Editorial: Biden isn’t banning gas stoves.

But facts don’t stop Missouri and Kansas

 GOP outrage

The Kansas City Star
2023/04/22

A burner on a stove emits blue flames from natural gas in Des Plaines, Illinois. 

- Tim Boyle/Getty Images North America/TNS

It’s not a surprise anymore when prominent politicians focus their energies on rabble-rousing culture war battles instead of doing the hard stuff of governing, but we still feel compelled to point out when Kansas and Missouri leaders actively mislead their constituents.

That brings us to Sen. Roger Marshall, the Kansas Republican, and his Twitter feed.

Like many conservatives, Marshall has lately made a big deal about proposed new federal regulations for gas stoves being offered by the Biden administration. The rules would simply mandate that new stoves for sale meet more stringent environmental and safety standards than the models currently on the market — but the Fox News set has treated this as a fresh opportunity for demagoguery. They haven’t quite resorted to “you’ll take my stove from my cold, dead hands” sloganeering, but they’ve come awfully close.

Certainly, that’s what Marshall seemed to suggest. On Tuesday, he linked to a report about his role in a group of Republican senators challenging the proposed regulations. And he posted this commentary:

“I don’t know about you, but I’m certainly not inviting the Department of Energy into my home to inspect my kitchen appliances. #GOVERNMENTOVERREACH”

WIth that tweet, Marshall painted a picture of government agents invading private residences to ensure that gas stoves conform to the Biden administration’s standards. And that would be alarming if that was really what we could expect to happen. But it’s simply not true.

Just to be sure, we reached out to the U.S. Department of Energy, which is formulating the new rules. The department confirmed that the gas stove regulations would apply only to new products and only at the point of manufacture. There will be no home invasions by jack-booted agents terrifying your family because you like to cook over an open flame.

The Department of Energy “proposes efficiency standards all the time — for lightbulbs, washers and dryers, refrigerators, and more,” a spokesman said in a written statement. “Does it mean they’re coming to ban those appliances? Of course not.”

That’s right. The stove you have in your home has almost certainly met the federal standards that already exist for such appliances. Have you seen a federal inspector in your house to look at your stove, ever?

No?

There is nothing different about this new round of regulations — except that some Republicans, including Marshall, see an opportunity to frighten their constituents.

We think there are good reasons for adopting new, better standards to regulate gas stoves in the United States. Studies suggest that the appliances often leak harmful fumes into the homes they serve, harming the health of family members and pets. There is reason to believe the new standards will save American consumers on energy costs.

But reasonable people can disagree about the issue. What’s not reasonable, however, is for Marshall to mislead and frighten the Kansans who look to him for responsible leadership.

He is far from the only regional GOP leader guilty of such demagoguery. Missouri Gov. Mike Parson on Wednesday blamed President Joe Biden for the protests that sprung up following the Kansas City shooting of teenager Ralph Yarl. Missouri Sen. Eric Schmitt regularly fulminates on Twitter about “climate alarmists” despite the very real threats posed by climate change. And Sen. Josh Hawley’s social media feed seems designed to keep his followers in a near-constant state of high dudgeon. It’s exhausting.

Among our most prominent local Republicans, only Sen. Jerry Moran of Kansas seems to have an interest in the nitty gritty details of governing. His Twitter feed is filled with boring, normal topics such as the new Amelia Earhart museum in Atchison, Veterans Administration policies and even the rules surrounding organ transplants. He rarely tries to provoke his followers. And that’s quite a relief.

Marshall, unfortunately, has not decided to follow the example of Kansas’ senior senator. Instead, he decided this week to unnecessarily frighten his constituents. He may profit from such demagoguery, but Kansans won’t.

___

© The Kansas City Star

IT'S GERMANY

Germany Moves To Ban Most Oil And Gas Heating Systems From 2024

By Tsvetana Paraskova - Apr 19, 2023, 

• On Wednesday, the German government voted to ban most oil and gas heating boilers in new and old buildings from 2024.
• 
  
• Under the rule, all new heating systems should run on 65% renewable energy, with exemptions for homeowners aged over 80 and for households with the lowest incomes.
• 
  
• The draft bill approved by the government suggests the switch to renewables could cost Germans around $10 billion every year until 2028.

The German government voted on a bill on Wednesday to ban most oil and gas heating boilers in new and oil buildings from 2024 as part of a plan to reduce emissions.

The ruling coalition in Germany has decided that nearly all new heating systems should run on 65% renewable energy, with exemptions for homeowners aged over 80 and for households with the lowest incomes. 

Industry associations and the German public disagree with the planned ban. A Forsa survey commissioned by RTL and ntv showed this week that 78% of Germans do not approve of the bill, and only 18% think the decision to ban oil and gas heating systems is the right one.

Most of the opposition to electric heating running on renewable energy stems from concerns that heating prices would rise. A total of 62% of respondents in the survey expect prices to increase if heating comes from renewables, while only 12% expect their heating bills to decline.

