Dr. J
Active Member
Sen Kennedy: "Now I'm all for carbon neutrality, but..."
Everything before the "but" is a lie, or phrased differently:
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Climate Change / Global Warming Discussion
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Everything before the "but" is a lie, or phrased differently:
mspohr
Well-Known Member
Whisper it, but the boom in plastic production could be about to come to a juddering halt | Geoffrey Lean
A proposed plastics treaty could join the rescue of the ozone layer as a landmark success, says specialist environment correspondent Geoffrey Lean
www.theguardian.com
Now there is a chance that this huge growth will stop, even go into reverse. This month in Paris, the world’s governments agreed to draft a new treaty to control plastics. The UN says it could cut production by a massive 80% by 2040.Crucially, like the negotiations over ozone, it has some strong business support. A 100-strong Business Coalition for a Global Plastics Treaty – which includes giant users of plastics such as Unilever and Coca-Cola – is pressing for tough regulatory measures.These include simply eliminating much unnecessary single-use plastic packaging, ensuring reuse, and replacing many instances of plastic use with more sustainable biodegradable materials. Governments could also discourage the production of new plastics by taxing it and removing industry subsidies.
UPS agrees to add air conditioning to trucks
The delivery company UPS and a union representing workers have reached a tentative agreement to add air conditioning to trucks that could help avoid a possible national strike that workers have thr…
thehill.com
A/C in UPS trucks. Global warming? So much for the old story of the of the postal worker delivering through snow and sleet!
cpa
Active Member
Yeah. According to my son, this addition will be for new trucks placed into service after 1 January 2024. The existing fleet of 90,000 some package vehicles and semi tractors will not be retrofitted. He has driven a package truck that had over 250,000 miles on the odometer.
JRP3
Hyperactive Member
Driving around in a dark brown truck with no a/c seems like cruel and unusual punishment in many locations.
I really appreciate the hard work they do. My UPS guy I have known for over 30 years. He works his butt off. Of course they need AC, even here in the mountains (thanks, Global Warming).
mspohr
Well-Known Member
It's amazing that it takes the threat of a strike for them to do this basic worker protection.
JRP3
Hyperactive Member
Company claims to have solved the corrosion issues with Thorium molten salt reactors.
www.copenhagenatomics.com
Powered by Thorium
Clean, cheap, safe and abundant energy using thorium. Enough for everyone and forever
www.copenhagenatomics.com
Company claims to have solved the corrosion issues with Thorium molten salt reactors.
Powered by Thorium
Clean, cheap, safe and abundant energy using thorium. Enough for everyone and forever
Pair it with Sodium Ion battery. LOL
mspohr
Well-Known Member
Power companies quietly pushed $215m into US politics via dark money groups
Donations have helped utilities increase electricity prices, hinder solar schemes and helped elect sympathetic legislators
www.theguardian.com
US power companies have made political donations of at least $215m to dark money groups in recent years, according to a new analysis of 25 for-profit utilities, amid growing concerns around how they wield influence. Such secretive donations to barely regulated non-profit groups have helped utilities increase electricity prices, hinder solar schemes and helped elect sympathetic legislators in recent years.
Critics argue the dark money spending is kept private, in part to ensure the disruptive transition to green energy happens on the companies’ terms or not at all, and to hinder oversight.
mspohr
Well-Known Member
The hard right and climate catastrophe are intimately linked. This is how | George Monbiot
As climate policy is weakened, extreme weather intensifies and more refugees are driven from their homes – and the cycle of hatred continues, says Guardian columnist George Monbiot
www.theguardian.com
Round the cycle turns. As millions are driven from their homes by climate disasters, the extreme right exploits their misery to extend its reach. As the extreme right gains power, climate programmes are shut down, heating accelerates and more people are driven from their homes. If we don’t break this cycle soon, it will become the dominant story of our times.
In the rich world we still have choices: we can greatly limit the damage caused by environmental breakdown, for which our nations and citizens are primarily responsible. But these choices are being deliberately and systematically shut down. Culture war entrepreneurs, often funded by billionaires and commercial enterprises, cast even the most innocent attempts to reduce our impacts as a conspiracy to curtail our freedoms. Everything becomes contested: low-traffic neighbourhoods, 15-minute cities, heat pumps, even induction hobs. You cannot propose even the mildest change without a hundred professionally outraged influencers leaping up to announce: “They’re coming for your ...” It’s becoming ever harder, by design, to discuss crucial issues such as SUVs, meat-eating and aviation calmly and rationally. Climate science denial, which had almost vanished a few years ago, has now returned with a vengeance. Environmental scientists and campaigners are bombarded with claims that they are stooges, shills, communists, murderers and paedophiles.
As the impacts of our consumption kick in thousands of miles away, and people come to our borders desperate for refuge from a crisis they played almost no role in causing – a crisis that might involve real floods and real droughts – the same political forces announce, without a trace of irony, that we are being “flooded” or “sucked dry” by refugees, and millions rally to their call to seal our borders. Sometimes it seems the fascists can’t lose.
