Bella Gaia

A unforgettable video by director and composer, Kenji Williams, compiling views from NASA and other sources of the Bella Gaia, the beautiful Earth.


The video was supported by NASA, the Baum Foundation, the Foundation for Global Community, the Denver Museum of Nature and Science and is a production of Remedy Arts, LLC.

Please share this wonderful and unique view of the Earth and its environment.

Paradigm Shift: Oil Companies Required to Cut C02 Emissions by Court and Shareholders

Royal Dutch Shell Headquarters

A judge has ordered Royal Dutch Shell to cut their emissions by 2030 to reduce planet warming carbon emissions by 45% from the 2019 level.  On the same day, shareholders at Exxon and Chevron backed more emission cuts, as well, in some cases, against the wishes of their C-Suite executives. 

"The court orders Royal Dutch Shell, by means of its corporate policy, to reduce its CO2 emissions by 45% by 2030 with respect to the level of 2019 for the Shell group and the suppliers and customers of the group," Judge Larisa Alwin

On the same day, Exxon and Chevron faced shareholder rebellions over emissions after Exxon failed to stop a coup by a climate-activist hedge fund, Engine 1, that successfully took over two seats on its board. Just prior to Exxon's course change, a majority of Chevron's shareholders (61%) voted for a measure from a Dutch activist group, Follow This, to cut their emissions, going against the wishes of their C-Suite. 

"US oil giants ExxonMobil and Chevron have suffered shareholder rebellions from climate activists and disgruntled institutional investors over their failure to set a strategy for a low-carbon future [...] The activist win against Chevron was the third successful insurrection coordinated by Follow This against the boards of US oil companies after it forced through votes to cut emissions at ConocoPhillips and Phillips 66 earlier this month." Jillian Ambrose at The Guardian

Climate activist, Bill McKibben, watching the announcements in succession, remarked on Twitter: "Wow, wow, wow," and then followed with this tweet summarizing the day's events:

 

While this does not guarantee the IPCC target for reductions in emissions by 2030 will be met, it does mark a significant change in legal and shareholder requirements toward corporate social responsibility in the industry that is the cause of major emissions that contribute to climate change. 

  

What is your COVID-19 Pandemic Risk?

The Environmentalist is asking everyone who can to stay at home. For those who can't, and for everyone, wash your hands for 20 seconds, wipe down packages (and wash your hands), don't touch your face, and to stay 6ft/2 meters away from others, and learn your COVID-19 pandemic risk:

https://www.who.int/news-room/q-a-detail/q-a-coronaviruses
https://www.pandemic-footprint.com/your-pfi-footprint

Why is this disease so dangerous?  From our managing editor: "Thousands of years ago, a tiny bat drank at a stream or ate a bug, probably in a cave, and encountered a curious little organism called a virus that had killed all its hosts, until the bat didn't die.

The virus had a place to grow, and keep warm and mutate, while the little bat noticed that anyone - any predator - died when they came too close to the little bat.

The bats that gave that crown-shaped coronavirus a home; the virus killed the bat's enemies in return, and they both survived.

All we, the predators, had to do was leave the bat -- with its perfect -- Ridley Scott Alien-type blood -- alone. We didn't do that. Instead, we, humans, the most vulnerable species to the bat's deadly protector, caught the bat, put it under stress in a wet market, which lowered its ability to keep the virus at bay. That's because bats' internal temperature goes up when they fly. That's what made the bats immune. Flying. They can't fly in a cage.

After it had lost its battle with its host, terrified, sick, and trapped, someone killed that bat in that wet market where they set the coronavirus loose to wreak havoc on the world.

Does that make it the bat's fault?  No. It had been protecting us from that virus for thousands of years.  Does it make it one country's fault?  No. Stop the racism. Now.

Does it make it everyone's responsibility? Yes.

Now that it's loose, we all have to step up by sitting down, by isolating ourselves, which is a good time for everyone to reflect on how we have been using, and misusing, this planet and its other inhabitants.  It came from China this time. Next time, it might be from the rainforests burning in the Amazon, or from a virus frozen in the permafrost that is now melting.

