environment: Boston Herald rain snow
by Warren
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Month 3, Day 15: Wet
Was wondering what to write about when I got involved in trying to fix some leaks that had developed in my basement. Dammit.
Anyway, I was good and pissed-off, so I thought I’d take it out on the Boston Herald. The swollen belly returns for another turn in this one. One day it’ll make it into print.
Hey, climate-change deniers! Do a few freak snowstorms disprove global warming? How about a few freak rainstorms? Climate scientists have long predicted that extreme weather will increase over the next decade as global temperature goes up: more heat means more water evaporating into the atmosphere, and that means more rain in spring, more snow in winter, and more weirdness and wetness all around. We can expect big effects on agriculture, faster deterioration of roads and infrastructure, more power outages and disruptions. It’s time for you to face the facts. An unseasonal snowstorm in Washington DC no more disproves global warming than the kwashiorkor-swollen belly of a starving child disproves world hunger.
Warren Senders
environment Politics: Ed Markey John Kerry Scott Brown Tongass National Forest
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Month 3, Day 14: It’s PI Day!
Heavy rain brought down our landline and FIOS internet last night. I’m piggybacking on my neighbor’s wireless at the moment. No time to write anything original; I’m sending my Senators and my Rep a version of yesterday’s letter, opposing the Tongass logging bills.
Dear Senators Kerry & Brown / Representative Markey,
This letter is to request you to oppose S. 881 and H.R. 2099, legislation addressing usage considerations with regard to land that is currently part of Alaska’s Tongass National Forest. These bills will permit Sealaska, an Alaskan Native corporation, to log 80,000 acres of the Tongass. While it is important to secure economic benefits for Native Americans, it’s crucial to recognize that the Tongass is one of the country’s top “carbon banks” (carbon-storing forests).
Pacific Northwest forests, including the Tongass, store one and a half times as much carbon as this country burns in a year. It is an act of profound environmental irresponsibility to allow such a carbon bank to be logged off. Sealaska may need to cut 80,000 acres of trees to maintain their balance sheet, but our country’s environmental balance is far more endangered than theirs.
Maintaining and expanding our national forests is a crucial element of our national environmental policy. Not only are these forests crucial carbon banks (and therefore one of our first lines of defense against CO2 emissions), they possess inherent value as places of beauty, peace and respect for the natural world. When our country learns to stop thinking of them as commodities worth so much per board foot, we will have, perhaps, grown up a little.
Please oppose this legislation.
Thank you,
Warren Senders
environment Politics: Barack Obama Tongass National Forest
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Month 3, Day 13: Saturday POTUS — No Logging In The Tongass!
As usual, it’s Friday night and I’m hunting around for something on which to hang a letter to the President. And lo and behold, my old benefactor RL Miller provides the second piece in as many days: a bill enabling logging in Alaska’s Tongass National Forest. It’s an interesting toss-up between Native American welfare issues and environmental issues — one that needs a new underlying conceptual structure for resolution.
Dear President Obama,
As the long-awaited climate bill makes its way through the Senate, I’m gratified to observe your administration’s support for many initiatives which will reduce our nation’s carbon emissions and lessen our grotesquely disproportionate contribution to anthropogenic global warming.
This letter is to register my distress at legislation currently under consideration in both the House and the Senate. S. 881 and H.R. 2099 both address usage considerations with regard to land that is currently part of the Tongass National Forest, the largest such forest in the country. The Tongass, according to a recent study by the Wilderness Society, is one of the country’s top “carbon banks” (carbon-storing forests). The bill will permit Sealaska, an Alaskan Native corporation, to log 80,000 acres of the Tongass National Forest.
If S.881 and H.R. 2099 are passed in Congress, the bill will arrive at your desk for signature. Before you take out your pen, please consider this: the thick, wet forests of the Pacific Northwest, including the Tongass, store as much carbon as this country burns in a year and a half. Allowing 80,000 acres of such a carbon bank to be logged off would be an act of profound environmental irresponsibility. If America is ready to pay Indonesia and Brazil not to cut down their rainforests, why can’t we do something similar in Alaska?
