Rebel Without a Clue gets Americans for Prosperity’s anti-efficiency, anti-science indoctrination at Cancun
Two years ago, [Gena] Bell was a floral arranger in Cincinnati with plenty of time on her hands (she used to trim five Christmas trees in her suburban house) and strong opinions about the direction in which the United States was going (down).
Now, she was a full-time political activist, the head of a fast-growing Ohio tea party group and an influential voice in the movement. Influential enough that Americans for Prosperity, one of the most well-heeled tea party backers in the country, had invited her to help protest a U.N. climate change conference in Cancun.
It bothered her that no one had told her why she had been invited, or just what she would be doing. But she hadn’t pushed too hard to find out before saying yes. It was tough to turn down a trip to Mexico in December.
Assuming we destroy a livable climate for our children and countless future generations, future historians (and our other billions of victims) will have many decades (if not centuries) of misery to contemplate why the richest country in the world, one built on scientific and technological ingenuity, refused to spend a small fraction of our wealth to avert multiple ever-worsening catastrophes that science projected we risk on our current emissions path (see “A stunning year in climate science reveals that human civilization is on the precipice” and “ Why even strong climate action has such a low total cost“).
They will no doubt study the failure of the Obama administration to seize the once-in-a-generation opportunity — the one brief shining moment where we had a Democratic president plus large majorities in the House and Senate (see “The failed presidency of Barack Obama, Part 2: He let die our best chance to preserve a livable climate and restore US leadership in clean energy — without a serious fight”). They’ll examine How the status quo media failed on climate change.
But ultimately, they will focus on the most successful and immoral disinformation campaign in human history — the anti-science, pro-pollution lies of the Merchants of Doubt. They will marvel at how that disinformation campaign captured an entire political party (see National Journal: “The GOP is stampeding toward an absolutist rejection of climate science that appears unmatched among major political parties around the globe, even conservative ones”).
Their review should include this stunning front-page Washington Post story from Saturday, “Tea-party activists question if rebel political movement has changed for worse” — yes the headline is oxymoronic: How could a movement that from the start was backed by big corporate polluters and helping to plunge the nation and the world into climate chaos possibly change for the ‘worse’? But I digress.
The story of Gena Bell is a cautionary tale. I’ll excerpt the climate-related parts below. Warning: This is a two-head-vise story.
Bell changed into sandals and a summer top and got to work greeting fellow tea partiers arriving from Texas, California, all over the United States. Some she had met at tea party gatherings. Others she knew only as names in her perpetually overflowing e-mail inbox.
Nearly all of them, like Bell, had stumbled into the party after Barack Obama was elected president. They had found a calling in the early days of a chaotic, leaderless movement that beckoned to political novices who identified themselves as conservatives but felt little attachment to organized politics. With astonishing speed, the tea party evolved into a powerful force that helped overturn the political order in Washington.
But as a new cast of lawmakers takes the reins in the Capitol, Bell and many of her fellow tea partiers nationwide are feeling adrift, wondering what they are supposed to do next. The movement is changing, in their view, and not necessarily for the better.
The tea party’s success has drawn hundreds of politicians and groups seeking to fasten themselves to the movement, steer it and speak for it. Millions of dollars have flowed in from corporations and rich donors, all of whom have their own ideas about what the tea party should be. This struggle for the soul of the movement has left many of its original activists facing agonizing decisions: Do they, should they, still belong?
They worry that the tea party risks selling out and losing its independence. They fear that its ragtag, rebel spirit will be drained by Washington’s political pros and their establishment ways of doing business.
Uhh, memo to WashPost, it was never a “ragtag rebel” group — this ain’t Luke Skywalker and Han Solo. It’s more like the Empire itself striking back. The Koch family put together the Tea Party movement and much of the modern right-wing infrastructure.
Bell took a more expansive view. She had welcomed the attention and resources from outside groups. Now, even she was starting to have doubts. As she mulled her future, she considered stepping away altogether and doing the unthinkable: taking a job inside government.
Bell had been delighted when Americans for Prosperity invited her to Mexico. A free-market advocacy group founded by oil billionaire David Koch, AFP was one of the nation’s largest donors to GOP causes and candidates.
Again, AFP was involved with the Tea Party long before Cancun (see also Video proof David Koch, the polluting billionaire, pulls the strings of the Tea Party extremists“).
And calling AFP a “free-market advocacy group” isn’t journalism, it’s stenography. Their bottom line isn’t a ‘free-market, something that, in any case, this country has never seen. They want tax breaks for billionaires and corporate polluters, and an unfettered right to destroy a livable climate (see Tim Phillips on climate policy: “If we win the science argument, it’s game, set, and match”; AFP president: We have to make the EPA “a political albatross for members of Congress”). I would note that in the online edition, the WashPost gives AFP an active link to AFP’s disinforming website.
She was realistic enough to know that her skills as a Cincinnati tea party organizer wouldn’t have much sway at a U.N. conference. Back home, she had achieved prominence in her world. The trunk of her car was still stuffed with campaign signs. Politicians all over Ohio knew her by name and courted her endorsement. One newly elected county commissioner was so impressed with her work that he was trying to persuade her to put the tea party on hold and take a job as his chief of staff.
But how was any of that relevant to a global-warming summit?
“I’m not sure what we’re really going to be experiencing,” Bell had said on the flight down.
She was hoping the summit would present a chance to immerse herself in the climate change debate. Her hosts, however, had other plans for her that involved standing where she was told and smiling for the cameras. Her presence lent Americans for Prosperity grass-roots credibility. For Bell, the experience was aggravating. It fed her doubts about where the movement would take her next. It made her wonder if she would want to go.
Seriously!
Climate ‘zombie’ is perhaps the wrong term here. She is more like an anti-climate robot or puppet. And how exactly does someone who doesn’t know anything about the subject smiling for the camera give any grassroots credibility to the billionaire polluters?
