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Marty Baron on truth, democracy, and the press in an age of distrust

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Is the American press broken?
I’ve been asking some variation of this question for the last four years and my answer, <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2020/5/16/21258788/obamagate-trump-flynn-bannon-flood-the-zone">more often than not</a>, is yes. The Trump era exposed some core pathologies in American journalism, and it’s not just the commercial incentives driving coverage (that’s been a problem for a long time). It’s also the reality of the internet and social media and all the ways they have transformed how we consume — and therefore practice — politics.
So I decided to talk to Marty Baron, who recently retired from the Washington Post after serving as executive editor since 2013. Baron came to the Post after a long and storied career in the business. Most famously, he oversaw the Boston Globe’s reporting on the sexual abuse scandal within the Catholic Church (which was later turned into the Oscar-winning film Spotlight). And he was at the helm of the Post as it transitioned into the digital era.
Now that he’s stepped away and had some time to reflect, not just on what he did at the Post but also on our profession more generally, I wanted to discuss what has gone wrong, and why I think the problems we’re facing might be deeper than he wants to believe.
You can hear our entire conversation (as always, there’s much more) in this week’s episode of <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/vox-conversations/id1081584611">Vox Conversations</a>. A transcript, edited for length and clarity, follows.
Editor’s note, August 9, 6 pm: This interview was recorded prior to a discrimination lawsuit brought in July by Washington Post reporter Felicia Sonmez against the paper and past and current leaders, including Baron.
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Sean Illing
In the world of journalism and academia, there are more or less two camps over the last four years. There are those who think American democracy is flawed but stable, and ultimately resilient. Then there are those who say, “This is a fire alarm.” Where are you on that spectrum at the moment, Marty?
Marty Baron
I guess I am somewhere in between. I think there are enormous concerns right now about the future of our democracy. I think it’s shown itself to be more fragile and more vulnerable than we have ever imagined. On the other hand, I’d like to keep in mind that our democracy has been tested in ways that were more grave than what we’ve seen over the last four or five years. We had a civil war in this country. I maintain confidence that we’ll get through this, but I think that we’re encountering some severe threats to democracy today. Particularly the challenge to truth, the questioning of objective reality.
Sean Illing
Trump is sort of the elephant in the room there, so let’s just start right there. You said recently that you were proud of how you covered the Trump administration. I’m curious, what are you especially proud of?
Marty Baron
Well, look, I think part of the job of a news organization like the Post is to hold government to account. Particularly if they’re not telling the truth. There were a lot of falsehoods, a lot of lies. A lot of misinformation and disinformation over the course of the previous administration. I think some of that is true of any administration, but it was taken to a degree that we had never seen before in this country. I am proud of how we kept faith with the truth, notwithstanding the attacks that we came under.
Sean Illing
You also said that “We’re not at war” — we being the media, or the Washington Post — “We’re not at war with the administration, we’re at work.” I’m curious about what you meant there as well. Obviously there are a lot of Trump voters who disagree with that.
Marty Baron
Well, it’s not just Trump voters that seem to disagree with that. But I don’t think that I am deluding myself. The Trump administration wanted us to be seen as the opposition party. I think we have to be careful not to become the opposition party. Our job is to report the facts, put them in proper context, tell people what’s going on in an unflinching and honest and honorable way. That is not engaging in war, that is just doing our work. We do that work regardless of the administration.
Sean Illing
A lot of us in this business did not want to accept that adversarial role, but I’m not sure we had a choice. We were thrust into that by virtue of doing the job, which is to say the truth as best we see it. We were going to be an oppositional force to someone like Trump, who was invested in lies. Is that the wrong way to see it?
Marty Baron
People have talked about the adversarial relationship between the press and government and politicians for a long time. I would say that we found ourselves in an adversarial relationship perhaps more frequently with the Trump administration.
Sean Illing
You were just saying a minute ago that journalists kind of held the line and stood firm against this assault on objective fact, on reality, really. I know what you mean, but I’m curious if you think the work that you did, the work that any of us did, really mattered in the way we wanted it to matter.
Marty Baron
I do think it mattered, first of all. Because the best work was well done and was truthful, and kept faith with the facts, with objective reality. Whether people were willing to accept that or not is another matter. There’s a lot of distrust in the press and mainstream media. I think it’s a huge challenge for society as a whole, the fact that people are unwilling to accept basic facts. But I think our work mattered. I also think that we need to keep the long term in mind.
I look back at Watergate, and the press was accused of a lot of the same things that it’s been accused of over the last four or five years. But it turned out that the work of the press was validated. That took some time. I think we can’t be impatient. The work that we’ve done will be validated. By the way, a lot of it already has been.
Sean Illing
I’ll just put my cards on the table here and let you reflect however you want, because you’re probably in a better position than I am to reflect on these things. I have felt personally like the work I tried to do didn’t really matter all that much. And the work that a lot of us tried to do really didn’t matter all that much. Because for me, a journalistic project committed to the defense of truth is only successful, or maybe meaningful is the right word there, if it creates a world in which lying is costly. In which the tendency of powerful people to lie is at least checked. If that’s the measure, I feel like I failed and a lot of us failed.
Marty Baron
If that’s how we feel, then we should just all give it up, and I don’t believe in giving up. We live in a period, we live in a time, where people expect things with results. I think that creates unreasonable expectations on our part. I’m willing to be more patient. Can it be frustrating? Sure, but I don’t think we should be defeatist and I don’t think you should be defeatist.
Sean Illing
I was thinking about Glenn Kessler, the fact-checker for the Washington Post, who famously documented the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/07/13/president-trump-has-made-more-than-20000-false-or-misleading-claims/">20,000 lies that Trump had told</a> over the course of his presidency and campaign. Obviously all that fact-checking wasn’t a deterrent. Were we not just sort of banging our heads against the wall here?
Marty Baron
Well, I would say it takes time. I mean, go back and look at the McCarthy hearings. Joe McCarthy was able to get away with a lot for a long period of time, but it didn’t last forever.
Sean Illing
Something I’m kind of inching my way towards here is that we’re reached the end of what some people would call the “gatekeeping age,” and I’m not sure we really understand the implications of this.
Before the internet, before social media, most people got their news from a handful of papers or TV networks, Walter Cronkite or whatever. These institutions function like referees. They call out the lies. They had the ability to control or manage the flow of information; in that way, impose borders on the public conversation, on the discourse.
Today, gatekeepers still matter. But there’s so much more competition for clicks and audiences. That has altered the incentive for what’s newsworthy in the first place. The consequence of that is we’re in this kind of epistemological wilderness.
Marty Baron
Not just media outlets, but any individual can essentially become a media outlet, and many do. They spread all sorts of falsehoods and conspiracy theories. At the same time, there are individuals who have been given a greater voice who are very useful sources of quality information. Those are voices that may not have been heard in the past. There are communities that are being heard in a way that they haven’t been in the past.
Sean Illing
Do you feel like the benefits of this addition of new voices, which are obvious enough, outweigh the costs?
Marty Baron
I’m not sure I’ve settled that in my own mind. At the end of the day, there’s nothing I can do about it. What I think is not going to change that. The question is, how do reliable sources of information persuade people that they’re presenting objective reality and facts.
Sean Illing
Do you think we’re living in a post-truth era?
Marty Baron
I haven’t thought that much about the term. I’m not a particular fan of it because I don’t think there is such a thing as post-truth. To say we live in a post-truth world suggests that there is no such thing as truth and that everything is malleable, that it’s all just a matter of opinion, or it’s a matter of who holds power, or who has the biggest megaphone or what have you.
