 Politics
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#ClimateForum2020 Announces First Wave of Candidates Participating
The first wave is official! The #ClimateForum2020 -- a two-day forum on September 19-20 moderated by MSNBC's Ali Velshi and Chris Hayes and featuring 2020 Presidential candidates in conversation with young voters on the issue of climate change -- will include at least these 11 Presidential candidates:
- Colorado Senator Michael Bennet
- New Jersey Senator Cory Booker
- Montana Governor Steve Bullock
- South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg
- Former Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Julián Castro
- Former Maryland Representative John Delaney
- Ohio Representative Tim Ryan
- Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders
- Tom Steyer
- Former Massachusetts Governor Bill Weld
- Andrew Yang
We are thrilled to be teaming up with MSNBC and Georgetown University's Institute of Politics and Public Service at the McCourt School of Public Policy and now New York Magazine to put on this "first of its kind" event that will stream live on NBC News Now and Telemundo and can be seen live over two days of special coverage on "MSNBC Live with Ali Velshi" (M-F 3PM ET), "All In with Chris Hayes" (M-F 8PM ET), and across MSNBC dayside. And we will share updates about additional candidate participation in the coming weeks.
Why This Matters: Climate change will FINALLY get the attention it deserves and the voices of young people, who have carried this issue to the forefront, will be heard. What more can we say! At least 11 hours of coverage from MSNBC is a fantastic commitment and speaks volumes about the progress being made to elevate climate change and environmental issues in this election cycle, and we hope for the foreseeable future too. We want to know what your questions are -- watch this space for more on that.
The Details Read more...
To Go Deeper: Be sure to subscribe to Our Daily Planet, and sign up your friends and colleagues too. We will have all the latest on the Forum and you will be the first to know! And follow the action on the Climate Forum page, Facebook page, and Twitter feed.
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 Animals
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Kate Tweedy of Little St. Simons Island conducting a BAFA training for partners and citizen scientists. Image: St. Simons Land Trust
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Citizen Scientists Work to Protect Georgia's Pollinators
Pollinators are facing stresses all over the world such as habitat loss, degradation, and fragmentation. In the state of Georgia specifically, where experts determined that the annual value of pollination is over $360 million, Butterflies of the Atlantic Flyway Alliance (BAFA) was formed to bring together conservation land managers and citizen scientists throughout the state to collect data on pollinators.Through five years of surveys in the Coastal Georgia counties, BAFA will gather the information necessary to create land management recommendations for property owners and managers. Collected data will include migratory movement and nectar and host plant utilization.
- Additionally, this year, environmental groups and citizen scientists are taking the health of pollinators across all of Georgia into their own hands by conducting the first-ever statewide pollinator census which will create a count of the bees and butterflies that land on flowers in yards, parks and at schools.
Why This Matters: Nearly all of the data collected through the initiative is accomplished by citizen scientists, people from the local community who joined BAFA to learn more about their local pollinators and to help ensure butterflies have a bright future in coastal Georgia. Through data collection, public engagement, and future land management recommendations, BAFA aims to safeguard sustainable butterfly populations. Plus, through a network of citizen scientists, the importance of conservation is instilled in communities and also passed on to younger generations. For small species like pollinators, they often need the help of the people in their communities to ensure their health and survival--so become a citizen scientist in your own community!
Read More...
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 Land
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Border wall construction last week Photo: Carolyn Van Houten, The Washington Post
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Trump "Jokes" About Border Wall Pardons
On Tuesday, The Washington Post reported that the President told subordinates they should "take the land" and could break the law in order to get the border wall completed because he would "pardon" them - a statement the White House later claimed was just a joke.
- Several of the laws allegedly slowing (but only a bit) border wall construction are environmental -- including the Endangered Species Act, the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) requiring environmental impacts to be evaluated for every federal action that impacts federal land, and the Takings Clause of the Constitution.
- The Administration's actions to expedite wall construction without adhering to environmental laws and the usual contracting processes, as well as their use of "borrowed funds" from other agencies' budgets, have been challenged in court by several environmental groups.
In mid-August, the Administration said in a court filing that it would delay construction of a portion of the wall through about 60 miles of federal wildlife preserves and national monument lands.
Why This Matters: The President's pardon promises (joking or not) are just more bluster -- no person who works for him would really be prosecuted for "breaking the law" when the President orders the lawbreaking action.
- What this demonstrates, however, is the President's brazen disregard for the law itself and his failure to live up to the oath he took to faithfully "execute the laws" of the United States.
- Not to mention his willingness to violate sacred Republican Party principles of limited government power and defending the rights of individual private property owners from government "takings."
This whole discussion is teeming with irony -- the Trump Administration is a far bigger threat in principle to private property rights than Democratic Administrations trying to implement the Endangered Species Act ever were. And the environmental double standard being invoked by this Administration is equally shocking -- the President uses the environmental laws when it is convenient to block environmentally beneficially projects, like the construction of offshore wind farms, as we reported earlier this week.
Joking -- Not Joking Read more...
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 Climate Change
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Dan Petroski, proprietor of Massican Winery and winemaker for Larkmead Vineyards, two wineries looking for solutions to climate change effects on grapes.
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Napa Valley Must Get Serious About Climate Change
The cabernet grape is a staple of Napa Valley winemaking, but like many other California crops, cabernet is coming under increased threat from climate change. The SF Chronicle reported that "as Napa’s wine industry continues to confront rising temperatures, increasingly frequent wildfires, intermittent drought and erratic weather, a small but growing contingent of vintners is becoming more vocal about the need to address climate change head-on. Frustrated by the lack of industry-wide action, some are taking matters into their own hands by planting experimental vineyards — and, in some cases, acknowledging that the future of Napa Valley may not lie solely with Cabernet."
Why This Matters: What's happening in Napa is a reflection of how climate change is damaging other wine-growing regions around the world and pushing them further north. California makes 81% of all U.S. wine and is the world’s 4th leading wine producer, so mitigating and adapting to climate change through land use and experimentation with different grape varietals is necessary to keep the multi-billion dollar industry thriving.
What Climate Change Means for Napa: Cultivating grapes requires precise environments and even reliable microclimates to give wines their unique properties. As a region prone to drought and warming temperatures Napa and neighboring regions like Sonoma face serious climate risks, as the Union of Concerned Scientists' Climate Hot Map explained,
- The total area within the continental United States suitable for premium wine growing could be reduced as much as 81 percent by the end of this century under a high-emissions scenario, primarily due to an increase in extremely hot summer days (>95° F or 35° C).
- According to projections, premium wine grapes could only be grown in a thin strip of land along the coast of California, while the climate becomes more favorable in coastal Oregon and Washington.
- Warm nights have boosted the growth of high-quality wine grapes in California, but further warming is not likely to be as beneficial.
Read more...
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 Forests
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One Cool Thing: Fall Foliage Predictions
Labor Day marks the end up summer and it's not too soon to start thinking about your autumn leaf-peeping adventures. SmokyMountains.com recently released its annual interactive fall foliage forecast map, predicting when and where leaves are going to be at their prime. As Thrillist explained, at the moment, these are the best projections available based on a number of factors, including peak observation trends, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) historical temperatures, NOAA historical precipitation, NOAA forecast temperatures, NOAA forecast precipitation, and historical leaf peak trends.
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