Before politics took over their lives, Bell, 49, and her husband, Ed, spent a lot of time complaining about President Obama. They were increasingly agitated about the way things were going in Obama’s Washington. The Bells were troubled by the federal stimulus plan, the bailouts of the automobile and banking industries, and the president’s ideas about overhauling the nation’s health-care system. They were too expensive and too intrusive.
Four days a week, Gena and Ed worked out in the weight room at a YMCA with a handful of friends. Back then, Bell, a compact blonde, could bench-press her own weight. Between sets, she and her friends talked politics. They dubbed their group the Round Table, and all agreed that the government was overreaching into their lives. They bookmarked the Drudge Report and kept the radio on, following Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck and local radio hosts.
Politicians, Bell said, “think that they’re smarter than us and that all their decisions are going to make our lives better. The fact is, they’re not.”
It is always worth noting that the right wing thrives on a twisted form of populism that is not against the concentration of wealth by individuals or corporations, but on anti-intellectualism and, increasingly, anti-science.
The Bells contrasted what they saw as Washington’s profligacy with their frugality. As the economy had soured, Gena and Ed, 51, had grown worried about their fortunes. Both her job in the floral industry and his as a printer seemed uncertain. They had sold their house and moved into a one-bedroom garden apartment.
They felt so alone that they even talked about chucking it all and building a place on some remote parcel of land out west. They looked in Colorado. In their fantasy, they would live off the land — and off the grid. Solar panels on the roof. Tankless water heater. They don’t have children, so no one depends on them. They bought a few guns and took up target practice.
Pause to clean up gray matter from the floor.
I apologize. Not even a double head-vise could have protected you from that last paragraph. Yes, the political movement that wants to destroy the US renewable energy industry, blocking all government efforts to promote renewable energy and thereby permanently handing to the Chinese leadership in a technology that we invented — the modern solar cell — has a fantasy of living off the grid using solar panels.
“I would have been pretty content a couple of years ago to go have a few years of very quiet living,” Bell said.
That dream faded in March 2009, when the couple heard on the radio about plans for Cincinnati’s first tea party rally. They went to see what it was all about and were astonished to find thousands of people in their area who shared their concerns. It was like the Round Table on steroids.
They decided on the spot to join.
” ‘Oh my god, we’re not alone,’ ” Bell remembered telling Ed. ” ‘There’s a lot more people that think like us.’ That was a very emotional day.”
‘Bureaucrats Gone Wild’
The morning after they arrived in Mexico, Bell and about 60 other activists boarded white vans to make the 30-minute drive toward the U.N. delegates’ meeting.
The caravan stopped along a dusty shoulder, opposite a large convention center housing exhibits related to the conference. Bell and her fellow activists got out, stood along the side of the road and posed for pictures. They had all been given Americans for Prosperity T-shirts emblazoned with the slogan “Bureaucrats Gone Wild.” They held a giant novelty check made out for $100 billion, mocking a proposal to give that much money to developing nations to combat climate change.
In front of them stood Tim Phillips, president of Americans for Prosperity, waiting for his cue to begin speaking into a video camera.
“Secretary of State Hillary Clinton wants to give $100 billion of American taxpayer money to developing nations through the United Nations,” he began. “We think that with a $1.3 trillion deficit, we don’t need to be doing something like that, especially for a bogus ideology that Al Gore is pushing.”
And cut. Everyone back into the vans.
So little time, so much gray matter to cram back in your head.
It would be nice if the Washington Post didn’t just repeat this string of lies by the AFP President in a major front-page story. I realize that in the new journalist code of ethics, if you are doing a long profile piece, you apparently don’t have to balance any misinformation that your subject says or hears — see Media stunner: When asked “Does it matter, from a journalistic point of view, whether [Freeman Dyson is] right or whether he’s wrong?” his NYT profiler replies “Oh, absolutely not.” For the record, the $100 billion doesn’t all come from the American taxpayer, it comes from all the rich countries — and no serious member of the human race can ignore the immorality of the richest country in the world destroying a livable climate for billions of poor people and refusing to help them out.
Next was a stop at the conference’s Climate Change Village, which looked like a large fairground of exhibits, tents and buildings. Here, Phillips shot another video mocking a “relaxation room” that had a floor made of palm fronds.
It started to dawn on Bell that her high hopes of informing herself about the complexities of the global-warming debate would not be realized on this trip. She was also put off by Phillips’s sarcastic tone.
God forbid Bell would be able to educate herself about the complexities of global warming or that she might be upset that one of the country’s biggest corporate polluters is using her as a greenwashing stooge. No, it’s his ‘sarcastic tone” that bugs her.
She looked around the relaxation room. “I like this place,” she said to Nita Thomas, her friend and fellow Cincinnati activist. “I would love to have a party here.”
Bell’s pique grew when Phillips shot another video belittling an exhibit that showed what an energy-efficient home might look like in the future: a small refrigerator, a low-flow shower heads and a clothes-washing basin that directed used water into a garden.
Phillips made fun of the model home’s five-gallon water heater. “Good luck with that – I’ve got three teenagers!” he said to the camera.
“I’m not on board with this,” Bell told Thomas. “Ed and I looked into that when we were looking at moving to Colorado.”
I believe that cranial reconstruction is covered by Obamacare, at least until the Tea Party defunds it.
So the Tea Party activist who believes in renewable energy and energy efficiency is bristling a tiny bit at the polluter-crats pulling her strings.
It is good to see that the Washington Post has uncovered the dark underbelly of the AFP agenda. It isn’t enough for them to push climate destruction. They actually have to go out of their way to try to indoctrinate their subjects puppets partners in the evils of energy efficiency.
By lunchtime, the activists were on their way back to the CasaMagna resort. Their work for the day was done. Bell wouldn’t have a chance to talk to any U.N. delegates, listen to any proceedings or even get within shouting distance of the conference. She felt like a prop for Americans for Prosperity.
