Joseph J. Romm's Blog, page 84

Why Pope Francis Is The ‘Will And Grace’ Of Climate Change

In recent weeks, a number of writers have lamented Pope Francis’ failure to transform public opinion on climate change. Did the pope’s encyclical on the environment alter the views of American Catholics? Not really. Did his address to Congress sway Republican politicians? No. But that’s okay.

We may come to see Pope Francis as the Will & Grace of climate change. That is not to say that he is Will, a compulsive neat freak with perfect hair, or Grace, Will’s self-absorbed counterpart, or even Jack, their persistently flamboyant friend. Rather, the pope is Will & Grace, the show — all of it. He is at once trendy and tendentious, and when he’s not making us laugh and smile, Il Papa is challenging Americans to think hard about the defining issue of our time.

To understand, let’s hop in our time machine and travel back to August 1998. Bill Clinton was president. “The Boy Is Mine” was song of the summer. Beanie babies were grossly overvalued. At that precise moment, Will & Grace was set to premiere on NBC. No one expected the quirky sitcom to permanently alter American politics, but 14 years later, the vice president of the United States told Meet the Press, “I think Will & Grace probably did more to educate the American public [on gay rights] than almost anybody’s ever done so far.”

That’s not to suggest Will & Grace was the coup de grace of the gay rights movement — in fact, the importance of the show is surely overstated. But when taken together with other positive representations of gays and lesbians, the hard work of gay rights activists, and the courage of gay Americans who came out to their friends, family and coworkers, Will & Grace played an important role in normalizing homosexuality.

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The cast of television’s “Will & Grace,” from left, Megan Mullally, Eric McCormack, Debra Messing and Sean Hayes pose with their awards for outstanding performance by an ensemble in a comedy series at the 7th annual Screen Actors Guild Awards in this photo taken March 11, 2001, in Los Angeles.

CREDIT: AP Photo/Reed Saxon

Pope Francis is also nudging Americans’ attitudes, this time on climate change. The pope’s message on global warming is not a fourth quarter Hail Mary pass (pun intended). It’s a forced fumble in the second quarter that, in hindsight, will turn out to have been a game changer. That’s because the pope isn’t influencing climate policy in the short term through the strength of his argument. He is changing the conversation around climate change in the long term by helping to reshape social norms.

The pope is making it easier for the climate-conscious to “come out” on global warming. Francis gave the green light to Catholic bishops to be vocal about climate change. Since the publication of his encyclical, religious leaders have spoken out about the carbon crisis, including the heads of the Episcopal Church, who announced they would divest from fossil fuels, and the University of Notre Dame, which declared it would stop burning coal to generate electricity. These are not fringe environmental groups. These are mainstream American institutions taking a moral stand.

Every school, business, or right-thinking individual who “comes out” on climate change is showing others that it’s okay to do the same. Pope Francis stands among the trendsetters, the conscientious men and women taking small steps to use less energy — turning off the A/C, using public transportation, going vegetarian. These are the early adopters of a low-carbon lifestyle. They’re saying, loud and proud: We’re here. We’re taking a bike to work. Get used to it.

As more and more Americans go green and more and more institutions speak out about climate change, it will become harder to deny the reality of human-caused climate change. When Will & Grace took to the air, homophobia was one of the few remaining publicly sanctioned forms of prejudice. Even Barack Obama, when he was campaigning in 2008, deliberately voiced his opposition to same-sex marriage. Now, marriage equality is the law of the land and Scott Walker says he would attend the reception of a gay wedding. It works the same way with global warming: To normalize acceptance of human-caused climate change is to put deniers on the defensive. Already, the pope’s proclamations on climate change and capitalism have left Catholic GOP presidential candidates in a bind.

Pope Francis’ real sleight-of-hand, however, is that he is able to undermine the contrarians without beating them over the head. The New Republic’s Rebecca Leber lamented that the pope never once uttered the words “climate change” in his address to Congress, but that was a feature, not a bug. Because just like Will & Grace — which did discuss civil unions but never broached the subject of gay marriage — the pope can speak volumes with very few words. Lawmakers get it. The climate is changing. The pope is worried. And just like the three-camera sitcom, the Catholic Church is as relevant as ever.

If the pontiff’s message on climate change feels inconsequential now, it’s not a flash in the pan. Pope Francis has made the care for our common home a central part of the church’s mission, offering a new avenue for faith leaders to drive home the moral argument for climate action. In other words, he is making it normal to care about climate change. And while there isn’t a good yardstick yet for measuring the Francis effect, we may look back in ten or 15 years’ time and see the pope’s “coming out” as a turning point.

