environment Politics: assholes corporate irresponsibility denialists idiots Republicans sociopaths theocracy
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Year 3, Month 9, Day 5: Water, Water Everywhere…
Boston Magazine asks, “Why Does The GOP Still Ignore Climate Change?”
Heh:
With Hurricane Isaac hammering Louisiana with 80 mile-per-hour winds, you would think the Republican Party might pause to consider: “Hey, what’s with all this crazy weather?” New Orleans, after all, is just a short trip around the Gulf of Mexico from Tampa, where the GOP is holding their Republican National Convention. And it’s clear they’re aware that Isaac actually exists, since they shortened the convention from four days to three—not necessarily because Tampa was going to get hit, but just to avoid the “optics” of a big Republican party occurring while New Orleans floods. After all, George W. Bush didn’t avail himself too well during Katrina.
But instead of acknowledging the fact that climate change exists and is responsible for the increasing weather extremes—more hurricanes, more snowstorms, more tornadoes, more scorching-drought-filled summers—the Republicans continue to not just ignore climate change, but mock President Obama for being concerned about it. The only mention of climate change in the entire 2012 Republican Platform isn’t in the environmental/energy section, but in a critique of Obama’s national security strategy:
“The current Administration’s most recent National Security Strategy reflects the extreme elements in its liberal domestic coalition…the strategy subordinates our national security interests to environmental, energy, and international health issues, and elevates “climate change” to the level of a “severe threat” equivalent to foreign aggression.”
Boston Magazine didn’t tell me a word limit, and this one took me just below 250. Sent August 30:
Explaining why Republicans ignore the facts of climate change is impossible without understanding that there are several separate types of Republicans, each with their own reasons for rejecting the conclusions of the world’s scientists. Let’s look at them each in turn.
First: the Theocrats. Christian fundamentalists almost exclusively, politicians from this group reject all science for ideological reasons (although they’re happy enough to fly in airplanes, receive state-of-the-art medical treatment, and use contemporary technology). Climatology is conflated with evolution as a “secular religion” and denounced on these grounds. And since many of these folk eagerly anticipate the Book of Revelations’ promised Armageddon, the thought of a secular end-of-the-world triggered by CO2 emissions is an affront. Think Michelle Bachmann.
Second: the Corporatists. Owing allegiance entirely to the quarterly report, these politicians receive staggering sums of fossil fuel money, and do their masters’ bidding — delaying and blocking any action towards addressing climate change, which would necessarily reduce the profitability of Big Oil and Big Coal. Think Paul Ryan.
Third: the Bullies. These guys would walk ten miles in pouring rain to punch a hippie. They’re just in it because…well, I can recognize sociopaths even if I don’t understand them, and they congregate in today’s GOP. Think Mitt Romney.
Of course, some inhabit two or even three of these categories, making them even more dangerous. Think James Inhofe.
Of course, today’s Republican party doesn’t do all that much thinking — even as the world around them keeps getting hotter.
Warren Senders
environment Politics: assholes denialists extreme weather idiots Republicans tropical storms
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Year 3, Month 8, Day 31: Here Comes The Story Of The Hurricane…
As of August 25, Tropical Storm Isaac is heading straight for the GOP Convention. What could possibly go wrong? The Washington Post:
MIAMI — Forecasters cast a wary eye Tuesday on Tropical Storm Isaac, which was looming in the Atlantic Ocean and poses a potential threat to Florida during next week’s Republican National Convention in Tampa.
It’s much too early to say with any certainty whether it will gain hurricane strength or make a beeline for Tampa, on Florida’s west coast. But it’s the type of weather that convention organizers knew was a possibility during the peak of hurricane season — and they have backup plans in place in a worst-case scenario.
Blown away? Dare we hope? Sent August 25:
Fans of irony have much to savor in the news that Tropical Storm Isaac is now moving directly towards Tampa and the site of the Republican Convention. First, information about the storm’s likely path is provided to city, state and federal planners by the exact same government agencies the GOP’s policies would systematically de-fund. Similarly, plans for coping with such extreme weather events — before, during, and after — are unimaginable without the support of U.S. Government agencies, such as FEMA.
