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Climate Change Denial Still Runs Strong in US
On the US political stage, skepticism and denial of climate change are as popular as ever, and experts say that world talks which opened Monday in Durban, South Africa are unlikely to turn the tide.
But while a binding deal on harmful carbon output remains elusive by the world's second biggest polluter after China, some small signs of progress have emerged at the state and individual levels.
Last month, the most populous US state, California, approved rules for a carbon market that would start in 2013, with the goal of cutting emissions to 1990 levels by 2020.
Previous attempts to create a cap and trade system to stem pollution at the federal level have failed due to concerns it would cause skyrocketing energy costs, a particularly bruising prospect in an already wobbly economy.
Also in October, a prominent climate skeptic whose research was funded in part by the conservative billionaire Koch brothers' foundation announced he had found that mainstream projections of climate change were correct and unbiased.
"We confirm that over the last 50 years, temperature has risen 0.9 degrees Celsius, or 1.6 degrees Fahrenheit. This is the same number that the IPCC (UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) says," physicist Richard Muller, director of the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature Project, told lawmakers.
Muller said he hoped other climate skeptics would agree with his work, but his newfound stance -- accepted by the vast majority of scientists -- remains rogue, particularly among Republicans seeking to replace President Barack Obama in 2012.
Standout Republican Jon Huntsman -- who ranks lowest in the polls -- may have summed up the differences best when he tweeted earlier this year: "To be clear, I believe in evolution and trust scientists on global warming. Call me crazy."
Indeed, many have. Seeking to drum up conservative support, the other Republican candidates have championed their doubts about human-caused climate change in recent debates just as vigorously as they have called for the return of waterboarding for terror suspects.
The entire nation is divided on the issue, according to the latest Gallup poll which shows 53 percent of Americans see global warming as a very or somewhat serious threat, down 10 percent from two years earlier.
"We have got a big problem, domestically, in terms of climate reality," said Alden Meyer, director of strategy and policy at the Union of Concerned Scientists.
When lawmakers cannot agree that climate change is a problem for which solutions must be sought, gridlock ensues, according to Democratic lawmaker Henry Waxman.
"During this Congress, the Republican-controlled House has voted 21 times to block actions to address climate change," he said at a hearing this month. "History will look back on this science denial with profound regret."
Even an idea that was initially floated under the George W. Bush administration and sought no extra funds was recently shot down, when Congress blocked the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration from reshuffling its staff to create a National Climate Service.
NOAA had described the project as a "one-stop shop" for climate information, much like the National Weather Service.
Republican Congressman Andy Harris said his party's "hesitation" came from concern "that the climate services could become little propaganda sources instead of a science source."
Experts voiced little hope of the Durban talks rousing the United States into long-awaited action to slow fossil-fuel burning that leads to greenhouse gases.
But according to David Waskow, climate change program director at Oxfam America, the United States could make a significant contribution by resolving its objections to the design of the Green Climate Fund.
The fund, devised at the 2009 Copenhagen Summit, would disburse, by 2020, at least 100 billion dollars per year to help poorer nations fight and cope with climate change.
Waskow said that sticking points for the US and Saudi Arabia are in the "institutional architecture, the structure, not the money."
"We are very hopeful that the US will be in a role of moving that forward," Waskow said.
"Congressional action may not be something we will see in the immediate term," he added. "But a bit of pressure from the international community can be a good thing."
With the end nearing of the Kyoto Protocol, a new binding agreement for the United States and China is essentially off the table, said Elliot Diringer, executive vice president of the Center for Energy and Climate Solutions.
"We should be focusing more at the national level. Frankly it's where this action has to take place."
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Show AllIt is easier to change a condom than it is to change a diaper.
The population of the planet increases at three additional people per second.
You see the resources running out. You see the climate changing. You see the wars for diminishing resources. You see the police clamp down on dissent to keep supply chains functioning to keep the stores stocked.
What do you do about it? Have more kids?
Climate change begins in your pants.
Absolutely.
Passing 7 billion people, having doubled in only 50 years, we humans are crowding the planet so much that we're like maggots on a carcass slithering around each other seeking purchase on the host-body, the planet's biosphere.
