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Obstacles  

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ExxonMobil's Latest Campaign To Stymie Federal Climate Action  

ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson acknowledges climate change is a "serious issue," but he is still trying to undermine government efforts to curb carbon emissions.

Recent press accounts report that ExxonMobil is now actively promoting a carbon tax. If true, that's big news. It would mean that, after nearly 20 years of blocking action on climate change, the world's biggest energy company has finally come to its senses.

But wait a minute. If something sounds too good to be true, then it probably is. So one might well ask: Is this anything more than a PR ploy?

Let's take a closer look.

As I reported earlier this year, ExxonMobil has paid lip service to the idea of a carbon tax since 2009 but, all the while, has continued to fund federal lawmakers who resolutely oppose it. In March 2015, for example, the Senate voted 58 to 42 to pass a budget amendment prohibiting a carbon tax. Thirty of the 40 senators who had received ExxonMobil campaign contributions since 2010 voted in favor of the prohibition. Meanwhile, in March 2013, 156 House members cosponsored a nonbinding resolution stating that "a carbon tax would be detrimental to American families and businesses and is not in the best interest of the United States." Ninety-three percent of the cosponsors were funded by -- you guessed it -- ExxonMobil.

OK, but that was then, and things can change, right? After all, last December, Ken Cohen, the company's outgoing vice president of public and government affairs, blogged about ExxonMobil's strong support for a carbon tax, noting that the company has been holding "countless private briefings with members of Congress on carbon tax policy options."

So how have the company's friends on Capitol Hill responded?

In June, the House passed a resolution stating "a carbon tax would be detrimental to the United States economy" on a 237 to 163 vote. Eighty-five percent of the House members who voted for the resolution received ExxonMobil political donations since 2013; 82 of them are documented climate science deniers. By contrast, only 26 of the representatives who voted against the resolution -- a measly 16 percent -- received ExxonMobil money.

The numbers are unambiguous: When it comes to a carbon tax, there's no escaping the fact that ExxonMobil still funds legislators who don't favor it and, by the same token, doesn't support many who do.

Disingenuous Origins

In his December blog post, Cohen traced ExxonMobil's support for a carbon tax back to January 2009, when company CEO Rex Tillerson endorsed it in a speech at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington, D.C. Cohen, however, neglected to explain the context for this pronounced break with ExxonMobil's long-held position against any policy that would curb carbon emissions: Tillerson was trying to derail momentum on Capitol Hill for a different approach.

Back then, Congress was seriously considering instituting a cap-and-trade system, modeled after the George H. W. Bush administration's successful plan to reduce acid rain, which would have set a cap on overall carbon emissions and established a regulated marketplace where polluters could buy and sell emissions allowances. The less carbon they emitted, the less they would pay.

The European Union had instituted such a system in 2005 and, although there were disagreements over the details, the idea of a U.S. cap-and-trade system had the support of a number of environmental organizations, including the Environmental Defense Fund and Natural Resources Defense Council, and more than two dozen companies, including oil giants BP America, ConocoPhillips and Shell. Perhaps most important, the plan had the backing of President-elect Barack Obama and congressional Democrats, who then controlled both houses of Congress.

Tillerson was having none of it. "A carbon tax strikes us as a more direct, transparent and effective approach" than a cap-and-trade system, he said in that January 2009 speech. "It is the most efficient means of reflecting the cost of carbon in all economic decisions, from investments made by companies to fuel and product choices made by consumers." Any carbon tax, he added, should be revenue-neutral, meaning it should be offset by reductions in income and corporate taxes.

But there was a major obstacle in the way of Tillerson's preferred solution: It had no political support. When California Rep. Pete Stark proposed a carbon tax just the year before, it attracted only three cosponsors.

Tillerson, who surely knew Congress wasn't about to pass a carbon tax, publicly conceded it faced long odds. "Right now, any talk of imposing new taxes would rattle the markets and individuals," he told E&E News, a trade publication, the same day he spoke at the Woodrow Wilson Center. "...But probably later this year, I think they're going to get around to want to further investigate what their alternatives are."

