The Tarbabys Blog

Gov. Stitt claims Oklahoma for Jesus, but Tuesday showed America is still a secular nation – for now.

DailyKos

Gov. Stitt claims Oklahoma for Jesus, but Tuesday showed America is still a secular nation – for now.

Aldous J. Pennyfarthing – November 10, 2022

Abortion rights activists hold signs reading "Abortion is Healthcare" as they rally in Miami, Florida, after the overturning of Roe Vs. Wade by the Supreme Court on June 24, 2022. (Photo by CHANDAN KHANNA / AFP) (Photo by CHANDAN KHANNA/AFP via Getty Images)

If there’s one big takeaway from Republicans’ tepid showing on Tuesday, it’s that women don’t want Jesus as their OB-GYN. I mean, he was a carpenter, after all. It really doesn’t translate. And it’s a totally different set of tools. Well, in most of the country, anyway. Not so sure about Oklahoma.

In the days leading up to the midterms, Republicans were pretty confident that they’d ride the inflation steamroller to a decisive congressional sweep. Instead, two days later, control of both houses remains in doubt, and the GOP is gobsmacked. Of course, religious extremism—mostly in the form of cruel and draconian abortion restrictions—played a big role in that belly flop. Have they learned their lesson? Pretty doubtful, since many of them have a really long way to go when it comes to fully endorsing religious diversity and the equal rights of nonbelievers.

Case in point: Gov. Kevin Stitt, who won reelection in ruby red Oklahoma on Tuesday, was filmed before the election claiming Oklahoma for Jesus. The whole state. Not just the churches and the Hobby Lobbys. Everything.

Watch:

STITT: “Father, we just claim Oklahoma for you. Every square inch, we claim it for you in the name of Jesus. Father, we can do nothing apart from you. We [wind noise] battle against flesh and blood, against principalities of darkness. Father, we just come against that, we just loose your will over our state right now in the name of Jesus. … We just thank you, we claim Oklahoma for you, as the authority that I have as governor, and the spiritual authority and the physical authority that you give me. I claim Oklahoma for you, that we will be a light to our country and to the world right here on stage. We thank you that your will is done on Tuesday and, Father, that you will have your way with our state, with our education system, with everything within the walls behind me and the rooms behind me, Lord, that you will root out corruption, you will bring the right people into this building, Father, from now on.”

“Are you there, God? It’s me, MAGA-rat. Can you maybe dial down the wind for a second until Gov. Stitt finishes shredding the First Amendment? That’s too much cacophony all at once, brother. Thanks!”

Now, it’s pretty bold—not to mention exclusionary and wildly inappropriate—for a sitting governor to claim an entire state for a single deity. Can we maybe set aside one synagogue and maybe an ashram or two for someone other than Jesus? Jesus doesn’t step foot in synagogues anyway, except maybe to ask for directions to Kirk Cameron’s house. But these folks have long had trouble imagining what it might be like to walk in someone else’s shoes—and they’re really not keen on secular government, which is supposed to represent everyone, whether they believe in Kevin Stitt’s god or not.

Of course, if Stitt wants to lay his grubby hands on Oklahoma on behalf of Jesus, he better get moving, because he’s running out of time. Tuesday made clear that Americans as a whole don’t want too much religion sprinkled in with their politics, and new polling backs that up.

A Pew Research survey conducted in September and released two weeks before the election found that while 45% of Americans want the U.S. to be a “Christian nation,” far fewer want religion to encroach on the political sphere. And while Christian nationalism is rising, it’s still running up against a firewall of church-state separation.

Overall, six-in-ten U.S. adults – including nearly seven-in-ten Christians – say they believe the founders “originally intended” for the U.S. to be a Christian nation. And 45% of U.S. adults – including about six-in-ten Christians – say they think the country “should be” a Christian nation. A third say the U.S. “is now” a Christian nation.
At the same time, a large majority of the public expresses some reservations about intermingling religion and government. For example, about three-quarters of U.S. adults (77%) say that churches and other houses of worship should not endorse candidates for political offices. Two-thirds (67%) say that religious institutions should keep out of political matters rather than expressing their views on day-to-day social or political questions. And the new survey – along with other recent Center research – makes clear that there is far more support for the idea of separation of church and state than opposition to it among Americans overall.

While it’s alarming that so many Americans think the Founders intended the U.S. to be a Christian nation (narrator: they didn’t), it’s a relief that most would still rather leave secular matters up to secular authorities. And it’s reasonably safe to assume that this is the high-water mark for religious fervor in this country. Gallup has been tracking religious sentiment in the U.S. for decades, and the number of people who claim to have no religious affiliation—currently at 21%—has steadily increased over the years. As recently as 1985, that number was just 1%. Meanwhile, the nation’s share of Christians continues to fall.

Could Tuesday be one of the first indications that the noxious religious-political stew that charlatans like the Rev. Jerry Falwell started cooking up in the ‘80s is finally about to spoil? They’ve brought us to the brink, but it appears they’ve gone as far as they possibly can if they want to keep dipping their fungal right-wing evangelical toes in our secular humanist soup.

Of course, that’s assuming they don’t take control by force and turn us into Gilead overnight. But that seems less likely now, even with this dude still looming out there:

Yeah, I didn’t want you to get too comfortable just yet. Sorry. Now do your best to enjoy the sad remainder of your now-squalid lives. I’ll see myself out.

Teenager’s defiance sums up Ukraine’s resilience amid Russian onslaught

Reuters

Teenager’s defiance sums up Ukraine’s resilience amid Russian onslaught

Felix Hoske and Anna Voitenko – November 9, 2022

Outages hit family living in the bombed out village near Kyiv

Outages hit family living in the bombed out village near Kyiv

MOSHCHUN, Ukraine (Reuters) – In a village devastated by Russia’s abortive assault on nearby Kyiv in March, Kateryna Tyshchenko lives in a cramped temporary housing container next to the ruins of her fiancé’s family home that was destroyed by an artillery shell.

Tyshchenko, 18, shares the container with her in-laws, fiancé and her nine-year-old half-sister. Regular power outages caused by Russian strikes on Ukraine’s vital infrastructure mean they can only heat their tiny makeshift home sporadically.

Next week, night-time temperatures are forecast to drop below zero in the village of Moshchun, where some residents complain they have to forage for firewood in a forest that contains landmines in order to heat their homes.

Tyshchenko, who does not own a wood-burning heater, says she has no idea what lies ahead but she has no plans to abandon her home and village this winter even if things get much worse.

“Even if we don’t have power for good, we’ll endure it and survive. We just don’t want to be shelled – everything else we can endure. The most important thing is that the (Russians) don’t return. Apart from that, everything is fine,” she said.

With the war in its ninth month, Russia is pounding energy infrastructure with drones and missiles, leaving millions of Ukrainians without power and even access to running water in a country where winter temperatures regularly hit -15 Celsius.

