environment Politics: assholes denialists idiots industry IPCC Republicans
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Year 4, Month 10, Day 17: They Can Have Any Color They Want As Long As It’s Black
The San Antonio Express-News, on Republican denialism and foolishness:
So why is there such a disconnect between what scientists think and the public debate?
Recent cognitive research helps us understand this. Researchers find that beliefs on climate change science strongly correlate with other policy preferences.
For example, if you are skeptical of the science of climate change, then you almost certainly oppose the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, and support gun rights.
Those who support action to reduce greenhouse gases very likely hold the opposite views.
If arguments about the science of climate change were actually about the science, then this result would make no sense. Whether climate change is true or not is a scientific matter, and it should be uncorrelated with philosophical views on the role of government in health care or the constitutional right to own a firearm.
But they are correlated. And this tells us that the arguments about the science of climate change are not actually about science.
So what is the argument about? The answer is policy.
If climate change is true and we decide to reduce emissions, then it will almost certainly require intervention by the government into the energy market. For some, that idea is so repugnant that the only conclusion is that the problem must not exist.
It is also about being part of the tribe. Climate change has achieved such an elevated status in the policy debate that it has become a litmus test. To be a Republican, for example, you must reject the science.
Any Republican who does not risks being voted out of office — as happened, for example, to Rep. Bob Inglis. (www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/ frontline/environment/climate- of-doubt/bob-inglis-climate- change-and-the-republican- party/).
As proud Texans, we are sympathetic to those who worry about out-of-control eco-totalitarianism. And we both love cheap and abundant energy and the lifestyle it allows us to lead. But, like most people, Republican and Democrat alike, we also want to protect the environment. Thus, we both support balanced action to address the clear and present danger of climate change.
Writing a letter like this is like shooting fish in a barrel. October 8:
The extraordinary thing about self-styled “fiscal conservatives” is their near-pathological readiness to bet against their own country. Just look at the people who whine that changing emissions regulations to cut down on greenhouse gases is going to handicap American manufacturers. They’re the same ones who screamed in the 1960s that making seat belts mandatory was going to cripple the automobile industry. Last I looked, there were plenty of cars on the road, and while auto companies have had their problems, nobody believes seat belts are the reason why.
For all their loud professions of American exceptionalism, conservatives’ opposition to sensible climate change policy is rooted in a “can’t do” ideology. We can’t change our energy economy (even if it saves us money) — because it’s too hard. We can’t take a position of global leadership (on the most important challenge facing the world today) — because it’s too hard.
That’s not fiscal conservatism. That’s laziness. That’s not economic responsibility. It’s whining.
Imagine these people running the Apollo program. We’d never have gotten into orbit, much less reached the Moon.
Warren Senders
environment Politics: assholes denialists idiots Republicans
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Year 4, Month 10, Day 15: If Pigs Could Fly, We’d All Have To Carry Really Big Umbrellas
Brian Dickerson writes in the Detroit Free Press about the chimerical Republican enlightenment on climate change:
But just a year later, Michigan environmentalists have been heartened by signs that politicians from both parties are coalescing around their key objective: increasing the state’s use of cleaner energy sources.
A draft report being circulated by the Michigan Public Service Commission says that, contrary to the dire warnings of electric utilities who opposed Proposal 3, the costs of generating renewable energy are plunging.
Produced at the behest of Gov. Rick Snyder, the PSC report says the surcharge that utilities have been levying on their customers to finance the transition to renewable power sources — such as wind and solar — could shrink to zero by 2014, “because project costs are, in some cases, essentially equivalent to conventional generation.”
“From a technical perspective,” the report adds, it would be possible for Michigan utilities to generate as much as 30% of their electricity from renewable fuels like wind and solar “from resources located within the state.”
I’ve got some swampland in Florida he should see. October 6:
It’d be great to see conservative politicians supporting clean energy and environmental responsibility. Once upon a time, there were pro-business Republicans who recognized that sensible public policies required, well, sense. But that was long ago; rejecting anything that smacks of expertise, today’s anti-intellectual GOP can’t solve even the most trivial policy problems. And climate change is no trivial problem, but the central issue of our time.
Republicans should embrace strategies for reducing greenhouse emissions, reinforcing infrastructure, and educating the public about the causes and consequences of climate change — but because their ideology defines itself in simple-minded opposition to everything “liberal”, they won’t. A recent study showed that conservatives eagerly bought CFL bulbs when they were labeled as money-savers, but rejected them if the packaging mentioned the environment.