Jeremy Deaton writes about the science, policy, and politics of climate and energy for Nexus Media. You can follow him at @deaton_jeremy.

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Poll Finds Fewer Americans Than Ever Doubt Climate Change Is Happening

At least 70 percent of Americans now believe that global warming during the last 40 years is real and supported by solid evidence, coinciding with the lowest percentage of Americans who doubt climate change, according to a new poll released this week.

Even more startling: the survey also found a dramatic drop during the past year in the number of self-identified Republicans who doubt the existence of climate change, from 41 percent last fall to 26 percent now.

“The big shift here is amongst Republicans, and it is a huge one,” said Barry Rabe, professor of public policy and environmental policy at the University of Michigan, and a co-author of the poll. “Most survey work has found a gaping divide between self-identified Democrats and Republicans on this issue for many years now. This suggests that those differences still persist, but have declined significantly. We did not anticipate this.”

The finding that 70 percent of Americans support the evidence of climate change represents the second-highest level in the history of the survey, which is conducted twice annually — in the spring and fall — by the National Surveys on Energy and the Environment. The current number is only a slight dip from the 72 percent recorded in 2008, which then likely was “a response to the perception of weather or weather experiences, and before there was a campaign to challenge proposed climate change policies,” Rabe said. “But then it began to drop almost immediately.”

By this spring, however, the percentage had risen to 63 percent, then jumped during the past six months to 70 percent, almost certainly reflecting concern over severe drought conditions in many parts of the country, Rabe said. “The drought issue is affecting big regions of the country,” Rabe said. “Drought is not just a narrow, localized issue now. A lot of people live in areas where there is some degree of drought.”

Americans cited drought most often as having a “very large” effect on their attitudes, including 61 percent of those who believe climate change is occurring, according to the poll.

“People are often responding to their perception of weather or weather experience,” Rabe said. “Rather than look at scientific journals or U.N. reports, they have a tendency to look at what last summer or winter was like. So the drought issue has gone up dramatically.”

The telephone survey contacted more than 900 randomly selected Americans, and was conducted by Rabe, Christopher Borick, professor of political science at Muhlenberg College and director of the Muhlenberg Institute of Public Opinion, and Sarah Mills, a postdoctoral fellow in the University of Michigan’s center for local, state and urban policy, which Rabe directs.

Of those Americans who believe in climate change, a record 65 percent said they were “very confident” of their position, according to the poll.

A majority of Republicans support the evidence behind global warming for the first time since 2008

Moreover, a record low number of Americans doubt the evidence of climate change, with only 16 percent now holding this view, and a majority of Republicans (56 percent) support the evidence behind global warming for the first time since 2008, when 55 percent of GOP responders believed climate change was real. Less surprising, strong majorities of Democrats (79 percent) and Independents (69 percent) continue to believe there is solid evidence of global warming.

Compared to the drop in doubt among Republicans, only six percent fewer Democrats and four percent fewer Independents called themselves doubters; the relatively lower drop among Democrats and Independents may be in part due to their already low levels of doubt, according to the survey.

“Nonetheless, the far more substantial decline in doubt among Republicans contributed significantly to the record low levels of doubt about global warming,” suggesting “some possibility for greater convergence of views across partisan lines, although it reflects only a single point in time,” the report said.

The rise from 63 percent in the spring to 70 percent now “represents a significant shift,” Rabe said. “It’s a seven percent shift on the same question with the same kind of sample. Whether it is a permanent shift, or an aberration, we don’t know. These are snapshots in time.”

In previous surveys, large majorities of American who doubted the existence of climate change said they felt that way because of local weather observations. This time, however, more than a third (34 percent) of the doubters said that local weather had “no effect” on their views, which represents the highest percentage since these surveys began in 2008.

The questions in this survey asked whether Americans believe there is solid evidence that average temperatures on Earth have been getting warmer during the last four decades, and how confident they were of their decision. They also asked about factors that have influenced their position, such as drought, declining glaciers and polar ice, as well as extreme weather events, such as major storms and floods, among others.

They did not ask whether human activities — such as fossil fuel burning — were responsible for climate change, or about policy questions and mitigation strategies.

“We are asking the same questions to a large diverse survey of Americans, and [these findings] suggest there is some expansion in the base of Americans who see this pattern and affirm it,” Rabe said. “This does not necessarily mean that all of these people accept the idea that there is human causation behind it, and still others might say, ‘yes, this is happening, but there is nothing we can do about it.’ But it does suggest a deeper recognition of a pattern and a deeper recognition of a problem.”

He said that the researchers plan to conduct additional surveys that will examine Americans’ attitudes regarding policy questions, causation and the impact of the Pope’s recent encyclical on climate change.

