topic: Climate Change Denial

topic: Climate Change Denial

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Experts highlight importance of ‘prebunking’ to combat climate disinformation
- For journalists covering climate change and other complex issues, battling disinformation is a major challenge.
- Disinformation experts use a method called “prebunking” to reveal deceptive techniques and guard against manipulation; it’s a proactive approach, rooted in inoculation theory in psychology, which encourages critical thinking in the face of false information.
- However, the method faces cultural obstacles in some countries such as Bhutan; communication professionals say journalists and local communities should receive training so they are informed about climate science and other relevant subjects in order to fight disinformation.

Bad weather knocks down Brazil’s grain production as ‘exhaustively forewarned’
- Brazil’s agricultural GDP declined by 8% in the first quarter of 2022 due to a severe drought in the country’s south caused by a rare triple-dip La Niña.
- In Rio Grande do Sul, the nation’s southernmost state, 56% of last year’s total soy harvest was lost, harming thousands of farmers.
- Scientists warn that climate change will make Brazil’s southern region, an agribusiness stronghold, widespread crop losses more common.
- Despite warnings, climate denial in the agriculture sector is getting in the way of mitigation efforts as the government of President Jair Bolsonaro and the agribusiness lobby push an anti-environmental agenda.

Energy-guzzling McMansions make the American dream a climate nightmare
- A new study finds that wealthy Americans living in spacious houses in upscale neighborhoods are responsible for 25% more greenhouse gas emissions on average than those living in smaller homes in poorer areas.
- The U.S. has one of the highest per capita emissions of any country, and residential properties account for almost a quarter of the country’s total carbon footprint, larger than the total emissions for Germany.
- By looking at energy consumption patterns of nearly 100 million households from 2015, the researchers found out that Maine, Vermont and Wisconsin were the largest consumers of energy that year.
- Only if homes are smaller and more tightly packed together, the power grid is cleaner, and energy consumption is reduced, would the U.S. be able to achieve emissions reductions targets for homes laid down in the Paris Agreement, the study says.

Interfaith leaders step up to protect the world’s ‘sacred’ rainforests
- In June 2017 — in response to the planetary climate crisis — Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Buddhist, Hindu and Taoist religious leaders joined hands with indigenous peoples from five tropical countries to form the Interfaith Rainforest Initiative (IRI) — devoted to protecting the world’s last great rainforests.
- Since then, IRI has worked to engage congregations of all faiths around the globe in an effort to, through political pressure, protect the rainforests of Brazil, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Indonesia, Colombia and Peru — accounting for 70 percent of the world’s tropical forests.
- During Climate Week at the United Nations in New York City starting September 22, IRI will unveil its Faiths for Forests Declaration and action agenda, jumpstarting its global campaign to harness faith-based leadership and the faithful in recognizing tropical forests as “sacred” and humanity’s obligation to provide stewardship to these great bastions of biodiversity.
- IRI recognizes the staggering scope of the challenges that lay ahead — to create and energize a worldwide interfaith movement that will successfully pressure national governments to act on climate — national governments that have long backed industrial agribusiness, mining and timber extraction within the world’s last great rainforests.

Our brains can lead us astray when making ‘eco-friendly’ decisions
- Humans rely on a set of cognitive tools, developed to help us sustain interpersonal relationships, to govern our choices that affect the global climate, a pair of psychologists suggests.
- People who purchase food with “eco-friendly” labeling might be apt to buy more of it thinking of it as an offset, when, in reality, all consumption has a climate cost.
- The team suggests that more accurate labeling could help consumers understand which choices are “less bad” rather than “good” for the environment.

The science of combating climate science misinformation
- Researchers are increasingly looking into how to counter the climate science misinformation being fed to the public, and a study published in the journal Nature Climate Change this month rounds up some of the key insights from this emerging field of research.
- Researchers identified a number of crucial advancements in the social sciences and used them as the basis of a coordinated set of strategies for confronting the institutional network that enables the spread of climate science misinformation.
- The researchers grouped those strategies into four inter-connected issue areas — public inoculation, legal strategies, political mechanisms, and financial transparency.

COP24: Summit a step forward, but fails to address climate urgency
- COP24 ran into overtime over the weekend as delegates rushed to approve the Paris rulebook to set up a detailed mechanism for accomplishing and gauging the carbon reduction pledges made by the world’s nations in Paris at the end of 2015.
- But considering the urgency of action needed – with just 12 years left to act decisively to significantly cut emissions, according to an October IPCC science report – the COP24 summit proved to be less successful than many participants had hoped.
- On the negative side: the U.S., Russia and Saudi Arabia tried to undermine the gravity of the IPCC science report. Brazil successfully scuttled plans for an international carbon market. And COP24 failed to address the bioenergy carbon counting loophole, which incentivizes the harvesting and burning of trees to make energy by calling the process carbon neutral.
- On the positive side, “1,000 tiny steps” were made, including an improved transparency framework for reporting emissions; regular assessments called Global Stocktake to gauge emissions-reduction effectiveness at national levels starting in 2023; and an agreement to set new finance goals in 2020 to help vulnerable nations adapt to a warming world.

