Updates from the news #5 – 16 September 2023
Today, 16 September, the State of California announced that it is joining a lawsuit against the largest oil and gas companies in the world ExxonMobil, Shell, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, and BP. The suit also names the American Petroleum Institute (API). The suit accuses these companies of engaging in decades of deception about climate change and associated harms. It is an established fact that these companies have known since the late 1960s that burning fossil fuels would warm the planet. https://oag.ca.gov/news/press-releases/attorney-general-bonta-announces-lawsuit-against-oil-and-gas-companies
Other big news from California: The legislature passed a law that will require all companies doing a billion dollars or more business per year to disclose Scope 1, Scope 2, and Scope 3 emissions. This is all the emissions that can be attributed to the production of a product. California is the 5th largest economy in the world. This legislation will have an enormous impact and provide nationwide leadership at a critical time. https://insideclimatenews.org/news/15092023/todays-climate-california-climate-disclosure-bill-nationwide-impacts-scope-3-emissions/
The recent massive humanitarian disaster in Libya due to the failure of two dams is likely to happen again in many places in the future. Thousands of people are dead in Derna and surrounding towns. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/dams-worldwide-are-at-risk-of-catastrophic-failure/
The Wall Street Journal reported (paywall protected article) that company documents show that ExxonMobil executives sought to undermine climate science even after the company finally officially acknowledged the role of fossil emissions in climate change. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/sep/14/exxonmobil-documents-wall-street-journal-climate-science
CarbonBrief reports that 2023 is now likely to be the hottest year on record after the recent extreme summer. CarbonBrief scholars describe the factors that have caused this. It is important to note that if we don’t kill fossil emissions and manage biosphere carbon balance, extreme heat, droughts, and floods will get worse. https://www.carbonbrief.org/state-of-the-climate-2023-now-likely-hottest-year-on-record-after-extreme-summer/
Jeff Berardelli the chief meteorologist for WFLA notes that a favorite meme of climate deniers is that it was hotter in the 1930s. The data below show that the U.S. is not representative of the world, although many here like to think it is.
Tomorrow (Sunday 17 September 2023) is the start of Climate Week, which is timed to coincide with the UN summit in NYC. There will be protests and demonstrations in more than 650 metropolitan areas worldwide. Sadly, it has been recently revealed that major sponsors of Climate Week are also major polluters. Nevertheless, this will be the largest climate event in NYC in the last 5 years. Over 500 organizations have joined the March to End Fossil Fuels. I am one of over 400 scientists to sign a letter to President Biden. The goal is to end fossil fuels – Fast, Fair, and Forever. https://fightfossilfuels.net/
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/sep/17/march-to-end-fossil-fuels-new-york-city
As Gainesville, FL, proceeds to provide significant support for animal agriculture, a major peer-reviewed report shows that substituting half of animal products consumed globally with sustainable alternatives would “almost fully halt” the conversion of forests (think Amazon) and natural lands for animal agriculture. Halving reliance on meat and diary could cut land-use emissions by 31%. Note that human food production from pre-farmgate through post-farmgate is a source of about 34% of global GHG emissions. https://www.carbonbrief.org/halving-reliance-on-meat-and-dairy-could-could-cut-land-use-emissions-by-31/
The New Republic is one of several outlets to report the outstanding investigative journalism of Amy Westervelt and Geoff Dembicki into the global strategy of the Atlas Network to kill and criminalize climate protest. https://newrepublic.com/article/175488/meet-shadowy-global-network-vilifying-climate-protesters
A new report from the NGO Global Witness shows that environmental activists have been killed at a rate of one every other day in 2022. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/sep/13/environmental-activists-killed-at-a-rate-of-one-every-other-day-in-2022-global-witness-report-aoe
The mission of higher education is the maintenance and renewal of civilization. To this end, students at Berkeley have organized their own course on the creation of a sustainable and just future. Climate Action Gators at UF is investigating the possibility of creating such a course at UF. In my opinion the faculty at UF offer precious little comprehensive coursework on these topics of critical importance. The Berkeley course promotes curriculum redesign to address this issue. Based on my 40 years in the academy I agree that comprehensive curriculum redesign is necessary. I assert that faculty are the major impediment to this much-needed change. Faculty are often simply unwilling to risk modifying what they teach and research to be centrally relevant to our global crisis.
To be fair, administration completely fails to provide support and validation to those faculty who try to change their teaching and research. Ultimately the blame for the failure of higher education to rise to these challenges is the corporate mentality of administrations and state oversight entities. Indirect Costs from federal grants are the coin of the realm. The academy is locked in a gamble that the future will reflect the past, but we are far beyond a tipping point into a dangerous future. Faculty must rapidly revise their approach and administrations must support them.
As is usual, women far outnumber men in the three undergraduate courses that I am teaching this semester. These are Global Change Ecology, Climate Change Biology, and Communities and Climate Change. All three of these courses have been wait-listed. Why so many women? Overall, men are much less likely to earn a bachelor’s degree than women.
It is important to realize that the valid science is daunting enough without slanting information on climate change that emphasizes the worst possible outcomes. This paper by Aaron Thierry analyzes the representation of scientific knowledge in Extinction Rebellion’s recruitment talks. https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fcomm.2023.1237700/full
UT’s Andrew Dessler analyzes the response of the insurance industry to climate change. Major insurance companies are pulling out of states most susceptible to the impacts of climate change, including California, Florida, and Louisiana. This will be a very costly game changer that may well result in major action on climate change. https://www.theclimatebrink.com/p/climate-change-and-insurance-the
How bad could the future be if we do nothing? Well, pretty grim indeed. Mark Maslin’s book How to Save Our Planet describes two alternative futures. https://theconversation.com/climate-change-how-bad-could-the-future-be-if-we-do-nothing-159665
Phoenix, AZ, marked its 55th day above 110F this year. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/sep/10/phoenix-arizona-new-heat-record-hot-summer
The U.S. has set a new record for billion-dollar climate disasters in a single year. NOAA announced that there have already been 23 extreme weather events in the U.S. that have cost at least $1bn. Hurricane season is just now fully underway. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/sep/11/us-record-billion-dollar-climate-disasters
Some truly great news that is worth reporting again: NYU will divest its over $5bn endowment from fossil fuels. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/sep/12/new-york-university-fossil-fuel-divestment
This report from Oil Change International details how new extraction plans by 20 countries risk locking in climate chaos. These countries (U.S., Canada, and Russia at the top of the list) are responsible for nearly 90% of CO2 pollution. https://priceofoil.org/2023/09/12/planet-wreckers-how-20-countries-oil-and-gas-extraction-plans-risk-locking-in-climate-chaos/
The IEA warned in 2021 that no new oil and gas exploration and development could take place if the world was to stay within the 1.5C limit. The IEA has outlined a comprehensive path to net zero by 2050. https://www.iea.org/reports/net-zero-by-2050
The Environmental Century 
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