environment: Boston Herald idiots
by Warren
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I Penetrate Shallowly Into Enemy Territory
I was ego-searching and discovered that the Boston Herald had run one of my letters. Notably, they’d done so without checking on my bona fides.
Here’s their edited version (the article which triggered the letter was about the current heat waves):
It’s revealing that the phrase “climate change” appears in this story exactly once – when mentioning a Maine-based research center (“Above-normal temperatures persist in Northeast,” Aug. 5).
The facts are unequivocal: The heat wave pummeling the Northeast is exactly what climatologists have predicted for decades (and what Republicans have been mocking and ignoring for just as long). This year is on track to be the hottest year on record.
How much worse will it have to get before our media decide the greatest existential threat humanity has ever faced is more important than, say, celebrity prison experiences?
And here’s my original:
It’s revealing that the phrase “climate change” appears in this article exactly once: when mentioning a Maine-based research center. The facts are unequivocal: the heat wave pummeling the Northeast is exactly what climatologists have predicted for decades (and what Republicans have been mocking and ignoring for just as long). 2010 is on track to be the hottest year on record. According to scientists, even if we took dramatic and immediate action to drastically reduce CO2 emissions, we’d still be looking at worldwide crop failures, droughts, storms, and ecological collapses. How much worse will it have to get before our newspapers and broadcast media decide the greatest existential threat humanity has ever faced is more important than, say, celebrity prison experiences? The Boston Herald’s treatment of climate change has long been a flagrant disregard of journalistic responsibility.
Warren Senders
I’m surprised they printed it, but not surprised that they left off the last sentence.
The comments in the online edition are worth a look.
I wonder if they’ve printed other letters without letting me know.
environment: Boston Herald climate change Russia wildfires
by Warren
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Month 8, Day 9: Fake Astroturf Redux
Man, this thing works great. The Boston Herald ran an AP article on Russia’s fires, so I zipped through this one in 10 minutes.
At first glance the Associated Press story on the fires currently raging through Russia are unexceptionable. Closer examination reveals that important facts have been left out: the devastating heat wave that has triggered those wildfires is part of a worldwide trend of increasingly severe weather — a consequence of global warming, or climate change, or global heating, or, to use the most accurate term, climaticide. Floods, heatwaves, tropical storms, droughts — we’re going to see more and more of them, and they’ll do more damage and destroy more lives than ever before. To respond appropriately to the threats posed by the climate crisis, the citizenry must by fully and accurately informed. By failing to connect the crisis in Russia to the broader crisis that affects all of us on Earth, the Associated Press has failed in its responsibility to journalism and to the American People.
Warren Senders
environment: Boston Herald heat wave idiots
by Warren
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Month 8, Day 6: 2010 is Already the Stupidest Year On Record
The Boston Herald ran an AP story on our current heat wave.
My reaction is, of course, unprintable.
It’s revealing that the phrase “climate change” appears in this article exactly once: when mentioning a Maine-based research center. The facts are unequivocal: the heat wave pummeling the Northeast is exactly what climatologists have predicted for decades (and what Republicans have been mocking and ignoring for just as long). 2010 is on track to be the hottest year on record. According to scientists, even if we took dramatic and immediate action to drastically reduce CO2 emissions, we’d still be looking at worldwide crop failures, droughts, storms, and ecological collapses. How much worse will it have to get before our newspapers and broadcast media decide the greatest existential threat humanity has ever faced is more important than, say, celebrity prison experiences? The Boston Herald’s treatment of climate change has long been a flagrant disregard of journalistic responsibility.
Warren Senders
environment Politics: Boston Herald heat wave idiots
by Warren
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Month 7, Day 7: It’s Too Darn Hot
We’re having a heat wave up here in Boston, as the Boston Herald helpfully reports. But since as all of us climate alarmists kept pointing out in December, local weather events aren’t proof of anything. Look for that to be the new meme of the idiocracy, if they’re ever called upon to comment on our blistering high temperatures. Which they won’t be.
Sheesh. If it’s 100 degrees here in July, what will August be like?
It was only a few months ago that climate-change deniers were trumpeting the unusual snowfall in Washington, DC as proof that global warming was a hoax. Senator Jim DeMint said, “It’s going to keep snowing in DC until Al Gore cries ‘Uncle,’ “ and Senator James Inhofe built an igloo with Gore’s name on it. And at the time, people who understood even a little bit about science knew that climate scientists had predicted exactly what was happening: more extreme weather events, everywhere. Extreme snow, extreme rain, extreme heat. Now an early-July heat wave is debilitating cities throughout the Northeast. Is the heat wave proof of global warming? No — local weather doesn’t prove anything by itself. But the fact that more places all over the globe are experiencing unusual and destructive weather than ever before is a confirmation that climatologists had it right all along. When will the rest of us pay attention?
Warren Senders
environment: Boston Herald economic justice economic recession economics
by Warren
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Month 7, Day 4: Independence From What?
The Boston Herald ran an AP story noting that there was no increase in CO2 emissions in 2009, due to the worldwide economic slowdown. Well, that certainly links the good news and the bad news in an arresting way.
If increased greenhouse gas pollution is correlated with economic growth, there are two ways to interpret the news that worldwide recession has held atmospheric CO2 emissions steady for the first time since 1992. Either global warming is a welcome indicator of financial well-being, or our growth-fixated economy is literally killing the planet. Growth has its place. Rapid doubling of weight is healthy — if you’re a baby. For an adult? Not so much. With over six billion people living on a finite world, we need a new way of economic thinking that doesn’t require constant expansion to survive. “Growth for the sake of growth” brought us the disaster in the Gulf of Mexico; gutted our national economy to line the pockets of wealthy speculators; increased global warming emissions without thought to the consequences. It’s an economic idea that is actually destroying the place we live! For all our sakes, we’d better find another way.
