs (4.8 kgs)
Swap out pork (12.1 kgs) for tofu (2.0 kgs)
Swap out turkey (10.9 kgs) for peanut butter (2.5 kgs)
Swap out canned tuna (6.1 kgs) for lentils (our clear winner at 0.9 kgs)
Finally, eating local should be your first priority if youre trying to go gentle on planet Earth. Even if you just cant give up eating a burger once in awhile, youll be doing the earth a huge favor by simply choosing a local, grass-fed producer.
Most beef cattle in the United States today are finished on grain in confined animal feeding operations (CAFOs), states the NRDC report. Growing this cattle feed (primarily corn and soy) requires large amounts of pesticides and fertilizers, which, in turn, require significant inputs of fossil fuels. Alternative models of beef production, such as intensive rotational cattle grazing, can help sequester carbon in the soil and provide numerous other health and environmental benefits compared to CAFOs.
Disclaimer: The views expressed above are solely those of the author and may not reflect those of Care2, Inc., its employees or advertisers.
Original source:
Americans Have Officially Reduced Their Beef Consumption by 19 Percent
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