According to the draft bill approved by the government and seen by Reuters, a switch to renewables for heating could cost Germans around $10 billion (9.16 billion euros) every year until 2028.  

Last month, the German heating industry said that the government's plan to install electric heat pumps instead of oil and gas boilers shouldn't be rushed as fully electric heating systems require massive grid investments.

Germany plans to have more and more electric heating pumps installed to reduce CO2 emissions from buildings and reduce its dependence on oil and natural gas for heating.

However, associations in the heating pumps industry warn that ditching oil and gas boilers too soon would be both unrealistic and an enormous financial challenge. Germany should be flexible in allowing hybrid pumps and not ban oil and gas boilers too soon, the industry associations say.

In 2022, heat pump sales in Germany jumped by 53%, according to figures from the Federation of German Heating Industry (BDH) released earlier this year.  

By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com

Dominion never intended to save democracy with its lawsuit: report

David McAfee
April 22, 2023

Photo: Anton Garin/Shutterstock

Dominion Voting Systems "was probably always going to settle" its massive defamation case against Fox News, and any talk of holding the media company accountable for its lies was likely a negotiating tactic to score the settlement, according to Slate writers who spoke about the issue on the outlet's podcast.

Dominion and Fox surprised almost everyone when they settled in the eleventh-hour before a trial that would have been seen around the world. This was in part attributed to a "secret mediator" who was making phone calls from a boat and a hotel.

In retrospect, however, Slate senior writer Mark Joseph Stern says it should have always been the expected move for a corporate entity.

"Dominion is a private company and what they really wanted here, above everything else, was to be made whole after Fox News slandered it relentlessly and threatened its entire business," Stern said in an edited version of the Amicus podcast by Slate. "You know, Fox tried to persuade election officials that they couldn’t trust Dominion’s voting machines, and that their machines were the key to massive voter fraud that let Joe Biden steal the election."

ALSO IN THE NEWS: 'Confederate-wannabe troll' Marjorie Taylor Greene leads pack for Trump VP picks

Stern added that Fox's lies represented "existential threat to Dominion’s ability to continue making a profit, so the company had to sue" the news network.

"They used the threat of a trial, in which all these secrets would come out, as a bargaining chip. They went all the way to jury selection because they were pressing Fox as hard as they could for a big settlement," Stern said. "And that’s what they got. Now they can expand further into the market."


Fellow Slate writer Dahlia Lithwick said the settlement was "yet more proof positive that the law is not going to keep saving us."

"We keep thinking that there is this thing called 'the law that is going to keep making us whole,' but it's not," Lithwick said, adding, "Capitalism is not going to save us, either."

Editorial: Lies landed Fox News in an expensive court settlement. Yet the lies continue
2023/04/22

News headlines on the impeachment trial of Donald Trump are displayed outside of the Fox headquarters on Feb. 9, 2021, in New York City.

 - Spencer Platt/Getty Images North America/TNS

The whole world by now is probably sick of hearing about the Dominion Voting Systems libel lawsuit against Fox News and Tuesday’s $787.5 million settlement. The whole world, that is, minus Fox News viewers, who have heard precious little about the lawsuit and even less about the settlement. The lead-up to the trial was the subject of countless news stories and analyses as the implications for journalism were weighed and multiple examples aired of how Fox presenters colluded behind the scenes to skew their coverage and advance the lie that Dominion had helped rig the 2020 presidential election.

But since the settlement didn’t require Fox News to apologize or outline publicly exactly how the network engaged in a systematic campaign of lies, those viewers will probably go on believing the nonsense they’ve been fed for the past two years.

Howard Kurtz, the network’s media reporter, announced the settlement using the vaguest possible terminology. He called it “one of the most heavily covered” defamation cases in history, neglecting to remind viewers that the network had banned him and other Fox presenters from discussing specifics of the trial on air. So viewers might have been surprised to learn of a settlement in a lawsuit they knew little about. Kurtz added to the confusion by claiming that he couldn’t independently confirm the amount of the settlement even though it was readily available to any reporter covering the trial or to millions of viewers watching other television networks.

The dollar figure, likely a record, is important because it sends a loud-and-clear message about how fearful Fox was that this case would go to trial, where all of the network’s dirtiest secrets and reckless disregard for the truth would be aired publicly. By settling for such a large amount, the network tacitly acknowledged its fear of losing the case. Dominion executives say they agreed to settle because it was better to take this amount, delivered now, than to engage in a dragged-out court case with multiple appeals that likely would have delayed a payout for another two years or more.

Nevertheless, it’s frustrating that the terms of the settlement didn’t require Fox to tell its viewers in no uncertain terms: We lied. We defamed Dominion. We apologize.