Moscow said last month it had launched strikes against energy, military and communications infrastructure as retaliation for what it called a “terrorist” attack on Russia’s bridge to the annexed Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea.

Ukraine says the Russians are the “terrorists” and that it is fighting a defensive war for its survival.

Despite the hardships, many ordinary Ukrainians are enduring and adapting, and there is little sign for now of civilians turning on their leaders or pressuring them to negotiate a swift end to the conflict.

EMERGENCY BLACKOUTS

Moshchun, which is surrounded by pine forests and had a pre-war population of 800, was never fully occupied, but it was the site of fierce fighting before Russian troops withdrew in late March. Some 650-700 residents are still living in Moshchun, the local mayor said.

Tyshchenko fled Moshchun on March 4 and returned in April to find her home destroyed. Her own parents now live with friends while she moved into the housing container put up by volunteer activists in September.

Moshchun, located a few miles (km) north of the capital Kyiv, has been particularly badly affected by the Russian air strikes on nationwide infrastructure that began on Oct. 10.

Authorities say 40% of Ukraine’s energy infrastructure has been seriously damaged, forcing them to introduce rolling blackouts. At such times Tyshchenko’s household cannot use their sole electric heater and mobile phone signals cut out.

“I hope some volunteers will bring us a firewood boiler before winter starts,” said Tyshchenko, who has been unemployed since the invasion. She has put off wedding plans until she and her fiance have a proper home.

“We didn’t have power at all for a month and a half (when we returned to Moshchun). We lived here without crying and complaining.”

A travelling dentist service operating out of the back of an ambulance visited the village this week, using a generator given to them by residents to power their tools because there was no electricity.

“Yesterday, the pain in my tooth got much worse. I was thinking of taking medicine, but I didn’t know which pills to take,” said Antonina Telychko, a 70-year-old resident who had a bad tooth removed in the ambulance.

“I thought I wouldn’t endure until the next day.”

PUBLIC RESOLVE

The public’s resilience may prove a vital factor in the war, as Russia tries to break Ukrainian morale and Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy insists that peace talks can only resume once Moscow gives back all the land it has occupied.

Anton Gushetsky, deputy director of the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology, said polling data showed 86% of Ukrainians still supported the idea of continued resistance against Russia.

The poll was conducted almost two weeks after Russia began its infrastructure attacks and there is no evidence, for now, of any impact on Ukrainian resolve to battle Russia, he said.

“The winter months could affect the situation and perhaps slightly more people could support negotiations… But we do not (currently) see a tendency to make concessions with Russia,” he said.

Tyshchenko is determined to stay put.

“My soul belongs here, it’s my yard, and living here means I can work in my garden and yard,” she said. “But when you stay with your friends, you can’t work in the yard because it’s not yours.”

(Writing by Tom Balmforth; Editing by Mike Collett-White and Gareth Jones)

Vote like your life depends on it, because it does!

John Hanno – November 7, 2022

To American’s who still believe in Democracy and in the Democratic institutions that have sustained our Republic as a beacon for the world to admire and emulate, this is not the election to take a pass on.

To all the true Republicans who have been drummed out of your party or have fled the MAGA insanity, please take a stand for representative government.

To all eligible voters who are turned off by the toxic state of our political system, refusing to vote will only make that worse. Sometimes, even a small number of votes in close elections can make a critical difference.

To those who believe they’re not political or aren’t the least bit interested in our political systems, believe that every moment of your family’s existence is impacted by politics, both good and bad. And your vote could make our two party Democratic system much better, and more responsive and accountable.

Erstwhile Republican’s Rep. Liz Cheney, Rep Adam Kinzinger and others have been sounding the autocratic alarm bells even before trump and his MAGAnian conspirators commandeered the Grand Old Party and turned it into the wholly owned trump cult militia, that swarmed, assaulted, terrorized, pummeled and even killed Capitol police officers on January 6,2021, in a futile but consequential attempt to overthrow our Democratic government.

And where would we be if they had succeeded?

The hundreds of state laws republicon legislatures already authored and implemented to restrict voting rights and Democratic representative government would have already become the law of the land.

A women’s right to chose what happens to her body and reproductive rights would have been turned back to the 19th century, in all of America; with no exceptions for rape, incest or the life of the mother. Children as young as ten years old would have been forced to carry another child to birth.

The progress made by workers to improve labor’s rights and increase their diminishing wage value would have been overturned.

Progress made on fighting global warming and the remarkable improvements in alternative energy, would be pushed to the back burners of history.

trump and his republicon party sycophant’s march towards personal wealth enrichment would again be front and center of any legislation or executive orders. His gold tipped sharpie would again be busy rewarding the trump family criminal enterprises and the republicon’s most generous donors.

The separation of church and state would be but a distant memory; and they would proclaim White Christian dogma and the bible as governing principles. Many other parts of our constitution would be in jeopardy, all but the Second Amendment.

I could go on all day, pointing out the chaos created the last time trump held power, but I’ll conclude with reminding voters about the scores of criminal types in trump’s administration, who were forced to resign, were fired, went to prison, were indicted, pardoned or ended up in the right wing media.

Republican’s stated plans if they take control of congress, is to hold the government budget hostage until they get concessions on cutting, or eliminating altogether, Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. But the safety net assault probably won’t stop there, continued support for programs like food stamps and even military and humanitarian support for Ukraine’s war with Russia are also on the MAGA chopping block.

And the extreme members of a republicon controlled House of Representatives will have as its main goal, a two year long investigation of a long list of their political opponents. Any progress the Democrats and the Biden administration have made addressing America’s critical problems over the last two years, will have to take a back seat to political witch hunts and futile attempts to overturn that progress.

And all this just so they can make permanent, the enormous tax cuts that trump and the republicon’s in congress awarded to their rich benefactors, the last time they held control. America’s colossal wealth disparity between the 1% and all the rest will again be on steroids.

For those who emphatically believe MAGA World is synonymous with freedom, believe me: “Freedom is just another word for, nothing left to lose”

If you paid close attention to the videos of Russian citizens protesting Putin’s “Special Operation” in the streets of Moscow and St. Petersburg, you couldn’t help but notice there wasn’t one single assault weapon or high capacity magazine in sight, and no hunting rifle, handgun or even a pea shooter. Why? Because it’s against putin’s laws to have those weapons in public, if at all. And what we call our First Amendment Rights to say anything that comes to mind, forget it in Putin’s Russia or trump’s America. I remember one courageous Russian women holding up a blank sign, apparently afraid to call Putin’s invasion of Ukraine a war, for fear of the consequential 15 year prison term, yet still wanting to register her displeasure. Unfortunately it didn’t succeed, within 2 or 3 minutes, 4 or 5 security troops dressed in black whisked her, and her blank protest sign, off and into a police van headed for the gulag.

