environment Politics: algae assholes denialists idiots irony James Inhofe
by Warren
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Year 2, Month 7, Day 18: Look Before You Leap!
James Inhofe is still an idiot. Witness, for example, this AP article printed in the Greenfield Reporter (IN):
TULSA, Okla. — Sen. James Inhofe says he believes a swim earlier this week in algae-laden Grand Lake made him ill.
Inhofe told the Tulsa World that he took a routine dive into the lake Monday morning and that night he was “deathly sick.”
Oklahoma authorities warned people Friday against swimming in the lake, saying potentially toxic blue-green algae had been detected. They’ve also advised against water skiing and other activities that would bring people or pets in contact with the water.
The algae would undoubtedly do a better job as Senator. Sent July 2:
James Inhofe’s excellent adventure — diving into Oklahoma’s Grand Lake — wound up making him seriously ill. No wonder: the surface of the water was covered with a blue-green scum which the senator had never before seen, despite decades of living on the lake shore. It’s unsurprising that Mr. Inhofe didn’t look before leaping, since the senator has made a successful political career out of a public contempt for facts, prediction, and analysis. If he’d bothered to investigate the algae, he would have learned it was exceptionally poisonous — up to 18 times more toxic than the warning level used by the World Health Organization. If he uses his convalescence to do some more research, he might learn that according to an April 4 paper in the journal Science, the cyanobacteria that laid him low thrive and flourish in the weather extremes that are a consequence of (you guessed it!) global warming.
Warren Senders
environment Politics: Arctic ice melt endangered species polar bears
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Year 2, Month 7, Day 17: And In The Left Corner, In Yellow Trunks…
The L.A. Times reports on the recent (July 1) ruling that the Polar Bear is going to be allowed to keep its status on the Endangered Species list.
A U.S. District Court on Thursday upheld a Bush-era decision that polar bears are a threatened species, despite challenges by the state of Alaska and others seeking to strip the bear of its protection.
Judge Emmet Sullivan ruled that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s decision to protect the bear because of the melting of the Arctic sea ice was well supported and that opponents failed to demonstrate that the listing was irrational.
“Plaintiffs’ challenges amount to nothing more than competing views about policy and science,” Judge Emmet Sullivan wrote.
Them pesky liberal judges.
Personally, I’d like to watch a polar bear and James Inhofe battle it out.
Sent July 1:
As one of the most recognizable of the world’s charismatic megafauna, the polar bear’s become a symbol of wildlife endangered by climate change. While Judge Sullivan’s ruling on the threatened Arctic predator’s status is welcome news, we need to recognize that it’s not just the big, furry and picturesque that need our protection. All over the planet, creatures great and small are coming under attack from a faceless enemy — but the ultimate victims are not the animals and plants themselves, but the living networks of interdependency of which they are a part. The world’s ecosystems are in grave danger; as they lose their resilience, we’ll see ever-greater numbers of inarticulate climate refugees searching for new habitats. It’s unfortunate that there is no category for Endangered Environments, for it’s not just the polar bear, but its entire support system, that is under assault from the greenhouse effect and its consequences.
Warren Senders
environment Politics: denialists idiots Republican obstructionism scientific consensus
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Year 2, Month 7, Day 16: The Changer Things Get, The Samer They Are
The same AP article on the deepening crisis, this time from the June 29 Idaho Press-Tribune:
“The indicators show unequivocally that the world continues to warm,” Thomas R. Karl, director of the National Climatic Data Center, said in releasing the annual State of the Climate report for 2010.
“There is a clear and unmistakable signal from the top of the atmosphere to the depths of the oceans,” added Peter Thorne of the Cooperative Institute for Climate and Satellites, North Carolina State University.
Sent June 30:
While the Earth is certainly, as Dr. Peter Thorne puts it, “sending us a clear and unmistakable signal” about the looming climate catastrophe, the systemic dysfunctionality of our media and politics ensures that those who hear it are in no position to make a difference. When the fossil-fuel industry purchases the allegiance of our legislators and multinational corporations control our news, the end result is political paralysis — something that human civilization can no longer afford. The situational deafness of political opportunists is no longer just an example of institutionalized corruption, but a genuine and pressing danger. That “clear and unmistakable signal” is telling us: the time available to mitigate the disastrous consequences of climate change is rapidly running out. A philosopher might ask: if a window of opportunity slams, but no one hears it, does it make a sound?
