Comments 1 to 8:

1. One Planet Only Forever at 04:46 AM on 21 July, 2025

   Many items on this, and other News Roundups, can be categorized as stories about efforts to ‘sustain’ the popularity of harmful misunderstandings by misleading promotion of harmful misunderstandings and trying to keep people less aware that they are being harmfully misled.

   I chose to emphasize the term ‘sustain’ because misleading messengers try to pervert the meaning of terms. And it relates to the listed item: Airlines risk legal challenges by advertising jet fuel as "sustainable", NGO warns.

   In addition to the distortions of meaning regarding Sustainable Aviation Fuel. Many major fossil fuel driven organizations, including regional governments that have been captured by, and share the harmful unsustainable interests of, fossil fuel business organizations have set up internal ‘departments of sustainability’ that are better called promoters trying to prolong (‘sustain’) undeniably harmful and unsustainable pursuits of benefit.

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2. wilddouglascounty at 23:55 PM on 21 July, 2025

   By passing the Trump bill, the Republicans have cemented themselves as being Climate Change CHEERLEADERS. Everything they promote is knowingly PROMOTING increasingly frequent and severe weather events and they should be held accountable at mid-terms. The scientific community has laid out the evidence of the consequences of these policies as clearly as possible and the response is to shut down that science and enact policies that will only make things worse. This should be pointed out at every opportunity: why are you promoting more wildfires, worse flooding, longer hotter droughts, and cutting our ability to monitor, predict and understand these destructive events?  Why are you promoting activities that will INCREASE carbon emissions, not decrease them, when the consequences of such policies are so clear? Do you think cleaning up after natural disasters is a better economic activity than installing home insulation and more efficient appliances to reduce people's bills?  Why is incentivizing more fossil fuel production and decreasing National Weather Service funding a better response than the opposite, when the opposite will reduce the costs of natural disasters that have a much bigger impact on our nation's economy? Why is exporting Climate Change a better policy for foreign aid than building health care capacity in developing countries?  The list is endless and we need to demand answers to all of them.

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3. nigelj at 06:15 AM on 22 July, 2025

   Wild Douglas suggests quite a good approach to things. 

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4. John Hartz at 13:32 PM on 23 July, 2025

   SueEllen Campbell's article, These must-read story series explore our climate-changed world, published on the Yale Climate Communications' website today, includes a nice blurb about our Weekly News Round-Up.

   I suspect there will be an uptick in the number of people viewing the SkS Facebook page. Ditto for the SkS website.

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5. One Planet Only Forever at 08:57 AM on 24 July, 2025

   People who deliberately fight against increased awareness and improved understanding of how to be less harmful and more helpful to others deserve to face questions and criticism they dislike. They deserve disrespect and ridicule.

   The UN News report “World Court says countries are legally obligated to curb emissions, protect climate” makes it abundantly clear that regional governments with histories of acting in ways that delay the transition from undeniably harmful fossil fuels to less harmful alternatives deserve to face serious penalties. The UN News report includes the following "Reasoning of the Court":

   The Court used Member States’ commitments to both environmental and human rights treaties to justify this decision.

   Firstly, Member States are parties to a variety of environmental treaties, including ozone layer treaties, the Biodiversity Convention, the Kyoto Protocol, the Paris Agreement and many more, which oblige them to protect the environment for people worldwide and in future generations.

   But, also because “a clean, healthy and sustainable environment is a precondition for the enjoyment of many human rights,” since Member States are parties to numerous human rights treaties, including the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, they are required to guarantee the enjoyment of such rights by addressing climate change.

   So, in addition to the good questions proposed by wilddouglascounty @2, the fundamentals of the ruling raise questions about US government actions that have harmful impacts other than climate change impacts. An example would be Trump administration shuts down EPA's scientific research arm as reported by NPR which includes the following:

   The agency is closing the Office of Research and Development, which analyzes dangers posed by a variety of hazards, including toxic chemicals, climate change, smog, wildfires, indoor air contaminants, water pollution, watershed destruction and drinking water pollutants. The office also manages grant programs that fund universities and private companies.

   Under President Trump's leadership, EPA has taken a close look at our operations to ensure the agency is better equipped than ever to deliver on our core mission of protecting human health and the environment while powering the great American comeback," said EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin in a statement announcing the plan Friday. "This reduction in force will ensure we can better fulfill that mission while being responsible stewards of your hard-earned tax dollars.

   The US government has also stopping funding NPR (Recently completing an action demanded by Trump in May of this year - NPR report: President Trump has issued an executive order to pull federal funds from NPR and PBS) to ‘selectively save tax dollars’.

   The choice to stop supporting NPR is likely because NPR has a News section dedicated to Climate Change and it also reports many things like the above report.

   An interesting related item is the CBC report “Green energy has passed 'positive tipping point,' and cost will come down, UN says”. That story about the UN report on renewable energy systems includes the following:

   Renewables are booming despite fossil fuels getting nearly nine times the government consumption subsidies as they do, Guterres and the reports said. In 2023, global fossil fuel subsidies amounted to $620 billion US, compared with $70 billion US for renewables, the UN said.