Instead, all Fox was required to say was that “We acknowledge the Court rulings finding certain claims about Dominion to be false.” Kurtz’s report also made it sound as Fox’s only error was quoting former President Donald Trump and his allies that election fraud deprived him of victory in 2020. “This settlement reflects Fox’s continued commitment to the highest journalistic standards,” Kurtz said, quoting a network statement.

The end result is that Fox viewers were again denied access to the truth behind Trump’s election-fraud lies, only to be lied to again on Tuesday about a “commitment” to journalistic standards that simply do not exist there.

© St. Louis Post-Dispatch

Two species found ‘nowhere else on the planet’ documented in western N.C, museum says

2023/04/21

A feisty looking crustacean in North Carolina’s Blue Ridge Mountains is a new species found nowhere else in the world, according to the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences.

Called the Stony Fork Crayfish, it is one of two new species revealed in research by a team of North Carolina scientists published April 20 in Zootaxa. The other species is called the Falls Crayfish.

Both creatures resemble miniature lobsters: The Stony Fork Crayfish is just under 4 inches from nose to tail, and the Falls Crayfish is slightly smaller, the museum reports.

They were discovered “tucked into niches of neighboring streams” that feed into the western upper Yadkin River basin in western North Carolina, officials said.

Bronwyn Williams, a museum research curator of non-molluscan invertebrates, conducted the extremely dirty research nearly six years ago with experts from the N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission.

Crayfish

Crayfish are freshwater crustaceans belonging to the clade Astacidea, which also contains lobsters. In some locations, they are also known as baybugs, crabfish, crawfish, crawdaddies, crawdads, freshwater lobsters, mountain lobsters, mudbugs, rock lobsters, signal crawfish, or yabbies. Taxonomically... Wikipedia

Williams caught her specimens in a variety of ways, including seine netting and dip netting, as well as “simply flipping rocks.”

“I vividly remember catching one of these crayfish ...(and) being really confused. It looked like the Big Water Crayfish, which is known from the complete opposite side of the Eastern Continental Divide, in the Watauga and New Rivers,” Williams told McClatchy News.

“But here we were in a smallish tributary to the Yadkin River, which flows the complete opposite direction, into the Atlantic Ocean.”

The best explanation is a geologic phenomenon known as stream piracy in which “a waterway erodes into a divide, capturing or diverting an adjacent waterway into itself,” the researchers say.

“This is really neat, as it suggests that a previously unknown, localized, temporary, aquatic connection bridged the Eastern Continental Divide near where the headwaters of the Stony Fork and Lewis Fork are now,” Williams said in the release.

The two new species live in “highly restricted” ranges, which means they have adapted to specific conditions, the museum says.

Williams worked with Michael Perkins and William Russ from the N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission on the research, officials said.

Activists gather for Earth Day, urge action to avoid 'dystopian' future

Reuters
April 22, 2023


(Reuters) - Climate change campaigners gathered outside Britain's parliament building ahead of Earth Day to urge action on global warming, while volunteers worldwide geared up to plant trees and clear trash to mark the 54th annual celebration of the environment.

Earth Day this year, officially on Saturday, follows weeks of extreme weather with temperatures soaring to record highs in Thailand and a punishing heatwave in India, where at least 13 people died of heatstroke at a ceremony last weekend.

Average global temperatures could hit all-time highs in 2023 or 2024, climate scientists have warned.

"Climate impacts are here," Areeba Hamid, co-executive director of Greenpeace UK, said on Friday as climate change activists walked down the street outside parliament, some dressed in green costumes and green paint.

Hamid said when she now visits her hometown of Delhi, it feels like "putting your head in the oven" and that London's 2022 heatwave was like "a dystopian film".

"We can't afford that anymore."

Activists led by the Extinction Rebellion group have gathered in London to kick off a four-day action, billed "The Big One", to coincide with Earth Day.

About 30,000 people have signed up for family-friendly rallies and marches, marking a change in strategy for a group known for its disruptive tactics, including blocking roads, throwing paint and smashing windows.

Globally, there has been a flurry of activity in the run-up to Earth Day, with events being planned in Rome and Boston and major clean-up campaigns at Lake Dal in India's Srinagar and Florida's hurricane-hit Cape Coral.

In Peru, shamans on Friday made an offering to the "Pachamama", or Mother Earth. Holding yellow flowers and rattles, the shamans walked around a papier-mache globe as they performed a cleansing ritual.

The ancestral rituals - whose origins lie in the Indigenous cultures of Peru - are done to thank the Earth and build awareness of the planet, said Walter Alarcon, the president of the Healing Shamans of Peru International Organization.

Earlier in the week, U.S. President Joe Biden pledged to increase funding to help developing countries fight climate change and curb deforestation in Brazil's Amazon rainforest during a meeting with top world leaders.

