environment Politics: corporate irresponsibility corporate personhood media irresponsibility Republican obstructionism United Nations
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Year 3, Month 5, Day 22: You Are Unastonished. I Am Unsurprised.
Sigh. Whocoodanode?:
The largest-ever United Nations conference, a summit billed as a historic opportunity to build a greener future, appears to be going up in smoke.
U.S. President Barack Obama likely won’t be there, and the leaders of Britain and Germany have bowed out. The entire European Parliament delegation has canceled.
And with fewer than six weeks to go until the Rio+20 conference on sustainable development, negotiations to produce a final statement have stalled amid squabbling. Logistical snags, too, threaten to derail the event.
Feel that? You’re getting fisted by the invisible hand. Sent May 13:
Even as global climate change brings ever more unpredictable and extreme weather, there’s still something we can count on with near-absolute certainty: as the news from scientists gets steadily worse, so too will the paralysis of our national and global political systems. While hasty geopolitical action is usually ill-advised (as many Iraqis would confirm), the climate crisis demands a far more robust response than platitudes. The United States government can barely even muster tepid affirmations, hamstrung as it is by obstructionist Republicans and their enablers in the mass media.
Cui bono? Any person or organization that stands to benefit from a civilizational disruption of this magnitude would have to be sociopathically focused on short-term returns rather than long-term continuity — oddly enough, an exact description of the corporate “persons” currently bankrolling climate-change denial and undermining any attempts to build an international response commensurate to the magnitude of the emergency.
Warren Senders
environment Indian music music: benefit concert
by Warren
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Flutes Against Climate Change…
…just a 2-line report: absolutely beautiful music from everyone!
About 60 people in attendance. I’ll have photographs shortly.
environment Politics: anarchy Barack Obama scientific consensus sustainability Tar Sands
by Warren
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Year 3, Month 5, Day 21: Tangled Up In Blue
James Hansen is (justifiably) shrill:
GLOBAL warming isn’t a prediction. It is happening. That is why I was so troubled to read a recent interview with President Obama in Rolling Stone in which he said that Canada would exploit the oil in its vast tar sands reserves “regardless of what we do.”
If Canada proceeds, and we do nothing, it will be game over for the climate.
Canada’s tar sands, deposits of sand saturated with bitumen, contain twice the amount of carbon dioxide emitted by global oil use in our entire history. If we were to fully exploit this new oil source, and continue to burn our conventional oil, gas and coal supplies, concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere eventually would reach levels higher than in the Pliocene era, more than 2.5 million years ago, when sea level was at least 50 feet higher than it is now. That level of heat-trapping gases would assure that the disintegration of the ice sheets would accelerate out of control. Sea levels would rise and destroy coastal cities. Global temperatures would become intolerable. Twenty to 50 percent of the planet’s species would be driven to extinction. Civilization would be at risk.
I revere Hansen, but I am not so certain about the phrase “game over.” Sent May 10:
Scientists are not known for their extreme language, so when a respected (and unjustly maligned) authority like James Hansen uses words like “apocalyptic” it should be a huge flashing warning light for the rest of us. But “game over for the climate” carries a host of misleading implications.
Earth’s climate is not a sport, and the human species isn’t going to get another chance in next year’s playoffs. Neither is it a video game; we’re not going to yawn, stretch, get another handful of chips, and begin again. When we hear Dr. Hansen’s phrase, we need to imagine a planet-wide version of the football riots in Egypt that killed nine people and injured thousands earlier this year.
Recovering from the inevitable consequences of our profligate consumption of fossil fuels will take hundreds of years; halting the potential disasters likely by mid-century will demand civilizational transformations.
This is not a game.
Warren Senders
environment: assholes denialists Heartland Institute idiots
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Year 3, Month 5, Day 20: Godwin Likes Puppies!
The Fort Wayne Journal-Gazette, on the Heartland Institute:
The Heartland Institute was forced to pull its billboard campaign comparing those who believe in climate change – the vast majority of credible scientists – to mass murderers. The recall came within 24 hours of launching the despicable campaign.
