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POSSIBLE TOPICS: VOTETEXAS.GOV—Voter Information; PSA: Low-income Texans may qualify for financial assistance with utility bills; Worksheet error overstates Pearland property values by $1.3B, city faces $10M shortfall; City of Houston moves forward with intentions to purchase Ruffino Tract; Election results: How Texas voted in the November 2022 midterms; DeSantis’ administration won’t allow Justice Department monitors inside Florida polling places, saying his secretary of state will watch the 3 Democratic strongholds instead; Maxwell Frost elected as the first Gen Z member of Congress; Live Results on Nevada Question 3: Voters will decide on ranked choice general elections and top-five primaries; US woman detained by Saudi officials after saying she has been trapped there since 2019; After Decades of Resistance, Rich Countries Offer Direct Climate Aid; Satellite Images Show A Russian Buildup In Belarus. Experts Say It May Be A Bluff.; Scientists evaluate Earth-cooling strategies with geoengineering simulations; More.

Thinkwing Radio with Mike Honig (@ThinkwingRadio) is now on Wednesdays at 11AM (CT) on KPFT-HD2, Houston’s Community Station. You can also hear the show:

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Welcome to Thinkwing Radio with Mike Honig where we discuss local, state, national, and international stories. My co-host and show editor is Andrew Ferguson.

• An educated electorate is a prerequisite for a democracy.
• You’re entitled to your own opinion, but not your own facts.

1. Make sure you are registered to vote! VoteTexas.GOV – Texas Voter InformationTEXAS SoS VOTE-BY-MAIL BALLOT APPLICATION (ALL TEXAS COUNTIES) HarrisVotes.com­ – Countywide Voting Centers, (Election Information Line (713) 755-6965), Harris County Clerk
   1. Harris County “Vote-By-Mail’ Application for 2022
      1. Fort bend County Elections/Voter Registration Machine takes you to the proper link
      2. GalvestonVotes.org (Galveston County, TX)
      3. Liberty County Elections (Liberty County, TX)
      4. Montgomery County (TX) Elections
      5. Brazoria County (TX) Clerk Election Information
      6. Waller County (TX) Elections
      7. Chambers County (TX) Elections
      8. For personalized, nonpartisan voter guides and information, Consider visiting Vote.ORG.   Ballotpedia.com and Texas League of Women Voters are also good places to get election info.
      9. If you are denied your right to vote any place at any time at any polling place for any reason, ask for (or demand) a provisional ballot rather than lose your vote.
      10. HarrisVotes.com – Countywide Voting Centers, HARRIS COUNTY – IDENTIFICATION REQUIRED FOR VOTING: Do not possess and cannot reasonably obtain one of these IDs?
          1. Fill out a declaration at the polls describing a reasonable impediment to obtaining it, and show a copy or original of one of the following supporting forms of ID:
          2. A government document that shows your name and an address, including your voter registration certificate
          3. Current utility bill
          4. Bank statement
          5. Government check
          6. Paycheck
          7. A certified domestic (from a U.S. state or territory) birth certificate or (b) a document confirming birth admissible in a court of law which establishes your identity (which may include a foreign birth document)
          8. You may vote early by-mail if:You are registered to vote and meet one of the following criteria:
             1. Away from the county of residence on Election Day and during the early voting period;
             2. Sick or disabled;
             3. 65 years of age or older on Election Day; or
             4. Confined in jail, but eligible to vote.
             5. Make sure you are registered:
             6. Ann Harris Bennett, Tax Assessor-Collector & Voter Registrar
             7. CHECK REGISTRATION STATUS HERE
             8. CLICK How to register to vote in Texas
             9. Outside Texas, try Vote.org.
2. BE REGISTERED TO VOTE, and if eligible, REMEMBER TO FILL OUT AND MAIL YOUR MAIL-IN BALLOT APPLICATIONS FOR 2022
   1. You can track your Mail Ballot Activity from our website with direct link provided here https://www.harrisvotes.com/Tracking
3. PSA: Low-income Texans may qualify for financial assistance with utility bills; By Hannah Norton | COMMUNITYIMPACT.COM | 5:26 PM Nov 7, 2022 CST, Updated 5:26 PM Nov 7, 2022 CST
   1. Applications are open for the Texas Utility Help program, which provides up to $2,400 in financial assistance to low-income households with unpaid utility bills.