Such doctrinal rigidity may lead the Republican Party to extinction. Let’s hope they don’t take the rest of humanity with them.
Warren Senders
environment Politics: assholes denialists idiots IPCC
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Year 4, Month 10, Day 12: Plus ca change…
Who the fuck is “Ambrose”? The Henderson (KY) Gleaner:
Given what the report seeks, you’d think it would deal at length with a major fact in conflict with its tone of certainty, admonition and fright. It’s that there has been no global, atmospheric warming for 15 years. The report belittles the issue, saying 15 years isn’t so long in the time span we’re discussing, and, besides, all that warmth may be hiding in the depths of the ocean.
Here’s the thing. The computer models that predicted something more accelerated than what has actually happened since 1998 are the same ones predicting disaster in the long run. If they were wrong about the past 15 years, it is a good sign they are wrong about the long run, too.
Sheesh. There’s that year again! October 4:
On reading Ambrose’s opinion piece belittling the IPCC report on Earth’s transforming climate, I wondered: why is it that when climate-change denialists assert that the atmosphere hasn’t warmed, it’s always “since 1998”? What’s so special about 1998?
Well, that year had a drastic temperature spike, so if we start there, the resulting graph sure looks like a decline. But since our measurements go back long before Monica Lewinsky made the headlines, we can look at planetary temperatures recorded over the past hundred and twenty years or so — and the picture’s very different: a zigzagging line climbing steadily across the page, accelerating significantly faster after around 1975.
Because competent scientists — unlike op-ed columnists — know the difference between statistical “noise” and genuine long-term trends, 1998’s anomalous heat is as irrelevant to the overall picture as 1995, a year of equally anomalous cold. Mr. Ambrose’s statistical cherry-picking irresponsibly misrepresents the overwhelming climatological consensus.
Warren Senders
environment Politics: assholes denialists idiots Republican obstructionism
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Year 4, Month 10, Day 9: A World Of Hurt
An editorial in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch takes conservatives to task:
There was a time in U.S. history, not long ago, but longer than the recent 15-year slowdown in warming trends, when Republicans and Democrats could respond to such challenges together. When they could realize, as President Nixon said on that important day in 1970, “that all of us, Democrats, Republicans, the House, the Senate, the executive branch, that all of us can look back upon this year as that time when we began to make a movement toward a goal that we all want.”
What we all want is a planet, a country, a city, that we can pass on to the next generation. We want our children and grandchildren to have the same or better opportunities than we have had. Climate change is making that less likely.
To deny climate change is to deny them that chance.
It’s always the right time to mock Republicans. October 1:
Republicans love to invoke “future generations” when they’re inveighing against the ostensible evils of taxation and government, but when it comes to addressing a crisis that’s going to disrupt the lives of our children’s children for generations to come, they’re strangely resistant to doing anything. Trapped between the profit-above-all orientation of their corporate sponsors and the anti-science, anti-tax hysteria of their Tea Party constituents, GOP politicians can no longer even publicly recognize the existence of climatology as a scientific field, much less pay any heed to the findings of climatologists.
From the McCarthy-era purges of State Department China specialists to their unrelenting opposition to such notably successful initiatives as Medicare, Social Security, and the Voting Rights act, conservative politicians have repeatedly wound up on the wrong side of history. As their reflexive and ideology-driven opposition to tackling the climate crisis demonstrates, they’re on the wrong side of the future, too.
Warren Senders
environment Politics: denialists droughts idiots media irresponsibility sustainability
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Year 4, Month 10, Day 4: Love You To
Crater Lake in Oregon is drying up:
Almost 2,000 feet deep, Crater Lake is the deepest body of water in the United States, a beautiful gem of southern Oregon. Fed by overhead snow and rain, the lake is one of the cleanest and purest in the world. Gazing upon the breathtakingly bright blue waters of the lake is something you never forget.
But there is trouble in paradise. During the past 21 years, I have spent my summers living in Crater Lake National Park. Looking out my bedroom window, I noticed winters are becoming shorter, warmer and less snowy. It looks to me like it has been raining more and snowing less in the months of May, June, September, and October. This change in the weather has led me to become very worried about climate change.
