[GWSG] Chasing Coral; House surprise; $ warning; DOE draft; grid challenges; GCF money for coal?; neoliberal fog machine

[Tilley, Al]

1.  Chasing Coral, available to stream from Netflix, documents the death of coral reefs.  A quarter of sea life spends at least some part of its life on reefs; they protect coastal areas from storms, and provide nurseries for much of our sea food.  90% of the world's coral reefs are expected to die by midcentury if we do not act decisively to control greenhouse gas emissions.  https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2017/07/14/this-netflix-documentary-wants-to-make-coral-reefs-the-new-poster-child-for-climate-change/?utm_term=.824ccd8b7459



2.  The House of Representatives has voted down a proposal to block the military from planning for climate risks.  The vote is a sign that the House may no longer be reliably in the control of deniers.  http://foreignpolicy.com/2017/07/14/in-landmark-move-gop-congress-calls-climate-change-direct-threat-to-security/  The Climate Solutions Caucus, composed of 24 Republicans and 24 Democrats, voted solidly to defeat the amendment.  http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/politics-government/article161470038.html



3.  Schroders, a major investment manager, has issued a warning of the danger climate change poses financially, and has established a Climate Progress Dashboard to track the situation.  https://www.businessgreen.com/bg/blog-post/3014006/why-is-climate-risk-treated-like-the-damp-squib-of-economic-warnings



4.  A leaked draft report from the Department of Energy concludes from testimony by energy managers that renewables pose no threat to US grid stability.  The report, due in a couple of weeks, was intended to support a policy of renewable energy suppression, as implied by Secretary of Energy Rick Perry's April charge to his department on the threat of renewables to the grid.  The report may well be politically edited to support fossil fuels before the final version is released.  (But we can remember.)  http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-energy-study-idUSKBN1A221U



5.  Renewables do indeed pose a challenge to grid management through fluctuating power production.  This hard-headed industry analysis uses Germany's experience to highlight difficulties, to arrive at some solutions, and to suggest that they will require careful planning and allocation of resources.  http://www.power-technology.com/features/featureovercapacity-and-the-challenges-of-going-100-renewable-5872868/



6.  The US will retain its position on the board of the UN's Green Climate Fund for at least a year.  Trump is reportedly using the position, with its veto power, to attempt to force coal plants on developing countries.  https://thinkprogress.org/coal-trump-climate-change-nightmare-668ded63514b



7.  An emphasis on personal responses to climate change-have fewer kids, stop eating meat, buy solar panels-could serve to (even be engineered to) distract us from the steps necessary to deal with the situation.  https://www.theguardian.com/environment/true-north/2017/jul/17/neoliberalism-has-conned-us-into-fighting-climate-change-as-individuals  ?

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.unf.edu/pipermail/gwsg/attachments/20170718/258777c6/attachment.html>