   2. To qualify for assistance, an applicant’s household income must be at or below 150% of the federal poverty level. For a single-person household, an annual income of $20,385 is 150% of the federal poverty level, according to guidelines set each year by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. For each additional household member, the poverty guideline increases by $7,080.
   3. Additionally, at least one member of the household must be a U.S. citizen or a qualified alien. Under federal law, qualified aliens are noncitizens admitted to the U.S. for asylum or as refugees.
   4. The application opened Nov. 4, according to a news release.
   5. The program, which is offered by the Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs, was launched in July. …
   6. Low-income households may receive up to $2,400 in payments for electricity, natural gas and propane bills. Up to $600 is available for households requesting assistance with water and wastewater bills. Those who have had their water disconnected or are at risk of disconnection are prioritized for water assistance, according to the program site.
   7. Payments will go directly to the utility company, the release said.
   8. Interested households can apply online. Documents, such as an identification card, proof of citizenship or legal residency, a recent utility bill, and income documentation, may be required to apply, according to the website.
   9. Assistance is available for homeowners and renters, according to the release.
   10. … Program funding comes from the federal Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program and Low Income Household Water Assistance Program.
4. Worksheet error overstates Pearland property values by $1.3B, city faces $10M shortfall; By Daniel Weeks | COMMUNITYIMPACT.COM | 10:29 PM Nov 7, 2022 CST, Updated 10:29 PM Nov 7, 2022 CST
   1. A mistake between Brazoria and Harris county officials caused the error that set the city’s general fund back $10 million, staff said.
   2. “In times like this, this is when council needs to heed and listen, understand, get the facts, really understand what happened here,” Pearland Mayor Kevin Cole said.
   3. City Manager Clay Pearson sent a letter to Pearland City Council members Nov. 2 detailing a “major negative issue” facing the city’s fiscal year 2023
   4. “The value in the State-mandated worksheet prepared and given to us by Brazoria County used a number … that overstates the 2022 value of properties not under protest or included on certified appraisal roll by ~ $1.3 billion,” the letter, posted on Facebook by Council Member Alex Kamkar, reads.
   5. According to a staff presentation on Nov. 7 detailing the cause of the error, the mistake occurred as the Harris County Appraisal District, or HCAD, was collaborating with the Brazoria County Tax Office to compile information and generate the city’s yearly taxable value.
   6. The original tax worksheet sent to the city July 29 listed the city’s total taxable value at about $11 billion. The corrected worksheet now shows that the correct total 2022 taxable value is about $9.5 billion, a 14.1% difference.
   7. The figure that was recorded incorrectly in the original July worksheet was the “2022 value of properties not under protest or included on certified appraisal roll,” which was recorded as $1.3 billion, significantly higher than the accurate figure of $30 million. The presentation states that Brazoria County officials were instructed by HCAD to use the $1.3 billion value. …
   8. MIKE: I find this story informationally important to the people of Pearland, but it seems to be missing some of the who/what/where/when/why and even How. of the way I understand as Journalism 101. ~$1.3 billion became $30 million; a 97% miscalculation. Who made the mistake? What caused it? Why and How was such an egregious error not spotted earlier and why didn’t it raise red flags with the Pearland City Council, who were presumably familiar with the kinds of numbers they typically see?