Governments have fallen far short of pledges in the 2015 Paris Agreement to limit heating of the climate by shifting off fossil fuels, amid crises including COVID-19, Russia's invasion of Ukraine, food shortages and strained ties between China and the U.S., the top two greenhouse gas emitters.

A report by the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) says the planet is on track to warm beyond 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial times - a key threshold for even more damaging impacts - between 2030 and 2035.

"There is a rapidly closing window of opportunity to secure a liveable and sustainable future for all," the IPCC has said. "The choices and actions implemented in this decade will have impacts now and for thousands of years."

(Reporting by Reuters bureaus; Writing by Himani Sarkar; Editing by William Mallard)

World Earth Day: Past 8 Years Hottest In Recorded History, 1 Million Species At Risk Of Extinction, Says UN

The World Earth Day is observed on April 22 every year. The first World Earth Day was observed in 1970 in the United States.

Extreme climatic events, such as last year's Pakistan floods, have got more frequent lately. AP Photos

UPDATED: 22 APR 2023

The United Nations on the occasion of World Earth Day noted in a report that the past eight years have been the hottest in record history.

The UN also said that 1 million species are currently at the risk of extinction as climate change threatens biodiversity in the world.

The World Earth Day is observed every year on April 22. The day was marked by a report titled State of the Global Climate in 2022 by World Meteorological Organization (WMO), the UN agency for weather, climate, and water.

Among the other things, the WMO report says record greenhouse gas-levels are causing changes in every sphere of environment.

"WMO latest State of the Global Climate report shows that the last eight years were the eight warmest on record, and that sea level rise and ocean warming hit new highs. Record levels of greenhouse gases caused 'planetary scale changes on land, in the ocean and in the atmosphere'," said UN in a release.

Here we explain what the UN report says, what the World Earth Day is, and what the UN proposes to be done on climate change.
What is World Earth Day?

The World Earth Day is observed on April 22 every year. The first World Earth Day was observed in 1970 in the United States.

Senator Gaylord Nelson was a key figure in promoting the Earth Day at the time.

The Library of Congress notes, "Earth Day was first observed on April 22, 1970, when an estimated 20 million people nationwide attended the inaugural events at tens of thousands of sites including elementary and secondary schools, universities, and community sites across the United States. Senator Gaylord Nelson promoted Earth Day, calling upon students to fight for environmental causes and oppose environmental degradation with the same energy that they displayed in opposing the Vietnam War."

The objective of the World Earth Day is to promote environmental protectionism. It is currently observed in over 190 countries and witnesses participation of over 1 billion people.

The World Earth Day movement is credited with leading to an increase in funding to green efforts, increased environmental literacy, and coming up of environment-related laws.

"Earth Day 1970 led to the passage of landmark environmental laws in the United States, including the Clean Air, Clean Water and Endangered Species Acts and the establishment of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Many countries soon adopted similar laws, and in 2016, the United Nations chose Earth Day as the day to sign the Paris Climate Agreement into force," notes EarthDay.Org, which coordinates the movement.
Past 8 years hottest ever: UN report

The WMO, the UN agency for weather, climate, and water, in its State of the Global Climate report said that the period of 2015-22 was the hottest since tracking began in 1850.

The WMO also reported that "massively scaled-up investments" for anti-climate change efforts are required, noted the UN release.

The UN release said, "The organization says its report, released ahead of this year’s Mother Earth Day, echoes UN Secretary-General António Guterres’ call for 'deeper, faster emissions cuts to limit global temperature rise to 1.5 degree Celsius', as well as 'massively scaled-up investments in adaptation and resilience, particularly for the most vulnerable countries and communities who have done the least to cause the crisis'," said the release.

WMO Secretary-General, Prof. Petteri Taalas also listed the recent climate disasters that highlight the gravity of climate change crisis. He said that
"populations worldwide continue to be gravely impacted by extreme weather and climate events" and stressed that last year, "continuous drought in East Africa, record breaking rainfall in Pakistan and record-breaking heatwaves in China and Europe affected tens of millions, drove food insecurity, boosted mass migration, and cost billions of dollars in loss and damage".

The report further noted that "Antarctic sea ice fell to its lowest extent on record and the melting of some European glaciers was, literally, off the charts".

On World Earth Day, UN Secretary-General António Guterres also spoke of the threat to biodiversity.

"In his message on Earth Day, UN chief Mr. Guterres warned that 'biodiversity is collapsing as one million species teeter on the brink of extinction', and called on the world to end its 'relentless and senseless wars on nature', insisting that 'we have the tools, the knowledge, and the solutions' to address climate change," said the UN release.

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UN: Climate Change To Uproot Millions, Especially In Asia

In Photos: The Climate Change Protests In London

Activists and organisations dedicated to combating climate change, such as Extinction Rebellion and Red Rebel Brigade, held a protest in London in front of the Parliament to call for tougher measures to address climate change. The protesters called for a stop on the usage of fossil fuels. Some wore masks depicting Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and ministers Michael Gove and Jeremy Hunt.