As it turned out, the House narrowly passed a cap-and-trade bill on a 219 to 212 vote in June 2009. In the Senate, however, it was a different story. The legislation never made it out of committee for a number of complicated reasons, but the fact that fossil fuel interests had plenty of friends in the upper chamber -- many of them longtime recipients of ExxonMobil political donations -- no doubt played a significant role. The bottom line? ExxonMobil ultimately got what it wanted by plugging a carbon tax: gridlock.

Beyond the Rhetoric

There has been some speculation about what motivated ExxonMobil to recently ramp up its pro-carbon tax rhetoric. First, with multiple investigations underway by state attorneys general of the company for misleading its shareholders and the general public about climate risks, it likely feels the need to polish its tarnished image. Second, the company knows that last December's historic U.N. climate meeting in Paris, where 195 countries committed to keep global warming below 2 degrees Celsius, means that it will be harder to maintain the status quo. Third, if and when Congress does seriously consider a carbon tax, ExxonMobil wants to position itself to influence the debate. And finally, ExxonMobil would likely benefit more than its competitors from a carbon tax, because such a tax would favor the cleaner-burning natural gas over coal and ExxonMobil has the largest natural gas reserves of any U.S. company.

These are all plausible reasons, except for one thing: The evidence suggests that the company is still doing what it can to obstruct policies to combat climate change.

Last fall, for example, California Rep. Ted Lieu -- who has not received any ExxonMobil campaign contributions -- met with the company's lobbyists in what was presumably one of the "countless private briefings" Cohen cited in his December blog. Lieu asked the lobbyists what they would do if he drafted carbon tax legislation. They replied that "they would take a look at it," Lieu told InsideClimate News. "They didn't say they wouldn't support it and they didn't say they would," he added. "It's clear that they are not going around championing their position. If they actually believe this internally, then they ought to do so in a much louder way than just quietly sticking it on a website."

In the Senate, meanwhile, Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island and Brian Schatz of Hawaii have introduced a carbon tax bill, the "American Opportunity Carbon Fee Act." Has ExxonMobil endorsed it or lobbied on its behalf? According to Whitehouse and Schatz, no.

"Regarding ExxonMobil's alleged seven years of support for a carbon fee, we've seen no meaningful evidence of that," the senators said in a letter they sent to the company just yesterday. "None of the top executives that make up ExxonMobil's management team has expressed interest in meeting with any of us to discuss the Whitehouse-Schatz proposal or any carbon fee legislation."

Conversely, House Committee on Energy and Commerce Chairman Fred Upton, a climate science denier, explained to Fox News host Steve Doocy in December 2012 that he told ExxonMobil lobbyists a carbon tax was a "bad idea." "I sat down with the Exxon folks a couple of months ago," Upton said, "and let it be known that this is not a proposal that ... is going to be coming through in the House." Nevertheless, ExxonMobil donated more to Upton during the current election cycle than it did in either the 2012 or 2014 cycles.

Besides its political donations and lobbying, the company is still spending millions of dollars a year on think tanks, advocacy groups and trade associations that dispute climate science and disparage climate policies, including a carbon tax. Just last month, ExxonMobil was a lead sponsor of the American Legislative Exchange Council's (ALEC) annual conference, which featured Oren Cass, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, a self-described free-market think tank ExxonMobil has been funding since 1998. According to one conference participant, Cass "absolutely eviscerated the case for conservatives adopting a carbon tax." Conference organizers also provided ALEC state legislator members with a sample resolution against the Environmental Protection Agency's plan to curb power plant carbon emissions.

ExxonMobil doesn't just rely on paid surrogates, however, to spread disinformation and block government action. Company executives may sing the praises of a carbon tax, but they still find time to misrepresent climate science and question the necessity of taking any action at all.

Climate Science Denial Starts at the Top

In March 2013 -- the same month 146 ExxonMobil-funded House members cosponsored a resolution against a carbon tax -- Tillerson appeared on on PBS's Charlie Rose, ostensibly to promote one. The CEO told Rose he preferred a carbon tax to a cap-and-trade system, but then he doubted whether scientists knew enough to warrant one. "The facts remain there are uncertainties around climate change, why it's changing, [and] what the principal drivers of climate change are," Tillerson claimed, repudiating the consensus among climate scientists worldwide. He also falsely claimed there is no scientific evidence of a link between global warming and extreme weather events.

