environment Politics: assholes denialists idiots Republican obstructionism
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Year 3, Month 12, Day 19: Imagine No Pollution — It’s Easy If You Try
The Poughkeepsie Journal has an Op-Ed column which delivers the obvious truth:
This year is on the verge of becoming the warmest one in the nation’s history, something that climate-change deniers undoubtedly would like to chalk up to some kind of statistical anomaly.
Except for this: Seven of the 10 warmest years in U.S. history have occurred over the past 15 years, according to the National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, N.C.
Global warming is real, and it’s causing massive damage and is likely to cause a whole lot more. The overwhelming number of climatologists not only tell us this, they say it is very likely being caused by the burning of fossil fuels.
It’s hard to imagine a scenario under which that would not be the case. Over the decades, emissions from old power plants, factories and vehicles have polluted the air and have contributed to global warming.
Nice little planet you got here. Wouldn’t want anything to happen to it, would you? Sent December 13:
The accelerating climate crisis presents a rare opportunity for our nation to come together in the face of impending catastrophe. For too long we have delayed action until after a disaster mobilizes our energies; while the focused and dedicated response to Superstorm Sandy offers a fine example of what America can do in a pinch, the fact is that we’re going to see more storms and extreme weather of unprecedented scale over the coming decades. And our continuing consumption of fossil fuels is going to make things worse, not better. What’s needed is a country-wide response that mobilizes our ingenuity, optimism and expertise on local, regional, national, and global levels in order to cut our carbon emissions, stabilize excess greenhouse gases that are already in the atmosphere, and prepare for the things we can’t prevent.
The only thing that stands in the way is ignorance and apathy, as exemplified by obstructionist Republican politicians and a news media too lazy to present anything more than he-says/she-says false equivalent. And of course, their paymasters in the oil and coal industries: senators and congressmen are almost as expensive as broadcast networks.
Warren Senders
environment Politics: analogies denialists idiots
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Year 3, Month 12, Day 18: My Sign Is “The End Is Near!” What’s YOUR Sign?
In the High Country News, Megan Kimble writes about her “Date With A Climate-Change Denier.” It’s a good piece:
He nodded and thought this over. “Do you think this whole climate change thing is going to catch on?”
“What do you mean?”
“You know, ‘global warming’?” His voice wore italics and, though his hands didn’t leave the table, his fingers became bobbing quotation marks.
I opened my mouth and paused. He smiled that uncomfortable first-date smile and took a sip of his beer.
Hmm, I thought. Yes. The climate is changing, has changed, and humans are central to the story. Sheets of ice are cleaving away from glaciers and more and more carbon dioxide and methane molecules are swarming through the atmosphere, heating it up, and they will continue to do so whether or not the “idea” of global warming, you know, “catches on.”
My date took another sip of beer and stared at me with the blue eyes that had prompted me to give him my phone number in the first place.
“I think climate change already has caught on?” I said, hating how my voice rose into a question mark. “I think it’s happening? And I think a lot of people agree that, um, it’s a … big deal,” I said.
“Hmm,” he said, and nodded, considering this. He smiled, and in a teasing, flirtatious tone, said, “So you’re all into that, the global warming stuff?”
Some believe that the climate deniers will just die out. Not many in my generation get riled up about interracial marriage, for instance — it is, for most of us, entirely a non-issue — and many say that attitudes toward climate change could similarly shift with time. The academic term for old ideas dying along with old people is called “cohort replacement,” and according to this logic, all we have to do is wait.
According to this logic, however, an eligible young woman does not find herself on a date with a very cute 28-year-old man who puts “global warming” in quotation marks.
“Well … I sort of don’t think climate change is something to be believed in,” I said haltingly. “I mean, it kind of … is.” I hesitated, wondering, should I go further?
This letter was surprisingly difficult to write, perhaps because I couldn’t go with any of the regular formulae that have now become pretty much second nature. Sent 12/12/12:
While it may not be possible to screen your dates for “acceptance of climate change,” as Megan Kimble imagines in her entertaining article on the problems of dating climate-change deniers, there are many reasons to suggest that those who reject scientific evidence are poor relationship material.
