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biofunmy · 5 years ago

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Will 2020 Finally Be The Climate Change Election?

Climate change has barely registered as an issue in any US presidential election. The 2020 race has already changed that.

The Democratic primaries explain why. Of the 23 Democratic candidates running, 14 have signed the “no fossil fuel money” pledge; 11, by participating in a green fundraising platform, have vowed to address this crisis on day one of their presidency and committed to the goal of 100% clean energy, and at least 22 have mentioned climate change on their campaign websites, according to a BuzzFeed News review. Already, three Democrats have devoted their first detailed policy plan to tackling the climate crisis, and one of them, Washington Gov. Jay Inslee, even launched his campaign on the issue. Inslee and at least eight other candidates are supporting a call for a climate-only primary debate. And now the Democratic National Committee is fundraising on the issue, including with an email Wednesday asking for help electing “Democrats who are fighting to put a stop to climate chaos.”

“The big picture news to me is that for the first time ever, candidates are embracing climate change in a way they never have before,” Kevin Curtis, executive director of NRDC Action Fund, told BuzzFeed News. “That is really wicked cool.”

In recent elections, billionaire Tom Steyer has spent millions through his progressive political action committee NextGen America in support of pro-climate candidates, trying to make climate relevant in races across the country. It hasn’t always worked. Going into 2020, a race he considered joining, he’s more hopeful than ever. “It seems like this year it’s really happening — what we hoped for in 2016 is happening,” Steyer said.

Activists and climate communication experts attribute the shift to a number of factors, including the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s sobering October report, which predicted more dire climate impacts faster than previously anticipated, as well as the deadliest wildfire in California history, on top of damaging hurricanes and floods.

There was also the 2018 midterm elections. That’s when “climate change was beginning, for the first time, to play a significant role in a few races across the country,” although Democrats weren’t running on the issue nationally, said Anthony Leiserowitz, director of the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication.

The aftermath has been a wave of climate action at the state level and in the Democrat-controlled House. On top of this, the Green New Deal campaign has sucked up attention with a call for a comprehensive policy package tackling climate change, health care, pollution and poverty, infrastructure, and the economy together, championed by youth activists from the Sunrise Movement and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York.

During this time, climate change climbed up the list of Democrats’ priorities, according to multiple polls. When asked in a CNN poll from late April to rank how important it was for a Democratic candidate to support “taking aggressive action to slow the effects of climate change,” 82% of the poll respondents that identified as Democrat or Democrat-leaning said it was “very important” and an additional “14%” said it was “somewhat important.”

Two polls this spring suggested Iowa Democrats, who will decide the first 2020 contest, in particular view climate change as among their top issues.

Results from another April poll, this one by Yale’s climate communication program, showed that on a list of 29 important issues for registered voters, climate change ranked third for liberal Democrats, behind environmental protection (second) and health care (first), and ranked eighth for moderate and conservative Democrats. That’s a jump from just a year ago: Last March, the Yale poll found climate change ranked fourth out of 28 issues for liberal Democrats and 16th for moderate and conservative Democrats.

The polling trends are a big reason “why all the Democrats running for president have at least said climate change will be one of their priorities,” Leiserowitz said.

Mark Ralston / AFP / Getty Images

Democratic presidential hopeful Jay Inslee speaks to the media during a tour of the Los Angeles Department of Transportation bus depot May 3.

Inslee announcing his presidential run on March 1 with an opening message exclusively focused on climate change was one of the earliest signs this election cycle was going to be different.

“That’s never happened before,” Leiserowitz said about Inslee’s climate campaign. Multiple environmental activists at the time told BuzzFeed News they hoped his campaign would push the others on this issue.

Nearly three months later, Inslee’s facing competition on climate. The bulk of the Democratic candidates aren’t just talking about climate change — many of them are battling over who has the boldest plan.

Beto O’Rourke, a former Texas representative, was the first candidate to devote his first detailed policy proposal to climate, calling for $5 trillion in funding, net-zero emissions in the US by 2050, and more. “He understands that we must act boldly now to address this urgent threat before it’s too late,” an O’Rourke campaign spokesperson told BuzzFeed News in an email.

Later that same week, Inslee put out the first of what his campaign has promised to be multiple climate proposals, calling for the retirement of all US coal plants by 2030, net-zero emissions in the US by 2045, at the latest, and specific proposals for federal agencies to run on clean energy and dramatically slash emissions from the building and transportation sectors. His follow-up plan called for $9 trillion in funding.