That the Convention’s planners apparently never considered that scheduling their event in a storm-prone area might be problematic exemplifies the Republican Party’s difficulty with reality — a difficulty that reaches its apex in the fact that the erstwhile party of Teddy Roosevelt is now the political home of those who deny both the science of global climate change and the very notion of environmental responsibility as a civic virtue.
Warren Senders
environment Politics: assholes Big Coal Big Oil corporate irresponsibility economics media irresponsibility sustainability
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Year 3, Month 8, Day 23: If This Had Been A Real Emergency, You Would Have Received Instructions…
The Sarasota (FL) Herald Tribune assesses the grim situation:
In drought-scorched parts of the country these days, some farmland bears a resemblance to NASA’s photos of Mars’ barren plains.
Here on Earth, crops are suffering. On Friday, the federal Department of Agriculture cut by 17 percent its estimate for the corn crop and said the U.S. soybean crop is expected to drop, too. Soaring prices are forecast.
The drought stems from a number of causes, science suggests. But some of it appears to be consistent with the kind of long-term drying patterns seen in global-warming climate models.
Furthermore, James E. Hansen, a NASA expert in the field, issued a report last week tying man-made climate change to three severe heat outbreaks from 2003 to 2011.
These latest developments won’t resolve long-running arguments over global warming or its causes. But they heighten the sense that precious time to address the problem is evaporating.
There’s no mystery as to what needs to be done: Carbon emissions from burning fossil fuel must be cut.
The fossil-fuel industry is an ichneumon wasp which has laid its eggs inside our civilization. Ick. Sent August 12:
Why is our political system unable to address climate change in anything approaching a responsibly adult manner? The answer rests in the synergy of three separate forces, interacting to produce paralysis: fossil fuel money, politicians’ cupidity, and media irresponsibility.
Taking full advantage of our compromised campaign finance system, the oil and coal industries use their huge financial resources to purchase the loyalty of as many lawmakers as possible. More of that same money funds conservative “think tanks” and “institutes” which generate spurious studies using cherry-picked data and misinterpreted statistics — and also produce telegenic pundits trained to deliver denialist talking points on cue. Hewing to the doctrine that there are two exactly equivalent sides to every story, our print and broadcast media then allow equal time to worried climatologists and petrol-funded shills — reinforcing the notion that “the debate on climate change isn’t settled.” Purchased politicians seize on this false notion as an excuse for continued inaction, which is all Big Oil and Big Coal require.
Repeat and fade.
Warren Senders
environment Politics: assholes denialists idiots James Hansen James Inhofe media irresponsibility Republican obstructionism scientific consensus
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Year 3, Month 8, Day 22: Admitting Error Would Cause Me To Lose Face. Therefore Global Warming Is A Hoax.
The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review offers a forum to arch-denialist Marc Morano:
Marc Morano operates Climatedepot.com, an Internet clearinghouse for information on climate, environmental and energy news. Morano, a former aide to U.S. Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., spoke to the Trib on the latest developments in the climate-change debate.
Q: It’s the hottest year on record so far in the Northeast. Must be global warming, right?
A: Globally, it’s not the hottest. In fact, here is the problem: The heat they are touting as proof of man-made global warming is occurring in the continental United States, which is less than 2 percent of the Earth’s surface. So far in 2012, (global) temperatures have been slightly below the average for the last 15 years. So if the Earth isn’t actually in record warmth globally, why are we looking at 2 percent (of its surface) and then trying to draw extrapolations?
Q: Why are we?
A: It’s politics, pure and simple. When James Hansen (director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies) announces this week, as he has done in previous years, that we’re having (record heat), it sounds so impressive and scary. It sounds like proof of their theory, except for one problem: The (record) temperatures are within hundredths of a degree Fahrenheit difference between (ordinary) years and the years they are claiming are the hottest years.