COP24: Will they stay or will they go? Brazil’s threat to leave Paris
- In October, Brazil elected far-right candidate Jair Bolsonaro to the presidency. During the campaign, he threatened to withdraw from the Paris Climate Agreement, implement extreme environmental deregulation policies, and introduce mining into Amazon indigenous reserves, while also using incendiary language which may be inciting violence in remote rural areas.
- Just days before his election, Bolsonaro contradicted his past utterances, saying he won’t withdraw from the Paris accord. At COP24, the Brazilian delegation has fielded questions from concerned attendees, but it appears that no one there knows with certainty what the volatile leader will do once in office. He begins his presidency on the first of the year.
- Even if Bolsonaro doesn’t pull out of Paris, his plans to develop the Amazon, removing most regulatory impediments to mining and agribusiness, could have huge ramifications for the global climate. The Amazon, the world’s largest rainforest, stores massive amounts of carbon. Deforestation rates are already going up there, and likely to grow under Bolsonaro.
- Some in Brazil hope that environmental and economic realities will prevent Bolsonaro from fully implementing his plans. Escalating deforestation is already reducing Amazon rainfall, putting aquifers and agribusiness at risk. Agricultural producers also fear global consumer perceptions of Brazil as being anti-environmental could lead to a backlash and boycotts.

COP24: Trumpers tout clean coal; protesters call it ‘climate suicide’
- As in 2017, the Trump administration delegation was again at COP, seriously praising coal as a climate solution in a public presentation Monday – but behind the scenes the U.S. delegation is reportedly less incendiary and more cooperative. The Polish government is also heavily promoting the dirtiest of fossil fuels at the two-week-long Katowice event.
- But protestors, subnationals and NGOs are having none of it. COP24 participants treated the Trump administration coal public presentation with outrage, as a freakish sideshow and a joke. They used the event to send the message that decarbonization is the only way forward – as a means of curbing climate change, while boosting local economies and creating jobs.
- “It’s ludicrous for Trump officials to claim that they want to clean up fossil fuels, while dismantling standards that would do just that,” said Dan Lashof, director, World Resources Institute US.
- “More and more companies are committing to renewable energy, reducing emissions, and striving for a just [energy] transition that protects the wellbeing of all workers,” said Aron Cramer, CEO of BSR, a sustainability consulting firm in San Francisco.

COP24: US, Russia, Saudis downplay IPCC report in display of disunity
- The U.S., Russia, Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait rejected language strongly affirming the severity of global warming at the COP24 summit in Poland on Saturday night. The United States is in the process of withdrawing from the Paris Climate Agreement, while Russia has failed so far to ratify the accord.
- Some fear this could signal further obstruction this week by major oil producing nations as national leaders arrive at COP24 to wrestle with resolving a host of difficult issues, including an upping of Paris carbon-reduction pledges, completion of the Paris Rulebook measuring energy production, transportation, agriculture, and deforestation to curb climate change.
- Also, to be worked out, transparency rules on emissions, and plans for wealthy nations to help support poor nations adapt to climate damage. This daunting agenda isn’t helped by the leadership void created when the U.S. pulled back from the Paris agreement after Democrat Barack Obama was replaced as president by Republican Donald Trump.
- At COP24, Tom Steyer, a prominent U.S. environmental activist, said that “nothing short of transformational politics” in the United States will get international climate action back on track. He sees U.S. leadership as essential to preventing the worst impacts of global warming. But such a sea change won’t likely come until after the 2020 presidential election.

COP24: World’s nations gather to grapple with looming climate disaster
- Representatives from nearly 200 nations gathered in Katowice, Poland on Sunday for COP24, the annual meeting of the Conference of the Parties, to move forward on climate action. The goal: keep global temperatures from rising less than 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) by 2100.
- Unfortunately for the planet, the COP mechanism has stalled since its 2015 triumph in Paris when the world’s nations agreed to work together to cut carbon emissions. To date, just seven nations, most of them tiny, are on track to reduce emissions to meet the 2 degree Celsius goal, while the U.S. is on track to withdraw from the accord by 2020.
- Today, subnationals – cities, states, regions, businesses, faith organizations, indigenous groups, and NGOs – are providing much of the initiative and impetus for cutting emissions. They are working together in a variety of ways, to reduce deforestation and improve agricultural land use, for example. They will have a major presence at COP24.
- But while subnational efforts are commendable and important, they are not near enough, experts say. With the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and other scientific organizations, publishing increasingly dire forecasts, urgently calling for climate action, it is vital that nations prioritize climate action and move quickly to decarbonize their economies.

As climate change takes its toll, world leaders call for adaptation
- A new global initiative led by former U.N. secretary-general Ban Ki-moon aims to help the world adapt to the fallout from a changing climate.
- The Global Commission on Adaptation differs from current climate initiatives, which focus largely on mitigation, i.e. efforts to slow the emissions of greenhouse gases.
- The launch of the commission comes in the shadow of a new U.N. report warning of dire consequences from climate change affecting hundreds of millions of people around the world unless the global temperature rise is kept below 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit).
- But even if this is achieved, Ban says, irreversible changes have been made that are already manifesting as unseasonal heat waves, more destructive storms, and other extreme weather events — which will require adaptation rather than mitigation by countries worldwide.

Analysis: U.S. call to drill off all coasts, economic and ecological folly?
- 90 billion barrels of recoverable oil, plus 327 trillion cubic feet of natural gas lie untapped offshore on the U.S. continental shelf. In January, the Trump administration ordered that the entire coast, in the Pacific, Atlantic, Gulf, and Arctic, be opened to drilling.
- Environmentalists and the coastal states fear oil spills that could devastate tourism. They also are concerned about the massive infrastructure (pipelines, terminals, refineries, pumping stations and more) that would be needed to support the industry.
- The executive branch has moved forward with efficiency to create a surge in U.S. oil and gas production: the Interior and Energy departments, and the Environmental Protection Agency have all worked to slash regulations and open additional lands and seas to oil and gas exploration, with the plan of achieving U.S. “energy dominance” around the globe.
- Most coastal states are resisting the federal oil and gas offshore drilling plan; Florida has already been exempted, while other states are likely to fight back with lawsuits. The irony is that a flood of new U.S. oil could glut the market and drive prices down, resulting in an economic disaster for the industry.

