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Revision as of 15:49, 3 June 2023


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Green stories are changing the world. We encourage you to join in, create your own green stories, launch new initiatives, improve the environment, change the way governments run and how businesses work.

It is your time, our time, to change the world we know and experience. It is up to us to re-create the future, to dream, plan, and to positively impact the quality and sustainability of life on earth.
As planet citizens we are interconnected global citizens. Now is time to go beyond old ways of thinking and to develop a new vision of our home, the only home we have. 🌎


 

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Cruise across the World Wide Web... Visit what's trending today across our Green-Blue Planet Earth


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Click on #trending green links and away you go ;-


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#ActNow, Before It's Too Late

Planet Citizen Action


Environmental protection

#PlanetCitizens @Work Day-by-Day
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Look at how thin our atmosphere is

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U.S. Climate Resilience Toolkit

Climate.gov -- News & Features


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2023


June


This past first week of June found GreenPolicy360 again pushing the advisory councils at NASA to return language about scientific study of the "home planet" as a top mission in the Mission Statement/Charter and follow on strategic planning. The original NASA Mission Statement and subsequent updates continued to have a top emphasis on earth science from space over decades, providing essential data for measuring/monitoring/managing the home planet. Then in 2006 the phrase "to understand and protect the home planet" was removed from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration official Mission statement.

GreenPolicy360 for years has advocated for the return of this language, updated and highlighted, as an essential, continuing mission.

Take a look at this page for a better idea of what is going on behind the scenes as NASA advisory councils gathered to suggest and propose changes to the NASA's strategic planning.

Earth missions continue to be top of mind -- and it follows, in our considered opinion, that "home planet" language about earth science to "understand and protect" should be again at the top of a NASA Mission Statement... and pointed at and highlighted.

-- SJS/GreenPolicy3360 Siterunner


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The Original Mission Statement of NASA

Quote: NASA's Mission, “To understand and protect our home planet..."


🌎


May


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SCOTUS, the Supreme Court of the United States, acts again in the environmental arena

The headlines in media are blunt in their news of the current court: US Supreme Court rules against EPA in wetlands regulation challenge ... The Supreme Court just narrowed protection for wetlands... The Supreme Court rolls back federal safeguards for wetlands ...


May 25, 2023

(Today, May 25th) the Supreme Court dealt a devastating blow to the nation’s wetlands by rewriting a statute the court does not like to mean something it does not mean. The court’s decision in Sackett v. EPA is one of the its most egregious betrayals of textualism in memory. Put simply: The Clean Water Act protects wetlands that are “adjacent” to larger bodies of water. Five justices, however, do not think the federal government should be able to stop landowners from destroying wetlands on their property. To close this gap between what the majority wants and what the statute says, the majority crossed through the word “adjacent” and replaced it with a new test that’s designed to give landowners maximum latitude to fill in, build upon, or otherwise obliterate some of the most valuable ecosystems on earth.

...

The law expressly protects “waters of the United States” (like rivers and lakes) as well as “wetlands adjacent” to these waters. Congress added the wetlands provision in 1977 to codify the EPA’s definition of “adjacent,” which also happens to be the actual definition: “bordering, contiguous, or neighboring.” Under that interpretation—the one Congress adopted—wetlands that neighbor a larger body of water remain protected, even if they aren’t directly connected.

Why did Congress make that choice? Because wetlands provide immense environmental benefits: They filter and purify water draining into nearby streams, rivers, and lakes. They slow down runoff into these larger bodies. And they serve as vital flood control. In other words, the Clean Water Act has to protect “adjacent” wetlands to serve its overarching goal of safeguarding the broader “waters of the United States” from pollution.


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Methane Reduction Action by European Parliament / European Union


'Parliament today adopted its position on a new law to reduce methane emissions from the energy sector to reach the EU’s climate goals and improve air quality.'

The new law is the first piece of EU legislation aimed at cutting methane emissions and covers direct methane emissions from the oil, fossil gas and coal sectors, and from biomethane once it is injected into the gas network. MEPs also want the new rules to include the petrochemicals sector.


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Background

Methane is a powerful greenhouse gas and air pollutant and is responsible for approximately a third of current global warming. It comes from a wide range of sectors, including agriculture, waste and energy, which are responsible respectively for 53%, 26% and 19% of EU methane emissions according to the European Environment Agency. Today, methane emissions are covered under the targets in the EU’s Effort Sharing Regulation.

The EU has signed up to the Global Methane Pledge, which aims to reduce global methane emissions by at least 30% from 2020 levels by 2030, which could eliminate over 0.2˚C warming by 2050.


Since it launched at COP26 international climate summit, the Global Methane Pledge has generated unprecedented momentum for methane action. Country endorsements of the GMP have grown from just over 100 last year to 150, more than 50 countries have developed national methane action plans or are in the process of doing so, substantial new financial resources are being directed to methane action, and partners have launched “pathways” of policies and initiatives to drive methane reductions in key methane-emitting sectors – a GMP Energy Pathway launched at the June 2022 Major Economies Forum on Energy and Climate and a GMP Food and Agriculture Pathway and GMP Waste Pathway, both launched at COP27.