Being so crowded, any mental whim that comes along takes hold steadily faster than before, ensuring mass-psychotic phenomena increasing exponentially on ever greater scale. If this ability to get everybody along quickly is utilized sanely, it could be for the good. So far, we haven't grown wise to the possibility nor to the positive potential.
A 'fad' for halting increase in people by encouraging contraception, avoiding unwanted pregnancies globally, would solve a host of problems.
So now you're in favor of the 'genocide' (population reduction) you accused me of in posts some days ago when I spoke of the need to DEFEND ones self from these rapacious financial Elite psychopaths?
Tell me, oh leopard, how did you change your spots?
we could use
personal discretion.
i did
Climate change is going to help trim that excess population right off and it is going to do it in the places like Africa and Asia that have the highest birth rates.
Genocide: "Trim that excess population." Popularly known through its euphemism as eugenics.
No. Eugenics is something a little different. I think genocide is the right term after all.
Eugenics is designed not to kill off populations per se, but to improve the genetics of a given population by a variety of means. For instance one main point in en early eugenic thought was that buses were a positive eugenic development because they allowed people to move outside their villages in England in the 1910s and 20s and breed with people outside their own smaller genetic enclaves. Stopping criminals or mentally ill or physically ill or deformed from procreating would be eugenics, drowning a population in toto would be genocide pure and simple.
Remember the Bond film "Moonraker," not the book, the film? A combination of Eugenics and Genocide, which seems the best explanation for the behavior seen.
Yes,
by all means let's debate the exact definitions of this and not discuss the fact that population growth is not even close to the main problem at all anyway. I have told queerplanet this before, shown it to be true with facts and math, and qp has had no answer. Yet here s/he is, still spreading what s/he now knows are lies. Why?
Climate catastrophe is being caused by the destruction and waste and criminally insane irresponsibility of the rich, especially us, the richest 5 or 6% of the world's people, who actually could have a say about it if we chose to.
What if we try to solve the problem with birth control? Suppose it's completely effective (a demographic disaster we can hardly imagine), and no children at all were born in the world for 20 years (about the amount of time we have to solve our climate problem). Then we'd have reduced population from its current 7 billion to.......6.9 billion—nowhere near enough to matter. And it would mostly be reduction in the number of poor people anyway, which wouldn't really help at all. The poorest 3.5 billion people, the poorest half, cause only 7% of the greenhouse gases; the poorest 80% only cause about 20% of the problem. Eliminate that 5 1/2 billion with your genocidal eugenics and whoopee! You'll only have 80% of the problem left to solve some other way. That is, unless some of them fight back, and the war, as war always does, takes over the agendas and budgets of both countries and hugely increases carbon emissions. When that happens--not if but when--we'll have very little hope of saving anything.
So if population isn't the problem and can't be the solution to the most dire and urgent problem in the history of humanity, why are we talking about here it for the 20th time this year?
I can think of only 2 reasons someone would continue to tell this lie:
1. they can't face the fact that we caused the problem and we’re the ones who have to solve it, so they project onto others (mostly poor people of color) who had almost no part in creating it. or
2. very rich people of white want to continue to profit, and to continue their illusion of control, so they pay others to lie.
Let’s stop with this idiocy and start talking about how to solve the problem.
The police are clamping down on dissent to protect the interests of the wealthy and powerful. They would be doing that no matter how many people there were.
Resources are not so much diminishing, as they are hoarded, destroyed, corrupted and contaminated.
Wars over resources occurred historically even when there was no shortage.
All species of plants and animals, when stressed and threatened, increase their reproduction rates.
Yes, a simple strategy by the west - buy them off.
And next - in time honored tradition - renege on the promises.
I am hoping that Evo Morales will find a way to sabotage this strategy.
The Kyoto Protocol should of course be extended in dramatically strengthened form - but admittedly there is a vanishingly small chance for this to occur.
Rights for the Environment is in any case the long sought broad response not just to climate change but to the entire suite of political, economic and environmental problems referred to as "the perfect storm."
"The Hartwell Paper" (May 2010) first addressed this - but failed to nail down a central organizing principle of great simplicity and power.
Rights for the Environment is that central organizing principle.
I urge all to think deeply on the implications - economic, political, environmental, and perhaps of profound import - spiritual - in that it would in effect create a new paradigm for living on Earth - a new mythos if you will.