That’s not how Phillips sees it. He said his organization and activists such as Bell need and feed off one another.
“You can argue about motives,” he said. “But I view this as a partnership. What AFP can provide is logistical expertise and help, staff in 25 states, professionals in the political arena. We can provide some funding.”
OK, let’s argue about motives. AFP is a corporate polluter funded effort to promote the interests of corporate polluters — and the super-rich “AFP came calling to ask for her help on a local effort to end Ohio’s estate tax.” Not much to argue about, really.
On their second and final evening in Cancun, Bell and her activist friend Nita Thomas led an Internet video chat with a group of tea partiers assembled at a chicken wing joint in Cincinnati. Bell fretted that she didn’t have much to say, because she had seen so much less than she had hoped.
“Security is incredibly intense down here,” she told her viewers. She scoured her notes in vain for something substantive she had learned. “We’ve got two Navy warships that are posted off the coast, which you can see from our hotel window. And we passed tanks with the machine guns aimed at us, which was quite alarming.”
Bell was embarrassed by her performance.
Stop the presses. Here’s the headline the WashPost missed: Merchants of Doubt help destroy livable climate for billions — Tea Party leader ‘embarrassed’.
Sorry future generations.
Rebel Without a Cause is the wrong reference. It should be Marlon Brando in The Wild One, who, when asked, “What are you rebelling against?” famously replied, “What’ve you got?”
Previous in TP Climate Progress
Language Intelligence: Lessons on persuasion from Jesus, Shakespeare, Lincoln, and Lady Gaga
OT, related to the bumper sticker post.
This morning I woke up with the following idea:
IN COaLD BLOOD
(red letters, the a black)
There’s a gazillion great ways to use this phrase. Just imagine…
I was dreaming about this and I forced myself to wake up, in order not to forget it, so it must be a good idea, right?
Tainted Tea … they pump it free!
An angry mob
full of self-righteous indignity
unfurls their flag and spouts a screed
of great piety!
Truth be told,
this game is old.
It’s their latest ploy
that is born of nonsense and backed with noise!
They screech their platitudes
laced with high and mighty attitudes
but their real design is to control your mind
and slowly, let you go blind!
They parade in the garb of our history,
claim the Constitution will set them free
and speak of a simpler time of great purity
but logic asks, “Just what gives; is something wrong,
is this more of their Tainted Tea?”
To understand just
what drives this band;
it’s nothing less than
to take control and seize command!
They have no thought of right or wrong, or weak or strong.
‘Fair’ is replaced by, ‘I don’t care’.
‘Aid’ is pushed aside by ‘take’
and ‘give’ is thrown away to be replaced by ‘fate’.
They preach smaller government, lower taxes and freedoms won,
so brace yourself for their siren song!
Do you really think ‘progressive’ could stand for
bigger government, high taxes and the public wrong?
These Fossil Fools push the golden rule;
if it’s gold, they take it, and if it’s old they forsake it!
They see pollution as not in need of a solution!
They serve their aristocracy
and care not a wit about our Democracy!
They call Social Security, a welfare scam
but in truth, it is our mismanaged insurance plan,
designed to resolve a problem
that was the scourge across all the land!
Is it Socialistic Security, or a twisted creed,
or a hate slur designed by a secrete oligarchy?
Is it a crime to be the one with serious need
or is good governance at the heart
of what makes us all, secure and free?
Thank no less than our Supreme Court
for now the World Corp snickers and gloats
as they dump secrete cash
into the coffers to buy the vote!
Legalized bribery; call it just what it is!
If yah say, “Not so” you better see a shrink,
cause they signed an agreement
with invisible ink!
What they serve is ‘Tainted Tea’
and that is why they pump it free.
If for a moment you buy their spin
then truth denied is the game they win.
Ask the question,
don’t buy their spin,
cause without your vote
they will not win!
They claim they stand up for our liberty
but their master plan is a ploy to deceive!
Is this just another Repug-nut-con?
My final prayer is, “Thy will be done!”
There is positive ray of “hope” here. T.P. types are very prone to conspiracy theories and easy to manipulate. But if they feel used they may flip sides fast and then you’ll see them on Earth Day shouting that civilization is about to come unglued.
Re. 3 Mike
I think once in government positions, the idealism may be balanced with a hefty dose of reality for some. It’s one thing to feed your confirmation bias by sticking to Limbaugh and FAUX News in your living room, but there’s no escaping the day to day contact with the opposition’s views, and the practical side to government and legislation, when it’s part of your daily work routine. I suspect many idealised views will be balanced by meeting people face to face and realising they’re not the cartoon stereotypes presented by right wing media pundits.
An interesting look behind the scenes.
I can’t help wondering if there will come a point when a few of these folks start to turn to one another and ask, “ever get the feeling you’ve been used?”….
It would be great to hear from any disillusioned former Astroturfers.
Cheers – John
Indeed, Mike. I think it would be worth following Mrs. Bell’s page for evidence of such a change of mindset.
http://teaparty.freedomworks.org/profile/GenaBell?xg_source=activity
It looks like the original Tea Party was instigated by rich business men that got out of their control.
http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/books/2010/12/20/101220crbo_books_crain?currentPage=all
Can we hope for history to repeat itself?
Classic, powerful, immense story for the likes of film directors Oliver Stone, Spike Lee, James Cameron; the type of stuff difficult to make up.
Let’s hope they’re listening.
Some rome ago I read an article that indicated that 70% of Tea-Partiers met in livingrooms for discussions, were not particularly politically active and did not endorse candidates. They got togather to share common interests and concerns. The other 30% evolved when corporate/belt-line political insiders hijacked the movement for political gain.