It’s no secret that trump and many congressional republicons admire and support war criminal Vladimir Putin and his invasion and genocide against the Democratic people of Ukraine. They admire strongmen fascists and autocrats like putin and trump and denigrate Joe Biden as weak. Apparently raining down missiles and rockets on innocent civilians, on schools and medical facilities, on apartments, libraries, and shopping centers, killing and maiming children, women, and disabled old folks is manly, but also isn’t a bridge too far for this new MAGAnian cult, as long as the reward is omnipotent power and wealth. Mass graves are just necessary collateral damage.

For those who believe the republicon’s are better on the economy or will do a better job fixing inflation, I’ll repost this November 4th, David Rothkopf and Bernard Schwartz article from the Daily Beast.

Republicans Are Bad for the Economy. Here’s Why.

According to a wave of recent polls, the economy is the dominant issue on the minds of Americans going into next week’s elections.

A recent Pew poll concluded nearly eight in 10 voters said the economy will be “very important” to their voting decisions. Another such poll, by ABC News and Ipsos, showed that almost half of respondents cited either the economy or inflation as the issue about which they were most concerned. The poll indicated that concerns about the economy and inflation are “much more likely to drive voters towards Republicans.”

But that impulse is not only ill-considered, every bit of available evidence makes clear that the GOP is the wrong party to which to turn if you seek better U.S. economic performance in the future.

In fact, it is not close. When it comes to the economy, the GOP is the problem and not the solution. If anything, it is a greater obstacle to our economic well-being today than it has ever been.

At the same time, the economic record of President Joe Biden and the Democrats is not just consistent—in creating jobs, reducing the deficit, and enhancing our competitiveness—during the past two years their record has been one of extraordinary, often record-breaking success.

History tells a very stark tale. Ten of the last 11 recessions began under Republicans. The one that started under former President Donald Trump and the current GOP leadership was the worst since the Great Depression–and while perhaps any president presiding over a pandemic might have seen the economy suffer, Trump’s gross mismanagement of COVID-19 clearly and greatly deepened the problems the U.S. economy faced. Meanwhile, historically, Democratic administrations have overseen recoveries from those Republican lows. During the seven decades before Trump, real GDP growth averaged just over 2.5 percent under Republicans and a little more than 4.3 percent under Democrats.

Republicans have also historically presided over huge expansions in the U.S. deficit, while Democrats (since Bill Clinton’s administration) have overseen dramatic deficit reduction. Ronald Reagan more than doubled the deficit from $70 billion to more than $175 billion. George H.W. Bush nearly doubled that to $290 billion. Clinton ended his administration with a $128.2 billion surplus.

George W. Bush inherited that… and left office with a record deficit of more than $1.4 trillion. Obama reduced that by very nearly $1 trillion. Each of Donald Trump’s last two years in office saw federal budgets with deficits of over $3 trillion. In fact, in total, the national debt rose almost $8 trillion during Trump’s time in office. According to ProPublica, it was the third biggest such increase in U.S. history—after George W. Bush and Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War years.

What about job creation?

The U.S. lost jobs under Trump and created relatively few under George W. Bush. Of the 14 presidents since World War II, seven were Democrats and seven were Republican. Of the seven with the highest job creation rates, six were Democrats. Of the seven with the lowest job creation rates, six were Republicans.

There’s No Democrat Equivalent to GOP Election Deniers’ Scumbaggery

What about now? Biden and the current Democratic Congress have created more jobs than the past three Republican administrations combined.

The job creation rate in 2021 was the most ever in a single year. GDP growth in 2021 was the highest since 1984. This year, the unemployment rate fell to 3.5 percent, its lowest level in 50 years. As part of that, we are seeing record low unemployment for Blacks and Latinos.

Ok, you might say, but what about inflation?

Rising prices are a real problem for many Americans. But the origins of inflation have very little to do with the Biden administration or the Congress. Inflation is a global problem that is related, according to economists, primarily to supply chain problems associated with COVID, Vladimir Putin’s escalation of the war in Ukraine, and corporate profiteering.

Dems Do Big F*cking Deals, the GOP Does Fake Big Dick Energy

What makes the Republican focus on this issue so shockingly hypocritical is that Trump’s mismanagement of the COVID crisis, his support for Putin, and Republicans’ protection of Big Oil (and big businesses) actually helped create the conditions that have driven prices up. Further, Republicans unanimously opposed every single measure by the Biden administration to reduce prices and help those hit by inflation—including the landmark Inflation Reduction Act’s efforts to lower drug costs and to help those hardest hit.

Meanwhile, the U.S. just reported stronger than expected growth in the last quarter and the price of gasoline, an oft-cited sign of inflation, has been falling for months.

At the same time, a substantial majority within the GOP have sought to block virtually every single new economic measure proposed or passed by Biden and the Democratic Congress. That includes the America Recovery Act that lifted millions out of poverty and drove job creation, the Chips and Science Act to enhance competitiveness, and even the so-called “Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill” which garnered the support of fewer than half of the GOP caucus in the Senate.

You might assume that if the GOP opposed these initiatives but were critical of what Biden was doing, that they had alternative plans that they have presented to the American people. But, you would be wrong. In fact, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has bragged that he would not even discuss his agenda until after the election. They have no inflation plan. And the plans they’ve said they admire—like that of the United Kingdom’s prime minister-for-a-second Liz Truss—have been a catastrophe.

The last time the Republicans were in charge, during the Trump years, they passed precisely one significant piece of economic legislation, a tax cut that benefited the very rich at the expense of everyone else and, as we have established, helped explode the federal budget deficit.

Putin’s Last Hope to Win in Ukraine Is a GOP Victory in November

Republicans are just plain bad at managing the economy. They have been for as long as anyone who is alive can remember. And they continue to be—although they are achieving previously unattained new levels of cynicism and obstructionism that make the current crowd of Republicans look even worse than their very unsuccessful predecessors.

History and data make it clear that Democrats are good for the economy—while Republicans, especially the current Republicans in Congress, are not.

Up next for the Republicans are plans to cut Medicare and social security, plans to increase costs for average Americans on a wide variety of fronts, and they’re even contemplating reducing support for Ukraine—at a critical moment in its war to defend its democracy and stop the Russian aggression that threatens not only them, but the West.

Republicans have done a great job fooling voters into thinking that their simplistic economic philosophies of tax cuts and minimal regulation are “good for business.” But facts, history, and logic show otherwise.

David Rothkopf and Bernard Schwartz conclude their case with: If you care about the economy, want to fight inflation, want to create jobs, want a better life for your family, want to preserve democracy, and want to defend your fundamental rights, then you should vote for the Democrats.

