environment: endangered species US Fish and Wildlife
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Month 11, Day 14: To the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service
A very dry day for climate change news. On days like today, when the search engines don’t give me much to work with, I just hunt around for action items from environmental advocacy groups, such as the Center for Biological Diversity, one of my favorites. They note that the current administration hasn’t done such a good job when it comes to protecting the least among us:
WASHINGTON— The Obama administration Tuesday denied Endangered Species Act protection to 251 plants and animals that government scientists have said need those protections to avoid extinction. Instead, the administration has placed them indefinitely on a list of “candidate” species, where many have already languished for years without help.
“The Obama administration has no sense of urgency when it comes to protecting imperiled plants and animals,” said Kieran Suckling, executive director of the Center for Biological Diversity. “With extinction looming, imperiled species need more than promises of hope and change. They need real protection, and they need it now.”
So far, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service under the Obama administration has provided Endangered Species Act protection to just 51 plants and animals, and only one of those occurs in the continental United States. By comparison, the Clinton administration protected 522 species; the George H.W. Bush administration protected 231. The average annual rate for the Obama administration is 26, while for the Clinton administration it was 65 and for the first Bush administration it was 58.
Gary Frazer is the head poobah of the Endangered Species Program, so I wrote him a letter. It took quite a while to locate his address.
Mr. Gary Frazer
Assistant Director
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
Endangered Species Program
4401 N. Fairfax Drive, Room 420
Arlington, VA 22203Dear Mr. Frazer,
I write to urge you and your office to move expeditiously in granting Endangered Species status to the two hundred and fifty-one plant and animal varieties recently relegated to “candidate” status by your office. Some of these creatures have been waiting for over twenty years for their status to be recognized; many others went extinct while awaiting protected status.
This is a sad commentary on the current administration’s attitude towards America’s biodiversity. There should be no political downside to granting Endangered status to animal species that are genuinely threatened; is President Obama’s team afraid of getting “environmentalist cooties” by demonstrating an awareness of the threat they face?
The more species we lose, the less robust our larger ecosystem becomes. With the terribly grave threat of climate change already making itself felt across the country and the world, we should be more conscientious in protecting all of America’s flora and fauna, not less.
While charismatic megafauna are excellent poster children for fundraising drives, smaller creatures like the Red Knot, the Aboriginal Pricklyapple, and the Pacific Fisher are just as deserving of our attention and protection. This administration’s record on biodiversity and species endangerment is, sadly, full of missed opportunities and a tragic fear of action.
Please reconsider the decision by the Fish and Wildlife Service, and move forward rapidly on awarding Endangered status to the two hundred and fifty-one species your office recently relegated to Candidate level.
We can do better than this.
Yours Sincerely,
Warren Senders
environment: local solutions NIMBY wind power
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Month 11, Day 13: The Millers’ Tale
The Times reports on Nathan Miller, a guy in California who wants to set up a windmill in his backyard. Naturally his neighbors object.
If we are to survive the turbulence of the coming centuries with our civilization intact, we must, as Nathan Miller says, “change our idea of what’s aesthetically pleasing.” His neighbors’ objections to his plans for a windmill will seem increasingly petty as climate change’s effects begin to disrupt our cosseted existence. A choking pall of smoke from a burning forest, blotting out the sun for weeks on end; a sudden flash flood that renders several thousand people homeless; a few hundred thousand acres of cropland dessicated by drought; a nation submerged by rising seas and its population dispersed — all these are uglier by far than a thirty-five foot tower. While a single such project cannot solve the problem of climate change, it’ll never happen without thousands upon thousands of idiosyncratic local solutions to local problems. A backyard wind turbine will soon be a thing of beauty.
Warren Senders
environment Politics: assholes Chris Christie idiots scientific consensus
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Month 11, Day 12: Idiocracy, Here We Come
The Newark Star-Ledger runs an AP article about New Jersey Governor Chris Christie’s “skepticism” about climate change:
Asked by a man attending the event whether he thought mankind was responsible for global warming, Christie says he’s seen evidence on both sides of the argument but thinks it hasn’t been proven one way or another.
Christie says “more science” is needed to convince him.
Moron.
I figured I’d offer him a list of resources.
So Governor Christie needs “more science” before he’s convinced that human beings are causing global warming? Okay. Perhaps Mr. Christie didn’t know that the American Academy for the Advancement of Science, the American Chemical Society, the American Institute of Physics, the American Geophysical Union, the Geological Society of America, the American Meteorological Society, the International Union for Quaternary Research, the American Institute of Biological Sciences, the American Medical Association, the World Health Organization, and hundreds of other scientific societies and associations have issued position papers asserting that the evidence for anthropogenic global warming is indisputable. But wait! But wait! Perhaps the evidence the governor really wants is in the dissenting 2007 statement from the American Association of Petroleum Geologists, the only scientific body in the world to dispute human causes of global climate change, and, unsurprisingly, an organization heavily subsidized by the oil industry. Mr. Christie is no “skeptic.” Rather, he is a so-called “climate zombie” — a politician for whom denial of scientific fact is an article of faith.
