Living the American Green

I would add some snark to this, but it’s basically the prefect BP message.

Poor multi-national corporation.  They are closing in on a perfect 10.0 on the evil/inept scale.

Pointy-bearded Ivory Tower intellectual Andrew Revkin is appearing every week for the month of April on the Radio Show for which I sometimes toil.  Known mostly for his blog Dot.earth, Revkin kicked off Earth Month by moving to the opinion page of the Times, essentially admitting that his constant crusade for the socialist “Global Whining” farce is his opinion.

That, or so that he can stop having to bring a journalistic objectivity to something that doesn’t deserve it.  In his own words,

I am an advocate, for sure — for reality.

Well… that’s just like, your opinion, man.  Either way, hear him speak his egg-headed economy killing lies on Carbon Tax and Trade here:

and on the hard science behind the Global Warming Hoax here:

Wait ‘ill Glenn Beck hears o’ this, Revkin — you might end up on his black board!

<<Fo real: Andrew Revkin is one of the more rational and reasonable voices writing on the whole climate change issue.  While his writing and thinking is saturated in the leading research of climatologists, his main focus (not completely reflected in the above two episodes) is working on understanding why the gap between what science knows about climate change and what the public perception is about climate change is so different.  One of the better writers, and a daily must check for me!>>

Well, this is new.

Apparently nervous about declining relevance, so much so that he was thrilled to take credit for a failed attempt at exploding underpants, Osama bin Laden has decided that he will be able to strike fear into the hearts of the West most effectively by warning them that their consumer habits and industrial practices would lead to severe global warming.

I don’t…even really know where to begin on this. I can’t tell whether to be incensed, confused, or really nervous of how this is going to be spun for political points among the American teabagging demographic. I can just hear the frothing sound-bites: “Obama’s new climate czar: Osama bin Laden!” “Climategate’s latest scam-artist: Osama bin Laden!” “If you don’t pump Drano into the nearest protected wetland the terrorists have won!”

Well, it’s either an embarrassment - a kind of freewheeling hopping from cause to cause, with no consistent message but “West bad!” as he  grasps to attach himself to issues that are already terrifying people without his assistance – or…

Or – it’s a brilliantly cynical tactic? Knowing full well that anything he says will instantly polarize, not to mention be instinctively discredited by those who hate him, what could be more nefarious than to drive the crazed extremist fringe to rail against global warming – thereby indelibly besmirching the already fraying global consensus and solidarity necessary to outmaneuver climate change?

Who’d have foreseen this plot twist: Osama bin Laden, eco-sabateur???

Every so often, I make the terrible mistake of reading too many comments on political or environmental blogs.  These things are truly terrifying, dark hate filled passageways that accept no middle ground and foster misinformation at an astounding rate.  No one rational bothers to post in many situations, and if they do they are often snowed under by the bizarre attacks.

For a while, I tried to post rational, thought out responses to either the article or other posters.  On realizing that I was taking the outlandish and aggressive responses personally, I stopped that — and started writing LtAG.   Unfortunately, I have come to realize that reading the words of Internet Loons has come to affect my perception of real life, as well.

In short: anyone who dosn’t belive in global warming is a dangerouse unhinged nut job who thinks that I am a combination of Hitler and Big Brother.  That’s because those are the people that I hear from on the Interent!  It’s a trained response!

I know, however, that many rational, coherent people either have not seen the research themselves or have had things presented to them in ways that are misleading or inaccurate.  That’s why this little series, put together by Grist.Com, speaks to me so much.

How to Talk to a Climate Skeptic: Responses to the most common skeptical arguments on global warming

::::::::warning:::::::::

This method is not recommended for the James Inhoffs of the world.   The good part about this Grist article (and the part that I am trying Oh-so-hard to hold onto) is the idea that there are many rational people out there who’s minds can be changed by discussion.  No experience in my life to date (cough cough Political campaigns cough) backs this up what so ever… so maybe this Grist article is the height of liberal hubris.  Maybe the facts really don’t make as much of a splash as I want them too.

If so, read it anyway: if it’s about educating yourself more then it convincing others, it’s still worth the time.

Scientists estimate that a full 73% of all blogs are people apologizing for not writing more in their blogs.

In that sense, I feel as though I am tapping into one of the great sentiments of our generation when I apologize to you (my mostly imaginary readers) for not spending more time ruthlessly stroking my own ego by capturing loose thoughts in blog form.

I have been most fortunate to spend the last 6 months or so hustling for a political candidate.   In fact, one of the only times this space had anything new and interesting recently was when I shared some of the cool work that Mark had dreamed up.

