GreenPolicy360 Archive Highlights 2022
- Planet Citizens, our Challenge is to Secure our Common Future
- Now is time to go beyond old ways of thinking & shape new visions of our living Planet Earth
September 2022
Hurricane Ian Hits Florida
The Climate-Induced, Warm Gulf Water 'Rapid Intensification' of Ian
Hurricane Ian -- Close to Cat 5 -- Jim Cantore reporting
Climate-induced, warm water in the Gulf of Mexico is a feeder of intensity
Destructive Surges with Hurricanes, Extreme Weather Events
Florida, we're pointing at Gulf Waters heating up and 'inducing' more powerful storms
Florida politics 'in a state of climate change denial' even as Floria is increasingly at risk
Hurricane Ian, September 26, the 'spaghetti plot lines' warn of a historic Gulf Hurricane on the way...
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California, Decades of State/National/Global Environmental Leadership
- Four Terms as California Governor
August 2022
California out in front in a Green future
California Acts to Ban the Sale of New Gasoline Cars
The decision, to take effect by 2035, will very likely speed a wider transition to electric vehicles because many other states follow California’s standards
After the California Air Resources Board approved Thursday regulations that ban the sale of new gas-engine vehicles by 2035, requiring all new cars to run on electricity or hydrogen, California Gov. Gavin Newsom told ABC News he was confident that more states would do the same to help combat climate change.
BY THE TIMES EDITORIAL BOARD | AUG. 26, 2022
It’s hard to overstate the significance of California’s move this week to end the sale of new gas-powered cars.
The California Air Resources Board’s vote Thursday setting a firm 2035 deadline is huge and consequential for climate change, air quality and health. The nation’s most populated and worst-polluted state is the first to adopt rules that will finally stop adding gas-fueled passenger vehicles to its roads.
The end of the internal combustion engine era, and the toll on our lungs and our planet, is finally on the horizon.
This regulation will require automakers to sell increasing percentages of zero-emission and plug-in hybrid vehicles starting with 35% of new car sales in 2026, reaching 68% in 2030 and 100% by 2035. Zero-emission vehicles account for 16.5% of California’s new sales today, a rate that leads the nation but lags behind Europe and China. So these rules help reestablish California’s climate leadership, putting it in step with other leading nations and making it one of the first — and the largest — vehicle markets in the world to require 100% of new sales be zero emissions.
It’s a pivotal moment for a state that has been shaped for decades, often negatively, by automobiles and the health-damaging pollution they generate.
More on California's decision to drive forward into a new world of transportation
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Climate Problems, Climate Solutions
A Green New Deal by Another Name
- Three Legislative Actions Add Up to a New Version of a Green New Deal
- Infrastructure, CHIPS, IRA... Real Environmental Progress
GreenPoliyc360: Let's look more closely at three historic advances as the US acts to deal with climate...
A Renamed and Restructured Green New Deal
In an acknowledgement of political exigencies, a deep and broad green politics coalition in the US supports legislation in three parts to move green action forward. The culmination of the Infrastructure and CHIPS legislative packages is the biggest climate-related legislation in US history -- the "Inflation Reduction Act."
The Green New Deal Re-Structured and -Named:
Steve Schmidt / Founder, GreenPolicy360: It took 45+ yrs to pass real climate action called for in the 1970s w the first National Climate Act. Our #GreenPolicy360 network thanks Rep George E. Brown, a long-time friend, colleague, and a main mover at the beginning and for over 30 years in Congress who'd be smiling now if he were here ...
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Five Decades in the Making: Why It Is Taking Congress So Long to Act on Climate
Bookmark Climate Policy @GreenPolicy360
Surprise Deal Would Be Ambitious Climate Action
The announcement Wednesday (July 27) of an agreement in the Senate almost instantly reset the role of the United States in the global effort to fight climate change
The Climate Action Story Continues
- President Biden needs to put forward a powerful 'executive' climate agenda
Visit Our Climate News Florida Site
With our GreenPolicy360 home on the West Coast of Florida, a state with political tendencies to overlook and deny climate change even as we're on 'the frontlines' of a #ClimateCrisis, we thought it's time to face the news, face the facts Florida!
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July 4th, 2022
Push Back on the Influence of Big Money's Influence on Politics
In Democracy of Dollars ...
“Democracy doesn’t happen by accident. We have to defend it, fight for it, strengthen it, renew it.” It’s in the renewal, strengthening, and defense of democracy where you and I come in. It’s where achieving a healthy balance between individual liberty and the common good must be achieved, and we must insist on it being accomplished.
-- Dick Jacobs, July 4th 2022, Tierra Verde, Florida
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- The Russia - Ukraine War Continues Raising New Nuclear Risks
- Visit GreenPolicy360's Colleague 'Strategic Demands' for More...
As War in Europe Takes Over the Daily Headlines
"Hand-writing Is On the Wall"
May 2022
By Lawrence Wilkerson Col, USA (Ret)
Whether it’s sea level rise, unprecedented drought, extreme weather events, devastating and wide-ranging fires, dwindling fresh water supplies, food scarcity, multiple pandemics, or massive human migrations (particularly from the Global South), or any number of these occurring simultaneously or synergistically, the hand-writing is on the wall...
America must get moving now, not dither and doubt. The U.S. military’s risk factor equation is around 60-65 percent. That is, if the chance of disaster is that high, you buy insurance, the best policy you can afford. The risk with the climate crisis is human existence and the risk factor is at least 70-plus percent. Ask yourself what you would do.
