environment Politics: assholes corporate irresponsibility denialists drought media irresponsibility Republican obstructionism wildfires
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Year 4, Month 8, Day 20: I CAN’T HEAR YOU!!!!
The Reno News Review (NV) considers the wildfire situation:
The U.S. Bureau of Land Management is trying to cope with drought and heat across the West.
And U.S. Sen. Harry Reid of Nevada said Western heat and fires are signs of climate change.
The heat and fires jeopardize the livelihood of ranchers who depend on grazing, and threaten urban areas like Reno that depend on snowpacks for their water supplies.
“Since last fall and winter, we have been working with grazers across the West in anticipation of tough conditions related to drought,” said BLM deputy director Neil Kornze in a prepared statement. “In southwestern Montana, for example, the BLM worked with permitted ranchers to graze no more than 70 percent of their allotted forage on BLM-managed lands. As drought conditions continue, wild horses, livestock, and wildlife that rely on rangeland forage and water will face extremely challenging conditions that may leave them in very poor condition. We are taking action to address these situations as quickly and as effectively as we can, but our options are increasingly limited by conditions on the land.”
In Nevada, the BLM has been trucking 5,000 gallons of water day, five days a week to four locations for wild horses. A veterinarian was expected to be in Lincoln County this week. BLM employees reported that horses were not eating or drinking, raising questions about their health.
“The West is burning,” Reid said in Nevada on July 17. “I could be wrong, but I don’t think we’ve ever had a fire in the Spring Mountains, Charleston range like we just had.”
“The West is being devastated by wildfires,” Reid said a day later in D.C. “Millions of acres are burning. Millions of acres have burned. … They’re occurring all over. Why? Because the climate has changed. The winters are shorter, the summers are hotter.”
La la la la la la la la la la la. July 28:
The sad fact is that as long as the majority of American news media are financially beholden to corporate interests allied with fossil-fuel producers, the grim and compelling evidence of climate change will never be presented on prime-time TV without a protective dose of false equivalence. Here’s how that works:
A petroleum company provides generous funding to a “think tank,” which hires a videogenic person with a degree in a tangentially-related field (statistics, engineering, meteorology), gives them grand-sounding but semantically meaningless title, and equips them with a full array of obfuscatory talking points (“the science isn’t settled,” “action on climate change will damage the economy,” etc.).
When a climatologist is scheduled to appear, TV programs call the think tank, which sends a “Senior Policy Analyst” to provide “the other side of the argument,” thereby creating the impression that there is a legitimate dispute. If this mechanism were in place elsewhere in our national discourse, we’d be hearing from flat-Earthers, lizard-people theorists, faked-moon-landing believers, and adherents of the medieval medical theory of “humors.”
Could this be related to the fact that responsible action on climate change will reduce oil-industry profits by a small but significant margin? I wonder.
Warren Senders
environment Politics: biodiversity denialists extinction fishing
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Year 4, Month 8, Day 17: A Flip Of The Tail
The Vernon County Broadcaster (WI) writes about the likely end of trout fishing:
If you were to ask neighbors over 50 years of age what the weather was like in the summer of 1993, most would not remember the great flood of the Mississippi and Missouri rivers, which happened from April to October. However, ask about the weather in 2012 and most would tell you it was hot and dry.
We remember the extremes, providing they are recent. Most of us think of changes locally on a year to year basis, instead of globally for a decade, therefore it’s difficult to believe global warming has become a serious worldwide problem.
Scientists are now telling us the earth is warming at a faster rate then they had previously forecast. For example, 13 of the warmest years ever recorded on earth happened in the last 15 years. World Meteorological Organization Secretary General Michel Jarroud said in November 2011, “Our science is solid and it proves unequivocally that the world is warming and that this warming is due to human activity.”
This one was pretty easy, leading up to the last line. July 25:
For hundreds of years, anglers have extolled the virtues of fishing. It teaches patience, brings us closer to the natural world, provides an excellent opportunity to drink beer, and even provides a tasty meal once in a while. That climate change may put an end to this venerable pastime is an unpleasant piece of news, but not an unsurprising one.
The painful fact is that the accelerating greenhouse effect has been affecting ecosystems all over the planet. Whether it’s farmers discovering that their crops aren’t producing because of drought, native species finding their habitats no longer welcome due to increasing temperatures, or wildfires simply wiping regional ecologies off the map completely, there is no shortage of devastation in the natural world. Sadly, this trend seems likely to continue and accelerate.