Two years later, at ExxonMobil's 2015 annual shareholder meeting, Tillerson again argued that climate models are not accurate enough to justify a dramatic shift away from fossil fuels. "What if everything we do," he asked, "it turns out our models are lousy and we don't get the effects we predict?" He recommended continuing to burn fossil fuels and adapting to whatever happens, be it sea level rise or crop failures. "Mankind has this enormous capacity to deal with adversity," he said, "and those solutions will present themselves as the realities become clear."

Contrary to Tillerson's assertions, climate models have proven to be extremely accurate. A March 2013 peer-reviewed paper in the journal Nature Geoscience, for example, found that the models accurately predicted the rise in global temperatures over the previous 15 years to within a few hundredths of a degree. No matter. When given the chance to set the record straight at this year's shareholder meeting in late May, Tillerson would not back down. "My view on the competencies of the models," he said, "has really not changed."

Perhaps the most revealing statement demonstrating the depth of ExxonMobil's support for a carbon tax, however, came the day before the House resolution vote in June -- the one where nearly 90 percent of the ExxonMobil-funded House members casting a ballot voted yes, a carbon tax would hurt the U.S. economy. A Huffington Post reporter contacted ExxonMobil Media Relations Manager Alan Jeffers to find out what the company had to say. Given the company's supposedly heightened interest in persuading Congress to pass a carbon tax, one would have expected Jeffers to register the company's opposition. Certainly he would explain why the resolution was misguided and tell House members to vote no. It was what some would call a teachable moment.

So how did Jeffers respond?

"We're not commenting on the resolution."

Elliott Negin is a senior writer at the Union of Concerned Scientists. Dave Anderson and Jayne Piepenburg provided research for this article. ExxonMobil federal campaign contribution data was supplied by the Center for Responsive Politics.

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

 
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Whales dive slower and feed less  in response to shipping noise  
The noise from shipping is disrupting natural behaviour of humpback whales and could lead to a long term decline in their numbers  
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Celebrating India's Asiatic Lions on World Lion Day  

World Lion Day celebrates all sub-species of lion, raises worldwide awareness of conservation programs, and brings attention to the threats they face everywhere. Much of the attention is on the African lion, but today we also want to celebrate and appreciate India's Asiatic lions, and those working to protect them and their habitat.

Asiatic lions, (Panthera leo persica), are one of the seven sub-species of lions in the world. There are a little over 500 of them left.

They live in the Gir National Forest in the state of Gujarat, India, and close to nearby communities in the area. They differ from the African lion in size, (they are slightly smaller). Male manes of Asiatic lions are less full than those of their African counterpart, thus, their ears are more prominent. Males tend to not live with the females of the pride unless they are mating or have a large kill. They are listed as Endangered (very high risk of extinction in the wild) by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

Threats for the Asiatic Lion

With so few Astatic lions left and living in one small part of the Gir, one disease or natural disaster could reduce the population to zero. While these lions are known to only be found in the Gir, they sometimes roam into nearly human habitats. According to Wildlife Conservation Trust of India, there are debates about relocating a small number of the lions to other parts of the country to conserve and boost the lion population.

Bhushan Pandya is a wildlife photographer and conservationist who serves on the Gujarat State Board for Wildlife (SBWL). The SBWL is opposed to a scheme to reintroduce some of the Gir's lions to a sanctuary in India's Madhya Pradesh state, he says. “A lion translocation project has been going on at Kuno Palpur Sanctuary in the state of Madhya Pradesh. The SBWL and many other lion-lovers have been opposing it. There was a long legal battle fought in the Honorable Supreme Court of India. The Apex Court on 15th April, 2013, gave a sad and surprising verdict in favour of the translocation. The Wildlife Conservation Trust, Rajkot (WCT) has filed a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) in the Apex Court praying to reconsider the unfortunate verdict.”

Opposition to the relocation focuses on the risk of increased poaching, human-lion conflict, a poor wild prey base, and the area earmarked for relocation is a known tiger corridor.

Other threats for the Asiatic lion in general are illegal wildlife trade, speeding vehicles on roads, trains, and open wells.

But in Gujarat, the Asiatic lion is considered a symbol of Gurjarati pride, and it is celebrated for bringing tourists to the area to view and admire them.

