ThinkProgress Logo

Climate Progress

Cruz Gets Senate To Censor Innocuous Mention Of ‘Changes In Climate’ In Resolution For International Women’s Day

By Joe Romm on Mar 28, 2013 at 7:10 pm

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX)

Gail Collins has a terrific piece in how the GOP used to be concerned about the environment, but now, not so much.

The whole column, “Cooling on Warming,” is worth reading, but one thing in particular caught my eye:

… earlier this month, a deeply noncontroversial Senate resolution commemorating International Women’s Day had to be taken back and edited because someone objected to a paragraph — which had been in an almost identical version passed in the last Congress — stating that women in developing countries “are disproportionately affected by changes in climate because of their need to secure water, food and fuel for their livelihood.”

You may be wondering who the objecting senator was. Normally, these things are supposed to be kind of confidential, but in this case the lawmaker in question is proud to let you know that he is — yes! — Ted Cruz of Texas.

“A provision expressing the Senate’s views on such a controversial topic as ‘climate change’ has no place in a supposedly noncontroversial resolution requiring consent of all 100 U.S. senators,” a Cruz spokesman said.

Note that the offending statement doesn’t even spell out what caused these “changes in climate.” It merely states that when such changes occur, women in developing countries are disproportionately affected. Kind of a “duh” statement.

But not for the Senator from drought-stricken Texas. Thank goodness Cruz swooped in to make sure that even purely ceremonial resolutions don’t contain any words that people might associate with the threat of human-caused global warming. I suppose his ultimate goal is to erase any Congressional reference to climate change whatsoever because what you don’t know can’t hurt future generations, right?

And speaking of future generations Collins notes:

There was a time, children, when the Republican Party was a hotbed of environmental worrywarts. The last big clean air act of the Bush I administration passed the House 401 to 21. But no more, no more. You’re not going to get any sympathy for controlling climate change from a group that doesn’t believe the climate is actually changing. As Tom DeLay, the former House majority leader, used to say, “Only nature can change the climate — a volcano, for instance.”

It’s sort of ironic. These are the same folks who constantly seed their antideficit speeches with references to our poor, betrayed descendants. (“This is a burden our children and grandchildren will have to bear.”) Don’t you think the children and grandchildren would appreciate being allowed to hang onto the Arctic ice cap?

I’m sure our children and grandchildren would like to live in a world with a livable climate that could actually sustain its projected population, too, but that isn’t where we are headed if Cruz has his way.

And yes, the see-no-climate-burden Cruz is also one of the GOP’s hate-the-debt-burden hypocrites, as this recent tweet shows:

Seriously, we need a reminder to put an end to our irresponsible life-style that threatens our children’s future….

Security

Meet The NRA’s New Best Friends: Iran, North Korea, and Syria

By Hayes Brown on Mar 28, 2013 at 6:30 pm

Model international actors Iran and North Korea came together to block the adoption of a treaty regulating the $70 billion dollar arms trade at the United Nations on Thursday, no doubt endearing them to the National Rifle Association.

The Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) has been in negotiations for the past two weeks, the second attempt to gain a unanimously agreed upon text. The final draft was put before the delegates on Wednesday, with the assumption that it was set to cruise to an easy approval. That assumption was trampled once the Iranian delegation rose to break the required consensus for the treaty’s passage. Iran’s disapproval opened the door for North Korea to join in blocking the treaty. Syria also took umbrage at the text, leading to it and Iran reportedly both objecting to the lack of reference in the treaty’s final draft to foreign occupation or “crimes of aggression.” The President of the Conference quickly suspended the debate before a final vote could be held, leaving the door open to bringing the Iranian and North Korean delegations around, but the chances remain slim.

