Remember the end of 2007? Lo, those many years ago. Even sitting president Shrubers came forward to tell us that Global Warming was probably happening, and might even be our fault. Sure, we were all shocked that George “Oilz” Bush would go soft on us like that, but the country as a whole was starting to take notice. Then came 2008, the great socialist take over, and everyone was pretty sure that we had fixed the whole climate thing once and for all, or at least had agreed to start working on it.
Well, here we are in 2010, and guess what we’re debating? If climate change is real! Yup, that’s right — do to a whole bunch of stupid stupid things done by the scientists side of the scientist v. loud people on the internet debate, (email gate, Coppenhagen’s dramatic fail) we’re back to having the “is this thing for real” discussion.
But this is odd: leading the charge for the “I’m dubious” crowd is a group of scientists this time: your friendly neighborhood Weathermen! But wait, you might say, I thought all the scientists were sure that this thing was in the bag! Isn’t this what those point headed Ivory Tower intellectual ninnies have been saying since the 1950s? Well, you would be right. But these meteorologists — who are often completely wrong about what the weather is going to be doing three days from now — are sure that NO one could be doing it better then they are and that the long term picture is even cloudier then the weekend forecast. Thus, De facto, QED and IED, Global Warming models are probably just taking the little mistakes the weathermen made with this years SNOWPOCOLYPSE and compounded it a few thousand times in making their extremist “we’re all going to die” claptrap.
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???
I had hoped that one of my progressive causes (Y.I. campaign for Health Care reform, join the Facebook group.) would be concluded before we as a country got to the climate conference in Copenhagen. Not the case, unfortunately.
I am feeling a little bit behind with the debate. And I am feeling extremely frustrated that the segue into this entire thing is the “climate-gate” scandal of the leaked emails. I’ve railed on this before, and will, I’m sure, rail again, but who is being served when the national media discussion on Copenhagen is about emails being leaked? Will there be hundreds of stories written about the visible and track-able changes already happening on the coast of china, in the Texas sized trash heap in the pacific, or in the increasing size of the Sahara desert? My guess is no. As of right now, the Google count on “climate-gate” is growing exponentially. It only takes one story like this to completely muddy the waters of American perception. In that sense, then, the global warming skeptics are correct — this email story has already done more (because of the lack of information on the global scale) then anything else in the last ten years to set back the discussion of how to combat massive destruction of the environment. Let me be the first to congratulate them on a job well done! (more…)
A few people I have spoken with recently are pretty staunchly against the new energy and climate change bill that squeaked by the house last night. The bill is too weak, it has too many riders, and passing a bad bill is worse then passing no bill at all — these are the things that some on the environmental side of things are saying. (I don’t get to talk to the “Global Warming is a myth and this is an excuse to tax the American worker into obsolescence because the Dem’s hate America people” all that much, so I don’t feel the need to argue with them.) Another objection, expressed by CheriRobertson on my last not-very-well-thought-out post is that no one has read the damn thing and that its criminal to vote on legislation that you don’t understand.
Ok, lots of fair points here. I still support the Waxman-Markey bill, and here is why:
It fundamentally changes the way the American Government deals with the problems of Climate Change and our effect on the planet. My beef from the beginning has been that there is no system for me to be protected if someone wants to endanger me and mine by pumping bad things into the air. A cap and trade system creates a method – however flawed – to allow the gummit to get insist that people don’t get to endanger me and make money off it free and clear. They at least have to pay for screwing my world up.
From a fundamentally Libertarian perspective, I think that is the job of Government: to protect me from very real and very prominent threats that the Free Market brings to bear on my world.
Now, would I rather the original bill passed? Sure. I would much rather have the EPA be the body that regulates which gases are a danger to us. I would much rather not have the hat tips that are plugged into the bill for the rust belt, for the oil producing companies, for “clean coal”. But at the end of the day, this bill really IS a new legislative way of thinking about the environment, and for it to pass means that there are a lot of people on board who feel the necessity of action.