And even if the implications are too complex to ascertain ahead of time, which in all probability is the case:
It is the right thing to do.
Isn't it time to start doing the right thing - rather than always resorting first to the calculator.
Manysummits
========
The fun never stops.
From Reuters. "Canadian Environment Minister Peter Kent said his country won’t commit to new targets under the Kyoto Protocol for combating climate change. The 1997 agreement “is the past,” Kent told reporters today in Ottawa. “We will not make a second commitment to Kyoto,” he said."
Canada's Fascist Harper Government also spent hundreds of millions of dollars buy US built warplanes we will never use, and recently (two days ago) granted Canada's highest military honor to the Canadian General who was in overall command of NATO forces during the successful Oil Company and IMF demanded coup against Libya.
Look for the 'Dustbin' conference to match 'Nopenhagen' in scope and uselessness.
Just pointing out that it is a lost cause. If the US and Canada are off the list, then that just gives the other Northern countries a fig-leaf. There isn't going to be a substantive treaty, but there will be lots of committees with reports due for the next summit.
'Round and 'round the drain we go
Where we stop... well, we all know.
Don't we?
I'm not sure we do depending on what "we" means. I think it highly likely that the global north is going to weather this one out for the most part except for Florida, Venice and the Netherlands. This is going to be much worse for the tropics and the south.
I meant 'we' in reference to humanity as a viable species.
If 'we' do not shut down all of the non-natural and industrial production (including mass market meat production and agriculture) of carbon dioxide/greenhouse gases IMMEDIATELY, world-wide, then the continued existence of life above a bare minimum may become very doubtful.
But you know for a fact there will be very few volunteers to give up the comfortable 'cargo-cult' lifestyle modern technology provides (via the petrochem-driven Corporations owned by the Elite).
Well Galen, we know that at one point not that far back there were under 5000 human beings because all the mitochondrial DNA comes from a group that size. Regardless of what catastrophe befalls the South, the North is going to have the money and resources for large groups to survive. Certainly more than 5000 people. I doubt you will convince anyone to give up anything here in the US. Remember that after two months of the "99%" protesting, the largest shopping day in history occurred. Sales up 7%. Sales on Cyber monday are going to be the biggest in history. More than 24% of ALL THE PEOPLE IN THE US were shopping on Friday last. So how many people are going to give up jack for the environment?
Harper has been quoted as saying Kyoto is nothing but a socialist plot -- he makes Naomi Klein's point perfectly - that conservatives sincerely believe environmentalism is nothing but a pathetic attempt at an end-run around the neo-con's triumphant neoliberal victory that was decades in the making.
There is absolutely no hope for climate protection by committee. The powers that control the United States, the world's second biggest emitter overall but the biggest emitter per capita, continue to lie and obfuscate scientific data that confirms we are wreaking climate chaos through our senseless actions. Unless we are all blessed with a microbial outbreak that eats oil and eradicates petroleum throughout the world, we will stay enslaved to a substance that will be the end of civilization as we know it.
Better to go after the coal than the oil with your microbes as coal has done and will do far more damage than oil.
Actually, quite true.
The United States is denial incarnate.
We have a dis-eased information system in the US, one that has turned journalism into corporate PR and propaganda. ExxonMobil and the Koch Brothers can buy off some scientists to publish non-peer-reviewed works that cast doubt on global warming, and get people to not worry about it. The corporate media doesn't really even cover this issue, so there is no balance, no possibility for the people to be truly informed of the gravity of the situation. Sociopathic entitites that love their billions of dollars more than a liveable planet are allowed to lie and manipulate millions of people and they are never held accountable. We need to transform this corrupt system before it destroys the fabric of life on this precious planet. No other issue shows with such transparency its utter corruptness and rottenness, the impossibility of reforming it. It may already be too late but we have to try.
Reading this article you'd think that it was only the republicans holding back on Actions to lessen Global Warming.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
The Obama admin killed any chance of an agreement at the last Warming Conference without Any help the Republicans.
In reality whats the difference for the planet when 1 party(republican) denies that Global Climate Change is real -
And the other party (democrats) say they believe it's real but at every International Conference kill Any sort of deal or agreement that may start reining in greenhouse gases etc.
The reality is both parties reach the same place - No Action - from a different road but the result is the same.