Warren Senders
environment Politics: denialists idiots NCDC Republican obstructionism Republicans scientific consensus
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Year 2, Month 7, Day 15: No News Is Good News
Lots of newspapers are running something about this June 29 report from the National Climate Data Center. Among them is the Fort Wayne News-Sentinel:
WASHINGTON — The world’s climate is not only continuing to warm, it’s adding heat-trapping greenhouse gases faster than in the past, researchers said Tuesday. The global temperature has been warmer than the 20th-century average every month for more than 25 years, they said at a teleconference.
“The indicators show unequivocally that the world continues to warm,” Thomas R. Karl, director of the National Climatic Data Center, said in releasing the annual State of the Climate report for 2010.
The evidence keeps accumulating, and by now it’s way deeper than an anomalous blizzard in Washington, DC. But that won’t stop the climate-change denialists in media and politics. By now their positions are fixed in stone; it would be easier to get all that extra atmospheric CO2 back in the ground than to get the GOP’s anti-science zealots to admit error. During the Bush administration, an un-named official derided the “reality-based community,” saying, “We’re an empire. We make our own reality.” And the current Republican party still clings stubbornly to the notion that inconvenient facts can be ignored, forever if necessary. As the NCDC report shows, pretty soon those facts will be too hot to handle. Eventually, of course, climate denialists will admit the reality of climate change — but America and the world cannot afford to wait any longer. It’s time for them to wake up; the coffee’s burning.
Warren Senders
environment Politics: corporate irresponsibility denialists EPA Fred Upton
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Year 2, Month 7, Day 14: Sustainable Exploitation Is The Way To Go!
The June 28 Times-Record (ME) has a good editorial, titled “What About High Cost Of Unhealthy Air?”
Yeah? What about it?
Actually, it isn’t “we, the people” who get stuck on the cost of keeping our air clean and healthy. Polls consistently show strong public support for the Environmental Protection Agency’s efforts to impose and enforce strict limits on air pollution. A new nationwide bipartisan survey, released on June 16 by the American Lung Association, includes these findings:
— 75 percent of voters support EPA setting stricter limits on smog.
— 65 percent said stricter limits on air pollution will not damage our economic recovery; in fact, 54 percent believe upgraded standards will create more, not fewer, jobs.
— 66 percent said the EPA should set pollution standards, not Congress.
And not only that, but:
In the House, Rep. Fred Upton, R-Mich., chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, successfully pushed through H.R. 910, the Energy Tax Prevention Act, in a 255-172 vote. Opponents renamed it the “Dirty Air Act,” which seems fair enough considering the bill would:
— Block EPA from cutting carbon dioxide and other pollutants from coal-fired power plants, oil refineries and other industries. Opponents rightly point out that coal-fired plants are the largest single-source of global warming pollution in the U.S.
— Override the determination by EPA scientists that global warming pollution poses threats to public health and welfare. Opponents rightly challenge the notion that members of Congress are better informed about climate science than the EPA’s climate scientists.
— Block both the EPA and states from issuing new standards for cleaner vehicles after 2017. Opponents point out that these standards, as well as the 2012-2016 standards, help reduce our reliance on foreign oil and save motorists money at the gas pump.
In the Senate, Upton’s bill fell 10 votes shy of the 60 needed to overcome a filibuster, but many of its provisions turned up in four amendments to an unrelated small business bill (S.493).
It’s a good piece, and triggered these rather testy words, sent June 28:
The ongoing struggle against environmental regulation by giant corporations and their captive politicians is positively surreal in its disregard for the best interests of America and the world. Representative Upton’s attempt to hobble the EPA is based on specious rationalizations, poor science, and a mindset that exalts maximum immediate return on investment and nothing else. But a healthy environment cannot be exploited endlessly; Earth is large, but finite, and the waste products of our industrialized culture have begun to overwhelm the planet’s handling capacity. “The Environment” is not a fictional construct respected only by hippies and scientists; it’s where all of us live. All of us, that is, except multinational corporations, which explains why they find environmental regulations so annoying. It’s not their air that’s unbreathable, or their water that’s increasingly befouled; it’s ours. And other than as a source of short-term profits, what use have they for us?
