[GWSG] Transition politics; call to action; however painful; food degrading; eatable plates; emissions from plastics; will break the C budget; even if recycled; so corps. require control

[Tilley, Al]

1. With renewables supplying the cheapest power available, Democrats might be well advised to make climate a priority by concentrating directly on the energy transition. Colorado, with the cooperation of Xcel Energy, has become a leader in the transition through successful political initiatives, and South Carolina, battered by an unsuccessful nuclear energy project, is taking on Duke Energy with a solar energy program which passed both of their legislative houses unanimously. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/30/opinion/climate-elections-democrats.html
[https://static01.nyt.com/images/2019/05/30/opinion/30Gillis/1c95bf829ee34a11acd4ab505b85882b-facebookJumbo.jpg]<https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/30/opinion/climate-elections-democrats.html>
Opinion | To Make Headway on Climate Change, Let’s Change the Subject - The New York Times<https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/30/opinion/climate-elections-democrats.html>
www.nytimes.com
DENVER — The morning two years ago that Jared Polis announced his run for governor of Colorado, he went to a coffee roaster operating on solar power and promised more renewable energy for the ...


2. Science magazine’s editorial A Call to Climate Action states calmly in a small space what we must do. https://science.sciencemag.org/content/364/6443/807
[https://science.sciencemag.org/sites/default/files/highwire/sci/364/6443.cover-source.gif]<https://science.sciencemag.org/content/364/6443/807>
A call to climate action | Science<https://science.sciencemag.org/content/364/6443/807>
science.sciencemag.org
The science is clear, students are striking, and publics around the globe are demanding a new level of leadership to tackle the climate crisis before it is too late. Climate extremes are inflicting serious economic losses on nations, and climate-driven issues such as sea-level rise, regional aridification, food shortages, disease spread, and massive biodiversity loss only promise ever ...


3. The climate crisis poses severe financial dangers to communities through inundation, fires, dwindling water supplies, and sheer heat. Acknowledging and managing those risks will result in short-term problems but ignoring them (the current approach in most communities) will be ruinous. https://ensia.com/features/climate-change-financial-crisis/
[https://ensia.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/Feature_FinancialCrisis_Main.jpg]<https://ensia.com/features/climate-change-financial-crisis/>
How to prepare for climate impacts without creating financial chaos | Ensia<https://ensia.com/features/climate-change-financial-crisis/>
ensia.com
Flooding that can deluge low-lying properties and make roads impassable is becoming much more frequent. Of the 549 flood days in Lewes since the 1950s, more than 200 have taken place in the past 15 years. The town has rewritten building codes so homes in flood-prone areas are built higher off the ground.


4. The heating climate is already showing up in food production, with the general picture one of gradually diminishing nutrient yields, though there are winners and losers by region and by crop. https://phys.org/news/2019-05-climate-affecting-global-food-productionunequally.html
[https://3c1703fe8d.site.internapcdn.net/newman/gfx/news/2019/65-climatechang.jpg]<https://phys.org/news/2019-05-climate-affecting-global-food-productionunequally.html>
Climate change is already affecting global food production—unequally - phys.org<https://phys.org/news/2019-05-climate-affecting-global-food-productionunequally.html>
phys.org
The world's top 10 crops— barley, cassava, maize, oil palm, rapeseed, rice, sorghum, soybean, sugarcane and wheat—supply a combined 83 percent of all calories produced on cropland. Yields have ...


5. The EU will ban plastic plates and cutlery beginning in 2021. A Polish inventor is already producing an edible—and more significantly, biodegradable—plate from wheat bran. Another group is developing cutlery made from potato starch.  https://phys.org/news/2019-06-plate-inventor.html
[https://3c1703fe8d.site.internapcdn.net/newman/gfx/news/2019/polishinvent.jpg]<https://phys.org/news/2019-06-plate-inventor.html>
You can have your plate and eat it too, says Polish inventor<https://phys.org/news/2019-06-plate-inventor.html>
phys.org
Polish inventor and entrepreneur Jerzy Wysocki catches a brown plate—still warm—as it drops out of a machine and he begins to eat the crunchy, fibrous tableware. "A pork chop will always be ...


6. Plastics are produced from fossil fuels. https://storyofstuff.org/the-story-of-plastic/the-problem-with-plastic/
[https://storyofstuff.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/microplastics-1-e1526932007249.jpg]<https://storyofstuff.org/the-story-of-plastic/the-problem-with-plastic/>
The Problem With Plastic - The Story of Stuff Project<https://storyofstuff.org/the-story-of-plastic/the-problem-with-plastic/>
storyofstuff.org
The Problem With Plastic How The Story of Stuff Project thinks about our plastic – and its solutions. For too long, the public conversation around plastic has been narrowly focused on plastic waste in the ocean.

