Sen. Ron Johnson mouths to GOP group that climate change is ‘bullsh–‘ just weeks before deadly heat wave

Sen. Ron Johnson mouths to GOP group that climate change is ‘bullsh–‘ just weeks before deadly heat wave

Sen. Ron Johnson, a Wisconsin Republican.
Sen. Ron Johnson, a Wisconsin Republican. Samuel Corum/Getty Images 

  • Ron Johnson mouthed to a GOP luncheon that climate change is “bullsh–,” CNN reported.
  • His comments came weeks before a fatal heat wave in the Pacific Northwest that scientists attributed to climate change.
  • Johnson has a long record of rejecting facts or making comments at odds with science on climate change.

Republican Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin called climate change “bullsh–” during a GOP luncheon in early June, just weeks before a heat wave claimed dozens of lives in the Pacific Northwest. Scientists have linked the historic high temperatures to climate change.

“I don’t know about you guys, but I think climate change is – as Lord Monckton said – bullsh–,” Johnson said during the Republican Women of Greater Wisconsin Luncheon at Alioto’s in Wauwatosa, Wisconsin, in comments caught on video and first reported by CNN. “By the way, it is.”

Johnson – who referred to Lord Christopher Monckton, a climate skeptic who has held positions in the British government and press – did not actually say “bullsh–” out loud, but mouthed the word.

The Wisconsin senator defended himself in comments to CNN, rejecting the notion that he’s a climate change denier.

“My statements are consistent. I am not a climate change denier, but I also am not a climate change alarmist. Climate is not static. It has always changed and always will change,” Johnson said.

The world’s top scientists say that climate change is real and caused by human activities. In short, Johnson’s comments are not backed up by science.

Johnson further defended himself on Twitter, writing, “I do not share Rep. Ocasio-Cortez view that the ‘world is going to end in 12 years if we don’t address climate change.’ Or POTUS saying the ‘greatest threat’ to U.S. security is climate change. I consider those to be extreme positions – to say the least.”

The Wisconsin Republican was referencing remarks made by Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York in January 2019. Ocasio-Cortez has said she did not mean the world would literally end in 12 years, and was referencing a United Nations report that said humans only had a dozen years to change their behavior and avoid a climate change catastrophe.

Johnson also dismissed President Joe Biden’s comments on the national security threat posed by climate change, which have been backed up by Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley.

“Climate change is going to impact natural resources, for example,” Milley said during a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing in June. “It’s going to impact increased instability in various parts of the world. It’s going to impact migrations, and so on.”

Johnson has a long record of making statements at odds with science and denying that climate change is a product of human activities. In 2010, for example, Johnson falsely said Greenland only recently froze and erroneously suggested it was named for its previously green landscapes.

Farmworkers face dangerous conditions as heat waves scorch Western U.S.

Farmworkers face dangerous conditions as heat waves scorch Western U.S.

David Knowles, Senior Editor                           July 8, 2021

 

With temperatures expected to top 110 degrees in California’s Central Valley, and reach 120 degrees in the southern part of the state, migrant farmworkers will once again be forced to endure dangerous conditions born of climate change.

“Farmworkers really are at the frontlines of climate change,” Leydy Rangel, communications manager for the United Farm Workers Foundation told Yahoo News. “Unfortunately, that’s an issue that will not get better. We know that heat is the No. 1 cause of weather-related deaths in the U.S.”

When a heat dome descended over the Pacific Northwest last month, Sebastian Francisco Perez, a Guatemalan immigrant, was found unresponsive on June 26 at the farm where he had been working in 104-degree heat.

A farmer pulls a wind-felled almond tree with a tractor on an almond farm in Gustine, California, U.S., on Monday, June 14, 2021. (David Paul Morris/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
A farmer pulls a wind-felled almond tree with a tractor on an almond farm in Gustine, California, U.S., on Monday, June 14, 2021. (David Paul Morris/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

 

In response, Oregon Gov. Kate Brown directed the state’s workplace safety agency to implement rules designed to protect workers from extreme heat.

“All Oregonians should be able to go to work knowing that conditions will be safe and that they will return home to their families at the end of the day,” Brown said in a statement. “While Oregon OSHA has been working to adopt permanent rules related to heat, it became clear that immediate action was necessary in order to protect Oregonians, especially those whose work is critical to keeping Oregon functioning and oftentimes must continue during extreme weather.”

California’s heat standards — which mandate clean drinking water for workers, breaks and access to shade — were put in place following the 2008 death of Maria Isabel Vasquez Jimenez, a 17-year-old migrant worker from Oaxaca, Mexico. Unaware that she was pregnant, she died while while harvesting grapes at a farm near Stockton, Calif., in temperatures near 100 degrees.