   9. MIKE: I hope there’s a follow-up story delving more deeply into this.
   10. ANDREW: I actually live in Pearland, so the councilmembers are my elected officials. I think I might write them a letter asking these unanswered questions, and I think other Pearlanders should join me. The story goes on to mention that this error has created a $10 million budget shortfall, and yet the city’s tax rates are going to remain the same. Instead, the City Manager suggests using the reserve fund to make up for it, taking those reserves below what would be needed to keep the city running for 90 days. Now, while I understand that reserves are for emergencies and this is an emergency, and I don’t have the Pearland tax regulations memorized, it really seems like the best solution here is to increase the tax rate, even if only by a bit. Will people like that? No, but considering why we’re in this mess, it wouldn’t surprise me if we ended up needing those 90 days of reserve funds for something else sometime soon, and if we dip into it now, we won’t have it later.
5. City of Houston moves forward with intentions to purchase Ruffino Tract; By Leah Foreman | COMMUNITYIMPACT.COM | 8:31 PM Nov 3, 2022 CDT, Updated 12:49 PM Nov 4, 2022 CDT
   1. The city of Houston is moving ahead with a long-discussed plan of turning land belonging half to the city of Bellaire and half to the city of West University Place into a flood detention zone.
   2. This detention zone, which involves land known as the Ruffino Tract, is being pitched as a way to benefit parts of southwest Houston and curb the threat of flooding with the next severe weather event.
   3. The Houston City Council voted in favor of a resolution at its Nov. 2 meeting for the city to enter into a purchase and sale agreement with West University Place for acquiring its portion of the land—approximately 70.87 acres along the southern bank of Keegan’s Bayou and east of I-69. …
   4. The city has completed field visits, soil testing and detention analysis on the area. If the purchase and sale agreement is settled among both cities, the land title would be transferred over to Houston. …
   5. Next, the city will submit a Title IX land mining application to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, Costello said. The land was, at one point, used as a landfill, and its matter will need to be relocated. More recently the area was a golf course and then open green space.
   6. It could take three to nine months for the TCEQ to review the city’s application and move the landfill, Costello said in an interview with Community Impact. …
   7. The city intends to purchase the plot of land before the end of 2022. …
   8. On the Bellaire side sits approximately 72.5 acres, directly adjacent to the West University Place plot. Bellaire has a nonbinding agreement with Houston to move forward, with the next step being securing and conducting appraisals—on both sides—to assess the land value. Bellaire City Manager Sharon Citino said they are still in the beginning stages of this process.
   9. About 15 acres of this land will remain a trash transfer site. …
   10. The Bellaire property is currently designated as park land, and if both cities move forward in their agreement, will need to be voted on in Bellaire in order for that status to be changed.
   11. MIKE: The map included with the story lacks geographical perspective, I’m including a Google Maps link here. The area described appears to be a total of about 150 acres in the southeast corner of the intersection of US-59 and the West Beltway 8 South.
   12. MIKE: I admit to being surprised that West U has any land that far out in Houston. But I’m glad that thought is being given to more detention pond land. I hope the property’s former history as a landfill can be safely mediated. And what are the chances that digging the landfill up may be worse than keeping it in place? The article doesn’t state what kind of waste is buried there.
   13. ANDREW: The article says the land was once used as a landfill, and there is a solid waste transfer station in the area you’ve linked to on Google Maps. Based on how it’s described in the article, I think that land is the Ruffino Tract.
   14. ANDREW: The houses that are nearby concern me somewhat. I hope the project is carefully designed so that the detention zone doesn’t overfill and put that neighborhood under much more water than they’d have gotten before.
   15. MIKE: Another question is that given the housing relatively nearby, what kind of waste and debris particulates that will be lofted into the air in this “mining’ process of the old buried waste.
6. Election results: How Texas voted in the November 2022 midterms; By Carla Astudillo | TEXASTRIBUNE.ORG | Published: Nov. 7, 2022 Updated: Nov. 8, 2022
   1. MIKE: As of 3 am Wednesday morning, statewide races have projected winners. It has now been 28 years since Texas has elected any statewide Democrats to office.