“Almost all tourists, whether new or regular ones, from all over world come to Gir to see lions in their natural home because Gir and its surrounding areas have been the last home of this majestic species,“explains Bhushan Pandya. “However, tourism has never been the priority over lion conservation. Less than 9 percent of Gir PA is open for tourists.”

Conservation Activities

Asiatic lion conservation programs are managed through a number of agencies, including the Indian government, and Indian wildlife law enforcement. The Zoological Society of London operates training for Gir forest rangers in tracking lions, monitoring pride population, and identifying threats, using GPS devices and other pieces of electronic equipment.  Conservation efforts also take place at the Sakkarbaug Zoo in Gujarat. The veterinarians there play a valuable role in rehabilitating injured lions with a view to releasing them back to the wild. Educational efforts are ongoing with local human populations to help them learn to live with the Asiatic lions in their space.

The Asiatic lions of India are an iconic species, beloved and protected in their range. Like all animals that are cherished though, there are heated debates about conservation and protection.

 
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Here's What's Keeping College Students From Getting The Sleep They Need  

Late last month, I visited the California offices of Chegg, a higher education company that specializes in helping college students with everything from affordable textbook rentals to online tutoring. Lately, Chegg has committed to gaining a deeper understanding of another subject central to college students' lives: sleep. And as Chegg's CEO Dan Rosensweig and I began a conversation with an audience of Chegg employees, Dan shared the results of a new Chegg survey on the sleep habits of college students.

The survey's findings bring valuable data to a familiar problem: for an alarming number of students, college has been turned into one long training ground for burnout. The motto "sleep, grades, social life: pick two," or some version of this, can be heard on campuses across the country. The combination of academic pressures, social opportunities -- and for many, newfound freedoms and the resulting challenge of time management -- creates an environment where sleep doesn't get the respect it deserves.

So as thousands of young people across the country prepare to head off to college, here are a few findings from the Chegg study -- which surveyed 473 students from a mix of public and private colleges -- that I found most illuminating.

Most students know there is a link between sleeping and academic performance.

Over half of the respondents agreed or strongly agreed with the statement that students who do better in school probably get more sleep. (They're right, of course. A 2014 study by the University of St. Thomas in Minnesota showed that the effect of sleep deprivation on grades is roughly equivalent to binge drinking and drug use.)

And the vast majority of students want to get the sleep they need.

Fully 84 percent said 8 or more hours would be "ideal" on a school night.

But very few are meeting that goal.

Only 16 percent usually get 8 or more hours on a school night, with far more (79 percent) sleeping 5 to 7 hours a night.

Today's college students are constantly connected.

Students overwhelmingly cited time spent online and with electronic devices as significant obstacles to sleep. Asked to name the reasons that keep them from sleeping, 51 percent cited too much time online doing non-school related activities -- second only to having too much homework.

Even in bed.

A whopping 86 percent said they take their devices to bed with them -- for email, texting and other non-school activities. And 90 percent leave their phones on when they go to sleep.

The good news?

Chegg's survey found that most college students have plenty of free time each day (much of it, for better or worse, is spent online). So there's an opportunity for students to set aside some of that time for sleep, whether that means going to bed 30 minutes earlier or finding time during the day for a nap.

And the fact that so many students know how much sleep they should be getting, and are aware of how tethered they are to their devices, is at least a first step in changing habits. As more studies like this emerge -- and as I was researching The Sleep Revolution, I was struck by the sheer number of new studies adding to our understanding of sleep's vital role in every aspect of our lives -- people will be more equipped to make changes, even small ones, to help them get the sleep they need.

That's why HuffPost launched the Sleep Revolution College Tour, and why we continue to tell stories around sleep's impact on our lives -- everything from the military's rediscovery of sleep as an essential tool of judgment to the ways athletes increasingly view it as the ultimate performance enhancer. As we approach the start of another academic year, with all its possibilities, there's no better time than now to renew our relationship with sleep and savor all the benefits it brings.

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

 
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Agostino Scilla Scientist of the Day Agostino Scilla,...  

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Agostino Scilla Scientist of the Day

Agostino Scilla, a Sicilian painter and naturalist, was born Aug. 10, 1629.

