atheism environment: atheism denialists religion
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Year 3, Month 10, Day 21: The Air, The Air Is Everywhere
The Jakarta Post opines that the faithful are motivated to do something about climate change as a consequence of their beliefs. Okay, if you say so…
The Green Bible is a 2008 edition of the Christian holy book, published by HarperCollins. There are more than 1,000 references to the Earth in the Bible, and this 2008 copy is printed on recycled paper using soy-based ink.
Likewise, Islam’s Koran also contains numerous surahs (chapters) that both enlighten and command Muslims to use and not abuse the natural bounty the Earth provides. “Do not commit abuse on the Earth, spreading corruption.” (Al-Ankabut 29:36) is just one example.
Meanwhile in Bali, adherents to Hinduism, the island’s majority faith, believe in the trihita karana. This is the belief that happiness derives from the relationship between people and God, the relationship between people and people, and the relationship between people and nature.
Religious writer and scholar Fachruddin M. Mangunjaya raised a profound question in a recent paper on climate change and religion: Who were the first environmental campaigners? Answer: Followers of the world’s religions.
Fachruddin, a lecturer in biology at the National University in Jakarta, told a September 2012 climate change writing clinic for youths in Jakarta that religion had been a major mover, which had established numerous world civilizations.
Now with environmental crises and the impact of climate change casting threats on human civilization, people are returning to religious teachings and reassessing their meaning of and obligations in life.
I’ll believe it when I see it. Oh, wait… Sent October 14:
When it comes to taking meaningful action on climate change, many followers of the great religious traditions find inspiration and motivation in their beliefs. But it is a grave error to assume that all religiously-driven individuals will be receptive to the scientific facts of the climate crisis. In the United States, many devout Christians decided long ago that science could only be regarded as an enemy of their faith — and this antipathy towards scientific method and results carries over into their attitude towards environmental problems, which are strongly identified with the scientists who research and describe them.
A significant minority of Christians also adhere to doctrines which preach the imminence of a “day of judgement” in which the Earth as we know it will be destroyed and afterlife preference given to “true believers.” It is self-evident that such a belief is antithetical to any notion of sustainability as a desirable goal.
If we are to reconcile the directives of faith and the long-term requirements of our planetary environment, religious leaders must work with scientists in the interests of our civilization, our species, and the web of life of which we humans are a part.
Warren Senders
environment Politics: media irresponsibility scientific consensus seasons
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Year 3, Month 10, Day 20: All Russet Brown
The Easton Star-Democrat (DE) tells us about a study of changing leaves that reinforces what should now be absolutely common knowledge:
COLLEGE PARK – Fall colors are arriving later and are fading more quickly because of climate change, according to researchers.
The climate-driven changes are already visible in some forests in New England. Scientists worry that leaf-peeping hotspots in Maryland also could eventually see duller foliage and delays in the start of leaf season.
“It [climate change] certainly could have an impact here, as well,” said Saran Twombly, a researcher at the National Science Foundation, who studies the impact of climate change on foliage.
In Massachusetts’ Harvard Forest, data collected by retired Harvard professor John O’Keefe suggests that leaves are changing color four days later than they did in 1993.
In New Hampshire, sugar maples are shedding their leaves two to five days later than two decades ago, according to data collected by the Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest in Woodstock, N.H.
Warmer temperatures and erratic weather patterns driven by climate change have an adverse affect on tree health, according to phenologists – those who study the effects of seasonal changes on plants.
Peepers away! Sent October 13:
At first blush, the news that autumn leaves are changing color a few days ahead of schedule doesn’t seem like much to worry about. But the climate crisis requires long-term thinking; it requires us to extrapolate from current trends, and to integrate scientific data from as many sources as possible.
The deniers in our media and politics who claim the science of climate change “isn’t settled” should have no more credibility than flat-Earthers or those who believe the moon landings were faked; the climatological evidence confirming global warming is overwhelmingly conclusive and extremely alarming.
