environment: ecosystems fog National parks redwoods
by Warren
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Year 2, Month 2, Day 15: Consider How Small You Are
The San Jose Mercury News runs a piece on how climate change is affecting California’s redwood trees; their growth requires fog, and the changing temperatures are reducing the sea mists which have been part of their life cycle for centuries.
A report recently issued by the nonprofit National Parks Conservation Association concludes climate change could affect the formation and presence of fog along the entire Pacific Coast, and that in turn could stunt the giant redwoods.
“It’s a concern that has been floating around the park service: How do you deal with the fog issue?” said Neal Desai, associate director of the National Parks Conservation Association Pacific Region. “The redwoods at Muir Woods are the iconic trees, and the fog is their lifeblood.”
Another recent report issued by the Rocky Mountain Climate Organization in Colorado looking at the impact on state parks comes to the same conclusion — and says it’s already happening.
This was a good opportunity to pull out the “old things deserve respect” meme and take it for a spin again.
The endangered redwoods embody one of the core lessons that humans need to learn from our changing climate. People come from all over the world to spend time in the majestic groves of Muir Woods, because there is a great peace to be found in the company of the oldest living things on the planet. These trees were hundreds of feet tall when the pilgrims landed on the Atlantic coast; they command our respect, admiration and careful stewardship. We should adopt a similar attitude towards the world’s supply of fossil fuels: the sunlight of the Carboniferous Era, geologically transformed into a barrel of oil, a pound of coal. Whether it’s excess plastic packaging, thousands of hours spent idling our automobiles, or other forms of conspicuous consumption, we’re wasting some of the oldest resources available to our species. Watching the redwoods struggle, it’s increasingly obvious: our profligacy is backfiring on us.
Warren Senders
environment Personal Politics: assholes denialists idiots wingnuts Wisconsin
by Warren
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Happy Valentine’s Day: An Obscene Phone Call From A WIngnut
As part of my ongoing daily-letter-to-the-editor-on-climate-change resolution (now over 400 letters without missing a day!), I sent something recently to the Milwaukee Sentinel-Journal. It was printed this morning and can be read here .
This evening I arrived home after spending much of the afternoon in a snowball fight with my daughter and one of her friends.
And the telephone rang.
And without further ado, the caller at the other end exploded into an obscenity-filled rant about “you Mother****ing liberals,” threatened to kick my ass, and continued in a single run-on sentence (that included a few words about how “it’s ‘weather,’ not ‘climate,’ you liberal P**ce of S**t” before hanging up.
*69 yielded a telephone number, and I did a reverse lookup on the number. Google is your friend.
The telephone number showed up on a bunch of those “who’s behind the unwanted call” websites (invariably delivering obscene screeds in response to something in the paper):
March 5, 2008:
called and left harassing vmail over letter to editor in milw journal
October 30, 2008:
Received a nasty four-letter studded screed from a male at this number after my opinion letter appeared in today’s Milwaukee Journal/Sentinel. Glad to know I’m in good company.
December 15, 2008:
Guy left a message in response to my wife’s editorial in Milwaukee Journal/Sentinel. He was excessively obscene, and he used derogatory sexual language when referring to my wife. Then he starts calling Obama the N-word, which was strange because the article had nothing to do with Obama. It was also not particularly political in content. The guy has issues.
June 25, 2010:
My wife picked up our home phone and inquired as to who was calling after finding a voice mail for myself. When she called back,a man with a very rough voice he started screaming at her, shouting epithets and profanities about my views expressedin a recent letter to the editor of the Milwaukee Journal.
I have reported this to the Village police department, visited the Distrct attorney’s office and after doinig a special google search, received a cell phone # and name. I urge anyone abused by this possible lunatic to immediately notify the phone cppmany and local law enforcement officers. Based on CCAP, a person with the same name was the subject of a violation of a domestic abuse injunction.domestic abuse injunction and could be dangerous.I will be sharing evidence of this with the Village police this afternoon.
If you value your rights of free speech, I urge you to do everything in your power to punish this political ticking time bomb for your own safety and the safety of our communities
Wow.
I looked further. Lo and behold, there was a real-estate listing for a house for sale by owner, with that number listed.
This 3100 square foot single family home has 4 bedrooms and 3.0 bathrooms. It is located at 6****** Ln N*********, Wisconsin.