A tale of two policies: climate change, Trump, and the U.S. military
- The U.S. military is preparing for a changing climate, but not in order to protect the Earth’s environment. The Pentagon’s first and foremost concern is to respond to global warming only in so far as that response enhances the military’s “operational effectiveness” – its ability to fight.
- Jim Mattis, President Trump’s own Secretary of Defense, has spoken out about the dangers of climate change, running contrary to the commander-in-chief whose recently announced National Security Strategy omitted it as a threat. Analysts expect the military to continue with its climate change adaptation and preparedness programs, despite the President’s denialism.
- However, even as the U.S. military takes steps to make itself more fuel and energy efficient, the Department of Defense remains the world’s largest institutional fossil fuel guzzler.
- Critics say the greening of the military is positive, but not if its growth comes at the expense of U.S. climate programs at EPA and the State Department. Big increases in the military’s size, pushed by Trump and Congress, are only going to make the Pentagon’s and the world’s carbon emissions worse – which could ultimately impact national security and “operational effectiveness.”

Trump threatens NASA climate satellite missions as Congress stalls
- Donald Trump’s proposed 2018 budget would cut four NASA Earth Observation projects including three climate satellite missions: the Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, ocean Ecosystem (PACE) mission; Climate Absolute Radiance and Refractivity Observatory (CLARREO) pathfinder; and Orbiting Carbon Observatory-3 (OCO-3).
- These missions are critical to ongoing climate change research, as well as to weather and air pollution forecasting. Without them, international scientists lose their “eyes in the sky” with potentially disastrous consequences for people not only in the United States, but the world round.
- The U.S. Congress has the final say on whether these satellite programs go forward or not. Their vote on the 2018 budget was delayed from September to December 2017, and now to 19 January, 2018. Whether the vote will occur then, or what the outcome might be, remains in question.
- As a result of Trump’s threatened cuts the international scientific community has been left in great uncertainty. It is currently scrambling to find a way to replace NASA’s planned Earth Observation missions and continue vital climate change, weather and pollution monitoring.

IUCN, UN, global NGOs, likely to see major budget cuts under Trump
- President Donald Trump has proposed cutting foreign aid funding to nations and inter-governmental organizations by 32 percent, about $19 billion – cuts the U.S. Congress has yet to vote on. Voting has been delayed since September, and is next scheduled for 19 January, though another delay may occur.
- One inter-governmental organization on Trump’s cutting block is the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) best known for its global Red List, the go-to resource for the status of endangered species planet-wide. Over the past four years the U.S. contributed between 5 and 9 percent of the IUCN’s total framework funding, and 4 to 7 percent of its programmatic funding.
- Currently it remains unclear just how much, or even if, the IUCN budget will be slashed by Congress, leaving the organization in limbo. Another organization potentially looking at major cuts under Trump is TRAFFIC, the international wildlife trade monitoring network.
- Also under Trump’s axe are the UN Population Fund ($79 million), the Green Climate Fund ($2 billion, which no nation has stepped up to replace), and the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change ($1.96 million annually, funding already replaced by other nations for 2018).

COP23: Alliance pledges an end to coal; other key summit goals unmet
- As COP23 comes to a close in Bonn, 19 nations including Canada and the United Kingdom agreed to stop using coal to generate power by 2030.
- Major coal producing and using nations, including Australia, India, Germany and the United States, did not join in the new Global Alliance to Power Past Coal.
- Participants in COP23 find it to have largely been a disappointment, with developed nations failing to promise to ramp up their Paris carbon emission reduction targets – vital if the world is to stop a catastrophic rise in temperatures above 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit).
- Likewise, efforts to find clear pathways by which developed nations will raise the tens of billions needed for vulnerable developing nations to deal with climate change were blocked – primarily by the United States. Now, policymakers are putting their hopes on COP24 in Katowice, Poland, in December 2018.

COP23: U.S., wealthy nations curtail climate aid for developing world
- The small U.S. delegation sent by President Trump to the COP23 climate summit in Bonn has apparently led a successful effort to obstruct significant, much needed, climate change adaptation financing and loss-and-damage financing for the developing world.
- Over the past two weeks in Bonn, the U.S. provided cover for the other developed countries, especially coal-producing Australia, tar sands-producer Canada, and the European Union, as they curtailed offering financial climate aid to the world’s developing nations, including island nations whose existence is at risk from rising oceans.
- One victory: delegates agreed to draft language for Pre-2020 Ambitions, a measure requiring that developed countries be transparent about their current emissions and describe voluntary steps they will take prior to 2020 to further reduce their greenhouse gas emissions.
- It is now hoped by some that the issue of adaptation financing and loss-and-damage financing to the developing world will be finally effectively addressed at COP24 in Poland in December 2018.

Should I stay, or should I go: is U.S. facing a climate scientist brain drain?
- When Donald Trump pulled the United States out of the Paris Agreement last June, French President Emmanuel Macron offered U.S. climate scientists refuge to continue their research. So did Germany. Several hundred answered that call, though many others are in a wait-and-see holding pattern.
- With Trump proposing major budget cuts to scientific programs, and an “anti-science” mantra resounding throughout the new administration, young scientists face a difficult climb up the career ladder. Some are actively looking for research opportunities in the private sector or abroad, while others are staying put in the U.S. and stepping up to resist Trumpian anti-science policies.
- Some experts warn that a decline in U.S. political openness and Trump’s closing of the door to immigrants, who often staff research positions, could pose greater problems for science in the U.S. than any outflow of researchers. Einstein, Enrico Fermi, and many other scientists were immigrants to the U.S. and provided some of the nation’s greatest scientific advances.