Sean Illing
I think I’ve come to hate that term for different reasons. For me at least, we can’t be post-truth because we never really lived in truth in the way people suppose we did. What we had, in my opinion, was a liberal order, in which media gatekeepers like the Post dictated what passed as truth, or at least imposed limits on the number of claims to truth. That order has unraveled. Even if it still existed, we have this other, related problem, which is the collapse of public trust in elite institutions.
That collapse of faith and authority is incredibly important and not terribly understood. Truth ultimately is a function of authority. We all believe all sorts of things to be true, not because we’ve tested it in a lab or did the work, but because authorities we trust said it was true. If there are no recognized authorities, we’ve kind of lost truth.
Marty Baron
I understand your point, but I do think there’s such a thing as truth. The media has not always been successful, but it’s been successful quite a bit. If you go back and you look at, let’s say, the coverage of the Vietnam War, ultimately the press was showing what a disaster it really was. Even though it was being denied, it turned out that was the truth.
Sean Illing
Just to clarify, I don’t contest that there is a truth. I’m not a relativist. I would just question a lot of people’s romantic understanding of the role of truth in governing public life in the before times.
Marty Baron
Sure. There are misses in history. There are misses in our current affairs. Certainly as news organizations, we have many failings of our own and we can all point to them.
Sean Illing
Do you think our liberal democracy can continue to function in an information climate like the one we have, which presumably is not going away anytime soon?
Marty Baron
I think it’s going to be really difficult. It is already really difficult because in order to have democracy, I think we do have to agree on a common set of facts, basic facts. We can’t seem to do that. I mean, we can argue over the policies. We should argue. We should argue over what the problems are. We should argue over how to solve those problems. But fundamentally, we have to agree on some basic facts. We seem incapable of doing that today.
Sean Illing
I saw <a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/321116/americans-remain-distrustful-mass-media.aspx">a Gallup poll</a> that’s maybe a year or two old. Maybe there’s newer data, but the poll showed that less than half the country trusts what they read in the press. Why do you think people are trusting major media outlets less and less?
Marty Baron
I don’t think the press stands alone in that regard. I think the greater threat to society is just a lack of trust in institutions. How do we get that back?
With regard to the press specifically, a lot of it has to do with the rise of the internet. People can now turn to something that reinforces their preexisting view. They live in their own echo chamber and they want that. The internet allows that. It facilitates that. It even rewards that commercially.
Sean Illing
Do you think it’s even possible to cover bullshit without amplifying or normalizing it?
Marty Baron
I’m not sure there’s a lot of great research on that subject, frankly, or at least I’m not familiar with it. I don’t know, are we just supposed to ignore it? Does that create its own problems? I mean, it’s really hard. I don’t know that we have good answers for how to deal with that. I don’t.
Sean Illing
What was that evaluation process like for you when you were at the Post? You have tons of really smart, talented reporters doing this work. Everyone there in the room was smart enough to understand what was happening. What was the process like, sifting through that and trying to make those decisions about what to report?
Marty Baron
These decisions are not made by any one person. The Post does hundreds of stories every single day. At the beginning I think we paid more attention to what Trump was saying on his Twitter account than we did toward the end. But his Twitter account also was a real window into the way that the president was thinking. It’s difficult to decide which ones deserve your attention and which ones don’t, because those tweets were often a prelude to actual policies.
Sean Illing
There is some research <a href="https://www.issuelab.org/resources/21757/21757.pdf">showing that fact-checking</a> does tend to increase the accuracy of beliefs. But the point of zone flooding is to ensure that there is an overabundance of news so that the importance of any individual story is diminished. If you’re a bullshit artist like Trump, you don’t have to disprove anything. You just have to keep the press locked in this eternal game of whack-a-mole. Trump is gone, but it’s easy to imagine this blueprint being copied, right?
Marty Baron
Yeah. On the bigger issue you were talking about, whether the press can expose lies, let me just use one example. Take a look at the Me Too stories that were pursued by the press. In many instances, it had an impact. The whole world is not Donald Trump. The coverage of Donald Trump is not the entire coverage of the press. I look back on my own career and the work we did at the Boston Globe in exposing the coverup of sexual abuse among clergy in the Catholic Church. It continues to have an impact, and not just an impact on the church, but an impact on how many institutions are dealing with allegations of sexual abuse. I think it’s just way too easy to be too dismissive of the capacity of the press to highlight the truth.
Sean Illing
There is a paradox here though, right? I think a lot of people assume that more information is always a good thing. It’s true, there’s a lot of bullshit percolating out there right now. But also, the access to facts has never been easier. But more information hasn’t produced a more informed citizenry. Or a more enlightened form of civic engagement. It’s led to more noise and more partisanship, and more reactionary posturing.
Marty Baron
It is a paradox. I can’t make sense of it other than people are simply unwilling to accept facts because they don’t conform to their preexisting views. Then they are going to be upset at something that challenges their preexisting views. That’s just human nature. It’s just that the impact of that, the ramifications of that today with the internet, are far greater than they ever have been.
Sean Illing
On that front, do you think the internet has changed us, changed human nature, changed the way people think about the world and how they process the world? Or do you think it just made us more of what we always were?
Marty Baron
I honestly don’t know. Probably a bit of both. I think the internet has revealed some aspects of us that we had not focused on or had not realized before. At the same time, it’s created patterns of behavior that were certainly facilitated and fomented patterns of behavior that wouldn’t have existed prior to the internet.
Sean Illing
I suspect that the internet has changed the way human beings live and think and operate in the world. We’re in this new era that really doesn’t even have a name yet, but it is changing us and the world around us so quickly that none of us can really get around it.
I think the press has been in an impossible position trying to keep pace with this technological change. I really do not think anyone has an answer. The Post, the New York Times, many other places have done and continue to do remarkable work. It just feels like no matter how remarkable or important it is, 48 hours later, it’s forgotten. It’s just dead and we’re on to the next scandal, or the next thing, or the next news cycle. That feels not just disorienting, but politically cataclysmic.
Marty Baron
I think the speed at which news needs to be delivered today, in a way, it’s too fast. I mean, people want information instantaneously, and so we provide them information instantaneously, but it’s information without context. The context is going to have to come along later if it ever comes along at all, so that’s one problem.
Sean Illing
My sense has been for a very long time that we just need a paradigm shift in how the press covers politics in a digital age. I think we need a new definition of news. Do you feel that way? Do you think we need to redefine news?
Marty Baron
No, I actually don’t. I’m sorry.
Sean Illing
Come on, Marty. Really?
Marty Baron
We need a paradigm shift to redefine what constitutes news? What do you mean by that exactly?
Sean Illing
I mean a shift in what we deem worth covering and what we deem not worth covering. I mean maybe the press needs a better self-defense system against people <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2020/1/16/20991816/impeachment-trial-trump-bannon-misinformation">flooding the zone with shit</a>.
Marty Baron
Look, we’ve learned along the way. We’ve come to realize our flaws over a period of time. Sometimes it takes too long. The journalism of today is not the journalism that existed 50 years ago. It’s very different. It has evolved. It will evolve even further. Whether we will all be in agreement whether its evolution is beneficial or not is another question. Yeah, we will shift in terms of what we believe is newsworthy. We will shift in terms of how we write about things. That has always been part of the case.
The internet has also changed things because we now have all sorts of tools at our disposal that we never had before. We’ll see changes. I don’t know if we’ll agree on whether those changes are a good thing or a bad thing. We probably won’t agree, but it’s going to change.
 