“Farmworkers have been excluded from many of the rights and benefits that protect other workers partly because they are immigrants and don’t have legal status,” Rangel said.

During last month’s heat dome event in the Pacific Northwest, which killed hundreds of people across the region, the UFW conducted a text-message survey of agricultural workers in Washington state. While the results are still preliminary and have not yet been published, Rangel told Yahoo News that of the 1,875 workers who responded, 56 percent reported experiencing symptoms associated with heat illness while on the job, 26 percent said they were not being provided with cool drinking water and 96 percent said that they believed heat regulations should be improved in the state.

Ben DuVal stands in a field of triticale, one of the few crops his family was able to plant this year due to the water shortage, on Wednesday, June 9, 2021, in Tulelake, Calif. (Nathan Howard/AP Photo)
Ben DuVal stands in a field of triticale, one of the few crops his family was able to plant this year due to the water shortage, on Wednesday, June 9, 2021, in Tulelake, Calif. (Nathan Howard/AP Photo)

 

Washington, California and Minnesota are the only states in the nation that have implemented heat rights for farmworkers, Rangel said, but the standards vary. As yet there are is no federal legislation to protect workers from exposure to excessive heat.

In 2019, the Asuncion Valdivia Heat Illness and Fatality Prevention Act was introduced in the House of Representatives. Like California’s heat standards, the bill is named after an agricultural worker who perished while picking table grapes for 10 hours straight in temperatures over 100 degrees. Sens. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio; Alex Padilla, D-Calif.; and Catherine Cortez Masto, D-Nev., introduced the bill in the Senate this year.

“Workers in California and across the country are too often exposed to dangerous heat conditions in the workplace. In the past year, Californians have faced extreme heat temperatures from wildfires, while trying to navigate the unique challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic — risking the health and safety of our workers,” Padilla said in a statement when the bill was introduced. “This vital legislation will hold employers accountable and ensure workplace protections are put in place to prevent further heat stress illness and deaths from happening.”

The bill’s sponsors noted that 815 workers in the U.S. had been killed due to heat stress injuries between 1992 and 2017, and more than 70,000 workers had been seriously injured.

Pedro Lucas (left), nephew of farm worker Sebastian Francisco Perez who died last weekend while working in an extreme heat wave, break up earth on Thursday, July, 1, 2021 near St. Paul, Ore. (Nathan Howard/AP Photo)Pedro Lucas (left), nephew of farm worker Sebastian Francisco Perez who died last weekend while working in an extreme heat wave, break up earth on Thursday, July, 1, 2021 near St. Paul, Ore. (Nathan Howard/AP Photo)

From soaring temperatures to increased exposure to smoke from wildfires, climate change has made the conditions for migrant farmworkers, most of whom have come to the U.S. from Mexico and Central America, increasingly dangerous. As California braces for its third record-breaking heat wave of 2021, farmworkers are having to adapt to a new normal.

“Every single year, we keep hitting record after record in terms of temperatures,” Rangel said. “That’s only going to continue. So it’s important that we do something now before we see more deaths. Everyone deserves to be protected when they go to work.”

Hartmann: Finally, a Missouri Democrat Who Brings the Heat 

Riverfront Times

Hartmann: Finally, a Missouri Democrat Who Brings the Heat

By Ray Hartmann                          July 8, 2021

Lucas Kunce, in his first campaign ad, came out fighting.

Lucas Kunce, in his first campaign ad, came out fighting.

Lucas Kunce is putting on a clinic for his fellow Democrats.

A political outsider, Kunce has embarked on a quixotic journey to become a U.S. senator from Missouri, running for the seat that will be vacated in 2022 by retiring Senator Roy Blunt. The guy started with virtually no name identification, record in office or blessing from the Democratic Party establishment. He’s an ex-Marine with a fine résumé, but that’s about it, on paper.

Even if Kunce were able to overcome all odds against more established politicians in the Democratic primary, he would certainly find himself a huge longshot when squared off against some better-known, slavish Trump devotee in Trump country. Suffice it to say Missouri is labeled “solid Republican” on every conventional political war map for 2022.

Despite all that, there is something that sets Lucas Kunce apart.

Unlike any statewide Democrat in memory, Kunce has come out of the gate with fire in his eyes and a forceful style made for the moment of the digital age. He has a swagger, campaigning as if he’s already won the Democratic primary. When he goes after Republicans vying to replace Blunt, he acts as if they had already won the GOP nomination.

