Pope Francis recruits Naomi Klein in climate change battle

Social activist ‘surprised but delighted’ to join top cardinal in high-level environment conference at the Vatican

Naomi Klein on a earlier visit to Rome Photograph: REX Shutterstock

Rosie Scammell

Saturday 27 June 2015 19.11 EDT

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jun/28/pope-climate-change-naomi-klein

She is one of the world’s most high-profile social activists and a ferocious critic of 21st-century capitalism. He is one of the pope’s most senior aides and a professor of climate change economics. But this week the secular radical will join forces with the Catholic cardinal in the latest move by Pope Francis to shift the debate on global warming.
Naomi Klein and Cardinal Peter Turkson are to lead a high-level conference on the environment, bringing together churchmen, scientists and activists to debate climate change action. Klein, who campaigns for an overhaul of the global financial system to tackle climate change, told the Observer she was surprised but delighted to receive the invitation from Turkson’s office.
“The fact that they invited me indicates they’re not backing down from the fight. A lot of people have patted the pope on the head, but said he’s wrong on the economics. I think he’s right on the economics,” she said, referring to Pope Francis’s recent publication of an encyclical on the environment.
Release of the document earlier this month thrust the pontiff to the centre of the global debate on climate change, as he berated politicians for creating a system that serves wealthy countries at the expense of the poorest.
Activists and religious leaders will gather in Rome on Sunday, marching through the Eternal City before the Vatican welcomes campaigners to the conference, which will focus on the UN’s impending climate change summit.
Protesters have chosen the French embassy as their starting point – a Renaissance palace famed for its beautiful frescoes, but more significantly a symbol of the United Nations climate change conference, which will be hosted by Paris this December.
Nearly 500 years since Galileo was found guilty of heresy, the Holy See is leading the rallying cry for the world to wake up and listen to scientists on climate change. Multi-faith leaders will walk alongside scientists and campaigners, hailing from organisations including Greenpeace and Oxfam Italy, marching to the Vatican to celebrate the pope’s tough stance on environmental issues.
The imminent arrival of Klein within the Vatican walls has raised some eyebrows, but the involvement of lay people in church discussions is not without precedent.
Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary-general, delivered the keynote address at a Vatican summit in April on climate change and poverty. Anticipating the encyclical, he said he was depending on the pope’s “moral voice and moral leadership” to speed up action.

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When it came to the presentation of the document itself, the pontiff picked a five-strong panel, including a Rome school teacher and a leading scientist. Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, who heads the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, used the time to give churchmen a lesson in climate science.
The pope has upset some conservatives for drawing people from outside the clergy into the heart of the debate, while critics have also argued the Catholic church should not be involved in an issue that should be left to presidents and policy-makers.
But Klein said the pope’s position as a “moral voice” in the world – and leader of 1.2 billion Catholics – gives him the unique ability to unite campaigners fighting for a common goal. “The holistic view of the encyclical should be a catalyst to bring together the twin economic and climate crises, instead of treating them separately,” she said.
Much of the pope’s discourse focuses on the need to give developing countries a greater voice in climate change negotiations, a view that sits uncomfortably among some in developed nations. “There are a lot of people who are having a lot of trouble in realising there is a voice with such global authority from the global south. That’s why we’re getting this condescending view, of ‘leave the economics to us’,” said Klein.
She views the rise of Francis as an environmental campaigner as marking a welcome shift not only in the international sphere but also at the Holy See: “We’re seeing the power base within the Vatican shift, with a Ghanaian cardinal [Turkson] and an Argentine pope. They’re doing something very brave.”
While the upcoming conference is centred on the pope’s encyclical, delegates will also be looking ahead to decisive international meetings this year. Before the Paris talks comes a UN summit, where states are due to commit to sustainable development goals, which will inevitably affect the environment.
The pope will fly into New York on the first day of the meeting and address the UN general assembly, reinforcing his message and emboldening countries worst affected by climate change.
For Klein, the papal visit will mark a much-needed change in the way negotiators discuss the environment. “There’s a way in which UN discourse sanitises the extent to which this is a moral crisis,” she said. “It cries out for a moral voice.”