Those who deny the ominously accelerating greenhouse effect are choosing to live in their own more convenient version of reality. Uncomfortable facts are excluded, straightforward facts and figures rationalized and massaged, data cherry-picked to demonstrate opposite meanings — these characteristic denialist behaviors are also key ingredients in dysfunctional and abusive relationships. By mocking the overwhelming climatological consensus, Ms. Kimble’s hunky date showed he’s the kind of guy who thinks words and facts mean exclusively what he wants them to mean — no more, no less. It goes without saying he’s hardly relationship material.
Similarly, America’s political and media systems need to end their romance with the well-funded climate denial industry. Both our policies and the public discussion of them must be founded in reality, not rooted in fantasy — and this is nowhere more important than on the issue of climate change, a threat larger than any our species has faced in recorded history.
Warren Senders
UPDATE: This didn’t get into the High Country News, but the article was reprinted on January 12 in the Salt Lake Tribune, so I’ve sent them this letter unaltered.
environment Politics: assholes Barack Obama denialists idiots Republican obstructionism scientific consensus
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Year 3, Month 12, Day 17: Bring Out Your Dead!
The South Bend Tribune reprints the MacCracken/McCarthy article from a few days ago — two climate scientists respond to the President’s purported invitation to a dialogue — and it’s still excellent stuff:
Having seen the devastating impacts of Sandy, at least a few leaders in Washington seem poised to acknowledge what scientific analyses have clearly shown: Human activities are causing climate disruption. Whether encouraged and forced by regulations, product standards, a cap-and-trade policy, or a carbon tax, we need a national policy to initiate the transition to a low-carbon economy.
Investing in energy efficiency and switching from use of coal, petroleum and natural gas to primary reliance on renewable wind and solar energy is a change that we can make. Switching away from petroleum would also build independence from OPEC and fossil fuel cartels.
According to Bloomberg Finance, the best wind farms in the world already produce power as economically as coal, gas and nuclear generators, and solar energy is proving a good investment in many states. Iowa now generates nearly 20 percent of its electricity from wind energy and Colorado and Oregon more than 10 percent.
We saw inspiring political leadership when Sandy struck. Now we need equally bold and visionary action that taps into the best in ingenuity and technology that our country has to offer. Encouraging both economic development and environmental well-being requires creation of a modern, clean energy system that protects both our nation and our environment.
The scientific community is eager to engage in the conversation the president seeks, but we all must recognize that the conversation must turn quickly from talk to action. This story can have an ending we can live with. It is up to us.
There’s an elephant in the room, though. Sent December 11:
It would be a great thing if President Obama got together with some genuine climate scientists, as Michael MacCracken and James McCarthy suggest. If there’s anything in short supply in Washington nowadays, it’s unvarnished facts and figures. Compared with the genuine emergency posed by the looming climate crisis, the brinksmanship around the impending “fiscal cliff” is absurd and irresponsible play-acting.
But it’s not only the President who needs to show scientists some respect. An entire political party has decided that measurable reality is less important than pouting and posturing. The G.O.P.’s reinvention as a vehemently anti-science party means that America is seriously hamstrung when it comes to dealing with any problem that can’t be solved with a photo-op.
Our country, and the world, deserve better. America cannot be a beacon of hope to the world if half of our government has chosen to live in the Dark Ages.
Warren Senders
environment Politics: Barack Obama corporate irresponsibility history
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Year 3, Month 12, Day 16: Dreamers.
USA Today runs an AP article on the world’s hopes that America will DO SOMETHING instead of making it impossible for everyone else to DO ANYTHING:
Even as international climate talks ended this weekend with no new commitments on carbon emissions or climate aid from the United States, some were relieved America didn’t make a weak deal even weaker.
Other countries are now watching to see if the Obama administration will back up post-election comments about climate change with renewed efforts to cut emissions at home and pave the way for more ambitious targets as work proceeds to adopt a new global climate pact in 2015.
The two-week talks in Doha ended with an extension of the Kyoto Protocol, which was to expire this year, but which now will only cover 15% of global emissions since several developed countries, including Japan and Canada, have opted out. The U.S. never ratified the accord.
European Union Climate Commissioner Connie Hedegaard said Sunday that the U.S. negotiators were “careful not to block” the negotiations, adding that it’s “still difficult to know whether they will actually invest political capital in committing to a new international deal.”
In an emailed comment to the Associated Press, Hedegaard said she hopes Obama “will present not only an enhanced domestic climate policy but also an enhanced U.S. engagement and willingness to commit more in an international climate context.”