Kunce calls disgraced ex-Governor Eric Greitens “a flat-out criminal who should be in prison.” He describes vigilante lawyer Mark McCloskey as a “clown” and a “criminal” and “Mansion Man.” Last month, Kunce posted a hilarious video — a spot-on parody of Greitens’ famous assault-rifle campaign ad of 2016 — offering McCloskey free Marine-led firearms training if he’ll only apologize to those Black Lives Matter protesters who he menaced last June. It went viral.

Kunce has unveiled a dramatically populist campaign, attacking “massive corporations and corrupt bureaucrats.” He describes the national group where he has his day job — the American Economic Liberties Project — as “a nonprofit fighting large corporations who use their monopoly power to stick it to the middle class.”

That’s the sort of message that can resonate with everyday voters the Democrats have lost in droves for the past decade or two, especially in rural areas. And Kunce is willing to call out his own party’s politicians, as well as the Republicans, for having become beholden to corporate money. He even includes Facebook while railing against the monopolists, presently a Republican talking point. The man is different.

It’s not every day that you see a Missouri Democrat’s Twitter feed referring to “weed” while demanding an end to the drug war. Or throwing down on behalf of someone as controversial as Olympic sensation Sha’Carri Richardson, who lost her spot in the upcoming Tokyo games over an insanely stupid drug test. Or crusading for a pardon for Kevin Strickland, the Black man “convicted by an all-white jury for a crime he didn’t commit,” as Kunce notes bluntly.

This is not the customary soundtrack of Missouri Democrats, who are more comfortable sticking to soft language about racial justice and paying homage to Juneteenth. Few prominent Democrats would touch lightning rods like Richardson and Strickland as Kunce did.

But guess what? Running to win — as opposed to running not to lose — isn’t working out so badly for Kunce. Less than four months into the race, he’s gaining support far beyond what would normally be expected from an unknown candidate.

Like it or not, the scoreboard that matters early in a big race is the one maintained by the Federal Election Commission that shows the quarterly campaign fundraising reports of the candidates. So far, Kunce is blowing it up.

Kunce reports that he raised some $630,000 with no corporate PAC money and with 99 percent of his more than 20,000 donors giving less than $200. That comes on the heels of a stunning first-quarter report showing he had received $280,000 in less than a month without holding a campaign event.

Topping $900,000 in less than four months is no small feat for a first-time candidate. The total amount is but a small fraction of what a Senate candidate would need to compete in Missouri, but it’s the number of small donations that Kunce has been able to raise in such short order that has to get one’s attention.

Kunce’s populism might be popular. The fact that he could garner thousands of small-ticket donors without having held office or previously waged a major campaign defies expectations.

Now, before Kunce could test-drive his populism against an actual Republican foe, he would have to defeat his Democratic primary opposition. The leader now is former state Senator Scott Sifton of south St. Louis County. Sifton slightly outraised Kunce in the first quarter and has until July 15 to disclose his second-quarter results.

It’s an interesting contrast, to put it mildly. Sifton was a highly respected state senator — well liked among his colleagues and a lawyer widely regarded as one of the smartest members of the legislature. He’d be a fine U.S. senator.

But he’s a classic example of a Democrat running to the soft center, adverse to taking risks. He’s great on the issues, but not so much on the headlines.

If Sifton were the party’s nominee, he’d be a dramatically better choice than any member of the tragic Republican field. But it’s hard to see him breaking the Democrats’ recent losing streak in big races without showing more fire.

There’s a common misconception in Missouri politics that the state transformed into “deep red” almost overnight after having been dominated by statewide Democratic officeholders as recently as 2012. That’s not true. The simple reality is that Democrats have over a period of many years stopped connecting with the very voters — especially those blue-collar, middle-class and rural — who constituted much of their base for many decades.

This started happening long before ex-President Voldemort came along. Let’s not forget that he didn’t have an ideological bone in his body. He won because he made that connection with people who felt they have been left behind by elites of both political parties, especially Democrats. This wasn’t “Trumpism”: It was a masterful exploitation of fear and grievance that only a world-class conman could pull off.

Everyday Missourians vote their emotions, not their ideas. The Democrats lost touch with them in the past few statewide election cycles because they forgot how to talk to them. Now, with Republicans poised to field a ghastly candidate next year, there’s an opening that would not have existed against Blunt.

It’s far too early to know if Democrats can pull an upset in this race, but any of the present GOP hopefuls looks far more beatable than Blunt would have been. For his part, Kunce must prove he can withstand the test of time.