Running on climate is literally paying off for Inslee. According to his campaign, Inslee received an about 40% increase in donations in the weeks following his proposals, helping him surpass 65,000 unique donors, one of the qualifications for the first candidate debates. “I think it speaks to the desire and need for this race to be focused on policy, especially climate action, and the governor is delivering on that in a substantial way,” Jamal Raad, an Inslee campaign spokesperson, told BuzzFeed News.

Last week, Michael Bennet, a senator from Colorado, became the third candidate to focus on climate in his first big policy proposal, calling for $10 trillion in spending for climate solutions in the US and abroad and a focus on boosting climate funding and support for the agriculture sector. “Climate change is one of Michael’s top priorities, and has been for years,” a Bennet spokesperson said in an email.

John Delaney, a former Maryland representative, on Thursday announced his own $4 trillion plan, one that supports a carbon fee and dividend and goes big on funding new research and innovation. South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg similarly called for a climate pricing scheme on his website.

Elizabeth Warren, a senator from Massachusetts, has put out two separate climate-linked proposals, one focused on public lands that calls for a ban on new fossil fuel leases, and a more recent one on how the military can help combat the climate emergency. A campaign aide told BuzzFeed News that Warren has been asked about climate change “in more than 10 town halls and at each one she talks about how important it is that we meet this moment of urgency and act on the climate crisis.”

New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker put out details specific to his environmental justice focus on climate and pollution, such as reauthorizing and increasing the Superfund tax polluting companies have to pay, as well as increasing the staff of the Environmental Protection Agency’s offices that work on environmental justice and enforcement.

Environmentalists are awaiting former vice president Joe Biden’s climate plans, now that he’s in the race and leading polls. An article in Reuters quoted a Biden campaign adviser, saying Biden was looking at a “middle-ground” approach, sparking an immediate backlash from the climate community and a denial from the campaign.

“Vice President Biden believes that climate change is an existential threat to our country and to the entire planet,” a Biden campaign spokesperson told BuzzFeed News in an email. “As president, Biden would enact a bold policy to tackle climate change in a meaningful and lasting way, and will be discussing specifics of that plan in the near future.”

Pacific Press / Getty Images

More than 100 New Yorkers affiliated with the Sunrise Movement gathered in Brooklyn on Feb. 26 to put pressure on Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer to join Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand in cosponsoring the Green New Deal resolution and uniting the Democrats against Mitch McConnell’s divisive tactics.

With more and more candidates sharing their climate priorities, if not releasing full plans, patterns are starting to emerge — areas of overlap and fracture.

A review of all 23 candidates’ websites reveals at least 19 of them mention climate change on the website’s introduction, biography, or issues pages; Rep. Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii and former housing secretary Julián Castro only mention it in descriptions of campaign stops; New York Mayor Bill de Blasio just mentions Trump’s anti-climate efforts in a campaign video and has talked about New York City’s Green New Deal early in his campaign; and Rep. Tim Ryan of Ohio doesn’t mention it at all.

But they are all talking about it. Every candidate, on their websites, on social media, in the press, or on the campaign trail, either directly or through their campaign, have called for the US to stay in the Paris climate agreement, a response to President Donald Trump’s vow to withdraw the country from the global deal as early as possible.

Other areas of overlap: support for the Green New Deal. All but one of the US senators running for president were cosponsors of the Green New Deal resolution introduced in Congress — Kamala Harris of California, Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, Bernie Sanders of Vermont, Warren, and Booker — and an even larger swatch of candidates, from Buttigieg to Florida Mayor Wayne Messam to Massachusetts Rep. Seth Moulton, have endorsed it on their websites.

For the candidates with detailed climate plans, many of them have a high price tag for climate funding and call for the US to reach net-zero emissions in the coming decades.

A subset of candidates offer a vision heavy on investing in innovation and new research and generating new jobs.

And then there are the ways candidates are carving out their own voice in the increasingly crowded space. Warren is the only one to offer a detailed military climate plan. Inslee’s the only one directly calling for the end of coal and providing a plan on how to help fossil fuel workers transition to a new clean energy economy. Booker is the only one who’s outlined specific environmental justice goals. Andrew Yang, a former tech executive, appears to be the only candidate endorsing looking into geoengineering solutions for the climate problem.

Environmental groups are watching all this climate talk critically.

“We feel like the fact that people feel like they have to come up with plans is a fantastic fact,” Steyer said, “but the real question is where does climate fall as a priority in your overall program?”