It is time for us to set a good example for future generations, by maintaining and expanding our national forests. Not only are they crucial carbon banks (and therefore one of our first lines of defense against CO2 emissions), they possess inherent value as places of beauty, peace and respect for the natural world. When our country learns to stop thinking of forests as commodities worth so much per board foot, we will have, perhaps, grown up a little.
Please veto any bill that provides for logging in the Tongass.
Thank you,
Warren Senders
Jazz music Personal: Robert Rutman Sun Ra
by Warren
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Hanging Out With The Man From Saturn
Several people have asked me to tell the story of my encounters with Sun Ra.
Over a span of about six or seven years, I caught Sun Ra and his Arkestra in Boston at least eleven times. While that’s not a lot by Deadhead standards, it’s probably more than I’ve seen any other musician live, with the exception of the great khyal singer Bhimsen Joshi.
To an alienated, jazz-obsessed teenager in Boston’s western suburbs, the knowledge that there was a bandleading madman who claimed to be from outer space was incredibly welcome. My high school library maintained subscriptions to a wide variety of periodicals — the usual suspects (Time, Newsweek, Life), some slightly more unconventional choices (The New Yorker, Ms.), and a few that were pretty bizarre. Of these last, there were three that made a huge impression on me: The Village Voice (where I first read about conceptual art, Nam June Paik and Charlotte Moorman), Source: Music of the Avant-Garde (where I first heard of Cornelius Cardew, Christo, Steve Reich and Alvin Lucier), and Downbeat (where I kept up to date on all the latest jazz happenings, and where I first learned of the existence of Sun Ra).
environment: Boston Globe China
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Month 3, Day 12: Boston Global Warming Warning
No shortage of material these days. I thought it was time to find something in our hometown paper, and sure enough, there was an article (originally from the AP) on China’s admonitions that the United States needs to be doing more about climate change than wringing its hands and capitulating to the Chamber of Commerce and Massey Coal.
It is a sad commentary on the dysfunctionality of our political system that the United States is now being rebuked by China on climate change issues. Over the past few years, the Chinese government has recognized the immediacy and profound danger posed by the climate crisis; while they’re still burning way too much coal and oil, it’s indisputable that China is leading the world in developing energy sources that won’t add CO2 to our atmosphere. And where is the USA? Locked in a cycle of denial, with Republican senators and Fox commentators opining that an anomalous snowfall in Washington invalidates thousands of peer-reviewed scientific reports (which, by the way, predict such weather events). If ninety-seven out of a hundred oncologists diagnosed cancer, you’d be wise to start treatment immediately. When ninety-seven percent of climatologists state the facts of anthropogenic global warming, they should be rewarded and heeded, not mocked and ignored.
Warren Senders
environment Politics: Joe Lieberman John Kerry Lindsey Graham polluting industries
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Month 3, Day 11: The Three Messketeers
RL Miller posted an excellent piece at Kos yesterday pointing out that the trio of senators responsible for generating climate legislation is busy meeting with representatives of the world’s biggest contributors to the current carbon situation.
John Kerry is my senator. Lindsey Graham may be a Republican, but he’s been making vaguely sensible noises about climate. After Lieberman’s grotesque behavior over health care it’s hard to take him seriously, but he is apparently much more resolute on climate than on HCR.
But I gotta say, it’s a sad day when two-thirds of my hope for substantial climate legislation rests with Lindsey Graham and Joe Lieberman.
Anyway, they got a letter.
Dear Senators Kerry, Graham and Lieberman,
I am a constituent of Senator Kerry’s, and a firm believer in the need to address the issue of global climate change immediately. America must regulate its emissions of CO2; once we commit ourselves, much of the rest of the world will follow suit. We cannot pretend to be a world leader if we wait for other nations to go first.