Warren Senders
environment: Boston Herald idiots Martin Feldman offshore drilling
by Warren
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Month 6, Day 24: Another Day, Another Dullard
The Boston Herald ran the same AP story on Feldman’s ruling blocking the drilling moratorium. For a dose of idiocy, check out the comments. The Herald has yet to run one of my letters. Or maybe they have, and don’t bother to call or confirm. How would I know?
Judge Feldman’s opinion is logically flawed. The government wants to stop exploratory drilling until it figures out what caused the catastrophe in the Gulf — and the judge decides that the platforms are safe, because nothing’s happened to them yet. Well, maybe that’s it’s done in Louisiana, but I learned that if something’s broken, you stop using it until it’s fixed. If my mechanic thinks my brakes are bad, it’s irresponsible to go back on the road, even if I haven’t had an accident. We don’t know all the factors that brought about the catastrophe on the Deepwater Horizon, and it’s a grotesque blunder to assume that because other drilling platforms haven’t yet exploded and sunk, they must be safe. I suspect the judge’s substantial investments had an influence; I have observed that oil, among its other malign side effects, appears to make people in positions of power act stupidly.
Warren Senders
environment: addiction Boston Herald Oil
by Warren
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Month 6, Day 4: Time For An Intervention?
The Boston Herald ran an AP story on Obama’s recent words about our national addiction to oil. My response:
President Obama is correct. America’s behavior when faced with the fact of our national dependence on oil is that of an addict confronting unpleasant truths. Fact: burning oil adds carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. Fact: BP (and other oil companies as well) are demonstrably incompetent when it comes to disaster response. Fact: sooner or later, we will have burned all the oil there is to burn. Fact: thousands of smaller spills all over the world have devastated local communities and ecosystems. Fact: much of our oil comes from countries that (to put it mildly) don’t have America’s best interests at heart. Each of these truths is a good reason for a huge national initiative to shift us off oil within the decade. Taken together, they are irrefutable, yet it seems that the country that gave us “a giant leap for mankind” has become the country of “we can’t do it — it’s too hard.”
Warren Senders
environment Politics: Boston Herald idiots
by Warren
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Month 3, Day 24: Straight to Fishwrap
Not much to say here. This one’s barely about climate at all…just a nod to Lindsey Graham at the end of the first graf. I sent it to the Boston Herald, because maybe they’ll print it, since it’s angry and barely coherent.
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.
Hard on the heels of the triumphant Democratic passage of health-care legislation, Republican lawmakers are demonstrating the passive-aggressive behavior typical of seven-year-olds. Vowing “no more cooperation,” Mitch McConnell and the rest of the Senate Republicans are now refusing even such ordinary courtesies as unanimous consent resolutions to allow Senate hearings to continue in the afternoon. Lindsey Graham, who claims to “get” the importance of global climate change, has been working on climate legislation with Senators Kerry and Lieberman, but his pique at a Democratic success outweighs any sense of obligation he may feel to the long-term health of the planet. The rest of the GOP caucus, of course, knows that climate change is a hoax, since Senator Inhofe tells them so.
That our government is held hostage by these buffoons is intolerable. The Republican Party is no longer a viable political entity, but a gang of irresponsible hooligans.
Warren Senders
environment: Boston Herald rain snow
by Warren
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Month 3, Day 15: Wet
Was wondering what to write about when I got involved in trying to fix some leaks that had developed in my basement. Dammit.
Anyway, I was good and pissed-off, so I thought I’d take it out on the Boston Herald. The swollen belly returns for another turn in this one. One day it’ll make it into print.
Hey, climate-change deniers! Do a few freak snowstorms disprove global warming? How about a few freak rainstorms? Climate scientists have long predicted that extreme weather will increase over the next decade as global temperature goes up: more heat means more water evaporating into the atmosphere, and that means more rain in spring, more snow in winter, and more weirdness and wetness all around. We can expect big effects on agriculture, faster deterioration of roads and infrastructure, more power outages and disruptions. It’s time for you to face the facts. An unseasonal snowstorm in Washington DC no more disproves global warming than the kwashiorkor-swollen belly of a starving child disproves world hunger.
Warren Senders
environment Politics: Boston Herald denialism idiots James Inhofe
by Warren
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Month 2, Day 21: Setting The Wreckers Straight
Figured I’d send this one off to the Boston Herald. They haven’t printed anything of mine yet, of course, but I figure it does them good to hear from those of us on the Side of the Light. And you can’t go wrong trashing Jim Inhofe. That guy gives lying, hypocrisy and stupidity a really bad image.
Predictably, snowfall in Washington sets Republican politicians off on another round of climate-change denial. James Inhofe and his ilk would like us to believe that global warming doesn’t exist, that humans aren’t responsible, that localized cold and snow disprove it, and that in any case, doing something about it would cost too much and disrupt Americans’ God-given right to convenient, unthinking consumption. Wrong on all counts: worldwide measurements show indisputably that our climate is heating up, and ninety-seven percent of climate scientists agree that human activity is causing this. A warmer global climate means weirder local weather, including things like blizzards in Washington and Texas along with record highs in Greenland and Europe.
The sociopolitical effects of climate change include massive economic disturbances, “water wars,” and millions of climate refugees. It’s obvious that the cost of addressing the crisis is trivial compared to the cost of failure. Obvious, that is, to anyone except Senator Inhofe and the rest of the G.O.P.
Warren Senders
Have you written a letter recently? Why not?
As always, feel free to use one of mine.