COP23: Trump team leads ‘surreal’ coal-gas-nuke climate summit panel
- The only U.S. presentation to be offered at the COP23 climate summit was led by Trump administration energy advisors, along with coal, natural gas and nuclear industry representatives.
- The panel argued that fossil fuel production at high, subsidized levels is vital to “energy security and economic development.” Panel members made only infrequent references to climate change, and they made no mention of the dire impacts from burning fossil fuels.
- The presentation was likely one of the most uproarious in the history of COP. Two U.S. state governors burst in at the start to give impromptu speeches, attacking Trump’s climate denialist policies.
- A memorable highlight occurred when a chorus of young people arose en masse during the panel’s opening remarks, and to the tune of Lee Greenwood’s patriotic hit “God Bless the USA” sang: “So you claim to be an American. But we see right through your greed.” Their song lasted seven minutes, after which they peacefully departed the hall.

COP23: Voices from America’s Pledge; in their own words
- A U.S. non-federal delegation led by Gov. Jerry Brown of California and former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, and including 15 U.S. states, 455 cities, 1,747 businesses and 325 universities, represents nearly half the United States economy.
- This U.S. subnational delegation is at COP23 in Bonn, Germany, to commit to keeping the U.S. Paris Agreement emissions reduction goal set by the Obama administration in Paris in 2015 – a commitment made in defiance of President Donald Trump.
- On Saturday, a standing-room-only event was held at COP23 where Bloomberg, Brown, Gore, and others spoke rousingly of emission cut achievements so far, and to come. Their words and photos are presented here.

U.S. subnationals shoulder climate role in Bonn, Trump sidelined
- The United States government under Donald Trump now stands alone, a rogue nation. Aligned against it at COP23 in Bonn, Germany, is every other nation in the world – all committed to meeting national emissions goals set in Paris in 2015.
- Completely bypassing Trump and the federal government at COP23 is the U.S. subnational delegation, led by Gov. Jerry Brown of California and former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg.
- The U.S. subnational delegation in Bonn represents non-federal actors in 15 states, 455 cities, 1,747 businesses and 325 universities. Combined they represent nearly half the U.S. economy. It remains to be seen if the delegation will be formally seated at COP23 as negotiators – a potential slap in the face to Trump’s tiny U.S. State Department delegation.
- The U.S. subnationals are committed to keeping America’s Paris goal of a 28 percent reduction in carbon emissions (over 2005 levels) by 2025. Supporters of America’s Pledge say they’re nearly halfway there. But it will take a far bigger push, and deeper cuts, to avoid the threat of escalating climate change, as heatwaves, extreme storms, and sea levels surge.

COP23: Trump, U.S. govt. seen as irrelevant to global climate action
- COP23, the 23rd United Nations Climate Summit got underway on Monday, with 196 nations attending, and only one, the United States publically reneging on its Paris Agreement commitments. Syria, the final holdout announced its plans to become a Paris signatory.
- Trump’s denialist position and the isolation of the U.S. federal government was underlined by two reports released as the Bonn summit got started: the Fourth National Climate Assessment, and a World Meteorological Organization report — both of which issued dire warnings about the ongoing impacts of rapidly escalating global warming.
- “Sub-nationals,” U.S. mayors, state governors and top corporate leaders are ready to step into the void Trump created. Representatives from fifteen U.S. states, 300+ cities, and 150+ businesses are at COP23 to show America’s continuing commitment to the Paris Agreement.
- “The Trump administration is a fossil fuel marionette show – it has no credibility in these talks and is here negotiating in bad faith.” – Jesse Bragg, spokesman with Corporate Accountability International, at COP23.

As Northwest salmon economy teeters on brink, Trump gives it a push
- Northwest salmon fisheries are in trouble, impacted by warming oceans and overdeveloped, dammed and silted spawning rivers and streams.
- Pre-contact indigenous groups in the region once organized their societies around sustainable fishing tribal agreements that worked. More recently, under past presidential administrations, Canadian, US and tribal authorities came together to save the declining salmon fisheries.
- Especially successful have been federally funded local, state and tribal programs, administered by NOAA, that protect and restore Northwest spawning streams — an investment in habitat and healthy local economies.
- Trump’s 2018 budget would cut all those programs, though for now Congress has restored them. However, politicians and regulators are concerned that Trump’s abandonment of Northwest fisheries and local economies will persist through his administration.

Unfair trade: US beef has a climate problem
- Across the globe, beef consumption, is seeing rapid growth, fed by cheap imports and served by an industrialized agricultural global trade model that’s been linked to a host of environmental impacts, climate change chief among them.
- Beef consumption in previously meat-light countries like Japan presents profit opportunities for the global beef industry. But scientists and activists argue that increasing beef consumption and industrial farm production go against efforts to combat climate change.
- President Trump’s recent decision to pull out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a global trade deal, upset the US beef industry’s plans of expanding into lucrative Asian markets, including Japan, calling into question if, or when, a future deal will be signed.
- TPP, like other global trade treaties, fails to acknowledge climate change or include mechanisms to curb it. Critics say TPP (which continues to be negotiated by 11 nations) and future trade deals must change radically — protecting not only business and the economy, but the environment.