While fishermen have long been stereotyped as serial exaggerators, it’s not stretching the truth to say that in another century, the beautiful and beneficent natural world in which all of us grew up may well be the greatest and most tragic example of “the one that got away.”
Warren Senders
environment Politics: assholes denialists idiots Koch Brothers
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Year 4, Month 8, Day 15: Moron Sacrifice
The Trenton Star-Ledger (NJ) notes a GOP doofus named Steve Lonegan:
Republican U.S. Senate candidate Steve Lonegan announced today that he signed a nationwide pledge to oppose any climate change legislation that would raise taxes.
The conservative activist also slammed Democratic candidate Rush Holt’s new web ad warning about the effects of global warming, calling it “silly hysteria.”
“Whether or not climate change is being caused by man is highly questionable,” Lonegan, the former mayor of Bogota, told The Star-Ledger in a phone interview this afternoon. “Whether New Jersey is being affected is highly suspect, to say the least. Certainly, America cannot sacrifice its economic prosperity on the alter of environmentalists.”
The “No Climate Tax Pledge” was organized by Americans for Prosperity, a conservative public policy organization co-founded by fossil fuel magnates Charles and David Koch. Lonegan was once the executive director of the group’s New Jersey branch.
It’s an endless game of whack-a-mole with these teaparty assholes. July 23:
If Steve Lonegan is really that serious about “hidden taxes” and their impact on Americans, perhaps he should look for genuine economic drains on our well-being, such as the billions of dollars each year that go in subsidies to oil and coal corporations, arguably the most profitable businesses on the planet. If having citizen dollars go to pay for CEO bonuses and the continued subornation of America’s lawmakers isn’t a “hidden tax,” then surely nothing else qualifies. And how about those oil spills cleaned up — by U.S. Government employees? Our taxes go to repairing the damages done by fossil fuel companies, while these multi-national miscreants continue to evade paying the court-determined penalties for their negligence.
Perhaps Mr. Lonegan could look at the extreme weather events, many of which have impacted New Jersey in the past year or so — and whose mounting costs are likewise borne by American taxpayers. Responsible governance can save money by planning for the future and anticipating the likely impacts of the actions and policies we put in place today. Signing the Koch brothers’ pledge to avoid addressing climate change is profoundly irresponsible, and solid evidence against Mr. Lonegan’s fitness for elected office.
Warren Senders
Education environment Politics: American Enterprise Institute assholes Barack Obama denialists idiots
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Year 4, Month 8, Day 14: Who Are YOU? The Answer Is In The Video.
US News and World Report features a twerp named Benjamin Zycher, a “visiting scholar” at the American Enterprise Institute (q.v.):
This issue is about wealth redistribution from red states to blue, and not about carbon dioxide, which, in the Orwellian language of the left, is “carbon pollution.” It is not toxic to humans at many times current ambient concentrations. It protects plants from various environmental stresses. It is like no other effluent; for those, less is better. That is true as well for the coercion and government planning authority inherent in the Obama proposals.
Sheesh. Don’t bother reading the whole thing; it’s all predictable denialist bullshit. July 22:
Benjamin Zycher significantly misstates multiple facts about global climate change.
First, let’s agree: even if we stopped burning fossil fuels today, CO2’s lengthy atmospheric “residence time” has “baked in” significant planetary warming for decades to come. But using this fact to justify inaction is as absurd as arguing that heart patient should continue smoking because they won’t get better immediately.
To say that global temperatures haven’t risen in the past decade is either mendacious or ignorant. An NOAA spokesperson recently noted that 2010 “…tied with 2005 as the warmest year of the global surface temperature record, beginning in 1880,” and was “…the 34th consecutive year with global temperatures above the 20th-century average.”
Please note: the American Enterprise Institute, the conservative think tank with which Mr. Zycher is affiliated, has received millions of dollars from fossil fuel corporations, who fear their unimaginable profit margins might shrink if our energy economy shifts to renewable sources.
Warren Senders
atheism Education environment: apocalypse denialists
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Year 4, Month 8, Day 10: Is That A Solar-Powered Electric Chair Around Your Neck?
The Victoria BC Times-Colonist insists on a “faith” perspective on climate:
Christian teachings can shed light on this dilemma of economic and environmental policy. The theology of the United Church, as with most other Christian traditions, clearly identifies the fundamental role of humans in creation as one of responsibility. There are many scriptural references to God’s charge to humans that they should use the fruits of a productive Earth wisely and steward the resources provided to them. The evidence suggests we are failing in this sacred duty. We are causing unprecedented damage to the ecological systems and the climate that supports productive life on our small planet, and we will pay the price one way or another.