UPDATED: 22 APR 2023 

Members of the Red Rebel Brigade join Extinction Rebellion demonstrators in Westminster, London, on day one of the environmental action group's four days of action that they have called "The Big One".

Activists protest outside the Houses of Parliament in London. Extinction Rebellion and other environmental groups are protesting for four days from Friday to Monday, with an event they are calling "The Big One".

Activists wearing masks depicting Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, right, Michael Gove and Chancellor Jeremy Hunt as they protest outside the Houses of Parliament in London.

 

 

Activists wearing masks depicting Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and Chancellor Jeremy Hunt as they protest outside the Houses of Parliament in London.

Climate Protest | Photos: AP/Kin Cheung

4 Tips To Drive Action On Climate Change From Huge New Global Risk Study. Earth Day

Joan Michelson
Contributor
Apr 22, 2023

 Activists from climate group Fridays for Future shout slogans and march during a Global 

AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES

Do you feel safe? How do you perceive risk? Do you feel at risk from climate change? These are some of the questions that a massive new global study by the Lloyd’s Register Foundation and Gallup surveyed 120,000 people across 121 countries to find out. This Earth Day, their findings on perceptions of risk from climate change are especially salient.

Using local teams and survey techniques to ascertain authentic answers, Lloyd’s and Gallup found a wide range of fascinating information about how safe people really feel across the globe, and why.

In this study, called “A Resilient World?,” they explored how safe people feel in their homes, communities, countries and in society at large, sometimes employing strategies such as questioning men and women in separate rooms at the same time to enable women to speak freely and confidentially.



Sarah Cumbers, Ph.D., Lloyd's Register Foundation

SARAH CUMBERS, PH.D.

In an exclusive, in-depth interview about the World Risk Poll’s findings on Electric Ladies Podcast recently, Dr. Sarah Cumbers, Director of Evidence and Insight at Lloyd's Register Foundation who led the survey, explained that they could ascertain some sense of the how the interviewees are perceiving “risk” and “safety” based on the contexts of their lives. “The 2019 poll included a question about the meaning of the word risk. And we know that people around the world interpret that word differently and to some risk is about opportunity and for some it's about harm…it will just depend on the context, ” Cumbers said.

“We're (Lloyd’s Register Foundation) a global safety charity. We've got a mission to make the world a safer place, and we invest in research and education and, and innovation programs around the world that impact on the safety of life and property,” Cumbers said. “And that's why we commissioned this poll, because we wanted to understand how people around the world think about their risk and safety and how they experience different risks.”

Clarifying “risk”

Nuclear hazard signs are seen in the village of Kopachi on January 29, 2006 


Because we all think of “risk” and “safety” and “resilience” differently, Lloyd’s and Gallup chose to let the respondent’s perceptions prevail, and put their responses into the context of their lives. “We'll record the sex of the respondent, their income, their educational status, where they live, whether it's rural or urban. And so, we can start to look at the data in a really granular fashion to understand what are the factors that are driving, for example, whether people think about risk as opportunity, or harm.”

They also drilled down to explore the respondents’ daily lives. “One of the most ambitious questions that we ask in the poll,” Cumbers said, “is ‘what's the greatest source of risk to your safety in your daily life?’ And so, you can see that with the framing there, you introduce the concept of risk and it being about, you know, risk to safety and in daily life. But then you let the respondent interpret that in their own context and, and give their response.”

“One of the great things about this data set, that it can be used in a very granular fashion, by all kinds of agencies, you know, civil society, policy makers, academics, et cetera, governments,” Cumbers added, so they sought to gather data that could be used at all levels.

Screenshot - Lloyd's Register risk poll, climate & education & personal experience chart. 

Here are four key findings related to climate change (you can find the full summary here):

· Women are more concerned about climate change in high-income countries: “We need to look at those granular differences at the country level, and particularly actually when it comes to climate change, it's country income that has an impact,” Cumbers explained, “So, women tend to be more worried about it than men in high income countries, but in low income countries it's the reverse.” These findings align with a recent study on the U.S. from the Yale Center for Climate Communications that women in the U.S. are more likely than men – 59% to 52% – “to be either Alarmed or Concerned about global warming.”

· People who have experienced natural disasters are more likely to view climate change as a “very or serious threat”: “Research shows that experience of severe weather is a driver of people's concern about climate change,” Cumbers explained. “So, people are more likely to understand, particularly if they don't have high levels of education, the concept of severe weather, because it's something tangible to them, it's something they've experienced, whereas climate change is quite an abstract construct.”

· Communication around climate change needs to be personal – and simplified: Building on the point that personal experiences with natural disasters increases climate change awareness, Cumbers emphasized keeping it personal. She said, “that gives climate change communicators a really important tool to be able to connect with people around the world, regardless of their income status, regardless of their level of education, to actually tap into people's increasing experience with severe weather and to make that link then with the changing climate. And then you can start to build action strategies on top of that In terms of building resilience, in terms of early warning, early action.”

