environment Politics: denialists idiots Ken Cuccinelli Michael Mann
by Warren
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Year 2, Month 5, Day 6: Global Warming Was Born In Kenya!
The Hampton (VA) Pilot Online notes that Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli is continuing to stalk Dr. Michael Mann. Since today was the day President Obama showed his Birth Certificate to the gawpers, I figured it was time to conflate climate zombieism with birtherism. What fun.
Sent April 27:
Ken Cuccinelli is, to put it succinctly, an embarrassment to the legal profession and to the State of Virginia. Since he lacks even the most basic level of scientific literacy, Mr. Cuccinelli’s continued harassment of climate scientist Michael Mann is not based on any logically consistent rationale. Rather, the Attorney General is what is technically known as a “climate zombie,” a public figure so ideologically wedded to the notion that anthropogenic global warming does not exist that no evidence would be sufficient to change his mind. Rather like the “birthers” who’ll continue to espouse delusional theories about President Obama’s citizenship, “climate zombies” believe that an international conspiracy of climate scientists is attempting to institute a New (presumably socialist) World Order, and no amount of evidence will deter them from their fixation. It is Virginia’s misfortune to have one of these deluded souls in a position of political power.
Warren Senders
environment: denialists idiots Water
by Warren
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Year 2, Month 5, Day 4: You Can Get It If You Dry
The Salt Lake Tribune notes a recently released report from the Department of the Interior, predicting that Utah is going to lose lots of its already meager water resources in the coming century, as climate change gets rolling in earnest:
The Colorado River Basin likely will lose about 9 percent of its annual runoff by mid-century because of a warming climate, further squeezing Utah and its neighbors in a region that already expects to struggle getting water to its growing population, according to a U.S. Interior Department report released Monday.
Bureau of Reclamation scientists calculated likely regional temperature and precipitation models based on a range of possible carbon dioxide emissions, then used the mean of the results to predict an 8.5 percent reduction in water supply. The report actually predicts a 2.1 percent increase in precipitation for the Upper Colorado Basin — of which Utah is a part — but temperatures 5 to 7 degrees warmer than today’s are expected bring more rain than snow, and enough more evaporation to sap the supply.
I used this as the hook for a pretty standard mocking-the-denialists letter. I’m tired and it’s late — and the dimbulbs commenting on this article provide an easy target. That’s my excuse. What’s yours? Sent April 25:
It’s easy to predict reactions to the Interior Department report showing Utah getting hit by water shortages from intensifying climate change. First, conspiracy theorists, who believe the world’s climatologists are part of a sinister cabal attempting to establish a Socialist New World Order featuring lightbulb police and compulsory re-education camps for SUV drivers. Next? The voices proclaiming anthropogenic global warming a fraud, promulgated by liberals and environmentalists in order to raise taxes, followed closely by those claiming “the science isn’t settled,” that “Earth’s climate has always been changing,” or that future water shortages are impossible — because it’s raining.
America’s true greatness once lay in our ability to confront difficulty head-on, turning it into opportunity. By shutting their eyes to the scary truth of climate change, the denialist voices are betraying our country’s heritage of innovation, resourcefulness and creativity — a heritage we’ll surely need in the thirsty decades ahead.
Warren Senders
environment humor Politics: assholes denialists EPA fun with analogies idiots Republican obstructionism
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Year 2, Month 4, Day 22: Move Over, Earthlings! The Planet {!Z@p&rd*p*!} Needs Lebensraum.
Chronic morosity and worriage is not generally compatible with prosidic goofiness. But today I made an exception for this LTE to the Reno News & Review, which ran a short piece about the pod people on the Energy and Commerce Committee.