It might be reasonable to expend some effort to seperate the 70% from the whole. This post indicates both 1)a loss of faith in the motives of their leaders and 2) Interest in purchasing alternative energy technology, among, at least, some of the TP Members.
After all, the effort to convert to renewable energy / sustainable culture is probably the greatest CONSERVATIVE challenge ever attempted.
Some European, with reference to #1, “IN COaLD BLOOD.
It might look better to have “In COALd blood.” With COAL in black and the rest in red.
“Politicians, Bell said, “think that they’re smarter than us and that all their decisions are going to make our lives better. The fact is, they’re not.”
At least there is something we can agree on, it would seem!
From the article:
“They held a giant novelty check made out for $100 billion, mocking a proposal to give that much money to developing nations to combat climate change.”
Isn’t that figure about $30 billion short of the total for the tax breaks to the wealthy that the Republicans insisted on getting?
Hope you sent copy of this post to Bell.
The relevance(and unfortunately the truth) of the movie “The American President” is clearly shown by the actions of people like the Bells:
“People don’t drink the sand because they’re thirsty. They drink the sand because they don’t know the difference.”
President Andrew Shepherd, “The American President”
Every time I beat a TP person in a debate, their solution isn’t to rethink their position. Their solution is to move further to the right. One TP person had been beat that the EPA was necessary and it had to regulated GHGs and other air pollutants. So he shifted and said people didn’t have a right to clean air and water. Another TPer lost saying the Bush tax cuts created jobs and were necessary in a recession. So she shifted and said taxes are robbery and tax cuts are just stealing less from the “successful, hardworking people”. It’s best not to argue with TPers and just focus efforts on normal people who have some rethinking capacity.
I think some of the criticism of Gena Bell is unfair here. Regardless of her political views, what the Washington Post piece is saying to me is that here is an activist who has begun to see the leadership of the ‘Tea Party’ for what it is – a vested interest using the passion of ordinary people for their own ends.
I’ve long been puzzled that (on both sides of the Atlantic) we have a conservative movement which is unwilling to conserve many of our finite resources. And the truth is, they are no longer a conservative movement – they are the politicl wings of powerful vested interests in the business and commercial world.
I wish that there were more people in the tea party like Gena Bell – because then they might join us in wanting to conserve our planet.
This is am important, eye-opening article.
I don’t agree that this story needs balancing and comments. It speaks for itself, even to the most stubborn denier. Sometimes, no-comment journalism (I guess you could say it’s stenography) can be incredibly powerful, sort of like The Age of Stupid or the Cheeky Apocalypse video ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nqSczRIGuvU ).
This story seems to come straight from China. I hope for the poor lady that there are no hidden work camps for Tea Partiers guilty of misconduct or thought crime.
@villabolo You’re probably right. Thanks!
You have to hand it to people like Phillips and Rove- they figured out a way to exploit people whose interests conflict with their own, through the use of propaganda and rhetoric.
There have always been evil geniuses in politics, even in Athens and Revolutionary France. They end up disgraced or, as in Paris, guillotined, but psychopaths do not have long time horizons. That’s one reason they don’t care about global warming, since more money tomorrow means a lot more to them than a better world next decade.
We badly need a TV channel that addresses these issues. For every American who reads the Post, there are about 5,000 who watch Fox or cable TV. Formerly not-too-bad stations such as the History Channel, Discovery, etc. have been bought by firms who’ve dumbed down the content and increased the advertising. The average American is trapped in a 200 channel satellite TV intellectual horror show.
Such a channel would find an audience, with guests like Al Franken, Peter Ward, Jane Goodall, and Joe Romm (on that station you wouldn’t have only 30 seconds to rebut an idiot on the other screen feed). Until the media is liberated from 99% slutty and idiotic content, Americans will remain ignorant and manipulated. There is no more public commons, and little curiosity about who is actually running this country. Newsflash to Americans: it’s not “bureaucrats”.
If someone like Bill Gates or George Soros really wanted to effect change, he’d put some money into this effort. This void in our public dialogue is so deep that he might even find that the channel makes money.
John @ post 16:
I don’t know how any criticism levelled at Ms. Bell is unfair. Sorry, but if it takes a floral designer being invited to protest at a climate summit(despite no knowledge of the topic at all)to wake up and smell the roses, all criticism is deserved.
She might well have been “embarrassed by her performance” at the conference which caused some doubts in her mind about the forces behind the Tea Party. But somehow she cannot connect the dots between her efforts at the climate conference and her efforts in the Ohio elections.
Two points. One, the right has been much more effective than the left in mobilizing (for its owen ends) the anger of people like the Bells. Their anger is real, and while some of us may see its roots in the extreme inequality in this country and its harsh, individualistic, non-nurturing culture, the Bells and their friends don’t see that so long as their anger is channelled by right-wing media and astroturf groups against Obama and the intellectual and scientific elite. Rather than disparaging people like the Bells, we ought to figure out how to reach them and educate them and redirect their anger against the people who are really ruining their lives, namely the polluters/extractors and the financial elites.
Second point. I keep asking myself and others what the end game is for not just the Koch brothers, who are in their 70s, but someone like Tim Phillips or Glen Beck, who are young enough that they will have to live through the 2050s and 2060s knowing that their children may live to 2090s. Obviously, they are focused on short-term power and money. Either they have convinced themselves against the mounting evidence that global warming is not happening, or they figure that their millions will enable them to escape its worst consequences. They too can live off the grid somewhere with little people to grow them food and bring them water or something.
One friend in a New Year’s conversation raised the possibility that there are among the polluters and finacial elites those who believe that the Earth is vastly overpopulated and that it would be better to have the human population go down to about half a billion to a billion people. Given the prognoses, maybe doing very little about global warming is a way to vastly reduce the populations of much of Africa and Asia and the poorer and elderly in most parts of the world, then rebuild a new civilization with new technology for the survivors.
