environment Politics: assholes denialists EPA idiots
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Year 2, Month 1, Day 3: Fred Upton Is An Idiot. Who?
The Boston Globe notes that new EPA regs go into effect today, and lets us know that the Republicans are outraged! Outraged! Outraged!
It’s instructive to keep count of the number of times GOP legislators use the phrase “power grab” when referring to a perfectly legitimate use of governmental authority on the part of the Obama administration. Fred Upton’s use of this meaningless rhetorical trope, however, may have more severe repercussions. The new and more stringent EPA regulations on greenhouse gas emissions that have just gone into effect are one of our final lines of defense against the steadily building threat of global warming; if the conservative nay-sayers have their way, our national policy on this issue will consist entirely of denial. When Upton says he’s “not convinced” greenhouse gases need controlling, the question arises: what would convince him? I suspect that scientific facts and figures will never persuade the Michigan representative; the only figures that will influence Mr. Upton and his colleagues are those to the right of the dollar sign.
Warren Senders
environment: assholes denialism East Coast idiots Storms
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Month 12, Day 31: If You Keep Being Right, We’ll Probably Just Have To Kill You
The Toronto Globe and Mail has an article on the escalation of storms on the East Coast, noting that a coastal weather expert believes that Climate Change might have something to do with it. The comments section is stupid beyond belief.
The increased frequency and severity of storms and unusual weather events is exactly what climatologists have been predicting for years as a long-term consequence of the greenhouse effect. Now that their forecasts are coming true, something quite remarkable is happening. Rather than receiving long-overdue and well-deserved recognition, these researchers are mocked, derided, threatened with de-funding, and stigmatized as threats to society. Why? Because they were right? The denialist conspiracy theory that an international cabal of scientists is plotting to achieve world dominance is far less likely than the alternative theory: that a group of petroleum billionaires and the multinational corporations they run are spending huge quantities of money to delay the day when their product is recognized as being profoundly toxic to the long-term health of both our planet and our civilization. The fossil fuel industry is a global version of Big Tobacco. Smoke and lies, smoke and lies.
Warren Senders
environment Politics: assholes denialists EPA idiots
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Month 12, Day 29: I Came For The Waters. I Was Misinformed.
The Orange County Register fumes about the EPA’s intention to step up its regulatory regime. It’z FASHIZM, I TELZ YA, FASHIZM!
They bring in a Pollution lobbyist, a former Bush apparatchik, to spew forth his particular brand of noxious nonsense:
“If the regulations actually force companies to make meaningful emission reductions, they will drive up energy costs and be very expensive,” observed Jeffrey R. Holmstead, who headed the EPA’s air and radiation office under President George W. Bush and now represents utilities and other greenhouse emitters that would be affected.
So I thought I’d unpack that quote a bit.
Jeffrey Holmstead’s statement that forced emissions reductions will increase the cost of energy is misleading, and his clients (greenhouse gas emitters) pay him well for his obfuscation. Let’s examine his words closely. First, it is only in a short-term sense that fossil fuels are cheap; if we factor in the costs of cleanup, health effects, and the costly wars we wage to protect our sources, it’s clear that oil and coal were never inexpensive to begin with. Second, energy companies have never been particularly reluctant to pass along higher prices to the consumer; they’re worried about their profits, not our savings. Third, the costs of failure on climate change will dwarf the costs of action. The EPA’s regulatory initiatives are essential elements of a robust and meaningful climate policy, which could save us trillions over the next century. When floodwaters are rising, only fools complain about the price of sandbags.
Warren Senders
environment: assholes corporate irresponsibility false equivalence good advice idiots media irresonsibility
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Month 12, Day 27: Julian Hunt Tells It Like It Is
The South Bend Tribune runs an excellent piece by Julian Hunt, outlining what we’ve got to do, and some of the problems we’re going to face.
Julian Hunt’s advice is prescient. The fact is that the climate crisis has been enabled and accompanied by a breakdown in many of the systems we human beings have taken for granted. The collapse of our political system, ruled by the outrageous requirements of campaign financing and hobbled by the short-term scheduling of electoral cycles. The breakdown of our economic system, incapable of self-preservation because of its fixation on immediate profitability. Our disaster of a communications system: spreading stupidity, driven by cupidity, offering gaudy distraction after gaudy distraction while “balancing” scientific facts with egregious misrepresentations. We need to recognize the reality of climate change and begin planning for how to deal with it in our lives and the lives of our descendants. We need to recognize the reality of climate change and begin planning for how to deal with it in our lives and the lives of our descendants. — and we will receive little or no help from politicians, corporations or the media, all complicit in an unintentional synergy of ignorance, incompetence and greed.