Virus don't have a purpose other than to infect and kill cells and to replicate. What if they are defense mechanisms in exchange for protecting an immune host? What if bats had been protecting us by keeping it silent and inside the cave, rather than letting it loose?

We did this to ourselves by not leaving bats alone with its symbiotic protector. We took its winged home, and left it with only us as hosts. We did this to ourselves by encroaching, poaching, exploiting, and destroying the hosts' habitats.

#closedownallwetmarkets #stayathome #socialdistance #washyourhands

The only tool we have until testing is done everywhere (and that is not currently being done) is social distance.

Learn about CoronaVirus at this link:  https://www.who.int/news-room/q-a-detail/q-a-coronaviruses  You can measure your PFI footprint on the link (not an official link, but we post it because it may help to visualize the advantage of social distancing).  https://www.pandemic-footprint.com/your-pfi-footprint

When is a guide not a guide? When it's a partisan endorsement disguised as a guide.

When we endorse a 2020 candidate, we won't be using the Center Action Fund's new "guide' as a source, not while it cherry picks candidates' history for its own agenda.

Their 'guide' that is making the rounds on the web (we won't link it here) accuses all but their two preferred candidates of having failing grades on the environment. They "accomplish this" by ignoring the other candidates' accomplishments while picking votes out of content.

Their particular ire is pointed at Joe Biden and Tom Steyer, giving them both a failing environmental record for work while ignoring their actual accomplishments and support for actual initiatives and law. They laud Sanders and Warren for votes that were not put into law, and give no examples of actual accomplishments. That's not to say there aren't any. They chose to focus on votes that had no impact as accomplishments for their high grades versus Biden and Steyer's assigned low grades. 

With Biden, they give no meaningful credit for how, in 1986, he introduced the Global Climate Protection Act, the first climate change bill in the Senate, even though the act, signed into law by Reagan in 1987, directed the government to research and develop a strategy to deal with global warming.

They also dismiss Biden's record as Vice President. There is no doubt the Obama Administration had a complicated record on climate change, but where they did fight it, Biden was on point. In fact, the new 'guide's' dismissal of Biden's environmental efforts is so out of context, it is like calling the Galapagos is wet and rocky while never mentioning its biodiversity. 

They also downgraded Tom Steyer, an environmentalist who, in reality, has puts his own money toward the climate. Klobuchar received her own low rating, as did all but Sanders and Warren.  

We have nothing against Sanders or Warren, especially the latter whose plan has merit, but Biden and Steyer have proven track records the Center Action Fund's "guide" has ignored.

So, what did Bernie accomplish that made them endorse him and call it a guide?  They gave Bernie the top spot for supporting the Green New Deal. Wait, was that made into law? No?  Did Sanders write it?  No? Will it pass even if he becomes president if he doesn't have a majority in the Senate? No?   Wasn't there someone who got a sweeping climate bill passed and made into law when Republicans were in charge?  Oh, right, that was Biden. 

This was a hit "guide" meant to help their favorite candidates at the expense of other candidates,  while targeted at low information voters.  Did they think no one would notice?   

Top Scientists Warn of Catastrophic Sea Level Rise

• Flooding caused by Hurricane Sandy, Photo: BR Birke -- CC 2.0

Dr. James Hansen, who was the lead climate scientist at NASA, and sixteen other top scientists have concluded the Greenland and Antarctic glaciers will melt ten times faster than previous estimates, leading to sea level rise of ten or more feet in as little as 50 years.

In their newly released study: "Ice melt, sea level rise and superstorms: evidence from paleoclimate data, climate modeling, and modern observations that 2 ◦C global warming could be dangerous," the scientists warn that "Amplifying feedbacks in the Southern Ocean and atmosphere contribute to dramatic climate change in our simulations."

We conclude that continued high emissions will make multi-meter sea level rise practically unavoidable and likely to occur this century. Social disruption and economic consequences of such large sea level rise could be devastating. It is not difficult to imagine that conflicts arising from forced migrations and economic collapse might make the planet ungovernable, threatening the fabric of civilization.

They are describing an ocean feedback loop near Antarctica that results in cooler freshwater from melting glaciers forcing warmer, saltier water underneath the ice sheets, speeding up the melting rate.