While not perfect, the treaty had still managed to appease the concerns of many advocates for stronger treaty-language. In particular, a hard fought clause regulating the import and export of ammunition and munitions made its way into the final text. Given the United States’ past hesitance in moving forward on the treaty — including its insistence that the ATT Conference work through consensus — and its current support, the late hour block from Iran and North Korea comes off as slightly ironic. The irony is even more pronounced when one considers that the Iranian delegate, in explaining his objection to the treaty, denounced the U.S.’ influence in shaping the treaty. “The right of individuals to own and use guns has been protected in the current text to meet the constitutional requirements of only one State,” Iranian ambassador Mohammad Khazeee said.

The treaty will now likely move to the General Assembly, however, where it will find the two-thirds necessary to finally pass next week. Given the crazy rhetoric present the last time it almost passed, the eventual passage of the ATT will be sure to provoke even more inflammatory opposition now. In opposing this version of the treaty, the National Rifle Association was much quieter about its lobbying effort, including a push for provisions exempting so-called “civilian firearms” from the treaty’s effects. There is no sign of that influence in the final draft of the ATT. However, the NRA still seems set to come out with a win on this one. Either the treaty is delayed, allowing more time to take it down for good, or it passes with the individual protections it supports hard-coded into the final document.

Their domestic influence will be marshaled once more though once the treaty is signed. At that point, the ATT will go to the U.S. Senate for ratification, where several Republicans have already made abundantly clear their skepticism regarding the very idea of regulating the arms trade. For years now, conservatives have used the supposed threat that an Arms Trade Treaty would entail as a fundraising tool or way to burnish their right-wing credentials. The Heritage Foundation has been slamming each successive draft of the ATT, and will now likely begin a campaign alongside the NRA to doom it in the Senate.

Justice

Colorado Corrections Chief Killed In Shooting Had Warned Of Solitary Confinement’s Dangers

By Nicole Flatow on Mar 28, 2013 at 5:50 pm

Colorado Department of Corrections Chief Tom Clements, who was killed in his home March 19

In the week since the tragic killing of Colorado Department of Corrections Chief Tom Clements – one night before Gov. John Hickenlooper (D) signed a comprehensive gun violence prevention package into law – several telling details have emerged about the primary suspect Evan Ebel that will play into investigation of the case. Reports suggest that Ebel, who had served 8 years in prison for armed robberies, was known as a troubled child who sometimes signed his name “Evil Evan.” They suggest that he had another woman buy a gun and illegally transfer it to him, and that stronger laws for universal background checks and straw purchases might have affected his case. But one element of the criminal justice system that stands out particularly in his story has nothing to do with guns. Ebel spent the bulk of his prison time in solitary confinement, an extreme condition that has been found to exacerbate violent tendencies, and that both Clements and Ebel’s parents had spoken out against.

In a meticulous story that tracks the communications between Ebel and former fellow inmate Ryan Pettigrew, the Colorado Independent explains how Ebel’s actions have been linked to the post-solitary confinement trauma he communicated to Pettigrew in the two months between his release from prison and the killing of Clements. Pettigrew, who also spent time in solitary confinement, explained how the long-term isolation in a sometimes window-less cell for years builds up not just psychological trauma, but hate and violent tendencies, of the sort Clements was advocating to prevent. The newspaper explains:

In an exclusive interview last spring, Clements said that, immediately after Hickenlooper recruited him from Missouri to run the Colorado corrections department, he found disturbing “one very alarming statistic” he said kept him up at night — that 47 percent of Colorado prisoners being released from isolation were walking directly out onto the streets without help reintegrating into social environments and interacting with people.

Clements wanted longer transition periods and step-down programs before setting isolated prisoners free. As Pettigrew tells it, Ebel said he had little help making that transition. He said altercations during his brief period in a step-down program landed him back in isolation. […]

“We have to think about how what we do in prisons impacts the community when [prisoners] leave,” Clements continued. “It’s not just about running the prison safely and securely. There’s a lot of research around solitary and isolation in recent years, some tied to POWs and some to corrections. My experience tells me that long periods of isolation can be counter-productive to stable behavior and long-term rehabilitation goals.” [...]

Pettigrew said he thought many corrections officers weren’t receptive to the reforms Clements was making.