Typically, policy makers present the situation as an unavoidable tradeoff: We can improve the environment and make our society more sustainable, but only at the cost of economic investment and jobs.
Leaving aside the ecological and economic fallacies in this argument, the moral and spiritual imperatives are clear. The United Church of Canada has been one of many faith communities who have repeatedly pointed out that sustainability cannot be traded off. More than 20 years ago, the general council of the United Church called for the protection of the planet’s life-sustaining environment to fulfil humanity’s sacred obligations of stewardship and to ensure the rights of generations yet unborn to benefit from the abundance and productivity of our shared heritage of complex living systems. This call arose out of a spiritual vision that affirms the rich diversity of life on Earth as a sacred gift, and in which love is the basis for our relationships with one another and with nature. The general council affirmed 12 key ethical principles that guide the church’s work on ecological issues including economic justice, human responsibility, sustainable life styles, the protection of biodiversity and ensuring the rights of future generations.
There is a long way to go, but the warning signs should be spurring us on to action now.
Okay. But rein in the fanficcers, please? July 21:
It is self-evident not just to those of faith, but to any thinking person, that morality demands a commitment to a sustainable future for our posterity. But it’s equally self-evident that many of the self-professed faithful are antagonistic to the findings of climate scientists, believing either that humanity possesses a special exemption from the laws of physics and chemistry which govern the accelerating greenhouse effect, or that the events foretold by Revelations will supersede atmospheric CO2 when it comes to ending Earthly life as we know it.
Environmentally cognizant religious organizations will have a significant role to play in addressing those eagerly anticipating the End Times, and persuading them to leave its timing to their deity of choice, rather than loading the dice by refusing to recognize the wholly mundane nature of the climatic apocalypse our species currently confronts. Let’s not make Armageddon a self-fulfiling prophecy.
Warren Senders
environment Politics: assholes corporate irresponsibility denialists idiots James Inhofe Republican obstructionism
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Year 4, Month 8, Day 2: Who Cooda Knowed?
The Silicon Valley Mercury News (CA) reports on the bizarre fundraiser Google hosted for (gasp!) Jim Inhofe:
July 10
Mountain View-based Google is taking some heat for hosting a fundraiser for a U.S. senator who is an outspoken disbeliever in man-made climate change, despite the company’s green rhetoric.
Google’s Washington, D.C., office will host a lunch Thursday, at $250 to $2,500 per plate, to benefit Sen. Jim Inhofe, R-Okla., just a month after Google chairman Eric Schmidt said those who deny climate change and global warming are liars.
Climate change activists plan to picket outside in order to “remind people of Google’s professed culture of ethics, environmental stewardship, and respect for scientific truth which help make Google products so popular,” according to a news release. “They’ll also remind people of Sen. Jim Inhofe’s long record of unethical environmental destruction and promotion of anti-scientific conspiracy theories on behalf of the likes of Koch Industries, his biggest corporate funder.”
The protesters say they’ll deliver 10,000 signatures of people from across the nation, calling on Google CEO Larry Page to end his company’s support for politicians like Inhofe.
“We regularly host fundraisers for candidates, on both sides of the aisle, but that doesn’t mean we endorse all of their positions,” a Google spokesperson replied to my email Wednesday. “And while we disagree on climate change policy, we share an interest with Senator Inhofe in the employees and data center we have in Oklahoma.”
This one was easy and fun to write. July 15:
We should be fair to the people who run the world’s most popular search engine.
Perhaps they just didn’t know how to find out about James Inhofe’s obsessive climate-change denialism (“inhofe climate denial” worked pretty well for me). Perhaps they couldn’t find the right search string that would have unearthed the Oklahoma Senator’s gleeful self-description as the number-one “Enemy of The Earth” (“inhofe enemy earth,” in case you’re wondering). Perhaps they’d never noticed that the Center for Biological Diversity last year awarded Inhofe the “Rubber Dodo” award in recognition of his relentless work pushing humanity and countless other species toward what biologists tactfully call an “evolutionary bottleneck” (try “inhofe rubber dodo”).
Or perhaps, given that the Senator’s entire legislative career has consisted of putting his vote up for sale to the highest bidder (“inhofe political corruption”), Google’s executives figured they might be able to simply buy him off. Who knows?