“We will be going into much more depth,” he said. “More will be coming in the weeks ahead.”

Marlene Cimons is a freelance writer who specializes in science, health and the environment.

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Obama Administration Targets Greenhouse Gases That Are Up To 10,000 Times More Potent Than CO2

The Obama administration has announced new efforts to reduce the use of hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), potent greenhouse gases that are used in refrigerators, air conditioners, aerosols, and foam products.

The White House announcement outlines commitments from private sector companies to reduce their use of HFCs, a class of gases that can trap 10,000 times more heat than carbon dioxide. It also includes commitments from the government, such as plans from the Department of Defense to equip its new class destroyers and amphibious transport dock ships with low-emissions refrigeration and air conditioning. The DoD also announced that it would provide $3 million for research into HFC alternatives that won’t contribute so much to climate change.

The White House estimates that, over the next 10 years, the commitments from companies and government agencies will cut HFC emissions by the equivalent of 1 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide. The’s equal, according to the White House, to removing 210 million cars from the road for one year.

HFCs are a type of fluoridated gas that became common in certain industries after chlorofluorocarbons, which were once used in refrigerators and air conditioning and whose use led to a hole in the ozone layer, were banned. Banning CFCs is helping the ozone repair itself, but it also opened the door for HFCs as a replacement. HFCs are potent greenhouse gases that leak into the atmosphere during maintenance of A.C. or refrigeration units, and also escape when these appliances are thrown away. Without efforts to limit their use, the White House estimates that their emissions will triple in the U.S. by 2030.

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CREDIT: EPA

But just as HFCs replaced CFCs, new, less potent gases will need to replace HFCs if the phase-out is to be successful.

“The challenge is, how do we transition away from these to other chemicals that can do just as well?” EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy said Thursday.

Luckily, there are already some alternatives that work effectively in the place of HFCs and don’t cause the same degree of warming. As part of the effort, the EPA plans to expand its list of low global warming potential gases that can be used as alternatives to HFCs — a list known as Significant New Alternatives Policy (SNAP) program. Next spring, according to the NRDC, the EPA is set to come out with a new set of SNAP rules that create deadlines for replacing HFCs in cases where more climate-friendly alternatives are available.

And also on Thursday, the Department of Energy released a report that tested HFC alternatives in high-temperature environments. The report found that “several viable replacements exist for both HCFC-22 and HFC-410A in those environments for mini-split air conditioning units.”

The world’s action on HFCs has come in stages. In 2013, the U.S. and China announced that they would work to phase down the use of HFCs. And last year, India, China, and other developing countries agreed to discussions on phasing out HFCs. As residents in developing countries like India become wealthier, they buy more air conditioners and refrigerators, which means the possibility of phasing out HFCs in those countries will be key to reducing emissions. China could overtake the United States as the largest consumer of electricity for air conditioning by 2020, and India is among the countries expected to see the planet’s largest increases in A.C. demand.

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How Climate Change Could Cause An Epic Collapse Of Ocean Ecosystems

If humans continue spewing carbon pollution into the atmosphere, the oceans are going to get a lot simpler — meaning fewer organisms and biodiversity — according to a new summary of the latest marine research.

A study released this week in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) was the first in the world to comprehensively analyze how human greenhouse gas emissions will cause a dramatic collapse in the globe’s largest ecosystem.

As carbon dioxide levels increase in the atmosphere, ocean temperatures rise — in fact, last year saw the hottest average sea surface temperatures on record. And fully 90 percent of human-caused warming ends up in the oceans.

Another effect of increasing CO2 levels is ocean acidification, where carbon dioxide saturates the ocean and forms carbonic acid. This means the water is more acidic and makes life harder for many types of marine life — such as those found off the coast of Maine. Over the last 200 years, the oceans have absorbed 150 billion metric tons of human carbon pollution, making them 30 percent more acidic. Right now they take in about a third of human emissions.

Rising temperatures combined with increasingly acidic oceans mean changes for all marine life, but most research into the nature of that change focused on specific species, life stages, or ecosystems. Marine ecologists Ivan Nagelkerken and Sean Connell at the University of Adelaide looked at a huge number of quantitative studies like this and made broader conclusions about what the oceans will look like if temperatures and pH levels continue to rise.

“The analysis suggests that the impact will affect a range of species, ecosystems, and latitudes,” Nagelkerken told ThinkProgress. “The rates of warming and acidification will accelerate even faster compared to current change, and other stressors may show similar patterns.”

Nagelkerken and Connell conducted a meta-analysis of 632 experiments across ecosystems and latitudes to find the winners and losers in future hot, acidic water.

