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Shareholders Trying to Push Big Oil Investors to Act on “Climate Change”

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Photo Credit: Bloomberg Investor resolutions urging corporate leaders to be more environmentally friendly in how they run their businesses are being rolled out at a record pace this year for the energy industry.

Just don’t expect them to pass.

Proposals meant to nudge Exxon Mobil Corp. and Chevron Corp. into nominating directors with environmental expertise, setting greenhouse gas targets, and compiling reports on minimizing fracking risks are among seven such resolutions being voted on Wednesday when the two biggest U.S. oil companies hold their shareholder meetings.

Institutional investors who control the biggest blocks of stock believe the proposals aren’t needed because the companies already are motivated to minimize damage, said Vincent Piazza, a Bloomberg Intelligence analyst. Supporters as diverse as the Sisters of St. Francis of Philadelphia and the As You Sow Foundation say that just having them on the ballot can spur important dialog that can advance their movement.

“Success doesn’t mean you have to get 50 percent of the vote,” said Timothy Smith, a senior vice president at Boston-based Walden Asset Management who supports the proposals. “The goal is to start a dialog, and that moves things forward.” (Read more from “Big Oil Investors Give Cold Shoulder to Climate Changes`” HERE)

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FEMA Won’t Help States That Reject Climate Change Disasters as Real Science

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femaFederal funds that help communities brace for emergencies will stop being provided to states if they ignore threats posed by climate change in their disaster planning.

States publish reports every five years or so detailing their vulnerability to natural disasters, such as floods, storms and wildfires, and how they plan to protect themselves and recover after them. Such plans are needed in order to qualify for a share of nearly $1 billion in Hazard Mitigation Assistance grants provided every year by the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

But those plans rarely consider climate change impacts in detail — an omission that could see states become ineligible for the grants after new guidelines take effect early next year. Under FEMA’s updated guidelines, published last week, state disaster plans will only be approved if they adequately describe how the likelihood and intensity of natural hazards could be affected by growing levels of greenhouse gas pollution.

“The risk assessment must provide a summary of the probability of future hazard events,” the new guidelines state. “Probability must include considerations of changing future conditions, including the effects of long-term changes in weather patterns and climate.”

Some states, including California and Connecticut, already consider climate change in their plans, albeit imperfectly, said Rebecca Hammer, a Natural Resources Defense Council attorney who has been pressuring FEMA to make such a change for several years. But she said there are “a lot” of states that fail to adequately consider climate change in their disaster planning, including Florida, Texas, and “a lot of the states in the middle of the country.” (Read more from “FEMA Won’t Help States That Don’t Plan for Climate Change” HERE)

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White House Taunts GOP on Climate Change: ‘I Don’t Believe They Can Stop Us’

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Photo Credit: AP / Mindaugas Kulbis

Photo Credit: AP / Mindaugas Kulbis

The White House forged ahead Monday with yet another piece of its climate change agenda and bragged that Republicans are powerless to stop it.

A presidential task force unveiled a report on how communities across the country can prepare for the effects of global warming. In all, the recommendations on “climate preparedness and resilience” could cost the federal government more than $100 billion to protect drinking water supplies, shore up coastlines against rising sea levels and take other preventive measures.

But legal analysts say the Republicans have little ammunition to fight back, short of shutting down the federal government to stop Environmental Protection Agency funding.

White House officials, keenly aware of the executive power Mr. Obama holds on the issue of climate change, openly mocked incoming Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and his Republican colleagues.

“I believe the president will complete actions. It is a top priority of his and I don’t believe they can stop us,” White House counselor John Podesta told reporters on a conference call Monday. “Not withstanding Sen. McConnell making this a top priority to leave the status quo, to leave the air dirtier.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Obama Pledges $3B to Aid . . . Climate Change (P.S. It will be spent by the United Nations)

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Photo Credit: TownHall

Photo Credit: TownHall

The United States will give $3 billion to a U.N.-established fund to help poorer vulnerable countries prepare for a changing climate and develop cleaner energy, President Barack Obama announced Saturday.

The United Nations is trying to raise at least $10 billion for its Green Climate Fund to help developing nations adjust to rising seas, warmer temperatures and more extreme weather. It also would help the nations come up with energy sources that limit or reduce heat-trapping carbon dioxide emissions from coal, oil and gas.

Obama said the money would help farmers plant more resilient crops, governments to cut carbon dioxide emissions and communities to develop better defenses against storm surges and other climate-related changes.

But Obama said combatting climate change cannot be the work of government alone. “Citizens— especially young people like you — have to keep raising your voices, because you deserve to live your lives in a world that is cleaner and healthier,” he said while announcing the pledge during a speech at a university in Brisbane, Australia.

The American pledge would be the biggest to date and would double contributions to $6 billion, according to international environmental groups.

Read more from this story HERE.

