environment Politics: Barack Obama climate zombies
by Warren
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Month 11, Day 24: Climate Zombie Apocalypse Warning
Struggled to find an article to use as a hook for tomorrow’s letter. Finally gave up and wrote POTUS.
Dear President Obama,
As the 111th Congress enters its lame-duck phase, Republican legislators are already telling their supporters to expect hearings and inquiries. I imagine they’d probably subpoena your dog, Bo, if they could find a pretext.
It is folly to imagine that compromise is possible with this group of nihilists. While I applaud your bipartisan instincts, they are useless against the incoming GOP caucus.
There is no area in which a willingness to compromise is more dangerous than that of climate change. With “climate zombies” like Joe Barton, John Shimkus and Darryl Issa all eagerly anticipating opportunities to subject climate scientists to hostile questioning and intimidation, we can look forward to a profoundly depressing couple of years — years in which one climatic “tipping point” after another will come and go, leaving us as a nation and a species with fewer options for our survival.
There can be no “middle way” between species extinction and survival. The actions of the United States in the upcoming Cancun conference are of critical importance — and yet we hear over and over again that we shouldn’t expect too much.
My daughter will be six this coming January. She expects to live happily in a world filled with life and beauty. Is that too much?
These destructive, thoughtless, anti-science, anti-reality forces have declared war on you, and on all of us — please fight them with all the strength and resources you have. We are depending on you, and we’re getting pretty worried.
Yours Sincerely,
Warren Senders
environment: assholes climate zombies idiots Michael Mann plagiarism
by Warren
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Month 11, Day 23: Surprise!
The 2006 report criticizing Michael Mann and his colleagues for methodological slip-ups was in large part plagiarized, reports USA Today.
Goodness. I’m shocked, I tell you! Shocked!
There are two important things to understand about the news that a 2006 report to Congress which fostered a Republican cottage industry of climate conspiracy theorizing was substantially plagiarized. Dan Vergano’s article correctly notes that plagiarized material in the report doesn’t necessarily invalidate its conclusion that the climate scientists whose work Dr. Wegman examined made methodological errors. But the corollary point is that such problems don’t necessarily invalidate the climatologists’ conclusions. Innumerable subsequent studies have validated their work; the world is indeed getting hotter exactly as Mann and his colleagues predicted. Not that this will make a difference to the “climate zombies” entering the House of Representatives, who are now poised to spend the next two years holding irrelevant hearing after irrelevant hearing, wasting the time of scientists who are struggling to address the most significant threat humanity has yet faced in its millennia of existence on this planet.
Warren Senders
environment: corporate irresponsibility corporations immigrants
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Month 11, Day 22: Green Isn’t White
The LA Times reports on a poll which shows that immigrant groups are more likely than whites to be concerned about the environment.
It’s unsurprising that Latinos and Asians, among other statistical minorities, are more concerned about environmental destruction and the threats to the Earth than are whites. While these groups are more likely to be Democrats, that in itself is more a symptom than an explanation. Immigrant populations are by definition going to have more family and friends in other countries than those from groups that have been resident in the U.S. for generations. Consequently, they are far more likely to learn about environmental crimes committed outside our nation’s borders. Since many of those crimes are the responsibility of multinationals enabled by American legislative coddling, it’s natural for immigrants to be skeptical about the notion that pro-corporate environmental policies will actually benefit anyone other than the corporations themselves — a notion largely accepted by whites (despite mountains of evidence to the contrary), and actively touted by Republicans.
Warren Senders
environment Politics: assholes climate zombie idiots
by Warren
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Month 11, Day 21: Republicans Cause More Pollution Than Trees AND Automobiles
The Washington Post runs a column by former Republican congressman Sherwood Boehlert, decrying the outbreak of climate zombie-ism among the incoming GOP Congress.
Once these people are out of office, they show refreshing signs of independent thought and scientific awareness. Apparently, among Republicans, power stupidifies, and absolute power stupidifies absolutely. Or something.
Because the WaPo rules out letters that have been published online, I am going to make random changes to particular letters (replacing “s” with a dollar sign, for example). That may prevent them from finding this, should they deem it worthy of publication. After a few days have gone by, I’ll replace the text with the original, unaltered version.
$herw00d B0ehlert finds inc0mprehen$ible the 0b$tin@te @dherence t0 @ $cience-blind ide0l0gy 0n the p@rt 0f hi$ fell0w Republic@n$. Hi$ @ttempt to buck the prev@iling $entiment in the G0P i$ c0mmend@ble, f0r the f@ct$ 0f clim@te ch@nge @re inc0ntr0vertible @nd the thre@t it pre$ent$ i$ terrifyingly re@l. B0ehlert cite$ R0n@ld Re@g@n @$ @ Republic@n pre$ident wh0 “embr@ced $cientific under$t@nding of the envir0nment and p0llution.” Well, um, n0. Th@t w0uld be the $ame R0nald Reagan wh0 f@m0u$ly 0pined that “tree$ cau$e m0re p0lluti0n than @ut0m0bile$ d0,” and wh0 in$talled J@me$ W@tt and Anne G0r$uch, 0ne @ biblic@l r@pturi$t wh0 $aw n0 need t0 pre$erve the envir0nment ($ince the End 0f Time$ w@$ imminent), the 0ther @n EPA chief wh0$e @ttempt$ t0 gut the Cle@n Air Act t00k C0ngre$$ ye@r$ to und0. Wh@t I find inc0mprehen$ible is Boehlert’$ @ttempt t0 $@nitize the Republic@n p@rty’$ multi-dec@de hi$t0ry 0f denying ide0l0gic@lly inc0nvenient f@ct$.