The world will see more plankton in temperate waters as water warm. Plankton off North American coasts have developed into toxic algal blooms in particularly warm waters. Production of tropical plankton, however, will decrease.

Microbes will thrive in acidifying waters. “Microorganisms have fast generation times and occur in a wide range (of extreme) environments, which might explain why they perform well under climate change stress,” Nagelkerken said.

Herbivores’ metabolic rates and consumption levels increase as the temperature does, but they do not grow or thrive with this increased food intake. In fact, as the oceans acidify, herbivores will become weaker and smaller.

Carnivores also must consume more prey as their metabolic costs increase, though with fewer options as herbivores decrease in abundance and size, or become contaminated by toxic algae. On the west coast of the United States, sea lions have been suffering from fish shoals moving north as waters warm, as well as a giant toxic algal bloom that contaminated shellfish they would usually try to eat.

“Species diversity and abundances of tropical as well as temperate species decline with acidification,” the study reads, “with shifts favoring novel community compositions dominated by noncalcifiers and microorganisms.” This means a reduction in the total number of species, and a severe reduction in reef-building species like corals and shellfish. Currently, a massive coral bleaching event is sweeping across oceans from Hawaii to India to the Caribbean. A recent study found that fish numbers also have an enormous impact on the health of coral reefs.

“There will be a species collapse from the top of the food chain down,” Nagelkerken said in a release.

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The oceans in a warming, acidic ocean. Consumption rises, production decreases, and species diversity drops.

CREDIT: PNAS

One way to confirm what is likely to happen to species as waters get more acidic is to study organisms at natural warm CO2 vents on the ocean floor. The research suggests that species will not acclimate to these more extreme conditions.

“This conceptualization of change across whole communities and their trophic linkages forecast a reduction in diversity and abundances of various key species that underpin current functioning of marine ecosystems,” the study reads.

Species do worst when dealing with warmer waters, ocean acidification, overfishing, nutrient runoff, and other pollution. Nagelkerken said that because even under the most optimistic scenarios the world will keep emitting carbon dioxide in the short term, warming and acidification will not stop. So reducing the other stressors, like pollution and overfishing, can buy time for some species to adapt or acclimate.

Nagelkerken said that additional research would be needed to be able to make conclusions about how ocean life would respond along a gradient of temperatures and CO2 levels. This would allow researchers to predict threshold levels, or tipping points, beyond which ocean diversity could get particularly grim.

“The future simplification of our oceans has profound consequences for our current way of life, particularly for coastal populations and those that rely on oceans for food and trade,” the study said.

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George Bush’s EPA Chief: Clean Power Plan Is ‘Most Flexible Thing’ The Agency Has Done

In an exclusive interview, former EPA chief Christine Todd Whitman said the EPA’s Clean Power Plan (CPP) is “the most flexible thing,” the agency has ever done.

Whitman is the former Republican governor of New Jersey who ran the Environmental Protection Agency at the start of the George W. Bush administration. She spoke with Climate Progress on a range of issues, including the CPP, nuclear power, the urgent need for climate action, and why she “certainly” doesn’t “talk about climate change … to the Republicans” on Capitol Hill.

The CPP is a set of carbon pollution standards for existing power plants issued by the EPA in consultation with the public, industry, and states. The Supreme Court said back in 2007 that the EPA was legally required to put in place such standards once CO2 was scientifically determined to endanger public health and well-being, which it obviously does.

“EPA does have the authority,” explained Whitman last year in Senate testimony. “The law says so and the Supreme Court has said so, twice. The matter, I believe, should be put to rest.”

While many of her fellow Republicans have attacked the CPP as harmful to U.S. jobs and the competitiveness of American business, Whitman explained to Climate Progress why that wasn’t true. First, she points out that from 1985 to 2008, we had a “booming economy” that nearly doubled GDP — with energy use rising 30 percent at the same time emissions from six major regulated pollutants dropped 60 percent. So, “the idea the EPA is a job killer is false.”

Second, in terms of the CPP, “What EPA did was to allow as much flexibility as frankly I’ve ever seen them be able to create in a regulation.” That is, the CPP in particular gives more options to states and industry to meet the new standards than it had in any previous regulation, enabling them to use a wide variety of strategies to advance a wide variety of clean energy technologies, including energy efficiency.

“I believe they have gone as far as they can possibly go,” noted Whitman. She has unique experience on this subject, “having tried at various times when I was at EPA to provide some flexibility in getting clean-air standards — and getting beaten back every single time and losing in court.”

Studies have repeatedly shown that the CPP will have at most a minimal impact on jobs and the economy. Indeed, a July study from researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology found that if states and utilities take advantage of the remarkable flexibility EPA has given them, they can achieve the CO2 targets while actually lowering the electricity bills of their customers.