—–

John Hanno: And if you’re still inclined to reverse the remarkable progress made by the Biden administration and the Democrat’s thin margin in congress over the last 2 years, and also willing to turn over your children’s and grandchildren’s future to these wannabe Putin like autocrats, think about this latest bit of news:

The world’s richest person and Twitter’s new owner, Elon Musk, implored his more than 110 million followers on Monday to support Republicans in Tuesday’s U.S. midterm elections, saying that Republican control of Congress would act as a balance against Democrats and the Biden administration. Could it be because of the Biden administration and Democrats proposals to tax billionaires and give more tax incentives to union-made electric vehicles. Musk’s Tesla does not have any unions at its U.S. factories. Apparently the world’s richest person doesn’t have enough billions of dollars to pay income taxes, pay prevailing union wages or to live comfortably. That should tell you exactly where this MAGA cult is headed.

Democracy and the big lie are on the ballot today. trump has endorsed those more than 250 election deniers running to thwart one person one vote, free and fair elections. Overwhelm these Democracy deniers with a monumental blue wave.

Like I said, vote November 8th like your and your families lives depends on it, because it surely does.

John Hanno, The Tarbabys Blog

No One Forced Republicans to Do Any of These Things

New York Times – Opinion

No One Forced Republicans to Do Any of These Things

Jamelle Bouie – November 8, 2022

Donald Trump speaks at an open-air rally. — Credit…Illustration by The New York Times; photograph by Scott McIntyre for The New York Times

In “The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte,” Karl Marx famously observed, “Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please; they do not make it under self-selected circumstances, but under circumstances existing already, given and transmitted from the past.”

Our choices are shaped, and even bound, by the histories and institutions we inhabit. And yet they’re still our choices. We are moral agents, responsible for our decisions even if we can’t fully escape the matrix in which we make them.

And yet so much of the conversation about the modern Republican Party assumes the opposite: that Republican politicians are impossibly bound to the needs and desires of their coalition and unable to resist its demands. Many — too many — political observers speak as if Republican leaders and officials had no choice but to accept Donald Trump into the fold; no choice but to apologize for his every transgression; no choice but to humor his attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election; and now, no choice but to embrace election-denying candidates around the country.

But that’s nonsense. For all the pressures of the base, for all the fear of Trump and his gift for ridicule, for all the demands of the donor class, it is also true that at every turn Republicans in Washington and elsewhere have made an active and affirmative choice to embrace the worst elements of their party — and jettison the norms and values that make democracy work — for the sake of their narrow political and ideological objectives.

Those objectives, for what it’s worth, are nothing new. To the extent that the Trump-era Republican Party has an agenda, it is what it has always been: to be a handmaiden to the total domination of capital, to facilitate the upward redistribution of wealth and to strengthen hierarchies of class and status. To those ends, Republicans in Washington have already announced plans to reduce social insurance, cut taxes for the wealthiest Americans and restrict abortion rights.

The crucial midterm elections

Republicans seem to be surging heading into November, with Democrats struggling to break through, as voters turn their focus from abortion to crime and inflation. Even if the polls are as off, as pollsters fear, all signs seem to be pointing toward a strong showing for the G.O.P.

For months now, Times Opinion has been covering how we got here. Chloe Maxmin and Canyon Woodward argued that Democrats abandoned rural America. Alec MacGillis traced how the party ignored the economic decline of the Midwest. And Michelle Cottle described the innovative Republican ground game in South Texas.

Opinion has also been identifying the candidates who could define the future of their party. Sam Adler-Bell captured the bleak nationalism of Blake Masters, the Arizona Republican challenging Senator Mark Kelly. Christopher Caldwell described the transformation of J.D. Vance, the venture capitalist from Ohio who went from Trump critic to proud member of the MAGA faithful. Michelle Goldberg traveled to Washington state to profile Joe Kent, a burgeoning star on the right.

And throughout this election cycle, Opinion has held discussions with groups of experts – hosted by Frank Bruni, Ross Douthat and others – that have followed the season’s twists and turns, from reviewing the primary landscape to a Democratic backlash against the Dobbs decision which gave way to a Republican surge in the fall. And we paused to consider the mysteries of polls and the politically homeless along the way.

What’s striking, again, is the extent to which many political commentators refuse to accept the moral and political agency of Republican politicians and officials. If there is a threat to democracy, goes one argument, it’s because liberals and progressives have refused to compromise their priorities in its defense. And according to another, similar argument, which I wrote about last week, the Democratic Party’s rhetoric embracing democracy is, itself, undermining democracy

As it stands, plenty of Republican politicians and officials are making live plans to undermine any election they might lose. According to a report in The Washington Post, “Republican officials and candidates in at least three battleground states are pushing to disqualify thousands of mail ballots after urging their own supporters to vote on Election Day.”

It’s not that those mail ballots are illegal or illegitimate; the problem is that many have presumably been cast by Democrats. If Republicans can invalidate Democratic mail ballots while counting on their supporters to vote in person on Election Day, then they can forge an easier path to victory in closely divided states like Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

Republicans have attacked ballot access for Native Americans in Arizona — a Democratic-leaning group in a contested swing state — and embarked on a project of voter intimidation in Florida. In August, the state’s new election police force arrested 20 people accused of voter fraud. Fifteen were Black voters charged with casting ballots illegally. Several said they thought they qualified to cast a vote under a state constitutional amendment that restored the right to vote to many former felons. And in interviews with investigators, all said they had received a voter registration card from their county election supervisors.

In the absence of any evidence of intent, the state’s case against these supposedly lawbreaking voters will fall apart. But that doesn’t mean the arrests were a failure. Some Floridians, accustomed to helping older family members cast ballots by mail, have refrained from giving assistance for fear of running afoul of the state election police.

The larger point is that we should not treat the Republican effort to suppress and intimidate voters — or invalidate elections — as if it were a force of nature or the automatic result of some mechanical process. Republican politicians in Florida chose to respond to hard-fought elections by burdening their opponents. Republican leaders in Washington, likewise, chose to elevate their most irresponsible colleagues into positions of influence and authority. And Republican politicians nationwide chose to embrace the lies and the conspiracy theories that undergird the idea that the only legitimate elections are the ones Republicans win.

Led by Donald Trump and his many acolytes, the Republican Party is poised to plunge this country into political and constitutional crisis over its refusal to share power or acknowledge defeat. We can treat this as some kind of an inevitability, the only possible outcome given the pieces at play, or we can treat it as what it is: a deliberate choice.

Why are Americans okay with voter suppression? We asked more than 1,200 voters

Fortune

Why are Americans okay with voter suppression? We asked more than 1,200 voters—and they failed to appreciate the impact of restrictions on their own turnout

Geoff Tomaino, Ziv Carmon, Asaf Mazar, Wendy Wood – November 8, 2022

Americans are headed to the polls for the pivotal U.S. midterm elections on Nov. 8. But for voters in some U.S. states, a litany of rules, restrictions, and regulations will make voting more difficult. These voters will face obstacles such as limited polling place access, stricter voter identification requirements, and added administrative burdens for mail-in voting.