Steyer said he’s trying to find out about each candidate: “Did you look at the polls and suddenly decide you’re a climate champion?”

He’s the only one to say this so bluntly. But multiple climate advocates interviewed for this story said they are using various measures to determine if a candidate prioritizes the issue as much as they say.

Tiernan Sittenfeld, senior vice president for government affairs at the League of Conservation Voters, said a candidate committing the US to stay in Paris and undoing Trump’s environmental regulatory rollback are simply ��day 1” actions.

Evan Weber, cofounder of the Sunrise Movement, told BuzzFeed News one sign of commitment is whether candidates have signed the “no fossil fuel money” pledge. Just over half the candidates have signed it.

But some, including Delaney, have pushed back on the pledge. The public language of the pledge briefly mentions candidates are agreeing not to take over $200 from political action committees, lobbyists, and executives of the fossil fuel industry, defined as coal, natural gas, and oil companies. But as Delaney told BuzzFeed News on the phone, most of the nation’s utility companies are on the list of companies the pledge organizers put together. “I don’t think I’ve taken any money from fossil fuel executives,” Delaney added, but said, “Why would the head of solar energy at some utility company be someone I’m saying you’re donation to my campaign is something I reject? That just didn’t make sense to me.”

Another test for the Sunrise Movement, which recently deemed Inslee’s climate plan the most ambitious and urged other candidates to follow his lead, is whether candidates support the call for a climate debate. Climate was mostly ignored in the 2016 presidential debates, and activists and some candidates are trying to prevent a repeat. Young activists with the US Youth Climate Strike are also pressing candidates to support such a debate. Several candidates, including Bennet, Castro, Klobuchar, Moulton, Ryan, Sanders, Warren, and Yang, have backed the idea, which started with Inslee. When asked about it, O’Rourke said, “I like that idea.”

To help people better understand a candidate’s climate commitment, the policy and consulting group Climate Advisers rolled out a ranking of all the candidates. Inslee is ranked first, and Biden is second to last.

Some of the current frontrunners in the race have some ways to go, according to Matt Piotrowski, a senior analyst at Climate Advisers. He said the plan is to update the ranking ahead of the first Democratic debate in June.

Climate change’s unusual dominance in the primary could still fade by next fall. If Trump’s withering attacks on the Green New Deal resolution in Congress — and his recent fixation on falsehoods about wind technology — are any indication, he will attack the issue endlessly in the campaign. The Republican Party has already tried to use support for the Green New Deal against Democratic candidates who support it, as they did Tuesday night with Harris.

And the recent polling on climate shows that while Democrats are increasingly embracing the issue, Republicans are not.

“The really interesting thing is that we are in such an unprecedented era of extreme partisan ideological polarization,” said Riley Dunlap, a sociology professor at Oklahoma State University.●

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topsolarpanels · 7 years ago

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Al Gore: ‘The riches have subverted all reason’

With the sequel to his blockbuster documentary An Inconvenient Truth about to be released, Al Gore tells Carole Cadwalladr how his role at the forefront of the fight against climate change eats his life

In the ballroom of a conference centre in Denver, Colorado, 972 people from 42 countries have come together to talk about climate change. It is March 2017, six weeks since Trumps inauguration; eight weeks before Trump will announce to the world that he is withdrawing America from the Paris Climate Agreement.

These are the early dark days of the new America and yet, in the conference centre, the crowd is upbeat. Theyve all paid out of their own pockets to travel to Denver. They have taken time off work. And they are here, in the presence of their master, Al Gore. Because Al Gore is to climate change well, what Donald Trump is to climate change denial.

Disaster zone: extermination in the wake of Superstorm Sandy in New Jersey. Photograph: Mike Groll/ AP

Its 10 years since the reason for this, the documentary An Inconvenient Truth , was released into cinema. It was an improbable project on almost every level: a film about what was then practically a non-subject, starring “the mens” best known for not winning the 2000 US election, its beating heart and the engine of its narrative drive a PowerPoint presentation.

When the filmmakers approached him, he explains to the room, I thought they were nuts. A movie of a slideshow, delivered by Al Gore, what doesnt scream blockbuster about it? Except it was a blockbuster. In documentary words, anyway. The careful accretion of facts and figures genuinely shocked people. And its a measure of the impact it had, and still continues to have, that Gore delivers this vignette to a rapt crowd who, over the course of three days, are learning how to be Climate Reality Leaders.