These recommendations in no way constitute an advocacy for more overseas bases for the U.S. military, a supplemental to its already-over-the-top budget, or an increase in its overall numbers. In fact, these recommendations absolutely eschew even more stupid, endless wars that detract from attention to genuine national security challenges such as that presented by the changing climate.
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"Fight for the things that you care about, but do it in a way that will lead others to join you."
- — Ruth Bader Ginsburg
- #GoingGreen, globally connected, your 360 GreenLinks Action Network
Via Strategic Demands, GreenPolicy360's associate:
Biden's (and the World's) Imperiled Climate Agenda
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Oil/Gas Seen at Center of Ukraine War
- Russia looks to its oil/gas revenue to fund its war
Big Oil/Gas Companies: Prices Continue Up, Profits Up, Way Up
Russia-Ukraine War Brings Disruptions and Sanctions: Oil/Gas/Fuel Prices Surge in 2022
(2021 Report) The largest oil and gas companies made a combined $174bn in profits in the first nine months of the year as gasoline prices climbed in the US, according to a new report.
The bumper profit totals, provided exclusively to the Guardian, show that in the third quarter of 2021 alone, 24 top oil and gas companies made more than $74bn in net income. From January to September, the net income of the group, which includes Exxon, Chevron, Shell and BP, was $174bn.
- https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/dec/06/oil-companies-profits-exxon-chevron-shell-exclusive
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United Nations latest global climate assessment delivers dire news
Last line of the latest IPCC policy document: "Scientific evidence is unequivocal: Climate change is a threat to human well-being & planetary health. Any further delay in global action will miss a brief & rapidly closing window of opportunity to secure a liveable & sustainable future for all."
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Nuclear Weapons in Europe ... Tactical/Strategic Background
- Security Perspectives, Security Demands: Russia, Ukraine, NATO, US, European nations
If one steps back and takes a broader look at the causes of potential war over the issue of Ukraine, the issue takes on a larger security perspective, i.e., nuclear weapons "modernization" and next generation "smart", "dial-up" tactical nuclear weapons imminently being deployed in Europe and other theaters.
The modernization of nuclear weapons post Cold War nuclear triad strategies, and the Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) era of massive nuclear retaliation with 'launch on warning' command and control to assure land-based missile capabilities to respond to perceived preemptive attack has led to a new era, one of so-called small nukes.
They are not small, they are profoundly dangerous to real security and the current European, East-West standoff over Ukraine, demonstrates how these next generation nuclear weapons are bringing on new iterations of nuclear danger.
Given the saber rattling, the threats of war, the failing diplomacy broadcast as near ultimatums and resorts to use of force, and counterforce, let's hope that behind the news that's public there's a quiet negotiation going forward to resolve the primary security concerns of the nations facing off. Foremost are nuclear weapons and delivery systems that are clear and present dangers.
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#ActonClimate Today & Every Day
Glasgow Climate Summit - Pledges, Promises, Declarations - What's Next Up
GreenPolicy360: Climate Pledges Must Be Enforced
How to turn each nation's climate pledges into 'effective climate action'
- Promises of international climate summits in Paris (2015) & Glasgow (2021) now require 'effective climate action follow on'
- Measuring & monitoring greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions with satellite missions can become -- 'Our climate tool working nation-by-nation'
GreenPolicy360 Siterunner - SJS / December 2021: Looking back to the 1960s and 70s to the beginnings of the Earth Science from Space missions of NASA and affiliated U.S. agencies, in association with higher education and aerospace business, the vision statements of Congressional leaders, recalling Rep. George E. Brown (D-Los Angeles), setting in motion the measuring and monitoring programs that have led to decades of atmospheric and earth systems data. This constellation of new space technology -- digital imaging, Earth 360° remote viewing, scientific observations, changes over time, trend lines, all can come into our hands. 'Drilling down', not for gas and oil, but in the parsing of data, now has the promise to provide essential ways and means to deliver a real- and extended-time knowledge base which can be used, effectively and we propose legally, to deliver on pledges and promises made at international climate change conferences and summits.
Let us do our part in continuing to expand this first-generation earth science vision -- space-based cooperative missions, initiatives and ventures -- that makes it possible to turn database tracking of emissions (externalities) -- CO2, methane, CFCs and other gases -- nation-by-nation into Climate Plan Enforcement (CPEs).
It is time to move from distant pledges to coordinated nation-by-nation climate action. Using best practices, effective nationally determined, and legally enforced operational plans, we can become agents of change making a positive real-world difference. As it is said -- "Earth Is In Our Hands", let us turn science and knowledge into climate action now.
The strategic demands for international cooperation and action is our generations greatest task and our legacy. Let us take up our climate challenge. Our time is today to enforce well intended, but extremely hard to achieve climate pledges.
Devastating News: Climate Change Impacts to Hit Sooner than Predicted
Climate change will fundamentally reshape life on Earth in the coming decades, even if humans can tame planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions, according to a landmark draft report from the UN's climate science advisors obtained by AFP.
Species extinction, more widespread disease, unliveable heat, ecosystem collapse, cities menaced by rising seas—these and other devastating climate impacts are accelerating and bound to become painfully obvious before a child born today turns 30.
The choices societies make now will determine whether our species thrives or simply survives as the 21st century unfolds, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) says in a draft report seen exclusively by AFP.
But dangerous thresholds are closer than once thought, and dire consequences stemming from decades of unbridled carbon pollution are unavoidable in the short term.
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