environment Politics: assholes coal EPA idiots
by Warren
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Year 2, Month 3, Day 4: And The Straw Boss Hollered ‘Well Damn Your Soul!’
The Courier-Press (KY) runs an article about another House Republican who’s gunning for the EPA. Because Kentucky is a coal state, this guy is in their pocket, and he wants to remove the EPA’s authority to regulate emissions in order to make the lives of the mining companies easier. Easier for Kentuckians who’re part of the profit chain from Big Coal, too — at least in the short run. In the long run? Don’t even ask.
The recent Republican attempts to defund or defang the Environmental Protection Agency are examples of short-term, politically-driven thinking at its most egregious. Rep. Whitfield knows perfectly well that the current Congress will never pass any legislation addressing the threat of global climate change, since a majority of its members were elected with the help of money from the petroleum and coal industries. The problem that we face is that the greenhouse effect is a result of the laws of physics and chemistry; climate change is inherently long-term and non-political. While muzzling the EPA may benefit Kentucky’s economy for a few years, does anyone seriously believe that the coal companies will really care about the state and its citizens once the coal’s all gone, the mountains are leveled and the streams poisoned? By carrying out the bidding of his corporate masters, Rep. Whitfield is doing a disservice both to his constituents and to the country as a whole; by treating the environment and its advocates as enemies, conservatives make a livable future for our descendants more and more unlikely.
Warren Senders
environment Politics: assholes Bobby Jindal denialists idiots IPCC volcano monitoring
by Warren
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Year 2, Month 3, Day 2: Eruptions of Ignorance
Missouri Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer is the guy who introduced the amendment to kill funding for the IPCC, which (given our all-new teabagger-friendly House) passed handily. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch has the story.
The guy’s a moron, but is that news? Anyway, I started remembering Bobby Jindal for some reason, and generated the following letter, sent 2/21:
Those of us who still recall Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal’s disparaging remarks about “something called ‘volcano monitoring,’ ” back in early 2009 will also remember that only a few weeks later, a real live volcano erupted in Alaska — and that the Government’s Volcano Monitoring service was credited with giving essential warnings that saved lives and property. Blaine Luetkemeyer is in a position analogous to Jindal’s; his hostility toward the I.P.C.C. has nothing to do with its essential work on the likely effects of global warming and everything to do with short-term political exigencies. As the scientific evidence mounts, climate-change deniers use multiply-debunked arguments to delay and weaken any action on the most significant threat humanity has faced in millennia. The smoke from Mount Redoubt made Governor Jindal’s mockery of volcano monitoring an embarrassment; one wonders: what sort of environmental catastrophe will bring Representative Luetkemeyer to regret his similarly ignorant grandstanding?
Warren Senders
environment Politics: assholes denialists idiots mountain pine beetle
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Year 2, Month 2, Day 28: How Do You Handle A Hungry Man?
The Victoria Advocate (TX) runs an article on Joe Read,the loony in Montana who’s introduced a bill declaring global warming beneficial.
Imagine reading a few decades ago that a lawmaker had introduced a bill which not only designated tobacco as a foodstuff, but also defined lung cancer and emphysema as signs of overall health. It’d be pretty clear that the politician in question had either been paid off by the big tobacco firms, or had been fooled by them; looking back with the benefit of hindsight, we would have to choose: what motivated him — cupidity or stupidity? A few decades from now, exactly the same question will be asked about Rep. Joe Read, whose attempt to renegotiate the facts of climate change shows a similar unwillingness to remove ideological filters. A few seconds’ research on the phrase “mountain pine beetle” will demonstrate one of the many dangers posed to Montana by global warming. But perhaps Rep. Read is too busy eating a cigarette sandwich to care. Mmmmmm. Yummy.
Warren Senders
environment: assholes denialists extreme weather idiots
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Year 2, Month 2, Day 25: If They’ll Say “You Told Us So,” We Promise Not To Say “We Told You So.”
