CPR News
by Sam Brasch

At some point in the not so distant future, a young girl in Colorado Springs can’t go outside.

The temperature is 127 degrees Fahrenheit. Her father wears a hazmat suit and a gas mask as he builds a roof from emergency blankets. Her pregnant mother slams a radio crackling with warnings of massive tornadoes and dangerous air. Her parents argue until breathless in their makeshift shelter, trapped in a terrible future ravaged by climate change. 

“I just hope we can see the sunshine again one day,” she narrates.

This bleak scene isn’t the opening of a new Mad Max movie. It’s the hellscape Democrat Andrew Romanoff imagines in his first U.S. Senate campaign video, “Home.” The former state House speaker is betting a progressive stance on climate change can help him overcome a wide Democratic primary field — including former Governor John Hickenlooper — and defeat Republican U.S. Senator Cory Gardner next November. 

“The point of the spot is to say, ‘This is what lies ahead and, by the way, this is reality for a lot of folks on Earth today,’” Romanoff said. 

The 4-minute ad will run on major social media platforms. His team plans to spend $1,000 promoting the video on Facebook and YouTube. It won’t run as a television spot, according to the campaign. 

The video, produced by WIN Digital Media, is the latest test of whether left-wing candidates can capitalize politically on growing concerns about climate change. 

In his Senate campaign, Romanoff has embraced the so-called Green New Deal and in turn earned the endorsement of the Sunrise Movement, a youth climate group advocating for the aggressive action on climate change. Meanwhile, Hickenlooper, who’s far outpacing Romanoff in Democratic primary polls, has written an op-ed criticizing the platform. His climate plan focuses more on market-based solutions, like collecting a carbon tax and redistributing it to consumers. 

The new ad puts the difference in the most dramatic terms possible. It ends with Romanoff taking direct aim at critics of more aggressive climate action: “Those who say it cannot be done should not interrupt those who are already doing it.” 

Max Boykoff, an associate professor at the University of Colorado Boulder and author of the recently published book “Creative (Climate) Communications,” said the new strategy comes with risks and benefits for Romanoff. Its success will likely depend on the audience. It could gain attention from people already worried about the issue, but more moderate voters could turned off.

“Scholarship has shown that, with this kind of approach, you can raise awareness and creep people out, but it can also paralyze and alienate people,” said Boykoff. 

The accuracy of the “cli-fi” future depicted in the ad is another question. The radio news brief claims a temperature high of 127 degrees Fahrenheit in Colorado Springs at some point in the “not so distant future.” One study found Colorado will experience more record highs than lows as the average temperature warms, but the heat in the ad is way up there. Colorado’s current high temperature record is 115 degrees Fahrenheit set outside Las Animas last July. 

Another creepy radio blast warns of a “heightened chance of large-scale tornadoes.” While some signs point to more tornadoes due to human-caused climate change, it remains a matter of scientific debate.

Other so-called “climate candidates” haven’t taken such a frightening tone. Washington Gov. Jay Inslee centered his presidential candidacy on the issue before dropping out last August. His campaign launch video sounds like a football coach rallying a team before the big game. Bernie Sanders likes to say “the future of the planet is at stake,” but he’s so far stopped short of depicting a future where it’s lost. 

Romanoff said there isn’t some grand political calculus behind the ad. More than anything, he said it’s an attempt to force people to reckon with the climate crisis and illustrate the stakes.

“There’s plenty of smart people who try to distill the findings of the politics of this approach,” Romanoff said. “You could make your living analyzing the tea leaves. That’s just not the job I’m applying for.”

The Colorado Independent
by Robin Bravender

“Stop Climate Censorship Act” would require officials to use data to defend decisions to remove climate content from studies.

A freshman Colorado congressman, troubled by allegations of climate censorship by the Trump administration, is attempting to make it harder for political appointees to scrub scientific information from government reports. 

Rep. Joe Neguse (D-Colo.) introduced legislation this month dubbed the “Stop Climate Censorship Act.” If enacted, it would require political appointees at federal agencies to provide data to back up any decisions to remove climate change content from scientific studies or press releases. 

“There’s any number of examples” of controversies surrounding climate censorship under the Trump administration, Neguse told the Colorado Independent this week in an interview. He pointed to one of the highest-profile examples in his own congressional district. 

Maria Caffrey, a former University of Colorado research assistant and a paid partner of the National Park Service, said her research on how climate change would impact national parks was sidelined by Trump administration officials. 

She testified at a hearing before the U.S. House earlier this year that National Park Service officials made “explicit attempts to get me to remove references to anthropogenic or human-caused climate change from my report.” 