Entering that address brought me a name, and the name was connected to a rant in a Wisconsin blog. Check this out :
Soglin you are a cut and run liberal piece of shit, from the 60’s to your mayorship of the peoples Republic of Madison in the 80’s and 90’s. Bush HAS never lied the 46 billon need for our valient war in Iraq is TOTALLY neccessary, and unlike your socialist mind would never be spent on socialized medicine, welfare programs etc, even if there were no war. That is the true disconnect of your clueless arguments. The only nightmare is that you continue to be a coward. The world is already in WW111 you cluesless idiots, we are in the beginning stages of a 100 years war on our fight on terrorism. We can not appease, listen, understand, feel there pain etc, terrorist must be hunted down, destroyed by whatever means possible, and Bush and patriotic Americans have a blank check to do it. Soglin, your like Neville chamberlain at the 1938 Munich Conference when Hitler was appeased, in the name of “peace” cowards like chaimberlain and your ilk were responsible for 10 of millons of murders, the holocust etc, because the world did not start WW11 in 1938, rather than September of 1939. Soglin, you and your liberal ilk are guiltu of treason.
T******** K********
(address redacted)New Berlin, city the supported Bush in 2004 by a 74-26% margin
This is definitely my guy. And tomorrow I’m going to the police in my town with all this information, and I’m filing a complaint against Mr. K*******.
Hope your Valentine’s Day was less eventful than mine!
environment Politics: CCC FDR good government Natural Resources Conservation Service
by Warren
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Year 2, Month 2, Day 14: Personally, I Don’t Trust Market Forces To Do *Anything* Right
The San Francisco Chronicle discusses the role of the Natural Resources Conservation Service in helping various regions of the country prepare for the impact of climate change. Yeah, yeah, I know. SOSHALIZM!
The Natural Resources Conservation Service is an excellent demonstration of what good government should be about. Our economy and infrastructure depend on the long-term health of our environment. Note the word “long-term.” Market forces are by their nature unable to operate successfully outside the short-term universe of immediate profit or loss, which means that they cannot be trusted to oversee systems or processes that move significantly more slowly than the next business quarter or financial year. FDR’s Civilian Conservation Corps planted millions of trees to help prevent another dust bowl; can you imagine a multinational corporation recognizing their value as anything except a source of lumber? As the effects of climate change are felt throughout the country and the world, it is obvious that our business sector is ill-prepared to undertake stewardship of the natural systems upon which our entire economy depends — which is why we need the NRCS.
Warren Senders
environment: assholes denialists idiots scientific consensus
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Year 2, Month 2, Day 13: I Lit Out From Reno, I Was Trailed By Twenty Hounds…
In the Reno Gazette-Journal, a columnist named Cory Farley discusses the inability of denialists to look a fact in the face.
It’s a good piece, and therefore makes not an iota of impact on the commentariat. Sheesh.
While Cory Farley does a good job of skewering the mindset of climate-change deniers, it’s probably not going to change any minds. At this point, the evidence for anthropogenic global warming is so overwhelming that no further proof is needed for anyone who’s actually paying attention; on the other hand, the evidence against it is so fragmented, internally contradictory, and riddled with conflicts of interest that acceptance requires a huge suspension of critical thinking. How many times must a right-wing talking point be debunked before it stops appearing? For example, one favorite line is “scientists predicted global cooling in the 1970s. Now they’re predicting warming. Therefore scientists can’t be trusted.” Actually, scientific opinion on climate forty years ago was totally different from today’s. A few scientists published articles speculating on possible consequences of atmospheric changes; a few of them raised the possibility of cooling (including one paper suggesting cooling trends over the next twenty-thousand years). The popular press exaggerated the importance of these papers, and now it’s denialist gospel that “everybody” predicted an ice age. No; not “everybody,” not even a majority of climatologists — and certainly nothing like today’s overwhelming consensus. But facts no longer matter to deniers. Alas.
Warren Senders
environment Politics: assholes denialism EPA idiots scientific literacy
by Warren
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Year 2, Month 2, Day 12: Raisin’ My Lonely Dental Floss
Sally Mauk, in the Montana Missoulian, writes about a climatologist who spoke recently at the University of Montana. Naturally, he’s plenty worried. Also naturally, the dimwits in the comment section are full of the usual crap.
