The Crisis Report - 86
I watched the Democrat Convention. The "Climate Crisis" got 15 minutes. Why?
“Where do we go, from here?”
Tell Me.
When does the END appear? / When do the Trumpets cheer?
The curtains close on a kiss — G-d knows. / We can tell the END is near.
So tell me.
Where do we go, from here?
Buffy TVS Season Six
SO.
I watched the Democratic Convention this week and I guess I’m excited. Harris looks and sounds good. I think she actually has a shot at winning in November. That’s a “good thing”.
It would be a DISASTER if Trump were elected again. The country might actually not survive another four years of Trump “management”.
Still, there was almost no mention of “Climate Issues” at all during the whole process. Harris actually did use the phrase “Climate Crisis” in her speech, which I found gratifying. But, that was about it.
The Climate Crisis was treated as an “afterthought”.
Dems made convention a testing ground for climate messaging
Even though the issue took a back seat on the main stage, there were extensive discussions behind the scenes.
CHICAGO — Climate advocates spent the past week speculating over how Vice President Kamala Harris and her surrogates would talk about green issues from the main stage of the four-day Democratic National Convention here.
In a segment lasting just under 15 minutes on the very last night, they got their answer.
It’s a “sideshow” issue in this campaign.
“That the Harris campaign gave the spotlight to climate change for just 15 minutes — and relegated the issue in Harris’ acceptance speech to a sentence fragment — might have felt like a letdown for activists. But even some of the most outspoken climate progressives made it clear they weren’t going to quibble with the strategy.”
“Let’s be clear: the most important climate policy right now is defeating Donald Trump in November, All the wonky policy details in the world won’t matter if climate deniers control the White House,” -Cassidy DiPaola, communications director for Fossil Free Media and a spokesperson for the Make Polluters Pay Campaign
Even the headline makes it clear that Democrats don’t know what to do with the “Climate Change” issue.
“Dems made convention a testing ground for climate messaging.”
Was the headline.
NOT.
“Dems articulated bold vision to combat the Climate Crisis.”
Politically, telling voters “the truth” of Climate Change is a loosing idea. You have to “sell” them on the benefits of fighting climate change to get them to “do the right thing”. Don’t talk about “sacrifice”. Talk about “opportunity” and “hope”.
So, these are the messages the Dems floated in the 15 minutes, of the last day, that they gave to the “Climate Crisis”.
The convention featured three speakers for the “climate portion” (15 minutes total) of Thursday evening:
Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, who recalled learning to be a good steward of the earth through the lens of her Native American upbringing.
John Russell, from Appalachia, who underscored the value of union jobs in the clean energy economy.
Rep. Maxwell Frost (D-Fla.), Congress’ first Generation Z lawmaker.
Each of them was introduced by a video targeting a different segment of “climate voters”.
The first showcased the advent of extreme weather events juxtaposed with former President Donald Trump calling climate change a “hoax” and noting how Harris took on Big Oil as California’s attorney general.
The second highlighted the clean energy economic boom of the last four years.
The third featured a montage of teenagers talking about how Harris cares about the future of the planet young people are due to inherit.
This is the “messaging” Democrats think can sell “Climate Action” to voters.
Democrats mulling the best way to talk about climate issues with a general audience all agreed that making the issue personal was the best way to reach voters.
JOBS
Ben Jealous, president of the Sierra Club, spoke about the “hierarchy of needs” in saying job creation — specifically in the clean energy sector — is the strongest climate message Democrats can project to a general audience right now.
“Until I have a good job, that’s my focus.”
“Healthcare is important; next year, we will be celebrating that because we’ve shut down 385 coal fire power plants, we will have prevented a million asthma attacks and 100,000 heart attacks, and that will resonate with a lot of people.”
“But jobs will always resonate more.”
So, that's going to be the “climate messaging” of Democrats. The “Green Economy” will create millions of new jobs and bring prosperity.
JUSTICE
Among Progressive voters, advocates insist that underscoring allegations of corporate greed inside the fossil fuel industry — including claims of hiding studies showing their impact on the planet’s climate — is the winning strategy.