As of now, Mark’s run for City Council continues, despite the setback of losing the democratic primary.  In the mean time, I have taken a small step back from the madness of the primary election, and am trying to restart other aspects of my life to run parallel to the campaign in the general.  It is with this in mind that I hope to return to posting here.

My return to the sphere of eco-writing actually occurred last week, with a huge assist from my friend Tim over at Ecopolitology.  You see, Tim got me press credentials to make it into the Clinton Global Initiative, a new york based meet and greet for anyone with good ideas to meet up with people with a chunk of cash.

My coverage, as the week began.

Day Two: Al Gore spits some truth about capitalism.  It has long been my theory that Capitalism ruins everything, but I would be willing to let bygones be bygones if introducing negative checks for pollution allowed the capitalists to solve the climate crisis.

Day Three: A groundwork for capitalism to do exactly what Gore wanted — the Carbon Disclosure Project!

Also on Day Three: I find myself in a room with Brad Pitt and William Jefferson Clinton.  I actually exchanged words with Brad, but Bill touched my shoulder.  I don’t know which is more exciting.  I am still in shock over this.  Also, there’s a cool project that grew out of CGI and that stars Brad Pitt.  A link to that is coming soon.

And so ends the very short chapter of Van Jones in the White House

(editors note: this was written very quickly, in the heat of the moment on hearing what I consider very very bad news.  Now, not so angry, I really only feel sad.  Still, read on!)

Van Jones resigned today from his position of Green Jobs Czar at the White House.  He had been there a little over six months before a mob of crazed republican attackers focused on him.  It only took folks calling him names: a communist that once called the Republicans a bad word, and poof: he gets run out of town on a rail.

“On the eve of historic fights for health care and clean energy, opponents of reform have mounted a vicious smear campaign against me,” Jones wrote. “They are using lies and distortions to distract and divide.”

Jones said that he had ”been inundated with calls – from across the political spectrum – urging me to “stay and fight. But I came here to fight for others, not for myself.  I cannot in good conscience ask my colleagues to expend precious time and energy defending or explaining my past.  We need all hands on deck, fighting for the future.”

This man has as much power as you give him

I would love to say a few words here that would make me unfit to be a Czar, (for those of you who don’t know, one of the reasons Van is unfit to serve is because he called republicans assholes in a speech) but that seems like playing at their game.  Instead, I’d like to say a few other things.

Van Jones was, and still is, a hero of mine.  As many of you who read this space know, I think the world of his ideas.  I love his inclusive, hands on, leave-no-person-behind vision for the future of America.  His book spoke to me of economic justice without having anyone suffer, and of a freedom from the worry of Global Warming.  Having read his book, listened to his speeches, and received his emails for years, I can say he is in no way a communist, or a socialist.  At all.  In fact, I often felt he went too far toward the free market — perhaps to make his ideas palatable to an America that turns green in fear at either of those words being turned against them.  50 years later, this McCarthyism hackjobbary has got to end.

The Party that just crucified Van Jones for saying the word asshole and for associating with a know “Truther” in the 9/11 crazytimes movement is the same party that had the second most powerful member tell someone to “Go F*&% Yourself” on the floor of the Senate.  This is the same party where many MANY elected officials still to this day are considering lawsuits against Obama for not being born in this country.  Glenn Beck, who led the charge against Jones, alternates his time between grimly prognosticating about and encouraging armed rebellion, and calling Obama a racist.

Why was Jones, a generally well liked dude, even on Glenn Beck’s radar?  Because Jones was associated with a group called ColorofChange.  ColorofChange called Beck on calling the president a racist, and Beck — in full personal vendetta style — took Van Jones down and forced his resignation.  What alternative universe do we live in where he has so much power?

The hypocrisy runs so thick, and so complete, that I am forced to wonder at the delusion to make it through a day believing what Beck professes to believe.  The Green Collar Economy was condemned as a socialist plot before anyone even bothered to figure out what it was, and what it meant.  Instead of taking the time to figure out why it might be a win-win to go green, people would rather throw stones at every new idea then allow someone who is not their own to gain any semblance of power.

But the Obama White House sure stuck to their guns!  I’m so proud of the way they defended their man, of the way they went to bat for a supporter and loyal ideas man.  I love how they called out this rank hypocrisy for what it was, and at least fired a warning shot that the people in the White House can not be controlled by a hate spewing insano pundit.

