Plus a video of my Countdown interview
Barring a really, really big breaking story, I am (re)scheduled to appear on the Diane Rehm show Thursday 10 am (click here to listen live).
The topic is “What the worst U.S. environmental disaster in decades could mean for new offshore drilling projects and prospects for a climate bill.” Details here. One of the other guests is Mark Schleifstein, the environment reporter for the Times-Picayune and co-author of “Path of Destruction: The Devastation of New Orleans and the Coming Age of Superstorms.”
Here’s the video of my interview with Keith Olbermann last night:
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I guess this now “officially” makes you a talking head on TV!
Great!! We need our viewpoints represented and you are doing a great job at it.
Joe, I would like to agree with Robert Brulle above and say that it is wonderful to finally have a climate and energy expert who can effectively counter the lies of science deniers and who is available to speak about these issues. Thank you very much for ALL YOUR HARD WORK!
Joe Romm — By the way, favorable mention of you, the Center for American Progress and this blog in a recent issue of The Nation (probably 2010 May 03 issue).
Maybe makes up for Alexander Cockburn.
I don’t watch TV, so I didn’t see this when it came on, but you sure were sharp and on message in this clip.
You are on a bunch these days…I might have to get cable to see ;)
btw…has this event actually been confirmed as “the worst environmental disaster in decades”? Worse than Katrina..? Aceh Tsuanmi? Haiti earthquake? Heat-wave in France?
[JR: Not sure I'd label the first 3 environmental disasters.]
Disappointing. Oh, not you Joe, of course, you did a fantastic job. I was hoping you would be preceded by Ms. Spill Baby Spill and we could hear Keith’s irreverent, “THAT WOMAN IS AN IDIOT!”
“The worst U.S. environmental disaster”—regardless of the time frame used for comparison—is the way we have lived that has lead to the loss of the Arctic ice cap (something like 80 years sooner than modeled in the 2007 IPCC Report); resulted in 30% of the renewed increase in atmospheric methane coming from the Arctic and high norther latitudes and natural sources . . . also a bit ahead of the modeling (like ~200 years).
BP’s environmental disaster in the Gulf pales beside these catastrophes.
[JR: From your lips to the media's ears!]
And the bill that was rolled out today in the US Senate sets targets that may be a political stretch for its citizenship, but are—at best—a feel good, too little, too late act of unconscionable hubris relative to the physics driving these unfolding observations of our climate change disaster. The US’ blind faith and trust in—and defense of—the hegemony afforded by fractional reserve banking, a fiat currency coined in the indebtedness of the guaranteeing polity, and our military adventurism is (and for all humanity) the greatest failure in the entire existence of our species to exercise rational behavior and live up to the claim of being sapient.
Good! What is next? A half-hour slot on Friday nights right between the NewsHour and Washington Week In Review?
PBS needs to do something to prove that Oil and Mining have not “bought and paid for” PBS environmental coverage.
Excellent interview, Joe. Well done. I circulated to my staff as an example of how to do a TV interview well.
Impressive, Joe. Bamm! Nice close.
Very very awesome. I wish they’d let you on Fox News so you could reach an audience that needs a little more convincing. Of course they’d edit your interview to make it look like you said nothing but f-words. Here’s to more TV appearances.
Might be worth mentioning on the show that while the MSHA closed 6 mines after its post disaster “inspection blitz,” two of which remain closed, and it issued over 1000 citations, the inspections concentrated on explosion risks and just five days after the “blitz” on April 28, two miners were killed by a roof collapse in a Kentucky mine. MSHA has much greater responsibility for mine safety than MMS has for oil rig safety since Congress has written the law that way and MMS can be legally suborned by the oil industry just by whining while for the coal industry illegal bribes are apparently less optional. The Obama administration’s proposed systemic reforms of the MMS may help but with the MSHA it is a matter of starting to carry out its legal duty and the administration has more and more blood on its hands as it continues to fail to do so.
Good luck today!
What this disaster means for offshore oil drilling is simple:
NO new offshore oil drilling can be permitted.
ALL ongoing offshore oil drilling must be stopped as soon as possible.
The current reporting does not even BEGIN to explain the extent of the damage this spill is causing, and will cause for decades to come, to one of the most vital ecosystems in the world.