“I think it’s key because people don’t like being lied to and the big oil companies lied to the America public and that breaks through.”
Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.).
For voters of color it can be a matter of “life or death”.
Democrats are highlighting the rising health disparities being experienced in underserved minority communities. Many of which which are disproportionately situated in the shadows of power plants and smog-filled highways.
“Democrats care about your health” is a powerful argument in these communities for supporting candidates with aggressive climate-fighting agendas. Even if it is framed as “environmental justice” and not “climate action”.
JOY
Democrats know that this issue matters to voters — to young people in particular, this resonates. The young KNOW that “Climate Change” is in their future.
So far, the environmental community has by and large been giving Harris enormous latitude to find her footing on climate messaging and policy development.
“What we’re seeing at this convention is Democrats united in their commitment to climate action, understanding its importance to a majority of voters, especially core Democratic constituencies.”
Cassidy DiPaola, communications director for Fossil Free Media and a spokesperson for the Make Polluters Pay Campaign
They want to engage GenZ voters by being “honest” about the dangers of Climate Change. While still being “upbeat” and “hopeful” about the future.
Which is why the speech from Rep. Frost. The first, and only, member of Generation Z to be elected to Congress in 2023.
In his speech, Rep. Frost of Florida discussed how climate impacts — from deadly storms and hurricanes to extreme heat are already hammering the people of his state. Earlier in August, Tropical Storm Debby pummeled Florida with torrential downpours and high winds that killed at least five people.
“The climate crisis is really something that has been owned by Gen Z. It’s really important that we have a Gen Z voice talking about climate on the DNC stage.”
-Denae Ávila-Dickson, a communications manager at the Sunrise Movement, a youth-led climate activist group.
HERE’S WHAT HARRIS SAID ABOUT “CLIMATE CHANGE”
During her 38-minute speech at the event, Harris mentioned climate change only once, touching on the:
“freedom to breathe clean air and drink clean water, and live free from the pollution that fuels the climate crisis.”
That’s it.
Experts say this climate campaigning approach seems to be intentional.
“I think they are worried if she takes a strong position on climate, even [if] it fits the same position that Biden took, it will make her look too progressive,”
Kevin Book, managing director at the research firm ClearView Energy Partners, told The New York Times.
Harris Goes Light on Climate Policy. Green Leaders Are OK With That.
President Biden made climate change a cornerstone of his agenda. Vice President Kamala Harris has yet to detail her own…
Harris’ climate messaging approach has garnered mixed reviews from green groups across the U.S.
Some are willing to give the Democrats a “pass”.
Prior to Thursday evening, Cassidy DiPaola, a spokesperson for the Make Polluters Pay Campaign, told The Guardian that it was a “bit of a bummer” that climate change wasn’t talked about more in the first days of the DNC.
Others are angry the Democrats still aren’t “addressing the reality of the moment”.
Stevie O’Hanlon, the Sunrise Movement’s communications director, noted a “big shift” in the climate conversations last night from Harris and other speakers compared to the first days of the convention. In a statement to Inside Climate News, she said that “leaning into talking more about climate change and the threat that it poses to all of our lives is an important and winning message Kamala Harris and Democrats should be talking about.”
“If politicians fail to act in the next six years, the planet that our generation and future generations inherit is going to be a very different one than the one we live in right now, and a very scary one, and it’s the responsibility of every politician to be talking about that and talking about the need for bold action.”
15 MINUTES is the amount of time the CLIMATE CRISIS got at the Democratic Convention. I think it got more time being “debunked” and mocked at the Republican Convention.
What does that tell you?
What it tells me. Is that no matter how much the people in power “talk” about the climate crisis. They still don’t “believe” anything “really bad” is going to happen soon.
The Climate Crisis still seems “far off, on the horizon” to our political class right now.
WHY IS THAT?
Because no matter who wins. The CLIMATE CRISIS is going to get a LOT WORSE over the next four to five years.
2024 may actually wind up being hotter than 2023.
The Global Ocean absorbed a LOT of HEAT and hasn’t cooled down much at all.
