Science

These Groups Want Disruptive Climate Protests. Oil Heirs Are Funding Them.

Published

2 years ago

August 10, 2022

These Groups Want Disruptive Climate Protests. Oil Heirs Are Funding Them.

They’ve taken hammers to fuel pumps and glued themselves to museum masterpieces and busy roadways. They’ve chained themselves to banks, rushed onto a Grand
Prix racetrack and tethered themselves to purpose posts as tens of 1000’s of British soccer followers jeered.

The activists who undertook these worldwide acts of disruption over the past yr mentioned that they have been determined to convey the urgency of the local weather disaster and that the simplest method to take action was in public, blockading oil terminals and upsetting regular actions.

Additionally they share a shocking monetary lifeline: heirs to 2 American households that grew to become fabulously wealthy from oil.

Two comparatively new nonprofit organizations, which the oil scions helped discovered, are funding dozens of protest teams devoted to interrupting enterprise as traditional via civil disobedience, principally in the USA, Canada and Europe. Whereas volunteers with established environmental teams like Greenpeace Worldwide have lengthy used disruptive ways to name consideration to ecological threats, the brand new organizations are funding grass-roots activists.

The California-based Local weather Emergency Fund was based in 2019 on the ethos that civil resistance is integral to reaching the fast widespread social and political adjustments wanted to sort out the local weather disaster.

Margaret Klein Salamon, the fund’s govt director, pointed to social actions of the previous — suffragists, civil rights and homosexual rights activists — that achieved success after protesters took nonviolent demonstrations to the streets.

“Motion strikes public opinion and what the media covers, and strikes the realm of what’s politically potential,” Ms. Salamon mentioned. “The conventional techniques have failed. It’s time for each individual to comprehend that we have to take this on.”

Up to now, the fund has given away simply over $7 million, with the purpose of pushing society into emergency mode, she mentioned. Although the USA is on the cusp of enacting historic local weather laws, the invoice permits extra oil and fuel growth, which scientists say must cease instantly to avert planetary disaster.

Sharing these targets with the Local weather Emergency Fund is the Equation Marketing campaign. Based in 2020, it offers monetary help and authorized protection to folks dwelling close to pipelines and refineries who’re making an attempt to cease fossil gas growth, via strategies together with civil disobedience.

Strikingly, each organizations are backed by oil-fortune households whose descendants really feel a duty to reverse the harms accomplished by fossil fuels. Aileen Getty, whose grandfather created Getty Oil, helped discovered the Local weather Emergency Fund and has given it $1 million thus far. The Equation Marketing campaign began in 2020 with $30 million from two members of the Rockefeller household, Rebecca Rockefeller Lambert and Peter Gill Case. John D. Rockefeller based Normal Oil in 1870 and have become the nation’s first billionaire.

“It’s time to place the genie again within the bottle,” Mr. Case wrote in an electronic mail. “I really feel an ethical obligation to do my half. Wouldn’t you?”

Perception within the transformative energy of utmost civil disobedience is just not common, and a few actions by the teams, notably these backed by the Local weather Emergency Fund, have irritated the general public.

Protesters have been screamed at, threatened, labeled eco-zealots and dragged off by offended commuters. Analysis from the College of Toronto and Stanford College additionally discovered that whereas extra disruptive protests attracted publicity, they may undermine a motion’s credibility and alienate potential help.

However Ms. Salamon and activists backed by the Local weather Emergency Fund mentioned pushback was inevitable. They pointed to the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., who, in response to a Gallup Ballot, had a 63 p.c disapproval score within the years main as much as his dying.

“We’re not making an attempt to be in style,” mentioned Zain Haq, a co-founder of the Canadian group Save Outdated Development, which blocks roads to thwart the logging of historical forests in British Columbia and acquired $170,000 from the Local weather Emergency Fund. “Civil disobedience traditionally is about difficult a lifestyle.”

There may be some proof that newer local weather protest teams have gotten traction. Researchers discovered that Extinction Rise up and the Dawn Motion had performed an outsize position in rising consciousness and driving local weather coverage. By way of price effectiveness, the protest teams usually bested conventional “Huge Inexperienced” nonprofit environmental teams in serving to drive down greenhouse fuel emissions, in response to the findings.

For the Equation Marketing campaign, stopping additional oil and fuel growth has a quantifiable impression. The cancellation of an extension of the Keystone XL oil pipeline, following years of resistance from tribes, farmers and native ranchers, prevented the discharge of as a lot as 180 million tons of greenhouse fuel emissions a yr, by one estimate. The Equation Marketing campaign is funding campaigns towards a bunch of different fossil gas tasks and helps activists who are sometimes focused with what the group’s govt director, Katie Redford, described as exaggerated costs and false arrests.