The billboard was meant to promote the Chicago-based right-wing think tank’s seventh annual International Conference on Climate Change, scheduled for later in May. A billboard along the Eisenhower Expressway featured a mug shot of Una- bomber Theodore Kaczynski and said, “I still believe in Global Warming. Do You?”
“Other global warming alarmists who may appear on future billboards include Osama bin Laden and James J. Lee (who took hostages inside the headquarters of the Discovery Channel in 2010),” read a May 3 news release from the institute.
Generic by now. I wonder what new catastrophe will provide fodder for letters next week? Sent May 11:
The disastrous failure of their short-lived billboard campaign doesn’t appear to have embarrassed anyone at the Heartland Institute. Their irrelevant and offensive attempt to link climate scientists with mass murderers demonstrates conclusively how little factual evidence exists to support climate-change denial.
The already robust scientific consensus on anthropogenic global climate change is becoming stronger by the day, as researchers all over the planet contribute to a significant body of understanding. While climatologists do err, most of their mistakes have been in underestimating the consequences of various climate forcing agents.
Perhaps in the wake of this debacle, our media will belatedly recognize that these petrol-funded denialists contribute nothing to the discussion beyond grotesque character assassination and absurd ad-hominem arguments, and acknowledge that there is no meaningful scientific disagreement about the basic facts of the climate crisis. By revealing their intellectual bankruptcy, Heartland’s advertisements may ultimately have done us all a favor.
Warren Senders
environment Politics: assholes idiots Republicans
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Year 3, Month 5, Day 19: Chuckleheads Everywhere.
The Minneapolis Star-Tribune writes about one of their state’s politicians, a Republican named Chip Cravaack, who would from all the evidence seem to be an utter and complete moron:
WASHINGTON – U.S. Rep. Chip Cravaack is leading a Republican effort in the House to block funding for a climate change initiative that provides money to education programs around the nation, including at Carleton College in Northfield and the Como Zoo and Conservatory in St. Paul.
Cravaack’s proposal, offered as an amendment to an annual spending bill, made the first-term Minnesota member of Congress the focus of an intense legislative duel Wednesday over climate change, with Democrats and environmentalists rallying against the GOP measure.
Cravaack’s amendment to the Commerce-Justice-Science spending bill would eliminate $10 million in annual funding made nationwide through the National Science Foundation’s Climate Change education program.
Cravaack said the money “duplicates the already inherent ability of the [NSF] to fund worthy proposals through its rigorous, peer-reviewed process.”
He cited Government Accountability Office (GAO) reports showing a range of overlapping programs in science, technology, engineering and mathematics education that are funded by 13 government agencies.
“A redundant global warming program can hardly be justified,” he said.
(facepalm).
Sent May 9:
A crucial element of any important mission, like last year’s successful strike against Osama Bin Laden, is redundancy. When that first helicopter went down, the Special Operations personnel on the scene weren’t left high and dry by what could have been a politically and strategically devastating failure. Why? Because there were backup systems — redundancies — in place.
When people collaborating on a project have overlapping job descriptions, that’s an additional layer of protection against mistakes or omissions; more important projects require more robust backup systems.
Which is why Chip Cravaack’s proposed elimination of “redundant” climate change programs is a breathtakingly bad idea. Addressing the effects of Earth’s rapidly metastasizing climate crisis is too important a project to leave up to any single government program. Rather, it will require an all-out effort involving both public and private sector organizations at all levels of society: more redundancy, not less.
Warren Senders
environment Politics: assholes denialists Heartland Institute idiots
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Year 3, Month 5, Day 18: I Like To Use The Word “Whinging,” Don’t You?
The Christian Science Monitor, on the Heartland Institute’s billboard craziness:
Update, 5:23 p.m Eastern Time: In a statement by Heartland president Joseph Bast, the organization announced that it will be taking down the Unabomber billboard after only 24 hours. Bast wrote that the billboard was an “experiment” meant to “turn the tables” on climate-change advocates.
“We know that our billboard angered and disappointed many of Heartland’s friends and supporters, but we hope they understand what we were trying to do with this experiment,” Bast wrote. “We do not apologize for running the ad, and we will continue to experiment with ways to communicate the ‘realist’ message on the climate.”