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Environmental Law & Enforcement


Global Methane Pledge


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April 22, 2023


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On Earth Day 2023

50+ years and counting from the first "Earth Day"


On the 50th Anniversary

Memories on the Road to the First Earth Day

https://www.greenpolicy360.net/w/Earth_Day_Memories_on_the_50th_Anniversary


Beginnings of the Modern Environmental Movement

https://www.greenpolicy360.net/w/Category:Earth_Day

* https://www.greenpolicy360.net/w/Environmental_movement


Today the ideals and ideas that began in a serious way that first "Earth Day" in 1970 continue on .... We became a vital movement, a political cause, and now we are a diverse mix across the globe with our hopes. Our 'sleeves are rolled up' to go to work, getting with the action and employing the Internet with many voices, colors, ages and beliefs, especially with the enthusiasm and power of young people joining in.

Green, environmental, national and global.... We are strongly confronting and working to solve our generation's existential challenges. Reaching across our home planet, touching and interacting with planet citizens, looking to share solutions to the pressing problems and challenges of our generation.

To our friends across our blue-green living Earth, GreenPolicy360 and Strategic Demands, GreenPolicy360's associate with a geo-politics emphasis, send "Earth Day greetings" today and every day. The work carries on as together we face the challenges believing we can make a positive difference year after year, decade after decade....


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International Climate Action:

Going Green


Climate envoy Kerry: No rolling back clean energy transition

SAPPORO, Japan (AP) — So much has been invested in clean energy that there can be no rolling back of moves to end carbon emissions, U.S. climate envoy John Kerry said Sunday.

Kerry noted that if countries deliver on promises to phase out polluting fossil fuels, the world can limit average global warming to 1.7 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit), better than the worst case scenarios but still above the current limit of 1.5 C global warming above pre-industrial levels.

“We’re in a very different place than where we were a year ago, let alone two and three years ago,” Kerry said in an interview with The Associated Press.

“But we’re not doing everything we said we’d do,” he said, after attending a meeting of energy and environment ministers of the Group of Seven wealthy nations. “A lot of countries need to step up including ours to reduce emissions faster, deploy renewables faster, bring new technologies online faster all of that has to happen.”


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* https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2023/04/10/sea-level-rise-southern-us/


“These rapid rates are unprecedented over at least the 20th century and they have been three times higher than the global average over the same period.”


🌎


GreenPolicy360: The threat horizon is near and far.... here, science reports from the 'bottom of the earth'.... warming waters in the coldest region of the planet are causing change, big change, month-by-month, year-by-year


What happens in Antarctica doesn't stay in the Antarctic


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Melting Antarctic ice predicted to cause rapid slowdown of deep ocean current by 2050

New research by Australian scientists suggests 40% slowdown in just three decades could alter world’s climate for centuries


Abyssal ocean overturning slowdown and warming driven by Antarctic meltwater

The abyssal ocean circulation is a key component of the global meridional overturning circulation, cycling heat, carbon, oxygen and nutrients throughout the world ocean. The strongest historical trend observed in the abyssal ocean is warming at high southern latitudes, yet it is unclear what processes have driven this warming, and whether this warming is linked to a slowdown in the ocean’s overturning circulation. Furthermore, attributing change to specific drivers is difficult owing to limited measurements, and because coupled climate models exhibit biases in the region. In addition, future change remains uncertain, with the latest coordinated climate model projections not accounting for dynamic ice-sheet melt. Here we use a transient forced high-resolution coupled ocean–sea-ice model to show that under a high-emissions scenario, abyssal warming is set to accelerate over the next 30 years. We find that meltwater input around Antarctica drives a contraction of Antarctic Bottom Water (AABW), opening a pathway that allows warm Circumpolar Deep Water greater access to the continental shelf. The reduction in AABW formation results in warming and ageing of the abyssal ocean, consistent with recent measurements. In contrast, projected wind and thermal forcing has little impact on the properties, age and volume of AABW. These results highlight the critical importance of Antarctic meltwater in setting the abyssal ocean overturning, with implications for global ocean biogeochemistry and climate that could last for centuries.


If greenhouse gas emissions continue at today’s levels, the current in the deepest parts of the ocean could slow down by 40% in only three decades.

This, the scientists said, could generate a cascade of impacts that could push up sea levels, alter weather patterns and starve marine life of a vital source of nutrients.

Antarctic ice melt could disrupt the world’s oceans ...


The Antarctic overturning circulation is part of a global network of currents that shift heat, oxygen and nutrients around the globe

Global warming is accelerating the melting of ice in Antarctica, and the increased amount of fresh water flooding into the ocean is disrupting the flow of the Antarctic overturning circulation


Meanwhile, up north....


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PBS Tells a Story of a War and Nuclear Weapons Use Narrowly Avoided


GreenPolicy360: A new nuclear arms race is underway. We and our associate, Strategic Demands, call it "Cold War 3.0"... fortunately, humanity has not used nuclear weapons since the last days of World War 2 but since the beginning days of the nuclear era there have been too many close calls where an apocalyptic Pandora's Box, having been opened, has brought our world much too close to nuclear war and cataclysm.

Here, in a new revealing documentary on PBS's "American Experience" series we look back at a close call in October/November 1969, one that involved GreenPolicy360 founder/siterunner.

The reality of a 'madman' plotting to use tactical nuclear weapons in this documentary wasn't revealed until years after the fact and after a peace movement prevented nuclear strikes. Now that this story is 'out in the open', we ask who is watching, who is listening?


