environment: capitalism climate negotiations Climategate idiots IPCC
by Warren
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Month 10, Day 14: Yet Another Installment of “Why Capitalism Sucks.”
The Wall Street Journal never misses an opportunity to mislead.
A fairly even-handed discussion of the most recent round of climate negotiations was derailed by a paragraph of heavy-handed editorializing, including allegations of “flawed science” in the IPCC reports and yet another reference to the so-called “climategate.” Let’s get this straight, starting with the second item: there have thus far been three separate and independent investigations of the leaked emails, and each investigation has completely exonerated the scientists involved. Completely. If the print and broadcast media had any sense of responsibility, this fact would have received as much publicity as the original non-scandal. With regard to the flaws in the IPCC report —in a document thousands of pages long, mistakes are inevitable. If a miscalculation of glacial melt rates invalidates the entire report, then by analogy, an error of fact anywhere in the Wall Street Journal must invalidate everything in that day’s edition, including the stock market reports.
Warren Senders
environment: Deepwater Horizon Department of the Interior idiots Ken Salazar offshore drilling
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Month 10, Day 13: Grrrrrrr.
Dear Secretary Salazar — The Department of the Interior may have set some higher safety and environmental impact standards for offshore drilling, but will this translate into increased enforcement of these standards? If the moratorium on drilling is lifted, we need to significantly increase the budget for inspectors and regulators who will be a powerful presence on each and every drilling rig.
During the previous administration regulations were first gutted, then flouted, then ignored, leading inexorably to the catastrophic Deepwater Horizon disaster. It won’t make a bit of difference if the regulations are toughened unless the enforcement environment is made much, much, much more stringent.
The plain fact is that these big oil companies have been getting away with environmental crimes for decades — oil and coal extraction has severely damaged ecosystems around the world, many of them irrevocably. With our planetary system already in a state of shock from increased greenhouse gas emissions, there can no longer be any excuse for allowing fossil fuel industries free rein in their misuse of extractive technologies.
Any adjustment to safety and environmental regulations that assumes responsible behavior on the part of these organizations is hopelessly naive. I confess to grave disappointment; I had hopes that the present administration was prepared to recognize the grave environmental consequences of unbridled corporate sociopathy. I hope that I am proven wrong, but I am afraid that the Department of the Interior has just gotten played. Again.
Yours Sincerely,
Warren Senders
environment: Department of Energy energy efficiency Steven Chu
by Warren
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Month 10, Day 12: Make It Better. Just A Little Bit Better.
Just got this in my inbox. That saved me some time looking for a theme for my letter tonight.
TAKE ACTION! How to Tap Abundant, Clean, and Cheap Energy: Strengthen Energy Efficiency Standards Now!
Energy efficiency is our cheapest, most abundant, and least tapped source of energy. Help make sure manufacturers actually follow the energy efficiency standards set by DOE: Submit your comment before 10/18!
Dear Warren,
“Energy efficiency is not just low-hanging fruit; it is fruit that is lying on the ground,” wrote Secretary of Energy Steven Chu shortly after taking office.
As leader of the Department of Energy, Sec. Chu has made energy efficiency—our cheapest, most abundant, and least tapped source of energy right now—a priority. Under Chu’s command, DOE has undertaken a massive project: to strengthen energy efficiency standards for dozens of household and commercial appliances.
But here’s the catch: Once those standards are set, we need to work hard to make sure manufacturers actually follow them. And we need your help.
DOE has found that raising the low bar of efficiency for these products will save consumers billions of dollars and save an enormous amount of energy, reducing our dependence on dirty and harmful fossil fuels.
Even just one stronger standard for one appliance can make a difference. Taken all together, a house—or nation—full of more efficient appliances means America is saving energy, saving money, and driving innovation in the marketplace.
Because strong standards are meaningless without effective enforcement, DOE is taking steps to put some real teeth into these. In the past, enforcement has been lax, meaning that manufacturers could routinely violate efficiency standards without fear of punishment. DOE is proposing new rules to make sure manufacturers’ efficiency claims are backed up by rigorous testing and to hold the bad actors, those manufacturers who aren’t meeting the bare minimum in efficiency standards, accountable.
DOE is on the right path. But in order for this rule to be effective in securing huge energy and cost savings for America, it needs to be stronger and some loopholes need to be closed.
Please write Sec. Chu now and tell him now is the time to get serious about picking up that fruit on the ground by holding manufacturers to the standards we are setting for them. Link.
— Earthjustice.
Earthjustice is a good group of people. I went to the DOE comment submission site and edited the boilerplate they provided, eventually sending the letter below to Secretary Chu:
Dear Secretary Chu,
While a significant number of Americans recognize the urgency of the climate crisis, the sad truth is that there are still a great many people in our country who remain in denial of what is certainly going to be the gravest threat humanity has yet faced. Consequently, truly robust legislation to tackle the major problems consequent to fossil fuel combustion is unlikely to pass our Senate in the near future.