   2. MIKE: This article link will continue to follow results for all Texas State Legislature and Senate races, as well as State judicial races.
   3. MIKE: You can find and follow Harris County election results for elected positions and Propositions at com in the Election Results link.
   4. MIKE: As of this writing, Democratic incumbent for County Judge Lina Hidalgo has a slim lead over Republican challenger Alexandra del Moral Mealer
   5. MIKE: Among one of the more interesting Proposition elections are a handful of TOMBALL BUSINESS IMPROVEMENT DISTRICT NO. 1 PROPs. With 334 of 782 Voting Centers Reporting, all Props are passing with 100% “YES” votes, which sounds much less impressive when you know that they’re all passing with ballot counts of 2-0. The same applies for NW HC MUD 012 Props.
   6. MIKE: County Commissioner Precinct 2 shows incumbent Adrian Garcia leading Republican challenger Jack Morman. In the County Commissioner Precinct 4 race, Democratic challenger Lesley Briones is leading Republican incumbent Jack Cagle.
   7. ANDREW: Here’s an update on the ballot access front. As a reminder, in Texas, minor parties need at least one candidate for any statewide office to win at least 2% of all votes cast for their race in order to have that party’s candidates appear on the next five general election ballots. As of 5:30 AM, the Libertarians are safe through 2032, with Attorney General candidate Mark Ash and Railroad Commissioner candidate Jaime Diez each pulling 2.9% of their votes. The Green Party, however, have not cleared the bar this year, with their highest-polling candidate, Alfred Molison, Jr. for Land Commissioner, achieving 1.6%. The Greens last met the requirement in 2016 and will lose their ballot line if they don’t meet it again in the general election of 2026.
7. DeSantis’ administration won’t allow Justice Department monitors inside Florida polling places, saying his secretary of state will watch the 3 Democratic strongholds instead; By Rebecca Cohen | BUSINESSINSIDER.COM | Nov. 8, 2022
   1. The DeSantis administration blocked federal election monitors from going inside South Florida polling places, saying in a Monday letter that Department of Justice monitors aren’t allowed “under Florida law.” 
   2. The Department of Justice had announced it would send monitors to 64 jurisdictions on Election Day, including three in Democratic strongholds in Florida: Miami-Dade, Broward, and Palm Beach counties. …
   3. But according to Brad McVay, General Counsel for the Florida Department of State, “the presence of federal law enforcement inside polling places would be counterproductive and could potentially undermine confidence in the election.” 
   4. McVay wrote that while law enforcement officials are allowed inside polling places, Department of Justice monitors do not qualify. 
   5. McVay said in the letter that Florida would send its own monitors to “the three targeted jurisdictions.” …
   6. But on Tuesday, the DOJ said it had received the DeSantis Administration’s letter and it would still be sending monitors to watch outside polling places in the three Florida counties.
   7. “They can certainly be outside of the polling places,” Florida Secretary of State Cord Byrd said of the monitors at a press conference Tuesday. 
   8. “None of the counties are currently subject to any election-related federal consent decrees,” McVay added. “None of the counties have been accused of violating the rights of language or racial minorities or of the elderly or disabled.” …
   9. MIKE: Monitoring from the outside was the DOJ “saving face”. I’m not sure how helpful it was. This is a legal question that the DOJ might have usefully confronted with Florida far enough ahead of the elections to have been resolved soon enough to make a difference. As it stands, I’ll be curious to see if the DOJ has any grounds to dispute this confrontation’s outcome in court, after the fact. It occurred to me that a quote about DeSantis that fits here can be recycled from the Star Trek original series episode, The Trouble With Tribbles: “DeSantis “… is a swaggering tin-plated dictator with delusions of godhood.” If there is a more proto-fascist state in the US at this time, I’m unaware of it.