Trump’s global resorts put profit first, environment last, critics say
- Donald Trump’s negative environmental record in Scotland and elsewhere has conservationists concerned in Bali, where Trump firms are developing a major resort and golf facility known as Trump International Hotel & Tower Bali.
- Another resort under development, the Trump International Hotel & Tower Lido, a 700-hectare facility including a six-star luxury resort, theme park, country club, spa, villas, condos and 18-hole golf course threatens the nearby Gunung Gede Pangrango National Park, one of Java’s last virgin tropical forests.
- Mongabay looked into Trump’s claims that he is an environmentalist, winning “many, many environmental awards.” We were able to locate just two — one a local New York award, and another granted by a golf business association. The Trump Organization did not respond to requests to list Mr. Trump’s awards.
- Trump’s environmental record as president, and as a businessman, is abysmal, say critics. His attempt to defund the U.S. Energy Star program, they say, is typical of a compulsion to protect his self interest: Energy Star has given poor ratings to nearly all Trump’s hotels, which experts note has possibly impacted his bottom line.

Even as Trump and Modi clash on energy, India and U.S. are partnering
- In the past, and under Pres. Trump and Prime Minister Modi, the U.S. and India have often been at odds environmentally, especially regarding climate change, with the U.S. saying that developing nations need to do more to cut emissions, while India says that the U.S, as biggest historical carbon emitter, must take a primary role.
- However, the two countries, under Obama and now under Trump, have quietly done trade agreements to enhance the transfer of liquid natural gas and nuclear power plant technology via sales from U.S. high tech companies to India.
- India’s Modi, a proponent of solar energy, was also convinced in talks with Pres. Obama to be a big supporter of the Paris Climate Agreement. Though, with the ascendance of Pres. Trump, and his rejection of the landmark accord, the two countries have again parted ways.
- Trump’s plan to renege on a US $2 billion Green Climate Fund (GCF) commitment made by Pres. Obama could somewhat slow India’s drive to quickly embrace green technologies.

Trump budget threatens Zimbabwe climate change resilience programs
- President Trump has threatened to cut U.S. aid to developing nations by a third. This could impact Zimbabwe which receives $150 million annually to decrease food insecurity for 2.1 million people.
- Aid to Zimbabwe is important to rural farmers, victims of escalating drought due to climate change. USAID finances dams and irrigation projects, making agriculture sustainable.
- The 2018 budget isn’t due to be finalized by Congress until October 1, 2017, leaving Zimbabwe’s people in uncertainty as to the direly needed aid.
- What seems certain is that the climate resilience program will not be expanded to meet the needs of yet to be served Zimbabwean communities.

Trump’s policies could put Cambodia’s environment on chopping block
- Under President Donald Trump’s proposed 2018 budget, Cambodia could experience a 70 percent cut in aid from the United States.
- For Cambodia, this would mean a combined cut of $11.7 million from the budgets of the U.S. State Department and USAID, with the latter involved in a host of projects meant to help sustain and protect the Cambodian environment and help curb and adapt to climate change.
- Trump’s isolationism and “America First” policies could create a political vacuum in Southeast Asia, with China stepping in to replace the U.S., with major repercussions. China has historically been less transparent and less concerned about environmental impacts in nations where its government and corporations are at work.
- Trump’s authoritarian and anti-environmental policies are possibly being interpreted as a green light by autocratic leaders in the developing world. Cambodia, for example, has lately stepped up dissident arrests and sought transnational corporate partnerships to build large infrastructure projects — such projects often see high levels of corruption and do major environmental harm.

Audio: Activists determined to protect newly discovered Amazon Reef from oil drilling
- John talks about the discovery of the reef, what it’s like to be one of a few people on Earth who have ever seen it with their own eyes, and what the opposition to plans to drill for oil near the reef will look like should the plans move forward.
- We also welcome two staffers from Mongabay Latin America to the show: MariaIsabel Torres and Romi Castagnino.
- Mongabay LatAm just celebrated its one-year anniversary recently, so we wanted to take the chance to speak with MariaIsabel and Romi about what it’s like covering the environment in Latin America, what some of the site’s biggest successes are to date, and what we can expect from Mongabay LatAm in the future.

People of all faiths face climate change with hope, action, urgency
- Pope Francis gave Trump a copy of his encyclical on global environmental protection during the president’s visit to Europe in May. A week later Trump pulled out of the Paris Climate Agreement.
- While the majority of U.S. Catholics voted for Trump, and polled less favorably toward the pope after publication of Laudato Si, his bold plea to save the earth continues to energize leaders of all faiths.
- Examples abound: in May, 55 “emerging faith leaders” from 17 countries met in Brazil to identify realistic renewable energy and sustainability projects for their nations. Also in May, nine large Catholic organizations from around the globe announced divestment from coal, oil and gas stocks.
- Hindu spiritual leaders are urging the jettisoning of coal for alternative energy, and reducing pollution around temples. Morocco committed to converting 15,000 mosques to renewable energy by 2019. Jordan spiritual leaders have committed to going solar. Change could be faster, many agree, but it is ongoing.

Trump withdraws U.S. from Paris Climate Accord; scientists respond
- On June 1, 2017 Donald Trump withdrew the United States from the Paris Agreement, joining Syria and Nicaragua as the only two nations on Earth not to be part of the climate pact.
- Critics around the world are blasting Trump for his rashness, saying that his decision threatens climate stability, the U.S. and global economies, ecosystems and even civilization.
- In this Mongabay commentary, scientists from around the globe offer their immediate responses to Trump’s Paris departure. We will continue to update this story in coming days, adding further responses from the scientific community as Mongabay receives them.