The science confirms my observation. In 1931, rangers first began keeping track of the average annual snowfall at Crater Lake. Since then, the totals have been trending downward by decade from an average of 614 inches in the 1930s to about 455 inches last decade. Even more alarming, this last winter, 2012-13, Crater Lake received about 355 inches.
Climate researchers expect the trend to continue. They predict the Pacific Northwest will experience even less snow and warmer temperatures in the decades to come.
I gather it’s a lovely place. September 25:
When it comes to confronting global climate change, Oregon’s not alone. Everywhere on Earth, people are discovering that the bill for a century-long carbon binge is coming due. Whether it’s devastated agriculture, rising sea levels and oceanic acidification, extreme and unpredictable weather, or the kind of droughts that are disrupting ecosystems at Crater Lake, we can no longer ignore the warning signs.
There’s a lot of argument about how to prepare for the greenhouse effect’s consequences — but one thing is certain: we will never successfully address climate change if we cannot accept its existence, its causes, and its potential to harm our neighborhoods, our regions, our states, our nation, and our world. The time is past for denial; politicians and media figures who continue to hide their heads in the sand on this planetary crisis are sacrificing the happiness of future generations for a few minutes in the limelight.
Warren Senders
environment Politics: Arctic ice melt assholes denialists idiots
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Year 4, Month 9, Day 29: Daisy, Daisy, Give Me Your Answer, Do…
The same Cal Thomas column, this time in the Winona Daily News (MN):
Yet the climate change cultists continue to focus on melting polar ice caps and “displaced” polar bears as part of their emotional appeal for government to “fix” the problem. Now comes a report in the UK Daily Mail that “eminent scientists” have observed a record return of the Arctic ice cap as it grows by 60 percent in a year, covering with ice almost 1 million more square miles of ocean than in 2012.
Recycling yesterday’s letter, and making it better, too. September 21:
Ignorance may be bliss, but in today’s information-rich world, it’s no longer excusable, especially when the issue is as fraught with consequences as global climate change. As a representative of the professionally ignorant whose work demands that they remain uninformed, Cal Thomas is an exemplar of intellectual and ethical bankruptcy. His discussion of the increase in polar ice coverage since 2012 is a perfect example, for if Mr. Thomas really cared about it, he could have learned a great deal with a few minutes of research. Unfortunately for his readers, and for the broader national discussion of this important issue, he chose to remain ignorant.
When discussing how Arctic ice expands and contracts over time, there are two things to keep in mind. First, while the surface area with ice cover has indeed increased, it’s much, much thinner than ever before — not by any imaginings a good sign. And second, while year-to-year numbers may fluctuate, the trend over decades has been an accelerating decrease. If a terminal patient gains a couple of pounds, that’s a good day, not a remission.
Mr. Thomas’ simplistic misrepresentation of a planetary crisis does us all a disservice.
Warren Senders
Education environment Politics: Arctic ice melt assholes denialists idiots
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Year 4, Month 9, Day 28: If You Lived Here, You’d Be An Idiot
Syndicated columnist Cal Thomas is a moron, and he does it for a living. Here’s his column printed in the Clarksville, TN Leaf-Chronicle:
Most bad weather – from hurricanes, which have been few this season, to tornadoes – are unwelcome by those in their paths, but these weather phenomena have existed for centuries. Both sides seem to agree that CO2 levels are elevated, but they don’t agree on whether that will cause dangerous climate change, including rising temperatures and turbulent weather. The Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC) argues, “The human effect is likely to be small relative to natural variability, and whatever small warming is likely to occur will produce benefits as well as costs.”
Yet the climate change cultists continue to focus on melting polar ice caps and “displaced” polar bears as part of their emotional appeal for government to “fix” the problem. Now comes a report in the UK Daily Mail that “eminent scientists” have observed a record return of the Arctic ice cap as it grows by 60 percent in a year, covering with ice almost 1 million more square miles of ocean than in 2012.
In 2007, the BBC reported that by 2013, global warming would leave the Arctic “ice free.” Oops!
Useless. The present-day commentariat is useless. September 20:
Ignorance is excusable, for it can always be corrected. But professional ignorance — deliberately choosing to stay uninformed for purely financial reasons — is both intellectually and morally beyond the pale. Cal Thomas’ attempt to discredit climate scientists by citing an increase in polar ice coverage over last year is a perfect example of the latter; if Mr. Thomas was really interested in understanding the mechanisms by which Arctic ice expands and contracts over time, he could have informed himself with a few minutes’ research — but he’s well-paid to remain ignorant, and we are all the losers thereby.
