How Much Could Sea Levels Rise by 2100?

By Joe Romm on Sep 5, 2006 at 9:20 pm

Two of American’s leading climate scientists believe the answer could be as much as 11 to 13 feet — if we don’t quickly change our energy and climate policies.

John Holdren, president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, told the BBC, that “We are experiencing dangerous human disruption of the global climate and we’re going to experience more.” The news account of the interview goes on to say, “He added that if the current pace of change continued, a catastrophic sea level rise of 4m (13ft) this century was within the realm of possibility; much higher than previous forecasts.” Holdren actually said, “two, three, even four meters [6.6 to 13 feet] per century” is “well within the realm of possibility,” but even the low-range would be a catastrophe.

Dan Schrag, director of the Harvard University Center for the Environment, says of 3.5 meters [11.5 feet] sea level rise: “100 years is possible.” He commissioned a picture of what the Gulf Coast would look like with such sea level rise: South Florida and New Orleans are gone. It must never come to this.

Politics

Blocking Bolton.

By ThinkProgress on Sep 5, 2006 at 7:33 pm

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee will vote Thursday on John Bolton’s nomination as U.N. Ambassador; the nomination then moves to the full senate. BoltonWatch contributor Scott Paul says the commitee vote “is up in the air,” but that Bolton opponents “have the votes to prolong debate and block Bolton’s confirmation” in the full senate.

()

Yglesias

“Don’t Look Back”

By Matthew Yglesias on Sep 5, 2006 at 6:57 pm

My latest column takes on the burgeoning debate about whether living standards are going up or down and says it’s the wrong debate — centrist policy prescriptions are largely wrong even if you agree with their take on the history.

()

Politics

ABC’s relationship with the right-wing.

By Judd Legum on Sep 5, 2006 at 6:40 pm

Digby pulls back the curtains.

()

Politics

Tony Snow: ‘I’m Not Going To Hold Donald Rumsfeld Accountable’

By Faiz Shakir on Sep 5, 2006 at 5:12 pm

This afternoon, Tony Snow went on CNN to defend the administration’s “stay the course” strategy in Iraq. The discussion veered into the subject of former Army Chief of Staff Eric Shinseki’s pre-war prediction that “several hundred thousand soldiers” would be needed to maintain control over post-war Iraq. Snow falsely claimed that Shinseki was only referring to the number of troops needed to “go in and take Baghdad.” Snow concluded the segment by stating, “I’m not going to hold Donald Rumsfeld accountable.” Watch it.

[flv http://video.thinkprogress.org/2006/09/snowshinseki.320.240.flv]

As his Feb. 2003 testimony makes clear, Shinseki suggested a massive force would be needed to assert “post-hostilities control,” not just to take over Baghdad.

SHINSEKI: I would say that what’s been mobilized to this point, something on the order of several hundred thousand soldiers, are probably, you know, a figure that would be required.We’re talking about post-hostilities control over a piece of geography that’s fairly significant with the kinds of ethnic tensions that could lead to other problems. And so, it takes significant ground force presence to maintain safe and secure environment to ensure that the people are fed, that water is distributed, all the normal responsibilities that go along with administering a situation like this. [Senate Armed Services Committee, 2/25/03]

Full transcript: Read more

()

Politics

ABC’s Path to 9/11 blog returns,

By Judd Legum on Sep 5, 2006 at 4:28 pm

two days after it was taken down without explanation. Drop by and make your voice heard. (Be polite.)

()

Politics

“Its a total fabrication. It did not happen.”

By Amanda Terkel on Sep 5, 2006 at 4:15 pm

Clinton national security adviser Samuel R. Berger, responding to a key scene in ABC’s The Path to 9/11. (via CQ)

()

Media

ABC’s 9/11 Docudrama Mangles Facts, Smears Washington Post

By Judd Legum on Sep 5, 2006 at 3:16 pm

ABC’s planned docudrama The Path to 9/11 contains numerous inaccuracies and misrepresentations. Here’s another one.

On the second night of Path to 9/11, a CIA analyst makes the following complaint:

Besides, ever since the Washington Post disclosed that we intercepted his calls, UBL [Usama bin Laden] stopped using phones altogether. He’s using couriers now, like they did a thousand years ago.

This isn’t true on a number of levels. First, as Daniel Benjamin makes clear, the publication at issue is the Washington Times:

Here’s what happened: On Aug. 21, 1998, the Washington Times, the capital’s unabashedly conservative newspaper, which regularly breaks more intelligence-related stories than any other daily, ran an article saying that Bin Laden “keeps in touch with the world via computers and satellite phones.” This occurred less than two weeks after the destruction of the U.S. embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam by al-Qaida and the day after the United States had bombed al-Qaida targets in Afghanistan and Sudan. After that report, Bin Laden stopped using his phone and let his aides do the calling. This story is recounted in both The Age of Sacred Terror (2002), which I co-wrote with my National Security Council colleague Steven Simon, and the 9/11 Commission Report.

Not only is the scene inconsistent with the 9/11 commission report, it’s perpetuating an urban myth. Actually, “Bin Laden’s use of a satellite phone had already been widely reported by August 1998, and he stopped using it within days of a cruise missile attack on his training camps in Afghanistan.”

Why was it included anyway? One explanation: it is frequently cited by right-wing politicians “seeking to impose greater restrictions on the news media.” This is a film that doesn’t let the facts get in the way of its agenda.