This one was mailed a while back but somehow failed to make it onto the schedule for posting. Mailed March 17:
It reads like the plot of a late-night “B” movie: aliens take over the bodies of American politicians and start passing laws undermining America’s support for science. If the current crop of GOP legislators were actually extras in a “Plan 9 From Outer Space” knockoff, we’d be able to sit back and munch popcorn while making jokes at their expense. Given the potential for crippling impacts on American agriculture, infrastructure and public health from runaway climate change, it’s astonishing that the Republicans on the House Energy and Commerce Committee won’t even admit the problem exists, let alone take steps to address it. These cynical opportunists really do walk, talk and legislate like enemies of our species, making a compelling case for the “alien enemy” hypothesis. Unfortunately, these invaders from the Tea-party Nebula are entirely real, and their anti-science agenda is endangering both our global reputation and our national future.
Warren Senders
environment Politics: assholes denialists idiots James Inhofe Senate Republicans
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Year 2, Month 4, Day 16: Easy Target….
The Tulsa World writes about James Inhofe’s attempt to end the EPA.
Sent April 7:
James Inhofe’s ignorance of science would be hilarious if he were not in a position of significant influence. This self-proclaimed “enemy of the environment” long ago sold his political power to the highest bidder: the big oil industries who have the most to lose from any sort of meaningful climate change legislation. He and his acolytes are hostile to any information that does not fit their preconceptions. Our political process was originally intended to deal with actual verifiable reality, including the consequences of our actions and of our inaction. Political grandstanding unconnected from facts is a prescription for disaster. In reflexively obeying their corporate paymasters, Mr. Inhofe and other members of the GOP undermine their own party’s credibility; their cavalier dismissal of the entire climate science community is grossly irresponsible. With all due respect to the Senator’s fervently held beliefs, waiting for the Rapture cannot substitute for actual fact-based policy.
Warren Senders
environment Politics: denialists idiots James Inhofe Lindsey Graham Senate Republicans
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Year 2, Month 4, Day 15: Soon They’ll Write Legislation By Stirring Bird Entrails With A Stick.
The LA Times reports an extremely welcome piece of news:
WASHINGTON–The Obama administration and its Senate allies beat back a months-long effort by Congressional Republicans to strip the Environmental Protection Agency of its ability to regulate greenhouse gases, the heat-trapping emissions most scientists believe is the main contributor to global climate change.
The votes were the culmination of efforts in both chambers of Congress over the last few months to cut back on the EPA’s regulatory powers.
The efforts focus on limiting EPA’s program to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from vehicles and more recently, stationary sources like power plants and oil refineries, the biggest emitters of greenhouse gases.
I’ll take what I can get, these days. Sent in a state of extreme exhaustion on April 6:
Most of this country’s citizens recognize that clean air, clean water and resilient regional ecosystems are important and essential components of our national well-being. Sadly, this appears lost on scientifically ignorant GOP legislators whose eagerness to undercut any and all environmental programs seems almost gleefully nihilistic. At a time when the incontrovertible facts of global climate change are accepted by the overwhelming majority of the world’s experts in climate science, Senator Inhofe’s opposition to meaningful action on the reduction of greenhouse emissions is petulant, not principled. Meanwhile, erstwhile climate action advocate Lindsey Graham renounced his principles when he faced the electoral consequences of the tea-party’s anti-reality stance. While the defeat of Republican efforts to gut the Environmental Protection Agency is good news for all Americans, the fact that our politics is massively populated by people who reject scientific evidence when it’s ideologically inconvenient bodes ill for our future.
Warren Senders
environment Politics: assholes denialists idiots Republicans
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Year 2, Month 4, Day 14: The Science Of Suspended Disbelief
T-Paw thinks there’s still some diversity of opinion on climate change, says the Iowa Independent, which is heavily festooned with tea-party advertisements. I doubt this will get printed. Sent April 5:
Tim Pawlenty’s got it right. The science on climate change is indeed divided. Let’s look more closely at this division of opinion among climate scientists — the people who’ve studied the subject in greatest depth. A whopping three percent of climatologists disagree with the rest of their profession about the human causes of climate change. Ninety-seven to three. In fairness to Governor Pawlenty, it’s likely that his only acquaintance with climate science is at the hands of Republican political consultants, who’ve determined through rigorous statistical analysis (there’s some science, right there!) that accepting the overwhelming expert consensus on anthropogenic global warming equates to an instant and overwhelming electoral loss at the hands of tea-partiers. The future of our country and our civilization be damned; what’s important to Mr. Pawlenty and the rest of the Republican Flat-Earth society is to continue enabling the profit margins of their corporate masters.