And once you realize that climate action is inevitable — that the CPP is the very least the United States can do as a moral nation — then what matters most is to design as flexible an implementation plan as possible, which is precisely what EPA did.

Whitman realizes that inevitability. Back in June 2013, Obama announced his “Climate Action Plan” would include “tough new rules to cut carbon pollution” — rules that “build on state leadership, provide flexibility, and take advantage of a wide range of energy sources and technologies….”

Two months later, Whitman joined with other former EPA chiefs from GOP administrations — William Ruckelshaus (under Nixon and Reagan), Lee Thomas (Reagan), and William Reilly (George H.W. Bush)– to pen a New York Times op-ed, “A Republican Case for Climate Action.” Whitman et al wrote:

Mr. Obama’s plan is just a start. More will be required. But we must continue efforts to reduce the climate-altering pollutants that threaten our planet. The only uncertainty about our warming world is how bad the changes will get, and how soon. What is most clear is that there is no time to waste.

That op-ed noted, “A market-based approach, like a carbon tax, would be the best path to reducing greenhouse-gas emissions, but that is unachievable in the current political gridlock in Washington.” So the authors support President Obama pursuing the regulatory approach.

When asked what she says to members of Congress in her own party who take a skeptical view that more will be required, Whitman explains we need a “national energy plan” that is “clean, green, affordable and reliable.” She added, “I don’t even talk about climate change really anymore — certainly not to the Republicans.” She talks instead about clean air, quality of life, health, longevity, cost avoidance, and jobs.

Whitman was speaking to CP in her role as co-chair of the Clean and Safe Energy (CASEnergy) Coalition, which is an advocacy group supported by the Nuclear Energy Institute. She argues that nuclear power needs to be part of the mix to meet the Clean Power Plan, while acknowledging that many competitors, such as shale gas, are cheaper.

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Even Fossil Fuel Companies Support An International Climate Agreement

In a joint statement released Wednesday by the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions, 14 major Fortune 500 companies voiced their support for a strong global agreement on climate change.

The 14-company coalition represents a broad set of business interests, from technology giants like Intel and HP to the electronics manufacturer Siemens Corporation. But the letter also includes supporters that might not seem like the most natural allies to a global climate agreement, including coal mining companies like BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto, oil and gas companies like BP and Shell, and industrial manufacturers like Alcoa and LafargeHolcim. Together, the companies have a combined revenues of $1.1 trillion and employ more than 1.5 million people, according to the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions.

“These are companies with real skin in the game – either they’re large emitters or their products are,” Center for Climate and Energy Solutions President Bob Perciasepe said in a statement. “They know emissions need to come down and are taking steps on their own. But they believe the low-carbon transition requires stronger leadership from governments, too.”

In the statement, the companies outline four ways that a climate agreement in Paris could “strengthen the role of, and minimize risks to, the private sector.” These include providing long-term direction when it comes to decarbonizing the global economy, requiring countries to be transparent about their policies, requiring all the world’s major economies to be a part of the deal in order to ensure comparability across the world, and facilitating the growth of a global carbon market, which the statement calls a “critical tool for cost-effective emissions reduction.”

These are companies with real skin in the game – either they’re large emitters or their products are

“They want some clarity, transparency, and predictability in policy response to climate change, because that helps them better prepare their investments,” Tim Juliani, senior director for business strategy and partnerships at the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions, told ThinkProgress. “They recognize that policy is moving forward, and they want to see a comparability of efforts across economies.”

The companies in support of the statement join a growing wave of corporations that have called for climate action in advance of the Paris talks. In early October, leaders from ten of the world’s biggest food companies published a letter to Congress, urging leaders to “meaningfully address the reality of climate change.” Earlier this summer, seven oil companies submitted climate pledges to the United Nations. And, earlier this spring, the heads of BP, Shell, BG Group, Statoil, Eni, and Total — the world’s top oil producers — wrote a letter to U.N. climate chief Christiana Figueres voicing their support for an international climate agreement.

“Statements such as these show that there is strong business support for a global climate agreement,” Juliani said. “You can see real momentum building for a strong agreement in Paris, and that’s an important trend that I think will continue.”

As the Paris conference nears — and countries continue to submit individual pledges in advance of the meeting — the Sierra Club’s John Coequyt thinks more businesses could be pulled along by global momentum.

“With clean energy booming and emissions reduction commitments rolling in from around the globe, it’s simply not an option for any company to effectively stop the momentum building toward a significant climate deal in Paris,” Coequyt, Sierra Club’s director of federal and international climate programs, told ThinkProgress.

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Climate Change Is A Problem For Everyone, Protesters Across The Country Say

“Hey hey ho ho climate change has got to go!”