At first glance, such obstacles might seem inconsequential. And yet, even seemingly small obstacles matter. People are deterred from voting when their polling place is farther away, when polling stations’ opening hours are limited, and even when it rains.

Why then do many Americans accept these restrictions?

Uncovering the real (and perceived) drivers of voter turnout

Some Americans accept voting restrictions as a way to mitigate perceived voter fraud, while others support such policies with the apparent intent of suppressing opposition votes. But in new research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, we uncover another, more fundamental reason: People may just fail to recognize that these policies suppress turnout.

We surveyed a representative sample of over 1,200 eligible American voters in election-competitive states before the 2020 elections and then followed up with them after the election to see if they voted. Friction mattered a great deal to turnout. Americans who faced more obstacles, such as those who didn’t own a car or would have to get childcare or take time off work to vote, were less likely to cast their vote.

And yet in estimations of what would affect voter turnout, the same group of Americans consistently neglected friction. They assumed that whether someone turns out to vote or not primarily depends on their attitudes and values, such as how strongly they identify as conservative or liberal or see voting as their civic duty.

More specifically, only about one in 10 survey participants mentioned any form of friction when asked to indicate what they think drives turnout. In comparison, about nine in 10 mentioned at least one belief (for example, ideology or party affiliation). In other words, Americans think that turnout is largely driven by beliefs and underestimate the role of friction.

Even seasoned politicians can underappreciate friction. Both Joe Biden and Donald Trump spent most of their budgets on media in their 2020 campaigns. After examining the campaign videos, we found that almost all of them mentioned beliefs, whereas hardly any (~10% for both) touched on friction.

A costly blind spot

This blind spot could be perpetuating limited voter access. People who underestimated the effect of friction on voter turnout tended to endorse friction-imposing policies and oppose policies that make voting easier. This helps shed light on legislators’ and voters’ tacit or even vocal support for measures that restrict voters’ access to the polls.

States are enacting such friction-imposing policies, with some segments of would-be voters being disproportionately affected. In particular, those with scarce resources are commonly held back by (seemingly) trivial barriers. Inaccessible polling stations and long queues can be especially challenging for the frail and less able-bodied. For parents juggling work and childcare, the inability to vote by mail or outside work hours puts voting almost out of reach. In other words, these frictions deprive vulnerable citizens of their fundamental right to equal representation.

Policymakers and voters alike tend to argue that if people are motivated enough, they can easily surmount mundane barriers. This naive view ignores the importance of making civic engagement not just possible, but easy.

Making things easy from the ground up

While implementing automatic voter registration and instituting structural changes through legislative reform could widen voting access, national-level attempts such as the ambitious For the People Act have failed to take off.

Fortunately, while some legislators are limiting voters’ opportunities to make themselves heard, grassroots organizations have stepped up to push back against friction. These groups have introduced initiatives such as the All In to Vote online platform, simplifying the voting process.

The new voting restrictions in the 2022 midterm elections are set to put American agency to the test yet again. And while many voters may fail to appreciate the harmful effects of friction on turnout, new initiatives can help expand voter access.

Geoff Tomaino is a Ph.D. student at INSEAD. Ziv Carmon is the Alfred H. Heineken chaired professor of marketing at INSEAD. Asaf Mazar is a behavioral scientist and postdoctoral research fellow at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. Wendy Wood is the provost professor of psychology and business at the University of Southern California.

The opinions expressed in Fortune.com commentary pieces are solely the views of their authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and beliefs of Fortune.

A Core Question at COP27: Who Will Pay for Climate Change?

The New York Times

A Core Question at COP27: Who Will Pay for Climate Change?

Elena Shao – November 7, 2022

French President Emmanuel Macron delivers a speech at the COP27 climate summit in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, Monday, Nov. 7, 2022. Nearly 50 heads of states or governments on Monday will take the stage in the first day of “high-level” international climate talks in Egypt with more to come in the following days. (Ludovic Marin, Pool via AP) (ASSOCIATED PRESS)

When world leaders gather in Sharm el Sheikh this week for the annual United Nations climate summit, the debate over who bears financial responsibility for climate change will be center stage.

Poor nations, which have contributed the least to climate change but are among the most vulnerable to its effects today, are seeking more financial commitments from rich countries, many of which have grown their economies by burning fossil fuels.

The consequences of global warming are already unfolding, with developing countries often on the front lines of the devastation.

Pakistan experienced catastrophic floods this summer, which scientists said were made worse by climate change.

One-third of the country was left under water, leaving 1,700 people dead and causing at least $40 billion in economic losses.

Extreme flooding also submerged parts of Nigeria this month, and elsewhere in Africa, record drought has brought millions to the brink of starvation.

At this year’s climate conference, known as COP27, developing countries are expected to press wealthy nations — historically the world’s biggest emitters — to fulfill earlier promises of financial support and push them ever further.

Current Commitments Falling Short

More than a decade ago, the world’s rich, industrialized countries — including the United States, Canada, Australia, Britain and Japan — committed to giving $100 billion a year by 2020 (and through 2025) to poor nations for climate adaptation and mitigation projects.

But wealthy countries have failed to meet that goal.

Nations will need to agree on another financing goal of at least $100 billion a year before 2025, so negotiations at this year’s summit will begin shaping that goal. Most estimates have suggested that $100 billion is not nearly enough to help poor countries stave off the worst effects of climate change, let alone shift away from burning oil, gas and coal.

“All of the evidence suggests that we need trillions, not billions,” said Baysa Naran, a manager at Climate Policy Initiative, a research center.

The money has funded mitigation projects, which help developing countries transition away from fossil fuels, like building a zero-emissions transit system in Pakistan. Money has also gone toward adaptation projects, which help countries build resilience against climate risks, like restoring mangrove habitats in Guinea-Bissau to protect from rising seas.

Critics point out that funding has often come in the form of loans rather than grants. That has increased many poor countries’ already unsustainable burden of debt, said Alina Averchenkova, a climate policy fellow at the London School of Economics.

Some countries may also count certain types of projects toward their contributions that others do not, which can lead to inflated figures, said Sarah Colenbrander, director of the climate program at the Overseas Development Institute.

The $100 billion goal was “carefully crafted” to be deliberately vague — a result of highly politicized negotiations at COP15 in Copenhagen, said Preety Bhandari, a senior adviser at the World Resources Institute.

As a result, there’s no requirement that specific countries contribute a certain proportion of the funds. Multiple analyses have calculated that the United States, which contributed less than $3 billion of the $83.3 billion in 2020, is underdelivering by tens of billions of dollars when considering its relative emissions, population size and wealth.

