The [Torture] Report

I saw the great film The [Torture] Report at Digital Gym in San Diego, and hope a similar one is in the pipeline about climate crisis and fossil fuel companies, another national disgrace. Showtimes are here. Former San Diego Mesa College student Annette Bening plays California U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein, effectively showing what happens when incompetent unqualified leaders (not her) are elected or appointed at any level of responsibility.  "Oh, what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive!" wrote Sir Walter Scott in 1808.  Watch one diligent honest investigator fight for human decency and justice.  Former California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger spoke about the situation in this quote in a previous blog post regarding his anger at fossil fuel companies lying for 60 years.

In The [Torture] Report there is a reckoning for some, as there may soon be at Exxon reported by the Los Angeles Times yesterday. This guardian.com video of "Martin Hoffert, a scientist consultant for Exxon Research and Engineering in the 1980s" makes it clear for the sake of climate justice, Exxon must compensate developing nations. Bill Mckibben recently published an article about this at yesmagazine.org. He wrote "Indeed, the high-end estimate for economic damage from the global warming we’re on track to cause is $551 trillion, which is more money than exists on planet Earth. Even that figure is notional: How do you compensate the generations of people yet unborn who will inherit a badly degraded world? Even if Exxon et al were to disgorge every dirty penny they’d ever made, it wouldn’t pay for relocating Miami, much less Mumbai [ . . . . ] But at this point, even the best-case scenarios are relentlessly grim; lots of damage has been done, and far more is in the offing. We’re going to have to remake much of the world to have a chance at survival. And if we’re going to try, then that repair job shouldn’t repeat the imbalances of power and wealth that mark our current planet. Justice demands a real effort to make the last, first this time around."

In other business, I'm grateful feedspot.com added this blog to the top 40 list of "Top 60 Global Warming Blogs & Websites To Follow in 2019" joining Skeptical Science in Australia, Google News -Global Warming, The New York Times - Climate and Environment, The Guardian - Climate change in England, NASA Climate Change, Union of Concerned Scientists - Global Warming, and others. As a former editor for SanDiego350 who served on their coordinating committee for the Road Through Paris action, I also follow Bill McKibben's Twitter Site. A good list of updated climate links is at Olympic Climate Action's Hot Off the Wire.