   10. ANDREW: That reminds me, didn’t Lina Hidalgo ask the DOJ to send election monitors to Harris County too? I wonder how they got on. And I wonder what exciting new ways of continuing to suppress voters that the Texas government is going to pick up from Florida here.
8. Maxwell Frost elected as the first Gen Z member of Congress; By Elena Moore | NPR.ORG | November 8, 2022, 8:35 PM ET
   1. Democrat Maxwell Frost has won in Florida’s 10th Congressional District, according to a race call by the Associated Press, making him the first member of Generation Z elected to serve in the U.S. Congress.
   2. Frost was heavily favored to win the Orlando-based seat, which is solidly Democrat. … Frost will succeed outgoing Democratic Rep. Val Demings, who challenged incumbent Marco Rubio in the Senate. Rubio won his reelection, according to the AP. …
   3. Frost, who has a background as an organizer, first became an activist after the mass shooting in Newtown, Conn., in 2012. Before running for Congress, he served as the national organizing director for March for Our Lives, a group that advocates for gun control policy. …
   4. When Frost takes office in January, he’ll join a Congress known for lacking diversity in age – given the current membership is the oldest in U.S. history. …
   5. MIKE: At 25, Frost is the youngest a person can be an be in the House of Representatives. The only way to be younger is to turn 25 on literally the morning of the day that someone is sworn in.
   6. ANDREW: From a youth rights and advocacy perspective, I’m very glad to see this. It’s nice to know that being young doesn’t make you unelectable. I suspect I disagree with Representative-Elect Frost on many policy issues, though. And it’s important to remember: just because someone like you is in office, doesn’t mean they’ll help you.
9. Live Results on Nevada Question 3: Voters will decide on ranked choice general elections and top-five primaries; By Taiyler Simone Mitchell and Hannah Getahun | BUSINESSINSIDER.COM | Nov. 8. 2022, 9 hours ago
   1. A “yes” on Nevada’s Question 3 would put a new ranked-choice voting system into place for general elections and set up top-five primary elections.
   2. Currently, Nevada’s primary election is used to choose a candidate from each party, but the Top-Five Ranked Choice Voting Initiative could change the process to a top-five voting system, according to the bill text. A top-five voting system would allow any voter to vote for any candidate no matter their political affiliation, and the top five candidates with the most votes would then proceed to the general election.
   3. The second part of the initiative would establish ranked-choice voting general election. This would allow voters to rank the candidates on the ballot in the general election. The candidate that is the highest ranked (with more than 50% of votes) on the most number of ballots would win the election. …
   4. In order for the measure to amend the Nevada Constitution, voters would also have to approve Question 3 once in 2022 and again a second time in 2024.
   5. Both Maine and Alaska … use ranked-choice voting. New York City also approved it in 2019 for citywide elections. …
   6. According to a September study by Emerson College Polling and The Hill, 48% of participants support the measure, 35% oppose it, and 17% of participants were undecided.
   7. MIKE: Now that ranked choice voting is gaining momentum, it might be a good time to discuss ways that political parties might figure out to game that system. The current system is gamed using strawman candidates to drain votes, and parties covertly supporting the weakest candidates for nomination in primaries, among other tactics. I’m sure there are people smarter than me thinking of ways to manipulate ranked choice voting.
   8. MIKE: I will say this — Approving the first part of Prop 3 allowing open primaries where the Top 5 candidates proceed to a runoff is horrible without the second part being approved. That would invite various partisan “dirty tricks”.
   9. ANDREW: I could be wrong, but I believe that both parts of the measure have to pass, or none of it will, so the open primaries won’t come without Ranked Choice Voting and, unfortunately, vice versa. I sent this to Mike because I found it very interesting and in line with some of our past discussions. I’m all for RCV, but hearing that in Nevada it would come bundled with an open primary gave me pause– I’m not sure I’d consider “an election where all the options might be from only one political party” to be a bastion of voter choice. I did some research, and the minor parties in Nevada seemed to be in favor of it or at least not opposed to it, so I guess it’s worth the risk for them. That said, it’s encouraging to see RCV make gains anywhere around the country. I hope this measure passes both of the elections it needs to and goes on to give Nevadans true choice at the polls.