Agency management gradually cut off her access to research funding, Caffrey testified: “I had become an outcast for standing up.” 

Another controversy surrounding scientific censorship occurred earlier this year when officials at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reportedly backed President Donald Trump over the agency’s own researchers. 

After Trump asserted without evidence that Alabama would most likely be hit much harder than anticipated by the approaching Hurricane Dorian, National Weather Service staff was told to “only stick with official National Hurricane Center forecasts” if questions arose about Trump’s assertions and to refrain from providing any opinions, The Washington Post reported.  

Trump famously used a black Sharpie marker to add an extra loop onto a map of Dorian’s predicted path to encompass Alabama.

“In light of recent attempts by this administration to censor science, including threats in September to fire NOAA officials who failed to back President Trump’s inaccurate statements on Hurricane Dorian, legislation to prevent the political interference of federal science is critically needed,” Neguse said in a statement. 

A Jan. 2018 report by the Environmental Data & Governance Initiative, which analyzed websites across the federal government, found “substantial shifts” under the Trump administration in “whether and how the topic of climate change and efforts to mitigate and adapt to its consequences are discussed across a range of federal agencies’ websites.” 

The report also found a “significant loss of public access to information about climate change.”

Taking action to curb the impacts of climate change is critical for Colorado, Neguse said. 

A fact sheet – published by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency under the Obama administration in August 2016 and archived online – outlines some of the ways that climate change caused by humans will impact Colorado. 

The expected consequences include more common heat waves, decreased water availability and agricultural yields, and increased risk of wildfires. 

Neguse introduced the bill with two of his Democratic colleagues, Reps. Suzanne Bonamici of Oregon and Sean Casten of Illinois. 

The Colorado congressman said he’s optimistic that it’ll get a vote in the U.S. House Science, Space and Technology Committee, where Bonamici is a senior member. Neguse is also hoping to include the legislation in a package of bills that will be considered by the House Select Committee on the Climate Crisis. Neguse, a member of that committee, has made climate change one of his key focuses. He was a strong and early supporter of the Green New Deal and recently traveled to Spain for the UN Climate Change Summit as part of a delegation led by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

He said he’s optimistic that companion legislation will be introduced in the Senate, but recognizes that the bill is unlikely to see movement in that chamber. 

Neguse acknowledged “the realities of the Senate” under its current GOP leadership and the fact that many bills “continue to languish” under Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.). 

That scenario “makes the road much more difficult in the upper chamber, but we’re going to continue to push,” Neguse said. 

To become law, the legislation would also need to win Trump’s signature or win enough votes to override a White House veto — both of those scenarios are highly unlikely. 

Max Boykoff, director of the Center for Science and Technology Policy Research and an associate professor at the University of Colorado Boulder, welcomed Neguse’s legislation. 

“Irrespective of anyone’s political party affiliation, this is important legislation for those seeking improved accountability among political appointees and ongoing access to important information about climate change for decision-making,” Boykoff said in a statement. 

In order to implement bold policies to tackle climate change, Bonamici said, “those policies must be informed by the best available science. At a time when the Trump Administration regularly dismisses and denies climate science, it is our responsibility to protect the work of federal science agencies and to make sure that scientists are heard and supported rather than censored.” 

Daily Camera
by Lucy Haggard

Time is growing critically short to combat the causes and effects of climate change, in the opinion of protesters who turned out Friday to shine a brighter light on what they see as a global crisis overdue for confronting.

Dozens of people, students and community members alike, gathered at the University of Colorado Boulder’s Norlin Quad. The protest occurred simultaneously with one in Denver, both organized by the Colorado Youth Climate Coalition.

Since the international climate strikes on Sept. 20, a handful of determined strikers have gathered almost weekly on campus. They join the Fridays For Futures movement, which young climate activist Greta Thunberg established in 2018 to motivate policymakers to respond to climate change’s impacts. 

Though the Boulder protests fluctuate in size from week to week, Paul Rastrelli, one of the organizers, said the activists are prepared to continue until they see CU’s administration responding effectively to climate change.

Their requests are the same as the first strike months ago. They want CU to join thousands of other educational institutions in declaring a climate emergency; update the university’s emissions targets from an 80% reduction in greenhouse gases by 2050, to total carbon neutrality; be transparent in how CU invests its endowment — which is funded in part by student fees — and implement a sustainability plan like the one Regent Lesley Smith is currently drafting.

