Month: October 2018

By: Marshall Kesterson

New York has filed a lawsuit against ExxonMobil, claiming that they purposefully downplayed the risks climate regulations would have on its business. The company deceived its investors, and the general public, on the matter by concealing the financial risk that the regulation of greenhouse gas emissions presented. This lawsuit has brought fossil fuel companies’ role in climate denial to the forefront of the news, again.

Investigative reporting done by InsideClimate News and the Los Angeles Times showed that Exxon knew the science of global warming and spent millions to promote misinformation. The evidence prompted the attorney generals in New York and Massachusetts to subpoena the oil giant.

It’s no secret that fossil fuel corporations, and big donors like the Koch Brothers, have used their money to promote organizations like The Heartland Institute, CFACT, and Americans for Prosperity, in order to block government policies aimed at curbing climate change. Legislators, such as James Inhofe, the chairman of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, have received millions of dollars from the fossil fuel industry in political contributions.

However, recent strides have been made to hold fossil fuel companies accountable for their role in denying climate change. 2017 and 2018 have been big years for climate change accountability.

On 17 July 2017, San Mateo County, Marin County, and the City of Imperial Beach in California all filed a lawsuit against 37 fossil fuel companies. This move stoked many other waterfront cities and states to contemplate going to court with the fossil fuel industry.

In 2018, Rhode Island became the first state to sue oil companies over the effects of climate change, and the city of Baltimore sued 26 fossil fuel companies to hold them to account for rising tides. Baltimore invested billions of dollars into its waterfront over the past half-century and is preparing for the worst.

These companies being sued, which includes BP, Chevron, ExxonMobil, Peabody Energy, Shell and Statoil, have made many moves in an attempt to dodge, or slow, potential legal troubles. They have even asked that the matters be transferred to federal courts, but a US District Court denied this request, a big win for state governments.

These lawsuits will continue to progress as more fossil fuel corporations are put under the spotlight. The developments discovered in the courts will likely lead to even more cities and states suing the companies for damages.

By: Marshall Kesterson

Many media outlets seized on an opportunity to persuade people into caring about climate change… by relating it to beer.

News dropped that a study by researchers from UC Irvine and other institutions claimed that beer prices could double because of the price of a malted barley. The study, published on Monday in the journal Nature Plants, showed that barley yields would decrease by an average of 17 percent due to climate change. One of the scientists even posted the results to Twitter:

Of course, caring more about beer than the impact of climate change is a bad thing, but it is plainly obvious that people love beer so much that they’re worried about a price increase.

There was a wide variety of support for beer, paired with rage against climate change, ranging from political talking points to joking calls to ban all fossil fuels:

The subject was even covered by The Daily Show, in which Trevor Noah said, “If you tell American’s in 10 years the Marshall Islands will be underwater, no one cares, but tell them Corona will cost more? Now they’re marching in the streets.”

http://www.cc.com/video-clips/pmvksp/the-daily-show-with-trevor-noah-climate-change-s-effect-on-beer-production-worldwide—america-s-projected–1-trillion-deficit

The use of beer as a talking point on climate change has given the research more attention than it normally would have gotten. Steven J. Davis noted this fact:

Google analytics show that “beer” is a more common search term used in Google’s search engine than “climate change”. This could be a potential reason for the increased viewership.

 

 

This opens up an abundance of new positions of attack scientists can use to get the general public to care about climate change, but there will always be skeptics:

https://twitter.com/knuckles_TX/status/1052711484407595009

By: Marshall Kesterson

Hurricanes have made U.S. news a lot recently. Whether it be the destruction they have caused, the location they are damaging, or criticism of the government’s response, they have undeniably been a big issue over the past two years.

The United States is currently in the middle of hurricane season, which starts in the Atlantic on June 1 and ends on Nov. 30. There have been five hurricanes so far this season, with Hurricane Michael being the most recent as it is currently impacting the U.S.

In 2017, three major hurricanes, Irma, Harvey, and Maria, struck the United States. In 2018, there have been two major hurricanes, Florence and Michael.

Located below is a map that details where the hurricanes made landfall and the paths they traveled:

Hurricanes have gotten stronger, slower, and wetter in the past few decades than they have historically been. This is likely the result of climate change. The New York Times released an informative video on the issue:

The United Nations released a special report on Monday that laid out a path that all societies must take in order to combat the effects of man-made global warming. Currently, most societies aren’t close to meeting the requirements that have been set out.

Although the world is on the verge of an environmental crisis, the U.S. government isn’t changing its course.

When asked about the U.N. report, President Donald Trump responded with, “It was given to me, & I want to look at who drew it. You know, which group drew it, because I can give you reports that are fabulous & reports that aren’t so good.”

This response received a wide array of criticism, prompting the #DrewIt hashtag as an attempt to mock the terminology President Trump used to describe scientific data:

https://twitter.com/AndrewMarson/status/1049802667223076865

Although the situation is humorous to some, the response of the President to environmental concerns matters.

Former Trump adviser Myron Bell was asked if there was any way the U.S. administration could be persuaded to take climate change more seriously. He responded with a simple, “No, I can’t.”

We have yet to see the Trump administration take direct action to combat climate change and potentially reduce the occurrence of hurricanes.

By: Marshall Kesterson

Climate scientists have struggled to make their voices heard in the realm of politics. The past few weeks have demonstrated this struggle, leaving many scientists disheartened by the lack of progress. To add fire to the already warming world, the Trump administration displayed a cynical view of the environment that has rarely been seen before.

Sometimes, climate science is stifled by bureaucracy and foreign relations that lead scientists to be disheartened by the lack of progress. This is best demonstrated by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the world’s governing body on climate change.

The job of the IPCC is to promote the climate goals set by the world’s governments, such as those that were set by the Paris climate agreement, but the panel has no direct control over the choices governments make. In order to help enforce the rules, the IPCC must be able to inform governments about why the rules are necessary, which can be a difficult task.

Drew Shindell, a climate expert at Duke University and one of the authors of the IPCC report, said, “The pledges countries made during the Paris climate accord don’t get us anywhere close to what we have to do. They haven’t really followed through with actions to reduce their emissions in any way commensurate with what they profess to be aiming for.”

At other times, important science is hidden in stacks of unnecessary paperwork. For example, the Trump administration’s EPA recently released a 500-page environmental impact statement in which it was projected that the planet would warm a disastrous 4 degrees Celsius by the year 2100.

The latest move of the Trump administration has been to use climate data as a way to argue against environmentally-friendly policies. The administration used the 500-page report to take an anti-environment stance. Instead of issuing the 4 degrees Celsius projection as a warning against climate change, the Trump administration used it to make the argument that the fate of the planet is unchangeable.

The National Highway and Traffic Safety Administration issued a draft statement that justified President Trump’s decision to freeze federal fuel-efficiency standards for cars and light trucks built after 2020, citing that the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions that the standards would cause isn’t enough to save the planet.

This “unstoppable” view of climate change is dangerous. NASA has stated that some of the effects that can be expected from climate change are the loss of sea ice, accelerated sea level rise and longer, more intense heat waves.

Other organizations, such as the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) have noted further effects of climate change on life. WWF noted that the impacts of climate change vary in different kinds of forests, with Sub-Arctic boreal forests being put in the most danger. The EDF took a different route, arguing that climate change can have a significant impact on human life: damaging agriculture, polluting the air and destroying transportation infrastructure.

The WWF has also released climate change ads focused on protecting wildlife from its impacts:

The IPCC states, “Taken as a whole, the range of published evidence indicates that the net damage costs of climate change are likely to be significant and to increase over time.”