But the one thing he has shown is that a Democrat can buck the culture war. For too long, the party’s candidates have caricatured the elites so roundly resented in the heartland. Kunce’s populist appeal offers a visceral connection — along with a swagger — and early on, it’s working.

His party might want to pay attention.

Ray Hartmann founded the Riverfront Times in 1977. Contact him at rhartmann1952@gmail.com or catch him on Donnybrook at 7 p.m. on Thursdays on the Nine Network and St. Louis In the Know With Ray Hartmann from 9 to 11 p.m. Monday thru Friday on KTRS (550 AM).

Death Valley to see another round of record-rivaling temps

Death Valley to see another round of record-rivaling temps

High heat in Death Valley pushed the mercury up to 128 degrees Fahrenheit about three weeks ago, far above what’s normal there for this time of year. And another round of above-average heat was building in the region, which could send temperatures just as high over the weekend.

Sunday’s high in Death Valley is forecast to reach 130 degrees, which would be within four degrees of the record set there in 1913 of 134. The 134-degree mark happens to be the world record for the highest temperature ever measured on Earth. AccuWeather forecasts show that the RealFeel could reach 132 degrees Sunday in Death Valley.

The high temperatures are a result of a heat dome, according to AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist Alex Sosnowski. The phenomenon occurs when there is an area of high pressure, not only in the lower part of the atmosphere but also at the jet stream level, Sosnowski explained.

Death Valley, along with parts of Nye County and the Mojave Desert, is set to be under an excessive heat warning from 8 a.m. Wednesday through 8 p.m. PDT Monday, according to the National Weather Service (NWS). On Wednesday, the first day of that warning, the temperature soared to 126 degrees in Death Valley.

Last month, during the heat wave the gripped the Southwest, AccuWeather National Reporter Bill Wadell was on the ground in Death Valley at the height of the heat, and he spoke with people from around the country who happened to have been visiting during the hot spell.

FILE – In this Aug. 17, 2020, file photo, Steve Krofchik cools off with a bottle of ice water on his head in Death Valley National Park, Calif. Climate-connected disasters seem everywhere in the crazy year 2020, but scientists Wednesday, Sept. 9, say it’ll get worse. (AP Photo/John Locher, File)

“This is exceptionally hot. It’s scary how hot it is,” Linda Utz of Titusville, Florida, marveled. “We planned this trip last October and made reservations,” she explained to Wadell. “While we knew it would be warm because it was summer, we never expected this type of heat.”

And as far as it goes for people who spend almost all of their time in Death Valley, “This is an extremely hot place for us to live and work, as well as it is for people to visit,” Abby Wines, Death Valley National Park spokesperson, said. “There is something to be said for climatizing, so a person who acclimatizes to a high altitude, their body can adjust somewhat to dealing with extreme heat.”

The stretch of weather extending through the end of the week could bring “dangerously hot conditions,” according to the NWS. The western Mojave Desert and Owens Valley could see temperatures as high as 110 degrees. The region could see record-rivaling or record-breaking temperatures.

Bishop, California, already saw a record-high temperature of 105 degrees Tuesday, tying a previous record set in 1945, according to a record report from the NWS.

Just last week, the Northwest battled a round of its own record-breaking temperatures. The historic heat wave stretched well into Canada as Lytton, British Columbia, broke a national record at 121 degrees, Canada’s government weather service reported. Within days of reaching that mark, the small town was devastated by wildfires, which consumed 90% of the village.

British Columbia’s chief coroner said that there were 486 reports of “sudden and unexpected” deaths in a five-day period during the heat wave, according to The Associated Press. The province usually sees about 165 deaths within that time interval.

Meanwhile, in Washington, there were at least 676 emergency department visits over a three-day period during the heat wave.

The NWS cautioned that the warm conditions in the Southwest could increase the potential for heat-related illnesses, especially for those who are outside. The heat warning encourages people to drink plenty of fluids and to stick to air-conditioned spaces.

Climate Central

A number of cooling stations will be activated in Clark County, Nevada, from July 7 to 12, according to a tweet from the city of Las Vegas, which cautioned residents about the dangers of heat exhaustion and heatstroke.

Heat is the most deadly weather impact annually in the U.S. Extreme heat has contributed to an average of 138 fatalities every year over the past 30 years.

In addition, high heat is notorious for causing a spike in visits to the hospital. According to data compiled by Climate Central, as extreme heat builds, the risk of heat-related illnesses also mounts. The Climate Central data shows a correlation between a rise in hospital visits for different parts of the country as temperatures rise, noting that “People in historically cooler regions may be less acclimatized to heat, and lack the infrastructure to cope with it.”