Look at how much HEAT has built up in the oceans. It’s Winter in the Southern Hemisphere, look at how much HEAT is still in the oceans.
Look at how much HEAT there is in the waters of the High Arctic.
Since May, 99% of Americans have been under at least one National Weather Service extreme weather alert, and many have been through multiple.
Right now, 58 million Americans are under an alert for extreme weather, whether a California wildfire, a Texas heat wave or flooding in the Northeast. There have already been 19 events in 2024 that have inflicted more than $1 billion in damage. Making it the fourth-busiest year on record.
SO FAR.
Human activities have already increased average global temperatures by +1.26°C above pre-industrial levels, with 2024 likely to be the first year that average temperatures surpass +1.5°C of warming.
World predicted to break 1.5°C warming limit for first time in 2024
There is a reasonable chance 2024 will be the first year in which the average global surface temperature is more than…
So far, the global average for the past 12 months is the highest on record, running at +1.6°C above the 1850-1900 average.
It is “conceivable” now that 2024 could be the first year to breach +1.5°C of warming.
Most climate models expected the +1.5°C threshold to not be exceeded until some point in the early 2030s. Leaving enough “wiggle room” for people to “keep hope alive” and claim.
We can now stay under +1.5°C target if we achieve net zero by 2034
The amount of carbon dioxide we can still emit to have just a 50 per cent chance of limiting warming to +1.5°C is even smaller than previously thought.
That was last year. Now it’s.
Can we avoid +1.5º of global warming? Probably not and our best case scenario is +1.6º, scientists say. — Salon 08/20/24
Our international goals to stay under 1.5º of warming are no longer feasible, a new study has found.
Here's the study.
Feasibility of peak temperature targets in light of institutional constraints - Nature Climate…
The Paris Agreement requires reaching net-zero carbon emissions, but a debate exists on how fast this can be achieved…
Here’s how “mainstream” Climate Science has reacted to it.
Zeke Hausfather at US non-profit Berkeley Earth says the paper “more or less states what has become a largely unspoken consensus in the community: that it’s too late to prevent warming from exceeding 1.5°C in the coming decades”.
But he stresses that warming below +2°C is still plausible.
“While it might be too late to avoid passing +1.5°C in the coming decades, it’s not too late to limit warming to 1.6°C. The world does not end at 1.5°C, and every tenth of a degree matters in terms of the impacts to society, the natural world and future generations.” -Zeke Hausfather
Ryan Katz-Rosene at the University of Ottawa, Canada, says the work now shifts the focus of the debate to whether 1.6°C is achievable.
“It puts that number 1.6°C out there. And that is what the debate is going to centre on now,” he says. “And after +1.6°C, if we surpass that, it’s going to be +1.7°C.”
Richard Betts, a researcher at both the University of Exeter, UK, and the Met Office, says the paper is “very interesting”. But he suggests.
“Scientists should agree on one methodology to judge progress against the Paris Agreement, to avoid any technical arguments “distracting” attention from climate action. Any breach of the Paris goals is likely to provoke a huge outcry, particularly from nations most imperiled by rising temperatures.”
Camilla Born, who has advised the UK government during international climate negotiations, says the ability to identify a breach of 1.5°C in real time could “force a reckoning” in international talks. Intensifying disputes over issues such as climate reparations.
The 1.5°C target will remain as a “political slogan” because many countries have shaped national climate targets around the goal.
As a result, there may be more focus on carbon removal strategies, with the aim of bringing global average temperature rise back down to below 1.5°C in the long term.
“I don’t think we will get away from 1.5°C. I still think it will be an important part of the political conversation. But I think the texture of it will shift because it will be seen in a different light.”
Karsten Haustein, Leipzig University in Germany, says the paper takes a “neat approach”. However, he stresses.
“1.5°C is an “arbitrary target” that is almost guaranteed to be breached. What matters more, is to what extent the world can limit warming to below 2°C. Every tenth of a degree centigrade past this 1.5°C threshold, that matters as much as this 1.5°C threshold.”
The Moderates in Climate Science are holding on to their estimates about “Climate Sensitivity”.