After I wrote the letter, I located the LTE link and was informed that the paper only prints letters from within their print circulation area. So I sent it anyway, but registered as a commenter and posted this there. I assume that I’ll be shouted at and told I’m a brainwashed follower of algore.
The conundrum of climate change requires action and understanding on a variety of fronts. For us to realize the gravity of the situation requires re-calibrating our own thinking, focusing more on the long-term consequences of our actions than we’ve ever considered. Our industry and business sectors must accomplish the same transformation, moving from the pervasive paradigm of quarterly profits as indicators of corporate health to a value system that encourages generational continuity rather than growth for its own sake (which Edward Abbey rightly described as “the ideology of the cancer cell.”). And our government must provide a regulatory authority which makes these changes possible, which is why the current anti-EPA legislation is an exceptionally bad idea. Given that it’s riddled with “climate zombies” who reject science and the evidence of experts, it’s a fair bet that no law regulating atmospheric pollutants will emerge from the current Congress. Meanwhile, we all need to learn from the scientists who’ve been studying it for decades; our skepticism is better saved for the oil-industry apparatchiks who daily tell us that climate change isn’t happening.
Warren Senders
Uncategorized: assholes denialists EPA idiots
by Warren
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Year 2, Month 2, Day 11: What The Hell’s The Matter With Kansas?
WASHINGTON — Legislation that would limit the regulatory power of the Environmental Protection Agency regarding greenhouse gases has been introduced by Sens. Pat Roberts and Jerry Moran, R-Kan.
The legislation, also sponsored by Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., would require the EPA to seek congressional approval before regulating greenhouse gas emissions for the sole purpose of addressing climate change.
Called the Defending America’s Affordable Energy and Jobs Act, the legislation seeks to pre-empt existing rules and prohibit future federal restrictions on greenhouse gases in the absence of congressional authorization.
The Obama Administration vows a veto. Good. But these people are not going to quit. Climate Zombies. I used to think the term was metaphorical. Now I know better.
Mailed on February 4:
The blinkered condition of Republican climate denialists notwithstanding, the facts on global climate change have been in for a long time, and the scientific consensus on the human causes of global warming is universal (absent only the dissenting voices of petroleum-funded professional contrarians). Senators Murray, Moran and Barrasso, in attempting to prevent the EPA from doing its job, are motivated by a dangerous combination of electoral exigency, fiscal avarice and scientific ignorance. The recent snowfalls that have immobilized much of the country are an early manifestation of the kind of weather chaos we can expect to experience over the coming years, as the gradually warming atmosphere becomes ever more disruptive to our ways of life. Greenhouse gases need to be regulated right away; our dysfunctional Congress certainly won’t do it. Before the Senators drastically weaken the EPA, let them find a better way to protect Americans from environmental dangers.
Warren Senders
environment Politics: Al Gore assholes Bill O'Reilly denialists false equivalency idiots media irresponsibility
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Year 2, Month 2, Day 10: Just Stop It. Stop It. Right Now.
Under a snarky and dismissive headline (“Al Gore’s Snow Job”), Lorrie Goldstein of the Toronto Sun talks about Al Gore’s futile attempt to educate Bill “the tide goes in, the tide goes out” O’Reilly and his audience about how global warming is linked to all this f***ing snow. As snarky and dismissive pieces go, it’s not that bad, pointing out that all Gore’s claims are correct and all of O’Reilly’s statements are stupid…but it nevertheless treats the 2000 popular vote winner as a vaguely comic figure. Our media is so, so, so, so damned lazy.
Sent on February 3:
Lorrie Goldstein notes that Al Gore’s name now triggers reflexive skepticism among people who are anxious to dismiss the very real threat of global climate change as somehow chimerical. But her column inadequately addresses the reasons for this. The former vice-president and Nobel laureate has done his homework; his prescience on the issue of global warming is, or should be, a foregone conclusion by now. Instead, many media outlets dismiss his hard-won expertise, either through a simplistic Bill O’Reilly-style confusion of weather and climate, or through the marginally more sophisticated tactic of false equivalency, in which a statement by a genuinely worried climatologist (or a former VP) is “balanced” by pronunciamenti from petroleum industry mouthpieces. Yes, it’s true that the climate debate has become politically polarized — but environmentalists haven’t been doing the politicizing. That responsibility belongs to the Republican party and its sponsors, Big Oil and Big Coal.