Chants and drums rang through the streets of downtown Washington, D.C. yesterday afternoon during the peak of rush hour traffic. About 500 people gathered from different sectors, advocacy groups, and areas of the region to rally around the fight for climate and social justice as a part of the People’s Climate Movement’s National Day of Action. Protesters held a die-in in front of the American Petroleum Institute, staged a short performance about the role big oil companies play in U.S. politics and economy, marched to Freedom Plaza to hear speeches from local leaders, and stood in solidarity and hope for global climate change justice.

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Protesters participating in a die-in in front of the American Petroleum Institute

CREDIT: Jess Colarossi

D.C. was one of 170 communities in 47 states that protested on Wednesday for sustainable, just, and inclusive economies. People rallied to demand stronger action on climate from political leaders and called out corporations and institutions that are blocking economic and political progress on climate change, such as the American Petroleum Institute.

“We had all of the segments of D.C. here, from all over the city and from all over the region coming together showing the beautiful face of what it looks like to have a unified climate movement,” Keya Chatterjee, executive director of the U.S. Climate Action Network, told ThinkProgress.

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Protesters stage a performance about the role big oil companies play in the U.S.

CREDIT: Jess Colarossi

Last year’s People’s Climate March in New York brought in over 400,000 people and was the largest climate march in history. This year’s focus was on the localization of climate change impacts, giving communities across the nation the ability to voice the injustices they have personally faced with climate change. People from a range of sectors were represented in these protests, including youth, social and racial justice leaders, workers, mothers, faith leaders, and environmentalists. The People’s Climate Movement’s logic is “to change everything, it takes everyone.”

“This year is a really great follow up to what happened last year,” Marissa Knodel, Climate campaigner for Friends of the Earth, said at the rally in D.C. “What we have this year sends a really strong message. Climate change impacts every single corner of our country and our globe and that’s what you are seeing this year. You’re seeing how different cities are rallying around the issues that are affecting them locally.”

On Wednesday, activists paddled down the Missouri River and marched to Gov. Jay Nixon’s office in Jefferson City to deliver a petition calling for carbon emission cuts in Missouri. Protesters in Seattle, Washington, marched the main streets and watched a screening of “This Changes Everything,” with author and science historian Naomi Klein. Groups in Orlando, Florida, spent the afternoon outside the offices of Senator and presidential candidate Marco Rubio to demand bold climate action. Faith leaders in Florence, South Carolina examined the connection between the state’s recent historic flooding and climate change during an event. Colleges and universities across the country also took part in voicing their demands for climate and worker rights.

#peoplesclimate Float gets underway on the Missouri River to carry 2000+ petitions to #ActOnClimate to @GovJayNixon pic.twitter.com/KV14apR11Z

— Carolyn Amparan (@CarolynAmparan) October 14, 2015

“The point really is that climate change is a concern for people all across the spectrum — it is not just an elite group of folks that are concerned about the Rocky Mountains,” David Mott from property services workers union 32BJ SEIU said at D.C.’s rally. He brought his guitar along to the rally and played music during the die-in at API and at the end of the event.

“[Climate change] is the concern of workers, it is a concern for people of color, it is a concern for indigenous people, it is a concern for everybody,” he said. “Part of this movement is saying that the costs of climate change cannot be worn on the backs of working people. These guys that created it, they have to pay the costs of cleaning up their mess.”

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David Mott playing guitar to the crowd of protesters at Franklin Park

CREDIT: Jess Colarossi

Groups like the Mom’s Clean Air Force, Service Employees International Union (SEIU), Sustain US, Energy Justice Network, D.C. Power, U.S. Climate Action Network, and many others also played key roles in delivering the message.

“We need to be holding corporations that limit our resources accountable for environmental destruction and impact on front-line communities of real people who deserve access to clean air and water and who matter,” said Ruth Tyson during her speech in D.C.’s Freedom Plaza. Tyson is Prince George’s County’s Environmental Justice Organizer for the Environmental Justice Network. Her county is already facing side-effects of burning fossil fuels and increased health risks, she said.

“In our fight for justice, we must constantly be asking ourselves who is being left out, or who will feel the impact of the decisions we make today,” Tyson said. “This means not just considering them in the movement, but having them at the table.”

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Ruth Tyson, speaking at Freedom Plaza

CREDIT: Jess Colarossi

The event was timed between Pope Francis’ visit to the United States — during which he addressed climate change and broad social issues in front of a joint session of Congress — and the Paris climate talks happening this December. Climate action is still largely looked at as a partisan issue — just this past Friday Republican-led House of Representatives voted to lift the oil export ban.