For millennia, Earth’s steady, predictable, and hospitable climate has allowed our species to prosper, our civilization to develop, and our capacity to understand our universe to expand a millionfold. Now that’s changing; those early autumn leaves are one of countless harbingers of a new and less welcoming future we’ve inadvertently created for our descendants. We can no longer afford to ignore these signs.
Warren Senders
environment Politics: media irresponsibility rising sea levels scientific consensus
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Year 3, Month 10, Day 19: Shut Up He Explained
The Naples Daily News (FL) wonders about something:
NAPLES — A national organization of scientists wants President Barack Obama and Republican nominee Mitt Romney to turn their attention to the sea during the final presidential debate in Florida later this month.
The Union of Concerned Scientists on Thursday sent a letter to the candidates, urging them to address rising sea levels during campaign stops across the state. The letter, which was signed by more than 120 Florida city and county government officials and scientists, also asks the candidates to address the issue during their last presidential debate on Oct. 22 at Lynn University in Boca Raton.
Lee County Commissioner Ray Judah was the only Southwest Florida elected official who signed the letter. Judah declined to comment about his decision to sign the letter.
According to the letter, Florida already is feeling the effects of sea level rise, and it “jeopardizes the health, safety and economic well-being of our communities.” The letter points to increased flooding, salt water intrusion of inland water storage and failing flood control structures as signs that rising sea levels need to be addressed at all levels of government.
Not gonna happen. Because FREEDOM, bitches! Sent October 12:
It would be wonderful to see the candidates asked substantial questions about climate change in their upcoming debates. Given the undeniable threat posed by the runaway greenhouse effect (to say nothing of oceanic acidification and thawing Arctic methane, two other nightmares emerging from our past century of CO2 emissions), it would seem absurd to ignore the problem.
And yet this is all too likely what will happen. The sad fact of the matter is that America’s economy is more like an overloaded Hummer than a nimble Prius, with multinational fossil fuel corporations in the driver’s seat. These organizations are loath to relinquish even a tiny bit of their extraordinary profit margins, even if it means denying the existence of a problem far greater in scope, and graver in consequences, than any of the issues currently occupying the attention of our media and political establishments.
This is irresponsibility of unprecedented magnitude.
Warren Senders
environment Politics: denialists economics extreme weather insurance sustainability
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Year 3, Month 10, Day 18: No Joke
More on the Munich Re report, this time from USA Today:
5:07PM EST October 10. 2012 – The number of natural disasters per year has been rising dramatically on all continents since 1980, but the trend is steepest for North America where countries have been battered by hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, searing heat and drought, a new report says.
The study being released today by Munich Re, the world’s largest reinsurance firm, sees climate change driving the increase and predicts those influences will continue in years ahead, though a number of experts question that conclusion.
Whatever the causes, the report shows that if you thought the weather has been getting worse, you’re right.
The report finds that weather disasters in North America are among the worst and most volatile in the world: “North America is the continent with the largest increases in disasters,” says Munich Re’s Peter Hoppe.
This letter seemed to fall into two parts. I don’t know if it’s effective, but I write the letters I write, not the letters I wish I’d write. Sent October 11:
The Munich Re report linking climate change with three decades of steadily increasing natural disasters everywhere on Earth provides yet more support for those who maintain that the rapidly metastasizing greenhouse effect is a clear and present danger to our civilization. Despite the absurd mischaracterizations of conservative opinionators, this group (aka the “reality-based community”) isn’t just comprised of liberal environmentalists, climatologists, and hippies, but also includes the American armed forces, the intelligence community, and the insurance industry.
While it’d be nice to discover that the free market system is the most effective way to deal with the consequences of a century of fossil-fuel consumption, the evidence so far suggests otherwise. Today’s loudest advocates of deregulation and laissez-faire economics are also the ones most conspicuously ignoring or denying scientific reality. The accelerating climate crisis demands action on a scale that the private sector cannot possibly encompass — a planetary Manhattan project.