George Lakoff: Why Pope Francis Killed It on Addressing Climate Change

The Pope combines science, morality and politics.

By George Lakoff / AlterNet

July 1, 2015

http://www.alternet.org/environment/george-lakoff-why-pope-francis-killed-it-addressing-climate-change?sc=fb

Photo Credit: Image by Shutterstock, Copyright (c) Philip Chidell

Beginning with my book Moral Politics in 1996 (Ch. 12), I have been arguing that environmental issues are moral issues. There I reviewed and critiqued conservative metaphors of nature as a resource, as property, as an adversary to be conquered.
Instead I argued that we needed to conceptualize nature as the giver of all life, as sustainer and provider, as having inherent value, imposing responsibility, and deserving gratitude, love, adoration, and commitment.
I suggested alternative metaphors of nature as mother, as a divine being, as a living organism, as a home, as a victim to be cared for, and a whole with us as parts inseparable from nature and from each other.
Pope Francis in his Encyclical used all of these and then went much further. First, he got all the science right -- no small task. I have been writing for some time about role of systemic causation in global warming and the environment. The Pope not only got the ecological system effects right, but he went much, much further linking the environmental effects to effects on those most oppressed on earth by poverty, weather disasters, disease, ocean rise, lack of drinking water, the degradation of agriculture, and the essential aesthetic and spiritual contact with unspoiled nature. And more, he spoke of our moral responsibility toward animals.
He spoke in metaphors that might sound strange coming in a scientific or political speech, but somehow seem entirely natural for the Pope.
The title of the encyclical is "On Care for our Common Home." This simple phrase establishes the most important frame right from the start. Using the metaphor of the "Earth as Home," he triggers a frame in which all the people of the world are a family, living in a common home.
This frame carries with it many assumptions: As one family, we should care for each other and take responsibility for each other. A home is something we all depend on, physically and emotionally. A home is something inherently worth maintaining and protecting.
164. "...there has been a growing conviction that our planet is a homeland and that humanity is one people living in a common home."
61. "...our common home is falling into seri­ous disrepair."
13. "Humanity still has the ability to work together in building our common home."
Pope Francis explicitly states what most progressives implicitly believe but rarely say out loud: "The climate is a common good, belonging to all and meant for all." The "Common Good" frame is about interdependence, shared responsibility and shared benefit.
156. Human ecology is inseparable from the notion of the common good, a central and uni­fying principle of social ethics.
157. Society as a whole, and the state in particular, are obliged to defend and promote the common good.
Critics of Pope Francis have attacked him as having a naïve understanding of the economy, of being anti-technology, or of denying the so-called productive role of self-interest. But he is doing much more, suggesting that business and technology can, and ought to, have moral ends, especially in the face of the looming worldwide disaster of global warming. He is further pointing out, correctly, that the global warming disaster and hugely disastrous other effects were created by the business-technology axis seeking profit above all, without being structured to serve the common good.
129. Business is a noble vocation, directed to producing wealth and improving our world. It can be a fruitful source of prosperity for the areas in which it operates, especially if it sees the creation of jobs as an essential part of its service to the common good.
54. The alliance between the economy and technology ends up sidelining anything unrelated to its immediate interests.
The Pope of course realizes the challenge. An alternative religion of market fundamentalism has taken hold both in public discourse and in the minds of the public -- so much so that it is hard to imagine a change in time to avert disaster.
108. The idea of promoting a different cultural paradigm and employing technology as a mere instrument is nowadays inconceivable.
Indeed, market fundamentalism has become a kind of alternative religion, with its own idea of what is natural (the primacy of self-interest) and moral (in the conservative version of the Invisible Hand metaphor, if everyone pursues his own profit, the profit of all will be maximized). Pope Francis correctly points out that these metaphors have run wild, "ending up" creating enormous wealth for some, disaster for the many, and the terror of global warming for the earth. In market fundamentalism, there is only "individual responsibility," no common responsibility for the common good. Without such common responsibility, there will be no way to avert the coming disasters of global warming, which has been created by market fundamentalism and will be perpetuated by it, unless it is checked.