Former Republican Congressman Debunks A Modern Myth About The GOP

HuffPost

Former Republican Congressman Debunks A Modern Myth About The GOP

 

Former Rep. David Jolly (R-Fla.) on Tuesday rejected the idea that there’s currently “a fight for the soul of the party” between moderate Republicans and sycophants of ex-President Donald Trump.

“There is nothing left of this Republican Party other than a party that’s able to embrace and to elevate an undemocratic, anti-republic theme that somehow we can engage in a fraud on the American people as long as it supports our guy winning an election,” Jolly told MSNBC’s Nicolle Wallace during a discussion about GOP support of Trump’s election lies.

“Every election is so important, but it does make the next presidential election so important because is that part of the Republican platform?” he asked. “And do we now live in a two-party America where only one supports a true democratic republic or not?”

Jolly, who left the Republican Party in 2018, said America was now “a long ways” from being a multiparty democracy. He added that the GOP that celebrates Trump would continue to be “anti-republican, anti-democratic” until “someone wrests control of the party from the former president.”

Watch the interview here:

Want to see a snapshot of the U.S. economy? Look at patio furniture

Associated Press

Want to see a snapshot of the U.S. economy? Look at patio furniture

It’s expected that there will be a patio furniture shortage until 2023, but ‘you’re much better off having too much demand than too little’

John Hessler, 62, the patio section manager at Valley View Farms in Cockeysville, Md., poses in his showroom. AP Photo / Julio Cortez

COCKEYSVILLE, Maryland (AP) — People used to go to Valley View Farms to buy five tomato plants and end up with $5,000 in patio furniture.

This year is different. After a record burst of sales in March, the showroom floor is almost empty of outdoor chairs, tables and chaises for people to buy.

The garden supply store in suburban Baltimore has been waiting six months for a shipping container from Vietnam full of $100,000 worth of wicker and aluminum furniture. Half of the container has already been sold by showing customers photographs. The container should have arrived in February, but it reached U.S. waters on June 3 and has just docked in Long Beach, California.

“Everyone is just so far behind,” said John Hessler, 62, the patio section manager. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

The Biden economy faces the unusual challenge of possibly being too strong for its own good.

There is the paradox of the fastest growth in generations at more than 6% yet also persistent delays for anyone trying to buy furniture, autos and a wide mix of other goods. It’s almost the mirror opposite of the recovery from the Great Recession of 2007-2009, which was marred by slow growth but also the near-instant delivery of almost every imaginable product.

What ultimately matters is that demand stay strong enough for companies to catch up and shorten the long waits.

“This is a very good problem for the economy to have,” said Gus Faucher, chief economist for PNC Financial Services. “You’re much better off having too much demand than too little, because too little demand is the recipe for an extended recession.”

Republicans have held out the shortages and price increases as a sign of economic weakness, while Biden can counter that wages are climbing at a speed that helps the middle and working classes. But the real challenge goes far beyond the blunt talking points of politicians to an economy being steered by a mix of market forces, tensions with China, setbacks from natural disasters and the unique nature of restarting an economy after a pandemic.

A sign is seen on a sold patio furniture floor model at Valley View Farms in Cockeysville, Md.  AP PHOTO/JULIO CORTEZ

 

As America hurtles out of the July 4th weekend into the heart of summer, the outdoor furniture industry provides a snapshot of the dilemmas confronting the economy. A series of shortages has left warehouses depleted and prices rising at more than 11% annually as Americans resume BBQs and parties after more than a year of isolation. The industry cannot find workers, truckers and raw materials — a consequence of not just government spending but crowded ports, an explosion at an Ohio chemical plant and the devastating snowstorm that hit Texas in February.

Patio furniture makers interviewed by the Associated Press say they expect the supply squeeze to end in 2022 or 2023 — meaning it could remain a political flashpoint even if the broader risk of inflation fades as expected by many Federal Reserve officials and Wall Street analysts. The shortages reflect both the stranded shipping containers, a dearth of truckers and the compounded effect of a fatal explosion in April at the Yenkin-Majestic Paints and OPC polymer plant in Columbus, Ohio that depleted the domestic supply of furniture pieces.

The Biden administration, well aware of the challenge, has made fixing supply chains a priority. It’s also trying to direct more money to making the U.S. power grid and other infrastructure more resilient against extreme weather events as part of a bipartisan deal reached with Senate Republicans.

“You saw what happened in Texas this winter: The entire system in the state collapsed,” Biden said in a recent Wisconsin speech. “That’s why we have to act.”

