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The Great Climate Sell-Out
The unseasonably warm fall weather here in the Upper Midwest is spectacularly beautiful. Sunny and clear, it's in the 60s and 70s, with humidity so low you can see the tiniest details of the shoreline across the lake near my house.
Sitting around this past weekend, enjoying the steady shower of golden leaves in the afternoon sunlight, I struck up a conversation with the mother of my three-year-old daughter's best friend.
And that's where the whole pleasant afternoon idyll ended. You see, the friend's mom is a climate scientist, and not the least charmed by our warm, golden autumn weather.
The lake near our house, for example, used to freeze solid for four months on average, she told me. Now, the average time is two months.
Insects in the Northwest are devastating forest land because, with the warmer weather, they now have two breeding cycles instead of one--and double the time to devour trees.
As I slapped at a hungry, mid-October mosquito, I felt my heart sink.
Global warming was on everyone's mind this summer, especially in Washington, DC, where the sweltering heat--even by DC standards--made it hard to forget that our climate is growing warmer at an uncomfortably rapid pace.
But in Washington and around the nation, the issue has receded a bit. The Gulf oil spill has abated, and oil-soaked birds are no longer in the news. The weather is cooler. And, most of all, the Democrats in Washington have abandoned their efforts to pass climate change legislation.
The whole ugly story of the sausage-making process that went bad in the creation of comprehensive climate change legislation is in this week's New Yorker in a really compelling piece by Washington Correspondent Ryan Lizza.
Lizza quotes an environmental activist describing President Obama as the "James Buchanan of climate change."
Given a historic opportunity to do something about the biggest threat to the health and safety of the entire world, Obama and the Democrats ultimately decided to do nothing. Before they dropped their efforts at passing a climate change bill, though, they went through a process that is truly remarkable for its cravenness in attempting to give away the store to the very polluters the legislation was supposed to regulate.
As they worked on the bill, John Kerry, Joe Lieberman, and Lindsey Graham held a series of meetings with lobbyists from the big oil companies, the nuclear industry, truckers, and, of course, the Chamber of Commerce (which ThinkProgress last week revealed is soliciting contributions from foreign corporations for the explicit purpose of influencing the outcome of this year's midterm elections) in order to offer them special favors and protection from over-regulation.
This effort ultimately failed not because the offers weren't sweet enough; jaded Senate staffers were aghast, according to Lizza, at the degree to which their legislators were willing to give away the store.
No, the effort failed in part because Obama started giving away massive gifts to industry before the Senators had a chance to extract promises of support for the bill. As Lizza puts it, "Obama had served the dessert before the children even promised to eat their spinach."
Obama issued new nuclear loan guarantees, and delayed implementation of carbon caps, without coordinating with the Senators who wanted to dangle these favors in exchange for industry lobbyists' backing of their climate change bill. The biggest giveaway was the President's massive, and spectacularly ill-timed, announcement that he would open up the entire Eastern Seaboard to new offshore drilling, saying, "It turns out, by the way, that oil rigs today generally don't cause spills.” That was just a couple of weeks before the greatest oil spill in history.
Kerry, Lieberman, and Graham were hoping to offer more offshore drilling through a plan negotiated with Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski, in exchange for a promise from the American Petroleum Institute not to run ads attacking their bill or lobby against it.
That's all done now. Graham got so much heat for being the loan Republican in the group--thanks, in large part, to fumbling by the Obama White House--that he withdrew altogether.
The President never threw his weight behind the bill, and never seriously sought another Republican backer.
Climate change, one White House official told Lizza, is Obama's "stepchild," not a true priority like the stimulus bill or health care reform--as evidenced by the fact that Carol Browner has just three aids working directly for her. "Hey, change the entire economy, and here are three staffers to do it!" Lizza quotes a former Lieberman adviser saying bitterly. "It's a bit of a joke."
What is no joke is the urgency of the issue for every living creature on Earth.