Its the reason why we are all here his foundation, the Climate Reality Project, an initiative that grew out of the film, provides intensive training in talking about climate change, combating climate change denial and the tone might be described as activist upbeat. This is a crisis that is solvable, were told. Trump is just another hitch, another impediment to overcome. And it will be overcome. Only occasionally does a sliver of desperation leak around the edges. You have to stay positive, a man called David Ellenberger tells the audience. Though sometimes, he acknowledges: Theres not sufficient Prozac to get through the day.

Its almost a relief to hear person acknowledge this. Because before there was FAKE NEWS !!! and the FAILING New York Times ! Trump was tweeting about GLOBAL WARMING hoaxsters! and GLOBAL WARMING bullshit! The war on the mainstream media may capture the headlines currently, but the war against climate change science has been in play for years. And its this that is one of the most fascinating aspects of Gores new cinema, An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power . Because if the US had a subtitle at the moment, it might be that, too, and the struggle to overcome fake facts and false narrations shall be financed by corporate interests and politically motivated billionaires is one that Gore has been at the frontline of for more than a decade.

Breaking phase: a huge fissure in the Larsen C ice shelf in the Antarctica. Photograph: Nasa/ John Sonntag/ EPA

The film runs through a host of facts that 14 of the 15 hottest years on record have passed since 2001 is just one. And the accompanying footage is biblical, frightening: tornadoes, deluges, rainfall bombs, exploding glaciers. We find roads falling into rivers and fish swimming through the street of Miami.

The nightly news, Gore says, has become a nature hike through the Book of Revelations. But what his run has shown and continues to show is that evidence is sufficient to. The film opens with clips from Fox News ridiculing global warming. In recent weeks, the New York Times has started describing the Trump administration as waging a war on science, a full-on assault against evidence-based science that runs in parallel with his attacks on evidence-based reporting. And Gore is in something of a unique position to understand this. What becomes clear over the course of several conversations is how entwined he believes it all is climate change refusal, the interests of big capital, dark money, billionaire political funders, the dominance of Trump and what he calls( hes written a volume on it) the assault against reason. They are all pieces of the same puzzle; a puzzle that Gore has been tracking for years, because it turns out that climate change denial was the canary in the coal mine.

In order to fix the climate crisis, we need to first fix the government crisis, he says. Big money has so much influence now. And he says a phrase that is as dramatic as it is multilayered: Our democracy has been hacked. Its something I hear him recur to the audience in the ballroom, in a room backstage, a few a few weeks later in London, and finally on the phone earlier this month.

Popular backlash: protesters demonstrate against the Koch brothers, funders of climate change denial. Photo: Nicholas Kamm/ AFP/ Getty Images

What do you entail by it exactly? I mean that those with access to large amounts of fund and raw power, says Gore, have been able to subvert all reason and fact in collective decision making. The Koch friends are the largest funders of climate change refusal. And ExxonMobil claims it has stopped, but it genuinely hasnt. It has given a one-quarter of a billion dollars in donations to climate denial groups. Its clear they attempt to cripple our ability to respond to this existential threat.

One of Trumps first acts after his inauguration was to remove all mentions of climate change from federal websites. More overlooked is that one of Theresa Mays first actions on becoming prime minister within 24 hours of taking office was to close the Department for Energy and Climate Change; subsequently gifts from oil and gas companies to the Conservative party continued to roll in. And what is increasingly apparent is that the same think tank that operate in the Nations are also at work in Britain, and climate change denial operating the a bridgehead: unifying the right and providing an entry road for other tenets of Alt-Right notion. And, its this network of power that Gore has had to try to understand, in order to find a way to combat it.

In Tennessee we have an expression: If you consider a turtle on top of a fence post, you can be pretty sure it didnt get there by itself. And if you watch these levels of climate denial, you can be pretty sure it didnt merely spread itself. The big carbon polluters have expended between$ 1bn and$ 2bn spreading false doubt. Do you know the book, Merchants of Doubt ? It documents how the tobacco industry discredited the consensus on cigarette smoking and cancer by creating doubt, and shows how its linked to the climate denial movement. They hired many of the same PR firms and some of the same think tanks. And, in fact, some of those who work on climate change refusal actually still dispute the connection between cigarette smoking and lung cancer.

End of the road: the Gave de Pau river overflows after unseasonal storms in France. Photo: Laurent Dard/ AFP/ Getty Images

The big change between our first dialogue in Denver and our last, on the phone this month, is the news that Gore had been desperately hoping wouldnt happen: Trumps announcement on 1 June that he was pulling America out of the Paris Agreement. The negotiations in Paris are right at the heart of the new movie, its emotional centre, and when I watch it in March, the ending still find Gore carrying guarded optimism.