We are literally poisoning the Earth’s biosphere to death.
That politicians are sitting around talking about how we can “safely” expand off-shore oil drilling (and “cleanly” mine and burn coal) is INSANE.
Yet, that is accepted as legitimate discourse — and I’m absolutely sure that the reliably corporate-friendly Ms. Rehm will regard continuing and expanding offshore oil drilling as a priority that must somehow be maintained — while the obvious necessity of ENDING ALL FOSSIL FUEL USE as quickly as possible is regarded as an “extreme” position.
Hundreds of dead fish washing up on beaches:
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2010/05/hundreds-dead-fish-wash.php
I notice that Andy Revkin is attacking the provision in the Kerry-Lieberman bill (and other serious bills) for an 83% cut in emissions by 2050 as ‘fantasy baseball.’ That number is really the main element in the bill that ties it to climate science and it is the only demand of the Step It Up movement (350.org has more detailed ideas). It would be worth mentioning today that having the long term target is not just important for having a physical climate impact, but it is also important for the business climate in this country since it gives concrete information about where we are heading. Revkin’s snark seems to me to be an indication that he wants to put a pose ahead of serious discussion of the environmental policy in his blog. There seems to me to be a difference between being provocative to get discussion going and just being a cynical loudmouth. Revkin cannot always succeed well in his stated goal to get informed discussion going with this kind of antic. I think that the Rehm Show’s priorities in this area may make it a good place to bring this up.
“biggest short-term environmental disaster”. It makes people think “and what’s a bigger long-term one… oh.” Basic cognitive science, the generativity effect… people remember “ca_ast_op_e” (something they have to fill in) better than “disaster” (handed to them on a plate).
Neil King argues in the show that we are importing offshore produced oil from Africa so we should really be exposing our coasts to the risk of spills. This is silly. We should reduce our consumption so that no offshore oil is needed from anywhere, not continue to destroy the coastal environment. What a smarmy thing to say.
Well, I tuned in to Amy Goodman’s superb Democracy Now radio program on WPFW (the Pacifica Network station in DC) this morning, and she announced that the program would start with a debate over the merits of the Kerry/Lieberman bill.
And just as I was thinking “I wish Joe was going to be on this program which is FAR, FAR better than Diane Rehm” … my wish was immediately granted when Amy Goodman announced that Joe would be one of the debaters.
I’m VERY glad you went on Democracy Now, Joe — and I would encourage you to promote that appearance at least as visibly as your spot on Diane Rehm’s show. Pacifica and Democracy Now are a HUGELY important part of the progressive media that deserve a lot more attention and support than they get (particularly compared to the corporate-sponsored, corporate-friendly NPR).
As to the actual debate:
I thought that you were MUCH better at presenting your case than the guy from Greenpeace who was arguing that the bill is no good.
I also thought the guy from Greenpeace was right. This bill won’t do the job. It won’t come anywhere near doing the job. And while there is a case to be made that it could lay a foundation for gradual progress in the right direction, it could just as easily lay a foundation for legitimizing continued fossil fuel use (e.g. “clean coal” and “safe offshore drilling”) and doing “nothing much” under the guise of “gradual progress”.
And we don’t have time for gradual progress.
I am prepared to accept that this bill is the best that is politically possible — but it just isn’t enough to do the job. The Greenpeace guy was right: nature doesn’t negotiate.
If this bill is really the best we can get, then we are screwed.
Scott Segal on the show says we haven’t bought electric cars as though they’ve been on the market and available for sale. He seems very far removed from reality in his thinking.
Chris Dudley, You are so right about Neil King and Scott Segal. Those guys creeped me out they are so sanguine about oil spills and American expectations being the arbiter rather than subject to nature. JR was terrific…and Diane Rehm even read subtitle of Straight Up in its entirety, unlike Olbermann!
Congratulations, JR!
link to Democracy Now debate: http://www.democracynow.org/2010/5/13/greenpeace_v_center_for_american_progress
Wit’s End (#20),
What is especially creepy is that King used oil spills in Nigeria as an example. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_issues_in_the_Niger_Delta#Oil_spills The oil companies spill in populated areas there.
Romm, Joe Romm, you do rock — keep telling it straight :-)
– Heather from Fifth West