news
CNN — “Officials and residents were left with little time to prepare for the severity of the storm because early forecasts significantly underestimated the threat. Otis rapidly intensified from a tropical storm to an extremely dangerous Category 5 hurricane – the area’s strongest storm on record – in just 12 hours.”
HEATED: ‘‘Calling this “climate change” is not enough’’
Each week we share news and social media updates related to our “The 10 Ways to Save Our Planet” list.
1. Act Now
HIT PIECE TITLE, “49% of Americans think climate change is mostly someone else’s problem”…
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PLUS reasonable quote, “Fifty-five percent of respondents answered that the energy industry can make a big impact, and 52% think large businesses and corporations can mitigate climate change. Then came the belief that the federal government (47%) and cities and communities (40%) can make a difference. [..] But only 27% of US adults polled felt that individual Americans’ efforts can help ‘a lot.’”
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EQUALS entirely reasonable insight that without government and industry (and yes, largely energy and agriculture) greening themselves, the sum total of individual actions won’t eliminate GHGs from our environment enough to stave off the worst outcomes of climate change.
2. Build Political Will
California Governor Gavin Newsom is not only making waves in the Golden State but is also aiming to turn his climate policies into a global mission. He’s signed laws that could reshape the entire fossil fuel industry and set the stage for a future White House run in 2028. On his recent trip to China, he’s planning to sign five agreements to export California’s climate technologies and policies.
❌ “Newly minted [US] House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), [..] received a 100 percent rating from the pro-fossil fuel American Energy Alliance in 2022, along with every other Republican in Louisiana’s House delegation.”
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“About half of Republicans (52%) are either Alarmed (8%), Concerned (19%), or Cautious (24%) about global warming, among which about 1 in 4 (27%) are either Alarmed or Concerned. At the other end of the spectrum, many Republicans are either Doubtful (23%) or Dismissive (21%) about global warming.”
This week’s hot COP 28 take:
💲“Far larger fossil fuel growth plans than the UAE’s are being led by the U.S., Canada, Russia, Iran, China and Brazil. Most fossil fuel financing around the world comes from banks in the U.S., Canada and Japan. And since 2015, European banks have poured a colossal $1.3 trillion into fossil fuels, including $130 billion in 2022 alone.”
3. Eliminate Fossil Fuels
“A Judge Has Rejected Shell’s Latest Attempt to Dismiss a Connecticut Climate Lawsuit”. The judge found that Shell’s depot is a “public nuisance” because it is contributing to climate change, which is causing a variety of harms to the public, including sea level rise, more extreme weather events, and damage to public health.
💲 Scientists warn that halting fossil fuel expansion in the Amazon, Congo, and Southeast Asian rainforests is essential to protecting these vital ecosystems and mitigating climate change. Fossil fuel companies are planning to invest over $1 trillion in new projects in these three regions over the next decade.
“American oil giant Chevron is buying independent oil and natural gas company Hess Corporation for US$53 billion, the second Big Oil consolidation deal in weeks.”
❌ “Oil Majors Double Down On Fossil Fuels While Climate Scientists Go To Prison – CleanTechnica”
4. Speed up renewable energy
5. Shift towards sustainable transportation
⛍ “Young people were more willing to give up cars, with 54% of 18- to 24-year-olds saying they would – or already did – only walk, cycle or use public transport, against 45% of people over the age of 65. Similarly, 41% would switch to an electric car against 21% of people over the age of 65.”
🔋 BP is partnering with Tesla to install 25,000 Tesla Supercharger and Destination Charger stalls at BP and ARCO service stations across the US by late 2023.
🎲 GAME: This week, auto execs are [bullish / bearish] about their EV prospects.
6. Adopt planet-friendly agricultural practices
🚜 A study published in Science Advances finds that if we reorganized land use, we could increase food production by 83%, water availability by 8%, and carbon storage capacity by 3%.
7. Eat a more climate friendly diet
🌱 “According to a new study co-authored by a Tulane University researcher and published in the journal Nature Food, making simple substitutions like switching from beef to chicken or drinking plant-based milk instead of cow’s milk could reduce the average American’s carbon footprint from food by 35%, while also boosting diet quality by between 4-10%…”
8. Create sustainable cities and buildings
9. Protect and restore our environment
🌨️ A report by Nevada’s Desert Research Institute paints a grim picture of Lake Tahoe’s future snow season. The season could potentially shrink by one to three months by the end of the century. How? Temperatures around the lake could soar by as much as 9 degrees Fahrenheit, making it too warm for snow to fall and causing faster melting of existing snow.
💩 Imagine a world without wildlife poop. Plants would struggle to grow, and animals would have less to eat. The soil would be less fertile, and the air would be less clean. Animals redistribute nutrients, fertilize soil, and boost biodiversity. Their waste can also sequester carbon and methane, two of the main greenhouse gases responsible for climate change.
10. Ensure global warming stays below dangerous limits
Time to treat the climate and nature crisis as one indivisible global health emergency
🌐 “Over 200 health journals call on the United Nations, political leaders, and health professionals to recognise that climate change and biodiversity loss are one indivisible crisis and must be tackled together to preserve health and avoid catastrophe. This overall environmental crisis is now so severe as to be a global health emergency.”
The 2023 state of the climate report: Entering uncharted territory
😧 “The trends reveal new all-time climate-related records and deeply concerning patterns of climate-related disasters. At the same time, we report minimal progress by humanity in combating climate change.”
From Social Media
Video of the Week
Youtubers FunForLouis and ClimateAdam kayak out to Rampion Wind Farm: “The wind farm was commissioned in April 2018 and was the first offshore wind farm for the whole south coast of England.”
Thread of the week
Chris Shaw, @kalahar1, X/twitter.com thread highlights:
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I interviewed 14 climate opinion formers. All recognised the urgent need for fundamental changes to our economy, ideology and politics (IPCC 2022). None (myself included) know how to bring that change about or what the destination looks like. No one is in control.
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What to do? We can’t work with existing liberal capitalist states. We need to build new ‘climate’ states. That requires we work at some distance from the state to build an alternative model. A new language of climate, us and the world is an essential part of that work.
Link of the Week
“Redline is a database of key scholarly, non-legal research papers and reports, much of it drawn from the academic literature. It provides easily digestible summaries, which also highlight potential applications of the research in fossil fuel litigation.
By providing this free-to-access database, we hope that public-interest lawyers and their clients will be able to draw on the latest evidence to support successful legal proceedings against fossil fuel projects and companies.”
About Our Newsletter Title
Why Fixing Climate Change Sucks in ’23
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