OMNI CLIMATE MEMO MONDAYS, #136, JULY 17, 2023

 

 OMNI CLIMATE MEMO MONDAYS, #136, JULY 17, 2023
Art Hobson, Leaving FF in the Ground.
Kenny Stancil.  Methane Leaks As Bad as Coal.
Kendra Pierre-Louis.  Hollywood Avoids CC.
Kyubin Kim.  CC? Change? Catastrophe? Chaos?

 

“Global warming credibility gap.  Will the promised goals be met?”
Art Hobson, ahobson@uark.edu   NWADG, 11 July 2023.

          Humankind has finally achieved the first goal required to prevent disastrous global warming:  Civilized people finally recognize this as a real threat caused by fossil fuels and deforestation.  Just as the cigarette industry knew the danger of their product but lied about it, the fossil fuel industry knew the dangers of global warming by 1980 and devoted the next four decades to denying it. 

          Because it's an inherently international problem, it's appropriate that the United Nations has played a leading role in scientifically understanding it and finding real-world solutions.  As the UN's heroic Secretary-General Antonio Guterres knows, this is probably the most difficult problem humankind has ever faced, more difficult and more consequential than the World Wars. 

          Civilization faced a similar problem, atmospheric ozone depletion, during the 1980s.  The opposition was similar.  It was labeled a hoax. Industry said banning the products that destroyed ozone would sink the economy.  The world got together, enacted a rational solution, and the atmosphere is now recovering.

          As Guterres put it, "The problem is not simply fossil fuel emissions.  It's fossil fuels--period.  The world must phase out fossil fuels in a just and equitable way--moving to leave oil, coal, and gas in the ground.  Fossil fuel industry transition plans must be transformation plans that chart a company's move to clean energy and away from a product incompatible with human survival."  MORE

 

 Kenny Stancil.   “Study shows methane leaks put climate risk from gas ‘on par with coal’.”  Editor.  mronline.org (7-16-23). 

If fracked gas leaks, even a little, "it's as bad as coal," said the lead author. "It can't be considered a good bridge, or substitute."
Originally published: Common Dreams  on July 13, 2023  (more by Common Dreams)  |  (Posted Jul 15, 2023).     Climate Change, Environment, Health, StrategyGlobalNewswireFossil Fuel Industry, Methane

The fossil fuel industry has long argued that fracked gas can serve as a “bridge” to a renewable-powered future, but a new study confirms that uncontrolled leaks make it as dangerous for the climate as coal.  [What have your gas and electric companies claimed?  Give them a call.]

 

Two Articles in Mother Jones on CC.  The editor placed them back to back.

Kendra Pierre-Louis.  “Too Hot for Hollywood.”   (July August 2023).

Why, with climate change so palpably on, in, and all around us do so few films take cc as their subject?

Kyubin Kim.  “State of Emergency.”    Why is the label “disaster” so inadequate, while calamity and catastrophe and emergency are more accurate for the cc?   Or are they too already inadequate?  [Climate Chaos?]