W@rren$ender$
environment India: climate change India
by Warren
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Month 11, Day 20: Doin’ The Subcontinental
The San Francisco Chronicle runs an AP story on the likely effects of climate change on India:
A new report says India could be 2 degrees Celsius (3.8 F) warmer than 1970s levels within 20 years — a change that would disrupt rain cycles and wreak havoc on the country’s agriculture and freshwater supplies, experts said Wednesday.
More flooding, more drought and a spreading of malaria would occur, as the disease migrates northward into Kashmir and the Himalayas, according to the report by 220 Indian scientists and 120 research institutions.
Saturday’s letter was written mid-morning on Friday; I am getting ready to fly out to Madison, WI to do a lecture-demonstration on Indian music tomorrow, so I won’t have time to write later today.
As we look towards a future in which global warming alters coastlines, sea levels, storm intensity, monsoon patterns, and the availability of groundwater, it’s painfully evident that the Subcontinent is going to be battered as never before in its long history. A drastic change in any one of the factors listed above would be enough to trigger profound effects; when they’re all happening at once, we’ll get a slow-motion disaster that probably won’t end during our lifetimes or the lifetimes of our children. And, of course, it’s not just India; it’s all of us. The upcoming summit in Cancun is crucial for the world’s survival in the coming decades, but you’d never know it from the discussion of the issue in this country. Now that the party of denial assumes the majority in the House of Representatives, the rest of us will just have to assume the position.
Warren Senders
environment: assholes idiots
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Month 11, Day 19: An Insult To Douchenozzles Everywhere
The Wall Street Journal prints a letter from a well-known denier, J. Scott Armstrong, a marketing/forecasting maven from Pennsylvania.
Bjorn Lomborg (“Can Anything Serious Happen in Cancun?”, op-ed, Nov. 12) claims that government spending on global warming policies is wasted, but he assumes that global warming caused by carbon dioxide is a fact. It is not. We base this statement not on the opinions of 31,000 American scientists who signed a public statement rejecting this warming hypothesis (the “Oregon Petition”), but rather because the forecasts of global warming were derived from faulty procedures.
We published a peer-reviewed paper showing that the forecasting procedures used by the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change violated 72 of 89 relevant principles (e.g., “provide full disclosure of methods”). The IPCC has been unable to explain why it violated such principles. In response, we developed a model that follows the principles. Because the climate is complex and poorly understood, our model predicts that global average temperatures will not change.
Inspired by his letter, I did some research on the guy. What a douchenozzle.
J. Scott Armstrong’s letter very admirably states a goal: fact-based, science-based policy, which is something to which any and all governments should aspire. But Mr. Armstrong’s panegyric to factuality is larded with misleading statements and damning omissions. His apophatic reference to the so-called “Oregon Petition” and its thirty-one thousand signatures fails to note that the document in question has been repeatedly and thoroughly debunked. It would be naive to expect him to note the results of his 2007 “Global Warming Challenge” to Al Gore (in which he famously wagered ten thousand dollars that global mean temperatures wouldn’t rise): his own website conveniently stopped noting monthly outcomes in March of this year after the earth obstinately kept on getting hotter and hotter. Mr. Armstrong’s background in marketing is hardly relevant to his understanding of climate — and his disingenuous phraseology is an insult to the scientific integrity he purports to uphold.
Warren Senders
Education: assholes Bob Ingliss idiots
by Warren
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Month 11, Day 18: Wait For It….Wait For It….Wait For It!
The outgoing GOP congressman from South Carolina, Bob Ingliss, was primaried by a tea-partier and lost, badly. He attributes this to his support for climate change legislation (and, indeed, for the notion that climate change exists at all). Now that he’s on the way out, he’s ready to educate his fellow Republicans.
Inglis, who has served six terms in the House, was soundly defeated by a more conservative opponent in a Republican primary this year and has blamed the loss in part on his belief in climate science, which hurt him with voters. Inglis made his frustration clear this morning at a House Science subcommittee hearing on the science of climate change.
“To my free enterprise colleagues, whether you think it’s all a bunch of hooey, what we talk about in this committee — the Chinese don’t, and they plan on eating our lunch in the next century, working on these problems,” Inglis said. “We may press the pause button for a few years, but China is pressing the fast-forward button.”