Of all the twists and turns that Lizza documents in the dysfunctional legislative process that failed to produce a bill combating climate change, the thing that most stands out to me is how the only real pressure brought to bear on legislators came from business lobbyists who could care less about the environment--they just want a pass to keep polluting. Only one citizens' group seemed to have the clout to scare legislators in the story, and that was the Tea Party activists who branded Graham as gay and a sell-out and ultimately scared him away from the bill.
So on the one side there were the Democrats--Kerry and Obama--giving industry everything it wanted, and on the other side were the Republicans, also demanding favors for industry, but scared of looking even slightly concerned about the future of the planet.
If we are going to save ourselves, we are going to have to overcome that enormous democracy gap.
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49 Comments so far
Show AllIn ten years the politicians will listen. They will have to as Mexico dries out and its population faces starvation and as desperate numbers of Mexicans flood US borders. Only 10 or so years before the dunderheads begin to listen-- as Oklahoma and Texas turn to deserts. The bad news is that by then it may be too late. The runaway effects of global warming may be starting. But the good news for me is that in 10 years i'll probably be dead. I like to look on the sunny side of things.
"But the good news for me is that in 10 years i'll probably be dead. I like to look on the sunny side of things."
Gee thanks. What about people like me who will be in the mid 30s by then?
And what about my nieces and nephews and the children of friends and all THEIR children, who will just be starting to live their lives?
Well, since none of our alleged "leaders" in government are doing anything about runaway catastrophic climate chaos, and most corporations prefer the status quo, and our political system is paralyzed by entrenched corporate bribery in the forms of campaign contributions (Citizens United) and lobbying, we are screwed, aren't we?
Unless and until millions of USans stage a General Strike as ten million workers did recently in Spain over austerity measures, and as workers in France are right now over changes in retirement criteria, we have zero chance of changing our corrupt political/economic system.
Young USans MUST organize for their own futures and get out into the streets as well as haunting the offices of their members of Congress and boycotting corporate media which pays no attention to this dire threat of our future.
Nothing else will work.
On your next to last sentence, didn't you mean to say hunting down instead of haunting?
I think he meant haunting. Like making their presence be felt continuously.
You, what about me! Yes, I'm in my late 60's but woe to me as I believe in reincarnation and as such am doomed to keep coming back again and again, (just like the classic film Ground Hog Day) until I/we get it right. Easy to understand why the various religious elite's eliminated the concept from the early teaching of the mystics who's later followers turned the living spiritual teachings into the dogmatic ashes of orthodox religion.
P.S. I'm hoping I'll somehow be able to recall where my secret gold stash is buried. If there anyone out there that does soul tattoo's give me a call.
On the question of global warming we Americans and our elected political leadership have been weighed in the balance and found wanting.
And our grandchildren WILL pay the price.
Jim Shea
If the people would demand action on this issue, the leaders would follow.
Unfortunately, The People are too busy being confused about the science by Fox 'News', and are having difficulty coming to terms with the fact that the 1950-2000 age of abundance was an anomalous period of abundant cheap energy that will never be repeated. Indeed, the 21st Century will be an excercise in learning to get by with less.
The temptation is immense to promise people they can have an energy-secure and non-global-warmed future, and yet never have to pay more than $3 a gallon for gasoline. Until average folks stop letting politicians pander to them with those kinds of lies, we're doomed.
I saw Shaun Hannity about a month ago do a special on 'Global Warming' on Fox News, in which he came down squarely against 'Global Warming Hysteria'. Once again, thousands of climate scientists were ignored in favor of a few non-scientist skeptics. Except, of course, when discussing 'ClimateGate', in which case they were dragged through the mud. Its so sad to see our airwaves polluted by blatant lies of this sort, and character-assassination of scientists who are just telling the truth. Its really beginning to make my blood boil. There's a special place in h**l for people like Hannity, trained to lie through their teeth because someone told them its patriotic.
I agree, and well-said.
It wouldn't trouble me so much if people like Hannity just laid it out honestly as they see it: i.e., "yeah, there's an overwhelming amount of evidence that AGW is the most serious environmental issue of our lifetimes, but, dang it, it would cost money and make our lives less cushy if we actually had to DO something about it, so we'd rather just kick this can down the road to the next generation."