I’m glad that the three of you are developing a climate bill, and I hope that it is sufficiently robust to make a difference. But I was very distressed to learn that you had met recently with “hydrocarbon enablers” like the American Petroleum Institute, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, major electric utilities, the National Association of Manufacturers, the cement industry, and mining interests, and that (according to The LA Times) your message to these groups was, “Tell us what you need to support this bill. Be specific.”
It should be obvious to the meanest intelligence that the API, the Chamber of Commerce and the rest of these organizations will only support climate legislation if it does not affect them in the slightest. While I am in principle a supporter of “good faith” negotiations, there must surely be a point where the principle of good faith has been abused irretrievably. The world’s largest contributors to our CO2 dilemma are not interested in anything except gutting meaningful climate legislation; asking them for their support is an absurdity.
We need a totally new energy equation in this country, and we need it soon. The changes in the world’s climate are too huge and too potentially devastating to allow our country’s biggest polluters to stand in the way of action; “business as usual” is only a plan for profit, not a plan for the planet.
Do not allow industry representatives to weaken your climate bill. Make it stronger instead. Much stronger.
We’re counting on you.
Yours Sincerely,
Warren Senders
music: blues Bobby Blue Bland genius
by Warren
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Bobby Blue Bland Just Slaaaaaaays Me, Every Time.
Live in Chicago, 1977
The 80-year-old blues singer was honored by the Mississippi Senate yesterday:
Lawmakers honored Blues legend Bobby “Blue” Bland at the Capitol today.
The state Senate watched a video with Bland’s music, highlighting his achievements. Bland, 80, was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame in 1981 and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1992 and received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1997.
“I’m so happy to be here today,” Bland said.
Sen. David Jordan, D-Greenwood, said a Senate resolution honoring Bland is an “everlasting award to a great American.”
“We have with us an icon,” Jordan said.
Sen. John Horhn, D-Jackson, said: “If BB King is the king of the blues then Bobby Blue is the crowned prince.”
environment: bill gates billionaires Citizens United
by Warren
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Month 3, Day 10: There Are No Truths Outside The Eden of Gates
Bill Gates is another billionaire who has been pretty forthright about the importance of climate issues. It feels really bizarre to be requesting the world’s richest man to intervene in American elections…but I’d rather have him doing it than, say, Cheney.
Dear Mr. Gates,
As an ordinary citizen who is deeply concerned about the future of our planet, I was deeply gratified to read that you recently described global climate change as the greatest threat humanity has ever faced. You are of course absolutely right; nothing in our species’ past experience has prepared us for coping with the challenges posed by anthropogenic global warming and its complex epiphenomena.
I am sure that through your philanthropic efforts you are already making more of a difference than I ever could. Still, however, I want to make a suggestion to you.
As you know, the Supreme Court recently ruled, in Citizens United vs. FEC, that corporate spending may be used freely to influence public opinion in the electoral process. I deplore that ruling, and I believe it to be profoundly at odds with the core meaning of our Constitution, which I understand as a document of governing principles directed to the enfranchisement of individuals.
But desperate times call for desperate remedies. Mr. Gates, if you really believe that climate change is a genuine existential threat to our species, I plead with you: spend freely to influence public opinion in the electoral process. Buy hundreds of hours of airtime on national television to educate the public about the dangers we face — and about the importance of electing politicians who will work toward genuine and robust action on climate change.
We need to reduce our atmospheric CO2 to 350 ppm or below. We need to address the problems of arctic methane release, and of oceanic acidification. And none of this will happen if more Republican climate denialists are elected to the U.S. Senate. A few more like James Inhofe, and all hope of meaningful action will be gone — while tipping point after tipping point goes by, unremarked by any save the climate scientists.
Please. Influence our political process. Right now it is influenced almost entirely by Big Coal and Big Oil — industries seriously implicated in our looming environmental disaster. We need you to do some influencing on our behalf, for our voices as ordinary citizens are drowned out by the megaphones of the world’s largest polluters.
