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saving the planet from global warming...Former US secretary of state John Kerry will act as "climate tsar" when US President-elect Joe Biden takes office. He was one of several people named for top positions by the Biden transition team on Monday. Other key picks include Avril Haines as the first woman to lead intelligence, and long-time aide Antony Blinken as secretary of state - the most important foreign policy position.
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wwzero...
[November 30 2019] WASHINGTON — John Kerry, the former senator and secretary of state, has formed a new bipartisan coalition of world leaders, military brass and Hollywood celebrities to push for public action to combat climate change.
The name, World War Zero, is supposed to evoke both the national security threat posed by the earth’s warming and the type of wartime mobilization that Mr. Kerry argued would be needed to stop the rise in carbon emissions before 2050. The star-studded group is supposed to win over those skeptical of the policies that would be needed to accomplish that.
Former presidents Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter are part of the effort. Moderate Republican lawmakers like Arnold Schwarzenegger, the former governor of California, and John Kasich, the former governor of Ohio, are on the list. Stars like Leonardo DiCaprio, Sting and Ashton Kutcher round out the roster of more than 60 founding members. Their goal is to hold more than 10 million “climate conversations” in the coming year with Americans across the political spectrum.
With a starting budget of $500,000, Mr. Kerry said, he and other coalition members intend to hold town meetings across the country starting in January. Members will head to battleground states key to the 2020 election, but also to military bases where climate discussions are rare and to economically depressed areas that members say could benefit from clean energy jobs.
“We’re going to try to reach millions of people, Americans and people in other parts of the world, in order to mobilize an army of people who are going to demand action now on climate change sufficient to meet the challenge,” Mr. Kerry said in an interview.
The launch of the new group on Sunday comes as diplomats gather in Madrid on Monday for global climate negotiations aimed at strengthening the 2015 Paris Agreement, from which President Trump has vowed to withdraw next year. Earlier this week the United Nations found that the world’s richest countries, responsible for emitting more than three-fourths of planet-warming pollution, are not doing enough to keep Earth’s temperature from rising to dangerously high levels. Net carbon emissions from the two largest polluters, the United States and China, are expanding.
Sarah Matthews, a spokeswoman for Mr. Trump’s re-election campaign, said in a statement that the administration “continues to advance realistic solutions to reduce emissions while unleashing American energy like never before.” Asked to comment on the new bipartisan group, she also criticized efforts to force the United States to cut emissions, arguing “the largest emitters like China and India won’t do the same.”
Mr. Schwarzenegger in an interview this week dismissed as “bogus” the Trump administration’s argument that China must do more to curb emissions before the United States acts.
“I always say to myself, what is happening here? America never ever in its history has said, ‘Let some other country do something first.’ We should lead,” he said.
Mr. Kerry said while individual members might personally promote specific climate policy proposals, like a tax on carbon dioxide pollution, or the Green New Deal, the coalition is not aimed at promoting any particular plan.
“We’re not going to be divided going down a rabbit hole for one plan or another,” he said.
The Green New Deal envisions addressing climate change and income inequality in tandem, with a federal job guarantee and federal mandates like ensuring the country’s power and electricity systems run entirely on renewable energy by 2030. The Sunrise Movement, a climate activist group that promotes the Green New Deal, has been critical of global warming efforts that do not embrace that vision, but its leaders held their fire on Mr. Kerry’s group.
Some members of Mr. Kerry’s coalition hold positions that many in the environmental movement oppose, like support for natural gas as a transition fuel from coal.
Combustion of natural gas emits about half as much carbon dioxide as coal and 30 percent less than oil, and its expansion is widely credited for helping the United States curb emissions in the past decade. It also produces methane, a fast-acting greenhouse gas with enormous short-term impacts on the climate.
United Nations scientists have said the world needs to cut carbon emissions in half by 2030, and must eliminate them by 2050 to limit warming to relatively safe levels. To do that, the United States would need to phase out all fossil fuels, including gas, as rapidly as possible.
Mr. Kasich said in an interview that he believed in finding a consensus among Americans to tackle climate change, and saw a solution in both putting a price on carbon and increasing the research, development and deployment of renewable energy. He also said natural gas would continue to play a part, especially gas produced by hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” which has brought jobs to his state.