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PBS

The Movement and the 'Madman'

PBS PREMIERE MARCH 28 ON AMERICAN EXPERIENCE

The documentary film tells the little-known story of a dramatic showdown between a protest movement and a president.


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🌎


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Mapping Internet Freedom - Democracy Status


About Freedom House


News


Global freedom declined for a 17th consecutive year in 2022 as 35 countries suffered deterioration in their political rights and civil liberties, according to a new report released today by Freedom House. A total of 34 countries made improvements during the year, however, meaning the gap between the numbers of countries that improved and declined was the narrowest it has ever been since the negative pattern began. The report suggests that the struggle for democracy may be approaching a turning point, and offers recommendations on how democratic governments and societies should work together to roll back authoritarian gains.

The new report—Freedom in the World 2023: Marking 50 Years in the Struggle for Democracy—is the 50th edition of Freedom House’s annual global assessment of political rights and civil liberties.



March 29


Judge Luttig (Again) Has a Warning for America

Our democracy is “under vicious, unsustainable, and unendurable attack—from within.”


Via The Bulwark


On the morning before the January 6th attack on the Capitol, one of the nation’s most prominent conservative jurists, former Federal Appeals Court Judge J. Michael Luttig, posted a message aimed at Vice President Mike Pence.

“The only responsibility and power of the Vice President under the Constitution is to faithfully count the electoral college votes as they have been cast,” Judge Luttig wrote.

“The Constitution does not empower the vice president to alter in any way the votes that have been cast, either by rejecting certain votes or otherwise,” Luttig continued.

If Pence had caved to Donald Trump’s demands and refused to count the electoral votes, Judge Luttig told the House January 6th Committee last summer, the nation “would immediately have been plunged into what would have been tantamount to a revolution within a paralyzing constitutional crisis.”


Now, Judge Luttig is back, with even a starker warning.

The institutions of our democracy and law, he says, “are under vicious, unsustainable, and unendurable attack — from within.”

Last week, at the University of Georgia School of Law, Luttig said:

With the former president’s and his Republican Party’s determined denial of January 6, their refusal to acknowledge that the former president lost the 2020 presidential election fair and square, and their promise that the 2024 election will not be “stolen” from them again as they maintain it was in 2020, America’s Democracy and the Rule of Law are in constitutional peril — still. And there is no end to the threat in sight….

We are a house divided and our poisonous politics is fast eating away at the fabric of our society….




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The UN 2023 Water Conference

March 22-24 | New York City


Thread


The first water-focused UN-summit in 46 years

UN Conference on Water Aims to Rally Support for Ambitious Goals


The last time the United Nations hosted a conference dedicated to global water supply and sanitation the world looked vastly different. Half as many people were alive. China’s economy was smaller than the United Kingdom’s


The centerpiece of the conference, which runs from March 22 to 24, is the “water action agenda,” a compilation of voluntary commitments from national governments, nonprofits, businesses, and intergovernmental agencies. Together these commitments extend beyond the conference walls, pushing leaders to be more careful, inclusive water stewards in the years ahead.

“It’s not what happens in three days... It’s what happens afterward.”


Facts: About 300,000 children under five die every year from diarrhoeal diseases due to poor sanitation, poor hygiene, or unsafe drinking water. These deaths could have been avoided by access to daily clean water

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), a quarter of the global population, more than two billion people, lack access to safe drinking water.... 2.2 billion people lack access to safely managed drinking water services

Over half the global population, 4.2 billion people, lack safely managed sanitation services

in 2010, the UN General Assembly recognized the human right to water and sanitation. So, for instance, everyone has the right to enough water for personal and domestic uses, which is between 50 and 100 liters of water per person per day.

Water plays a fundamental role in sustainable development


Global Commission on the Economics of Water (Read the Report)

The world is on the verge of a water disaster, with demand for fresh water predicted to outpace supply by 40% by the end of this decade

The lack of access to clean water is a solvable crisis, but it requires good cooperation


UN Conference on Water Aims to Rally Support for Ambitious Goals

Act to Make a Positive Difference


🌎


Sunday, March 12th


A 'Big Picture Day'

Yes, it's another day to take some time to take in the 'zeitgeist', to take a look at connections, trendlines, patterns, how 'it's all related' although in the quotidian reality it's a day at a time, a solar day in fact, as our planet spins through space.

Today's 'Big Picture Day' is called geo-politics by some, and the weather by others, and money makes the world go round or the climate, the climate, the climate is changing, it's getting hotter, have you noticed?

Let's take a quick look:

Record-setting, historic oil/gas profits are being announced xxx, led by the House of Saud, called Saudi Arabia, where the nation's Aramco just announced a $121+ dollar (petrodollar) profit for 2022. This caps four other oil/gas giants announcing record 2022 profits.


Profit-taking in a Profitable Year

Saudi oil giant Aramco posts record $161.1 billion profit for 2022
Four oil companies had total sales of $1 trillion last year
Chevron, ConocoPhillips, Exxon and Shell all reported record profits in 2022


Oil giant Saudi Aramco has reported earning $161bn last year, claiming the highest-ever recorded annual profit by a publicly listed company and drawing immediate criticism from activists.