So , what happened? I was wrong, he says on the phone from Australia, where hes been promoting the film. Based on what he told me, I definitely supposed there was a better than even chance he might choose to stay in. But I was wrong. I was fearful that other countries for whom it was a close call would follow his result, but Im thrilled the reaction has been exactly the opposite. The other 19 members of the G20 have reiterated that Paris is irreversible. And governors and mayors all over the country have been saying we are all still in and, in fact, its just going to stimulate us redouble our commitments.

The film “mustve been” recut, the ending changed, the gloves are now off. What changed Trumps mind? I suppose Steve Bannon and his crowd set a big push on Trump and persuaded him that he needed to give this to his base advocates. He had blood in his eyes. Its instructive because Bannon, Trumps chief strategist, is also the ideologue behind Trumps assault on the media. And Bannons understanding of the news and information space, and make further efforts to manipulate it via Breitbart News and Cambridge Analytica, both funded by another key climate change denier, Robert Mercer, are at the heart of the Trump agenda.

And what becomes clear if you Google climate change is how effective the right has been in owning the subject. YouTubes results are dominated by nothing but climate change denial videos. This isnt news for Gore. He has multiple high-level links to Silicon Valley. Hes on the board of Apple and used to be an adviser for Google. We are fully aware of their own problems, he says with what sounds like resigned understatement. Gore has had more than a decade fighting climate change refusal, and in some respects, the problem has simply worsened and deepened.

On the other hand, two-thirds of the American people are convinced that its an extremely serious crisis and we have to take it on, he says. And there is a law of physics that every action makes an equal and opposite reaction. And I do think there is a reaction to the Trump/ Brexit/ Alt-Right populist authoritarianism around the world. People who took liberal democracy more or less for granted are now awakening to a sense that it can only be defended by the people themselves.

Man on a mission: Al Gore in An Inconvenient Truth. Photo: Paramount Pictures

And its in this, his belief in social progress against all odds, that he takes his result from the civil rights motion. The cut of the cinema I see compares the climate change movement to the other great social movements that eventually won out: the abolition of slavery, womens suffrage, civil right. Something profound and disturbing is happening right now, though, he admits. The information system is in such a chaotic transition and people are deluged with so much noise that it devotes an opening for Trump and his forces to wage war against facts and reason.

Is it, as some people describe, an info war? Absolutely, he says. Theres no question about it.

What there isnt much of, in the film, is Al Gore, “the mens”. In 2010, he split from Tipper, his wife of 40 years and the mother of his two grown-up daughters, and what becomes clear is just how much of his life the fight takes up. When I catch up with him next, hes in London for a board meeting of his green-focused investment firm, Generation Investment Management, and I ask him to tell me about his recent travels.

Two weeks ago, I had three red-eyes in five days. Ive been in Sweden, the Netherlands, Sharjah, then lets insure, San Francisco, New York, Los Angeles. Where else? he asks his assistant.

Vegas, she says. We did CinemaCon.

Vegas, we did that. And then, lets ensure, Nashville, on my farm.

Focus on facts: Al Gore in An Inconvenient Sequel. Photo: Courtesy of the Sundance Institute

I assume this sum of travelling is connected to the release of the film, but no. Ive been at this level for the past 10 years and longer. He hesitates to use the word mission, he says, and then use it. When you feel a sense of purpose that seems to justify pouring everything you can into it, it induces it easier to get up in the morning.

He does tell me a bit about his parents though. He describes his father, Al Gore Sr, who grew up poor then became a lawyer and a legislator, as a hero to me. And it was at the family farm in Carthage, Tennessee, that he held the first Climate Reality training, an informal get-together of 50 people that has morphed into the event I witnessed in Denver. Theres no type or demographic, I shared a table with a disparate group including a consultant for the aerospace industry, a French lawyer and an American cook. And they seemed to have almost nothing in common aside from their passion to do something about climate change. Im a gardener so Im assuring whats happening with my own eyes, the cook, Susan Kutner, told me. You cant ignore it.

In light of Trumps fixation with fake news, its fascinating to find. Gore has been fighting disinformation for more than a decade. And, hes developed his educate program counter to the predominating ideology. The answer is not online. Social media will not save us. We will not click climate change away. The answer hes come up with is low-tech, old-fashioned, human. He takes the time to talk to people immediately, one to one, in the hope they will speak to other people who will speak to other people.