 
source <a href="https://www.vox.com/vox-conversations-podcast/2021/8/9/22605855/vox-conversations-martin-baron-washington-post-media-democracy">https://www.vox.com/vox-conversations-podcast/2021/8/9/22605855/vox-conversations-martin-baron-washington-post-media-democracy</a>

vox Marty Baron on truth, democracy, and the press in an age of distrust

Is the American press broken? I’ve been asking some variation of this question for the last four years and my answer, more often than not ...

Trump is having little sway over Senate Republicans’ infrastructure votes

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Former President Donald Trump released <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/trump-warns-will-very-hard-endorse-republicans-who-vote-infrastructure-bill-1617218">a statement</a> on Saturday threatening to withhold his endorsement from any Republican who supports the $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill. Hours later, 18 Republican senators voted to advance the infrastructure package anyway.
It was just a procedural vote (the Senate hasn’t voted yet on passage of the bill, as of Monday afternoon). But the chain of events illustrates that at least when it comes to infrastructure, the former president’s threats don’t seem to carry the weight they once did.
This was on stark display on Fox News on Sunday morning as one of the Republican senators who voted to advance the infrastructure bill, Kevin Cramer of North Dakota, went on Maria Bartiromo’s show and was castigated for not toeing the line.
“Are you betraying the Republican base?” Bartiromo asked Cramer to open the interview. He responded by arguing that the bill addresses important national priorities.
“It’s not just infrastructure — it’s roads and bridges specifically. In addition to that, there’s ports, waterways, railroads, airports, broadband, all of which are critical to the movement of goods and services around the country and around the world,” Cramer said. “We couldn’t get North Dakota soybeans to South Korea if we didn’t have ports in the Pacific Northwest. and we certainly couldn’t get pasta in New York without trucks getting the wheat from the field to the bins and then off to the mills and the factories.”
Bartiromo later pressed Cramer to specifically address Trump’s threat. Trump said on Saturday that “Joe Biden’s infrastructure bill will be used against the Republican Party in the upcoming elections in 2022 and 2024. It will be very hard for me to endorse anyone foolish enough to vote in favor of this deal.”
But Cramer, who is up for reelection in 2024, didn’t back down.
“He didn’t give one reason why it’s a bad deal, other than it’s Joe Biden’s [bill] ... I think he’s wrong on this issue,” he said.
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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-conversation="none">
Republican Sen. Kevin Cramer on Trump's statement opposing the bipartisan infrastructure bill: "He didn't give one reason why it's a bad deal, other than it's Joe Biden's [bill] ... I think he's wrong on this issue." <a href="https://t.co/DTHBNn7dbL">pic.twitter.com/DTHBNn7dbL</a>
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) <a href="https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1424374247443550211?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 8, 2021</a></blockquote>
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It should be noted that Cramer is known as a fierce Trumpist, not a Mitt Romney-type moderate who occasionally breaks with the former president. He campaigned in 2018 as the <a href="https://apnews.com/article/6d24f1b5931b4f03a6e78a5e3a3d78b7">most MAGA-friendly candidate</a> in the North Dakota race, and after getting elected ended up being among the <a href="https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/congress-trump-score/">top 10 Republican senators</a> in terms of reliably voting in step with Trump.
In February, Cramer voted against Trump’s conviction for inciting the January 6 insurrection following his second impeachment trial, then mocked Democrats for impeaching the former president in the first place, saying, “Why are Democrats so concerned about having [Trump] on the ballot 4 years from now?”
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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-ND) talks to reporters and mockingly says, "why are Democrats so concerned about having [Trump] on the ballot 4 years from now?"
(Maybe it's because he tried to overthrow democracy?) <a href="https://t.co/BXD9HIgiY9">pic.twitter.com/BXD9HIgiY9</a>
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) <a href="https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1359575739650240516?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 10, 2021</a></blockquote>
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But Cramer’s thinking on Trump now seems to have evolved: Satiating the leader of his party is no longer the only political consideration worth weighing. And he’s far from alone.
Other Trumpy Republicans who voted to close debate on the infrastructure bill — a necessary step toward its expected passage this week — include Lindsey Graham (SC), Chuck Grassley (IA), and John Hoeven (ND). Meanwhile, 29 Republicans voted against allowing the bill to proceed.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who has become a frequent target of Trump’s ire after McConnell came out against his efforts to overturn his election loss to Biden, voted in favor of the infrastructure bill proceeding. Last week McConnell characterized the legislation, which includes $550 billion in new spending over five years, as “an excellent chance” for “a bipartisan success story for the country.”
But Trump, unsurprisingly, is not interested in “bipartisan success stories.” The irony is that when Trump was president, he could have theoretically been the one to have such a success story: During his administration, empty promises of infrastructure legislation were bandied about so often that “infrastructure week” became <a href="https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1418005380207202304">a punchline</a>. But now that he’s out of office, Trump is urging Republicans to hold off even longer.
“Whether it’s the House or Senate, think twice before you approve this terrible deal. Republicans should wait until after the Midterms when they will gain all the strength they’ll need to make a good deal,” Trump said in his Saturday statement, without specifying what “a good deal” would be to him.
While infrastructure is proving to be an area where Senate Republicans are willing to break with Trump, it’s too early to say whether this is the start of a trend.
For one, some of the 18 Republican senators who voted to close debate on the infrastructure bill may still end up ultimately voting against it. But ultimately the votes are expected to be there for the bill’s passage, meaning that in this case Republican senators seem to have calculated that doing something for their constituents and demonstrating that the Senate isn’t totally broken is worth the tradeoff of handing Biden a major bipartisan win.
That doesn’t mean that it’ll be smooth sailing for Biden’s legislative agenda heading forward, however. McConnell, after all, <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/mcconnell-says-100-of-his-focus-is-on-blocking-biden-agenda-11620257305">said</a> in May that “one hundred percent of my focus is standing up to this administration,” and with Republicans entrenched against any sort of voting rights legislation, it’s unclear what major policy areas if any could be ripe for bipartisan agreement after infrastructure.
It’s also easier for Senate Republicans to inch away from Trump than it is for GOP House members. While characterizing the infrastructure bill as “one of the most significant steps to date by elected Republicans to defy Mr. Trump,” the New York Times’ Luke Broadwater and Emily Cochrane <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/07/us/politics/republicans-infrastructure-bill.html">note</a> that Republicans like Cramer who aren’t up for reelection in 2022 aren’t quite feeling the heat. But for House members, a sour statement from the former president could spell serious trouble for their political futures.
<blockquote>
The vast majority of Republicans are opposed to the legislation. House Republicans are as tightly bound to Mr. Trump as ever, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/31/us/politics/jan-6-capitol-riot-pelosi.html">with many continuing to support his election lies and conspiracy theories</a> about the Jan. 6 attack at the Capitol. And with the approach of the 2022 elections, members of his party will have less and less room to maneuver away from a figure whom their base still reveres.
</blockquote>
But whether it’s an aberration or the beginning of an era in which Republicans are less scared about incurring Trump’s wrath, the fact remains that for the first time in many years, a significant number of GOP elected officials are voting in favor of a major piece of legislation that will provide their constituents with something beyond <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/12/18/18146253/tax-cuts-and-jobs-act-stock-market-economy">tax cuts aimed disproportionately toward the wealthy</a>. That’s something to celebrate.
 
 
source <a href="https://www.vox.com/2021/8/9/22616827/trump-threats-bipartisan-infrastructure-bill-vote">https://www.vox.com/2021/8/9/22616827/trump-threats-bipartisan-infrastructure-bill-vote</a>

vox Trump is having little sway over Senate Republicans’ infrastructure votes

Former President Donald Trump released a statement on Saturday threatening to withhold his endorsement from any Republican who supports th...