The monster profit by the firm, known formally as the Saudi Arabian Oil Co., came off the back of energy prices rising after Russia launched its war on Ukraine in February 2022, with sanctions limiting the sale of Moscow’s oil and natural gas in Western markets.


Then there is Saudi Arabia and Iran, both oil giants and in conflict for years, announcing a 'peace treaty' brokered by China. And Iran has announced another weapons agreement with Russia. Russia has previously announced submitting plans to build Saudi Arabia's first nuclear energy producing power plant.


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China, with its world leading economic growth, has announced history-making "Energy Deals of the Century' with Iran's Shia-led government and Russia, and has built deep ties with the the Saudi royal family. Guaranteed oil/gas supplies -- and an alternative to Petrodollar payment -- are top of mind as the US meets Eurasian politics with deepening Mid-East connections.

China's "Belt and Road" ('New Silk Trail') geo-political plan is taking 'great leaps forward'.


Given this as background, let us shift our gaze to the United States as one of the world's largest oil/gas producers that is due, in large part due to 'fracking' technology tapping into old reserves in the Permian Basin (Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, etc). What was previously unprofitable is now profitable and oil/gas tracts and 'frackable' reserves (in the Gulf of Mexico, Alaska, and worldwide with corporate-controlled contracts) are coming online. New LNG (liquified natural gas) refineries, shipping, ports/docks are being built as the energy disruptions of the Russian-Ukraine war have ramped up demand for US oil/gas and OPEC oil/gas as alternatives to Russia's previous large supplies that had been piped to Europe.

Then comes the intense interest of the US president in fossil fuel/oil/gas production with the previously approved "Willow" project in Alaska.

Let's take a closer look at the Willow project in Alaska, about to be announced.


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This is 'Big Picture'. Now go bigger and add in the costs, the consequences of increased oil/gas production. Consider a "cost-benefit analysis."


On this 'Big Picture Sunday' to see a glimpse of this future simply peruse this photo from the Associated Press reporting on an exceptional winter in Europe. The European media is reporting they basically 'got lucky' this winter. Europe lost its major Russian LNG oil/gas supplies, a high percentage of which was used to heat Europe's homes and businesses, but Europeans were delivered a mild winter and the LNG oil/gas was not needed as projected.


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In Germany, the foreign minister and environment minister are leading members of the Green Party who have been pushing German engineering to the forefront in clean energy production, EV products, and myriad clean energy heating/transportation/manufacturing alternatives. They are, as Greens have been saying, 'out in front'.

While the US waged wars and political forces have attempted to block national security alternatives to the 'old ways' of regarding security as hard power and military projects, other realities have come into play and, as time goes by, will be more evident.

Visit StrategicDemands.com, GreenPolicy360's associate for more on the geo-politics.

The reality of climate change is arriving with a physics that has an inertia that humanity has set in motion.

The historic profits of the oil/gas system are one part of the physics and another part is in our hands. Look at how thin our atmosphere is and do calculate the costs (a cost-benefit analysis (CBA)) of business-as-usual. We see historic oil/gas profits in 2022/23, but what about the accumulating costs? Atmospheric emissions, the externalities of greenhouse gas pollution, are producing consequences that are real and escalating. In the 1970s there were those who set out to provide the climate facts and data, the Earth system science. The world can begin to see the costs today and unless we act to ameliorate them, they will be grave for future generations.

Now what about US politics? What about drilling in Alaska? Ask yourself what are the costs of drilling in Alaska, and what are the benefits?

Consider the Big Picture. And consider Joe Biden thinking about oil and gas as he preps to announce he is running for president.


Externalities | Environmental full-cost accounting

New Definitions of National Security | Climate News

Fossil Fuels | Strategic Demands | Planet Citizen Action


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Nations Agree on Language for Historic Treaty to Protect Ocean Life

The United Nations agreement is a significant step toward protecting biodiversity under growing threat from climate change, overfishing and seabed mining

March 4, 2023


After two decades of planning and talks that culminated in a grueling race over the past few days in New York, a significant majority of nations agreed on language for a historic United Nations treaty that would protect ocean biodiversity.

As marine life faces threats from climate change, overfishing, the possibility of seabed mining and other dangers, the treaty would make it possible to create marine-protected areas and enact other conservation measures on the “high seas,” the immense expanse of ocean covering almost half the world.

“Today the world came together to protect the ocean for the benefit of our children and grandchildren,” said Monica Medina, an assistant secretary of state. “We leave here with the ability to create protected areas in the high seas and achieve the ambitious goal of conserving 30 percent of the ocean by 2030.”

The open oceans of the world have no international body or agreement with a primary focus of protecting marine biodiversity. If enacted, this treaty would change that...


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Depleted Under Trump, a ‘Traumatized’ E.P.A. Struggles With Its Mission

The agency’s administrator, Michael S. Regan, has promised that new regulations being written by his staff now will be made public by spring. Agency officials said that the E.P.A. has stepped up its recruitment efforts and has purchased software that has helped it identify more potential job candidates, particularly from universities.

“The agency is moving further and faster than ever before,” Dan Utech, Mr. Regan’s chief of staff, said in a statement. He added that accomplishments had come “despite depleted staffing levels, persistent funding challenges and a previous administration that left the agency neglected and scientifically compromised.”