But no, they have to make up bullsh*t justifications and rationalizations, which then has the tragic side-effect of confusing regular people about the nature of scientific investigation, the role that uncertainty plays in science, and the process that science uses to systematically evaluate and reduce inherent uncertainties.
This could be a great learning opportunity for the public -- the strengths and weaknesses of scientific knowledge, climate modeling, and the interpretation of data -- but instead we've somehow created a bizarre situation where peoples' position on this complex scientific issue is driven by ... their politics!
I really like this comment that I saw posted on Grist:
“It is an act of idiocy to assume that a population that quadrupled in the last century and has increased burning of fossil fuel by 4300% in 150 years is not having any impact on the environment. The burden of proof should be on the deniers to explain how such a surge in liberating nature’s stored hydrocarbons would not imbalance the planet.”
"instead we've somehow created a bizarre situation where peoples' position on this complex scientific issue is driven by ... their politics"
'somehow'? That's the power of money at work. Who can stay objective with flag-draped Hannity pointing his Puritanical finger at disgraced Phil Jones, with red-letter 'A' fresh-painted to his forehead? 'somehow' this is not about science, but about 'truth, justice, and the American way', just as the oil industry wanted it. Faux News could make the claim that toilet paper is a communist plot, and the next day half the country 'somehow' would be using paper towels. Faux News scares people, and fear drives objectivity out of the mind. What takes its place is meek adherence to Faux News positions. The fear of the other becomes the fear of being the other, of having that Faux News finger pointed at oneself. And the mind, having lost its objectivity to fear once, is more easily driven the next time. 9-11 had more to do with the lack of progress on Global Warming than anything nature or science has revealed. Nobody is thinking straight, on whatever issue the money-powers want controversial.
A common objection to doing something about climate change is the belief that we can not afford it. Where will the money come from?
Those who would help must study the ideas of those who would reform the monetary system to see that there is a good way to make the financing of all the good changes possible. To begin one must see that private corporations, the Fed and the banks associated, are the producers of the money supply, and they only do it for profit. The details are important.
According to Bill McKibben in his new book "Eaarth" (that extra "a" is not a typo) it is not our grandchildren, or even our children, who will pay the price. It is all of us who are alive now, even the elderly poster who began this thread. All of the major climate and geologic features of the earth have undergone irreversible change. So McKibben says it is as if 6 billion humans have been picked up and moved to a new planet, in which the weather and geologic features will not behave according to familiar patterns. Our forests are dying NOW, species are going extinct NOW, our food is poisoned NOW, humans are suffering mass starvation NOW, communities are being destroyed by flooding NOW. Just because you personally may not have been affected in a major way as yet, does not mean that humanity, including millions of children and grandchildren and adults NOW, are not suffering terribly from unaddressed climate change and environmental degradation.
You can lead people, you cannot force them and if you try underhanded methods like EPA rules that have detrimental effects without agreement the pushback grows even bigger.
The end has been predicted for many years, peak oil has come and gone so many times its not funny.
Till we have found a proven solution, a plan that provides real results, all this is watering the wind.
A solution MUST come before random action.
The EPA 's proposal to set standards is not underhanded. The deal-making in Congress to get industry to come along with the cap and trade bill was underhanded.
A proven solution would be to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels. That would provide real results. But those whose oxen would be gored by that solution have too much money to spread around in Congress to let that happen.
See below please, but I would add that though you are correct about reducing the use of fossil would be a "proven" solution, reducing our dependence on fossil fuels does not look to be in the cards for the foreseeable future.
The EPA proposals are the most basic part of the solution. Regulate CO2 as a pollutant, as they are fully authorized to do under the Clean Air Act.
And by "the people" don't you mean business groups have been scaremongering over every single new environmental regulaiton since the 1960's? Did any of these scare stories ever happen? I serious doubt many average citizens want anything but tougher environmentalal reguation.
Not only were envoronmental regulations NOT bad for the economy, the control and mitigation of pollution became a vital part of the economy. Do you have any idea how many engineers, technicians and industrial workers are employed in pollution control related work? CO2 limits, and alternate energy incentives, will spur the same kind of economic benefits.
