Citizen Cartwright

Note to readers

It’s time for me to take a break from the vagaries of the news and warmly wish you cozy, relaxing holidays. See you in January!

U.N. climate talks end with nations agreeing on rule book to implement Paris accord

Nearly 14,000 delegates from 195 countries managed on Saturday night to deliver on the summit's primary objective: a “rule book” for implementing the 2015 Paris agreement — resolving most of the 2,800 points of contention in the rule book’s pre-summit draft, says The Economist.

 

Poor countries got firmer assurances that rich ones would help pay for their efforts to curb their greenhouse gas emissions and to adapt to rising sea levels and fiercer floods, droughts, storms and other climate-related problems. The rich world got China to accept uniform guidelines for tallying those emissions.

 

Predictably, for negotiations that need to balance the interests of nearly 200 parties, no one leaves the summit entirely happy. Negotiators say the agreement was the best that could be expected given the limited agenda for the talks and the need for a global consensus.

 

For example, text to create a large part of a planned carbon trading system was scuttled after Brazil, one of the world’s leading greenhouse gas producers, blocked proposals for counting certain emissions. Discussion of that issue has been deferred until next year.

 

The United States agreed to the deal despite President Trump’s pledge to abandon the Paris agreement. Diplomats and climate activists say they hope that fact will make it easier for the administration to change its mind and stay in the Paris agreement — or for a future president to embrace the accord once again. The United States can't formally withdraw from the agreement until late 2020.

U.S. negotiators worked constructively behind the scenes with China on transparency rules, The New York Times reports. The two countries long had been at odds because China had insisted on different reporting rules for developing countries, while the United States favored consistent emissions-accounting rules and wanted all countries to be subject to the same outside scrutiny.

“The U.S. got a clear methodology to make sure that China and India are meeting their targets,” says Jake Schmidt, international policy director at the Natural Resources Defense Council. “That creates the level playing field they have been asking for.”

 

“Overall, the U.S. role here has been somewhat schizophrenic — pushing coal and dissing science on the one hand, but also working hard in the room for strong transparency rules,” says Elliot Diringer of the nonprofit Center for Climate and Energy Solutions.

With a diplomatic framework still alive and rules of the road in place, analysts say it's now up to individual countries to come back before the 2020 talks with concrete pledges to cut emissions more deeply. 

 

When world leaders signed the Paris agreement in 2015, they said they would try to limit the rise in global temperatures to about 1.5 degrees Celsius, or 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit.

But with global fossil-fuel emissions still rising each year, the planet is now quite likely to cross that temperature threshold within 35 years.

Some experts at the talks say the advance of cheaper, cleaner energy technologies will do far more to break the deadlock around climate policy than any complicated treaties.

“Look at countries like China and India that are going ahead with renewables for their own reasons,” says Saleemul Huq, director of Bangladesh’s International Center for Climate Change and Development. “That’s what we need: for countries to move in that direction because it makes sense to them, not because they signed up for an agreement and they’re supposed to.”

Also in the news

Judge’s ruling that Obamacare is unconstitutional poses new problems for the GOP

 

OMB Director Mike Mulvaney to take on additional job as Trump’s acting chief of staff

 

Ryan Zinke resigns as Interior secretary amid numerous probes

 

NYTimes: Special Counsel Robert Mueller is fighting a witness in court. Who is it?

 

Wisconsin, Michigan Republicans enact limits on power of incoming Democrats

 

Software flaw may have exposed photos from 7 million Facebook users

 

Next-generation GPS satellites are headed to space

 

NYTimes personal finance columnist: 'The simplest annuity explainer we could write'

 

KHN: Breakneck growth of assisted living leaves patient safety behind

 

Reuters special report: Johnson & Johnson knew for decades about asbestos in its Baby Powder

 

Why you should approach that new gene testing kit with caution

As negotiators scramble to find agreement at climate talks, more on what individuals can do

The U.N. climate negotiations in Poland that are scheduled to end on Friday are likely to go into overtime, says The Associated Press. As is typical at these climate confabs.

 

Meanwhile, journalist Michael Pollan’s advice for staying healthy — "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants” — also can help keep the planet healthy, says Big Think.

 

“We can drastically cut emissions and pollution if we switch to ‘flexitarianism,’” a flexible form of vegetarianism, says Big Think.

 

“We can still mostly eat meat so long as we take more care in what kind of meat we eat,” Big Think says.

 

“Beef is more than 100 times as emissions-intensive as legumes,” says Marco Springmann of the Oxford Martin Program on the Future of Food at the University of Oxford. "This is because a cow needs, on average, 10 kilograms of feed, often from grains, to grow 1 kilogram of body weight, and that feed will have required water, land and fertilizer inputs to grow.”

 

Other animal foods have lower impacts because they don't produce methane in their stomachs and require less feed than cows, Springmann says. For example, cows emit about 10 times more greenhouse gases per kilogram of meat than pigs and chickens, which themselves emit about 10 times more than legumes.