The E.P.A. is at an unusual juncture. The 2021 bipartisan infrastructure law and the climate law enacted last year have begun to pump $90 billion into the agency over the next 10 years for climate projects like $1.5 billion for new technologies to monitor and reduce methane emissions from oil and gas wells, $5 billion for states to purchase low-emission school buses and $3 billion to cut pollution at ports...


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Year of the Rabbit

By Fefe Ho & Chloe Chiao

The Rabbit is the fourth of all zodiac animals. Legend has it the Rabbit was proud—arrogant even—of its speed. He was neighbors with Ox and always made fun of how slow Ox was. One day, the Jade Emperor said the zodiac order would be decided by the order in which the animals arrived at his party. Rabbit set off at daybreak. But when he got there, no other animals were in sight. Thinking that he would obviously be first, he went off to the side and napped. However, when he woke up, three other animals had already arrived. One of them was the Ox...

The Rabbit’s quiet personality hides their confidence and strength. They are steadily moving towards their goal...

The Rabbit is also associated with the Earthly Branch (地支 / dì zhī) mǎo (卯)...

In the terms of yin and yang (阴阳—yīn yáng), the Rabbit is yin...


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2022


December 2022


December 25th, Christmas Day

Remember that a simple act of kindness can change someone’s day, week and sometimes life


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Act to Protect Democracy


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Report from

The Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol


December 19, 2022

After more than a year of interviewing witnesses, gathering evidence and holding public meetings, the House select committee concluded its final hearing on Monday by referring former President Donald Trump for four criminal charges.

The panel voted unanimously to refer Trump and others to the Justice Department on charges of obstruction of an official proceeding, conspiracy to defraud the United States, conspiracy to make a false statement and conspiracy to defraud the U.S. by assisting, aiding or comforting those involved in an insurrection.


Key Findings From the Jan. 6 Committee’s Report, Annotated


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Nations promise to protect 30 percent of planet to stem extinction

December 19, 2022

Delegates at the COP15 biodiversity summit in Canada make major conservation commitment to try to halt loss of hundreds of thousands of plants and animals. Will nations follow through?


Via Washington Post


Today’s loss of biodiversity is being driven not by a space rock but by one species: humans. The loss of habitat, exploitation of species, climate change, pollution and destruction from invasive species moved by people between continents are all driving a decline in the variety of plants and animals...


Nations now have the next eight years to hit their targets for protecting life. With few legal mechanisms for enforcement, they will have to trust each other to protect habitats and funnel hundreds of billions of dollars over conservation.

“This is an incredible milestone for the world when it comes to conservation,” said Brian O’Donnell, the director of the conservation group Campaign for Nature. “We have been on a rapid path of destruction of nature for hundreds of years, and this can mark a turning point.”


The 10-year deal sets nearly two dozen targets. The banner commitment calls on nations to collectively conserve for wildlife at least 30 percent of land, inland waterways, and coastal and ocean areas by 2030 — the promise dubbed “30 by 30.”

“It’s a global goal. Every country commits what they are capable of committing,” said Masha Kalinina, a senior officer focused on biodiversity at the Pew Charitable Trusts. “Some will do more, some will do less.”


The world has a long way to go to achieving that goal. Right now, only about a sixth of the continents and a 12th of the oceans have some form of protection, according to the U.N.’s World Conservation Monitoring Centre.


Associated Press


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News from the US Department of Energy, Livermore Lab, of a Successful Fusion Demonstration

The Former Director of DOE Speaks of Coming Engineering Challenges

The first laboratory demonstration of net energy gain by fusing hydrogen isotopes is a major physics accomplishment - a necessary step on the long road to a fusion power plant. Whether by compressing the fusion fuel (as was done at DOE's Livermore lab or confining it as a very hot plasma (the approach of TAE Technologies, the company on whose Board I sit, and of several others), other-worldly conditions of high temperature must be not only attained but also reliably sustained for an economically viable power plant.

The science underpinnings of several different fusion technologies may be well established in this decade, to be followed by engineering of commercial power plants that meet cost benchmarks. I am optimistic that such power plants can be demonstrated and initially deployed in the 2030's, and indeed over four billion dollars of private capital are betting on it.

-- Ernest J. Moniz, former U.S. Energy Secretary and CEO of the non-profit Energy Futures Initiative


Via The Bulwark

The fusion breakthrough "didn't just achieve breakeven—getting more energy back that it put in—it achieved ignition. That is, they lit a thermonuclear fire in the lab. This has never been done." It's a big deal...


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Time to Remember: "An Oath"

“I … do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion, and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.”


December 5, 2022

'Thought for the Day' by Steve Clemons

“I do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.” That is the beginning of the oath new members of the Senate and the House will be asked to take on January 3, but will they? Donald Trump said over the weekend that we should suspend the Constitution to illegally reinstall himself as president. We’ll find out where leading Republican voices stand this week, who will get another round of questions about whether his latest behavior is disqualifying.


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New Climate TRACE Emissions Database Announced at the 2022 Global Climate Conference (COP27)

Earth Observation technology, decades of earth science and imaging with a goal, is now ready for prime time


GreenPolicy360: THIS announcement is a game changer (and a tip of our green hat to those who purposefully set in motion a 1970s era plan to develop and launch a series of NASA missions to observe and understand our planet). Now comes country-by-country climate regulation, enforcement and emissions controls, political action and legal services. (From the original Mission Statement of NASA -- “To understand and protect our home planet...")