I think that it’s a republican talking point that “no one in either party has read the bill”. That is simply not the case. First of all, someone had to write the damn thing, so there are at least a few folks who know whats in there. Secondly, though, and much more importantly, a vast vast majority of the changes are going to be softening and definitions and clarifications on what was left out of the original draft. Was the thing perfect? No. But it’s also disingenuous to say that you need to read it all to understand it: the law makers had plenty of time to read the first 1200 pages, and not many of them did. The 300 pages of provisions and changes will now be poured over by anyone who cares, and the Senate will draft a new bill that puts the pieces of the house bill that don’t make sense to the test. The gist of the bill, that companies who pollute the earth will be held fundamentally accountable in the only way that matters to them (financially) remains strong — regardless of the number of pages, and the fact that John Bohner can take an hour to read rhetorical loops in the writing. A defeat of this bill, even it’s watered down form, is a defeat for the concept, and that’s not something we can afford to allow to happen.
There was a lot of political wrangling to get this bill to pass to be a law. (and yes, I AM amused that Nanci Pelosi thought Dove Bars would help. You don’t think that’s funny? Come on… you don’t think it’s amusing to think that congresspeople vote with their tastebuds? Oh… ok, yes it’s a little scary… but if we can’t laugh at it, then the world gets awful depressing.) Lots of Dems voted against it because they were scared to tag their name to something and take the political risk, only to have it fail in the Senate. And lots of people still view this thing as a big ball of taxes designed to hurt their way of life. But I think that the political climate isn’t going to be this forgiving for many many years to come, and if we don’t do this now, we may miss our chance for this scale of change. I feel the same way about health care: it’s now or not for a long time.
It may be that, 20 years from now, I will be cursing this thing for being too weak and watered down. But there are some really amazing parts of this bill and I love it even despite it’s flaws. Plus, there are, like, 800 Million dollars for green jobs training and stuff in there. I’m working in Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn these days: trust me when I say that there aren’t a lot more jobs places like that can loose, so it’s only going to help out. I wish the Republicans had come up with a counter solution to get the job market back on line: their idea of more capitalism – providing a series of grants to people who come up with good ideas – is so small potatoes that it boggles the mind. The Republican party’s stance of Nothing is Happening, lets all Stick Our Heads in the Sand and Invoke the American Worker isn’t valid anymore. They have done nothing for the American Worker for enough years that suddenly raising the middle class and the small business owner as “at risk” rings hollow and even pathetic.
Did you guys see this? It's an actual prehistoric shark that was just found off Japan. You could say... a MEGA shark.
I’m still actively in recovery mode from the amazing experience that was Mega-Shark v. Giant Octopus. This cautionary tale will surly be a clarion call to action for anyone fortunate enough to view this film, and I can see future generations referencing it as the warning that turned this country — dare I say it? — this world, around.
Meanwhile, the Republicans have finally come out with a counter to the Waxman-Markey bill. I have not, as yet, managed to track down a version of the bill to read it myself, but – SURPRISE! - it looks like there’s some off shore drilling, some clean coal, and a lot of new Nuclear plants. They even go out of the way to make sure they let the world know they are still don’t believe in this Global Warming hoopla.
Republicans stressed that their plan remained focused on energy, not climate change, emphasizing that the party remains unconvinced about the science of global warming.
Great, thanks guys. Way to throw that in there.
The plan appears to be more based on making fun of the democrats for believing in Global Warming then it does addressing energy concerns, but I do think that taking Nuclear of the table is a bad idea for anyone thinking seriously about changing our way of thinking about energy. Got to be a mix, I agree. Wait… I don’t agree because this whole thing continues to feel like a barrel to stand on while haranguing the cap and trade system, and Global Warming in general. Joe Barton used the Republican ask:
“Is it worth it to you to have the trillions and trillions of dollars and millions of jobs lost so that at best, 40 years from the average world temperature, whatever that number means, is two degrees Celsius less than it would be otherwise?,” he asked, citing an EPA analysis (ED. Incorrectly) of the Democratic bill. “I think the answer to that question is no.”