In addition, mitigation projects have generally received twice as much funding as those focused on adaptation, although many experts and representatives from vulnerable nations say that the two should be more balanced. While mitigation addresses the root of the climate problem by curbing emissions, it doesn’t help communities adapt to current or future risks.

An agreement reached at the end of last year’s climate negotiations in Glasgow urged rich countries to “at least double” finance for adaptation by 2025 to $40 billion.

A Separate Fund for ‘Loss and Damage’

More recently, some of the world’s most vulnerable nations have intensified calls for new funds from the world’s wealthiest economies to compensate for damages caused by climate change.

The issue is known in climate negotiations as “loss and damage” and proponents have described it as a form of climate reparations to pay for irreversible losses of income, culture, biodiversity and lives.

Wealthy countries have historically resisted calls for a loss and damage fund, largely out of fear that it could open them up to legal liability. In Glasgow last year, the United States opposed language that would set up such a fund.

This year, as Egypt has vowed to put loss and damage on the formal COP27 agenda, representatives from the United States and European countries have indicated that they might be open to discussing it.

A group of small island states first raised the issue of loss and damage in 1991, pointing to the irreparable destruction they faced from sea level rise. Since then, those countries have attempted to quantify the crushing costs. V20, or the Vulnerable Twenty group composed of finance ministers from 58 nations, estimated that its member states have lost $525 billion, or about one-fifth of their wealth, over the past two decades because of climate change.

“Countries are already paying for climate change now, and the burning question is: Can we let this go on?,” said Sara Jane Ahmed, a financial adviser to V20. “And the answer is: No, we can’t.”

MAGAnians show their true selves: Republicans Feed Cycle of Misinformation About Pelosi Attack

The New York Times

Republicans Fed Cycle of Misinformation About Pelosi Attack

Annie Karni – November 7, 2022

Breaking down 21 of the elected officials, candidates and other prominent figures who spread misinformation or cast doubt on the attack on Paul Pelosi. (NYT)

WASHINGTON — Within hours of the brutal attack last month on Paul Pelosi, the husband of the speaker of the House, activists and media outlets on the right began circulating groundless claims — nearly all of them sinister, and many homophobic — casting doubt on what had happened. Some Republican officials quickly joined in, rushing to suggest that the bludgeoning of an octogenarian by a suspect obsessed with right-wing conspiracy theories was something else altogether, dismissing it as an inside job, a lover’s quarrel or worse.

The misinformation came from all levels of Republican politics. A U.S. senator circulated the view that “none of us will ever know” what really happened at the Pelosis’ San Francisco home. A senior Republican congressman referred to the attacker as a “nudist hippie male prostitute,” baselessly asserting that the suspect had a personal relationship with Paul Pelosi. Former President Donald Trump questioned whether the attack might have been staged.

The world’s richest man helped amplify the stories.

But none of it was true.

The flood of falsehoods showed how ingrained misinformation has become inside the Republican Party, where the reflexive response of the rank and file — and even a few prominent figures — to anything that might cast a negative light on the right is to deflect with more fictional claims, creating a vicious cycle that muddies facts, shifts blame and minimizes violence.

It happened after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, which was inspired by Trump’s lie of a stolen election, and in turn gave rise to more falsehoods, as Republicans and their right-wing allies tried to play down, deny or invent a different story for what happened, including groundlessly blaming the FBI and antifa. Pelosi’s attacker is said to have believed some of those tales.

“This is the dynamic as it plays out,” said Brian Hughes, a professor at American University who studies radicalism and extremism. “The conspiracy theory prompts an act of violence; that act of violence needs to be disavowed, and it can only be disavowed by more conspiracy theories, which prompts more violence.”

The Justice Department moved swiftly to bring criminal charges against the suspect in the attack — David DePape, 42 — who prosecutors said broke into the Pelosi home intending to kidnap Nancy Pelosi and shatter her kneecaps, and assaulted her husband with a hammer, leaving him with a cracked skull. The San Francisco district attorney said it was imperative for prosecutors to present the facts to the public, given the misinformation circulating widely about the case.

But by then, it was far too late. In a pattern that has become commonplace, a parade of Republicans — helped along by right-wing media personalities including Fox News host Tucker Carlson, and prominent people including newly installed Twitter owner Elon Musk, the world’s wealthiest man — had already abetted the viral spread of lies about the attack, distorting the account of what happened before facts could get in the way. Finding life on far-right websites and the so-called dark web, conspiracy theories and falsehoods leaped from the fringes to the mainstream.

Although many Republican leaders denounced the violence and some, including former Vice President Mike Pence, expressed sympathy for the Pelosis, none of them publicly condemned the falsehoods their colleagues were elevating or did anything to push back. That left others to fill the void.

“Just produce the police bodycam — why is that so hard?” Carlson demanded on his show Wednesday night. Addressing those criticizing the conspiracy theorizing, he added: “We’re not the crazy people; you’re the liars. There’s nothing wrong with asking questions, period.”

The disinformation surrounding the attack on Pelosi presented many of the standard elements of alt-right conspiracy theories, which relish a culture of “do your own research,” casting skepticism on official accounts, and tend to focus on lurid sexual activities or issues related to children, often driven by a fear of society becoming immoral.

Nina Jankowicz, a disinformation expert, said no amount of evidence — be it police body camera footage or anything else — could get in the way of such falsehoods in the eyes of those who do not want to believe facts.

“It doesn’t matter when there are documents or sworn testimony claiming something is, in fact, not the case,” Jankowicz said. “There will be an elaborate reframing effort. If the footage was released, people would claim it was fabricated. There’s no bottom.”

Many of the Republicans who amplified the fiction couched their comments as jokes, effectively preempting any criticism by suggesting they might not be serious. Hours after the attack, Donald Trump Jr., the former president’s son, shared online a viral image of a costume that included an oversized pair of men’s briefs and a hammer, remarking “the internet remains undefeated.”

A spokesperson for Trump said he “simply posted a joke meme and has always rejected political violence in all forms.”

Rep. Claudia Tenney, R-N.Y., circulated a photograph on Twitter that showed a group of young, white men holding oversized hammers beside a gay Pride flag, commenting simply: “LOL.”

Tenney did not respond to a request for comment.

It is not clear whether the elected officials and media personalities who have trafficked in falsehoods believe the conspiracy theories they are elevating, or simply want to be rewarded by their right-wing base. According to public polling, as many as 70% of Republicans still believe that Donald Trump was the true winner of the 2020 election.

Mary Williams Benefield, a Republican running for a seat in Georgia’s statehouse, said she had responded online to a tweet suggesting the attack was staged because “the official narrative is unwilling to present all the facts.”

“Maybe their daughter has a film crew shooting a documentary on this too,” wrote the mother of three and former music teacher at a church school, making a reference to newly surfaced footage from a documentary that Nancy Pelosi’s daughter Alexandra was filming that showed the speaker in a secure location during the Jan. 6 riot.