Warren Senders
Education environment Politics: denialists George W Bush media irresponsibility
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Year 4, Month 7, Day 30: No Left Term Unstoned
DelMarva Now offers a rather pedantic Op-Ed from Harrison Jackson, of the Maryland Coastal Bays Program. He’s working on terminology:
Climate change, as defined by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), is a non-random change in climate that is measured over several decades or longer. The change may be due to natural or human-induced causes.
Many people will look outside on an unseasonably cold day and ask, “What ever happened to global warming?” Global warming is no longer used prevalently by climate scientists because it can cause confusion for the public due to weather and climate often being used as synonyms, even though they are different in a number of critical aspects.
Weather is not the same as climate. The best way to describe the difference between these two words is, “You pack your suitcase based on the weather, but you pick where you go for vacation based on climate.”
Weather, as defined by the administration, is the state of the atmosphere with respect to a variety of conditions including wind, temperature, cloudiness, moisture, pressure, etc. This differs from climate, which is defined as the composite or generally prevailing weather conditions of a region throughout the year, averaged over a series of years. Weather refers to atmospheric conditions at a given point in time, whereas climate refers to “average” weather conditions for an area throughout a long period of time.
Climate change can be a difficult and scary thing to talk about, as it has real implications that can dramatically alter the way we live forever. When discussing climate change, it is always best to separate facts from fiction.
This one accidentally turned out at 150 words on the first draft. Huh. July 12:
While it’s true that climate scientists use the phrase “climate change” more often than “global warming,” the history of these terms offers us a very useful perspective.
But aside from academic papers, the person most responsible for shifting the language of public discourse on the subject is Republican pollster and strategist Frank Luntz. In a memorandum to Bush administration officials, Luntz advised using “climate change” because, as he said, “it’s less scary,” and therefore provided President Bush and his team with a way of minimizing public concerns about the environment and the potential consequences of a runaway greenhouse effect.
Climate scientists, of course, had been using the phrase all along, with citations in professional publications going back to the 1950s.
It is ironic that the cynical strategy of a conservative media expert should inadvertently coincide with the exact facts of the situation. Climate change is real; it’s here; it’s dangerous.
Warren Senders
environment Politics: assholes Barack Obama denialists economics idiots Republican obstructionism sustainability
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Year 4, Month 7, Day 22: Never Mud-Wrestle With A Pig
The San Antonio Express-News shares news about the looming fight in the Big Sky State:
Obama’s plan to fight climate change announced last week would include executive action to place limits on carbon pollution from new and existing power plants, while expanding development of renewable energy.
Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz said the president’s energy policy will still embrace traditional energy sources such as coal and oil.
Republican leaders in Montana are unconvinced. They predicted dire consequences for the state, calling the plan a war on energy and a job killer.
“This is a war on Montana energy, Montana families and small businesses and Montana jobs, and I will remain steadfast in the fight to stop the President’s job-killing agenda,” U.S. Rep. Steve Daines said in a statement.
Another Republican, Attorney General Tim Fox, warned the plan will blow a hole in the state’s budget.
“In attempting to rule by decree and legislate by regulation, President Obama has failed to take a balanced approach to energy policy and has failed to recognize the diverse interests and economies of 50 states,” Fox said.
The guy’s an idiot and a jerk. And a Republican…but I repeat myself. July 4:
Perhaps President Obama’s climate-change initiatives do indeed fail, in the words of Montana Attorney General Tim Fox, “to recognize the diverse interests and economies of 50 states.” But there is an important corollary to this criticism: by making legislative action impossible, the climate-change denialists in Congress have failed to act in the common interest of the USA.
Before “In God We Trust” was added to our currency in 1954, we had “E Pluribus Unum” — “Out of Many, One.” This historical motto of the United States calls on us to recognize that while the work of government must maintain a balance between the needs of individuals and those of the nation, our patriotic loyalty must ultimately be to the greater good. Such sentiments are absent in today’s GOP; these cynical anti-science zealots owe allegiance exclusively to their corporate paymasters, and not to the long-term well-being of our nation. Not to mention Earth.
Warren Senders
environment Politics: denialists idiots Republican obstructionism rising sea levels sustainability urban planning
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Year 4, Month 7, Day 20: Why Not Rent Out The Empty Space?