“For the local weather and actually for humanity to win, we want them to win, and to cease the trade from constructing extra stuff that places greenhouse gases into the atmosphere,” Ms. Redford mentioned.

Local weather activists obtain far much less funding than main environmental teams, notably from philanthropic pursuits, which give only a fraction of their spending for local weather points worldwide. Based on the ClimateWorks Basis, lower than 2 p.c of worldwide philanthropy funds in 2020 went to mitigating local weather change (although its share is rising), a sliver of which was devoted to grass-roots exercise and motion constructing.

Each Ms. Redford and Ms. Salamon mentioned their teams had financed solely authorized actions, reminiscent of coaching, schooling, journey and printing and recruitment prices. Grant recipients should affirm that the cash has not been spent on actions prohibited by regulation.

Additionally they contested any suggestion that paying activists made their actions much less genuine, noting that recipients had already been working across the clock as volunteers, usually draining their financial institution accounts within the course of. “That is their ardour,” Ms. Salamon mentioned.

“It’s not honest to proceed to ask Indigenous folks, Black, brown and poor individuals who dwell on the entrance traces to do that work totally free just because they’ve been doing it of their ‘spare time,’” Ms. Redford mentioned.

Activists on the receiving finish described the cash as a godsend. Some had dropped out of lessons to commit themselves to full-time local weather activism, pushed by a way of urgency and ethical responsibility. Others juggled a number of jobs to pay the payments.

Miranda Whelehan, of the British group Simply Cease Oil, mentioned members had been overworked and harassed till the Local weather Emergency Fund gave them near $1 million and helped cowl salaries for 40 organizers and activists.

“Clearly, you may solely accomplish that a lot as volunteers,” Ms. Whelehan mentioned. “Big oil corporations have thousands and thousands, if not billions.”

Again and again, the activists mentioned that they didn’t wish to interact in civil disobedience however that extra conventional efforts had but to stave off widespread local weather catastrophe. “We’ve tried every little thing else,” mentioned Louis McKechnie, a Simply Cease Oil member who has been arrested about 20 instances.

Winona LaDuke, the manager director of the Native environmental nonprofit group Honor the Earth, mentioned her group had spent seven years preventing the Line 3 pipeline in Minnesota, attending each regulatory assembly and listening to, and for naught.

She mentioned she had been arrested and charged with trespassing regardless of being on public property and was endlessly grateful that the Equation Marketing campaign, which has given her group greater than $400,000, had held agency in its help.

“We put our our bodies on the road as a result of we had no different authorized recourse — we had nothing,” Ms. LaDuke mentioned. “We knew we have been going to get arrested.”

For some activists, civil disobedience has proved to be unexpectedly gratifying.

Peter Kalmus, a local weather scientist who works for NASA, mentioned he had spent 16 years making an attempt to compel company executives, authorities leaders and the general public to behave on the local weather emergency. Finally, he concluded that he and the environmental motion have been shedding badly.

In April, Mr. Kalmus was one of roughly 1,000 scientists in 25 international locations who blocked site visitors and chained themselves to, amongst different targets, the gates of the White Home and doorways of financial institution branches as a part of the Scientist Rebellion. The individuals weren’t paid, however the group acquired $100,000 from the Local weather Emergency Fund for organizer and marketing consultant wages, area rental and journey prices.

Afterward, Dr. Kalmus — who famous he was not talking for NASA — mentioned suggestions had poured in from world wide saying that he had made a distinction and had left folks impressed.

“I get messages every single day from individuals who mentioned it had given them hope,” Dr. Kalmus mentioned. “It appeared to speak that urgency way over the rest.”

For others, protesting has come at a private price. Mr. McKechnie mentioned he had been kicked out of Bournemouth College due to his local weather activism. In March, he launched into maybe his most public motion but, utilizing a zipper tie threaded with steel to tether himself to a purpose put up throughout a Premiere League soccer match. He mentioned he had felt the “hate and menace” of everybody within the crowd and had been kicked and lunged at as he was being escorted out. Mr. McKechnie was arrested, and he mentioned he had acquired so many dying threats that he had deleted his social media accounts.

However he was additionally unmoved in his resolve. “Even when 1 p.c of the gang regarded up who we’re and what we’re doing, it could’ve been an enormous win,” he mentioned.