Warren Senders
environment Politics: denialists insurance public health
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Year 3, Month 10, Day 17: Be Sure To Wear Some Flowers In Your Hair
The Burlington Free Press (VT) notes that another big insurance organization has gone all DFH on us:
The number of natural disasters per year has been rising dramatically on all continents since 1980, but the trend is steepest for North America where countries have been battered by hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, searing heat and drought, a new report says.
The study being released today by Munich Re, the world’s largest reinsurance firm, sees climate change driving the increase and predicts those influences will continue in years ahead, though a number of experts question that conclusion.
Whatever the causes, the report shows that if you thought the weather has been getting worse, you’re right.
The report finds that weather disasters in North America are among the worst and most volatile in the world: “North America is the continent with the largest increases in disasters,” says Munich Re’s Peter Roder.
The report focuses on weather disasters since 1980 in the USA, Canada, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
Roder says this report represents the first finding of a climate change “footprint” in the data from natural catastrophes.
Take a bath, you lazy flower children. Sent October 10:
How often are we reminded that “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure?” The newly released Munich Re report on the likely impact of climate change should bring that old maxim back to the forefront of our thinking. Insurers are quite rightly anxious about having to shell out big bucks to pay for our national failure to anticipate the disastrous consequences of global warming in our own country and around the world.
Conservative politicians may extol the virtues of the free market, but this is merely rhetoric; their deny-and-delay policies will do incalculable damage to our economy when the bill finally comes due. And what a bill: coping with devastated agriculture, crippled infrastructure, decimated biodiversity, geopolitical instability, and catastrophic public-health impacts is going to cost trillions of dollars. It’s both economically and environmentally sensible to address the climate crisis before it’s too late.
Prevention, not cure.
Warren Senders
environment Politics: denialists drought idiots Republican obstructionism scientific consensus
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Year 3, Month 10, Day 16: Our Love Is Here To Stay?
The McCook Daily Gazette (NE) reports on a panel discussion featuring a bunch of frantic hippies:
LINCOLN, Nebraska — Things are about to start heating up.
So say a panel of five environmental scholars and professionals, who presented “Climate Change and Nebraska: What Does Our Future Hold?” Saturday at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln to warn of the dangers of a potential four-to-10 degree temperature increase in the state.
The speakers examined the scientific evidence for climate change, the impact this could have on the future and the steps that can be taken to assuage it. Robert Oglesby, a professor of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at UNL, said after considering all the factors, the one that is the cause for most alarm in Nebraska is the reduction of snowpack in the Rocky Mountains.
“We need that steady release of water due to the slow, steady melt of the snow in the spring through early summer to maintain river flow of the Platte,” Oglesby said.
Song Feng, of the School of Natural Resources at UNL, offered a study into the effect droughts have had in the United States and the likelihood of their continuation in the future.
“The drought will become the normal condition by the end of the century,” Feng said.
It’s going to get harder and harder to be a denialist in the years ahead. Won’t stop ’em, though. Sent October 9:
While it makes a good opening for an article on the findings of climate scientists, “things are about to start heating up” is a pretty misleading sentence. The mercury’s been rising for quite a while now, as witness this single statistic: July 2012 was the 329th consecutive month to exceed the global average temperature for the twentieth century. While this increase is bad news for us all, we can still make it worse — by rejecting the reality of global warming, and by blocking action until catastrophic consequences are unavoidable.
It’s impossible to imagine a more cynical and destructive approach to governance than the deny-and-delay strategy that is the modus operandi of conservative politicians when it comes to addressing the climate crisis. Self-styled “deficit hawks” who claim that reducing our greenhouse emissions would be prohibitively expensive are essentially telling us that prevention costs more than cure — a notion both logically absurd and morally bankrupt.