It is easy to whip up fascism. It’s the default result of political ignorance and its exploitation. Containing it is much harder, and never-ending. The two tasks – preventing Earth systems collapse and preventing the rise of the far right – are not divisible. We have no choice but to fight both forces at once.
mspohr
Well-Known Member
Vast fossil fuel and farming subsidies causing ‘environmental havoc’
World Bank says subsidies costing as much as $23m a minute must be repurposed to fight climate crisis
www.theguardian.com
Trillions of dollars of subsidies for fossil fuels, farming and fishing are causing “environmental havoc”, according to the World Bank, severely harming people and the planet. Many countries spend more on the harmful subsidies than they do on health, education or poverty reduction, the bank says, and the subsidies are entrenched and hard to reform as the greatest beneficiaries tend to be rich and powerful. Reforming subsidies would provide vital funding to fight the climate and nature crises at a time when public coffers are severely stretched, the bank says. The “toxic” subsidies total at least $7.25tn a year, according to a major new report from the bank. The explicit subsidies – money spent by governments – account for about $1.25tn a year, or more than $2m a minute. Most of these are harmful, the bank says.
Fossil fuels are “vastly underpriced”, the report says, while subsidy reforms “save lives”. Pollution from fossil fuels causes 8.7m deaths a year, according to a 2021 study, one in five of all deaths globally.
cpa
Active Member
Maybe there might be a wee glimmer of hope if these youngsters prevail. The suit is in Montana, of all places!
www.theguardian.com
The dirty dealing of the elected representatives to knowingly pass legislation that is directly opposed to their state Constitution makes me retch.
Young Montana residents bring climate change case to court for first time ever
Plaintiffs alleged state violated constitutional guarantee to a ‘clean and healthful environment’ for ‘present and future generations’
www.theguardian.com
The dirty dealing of the elected representatives to knowingly pass legislation that is directly opposed to their state Constitution makes me retch.
mspohr
Well-Known Member
Communicate "pollution" rather than "climate change"?
news.yahoo.com
As long as they keep talking about ‘global climate change,’ they are not gonna go anywhere. ‘Cause no one gives a s*** about that,” Schwarzenegger told CBS during a recent interview. “So my thing is, let’s go and rephrase this and communicate differently about it and really tell people we’re talking about pollution. Pollution creates climate change, and pollution kills.” Ultimately, it is Schwarzenegger’s optimism about the future of our planet that has led him to disagree with the branding around the issue. He believes that the general public can be convinced to care and take action, provided that the issues are communicated effectively.
Arnold Schwarzenegger makes bold statement about climate change in recent interview: ‘They are not gonna go anywhere’
The alternative terminology that Schwarzenegger suggests is much more tangible.
As long as they keep talking about ‘global climate change,’ they are not gonna go anywhere. ‘Cause no one gives a s*** about that,” Schwarzenegger told CBS during a recent interview. “So my thing is, let’s go and rephrase this and communicate differently about it and really tell people we’re talking about pollution. Pollution creates climate change, and pollution kills.” Ultimately, it is Schwarzenegger’s optimism about the future of our planet that has led him to disagree with the branding around the issue. He believes that the general public can be convinced to care and take action, provided that the issues are communicated effectively.
mspohr
Well-Known Member
Dramatic week in Montana climate trial as youngsters tell of toll on lives
Youth plaintiffs accuse state officials of violating their right to a healthy environment in landmark case in Helena
www.theguardian.com
Held v Montana specifically targets part of the Montana Environmental Policy Act which prevents the state from considering how its energy economy may contribute to climate change. That provision, the plaintiffs and experts witnesses testified this week, is not compatible with the state’s constitutional environmental rights because it exacerbates the climate crisis.
If the Montana Environmental Policy Act were altered or overturned, he insisted, there would be “no meaningful impact or appreciable effect” on the climate. In fact, Montana’s carbon contributions are so inconsequential that the state’s role in the climate crisis is “that of a spectator”.
Some influential scholars call the strategy “whataboutism”. A 2020 study led by Berlin-based researcher William F Lamb identified the tactic as a “discourse of delay” employed by the fossil fuel industry to intentionally push off climate action.
In the groundbreaking Massachusetts v EPA, where Massachusetts and 11 other states and some cities sued the Environmental Protection Agency to force it to regulate planet-heating pollution, the US government attempted to use the same tactic, arguing that curbing US motor vehicle emissions wouldn’t appreciably help the climate, Gerrard explained. “The supreme court rejected that argument,” he said.
mspohr
Well-Known Member
‘Countries are drowning’: climate expert calls for urgent rethink on scale of aid for developing world
World needs to offer trillions, not billions in overseas support, says leading climate economist Avinash Persaud
www.theguardian.com
The world must rethink its approach to the climate crisis, by investing trillions of dollars instead of billions in the developing world, and moving beyond conventional ideas of overseas aid, one of the world’s most influential climate economists has urged. “We need a complete rethink of the whole nexus of climate, debt and development,” Avinash Persaud told the Observer, before a key summit. “What we are seeing today is new – countries affected by climate disaster, this is happening now. Countries are drowning.” He called for a tripling of the finance available from the World Bank and similar institutions, and a huge influx of cash from the private sector, driven by the careful use of public funds and regulation to remove the current barriers to investment. “This is the biggest financial opportunity in the world,” he said.
mspohr
Well-Known Member
California leaders should be slashing fossil fuel subsidies instead of the climate budget
Instead of cutting key climate programs to address California's budget deficit, environmental advocates want to slash fossil fuel subsidies.
calmatters.org
JRP3
Hyperactive Member
Good thing there's no such thing as global warming, or there'd really be trouble!
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