“There are consequences to blocking action of climate change and there are consequences to climate denial, actual people are getting hurt,” said Keya Chatterjee. “People in our communities are getting hurt and we’re not going to stand for it anymore. Places like the American Petroleum Institute have got to get out of the way.”

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Keya Chatterjee, speaking to the crowd of protesters.

CREDIT: Jess Colarossi

Overall, the crowd and organizers emphasized the need to be hopeful and the importance of the national action day.

“Movements change politics,” said Chatterjee. “We need three things to get action on climate change: we need an activist minority, a permissive majority, and political leadership. What we’re showing in the People’s Climate Movement is that not only do we have an activist minority, but it is broad, it is across all demographics, and it is not going away. We are in every community in this country; we are here and we are not going away and nothing is going to make us give up.”

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Environmental Groups Sue Forest Service For Letting Nestlé Bottle Water Under 27-Years Expired License

Nestlé, the food and drink company that sparked outrage among environmentalists earlier this year for continuing its California bottled water operations in the midst of the state’s historic drought, is coming under fire again.

This week, the Center for Biological Diversity and two other organizations filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Forest Service, claiming it allowed the company to use an expired permit to draw water from the San Bernardino National Forest. The permit, the lawsuit alleges, expired 27 years ago, but Nestlé drew about 28 million gallons of water from a creek in the national forest in 2014 alone. That’s not acceptable in the midst of a drought, the groups say.

“We Californians have dramatically reduced our water use over the past year in the face of an historic drought, but Nestlé has refused to step up and do its part,” said Michael O’Heaney, Executive Director of the Story of Stuff Project, one of the plaintiffs in the case. “Until the impact of Nestlé’s operation is properly reviewed, the Forest Service must turn off the spigot.”

The lawsuit also claims that Nestlé’s operations, which include a four-mile pipeline that takes water from Strawberry Creek, are damaging the environment.

Under drought conditions, we don’t want to see these streams dry up

“There would be much more and improved riparian and woodland habitat if natural flows were returned to Strawberry Creek and its tributary,” the lawsuit states. “This habitat is dependent upon consistent availability of surface water or near-surface water. During drought periods, even the areas that have supported this habitat in wetter years are reduced. Species such as canyon live oak, bigcone Douglas fir, and California bay are currently being adversely affected by the removal of so much water.”

Ileene Anderson, a scientist with the Center for Biological Diversity, told ThinkProgress that since the permit hasn’t been renewed since 1988, the U.S. Forest Service hasn’t done any further environmental review on how Nestlé’s operations affect Strawberry Creek.

“Our goal here is to basically get the Forest Service to do that evaluation,” she said. The review would help ensure that too much water isn’t getting taken out of the creek and that the creatures that live in the creek aren’t being seriously affected by the operations. “Under drought conditions, we don’t want to see these streams dry up,” she said.

The Story of Stuff explains the situation further in a video:

California has been in the midst of an epic drought for the past four years. A study last month found that the snow in the state’s Sierra Nevada mountains is the lowest it has been in 500 years, and a study last year found that the state’s drought is the worst in the last 1,200 years. The severe dryness has forced the state to ration water and regulate groundwater, and it could end up costing the state’s economy $2.7 billion in agricultural losses.

Nestlé came under investigation from the federal government in April for its expired permits — a review that could take 18 months or more, the Los Angeles Times reports. The news of the expired permit angered environmentalists — about 515,000 people signed a petition earlier this year calling on Nestlé to stop its bottled water operations in California, and protesters gathered at Nestlé plants in May.

Still, Nestlé maintains that its permit is valid. It also says that it uses less than 1 percent of California’s total water supply for its bottling operations.

“Our permit, as told to us by the forest service, remains valid and in effect,” Nestlé Waters North America Spokeswoman Jane Lazgin told the Hill. “And we continue to pay the required fee for the pipeline use and transportation of water at that site.”

And Nestlé hasn’t given any signs that it plans to move out of California. Quite the contrary — Nestlé International Waters CEO Tim Brown said in May that, if he had his way, he’d ramp up California operations.

“We feel good about what we’re doing,” Brown said. “In fact, if I could increase it, I would.”

The lawsuit aims to ensure that doesn’t happen. It calls on the court to shut down Nestle’s water pipeline in the San Bernardino National Forest, and to ensure that the U.S. Forest Service conducts a new permitting process with environmental reviews.

“Water in California is always an issue,” Anderson said. For [the Forest Service] to be negligent for that long is untenable and really unimaginable. I don’t know why they haven’t raised this to a very high priority.”

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The Gulf Between Democrats And Republicans On Climate Change And National Security

When the Democratic candidates for president were asked about the biggest threat to U.S. national security, Bernie Sanders offered a singular response: Climate change.