The course is run by Gore. He is on stage virtually the entire time over three intensive days. And the heart of it is still the slideshow. One of his aides tells me how he was up until 2am the night before. Hes preoccupied with his slides, he has 30,000 of them and he switches them around all the time.

Tinder dry: changing climate has find an upturn in woodland flames around the world. Photo: Jae C Hong/ AP

In the movie, you consider him perpetually hustling, calling world leaders, rounding up solar energy entrepreneurs, developing activists. Hearing information from people you know is at the heart of his strategy. You need people who will look you in the eye and say: Look, this is what Ive learned, this is what you need to know. It works. Ive watched it run. It is working. And its just getting started. Weve get 12,000 trained leaders now.

How many people do you think its impacted?

Millions. Honestly, millions. And a non- trivial percentage of them have gone on to become pastors in their countries governments or take leadership roles in international organisations. Theyve had an outsized impact. Christiana Figueres[ the UN climate chief ], who operated the Paris meeting, she was in the second training session I did in Tennessee. And, right now, people are get really fired up.

Al Gore shared the Nobel Prize in 2007 for his efforts in combating climate change, but in some way it feels like hes just getting started. The rest of the world is only now cottoning on to the enlightenment battle thats at the heart of it a battle royal to defend facts and reason against people and forces-out for whom its a truth too inconvenient to permit. For Gore, the US oil companies are the ultimate culprits, but its only just becoming apparent that Russia has also played a role, amplifying messages around climate change as it did around the other issues at the heart of Trumps agenda, and we segue into his visits to Russia in the early 90 s, during one of which he fulfilled Putin for the first time.

What did you induce of him? I would not have thought of him as the future chairperson of Russia. I once did a televised town hall event to the whole of Russia and Putin was the one who was in charge of inducing sure all the cables were connected and whatnot.

Revenge is tweet: an image of Trump is projected by Greenpeace on to the US Embassy in Berlin after he declared that America was pulling out of the Paris Climate Agreement. Photo: Michael Sohn/ AP

What does he construct of the investigations into Russian interference? I guess the investigation of the Trump campaigns collusions with the Russians and the existence of fiscal levers of Putin over Trump is proceeding with its own rhythm beneath the news cycle, and may well ten-strike pay dirt. Its also worth pointing out that when someone passed his campaign stolen information about George W Bushs debate research, he handed it to the FBI.

And then he astounds me by pulling out a reference to an interview I conducted with Arron Bank, the Bristol businessman who funded Nigel Farages Leave campaign. Hes been reading up about the links between Brexit and Trump, and Bankss and Farages support of Putin and Russia. He told you: Russia needs a strong man, didnt he? And you hear that in the US, and I dont think its fair to the Russians. I am a true disciple in the superiority of representative republic where there is a healthy ecosystem characterised by free speech and an informed citizenry. I genuinely defy the slur against any nation that theyre incapable of governing themselves.

Brexit, Trump, climate change, oil producers, dark fund, Russian influence, a full- frontal assault on facts, evidence, journalism, science, its all connected. Ask Al Gore. You may want to watch Wonder Woman the summer months, but to understand the new reality were living in, you really should watch An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power . Because, scaring because this is, in some ways the times of typhoons and exploding glaciers are just the start of it.

Al Gore Live in Conversation followed by a screening of An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power , for one night merely Friday 11 August in cinemas everywhere. Book your tickets at po.st/ aninconvenientsequel An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power is in cinema everywhere from 18 August. The cinema also opens the Film4 Summer Screen at Somerset House, 10 -2 3 August, somersethouse.org.uk

The Observer Ethical Awardings: how to enter

To vote, going to see theguardian.com/ environment/ 2017/ jul/ 25/ vote-in-the-observer-ethical-awards-2 017 or email ethical.awards @observer. co.uk with the category title in the subject header. Then tell us in no more than 200 words why you, or your nominee, deserves to be recognised. Feel free to attach paintings, a short movie or relevant connections. The closing date is 15 September. For more information, going to see observer.co.uk/ ethical-awards

Read more: www.theguardian.com

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repwincoml4a0a5 · 8 years ago

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The 'Nerd For Science' Challenging The Biggest Climate Denier In Congress

WASHINGTON — On Memorial Day weekend 2015, three storms converged over Texas and Oklahoma. The clouds that gathered over drought-stricken Central Texas promised rain, but no one expected the record-breaking rainfall and catastrophic flooding that hammered the region.