In an interview, Benefield brought up a report that the police have debunked, which wrongly asserted that the intruder was dressed only in his underwear. The Fox News affiliate that originally reported the detail issued a correction saying the article had previously “misstated what clothing the suspect was wearing.”

That did nothing to change Benefield’s mind.

“There’s a lot of questions that need to be asked before there’s any legitimacy,” she said.

According to federal charging documents, DePape was enthralled by the conspiracy theories that have portrayed Nancy Pelosi as an enemy of the country. His online activities show him ranting about the 2020 election being stolen, seeming to deny the gassing of Jews at Auschwitz and claiming that schoolteachers were grooming children to be transgender.

His attorney has said he planned to argue that DePape was so influenced by disinformation that it should be considered a mitigating circumstance.

Gates Foundation gives $1.4 billion climate help to smallholder farmers

Reuters

Gates Foundation gives $1.4 billion climate help to smallholder farmers

Simon Jessop and Virginia Furness – November 7, 2022

FILE PHOTO: Paris hosts a global gender equality conference

SHARM EL-SHEIKH, Egypt (Reuters) – The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has pledged $1.4 billion to help smallholder farmers cope with the impacts of climate change, part of efforts at global climate talks in Egypt to scale up supply of so-called adaptation finance.

The world is currently not doing enough to help poorer nations withstand the effects of global warming, the United Nations said last week. By 2030, the annual financing need will be $340 billion, it added.

The Gates Foundation’s commitment, announced at the COP27 conference in Sharm el-Sheikh, will help smallholder farmers in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia build resilience into their work practices and improve food security.

More than 2 billion people depend on smallholder farms for food and income, yet currently less than 2% of global climate-related finance is devoted to helping them adapt to climate change, the foundation said.

“The climate crisis is causing enormous harm every day as it jeopardizes entire regions of people and economies,” Bill Gates, co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, said in a statement.

“More funding is necessary to ensure agricultural and technological innovations are widely available to vulnerable communities, helping them to adapt to climate change, save lives and increase economic growth.”

The foundation said its funding would go towards climate smart agriculture projects, new applications of digital technologies and other innovations, and to support women farmers.

Women account for 43% of the agricultural workforce in developing countries, but they tend to have far less access to finance, legal rights and education than men as a result of entrenched gender inequality.

“Women in rural Africa are the backbone of their food systems, but they have never had equal access to the resources they need to reach their full potential or build resilience to looming climate threats,” said foundation co-chair Melinda French Gates.

(Reporting by Virginia Furness; Editing by Mark Potter)

How climate change, rising sea levels are transforming coastlines around the world

Good Morning America

How climate change, rising sea levels are transforming coastlines around the world

Julia Jacobo, Daniel Manzo and Ginger Zee – November 7, 2022

Communities have gravitated toward the shore for thousands of years, building their lives in proximity to major waterways for easy access to trade, seafood and recreation.

But those who reside near coastlines will need to learn to adjust as climate change continues to create conditions that chip away at these malleable geological structures, according to experts.

One of the recurring topics of the 2022 United Nations Climate Change Conference taking place in Cairo, Egypt, is how climate change is currently affecting people around the world. As coastlines change and become battered by an increase in the number of severe weather events, homes — and, in some cases, entire communities — are being condemned as they become inundated with seawater the more the natural barriers are broken down.

PHOTO: A composite image shows the Rockaway boardwalk area after Hurricane Sandy, Oct. 31, 2012 (top) and a year later (bottom) in the Rockaway neighborhood of the Queens borough of New York, Oct. 20, 2013. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images, FILE)

The transformation of coastlines is constant. Coastal erosion is a natural part of the Earth’s cycle as strong waves continually crash against the shore. But as global temperatures warm and sea levels rise, the damage to the coast’s natural barriers is being exacerbated with each subsequent monster storm with tropical force winds or higher — which typically causes the most damaging events of erosion, scientists say.

As melting glaciers and ice sheets cause sea levels to rise, the ocean waves around the coast become more intense, Raphael Crowley, associate professor at the University of North Florida’s Engineering School of Sustainable Infrastructure and Environment, told ABC News.

MORE: US Atlantic Coast becoming ‘breeding ground’ for rapidly intensifying hurricanes due to climate change, scientists say

In addition, gradual effects from day-to-day erosion reaching farther inland, such as land that was previously above sea level being underwater more, will weaken the structure of the coastlines even more — allowing for strong storms to do more damage when they pass through, Ronadh Cox, a professor of geology and mineralogy at Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts, told ABC News. Each high tide that reaches previously dry land has a cumulative effect on shoreline retreat and the associated erosion.

“So, everything from nuisance flooding associated with tides rising higher, to storm surges penetrating farther inland, all contribute to these effects of the coast,” Cox said.

PHOTO: A composite image shows the boardwalk washed away during Hurricane Sandy in the Rockaway neighborhood of the Queens borough of New York, Nov. 10, 2012 (top) and cars parked on the street in the Rockaway neighborhood, Oct. 19, 2013 (bottom). (Spencer Platt/Getty Images, FILE)

The types of natural infrastructures that can be destroyed are sand dunes, cliffs and even living shorelines, such as plants, marshes and oyster reefs — all of which can act as barriers to an influx of ocean water. A marsh measuring 15 feet deep can absorb about 50% of incoming wave energy, but these living barriers continue to dwindle, as well.

More than 80,000 acres of coastal wetlands are lost every year, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

MORE: Sea level rise is expected to worsen coastal flooding — even on sunny days, according to new NOAA report

The deterioration of coastlines can also be impacted by the human tendency to develop right on top of them, according to experts.

As populations increase and more housing is built near the coast, oftentimes the coastal wetlands are drained to make room for development, Cox said.

PHOTO: (top) A man walks along the heavily damaged Rockaway beach, Nov. 2, 2012 (bottom) People walk down the beach in Rockaway neighborhood of the Queens borough of New York City, Oct. 23, 2013. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images, FILE)

When the barriers along the coastlines fail to keep ocean water out, it wreaks havoc on communities, Crowley said. Roads become impassable. Homes become at risk of being destroyed or even swept away in some cases of extreme storm surge — like what happened in parts of southwest Florida due to Hurricane Ian.

“The combined effect of all of these things, of course, is increased erosion, land loss and infrastructure loss,” Cox said.

MORE: US coastlines to experience ‘profound’ sea level rise by 2050: NOAA report

Coastal erosion is already tallying up to about $500 million annually in property damage, according to the U.S. Climate Resiliency Toolkit, an online resource that compiles data from the U.S. federal government.

“The problem with coastal engineering is that coasts are constantly evolving,” Crowley said.