“If I’ve got to sign up to be an anti-fracker, count me out,” Mr. Kasich said.
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https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/30/climate/john-kerry-climate-change.html
wwthree...
In the last two years of the Obama administration, Blinken served as deputy secretary of state. His return in the top job then is the embodiment of continuity. But in recent interviews he has acknowledged the mistakes and regrets of the Obama era.
On the decision not to intervene in any significant way in Syria (a decision Blinken opposed), he told CBS News: “We failed to prevent a horrific loss of life. We failed to prevent massive displacement … something I will take with me for the rest of my days.”
He signed an open letter with other former Obama officials in 2018 acknowledging that the initial support they gave to the Saudi war in Yemen had not succeeded in limiting or ending the war and had mutated into a blank cheque under the Trump administration, resulting in devastating civilian casualties. A Biden administration is expected to cut off military involvement in the conflict.
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https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/nov/23/antony-blinken-joe-biden-secretary-of-state-appointee-is-sharp-break-with-trump-era
Long-time aide Antony Blinken is a stupid warmoner by excellence... Had the US "intervened" in Syria more than they did (i.e. Support the Muslim extremists under the guise of supporting "moderate" rebels), there would have been far more casualties and this time these would have been amongst the Christians and the Allawites, instead of the Muslim extremists and their families. Russia saved the US from another Obama-embarrassment of the Bushit-the-Minus kind.
The views of Antony Blinken in regard to Yemen are stupid as well and are on the way to WW3. Whether the US under Biden cut weapon sales and tactical support to Saudi Arabia against Yemen will be to be seen...
the jury is out...
Biden climate envoy John Kerry is a lifelong joke
By Post Editorial BoardNovember 23, 2020 | 7:49pm | Updated
What was Joe Biden thinking for his choice of climate-change ambassador extraordinaire? John Kerry is one of the biggest gasbags in American politics, singlehandedly responsible for massive amounts of terrible emissions.
People have been laughing at him since Yale, when “Doonesbury” creator Garry Trudeau was zinging his pretentious, vacuous self-promotion.
We look forward to the anti-carbon lectures from a guy who travels the globe on private jets and luxury yachts.
Set aside his deer-in-the-headlights loss as the Democrats’ presidential nominee in 2004. He was a joke as secretary of state under President Barack Obama — off on his yacht during Egypt’s 2013 military coup.
He vowed a crushing response when Syria crossed Obama’s infamous “red line” — only to have Obama pull the rug out from under him and agree to let Russia pretend to take Syria’s chemical weapons away instead.
Kerry also cluelessly “negotiated” the Iran nuclear deal even as the real talks were being run out of the White House; then he had to pretend to cheer an accord that gave away several points he’d said were non-negotiable, such as truly tough inspection requirements.
And he helped craft the 2015 Paris climate accord — a performative non-binding “triumph.”
The Kerry-initiated Israeli-Palestinian peace talks of 2013-14 went absolutely nowhere. He later blasted President Trump over moving the US Embassy to Jerusalem, insisting it would cause “an absolute explosion” — when it actually helped bring unprecedented Arab-Israeli rapprochement.
The only conclusion you can draw is that Biden, having vowed to make fighting climate change a top priority, simply wants someone who’ll look like he’s trying hard — but won’t actually get anything done.
Read more:
https://nypost.com/2020/11/23/biden-climate-envoy-john-kerry-is-a-lifelong-joke/
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something that is misunderstood...
This cartoon by Spooner in the Murdoch press (The Weekend Australian) of 21-22 November 2020 is a bit "off" and "weak" (pissy), but specially targeted to the windmills-hater/coal lovers of the right wing in Australia, mainly named "Liberals" as a misnomer since they are CONservatives. Spooner is a better cartoonist than this.
The wind turbine which is an unplugged fan in the hand of the Statue of Liberty is a giveaway as to which side the crap is buttered on.
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hottest november...
The Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) has just finished crunching last month's numbers and confirmed it was Australia's hottest November on record for maximum, minimum and mean temperatures.
It was also the country's warmest spring on record for minimum and mean temperatures.
Key points:
November's maximums came in at