10. In international news:
11. US woman detained by Saudi officials after saying she has been trapped there since 2019; Carly Morris travelled to Saudi Arabia in 2019 so her young daughter could see the father of her ex-husband. By Stephanie Kirchgaessner in Washington (@skirchy) | THEGUARDIAN.COM | Tue 8 Nov 2022 22.34 EST, Last modified on Tue 8 Nov 2022 22.59 EST
    1. A 34-year-old American woman has been detained in Saudi Arabia after she posted on Twitter that she and her young daughter had been lured to the kingdom and trapped there since 2019.
    2. Carly Morris told relatives three years ago that she was planning to travel to Saudi Arabia for a brief period so that her eight-year-old daughter could meet her paternal grandfather. However, Morris then became locked in a years-long struggle to take her young daughter back out of the kingdom over the objections of her Saudi ex-husband. Morris’s efforts to leave have been made more difficult by Saudi Arabia’s strict male guardianship laws. …
    3. Morris was detained after being summoned to a public prosecutor’s office on Sunday in connection with an allegation that she was “destabilising public order”, according to an official document seen by the Guardian. The document states that Morris is American and lists her occupation as “housewife”.
    4. The summons followed Morris’s publication of a lengthy statement on Twitter, in which she warned other women and children against visiting the kingdom. In the statement, she said she and her daughter had been held “against our will” in a hotel under “extreme and dire circumstances”, where they faced “extended social isolation” since 2019. …
    5. In her Twitter statement, Morris said: “We have spent the past three years under these conditions and deprived of our basic human rights and our lives stolen from us. For over three years I have attempted to seek help from every government office and authority. My situation has downplayed, neglected, and mishandled.”
    6. In her warning to others, she said: “You will be stripped of your dignity, honor, and rights. You will be placed under dehumanizing circumstances. And anyone, at any point, can do anything to you, and you will not receive the desperate help that you need, and there will be no justice. In fact, you will be blamed and criminalized in return.” …
    7. The whereabouts of Morris’s daughter, who is also an American citizen, are unknown. …
    8. The Saudi embassy in Washington and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not immediately respond to an email from the Associated Press seeking comment. …
    9. The case marks the latest instance of a dissident or critic of the Saudi government being detained or convicted for using social media. Human rights activists at the Freedom Initiative, which has followed Morris’s story, said she was the third American being held in detention in Saudi Arabia. …
    10. In another case, a 34-year-old mother named Salma al-Shehab, who was completing her PhD at Leeds University but returned to her native Saudi Arabia for a short vacation, was convicted and sentenced to decades in prison for following and liking tweets by some Saudi dissidents while she was living in the UK. …
    11. Another American, Saad Ibrahim Almadi, 72, who was returning to his native Saudi for a vacation, was arrested in November 2021 and recently sentenced to 16 years in prison for tweeting critically about the regime.
    12. ANDREW: US woman: This is obviously horrible, and I feel that something should be done to help this woman and her daughter, along with every other US citizen detained by Saudi Arabia. I’m just not sure what can be done that would be effective without risking harm to a lot of innocent people. A rescue operation would increase tensions, which could lead to war. Sanctions wouldn’t work, as the rich and powerful can always find ways around them anyway. The US withdrawing military support for Saudi Arabia is something Biden already promised to do, which would weaken its impact, and by using it as a bargaining chip here, there’s an implication that if the Saudis free all of their US prisoners, the military support will come back, and then the harm from that continues. I don’t like it, but I just don’t see a way forward here.