The Grand Island Independent (FL) notes the preparations underway in the Keys, arguably the communities most at risk for rising ocean levels:
Seasonal tidal flooding that was once a rare inconvenience is now so predictable that some businesses at the end of Key West’s famed Duval Street stock sandbags just inside their front doors, ready anytime.
“It’s really easy to see during our spring high tides that the sea level is coming up _ for whatever reason _ and we have to accommodate for that,” said Johnnie Yongue, the on-site technician at the fire station for Monroe County’s project management department.
While New York City’s mayor was announcing a dramatic multibillion-dollar plan for flood walls and levees to hold back rising water levels there, sea walls like those that encase the Netherlands wouldn’t help much in the Keys, as a lack of coastal barriers isn’t the island chain’s only problem.
“Our base is old coral reef, so it’s full of holes,” says Alison Higgins, the sustainability coordinator for the city of Key West. “You’ve got both the erosion and the fact that (water) just comes up naturally through the holes.”
The Keys’ plans for adapting to rising sea levels sound a lot like the way they prepare for hurricanes: track the incoming disturbance, adjust infrastructure accordingly and communicate potential risks to residents _ all, hopefully, without scaring off the tourists who treasure the islands for their fishing, Technicolor sunsets, eccentric characters and a come-as-you-are social scene that has attracted the likes of Ernest Hemingway, U.S. presidents and flamboyant female impersonators.
And who doesn’t relish an opportunity to dump on Rick Scott? July 2:
The challenges facing municipal officials in the Florida Keys are unique to their particular circumstances; very few cities anywhere in the world are built on thousands of years’ worth of accumulated coral, and very few are so profoundly vulnerable to the rising sea levels which are now considered inevitable consequences of the melting Arctic. These singular island communities are on the front lines of climate change; eventually all of humanity is going to contend with the impacts of a runaway greenhouse effect over the coming decades, and it’s not going to be pretty.
Key West’s readiness to face these dangers should be an example to those who use their political power to delay action and obscure the truth of global heating. For instance, Rick Scott, whose profit-driven anti-science ideology may enrich him and his cronies in the short term, while ensuring disastrous consequences for the state he purports to lead.
Mr. Scott is one of many conservative politicians who have made meaningful responses to the climate crisis all but impossible. This toxic mix of greed and folly is bad news for Key West, for Florida, and for us all.
Warren Senders
environment Politics: analogies Barack Obama corporate irresponsibility denialists economics idiots
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Year 4, Month 7, Day 18: Tied To A Whippin’ Post
The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel opines on the POTUS’ speech:
President Barack Obama’s speech last week on climate change was a welcome call to action on one of the great challenges of our time. If the science is right — and there is no reason to believe that it isn’t — climate change is here and could have severe consequences for human health, the environment and the economy. Meeting the challenge will be difficult and costly but also affords opportunities, especially for job growth in green industries.
As the president said Tuesday, “the question is not whether we need to act.”
The problem is that similar calls to action have been issued for decades and not much has been done to curb the belching of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. Utilities such as We Energies, car manufacturers and some governments have taken important steps to reduce air pollution from a number of sources and have worked to reduce carbon emissions. They deserve credit for that.
But reductions of carbon dioxide significant enough to have an impact on climate change have remained elusive.
If Obama wants to change that pattern, his administration needs to follow through. The trick will be to do so without harming economic growth. New rules also need to be based on available cost-effective technologies that can actually reduce emissions. It can be done. And while the president’s plan may be light on details, he is at least pointing the country in the right direction.
Obama is directing his administration to launch the first-ever federal regulations on heat-trapping gases emitted by new and existing power plants, boost renewable energy production on federal lands, increase efficiency standards and prepare communities to deal with higher temperatures.
The ideology of the cancer cell. June 30:
It takes extraordinary intellectual insulation to continue rejecting the scientific evidence of global climate change. By analogy, imagine buying a house condemned as unsafe by 97 out of 100 home inspectors, eating in a restaurant that had failed 97 out of 100 health inspections, or the same proportion of oncologists when they tell you to start therapy immediately.
But even those who are prepared to argue forcefully for action on the climate crisis still observe powerful taboos against questioning the desirability of continued economic growth. To fetishize economic expansion ignores the fact that we live on a finite planet with finite resources; it’s like saying that gaining weight is healthy for infants, so it must be good for adults as well.
Infinite expansion is impossible in a bounded area; we can have sustainability or growth, but not both. If we wish a viable long-term future for humanity, this is a debate we need to have.
Warren Senders