We are already well behind Europe with respect clean air, water, and toxic materials in consumer products.
sheepherder/SaboCat
My point is simply there will never be any legislation passwed to amount to a hill of beans till people (thats the American Citizens as a whole) are convinced that it will generate real, measurable results. Not we think it might or as in the case of Cap and Trade, results so miniscule it would be hard to measure them or 32 coming up in California that has again miniscule results as even the proponents admit.
The average citizen is interested in having a good life and a better one for their children. I assure you both they are not interested in a bunch of talking points from either side.
The "scaremongering" by both sides has failed to come to pass and most people realize that. Regulating pollution from cement plants for example hasn't caused any problem with the production of cement and certainly helped the areas it is produced in. Neither has the Earth frozen over as we were told was going to happen just a few years ago nor have we run out of oil as we have been told oh so many times.
"Not only were environmental regulations NOT bad for the economy, the control and mitigation of pollution became a vital part of the economy. Do you have any idea how many engineers, technicians and industrial workers are employed in pollution control related work? CO2 limits, and alternate energy incentives, will spur the same kind of economic benefits."
I'm not saying they were and yes I do as a matter of fact.
Again, my view is on a practical level and what I believe is politically possible, nothing more than that.
That we are going through climate change is irrefutable. That we have somethoing to do with it, Ubrew12, Aquifer, you and others convinced me the probability is...yes. The problem is we do not have a solution that is verifiable at this point. Nor can anyone tell the average Joe out here if he loses his job to these regulations, has to pay much higher prices for say a washer and dryer, etc, it will accomplish anything. Ole Joe ain't buying that.
I actually agree with some of the main thrusts of your posts, i.e. that climate change is inevitable, because of political reality on the ground. If we do anything, it will be too little too late. If we absolutely stopped world commerce dead today, we would still experience 2 degrees of warming over the next century due to the carbon that we have put in the atmosphere already. 4 degrees of warming would have been a much more likely scenario, but as the ice melts there is less reflection, and methane gets released, and that will push it all the way up to 6 degrees. I dont know what the consequences of a warmer earth will be, but it will take us 50 years to find out, and it is inevitable.
I also agree that doing something would not necessarily ruin the economy, but would instead have given the economy new wings. Obama has missed out on perfect opportunities to reduce oil dependence and create compressed air and alternative energy economies. Obama COULD have been a world savior and an economy savior at the same time.
I would also like to pick you up on some misconceptions so that your subsequent posts can appear less ignorant:-
* "nor have we run out of oil as we have been told oh so many times." No, we have never been told that, at least not by people who understand peak oil. Peak oil does not work that way. Go visit the oil drum and give yourself an education.
* "Neither has the Earth frozen over as we were told was going to happen just a few years ago". No, we have not been told that. At least not by climatologists.
I think Hollywood Drama transposed itself on reality here.
I won't even begin to get into what the logic would mean to, say, the Catholic Church.
I appreciate that....hate looking ignorant, but I'd point out that in the seventies we were being told of a coming ice age, by the same groups that are warning of global warming now, yes by climatologists, that the world was going to freeze. Look it up. That is something people remember that were here then. It would appeare you are ignorant of that circumstance.
As to peak oil, my point is that before Carter, certainly Carter and certainly many after him have said we would run out of oil in X years. You seem to have trouble grasping the point that when that is bandied about so many times, people don't believe warnings very reaqdily. It seems a simple point to grasp to me. I do have trouble expressing things clearly at times though.
Perhaps you are confusing facts with what the media. politicians and interest groups say? If the President says we are running out of oil and ole Jim the Petroleam engineer says no Mr. President you don't understand "peak oil"...who exactly do you think most people listened to? Obama is a fool. Its as simple as that. He confused what he wanted with what people would accept or agree to. Thats essentially what I'm trying to say here about what is possible.
Thanks for your thoughts.
If there were any climate scientists suggesting cooling trends in the seventies, it was a fraction of the number who have been indicating global warming, and for a fraction of the time.