Not lengthy afterward, Mr. McKechnie was at a Simply Cease Oil assembly, the place everybody in attendance was requested what had introduced them there. One fellow raised his hand, Mr. McKechnie mentioned, and “he mentioned, ‘Effectively, I used to be at a soccer recreation, and a wanker locked himself to the pitch.’”

“I hate having to do any of this,” Mr. McKechnie continued. “However the one technique to get them to hear and to guard the way forward for my very own technology is to make an annoyance so loud that even with their heads buried within the sand, it’s going to drown it out.”

Mr. Case mentioned that it was too early to inform whether or not the Equation Marketing campaign had achieved its goals however that he and Ms. Lambert have been dedicated to spending “at a excessive charge” till 2030.

The subsequent few years are essential. Local weather scientists say nations should minimize greenhouse fuel emissions by about 50 p.c by the tip of this decade to keep away from essentially the most extreme results of a warming planet.

In an electronic mail, Ms. Getty mentioned her perception within the effectiveness of activism was unshaken, particularly with time operating out. Civil disobedience was meant to function an alarm, she mentioned, and discomfort brought on by disruptive protests paled compared to what may nicely lie in retailer.

“Let’s not overlook that we’re speaking about extinction,” Ms. Getty wrote in an electronic mail. “Don’t we now have a duty to take each technique of making an attempt to guard life on Earth?”

Science

2024 was the hottest year on record, NASA and NOAA confirm

Published

3 hours ago

January 11, 2025

Press Room

2024 was the hottest year on record, NASA and NOAA confirm

Amid a week of horrifying wildfires in Los Angeles, government agencies in the U.S. and around the world confirmed Friday that 2024 was the planet’s hottest year since recordkeeping began in 1880.

It’s the 11th consecutive year in which a new heat record has been set, NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said.

“Between record-breaking temperatures and wildfires currently threatening our centers and workforce in California, it has never been more important to understand our changing planet,” Nelson said.

Firefighters on Friday were battling to protect NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in La Cañada Flintridge from the Eaton fire, which has burned 13,690 acres and roughly 5,000 buildings thus far.

Research has shown that global warming is contributing significantly to larger and more intense wildfires in the western U.S. in recent years, and to longer fire seasons.

The devastating fires in Southern California erupted after an abrupt shift from wet weather to extremely dry weather, a bout of climate “whiplash” that scientists say increased wildfire risks. Research has shown that these rapid wet-to-dry and dry-to-wet swings, which can worsen wildfires, flooding and other hazards, are growing more frequent and intense because of rising global temperatures.

Extreme weather events in 2024 included Hurricane Helene in the southeastern U.S., devastating floods in Valencia, Spain, and a deadly heat wave in Mexico so intense that monkeys dropped dead from the trees, noted Russell Vose, chief of the monitoring and assessment branch of NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information.

“We aren’t saying any of these things were caused by changes in Earth’s climate,” Vose said. But since warmer air holds more moisture, the higher temperatures “could have exacerbated some events this year.”

Last year’s data also notes a step toward a major climate threshold. Keeping the average global surface temperature from rising 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels has long been seen as necessary to avoid many of the most harrowing climate impacts.

NOAA pegged 2024’s global average surface temperature at 1.46 degrees C above its preindustrial baseline, and NASA’s measurements put the increase at 1.47 degrees C. In 2023, NASA said the temperature was 1.36 degrees C higher than the baseline.

Considering the margin of error in their measurements, “that puts the NOAA and NASA models comfortably within the possibility that the real number is 1.5 degrees,” said Gavin Schmidt, director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies.

Calculations from other organizations passed the 1.5-degree mark more clearly.

Berkeley Earth and the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service both said the planet warmed to slightly more than 1.6 degrees C above pre-industrial times in 2024. The United Nations’ World Meteorological Organization said the increase was 1.55 degrees C and the U.K. Met Office, the country’s weather service, measured an increase of 1.53 degrees C.

Although 2024 probably marks the first calendar year in which the average temperature exceeded the 1.5-degree threshold, it doesn’t mean Earth has passed the crucial target set in the Paris Agreement, Vose said.

That describes “a sustained, multi-decade increase of 1.5 degrees,” something that’s not expected to occur until the 2030s or 2040s, the scientists noted.

“For a long time, the global mean temperature changes were a bit of an esoteric thing — nobody lives in the global mean,” Schmidt said. “But the signal is now so large that you’re not only seeing it at the global scale … you’re seeing it at the local level.”

“This is now quite personal,” he said.

The oceans, which store 90% of the planet’s excess heat, also recorded their highest average temperature since records began in 1955.