Oh, wait.  They did none of those things.  They made a craven political calculus, and sold Jones out faster then you can say “Communist Sympathizer”.  We’ve seen the wackjobs on the right get more and more wack-jobby of late, calling Obama a brain washer for the age old  tradition of talking to kids on the first day of school, and painting every single human left of William F. Buckley as some sort of deranged socialist.  I just wonder: why does this stuff stick?  Why don’t people stand up against this sort of thing?  It’s completely absurd that Jones was forced to resign, but it’s even MORE absurd that anyone has the ability to “force” anything!

America seems to really like the idea of Death before Dishonor.  They love people who don’t change course, even when the course is fundamentally wrong.  I don’t need my leaders to be stupid and unable to compromise, but this makes them look like the spineless cowards that the Republicans have always said they were.

The most frustrating part of the process is that Van’s ideas are now being repudiated because he once knew a communist and once said a bad word.  All of his amazing thinking, all of his plans and his charisma and his strength are now worse then useless.  The entire (extremely capitalist) green collar movement has been tarred and feathered on the national stage.  It’s amazing that all my hope for real fundamental change in this country was crushed after six months, and its even MORE amazing that it was done by the party that was so completely repudiated at the polls.

The entire movement took a step back today, not because the things that Van suggested didn’t work, but because some holier then thou fucks decided to crush him and the rest of us let them.

The only reason that I can’t quit this whole process is that doing so would mean that these people were allowed to be right.  Well, it won’t happen.  I’m going to work longer, work harder, then ever before.  I am going to make sure that everyone – EVERYone – who called for Van’s head does not get any more chance to hold elected office.

My question is this: Does Glenn Beck speak for you?  If so, why?  What vision does he put forward that you find attractive?  What version of America does Beck and the folks that give him a platform to spew his nonsense actually espouse?

If not, why are you letting him change who the President of the United States chooses to advise him?

Very briefly up for air, we are at LtAG. Three bits of ominous news for you today from the (slightly unintentional) food front.

1. Winning the Why Am I Not Surprised Award, undercover animal rights activists landed jobs at an Iowa chicken factory and released footage of male chicks being dumped, alive, into an industrial grinder. After all, who needs 200 million roosters running around? Look, if we could breed only female birds we would, but we can’t, so we’ll just keep grinding up these male birds. Crystalline logic. P.S. our eggs are 100% local!

2. A Florida man was horrified when he took a big gulp from a can of Pepsi and discovered that all kinds of foul-tasting gunk was inside. He tried to empty the can and shook it until something that looked like “pink linguini” came out, then called the FDA. The FDA’s analysis? Somehow there had been a disemboweled frog inside the closed can of Pepsi. Mmmmmm. The Choice of a New Generation.

3. And far and away my favorite story, likewise not that surprising – just when we thought health care protests couldn’t get uglier, a rally supporting Obama’s healthcare reform turned into a rumble when it encountered our dear friends on the deather fringe, some words were exchanged, some fisticuffs were exchanged, and a dude’s finger got bitten off by what we can only assume was someone who took the notion of “rabid extremism” a little literally. Yeah, uh, I hear that under Obamacare the government is going to make decisions on what fingers you get to keep. No to Body Part Rationing! Free Grandma! On the plus side, he certainly showed the government that no east-coast liberal is going to tell him to stop eating meat! We The People will eat whatever and whoever we damn well please because this is America, not the Third Reich!

Oh children. We’ve been flying by the seat of our pants around here with business, campaigning, and general tomfoolery, which I hope explains why we haven’t posted anything in a week and probably will be a bit thin on the ground for a while longer. But in a spirit of reconciling our sorry selves with you, dear reader, here are a couple news articles that one could read in any variety of ways – anything from elation to jelly-booted terror.

Fast-Food School Vicinity Ban: Prudent or Tantalizing?

So New York City councilmember Eric Gioia is trying to get a bill passed in the city that would prohibit the opening of new fast food establishments within 0.1 miles of a school. Now, granted that’s only two blocks in New York speak, which is no great preventative measure if you ask me, but there’s a bigger question at hand. I support in theory any acknowledgment by the city that fast food is a factor of childhood unhealthiness and unknown chemical imbalances later in life, and I respect the effort. But kids that want something are remarkably committed to getting it. Cigarettes, booze, energy drinks, you name it – prohibiting it may have the reverse effect of making it even more desirable than it already is. I used to babysit a kid who was incredibly lazy EXCEPT when going dramatically out of his way to acquire something his parents wouldn’t let him have. If enough noise is made out of this bill if it gets passed (and rest assured, the non-issue-obsessed e-media being what it is, noise will be made), expect to see a sharp increase in the amount of fast food consumed by rebellious high-schoolers at lunch.