The Royal Society has just published "Climate change: A Summary of the Science" which "summarises the current scientific evidence on climate change and its drivers, highlighting the areas where the science is well established, where there is still some debate, and where substantial uncertainties remain." This document is available at http://royalsociety.org/climate-change-summary-of-science/
In the well-established science category, the report states "There is strong evidence that the warming of the Earth over the last half-century has been caused largely by human activity, such as the burning of fossil fuels and changes in land use, including agriculture and deforestation."
How can we come up with a solution when most people don't see there's a PROBLEM?
I believe many people do think we have a problem with climate change, but job's food and shelter are higher on their scale at the moment. The democrats, Pelosi and Obama have turned a bad situation worse.
" Lizza quotes an environmental activist describing President Obama as the “James Buchanan of climate change.”
Given a historic opportunity to do something about the biggest threat to the health and safety of the entire world, Obama and the Democrats ultimately decided to do nothing. Before they dropped their efforts at passing a climate change bill, though, they went through a process that is truly remarkable for its cravenness in attempting to give away the store to the very polluters the legislation was supposed to regulate." (from the article)
There is very little difference between Democrat and Republican. Until we find a way to get third party candidates a level playing field so they can start winning seats and even the President we will continue on this same path of DOING NOTHING REAL TO STOP THE EFFECTS OF CLIMATE CHANGE.
I get angry because this issue EFFECTS all of us as Americans and citizens of the world. We should be working together as ONE NATION, but instead we have Progressives who think and say that all Republicans deny climate change and even though Democrats do the same thing are made out as heroes. Obama is not a hero as some Progressives like to make him out to be regarding the environment or climate change. There are Republicans who fight for the environment and believe climate change is real and are willing to work with anyone who is willing to work to stop this runaway train heading right for us. Until we LOOSE the attitude of HATE and start WORKING TOGETHER AS AMERICANS AND ONE NATION UNITED, we will continue to FAIL.
I want to weep because the real looser are our children and grandchildren who will have to pay the price for our putting POLITICAL PARTY FIRST OVER WHAT IS BEST FOR THE NATION. Because they are growing up thinking HATE of those who are different or think different is normal, they are not going to be willing to work together as one nation either. The HATE will continue and what George Washington and John Adams feared would happen in political parties becoming more important then the good of the nation will continue to be the norm. What we tolerate our children will embrace and think is normal. WE TOLERATE HATE OF THE OTHER POLITICAL PARTIES AND OUR CHILDREN WILL EMBRACE THE DIVISION. We must not tolerate DIVISION AND HATE in this nation. We can't continue to be hyrprocrits and thinking our side doesn't hate or the ends justify the means so it is aright for us to HATE and generalize statements as truth when we know that at best the statements are half truth. If we continue to throw HONOR out the window for the sake of political party and view then our children will grow up learning TRUTH, HONOR, AND JUSTICE DON'T MEAN ANYTHING EITHER.
I know I may not be explaining what is in my heart very well. I just get so angry and sad because future generations are going to suffer and pay the price for my generation's lack of courage and honor.
Both sides are guilty of this. I reject both Democrats and Republicans because of the HATE they spew toward the other side, the dirty tricks, the lies, the selfishness, and division they create within our nation. I reject both Progressives and White Nationalists because even though they say they really love and care about this nation their actions do not match with their words. It is one thing to talk the talk but another thing to walk the walk. They don't want us to work together as ONE NATION UNITED IN FINDING A WAY TO SOLVE OUR PROBLEMS. They only want things 100% their way and if anyone disagrees they are considered evil, crazy, or stupid. WE ARE FAILING BECAUSE OF THIS ATTITUDE.
I have news for you, no one is 100% right. No one is 100% wrong. Pride goes before fall. If you think because someone thinks different than you, is a member of a different political party, or another race or religion that they are stupid, crazy and evil then you are adding to the reason why we are FAILING. If our children have any hope it will be because we put aside our personal differences and worked together as one team. It will be because we stopped spewing hate filled LIES and we started to listen with an open mind and heart. It will be because we realized that he is not our enemy but a human being who also wants a future for their children as you want for yours.