Q: So you consider such pronouncements scare tactics?
A: Yes, these are hard-core ideological activists at work posing as neutral scientists. It’s not that Hansen is lying; it’s that he’s excluding any information he doesn’t find convenient. Satellite temperature data for July (indicated the month was the) coolest globally since 2008. So not only was it not impressively warm globally, it was actually somewhat cooler. We are not looking at unprecedented warmth. They (global-warming activists) are cherry-picking.
Assholes. Sent August 11:
Marc Morano, the alter ego of Oklahoma Senator James Inhofe, offers a textbook example of projection in his interview with Eric Heyl. Offering no foundation for his accusation that climatologists are “playing politics” in their research, Mr. Morano’s overheated rhetoric implies that such gamesmanship is to be expected from anyone who participates in a discussion of climate change. In other words, it’s not scientists, but Mr. Morano and Senator Inhofe who “play politics” with science.
In March, Senator Inhofe told MSNBC host Rachel Maddow that “I was actually on your side of this issue…I thought it must be true until I found out what it cost.” The Senator’s reason for changing his mind was fiscal, not factual. By analogy, rejecting your biopsy results because chemotherapy is too expensive may be an understandable first reaction to a poor prognosis, but beating the disease necessarily begins with acknowledging the truth.
Climatologists have delivered their diagnosis. Now it’s time for us to face the facts. Morano, Inhofe and their compatriots in climate-change denial are exemplars of irresponsibility, in the face of a crisis of historic proportions.
Warren Senders
environment Politics: assholes denialists idiots James Hansen media irresponsibility Republican obstructionism
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Year 3, Month 8, Day 21: He’s Just Not A Very Serious Person.
James Hansen again, this time reprinted in the Cleveland Plain Dealer:
This is the world we have changed, and now we have to live in it — the world that caused the 2003 heat wave in Europe that killed more than 50,000 people and the 2011 drought in Texas that caused more than $5 billion in damage. Such events, our data show, will become even more frequent and more severe.
There is still time to act and avoid a worsening climate, but we are wasting precious time. We can solve the challenge of climate change with a gradually rising fee on carbon collected from fossil-fuel companies, with 100 percent of the money rebated to all legal residents on a per capita basis. This would stimulate innovations and create a robust clean-energy economy with millions of new jobs. It is a simple, honest and effective solution.
The future is now. And it is hot.
So right…he’s wrong. What? Sent August 10:
Has anyone noticed that our politicians and media figures are determined to avoid acknowledging anyone who had it right from the get-go? Those who protested the disastrous and costly Iraq invasion are ignored in all subsequent formulation of foreign affairs. Those who knew from the beginning that Bush’s tax cuts were a fiscal disaster are marginalized in any discussion of economic issues. And, most importantly for all of us, the scientists and environmentalists who’ve been warning us for years about climate change are systematically excluded from any influence on environmental and energy policy.
After being silenced by the Bush administration, NASA climatologist Dr. James Hansen is speaking out with increasing fervor and eloquence, hoping against hope that we can address the looming climate crisis before time runs out. Since Dr. Hansen recognized and understood the danger early on, it seems all too likely he’ll be ignored again. Why?
Warren Senders
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Year 3, Month 8, Day 18: Expletive Un-Deleted Edition
Fred Krupp, in the Wall Street Journal, says “It’s time for conservatives to compete with liberals to devise the best, most cost-effective climate solutions.” Uh-fucking-huh:
One scorching summer doesn’t confirm that climate change is real any more than a white Christmas proves it’s a hoax. What matters is the trend—a decades-long march toward hotter and wilder weather. But with more than 26,000 heat records broken in the last 12 months and pervasive drought turning nearly half of all U.S. counties into federal disaster areas, many data-driven climate skeptics are reassessing the issue.