I feel about that the way I feel about all those let-it-happen-on-purpose conspiracy theories about 9/11–I don’t want to believe it is true and would rather not think about it. And as we all know, schemes like that would never go according to plan and would careen wildly off track and make things worse. And they would hit some “white” nations like Australia particularly hard, so would anyone really do it? Still, it is really hard to read books and articles about global warming and then find the DC elites so much more concerned about the non-problem of Social Security and the somewhat problem of the cumulative debt and utterly unconcerned with global warming and its impending dislocations and disasters. Is it all heads-in-the-sand and short-term thinking or is there something more sinister at work among some of them?
Two years ago in preparation for our towns annual Constitution Day parade I entered into conversation with one of the Tea Party leaders lined up in front of my group. She was carrying one of those Obama is Hitler signs, which should have set the stage for me. I asked just why she hated him so much and she gave me a response that still chills to this day. She said ‘Don’t you understand, he is two-thirds Kenyan.’ I asked what about his mother and my question was met with blank expression. Folks, just how are we suppose to engage such people and help them understand complicated matters? It is beyone me.
Mike Roddy:
Well, before that, Reagan, heavily supported by those in the auto and related industries despite his anti-labor policies.
The only way to “engage such people” is with prozac or a baseball bat. Certainly not a type of dialogue and/or action I would normally endorse, but there is no other way.
Re. 20 Mimikatz
Applying Hanlon’s Razor, I’d suggest it’s a meal of Tragedy of the Commons, garnished with an unhealthy dollop of extremist free market ideology overriding reason, a side order of stupid, with the odd sprinkling of misanthropy.
By coincidence a link to that story was posted to an international enviro jurnos listserve: My comment:
The real scary reality for me is that the “tea party activists” like Gena Bell who were in Cancun to lobby against any climate treaty were sponsored by ‘Americans for Prosperity’ a well-known corporate lobby group run by the ultra-right wing billionaire Koch brothers (excellent profile in the New Yorker). They have also been funding groups to spread misinformation and confusion about climate change for many years. Much of the “tea party movement” is funded by corporate interests — it’s not so grassroots as it pretends to be. People like Bell are being manipulated and used. That’s a story needs much more investigation IMHO.
Even though many tea party members can be a bit over the top and some are a bit wacko, there are also many who are sick and tired of the elites and as Don Cherry here in Canada would say “left wing pinkos” telling them how to live their lives. Its not that we are greedy or bad people as some here say, we simply want to live our lives without you guys and other elites telling us how to live it. Unfortunately too many on the left think that they have the God given right to control other’s lives and tell them how to spend their money and run their lives. Those on the right believe in individual freedom and the concept that individuals not the government should decide as to how one spends their money. We are open to persuasion to make personal changes in our lives to help the environment, but through persuasion not coercision. Thats why the Tea Party is so popular in America and why people throughout the Western World are turfing left wing governments and electing right wing ones. Until the left changes their attitude and behavior they will continue to face electoral disappointment after electoral disappointment throughout the Democratic world.
@EarthInstitute Steven Cohen Exec Director: Defending EPA Against the Coming Right Wing Attack http://huff.to/gfA8nb Huffpost -
monkey, @ 26: What a crock… You say that you are “open to persuasion” but when presented with facts you become stead-fast in your beliefs. You accuse me of forcing changes in your life, yet you refuse to acknowledge scientific evidence gathered by many international sources that your actions are forcing large disruptive changes in the lives of millions and potentially even billions. I offer solutions that I feel may be required and I am willing to entertain better solutions. You however have offered no viable solutions that can stand the test of time. You and yours have become the party of NO.
Pollution-for-profits. The GOBP…
quote from #21 above:
” . .. he is two-thirds Kenyan.”
2/3rds??!! Gotta love it!
Leif – It is not a matter of one agreeing or disagreeing with the science. The average person probably has limited knowledge of what drives the climate. However, the average person in America doesn’t want the government telling them how to run their lives, raising taxes, and increasing regulation. United States was built on the idea of freedom and limited government and that government only have as much power as its citizens consent to give it. Nothing wrong with trying to convince the average American to live a greener life, but raising their taxes and regulating their lives more is something most Americans and in fact most people in most Democratic societies don’t want. In addition, humans live in many different climates and are very adaptive. I myself was born in Vancouver but now live in Toronto. Under the worse case scenario, Toronto’s winters would be like Vancouver’s are today and likewise Vancouver’s summers would be like Toronto’s are today. I adapted just fine to a more extreme climate. Likewise Americans are constantly on the move and many move to places with radically different climates yet adapt. I am sure those in the wealthy countries will adapt just fine to a warmer (or cooler climate if that were to happen). As for the third world, they are that way because they have dictatorships that keep them that way. They want to be more prosperous, adopt individual freedom, democracy, and capitalism and standards of living will rise. Then they will be able to adapt to any climate change that happens and also as countries get richer birth rates tend to fall too so as an added bonus we will have less people. Socialism = less freedom and more poverty. Capitalism = growth, prosperity, and freedom. As with most issues, capitalism, not socialism is the solution. Socialism is the problem.
Joe- You do yourself no favors when you mock someone like the woman profiled in this story. She seems willing to reconsider her views. How about saving your vitriol for Beck, Limbaugh, Hannity and their ilk who spread the propaganda that misinform people like her? Winning people to the cause of saving the planet will not occur if they believe that pointy-headed scientists look down on them.
31. max, Yes, there seems to be some positive implications in the Washington Post article.
Let’s hope we’ll all be on the same page battling climate change instead of each other ASAP.
monkey, @ 30: It is totally about science or perhaps you will understand if I say “Reality”. You are entitled to your opinions, you are not entitled to your own facts. You may well have enough money to pick up stakes and move to greener pastures but many of us will not be granted the luxury. Or as you call it “earned” the right. Not a thought to the fact that your earnings were predicated on the “right” to pollute the commons for your profits.