 

If just 30 percent of every burger sold in America were made of mushrooms, it would have the same impact as taking 2.3 million cars off the road, retain the equivalent of 2.6 million Americans' water consumption, and free up a portion of agricultural land bigger than the state of Maryland, says Big Think.

Also in the news

EU leaders say Brexit withdrawal agreement is 'not open for renegotiation’ after appeals from Theresa May

 

Armenia’s democratic revolution 'that no one noticed'

 

AP: Iran hackers target nuclear experts, U.S. officials

 

In plea deal, Russian gun-rights activist Maria Butina admits to being a secret agent for the Kremlin

 

Senate rebukes Trump, Saudi Arabia over Khashoggi killing, Yemen war

 

With passage of farm bill, U.S. hemp market is set to boom

DeVos to cancel $150 million in student loan debt after losing court battle

Appeals court blocks Trump administration birth control rules in 5 states

Minneapolis' city council, tackling affordable-housing crisis and inequity, votes to end single-family zoning

Hubble finds that far-away planet is losing its mass through evaporation, at record speed

 

Health insurance costs are crushing many people who don’t get federal subsidies

 

Anti-opioid vaccine showing promise in mice

Note to readers

I'm not coming across anything of particular interest to summarize this morning. So I'll just wish you a great day!

In the news

British Prime Minister Theresa May survives confidence vote 

 

Nearly 70 former judges urge immigration officials to end arrests at courthouses

 

Farm bill heads to Trump after 369-47 House vote

 

Congressional negotiators agree on deal to curb sexual harassment on Capitol Hill

 

Nancy Pelosi's speakership 'all but ensured' after she agrees to 4-year term limit

 

Former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen sentenced to 3 years in prison

Apple to build new $1 billion campus in North Austin, Texas

NYTimes: How you can be an ethical tech consumer

 

WPost: The years of life expectancy lost to small-particle air pollution around the world

Individuals making a difference in 2018

This blog is all about how important each of us is in this democratic experiment and in improving conditions around the world.

 

So here are six people profiled by The New York Times who are making a difference:

 

— Katie Fahey, age 27, wrote on Facebook after the 2016 election: “I’d like to take on gerrymandering in Michigan. If you’re interested in doing this as well, please let me know.”

 

Thousands of people responded. Last month, Michigan voters approved a ballot measure that changed the state's constitution. A commission of independent citizens will draw the lines of congressional districts, taking the job away from politicians.

 

— Jukay Hsu of Queens is the founder of Pursuit, which trains talented young people in dead-end jobs to become software developers.

 

— Jennie Joseph, a midwife in Orlando, Fla., is helping to reduce infant mortality by empowering pregnant women.

 

— Alison Green in Deschutes County, Ore., teaches residents how to keep their homes safe from wildfires.

 

— Carol Tracy, director of the Women’s Law Project in Philadelphia, has improved police practices in prosecuting rape.

 

— Mihir Shah, who is from Mumbai, India, and studied computer engineering at Drexel University in Philadelphia, is helping to “democratize” breast exams for women around the world who lack access to mammograms.

 

His iBreastExam machine fits in one hand, runs on batteries, costs as little as a dollar per scan, is painless, uses no radiation and is simple enough that community health workers can do breast exams. 

Also in the news

British Prime Minister Theresa May to face vote of no confidence on Wednesday

Trump administration asks Supreme Court to restore asylum order

 

Trump administration proposes major rollback of rules on waterways, wetlands

 

Senate rejects curbs on food stamps, passes compromise farm bill

 

Senate will vote on criminal justice bill, McConnell says in reversal

 

House committee’s grilling of Google CEO shows hurdles facing tech companies in next Congress

 

ProPublica: Why low-income people claiming the earned income tax credit may face an IRS audit

 

Surge in luxury continuing-care communities as baby boomers enter their most-senior years

Helicopter parenting your dog or cat

When something I come across during my middle-of-the-night news searches makes me laugh out loud, I want to share it with you.

 

So:

 

You know the trend toward pet owners being reconceptualized as pet parents. 

 

Well, in apparently the same way people have used baby monitors, pet cams now enable pet parents to monitor their pets — and more.

 

Wi-Fi-enabled cameras now come with features to entertain pets, including treat-dispensers, laser-pointing games and two-way audio that lets you hear and talk to your pet remotely, reports The New York Times. One device offers two-way video, so your pet can see you. It’s all controlled by your smartphone.

 

PetChatz HD, at $300, has live video-streaming, motion-detection alerts, two-way audio, a built-in treat dispenser and an LCD screen so your pet can see you.

 

For $99 more, you can buy a PawCall button that enables your pet to get in touch with you. A light on the paw-shaped button tells the animal when you’re available, and he or she then can press the button to dispense a treat and send you a text to initiate a call.

 

The Times reporter who tested this with her dog writes: “After repeating these steps 10 times and then taking a break and doing it all over again a couple of hours later, Rocket still hadn’t gotten the hang of it. He had eaten a lot of treats, though.”

 

My imagination is running away with thoughts of what a smart and enthusiastic pet might do with this device.