Administration officials expect the supply chain issues to self-correct, though they’re cautious about asserting a specific time frame because of the unprecedented nature of the recovery from the pandemic.

They noted that a shortage of toilet paper when the pandemic started was fixed within weeks because factories could ramp up production. But in this case, Biden’s White House views the problem in global terms, with many of the challenges being in Asian ports, rather than a problem that is solely domestic in nature.

Republican lawmakers have placed the blame exclusively on Biden’s $1.9 trillion coronavirus rescue package, saying the shortages are causing inflation that behaves like a tax by eating into workers’ salaries and savings. Outdoor furniture companies do say that finding workers has become more of a challenge in part because of the greater unemployment benefits, but they don’t buy fully into the Republican line that government dollars have caused a lasting price bump.

“The Biden inflation agenda of too much money chasing too few goods is causing major harm to hard-working families,” House Republican Whip Steve Scalise of Louisiana said at a June hearing.

The reality is not so simple for William Bew White III, who founded Summer Classics, an Alabama-based furnisher whose outdoor products look like they belong next to a Gilded Age mansion or terraced hotel along the Italian Riviera. He summarizes his problems as the three F’s: foam, fabric and freight.

“The freeze in Texas closed down two of the plants that make the chemicals that make foam,” he said. “These plants were not able to reopen until mid to late March. And supply dried up. I’m not sure how someone that’s in the upholstery business makes it on 40% to 60% of the needed products.”

His company can produce as many as 3,500 outdoor cushions a day, but for most of the year he was not getting the supplies he needed largely because of snow shutting down the Texas power grid. He’s having revenue growth of between 40% and 60% on an annual basis and it’s hard to judge how much to increase production to meet that demand and whether that demand can last.

He is more concerned with what his Chinese furniture suppliers are charging than prices at home. His prices in China have jumped as much as 26.5% since January, sometimes retroactively on orders that were already in shipping containers.

“This is not sustainable,” White said.

In many cases, companies are simply trying to absorb the higher costs. Erik Mueller, CEO of the Cincinnati-based outdoor furniture and home recreation chain Watson’s, said he wants to protect his store’s reputation as providing value. He doesn’t see the situation as paralleling the 1970s mix of stagnation and inflation that helped to drive Jimmy Carter out of the presidency after one term.

“This isn’t the 70s,” he said. “We still have goods that are reasonably priced.”

While he believes that generous unemployment benefits have stunted hiring because people can earn more by not working, Mueller also sees the inflation as a spillover from the pandemic. Some people could not work because of the disease or their shifts were cut. The rush for supplies as economies reopened occurred too fast for factories and shipping firms not yet able to return to their previous capacity. All of that was coupled with a United States that after a brutal year simply welcomed the relief of lounging by the pool with friends.

The problem is one of market forces that are beyond anyone individual’s authority, even the U.S. president’s.

“You have just this exorbitant amount of demand due to a unique situation that was out of everyone’s control,” Mueller said.

If you want to fix climate change, you need to fix this flaw in conventional economic thought

MarketWatch – Project Syndicate

Opinion: If you want to fix climate change, you need to fix this flaw in conventional economic thought

Thinking along the margins does no good when what’s needed is wholesale change

By Tom Brookes and Gernot Wagner                            

A thermometer at the visitors’ center at Death Valley National Park in June. AFP Getty Images

BRUSSELS, Belgium (Project Syndicate)—Nowhere are the limitations of neoclassical economic thinking—the DNA of economics as it is currently taught and practiced—more apparent than in the face of the climate crisis. While there are fresh ideas and models emerging, the old orthodoxy remains deeply entrenched. Change cannot come fast enough.

The economics discipline has failed to understand the climate crisis—let alone provide effective policy solutions for it—because most economists tend to divide problems into small, manageable pieces. Rational people, they are wont to say, think at the margin. What matters is not the average or totality of one’s actions but rather the very next step, weighed against the immediate alternatives.

The most effective way to introduce new ideas into the peer-reviewed academic literature is to follow something akin to an 80/20-rule: stick to the established script for the most part; but try to push the envelope by probing one dubious assumption at a time.

Such thinking is indeed rational for small discrete problems. Compartmentalization is necessary for managing competing demands on one’s time and attention. But marginal thinking is inadequate for an all-consuming problem touching every aspect of society.

Economics’ power over public discourse

Economists also tend to equate rationality with precision. The discipline’s power over public discourse and policy-making lies in its implicit claim that those who cannot compute precise benefits and costs are somehow irrational. This allows economists—and their models—to ignore pervasive climate risks and uncertainties, including the possibility of climatic tipping points and societal responses to them.