We have two options. One is to abandon hope; the other is to solve the parts of the problem that can be solved, while working to build public awareness and consensus on the need for larger-scale action. Energy efficiency in appliances is one such area — huge amounts of energy are wasted every day by pieces of equipment that are poorly designed, poorly insulated or poorly maintained. We need to strengthen enforcement of federal energy efficiency standards in residential and commercial applications.
It is obvious that equipment that uses less energy to run represents a cost savings for the consumer; less self-evident is that reducing waste is a positive step in our treatment of our environment. With fossil fuel consumption already overburdening our atmosphere with greenhouse gas emissions, there is no excuse for inefficiency and wastefulness.
If the manufacturing sector is merely giving lip service to efficiency standards, we are doomed to fail. The Department of energy must adopt a robust and aggressive system of enforcement that will ensure compliance with energy efficiency regulations. The American people need a guarantee that the Departmen will hold companies accountable for their failures.
I like the plan you’ve proposed. However, I would like to see it include some of the following:
Ongoing product testing, including regular follow-up assessment and verification, preferably conducted by independent labs. The stronger the testing, the more meaningful the results, and the greater the benefit to the consumer. The labs carrying out the testing must have proven integrity and must be insulated from any possibility of corruption.
The process of assessment must be made as transparent as possible. The public should be able to access test results easily and without expense; an informed citizenry is perhaps the best defense against corporate malfeasance. The Department’s proposal to make the information it receives regarding product compliance available to the public on an easily accessible website is an important and necessary initiative.
Thank you for your attention to my comments. I hope that your proposal is strengthened further and can be implemented without difficulty. It will be a significant step in our struggle to take meaningful action on climate change, and to educate our fellow citizens that tackling this problem can actually lead to improvements in our lives rather than deprivations.
Yours Sincerely,
Warren Senders
What Did You Do on 10/10/10, Daddy?
I was out for the second half of the day, helping weatherize a large building: student housing at Tufts University. There were about 30 people there. I was part of a team doing masonry renovation — repointing mortar and in many cases actually removing bricks and old rotten mortar before putting them back in.
This was a so-called “co-ternity” — essentially a co-ed “frat house.” Such a building exemplifies some aspects of the “tragedy of the commons”; its occupants are always transients and thus have no real motivation to invest time and energy in the upkeep of the building. There were lots and lots of holes; I cannot imagine how much heat got pumped into the neighborhood’s air every winter.
It was good to be part of this action. Action is the antidote to despair.
environment: China UN climate talks
by Warren
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Month 10, Day 11: Meanwhile…
The UK Telegraph’s environmental correspondent, Louise Grey, writes about the likelihood of failure (again) in Cancun this year, in an article accompanied by the single most gratuitously irrelevant photograph imaginable for an article on global climate change. The comments on this article are a mine of stupid.
The inability of the United States and China to reach consensus on reducing greenhouse gases is a single small, depressing chapter in a planetary tragedy. America’s inaction can be ascribed to a few score members of the U.S. Senate who are either in profound denial about the facts of global warming or who wish to avoid offending those of their constituents who are in similar denial. That this is an election year renders it even more difficult; very few American politicians are ready to tackle the famously deep-pocketed fossil fuel interests. China, for its part, has little reason to trust the United States. And thus this year’s attempt to find agreement on the gravest existential threat humanity has ever faced seems likely to founder — just like last year’s. Meanwhile, atmospheric carbon dioxide is at almost four hundred parts per million and rising. The clock is ticking for us all.
Warren Senders
environment: China Pi***ng into the wind
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Month 10, Day 10: Stop Making Sense
The Hindu ran a piece noting that the current round of climate talks seems to be going nowhere, thanks (among other things) to the intransigence of a certain world superpower. The letter below is more of a short, polite rant; it consists of a string of rhetorical accomplishments strung together, but lacking anything in the way of a unifying message (beyond, of course, “Aaaaaaaaagh!” which is my default setting these days).
It looks increasingly likely that any meaningful action on climate change by the United States government will fall victim to the grotesque circus of election-year politics. Conservative groups are already vehemently opposed to any initiatives from the Obama administration; when this ideological rigidity is combined with a reflexive suspicion of scientific evidence and the inability of American media outlets to sensibly discuss global heating, we have assembled all the ingredients in a recipe for climatic disaster. While China may have surpassed the US in its total emissions of greenhouse gases, the true picture emerges when we compare each nation’s per capita emissions as a function of its share of world population. Ultimately, all the world’s nations are going to have to change in dramatic ways, for the apparent cheapness of fossil energy is illusory. By freely burning coal and oil, we have offered humanity’s future as security on a usurious loan.
Warren Senders
environment: corporations EPA idiots
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Month 10, Day 9: The Immortal Billionaire Brats.
The Wall Street Journal notes that corporate groups are busy trying to sue the EPA to get its endangerment finding reversed or overturned, thereby making it even easier for them to go on polluting. These people are like bratty teenagers getting pissed off because their parents don’t want them sniffing glue.