“Plastic production, use, and disposal all emit prodigious amounts of greenhouse gasses, but scientists haven't had a firm grasp on the scope.” We will not be able to limit heating to 1.5C without controlling the production of plastics. The problem, not well known, is one we must face.  https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/04/190415144004.htm
Plastic's carbon footprint: Researchers conduct first global assessment of the life cycle greenhouse gas emissions from plastics -- ScienceDaily<https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/04/190415144004.htm>
www.sciencedaily.com
>From campaigns against microplastics to news of the great Pacific garbage patch, public awareness is growing about the outsized effect plastic has on the world's oceans. However, its effect on the ...


7. A new report from the Center for International Environmental Law finds that plans for plastic production would use up 14% of the remaining carbon budget by midcentury. Plastics could even interfere with the ability of the oceans to act as a carbon sink.  https://www.desmogblog.com/2019/05/15/plastics-industry-climate-change-emissions-oceans-ciel-report
[https://www.desmogblog.com/sites/beta.desmogblog.com/files/blogimages/Plastic%20Jug%20beach.jpg]<https://www.desmogblog.com/2019/05/15/plastics-industry-climate-change-emissions-oceans-ciel-report>
Plastics Industry on Track to Burn Through 14% of World’s Remaining Carbon Budget: New Report | DeSmogBlog<https://www.desmogblog.com/2019/05/15/plastics-industry-climate-change-emissions-oceans-ciel-report>
www.desmogblog.com
The plastics industry plays a major — and growing — role in climate change, according to a report published today by the Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL). By 2050, making and disposing of plastics could be responsible for a cumulative 56 gigatons of carbon, the report found, up to 14 percent of the world's remaining carbon budget.

Fossil fuel corporations can be expected to fight the battle over plastics to the death, for without this use for the assets they hold in deposits of fuel they are bankrupt.

8. Can there be such a thing as a sustainable use of plastics? Excellent Systems in Denmark is trying to build a closed loop of recycling for their polyethylene. https://cleantechnica.com/2019/06/02/one-excellent-danish-company-aspires-to-change-the-world/?utm_source=CleanTechnica+News&utm_campaign=3a9d8c0ccf-Daily+Email+CAMPAIGN&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_b9b83ee7eb-3a9d8c0ccf-331994013
[https://cleantechnica.com/files/2019/05/excellent_feat.jpg]<https://cleantechnica.com/2019/06/02/one-excellent-danish-company-aspires-to-change-the-world/?utm_source=CleanTechnica+News&utm_campaign=3a9d8c0ccf-Daily+Email+CAMPAIGN&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_b9b83ee7eb-3a9d8c0ccf-331994013>
One Excellent Danish Company Aspires To Change The World | CleanTechnica<https://cleantechnica.com/2019/06/02/one-excellent-danish-company-aspires-to-change-the-world/?utm_source=CleanTechnica+News&utm_campaign=3a9d8c0ccf-Daily+Email+CAMPAIGN&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_b9b83ee7eb-3a9d8c0ccf-331994013>
cleantechnica.com
June 2nd, 2019 by Jesper Berggreen In 2002, I needed a change to my working environment as my body was withering away from endless hours at the computer as a web page designer since the dawn of ...

But Excellent must rely on a supply of fossil fuels for their product.  The top ten fossil fuel companies are planning to invest $1 trillion in developing new fields of gas, coal, and oil in the next ten years. Some are already factoring a carbon tax into their balance sheet. https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/big-oil-is-investing-billions-in-potentially-worthless-projects/ar-AAC5Dwj?ocid=spartandhp
[https://img-s-msn-com.akamaized.net/tenant/amp/entityid/BBQOd2T.img?h=630&w=250&m=6&q=60&o=t&l=f&f=jpg&x=672&y=459]<https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/big-oil-is-investing-billions-in-potentially-worthless-projects/ar-AAC5Dwj?ocid=spartandhp>
Big Oil is investing billions in potentially worthless projects<https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/big-oil-is-investing-billions-in-potentially-worthless-projects/ar-AAC5Dwj?ocid=spartandhp>
www.msn.com
The top 10 energy companies are planning investments approaching $1 trillion by 2030, in everything from finding and tapping new fields to equipment ranging from drones to drilling rigs. If the ...


9. The transition to renewable energy is insufficient to meeting our heat targets. We need to make the transition, and we need to take personal actions such as changing our diet. But it will not be enough. We must interfere directly in the operation of fossil fuel corporations. They are posing a threat to the lives of this planet. https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2019/06/03/climate-change-requires-collective-action-more-than-single-acts-column/1275965001/
[https://www.bing.com/th?id=OVF.uUPJnheT9ZiRRryJR%2box2A&pid=Api]<https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2019/06/03/climate-change-requires-collective-action-more-than-single-acts-column/1275965001/>
You can't save the climate by going vegan. Corporate polluters must be held accountable.<https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2019/06/03/climate-change-requires-collective-action-more-than-single-acts-column/1275965001/>
www.usatoday.com
Many individual actions to slow climate change are worth taking. But they distract from the systemic changes that are needed to avert this crisis.


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