In market fundamentalism, wealth is measure of the good: an overall increase in monetary wealth is a moral triumph. But while the industrialization of China has increased the wealth of China's capitalists, of American corporate outsourcers to China, and of the Chinese government, the Chinese have suffered an ecological and social devastation, an overwhelming "cost" -- a cost beyond the measure of money. Just look at the pollution in Beijing and desertification in western China. Via global warming, they are imposing that cost on the world, just as the industrialization of the West has in the past.
Pope Francis extends his view of morality using the commonplace economic metaphor of "Moral Accounting" in which there are debts, costs, people who owe, people who are owed, and an expectation that debts should be paid. He points out that no one makes it on his own, that pre-existing resources, often taken from others and the labor of others, have made life possible for anyone who is economically well-off. We all have debts. We also all have basic rights, e.g., to human dignity. When market fundamentalism shifts the resources of others and fruits of the labor of others to the wealthy, robbing the poor of their right to dignity, the wealthy incur a debt, a moral debt.
30. Our world has a grave social debt towards the poor who lack access to drinking water, because they are denied the right to a life consistent with their inalienable dig­nity. This debt can be paid partly by an increase in funding to provide clean water and sanitary services among the poor.
51. A true "ecolog­ical debt" exists, particularly between the global north and south, connected to commercial im­balances with effects on the environment, and the disproportionate use of natural resources by certain countries over long periods of time.
159. The Portuguese bishops have called upon us to acknowledge this obligation of jus­tice: "The environment is part of a logic of re­ceptivity. It is on loan to each generation, which must then hand it on to the next."
These are just a few examples of the many metaphors and frames used to powerful effect in this document. They have one thing in common, which they also share with the progressive value system: they are rooted in a worldview based on empathy.
This is Empathy writ large, beyond individual empathy: it is a global empathy for all humanity, all of life -- animals, fish, plants, and Nature, which provides all life. What is absent is the all too common narrow view of religion as about individuals alone, in which THE spiritual issue is whether YOU get into Heaven, and that is a matter of personal responsibility. You are responsible for yourself, not for others, not for all of life and what is life-giving. That narrow view of individual, not social or global responsibility is completely absent from the Pope's message. The message takes morality to the global level, to an ecological spirituality. It is a message especially appropriate for American democracy, which begins with the idea of union, of citizens caring for one another and taking the responsibility working through their government to provide public resources for all, whether for business or personal life, and with freedom and dignity for all as inalienable rights.
The whole Encyclical is well worth reading. It is a remarkable document and one that needs to be taken to heart not just by the world's Catholics, but by the world's full population, now and for many years into the future.
I am an advocate of the separation of church and state. I don't have a Pope. I have never tended to follow the edicts of a Pope just because he was Pope. And I am not doing so here.
It is vital to bear in mind that this Encyclical is not just a matter of church doctrine. All policy within the political domain is a matter of morality. Every politician who proposes a policy does so on the basis that it is right, not wrong or morally irrelevant. This Encyclical is overtly about politics and the role a global morality needs to play in politics.
I have long argued that global warming is the moral issue of our time. President Obama has said the same. I am thrilled that Pope Francis, spiritual and moral leader of 1.2 billion Catholics, has not just agreed, but has gone so much further, and that he has framed the issue so powerfully, often in language that flows most easily and readily from a Pope, and yet makes so much moral sense, whether you are Catholic or not, religious or not.
Moral questions are not the same as practical questions. But the fate of the earth in the face of global warming is so practical a question that it becomes a moral one. That is the lens through which to read the Pope's Encyclical.

George Lakoff is Richard and Rhoda Goldman Distinguished Professor of Cognitive Science and Linguistics at the University of California, Berkeley.

Senate holds global warming all-nighter: Why 4 Dems will be no-shows

Senate Democrats will talk about the importance of addressing global warming until 9 a.m. Tuesday. But the issue is fraught with difficulties for four Democrats who won't appear.

