QUICK NEWS, January 25: A DYING ASTRONAUT’S THOUGHTS ON CLIMATE CHANGE; SANDERS, CLINTON TRADE TWEETS ON CLIMATE

A DYING ASTRONAUT’S THOUGHTS ON CLIMATE CHANGE Cancer and Climate Change

Piers J. Sellers, January 16, 2016 (NY Times)

“I’m a climate scientist who has just been told I have Stage 4 pancreatic cancer…Now that my personal horizon has been steeply foreshortened, I was forced to decide…[if spending my remaining time thinking] about climate change worth the bother…I concluded that all I really wanted to do was spend more time with the people I know and love, and get back to my office [at NASA] as quickly as possible…It’s doubtful that we’ll hold the line at 2 degrees Celsius, but we need to give it our best shot. With scenarios that exceed that target, we are talking about enormous changes in global precipitation and temperature patterns, huge impacts on water and food security, and significant sea level rise….increasing the likelihood of unforeseen, disastrous events.

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“…[I]t will be up to the engineers and industrialists of the world to save us. They must come up with the new technologies and the means of implementing them. The technical and organizational challenges of solving the problems of clean energy generation, storage and distribution are enormous, and they must be solved within a few decades with minimum disruption to the global economy…

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“What should the rest of us do? Two things come to mind. First, we should brace for change. It is inevitable. It will appear in changes to the climate and to the way we generate and use energy. Second, we should be prepared to absorb these with appropriate sang-froid. Some will be difficult to deal with, like rising seas, but many others could be positive. New technologies have a way of bettering our lives in ways we cannot anticipate. There is no convincing, demonstrated reason to believe that our evolving future will be worse than our present, assuming careful management of the challenges and risks. History is replete with examples of us humans getting out of tight spots. The winners tended to be realistic, pragmatic and flexible; the losers were often in denial of the threat…

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“As for me, I’ve no complaints. I’m very grateful for the experiences I’ve had on this planet. As an astronaut I spacewalked 220 miles above the Earth. Floating alongside the International Space Station, I watched hurricanes cartwheel across oceans, the Amazon snake its way to the sea through a brilliant green carpet of forest, and gigantic nighttime thunderstorms flash and flare for hundreds of miles along the Equator. From this God’s-eye-view, I saw how fragile and infinitely precious the Earth is. I’m hopeful for its future...And so, I’m going to work tomorrow.” click here for more

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SANDERS, CLINTON TRADE TWEETS ON CLIMATE Twitter fight! Bernie and Hillary battle it out over who has the better climate plan

Ben Adler, 22 January 2016 (Grist)

“…[T]he Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton campaigns talked smack to each other on social media, fighting for the hearts of climate hawks…[ Sanders, Clinton, and O’Malley are all actively competing to be the strongest on climate change. It’s a noticeable shift from years past when climate change was considered too low of a priority to become a policy battleground. The candidates are convinced that the Democratic base is fired up about climate change and looking for real vision]…

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“Sanders — who last month released a very ambitious, but legislatively focused, climate plan — challenged Clinton to detail her own plans…[Clinton has recently moved] left on a couple of key climate issues…[She] came out against [the Keystone Pipeline shortly before President Obama rejected it…[and] took a stance against Arctic drilling and released a plan with high targets for renewable energy generation...But Clinton has not laid out a comprehensive agenda…[or] called for a carbon-pricing system, like Sanders’ carbon tax proposal. It isn’t clear how she would reach her clean energy goals. And she has adamantly refused to join Sanders in calling for a full ban on fossil fuel leasing on federal land…[though she has] said she would charge more than the current below-market rates for federal fossil fuel leases…So the Sanders campaign issued a statement bragging about his climate agenda and…asking if she will make the same commitments…[to] oppose the Bakken crude oil pipeline that cuts through Iowa and three other states…[and] the Northeast Direct pipeline in New Hampshire…[and] support a carbon tax…[and] continue President Obama’s moratorium on all new coal leases on public land…[and ban] fossil fuels extraction on public lands…[and oppose fracking and] offshore drilling…Where is Secretary Clinton’s climate plan?

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“Clinton campaign chair John Podesta tweeted a snappy rebuttal…[pointing] to a post he had published on Medium…[and accusing the Sanders campaign of failing to search effectively for answers]…He went on to highlight Clinton’s comments throughout the campaign on the importance of combatting climate change…[and] the promises she has already made…to fully implement Obama’s Clean Power Plan to reduce emissions from coal-fired power plants…[and asking how Sanders will back out of] international climate deal that President Obama reached with the rest of the world in Paris…[which Sanders opposed]…Sanders has the better of this argument. Coming out against Keystone right before Obama rejected it and promising to complete implementation of your predecessor’s plans isn’t much of a bold new climate agenda…[and Podesta did not answer the Sanders campaign’s] policy questions…” click here for more

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