    13. MIKE: It’s worth noting that if this kind of autocratic society scares the crap out of you, consider how America might be creeping toward that sort of political intolerance if we’re not very, very careful. To quote Dr. McCoy from Star Trek, “Evil usually wins, unless good is very, very careful.”
12. After Decades of Resistance, Rich Countries Offer Direct Climate Aid; Several European leaders at COP27 announced funds to help poor nations recover from loss and damage caused by climate change. The United States was silent. By David Gelles | NYTIMES.COM | Published Nov. 8, 2022, Updated Nov. 9, 2022, 5:12 a.m. ET
    1. For 30 years, developing nations have been calling for industrialized countries to provide compensation for the costs of devastating storms and droughts caused by climate change. For just as long, rich nations that have generated the pollution that is dangerously heating the planet have resisted those calls.
    2. At the United Nations climate summit last year, only Scotland, the host country, committed $2.2 million for what’s known as “loss and damage.” But this week, the dam may have begun to break.
    3. On Sunday, negotiators from developing countries succeeded in placing the matter on the formal agenda of this year’s climate summit, known as COP27, or the 27th session of the Conference of the Parties. …
    4. By the end of the third day of the conference, several European countries had pledged cash for a new loss and damage fund.
    5. The first minister of Scotland, Nicola Sturgeon, appeared at a New York Times event on the sidelines of COP27 after promising an additional $5.7 million.
    6. “The Global South still feel that they’re having to come and plead with the rich countries to acknowledge, let alone address, the issue of loss and damage, for example,” Ms. Sturgeon said. “There is a real need to make tangible progress.”
    7. The commitment of direct funding for loss and damage represents a major break from precedent. For decades, wealthy nations, which have emitted half of all heat-trapping gasses since 1850, have avoided calls to help poor countries recover from climate disasters, fearing that doing so could open them to unlimited liability. And, as a legal and a practical matter, it has been extraordinarily difficult to define “loss and damage” and determine what it might cost and who should pay how much.
    8. Yet after increasingly destructive fires, floods and droughts, which have touched every corner of the globe but have disproportionately affected the developing world, Western leaders have changed their tune.
    9. On Tuesday, Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, endorsed the idea of new funds for poor nations being affected by climate change.
    10. “The COP must make progress on minimizing and averting loss and damage from climate change,” she said, addressing other world leaders. “It is high time to put this on the agenda.” …
    11. Shortly after Ms. von der Leyen’s remarks, Prime Minister Micheál Martin of Ireland said his country was pledging $10 million to a new effort “to protect the most vulnerable from climate loss and damage.” …
    12. Austria’s climate minister said the country would pay 50 million euros, or around $50 million, to developing countries struggling with climate effects. Belgium joined in, promising $2.5 million in loss and damage funding to Mozambique. And Denmark said in September that it would spend at least $13 million paying for loss and damage in developing nations.
    13. Germany made a related move on Monday, with Chancellor Olaf Scholz pledging $170 million to a new program that would offer vulnerable nations a form of insurance in the event of climate emergencies.
    14. Other leaders said the time had come for real loss and damage funding.
    15. “I support governments paying money for loss and damage and adaptation, but let’s be very clear that that’s a matter of billions or tens of billions,” Al Gore, former vice president of the United States, said on Monday.
    16. Shortly after Mr. Gore spoke, President Emmanuel Macron of France said that Europe was already helping poorer countries, and that other Western nations needed to do more. “Europeans are paying,” he said. “We are the only ones paying.”
    17. “Pressure must be put on rich non-European countries, telling them, ‘You have to pay your fair share,’” Mr. Macron said, in a not-too-veiled reference to the Americans.
    18. But the United States, the world’s richest nation and the largest emitter of greenhouse gases, was conspicuously absent from the discussions on loss and damage.