Time is running out to save Afghans who helped US troops

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As the US withdraws from Afghanistan, time is running out to save thousands of Afghans who helped American forces during the two-decade war and now face retribution from the rapidly advancing Taliban.
The Biden administration hatched an eleventh-hour plan, known as Operation Allies Refuge, to evacuate thousands of Afghan interpreters as well as other employees of the US government or allied forces, and their families. An initial group of about 2,500 <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/30/us/politics/afghan-interpreters-evacuated.html">started arriving</a> at Fort Lee in northern Virginia on July 30.
They’re coming to the US on a Special Immigrant Visa (SIV), <a href="https://www.state.gov/secretary-antony-j-blinken-remarks-to-the-press-on-the-announcement-of-a-u-s-refugee-admissions-program-priority-2-designation-for-afghan-nationals/">more than 73,000</a> of which have already been issued to Afghans in the last 13 years. The House recently voted on an overwhelmingly bipartisan basis to <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2021/07/22/house-votes-to-expand-speed-up-visa-process-for-afghans-who-helped-the-us-during-war.html">make 8,000 more</a> of those visas available, and to make it easier to apply for the program.
The Biden administration is also pursuing agreements with other countries to allow eligible Afghans to relocate to safety while the US finishes processing their applications. And the administration has opened up a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/02/us/politics/afghan-visas-refugees.html">new pathway</a> for Afghans (and their families) who have worked for a US government-funded program, US-based media, or non-governmental organizations, but who don’t meet the narrow requirements for the SIV program, to come to the US as refugees.
“Those who helped us are not going to be left behind,” Biden <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/24/us/politics/afghan-interpreters-visas.html">told reporters</a> at the White House last month.
But in practice, those efforts may not be enough to protect all of the Afghans who helped the US government. There are more than <a href="https://www.rescue.org/article/what-happening-afghanistan">18,000 applicants</a> for the SIV program waiting for processing, and thousands more who may have worked with the US government but aren’t eligible for the program. If they live in the outer provinces of Afghanistan, they might not be able to reach Kabul, where the US is carrying out evacuations for SIVs, let alone another country where they can apply for refugee status.
For advocates who have been sounding the alarm for months, it seems like a crisis that could have been avoided.
“It’s very frustrating to put a lot of work in and provide policy recommendations saying, ‘Hey, there’s a problem coming,’ and then it arrives and people scramble to try to fix it after the fact,” said James Miervaldis, the chair of No One Left Behind, a group that advocates for US allies in Afghanistan. “This is just a complete process failure from top to bottom.”
Advocates are baffled as to why the Biden administration was so slow to act on evacuations, leading to a last-minute scramble that has already resulted in <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/8/2/taliban-accused-of-massacring-civilians-in-afghan-border-town">dozens of Taliban revenge killings</a> and <a href="https://unama.unmissions.org/sites/default/files/unama_poc_midyear_report_2021_26_july.pdf">record levels of civilian casualties</a> in the first half of 2021.
Chris Purdy, project manager of the Veterans for American Ideals program at the advocacy group Human Rights First, told me that the Biden administration seemed to assume that the Afghan government was going to be able to hold the Taliban at bay for a few years, or at least long enough for the US to process the 18,000 individuals in the SIV pipeline and tens of thousands of their family members.
But Purdy and other advocates thought that was a charitable reading of the situation on the ground, so his organization approached the administration in April with a plan to get Afghan allies out.
Human Rights First estimated that it would cost about $700 million to $800 million to evacuate Afghan allies, or about $10,000 per person — well under the budget recently allocated by Congress — and the evacuation would take about a year to complete.
They suggested sending Afghans to Guam, a US territory that hosts several military bases and has <a href="https://apnews.com/article/joe-biden-guam-government-and-politics-fc45df629a6e3b7b0c3d24cc8a4f4fca">been used for past evacuations</a>, where they would undergo initial processing for a few days before being sent to military bases throughout the mainland US for further processing. Those who needed extra security vetting could stay in Guam while awaiting processing, and people who were further along in their processing could get their Covid-19 shot in Guam before being transferred to other bases. Should they be found ineligible for SIV status, they could also apply for asylum, which is available to migrants who reach US soil.
The Biden administration rejected their plan.
“We were quietly told, ‘Thanks, but no, thanks. We’ve got this covered,’” Purdy said. “And I don’t think it was until the Taliban made significant gains in May that it dawned on them that maybe their assessment of the [Afghan] government was incorrect.”
But experts and advocates say the Biden administration should have been able to foresee that pulling out of Afghanistan would create a power vacuum that would change the battlefield. Something similar happened when the Obama administration <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/united-states-iraq-agree-eventual-withdrawal-u-s-combat-troops-n1263364">withdrew US troops from Iraq in 2011</a>, only for ISIS militants to seize control of large swaths of the country thereafter. Obama sent troops back in 2014 as a result.
The US also has extensive experience carrying out similar evacuations of allies in the past, including the 1975 <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/1975-cbs-news-footage-shows-the-dramatic-evacuation-of-saigon/">evacuation of Vietnam</a>, the 1996 <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1996/12/05/world/us-helping-more-to-leave-kurd-enclave-in-north-iraq.html">evacuation of Kurds</a> from northern Iraq, and the 1999 <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/inatl/daily/april99/relief6.htm">evacuation of ethnic Albanians from Kosovo</a>. Those evacuations were carried out in a matter of weeks or months, and Congress had not appropriated nearly as much money to get them done.
“This was all very predictable,” Purdy said. The Biden administration “should have been better prepared. And that’s something that they’re going to have to own.”
The SIV program has been plagued by eligibility issues and delays that predate Biden’s announcement of the US’s withdrawal from Afghanistan, but which have made it all the more difficult to get people to safety in recent months.
Applicants have to submit a significant amount of documentation, including a recommendation letter from their senior US-citizen supervisor; a letter from their employer confirming that they were employed for at least one year; and a statement describing the threats they’ve received as a result of working for the US government. They also have to obtain approval from the chief of mission, the principal officer at the US embassy in Kabul, before they can even apply for an SIV.
But many Afghans who would otherwise be eligible for the program have difficulty obtaining that recommendation letter from a US-citizen supervisor, especially in cases where they were working as contractors.
“It’s really hard for the applicant to find that ultimate US government person to vouch for them because they may have just been lower in the chain of command or their direct supervisor might have been another Afghan or just someone who’s not a US citizen,” said Julia Gelatt, a senior policy analyst at the Migration Policy Institute.
Even if an applicant can gather the required documents, they will face lengthy wait times before they are ultimately approved for a visa. By law, SIVs are required to be processed <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/113th-congress/house-bill/3304/text">within nine months</a>, but in practice, the average processing time has always been longer than that. Last year, a federal judge <a href="https://refugeerights.org/news-resources/press-release-court-finds-visa-delays-faced-by-thousands-of-afghans-and-iraqis-who-assisted-the-united-states-are-unlawful">ordered</a> the government to come up with a plan to process these applications in a timely manner after thousands of SIV applicants sued. Yet it’s still taking about two years to process the applications, Gelatt said.
It’s not clear to what extent those wait times can be reduced for the 18,000 applicants in the pipeline and the thousands more who are applying for SIV status now. The government did increase resources to help clear a pandemic-related backlog of SIV interviews at the Kabul embassy, and it has dedicated more stateside staff to processing SIVs remotely. But it has to weigh competing interests of bringing people to safety as quickly as possible while taking the time to thoroughly vet for potential security threats.
“With all the resources in the world, it doesn’t seem like they’re going to be able to clear the backlog by the end of this month when the US completes its withdrawal,” Gelatt said. “It’s going to take more than the next four weeks to finish processing all of the pending applications, not to mention all the people who might be applying now, especially as the eligibility criteria have shifted.”
It might not be feasible for Afghans who can’t get an SIV to apply for refugee status through the Biden administration’s <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/02/us/politics/afghan-visas-refugees.html">newly created priority program</a>. As Secretary of State Antony Blinken <a href="https://www.state.gov/secretary-antony-j-blinken-remarks-to-the-press-on-the-announcement-of-a-u-s-refugee-admissions-program-priority-2-designation-for-afghan-nationals/">acknowledged</a> in a recent press conference, it’s a “significant diplomatic, logistical, and bureaucratic challenge.”
“This is incredibly hard,” he added. “It’s hard on so many levels.”
Using their own money, Afghans will have to travel to a third country where they are able to apply for refugee status. Tajikistan is preparing to receive up to <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/tajikistan-says-its-ready-take-up-100000-afghan-refugees-2021-07-23/">100,000 Afghans</a>, and between <a href="https://www.voanews.com/europe/turkey-faces-dilemma-afghan-refugees-start-arriving">500 and 2,000</a> Afghans are already arriving daily in Turkey. Other potential options include Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, and Qatar.
But the US has yet to announce any formal agreements with these countries to host Afghan refugees. And not every Afghan under threat might be able to make that dangerous and potentially expensive journey, especially those who live in the nation’s outer provinces.
“How are they even going to get to Kabul to get a flight out of the capital when the Taliban controls the roads? Where’s that money gonna come from?” Purdy said.
What’s more, the refugee priority program has narrow eligibility requirements for individuals who worked directly for the US government. They can’t even apply for themselves — US employers have to refer a qualified individual for the program. That means that, for example, a local construction crew that built a school run by a US-funded aid group might not be afforded refugee protection.
“The Taliban don’t care if you were an employee of the US government, or if you were a subcontractor of the US government, or a sub-subcontractor,” Purdy said. “I’m not saying you should evacuate the entire country of Afghanistan, but this restrictive program that they put in place — it’s got a lot of problems with it. I’m hopeful that they’re going to open it up to be more expansive.”
Even Afghans who are able to reach a third country and are eligible for refugee status could find themselves stranded abroad for months, if not years. Biden has promised to raise the annual refugee admissions ceiling drastically — from 62,500 to <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/22422368/biden-refugee-cap-resettlement">125,000</a> starting in October — paving the way for more Afghans to come to the US.
But US refugee resettlement agencies are trying to rebuild in the aftermath of the Trump administration, which shifted resources away from refugee processing, and international refugee resettlement operations have <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/22422368/biden-refugee-cap-resettlement">slowed dramatically</a> due to the pandemic, particularly in countries with relatively low levels of Covid-19 vaccinations. Those challenges could contribute to possible delays.
For Afghans who remain in imminent danger, they may have no alternative.
“My email and Facebook and Twitter inboxes fill up every day with horrific, gruesome messages from these families,” Purdy said. “We are running out of time.”
 