Respected Republican leaders like Govs. John Kasich of Ohio and Chris Christie of New Jersey have spoken out about the reality of climate change. Rupert Murdoch’s recent tweet—”Climate change very slow but real. So far all cures worse than disease.”—may reflect an emerging conservative view. Even Exxon Mobil CEO Rex Tillerson, during public comments in June, conceded the reality of climate change while offering assurances that “there will be an engineering solution” and “we’ll adapt.”
Even if my outlook differs, these views may turn out to be a welcome turning point. For too long, the U.S. has had two camps talking past each other on this issue. One camp tended to preach and derided questions about climate science as evidence of bad motivation. The other camp claimed that climate science was an academic scam designed to get more funding, and that advocates for action were out to strangle economic growth. Charges of bad faith on both sides—and a heavy dose of partisan politics—saw to it that constructive conversation rarely occurred.
If both sides can now begin to agree on some basic propositions, maybe we can restart the discussion. Here are two:
The first will be uncomfortable for skeptics, but it is unfortunately true: Dramatic alterations to the climate are here and likely to get worse—with profound damage to the economy—unless sustained action is taken. As the Economist recently editorialized about the melting Arctic: “It is a stunning illustration of global warming, the cause of the melt. It also contains grave warnings of its dangers. The world would be mad to ignore them.”
The second proposition will be uncomfortable for supporters of climate action, but it is also true: Some proposed climate solutions, if not well designed or thoughtfully implemented, could damage the economy and stifle short-term growth. As much as environmentalists feel a justifiable urgency to solve this problem, we cannot ignore the economic impact of any proposed action, especially on those at the bottom of the pyramid. For any policy to succeed, it must work with the market, not against it.
If enough members of the two warring climate camps can acknowledge these basic truths, we can get on with the hard work of forging a bipartisan, multi-stakeholder plan of action to safeguard the natural systems on which our economic future depends.
There’s just one fucking problem with this fucking Peter Pan everybody-fucking-clap-louder stuff… Sent August 7:
It’s certainly gratifying to see that some self-described conservatives are finally coming around to accepting the scientific consensus on climate change. And it’s certainly true that those on both sides of the ideological spectrum are going to have to work together to develop solutions and approaches that will protect and nurture the health of the American and planetary economy.
However, it needs to be said: by denying the findings of climate science, by mocking and threatening climatologists, and by stubbornly adhering to a position that is (to put it mildly) catastrophically wrong, conservatives have forfeited their credibility on the issue.
In business terms: a management team that rejects the facts, misunderstands the measurements, and insults everyone else in the organization (and is eventually shown beyond any doubt to have been wrong all along) should not be given an equal voice in determining the company’s future. It’s just plain common sense.
Warren Senders
environment Politics: assholes denialists greenhouse effect idiots James Hansen media irresponsibility Republican obstructionism scientific consensus
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Year 3, Month 8, Day 17: Quiet Out There! Do You Have Any Idea What Time It Is?
James Hansen again, this time reprinted in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune:
When I testified before the Senate in the hot summer of 1988, I warned of the kind of future that climate change would bring to us and our planet. I painted a grim picture of the consequences of steadily increasing temperatures, driven by mankind’s use of fossil fuels.
But I have a confession to make: I was too optimistic.
My projections about increasing global temperature have been proved true. But I failed to fully explore how quickly that average rise would drive an increase in extreme weather.
In a new analysis of the past six decades of global temperatures, which will be published Monday, my colleagues and I have revealed a stunning increase in the frequency of extremely hot summers, with deeply troubling ramifications for not only our future but also for our present.
This is not a climate model or a prediction but actual observations of weather events and temperatures that have happened. Our analysis shows that it is no longer enough to say that global warming will increase the likelihood of extreme weather and to repeat the caveat that no individual weather event can be directly linked to climate change. To the contrary, our analysis shows that, for the extreme hot weather of the recent past, there is virtually no explanation other than climate change.