They are Punch (R) and Judy (D) putting on a show with the same puppeteers' hands up their ...
Well said!! What a picture you painted.... :)
But, but but...
The Democrats hearts are in the right place, and they share our values, and the Republicans are blocking them, and they don't have enough votes, and they just need a little backbone, and we need to stand behind them and push them to do the right thing.... and BESIDES! - what is the alternative??? Do you want president Palin??
One can imagine a democrat and republican arguing about lifeboats as the icy waters overwhelmed the Titanic.
They're not arguing to vociferously, though, as they sip their Chardonnay and watch from a safe distance, aboard the yacht of their corporate sponsors.
The Republican would be in a dress from his personal luggage (Don't ask. Don't tell), while the Democrat would be bludgeoning a steerage class passenger's child unconscious and telling the parent it was for the greater good, as they both scrambled into the empty-save-for-them fully stocked and fueled Wealthy Elites Only lifeboat.
Later both the Dem and the Repub would relate in their memoirs how the brave passengers volunteered their seats, standing silent and passive as the Elite escaped to survive and thrive in warmth, wealth, and comfort.
The first sentence in the article pretty well sums it up... ("On the US political stage, skepticism and denial of climate change are as popular as ever.").
"US Political stages.".. Yep. .. The powers who be own the politicians and the press, so that's how it is.
This is what successful fossil fuels industry propaganda looks like.
Yes, it's high time we dropped the term denial and started using a more accurate term, like obfuscation, but even that doesn't seem correct. We have one of the planet's most powerful business organizations and its equally powerful allies teamed with the planet's most powerful Empire engaging in a project to deliberately LIE and wreck EVERY attempt to mitigate Global Warming and the Climate Change it's causing that will eventually cause the deaths of hundreds of millions of people--what amounts to waging a global war and genocide--that is far more pernicious than when the partners in crime were the US government and Big Tobacco--a crime that's still ongoing, too. I cannot help but think the absolute worst when I read things like Greenwald's piece on Wikileaks recent Auatralian Press Award and compare such actions of the US government to its larger Imperial projects. IMO, the puppetmasters must be outed and Occupied--for if we are to defeat the US Empire, we must know just who our enemy is, not just the vague construction of Wall Street or Money Power, or the political puppets that act as distractors that keep us from focusing on the REAL criminals.
It's long past time to deny any legitimacy to denialism and adopt a new term that encompasses the pattern of gross lies and deceptions aimed at producing the deaths of so many.
Notably, the recent IPCC report attributing extreme weather events to global warming was virtually ignored on TV:
The panel’s findings have been reported by every major print outlet in the U.S., but have been almost entirely ignored by the television news media, including CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, ABC and CBS. The only mention of the U.N. report on a major TV news outlet was a segment on NBC Nightly News.
TV Media Ignore IPCC Extreme Weather Report
Television is an unparalleled mind-control device. The corporate paradigm depends on promulgating a religious devotion to the Ponzi fantasy of infinite growth on a finite planet. A message undermining this capitalist faith could never be allowed on TV by corporate broadcasters.
Nature's message - that we have reached or exceeded the ecological tolerances of Earth systems - is one that undermines the elite narrative. Though weather disasters multiply to terrifying proportions, the TV only shows footage, never any understanding of what Nature is saying. Pathetically, TV propagandists have little trouble herding popular consciousness away from dangerous messages, even in these extreme times.
Little progress in preserving a habitable planet is possible until people unplug their televisions.
Thanks for the reminder about the power of the US Empire's Propaganda and Indoctrination Systems. They are clearly abetting genocide by promoting genocidal behavior. But that isn't denialism; it's something else that's much worse. The concept of denial allows for ignorance; but this is deliberate, with ignorance not involved at all; thus, the need for a new, accurate term. Using genocide will be called too alarmist, but the situation is alarming and escalating. There's no need for the construction of ovens by corporations; the whole planet is being converted into a massive oven that will kill billions. And that's an inconvenient truth Gore didn't mention.
We literally get to the point where words fail us.
genocide n. The systematic killing of a racial or cultural group.
So many of the terms we use related to justice are anthropocentric, crimes against humanity for instance. Three classes of beings are at the forefront of suffering brought about by climate change:
People in poor countries.
Young people, and future generations.
Non-human life forms.