“The old school guards in there, they just hated what he has doing and would come down even harder on us. You develop such a hatred not only from being in solitary but from having been pocked with a stick that long.”

Ebel’s parents also observed that Evan’s behavior changed after his time in solitary, and testified during a hearing in favor of a bill that would require inmates to spend time outside of solitary confinement before leaving prison: “What I’ve seen over six years is he has become increasingly … he has a high level of paranoia and [is] extremely anxious. So when he gets out to visit me, and he gets out of his cell to talk to me, I mean he is so agitated that it will take an hour to an hour-and-a-half before we can actually talk.”

Research about solitary confinement not only suggests that it is a cruel and unusual treatment particularly when applied to the mentally ill, but also that, rather than rehabilitate prisoners, it can make a bad situation worse. In a National Geographic documentary on the practice, one prisoner said, “I think 90 percent of the people that are locked up here, if they ran into a staff member on the streets, they’d hurt ‘em. … It’s hate that’s been building up in you.”

Health

Thousands Speak Out Against Virginia’s New Abortion Clinic Restrictions

By Tara Culp-Ressler on Mar 28, 2013 at 5:45 pm

Virginia is set to implement controversial new abortion clinic restrictions that could force many of the facilities in the state to shut down — a popular anti-choice tactic that indirectly undermines women’s access to reproductive care by targeting abortion providers. After Gov. Bob McDonnell (R-VA) quietly approved the new regulations on the Friday between the Christmas and New Year’s holidays, the state’s Board of Health will have the power to decide whether or not to adopt them on April 12.

Before then, however, thousands of Virginia residents are raising their voices in protest. Spearheaded by ProgressVA and Planned Parenthood Advocates of Virginia, women’s health advocates delivered over 3,000 public comments opposing the new abortion restrictions to the Board of Health on Thursday. The public comment period ends on Friday, and opponents of the new policy hope they can make an impact by expressing the same message with each of the thousands of comments: “Put women’s health above politics. Don’t let red tape trap women.”

The reference to “trapping women” is a nod to the fact that women’s health advocates refer to these types of restrictions as TRAP laws, or the Targeted Regulation of Abortion Providers. Targeting abortion clinics and providers, rather than pushing for outright bans on the abortion procedure itself, allows the anti-choice community to avoid inciting as much public outrage — which helps their efforts fly mostly under the radar.

At Thursday’s event, ProgressVA’s executive director, Anna Scholl, urged the state’s board to put women’s health before politics. “These regulations should be based on evidence-based medicine, not political agendas,” Scholl pointed out.

In fact, even though health boards are intended to operate as nonpartisan medical bodies, Virginia’s proposed TRAP laws have sparked an intensely politicized battle in the state. Reports have emerged that State Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli (R) essentially threatened Virginia’s Board into approving the new restrictions by warning members they could be denied state-funded legal services if they voted against them. And last fall, Virginia health commissioner Dr. Karen Remley resigned from her position in protest over the proposed TRAP laws, citing her disapproval of the unnecessary abortion clinic restrictions as the primary reason she could no longer lead the Board “in good faith.”

If the Board of Health approves the final rules next month, they will likely take effect this summer. Many of Virginia’s 20 abortion clinics will likely be forced to close their doors when they are unable to adhere to the costly, complicated new rules.

Update

Protesters delivered the 3,600 comments in this giant box, wrapped in red tape (photo courtesy of ProgressVA):

Politics

Men With Loaded Rifles Intimidate Moms Gathered At Gun Safety Rally

By Igor Volsky on Mar 28, 2013 at 5:36 pm

Several men with assault rifles and hand guns crashed a Mayor’s Against Illegal Guns National Day to Demand Action event in Indianapolis, Indiana on Thursday and stood silently as the state chapter of Moms Demand Action held a rally in favor of limiting the availability of military style weapons and universal background checks.