Warren Senders
Year 2, Month 7, Day 11: Put A Cork In It.
The Woodland, California Daily Democrat for June 25 notes that wine-makers in California’s Napa Valley are now forced to take climate change into effect in their planning for future years:
A Napa Valley winemaker last week traversed a steep hillside to reach a 12-foot white weather station that towers above rows of cabernet sauvignon vines absorbing the midmorning sun.
Curiosity drove him to install the relatively inexpensive device in 1995, said Christopher Howell, general manager and winemaker at Cain Vineyard and Winery in the valley’s Spring Mountain region in St. Helena.
But in the years since, its wirelessly relayed data — along with those of 100 like it now operating in the valley — has become crucial as Napa Valley vintners uneasily brace for a changing climate that they’re sure will come.
The region’s wine growers had long heard of melting glaciers and Arctic ice sheets breaking apart in rising global temperatures. During the 20th century, global temperature increased by about 1.33 degrees Fahrenheit, and a U.N. climate panel estimates that, depending upon carbon dioxide emissions, temperatures will rise an additional 2 to 11.5 F by 2100.
“But we shockingly hadn’t connected the dots and said, ‘Oh my, our world is going to change, too,'” Howell said. “We are as anxious about this as we are about the arrival of any new pest or disease.”
How long will it take?
Sent June 25:
For too long our politicians and media have ignored, belittled or mocked the painstaking research of scientific specialists on the world’s climate. By treating the greenhouse effect as a political issue, they’ve polarized the question, making it impossible to discuss the science without ideological interference. The basic facts of global warming have never been in dispute, despite what our televisions would have us believe, and they have been part of climate science for decades; Arctic ice melt as a consequence of increased atmospheric CO2 was predicted in Popular Mechanics magazine — in 1953! Now the window of opportunity is rapidly closing; denialists have squandered forty years and are still intent on making meaningful action on climate all but impossible. Their radical refusal to take responsibility for our civilization’s greenhouse emissions is now bearing fruit, and as the Napa Valley is coming to realize, it’s going to be a bitter vintage indeed.
Warren Senders
environment Politics: Al Gore Barack Obama corporate irresponsibility media irresponsibility
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Year 2, Month 7, Day 9: Squirrel!
The June 23 Boston Globe reports on the “Al Gore was mean to Obama” kerfuffle:
In a 7,000-word essay posted online yesterday by Rolling Stone magazine, Gore said the president hasn’t stood up for “bold action’’ on the problem and has done little to move the country forward since he replaced Republican George W. Bush.
Bush infuriated environmentalists by resisting mandatory controls on the pollution blamed for climate change, despite overwhelming scientific evidence that the burning of fossil fuels is at least partly responsible. The scientific case has only gotten stronger since, Gore argues, but Obama has not used it to force significant change.
“Obama has never presented to the American people the magnitude of the climate crisis,’’ Gore said. “He has not defended the science against the ongoing withering and dishonest attacks. Nor has he provided a presidential venue for the scientific community . . . to bring the reality of the science before the public.’’
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sent June 23:
While it makes excellent headlines when one important Democrat says mean things about another, the real story in Al Gore’s words is deeper and far more important. The Obama administration’s regrettable timidity and incrementalism on environmental and energy issues is merely symptomatic of a more pervasive problem which Mr. Gore addressed directly in his recent article in Rolling Stone. As long as our news media treat science like political gamesmanship, reporting on climate change will continue to distort the facts and mislead the public. And as long as our politicians treat scientific ignorance and innumeracy as a virtue, our policies will reflect no reality beyond superficial electoral exigencies. While Mr. Obama and his team certainly need to be doing more to combat the gravest threat human civilization has faced in millennia, the blame for our inaction belongs to the corporate forces which control both our politicians and our communications.
Warren Senders
environment Politics: Al Gore Barack Obama denialists idiots media irresponsibility Republican obstructionism
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Year 2, Month 7, Day 8: Like Asphyxiating Fish In A Barrel
More on Gore, from the June 22 Seattle Post-Intelligencer:
Al Gore has gone public with his complaints about President Barack Obama’s environmental record and leadership on climate change – legitimizing a groundswell of grumbling from the left and throwing open the door for more of the same.