The word genocide doesn't accomodate any of these classes, let alone the sum of all three. Even ecocide understates the case, as the tragedy unfolding entails the puncturing of the whole Earth's life-sustaining equilibria, not merely the destruction of discrete ecosystems.
Global capital is a hit man with a contract to murder the Earth. If a new term is called for to describe this enterprise, I suggest gaiacide.
Very apt. And accurate.
Yes, words fail us. Gaia itself is too esoteric; Gaiacide even moreso. I just posted a link to Naomi Klein's recent essay and would like to digest it, http://www.indypendent.org/2011/11/11/capitalism-vs-the-climate/
Then, there's the insidious yet insightful contribution by dubet on the "Senators" thread that needs reading and musing.
Aleph Null, you've touched on something major, but I have absolutely no idea how to get "people to unplug their televisions." Not just in the USA, but in many, many countries. Whatever little "free" time that people have is stolen by TV. It's like a dangerous, persistent drug dealer peddling dangerous drugs, trying to make sure people never sober up, as that's bad for business. For now, I am going to increase my efforts telling everyone I know and come across to seriously cut back on TV and try and convince them to find alternate sources for their news. The human mind must be freed just a little bit for it to even comprehend danger. If you find a concise write-up that may convince people to realize the dangers of corporate TV (or corporate media), please post back, either here or on a different thread. The link you posted is a timely catch, too.
While not about the dangers of corporate TV per se, numerous studies exist documenting the danger to children from parents who allow the TV to be the "babysitter." Lots can be found googling, but this recent statement is damning:
"The American Academy of Pediatrics, meeting this week in Boston, expressed concern about the effects of exposure to screens on children. Over a decade ago, the academy proposed that pediatricians should ask questions about screen exposure when conducting routine medical exams and evaluations. Just this week, the groups adopted a new set of guidelines, calling upon parents to put severe limits on the exposure of young children to television.
"Parents should pay close attention to the group’s statement, released as “Media Use by Children Younger than Two Years.” According to the AAP, 90 percent of parents reported that their children under the age of two “watch some form of electronic media.” These children watch, parents reported, an average of one to two hours of television a day. A considerable number of parents indicated their belief that television is “very important for healthy development,” and leave the television on virtually all waking hours."
Please note that last quote: "A considerable number of parents indicated their belief that television is “very important for healthy development,” and leave the television on virtually all waking hours." I'd call that child abuse. http://www.albertmohler.com/2011/10/21/in-the-danger-zone-raising-our-children-in-the-age-of-the-screen/
On the subject of killing your television, I like these terse write-ups:
Want to Live Longer? Turn Off Your TV
Top 10 Reasons to Turn Off Your TV
Then there's the motherlode of anti-television wisdom:
www.turnoffyourtv.com
Thanks, Aleph Null & karlof1.
I used to talk of boycotting of mega sporting events - that is, don't go watch them, don't buy the team or event merchandise and don't watch them on TV. If done by a sizable part of the population that currently watches one or the other of these corporate shows, that one act alone will have a big impact on a variety of fronts. These shows are an integral part of the empire. Of course, my primary concern is on what it would do to the carbon emissions.
Just simply saying "No!" to ALL commercial sporting events, including football, hockey, the Olympics, soccer world cup, NASCAR, golf, etc., will save so much emissions, especially if all the beer and pizza and barbecues that go with these events are taken into account. And all the driving and the big screen TVs too. In fact, this can form part of the first stage of mass action! And when people stop watching something, "they" know, so the attempts to tempt them back would follow. So, imagine the impact of boycotting all corporate shows.
I think the people who are fantasizing about a revolution should start small, and this would be a good place, IMO. It's not just the people who post here on CD that count. If anything, we don't even count, in terms of numbers alone. It's when a bulk of the population carries out such small acts of boycotts that the effects would start to add up.
It is hard to worry about dying when you have a toothache.
like you mean it hurts so bad you fear you might die?
but then, it hurts so bad you fear you might not?
Let us not deny the problems that have arisen in the climate argument. It's not as if Gore and others and certain "facts" that were overblown and misrepresented, e-mails that came to light, etc have given the opposition plenty of ammunition. It's no surprise that the current situation has arisen. And please refrain from any of the tired old rationalizations about the problems that have come to light. That would cast you as a "denier"
Denier is a word that should never be used again. Castigation as a form of persuasion is not successful most of the time.