   A clear understanding of Taxes is important. I would argue that any negative consequences of government actions, and lack of action, are “Taxes’ (someone somewhere sometime pays a price). The massive subsidies for fossil fuels are clearly “Taxes”. But the harms resulting from insufficient investigation into and regulation of the harm done by economic pursuits are also Taxes.

   One of the most damaging misunderstandings today is the belief that competition for perceptions of superiority will effectively self-regulate to minimize the harm done (limit the Taxes caused) by competitors and make harmful competitors adequately make amends for harm done.

   It is clear that more freedom for competitors for perceptions of superiority results in dominance by people who believe they are the winners if they can be more threatening and more harmful to Others than Others can be to them.

   There are no winners in a competition that allows perceptions of superiority to be obtained by ‘being more harmful or more unjustifiably threatening'.

   People pursuing more benefit by being more harmful are the only ones who deserve to feel, and actually be, threatened with serious negative consequences.

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6. One Planet Only Forever at 23:58 PM on 24 July, 2025

   This new NPR story: Trump's EPA now says greenhouse gases don't endanger people, appears to be an attempt to mislead people about the reality of the climate change harm done by using fossil fuels. It contains the following:

   Already, environmentalists, climate advocates and others are bracing for what could be a fundamental shift away from trying to address the problem of a hotter climate. And the Trump administration is celebrating the proposal as a potential economic win.

   "Today is the greatest day of deregulation our nation has seen," EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin said in announcing the proposal in March. "We are driving a dagger straight into the heart of the climate change religion to drive down cost of living for American families, unleash American energy, bring auto jobs back to the U.S. and more."

   The economic wins cause others to pay the price. It taxes those who are harmed. The International court ruling pointed to in my comment @5 exposes this as just another example of how harmfully misleading the likes of Trump are.

   That is the harmful belief that vicious competition for superiority - reduced taxes and more personal benefits - is the only option. That is the current rage on the right. They believe that - Things would be Greater if people wanting to benefit from being more harmful and vicious are freer to do as they please and are excused for any harm they cause because of the perceptions of benefits obtained.

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7. prove we are smart at 18:16 PM on 26 July, 2025

   America is showing any interested people why democracy is a myth, at least in the freedum and entitled USA. 

   When your elected representatives can be legally bribed er, I mean lobbied to fill their pockets by an increasingly allowed corporations. Even foreign nations using your elected officials greedy weaknesses to spread off-shore propoganda.  www.opensecrets.org/federal-lobbying

   2024 was a Landslide...for 'Did Not Vote' What a forlorn democracy in the USA when more eligible voters stayed home than the Trump winner got.   en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voter_turnout_in_United_States_presidential_elections

   And how to decide your vote? well Mis,dis and crapinformation with plenty of $$$  www.reuters.com/world/us/how-worlds-richest-man-is-helping-trumps-presidential-bid-2024-10-23/

    The more corrupt a leader,the more corrupt their policies and unfortunately in the USA the world is watching his equally corrupt enables fast-tracking the ransacking of a countries arguably good reputation.

   I'm tired,we are all tired, the lack of movement down in the big 4 of human caused ghg is now beyond catastrophic  www.climate.gov/ghg/current-levels

   The ugly American is alive and well but so too the ugly Australian and Britain,Frenchman,German and many more. The will to change radically is weak, me included so now..theconversation.com/why-ill-talk-politics-with-climate-change-deniers-but-not-science-34949

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8. nigelj at 07:41 AM on 27 July, 2025

   I agree with the comments by OPOF and prove we are smart. Americas current government is indeed very corrupt and anti democratic and quite fascist and bullying. They ignore democracy, the courts, the constitution, due process, the American people as a whole and any decent ethical standards. 

   The reasons are obvious. The MAGA crowd see some liberal leaning beliefs and policies as so fundamentally wrong that they should be eliminated ruthlessly and completely, so the ends justify the means. This is just so wrong on so many levels, where do you even start?

   The policies the MAGA elite attack include such things as climate science, other fields of science, immigration, free trade, globalisation, inclusivity, social security, the federal bureaucracy, federal regulatory systems, environmental protections, consumer protections, medicaide.

   Anyone who thinks such things are fundamentally wrong is clearly mentally delusional or bigoted, and likely has motives of wanting to be able to profit financially regardless of consequences to others and the environment.

   At most such policies need some reform form time to time, but what MAGA have done is mindless destruction that will make America poorer economically and intellectually. It's a truly dumb collection of self inflicted wounds, driven by fears of non existent monsters lurking in the closet.

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   Moderator Response:

   [BL]

   Gentlemen (nigel, others on this thread).

   Although the weekly news post is generally accepted to be a little freer with respect to openness and wandering topics,. can we please keep the derogatory labels and insults to a minimum?

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