 
source <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2021/8/9/22612320/afghan-evacuation-biden-refugee-taliban-withdrawal">https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2021/8/9/22612320/afghan-evacuation-biden-refugee-taliban-withdrawal</a>

vox Time is running out to save Afghans who helped US troops

As the US withdraws from Afghanistan, time is running out to save thousands of Afghans who helped American forces during the two-decade war...

Biden’s reconciliation bill would be a very big deal

Democrats are moving ahead on what could be the most consequential piece of domestic policy legislation in decades, and the planned centerpiece of President Joe Biden’s first-term agenda.
This coming megabill doesn’t yet have a name. It hasn’t technically been written. But on Monday, Senate Democrats <a href="https://www.democrats.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/MEMORANDUM%20for%20Democratic%20Senators%20-%20FY2022%20Budget%20Resolution.pdf">released their current plan</a> for what to put in it — and, well, it’s a whole lot.
Low-income families would get what’s effectively a “<a href="https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/22543868/biden-child-tax-credit-july-15-monthly-payment">child allowance</a>” — money to help raise kids — for longer, via an expanded child tax credit. Seniors on Medicare would get new dental, vision, and hearing benefits, as well as lower prescription drug prices. The coming bill would create new programs for universal pre-K, subsidized child care, free community college, and paid family leave. Some unauthorized immigrants would be able to get green cards. Then there’s major spending on clean energy, housing affordability, and much more.
It would be “the most consequential piece of legislation passed since the Great Depression,” Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) <a href="https://twitter.com/sahilkapur/status/1415387726850019334">said last month</a>. In spending terms, it would be as much as $3.5 trillion — about triple the size of Obamacare, the law that then-vice president Biden <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/richard-adams-blog/2010/mar/23/joe-biden-obama-big-fucking-deal-overheard">famously called</a> “a big fucking deal.”
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<figcaption>Democratic moderates like Sens. Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ), far right, and Joe Manchin (D-WV), second from left, will likely force changes to the size of the megabill.</figcaption>
<cite>Alex Wong/Getty Images</cite></figure>
The sheer range of issues the bill will cover is dizzying: It’s practically everything in Democrats’ domestic policy agenda that Senate rules would permit them to pass without any Republican support, via the special, filibuster-proof <a href="https://www.vox.com/22242476/senate-filibuster-budget-reconciliation-process">budget reconciliation process</a>.
There’s a long road ahead, though. Moderates like Sens. <a href="https://www.vox.com/22339531/manchin-filibuster-bipartisanship-senate-west-virginia">Joe Manchin</a> (D-WV) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) will likely force alterations, or could even scuttle the whole thing (Sinema <a href="https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/politics/arizona/2021/07/28/arizona-sen-kyrsten-sinema-wont-back-democrats-3-5-trillion-reconciliation-bill/5402193001/">has said</a> that she wants less spending). The <a href="https://www.vox.com/2021/2/25/22299034/15-dollar-minimum-wage-senate-parliamentarian">Senate parliamentarian</a> could rule some provisions out of order, throwing them out of the bill. Raising enough revenue to cover the bill’s costs, as moderates are demanding, may also be controversial and result in further cuts. So yes, there’s still a lot of uncertainty about what this will look like, or whether it will pass at all, with many details unsettled.
But as of now, top Democrats are aiming for a transformational bill that could enormously affect many Americans’ lives — from parents to community college students to the poor to anyone concerned about the planet. This is how it would do so.
The megabill would put more money in American families’ pockets, especially the very poor. The main way it would do so is through tax credits — taking temporary policies that were meant to help families during the pandemic and extending them for several more years.
The centerpiece is the expanded child tax credit, which, <a href="https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/22543868/biden-child-tax-credit-july-15-monthly-payment">since last month</a>, goes out in monthly payments (to <a href="https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2021/7/19/22580472/child-tax-credit-biden-tiktok-memes">the joy of many parents)</a>, making it essentially a “child allowance” — a government payment for families with children. The benefit is also, for now, significantly bigger (for all families except the rich), and available to poor families, including those earning no taxable income at all.
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<figcaption>Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi works to raise awareness of the child tax credit in Los Angeles on July 15.</figcaption>
<cite>Frederic J. Brown/AFP via Getty Images</cite></figure>
This latter part especially is a big deal, since the poorest of the poor need the money the most, and nonworkers had been so often left out of previous policies. Although there are definite <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/us-policy/2021/07/15/biden-child-tax-credit/">implementation challenges</a> at getting the money to those who need it most, if those could be overcome it would be transformational for many poor familes, and anti-poverty crusaders and social policy wonks have been tremendously excited about it.
The catch is that this expansion was temporary — the child tax credit is set to revert back to normal after 2021. Democrats’ megabill would extend the supersized version for at least somewhat longer. It would do the same for other temporarily expanded tax credits: the earned income tax credit and the child and dependent care tax credit. Democratic aides hope that, in practice, this will mean a permanent expansion, because once these are in effect for a few years, they will be too politically popular for Congress to let them expire.
The megabill would have the federal government do far more to support parents, providing money or establishing new programs related to child care, pre-K, community college, and more.
For all of these, the exact details about how they will work remain to be determined and are subject to change, but Democrats have indicated they would spend large sums of money on each of these priorities:
<ul>
<li>Paid leave: Currently, the federal government does not guarantee paid leave for working parents. Some <a href="https://www.kff.org/womens-health-policy/fact-sheet/paid-family-leave-and-sick-days-in-the-u-s/">states require it</a>, and some employers voluntarily offer it — but <a href="https://www.kff.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/8949-05-Figure-3.png">small businesses</a> and <a href="https://www.kff.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/8949-05-Figure-4.png">employers with few high-wage workers</a> are less likely to do so. So the megabill would create a national paid leave program, in which the government would pay part of a worker’s salary for up to 12 weeks of leave (for new parents or other issues, such as serious illness). As <a href="https://www.slowboring.com/p/families-plan#footnote-anchor-2">Matt Yglesias wrote earlier this year</a>, under Biden’s plan the government’s share of these leave payments would be capped at $4,000 a month, so in practice, this would be most useful for low-wage workers.</li>
<li>Child care subsidies: The bill would also try to help low- and middle-income families with the cost of child care. Basically, if you earn below a certain amount, the federal government would help foot the bill for your child care — subsidizing it so that costs won’t exceed a certain percentage of your income. Many details remain to be worked out here, particularly Biden’s <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/04/28/fact-sheet-the-american-families-plan/">promise</a> that the resulting child care will be “high quality,” which seems more challenging to implement.</li>
<li>Funding pre-K: In much of the US, public schooling starts at age 5, with kindergarten, and many parents of 3- and 4-year-olds don’t have a government-funded option for pre-K. The bill would try to change this, allotting <a href="https://www.politico.com/newsletters/weekly-education/2021/08/02/senate-mulls-a-path-to-universal-pre-k-796857">hundreds of millions of dollars</a> for preschool expansion. This implementation would again have to happen at the state and local levels.</li>
<li>Summer lunches for low-income children: Currently, low-income children can get free lunch at school, and Democrats want to extend that benefit to cover the summer when school is out — another anti-poverty measure.</li>