We cannot afford further inaction on climate change.
Warren Senders
environment Politics: assholes denialists idiots media irresponsibility Republicans scientific literacy scientific method
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Year 3, Month 10, Day 15: All Right — From Now On, No More Doctor Nice Guy
The Lincoln Journal-Star tells us about some Nebraska climatologists who are speaking out with one well-projected voice:
A warning sign on the first floor directs people to the basement of Bessey Hall in the event of a tornado.
An open door offers a view of an instructor pointing to a video display of the world’s prime monsoon regions.
Upstairs, on the third floor of his City Campus office, Clinton Rowe is dealing with a less familiar task.
He’s explaining why he and four colleagues decided it was time to go proactive, why they needed to issue a joint public statement on the evidence of increasing climate extremes and the potential for more tornadoes, droughts and floods.
The attention they’re getting for raising the alarm about global warming may have less to do with the side they’re on than with their methods.
In his 26 years at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Rowe can’t remember a time when his department has chosen a similar course toward group activism.
“Have we ever done anything like this? Not that I can think of.”
It’s been two weeks since he and four other NU faculty members from climate and climate-related ranks offered their shared view.
“The time for debate is over,” they said. “The time for action is here.”
In the next few decades, they warned, average temperatures in Nebraska will rise by 4 to 10 degrees. Because of diminished snowpack in the Rocky Mountains, flows in the Platte River will drop and Lake McConaughy could become “a ditch in midsummer.”
Enviro-nazis! Sent October 8:
The traditional language of science is restrained and cautious, which is a hindrance for climatologists when it comes to spreading the word about global warming and the dangers it poses to America and the world. When climate experts shout, it’s with careful statements using phrases like “statistically significant relationship” and “robust correlation,” which, while accurate, lack the emotional force necessary to galvanize ordinary citizens into action.
Meanwhile, those who oppose responsible climate and energy policies feel free to misrepresent the science and engage in character assassination, as witness the blizzard of obloquy hurled at Dr. Michael Mann and others who have stood up for the future of our species and our civilization. In the aftermath of their forceful statement on the climate crisis, let’s hope Dr. Clinton Rowe and his colleagues at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln receive respect and gratitude from their fellow citizens, rather than the ignorance and mockery we’ve come to expect from the anti-science politicians of the GOP and their enablers in the print and broadcast media.
Warren Senders
environment Politics: assholes cap and trade denialists idiots Republicans
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Year 3, Month 10, Day 14: I Thought Love Was Only True In Fairy Tales
The Helena Independent-Record (MT) notes incumbent Senator Jon Tester’s support for a tepid cap-and-trade approach, and contrasts it with that of his challenger, a typical Republican denialist twit named Denny Rehberg:
Last week we received a giant colorful postcard from Montana’s Republican Party — no mention of what Congressman Denny Rehberg has done — (What has he done?), but of Sen. Jon Tester supporting cap and trade. Rehberg’s not supporting sensible climate solutions terrifies me.
What is cap and trade? Sightline Institute says: “cap” is a legal limit on the quantity of greenhouse gases that a region can emit each year and “trade” means that companies may swap among themselves the … permits to emit greenhouse gases … Cap and trade commits us to responsible limits on global warming emissions and gradually steps down those limits … Setting commonsense rules, cap and trade sparks the competitiveness and ingenuity of the marketplace to reduce emissions as smoothly, efficiently and cost-effectively as possible.
Peter Pan governance — just clap your hands! Sent October 7:
While a “cap and trade” system for reducing carbon dioxide emissions is a relatively weak approach to the threat of global climate change, Senator Tester’s support for this policy has the advantage of being based on scientific reality rather than the ideologically-driven wishful thinking so prevalent among modern-day Republican politicians and pundits. Their approach to the problems of contemporary society is to assert that when a fact clashes with one’s wishes or preconceptions, the problem lies with the fact, not the preconceptions — an inexcusably irresponsible attitude. While a Southern GOP congressman who believes that modern physics is of Satanic origin is pretty hilarious, science-denial isn’t very funny when it comes to climate change.