Yup. Good luck with that. Sent December 10:
Every president leaves a record of promises kept and broken, of hopes fulfilled or dashed, of ideologies upheld or disproven, and Barack Obama is no exception. The coming years will allow him to shape the future of our country — and our planet — in ways that earlier chief executives could not even imagine. The choices he makes on the issue of global climate change will not only shape his own legacy, but determine whether the slow evolution of our American republic can continue towards an ever more perfect union.
Failure to address the climate crisis condemns future generations to life on a deeply hostile Earth in which simple survival will be a daily struggle — a bleak existence in which our descendants won’t have any time to recall the greatness of past Presidents. It’s not just President Obama’s legacy that’s on the line, but the future of our civilization.
Warren Senders
environment Politics: assholes denialists Doha climate conference economics
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Year 3, Month 12, Day 14: Because The Sky Is Blue, It Makes Me Cry
Sigh. Another year, another botched opportunity:
DOHA, Qatar — The United Nations climate conference here has settled into its typical doldrums, with most major questions unresolved as a Friday evening deadline for concluding the talks approaches. One of the thorniest issues is money, which has often bedeviled these affairs.
Since the process for the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change began about 20 years ago, countries have been split into two often-warring camps: the small number of wealthy nations that provide money to help deal with the effects of global warming, and the much larger group of poorer states that receive it.
At a climate summit meeting in Copenhagen three years ago, the industrialized countries promised to secure $10 billion a year in funds for adapting to climate change over the following three years and $100 billion a year beginning in 2020. The short-term money has more or less been raised and spent, although some nations have quarreled over whether it was new money or simply repurposed foreign aid. A Green Climate Fund has been established to handle the money after 2020.
Just shoot me. Sent December 8:
It’s not just that wealthy nations “provide money” to poorer nations facing the devastation of runaway climate change, as John Broder suggests in his second paragraph. Those wealthy countries are the ones which “provided” massive greenhouse emissions in the first place. The carbon footprints of Bangladesh and Kiribati are mere statistical noise compared with the output of the developed nations — an effluvium of climate forcers well on its way to overwhelming our planet’s natural equilibrium.
It should be incumbent on societies which have prospered from the uncontrolled consumption of fossil fuels to behave ethically toward those whose gains aren’t correlated with conspicuous consumption. Since wealthy countries have already redistributed their CO2 into the atmosphere, where it affects everyone on the planet equally, a failure to similarly redistribute economic power is both environmentally and morally irresponsible. It’s time for the developed world to take responsibility for the mess it’s made.
Warren Senders
environment Politics: 350 Bill McKibben corporate irresponsibility economics fossil fuels
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Year 3, Month 12, Day 13: Get Up, Stand Up / Stand Up For Your Rights
Bill McKibben and 350.org have been pushing hard for divestiture from fossil fuels – and taking aim at college endowments as an easy and significant target. The New York Times:
SWARTHMORE, Pa. — A group of Swarthmore College students is asking the school administration to take a seemingly simple step to combat pollution and climate change: sell off the endowment’s holdings in large fossil fuel companies. For months, they have been getting a simple answer: no.
As they consider how to ratchet up their campaign, the students suddenly find themselves at the vanguard of a national movement.
In recent weeks, college students on dozens of campuses have demanded that university endowment funds rid themselves of coal, oil and gas stocks. The students see it as a tactic that could force climate change, barely discussed in the presidential campaign, back onto the national political agenda.
“We’ve reached this point of intense urgency that we need to act on climate change now, but the situation is bleaker than it’s ever been from a political perspective,” said William Lawrence, a Swarthmore senior from East Lansing, Mich.
It’s a very unequal struggle. But the alternative is giving up. Nope. Can’t do that. Sent December 5:
Throughout the course of 350.org’s “Do The Math” tour, founder Bill McKibben over and over compared the movement to divest from the fossil fuel industry with the mid-80’s campaign to end financial ties with firms doing business in apartheid South Africa. These earlier actions were driven by college students possessed by the moral urgency to end the injustices perpetrated by institutionalized racism. Modern climate activists are equally motivated by their keen awareness of injustice — today perpetrated not by governments, but by a set of unimaginably powerful and irresponsible economic actors. The similarities are profound. But there is one important set of differences.