That’s why the “political class” still thinks we have “decades” to take serious action. That’s why they still think that the problem will largely “self correct” using market forces and incentives.
Here’s how much warming the Moderates like Zeke Hausfather, Michael Mann, and Hannah Ritchie think 2XCO2 will cause.
+2.6°C to +3.9°C — 66% (Most Likely, Climate Science mainstream)
+2.3°C to +4.5°C — 95% (the Moderate fringes)
+5.7°C — 05% (Alarmists)
An Assessment of Earth’s Climate Sensitivity Using Multiple Lines of Evidence (2020)
They tell the political class that 560ppm of CO2 “most likely” will result in only +3°C of warming. They tell them that the “global temperature” is directly tied to the level of CO2 and that when “the level of CO2 stops going up, the temperature will stop going up.
If you believe that, then stopping “Climate Change” is a matter of getting to Net-Zero and then bringing temperatures down gradually through CSS (Carbon Sequestration and Storage). If we slow down the rate of CO2 buildup in the atmosphere, we slow down the rate of temperature increase.
Climate Science right now is telling the Political Class and the Elites that there are still decades to gradually deal with the problem.
The paleoclimate record says otherwise.
It tells us that 420ppm is +4°C of warming.
The paleoclimate science tells us that even if we got to Net-Zero TOMORROW!
The Earth would keep on warming up to between +4°C and +5°C.
It tells us that we FUCKED UP and were insanely optimistic in 1980 when we, as a nation, decided to ignore the warnings.
And elected the “Oil and Gas” guys.
Because we like cheap electricity, cheap air travel, cheap food, the freedom of our own personal automobiles, and cheap plentiful consumer goods. “We the People” were not going to ask very many questions about how this miracle was being accomplished.
The American Public don’t want lectures on “sustainability”. They want CHEAP ENERGY.
In 1980 they elected Reagan, and one of his first acts was the symbolic removal of the solar heating system from the White House roof.
The “people” overwhelming backed Reagan and his promise that it was “Morning in America”. This influenced the Federal Government and its Agencies like the EPA and the Bureau of Land Management. It also influenced how it allocated research grants and monies to fund studies of the Climate System.
In the emerging field of Climate Science, this political climate favored the “Climate Moderates”.
Scientists who saw the planetary climate system as being resistant to change, strongly self correcting, and reactive only on centennial or millennial timescales. Scientists who felt that it was “safe” to keep burning fossil fuels while we developed alternatives like Fusion, Solar, and Bio-fuels.
These Moderates still dominate Climate Science.
The Political and Financial Elites still believe them.
We are about to find out if they were right.
I think we should be listening to the Alarmists.
This is my analysis.
This is what I see.
This is my “Crisis Report”.
rc 082424
Personal Notes.
Writing this made me think of an old song.
So, so you think you can tell heaven from hell?
Blue skies from pain?
Can you tell a green field from a cold steel rail?
A smile from a veil?
Do you think you can tell?
Did they get you to trade your heroes for ghosts?
Hot ashes for trees?
Hot air for a cool breeze?
Cold comfort for change?
Did you exchange a walk on part in the war
For a lead role in a cage?
How I wish, how I wish you were here.
We’re just lost souls swimming in a fish bowl
Year after year
Running over the same old ground, what have we found?
The same old fears, wish you were here.
-Pink Floyd
I suspect the $1bn figure for nineteen storms is low, that's probably just the cost to insurers. Storm Debby a mere Cat 1 was $12.3bn total, only $1.4bn insured.
https://geoffreydeihl.substack.com/p/storm-debby-and-little-debbie
Harris needs to get elected first, and can't kill the buzz with the truth on climate change. If I was a strategist, I would probably tiptoe around it, too. Let's hope she recognizes the gravity of the situation and addresses it seriously, assuming Trump goes down, which could become a crisis itself. I have no clue if she or Walz truly understand what we're up against now. I hope so.
Climate Action NOW!
We have to get off of fossil fuels as fast as possible, on an 'emergency' footing. What will it take to mobilize that kind of effort? We are looking at a grim decade in front of us.