In refusing to reconsider its endangerment finding on atmospheric carbon dioxide, the Environmental Protection Agency is acting entirely correctly. The bitter complaints and threats of legal action from corporate groups are reflective of a profound immaturity that pervades our nation’s private sector. It is immature to think and plan only for the short run, focusing entirely on profits while ignoring the deterioration of the infrastructure and environment. The whining of the business sector when faced with the fact that at some point they’ll have to clean up the messes they’ve helped create is disturbingly similar to that of a spoiled child refusing to pick up his room. Whether the corporate sector wants to recognize it or not, anthropogenic global warming carries a statistically significant probability of human extinction — which would definitely be bad for business. The E.P.A.’s policy of long-term responsibility is for the benefit of us all.
Warren Senders
environment: idiots Ken Cuccinelli Michael Mann
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Month 10, Day 8: Scientist Versus Idiot.
The Washington Post editorializes on Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, whose vendetta against climatologist Michael Mann has now reached obsessive dimensions. Read it and weep.
Virginia’s Attorney General is indeed an embarrassment, both to the State he nominally serves and to the legal profession. His posturings are representative of a virulent strain of know-nothingism which is profoundly damaging to the nation as a whole, despite its appeal to those politicians and voters who embrace the notion that expertise is inherently suspect. The Attorney General’s readiness to assert that this respected research scientist is engaged in a multi-year campaign of intellectual chicanery tells us a great deal more about Mr. Cuccinelli than about Dr. Mann. Unfortunately, American anti-intellectualism has resurfaced at precisely the time when scientific expertise is most needed, and willful ignorance has a profound moral dimension. With overall global temperatures rising and weather extremes increasing, the experiential evidence for climate change is no longer deniable. Another thing we can’t deny: Dr. Mann is a bigger asset to this country than the man persecuting him.
Warren Senders
environment: Barack Obama solar power symbolism
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Month 10, Day 7: Weeeeeell, Alllllllll Riiiiiiiight!
Well. After the disappointing outcome of McKibben’s White House visit last month, I was all set to give up this particular facet of advocacy for a while. And then the President went ahead and said “yes!”
Here comes the sun: White House to go solar
By DINA CAPPIELLO – 1 day ago
WASHINGTON — Solar power is coming to President Barack Obama’s house.
The most famous residence in America plans to install solar panels for the first time atop the White House’s living quarters. The solar panels — which will be installed by spring 2011 — will heat water and supply some of the first family’s electricity.
It would be great to think that the letters, faxes and phone calls all of us sent and made actually had a difference.
Dear President Obama,
I’m deeply gratified to hear that you are moving forward with a solar installation on the White House. Such an application of technology is long overdue. While it’s true that this is a symbolic gesture, the simple truth is that in our celebrity-obsessed culture, any act by a public figure has a symbolic dimension.
Putting solar panels on your house sends a message to your countryfolk that you are serious about renewable energy, and about making the shift that we need to make, away from fossil fuels.
I’d like to tell you a very short story. Just before the 2008 Democratic Convention, I hosted a platform meeting, inviting about twelve other people (some of whom I’d never met) to my home to discuss ways for the Democratic Party to change its platform. One couple was in their eighties; I had known them thirty-five years earlier, when I was in high school and their son was a friend of mine.
All of us shared stories of what had brought us to this level of involvement in your historic presidential campaign. Mr. F_____, my friend’s father, said, “When Jimmy Carter put solar panels on the White House roof, I was inspired. I read up on how to do it, and built my own solar water heater. And it’s worked perfectly for the past thirty years, it’s still making hot water today, and it’s saved us thousands and thousands of dollars.” And then he said, “Mr. Obama seems like he’d be a president who’ll inspire people.”
I have been hoping for the past two years that America would start taking really serious action about global climate change. It is, after all, our nation’s population who are the world’s largest per capita emitters of greenhouse gases — and it is our nation, more than any other, which has institutionalized political and corporate opposition to genuine change in the interdependent spheres of environmental and economic policy.
I wrote to you earlier this year, urging you to put solar on the White House — and at the time, I said, “If you do it on your house, I’ll do it on mine.”
It’s going to take me a few months, but I will — and I’ll keep you posted.
Thank you for the inspiration.
Yours Sincerely,
Warren Senders
environment: coral oceanic acidification phytoplankton
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Month 10, Day 6: Deep Blue Sea, Baby, Deep Blue Sea…
Last week’s Time Magazine had an article about Sylvia Earle, who’s trying to establish marine reserves — internationally protected parts of the ocean. It’s worth a read; she’s clearly one of the good guys. While it’s a little late now that the new issue of Time is out, I thought I’d write and cheer her on a bit.
Sylvia Earle’s proposal for Marine Protected Areas is essential. Whether our rationale for attempting to restore the health of our oceans is aesthetic (because a living sea is beautiful), moral (because it is wrong to use the ocean as a dump) or practical (because if the phytoplankton that provide much of our oxygen die, so will we), it makes sense to establish a precedent: this part of humanity’s common property is inviolate. Indeed, if we are really interested in our own long-term survival, it’s clear that Mission Blue’s plans don’t go far enough. It’s not just that we need to stop treating the oceans as supermarkets and sewers — we must recognize that an economic system which rewards environmental destruction and exploitation will bring severe and tragic consequences, not only for our species, but for all the others with whom we share our planet.
Warren Senders