As of Thursday night, activists are two steps closer to achieving these goals. CU Student Government’s Legislative Council passed “A Resolution Declaring a Climate Emergency” and endorsed the strikers’ demands. The resolution also encourages CU’s regents to set up a required sustainability class for students by fall 2020, following a similar requirement on the Colorado Springs campus. 

CUSG is sending the document not just to CU administration, but also to Colorado lawmakers and other Pac-12 schools to effect change on a wider scale, too. Sara Altshuler, Legislative Council president and a sponsor of the resolution, said that this is just the first step toward a more proactive climate response. 

“Hopefully this will inspire similar resolutions elsewhere, but also substantive changes,” Altshuler said. “We need to focus on the issues that will arise thanks to climate change, like food insecurity, and provide steps to solve these sorts of problems.”

Almost simultaneously, the Boulder Faculty Assembly passed its own resolution in support of CUSG’s action and joined them in declaring a climate emergency. The BFA resolution asks CU leadership “to follow our students’ lead” to take action.

“We express our admiration for the courage, the moral and political leadership, and the wisdom that our students are demonstrating on this issue,” the BFA resolution stated.

Bearing the “burden” together

A 2017 report by the American Psychological Association highlighted the increase in mental health issues that people will likely experience as a direct result of climate change. The report determined that while climate change can cause acute and chronic conditions, including increased rates of depression, post-traumatic stress disorder and feelings of loss, addressing climate change will also address the psychological turmoil it causes.

This year will break another record in carbon dioxide emissions. To say that climate change is an overwhelming concern to the increasing number of people focused on both its causes and effects is an understatement.

Michael Jacobs, a climate activist working with Boulder-based Earth Guardians, was one of Friday’s protesters. Jacobs, who goes by “MikeyJ” in activist circles, noted that if this was the 1970s, it would be okay to make slow changes to move toward sustainability. But that’s just not reality.

“We’re running out of time,” Jacobs said. “Going halfway isn’t enough. Nothing will suffice but the most ambitious plan.”

Jacobs said that it’s so easy to burn out as an activist. Yet he and many of Friday’s protesters noted that they show up to these events precisely to counteract the emotional strain. Rastrelli, one of the organizers, said that the community created at these gatherings keeps a lot of people motivated to keep up their work.

“The young generation understands they have been failed,” Rastrelli said. “That’s such a burden for a kid to bear. Yet instead of despairing, we’re finding solace with each other.”

‘We did it wrong’

This latest wave of climate activism blends environmentalism with other social justice issues like food insecurity, income inequality and civil rights. Friday’s protest began with a land acknowledgement ceremony, noting the tribes that inhabited the campus’ land before white settlers came in during the 1800s. Jacobs emphasized the importance of listening to indigenous knowledge and putting their voices at the forefront of discussions.

“They did it right for generations,” Jacobs said. “We did it wrong super quickly.”

Protests are not the only place for people to feel solidarity and support as they come to grips with climate change. Young Women’s Voices 4 Climate, based in Boulder, is just one group that (cq: http://speak.world/programs) helps kids think about climate change and understand how to can communicate about it. 

Thirteen-year-old Uli Miller, one of the group’s members, took part in the Friday protest. Miller joined others from YWV4C in wearing a butterfly costume, to symbolize the potential for the world to grow, as it responds to the climate crisis.

“If a dove represents peace, a butterfly represents change,” Miller said. “Change is inevitable. But making it beautiful is a choice.” Read more …

CPR News
by Michael Elizabeth Sakas and Lindsay Fendt

Members of the youth-led climate activist group Sunrise Movement distributed a fake letter to attendees at the start of the Dec. 5 Sustainable Denver Summit.

The letter appeared to be on city letterhead, but was actually written by the Sunrise Movement, who are known for using unusual tactics to make their point.

NOTE: The letter was fabricated by Sunrise Movement and was not written by Mayor Hancock.

The disinformation campaign also played out on Twitter. As the event got started and Mayor Michael Hancock took the stage, Sunrise Movement tweeted out the letter.

The group meant to pressure the city to declare a climate emergency, and shame them for allowing an oil company to sponsor the sustainability conference.

Earlier in the week, Sunrise had shared a press release with the media that detailed how Hancock would declare a climate emergency at the summit and also publicly apologize for Suncor’s Silver Sponsorship status.

Sunrise’s supposed reason for the apology was for the event’s history of “greenwashing” — using marketing to make it seem more environmentally friendly than it is.

During an on-the-record conversation with CPR News, the group explained that Hancock would be passing out this letter to the audience. When pressed on the origins of the letter, the group continued with disinformation.