<li>Free community college: The bill would fund <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2021/07/22/what-bidens-free-community-college-plan-would-cost-and-save-americans.html">Biden’s plan</a> to cover two years of free community college to those who want it.</li>
<li>Expanded Pell grants: Low-income students who rely on Pell grants to help pay for college would get extra help under this bill.</li>
</ul>
Even after Obamacare extended health insurance to millions more Americans, major gaps in the US’s system and the benefits it provides remain — gaps that frequently expose Americans to burdensome and even ruinous expenses. This year’s megabill is expected to fill several of those gaps:
<ul>
<li>Medicare expansion to cover dental, vision, and hearing: The megabill would expand Medicare to cover dental, vision, and hearing benefits (which are mostly or entirely not covered in standard Medicare plans), meaning it could be a huge help to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/09/business/medicare-dental-work-bill.html">seniors who incur those expenses</a>. The budget resolution also would allow for <a href="https://www.axios.com/dems-medicare-expansion-infrastructure-sanders-5a085562-efbc-4f7d-8747-dc77ef6c0ec2.html">lowering the eligibility age</a> for Medicare, but it is unclear at this point whether this will make it into the eventual bill.</li>
<li>Medicare drug price negotiation: Democrats also plan to empower Medicare to negotiate with the federal government on <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/democrats-split-over-measures-to-cut-drug-prices-11625662801">prescription drug pricing</a>, something that would drive prices down for seniors. It has the added benefit of driving costs down for the federal government, which would help pay for the megabill’s new spending.</li>
<li>Long-term care: Democrats also hope to spend hundreds of billions of dollars on long-term care for seniors and people with disabilities who need daily assistance. As <a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/home-care-elderly-disabilities-dingell_n_60f4381ae4b01ba8eed71236">Jonathan Cohn writes</a>, more than 800,000 Americans are on waiting lists for home and community-based care services right now, due to lack of funding.</li>
<li>Medicaid expansion: There are still <a href="https://www.kff.org/medicaid/issue-brief/status-of-state-medicaid-expansion-decisions-interactive-map/">12 states</a> that have not implemented Obamacare’s <a href="https://www.vox.com/2015/1/27/18088994/medicaid-expansion-explained">expansion of Medicaid</a> to more low-income people, and Democrats have committed to ensuring they get coverage in this bill — though they’re <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2021/07/10/obamacare-medicaid-coverage-gap-democrats-499013">still debating</a> how, exactly, to do it.</li>
<li>Affordable Care Act subsidies: Finally, Democrats also <a href="https://www.kff.org/health-reform/issue-brief/how-the-american-rescue-plan-act-affects-subsidies-for-marketplace-shoppers-and-people-who-are-uninsured/">intend to make</a> temporary, pandemic-inspired expansions in subsidies for people getting health care on Obamacare’s individual marketplaces permanent.</li>
</ul>
Democrats are also using this bill as the vehicle for their climate change agenda. The catch is that the bill will have to win the approval of coal-state Sen. Joe Manchin, so don’t expect a frontal assault on fossil fuels. But Democrats remain hopeful that measures to support clean energy can win Manchin over.
Current plans are to include:
<ul>
<li>A clean electricity payment program: The marquee climate policy in this bill would be a call for 80 percent of the US’s electricity to be generated by clean sources by 2030, <a href="https://www.eenews.net/articles/manchin-could-get-top-role-in-writing-clean-energy-standard/">according to E&E News</a>. The bill likely can’t directly mandate this due to restrictions in the reconciliation process. But it will try to achieve it by <a href="https://www.eenews.net/articles/payments-or-fines-how-dems-ces-would-affect-utilities/">making payments</a> to utilities that rely on clean energy, while fining those that aren’t making progress toward reducing carbon emissions, as <a href="https://www.vox.com/22579218/clean-energy-standard-electricity-infrastructure-democrats">my colleague Rebecca Leber recently explained</a>. Manchin will play a big role in crafting this, as he chairs the key Senate committee that will be involved.</li>
<li>Clean energy tax incentives and research money: Renewable energy industries like wind and solar would get <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/democrats-budget-would-finance-sweeping-clean-energy-plan-11626620401">big tax breaks</a>, and a “clean energy accelerator” <a href="https://www.axios.com/climate-provisions-senate-democrats-budget-proposal-016cce3b-9fb9-48c2-bf3e-73822484f8c0.html">would be funded</a> to support new technologies.</li>
<li>Polluter import fee and methane polluter fee: The idea for an outright “carbon tax” is <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2021/07/obituary-carbon-tax-beloved-climate-policy-dies-47/619507/">long dead</a>, but Democrats have <a href="https://www.rollcall.com/2021/07/15/in-reconciliation-democrats-eye-border-tax-for-carbon/">proposed</a> putting tariffs on imported goods from countries with weaker restrictions on carbon emissions, and putting a price on methane emissions (which <a href="https://www.edf.org/climate/methane-crucial-opportunity-climate-fight">heavily contribute</a> to climate change).</li>
</ul>
Other issues the bill may tackle:
Housing: Democrats plan to allot hundreds of billions of dollars more for affordable housing, with money going to rental assistance and homeownership initiatives, as well as the “creation and preservation of affordable housing.”
Immigration: Finally, though details remain scarce, Democrats are currently saying they intend to include in the megabill a path to legal status for some undocumented immigrants. Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ) <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/immigration/democrats-pursue-ambitious-immigration-changes-3-5-trillion-budget-measure-n1274095">told NBC News</a> last month this would apply to some of each of the following categories: those <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/8/31/16226934/daca-trump-dreamers-immigration">who came here as children</a>, farmworkers, people with <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2021/3/8/22319875/venezuela-tps-temporary-protected-status-biden">Temporary Protected Status</a>, and essential workers.
Yet there is a potential issue. The Senate parliamentarian will have to rule on whether immigration measures like this are truly eligible for budget reconciliation (the special process Democrats are using to pass this bill). Only policies with a clear impact on the federal budget are eligible to be included, and though <a href="https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/immigration/news/2021/07/01/501212/pathway-citizenship-economic-growth-budget-reconciliation/">some have argued</a> that a path to citizenship would qualify, it’s not clear whether parliamentarian Elizabeth McDonough will agree. President Biden <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2021/07/19/outrage-biden-says-fate-immigration-reform-parliamentarian-decide">has indicated</a> that Democrats will respect her ruling.
The megabill does not yet, technically speaking, exist. But last month, Democrats on the Senate Budget Committee reached a deal on how much money the forthcoming megabill will spend overall, and in various areas. To do so, they came to a de facto agreement on what they hope to put in it.
The next step is for the full Senate to approve this deal by passing a <a href="https://www.democrats.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/MEMORANDUM%20for%20Democratic%20Senators%20-%20FY2022%20Budget%20Resolution.pdf">budget resolution</a> this week, and for the House to do the same later this month. Doing this unlocks the filibuster-proof budget reconciliation process.
After that, both chambers can finally get around to actually hammering out the details of the megabill itself. Democrats hope to pass it and get it signed into law by President Biden by the end of the year.
Changes to the overall bill are likely at every step of this process. But the budget resolution is the first step; it sets the stage for everything that will come later. And Democrats have made clear that they are starting with very lofty ambitions indeed.
 
 
source <a href="https://www.vox.com/22577374/reconciliation-bill-biden-medicare-climate">https://www.vox.com/22577374/reconciliation-bill-biden-medicare-climate</a>

vox Biden’s reconciliation bill would be a very big deal

Democrats are moving ahead on what could be the most consequential piece of domestic policy legislation in decades, and the planned centerpi...