Murkowski Highlights Climate Change In Alaska

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Photo Credit: Ted S. Warren / AP

Photo Credit: Ted S. Warren / AP

On election night in a hotel ballroom in Anchorage, Alaska, Sen. Lisa Murkowski picked up a chair and waved it over her head.

“I am the chairmaaaaaaaaaaan!” she shouted.

The Republican takeover Tuesday night puts Murkowski in charge of the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources. That’s great news for Alaska, which is always eager for the feds to allow more oil drilling up here. But what does her chairmanship mean for the other side of that coin — global warming?

At that same election-night party, Murkowski said she takes climate change seriously.

“I come from a state where we see a warming. We’re seeing it with increased water temperatures; we’re seeing it with ice that is thinner; we’re seeing it with migratory patterns that are changing,” she said. “So I look at this and I say this is something that we must address.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Former Weather Channel CEO Hits CNN Over Global Warming, ‘Climate Denier’ Label

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Photo Credit: REUTERS / NASA / NOAAFormer Weather Channel CEO and Founder John Coleman continued his critique of his former network following his appearance Monday on “The Kelly File,” telling CNN the Weather Channel has become politicized and that the global warming “denier” tag is meant to “put me down.”

Coleman made the comments to “Reliable Sources” host Brian Stelter Sunday.

“I resent you calling me a denier, that is a word meant to put me down,” a defiant Coleman told Stelter, who opened the show telling his audience that climate change is “one of the greatest crises we face.”

“I’m a skeptic about climate change, not a denier,” Coleman added.

Read more from this story HERE.

Hagel: ‘Climate Change Presents Security Issues for Us’ (+video)

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Photo Credit: AP / Manuel Balce CenetaDefense Secretary Chuck Hagel expressed hope Wednesday that next week’s midterm election would deliver an outcome that enables Congress to “work together,” in order to deal with critical security issues, including “global warming.”

Hagel, speaking at the the Washington Ideas Forum, argued that climate change presents significant security challenges.

“From my perspective, within the portfolio that I have responsibility for – security of this country – climate change presents security issues for us.”

He cited as an example melting glaciers in the Arctic, saying that was having an effect on exploration for oil, natural gas and minerals.

“As the oceans increase it’ll affect our [military] bases, it’ll affect islands, it’ll affect security across the world,” he said. “So, just from my narrow perspective, what I have responsibility for, that’s happening now, and we have to be prepared for that.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Climate Change PROVED to Be 'Nothing But a Lie', Says Top Meteorologist, Co-Founder at the 'Weather Channel'

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Photo Credit: APJohn Coleman, who co-founded the Weather Channel, shocked academics by insisting the theory of man-made climate change was no longer scientifically credible.

Instead, what ‘little evidence’ there is for rising global temperatures points to a ‘natural phenomenon’ within a developing eco-system.

In an open letter attacking the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, he wrote: “The ocean is not rising significantly.

“The polar ice is increasing, not melting away. Polar Bears are increasing in number.

“Heat waves have actually diminished, not increased. There is not an uptick in the number or strength of storms (in fact storms are diminishing). I have studied this topic seriously for years. It has become a political and environment agenda item, but the science is not valid.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Official Barack Obama Twitter Account Invites People to ‘Stick It to Climate Change Deniers’

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Photo Credit: SAUL LOEB / AFP / GettyPresident Barack Obama’s official Twitter account late Tuesday asked people to help ‘stick it to climate change deniers’ by signing a petition in support of Obama’s plan to cut carbon pollution.

“This is a big moment in the fight against climate change — stick it to climate change deniers by adding your name,” the tweet asked.

The account is mostly run by staffers for Organizing for Action, a group that supports Obama’s policy agenda, although the president does occasionally tweet on it. Still, the decision to tweet out such a pointed, partisan message under Obama’s official Twitter account is a far cry from Obama’s message as a candidate that he wants to unite the country.

Read more from this story HERE.

Pentagon Calls Climate Change a Matter of ‘National Security’

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Photo Credit: APDefense Secretary Chuck Hagel on Monday described climate change as a national security threat — at a time when the U.S. military is battling the Islamic State in the Mideast, responding to the Ebola crisis in West Africa, and monitoring tensions between Ukraine and Russia.

The Defense secretary addressed the issue during a speech in Peru, as the Pentagon released a comprehensive report on the “national security” challenges posed by rising global temperatures and “extreme weather events.”

Hagel described climate change as a “threat multiplier,” saying it “has the potential to exacerbate many of the challenges we already confront today — from infectious disease to armed insurgencies — and to produce new challenges in the future.”

The Pentagon’s new report maps out four areas of climate change deemed the most threatening to the U.S. military — rising global temperatures, changing precipitation patterns, more extreme weather and rising sea levels. And it warns about the impact they could have on food and water supplies, the environment and American security itself.

“Our militaries’ readiness could be tested, and our capabilities could be stressed,” Hagel said, addressing a conference of military leaders.

Read more from this story HERE.