The United States was built on the premiss that ALL men were created equal and have equal right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Not first come first serve and you get to sh*t in my water and poison my air and disrupt my ability to feed my family for your profits.
Fear Corporate Greed. You call all other solutions Socialism because it makes it easy for you to dismiss. I call it survival because I care for all humanity. Even you.
Monkey #26 & 30,
It’s always interesting to read more detailed breakdowns of the views of people I might refer to as the Opposition.
You make the following definitions: “Socialism = less freedom and more poverty. Capitalism = growth, prosperity, and freedom.”
I would take issue with these. Firstly, true socialism has never been practiced in any evolved, complex society and likely it never will be. The reason for that is because it would require every human to be equally altruistic. That is not a characteristic of our species.
So we are left with various forms of capitalism, whether state-owned, wholly private-sector or somewhere in between. That is the reality all over the world.
Capitalism is fine when practiced accompanied by a sense of responsibility to Mankind and the environment that Mankind requires for continued health and prosperity. However, when people start shortcutting for short-term gain, and end up e.g. polluting rivers, it is clear that they are practicing a warped version of capitalism that imagines high risks without consequences. Unfortunately, the land where that is possible ad infinitum is a fantasy one.
You state that “Likewise Americans are constantly on the move and many move to places with radically different climates yet adapt.”
This misses the point as entirely as is possible. It is NOT about fretting whether you need to wear shorts or a polar suit. Climare Destabilisation is about rather less subtle things, such as massive-scale crop failures. Remember that.
Finally, let’s go back to your definition of capitalism: “Capitalism = growth, prosperity, and freedom.”
The term “growth” is often bandied about without the slightest thought as to what it actually means. Growth as we currently know it means an ever-expanding economy based on a rather flimsy premise: abundant, cheap fossil fuels, of which Regular Crude is a key player because (aside from its energetic properties) its derivatives a) burn and are b) runny. The transport implications of taking Regular Crude out of the equation, even by 25%, are profound, and the knock-on runs all the way through the economy. Alternatives such as coal-to-oil and Syncrude from tar-sands are ALL heavily rate-constrained. So in essence, we’ve built a system guaranteed to break.
When? Well, we are at or extremely close to the peak extraction rate of regular crude. We likely have a few years to start making a meaningful transition away from such fuels. It can be done. Growth will be into alternative systems with an ever-increasing Renewables component – remember, coal and gas will also peak at some point in the next 100 years. It will also involve efficiency increases – which to the homeowner will equate to saving money.
But to those who simply repeat “growth” without a thought as to how, I say to you: stop and think how this will come about, how this can possibly go on for ever when the very things it requires for its existence are strictly finite in their supply.
The sensible capitalist approach to this is innovation and the sort of growth I outlined just above. The crazy one is to keep on along the same, flawed path until, surprise surprise, you hit the buffers and the whole edifice collapses, and that is the course that the system is currently locked into.
It has nothing do do with “socialism” whatsoever. It has everything to do with “stupid”.
Cheers – John
monkey–your post (#30) makes me shudder.
“In addition, humans live in many different climates and are very adaptive.”
I’m sure the good folks living in Queensland might have a thing or two to say about that.
“Under the worse case scenario, Toronto’s winters would be like Vancouver’s are today and likewise Vancouver’s summers would be like Toronto’s are today.”
Not only is this statement myopic, but I don’t think you have much understanding of “worse case scenarios” when it comes to climate change.
“I adapted just fine to a more extreme climate.”
Uh, you’re telling me Toronto is much more “extreme” than Vancouver?! (I live in Vancouver and know both cities very well.). Give me a break.
“As for the third world, they are that way because they have dictatorships that keep them that way.”
I’m at a loss for words on that one.
“Then they will be able to adapt to any climate change that happens and also as countries get richer birth rates tend to fall too so as an added bonus we will have less people.”
Sure they’ll adapt just fine–just like the good folks of Queensland are adapting right now. It’s all so easy, isn’t it!
I find these kind of statements more frightening than any Ms. Bell produced. But you’re giving us satire, right? Right?
Actually- Vancouver and Toronto are two very different climates. Vancouver has a mild maritime climate, known as ‘Temperate Oceanic’. This type of climate is located at mid latitudes on the western side of continents. They are characterized by mild sunny summers, and cool cloudy rainy winters. London and Paris have this type of climate as well.
Toronto has a mid latitude humid continental climate- this type of climate is located throughout the USA from Iowa, Minnesota, Eastern Nebraska, most of Missouri- east to about North of Baltimore- up the east coast. The southern zone has the less cold winter, hotter summer scenario- while the northern zone- Montreal has a colder winter and warm summer version.
Vancouver in future climate models- will see a climate by centuries end resembling that of current day San Francisco- a dry subtropical climate- aka as ‘Mediterranean’.
Toronto will resemble by 2070 current day Kentucky- with increased precipitation in the winter, and much drier and far hotter summers. Its location on lake Ontario will slightly modify its climate- but just very slightly.
Monkey (and everyone, if you haven’t before) – please watch this set of videos about simple arithmetic. It truly is the “Most important video you’ll ever see.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-QA2rkpBSY
When you are done, please let us know what rate of growth (capitalism supported, presumably) you recommend.
monkey Post#30
Are you suggesting that Russia and Canada are going to welcome, with open arms, billions of people seeking a livable climate?
Monkey wrote: “It is not a matter of one agreeing or disagreeing with the science.”
Monkey:
You’re wrong about that. The science is the starting point for everything to do with climate change.
Here’s what the science projects for the future:
* The world’s average temperature higher by several degrees Fahrenheit;
* Much less ice cover at the north polar region;
* Disappearance of most mountain glaciers;
* Expansion of the tropics (which means greater scope for hurricanes);
* Persistent drought over most mid-latitude regions (which means major crop failures and food shortages);
* Lack of water for drinking and other uses in many areas;
* Spread of diseases like malaria to regions where they are now unknown;
* Significant rises in sea level (which means trouble for people and facilities on the coasts).