As Arctic sea ice shows record decline, scientists prepare to go blind
- Starting in the mid-1980s, the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP) constructed eight “F-series” satellites, in bulk, with the plan to launch satellites in succession as each one failed to maintain a continuous record of Arctic sea ice extent.
- But in 2016, Congress cut the program, resulting in the dismantling of the last, still not launched, satellite. It is now likely that an impending failure of the last DMSP satellites in orbit will leave the world blind until at least 2022, even as the Arctic shows signs of severe instability and decline.
- While international and U.S. monitoring is still being done for ice thickness, the Trump administration has proposed cuts to satellite missions, including NOAA’s next two polar orbiting satellites, NASA’s PACE Satellite (to monitor ocean and atmospheric pollution), and the Orbiting Carbon Observatory 3 (for carbon dioxide atmospheric measurements).
- All of these cuts in satellite monitoring come at a time when the world is seeing massive changes due to climate change, development and population growth. One satellite program spared Trump’s budgetary axe so far is Landsat 9, which tracks deforestation and glacial recession. How Congress will deal with Trump’s proposed cuts is unknown.

Trump: the biggest threat to Earth’s climate balance (commentary)
- The backward climate policies of Donald Trump, including his climate change denier agency appointments, and abandonment of the U.S. Clean Power Plan, are detrimental to the U.S. economy, the international community, and the fight against climate change, says this commentary written by two members of the Network of Specialists in Nature Conservation, the WRI Brasil executive director and a senior Brazilian climate scientist.
- As the rest of the world moves toward a sustainable future — developing clean, cutting edge energy technologies and reducing fossil fuel emissions — the new president goes backward, embracing the dirty energy technologies of the 19th century.
- At a time when the world needs to urgently focus all its efforts on reducing greenhouse gas emissions, instead the global community — including the G7, G20, banks and multilateral agencies — must divert their attention to U.S. attempts to subvert the Paris Agreement.
- To counter this lack of leadership, nations like Brazil, India and Indonesia, along with civil society leaders, must fill the void created by the United States, attracting investment for low-carbon economies, and eliminating the inefficiencies of out-dated regulatory and governance models.

China flexes its new climate action muscles in Bonn; Trump administration blinks
- At the United Nation’s mid-year climate conference in Bonn, Germany, Chai Qimin, director of international cooperation at the Chinese government’s National Center for Climate Change Strategy, joined other diplomats in warning the U.S. against pulling out of Paris.
- Chai and others firmly suggested that retribution in the form of trade deals, a carbon tariff, and possibly even military access would be on the table when the U.S. attends international forums such as the upcoming G7 and G20 summits, according Climate Change News.
- In an apparent reaction to the warnings from Chinese representatives and others, Trump administration officials have canceled a meeting in Washington, D.C., scheduled for today, in which the fate of the U.S. and the Paris agreement was to be discussed, Reuters reported.

Trump failure to lead on climate doesn’t faze UN policymakers in Bonn
- Policymakers from nearly 200 countries are gathering in Bonn this week for climate change talks aimed at fulfilling the promise of the Paris Agreement. U.S. negotiators will be there too, despite President Trump’s denial of climate change and his signaled alliance with the fossil fuel industry.
- Under President Obama, the U.S. played a key leadership role in climate negotiations, bringing China fully on board, and helping broker the landmark 2015 Paris Agreement. President Trump has threatened to withdraw from the pact — a four-year process — and claims he will make a final decision this month. It seems likely China would step into the leadership gap left by the U.S.
- Bonn negotiators remain unfazed by Trump’s climate change denialism or his threat to withdraw from Paris. Every signatory nation is going forward with meeting voluntary carbon reduction pledges. Some policymakers do worry how the parties to the Paris Agreement will make up the loss of billions of dollars in U.S. climate aid promised under Obama, but now denied by Trump.
- The feeling among Bonn participants is that the rest of the world will go forward briskly and effectively in combatting climate change by embracing alternative energy solutions that will bring jobs and prosperity to their countries, while the U.S. will play the role of a rogue nation that will share no part in the resulting economic boon.

The March for Science makes its stand: “There is no Planet B”
- On Saturday, April 22nd tens of thousands of protestors defied bone chilling rain to march on Washington D.C., while fellow marchers protested at “March for Science” events across America and around the world.
- The D.C. march, attended by prominent scientists and supporters of science, was held in opposition to the anti-science policies of Congress and the Trump administration — which has proposed draconian cuts at the Environmental Protection Agency, and a virtual shutdown of U.S. climate research.
- Michael Mann, the director of the Earth System Science Center at Penn State University, summed up the purpose of the march: “to insure that policy is informed by an objective assessment of scientific evidence.“
- Caroline Weinberg, co-founder of the U.S. March for Science, noted that: “Science extends our lives, protects our planet, puts food on our table [and] contributes to the economy.… [P]olicymakers threaten our present and future by ignoring scientific evidence.”

Audio: Naomi Oreskes on what stories we can’t let get lost in the noise of 2017 and why scientists should speak up
- Because there is so much uncertainty around the new Trump Administration, especially around its energy, environment, and climate policies, we decided to dedicate this episode to trying to answer some of those questions.
- We continue to take a look at what this year will bring for energy and the environment under President Trump with Bobby Magill, a senior science writer for Climate Central and the president of the Society of Environmental Journalists.
- We also welcome Jeff Ruch, executive director of the non-profit service organization Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, to share with us what he’s been hearing so far from employees of the Environmental Protection Agency about their concerns with the Trump Administration’s environmental policies.