The deadly European heat wave of 2003, the fiery Russian heat wave of 2010 and catastrophic droughts in Texas and Oklahoma last year can each be attributed to climate change. And once the data are gathered in a few weeks’ time, it’s likely that the same will be true for the extremely hot summer the United States is suffering through right now.
These weather events are not simply an example of what climate change could bring. They are caused by climate change. The odds that natural variability created these extremes are minuscule, vanishingly small. To count on those odds would be like quitting your job and playing the lottery every morning to pay the bills.
Another Paul Revere letter. Sent August 6:
As far back as the Kennedy administration, scientists have warned that consequences of our CO2 emissions had the potential to transform Earth in potentially devastating ways — and politicians chose to leave the problem for someone else to solve. By the 1980s, climate science had grown more sophisticated, and experts predicted that genuine disaster loomed unless action was taken to limit our greenhouse emissions. Instead, the can was kicked again and again; the public was kept in the dark. During the Bush administration, NASA climatologist James Hansen’s report on the situation was blocked by politically-motivated censorship — and increasingly unhinged conservative media figures whipped up anti-science zealotry among their audiences. Climate scientists like Hansen, Michael Mann and many others routinely receive hate mail and death threats for reporting their findings.
Over two centuries ago, the Minutemen of Lexington and Concord responded unhesitatingly to a midnight warning, and our nation remains grateful. Now, a modern-day Paul Revere is trying to wake us up. Where would America be if the patriots of 1775 had hurled abuse and calumnies at that midnight rider before they rolled over and went back to sleep? And where will we be two centuries from now if we ignore James Hansen’s clear and urgent warnings?
Warren Senders
environment Politics: assholes denialists idiots scientific consensus scientific literacy
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Year 3, Month 8, Day 16: Oh, The Water — O-oh The Water…
The Winston-Salem Journal (NC) discusses the state’s ongoing parade of idiocy:
In North Carolina, a state-sponsored science panel warned sea levels could rise by more than 3 feet by 2100. Lawmakers supported by development interests responded with a bill to ban those figures.
During their summer session, legislators moved to mandate that future trends be based solely upon historical data, which doesn’t account for the accelerated sea-level rise expected by many scientists. They said the move prevented the economic burdens of building farther from the coast or higher off the ground.
The North Carolina bill called for preparing for a much smaller 8-inch rise during the same period. The smaller projected rise means less regulation on coastal developments. But after international ridicule and a spot on the satirical television show “The Colbert Report,” lawmakers in the state’s majority-Republican legislature backed off the move — instead opting for a scientific moratorium on any figures until 2016 while more studies are conducted. Gov. Bev Perdue on Wednesday decided to let the bill become law without her signature.
{snip}
North Carolina is out front of the issue to regulate against what is generally accepted as scientific consensus. But other states have tested the waters, and even more could follow suit.
The vast majority of coastal states do not legislate on “climate change,” which has become a politically charged term after being used as a substitute for the more politicized term “global warming.”
Many states have laws that allow for coastal planning, but rarely do states mandate practices specifically on the rising seas.
In Virginia, legislators removed language about “sea-level rise” from a study bill. They replaced it with the phrase many lawmakers were more comfortable with — “recurrent flooding.”
Politicians felt the previous language was left-leaning.
How about the phrase, “y’all a buncha knuckle-draggin’ morons.” Is that a “left-leaning” term? Sent August 5:
To characterize the phrase “climate change” as “politically charged” is truer even than anti-science conservatives acknowledge. The term was first proposed during the Bush administration by Republican strategist Frank Luntz — as a less-frightening synonym for “global warming.” That Luntz’ coinage is equally accurate and even more frightening has nothing to do with its political implications, but with the nature of climatic reality, which is changing faster and more wildly than all but the most extreme predictions.
When North Carolina legislators respond to problematic facts and analyses by attempting to regulate the terms of discussion, they replace scientific consensus (the result of a planet-wide effort to understand the world we live in) with unscientific cowardice. Future generations of Americans living on a continent with a completely transformed coastline will rightly mock these politicians for their ignorance and cupidity.