Their research also found that communication needs to be simplified to get across, adding that, “Learning around climate change, communication and using clear and simple language.”

· Take “a granular approach to resilience”: “If you look at resilience, the key learning really is about taking a granular approach to resilience,” Cumbers reflected. “Unless you really understand the context of community that you are wanting to support, you are going to fail to have an impact and build resilience.”

Screenshot - Lloyd's Register Resilience Index lrfoundation.org.uk

They also developed the Resilience Index, which their brochure describes as: “an exploratory approach towards creating an indicator of how well-equipped people are to handle adversity based on their personal circumstances and perceptions of support.”

Focused on taking action

The researchers’ hope, Cumbers summarized, is that their data is used to make an impact, to improve people’s lives.

“We want data that that is actually going to drive impact. So, we always ask, ‘and what would you do with it? And what consequence would it have and how would it change things? And how would it actually make the world safer on the ground? What's the impact on people going to be?’ “

To that end, they invited proposals for “turning the World Risk Poll into action.”

Listen to the full interview with Dr. Sarah Cumbers on Electric Ladies Podcast here.

Follow me on Twitter or LinkedIn. Check out my website.

Joan Michelson is an ESG consultant, host of the acclaimed Electric Ladies Podcast, dynamic public speaker and career advisor.

Earth Day 2023 and our fatal affinity for fossil fuels

BY BRAD BANNON, OPINION CONTRIBUTOR - 04/21/23 

Photo by Wojtek RADWANSKI / AFP via Getty Images

A young demonstrator holds placard reading “There’s no planet B” as she takes part in a “Fridays For Future” demonstration calling for climate action in the streets of Warsaw on September 20, 2019, part of a global action day. (Photo by Wojtek RADWANSKI / AFP)

The starting point for any discussion of Earth Day 2023 is the climate report released late last month by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Think about the IPCC members as the scientists in disaster movies who try to warn indifferent political officials about the doomsday natural disasters that predictably devastate the earth after their scientific advice is ignored.

Earth Day is a celebration for many people, but a party would be premature, according to the panel’s research. The report catalogs the dangerously elevated level of fossil fuel emissions that exist in the earth’s atmosphere. The study highlights the urgent need to reduce the carbon output and subsequent warming trend by 2035, which is only 12 years away. The panel of scientists warns, “The world is running out of time to avoid catastrophe.”

The comments on the IPCC study from United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres include chilling statements, such as “Humanity is on thin ice — and that ice is melting.” And “The climate time bomb is ticking.” He added that the “IPCC report is a how-to guide to defuse the climate time bomb” and that “it will take a quantum leap in climate action” to avoid disaster. Discussing the scientific evidence, Ani Dasgupta, the president of the World Resources Institute, stated, “Our planet is already reeling from severe climate impacts, from scorching heat waves and disastrous storms to severe drought and water shortages.”

Fortunately, most Americans understand the alarming need to confront the crisis head-on — even if Republicans in Congress don’t. The public support for climate change action should not come as a surprise. Millions of people who watch news shows are treated to a heavy dose of weather disasters that reap personal and economic havoc over the length of breadth of our great nation. The crazy weather that has brought drought to the Western U.S., tornadoes to the Mid-South and flooding to the eastern part of the nation.

A new national survey by the Pew Research Center demonstrates that the public sees the connection between the climate emergency and fossil fuels. Seven out of every 10 people favor President Biden’s goal of net-neutral carbon emissions by 2050. About the same number of people believe that the government should prioritize the development of clean energy such as wind and solar power over fossil fuels like oil and coal. Almost all Democrats and most independents want a big change in the energy mix to fight climate change and meet the president’s climate benchmark. Less than half of the Republican identifiers in the body politic feel the way same.

The GOP theme song for the impending environmental doomsday is “Don’t Worry, Be Happy.”

The GOP’s fatal affinity for fossil fuels is an insult to public opinion. Climate deniers, like Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), seem to take pride in in their disregard of scientific facts and disdain for the looming environmental disaster. Greene recently tweeted that “if you believe that today’s ‘climate change’ is caused by too much carbon, you have been fooled.” A few years ago, she endorsed the notion that wildfires in the American west were caused by “Jewish space lasers.” Given the falsity of these statements, we should take her views on weather with many heavy grains of salt. 

Unfortunately, most Republicans and even a few Democrats feel the same way. They believe that the president’s goal of carbon neutrality by 2050 is extreme, but the IPCC analysis is that the world will suffer greatly if we don’t reach that standard by 2035.

Republican indifference and the avarice of the Big Oil companies have generated billions of dollars in federal subsidies for the fossil fuel industry. The oil companies, the ultimate welfare queens, are reaping record profits but they’re still on the government dole. Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act passed by Congress last year contains much-needed federal aid for the clean energy development, but that support is just a pittance compared to the money that Big Oil gets in federal aid.