The Arctic has seen the most warming, which is concerning because the region is home to vast quantities of ice that stands to melt and raise sea levels, Schmidt said.

Temperatures there are rising 3 to 3.5 times faster than the overall global average, he added.

The only place where average surface temperatures have cooled is the area immediately around Antarctica, and that’s probably due to meltwater from shrinking ice sheets, Schmidt said.

A year ago, NOAA predicted there was only a 1 in 3 chance that 2024 would break the record set in 2023, Vose said. Then every month from January to July set a new high, and August was a tie. As a result, Friday’s declaration came as little surprise.

The longer-term trends are no better.

“We anticipate future global warming as long as we are emitting greenhouse gases,” Schmidt said. “That’s something that brings us no joy to tell people, but unfortunately that’s the case.”

Times staff writer Ian James contributed to this report.

Science

There's a reason you can't stop doomscrolling through L.A.'s fire disaster

Published

15 hours ago

January 10, 2025

Press Room

There's a reason you can't stop doomscrolling through L.A.'s fire disaster

Even for those lucky enough to get out in time, or to live outside the evacuation zones, there has been no escape from the fires in the Los Angeles area this week.

There is hardly a vantage point in the city from which flames or plumes of smoke are not visible, nowhere the scent of burning memories can’t reach.

And on our screens — on seemingly every channel and social media feed and text thread and WhatsApp group — an endless carousel of images documents a level of fear, loss and grief that felt unimaginable here as recently as Tuesday morning.

Even in places of physical safety, many in Los Angeles are finding it difficult to look away from the worst of the destruction online.

“To me it’s more comfortable to doomscroll than to sit and wait,” said Clara Sterling, who evacuated from her home Wednesday. “I would rather know exactly where the fire is going and where it’s headed than not know anything at all.”

A writer and comedian, Sterling is — by her own admission — extremely online. But the nature of this week’s fires make it particularly hard to disengage from news coverage and social media, experts said.

For one, there’s a material difference between scrolling through images of a far-off crisis and staying informed about an active disaster unfolding in your neighborhood, said Casey Fiesler, an associate professor specializing in tech ethics at the University of Colorado Boulder.

“It’s weird to even think of it as ‘doomscrolling,’ ” she said. “When you’re in it, you’re also looking for important information that can be really hard to get.”

When you share an identity with the victims of a traumatic event, you’re more likely both to seek out media coverage of the experience and to feel more distressed by the media you see, said Roxane Cohen Silver, distinguished professor of psychological science at UC Irvine.

For Los Angeles residents, this week’s fires are affecting the people we identify with most intimately: family, friends and community members. They have consumed places and landmarks that feature prominently in fond memories and regular routines.

The ubiquitous images have also fueled painful memories for those who have lived through similar disasters — a group whose numbers have increased as wildfires have grown more frequent in California, Silver said.

This she knows personally: She evacuated from the Laguna Beach fires in 1993, and began a long-term study of that fire’s survivors days after returning to her home.

“Throughout California, throughout the West, throughout communities that have had wildfire experience, we are particularly primed and sensitized to that news,” she said. “And the more we immerse ourselves in that news, the more likely we are to experience distress.”

Absorption in these images of fire and ash can cause trauma of its own, said Jyoti Mishra, an associate professor of psychiatry at UC San Diego who studied the long-term psychological health of survivors of the 2018 Camp fire.

The team identified lingering symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder, depression and anxiety both among survivors who personally experienced fire-related trauma such as injury or property loss, and — to a smaller but still significant degree — among those who indirectly experienced the trauma as witnesses.

“If you’re witnessing [trauma] in the media, happening on the streets that you’ve lived on and walked on, and you can really put yourself in that place, then it can definitely be impactful,” said Mishra, who’s also co-director of the UC Climate Change and Mental Health Council. “Psychology and neuroscience research has shown that images and videos that generate a sense of personal meaning can have deep emotional impacts.”

The emotional pull of the videos and images on social media make it hard to look away, even as many find the information there much harder to trust.

Like many others, Sterling spent a lot of time online during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. Back then, Sterling said, the social media environment felt decidedly different.

“This time around I think I feel less informed about what’s going on because there’s been such a big push toward not fact-checking and getting rid of verified accounts,” she said.

The rise of AI-generated images and photos has added another troubling kink, as Sterling highlighted in a video posted to TikTok early Thursday.

“The Hollywood sign was not on fire last night. Any video or photos that you saw of the Hollywood sign on fire were fake. They were AI generated,” she said, posting from a hotel in San Diego after evacuating.