In the 1980s, the victims of apartheid lived in one state, on one continent — and at one memorable point in time. Climate chaos, by contrast, will disrupt lives everywhere on Earth for generations to come — a fact which dramatically reinforces the ethical imperative of divestiture.
Warren Senders
environment Politics: reality-based community Republican obstructionism scientific consensus
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Year 3, Month 12, Day 12: You Provide The Prose Poems; I’ll Provide The War
The Kansas City Star runs a McClatchy article by two climatologists, Michael MacCracken and James McCarthy. It’s called, “Obama wants to understand climate change? Listen to us and Sandy, too.”
Following two of the most destructive years for climate catastrophes, President Obama is now calling for a “wide-ranging” conversation with scientists. Let’s talk.
As climate scientists who’ve together spent decades studying how and why our climate is changing, we welcome that opportunity. “Frankenstorm” Sandy brought a message for you and all of us: climate change impacts are here now, right now.
Climate change clearly contributed to Hurricane Sandy, one of the most destructive superstorms in U.S. history. On the stretch of the Atlantic Coast where we call home, sea level is rising four times faster than the global average. Global warming is heating the Atlantic Ocean and increasing atmospheric water vapor loading, both of which contributed to Sandy’s power and deluge.
Were Sandy just a single disaster, the story might end there. Unfortunately it is not. The insurance giant Munich Re reports annual weather-related loss events have quintupled in the United States, costing Americans more than a trillion dollars.
This year we have suffered through a string of record-breaking extreme weather events, all worsened by climate change. These included “Summer in March,” the hottest month in U.S. history (July 2012), the worst drought since the 1950s and a wildfire season that is rivaling the worst ever, a record set only six year ago. In 2011, the United States broke its record for the most billion-dollar weather disasters in a year: 14 totaling $47 billion. And this year’s number of disasters puts it on track to be No. 2.
It’s bad news that this is good news. December 7:
It’s good news that President Obama wants to have a discussion with climate scientists on the subject of global warming and its likely impact on the future of our nation and the world. On the other hand, in a reality-based government, idea that scientific expertise is integral to the formation of environmental policies would not be controversial, and the fact that the President is seeking expert advice on climate change wouldn’t merit a single column inch of space.
But let’s not kid ourselves: our government is at least partially based in a fantasy world where the planetary greenhouse effect is (along with evolution, cosmology, and the big bang) a liberal hoax. Mr. Obama’s openness to reality is only good news when contrasted with the the Republican Luddites who will admit neither that climate change is real or that science is relevant to policy. Our nation, and our planet, deserve better.
Warren Senders
environment Politics: Barack Obama corporate irresponsibility economics fossil fuels Republican obstructionism
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Year 3, Month 12, Day 11: Nobody Here But Us Chickens
The St. Louis American reprints Eugene Robinson’s astute and blistering column from earlier this week, this time titled, “Obama Should Lead On Climate Change.” Good stuff:
The United States has never agreed to abide by the Kyoto Protocol, the binding 1997 treaty through which some countries agreed to limit emissions. Still, U.S. emissions have risen only slightly since then. The big increase has been in China and India, which are exempt from cuts under Kyoto.
Officials in Beijing and New Delhi understand that unchecked growth in emissions is not sustainable. But they also know that the United States and Europe are still responsible for far more carbon emissions per capita. And if a factory in, say, Guangzhou province produces iPhones for American consumers, who should be held responsible for those emissions?
Will these questions be answered in the Doha talks now under way? Not a chance. Not until the United States is fully involved.
And this is why President Obama should devote his next State of the Union address to climate change. He understands the science and knows the threat is real. Convincing the American people of this truth would be a great accomplishment – and perhaps the most important legacy of his second term.
Lots of luck with that. Sent December 6:
Environmentalists are justifiably disappointed in the Obama administration’s tepid participation in the Doha climate conference, and in our nation’s lackluster response to what is clearly the defining crisis of our times. And indeed there is plenty of cause for frustration, what with the steady drumbeat of bad climate news seemingly getting worse by the minute, while our diplomats dither and the United States routinely abdicates its position of leadership in the world community.