Two simple points need to be made about polar ice. First, while the surface area covered by ice has indeed grown since last year, the overall trend has been steadily downward. A cancer patient who’s losing weight may gain a few pounds occasionally on a good day, but that doesn’t mean the disease is cured. Second, that expanded surface area is much, much thinner than it’s ever been; like ice cream on a hot sidewalk, it spreads out over a wide area.
Mr. Thomas does his readers a disservice with a simplistic misrepresentation of a genuinely dangerous planetary reality.
Warren Senders
environment Politics: Arctic ice melt assholes denialists idiots Republican obstructionism
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Year 4, Month 9, Day 27: As He Gives It To Her She Begins To Sing
Meet Rep. David McKinley, who made an idiot of himself at the recent hearing on climate change, as reported in the Charleston Gazette (WV):
McKinley cited data showing that there is now 60 percent more ice in the Arctic than there was at this time last year, when ice levels hit a record low.
However, levels of Arctic ice are still substantially below historical averages. As of this week, there were about 1.5 million square kilometers less Arctic ice than there has been, on average, for the past 30 years, according to data from the National Snow and Ice Data Center, a research center at the University of Colorado.
McKinley and others pointed to a recent slowdown in temperature rises over the past several years as evidence that man-made greenhouse gas emissions might not be contributing to climate change.
Moniz pointed to a study in the journal “Nature,” published in August, showing the slowdown to be a product of short-term weather trends.
“Our results show that the current hiatus is part of natural climate variability, tied specifically to a La Niña-like decadal cooling,” that study concluded. “The multi-decadal warming trend is very likely to continue with greenhouse gas increase.”
No shortage of these asshats, unfortunately. Sept. 19:
In a single remark during the recent House hearing on climate change, Representative David McKinley demonstrated that (along with most of his GOP colleagues) he does not know the difference between short-term phenomena and long-term trends. McKinley’s claim of a sixty percent increase in Arctic ice coverage from last year is a grotesque misrepresentation of the data, which show that despite brief interludes of accumulation, the overall level of Arctic ice has been dwindling for at least a decade.
Let’s clarify with an analogy: if a stage four cancer sufferer steadily loses weight over many months, a few days of slight gain may be a brief and welcome respite from the terminal decline, but it doesn’t mean the disease has disappeared. A doctor who asserted otherwise would be guilty of medical malpractice, no matter how happy it makes the patient’s family. If his misunderstanding of Arctic ice decline is deliberate, Rep. McKinley’s intentionally misleading his colleagues and his constituents; if it arises from ignorance, he’s incompetent.
Climate science is absolutely unambiguous. Whether through stupidity or cupidity, politicians like David McKinley are endangering all of us by blocking responsible action to address the threat while there is still time.
Warren Senders
environment Politics: assholes corporate irresponsibility denialists idiots Republican obstructionism
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Year 4, Month 9, Day 26: Well, THAT’S A Surprise.
This comment from a UN honcho, via the AP via the Vincennes Sun-Commercial (IN):
LONDON — International leaders are failing in their fight against global warming, one of the United Nations’ top climate officials said Tuesday, appealing directly to the world’s voters to pressure their politicians into taking tougher action against the buildup of greenhouse gases.
Halldor Thorgeirsson told journalists gathered at London’s Imperial College that world leaders weren’t working hard enough to prevent potentially catastrophic climate change.
“We are failing as an international community,” he said. “We are not on track.”
Thorgeirsson, a senior director with the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, was speaking with two years left to go before the world powers gather in Paris for another round of negotiations over the future of the world’s climate, which scientists warn will warm dramatically unless action is taken to cut down on the emission of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide.
One of the main points of contention is how to divide the burden of emissions cuts between industrialized nations and emerging economies such as India and China, the world’s top carbon polluter. The lack of progress in recent years has fueled doubts over whether a binding deal is possible at all.
Thorgeirsson seemed to strike a pessimistic note Tuesday, talking down the idea that Paris — or any other conference — would produce a grand bargain that would ensure the reductions needed to prevent a dangerous warming of the Earth’s atmosphere. He even seemed to suggest that a global solution to the issue wasn’t likely until the effects of climate change came barreling down on peoples’ heads or flooding into their homes.