(snip)
It’s bad news for the White House – especially coming on the heels of a new poll showing that only 30 percent of Americans say they definitely plan to vote for Obama in 2012.
“President Obama has never presented to the American people the magnitude of the climate crisis,” the former vice president wrote in a 7,000-word essay for Rolling Stone. “He has simply not made the case for action. He has not defended the science against the ongoing, withering and dishonest attacks. Nor has he provided a presidential venue for the scientific community – including our own National Academy – to bring the reality of the science before the public.”
Sent June 22:
While Al Gore’s critique of President Obama makes excellent headlines, the real problem lies elsewhere — in the irresponsibility of politicians and corporate forces which place the well-being of the world’s corporations above that of the world’s people. The readiness of our elected representatives to ignore actual scientific expertise in favor of bizarre conspiracy theories is a symptom of the extent to which the fossil-fuel sector exerts control over our government; the readiness of our media to play a specious game of false equivalency in which every worried climatologist is “balanced” by a paid shill for Big Oil is likewise a symptom of that industry’s influence on our print and broadcast outlets. With rapidly deteriorating oceans, melting icecaps, worldwide outbreaks of extreme weather and catastrophe looming on the horizon, it’s time for politicians, media and corporations to get to work on something more important than protecting profit margins. Protecting us.
Warren Senders
environment Politics: Al Gore Barack Obama corporate irresponsibility
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Year 2, Month 7, Day 7: There’ll Be One Guy Left, But He’ll Be VERY RICH.
The New York Times reports on Al Gore’s June 21 article in Rolling Stone, in which he criticizes Obama on climate:
In the 7,000-word article in Rolling Stone, Mr. Gore says that Mr. Obama clearly understands the threat to the planet posed by global warming and that he has appointed a number of qualified and committed advocates to key positions.But Mr. Gore charges that in the face of well-financed attacks from fossil fuel industries and denial and delay from Republicans in Congress, Mr. Obama has failed to act decisively to alter the nation’s policies on climate change and energy.
Sent June 22:
The contrast is striking: whereas his predecessor was an intellectually lazy faux cowboy, Mr. Obama is a thoughtful, scientifically literate incrementalist. But there are some areas in which incremental progress is inherently unsatisfactory, and our response to the deepening climate crisis is one of these. What with the shockingly rapid deterioration of our oceans (as detailed in the IPSO report), the continuing increase in greenhouse emissions, the collapse of regional ecosystems worldwide, and the dramatic increase in extreme weather events, it is self-evident that tiny steps in the right direction won’t get us out of trouble. We need to move fast, and we need to move dramatically.
However valid Mr. Gore’s criticisms of President Obama, the real story is that the corporate forces controlling the economy won’t abandon their profit margins, despite mounting evidence that this strategy will subject their customer base to what biologists euphemistically call an “evolutionary bottleneck.”
Warren Senders
environment Politics: EPA SCOTUS
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Year 2, Month 7, Day 5: As Predicted…
As expected, on June 20 the Supreme Court rejected the 8-state lawsuit against the utility companies, placing the ball once again in the EPA’s court.
In an 8-0 decision, the Supreme Court kills a global-warming lawsuit filed by eight states and environmentalists against the nation’s five largest electric power companies. The court says Congress and the EPA already have authority to make rules regulating greenhouse gases and courts need not get involved.
This one went to the LA Times:
So it’s unanimous: the EPA has the power to regulate greenhouse emissions and toxic pollutants, and the states do not. The lawsuit against major energy companies was always a long shot, and this ruling is hardly a surprise. What remains for us as citizens is to pressure our federal government to do its duty: preserve the environment for the sake of our children and their children for generations to come. If that doesn’t fall under the general welfare clause of the Constitution, nothing does — for absent a livable planet, all the corporate profits in the world won’t do anyone a bit of good. It is time for the EPA to live up to its mandate, and time for the Obama administration to abandon its timid and incrementalist energy policy. We need to move rapidly; the scientific consensus on climate change is overwhelming, and the danger of catastrophe is undeniable.
Warren Senders