USA Today recognizes two new studies that offer even more robust correlation between global warming and extreme weather events.
John Fogerty once crooned “Who’ll stop the rain?” Not humanity, apparently, as new research shows that human-caused climate change has significantly increased the chances of extreme rain- and snowfall around the world, along with the deadly floods that follow.
This is according to two new studies published Wednesday in the British journal Nature.
While other studies have suggested that global warming may be partly responsible for an increase in heavy precipitation, what’s new in this study is the formal finding that human influence has “likely made intense precipitation stronger, on average, over the second half of the 20th century,” says study co-author Francis Zwiers of the University of Victoria in British Columbia.
“The observed change cannot be explained by natural fluctuations of the climate system alone,” he says.
Leaving aside the question of whether John Fogerty was/is capable of crooning, the rest of the article is pretty straightforward.
Read the comments for a hearty helping of stupid.
Sent February 16:
The two newly published studies serve to confirm what many people have been positing for years: the greenhouse effect causes global warming, and global warming is causally linked to extreme weather events. But even a brief glance at online comments on this subject shows that there is essentially no evidence that will serve to convince the climate-change deniers. Some cling to the notion that there was an equally robust scientific consensus in the 1970s predicting global cooling (no, there wasn’t). Some maintain that errors in the 3000-page IPCC report invalidate its conclusions (in which case a typo anywhere in this issue of USA Today would mean the whole newspaper was untrustworthy). Some conflate “climate” with “weather” and insist that global warming isn’t happening — because it’s snowing outside their windows. Some base their arguments on religion, claiming that “God won’t let humans change the planet’s atmosphere” (although He’s apparently got no objection to hydrogen bombs, a Texas-sized garbage patch in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, or regional aquifers so contaminated by LNG extraction that tap water is flammable). The evidence is mounting, while the denialists have their fingers in their ears. Good luck to us all. We’ll need it.
Warren Senders
environment Politics: assholes denialists EPA idiots James Inhofe Lisa Jackson
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Year 2, Month 2, Day 22: The Terrible Threat of تغير المناخ
The Newberg Graphic (OR) has a guest editorial with a good strong statement in favor of the EPA’s authority, and a good chastisement of the Republicans’ behavior.
I figured it would be a good idea to provide some additional moral support. This letter’s not as coherent as some; I’m just too damn tired. Sent Feb 13:
The intersection of coal and petroleum money with the electoral process has produced a breed of politicians far more cognizant of the short-term requirements of their cash suppliers than of the long-term well-being of their constituents. While West Virginia’s Jay Rockefeller is a Democratic case in point, the majority of anti-environmental voices in Congress belong to Republicans. Less than two months into the 112th Congress, these GOP stalwarts have rejected decades of scientific evidence and publicly insulted EPA Chief Lisa Jackson. The coming decades of climate chaos will bring enormous disruptions to our agriculture, infrastructure, public health and political stability; when we face a threat far greater than any terrorist organization, we need thoughtful preparation and mitigation, not the GOP’s kindergarten-level squabbling. It’s too bad climate change wasn’t represented by a scary dictator and the possibility of an expensive war; the Republican caucus would have been beside themselves with enthusiasm.
Warren Senders
environment Politics: assholes EPA idiots Lisa Jackson Republican obstructionism
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Year 2, Month 2, Day 21: Sock It To ’em!
The Las Vegas Sun quite elegantly takes the Republicans in the House to task for scientific illiteracy, bad manners and general douchebaggery. This editorial was a real pleasure to read.