The devastating new UN report on climate change, explained

How much has humanity already changed the climate? And how much worse will it get?
The answers now are sharper than ever, according to an international team of scientists. In a new report, they say that far more aggressive action is needed to limit catastrophic climate change, and that time is running out.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the United Nations’ climate science research group, concluded in a <a href="https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg1/">major report</a> that it is “unequivocal” that humans have warmed the skies, waters, and lands, and that “widespread and rapid changes” have already occurred in every inhabited region across the globe. Many of these changes are irreversible within our lifetimes.
This is the first report of its kind in eight years, and a lot has changed. Scientists have backed away from many of the best-case scenarios. They’re more confident than ever that human-caused climate change is already worsening deadly weather events, from flooding to heat waves. And they’re investigating culprits of climate change that warm the planet even more than carbon dioxide.
The report warns that the world is likely to overshoot 1.5 degrees Celsius of warming compared to pre-industrial temperatures — one of the goalposts of the Paris climate agreement — within the next 20 or 30 years, even under scenarios where greenhouse gas emissions fall significantly. It’s a stark warning for the 195 countries meeting later this year in Glasgow, Scotland, to come up with more ambitious goals for fighting climate change — although many of those countries are not on track to meet even their previous targets.
“This report tells us that recent changes in the climate are widespread, rapid, and intensifying, unprecedented in thousands of years,” Ko Barrett, vice chair of the IPCC and senior adviser for climate at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, said in a press conference. Climate change “is already affecting every region on earth in multiple ways,” Barrett said. “There’s no going back from some changes in the climate system.”
Those effects of climate change continue to ripple across the planet, amplifying disasters like the massive <a href="https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-08-06/dixie-fire-leaps-another-40-000-acres">wildfires in California</a>, <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-58056667">deadly flooding in China</a> and <a href="https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2021/07/europe-s-deadly-floods-leave-scientists-stunned">Europe</a>, and <a href="https://eos.org/articles/siberian-heat-wave-nearly-impossible-without-human-influence">record heat in Siberia</a>. Climate change is here, and unless drastic action is taken, it will only get worse.
This first installment of the latest report, known as the <a href="https://www.ipcc.ch/assessment-report/ar6/">Sixth Assessment Report</a> (AR6), goes over the physical sciences of climate change, examining what’s fueling planetary warming in the atmosphere, oceans, and on land. It covers the body of research that’s emerged over the eight years since the previous report. Subsequent chapters due out over the coming months will look at economic and environmental vulnerabilities to climate change, as well as the options for mitigating warming.
The goal of these reports is to compile the best available science and create a solid foundation for decision-makers to act, whether that’s to invest in clean energy, relocate people from high-risk areas, or help the most vulnerable places cope with unavoidable impacts. IPCC reports are considered to be the definitive assessments of the science behind climate change. Past IPCC reports have been cited in coastal construction plans, drought risk estimates, and even lawsuits.
While researchers have better answers now on some fronts, they are also blunt about the things they still don’t know, which could have huge effects on the livability of the planet. Certain tipping points, feedbacks, and currently unappreciated mechanisms could further tilt the climate out of balance in ways that are hard to predict.
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<figcaption>The Dixie fire in northern California has burned more than 190,000 acres as of July 26.</figcaption>
<cite>Josh Edelson/AFP/Getty Images</cite></figure>
With the AR6 report, the IPCC is building on assessments in recent years that tackled specific issues, such as the shrinking window in which the world could keep future warming below 1.5 degrees Celsius. The IPCC also studied climate change impacts on <a href="https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2019/9/25/20881595/ipcc-report-ocean-cryosphere-2019">oceans and frozen regions</a> and the strain on the world’s <a href="https://www.vox.com/2019/8/8/20758461/climate-change-report-2019-un-ipcc-land-food">food and water supplies</a> from rising temperatures.
These reports helped ignite a global movement, most <a href="https://www.vox.com/2021/3/20/22340607/climate-change-strike-greta-thunberg-fridays-for-future-net-zero-emissions">notably among young people</a>, demanding that world leaders do more to uphold their commitments under the Paris agreement before time runs out.
But in the eight years since the last comprehensive IPCC report and the six years since the Paris accords, humanity’s output of heat-trapping gases has only grown. Even with a dip in emissions stemming from the Covid-19 pandemic, carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere reached a record high this year, topping <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/07/climate/climate-change-emissions.html">419 parts per million</a>, a level the planet has not seen for at least 2 million years.
This rise in emissions has given scientists unprecedented opportunities to study climate change in real time. Alongside improvements in computer simulations, measurement technology, laboratory experiments, and historical records, scientists have gained far more insight to, and confidence in, humanity’s role in cranking up the planet’s thermostat.
In general, IPCC reports don’t contain much in the way of new revelations, since they are compiled from existing research: AR6 is based on research published before January 31, 2021, and draws on 14,000 research articles. But paper by paper, these reports illustrate how confident scientists are in the mechanisms behind climate change and show how their understanding has changed.
Here are some of the most notable sections of the new report:
Scientists are even more confident that climate change worsens extreme weather
“What’s new in this report is that we can now attribute many more changes at the global and regional level to human influence and better project future changes we will see from different amounts of emissions,” said Barrett.
The world has already warmed 1.1 degrees Celsius since the dawn of the industrial revolution. It’s clear that humanity’s gargantuan output of greenhouse gases — currently about <a href="https://www.vox.com/2020/7/31/21340748/climate-change-carbon-emissions-sensitivity-how-much-will-earth-warm">2.6 million pounds of carbon dioxide per second</a> — is the culprit. Without the combustion of fossil fuels, the planet would very likely be much cooler.
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<figcaption>The warming observed since the industrial revolution across the planet is unprecedented in its pace and scale, and would be almost impossible without human intervention.</figcaption>
<cite>IPCC</cite></figure>
This deceptively small shift in average temperatures increases the likelihood and severity of extreme events and is already worsening disasters around the world. Now scientists can tease out just how much human emissions of greenhouse gases is making them worse.
This is due to advances in an area of climate science called <a href="https://www.vox.com/21452781/zogg-fire-glass-wildfire-california-climate-change-hurricanes-attribution-2020-debate">attribution</a> that have led to a better understanding of the climate before industrialization, as well as models of a hypothetical world without human intervention. “Evidence of observed changes in extremes such as heatwaves, heavy precipitation, droughts, and tropical cyclones, and, in particular, their attribution to human influence, has strengthened since [the previous IPCC report],” according to the report.
With these methods, scientists can establish just how much burning fossil fuels has increased the likelihood of extreme events like heat waves. The report says it’s “virtually certain” that extreme heat events have increased in frequency and intensity because of humans. Researchers can also measure how much worse coastal flooding has become due to rising sea levels stemming from warming.
Climate change is global, but the effects are local
With improved measurements and modeling, scientists have been able to zoom in on parts of the planet and gain a better sense of how climate change will play out. While the world is warming on average, specific locations have been hit with especially stark changes. AR6 includes an <a href="https://interactive-atlas.ipcc.ch/">interactive atlas</a> showing some of these effects around the world.
For instance, some warming regions are projected to dry out, while others are poised to get wetter. In some instances, both can happen in the same place — the averages may not shift much, but the extremes may grow, leading to periods of drought followed by deluge. This <a href="https://www.vox.com/2018/4/24/17270340/california-rain-drought-flooding-climate-change">weather whiplash</a> wasn’t appreciated as much until recently and is yet another signal of how humans are changing the climate.