A return to equilibrium—getting “back to normal”—is an all-too-human preference. But it is precisely the opposite of what is needed—rapidly phasing out fossil fuels—to stabilize the world’s climate.

And when one considers economists’ fixation with equilibrium models, the mismatch between the climate challenge and the discipline’s current tools becomes too glaring to ignore.

Yes, a return to equilibrium—getting “back to normal”—is an all-too-human preference. But it is precisely the opposite of what is needed—rapidly phasing out fossil fuels—to stabilize the world’s climate.

These limitations are reflected in benefit-cost analyses of cutting emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. The traditional thinking suggests a go-slow path for cutting CO2. The logic seems compelling: the cost of damage caused by climate change, after all, is incurred in the future, while the costs of climate action occur today. The Nobel Prize-winning verdict is that we should delay necessary investment in a low-carbon economy to avoid hurting the current high-carbon economy.

To be clear, a lot of new thinking has gone into showing that even this conventional logic would call for significantly more climate action now, because the costs are often overestimated while the potential (even if uncertain) benefits are underestimated.

Marginalized ideas

The young researchers advancing this work must walk a near-impossible tightrope, because they cannot publish what they believe to be their best work (based on the most defensible assumptions) without invoking the outmoded neoclassical model to demonstrate the validity of new ideas.

The very structure of academic economics all but guarantees that marginal thinking continues to dominate. The most effective way to introduce new ideas into the peer-reviewed academic literature is to follow something akin to an 80/20-rule: stick to the established script for the most part; but try to push the envelope by probing one dubious assumption at a time.

Needless to say, this makes it extremely difficult to change the overall frame of reference, even when those who helped establish the standard view are looking well beyond it themselves.

Against the backdrop of this traditional view, recent pronouncements by the International Monetary Fund and the International Energy Agency are nothing short of revolutionary. Both institutions have now concluded that ambitious climate action leads to higher growth and more jobs even in the near term.

Consider the case of Kenneth J. Arrow, who shared a Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences in 1972 for showing how marginal actions taken by self-interested individuals can improve societal welfare. That pioneering work cemented economists’ equilibrium thinking.

But Arrow lived for another 45 years, and he spent that time moving past his earlier work. In the 1980s, for example, he was instrumental in founding the Santa Fe Institute, which is dedicated to what has since become known as complexity science—an attempt to move beyond the equilibrium mind-set he had helped establish.

Because equilibrium thinking underpins the traditional climate-economic models that were developed in the 1990s, these models assume that there are trade-offs between climate action and economic growth. They imagine a world where the economy simply glides along a Panglossian path of progress. Climate policy might still be worthwhile, but only if we are willing to accept costs that will throw the economy off its chosen path.

Climate investments create jobs

Against the backdrop of this traditional view, recent pronouncements by the International Monetary Fund and the International Energy Agency are nothing short of revolutionary. Both institutions have now concluded that ambitious climate action leads to higher growth and more jobs even in the near term.

The logic is straightforward: climate policies create many more jobs in clean-energy sectors than are lost in fossil-fuel sectors, reminding us that investment is the flip side of cost. That is why the proposal for a $2 trillion infrastructure package in the United States could be expected to spur higher net economic activity and employment. Perhaps more surprising is the finding that carbon pricing alone appears to reduce emissions without hurting jobs or overall economic growth. The problem with carbon taxes or emissions trading is that real-world policies are not reducing emissions fast enough and therefore will need to be buttressed by regulation.

There is no excuse for continuing to adhere to an intellectual paradigm that has served us so badly for so long. The standard models have been used to reject policies that would have helped turn the tide many years ago, back when the climate crisis still could have been addressed with marginal changes to the existing economic system. Now, we no longer have the luxury of being able to settle for incremental change.

The good news is that rapid change is happening on the political front, owing not least to the shrinking cost of climate action. The bad news is that the framework of neoclassical economics is still blocking progress. The discipline is long overdue for its own tipping point toward new modes of thinking commensurate with the climate challenge.

Tom Brookes is executive director of strategic communications at the European Climate Foundation. Gernot Wagner is clinical associate professor of environmental studies at New York University.

California braces for dangerously high temperatures in new heatwave

California braces for dangerously high temperatures in new heatwave

<span>Photograph: Bloomberg/Getty Images</span>
Photograph: Bloomberg/Getty Images

 

A new heatwave is predicted to bring dangerously hot weather to California’s inland regions this week, as relentlessly high temperatures continue to torment the west coast.