I don't think it will happen though because the future of the children comes in last place over the political party they belong to.
chrisy58, thanks for your Hate-filled post. Could have been written by Obama, whose guiding princept seems to be, 'can't we all just get along?' And so then 'working with' and appeasing the Right-wingers of the Republican side and the Bluedoggers of the Dims.
You have written, "There is very little difference between Democrat and Republican. Until we find a way to get third party candidates a level playing field so they can start winning seats and even the President we will continue on this same path..." and "Democrats do the same thing..." So you are saying that the parties ARE "getting along" in their concerted actions... just NOT in the direction you would like. And so you Hate Both parties. That is not conciliation.
But the situation will NOT be corrected if we, as you say, "put aside our personal differences and worked together as one team." The parties seem to be doing that NOW, more or less.
It is ONLY significant OPPOSITION that will be able to correct the evils of these days.
I agree with you in one sense. Evil msut be opposed. And the greater the evil the greater the opposition. No appeasement. And the Republicans must go down FIRST... but not ONLY.
But from where comes our chances? Anybody out there able to really act and act significantly?
Washington State has a "top two" primary. This allows independents such as myself to go into the general election with only one major party opponent. I made it by door belling 60,000 homes thereby defeating five other candidates challenging the incombent, who normally gets over 80% of the vote running against Republicans. He got 78% in the primary. I expect to get 25% or more in the general because I have gotten good publicity for personally door belling 60,000 homes. The best publicity so far quoted experts as saying they don't see how that would be possible. I was highly motivated because I was doing it to take the issue of global warming directly to the voters. Most voters in my congressional district (mostly Seattle) agreed with my theme: "We need to act now to stop global warming". This is followed by "If we wait too long our grandchildren may be unable to stop runaway climate change." Most voters in Seattle agree with me. However, they are extremely loyal to the incumbent Democrat who has an outstanding record opposing war. I have two TV appearences coming up (provided free by major stations) in which I suggest that those who want change can vote for me without risk of giving control to Republicans - a "top two" feature. No Gore/Nater dilemma here.
My total campaign cost is about $3,500 half of which was the filing fee. Any phyiscally fit person who has the time could do what I am. (I am a 73 year old retiree.)
I have been contacted by someone from Northern California who plans to run on a similar platform. I encouraged him and suggested that California's new "top two" primary will help. He can win because he is well known in his district and the incumbent is unpopular.
We need more people to do this to demonstrate that money does not have to rule and global warming and other environmental issues do matter to voters.
If anyone is interested I can be contacted via my web site: bobforcongress.us
You can see my Voters' Pamphlet statement via http://www.vote.wa.gov by going to the candidate statements for Congressional District 7. The internet has made low cost campaigns feasible. We just need to make the effort.
Now we know the answer to the Fermi Paradox.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_paradox
An answer to this paradox was recently given by an Astrophysicist named Tyson (Director of the Hayden Planetarium). He said, if you are walking down the street and see a worm on the sidewalk, do you stop to examine it, or do you just keep on walking? And does the worm realize that you have gone by?
The American people will never support climate legislation; it carries with it too much political liability. Instead, the administration can use the favorable Supreme Court ruling that the EPA can regulate carbon emissions to mandate tight building codes for residential and industrial construction. It can offer tax breaks for upgrading existing homes. It can demand efficiencies from auto manufacturing. It can insist on fuel saving measures from airlines. Most of all, it can demand that the military get on board, requiring a 30% cut in fuel consumption within five years. I believe it may be possible to lay down rules for power plant construction that would mandate emissions controls. You can do an end run around Congress, but it takes courage to do it.
What? Me worry?
I like my 6-legged pet cat.
The longer they put off decisive action, the more damaging that action will be to the short-term economy (in the long-term, climate change action will be economically beneficial). They are already going to have to 'stage-manage' climate change action: ramp up the response over several years or decades. If they wait, as seems likely, until the general public 'gets it' it will really be too late. The general public 'gets it' when they go outside and its too hot, too dry, or underwater: and by then it is both catastrophic and permanent. This is a situation that definitely calls out for leadership.