Sent February 12:
The behavior of the Republican members of the House of Representatives is a disgrace to our country and to its institutions of governance. Their reflexive, ideologically-driven hostility to the facts of climate change is both foolish and perilous. While the GOP has routinely positioned itself on the side of industry, its current allegiance to the most extreme corporatist interests has led it to abandon even lip service to scientific expertise. It is quite evident that the Republican legislators who questioned EPA administrator Lisa Jackson not only couldn’t understand the science behind the policies she’s implementing — they brought no understanding to the discussion at all, and her testimony became an occasion for petty theatrics of the most immature sort. These modern-day “know-nothing” politicians would be comical if the threat posed by climate change was not so grave. As it is, their childish petulance poses a danger to us all.
Warren Senders
environment: denialists idiots James Inhofe
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Year 2, Month 2, Day 20: I’m Too Young To Marry
The Tulsa Beacon’s publisher is Charles Biggs. He writes a long screed on why global warming is bunk a: because it’s snowing, and b: because scientists aren’t willing to give out certificates of causation. And Al Gore is fat, most likely. He finishes with some unrelated jokes, of which this one was the best:
• There was once a man from the city who was visiting a small farm, and during this visit he saw a farmer feeding pigs in a most extraordinary manner.
The farmer would lift a pig up to a nearby apple tree, and the pig would eat the apples off the tree directly. The farmer would move the pig from one apple to another until the pig was satisfied, then he would start again with another pig.
The city man watched this activity for some time with great astonishment. Finally, he could not resist saying to the farmer, “This is the most inefficient method of feeding pigs that I can imagine. Just think of the time that would be saved if you simply shook the apples off the tree and let the pigs eat them from the ground!”
The farmer looked puzzled and replied, “What’s time to a pig?”
Because Tulsa is part of Oklahoma, I added “James Inhofe” to the tags. Sent February 11:
Dear Mr. Biggs,
May I try?
Let’s start from the beginning. Picture a puddle of water on a hot sunny day. It disappears quickly, doesn’t it? That’s because it evaporated, which means the water turned into water vapor and became part of the air. Air with a lot of water in it is “humid.” Now, what happens when it’s really, really humid? It rains, of course — but only if it’s above freezing. And when it’s below freezing? Well, you know the answer: it would snow. Heavily. You can’t have precipitation without humidity, and you can’t have humidity without evaporation, and you can’t have evaporation without heat.
The term “climate change” is now preferred to “global warming” simply because it is a better description of people’s experience. Ask around; everybody’s talking about the weather (including you!). Big heat waves in Europe, droughts in South America, huge floods and a cyclone in Australia, lots of floods in Pakistan, a massive, paralyzing blizzard in the US. Sure, all of these things have happened before. But never all at once, which is why it might be a good idea to listen to what people who study the climate closely have been predicting about atmospheric CO2 and the greenhouse effect. Since the 1950s, by the way.
Mr. Biggs, you’re wrong about climate change — but I really liked your joke about the pig.
Warren Senders
And a day and a half later, he wrote me back:
Mr. Sanders,
You may be right and I could be wrong. Words have meaning. We just set a record for snowfall AND record low temperatures in Oklahoma. And yet many people (you not included) cling to global warming and that’s what they teach in science classes in high school.
I think you may give mankind too much credit for affecting the weather. A volcanic eruption can affect weather patterns for years and yet we still can’t predict accurately if it will rain Tuesday.
Thanks for your thoughtful remarks.
Charles Biggs
I haven’t responded yet, but I will.
Kudos to anyone who can identify the provenance of the headline.
environment Politics: assholes conspiracy theory denialism idiots royalty
by Warren
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Year 2, Month 2, Day 19: Bonnie Prince Charlie
The UK Sun runs a brief piece on Prince Charles, who’s come out swinging at the climate deniers:
PRINCE Charles blasted climate change sceptics yesterday, accusing them of playing “a reckless game of roulette” with the planet.
The campaigning royal added that doubters are having a “corrosive effect” on public opinion.
He asked: “How are these people going to face their grandchildren?”
Charles hit out at claims people fighting climate change “are secretly conspiring to undermine and deliberately destroy the entire market-based capitalist system”.