The “experiment” resulted in “uncivil name-calling and disparagement” from climate-change scientists and activists, Bast complained.
Come the deluge, they deserve to drown. Sent May 8:
Given that Heartland Institute’s bizarre guilt-by-association ad campaign insultingly compared thousands of dedicated scientists and researchers to deranged murderers, it’s bizarre to hear Heartland’s president Joseph Bast whinging about an “uncivil” response. If any party in this wholly manufactured controversy deserves the description, it’s those who thought the grotesque billboards were a good idea, not the justifiably incensed scientists and environmentalists who responded.
But the real irony lies in the word’s deeper connotations. To be civil means more than just being polite; it is to respect the society of which one is a part. Thus means the Heartland Institute is downright anti-civil — for surviving the looming climate crisis will need the resources, cooperation and ingenuity of our civil society. By denying the problem and demonizing those who are trying to alert the rest of us, Heartland undermines America’s greatest national resource: our ability to work cooperatively with one another.
Warren Senders
environment Politics: assholes denialists Heartland Institute idiots
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Year 3, Month 5, Day 17: The Changer Things Are, The Samer They Get
The Washington Post is one of many papers addressing the Heartland Institute’s shark-jumping:
A stark mug shot of domestic terrorist Ted Kaczynski briefly took center stage in the increasingly ugly debate over climate change Friday as the Heartland Institute, a libertarian think tank funded by major corporations, launched a billboard campaign equating people convinced that global warming is real to the convicted killer.
“I still believe in Global Warming. Do you?” read big orange letters next to the Unabomber’s infamously grizzled face on an electronic billboard along the Eisenhower Expressway outside Chicago, the Heartland Institute’s home.
The billboard went live Thursday afternoon. But by 4 p.m. Eastern time, an outcry from allies and opponents alike led the Heartland Institute’s president, Joe Bast, to say he would switch off the sign within the hour.
By the time this surfaces on the blog, of course, the story will be old news. But Heartland’s people will still be assholes of brobdingnagian proportions. Sent May 7:
According to the Heartland Institute, the fact that various unsavory individuals have expressed concern about climate change is ipso facto an argument against the existence of anthropogenic global warming. Pooh. Ted Kaczynski probably mentioned the law of gravity somewhere in his screeds, but that doesn’t mean we should reject Isaac Newton’s math.
The grotesque billboards positing a false equivalency between a worldwide scientific consensus and the deluded rantings of Charles Manson and the Unabomber are a new version of an old trick: guilt by association. During the fifties and sixties, Khrushchev criticized American racism — and in response, segregationist politicians labeled Martin Luther King a communist. Unable to argue away the facts of the climate crisis, Heartland Institute can only resort to name-calling.
Aside from demonstrating the susceptibility of American conservatives to irrelevant ad-hominem arguments, Heartland’s latest stunt only reminds us: plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.
Warren Senders
environment Politics: alternative energy economy energy use habits Renewable Energy
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Year 3, Month 5, Day 16: While You’re In The Neighborhood
The New York Times makes half the case:
The federal government has given generously to the clean energy industry over the last few years, funneling billions of dollars in grants, loans and tax breaks to renewable power sources like wind and solar, biofuels and electric vehicles. “Clean tech” has been good in return.
During the recession, it was one of the few sectors to add jobs. Costs of wind turbines and solar cells have fallen over the last five years, electricity from renewables has more than doubled, construction is under way on the country’s first new nuclear power plant in decades. And the United States remains an important player in the global clean energy market.
Yet this productive relationship is in peril, mainly because federal funding is about to drop off a cliff and the Republican wrecking crew in the House remains generally hostile to programs that threaten the hegemony of the oil and gas interests. The clean energy incentives provided by President Obama’s 2009 stimulus bill are coming to an end, while other longer-standing subsidies are expiring.
Fun with analogies. Sent May 6:
America’s energy economy bears a remarkable resemblance to a heart patient who’s beginning to recognize that a pulmonary condition requires old habits to be abandoned and new ones taken up. On the one hand, no more cigarettes and cheeseburgers; on the other, lots of exercise and plenty of vegetables. Any part of this program can be beneficial, but for a robust recovery, both are essential.