PHOTO: Contractors for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers pump sand from the ocean floor onto the beach in the Rockaway Peninsula in New York City, Oct. 18, 2022. (Ted Shaffrey/AP, FILE)

If people want to live near the ocean, protection measures such as ensuring a high enough elevation and that there is a barrier between the structure and the water — such as a sand dune — should be implemented, Crowley said.

Severe storms can remove wide beaches in a single event. Following the passing of Hurricane Irma in 2017, Crowley witnessed what was previously a sand dune in north Florida’s Vilano Beach transformed into “a 40-foot cliff with a house hanging off of it,” he said. That structure was one of several dozen that Crowley knew would never be livable again, he said.

PHOTO: Support beams for a home's deck are exposed after the sand below was eroded from Hurricane Irma in Vilano Beach, Fla., Friday, Sept. 15, 2017. (David Goldman/AP) — PHOTO: Support beams for a home’s deck are exposed after the sand below was eroded from Hurricane Irma in Vilano Beach, Fla., Friday, Sept. 15, 2017. (David Goldman/AP)

The research is suggesting that what was previously considered a once-in-a-generation storm, such as Ian, could start to occur more frequently, Crowley said.

In addition, Cox has witnessed famed coastal towns such as Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard, both in Massachusetts, lose measurable levels of cliff retreat of several meters per year in some places, she said.

In Pinellas County, Florida, a half-foot of sea level rise in the past 50 years has led to the loss of 120 feet of beach, John Bishop, coastal management coordinator for the Pinellas County Government, told ABC News.

MORE: Climate change, rising sea levels to increase cost of flood damage by $34 billion in coming decades: Report

Sea levels have been rising about 3.5 millimeters per year since the early 1900s, Crowley said.

“It doesn’t sound like a lot, but then if you add that up over 100 years — that’s quite a bit of rise,” he said, adding that the rate of rise has since accelerated.

In the next 30 years, sea level along the U.S. coastline is projected to rise, on average, 10 to 12 inches — the same amount it rose in the past century, according to a new report by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s 2022 Sea Level Rise Technical Report. Experts believe the drastic rise will continue to exacerbate coastal erosion and the problems people living near the ocean will face.

About 2 feet of sea level rise along the U.S. coastline is increasingly likely between 2020 and 2100 because of emissions to date, according to the NOAA report. An additional 1.5 to 5 feet of sea level rise is possible by the end of the century should countries around the world fail to curb emissions, the report predicted.

Rate of sea level rise ‘has doubled since 1993’ thanks to climate change, report finds

Yahoo! News

Rate of sea level rise ‘has doubled since 1993’ thanks to climate change, report finds

Ben Adler, Senior Editor – November 7, 2022

The rate of global sea level rise is speeding up dramatically as temperatures continue to rise due to climate change, a new report finds, and now poses “a major threat to many millions” of people living on ocean coastlines.

Sea levels have risen by an average of 10 millimeters since January 2020, reaching a new record high this year, according to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), which issued a stark warning in its provisional State of the Global Climate in 2022 report, released Sunday. The WMO, a division of the United Nations, found a number of striking facts about climate change and its effects, including that “the past eight years are on track to be the eight warmest on record.”

But the most alarming findings may be those related to sea level rise, as the encroaching ocean threatens major coastal population centers with stronger storms, higher storm surges and flooding. “The rate of sea level rise has doubled since 1993,” the WMO noted. “The past two and a half years alone account for 10 percent of the overall rise in sea level since satellite measurements started nearly 30 years ago.”

Meltwater flows from the Greenland ice sheet into the Baffin Bay near Pituffik, Greenland. — Meltwater flows from the Greenland ice sheet into the Baffin Bay in July. (Kerem Yucel/AFP via Getty Images)

One of the main causes of the accelerating pace of sea level rise is melting glaciers. According to the WMO, “2022 took an exceptionally heavy toll on glaciers in the European Alps, with initial indications of record-shattering melt. The Greenland ice sheet lost mass for the 26th consecutive year and it rained (rather than snowed) there for the first time in September.”

Last week, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) issued a report on endangered glaciers finding that one-third of the glaciers in UNESCO World Heritage sites are expected to disappear by 2050. The remaining two-thirds can be saved if greenhouse gas emissions are cut quickly and deeply enough to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels, the report concluded.

The devastating effects of melting glaciers is already being witnessed in Pakistan, where an unusually warm spring caused glacial melt that contributed to the floods that have submerged one-third of the country, displacing millions of residents.

The report’s release coincided with the opening of the U.N. Climate Change Conference in Sharm-el Sheik, Egypt, also known as COP27, with the intent of bolstering support for more aggressive action to curb emissions. Political developments, however, have diminished hopes that major new commitments of reducing greenhouse gases will be announced during COP27.

People wade across a flooded street after heavy monsoon rainfall in Karachi, Pakistan. — People wade across a flooded street after heavy monsoon rainfall in Karachi, Pakistan, in July. (Asif Hassan /AFP via Getty Images)

“The greater the warming, the worse the impacts,” WMO Secretary-General Petteri Taalas said in a statement. “We have such high levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere now that the lower 1.5°C of the Paris Agreement is barely within reach. It’s already too late for many glaciers, and the melting will continue for hundreds if not thousands of years. … Although we still measure this in terms of millimeters per year, it adds up to half to 1 meter per century, and that is a long-term and a major threat to many millions of coastal dwellers and low-lying states.”

As the oceans rise from melting glaciers and polar ice caps, they also are getting warmer as they absorb more heat, causing their volume to expand further. Ocean temperatures reached record levels in 2021 (the latest year for which data was available). Hotter oceans lead to an array of effects on the ecosystem, including coral bleaching and declining fish populations. It also powers stronger storms like Hurricane Fiona, which recently devastated Puerto Rico with 30 inches of rain, causing landslides and overflowing rivers and widespread power outages.

In 2022, the average global temperature is estimated to be about 1.15 °C above the 1850-1900 average. This actually could have been worse. For the first time in a century, La Niña, a weather pattern that causes cool water to rise to the surface in the Pacific Ocean — leading to cooler-than-usual weather — occurred for the third year in a row. The WMO estimates that this means 2022 will be the fifth- or sixth-hottest year on record, rather than the hottest ever. But the trend toward ever-higher temperatures remains clear.

U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres at the COP27 climate conference in Egypt. — U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres at the COP27 climate conference in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, on Monday. (Fayez Nureldine/AFP via Getty Images)

“The latest State of the Global Climate report is a chronicle of climate chaos,” said U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres in response to the report’s release. “As the World Meteorological Organization shows so clearly, change is happening with catastrophic speed, devastating lives and livelihoods on every continent. Glacier melt records are themselves melting away, jeopardizing water security for whole continents. We must answer the planet’s distress signal with action — ambitious, credible climate action. COP27 must be the place, and now must be the time.”