Follow our GreenPolicy360 "Climate Plans Enforcement" project for more information on the Climate TRACE coalition.


Global Emissions Inventory is a Secret Weapon at COP27

November 2022 / The Climate TRACE coalition unveils a new, highly detailed inventory of global greenhouse gas emissions, which it hopes will help countries and companies looking for effective, targeted ways to decarbonize.


Via Protocol ("Launched to cover the evolving power center of tech")


The Climate TRACE project is not being presented as the “climate cops” on the beat. The coalition in formation is seen as more of a “neighborhood watch,” which is often contacted by legal services and non profit groups who need local information and data to make their enforcement case.

“Some — maybe many — governments (will) use the information to make sure that their laws and regulations are complied with”...

It’s not just governments who can benefit from the inventory release, but private companies as well.


GreenPolicy360:

Measure to Manage: Gather the Data and Science

As Protocol announces its end of publication Farewell from Protocol, November 15, 2022, we are choosing to reprint this full article, one of Protocol's final articles, and one that captures the promise and power of tech to help solve the generational challenges of climate change.

The Climate TRACE coalition unveiled a new, highly detailed inventory of global greenhouse gas emissions, which it hopes will help countries and companies looking for effective, targeted ways to decarbonize.


By Michelle Ma (@himichellema) / November 9, 2022


Al Gore has one mission this week at COP27, and that’s to give climate negotiators what he hopes will be a critical tool to address the crisis at hand: an independent, global inventory of greenhouse gas emissions, down to the individual facility.

The Climate TRACE coalition just released the world’s most detailed inventory of global greenhouse gas emissions, which Gore, a founding member, is unveiling on Wednesday at the United Nations climate summit in Egypt.


“Of course, the world has long known what the overall amount of greenhouse gas pollution in the atmosphere is. What’s different about this [database] is the accurate apportioning of who’s responsible for what and the granularity that allows us a focus on specific emissions sources,” Gore told Protocol, adding that he has “no doubt” that the database “will be put to a lot of use in negotiations for sure.”

The inventory shows facility-level emissions, which will allow negotiators to home in on the most polluting sites in individual countries, helping them target where emissions reductions should come from. Putting a solar farm in one place might displace significantly more emissions than locating it somewhere else, and the inventory allows negotiators to identify exactly where they would get “the biggest bang for their buck.”


The inventory, published on Wednesday on Climate TRACE’s website and free for anyone to access, includes emissions data for 72,612 individual sources, including power plants, steel mills, and oil and gas fields. It also includes sources that can move between countries, such as cargo ships.

That granularity will be critical for countries to have an accurate accounting of their emissions and where they come from, particularly countries that don’t have the resources to gather that data themselves. It will also help corporations looking for the most cost-effective, impactful way to cut emissions, said Gavin McCormick, another founding member of the coalition.

“One of the exciting parts for us has been to move the conversation from countries arguing in some vague sense about accountability to, ‘Hey, we’re talking about these few facilities here,” McCormick said.


Using AI and satellite data, Climate TRACE was able to determine that a significant share of carbon pollution comes from a small number of facilities. The database shows that one steel mill in Korea, for example, emits more greenhouse gas pollution in a year than all of Bosnia. “The politics of how you would transition a few facilities is strikingly different than when you’re saying, ‘Who could know where it’s coming from?’” McCormick said.

Many countries lack accurate, granular, and up-to-date emissions data. That’s in part due to resource constraints, particularly in smaller or poorer countries. Egypt, for example, released a partial inventory of its 2015 emissions for the first time this year. Some of the data is self-reported by polluters, collected via surveys of key facilities and then extrapolated to create a country-level estimate. In India, “I know they’re literally out there counting cows for a few farms and then assuming these farms are representative for the whole country,” McCormick said.

Climate TRACE's data show emissions at the facility-level.

One key insight that came out of this inventory was that oil and gas emissions are “massively undercounted” in official estimates, he said. Through satellite data, the coalition found that oil and gas leaks were a significant source of “super-emitting” sites.

When asked if he thinks the undercounting of emissions from the oil and gas sector was deliberate or not, Gore said, “There are several specific examples that are hard to interpret in any way other than the fact that there has been an intentional effort to hide emissions and to deceive the world community about how large the emissions are. It’s just almost impossible to believe that it’s an accidental oversight, and all the accidents go in exactly the same direction.”

Gore, however, is not interested in Climate TRACE being the “climate cops.” He views the coalition as more of a “neighborhood watch,” which is often contacted by law enforcement for local information. “I will not be at all surprised if some — maybe many — governments use the information to make sure that their laws and regulations are complied with,” he said.

It’s not just governments who can benefit from the inventory release, but private companies as well.

The cleanest steel mills aren’t being used at full capacity. Yet shifting business to these mills could reduce emissions from the steel sector by 50%, McCormick said.

Companies that want to decarbonize their supply chains — which includes a number of major tech companies from Salesforce to Apple — can simply use the information to purchase products from the cleanest facilities. The coalition has already started having conversations with multinational corporations about switching suppliers, which can happen in a matter of months rather than years, if they’re armed with independent data.