Warren Senders
environment Politics: assholes Barack Obama denialists idiots nuclear power timidity
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Year 2, Month 4, Day 11: Tearing My Hair.
The April 2 issue of the Boston Globe has a column by Derrick Jackson noting the seeming inability of our president to actually, you know, do or say something that might have an effect on the climate change front:
PRESIDENT OBAMA seems increasingly drained of the juice needed to power up a modern vision on energy. Completely absent from his address this week at Georgetown University was his promise as a candidate to go after windfall profits of oil companies and reinvest the money into wind, solar, and biofuels. Instead, he promised to expedite new shallow and deepwater oil drilling permits, even as top environmentalists say many questions remain after the BP spill disaster.
More than ever, he is wedded to pursuing “clean coal’’ and nuclear power. Meanwhile, radiation from the Japan nuclear disaster was measured thousands of times above safety levels in seawater and groundwater near the plant and in soil 25 miles away, at levels double those found in areas declared inhabitable around Chernobyl.
Most important, there continues to be no direct message to the American people that we are living in an unsustainable fantasy, consuming a quarter of the world’s energy. There was no hint of things that would instantly make Americans rethink consumption, such as a gas tax. For the moment, the road-blocking Republicans are winning the day with an ethos symbolized by Governor Haley Barbour of Mississippi, a potential presidential candidate. Last week Barbour told Iowa Republicans, “We need more oil. We need more gas. We need more coal. We need more nuclear. We need more American energy.”
Jackson is one of the best columnists writing today; I’m very glad he’s at the Globe. This was sent April 2, and has been published:
The timidity of the Obama administration when it comes to the transformation of America’s energy economy is profoundly disturbing. The facts of climate change are firmly established, with only a few petroleum-funded contrarians on the fringes of a global scientific consensus. The economics of renewable energy look more attractive every day, as are the geopolitical ramifications of getting more of our national energy requirements from within our own borders. The long-term costs of fossil fuels are harder and harder to hide, as we confront the health effects and environmental impacts of our profligate burning of oil and coal. Why, then, is the President so leery of taking a strong stand? The pusillanimity of the present administration only makes sense when viewed diagnostically: the extent to which our politics is paralyzed on this issue is a measure of the disproportionate influence of big oil and big coal in our nation’s governance.
Warren Senders
environment Politics: assholes denialists idiots Republican obstructionism
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Year 2, Month 4, Day 10: Ignorance Is Very Expensive
The just-released Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature Study confirms what we all know:
Preliminary results from a controversial study of global temperature data confirm the overall warming trend long reported by government scientists in the United States and the United Kingdom, the study’s director told a House panel today.
The warming trend detected by scientists involved in the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature Study — a rise of 0.7 degree Celsius since 1957 — “is very similar” to the findings of independent analyses by NASA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the U.K. Hadley Centre, study Chairman Richard Muller said.
“The world temperature data has sufficient integrity to be used to determine temperature trends,” said Muller, a physicist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.
Published by the New York Times. One hopes they’ll get on board and stop equivocating about climate change.
This letter took a long time to write for a “Republicans are idiots” motif. The idea’s shape was tricky, and I’m still not 100% satisfied. Nevertheless, this went to the NYT on April 1:
While the Berkeley study is another piece of evidence added to an overwhelming consensus on climate change, it’s probably too much to ask Congress’ denialists to pay attention. These same politicians have a long history of ignoring evidence first, and saying “who could have known?” later. Who could have known the levees would break, that there weren’t any WMDs, that management was cutting corners on the Deepwater Horizon? The increasing flow of scientific reports confirming the serious reality of global climate change should make it a little harder for Republican legislators to plead ignorance of the climate threat; perhaps in future decades their apologists will try and excuse their malfeasance by asking, who could have known it was a bad idea to so politicize scientific evidence that expert witnesses became props in a cynical theater of ignorance, and policy was crafted in utter disregard of facts? Who could have known?