Since half the U.S. population lives within 50 miles of its coasts, this is not good news for the U.S. I think it’s even worse news for Canada, because its population is even more completely coastal.
But the bottom line is this: Though we don’t know precisely how bad things will get if we stay on our present course, we can be sure they will get bad — and for the wealthy nations as well as the rest of the world.
We can argue about exactly how bad future problems will be. We can argue about what to do about them. But none of us will get anywhere we wish to be unless we all first understand what the accepted science forecasts for us.
I think the profile on this women presents a way we can talk about clean energy and (maybe) climate change to conservatives/ tea party people.
Clearly while being extremely conservative, this women and her husband had a dream of living off grid using solar panels. My guess is that this is the modern version of “living on the frontier” and appeals to ideas of freedom and independence that can resonate with tea party type conservatives.
This is related to, but advances, the argument climate hawks have been making about energy independence. Energy independence isn’t just about getting the USA off foreign oil. It’s about having your own place, built with solid workmanship (read efficient and well designed) producing your own power (by solar or wind) and not being dependent on anyone else. There are powerful cultural myths here that we should be looking to tap into.
Mike Roddy post #18
DISH and I believe DirecTV broadcast a cable network called Free Speech TV (FSTV). It’s completely viewer supported – no corporate advertisers or foundations. I would suggest you petition your cable provider to offer it. They are small but growing. It could be a platform to begin a program like the “Climate Hour” to provide the latest in climate happenings. “We” would have to fund it but it would be a start and hopefully a reliable news source that could be quoted by the main stream media. In the mean time, some of the scientist that visit this website could provide interviews on existing FSTV segments called GRIT TV or Democracy Now.
After reading #30, I realize what many of you have been saying– that climate scientists are not clearly relating the science- is correct.
If this person thinks he can adapt to 10 increase in temperature (predicted to occur this century), there’s obviously a lack of communication somewhere!!
Monkey: I’ll believe you folks just want to be left alone and don’t want the gpovernment meddling in your lives when conservatives stop trying to have the government tell women whether they have to carry every fetus to full term, whether they can choose to use contraception, what consenting adults can do in the privacy of their bedrooms, whom they can marry, and what, how, where or even whether they can worship. Conservatives are great champions of their own freedoms but also continually want to impose their moral and religious views on others to an even greater degree than liberals. Liberals may argue people should eat fruits and vegetables, but they don’t expect government to mandate it. Conservatives want to criminalize abortion and in some cases contraception as well as gay sex. It only feels like coercion when you are on the receiving end.
There are in reality 3 forces at work here–the government, individuals and corporations. The government is actually all that stands between you and the corporations (banks, insurance companies, oil and coal companies, utilities etc) that exploit people and the environment for profit. “Freedom from government” as the right preaches it is freedom for corporations to exploit individuals without interference. The folks really trying to protect you from both governments and corporations are groups like the ACLU.
Monkey is right on one thing (if his post isn’t satire..oh, please be satire). People will adapt to climate change. Just look at the Anasazi and the Mayans.
But I also shuddered to read his post. When I think of “extreme” climates I don’t think of the difference between Vancouver and Toronto* (both places with which I’m very familiar in all seasons). I think of Russian droughts, European heat waves, Bangladeshi floods, all of which took thousands of lives. I think of whole areas being forced to move as mountain glaciers disappear and freshwater for livestock and crops dries up. I think of crop failures in the breadbaskets of the world (e.g. Russia, our Canadian prairies) which will result in food shortages and higher prices for those who can least afford it (i.e. those nations will feed their own people first before shipping it to other nations as did Russia when it stopped exporting wheat).
If you want a good example of how political ideology corrupts rational thinking, then you need look no further than monkey’s post.
*for non-Canucks, those of us who live in northern Canada make fun of Vancouverites and Torontonians (or Torontardians, as Rick Mercer calls them) because they panic anytime they get a few cm of snow or ‘cold’ weather. So, having monkey talk about adapting to extreme climates, aka moving from Van to TO, falls right into the stereotype we northerners have of the people in those two cities.
I think you should highlight the fact that the Washed-Up Post has apparently hired a full time tea-bagger correspondent. Here are all of the headlines from the previous articles written by this AMY GARDNER since the end of August:
Tea party hopes to plant local roots in Virginia for next year’s statewide elections (November 26, 2010)
Tea party groups holding legislators to promises (November 16, 2010)
Thomas’s wife ends control of group (November 16, 2010)
Tea party groups aim to hold new legislators to campaign promises (November 16, 2010)
FreedomWorks gathers GOP lawmakers to refocus on tea party goals (November 12, 2010)
For tea party, victories may trigger identity crisis (November 4, 2010)
In Nevada, Reid-Angle Senate race too close to call as night falls (November 3, 2010)
Tea party claims victories in Kentucky, Florida Senate races (November 3, 2010)
Tea party antics could end up burning Republicans (October 28, 2010)
Tea party groups say media have been fair, survey finds (October 27, 2010)
A movement without a compass (October 24, 2010)
Gauging the scope of the tea party movement in America (October 24, 2010)
An incumbent’s ‘insurgency’ (October 11, 2010)
Alaska Sen. Murkowski embraces new outsider status with write-in campaign (October 10, 2010)
Tea party has nation’s attention. Now what? (September 26, 2010)
November elections will be big test of tea party’s staying power (September 26, 2010)
‘Tea party’ faces challenge of no leader, single goal (September 22, 2010)
Tea party works to build on momentum (September 21, 2010)
Tea party picking up steam nationwide (September 21, 2010)
In Delaware’s Senate race, frustration with GOP boiled over (September 16, 2010)
In Delaware, frustration with Republican Party led to Christine O’Donnell’s win (September 16, 2010)
FreedomWorks leader Armey urges tea party to shift focus to legislative progress (September 13, 2010)
In Del., GOP comes out swinging against tea party (September 13, 2010)
Steele’s recent trips concern some in GOP (September 10, 2010)
RNC’s Steele visits U.S. territories, prompting talk of a reelection bid (September 8, 2010)
Tea party’s Joe Miller: What he plans if Alaska sends him to Washington (September 3, 2010)
Beck, Palin tell thousands to ‘restore America’ (August 29, 2010)
Monkey’s (#26) spews the falsehood that we can to Adapt to Catastrophic Climate Change! Apparently he hasn’t studied anything Joe writes. Our chameleon friend hasn’t got a clew! Noise and nonsense is what I call it. It smacks of the Libertarian Lie that pushes the simpleminded thought that small government will solve all our problems. The truth he chooses not to grasp it that it will only create anarchy. It isn’t small versus big it is honest versus corrupt. But then anarchy is just what those Libertarians are all about! Good Governance is what our Democracy is all about! He will not ever ponder the meaning of the words ‘Tipping Points’. “Tip one and all the rest will Tip!” Oh, … that’s right, all that is just too scary to contemplate. But if it happens, rest assured the world will awake … alas it will be to late! The Train will be on a down hill, Cannon Ball Run!
