The main purpose of this ongoing blog will be to track planetary extreme, or record temperatures related to climate change. Any reports I see of ETs will be listed below the main topic of the day. I’ll refer to extreme or record temperatures as ETs (not extraterrestrials).😉
Main Topic: Tim Walz’s Big Climate Ambitions
Dear Diary. I am elated that Kamala Harris chose as her vice-presidential running mate Minnesota Governor Tim Walz. I didn’t know much about him until the end of yesterday, but apparently Gen Z kids do. They were elated at the choice. I also didn’t know how much Governor Walz was doing for the climate issue until I read the following New York Times article. With the combination of Harris and Walz if elected, I’m sure that there will be a hard push to do as much as possible to fix our climate beyond what is already being fixed through the Inflation Reduction Act. I’m hoping that the new administration will declare a climate emergency in 2025 to urgently put hard brakes on a climate rapidly getting out of hand.
Here is that New York Times article:
Tim Walz’s Big Climate Ambitions – The New York Times (nytimes.com)
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Tim Walz’s Big Climate Ambitions
Minnesota’s governor, Vice President Harris’s new running mate, has put forth one of the most ambitious climate agendas in the country.
Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota during a visit to the Iowa State Fair last year. Credit…Maansi Srivastava/The New York Times
Aug. 6, 2024
Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota, a former schoolteacher who was first elected to Congress in 2006, will be Vice President Kamala Harris’s running mate, she announced this morning, ending several days of speculation.
The choice will very likely shine a light on the state of Minnesota, home to areas like “climate-proof Duluth,” which has seen a flood of new residents fleeing climate change over the last few years.
But Minnesota is also home of the one of the most remarkable transitions to clean energy in the country. As Coral Davenport put it, over his two terms as governor, Walz “has quietly emerged as one of the nation’s most forceful advocates for tackling climate change.”
As you think about vice-presidential choices, let me remind you why they can matter.
First, of course, there’s the chance a vice president could become president one day, as 15 vice presidents have.
When it comes to the presidential campaign, though, what matters is not just whether a vice-presidential pick can deliver voters in their own state or in their own constituencies. It’s what a running mate tells voters about what a presidential candidate values. As Kyle Kopko, a co-author of the book “Do Running Mates Matter?” told National Public Radio, many voters pay close attention to a V.P.’s experience and tend to value the ability to serve as president if needed.
So today I want to tell you a little bit about Minnesota’s transition away from coal and explain what that tells us about Walz’s experience and whether he can be an asset for Democrats.
For years, coal was the top source of electricity produced in Minnesota, but it has declined over the last two decades, Nadja Popovich reported in an interactive guide to how states generate electricity. Now, emissions-free energy sources — including wind, solar and nuclear power — provide more than 50 percent of the power produced in Minnesota.
Walz is trying to accelerate that transition even more. As Davenport reported, his efforts put Minnesota on track to transition to clean energy even faster than California, which for decades has been at the vanguard of efforts to tackle climate change.
In 2023, Walz signed a law requiring Minnesota to generate or procure all of its electricity from wind, solar and other carbon-free sources by 2040, eliminating the climate-warming pollution from coal and gas-fired power plants. Working with Democrats in the State Legislature, Walz managed to push through nearly 40 other climate initiatives.
This year he signed into law a bill to speed up permits for renewable energy projects, something his colleagues in Washington are still struggling to do.
Interestingly, Davenport reported, Walz became a newly vocal champion of climate policies after his state was hit by extreme weather. “Over the past five years, extreme drought forced Minnesota cattle farmers to liquidate some of their herds far earlier than planned,” Davenport wrote. “Wildfire smoke from Canada choked the skies over the Twin Cities. A dearth of snow and ice — an increasing problem in the Great Lakes Region — meant a lack of ice-fishing and cross-country skiing that triggered economic losses.”
Does climate matter to voters?
Whether Walz’s efforts to fight climate change will matter to voters depends on how Democrats sell it, experts in public opinion told me. Walz has been praised for his plain-spoken, often upbeat communication style that could break through with moderate swing state voters.
Energy, environment and climate policies haven’t historically been particularly important to the majority of voters, unless they get framed alongside concerns about the economy or foreign conflict, said David Konisky, a professor at Indiana University who studies environmental policy and U.S. politics. Many voters don’t really have strong opinions about the benefits of various energy sources, he said.
In recent years, several studies have found that voters favor policies that support clean and affordable energy sources, Konisky told me. Last year, for example, a Pew Research Center survey found that 67 percent of Americans prioritize the development of clean energy sources over increasing the production of fossil fuels.
Still, voters’ views on what constitutes affordable renewable energy can vary widely. “They just have assumptions and misperceptions about which ones are more affordable and which ones are more or less concerning for local environmental and health,” he said.
Walz’s communication style seems to emphasize the need for politicians to explain both the benefits and the specifics of climate policy to voters. “The surest way to get people to buy in is to create a job that pays well in their community,” he told Time’s Justin Worland last year. “All of us are going to have to be better about our smart politics, about bringing people in.”
Here are more “ETs” recorded from around the planet the last couple of days, their consequences, and some extreme temperature outlooks, as well as any extreme precipitation reports:
Here is more new July 2024 climatology (More can be found on each prior daily post during August):
Here is More Climate News from Wednesday:
(As usual, this will be a fluid post in which more information gets added during the day as it crosses my radar, crediting all who have put it on-line. Items will be archived on this site for posterity. In most instances click on the pictures of each tweet to see each article. The most noteworthy items will be listed first.)
He is a patriot for the preservation of humanity.
Indeed, Tim Walz is just that, Joseph.