What the hell difference does per capita emissions have to do with anything? Emissions are emissions and should be pursued where ever they are and the greatest emission problem should be addressed first.
~~Left home~~ The hacked, stolen e-mails and Al Gore's minor over estimation of time frame of sea level rise,, were not the reason for skeptisism and denialism.
It was what the thieves did with the stolen e-mails, by taking scientist's words out of context and creating the big lie (*Climategate*), which was then balloned out of proportion by the NY Times and the other MSN outlets... That all caused the really big problems with almost 50 % of the citizens and nearly 100% of our corrupted by big business 536 DC elected denying AGW.
This sentence you wrote ~~lefthome~~ I agree with,,,, Quote > ("the greatest emission problem should be addressed first.")... Yes, we must stop burning coal to boil water, and do that world wide, right away quick... Or else!
Another paragraph from the article,,, Quote > ("some small signs of progress have emerged at the state and individual levels... Last month, the most populous US state, California, approved rules for a carbon market that would start in 2013, with the goal of cutting emissions to 1990 levels by 2020.").. < End quote.
Whoopieeee doooo!.. .Cut Co2 emmissions to the 2009 level by 2020. "Small steps" is almost correct... VERY, VERY SMALL would far more accurate. .. Doesn't anyone tell it like it really is anymore?
If the entire country did that it would do squat to prevent runaway global warming by 2020... Doesn't anyone except the vast majority of the scientists and science professors in the world and most who read Common Dreams believe the (*feedback loops*) to global warming?
Cutting our carbon output to the 2009 level is so far short of what is necessary it is laughable but ain't funny... It's a joke... What was our carbon output in 2009? It was far high enough to cause serious global warming... And it is not just Co2 that we have to reduce our output.. It is also the far more potent methane, CH4, releasing from human activity that must be reduced.
I believe I have mentioned this here before, but in case any didn't see it, I will say it again... As global warming continues to accelerate, the Arctic region of Earth is feeling the most heat, temps there have risen by several degrees F during the past 8 years. Top scientists state the Arctic will be summer ice free by 2015.
As the Arctic Ocean's perennial sea ice decreases, the sub sea floor, or permafrost melts. That allows vast amounts of CH4, methane gas, to enter the atmosphere and rise to the greenhouse "blanket" in the upper atmosphere.. CH4 is 100 times more potent as a greenhouse gas than Co2 is the first 20 years it is in the atmosphere, and finally after 100 years is only 25 times as potent as Co2... ONLY!
When vast amounts of CH4 are in the greenhouse gas mix, we can expect to see very dramatic temperture increases in a very short period of time, like a year or two.
Again; the Arctic Region gets the brunt of the temperature rises and so more permafrost will melt and more CH4 will enter the atmosphere,, FEEDBACK LOOP ! __ Not a theory,, not a joke,, not a myth,, it is as serious as an executioner in Texas on steroids.
What we need to see by tomorrow, or before this joke of a climate conference in Africa ends,, is 10,000 of our world's top scientists publish a scientific paper, have it peer reviewed and title it , "Your Ass Is Grass And The Arctic Methane Is The Grim Reaper ".,, Then open the first paragraph with, "Ya got five years or less to stop the Arctic from Thawing out,, or else kissl yur butt gabye.".
Now that is how it actualy is and I don't like it either, but that's' how it is.
And if any of the usual croud show up here to comment and any should disagrees, like a couple of our more active ones always do disagree with anything I post, please argue it with the scientists, not with me.
Energy consumption increased even more in 2010 to 5% http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_energy_consumption
That's again getting close to what we saw in the 70's and 80,s where we had consistent annual increases of 6% to 7%.. that doubles energy use and related emissions by 2022.
Now that is how it actualy is and I don't like it either; that's' how it is.
i get what you're saying, WayneWR, but for the deniers this is a matter of faith; reson has nothing to do with it.
a couple of weeks ago, my neighbor suddenly asked, "do you belieeeeve in global warming?"
that's like asking if i "believe" in gravity so i answered, "of course!" he asked why and i responded that i read scientific reports. then arthur explained the source of my confusion.
"scientists ARE liars!"