Hunter Ditch, a producer and voice actor in Lake Balboa, raised similar concerns about the lack of accurate information. Some social media content she’s encountered seemed “very polarizing” or political, and some exaggerated the scope of the disaster or featured complete fabrications, such as that flaming Hollywood sign.

The spread of false information has added another layer of stress, she said. This week, she started turning to other types of app — like the disaster mapping app, Watch Duty — to track the spreading fires and changing evacuation zones.

But that made her wonder: “If I have to check a whole other app for accurate information, then what am I even doing on social media at all?”

Science

Pink Fire Retardant, a Dramatic Wildfire Weapon, Poses Its Own Dangers

Published

23 hours ago

January 10, 2025

Press Room

Pink Fire Retardant, a Dramatic Wildfire Weapon, Poses Its Own Dangers

From above the raging flames, these planes can unleash immense tankfuls of bright pink fire retardant in just 20 seconds. They have long been considered vital in the battle against wildfires.

But emerging research has shown that the millions of gallons of retardant sprayed on the landscape to tame wildfires each year come with a toxic burden, because they contain heavy metals and other chemicals that are harmful to human health and the environment.

The toxicity presents a stark dilemma. These tankers and their cargo are a powerful tool for taming deadly blazes. Yet as wildfires intensify and become more frequent in an era of climate change, firefighters are using them more often, and in the process releasing more harmful chemicals into the environment.

Some environmental groups have questioned the retardants’ effectiveness and potential for harm. The efficiency of fire retardant has been hard to measure, because it’s one of a barrage of firefighting tactics deployed in a major fire. After the flames are doused, it’s difficult to assign credit.

The frequency and severity of wildfires has grown in recent years, particularly in the western United States. Scientists have also found that fires across the region have become faster moving in recent decades.

There are also the longer-term health effects of exposure to wildfire smoke, which can penetrate the lungs and heart, causing disease. A recent global survey of the health effects of air pollution caused by wildfires found that in the United States, exposure to wildfire smoke had increased by 77 percent since 2002. Globally, wildfire smoke has been estimated to be responsible for up to 675,000 premature deaths per year.

Fire retardants add to those health and environmental burdens because they present “a really, really thorny trade-off,” said Daniel McCurry, an assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University of Southern California, who led the recent research on their heavy-metal content.

The United States Forest Service said on Thursday that nine large retardant-spraying planes, as well as 20 water-dropping helicopters, were being deployed to fight the Southern California fires, which have displaced tens of thousands of people. Several “water scooper” amphibious planes, capable of skimming the surface of the sea or other body of water to fill their tanks, are also being used.

Two large DC-10 aircraft, dubbed “Very Large Airtankers” and capable of delivering up to 9,400 gallons of retardant, were also set to join the fleet imminently, said Stanton Florea, a spokesman for the National Interagency Fire Center in Boise, Idaho, which coordinates national wildland firefighting efforts across the West.

Sprayed ahead of the fire, the retardants coat vegetation and prevent oxygen from allowing it to burn, Mr. Florea said. (Red dye is added so firefighters can see the retardant against the landscape.) And the retardant, typically made of salts like ammonium polyphosphate, “lasts longer. It doesn’t evaporate, like dropping water,” he said.

The new research from Dr. McCurry and his colleagues found, however, that at least four different types of heavy metals in a common type of retardant used by firefighters exceeded California’s requirements for hazardous waste.

Federal data shows that more than 440 million gallons of retardant were applied to federal, state, and private land between 2009 and 2021. Using that figure, the researchers estimated that between 2009 and 2021, more than 400 tons of heavy metals were released into the environment from fire suppression, a third of that in Southern California.

Both the federal government and the retardant’s manufacturer, Perimeter Solutions, have disputed that analysis, saying the researchers had evaluated a different version of the retardant. Dan Green, a spokesman for Perimeter, said retardants used for aerial firefighting had passed “extensive testing to confirm they meet strict standards for aquatic and mammalian safety.”

Still, the findings help explain why concentrations of heavy metals tend to surge in rivers and streams after wildfires, sometimes by hundreds of times. And as scrutiny of fire suppressants has grown, the Forestry Service has set buffer zones surrounding lakes and rivers, though its own data shows retardant still inadvertently drifts into those waters.

In 2022, the environmental nonprofit Forest Service Employees for Environmental Ethics sued the government in federal court in Montana, demanding that the Forest Service obtain a permit under the Clean Water Act to cover accidental spraying into waterways.

The judge ruled that the agency did indeed need to obtain a permit. But it allowed retardant use to continue to protect lives and property.