The metastasizing greenhouse effect threatens American agriculture, infrastructure, and public health systems, as well as the health of our planet. Rejecting scientific evidence because it’s ideologically inconvenient (or because it threatens the profits of your biggest campaign donors) should immediately disqualify any candidate for public office.
Warren Senders
environment Politics: denialism illness media irresponsibility plagues Republican obstructionism
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Year 3, Month 10, Day 13: Fever!
Charlie Pierce normally writes about politics for Esquire, but he noticed that Hantavirus was showing up in a place it wasn’t expected. You should read the whole piece:
Just to get your weekend off to a happy start, there seems to be an outbreak of the hantavirus in Yosemite, and folks aren’t entirely sure that it will stay there, or that it will be the only little biological horror to visit these shores.
Sent October 6:
The news that climate change has triggered outbreaks of Hantavirus in Yosemite National Park should surprise no one; it is common epidemiological knowledge that a major illness brings minor ones in its wake. The metastasizing greenhouse effect is such an illness, crippling the planetary “immune system” that has allowed both an effulgent biodiversity and a richly complex human civilization to flourish over the past few tens of thousands of years.
Look around carefully and you’ll find similar “sicknesses” at different levels of scale throughout Earth’s interdependent ecologies. Whether it’s acidified oceans, beetle-infested forests, tropical diseases in New England, droughts in Iowa, floods in Pakistan, or methane bubbling from the surface of the Arctic ocean, these manifestations of a grave underlying condition can no longer be denied or ignored.
The widespread rejection of scientific reality in American society is a symptom of another sort, for major illness is often accompanied by cognitive impairment and disorientation. Is not the climate-change denial pervading our media and politics just such a systemic delirium?
Warren Senders
environment Politics: corporate irresponsibility media irresponsibility
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Year 3, Month 10, Day 12: Whenever I Want You, All I Have To Do Is Dream…
U.S. News and World Report asks “Why have Obama and Romney ignored global warming?”:
For an hour and a half Wednesday, Mitt Romney and Barack Obama talked about jobs, the economy, and more jobs—but they didn’t touch on the environment or climate change. A new study suggests maybe they should have: Undecided voters seem to care about global warming as much as Democrats do.
With polls showing a dead heat in the race to woo independent voters and neither candidate doing a great job on climate change (a prominent climatologist told the San Francisco Chronicle earlier this week that “the silence of Gov. Romney and President Obama on climate change is deafening”), could the issue break the tie?
According to a poll by Yale and George Mason Universities, 80 percent of undecided voters believe that global warming is happening and only 3 percent actively deny it. Two thirds of undecided voters say the federal government should do more to address climate change, and 61 percent say it’s an important issue they consider when voting for president.
Both candidates have already acknowledged they believe the earth is getting warmer and that humans are causing it, but neither has campaigned much on the issue. Ed Maibach, the George Mason professor behind the poll, says it’s about time they started to.
About time, indeed. Sent October 5:
The candidates’ extraordinary reluctance to offer the issue of climate change anything more substantial than snarky remarks or cameo appearances is a distressing reminder of the degree to which the interests of fossil fuel corporations coincide with those of the American media establishment. Any American politician who correctly notes that the threat posed by (for example) an expanding budget deficit is miniscule compared to that of a rapidly metastasizing greenhouse effect would be immediately pilloried and ridiculed by print and broadcast journalists, as witness the irresponsible treatment meted out to Al Gore over the past decade.
But these corporate interests’ slavish devotion to the bottom line is ultimately self-defeating. A short-term focus on quarterly profits occludes the key fact of the climate crisis: unless we address the problem both rapidly and responsibly, none of the other issues currently commanding the attention of our media and political establishments will matter.
Warren Senders