Warren Senders
environment Politics: assholes Charles Keeling idiots scientific literacy scientific method
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Month 12, Day 24: I’m Glad I Don’t Understand Science, Because If I Understood It, I’d Be Less Likely To Be A Jackass
The New York Times runs a long and fascinating biographical piece on Charles Keeling, the guy who did the half-century’s worth of atmospheric CO2 measurements that provide us insight into our predicament. It isn’t always this easy to find a theme for a letter; I am grateful to the Gray Lady.
After I got this written I saw that it was 149 words. So I added the “oy.”
It is a tragic commentary on a forty-year decline in scientific literacy in America that the work of Charles Keeling is so egregiously misinterpreted by conservative legislators and a significant fraction of the general public. At a time when we need greater understanding of science and scientific method, we are instead offered the scriptural rationalization that since global warming is mentioned nowhere in the Bible, it cannot exist. At a time when we need unity of purpose in combating one of the most significant threats humanity has ever faced, we are instead offered the blustery hyperpartisanship of incoming committee chairmen who eagerly anticipate hindering the researchers who are our first line of defense. At a time when we need wisdom and farsightedness to recognize the implications of Dr. Keeling’s fifty meticulous years of work, we are instead offered folly, measured out in quarterly profit margins and two-year electoral cycles. Oy.
Warren Senders
Politics: assholes Citizens United idiots
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Snarlin’ Arlen Haz A Sad
Soon-to-be ex-Senator Specter feels betrayed:
“The Supreme Court has been eating Congress’ lunch by invalidating legislation with judicial activism after nominees commit under oath in confirmation proceedings to respect congressional fact finding and precedents,” said Specter, who voted in favor of both Roberts and Alito when the Bush appointees came before his panel.
Specter specifically took issue with the court’s controversial 5-4 decision early this year, in which it relaxed federally-imposed campaign finance regulations for corporations and unions.
“Ignoring a massive congressional record and reversing recent decisions, Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Alito repudiated their confirmation testimony given under oath and provided the key votes to permit corporations and unions to secretly pay for political advertising – thus effectively undermining the basic Democratic principle of the power of one person, one vote,” said Specter. Chief Justice Roberts promised to just call balls and strikes and then he moved the bases.”
Asshole.
This is not on climate issues, so it doesn’t count as a Letter-of-the-Day, but I just faxed this to his office:
Dear Senator Specter –
I’m glad you finally noticed that Justices Roberts and Alito have been functioning as judicial activists from their positions on the Supreme Court.
Too bad you couldn’t anticipate that at the time you voted for confirmation.
For what it’s worth, a lot of us ordinary people out here in America looked at John Roberts and Sam Alito — and we knew beyond any doubt that these guys were lying to the Judiciary Committee. We knew beyond any doubt that they’d side with big corporations against ordinary people.
How did we know?
While the Republicans on the Judiciary Committee were posturing for the cameras, we looked at the things they’d said and written, and we looked at the things they’d done. And we were scared, because we knew that if Roberts and Alito were approved, a decision like the Citizens United disaster would not be long in coming.
But we were ignored, presumably because we were liberals. More precisely, we were ignored because we were part of the group of Americans that seems to scare politicians more than any other; we were Hippies. Why the irrational fear of hippies, Senator?
All we ever did wrong was to be right. Hippies were right about Vietnam, and we were right about Nixon, and we were right about Reagan and about Bush and about Iraq and about air pollution and about civil rights and about pretty damn near everything in the past forty years. And (just to rub your nose in it a little) we were right about Clarence Thomas and Anita Hill.
And we were, once again, right about John Roberts and Samuel Alito.
And you were wrong.
Just once, it would be refreshing to see a major political figure stand up and say it, out loud: “The hippies were right. I was wrong.”
Not that I have any hope of your doing that, of course.
But I can dream, can’t I?
Have a wonderful Christmas.
Warren Senders
environment Politics: assholes climate zombies idiots
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Month 12, Day 15: Betcha Didn’t See THAT One Coming!
The Times reports on a new study released by the National Academy of Sciences that predicts a world of hurt for the Southwest.