However, Mr. Obama’s timidity is not the real problem. If addressing an ongoing catastrophe responsibly means a reduced quarterly profit margin for Big Oil and Big Coal, it’s not going to happen. Our political paralysis in the face of a collapsing planetary ecosystem is caused by the all-pervasive influence of fossil fuels in our economy and fossil funds in our government. Presidential pusillanimity is a diagnostic indicator of how far, and how deeply, the disease has spread.
Warren Senders
environment Politics: consumerism economics sustainability
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Year 3, Month 12, Day 10: Have You Met Miss Jones?
The Virginian-Pilot has a good op-ed, titled, “Struggling to care about climate change”:
The world, with the exception of Europe, has done almost nothing to arrest global warming. Despite a treaty or two and decades of hand-wringing, the pull of prosperity has been simply too strong, especially in Asia and the Americas.
U.S. politicians have done a shameful nothing, too many pretending that settled science remains in doubt, too many grubbing money from coal and oil and electricity companies, which have it to give.
In the meantime, the Obama administration – as others have before – talks a better game than it delivers on climate change, arguing that meager progress amounts to moving mountains. It is no more persuasive from this White House than it was from its predecessors.
The problem grows worse. Developing nations are burning coal because it’s cheap and wood because it’s handy, so greenhouse gases continue to flow. With emerging nations eager for energy-hungry technologies, and wanting to replace bicycles and transit with cars – who can blame them? – the continued progress of planetary warming is no great surprise.
Still, surprises come.
According to a new study released at the largely ignored United Nations climate change talks in Qatar, the world’s seas are rising faster than projections. Temperatures are climbing, too.
All fine and good, but that phrase in the first paragraph sets my teeth on edge. Sent December 4:
Advocates for action on global warming need to avoid the misleading economic perspective setting “prosperity” and the environment at odds with one another. Americans’ reluctance to move forward with sensible policies on climate change is not just because we’re addicted to oil; it’s also because we’re addicted to shopping.
If we are to face the threats posed by the metastasizing greenhouse effect, we must transform our relationship to the things we buy, and to our notion of economic well-being. Ultimately, Earth’s resources are the foundation of all wealth; without air to breathe, water to drink, and food to eat, the gaudiest baubles of our consumer economy offer no solace. If the economy is the metabolism of our civilization, then the “prosperity” of unbridled consumerism is the equivalent of a junk-food diet — fast and habit-forming, but unhealthy and wasteful. Genuine prosperity, by contrast, is like a home-grown, home-cooked meal, eaten slowly with friends.
I know what I like. How about you?
Warren Senders
environment Politics: arctic methane assholes denialists idiots media irresponsibility Republican obstructionism
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Year 3, Month 12, Day 9: Like A Lizard On The Windowpane
The Columbus Dispatch reprints Eugene Robinson’s recent op-ed from the WaPo:
You might not have noticed that another round of U.N. climate talks is under way, this time in Doha, Qatar. You also might not have noticed that we’re barreling toward a “world … of unprecedented heat waves, severe drought and major floods in many regions.” Here in Washington, we’re too busy to pay attention to such trifles.
We’re too busy arguing about who gets credit or blame for teeny-weeny changes in the tax code. Meanwhile, evidence mounts that the legacy we pass along to future generations will be a parboiled planet.
That quote about heat, drought and flooding comes from a new World Bank report warning of the consequences of warming. The study, titled “Turn Down the Heat,” tries to assess what will happen if temperatures are allowed to rise by 4 degrees Celsius — about 7.2 degrees Fahrenheit — above pre-industrial levels, before humans began spewing massive amounts of heat-trapping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. The picture is beyond bleak.
This is some serious shit, people. December 3:
While Washington obsesses about the political brinkmanship around the misleadingly named “fiscal cliff,” the world races towards a far more dangerous line of demarcation. And just as conservatives reject any economic evidence contrary to their ideology, they deny the scientific evidence confirming the very real threat posed by an accelerating greenhouse effect.
While the “climate cliff” — the point when runaway global heating becomes unstoppable — may already be past, this doesn’t excuse political and media figures who deliberately exclude the facts of climate change from legislative deliberation and national discussion. Even more disturbing is the realization that the worst-case scenarios discussed in the recent World Bank report don’t include melting arctic methane, which raises the threat level from dangerous to outright catastrophic. In a planetary crisis of this magnitude, the willful ignorance of the American chattering classes is nothing less than a betrayal of our species’ future.
Warren Senders