By Francine Kiefer, Staff writer / March 10, 2014

Sen. Mary Landrieu (D) of Louisiana, seen here in a file photo, will not attend Monday night's global warming 'talkathon' in the Senate.

Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP/File

Washington

On Monday night, Senate Democrats are hosting a rare pajama party of sorts, conducting an all-night “talkathon” on climate change – minus the pajamas, and definitely minus some of their colleagues.
Twenty-eight Democrats and two left-leaning Independents, including Senate majority leader Harry Reid of Nevada and his top lieutenants, are scheduled to speak in shifts until about 9 a.m. Tuesday. The event is not a filibuster, nor is it related to any legislation. The intent is to urge a divided Congress and nation to “wake up” on this issue.
Some notable Democrats, however, are no-shows: Mark Begich of Alaska, Kay Hagan of North Carolina, Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, and Mark Pryor of Arkansas. It’s not that they want their shut-eye. It’s that they want to win their very competitive races come November.

 

“Climate change is a mixed bag” for Democrats, says Jennifer Duffy, who tracks Senate races for the Cook Political Report. “While it certainly motivates parts of the Democratic base, it also is a big negative for them with other voters.”
It all depends on the state, she explains.
Senators Landrieu and Begich are locked in tight races in energy-producing states that depend on fossil fuels for jobs. The Alaska chapter of Americans for Prosperity, for instance, is spending more than $400,000 on advertising that hits Begich for being “on record supporting a carbon tax,” according to Politico. Senators Hagan and Pryor are simply “very vulnerable and are shying away from controversial issues like climate change,” says Ms. Duffy.
All four represent red states that Mitt Romney carried in 2012 and where President Obama and his agenda are not very popular.
To get a sense of their vulnerability, consider the campaign being run by Senate minority leader Republican Mitch McConnell, who is also in a tight race. He’s from Kentucky – coal country. Senator McConnell is vigorously campaigning against the Obama administration’s attempt to restrict greenhouse gas emissions from power plants.
McConnell has the backing of US Chamber of Commerce, which has run television ads that McConnell is “fighting back, fighting hard" against the new carbon emissions rules by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
He has the GOP-controlled US House of Representatives on his side. Last week, it passed legislation blocking the administration’s EPA plan (the legislation won’t make it past the Senate, though).
And the Kentuckian may even eventually have the US Supreme Court on his side. In February, the high court heard arguments related to the EPA regulations. It has yet to rule.
“For everybody who thinks it's warming, I can find somebody who thinks it isn't," McConnell said in an interview with the Cincinnati Enquirer on Friday.  "Even if you conceded the point, which I don't concede, but if you conceded the point, it isn't going to be addressed by one country,” he said. “So the idea is, we tie our own hands behind our back and others don't. I think it's beyond foolish and real people are being hurt by this."
On the Senate floor on Monday he declared: “We’ve got a depression in the coal fields of Kentucky created by this administration.”
Meanwhile, Americans don’t consider climate change high on their list of national priorities. According to a January 2014 survey by Pew Research, it ranked second-to-last among 20 issues tested, with a rating of 29 percent.
Many Democrats, however, still believe climate change is a winner for them. It certainly could be in the long term, because young people are far more concerned about it than are older Americans.
Former Vice President Al Gore, at a recent Senate Democratic fundraiser in the San Francisco home of billionaire Tom Steyer, urged Democrats to make global warming a central midterm election issue, according to The Washington Post. Mr. Steyer’s advocacy group, NextGen Political Action, expects to use $50 million of Steyer’s money and $50 million raised from donors to support candidates fighting global warming. That money will be withheld from Democrats who duck the fight or even oppose it – though it will not be spent against them.
The last time that Congress seriously attempted to address climate change was in 2009, before the GOP took control in the House. Democrats in that chamber narrowly passed a bill to cap carbon emissions. It never made it through the Senate, and in the end, the effort was thought to have contributed to Democrats’ losses in 2010.
Which explains why some concerned Democrats feel an urgent need to launch a talkathon – which is really a media campaign (follow it on #Up4climate). It also explains why some Democrats will be safely tucked in their beds while one of their colleagues makes an impassioned plea to the C-SPAN camera.