I don't know who is advising Mr. Obama, but the popular forces that put him into office would have been greatly heartened to see him do something about this issue. I read, as in this article, about Obama's eagerness to 'give away the store' to polluters before his own Climate Change team can bargain with them. And then I hear that Obama is bothered because Democrats aren't going to show up at the polls. He may be bothered, but he can hardly be surprised. He must have hoped that industrial polluters voting for his side would be sufficient. Fool me twice, Mr. President...
After showing how the democrats and the republicans are both working for the corporations, the author decides, at the end of this article, that there is a need to pretend there is some difference between the two parties.
How can there be an "enormous democracy gap" when we clearly live under a corporate controlled, profit driven plutocracy?
Human beings are mere resources to these people and as far as Wall Street is concerned, the human "stock" is of negative value and not worth keeping.
The truth is that it is too late for 'a third party' solution or any other electoral nonsense. Those who would stand up to the British in these American colonies knew what to do, each of them, and they sealed it with the following incredibly courageous statement:
"......And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor."
Read these italicized words carefully as it will take that level of commitment from all of us to take the path before us. No more hand wringing. Each of us knows exactly what we individually must do.
Join Green Party ... The left needs its own party for not only the environment but social and economic justice ...
We have seen the NGOs try ever so valiantly only to fail because of their incrementalism and the failure of a united stand ...
Economic, social and environmental crisis await us all ... The "left" needs a political party ... the right will be ready to pick up the pieces and resume failure for profit all over again ...
Hmmm. Extra bugs in the Northwest and no grasshoppers and friends in central East Tennessee. Reckon what that portends? Well, at least smaller profits for insecticide makers. If you look hard enough you'll find a silver lining or a rationalization.
Too much home-made wine--MD
the u.s. has way too much power. why should our bought off congress even have anything to say about climate change? It's like asking them if they think it's better for us to keep all the money, or if we should consider the rest of the world.
The Global South has been and will be primary victims of climate change, and for them it's not about "slapping an October mosquito" either. It's about drought and famine and floods and disaster.
Nobody in Washington knows anything about climate. They can understand nothing but the money their corporate owners give them. Stop expecting enlightened thought or serious policy making from them.
Evo Morales is an indigenous person from the Global South.
at the Summit for the Rights of Mother Earth he said this:
"We are here because in Copenhagen the so-called developed countries failed in their obligation to provide substantial commitments to reduce greenhouse gases. We have two paths: either Pachamama or death. We have two paths: either capitalism dies or Mother Earth dies. Either capitalism lives or Mother Earth lives. Of course, brothers and sisters, we are here for life, for humanity and for the rights of Mother Earth. Long live the rights of Mother Earth! Death to capitalism!"
"...either capitalism dies or Mother Earth dies. Either capitalism lives or Mother Earth lives."
Damn right.
None other than the Secretary-General of the UN, Ban Ki-Moon recently stated the following, "We have all heard of the web of life. The way we live threatens to trap us in a web of death. Too many people still fail to grasp the implications of this destruction." http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2010/sgsm13127.doc.htm
In the short term, we are f**ked. I have two young children and I want more than anything for this not to be the case. I have searched high and low for a reason to believe otherwise. I still cannot bring myself to abandon hope for the long-term. But the only realistic (and hopeful) conclusions I can come to regarding the certain consequences of our out-of-control exploitation of the finite resources of this planet are that the people of the industrialized world will change only when they see that they have no other choice. Until then it is far too easy and comforting to live with the falsehoods that perpetuate the status quo (see mightymite as a perfect example).
I highly recommend the following presentation by Ecologist Bill Rees on the nature and origins of these issues. If you've never heard of Bill you are missing out.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3F9cDA-R4J8
"I have two young children and I want more than anything for this not to be the case."
Are they really that horrible? Perhaps they need counselling.
Technically, your criticisim is correct. I am sure the writer was not referring to his children in the negative light, but rather, the condition presently existing. One of the things wrong with the world is all this picayune crap.
or...
'wait a few years, they'll be older...'
picayune, perhaps, but I found it punny!
The USA has run amok.
When an ant runs amok it is insignificant. When an elephant does it is a great danger. When a country and culture the size of the USA does it is an international catastrophe that threatens the Earth as we know it.