Trump chokes information flow from EPA, DOI, and USDA
- The Trump administration ordered a ‘media blackout’ at the EPA on Tuesday, restricting the flow of information to the public and the media.
- Similar orders, which have reportedly since been rescinded, were circulated at the research arm of the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
- Separately, an upcoming ‘March for Science’ will highlight the need to accept climate change as fact and encourage the unrestricted movement of information from scientists to the public.

No ‘pause’ in rising global temperatures: Study confirms NOAA estimates of ocean warming
- In a paper published in Science in June 2015, a group of scientists led by Thomas Karl, director of NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, North Carolina, detailed the results of their analysis that corrected for various sources of bias in the data on global surface temperatures, showing in the process that global warming had not gone on hiatus after all.
- Climate deniers were not convinced, however. Among them was Republican Congressman Lamar Smith (R-TX), chair of the House of Representatives’ Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, who subpoenaed communications between the NOAA scientists in an attempt to prove that they had rushed their research into publication in order to bolster the Obama Administration’s climate policies.
- But new research published yesterday in the journal Science Advances confirms NOAA’s findings about ocean warming over the past two decades.

Top climate stories to watch in 2017
- Renewable energy use has never been higher — but on the other hand, 2016 brought with it news of record fossil fuel consumption, as well.
- Meanwhile, the Paris Climate Agreement went into force on November 4, far sooner than anyone ever expected, signaling a new era of international climate action — but just a few days later, the U.S., the second-largest emitter in the world, elected a new president who has called global warming a hoax and pledged to withdraw the U.S. from the Paris Climate Agreement as soon as possible.
- Here, in no particular order, are some of the top stories to keep an eye on in the new year.

Trump vows Paris Agreement pull out; world unites behind green economy
- Climate delegates and NGOs meeting in Marrakesh, Morocco, responded to threats this week by Donald Trump to quickly renege on the US commitment to uphold the Paris Climate Agreement. While the US under Pres. Obama led the way to the accord, COP22 summit attendees say that China is now likely to fill the leadership vacuum created by Trump.
- COP22 participants also say that the world’s nations are now united in moving toward decarbonizing their economies with 21st century technologies to slow the rate of global warming, while creating millions of new green-energy jobs. Meanwhile, a US under Trump is on the path to re-embracing coal, a 19th century technology in rapid decline.
- Summit attendees have discussed repercussions for a US withdrawal from the accord reached in December 2015 by nearly 200 nations. Beyond the loss of US standing on the world stage, backlash could come in the form of faltering trade agreements, failed military cooperation, economic sanctions, or a carbon tax levied on the US for failing its carbon-reduction pledges.
- “Even though we are in a time of uncertainty because of the US election, there is no way to turn away from what [climate] scientists have shown us. Failure to act now will lead to catastrophic consequences,” said Peru’s Manuel Pulgar-Vidal, a key organizer of the Lima and Paris climate summits.

Trump election leaves COP22 climate delegates aghast, shaken but firm
- President elect Donald Trump vowed on the campaign trail to withdraw the US from the Paris Climate Agreement, a move that — if carried out — COP22 delegates and NGOs say would be a disaster for the world, as well as the US economy.
- The Paris Climate Agreement went into force in November and 195 nations, including the United States, are now obligated to meet their voluntary pledges to reduce carbon emissions and abide by the agreement for three years before they can seek to withdraw from it. Withdraw by Trump and the US would take another year — his entire presidential term.
- “Beyond national politics, modernization of the energy system and of basic infrastructure [as driven by the Paris Agreement] is good for the US economy, for jobs, for growth,” said Christiana Figueres, the former executive secretary of recent UN climate summits.
- “The Paris Agreement was signed and ratified not by a president, but by the United States itself. As a matter of international law, and as a matter of human survival, the nations of the world can, must, and will hold the US to its climate commitments,” said Carroll Muffett, president of the Center for International Environmental Law.

Big Oil has been covering up climate risks even longer than we thought
- Last fall, it was revealed that executives at oil giant ExxonMobil have known about fossil fuels’ role in global warming since the late 1970s, but proceeded over the next four decades to cover up that information and block all efforts to rein in greenhouse gas emissions.
- In December, it was discovered that Exxon wasn’t alone — nearly every major oil company was well aware of the dangers of climate change, even sharing research amongst themselves between 1979 and 1983.
- New documents show that the industry was “clearly on notice” about the role of fossil fuels in driving climate change by 1957.

Is Australia becoming the new Canada in terms of climate inaction?

For many concerned about climate change, Australia has suddenly become the new Canada. With the election of Tony Abbott as Prime Minister in September, the land down under has taken a sudden U-turn on climate policy, including pushing to end its fledgling carbon emissions program which was only implemented in 2012 and cutting funding for […]
Philippines’ delegate calls out climate change deniers after Haiyan

Yesterday, the Filipino delegate to the ongoing climate summit, Naderev ‘Yeb’ Saño, dared climate change deniers to take a hard look at what’s happening not just in the Philippines, but the whole world. Over the weekend, the Philippines was hit by what may have been the largest typhoon to ever make landfall—Typhoon Haiyan. Reports are […]
Global society must leave fossil fuels in the ground, unburnt, says top official

World governments must get used to the idea of leaving fossil fuel reserves in the ground unexploited and unburned, one of the world’s most senior diplomats has said, ahead of a landmark report on climate science to be unveiled this Friday by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The former Irish president and UN […]
Scientists have reached an overwhelming consensus on human-caused climate change