By next year, Climate TRACE hopes to update the inventory to include every source of emissions and, eventually, get it closer to updating in real time. Right now, the data as a whole is at least annual up until 2021, with some sectors updated monthly.

“My belief is that if we can demonstrate to the world that it’s actually easier than they thought to make progress and we can actually track that progress, this is going to be the year that a lot of countries start tasting some serious progress,” McCormick said.



GreenPolicy360: Follow Our "Climate Plans Enforcement" Initiative

Climate Plans Enforcement - Resources


GreenPolicy360 welcomes the arrival of a global science mission, a "Global Stocktake", a collection of earth science data to be made available to the community of nations, to planet citizen activists and scientists, educational institutions, non-profits, NGOs, young and old to become tools for legal enforcement of national climate plans & pledges


GreenPolicy360's Campaign to 'Turn National Climate Promises & Pledges into Reality'

Our Climate Plans Enforcement Initiative continues as the next Global Climate Conference approaches, November's Conference of the Parties (COP27)
Drawing from the database of Earth Science resulting from decades of space-based missions designed to provide us with actionable 'Earth-system and Climate-related data'
Measuring and Monitoring to better manage Earth's Living, Dynamic and Changing Systems, Local, National and Global


Methods to Enforce Climate Plan Pledges

GreenPolicy360: Climate Plans Enforcement Initiative

Pressuring Nations to Step Up, Cooperate, and Act Now

Environmental Laws, Regs, Rules... Lawsuits & Legal Actions

Glasgow (2021) & Paris (2015) Summits: Int'l Climate Plan Pledges & Promises (INDCs-NDCs)


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"Earth Observing System": Decades of Earth Science/Climate Science Data Accessible for Planet Citizen Action


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* https://www.greenpolicy360.net/w/File:Time_Nov_10_2022_COP27.jpg


Climate Summit / COP27 Updates - November 11, 2022

Via NY Times Reporters/Live - On Location


Transcript of President Biden's Speech at the 27th International Climate Conference


More from the Global Climate Conference

COP27: Biden says the climate crisis is about ‘very life of the planet’


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SHARM EL-SHEIKH, EGYPT, Nov 7 (Reuters) - United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres told countries gathered at the start of the COP27 summit in Egypt on Monday they face a stark choice: work together now to cut emissions or condemn future generations to climate catastrophe.

The speech set an urgent tone as governments sit down for two weeks of talks on how to avert the worst of climate change, even as they are distracted by Russia’s war in Ukraine, rampant consumer inflation and energy shortages.


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COP27

Time for Planet Citizen Action


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GreenPolicy360: Methane hot spots we're coming to find you, identify you, act to stop you and enforce climate laws.

"Super emitters", we have a message for you, you can't hide....


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October 2022


Planet Citizen Vision of Living Earth
Planet Citizen Action, Environmental protection. Quality of Life


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Planet Citizens / Scientists, Preserving & Protecting the Home Planet Earth



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Stewart Udall Film Trailer: http://vimeo.com/708323643


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* https://thebulletin.org/2022/10/nowhere-to-hide-how-a-nuclear-war-would-kill-you-and-almost-everyone-else


GreenPolicy360 Siterunner: Green politics for decades has, in the community of nations, focused on the nuclear threat. The history of green parties and green, environmental movement has a record of activism that has been described as 'out in front' and in Europe, within the European governments, since the 1970s and 80s we see green organizing that demanded the removal of nuclear weapons. Green politics called for an end to the 'hair trigger' face-off between the Soviet Union and Europe, the U.S. and a nuclear conflagration that threatened humanity and life on Planet Earth.

Today, the war in Ukraine and threat of nuclear war continues to grow with a waving of so-called "tactical, battlefield" and "strategic, intercontinental" nuclear weapons bristling with dangers of mistake, miscalculation, desperate or preemptive use, rogue forces or insane calculation. A new century is now seeing the collapse of nuclear arms controls and treaties, with media 'normalizing' nuclear weapons use in nightly news shows. The East and West stand on a precipice.

Now comes "Nowhere to Hide" by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.

Read it -- https://thebulletin.org/2022/10/nowhere-to-hide-how-a-nuclear-war-would-kill-you-and-almost-everyone-else

We at GreenPolicy360 and with our associate, Strategic Demands have worked alongside the Bulletin and its goals...

Now a flashing warning continues louder and brighter -- be aware of the danger. Act to reduce the danger of nuclear disaster.


War in Ukraine Ratcheting Up, Threats of Nuclear Use Ratcheting Up

June, July, August, September, October -- 'Bluffing' or Coming Cataclysm?


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GreenPolicy360 Siterunner: It is October 1st and we are looking at a "Week that Was". Under the heading of Climate News/Florida what has been described as one of the most costly hurricanes in the history of the state hit the west coast couth of Tampa Bay, Hurricane Ian hit not far from where Hurricane Charley devastated not many years ago. In Florida, the terrestrial home of GreenPolicy360, we faced a Hurricane named Ian -- and resulting catastrophe throughout our state. Hurricane Ian arrived from the Caribbean and target the Florida west coast from Naples in the south to Tampa Bay and further in the north and central Florida. Mandatory evacuations were ordered... many listened, many didn't and now the consequences are coming into view. The media and press are reporting, politicians speaking, emergency services, the Coast Guard, police, and regular citizens of all persuasions and backgrounds have acted, often as rescuers and/or protectors of families and homes. The consequences of the damage and the on the ground reality and experience will go on for months and years.