Yes. Evo Morales can see this clearly.
There is also a spine chilling open secret here. Those inveighing against the science are fully aware that anthropomorphic Climate Change is the reality. Those leading the current insanity are aware that because of what they are doing billions of people will die in the future.
They want this to happen.
We can be sure they are planning to ensure it does not happen to them.
'Them' refers to the increasingly isolated and less numerous rat's nest of greedy controllers of corporate USA. They are against each other and the Earth and very much against their own suckered employees. This is the greatest struggle of all time, even time we have not yet had. This is self-immolation (suicide by burning) using Energy on steroids. Each egotistical 'virtue is selfishness' little rat in the nest will rather burn the Earth and the entire human race including his own wife and children than lose his 'money' and position. How massively insane is that? After all, there is nothing more absurd than winning a race of one.
The Earth has to eradicate the USA as it has become. It is very likely that a country like the USA must never be allowed to exist again. Right now US citizens have no option but to choose the Earth. Any delay is inexcusable. It is dangerous to choose Earth, but it is always better to live well and die young and wisely than it is to live long as an abject idiot.
It is inescapably true that, particularly in the USA, a vast number of people are abject, intellectually backward, gibbering idiots right now. Action has to be taken.
As always US citizens must vote wisely, even if only incrementally so. But now they also have to actively eradicate the manic contortions of their culture.
The truth is not only that each in his or her reality knows what to do but also that expressions of mass common purpose must be employed. The need to agree on 'All' is an adolescent silliness and the differences between individual realities are only accentuated by cowards and quislings to frustrate the effective power of mass action.
For Earth's, sake just do it!
DAVE: And death is a certainty, too; but that doesn't mean we're free to go about killing one another. Your right wing meme is not appreciated on a site where people are actually informed on the issues. You're wearing blinders over your conscience so you can go about unapologetically using resources without demonstrating an iota of conservation, nor the realization that all you take, and take for granted, IS sacred.
You may blog and judge others you do not know, however the earth will still warm and cool in it's own time irregardless of one's political views, appreciated or not.
What happens every time we're able to raise the volume on the climate issue? The govt/media successfully distracts the public by ratching-up their campaign against cigaret smokers. Smokers? Under 18% of US adults smoke. Few youth are interested in tobacco, contrary to what we hear. Smoking restrictions are so severe that few of us ever even get a whiff of tobacco smoke. So why focus on smokers? To distract the public from the truly critical health issues -- and it has worked remarkably well.
The most carcinogenic type of smoke if the kind that contains oil particles -- from burning fossil fuels, not tobacco. Compare the amount of pollution produced by a cigaret with the amount produced simply by turning the ignition key in your car. Traffic smoke is the stuff that leaves a greasy layer of dirt on the outside of windows and insides of lungs. A single whiff of the fumes of a passing car has a greater impact on your health than sitting in a room with a smoker for an hour.
But we are addicted to oil. We sacrifice our own children's lives to war for oil. Americans won't give up their cars for public transportation (as we've seen repeatedly), and insist on the "right" to drive whenever they want, as much as they want. And there is no way that Big Oil is going to allow energy alternatives!
We won't get serious about this -- the actual leading cause of lung disease and premature death -- as long as govt periodically targets the handful of people who smoke. It's easier to simply blame the other guy than to make changes in our own habits to at least reduce driving. It has been a powerfully effective tactic for distracting the public, and that's tragic.
Incidentally, on the climate change caused by burning fossil fuels (and in spite of hearing that there IS no climate change), I've lived in rural Wisconsin all my life (55 yrs.). In recent years, I've occasionally come across birds, insects and even plants that simply weren't here before. When I look them up, I find that their normal habitat is usually listed as the warm southern states. That's disturbing, to say the least.
There is a 110,000 year cycle of water mass location (polar ice to ocean liquid, and back) that plays into the climate change scenario via tectonic plate dynamics. Its effects have not been addressed.
Burning of non-renewable hydrocarbons, besides being stupid, is speeding up the cycle, and juicing it, as well.