So what can be done? Either try to keep kids indoors for lunch (which, I know from experience, will produce an epic shit-monsoon that no school wants to deal with), or go ahead and pass the ban and make fast food less convenient and hope to Moses, Mary, and Mohammed that they just don’t find out about it. So, I guess: shhhhhhhhh. Wait. I screwed it up already. Sigh.

This is why you're fat (double cheeseburgers with chicken nuggets for buns).

Monsanto and Your Future, or, “Really, FDA?”

Sing, Muse, of Michael Taylor! Of the Monsanto exec who at any given moment is either employed by the US government in a capacity of regulating the dangerous practices of the agribusiness industry, or (if it’s tuesday, thursday, or sunday), is in the agribusiness industry writing deregulatory proposals to be approved by the FDA. One of the architects of Recombinant Bovine Growth Hormone (the same one that some studies and European governments have suggested contribute to health irregularities and weirdly early puberty in milk-guzzling kids), he was also one of the FDA authorities who approved that very wonder cocktail under Clinton. 

And now! After another corporate foray, Taylor is back in the FD, back in the FD, back in the FDA. Appointed by Obama’s administration. Cool.

Now, all the environmentalist listserves that grace my email have gone into varying shades of apoplexy over this, demanding immediate censure of anything with two thumbs and a government paycheck. IF there is a silver lining or an alternative spin to this, it is that despite the long history of cronyism and impending mollycoddling of Monsanto and the other three Horseman of the Apocalypse, Taylor has in fact been pretty tough on food sanitation issues and will probably do more to crack down on such dangerous embarrassments as the peanut-contamination fracas earlier this year. I guess he’s of the “tough love” school of regulating his buddies, like the coach that wants you to succeed but isn’t afraid to make you run a few extra laps (for the record, that may be the first sports analogy I’ve ever successfully used). But if regulation of dirty agrifactories is achieved mainly by redirecting funds and manpower from the watchdogging of the special-interests science that leads to things like rBGH, as is, well, likely – then we’re no less screwed than we already were.  And I’d really like to be less screwed than we already are.

Michael Taylor. With a mustache.

I completely and un-apologetically love Tom Perriello. The new freshman Congressman from my spot in Central Virginia is out in front of this Climate Change bill, willing to stake his young reputation on the process of changing the way this country thinks about energy. Any politician who is willing to say: “what’s the worst thing that can happen — I wont get re-elected?” clearly has his head in the right place. Now, we have not yet answered the deeper question of if this is a good bill: I will table that question until we have some concept of what the Senate version of it looks like. Please, Senate. Please make sure that Tom’s vote (and risk) is not in vain.

Regardless: thank you, Tom, for being a leader that Virginia can rally ’round. You, sir, are a hero! Also — can I just say: Virgil Goode is all that is wrong with Politics in VA, and he is already running to regain the seat that he has been sliming on for years.

Coal Ash. Niiiice

You know when Coal is starting to be a problem?  I’ll tell you when.  When the coal ash is scary enough, and dangerous enough, to get labeled a national security threat.   At some point, wouldn’t that be — oh, i donno — an early indication that these things are trouble?  It’s bad enough that these things exist… now it sounds like efforts to clean up the coal ash or to better regulate the sites are being hampered by a ruling that it’s too dangerous for us to even know where these sites are.

“There are 44 sites deemed by the Environmental Protection Agency to be high hazard, but Boxer said she isn’t allowed to talk about them other than to senators in the states affected. “There is a huge muzzle on me and my staff,” she said.

“Homeland Security and the Army Corps [of Engineers] have decided in the interests of national security they can’t make these sites known,” she said.

There are several hundred coal ash piles across the nation, she said, all of them unregulated.

“If these coal ash piles were to fail they’d pose a threat to the people nearby,” she said. While keeping it from the public, DHS is alerting first responders as to the location of the piles.”

Tennessee got a first person look last year at how much damage the coal-ash can do to a mountain valley.  The answer: a lot.  The picture above does just a little bit of justice to how bad the thing got (with proportionally very little news coverage), and I would have loved if that sort of disaster caught the national zeitgeist and sped up the Kick Coal kick that I think we need to get on.  It didn’t, and I have trouble picturing why not — it’s the sort of scaled disaster that should have at least captured our attention like the Exxon Valdez did.

It does seem weird, though, that these folks are capable of admitting this is so scary that they wont talk about it out loud, yet are not willing to put in the efforts to do a real clean up.  Nice work, team!