Yours Sincerely,
Warren Senders
environment Politics: Barack Obama energy efficiency John Doerr Time Magazine
by Warren
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Month 3, Day 9: Time After Time
Time Magazine has a piece discussing the role of environmentally friendly industries in the formulation of the administration’s energy policy initiatives. The tone of the article attempts neutrality, but occasionally lapses into vague sorta-smears: the title is “How Fundraising Helped Shape Obama’s Green Agenda.” Think about that for a second; is it somehow a revelation that politicians will gravitate to people who’ll fund them as well as support their policies? The question is “which comes first, the money or the policy?”
Venture capitalist John Doerr, who helped develop the “Home Star” energy retrofitting program (see Obama describing it here), is profiled throughout the piece; the last paragraph reads:
Doerr, meanwhile, has continued to provide financial support to Democrats. On Dec. 21, just weeks after President Obama publicly embraced Home Star, Doerr and his wife Ann each wrote a $15,200 check to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.
Honestly, is this supposed to be indicative of chicanery? During the Bush years, the entire administration was run by the corrupt lackeys of big oil, big coal, big god and big guns, and the amounts of money involved absolutely dwarfed the Doerrs’ $30,400.
So I wrote Time a letter.
During the Bush Administration, representatives of the world’s biggest polluters took far more fundamental roles in policy development than is the case in the Obama White House. A program like “Home Star” will provide thousands of new jobs as well as help us break our national addiction to oil and coal. When I recall Dick Cheney sneering that conservation may be a “personal virtue, but it is not a sufficient basis for a sound comprehensive energy policy,” I am delighted to see his profoundly erroneous dictum repudiated; our nation needs an energy policy that penalizes waste and rewards efficiency. We currently lead the world in energy wasted per capita; it’s time for us to become global leaders in energy efficiency. The fact that representatives of “green” industries have a voice in the Obama Administration’s formulation of “morally virtuous” policy objectives is cause for rejoicing.
Warren Senders
environment Politics: Citizens United Ed Markey Henry Waxman methane
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Month 3, Day 8: When the Methane Hits The Fan…
Stickin’ with the North Pole farts for the time being. I’m on my way out to a gig, so my brain is pretty close to empty. When I’m tired and distracted I write workmanlike letters that address the issues without rhetorical flourishes. This is one of them.
Dear Representatives Waxman and Markey,
I write to urge you to initiate action on the extremely troubling news of Arctic methane release. According to a recently-published article in the journal Science, billions of tons of methane under the sub-sea permafrost in the Arctic ocean is now entering the atmosphere. This is certain to accelerate the greenhouse effect even further, since methane is 25 times as powerful as carbon dioxide in trapping heat,
Climatologists’ prediction models haven’t yet been revised to account for the new data, but it’s pretty clear (unless you’re a FOX News commentator, a Republican, or George Will) that our current “worst-case” scenarios are hopelessly optimistic.
While this news is sure to trigger a round of fart jokes from Sean Hannity and his colleagues, it is a sad fact that while some of us strive to ensure humanity a safe and sustainable future, our corporate sector is heavily invested in denying the nature of the threat. With the recent Supreme Court decision in Citizens United opening up the floodgates to corporate influence in elections, we can look forward to thinly disguised climate denialism saturating our airwaves in the months leading up to November’s election.
Will the American public fall for it? Will our nation’s citizens believe it when they’re told that “Carbon Dioxide is life,” or “Methane is good for you?” Given the precipitous decline in scientific literacy in our country over the past several decades, I think it’s all too likely that this latest news won’t be treated with the respect it deserves.
I urge the two of you to initiate action in the House of Representatives. A sub-committee needs to study the problem and make recommendations for legislative action. America has to lead the world in addressing these crises.
There is no time to waste; no time to lose.
Yours sincerely,
Warren Senders