Warren Senders
Month 11, Day 11: Just Ask The Navajo!
The Wall Street Journal notes that UN Climate Chief Figueres expects America to, you know, follow through on our stated obligation to reduce our GHG emissions significantly by 2020. While the seventeen percent figure is still too small, it’s the best we could hope for given the disastrous condition of our current politics.
Given the somewhat spotty record of the United States when it comes to actually living up to the responsibilities it has assumed, the comments of the United Nations Climate Chief are entirely apposite. Merely announcing plans to cut carbon dioxide emissions isn’t going to do the job; we need to make significant economic and infrastructural changes in the way we live and do business if our country is to prosper in the coming decades and centuries. While it’s tempting for our politicians and business leaders to grandstand for the sake of electoral expediency, our struggle to mitigate the effects of climate change cannot be carried out in the rhetorical and political arenas. Mother Nature cannot be swayed by negative ads or elaborate misinformation campaigns. Christiana Figueres isn’t alone in wanting more details on how we’ll cut our emissions by seventeen percent; a lot of us want to know.
Warren Senders
environment: false equivalence media irresponsibility
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Month 11, Day 10: We’re Going To Do A Medley of Our Hit
The Minneapolis Star-Tribune runs the same Neela Banerjee piece on the intrepid climatologists who’re jumping into the fray. I used it here as the hook for a more or less generic “false equivalence” screed.
The scientists who’ll soon be joining the fight against misinterpretations and misrepresentations of the facts of climate change have their work cut out for them. Not only are climate denialists ideologically wedded to an extreme anti-science position, the media’s adherence to the doctrine of false equivalence ensures equal amounts of air time or column inches to both parties in an argument, regardless of their reliability. Faced with a choice between, for example, a “professor of thermal engineering” from a Midwestern university and a “research associate in energy policy” from the Foundation for American Freedoms, how is a television viewer to distinguish between an actual climatologist and a mendacious shill from an oil industry-funded think tank? When it comes to the gravest threat humanity has ever faced, our print and broadcast journalists have abdicated their responsibility to the public. Good luck to these brave climate experts; they’ll need it.
Warren Senders
environment: hydroflourocarbons Montreal Protocol
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Month 11, Day 9: The Air, The Air is Everywhere
The New York Times offers an alternate route to the regulation of some types of greenhouse gases. The international agreement to phase out ozone-depleting gases in order to protect the ozone layer (so we wouldn’t all get skin cancer) may be applicable to hydroflourocarbons as well. That would be a nice piece of news.
It seems entirely reasonable that the Montreal Protocol should expand its scope to include hydrofluorocarbons. While the agreement was originally developed to limit the atmospheric release of ozone-depleting chemicals, signatory nations should focus on the larger objective: protecting the planetary ecosystem and the human civilization it supports. When the threat to our ozone layer was first discovered, of course, there were both political and industry voices raised in denial — but decades later scientific modeling has demonstrated conclusively that the Montreal Protocol was implemented just in time to allow our atmosphere to restore itself. Expanding the scope of the treaty may give us a precious few years’ worth of breathing room in which to develop meaningful actions on atmospheric CO2 emissions — and ways to convince the ideologically driven “climate zombies” who are entering the House of Representatives that climate change is a genuine threat to us all.
Warren Senders
environment Politics: assholes good guys idiots media irresponsibility
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Month 11, Day 8: High Noon!
The Cleveland Plain Dealer runs an McClatchy article about climate scientists preparing to enter the media circus.
“This group feels strongly that science and politics can’t be divorced and that we need to take bold measures to not only communicate science but also to aggressively engage the denialists and politicians who attack climate science and its scientists,” said Scott Mandia, professor of physical sciences at Suffolk County Community College in New York.
“We are taking the fight to them because we are . . . tired of taking the hits. The notion that truth will prevail is not working. The truth has been out there for the past two decades, and nothing has changed.”
Poor bastards. I’m going to send them all some letters of support; they’ll need all the help they can get.
