Wash Post: For the first time, the United States is designating a special diplomat to advocate for global biodiversity amid what policymakers here and overseas increasingly recognize as an extinction crisis. Monica Medina is taking on a new role as special envoy for biodiversity and water resources, the State Department announced Wednesday. … The appointment underscores the Biden administration’s desire to protect land and waters not just at home but to also conserve habitats abroad. ‘Not just about nature for nature’s sake’ … Medina noted that the Inflation Reduction Act passed this year set aside billions of dollars for conservation funding. … “It’s a crisis that we face that’s interwoven with the climate crisis, but also independent and important on its own,” she said. “If we can solve the biodiversity crisis, we’re a long way along the way to solving the climate crisis.”
The grift is on! The State Department’s new ‘diplomat for plants & animals’ just happens to be the wife of Biden’s White House chief of Staff Ron Klain. Imagine the coincidence!
By: Marc Morano – Climate Depot
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/09/29/first-us-appoints-diplomat-plants-animals/
In a first, U.S. appoints a diplomat for plants and animals
Analysis by Dino Grandoni with research by Vanessa Montalbano
September 29, 2022 at 7:38 a.m. EDT
Good morning and welcome to The Climate 202! Dino Grandoni, a national environment reporter for The Washington Post, wrote the top of today’s newsletter.
In a first, U.S. appoints a diplomat for plants and animals
As temperatures rise and habitats shrink, hundreds of thousands of plant and animal species around the world are at risk of vanishing.
For the first time, the United States is designating a special diplomat to advocate for global biodiversity amid what policymakers here and overseas increasingly recognize as an extinction crisis.
Monica Medina is taking on a new role as special envoy for biodiversity and water resources, the State Department announced Wednesday. She currently serves as the department’s assistant secretary for oceans and international environmental and scientific affairs.
The appointment underscores the Biden administration’s desire to protect land and waters not just at home but to also conserve habitats abroad.
‘Not just about nature for nature’s sake’
The loss of biodiversity isn’t just a tragedy for wildlife. It’s one of the biggest threats facing humanity.
According to a major U.N. report in 2019, a million species face possible extinction, with dire implications for humans who depend on ecosystems for food, fresh water and other resources. Overfishing, pollution, pesticides, disease, urban sprawl and, of course, climate change contribute to declines in imperiled species’ populations worldwide.
“There’s a direct connection between biodiversity loss and instability in a lot of parts of the world,” Medina said in a recent phone interview. “It’s not just about nature for nature’s sake. I think it is about people.”
Her appointment comes weeks ahead of a major biodiversity conference in mid-December in Montreal. The meeting originally was scheduled to take place in the Chinese city of Kunming in 2020 but was delayed by the coronavirus pandemic.
The aim of the U.N. Convention on Biological Diversity — also known as COP-15 — is for nations to reverse the loss of species by adopting an international framework for conserving biodiversity. The effort is akin to the climate talks in 2015 that yielded the Paris agreement.
What the United States wants out of the conference: For nations to commit to conserving 30 percent of their land and water area. “We are looking for ways to reach that goal, because that’s what scientists tell us we need in order to have a healthy planet,” Medina said.One big hurdle: Defining what, exactly, counts as land and water conserved? “That is part of the discussion, is what counts,” she said.Is the United States doing its part? President Biden set a goal of conserving nearly a third of the nation’s land and waters by 2030.
Biden has taken a few steps toward that target, restoring protections for two desert expanses in Utah and reinstating fishing restrictions in a marine monument off New England. Both moves reversed decisions made by President Donald Trump.
But the Biden administration has yet to identify many other specific places for new protections. Medina noted that the Inflation Reduction Act passed this year set aside billions of dollars for conservation funding.
The link between biodiversity and climate change
Rising seas flood forests and kill trees. Increasing temperatures allow for the greater spread of disease, such as an avian form of malaria that is wiping out birds in Hawaii. Warming waters leach out oxygen, suffocating marine life.
But protecting ecosystems such as forests and peatlands, Medina noted, will help keep climate-warming carbon out of the atmosphere in the first place.
“It’s a crisis that we face that’s interwoven with the climate crisis, but also independent and important on its own,” she said. “If we can solve the biodiversity crisis, we’re a long way along the way to solving the climate crisis.”
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The grift is on! The State Department’s new ‘diplomat for plants & animals’ just happens to be the wife of Biden’s White House chief of Staff Ron Klain. Imagine the coincidence!
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Reality Check on Species extinction claims:
Greenpeace co-founder Dr. Patrick Moore on UN species scare: “You cannot call yourself a scientist if you pretend that there are 6.2 million species that have no names and have never been identified. That is not science. That is fiction. Fairy tale stories. And that’s what we’re being told here.”
Climate Depot’s Marc Morano described the report as a politically driven document, “the latest U.N. appeal to give it more power, more scientific authority, more money and more regulatory control.” “At best, the U.N. science panels represent nothing more than ‘authoritative bureaucracy,’ claiming they hype the problem and then come up with the solution that puts them in charge of ‘solving’ the issue in perpetuity,” Mr. Morano said in his prepared remarks. “A more accurate term for the U.N. than ‘authoritative science’ may be ‘authoritative propaganda.’”
Mr. Huffman fired back, referring to Mr. Morano as a troll. “I don’t know what inspires someone to make a career out of trolling scientists or monetizing contrarian ideology on the YouTube and Ted Talk circuit, but it’s just a very different kind of conversation than the science-based conversation I think many of us would try to have,” Mr. Huffman said.
No House committee hearing this year would be complete without a climate change row. Republicans took aim at the Green New Deal, the Paris climate agreement and the 97% scientific “consensus,” while Democrats’ witnesses stressed the impact of global warming on species.
Watch Morano’s opening statement here:
Media Matters outraged: Skeptics “[Marc] Morano and [Dr. Patrick] Moore also got more time at the hearing than the four scientists invited by the Democrats, according to Public Citizen.”
“Morano and Moore made a mockery of the House hearing, and that’s exactly what Republicans wanted.”
Warmists demand to know: “How did these two dominate a hearing run by Democrats?”
“Fox News has helped to put Morano and Moore in the public eye by giving them a platform to sow doubt about climate change and other serious environmental issues, and now the two men’s latest Fox-worthy rants are part of the congressional record.”
“So far in 2019, Morano has appeared on Fox News shows at least 10 times…Morano has also appeared three times this year on President Donald Trump’s favorite show, Fox & Friends.”
Watch: Morano testifies to Congress on how government can’t legislate climate