The storms dumped up to 10 inches inches of rain and brought tornadoes and historic flooding. Near San Marcos, the Blanco River surged to 2 feet above flood stage, sending water raging into the city, ripping homes from their foundations and causing nearly $3 billion in damage. More than two dozen people died in Texas alone. Emergency personnel had to rescue hundreds more.

In the wake of the catastrophe, The Texas Observer declared it the “climate disaster” that had finally hit home. But Rep. Lamar Smith — the Texas Republican whose persistent opposition to climate science ironically landed him the top seat in the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology — made no mention of climate change’s role in the disaster and instead praised fellow Texans for their resilience and spirit.

His congressional district, which includes parts of Austin and San Antonio, was among the hardest-hit areas. For Smith, the storm’s lesson was that weather forecasting needed to improve, saying, “We must do everything we can to save lives and protect property from severe weather events.�� But not only did Smith continue to ignore the role climate change may have played in the storms, he also has spent the last five years as chair of the committee trying to defund climate research and harassing federal climate scientists whom he has accused of playing “fast and loose” with data.

Smith, who lives in San Antonio, has sprinted to defend the fossil fuel industry ― namely Exxon Mobil Corp. ― from probes into their own records on climate change and has used his power on the science committee to push his own anti-science agenda, stacking hearings with coal and chemical lobbyists and climate skeptics.

These are the antics that prompted Derrick Crowe, a 36-year-old climate activist and progressive organizer, to announce his Democratic bid to unseat the 16-term congressman earlier this month.

“It was really alarming to watch as people like Lamar Smith were not responding with alarm or with concern but were trying to stop that message from getting out,” Crowe said. “And that I felt was hugely dangerous and really worrying.”

Crowe also pointed to the fact that Smith has received more than $700,000 from the oil and gas industry since 1989.

“Lamar Smith has shown us exactly what it looks like when our worst fears about corporate power in politics come true,” Crowe said. “Here we have a member of Congress who’s being told by every reputable expert in the field that if he does not change his policies that his communities are headed for disaster, and he is ignoring them. And it just so happens that it’s very lucrative for him as a campaigner to do so.”

Crowe’s campaign comes amid a groundswell of support for scientists and climate advocates running for office, a response to the Trump administration’s assault on research funding and scientific integrity. The nonprofit 314 Action political action committee, launched last year, recently kicked off a fresh effort to fund and support scientists and give them a crash course in political campaigning, similar to EMILY’s List support for female Democratic candidates who back abortion rights. Climate Hawks Vote, a political action group founded in 2013, will lead a training program April 30 — the day after the People’s Climate March — in Washington, D.C., to support climate leaders interested in running for office. And Lead Locally, an environmental group launched earlier this month, is recruiting candidates for local government who will fight against fossil fuel interests.

Crowe has roughly six years’ experience working on Capitol Hill, including as a staffer for Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and most recently as communications director for Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash.), so he understands the challenges of congressional life. And while he didn’t envision running for public office himself, he said he couldn’t sit back and watch Smith ignore his constituents, dismiss science and threaten future generations.

Crowe grew up in Sunray, a small town in the Texas panhandle, and graduated from Texas Tech University with a degree in political science. He and his wife, also a Texas native, moved to Austin about a year and a half ago to raise their young son. Crowe is now the communications director for The SAFE Alliance, a nonprofit in Austin working to end child abuse, sexual assault and domestic violence.

A self-declared “nerd for science,” Crowe said he has become increasingly worried about climate change in the last few years, as global temperature records topple. In 2015, he created a YouTube channel called Carbon Freeze, which featured videos about the urgency of the climate threat and Smith’s denialism.

Crowe has never cared for Smith, but he says the “final straw” was the congressman’s early support for President Donald Trump, along with the thought of what a Smith-Trump agenda could mean for his son’s future.

“The future gets really concrete when it’s looking at you from the crib,” he said. “By the time my son graduates high school, if Lamar Smith has his way, we will blow the carbon budget for staying below temperatures that would trigger catastrophic climate change. And I can’t let that happen without trying to get him out of office.”

Taking on a long-standing incumbent on a science-oriented platform may be challenging. But in places where the effects of climate change are already apparent and tangible, such a move has precedent. Take South Miami Mayor Philip Stoddard, for example. When the Florida International University biology professor ran against five-term incumbent Horace Feliu in 2004, he thought he stood little chance of winning. But when he began knocking on constituents’ doors, he found that pitching himself as an honest, fact-based thinker by trade was a competitive advantage.