While Americans want to focus more on development of clean energy, many Republicans want to reduce the small amount of money that we have started to spend on alternatives to fossil fuels to respond to the looming climate emergency. The Freedom Caucus, a powerful and influential group within the GOP majority in the House of Representatives, just released a plan to cut climate funding that was part of Biden’s aggressively forward-looking legislation. A better course of action for budget hawks would be to eliminate tax breaks for oil companies, which is the president’s proposal.

Earth Day is a chance to celebrate the world’s natural splendors or an opportunity to mourn its impending decline. But the anniversary must herald the urgency to act to preserve our natural legacy. We ignore the climate crisis at our own peril!

 Brad Bannon is a Democratic pollster, CEO of Bannon Communications Research and the host of his weekly “aggressively progressive” podcast, “Deadline D.C. with Brad Bannon.” Follow him on Twitter: @BradBannon

Lauren Boebert says liberals want Earth Day to be about climate change 'to divide us'

David McAfee
April 22, 2023

Congresswoman Lauren Boebert speaks during CPAC Texas 2022 conference at Hilton Anatole. (Shutterstock.com)

U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert (R) celebrated Earth Day Saturday by attacking climate change and calling out liberals for trying "to divide us."

Boebert, who warned last year against hosting drag queen "storytime" events in her Colorado district only to see them do it anyway and achieve enormous success, made exactly one tweet about Earth Day. At the end of the day, Boebert posted on Twitter that we should celebrate the day by remembering "to appreciate this incredible world God has given us."

She further insisted that liberals are trying to change the purpose of the holiday.

"Liberals will try to make this day about climate change to divide us," the congresswoman wrote. "Let’s focus on being appreciative, good stewards of what God has given us instead."

Contrary to Boebert's message, the origins of Earth Day are secular. According to National Geographic, Earth Day was first celebrated in 1970 by a US Senator from Wisconsin sought to raise awareness about environmental issues like climate change.

Uganda's Museveni conditionally backs controversial anti-gay laws

By Philip Andrew Churm
with AP Last updated: 3 hours ago
UGANDA


Ugandan president, Yoweri Museveni, has backed a controversial bill with some of the world's harshest anti-LGBTQ legislation but will pass it back to parliament to include provisions for gay people to be rehabilitated.

However, at a National Resistance Movement (NRM) meeting on Friday, Museveni praised the lawmakers for approving the bill and insisted he would never bow to international condemnation.

“I want to congratulate the honourable members of parliament on your stand on the “Ebitingwa,” [Runyankore word for gay men]," he said

"Congratulations, I congratulate you for that strong stand. It is good that you rejected the pressure from the imperialists.”

The bill, which prescribes the death penalty in some cases, was passed last month and has already triggered a wave of arrests and attacks against LGBTQ Ugandans.

But Museveni rejected criticism from human rights groups.

“Europe is lost. So they also want us to be lost, but in order to fight we must be patriotic.

"If we are parasitic in mind, mind of a parasite, there is no way you can fight, that’s how you become a prostitute because you feared sacrifice, you fear difficulties. Somebody says I will give you money if you become a prostitute. And that’s what they want us to be.

"They want Africa to be prostitutes. Do what we don’t believe in because we want money.”

Those who advocate or promote the rights of LGBTQ people can be jailed for up to 20 years and be sentenced to death for an offence of “aggravated homosexuality.”

The U.S. has warned of economic consequences if the legislation is enacted. A group of U.N. experts has described the bill, if enacted, as “an egregious violation of human rights.”

World's 'oldest' tree able to reveal planet's secrets

The Conversation
April 22, 2023, 

Antonio Lara, a researcher at Austral University, studies the 5,000-year-old Great Grandfather Fitzroya tree © MARTIN BERNETTI / AFP

In a forest in southern Chile, a giant tree has survived for thousands of years and is in the process of being recognized as the oldest in the world.

Known as the "Great Grandfather," the trunk of this tree measuring four meters (13 feet) in diameter and 28 meters tall is also believed to contain scientific information that could shed light on how the planet has adapted to climatic changes.

Believed to be more than 5,000 years old, it is on the brink of replacing Methuselah, a 4,850-year-old Great Basin bristlecone pine found in California in the United States, as the oldest tree on the planet.

"It's a survivor, there are no others that have had the opportunity to live so long," said Antonio Lara, a researcher at Austral University and Chile's center for climate science and resilience, who is part of the team measuring the tree's age.

The Great Grandfather lies on the edge of a ravine in a forest in the southern Los Rios region, 800 kilometers (500 miles) to the south of the capital Santiago.

It is a Fitzroya cupressoides, a type of cypress tree that is endemic to the south of the continent.