“This whiplash — this increase in both the extreme wet and dry events — are projected to increase over the 21st century,” said Kim Cobb, lead author of the first chapter of AR6 and director of the Global Change Program at Georgia Tech, during a press conference.
And as temperatures continue to rise, these extremes “will worsen within each increment of additional warming,” said Cobb. However, with more specific and local information about the impacts of climate change, IPCC authors hope that the report will be more useful for making decisions about planning for and mitigating warming.
Carbon dioxide is not the only villain
Scientists have long understood that carbon dioxide — the gas that spews from chimneys, tailpipes, and smokestacks — plays the biggest role in global warming and will continue to influence the climate for hundreds of years. But the report says that other greenhouse gases are a growing cause for concern.
Methane in particular can trap even more heat than carbon in the near term, over the span of 20 years, and countries that have focused on carbon emissions may be less prepared to control it. Scientists know methane pollution is at its highest level in 800,000 years because of human activities like agriculture and oil and gas production, and that other greenhouse gases like nitrogen dioxide are also rising.
The upside is that because these gases are so potent at trapping heat, reducing their emissions has outsized benefits for mitigating climate change.
There’s no more room for wishful thinking
There are two broad variables that shape climate forecasts: what humans will do, and what the planet will do in response.
As scientists resolve the physics of climate change, they can better project how the planet will respond to a given concentration of greenhouse gases. This response is known as <a href="https://www.vox.com/2020/7/31/21340748/climate-change-carbon-emissions-sensitivity-how-much-will-earth-warm">equilibrium climate sensitivity</a>, which estimates what would happen if carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere doubled compared to pre-industrial levels, reaching around 560 ppm.
This year’s AR6 report found that a doubling of CO2 concentrations would warm the planet by about 3°C, with a likely range between 2.5°C and 4°C. The last big IPCC report, in 2013, gave a range of 1.5 to 4.5°C of warming.
As for humanity’s actions, the IPCC has established five scenarios for human greenhouse gas emissions, known as shared socioeconomic pathways (SSPs). Even in the best-case scenario for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, IPCC authors expect that warming will continue until at least the middle of the century. Among the five scenarios, scientists expect the world to surpass the Paris agreement’s 1.5°C warming target in all of them, but in the “very low emissions” SSP, the planet’s temperature is expected to eventually fall below this threshold before the end of the century.
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<figcaption>Only two emissions scenarios will keep warming this century below 2 degrees Celsius, and only one stays below 1.5 degrees Celsius.</figcaption>
<cite>IPCC</cite></figure>
Some of the most dire forecasts of warming appear to be less likely in this recent report, but so do many of the more favorable outcomes. According to the report, it now seems impossible that the world will get lucky and warming will somehow stay within the Paris agreement targets without massive action to limit emissions, starting right away.
We know humans are dangerously warming the planet through human activities like burning fossil fuels and clearing lands for agriculture and urban development. The models have gotten more accurate in recent years, but there are still unanswered questions.
Where is all that methane coming from?
Methane is rising, but exactly what are the causes? Scientists generally know that methane comes from a mix of natural sources, like wetlands and melting permafrost, and human sources, like oil and gas, agriculture, and landfills. The report doesn’t name which of the human sources are the biggest culprit, and it doesn’t look very closely at feedback loops, which in a warming world will generate even more of this damaging gas. And the world still doesn’t monitor the oil and gas industry closely enough to identify and <a href="https://www.vox.com/22407581/gas-texas-biden-climate-change-methane-permian-basin">plug the leakiest oil and gas facilities</a>.
Will clouds help heat up the planet or cool it off?
One of the largest sources of uncertainty in climate models is <a href="https://www.vox.com/22430792/cloud-science-mystery-unexplainable-podcast-climate-change">clouds</a>, as Vox’s podcast Unexplainable has explored. These puffs of moisture in the atmosphere are complicated, difficult to predict, and can have wildly different impacts depending on specific conditions in a given spot in the sky. Clouds change the distribution of rainfall over the planet, but they can influence temperatures too. Low-altitude clouds tend to bounce sunlight back into space and have a net cooling effect, while clouds at high altitudes trap heat by absorbing and re-emitting infrared radiation. Exactly which clouds form and where they occur as temperatures rise will have huge implications for how climate change plays out on the ground.
Are there any tipping points?
One of the most worrisome potential consequences of climate science is crossing tipping points at which humans trigger irreversible, catastrophic impacts that accelerate the global changes. The report considers these events to have a low likelihood of happening this century, but they are frightening to consider.
For example, thawing permafrost could release huge quantities of carbon dioxide and methane, which further enhance warming without human intervention. Warming could also reach a point where critical ocean circulation patterns stall, leading to global changes in rainfall and sea levels. Changes in the climate could also cause critical ecosystems like tropical rainforests to enter a cycle of collapse.
If one of these potential thresholds is breached, then the damaging effects of warming will continue even if every country drastically curbs greenhouse gas emissions.
What will humans actually end up doing?
The biggest unanswered question about the future remains the same: What will humanity do to mitigate climate change? “The main issues are what are the people on our planet going to choose as future directions for energy, transportation, and land use, the primary drivers of the changing climate,” said Donald Wuebbles, a professor of atmospheric science at the University of Illinois and an author of the previous IPCC report, in an email.
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<figcaption>An abandoned pomegranate orchard seen in Firebaugh, California, on July 13. Drought and heat waves are straining the state’s power grid as officials ask residents to decrease their water and electricity consumption.</figcaption>
<cite>David Paul Morris/Bloomberg/Getty Images</cite></figure>
The IPCC’s process for generating these reports is tedious, requiring every word to be approved by representatives from 195 countries. AR6 generated more than 70,000 comments. So the framing of the results tends to be limited by the consensus.
That the group has reached such stark conclusions shows that humanity has already done significant damage to the climate, and even more dire consequences are ahead without drastic, worldwide action. IPCC authors insist that this report is not meant to prescribe specific tactics or targets for dealing with climate change, but given the projections of disaster and dislocation, anyone who reads the report will be hard-pressed to come away with anything other than a sense of urgency.
“It does provide a very compelling case for more aggressive actions,” Jane Lubchenco, the White House’s deputy director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy, said in an interview.
For leaders, the report could serve as an important justification for doing more to mitigate climate change. The next big test of this will be at the November 26 Conference of Parties (COP26) meeting, where the signatories to the Paris agreement are expected to raise their ambitions for mitigating climate change.
“The IPCC report underscores the overwhelming urgency of this moment,” said John Kerry, the US special envoy for climate, in a statement. “We can get to the low carbon economy we urgently need, but time is not on our side. This is the critical decade for action, and COP26 in Glasgow must be a turning point in this crisis.”
For climate activists, this report is a stark reminder that the world is doing nowhere near enough to meet its current climate goals — let alone stepping up to actually keep warming in check.
The upcoming chapters of AR6 will go into more practical questions of what tactics will actually be meaningful for limiting warming, but this first chapter focusing on the science leaves no room for wishful thinking. Avoiding the worst consequences of climate change demands far more drastic and urgent action to cut greenhouse gas emissions right away, according to Maisa Rojas Corradi, an IPCC author and director of the Center for Climate and Resilience Research at the University of Chile.
“Is it still possible to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees? The answer is yes, but unless there are immediate, rapid and large-scale reductions of all greenhouse gases, limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees will be beyond reach,” she said.
 
 
source <a href="https://www.vox.com/22613027/un-ipcc-climate-change-report-ar6-disaster">https://www.vox.com/22613027/un-ipcc-climate-change-report-ar6-disaster</a>

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