Good lord. Refusal to view the entire thing holistically will always make any particular claim absurd. The reason that Mega-Shark V. Giant Octopus was SO absurd is that they were trying to put a immediate terrifying face on what is going to be slow and unpredictable. (ED. Ahh! Relevance at last!) There is no Mega-Shark here to push people into that mode where something becomes unacceptable (and therefor necessitating action overnight.) What we still don’t seem to be communicating on here is the idea that we want to prevent huge catastrophe, not react to it with an I Told You So afterwords. I don’t want to be right… at all. It’s the same, conceptually, with education: build jails instead of addressing the problems of schools and literacy early. And it’s the same with health: fight reform, and in doing so fight back against preventative medicine. Keep drilling and burning, cause… well, we can deal with it later?
I don’t think that the Republican party is the party of NO. I just think they are the party of Not ‘Till It’s Too Late.
I got to thinking the other day after Alan wound up with a vehement comment accusing him of armchair environmentalism because he isn’t out raging against the machine in the streets and because he tends to express reservations about unaccommodating social tactics. Now, to be fair, he and I do spend much of our time in a shabbily awesome armchair (indeed: here I am right now), but there’s more to the story here.
The only way to be green?
The question of how to face up to the machine idols of our civilization has been asked for thousands of years, long before the Industrial Revolution made it concrete – asked by John of Patmos, by Marcus Aurelius, by Machiavelli, by Marx and Nietzsche, by Foucault and Borges, by Thoreau and Muir, and by Edward Abbey. And rage continues to be – as it has always been – only one of the options. Because the funny thing is, like I learned in aikido class, sometimes you have to gracefully use the momentum of your opponent to destabilize him and change his stance.
And I got to thinking: wait a second, I’ve heard this punchline before.
Honestly, can anyone tell me why we would still listen to what Dick Cheney has to say?
His image is plastered on LtAG too
His face is currently (10:31pm, Thursday Evening) plastered all over the news, generally making him into a rhetorical counter to Obama. Here’s the problem: he makes things up.
Cheney, on the other hand, built a case on straw men, red herrings, and lies. In short, his speech was classic Dick Cheney, with all the familiar scowls and scorn intact. The Manichean worldview, which Cheney advanced and enforced while in office, was on full display.
Dear Dick: I’m sorry, but you failed. All of your bluster and all of your prevaricating fail to make a convincing case as to why you needed to drag America through the muck. You work in a democracy, and as such you need to realize that the people have voted against you. You controlled everything in terms of message and media for most of your eight years, but eventually the stark reality, the facts of what you had wrought, knocked you off your perch. You have no one to blame but yourself!
Ok, so why is this on LtAG?
Because I am interested as to why Cheney gets equal airtime to the President, and is viewed as speaking against him with an equal voice. At what point does what hashappened — I’m going to call this “reality” — start to make a difference?
Again, this all has to do with Global Warming. It all has to do with the fact that everyone is used to having the GOP out there as “equal and opposite” to the Democratic party, so both view points are given equal time. That’s because we work in an environment that says that journalism = opposition, expounded on. It’s stupid and damaging, because there are times when that sort of equalization is a bald faced lie.
When the opposition is being responsible, that this sort of journalism makes sense. Check this, from the New York Times:
The objections of the Republican opponents were summed up in the words of Representative Mike Rogers of Michigan, who said the bill would mean sharp increases in energy costs and the loss of millions of jobs.
“This is the biggest energy tax in the history of the United States,” Mr. Rogers said.
That makes sense to me, because that seems like something I can believe in, and seems like opposition based on the principle that an argument is in good faith. I don’t agree, but I see how the position can be tenable. Dick Cheney? The dude doesn’t even believe that himself. He’s pure spin, total political crap. Even if he once belived what he was doing, his speech today is point for point designed to obfuscate and confuse. Global Warming? Same deal — you can’t really believe they have taken the time to read the science, because if they had… well, they could still disagree, but it wouldn’t be along the lines of HOW they disagree. “Wind Farms are bad because they slow wind down, thus heating up the globe.” Really? That’s the sort of thing that is not good faith opposition. But it’s covered as if it’s the same.