As scientists attempt to warn residents of the American southwest that potentially catastrophic droughts are all but inevitable in the coming decades, the area’s politicians are locked in an ideological trap that makes it impossible for them to respond sensibly. Since the rise of the Tea Party movement, inflexible denial of the very possibility of climate change is now the only position open to Republican legislators who wish to avoid primary opposition. Interestingly, this isn’t the first time they’ve refused to admit the relevance of warnings from other sectors of society. If I recall correctly, “nobody” anticipated the breach of the levees in New Orleans, the absence of Iraqi WMDs, the collapse of the housing market, or, for that matter, that Osama Bin Laden might attempt a terror attack in the United States. The word “nobody” seems to be a sort of conservative shorthand for “people who understand the problem.”
Warren Senders
environment Politics: assholes Barack Obama corporatism idiots
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Month 12, Day 11: It’ll Feel Better When It Stops Hurting. But When Will It Stop Hurting?
Well, this sucks:
The Obama administration is retreating on long-delayed environmental regulations — new rules governing smog and toxic emissions from industrial boilers — as it adjusts to a changed political dynamic in Washington with a more muscular Republican opposition.
The move to delay the rules, announced this week by the Environmental Protection Agency, will leave in place policies set by President George W. Bush. President Obama ran for office promising tougher standards, and the new rules were set to take effect over the next several weeks.
Beating my head against a wall would feel better.
President Obama’s reversal on EPA policy is a shameful capitulation to some of the most environmentally irresponsible elements in the global economy. The big oil companies, unsatisfied with year after year of record-breaking profits, are anxious to undermine the only remaining authority with the capacity to regulate pollution — and the President, incomprehensibly, seems to believe that acceding to their agenda will be a positive step for this country and the world. When accelerating climate change is endangering the world’s agricultural systems, when increased acidity is jeopardizing the ability of our oceans to sustain life, when the scientific evidence for human causes of global warming is irrefutable — it is not the time to bow to the desires of the fossil fuel industry for an even more unconstrained regulatory environment. Fossil fuel is the crack cocaine of the American economy. Why should we reward the dealers?
Warren Senders
environment Politics: assholes Chris Christie denialism idiots
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Month 12, Day 8: Hey, “Right-Wing Jim!” You Reading This?
I just couldn’t resist this. Some climatologists from Rutgers are hoping to change Chris Christie’s mind on climate change. Heh heh heh.
Maybe I’ll get another piece of hatemail!
If Governor Christie were motivated by longer-term concerns than his own electoral survival in a Republican environment dominated by the anti-science zealots of the Tea Party, he might be able to pay attention to the advice he’s receiving from climatologists. After all, it should be apparent to anyone that catastrophic climate change will be bad for business in multiple ways. Rising sea levels could submerge large swaths of coastline; droughts could imperil agriculture and lead to food shortages; increasingly severe storms could destroy or degrade infrastructure, necessitating expensive repairs. Unfortunately, the Governor is motivated exclusively by short-term electoral exigency — he’s made his ideological bed and is unlikely to get up from it. He has become a “climate zombie,” unable to acknowledge scientific reality without alienating his base constituency, a group of voters united in their distrust of expertise in general and scientific expertise in particular.
Warren Senders
environment Politics: assholes Ed Markey idiots John Boehner
by Warren
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Month 12, Day 3: It’s Not Just A River In Egypt.
Naturally, they’re going to discontinue the Committee on Global Warming, since the world is getting cooler and stuff. Also.
The Republicans’ decision to disband the Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming is unsurprising but disappointing. As the warning signs of climatic tipping points steadily accumulate, the anti-science, anti-reality GOP has found denial a fine coping mechanism. Too many disturbing statistics about the facts of global climate change? Defund the organizations producing the statistics. Too many highly qualified climatologists pointing out that the scientific consensus on human-caused global warming is essentially unanimous? Eliminate the congressional forum where scientists can provide testimony. It highlights the abysmal state of our country’s politics that Republicans consider ignoring facts and belittling expertise a sign both of political cleverness and moral fiber. Even as they continue to advocate funneling further billions of dollars in taxpayer subsidies to Big Oil, these hypocrites tout the elimination of one of the most important committees in the house as a sign of fiscal responsibility. They are financially, morally, scientifically, and ethically wrong — but that’s never stopped the Republican party before.
Warren Senders