“The scientific community is telling us if we do not address the global crisis of climate change, transform our energy system away from fossil fuel to sustainable energy, the planet that we’re going to be leaving our kids and our grandchildren may well not be habitable,” Sanders said.

This was a strong statement on the seriousness of climate change from a candidate widely considered to be strong on environmental issues. While he has not released a climate or energy plan, Sanders has been vocal about the need to combat climate change, and even called for a debate focused specifically on the environment. Former Gov. Martin O’Malley released the most ambitious and comprehensive climate plan of all the candidates.

While this stood in contrast to most of the other candidates on the debate stage, this is hardly a new sentiment. Earlier this year, President Obama said that climate denial “endangers our national security” and “undermines the readiness of our forces.” The White House has also previously stated the need to combat climate change in its National Security Strategy. For years, military researchers have singled out climate change as a national security risk, acting not just as a “threat multiplier” but a “catalyst for conflict” that can be a driving force to start conflicts.

For his part, Martin O’Malley also mentioned the impact of climate change on national security. While his answer focused on the Middle East, O’Malley noted that climate change “makes cascading threats even worse.” O’Malley, along with security and climate experts, has previously linked climate change with the rise of ISIS, and has called climate change “a very real existential threat to human life.” And while she did not mention it during the debate, Hillary Clinton has also listed climate change as a national security issue and called it “one of the defining threats of our time” in her campaign kickoff speech.

So while Sanders may have been the first to name climate change as America’s biggest national security threat, he’s not alone among his Democratic peers in seeing its danger.

Republican candidates, many of whom deny the mainstream scientific consensus on climate change, have ridiculed those who see climate change as a national security issue. Mike Huckabee tweeted a joke about beheadings and sunburn during the debate:

They believe climate change is a greater threat than Islamic extremism, that a sunburn is worse than a beheading. It's nonsense! #DemDebate

— Gov. Mike Huckabee (@GovMikeHuckabee) October 14, 2015

This was not the first time Huckabee made the quip. After President Obama talked about the seriousness of climate change in his State of the Union speech earlier this year, Huckabee made the same joke.

“Not to diminish anything about the climate at all,” Huckabee said, “but Mr. President, I believe that most of us would think that a beheading is a far greater threat to an American than a sunburn.”

The data, however, show that more deaths per year can be linked to climate change than terrorism.

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Climate Change Will Have Big Effects On Spring And Winter

Climate change will shorten winters by about three weeks by the beginning of next century, according to a new study.

The study, published this week in Environmental Research Letters, looked at the onset of spring and the flower blooms and leaf bursts that come along with it. Researchers found that, under a high emissions scenario (a pathway called RCP8.5, in which the planet is projected to warm 2.6 to 4.8°C by 2100) springs will arrive on average 23 days earlier in the U.S.

“Our projections show that winter will be shorter — which sounds great for those of us in Wisconsin” lead author Andrew Allstadt said. “But long distance migratory birds, for example, time their migration based on day length in their winter range. They may arrive in their breeding ground to find that the plant resources that they require are already gone.”

Different species of migratory birds depend on different clues to know when to begin their spring migration — usually changes in daylight or weather. If a bird depends on changes in daylight — something that, obviously, remains constant even as climate changes — to know when to migrate, it might take off for its spring habitat at its usual time. But, as Allstadt said, if that spring habitat experienced an early spring, the bird may arrive to find that the insects it needs to survive have already hatched, and that there are fewer available than in typical years.

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CREDIT: Environmental Research Letters/ Allstadt et. al

Early springs aren’t a threat saved for 2100, however. A 2010 study looked at 25,000 records of springtime trends for plants, insects, birds, fish, and other flora and fauna. It found that more than 80 percent of springtime trends — including things like egg laying and flower blooms — pointed towards earlier springs. The spring of 2012 was the earliest ever recorded in the United States. 2012 was also a false spring in some parts of the country — a term which refers to a period of warm, spring-like weather followed by freezing temperatures. The study’s researchers also looked at false springs, and found that the risk of false springs decreased in some regions, but increased in others, including the Midwest and Great Plains.

Any increase in false springs is bad news for the environment and for some businesses, the researchers note.

“Sub-freezing temperatures after spring onset can damage vulnerable plant tissue, and reproductive growth stages later in spring typically make plants more susceptible to damage from cold,” the researchers write. “Damage due to false springs is often observed in natural systems, and lost plant productivity can negatively impact dependent animal populations. False springs can also strongly affect agricultural systems. For example, the false spring of 2012 caused $500 million in damages to fruit and vegetables in Michigan.”

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