Inglis, ranking member of the House Energy and Environment Subcommittee, also took aim at “people who make a lot of money on talk radio and talk TV saying a lot of things. They slept at a Holiday Inn Express last night, and they’re experts on climate change. They substitute their judgment for people who have Ph.D.s and work tirelessly” on climate change.
This is the second letter this week to the NYT.
While it’s welcome news that Bob Ingliss has gone public with criticism of the GOP caucus’ rejections of climate science, it’s something of a tragedy that he didn’t take more advantage of his six terms in the House to educate his fellow Republicans on the matter. Given that there is a great deal of money to be made in so-called “green technology,” one would expect corporate-friendly conservatives to be champing at the bit for new investment opportunities. Instead, these “climate zombies” have donned an ideological armor that no facts can penetrate. Perhaps it’s because liberal Democrats (gasp!) think climate change is important, and Republicans cannot risk agreement with Democrats on anything anymore. Or they may believe global warming is the initial manifestation of their long-awaited Biblical Armageddon — which means that the new majority party in the US House is eager to bring about the extinction of our species. Uh-oh.
Warren Senders
environment Politics: denialism false equivalence media irresponsibility
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Month 11, Day 17: Just Don’t Tell Them!
The Washington Post runs an article by Meg Bostrom, noting that Republicans who secretly know climate change is happening may be able to vote for good policies as long as the word “climate” isn’t attached. She also notes the new scientific SWAT team’s formation. This letter addresses both points.
It is tragic that environmentally attentive Republicans are no longer politically allowed to acknowledge the facts of global heating, and can support good climate policies only if they’re disguised as something else. The fact that decreasing numbers of Americans accept the scientific reality of global warming and the catastrophic changes it will bring is a testimony to the power of our media, which for years have promoted several false and misleading narratives: climate change isn’t happening; even if it is happening, humans aren’t responsible; humans might be to blame, but it won’t be that bad; even if it’s going to be bad, it’ll cost too much to do anything about it; the science isn’t “settled”; Al Gore is fat. It’s encouraging to see that climatologists are girding their loins to enter the media circus in order to combat the misrepresentations and misunderstandings. I wish them luck. They’ll need it.
Warren Senders
environment Politics: Arnold Schwarzenegger idiots Proposition 23
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Month 11, Day 16: Die Voise Uff Sveet Reason
I find it somehow depressing that Arnold Schwarzenegger was the only person available to fill the role of the Reasonable Republican.
Arnold Schwarzenegger is alone among contemporary Republican politicians in accepting both the scientific reality of global climate change and the economic necessity of doing something about it. For environmentalists, the electoral failure of the anti-climate Proposition 23 in California is one of the few signs of hope in an otherwise desolate and depressing vista of climate denialism. The current crop of GOP legislators includes a record number of so-called “climate zombies,” whose minds are made up and impervious to facts. And who can blame them for resisting? The facts of climate change are very scary. It’s far easier to pretend that “the science isn’t settled” (although it is) and that addressing the problem “costs too much” (it will be a fraction of the costs of inaction). Our political leaders need to understand that our approach to climate change cannot hinge on electoral exigencies if we are to survive as a species.
Warren Senders
environment Politics: glacial melt scientific literacy
by Warren
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Month 11, Day 15: Do You Believe In Magic?
The New York Times profiles the scientists who are measuring water temperatures and ice melt in the glaciers.
Shit:
While the United States is among the countries at greatest risk, neither it nor any other wealthy country has made tracking and understanding the changes in the ice a strategic national priority.
The consequence is that researchers lack elementary information. They have been unable even to measure the water temperature near some of the most important ice on the planet, much less to figure out if that water is warming over time. Vital satellites have not been replaced in a timely way, so that American scientists are losing some of their capability to watch the ice from space.
The missing information makes it impossible for scientists to be sure how serious the situation is.
“As a scientist, you have to stick to what you know and what the evidence suggests,” said Gordon Hamilton, one of the researchers in the helicopter. “But the things I’ve seen in Greenland in the last five years are alarming. We see these ice sheets changing literally overnight.”
As a scientifically aware layperson, I wish to point out that when these people use words like “alarming” it means something very different from the day-to-day interpretation we put on the word. “Alarming” is what an exobiologist would say if Chthulu appeared over a city in all His blood-curdling glory.
Gather ye rosebuds while ye may, kids. It’s been fun.
Perhaps the greatest failing of our national discussion is our systemic reliance on magical thinking; American politicians honestly seem to believe that if we don’t acknowledge something, it doesn’t exist. Thus the inevitable default choice: do nothing and hope for the best. Later, we hear, “Nobody anticipated…” Nobody, we’re told, anticipated the breach of New Orleans’ levees; the hijacked airplanes and collapsing towers; the missing Iraqi WMDs. Those who did were ignored, because believing in magic is easier than dealing with facts. Now we learn that our capacity to measure ice depletion in the Poles has been degraded by funding cuts, making it impossible for anyone to anticipate the effects of glacial melt until it’s too late to respond effectively. In the coming years, the catastrophes of climate change may finally teach us that facts are ignored at our peril. Alas for our species, Earth is unmoved by our magic.
Warren Senders