At least two or three men showed up at the rally site before the event began and engaged in a discussion about gun regulations with the group, two participants in the action told ThinkProgress. The armed men — who were later joined by another man carrying a hand gun and a woman who runs Indiana Moms Against Gun Control — insisted that they had a right to carry the loaded weapons:

Watch local news coverage of the event:

A member of Moms Demand Action said that she felt unsettled by their presence and said that the organizers would have to think twice before holding another event, particularly one where children could be present.

Members of Moms Demand Action also attended an event at the White House today, during which President Obama called on Congress to pass sensible gun regulations and urged the nation to remember the tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary School.

LGBT

Newest Darling Of The Republican Party Compares Same-Sex Marriage To NAMBLA, Bestiality

By Adam Peck on Mar 28, 2013 at 5:29 pm

Dr. Ben Carson, the latest apple of the Tea Party’s eye, made yet another appearance on the friendly airwaves of Fox News on Tuesday to gripe about the Obama administration, denounce the liberal media, and equate gay couples with pedophiles and proponents of bestiality.

Carson, who stumbled onto the national stage and into the Republican Party’s heart almost two months ago after he gave a speech in front of President Obama at the National Prayer Breakfast in which he called for a regressive tax system that punishes the poorest Americans, was a guest on Sean Hannity’s show yesterday, and ended the interview on the most hateful of notes:

CARSON: My thoughts are that marriage is between a man and a woman, it’s a well-established uh, fundamental pillar of society. No group, be they gays, be they NAMBLA [the North American Man/Boy Love Association], be they people who believe in beastiality, it doesn’t matter what they are, they don’t get to change the definition. So it’s not something that’s against gays, it’s against anybody who wants to come along and change the fundamental definitions of pillars of society. It has signifcant ramifications.

The segment ended shorty afterward, leaving Hannity with no time to clarify whether Carson, himself a black man, would have also been opposed to the 1967 Supreme Court ruling in Loving v. Virginia, a decision that redefined the same “fundamental pillar of society” as something that could not be inhibited by race.

Carson’s comments also puts him at odds with every major medical association in the country. Both the American Medical Association’s code of conduct and the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic Statistical Manual contain strong and unambiguous language on homosexuality as neither a medical nor psychological condition but rather a perfectly healthy and biologically-rooted lifestyle, and remain critical of anyone who suggests otherwise.

He is also far from the first Republican to equate homosexuality to things like pedophilia. Rush Limbaugh, Bill O’Reilly, state lawmakers and conservatives everywhere have all sought to paint the LGBT community and pedophiles with the same brush, even as their own party is pulled in the direction of equality.

Climate Progress

Are Exploding Manhole Covers In Washington DC Caused By Shocking Levels Of Leaking Natural Gas?

By Ryan Koronowski on Mar 28, 2013 at 5:18 pm

Residents of Washington, DC are used to jokes about metaphorical hot air, humidity, and the swampy history of their city. But there’s something they may not know about the District: it’s overrun with methane, which sometimes makes manhole covers explode.

Natural gas is mostly methane, and it is carried through underground pipes to heat buildings and cook food. Those pipes are often old, and this led ecologist and chemical engineer Robert Jackson of Duke University to drive around DC over a period of two months, regularly measuring the air to take methane levels.

He and his research team found methane leaks everywhere, with thousands of places having significantly higher than normal methane concentrations, and some places reaching 50 times normal urban levels (100 ppm vs 2 ppm). A similar study in Boston last year found essentially the same results. In DC, the source wasn’t the swamp on which the city was built — it was fossil fuel. (The methane they measured had more carbon-13 rather than the normal, modern carbon-12.)

Methane leaks mapped as 3,356 spikes along 785 miles of road in Boston. Yellow indicates methane levels above 2.5 parts per million.