Good governance at the heart
of what makes us all, secure and free?
Re. 30 — “Capitalism = growth, prosperity, and freedom.”
Growth does not necessarily lead to the more valuable prosperity (latin prospere – according to hope, as desired, favorably, luckily, fortunately), whereas growth comes in many forms. Obesity is one form of growth, and I have yet to see anyone prosper by it except for pie makers and physicians (figuratively speaking).
Re: #42, I should have said that scientists are not relating the science “adequately” (because they are, of course, relating it “correctly”).
I guess basically, what climate scientists need to do is to Beat people over the Head with the truth, in Stark, Every Day language– because so far, it seems most people just are not getting it!!
oops! Didn’t say what I thought I had said~!
Freedom from government is just another way of saying I have mine, screw you.
Individual rights in a free society extend only as far as their hands reach out and touches someone else. When it goes beyond that, government is needed to insure it stops.
I have no problem with people wanting to be left alone. What many of the deniers refuse to believe is that their trash does not impact my life.
Perhaps they should understand the first two lessons every plumber has to learn:
Water runs downhill.
It is not all water.
monkey #26 and #30 is not, I would imagine, a parody. This, as any who have read their rantings or argued with them know, is how the ‘libertarian’ Right thinks. They have a conception of human life that is based on unrelenting self-interest, manifest mostly as literally insatiable greed for material possessions. This desire is driven, I imagine, by existential terrors, dread of death and feelings of inner emptiness, unworthiness and inauthenticity, ie these are people who are really effed up.They reject, often outright, but usually sneakily, that concept common to most religions and philosophies, that human liberty must be limited by respect for the freedom and liberty of others. This ‘monkey’ type ascribes to Sartre’s aphorism that ‘Hell is other people’. Other people are objects, things to be used if useful, or property, as in the ‘conservative’ ideal of the family as private property. The rest are the ‘competition’ to be outwitted or cheated wherever possible, or outright enemies to be treated with ‘extreme prejudice’. Hence the ubiquity on the political Right of every variant of hatred, from racism and xenophobia, through class hatred to misogyny and novel forms, like the ‘inter-generational’ hatred concocted in recent years. The ‘monkeys’ don’t believe, as Thatcher also did not, in ‘society’. They believe that life is a ruthless contest, with success to the most unscrupulous, violent and determined, and the ‘losers’ can go to the devil. Monkeys are empowered by capitalism, because it has established all features of the ‘monkey mentality’ ie greed, unscrupulousness, gigantic egotism, indifference to the fate of others and absence of human empathy, into the standard operating procedures of the system. If the monkeys continue to prevail, even if we avoid ecological ruin as the direct result of simian greed, we will be reduced to the status of serfs and debt-peons, as the Irish, Greeks, Icelanders and Latvians are discovering.
Monkey, your meme about adapting to catastrophic climate imbalance would not pass the laugh test if one could laugh about this. The oceans are dying: http://climateprogress.org/2010/07/29/nature-decline-ocean-phytoplankton-global-warming-boris-worm/
Imaging if 40% of all trees and foliage on every continent had died out since 1950.
Here is the reality behind the myth of adaption: http://climateprogress.org/2010/11/29/royal-society-special-issue-4-degrees-world/
And here is the reality behind all of these talking points you are repeating: Koch Industries: Secretly Funding the Climate Denial Machine, Greenpeace March 2010
http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/campaigns/global-warming-and-energy/polluterwatch/koch-industries/
The Heritage Foundation – Koch Industries Climate Denial Front Group:
$1,620,000 received from Koch foundations 2005-2008[Total Koch foundation grants 1997-2008: $3,358,000]
And here is what this disinformation campaign is preventing:
“Building a Green Economy” By Paul Krugman, April 7, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/11/magazine/11Economy-t.html?scp=4&sq=green%20energy%20economic%20growth%20paul%20krugman&st=cse
BTW, everyone here should read this: http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2010/12/13/reclaim-the-cyber-commons/
Consider this your link to the truth.
Joe, you should make this short 1943 Disney version of Chicken Little its own post ;)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HN50f5cxicU&feature=related
No happy ending in this one.
The monbiot link is probably the most depressing thing I have ever read. Though it does make me feel a little better about the number of total idiots in the country.
Re. 54 emichael
Think that’s depressing? Try being one of the participating commenters at his regular blog at the Guardian; so many zombies it’s like an expensive remake of a George Romero film, but not as funny and with twice as much blood ;)