    19. John Kerry, President Biden’s climate envoy, has agreed to discuss the idea of financing for loss and damage at the climate conference, but the United States has not agreed to a new fund. …
    20. Still, no strategy was offered on Tuesday by the United States delegation. Instead, Mr. Kerry plans to unveil on Wednesday a new plan designed to get big corporations to purchase carbon offsets — essentially, credits for their greenhouse gas pollution. The money would go toward driving down emissions in developing nations by retiring fossil fuel plants, creating renewable energy and building resilience to climate effects.
    21. The initiative has been met with skepticism from some European nations as well as members of the U.N. secretary general’s staff, because they felt the plan lacked details and was being rushed, according to multiple people familiar with the discussions.
    22. Some of the most influential environmental groups in the United States who were briefed by the State Department on the strategy, including the Natural Resources Defense Council and the World Resources Institute, also do not support the plan because they fear it could actually undermine efforts to drive down global emissions to zero, activists said.
    23. The mixed efforts by Western nations came as leaders from developing countries continued to call for financial compensation. …
    24. When asked on Tuesday if the delegates from nearly 200 nations would end the two-week conference with an agreement on a loss and damage fund, Ms. Sturgeon of Scotland was skeptical, despite her country’s pledge.
    25. “I would like to say yes,” she said. “I think, realistically, probably not. I hope I’m wrong about that. But I do think it’s really important that we emerge from these two weeks with something tangible and concrete that people can see the end point to an agreement.”
    26. Declining to help the most vulnerable nations, she said, would represent a moral failure on the part of the West.
    27. “This is a really fundamental question of climate justice,” she said. “The rich world has a responsibility here.”
    28. MIKE: Conspicuous by its absence in the article is China, the world’s 2^nd largest economy. In a short REUTERS report, “China’s special climate envoy Xie Zhenhua said on Tuesday that Beijing is committed to reaching carbon neutrality and believed multilateralism and cooperation is key to solving global climate change.”
    29. ANDREW: Well, here’s something I never thought I’d say: I agree with Al Gore! The US definitely should be paying a lot into this fund, as should China, and every other country driving global warming. I would say a proportional contribution per country would make the most sense– a million dollars per percent of global emissions that your country is responsible for and hasn’t mitigated sounds like a good starting point.
13. Scientists evaluate Earth-cooling strategies with geoengineering simulations; by Blaine Friedlander, Cornell University | PHYS.ORG |August 23, 2022
    1. A group of international scientists led by Cornell University is—more rigorously and systematically than ever before—evaluating if and how the stratosphere could be made just a little bit “brighter,” reflecting more incoming sunlight so that an ever-warming Earth maintains its cool.
    2. Their work is published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
    3. Solar radiation modification—or solar geoengineering, as it is sometimes called—is a potential climate change mitigation strategy that involves injecting sulfate aerosols into the stratosphere, so more sunlight bounces off the Earth’s atmosphere. In conjunction with other strategies, like cutting greenhouse gas emissions, this could help keep the planet’s temperature from rising too high. …
    4. There would also be significant challenges regarding how the world would make decisions surrounding deployment. A more systematic assessment of these trade-offs, comparing the impacts associated with a range of different choices, could inform these decisions. …
    5. Solar radiation modification is still theoretical, he said. For starters, it would require a small fleet of specialized, high-flying aircraft, and none currently exist with the ability to deliver an adequate payload of sulfur dioxide, which would naturally be converted to sulfate aerosols, at a high enough altitude.
    6. However, the approach is not entirely unprecedented, either. Over Earth’s long geologic history, volcanic eruptions have occasionally thrown sulfate aerosols into the stratosphere, cooling the planet. …
    7. ANDREW: Good luck to them. Story points out, and important to remember, that stopping global warming will require multiple tactics in coordination, to say nothing of restoring damage done. Also mentions needing new specialized aircraft. Wonder if that could lead to advances in air travel, too.
    8. Explore further: Future of planet-cooling tech: Study creates roadmap for geoengineering research; January 8, 2019

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