USDA chief: Climate change already hurting farmers - AP

USDA chief: Climate change already hurting farmers

JOSH LEDERMAN | February 5, 2014

WASHINGTON (AP) — Climate change is already hurting American farmers and rural residents, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said Wednesday, warning that the U.S. would regret any failure to adapt and prepare for shifting weather realities.
Unveiling a new effort to coordinate the government's response, Vilsack said extreme weather events have already taken the U.S. by surprise, putting ranchers and others out of business. He pointed to the intensity and frequency of recent storms, long droughts, snowstorms and subzero weather as evidence that climate change is no longer hypothetical or in the future.
"The combination of all those factors convinces me that the climate is changing, and it's going to have its impact, and will have its impact, and is having its impact on agriculture and forestry," Vilsack said.
Pine bark beetle that in years past were killed off during harsh winters have now infected about 45 million trees in western states, leading to more severe forest fires, posing flood risks and threatening the timber industry, Vilsack said. In the absence of adequate forecasting and disaster assistance, he said, an October snowstorm wiped out entire cattle operations in the Dakotas.
"When that snowstorm hit, it didn't wipe out just a few animals. It wiped out the entire operation," Vilsack said. "Nobody anticipated and expected that severe a storm, that early."
To that end, the Obama administration said seven new "climate hubs" will open in regions across the U.S., acting as clearinghouses for data and research about effects of climate change. Based out of existing Agriculture Department facilities, the hubs will assess local climate risks, such as drought and wildfire, then develop plans for dealing with them, such as improved irrigation techniques.
The goal is to synchronize the federal government's preparation and resources with what other entities, such as universities, tribal communities and state governments, are doing to prepare for shifting temperatures.
"It's taking existing avenues, research service or forest service, and charging them with a new responsibility to basically take a look at precisely what risks are currently being recognized and what's the vulnerability to agriculture and to forestry in each region of the country," Vilsack said.
Vilsack disclosed the locations for the new hubs, which were announced last year and included in Obama's broader climate change plan. The seven regional hubs will be housed in forest service stations or government research labs in Ames, Iowa; Durham, N.H.; Raleigh, N.C.; Fort Collins, Colo.; El Reno, Okla.; Corvallis, Ore.; and Las Cruces, N.M. Three smaller "sub-hubs" will be created in Houghton, Mich.; Davis, Calif.; and Rio Piedras, Puerto Rico.

Pat Robertson: Global warming is a scam because there are no SUVs on Jupiter (he must watch S0)

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/01/07/pat-robertson-global-warming-is-a-scam-because-there-are-no-suvs-on-jupiter/

Televangelist Pat Robertson pointed to the cold U.S. weather on Tuesday — and the fact that there were no “SUVs driving around in Jupiter” — to assert that global warming was a scam created by scientists.

“The inconvenient truth is it’s getting cold,” Robertson said, riffing off the title of Al Gore’sclimate change documentary. “And some parts of America are colder than Mars! Why? We’ve got a special story today about how come we could very well be entering another little ice age.”

Later in the show, the TV preacher laughed and noted that the Russian-flagged ship Akademik Shokalskiy had been stuck in ice near Antarctica while trying to research global warming.

“There’s just one problem,” he said. “The Earth isn’t getting warmer. In fact, it’s because of the Sun. The Sun is now showing signs that we’re headed for something very, very different: global cooling.”

“It’s getting warmer in Jupiter, and they don’t have any SUVs driving around in Jupiter,” Robertson explained. “I mean, it has nothing to do with greenhouse gasses. It has to do with the axis of the Sun.”

Co-host Terry Meeuwsen said that she found it hard to believe that so few international climate scientists were willing to speak out against the consensus opinion that global warming was real.

“Think of how much money is involved. It’s money! They are going to get a river of money,” Robertson opined. “The progressives always want control. Just like this health care initiative. They want control.”