There are sources of methane all over the planet: landfills, swamps, rice paddies, gas wells, melting permafrost, and livestock all contribute. Jackson’s research found another major source: aging infrastructure. Methane isn’t immediately physically harmful, though it does lead to ground-level ozone which is known to harm tree growth and reduce lung function

But what about the exploding manholes? Science Now explains:

Even more disturbing than the thousands of large leaks on the street were the levels of methane in manholes. In some, the researchers found levels as high as 100,000 ppm. Natural gas companies typically consider 40000 ppm to be the threshold for a risk of explosion. D.C. manholes have a tendency to blow up — there are an average of 38 “manhole incidents” per year in the district, according to a report by Stone & Webster Consultants in Boston, including one yesterday on 33rd Street in Georgetown that forced the evacuation of a cupcake shop. Although Jackson cannot say for certain that leaking natural gas is the reason for these blasts, the leaks certainly don’t contribute to safety.

What usually happens is a spark from an exposed cable sets off an explosion of pressurized gas — what remains unclear is how much of this gas is methane. DC’s utility, Pepco, investigated a manhole explosion in 2000 and though their press release ruled out natural gas, their report to the DC Public Service Commission indicated otherwise, according to a February 26, 2000 article in the Washington Post.

Pepco issued a report to the D.C. Public Service Commission yesterday that strongly indicated a natural gas leak may have led to the fire and explosions last week that blew three manhole covers in Georgetown, an incident that shut down the 3100 block of M Street NW for 24 hours.

“We may never know what gas caused the fire — whether it’s sewer gas, gas emitted by burning rubber cable or natural gas,” said Nancy Moses, a spokeswoman for Potomac Electric Power Co. But the report said sewer gas “has historically not been a significant problem in [Pepco] manholes” and “the strength and location of the manhole explosions . . . raises questions as to whether the explosion could have been caused solely by gasses [caused] by burning of low voltage cable insulation.”

Tim Sargeant, a spokesman for Washington Gas, said yesterday that the utility was “disappointed that Pepco speculation and finger-pointing would continue. The report is more innuendo than investigation.”

Read more

Security

Obama Sitting On National Security Council Recommendation To Send Body Armor To Syrian Rebels

By Ben Armbruster on Mar 28, 2013 at 5:04 pm

Syrian rebels in Aleppo (Photo: AFP)

The National Security Council has reportedly recommended that the United States provide non-lethal aid such as night-vision goggles and body armor to Syrian rebels fighting President Bashar al-Assad’s forces. However, President Obama has yet to make a decision on the recommendation.

Numerous media outlets have reported that the President has been thinking about whether to approve this kind of non-lethal assistance to the rebels and there has been speculation that it would be part of the aid package that Secretary of State John Kerry announced in February.

But Foreign Policy reports that the plan has the backing of Obama’s top security advisers in the National Security Council, which include Kerry, Vice President Biden, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey and National Security Adviser Tom Donilon.

Back in early February, then-Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and Dempsey said they supported a push by then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and then-CIA Director Gen. David Petraeus to come up with a plan to arm the rebels. Gen. James Jones, Obama’s National Security Adviser until late 2010, said recently that he also supports arming vetted rebels.

The French are also looking at the possibility of providing night-vision equipment. And British Foreign Secretary William Hague announced earlier this month that the UK will provide body armor and armored vehicles to Syria’s rebels. “Each month of violence in Syria means more death, wider destruction, larger numbers of refugees, and bloody military confrontation,” Hague said. “The international community cannot stand still in the face of this reality.”

Pressure from Congress, including key Democrats in both houses, is mounting on Obama to increase American involvement in helping to end Syria’s ongoing two-year civil war. The White House, and NATO, rebuffed a Syrian opposition leader’s request this week for military assistance.

The former head of the U.N.’s peace monitoring mission in Syria on Wednesday called for a no-fly zone in Syria. “I have come to the conclusion there has to be a leveling on the playing field,” Norwegian General Robert Mood told the BBC. “To level the playing field now in the military terms would be to consider no-fly zones, to consider whether the Patriots in Turkey could have a role also in taking on some responsibility for the northern part of Syria.”