“I don’t think that an international treaty will ever be the primary driver for the difficult decisions to be made,” he warned. “It’s the problem itself that will be the primary driver — and the consequences of that problem.”
Sorry about that, kids. September 18:
The inability of the world’s people to respond adequately to the threat of climate change is undeniable. This collective apathy in the face of a planetary threat now threatens not only our civilization, but our very survival as a species. Why have we, and our leaders, failed to act? There are many factors in this potentially deadly equation.
Climate change’s consequences unfold over decades, which may be instantaneous from a geological perspective, but are far longer than politics’ two, four, and six year electoral cycles. Our representatives in the halls of Congress are unwilling to address long-term issues except in the vaguest possible terms. Furthermore, many are profoundly ignorant of scientific method, and mistrust any experts whose conclusions or analyses are ideologically inconvenient.
This political shortsightedness is exacerbated by corporate interests which fear for the safety of their profit margins. These multinational malefactors of great wealth have invested heavily in misinformation campaigns, obscuring the unambiguous science of climatology with mediagenic spurious false equivalency.
It is a “perfect storm” of ignorance and narrow self-interest. As they struggle to survive in a climatically-transformed world, our descendants will have justifiable contempt for the “deniers” and “delayers” in our government and media.
Warren Senders
environment Politics: assholes carbon tax corporate irresponsibility denialists idiots
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Year 4, Month 9, Day 25: Then You Came And Caused A Spark
The Roanoke Times has a nice piece by Sarah Frost, debunking business-sector whining:
In her Aug. 11 commentary, “Climate-change zealotry will cost jobs,” Jane Van Ryan posits that by regulating carbon pollution, the Obama administration “could eliminate the ability of many American families to reach for the American dream.”
In fact, acting to slow and stop climate change will undoubtedly improve our health, safety, environment and economy. Failing to do so will leave future generations with diminished resources and opportunities.
The science on this issue is unambiguous: 97 percent of climate scientists agree that global warming is real and caused by human activity. We reached 400 parts per million of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere for the first time in human history this spring, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration recently confirmed that 2012 was the hottest year on record in the U.S.
The costs of inaction are already being felt around the commonwealth and beyond: nine out of 10 Virginians live in counties and independent cities affected by federally-declared weather-related disasters since 2007. Nationally, between 2011 and 2012, Superstorm Sandy and 24 other extreme weather events left $188 billion in damages and claimed more than 1,100 lives. Scientists agree that these types of events are likely to become more frequent and more severe in a warming world.
The United States’ largest source of carbon emissions is our power plants, though to date, there are no regulations on carbon emissions from power plants the way there are on arsenic, mercury, sulfur and soot. As part of his Climate Action Plan, President Obama has directed the Environmental Protection Agency, under the authority of the Clean Air Act, to issue limits on carbon pollution from new and existing power plants.
Americans submitted more than 3 million comments — including 130,000 from Virginia — in favor of this plan last year. And in a recent poll, nearly two-thirds of voters said they support “the President taking significant steps to address climate change now.”
The opponents of action ignore and deny the science that tells us it is time to act – and often times are quietly backed by corporate polluters.
When Van Ryan suggests that the president and his administration “place a higher value on big government and the environmental movement than on the financial well-being of the American people,” she is failing to recognize that the health benefits from the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990 are estimated to exceed the costs of implementation by a factor of more than 30 to one.
Hit me baby, one more time. September 17:
It wasn’t that long ago that US auto manufacturers were up in arms about legislation requiring that all cars be equipped with seat belts. It would, apparently, cripple sales, alienate consumers, and deal a death blow to American manufacturing. And it wasn’t long after that that tobacco companies got into a swivet about mandatory warning labels, which apparently would wipe out all their profits forever. Last I looked, the roads were full of cars, and there’s no shortage of smokers either.
It’s the same now, as the notion of taxing carbon emissions begins to gain currency among citizens and politicians who can read the unambiguous warning signs of human-caused climate change. Once again, we get to hear wailing predictions of disaster if environmentally sensible approaches to climate change are enacted.
Those nay-sayers who claim that the economy will be damaged by environmental responsibility are perpetuating a mentality of victimization and entitlement in the business sector. America likes to call itself a “can-do” nation, but you would never know it from the whining of some of the world’s most profitable and productive industries.
Pathetic. Just pathetic.
Warren Senders