As in our own bodies, so too in our nation’s consumption of energy. Since it’s essential for our long-term survival that we shift rapidly toward renewable sources (exercise and vegetables, if you will), expanding government subsidies to clean energy is an essential part of a systemic return to health. But the fact is inescapable: if we are to end our dependence on oil and coal (cigarettes and cheeseburgers), it’s time for our taxpayer dollars to stop subsidizing the fossil fuel industry.
Warren Senders
environment Politics: 350 energy use habits sustainability
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Year 3, Month 5, Day 15: The Biggest Bankruptcy…
The Barre/Montpelier Times-Argus (VT) writes about “Connecting The Dots”:
Thus, volunteers in Waitsfield will be cleaning up debris along the Mad River left by Tropical Storm Irene. It is part of what 350.org is calling Climate Impacts Day. At the same time, villagers in Pakistan have participated in demonstrations showing their understanding that cataclysmic floods that destroyed vast regions in Pakistan over the past two years are also a manifestation of the changing climate.
The climate change movement is focusing broadly on fossil fuel industries and new projects for expanded exploitation of fossil fuels. It is the burning of fossil fuels, after all, that has heated up the atmosphere to a degree that extreme weather events are spreading devastation across the globe. Drought in Texas and Mexico, floods in Vermont and Pakistan, hurricanes, tornadoes, rising ocean levels, destruction of habitats — Climate Impacts Day has much to consider.
The climate crisis cannot be addressed without confronting the fossil fuel industry, which has billions of dollars at stake in the coal they hope to mine and the oil they hope to extract. Many current controversies grow out of industry’s determination to make use of new sources of hydrocarbons, including oil from tar sands in Alberta, coal from the American West and natural gas from shale formations underground in Pennsylvania, New York, Wyoming and elsewhere.
This is a fairly generic better-get-our-shit-together-soon type of letter. Sent May 5:
Industrialized civilization’s gleeful consumption of fossil fuels over the past century or so is turning out to be more expensive than any of us anticipated. Like teenagers turned loose with our parents’ credit cards, we’ve racked up enormous bills with no thought of paying them.
While we’ve long been aware of the health and environmental impacts of coal and oil extraction (factors never included in price calculations), the long-term costs of carbon-based fuel are only now becoming apparent. As human-caused global climate change emerges as an imminent threat to agriculture, infrastructure, and regional environments everywhere on the planet, we are faced with the necessity of transforming our energy economy, mitigating the damage we cannot prevent, and finding ways to restore equilibrium to the planetary climate system. It’s going to be expensive and inconvenient — but we have no choice if we are to bequeath a livable Earth to our posterity.
Warren Senders
environment Politics: scientific literacy sustainability
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Year 3, Month 5, Day 14: Got Two Reasons Why I Cry
The Decorah Newspapers of Winnishek County, Iowa run a bit of advocacy for the 350.org “connect the dots” action. Good for them:
Across the planet now we see ever more flood, ever more drought, ever more storms. People are dying, communities are being wrecked – the impacts we’re already witnessing from climate change are unlike anything we have seen before.
Every time we pick up the newspaper and read about another record-breaking natural disaster, it becomes increasingly clear that climate change is not a future problem – it’s happening right now.
But because the globe is so big, it’s hard for most people to see that it’s all connected. That’s why, Saturday May 5, we will “Connect the Dots” starting at the Decorah Court House.
A revision of the letter for yesterday, which was also sent May 4 (putting me 10 days ahead):
Robust and enduring responses to the burgeoning greenhouse effect must begin with understanding and awareness — without the long-term perspective that allows us to imagine centuries in the future, climate strategies are doomed to fall off our collective radar screens.
Combating climate change doesn’t require a “new Manhattan project” or a “new Apollo program,” although climatology will surely be one of the most important scientific fields of this millennium. While the atomic bomb was an absolute secret until it fell on Hiroshima, successful climate technologies must be transparent and accessible to all. While there was little ordinary citizens could do for the race to the moon (beyond sending pennies to NASA), preparation for global warming’s consequences has to happen in our daily lives, not just in the top echelons of government.
But it all starts with connecting the dots between extreme weather and global climate change. Let’s get to work.
Warren Senders