This letter was sent on February 10. I used the British spelling of “sceptic.” I may be delusional, but I always feel a greater freedom to use big words and fancy allusions when I’m writing to the British press. Even the Sun, which ain’t no Times of London.
Prince Charles’ comments on those who deny the threat of climate change are entirely apropos. The petroleum-funded media and the politicians they enable (both in the UK and the USA) are playing a very dangerous game: whether fomenting paranoid delusions that the world’s climatologists have formed a giant cabal secretly planning a New World Order, attributing the dramatic uptick in extreme weather events across the globe to “sunspot activity,” or simply refusing to acknowledge the existence of a problem, these individuals and organizations are setting the future of their own descendants, and the rest of us, at risk. One has only to examine their rhetoric to recognize that the term “sceptic” is a terrible misnomer; far from being empiricists committed to the use of reason, logic and evidence, they are so determined to make the world fit their increasingly twisted conspiracy theories that they’ve left Occam’s razor far, far behind.
Warren Senders
environment: assholes denialists idiots
by Warren
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Year 2, Month 2, Day 18: Taking Advantage of a 250-Word Limit
The Sioux City Journal features a short, ostensibly humorous, piece by one Matthew Ung, trotting out all the standard climate-denial tropes under the guise of satire. Based on the other articles linked on that page, it looks like the paper’s a wingnut outlet, so I suspect I’ll never make it to print. But a fellow can dream, can’t he? And the comments tend to confirm my suspicions.
Let’s examine Matthew Ung’s attempt at humor about climate change, beginning with this gem: “Thanks to Al Gore, we know that our actions directly affect the planet…” First, while Gore brought the subject to popular attention, climatologists like James Hansen and Charles Keeling exposed the link between greenhouse emissions and climate change; second, our actions don’t “directly affect the planet.” Rather, the planet is affected indirectly; the multi-decade time lag between stimulus and response makes this a hard problem to solve.
He subsequently states that “Global warming activists attempt to link the immediate season and snowfall records as an indication of how well we are doing to curb emissions that exact year.” No, they don’t. I have never heard of any environmentalist making such a connection. Source, please?
Scientists have predicted for over a century that adding CO2 to the atmosphere will heat it, with “stochastic” effects: predictable in the aggregate, not in the particular. That is, as the climate changes, the weather will get weirder — less consistent, more extreme.
About that snowfall? Science FAIL. A hotter atmosphere means more water evaporates, so the humidity goes up, which means more rain when it’s hot, more snow when it’s cold. Climatologists have been predicting that for decades, too.
Mr. Ung, like many denialists, fails to grasp the distinction between “weather” and “climate.” Weather is to climate as anecdote is to history. One is short-term and local, the other is long-term and global.
Ignorance, alas, is rising along with the temperature.
Warren Senders
Education environment: assholes denialists Education idiots Wisconsin
by Warren
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Year 2, Month 2, Day 17: Dumber-er-er-er
The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel notes a newly released study on climate change’s projected impact on Wisconsin: 6-7 degrees of warming by 2050. Sounds fairly dire, no? Now just look at the comments.
Mailed Feb. 8. This is the letter that prompted the obscene phone call of this past Monday.
The failure of our country’s educational system is nowhere more abject than in the areas of science and mathematics — a statement easily verified by glancing through the online comments on the recent study from scientists at the University of Wisconsin dealing with the projected impact of climate change on the state. If our science education had been of higher quality, there would be far fewer people confusing “weather” with “climate.” If our mathematics classes had done their job, we wouldn’t see endless confusions of terms like “average” and “mean,” or such consistent misunderstanding of the statistics of probability. A scientifically-grounded, research-based study projecting a six to seven degree rise in temperature should cause at least a little alarm, even among people who aren’t paying attention. Instead, the alarms are in the minds of the paranoids who suspect a nefarious global conspiracy of climatologists, (led by Al Gore, of course).
Warren Senders