In recent years, tourists have walked an hour through the forest to the spot to be photographed beside the new "oldest tree in the world."

Due to its growing fame, the national forestry body has had to increase the number of park rangers and restrict access to protect the Great Grandfather.

By contrast, the exact location of Methuselah is kept a secret.

Also known as the Patagonian cypress, it is the largest tree species in South America.

It lives alongside other tree species, such as coigue, plum pine and tepa, Darwin's frogs, lizards, and birds such as the chucao tapaculo and Chilean hawk.

For centuries its thick trunk has been chopped down to build houses and ships, and it was heavily logged during the 19th and 20th centuries.

Excitement in scientific community

Park warden Anibal Henriquez discovered the tree while patrolling the forest in 1972. He died of a heart attack 16 years later while patrolling the same forest on horseback.

"He didn't want people and tourists to know (where it was) because he knew it was very valuable," said his daughter Nancy Henriquez, herself a park warden.

Henrique's nephew, Jonathan Barichivich, grew up playing amongst the Fitzroya and is now one of the scientists studying the species.

In 2020, Barichivich and Lara managed to extract a sample from the Great Grandfather using the longest manual drill that exists, but they did not reach the center.

They estimated that their sample was 2,400 years old and used a predictive model to calculate the full age of the tree.

Barichivich said that "80 percent of the possible trajectories show the tree would be 5,000 years old."

He hopes to soon publish the results.

The study has created excitement within the scientific community given that dendrochronology -- the method of dating tree rings to when they were formed -- is less accurate when it comes to older trees as many have a rotten core.

'Symbols of resistance'

This is about more than just a competition to enter the record books though, as the Great Grandfather is a font of valuable information.

"There are many other reasons that give value and sense to this tree and the need to protect it," said Lara.

There are very few thousands-years-old trees on the planet.

"The ancient trees have genes and a very special history because they are symbols of resistance and adaptation. They are nature's best athletes," said Barichivich.

"They are like an open book and we are like the readers who read every one of their rings," said Carmen Gloria Rodriguez, an assistant researcher at the dendrochronology and global change laboratory at Austral University.

Those pages show dry and rainy years, depending on the width of the rings.

Fires and earthquakes are also recorded in those rings, such as the most powerful tremor in history that hit this area in 1960.

The Great Grandfather is also considered a time capsule that can offer a window into the past.

"If these trees disappear, so too will disappear an important key about how life adapts to changes on the planet," said Barichivich.

Brazil celebrates its giant trees on Earth Day 2023

By Philip Andrew Churm
with AP

Imperial Palms form an avenue in Rio's botanical garden and organisers are hoping, by establishing their own trail of giant trees, it will help to promote awareness of their environment.

These trees - and the animals which rely on them - are threatened and botanists are keen that everyone joins in the effort to preserve the country’s unique forests, inside and outside the Amazon.

Botanists calculating the carbon content of the garden studied 4633 trees, bushes and palm trees and discovered where the tallest were.

To catalogue the volume of the trees, the botanists used lidar technology which stands for ‘light detecting and ranging’.

It is used by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in the US and is a combined laser, scanner and GPS receiver which generates accurate 3D information.

Marcus Nadruz is one of the botanists at Rio de Janeiro Botanical Garden explains how computer-aided mapping can help measure the trees.

"Depending on the colour, the more yellow, the higher is the tree. You can see the yellow colour much more intensely here, which is precisely the location of the highest tree in the botanical garden, measuring almost fifty metres."

The garden was originally created in 1808 to acclimatise plant species from other continents.

At the time Brazil was searching for new crops to boost the economy after gold production had been depleted.

Another botanist, Rafaella Forzza, works regularly in the Amazon where she became familiar with Brazil's recently discovered largest tree, the red angelim or Dinizia excelsa.

The largest tree measuring 88 metres was first discovered 4 years ago using lidar and it was only reached by land last September 2022.

"Once you reach the foot of the tree, it is hard to see, because the canopy of the forest obstructs the top of the tree, you cannot see," she explains.

"The branches of the angelim or the sumauma begin to branch out above the normal canopy of the forest."

The grand imperial palms are the second highest trees in the garden. One original palm tree has reached 48.1 metres in height.

The garden is also home to a Tasmanian eucalyptus, known commonly as a blue gum which is 39.5 metres tall. It can reach up to 45 metres in its natural habitat.

Many of these trees are threatened, the samauma is used to make plywood and the angelim is Brazil's most exported tree.

With Earth Day 2023 falling on April 22nd the botanists are hoping these giants will not go unnoticed.

The Word for World Is Forest

The Anarchist Library

https://theanarchistlibrary.org › library › ursula-k-le-g...

Written in the glare of the United States' war on Indochina, and first published as a separate book in that war's dire aftermath, The Word for World is Forest ...

‎On What the Road to Hell Is... · ‎Chapter One · ‎Chapter Two · ‎Chapter Five