As Stephen Colbert once said, reality has a liberal bias.
Warren Senders
environment Politics: analogies assholes denialists idiots James Hansen media irresponsibility
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Year 3, Month 8, Day 15: One If By Land, How Many By Sea?
James Hansen, in the Washington Post: It’s worse than we thought.
When I testified before the Senate in the hot summer of 1988 , I warned of the kind of future that climate change would bring to us and our planet. I painted a grim picture of the consequences of steadily increasing temperatures, driven by mankind’s use of fossil fuels.
But I have a confession to make: I was too optimistic.
My projections about increasing global temperature have been proved true. But I failed to fully explore how quickly that average rise would drive an increase in extreme weather.
In a new analysis of the past six decades of global temperatures, which will be published Monday, my colleagues and I have revealed a stunning increase in the frequency of extremely hot summers, with deeply troubling ramifications for not only our future but also for our present.
This is not a climate model or a prediction but actual observations of weather events and temperatures that have happened. Our analysis shows that it is no longer enough to say that global warming will increase the likelihood of extreme weather and to repeat the caveat that no individual weather event can be directly linked to climate change. To the contrary, our analysis shows that, for the extreme hot weather of the recent past, there is virtually no explanation other than climate change.
Time to break out the Paul Revere analogy again. Sent August 4:
If today’s news media had been broadcasting back in 1775, our forebears would have known that there are always two exactly equal sides to every story. Patrick Henry’s inflammatory words would have been “balanced” by an apologist for King George III, and since the Minutemen of Lexington and Concord would have realized that the issue of whether the British were coming wasn’t entirely settled, they’d have ignored the sound of hoofbeats in the dark.
Fortunately, it didn’t happen that way, and we owe our nation’s existence to the early patriots who rolled out of bed and shouldered their muskets in response to the midnight calls of a known “alarmist.”
On the other hand, it’s happening that way now, with many Americans convinced by a complaisant media that there is still a “debate” on the science of climate change. In his stubborn struggle against complacency and denialism, Dr. James Hansen is the Paul Revere of our time. We ignore his warnings at our peril.
Warren Senders
environment Politics: assholes idiots media irresponsibility Richard Lindzen Richard Muller scientific consensus
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Year 3, Month 8, Day 11: Tremendous Richard(s)
More on Muller, from the San Francisco Chronicle:
The hot issue of global warming got hotter Monday when a UC Berkeley physicist, once a loud skeptic of human-caused climate change, agreed not only that the Earth is heating up, but also that people are the cause of it all.
Richard Muller converted only a year ago to the idea that the world has been warming for decades. Before then he had argued that global warming data – even figures compiled by U.N. experts – were badly flawed.
Now Muller is going further, blaming the warming almost entirely on human emission of greenhouse gases, most notably carbon dioxide – a conclusion that almost all climate scientists reached long ago.
Muller argued that the evidence from more than 36,000 temperature stations worldwide shows that the global thermometer has risen by 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit over the past 250 years. The warm-up began with the onset of the Industrial Revolution, Muller said, and has accelerated in recent years.
Watchng the comments pile up is a real education in despair. Sent July 31:
Those seeking scientific opposition to the worldwide consensus on global climate change had their available options significantly reduced by Dr. Richard Muller’s “conversion.” For many years, Muller was one of the go-to guys for media outlets needing a contrarian voice to bolster a “the science isn’t settled” argument. Now, with the release of the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature Project’s results, Muller embraces the science he once scorned, leaving conservative pundits and politicians no choice but Dr. Richard Lindzen, the poster boy not only for climate-change denialists, but also for those who still doubt the connection between cigarette smoking and lung cancer.
Like those apocryphal Japanese soldiers still fighting Allied forces on forgotten Pacific islands, Lindzen is a true believer with thoroughly solidified opinions, making him a perfect recipient for the Koch brothers’ next climate-change research grant. The rest of us are pleased to welcome Richard Muller to the reality-based community.
Warren Senders