Despite outsized media and political attention to climate change deniers, climate scientists long ago reached a consensus that not only is climate change occurring, but it’s largely due to human actions. A new study in Environmental Research Letters further strengthens this consensus: looking at 4,000 peer-reviewed papers researchers found that 97 percent of them supported […]
Climate Myths: how climate denialists are getting away with bad science

In Climate Myths: The Campaign Against Climate Science, Dr. John J. Berger deconstructs the climate change denialists’ myths in simple, easy-to-read terms. According to the Pew Research Center: “Nearly seven-in-ten (69%) [Americans] say there is solid evidence that the earth’s average temperature has been getting warmer over the past few decades, up six points since […]
Scientists find the ‘missing heat’ of global warming 700 meters below the sea

Total ocean heat content shown in violet, while grey shows 0 to 300 meters and blue shows 300 to 700 meters. Vertical colored bars show volcanic eruptions that cooled the Earth for a short period and the 1997-98 El Nino event. Chart from Balmaseda et al. Critics of climate change often claim that warming has […]
Lack of climate change in presidential debates part of larger trend

Click to enlarge. The final presidential debate between President Barack Obama and Governor Mitt Romney, focusing on foreign policy, ended like all the others: without a mention of climate change or its likely impacts on Americans, from rising sea levels to worsening extreme weather to the threat of instability abroad. While environmental groups have kicked-off […]
Nary a mention of climate change during U.S. presidential debate

Click to enlarge. The hour-and-a-half long debate between President Barack Obama and ex-governor Mitt Romney last night ended without a single reference to climate change. Frustrated with the lack of discussion on the issue from both candidates, environmental activists sent a petition with over 160,000 signatures to debate moderator, Jim Lehr, urging him to ask […]
Prominent climate skeptic reverses course, says global warming worse than IPCC forecast

Berkeley Earth Project temperature graph going back to 1750, shows how volcanic eruptions lower temperatures in the short-term. Image courtesy of Berkeley Earth Project. After starting his own project to study global warming, a once-prominent climate change skeptic and physicist says he now accepts the reality of anthropogenic climate change. “Last year, following an intensive […]
President of Czech Republic to give keynote at Heartland climate summit despite backlash over murderer billboards

The Heartland Institute’s billboard campaign, which was pulled after 24 hours, has led to repercussions for the climate-denialist group. Companies are abandoning the Heartland Institute left-and-right following the conservative group’s controversial climate change billboard campaign, but Czech President, Václav Klaus, is sticking with the group, reports the Guardian. Although he criticized the Heartland’s short-lived campaign, […]
Heartland Institute losing major corporate sponsors after comparing climate change advocates to mass-murderers

The Heartland Institute’s billboard campaign, which was pulled after 24 hours, has led to repercussions for the climate-denialist group. The Heartland Institute has lost two corporate supporters since it unveiled a billboard campaign that compared those who accept the science of climate change to mass murderer Ted Kaczynski also known as the Unabomber. Yesterday, State […]
Fallout for Heartland Institute after it likens those who accept climate change to ‘murderers’ and ‘madmen’

The Heartland Institute’s billboard campaign, which was pulled after 24 hours, has led to repercussions for the climate-denialist group. According to the Heartland Institute, a conservative think tank, those who accept the science of climate change are “on the radical fringe” with the movements most “prominent advocates” being “murderers, tyrants, and madmen.” The Heartland Institute’s […]
General Motors cuts funding to Heartland Institute due to climate change denialism

General Motors’ the Chevy Volt. After being outed as a financial contributor to the conservative advocacy group Heartland Institute, known for its denial of global climate change, General Motors has faced harsh criticism from environmentalists. The car company, which is pushing its new all-electric model, the Chevy Volt, has now announced it will no longer […]
2010, not 1998, warmest year on record

An updated temperature analysis by the Met Office and the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit has confirmed that 2010, not 1998, was the warmest year since record keeping began in the late 19th Century. The new analysis adds in temperature data from 400 stations across northern Canada, Russia, and the Arctic, which is […]
Wall Street Journal climate op-ed: the “equivalent of dentists practicing cardiology”
Climate scientists have struck back at the Wall Street Journal after it published an op-ed authored by 16 mostly non-climatologists arguing that global warming was not an urgent concern. The response letter, entitled Check With Climate Scientists for Views on Climate, recommends that the Wall Street Journal should seek input on global warming from climate […]
Wall Street Journal under attack for climate op-ed
The Wall Street Journal is under scrutiny for publishing an op-ed attacking climate science last Friday, while turning down another op-ed explaining climate change and signed by 255 researchers with the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, which was eventually published in the journal Science. The op-ed last Friday first garnered attention because it was signed […]
At least 74 percent of current warming caused by us

A new methodology to tease out how much current climate change is linked to human activities has added to the consensus that behind global warming is us. The study, published in Nature Geoscience found that humans have caused at least three-quarters (74 percent) of current warming, while also determining that warming has actually been slowed […]
Independent climate study comes to same conclusion as world’s climatologists
An ‘independent’ climate study known as the Berkeley Earth Project has re-confirmed decades of research on climate change. Undertaken largely by physicists, the study, which approached temperature data in a new way, confirms the long-standing science behind a warming world, while negating a number of criticisms put forward by climate skeptics. “Our biggest surprise was […]
Adaptation, justice and morality in a warming world

The Turkana people of northern Kenya are currently being hard hit by hunger and drought, which some experts say could have links to climate change. Observers have long warned that the world’s poor and marginalized will suffer the most from climate impacts even though they are the least responsible. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. If […]

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