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Hungerford Bridge  

www.javierayala-photography.com posted a photo:

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London - England

 
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Alien oceans: Is there life in the solar system's secret seas?  
Chemical clues indicate that the subsurface oceans of icy moons like Europa and Enceladus are the best spots to look for biological activity  
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Why The Airline Industry Could Keep Suffering System Failures Like Delta's  

Delta's massive outage wasn't the first malfunction to wreak havoc on an airline. The industry's systems are complex and require high security, which can make them more prone to shutdowns.

 
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Oil Traders Mourn The Loss Of Yahoo Messenger  

Since the late 1990s, oil traders have used Yahoo Messenger as their main communication tool. The new version, however, does not meet the industry's standards for compliance.

 
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Researchers Study Effects Of Social Media On Young Minds  

Teens showed an image that was deemed to have lots of "likes" tended to also like the image. Seeing popular pictures also produced greater activation in the reward centers of the brain.

 
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Verizon's Metamorphosis: Can You See Me As A Tech Giant Now?  

Verizon has transformed from a child of the Bell monopoly to parent of tech legends AOL and Yahoo. It wants to play with Google and Facebook — but don't expect a full transformation just yet.

 
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Bridging the generation gap  
A farmer can remember what has happened last year and the year before, and can prepare accordingly. But what about plants? How can they pass on their experience to their offspring?  
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Italian MP threatens parents forcing veggie diets on kids with jail  

Populist politician decries 'ideological excesses'

Italian vegetarians and vegans face fines and imprisonment if they attempt to foist their meat and dairy-dodging habits to their offspring, should an Italian politician get her way.…

 
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Genius crow's tool-bending behaviour may be natural to its kind  
Betty the crow astounded scientists with its ability to bend a piece of garden wire into a neat hook back in 2002. Now it looks like wild crows do it all the time  
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Lake Tanganyika fisheries declining from global warming  

Full Text:

The decrease in fishery productivity in Lake Tanganyika since the 1950s is a consequence of global warming rather than just overfishing, according to a new report from an international team of researchers. The team found that during the 1800s, the lake became warmer at the same time the abundance of fish began to decline. However, large-scale commercial fishing did not begin on Lake Tanganyika until the 1950s. The researchers say the new findings help illuminate why the lake's fisheries are foundering.

Image credit: Saskia Marijnissen, UNDP

 
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r0B0t: Chatbot offers free legal aid to the homeless  

A Stanford undergrad's AI-based chatbot has already helped us with our parking tickets and various legal issues, but now his DoNotPay bot is taking on an even bigger, trickier issue. 

After receiving acclaim for the bot, which challenged over 160,000 tickets, Joshua Browder taught the program how to help homeless people in the UK claim their right to public housing. 

The user simply asks for help, and the bot will ask them a series of questions to determine how best to help them. Usually this will involve crafting a claim letter, which the bot fills in with the information that's been provided. In the end, people can save hundreds of dollars in legal advising fees when they need that money the most.  Read more...

More about United Kingdom, Homelessness, Legal, Robot, and Tech  
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The Journey Towards Valuing Nature  


This article has been submitted as part of the Natural Capital Coalition's series of blogs on natural capital by Nick Blyth, Policy & Practice Lead at the Institute of Environmental Management and Assessment (IEMA)

At the launch of the Natural Capital Protocol last Month - no one could fail to be struck by how far the movement to 'value nature' has come, the depth of work, and the impressive range of collaborations between academics, NGOs, consultancies, businesses and yes still (just about) Government.

The Natural Capital Protocol is without doubt seminal - but can it be game-changing? That is a question, and also a challenge, to all of us who are passionate about, or work in, the sustainability space.

After the launch I revisited some early soundings from IEMA members - environment and sustainability professionals - on the critical barriers they were facing on this agenda back in 2012. I wanted to discuss with those professionals the progress they were making, and how the new Protocol might help with their organisation's change pathways.

Central to those 40 or so professionals back in 2012, was a recognition that the natural environment will nearly always (appear) to offer absolutely no immediate business value, (although a closer inspection will almost always refute this of course). In contrast, carbon for instance, was really hitting the bottom line in a visible and tangible way. This all consolidated into a strongly held view on the imperative for a fiscal or a working value (shadow price) on the natural environment - seen as essential in order to influence decision making.