“I said, ‘Look, I’m a scientist. My career is based on my reputation as an honest person. I’m not going to tell you a lie because, if I do, I don’t have a career,’” Stoddard told HuffPost by phone between classes in his office at the college. “And they elected me. They keep electing me.”

“I know Donald Trump got elected promising the moon and the stars, but I’ve always found people appreciate it when you tell them the truth,” he added. “The public is hungry for someone to tell us the truth and make evidence-based decisions.”

The biggest challenge for any scientist may be learning how to tailor a technical speech and tendency for jargon to suit political audiences.

“A scientist takes on every question and answer at face value, but in the political realm you have to be a little more sophisticated,” Stoddard said. “People will throw gotcha questions, and people will throw out questions to make you stumble. You have to take control of your message.”

That said, voters may appreciate a candidate who speaks bluntly about climate change when the top leaders in the U.S. government have refused to accept the overwhelming scientific consensus on global warming.

Crowe is not a scientist. But he does his best to stay on top of science news, is an advocate for science-based policy and finds Smith’s repeated attacks on the scientific community appalling. And he puts stock in the 97 percent of climate research that supports the finding that climate change is real and that humans are the primary cause — a figure Smith maintains is false.

“If 97 percent of doctors told you that you were going to die without a surgery, you would have that surgery, no problem,” Crowe said. “And you would be a very unwise person to say that those 97 percent of doctors are engaged in a conspiracy against you.”

Crowe believes Texans are coming to understand that Smith is advocating for something other than his constituents’ interests.

“I think that is everyone’s worst fear: that our democracy is sold to the highest bidders,” Crowe added. “And if we’re going to save ourselves from that, we have to vote people like that out of office.”

Unseating a 30-year incumbent in a historically Republican district won’t be easy. Crowe understands that, but his campaign has received an extraordinary response in just the first few weeks since he announced his candidacy, he said. He pointed to Smith’s percentage of the vote dipping below 60 in last year’s election, blue voters moving into a heavily gerrymandered district and the congressman losing the support of his conservative hometown newspaper last October as signs he has a fighting chance. (In November, Smith’s Democratic opponent, Tom Wakely, tallied 36 percent of the vote to Smith’s 57 percent.)

The future gets really concrete when it’s looking at you from the crib. Derrick Crowe, who is challenging Rep. Lamar Smith

“There’s a lot of indicators in this race to show that it’s winnable and that [Smith] has finally gone too far in this anti-climate change science crusade,” Crowe said.

Crowe isn’t alone in wanting to rid Congress of Smith. Also considering a run on the Democratic ticket is Joseph Kopser, an aerospace engineer and Army veteran from Austin. Kopser told PBS NewsHour this week that, although Smith is a “nice gentleman,” he “has a view toward science and technology that is not helpful in terms of where our economy is going.”

Smith is among a trio of Republicans that 314 Action is targeting for their anti-science views. Others include Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.) and Smith’s fellow science committee member Steve Knight (R-Calif.). Jess Phoenix, a volcanologist and president of the environmental nonprofit Blueprint Earth, plans to challenge Knight next year. “If we want to step up and make sure science is not silenced,” Phoenix said in a recent interview with BuzzFeed, “we have to give it a voice.”

“We have two missions: One is we want to see more people with scientific and technical backgrounds elected, and two is we want to hold responsible elected officials that don’t base policy on sound science,” 314 Action founder Shaughnessy Naughton told HuffPost. “I would put Lamar Smith very high on that list.”

Last week, the group held an event at American University in Washington, D.C., to provide media training and campaign tips to would-be candidates. Dozens of scientists attended the conference, which took place two days before the March for Science — a rally to engage more scientists in politics and protest Trump’s policies.

“There’s so much revulsion at Trump’s priorities,” Naughton said. “That fight has made us more visible.”

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stormdoors78476 · 8 years ago

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The 'Nerd For Science' Challenging The Biggest Climate Denier In Congress

His congressional district, which includes parts of Austin and San Antonio, was among the hardest-hit areas. For Smith, the storm’s lesson was that weather forecasting needed to improve, saying, “We must do everything we can to save lives and protect property from severe weather events.” But not only did Smith continue to ignore the role climate change may have played in the storms, he also has spent the last five years as chair of the committee trying to defund climate research and harassing federal climate scientists whom he has accused of playing “fast and loose” with data.