It is terrific news that climatologists are preparing to challenge climate-change denialists. With the GOP takeover of the House, we can look forward to a long two years of anti-science theatrics, like Representative Darryl Issa’s promised hearings on the “climategate” non-scandal. Climate denialism is a linchpin of Republican ideology; these politicians insist (despite mountains of evidence and an overwhelming scientific consensus on the reality of anthropogenic global warming) that the problem either: A – doesn’t exist, B – exists but isn’t caused by humans, C – was fabricated by Al Gore and an international conspiracy of climate experts, or D – is too expensive to address. Each of these positions has been debunked many times over, but the minds of GOP politicians are, alas, closed to persuasion. I hope that the members of the proposed “climate rapid response team” are ready for the most exasperating and baffling arguments they’ll ever experience.
Warren Senders
environment Politics: Barack Obama
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Month 11, Day 7: Sunday POTUS
The concert went off well; I’m back at home and decompressing from a fabulous evening of drumming. I’ll have photos online within a day and video/audio soon after that.
Meanwhile, my letter to President Obama:
Dear President Obama,
As a Massachusetts resident, I am proud of my own state’s results in the recent midterm election. I was a teenager when we were the only state to support George McGovern in 1972, and I’d like to think that we continue to recognize the value of progressive politics and policies (several Republican governors and the recently elected Scott Brown notwithstanding). About the rest of the country, I’m pretty depressed.
In particular, I find the election of so many “climate zombies” to be a terrible blow. In case you’re unfamiliar with the term, it refers to a politician whose ideologically driven rejection of the facts of global climate change remains impervious to any and all scientific evidence. These people got elected, and they are going to do their best to stop all progress on combating global warming over the next two years.
They must not succeed. While on a philosophical level I applaud your bipartisan instincts and your readiness to compromise, this is one issue where that can’t be allowed to happen. Because the ultimate conflict is not between Republicans and Democrats, or conservatives and liberals — it is between the forces of human ignorance and the terrifying facts of the greenhouse effect, and in this theater, there can be no bipartisanship.
I’m a progressive liberal, and I worked hard to get you elected. I’m one of those voters that makes up your “base.” It was pretty clear when I was phonebanking during this election that your base (all those liberals all over the country) weren’t happy about the way things were going in your administration. Over and over again, people said there had been too many compromises on the wrong sorts of issues, and too many missed opportunities to show strong leadership. Well, this is a chance to lead strongly.
Climate change is the defining issue of our time; our handling of this will determine whether our descendants praise us or revile us, or indeed whether our descendants remain alive on Earth at all. Mother Nature won’t compromise; it’s her way or the highway. There can be no bargaining with big oil and big coal; their moral credibility is in the negative numbers, and if you compromise with these forces, your moral credibility will be dragged down with them.
Don’t do it. Please. We need you.
Yours Sincerely,
Warren Senders
environment Politics: assholes Food Security idiots United Nations
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Month 11, Day 6: It’s Always A Good Day When I Discover a Good Word
Business Week runs a short AP squib on a plea from the UN Conference on Food Security, asking that the potentially devastating impact of climate change on agricultural systems be taken into account in developing a meaningful climate treaty.
This letter introduces a new and useful word: veriphobia. It means “fear of truth.” Use it in good health.
The message from the UN Conference on Food Security inadvertently provides an excellent illustration of the extraordinary disconnect between reality and the Republican Party. The actual facts show conclusively that climate change is real, it’s causing huge damage already, and it’s going to have a devastating effect on agriculture all over the world. But the facts are no longer relevant to today’s GOP, which is deeply invested in an irrationally anti-science ideology built entirely on opposition to ideas or policies suggested by its political opponents. Does anyone think it’s likely that Republican politicians (even those from farming states which will bear the brunt of global warming’s effects over the next century) will acknowledge or accommodate the needs of climate-threatened farming nations? To do so (alas for the rest of us) would threaten these veriphobic denialists with a terrifying fate: having to admit error.
Warren Senders
environment Politics: assholes greed idiots lawsuits
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Month 11, Day 5: Beatings Will Continue Until Morale Improves
The New York Times notes that post-election, we’re likely to see more lawsuits challenging climate change laws at the state level, as corporate players are emboldened to act even more stupidly.
If the business community’s attention span was somewhat longer, many of the lawsuits aimed at neutralizing state climate change laws would be seen for what they are: desperate attempts to change the subject. The truth is simple: global warming is real and humans are responsible; the planet is already experiencing its effects everywhere from Moscow to Manhattan, and things are going to get worse before they get better no matter what we do. The orchestra of chaos is only tuning up, and if we don’t cut our carbon emissions drastically and immediately, we’re in for a world of hurt. Prioritization of short-term profits will play a major part in the demise of many corporate players over the coming decades. It is a sad commentary on our country when both the investment and manufacturing sectors have replaced fact-based institutional policy with petulant demands that reality be repealed.
Warren Senders