So where are we now? Clearly the Natural Capital Protocol could never compete with the relative simplicity of carbon valuation, and instead a menu of valuation approaches are introduced and signposted. The Protocol simply reflects the complexity of the reality.

Valuing nature in business is an advanced test for sustainability leaders - with some colleagues referencing it as the 'bake off final'. Unlike Carbon or energy management, there is rarely ever any single driver that will carry this through into decision making. A blended approach is often required, drawing together and mixing the ingredients.

At the same time, many of us also have a better and more refined understanding of decision making itself. In uncertain times, how many organisations can muster truly reliable data on their future economic outlook without recognising their impacts and dependencies on natural capital?

The Natural Capital Protocol works a bit like a 'Haynes manual' in providing practical pathways to valuation, but its primary function is a companion to understanding and influencing decision making - is anyone surprised it's large!

So what of those other challenges, barriers and opportunities identified back in 2012?

Barriers included real problems with communicating, with terms and language, and also, in the early days, just being taken seriously. The culture of organisations, their decision making, short term thinking and real inertia with business models being 'locked in' (or as someone put it locked down). On these fronts the Protocol and the wider natural capital community of practice is making real progress, providing exemplars and pathways to best practice.

On the opportunities, central to discussion has been the importance of sustainable procurement and supply chain contracting. Real potential exists in adding value within bids, project and service delivery for clients and also in wider brand and reputation building. Also important is the interaction with wider tools, standards and management systems such as the revised ISO14001. Integrating and mainstreaming (as some put it piggy backing and Trojan horsing) is central to making progress. The skill set here is squarely in that space of finding the business relevance and making a start.

Reflecting and discussing with professionals draws you back to a slightly painful realisation - none of this is easy....and nor should it be.

A key challenge for professionals now is simply to understand the landscape of support and the range of pathways that exist. The opportunity though is to plan, innovate, collaborate and to pick the tools and approach for your situation. Some will perhaps start with the Circular Economy and may progress through to valuing nature. However we proceed, we all can see the Natural Capital Protocol as a stepping stone on the journey, and a rather big one that we all need to cross.

Disclaimer: Articles in this series are submitted by people who work in organizations who are part of the Natural Capital Coalition, or people who are involved in the natural capital space more generally, the views expressed here do not necessarily represent the views of The Natural Capital Coalition, other Coalition organizations, or the organization that employs the author.

Follow Nick on Twitter: @nblythiema
Follow IEMA on Twitter: @iemanet

Nick Blyth is policy and practice lead on climate change and natural environment at the Institute of Environmental Management and Assessment (IEMA) and is a full member of the institute. He has worked in senior and management roles in local government, consultancy and for the Woodland Trust.

On 13th July 2016, The Natural Capital Coalition launched a standardized framework for business to identify, measure and value their impacts and dependencies on natural capital. This ' Natural Capital Protocol' has been developed through a unique collaborative process; a World Business Council for Sustainable Development consortium led on the technical development and an IUCN consortium led on business engagement and piloting. The Protocol is supported by practically focused 'Sector Guides' on Apparel and Food & Beverage produced by Trucost on behalf of Coalition.

Keep up to date with the Natural Capital Coalition on Twitter: @NatCapCoalition


Keep up to date with our series on natural capital here.

www.naturalcapitalcoalition.org

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

 
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Julienne Stroeve of the National Snow and Ice Data Center at the University of Colorado, Boulder, and her research team stand near a marker (pyramid-shaped structure) used by aircraft to stay on course for the researchers' transect measurements. Stroeve's team measured temperatures and other variables at the snow/ice interface in Elson Lagoon in Barrow, Alaska. Field data collected by Stroeve's team was used to help validate models that predict the potential response of arctic ecosystems to environmental changes, and to validate satellite measurements and help identify variables that can be reliably retrieved from satellites. Because detailed field sampling of ice and snow conditions can only be conducted over limited distances, Stroeve's team also uses aircraft observations to characterize snow and ice conditions in arctic environments.

Image credit: Don Perovich, CRREL, Hanover, N.H.

 
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