We have to ask, as now is the time to ask about Florida's future, what about Florida? Where is the 'trending' threads of concern acknowledging, risks, problems and identifying solutions to 'extreme weather events'. Here at GreenPolicy we have for years spoken of a warming Gulf of Mexico and tropical storms that 'rapidly intensify' as a result. Ian the hurricane did exactly that, surprising many but not out of line with the physics of a Gulf of Mexico that is heating due to climate change. The atmospheric science, earth science, ocean science, the statistics and the physics of interacting systems, and the political responses to the full scope of the devastation this extreme weather event/storm/typhoon, call it what you will, is on the radar. We are seeing connections between human decisions and nature's responses. Florida is, as we have written for years, "The frontlines of climate change".

Change is in the air. It is time for reality check. The radar sees the moving vector. It's time that we see the threat speeding at us...


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E.O. Wilson: Planet Citizen


E.O. Wilson: He discovered hundreds of new species by putting his hands in the dirt as a field biologist, synthesized evolving thinking in science and coined new terms, such as biodiversity and biophilia, to explain it. Of his many accomplishments in evolutionary biology, his biggest contribution was probably in the new scientific field of sociobiology, in which he addressed the biological basis of social behavior in animals, including humans.


E.O. Wilson: His 2006 book "The Creation: An Appeal to Save Life on Earth," a series of letters written to an imaginary Baptist preacher in pursuit of an ecological alliance to save the Earth.


E.O. Wilson: Naturalist dubbed a modern-day Darwin, dies at 92


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Protect Life, Be Pro-Life, Prevent Extinction


E.O. Wilson: The 8 Million++ Species We Don’t Know


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Big Picture Time: On the Way to Cosmology


James webb space telescope

December 25th.... Launched !


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"The launch of the Webb Space Telescope is a pivotal moment -- this is just the beginning for the Webb mission," said Gregory L. Robinson, Webb's program director at NASA Headquarters.

"Now we will watch Webb's highly anticipated and critical 29 days on the edge. When the spacecraft unfurls in space, Webb will undergo the most difficult and complex deployment sequence ever attempted in space. Once commissioning is complete, we will see awe-inspiring images that will capture our imagination."


Big Science: How the James Webb Telescope Will See Back in Time


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GreenPolicy360

"Greening Our Blue Planet"


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It's All Related


Planet Citizens

www.planetcitizen.org
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* https://www.greenpolicy360.net/w/Category:Earth_Day


DYK? Yes, we do, we remember the beginnings !
🌎 The 1960s... Beginnings of the Modern Environmental Movement

Christina Korp Earth Day and Apollo 8.jpg


On the 50th Anniversary

Memories on the Road to the First Earth Day

* https://www.greenpolicy360.net/w/Earth_Day_Memories_on_the_50th_Anniversary


... Remembering the student teach-ins, the means we used to spread the word and we did. The Vietnam Moratorium Committee became the peace group and and when we talked to Senator Nelson and George Brown about doing environmental teach-ins that would be the first in a series of annual peace and environment events they got it and put their combined weight behind the effort.

It came to be, from an Earthrise moment, to the Moratorium demonstrations and teach-in, to the teach-ins of Earth Day. What quickly followed was the passage of the first generation of US environmental protection legislation.

The environmental movement that sprang from the global realization passed on to us by the NASA Apollo missions, and student activism, are shaping a new generation and modern environmental movement.


The 1970s and 80s

Greening Our Blue Planet


An environmental foundation, initiatives and laws that serve a model for state -- and international -- action:

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In 1977-78 the first climate science comes to light... first generation science for national and global environmental action set a platform in place on which to create climate policy and environmental protection over the coming decades ...


First National Climate Act, Historic Work, 1978

GreenPolicy360 Siterunner / SJS: The beginnings of modern environmental and climate science can be traced to the 60s and 70s. The U.S. National Academy of Sciences played a key role with scientific reports and data.

Energy and Climate Report, 1977, National Academy of Sciences / 175 pp. / PDF via GreenPolicy360

George Brown, taking the 1977 Energy and Climate Report from the Academy, made climate science actionable. In a historic moment, Representative Brown from East Los Angeles proposed and drafted the legislation for the first U.S. National Climate Program and shepherded its passage in 1978. In 1979 came the first follow-on National Science Academy report. This study and report of national scientists was prescient and accurate in its global warming predictions.

This first federal program established to study and assess scientifically the issues and risks of human-caused climate change became a foundation for comprehensive initiatives, and led to an array of new Earth Science missions by NASA and NOAA, the EPA and USGS.


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At the Beginning of U.S. Science on Global Warming, Strategies & Planning

1978, Launching U.S. Climate Action:

National Climate Program Act, Public Law 95-367

National Climate Program Act of September 1978


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Into the 1990s... Going Green Globally


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Remembering the First Earth Summit


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The New Millenium: New Green Formative Action Beyond Party Politics


Initial proposing New Definitions of National Security


Each of us can make a positive difference

Climate Problems, Climate Solutions


Planet Citizens, Planet Scientists


Earth in Our Hands


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Climate Change - Global Warming Keyword-Terms


Our Biggest Experiment

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