Warren Senders
environment Politics: assholes denialists idiots Republican obstructionism scientific consensus
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Year 2, Month 4, Day 9: Maybe They’re Just Waiting For The Rapture?
It’s March 31 as I write this; it’s supposed to snow heavily tomorrow, which is crazy. Boston weather is like that anyway, and as we enter the new Anthropocene Epoch it’s going to get more and more so.
There was an excellent article in the Miami Herald giving a good slam to climate change denialism. It’s well worth a read:
Recently, I went to Capitol Hill with members of Generation Hot (and the Sierra Club, our country’s largest grass-roots environmental organization) to confront the politicians whose denials and delay have done so much to land Generation Hot in this predicament. We wanted to know why my daughter and the other 2 billion members of Generation Hot have to suffer because Republicans in Congress refuse to accept what virtually every major scientific organization in the world, including our own National Academy of Sciences, has said: Man-made climate change is happening now and extremely dangerous.
Sen. James Inhofe, the Oklahoma Republican who has famously called climate change “the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people,” told our group that “the science is mixed” and his scientists know better than ours. Frank Maisano, a public-relations consultant for big energy companies, told us that “the science doesn’t matter”; what matters is what’s politically feasible.
“The science does matter,” Caroline Selle, a member of our group who works for the Energy Action Coalition, responded in a blog the following day. Selle added: “We face a climate catastrophe that will define our generation and the future of our country, and the solutions to this crisis will create jobs and improve public health. So why aren’t we acting? Unfortunately, the answer is simple: Capitol Hill is swarming with ‘climate cranks’ – politicians willing to trade our future for their own political gain.”
I’m very tired, sore and cranky today. Sent on March 31:
“Generation Hot” is a compelling phrase, and I’m indebted to Mark Hertsgaard for adding it to my lexicon. It is a sad commentary on the state of public discourse in America that the gravest threat our species has faced in millennia is treated as fodder for political grandstanding rather than informed discussion. The online comments on any article about climate change reveals the degree of emotional investment felt by climate denialists, who feel compelled to reject scientific expertise in favor of vague, implausible conspiracy theories (look out! Al Gore’s gonna take away your SUV!). In the 1950s and 60s, America’s positive attitude toward science led us to unimaginable heights of achievement; in the past few decades, ideological rejection of reality-based thinking has made us a nation of scientific illiterates — and led us to the brink of climatic disaster. “Generation Hot” will rightly curse us for our ignorance and irresponsibility.
Warren Senders
environment: denialists idiots
by Warren
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Year 2, Month 4, Day 3: Extraordinary Popular Delusions And The Madness Of Crowds
The Centre Daily Times, based in the improbably named State College, PA, runs a column by Amitabh Pal, noting that for several decades the US has been pretty much useless when it comes to meaningful governmental action on climate change. Not that this is a big surprise or anything.
There aren’t a lot of comments but most are of the “you-libs-are-gonna-get-what’s-coming-to-you-algore-is-fat-you’ll-get-my-SUV-when-you-pry-my-cold-dead-hands-off-it” variety.
Sent March 26:
Future generations will look back on this time with incredulity. As they contend with unpredictable weather patterns that render large-scale agriculture increasingly ineffective, our descendants won’t understand why — when we knew for decades what was going to happen to the Earth’s climate — we failed to stop our species’ profligate ways. As rising sea waters force them to relocate further inland, they’ll wonder: since Arctic ice melt as a consequence of the greenhouse effect was predicted in 1953, why did it take us well over half a century…to do nothing? From the next century, this era will seem utterly bizarre; how could the world’s most powerful economic actors decide it was in their best interest to ignore climatic reality and fund massive misinformation campaigns? How could ordinary citizens be so deceived that they ignored the evidence while it accumulated in front of their eyes? Future generations will surely ask these questions — when they’re not cursing us for our lassitude, apathy, and willful ignorance.
Warren Senders