Education

First Three Months Of 2013 Were Worst On Record For Student Loan Defaults

By Travis Waldron on Mar 28, 2013 at 5:00 pm

Student loan debt is already reaching crisis levels in the United States, as borrowers are struggling to pay back the money they used to obtain higher educations. Borrowers were already defaulting on their debts in record numbers heading into this year, and the first three months of 2013 were the worst on record for loans going bad, CNBC reports:

Credit-rating firm Equifax said $3.5 billion in government and private student loans went bad in the first three months of 2013, the most since the company began keeping track. The U.S. Department of Education said 6.8 million federal student loan borrowers are now in default, representing $85 billion in debt. And the department’s systems for collecting the bad loans are struggling to keep up.

The cost of college has sextupled in the last 30 years, pushing more and more students toward both government and private loan programs to finance education. But student loans are one of the only forms of debt that can’t be discharged in bankruptcy court, meaning that many borrowers will never have a way out from under their education debt.

The burden of student debt is having far-reaching effects on the broader economy. The debt is being securitized much in the way mortgages were before the housing crisis, leaving analysts wondering if the country is inflating another debt bubble that could threaten the economy. It is also preventing young graduates from purchasing homes and other goods, lengthening the downturn in housing and the pain of the slow economic recovery. And student loans are increasingly becoming a problem for older Americans too, as those who haven’t yet paid off their own debt or took on loans to finance their children’s education are also being crushed.

Health

Kansas Bill Seeks To Quarantine HIV-Positive People

By Annie-Rose Strasser and Andrea Peterson on Mar 28, 2013 at 4:30 pm

State legislators in Kansas are considering a bill that would allow the quarantine of people with AIDS or HIV.

Kansas House Bill 2183 was originally created to serve first responders who might be at risk of contracting HIV through their work. But the Kansas Department of Health and Environment rewrote the language in the bill, broadly deregulating when isolation can take place and opening up the possibility that HIV positive people could be quarantined.

Activists fear this oversight could be used to openly discriminate.

“Our state’s health department is willing to roll back a 25-year old civil rights protection,” Thomas Witt, the Executive Director of the Kansas Equality Coalition, told ThinkProgress. “LGBT Kansans are already subject to harassment and legal discrimination, and removing the existing HIV quarantine exemption from law leaves vulnerable Kansans at risk of discriminatory, unfair treatment by local officials.”

Other activists have also expressed concern that Kansans might not understand how HIV can be spread, and have implicit biases thanks to a lack of knowledge. “We live in a very conservative state and I’m afraid there are still many people, especially in rural Kansas, that have inadequate education and understanding concerning HIV/AIDS,” Cody Patton, of sexual health group Positive Directions told Gay Star News. This theory was also evidenced by a debate earlier this year, when the Kansas health department eliminated HIV testing for most counties in the state.

The Kansas senate has approved the HIV quarantine bill, and it looks likely to pass. During a hearing about the measure on Wednesday, however, the Kansas Department of Health and Environment said it would be willing to work with groups to fix what they considered problematic aspects of current proposal.

Update

The Kansas health department has issued a clarifying statement on the bill:

Contrary to recent media coverage, no version of Kansas Substitute House Bill 2183 would have ever allowed for isolation of persons infected with or quarantine of persons exposed to human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), which causes acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS).

“There has been a great deal of concern in recent days about Kansas Substitute House Bill 2183, which is supported by the Kansas Department of Health and Environment and is under current consideration by the Kansas Legislature. Much of the recent media coverage has been based on the false premise that, if enacted, the bill would allow for isolation of persons infected with or quarantine of persons exposed to HIV,” stated Charles Hunt, State Epidemiologist. “It is not and never was the state’s intent to seek the authority for isolation or quarantine of persons related to HIV.”

KDHE has consistently stated that isolation and quarantine actions would not be allowable for HIV based on the enactment of this bill.

Older

Switch to Mobile
ThinkProgress Signup Overlay Skip and Continue to ThinkProgress Skip and Continue to ThinkProgress

Sign Up