I need to stop writing this. I’m getting all worked up, and this point is a broken record for me anyway. Maybe I should go take a long hot bath to relax… or maybe I could go find a homeless person in the street to beat up. You know, I’ve heard of people doing both things to relax. They must be about the same — both are valid, it’s just a difference of opinion.
We’ve all heard the doomsday scenarios for where this whole Global Warming thing is taking us. Some of them have been down right terrifying, no doubt. However, none of the potential scary results that I’ve seen to date are anywhere near as terrifying, as epically horrific, as this. Please, watch at your own risk.
See, if people were smart about climate change, and the ice caps weren’t melting, the MEGA SHARK NEVER WOULD HAVE ESCAPED! 10 million years of being Frozen in Ice, and we have to go fuck it up and let him out. Man.
See, it’s risks like this that science can’t account for. I mean, we know about the range that the seas might be rising… we really have not been accounting for the chance of an Octopus so large that it can swat planes out of the air and crush submarines like so many Christmas tree ornaments. Who knows what evil lurks in the heart of the arctic glaciers?? Dear lord, the potential is terrifying.
(In case you haven’t guessed, I’m REALLY excited about the potential for this movie)
Really though, many of these monster movies have to do with the warning that Man is on a dangerously reckless path in relation to Nature. Godzilla, the classic giant monster of yore, was born from a Japanese society still recovering from being on the business end of an atomic weapon — besides it’s classic animation styles, it is also a warning unique to the Nuclear age. Books have been written about King Kong and the mirror he held up to Modern 1920’s New York. I would postulate that Mega Shark V. Giant Octopus fits into this legacy of Monster Movies, totally by accident! Yes, I think this will be an Environmental cult classic (at least here at LtAG) with out the film makers having ANY idea what they have created. Further evidence? The Giant Squid is shown absolutely crushing an Oil Platform. Watch out: nature is mad.
‘Round these parts, Nate Silver’s word is next to cleanliness. And we all know where that ends up. In the big liberal science lovin’ hippy fest that is LtAG, Silver’s statistical regressions are very often right and very often exactly what we want to hear. We are also obsessed as to why people can’t see what appears to us to be the Forest of Climate Change for the Trees of Daily Life.
This combination of things is maybe why the following article is so interesting to me: Nate Silver v. Global Warming deniers. Its thesis, in short: people’s perceptions of temperature affect their perceptions of global warming.
Nasa Global Warming Data. (Hint: Look at America on there. Then, look at Russia)
We can all quibble back and forth about what the “research” “shows” about global warming — turns out that all people really care about is the weather outside. I’ve been guilty of this: while plowing through a brutally cold and windy day in the city, I have remarked that a little Global Warming wouldn’t hurt nothing. But — and here is the crucial difference — I was joking.
Proving Global Warming is tricky…
… and everyone has been warned, at this point, that statistics can present just about whatever you want them to with some good data mining work. (Speaking of Data Mining: This story is amazing, and really worth the read! Hat tip, PGP) So, in some ways it makes sense that people waiting for that smoking-gun piece of evidence about Global Warming would be influenced by the actual changes in weather from day to day… but I still remain surprised by how much it seems to matter: (more…)
Remember the end of 2007? Lo, those many years ago. Even sitting president Shrubers came forward to tell us that Global Warming was probably happening, and might even be our fault. Sure, we were all shocked that George “Oilz” Bush would go soft on us like that, but the country as a whole was starting to take notice. Then came 2008, the great socialist take over, and everyone was pretty sure that we had fixed the whole climate thing once and for all, or at least had agreed to start working on it.![calvin hobbes hiccups_thumb[2]](http://www.livingtheamericangreen.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/calvin-hobbes-hiccups_thumb2.jpg "calvin hobbes hiccups_thumb[2]")