Meteorologists are warning residents to prepare for “potentially record-breaking” temperatures as high as 115F (46C) in the Central Valley and 120F (49C) in desert areas like Palm Springs, with temperatures in Death Valley set to approach an all-time high. The heat is predicted to start to build on Wednesday and increase through the weekend.

“Temperatures are going to be about 10 degrees above normal for this time of year,” said Diana Crofts-Pelayo a spokesperson for the California office of emergency services. “This will be a record-setting heatwave.”

Related: North America endured hottest June on record

The state is already facing extreme drought and fires spawned by the dry conditions. The fire situation could be intensified by gusty winds near the Oregon border and predicted lightning storms in the Sierra Nevada mountains, the forecasters said.

“The big story is the developing heat,” said Eric Schoening, a meteorologist for the National Weather Service (NWS). “This will be a long duration event, where it is not going to cool down much at night. So it is a dangerous time for the state.”

The warnings follow on the heels of last week’s record-setting heatwave in the normally-cool Pacific north-west, which left hundreds dead in Oregon, Washington and British Columbia from heat-related illness, and as North America emerges from the hottest June on record.

The fact that California’s heat is expected to continue at night raises the risks of heat illness, said Sierra Littlefield, an NWS meteorologist.

“When it’s hot in the day and warm at night, it really wears people down,” she said.

Littlefield said residents should prepare themselves to cope with the heat by drinking plenty of water, postponing outdoor work to the early mornings or evenings and making sure to get animals out of the sun. Residents should plan for a place to go, if it gets so hot they need air conditioning.

“People should know where they can find air conditioning – whether it’s with friends or at a cooling center,” she said.

The state office of emergency services is compiling a website with a list of cooling centers and tips for staying safe in high heat.

Forecasters said that those in the biggest population centers of the state, such as Los Angeles and San Francisco, which lie along the coast, will benefit from ocean cooling and not face the extra high temperatures.

One danger state officials are still assessing is whether the heatwave could result in power shortages, said Crofts-Pelayo.

She advised residents in the inland areas to pre-cool their homes, if they have air conditioning, and lower their shades to keep the cool air in. She also asked residents statewide to conserve electricity by shutting off unnecessary appliances.

“What we don’t want is for there to be a shortage of energy that requires power shutdowns,” she said.

BC Heat Wave Caused Over 1 Billion Tidal Creatures to Cook to Death, Scientist Says

BC Heat Wave Caused Over 1 Billion Tidal Creatures to Cook to Death, Scientist Says

 

mussel bed
A mussel bed on Vancouver Island. Stephen Bentsen / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

It’s “a frightening warning sign,” said one observer.

“Heartbreaking,” another commented.

“Can we now mobilize en masse to save all Earthly beings?” asked another.

Those were some of the responses to new reporting by the CBC on how last week’s extreme heatwave that gripped British Columbia may have led to the deaths of more than one billion intertidal animals like mussels and starfish that inhabit the Salish Sea coastline.

Christopher Harley, a marine ecologist at the University of British Columbia, told the outlet about how he had noticed a foul odor from dead intertidal animals on rocks at Vancouver’s popular Kitsilano Beach as the city experienced record heat. Harley then set off with a team of researchers to gather data on nearby coastlines.

What the researchers noticed, CBC reported, were “endless rows of mussels with dead meat attached inside the shell, along with other dead creatures like sea stars and barnacles.”

They tracked temperatures too, recording 50°C (122°F) on rocky shoreline habitats, well above the high 30s (around 100°F) mussels can endure for short spurts. Harley likened a mussel on the rock enduring the scorching temperatures to “a toddler left in a car on a hot day”—stuck “at the mercy of the environment” until the tide returns. “And on Saturday, Sunday, Monday, during the heat wave, it just got so hot that the mussels, there was nothing they could do.”

The heat wave was deadly for humans too.

Lisa Lapointe, British Columbia’s chief coroner, announced Friday that from June 25 to July 1, the province’s death toll was 719—three times higher than normal—and said heat was likely “a significant contributing factor to the increased number of deaths.” The heat wave was also blamed for dozens of deaths in the U.S. states of Oregon and Washington.

The recent heat wave’s deadly impact on shellfish was noted in the U.S. Pacific Northwest as well.

The Daily Mail reported last week on comments from the family-run Hama Hama Oyster company in Washington. “The epic heatwave is something no one has seen and then we had a low tide that was as far as it has been in 15 years and it happened mid-day,” the company said.

The clams “look like they had just been cooked, like they were ready to eat,” the company told the outlet.

In a June 30 Instagram post sharing an image of heat-impact clams, the company had a clear message: “Please vote for politicians who are brave enough to address climate change.”