“This apology is really wonderful in that it is admitting a wrong and reflecting on behavior that may have flown in the past, but will no longer be permissible in the future as we move forward,” said Morgan Anker, who helps with communications for Sunrise, during the conversation.

But the city never planned such apology. At the sustainability summit, Janna West-Heiss with the city’s Office of Climate Action, Sustainability and Resiliency, confirmed the letter was not from the mayor.

“It was not our language and not how we approach things,” West-Heiss said. “We are disappointed that they felt like they had to approach the situation like this. We much prefer to have interaction and conversations to move sustainability and climate action forward as an office and as a city.”

While West-Heiss said the city “certainly understand(s)” the Sunrise Movement’s concern with Suncor’s sponsorship of the event, she said Denver also believes the company’s position as a stakeholder is still valuable.

“We certainly understand them and respect their perspective, but as the city we really feel like it’s important to bring every stakeholder to the table and we think we can be more effective and take a larger piece of the action forward through that,” West-Heiss said.

Andrea Czobor, a journalist from Denver, attended the summit and was handed a copy of Sunrise’s letter. At first, she was impressed that “this particular event somehow or somewhat renounced Suncor because of their practices.”

“I fell for it,” Czobor said. “And being a journalist and having a background in understanding this type of document and understanding communication methods and how people spread misinformation so easily, I’m kind of shocked.”

Czobor said she was disappointed to see that “people around here are actively spreading things that shouldn’t be.”

Part of the reason Czobor believed the letter was because one summit keynote speaker on the agenda, Thomas Tonatiuh Lopez Jr. with the Indigenous Youth Council, called out Suncor. 

“Because of the Suncor refinery, the ZIP code and the place where I call home is now one of the most polluted  ZIP codes in the U.S.,” Lopez said, referring to ZIP code 80216 of Denver neighborhoods Globeville and Elyria-Swansea. “Make no mistake Suncor, I am not here to be your friend. I am not here to sit at a mediation table and meet you halfway. That time has long past. I’m here to tell you that we do not want you in our communities anymore.”

After sharing a press release that explains the letter was a fake, the Sunrise Movement stood by its disinformation tactics. Michele Weindling, a coordinator with Sunrise Colorado, said the group wanted to mirror the tactics of The Yes Men. On their website it says the group fights “neoliberal policies through humor and trickery.” They once impersonated a Dow Chemical spokesman on the BBC.

In another event, members of the climate activist group Extinction Rebellion attended a House Climate Crisis Committee meeting in Boulder. There they falsely announced that Gov. Jared Polis had declared a climate emergency, and CBS Denver later reported the false declaration as true.

Weindling said part of Sunrise’s plan was to make the media believe the letter was real for “as long as possible.”

“Which is a risk, and that was something that we grappled with, because our relationships with the media are really important to us,” Weindling said. “But modeling the leadership of what past actions have looked like, it’s been really important that they look as authentic as possible.”

When asked if Sunrise felt this tactic was the right idea, for a movement that bases itself in the sanctity of facts and truth around climate change, Wiendling argued for its purpose.

“It puts our representatives in an uncomfortable position where they can’t just divert attention away from the activists. They have to address what we’ve called them out for, and then they either have to agree and declare a climate emergency or they have to publicly backtrack that they’re unwilling to do so,” Wiendling said. “That’s more important than temporary disinformation.”

Max Boykoff, an associate professor at the University of Colorado Boulder and the director of the Center for Science and Technology Policy Research, studies science and environmental communications and recently published his book “Creative Climate Communications.”

Tactics like Sunrise’s can have different impacts on different audiences, Boykoff said, and some will find Sunrise’s actions, “clever and creative, so therefore they will see it as effective.”

But not everyone will feel that way, and he said the research shows it.

“In order to find common ground on these issues, in order to bridge difficult conversations, violating trust isn’t an effective way to go over the medium and long term,” Boykoff said. “Public citizens who are then burned by something like this and feel as though their trust has been violated, not to mention the elected officials who have been impersonated or the media who have been targeted. This then has a chilling effect on how to trust the messages coming from that group in the future.”

Boykoff said he won’t tell people how to communicate when it comes to climate change, because “there really is no silver bullet communication strategy.” But an attempt to deceive a wide audience through the media “may have violated some fundamental considerations of authenticity and trust that that will do some damage going forward,” he said.

Sunrise’s actions could have a larger influence on the impacts of climate communication, he said.

“In this time of fake news and post-truth, there’s certain tactics within context that seem to make much more sense than others,” Boykoff said. “And so this one at this time seems to be pretty damaging for wider efforts that are looking to build bridges.” Read more …