Warren Senders
environment: assholes denialism idiots scientific consensus Storms
by Warren
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Year 2, Month 2, Day 9: Auntie Em?
The Kansas City Star takes on the big storms & crazy weather by acknowledging that, as the headline puts it, “Some scientists believe extreme weather events becoming the norm.” The comments on this article are what prompted the closing sentences in my letter (mailed 2/2/11):
The phrase “some scientists” is misleading; it’s just about impossible for the scientific consensus on human causes of global warming to get any stronger. Barring a few petroleum-funded contrarians, the overwhelming majority of climate specialists agree: anthropogenic greenhouse emissions are warming the atmosphere, and the results are going to bring us a world of hurt in the coming decades. The current crop of freak weather events all over the world is just a preview of coming attractions; for decades climatologists have been predicting a worldwide increase in anomalous weather as a consequence of the greenhouse effect. Now their predictions are coming true from Queensland to Kansas as hundreds of millions of lives are disrupted by severe storms, flooding, snow, and drought. But climate-change deniers cannot admit they’ve been misled; their ideologically-driven rejection of global warming’s factuality is not susceptible to actual evidence, no matter how much of it piles up on their doorsteps.
Warren Senders
environment: media irresponsibility snowstorms
by Warren
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Year 2, Month 2, Day 8: Whiteout!
Written and sent to the Chicago Tribune on February 1, as Chicago is getting ready for its own massive snowstorm. Typically, the article is all about municipal preparations, ignoring the webs of causality that link this weather event with all the other crazy stuff that’s coming out of the sky elsewhere in the world.
As Chicago braces for a “once-in-a-decade” snowfall, it is easy and tempting to think of it as an isolated phenomenon. But this blizzard, like the multiple winter storms that are hammering the East coast, is part and parcel of the same complex set of phenomena that gave us the floods that have inundated Pakistan, the cyclone that’s headed for Australia, and the drought that devastated Russia last summer.
If we wish to build a future for our children and their children in turn, we must face the reality of global climate change. While no single weather event can be blamed on the greenhouse effect (science doesn’t work that way), there is no longer any serious doubt among experts: anthropogenic climate change makes extreme weather overwhelmingly more likely. The fact that the phrase “climate change” does not appear at all in this article is an unfortunate abdication of journalistic responsibility.
Warren Senders
environment Politics: assholes denialists idiots teapartiers
by Warren
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Year 2, Month 2, Day 7: (facepalm)
Paul LePage, the new governor of Maine, is an asshole of the first order:
“I believe in real, strong environmental laws,” Gov. Paul LePage announced to a room full of environmentally-minded Mainers a little more than a week ago. “I would never challenge a strong environmental law that’s based in science.”
Four days later, LePage launched a broadside against Maine’s environmental protections, targeting for elimination virtually every state environmental law and regulation in existence, regardless of their scientific merit, importance to Maine’s economy and citizen health, or even their bipartisan support.
The changes he proposed to the regulatory reform committee would rezone 3 million acres of wilderness for development, allow toxic chemicals back into children’s toys and baby bottles, lower air and water pollution standards, reduce fines for polluters, eliminate the Board of Environmental Protection and shift the burden for recycling electronic waste away from manufacturers and onto the people of Maine.
Actually that’s probably an insult to assholes everywhere. My letter to the Sentinel:
Paul LePage’s proposed changes in Maine environmental protections are examples of the kind of nihilism that should have no place in politics. The Tea-Party governor apparently feels beholden only to his ideological allies, rather than to the long-term good of the state. Furthermore, the anti-government zealots who voted for him are themselves being manipulated by cynical and destructive big-business forces whose best interests are nowhere aligned with Maine’s. Unfortunately, ruined natural resources cannot be instantly remedied in the next election cycle; LePage is proposing to spend the state’s environmental capital for the benefit of his corporate sponsors rather than steward it wisely. One suspects that some part of the governor’s anti-nature crusade is simply gleeful “hippie-punching” — political maneuvers taken for no other reason than to offend people who actually give a damn about some of the most beautiful places in the country and the world.
Warren Senders