Sen. John Barrasso continued his campaign yesterday to stop the Obama administration from incorporating climate change into federal plans and policies, taking aim at an interagency report released in October that proposed ways for the federal government to respond to increased frequency of severe weather events and other effects of global warming….
Barrasso said that even the climate change adaptation efforts recommended in the report “will kill jobs, weaken our energy security and decrease economic growth.”
Right-wing to Americans: No mitigation, no clean energy deployment, no clean energy R&D, no adaptation. In short, you are on your own!
Bizarrely, the honest brokers and breakthrough bunch actually believe they can spend their time attacking climate science and climate scientists and cap-and-trade and aggressive clean energy deployment in order to ingratiate themselves into partnership with the right-wing, in the hopes of some sort of trickle-down, post-partisan climate policy.
But for conservatives, if you’re in the pocket of Big Oil and the corporate polluters, you’re going to demand cuts — not increases — in R&D for the clean energy competition, as you have for decades (see NY Times on “The dirty energy party”: “The Republican agenda is breathtakingly negative”).
And if you don’t believe in climate change, why on Eaarth would you spend a nickel adapting to it? Here’s more from the E&E Daily story, “Barrasso intensifies efforts to stop Obama admin’s focus on adaptation” (subs. req’d), which makes that painfully clear:
Barrasso said that even the climate change adaptation efforts recommended in the report “will kill jobs, weaken our energy security and decrease economic growth.”
An aide pointed to the White House report’s definition of the activities that could be defined as climate adaptation, which include “a farmer growing a different crop variety better suited to warmer or drier conditions; a company relocating key facilities away from coastal areas vulnerable to sea level rise and hurricanes; a community updating its ordinances to protect wetland habitat that provides critical ecosystem services; a city developing early warning systems for severe storms; and a county increasing its water-use efficiency to prepare for more frequent droughts.”
“The White House’s report includes numerous recommendations that will impact businesses — including raising insurance costs, reallocating water, relocating businesses and changing local land use. It’s clear this will have an economic impact,” the aide said.
Seriously!
We knew the right-wing extremists opposed “early warning systems for severe storms” (see “The GOP decides accurate weather forecasting and hurricane tracking are luxuries America can’t afford“). But now they apparently even object to improving crops to deal with warming and droughts, to starting water efficiency measures, or to even thinking about moving folks away from areas subject to flooding or storm surges.
Memo to conservatives: Insurance costs in coastal areas vulnerable to sea level rise and hurricanes are going up now. Climate change is having an economic impact now. Adaptation isn’t costly — it’s failure to mitigate or adapt that is (see “Real adaptation is as politically tough as real mitigation, but much more expensive and not as effective in reducing future misery“).
But a CEQ spokesman said the report only “makes recommendations on how the federal government can make practical decisions to prepare for changing climate conditions that may affect government services, operations and assets. We have not yet received a letter from Senator Barrasso but look forward to understanding his point of view.”
Barrasso has introduced a bill (S. 228) that would bar the federal government from implementing any law or regulation related to climate change, whether it has to do with cutting industrial greenhouse gas emissions or not. His bill takes a broader approach than alternative proposals offered by several other lawmakers, which would prevent U.S. EPA from regulating industrial emissions but leave other authorities in place.
Given that conservative policies are making catastrophic global warming inevitable, adaptation is the minimally ethical activity to take. But again, if you don’t believe in science, then there really is nothing to adapt to. Unfortunately for conservatives and the rest of us, anti-scientific beliefs can’t stop the rise of greenhouse gases or their catastrophic impacts.
Previous in TP Climate Progress
Language Intelligence: Lessons on persuasion from Jesus, Shakespeare, Lincoln, and Lady Gaga
Once again, the Democrats have been handed the perfect campaign and long term framing issue. The people would cheer them until they were hoarse if they actually stepped up here. Watch, though- they won’t call out the Republicans for being obvious and suicidal whores, especially when it comes to the bottom lines of oil and coal.
Maybe the party of Roosevelt will prove me wrong this time, but if they don’t it’s a really good indication that we’re headed for disaster.
We’re spending too much time trying to ‘convince’ the deniers/obstructionists. We can argue until the world ends, for all the good that will do, or we (not sure who we is) can just unilaterally take action. Sorry, I just don’t see any other option.
Taken as a whole, climate hawks and climate deniers and “climate what?” together, I think the term “lemming” is beginning to describe the lot of us handily. After all, in the rest of the world, far more of the population and leadership (or those that have heard of the issue) believe in climate science than here, yet their emissions are going up with nary a hiccup, just like ours. I’m beginning to revise my estimation of James Lovelock’s take on all this. “Adaptation” will eventually be the approach adopted, after events sweep away the obstructionists. But those events will unfortunately sweep most, if not all, of the rest of us away as well.
Me? Oh, I’m going through the motions. The roof is white, the fruit trees are planted, and the veggies and chickens are fine. But I keep thinking of the scene in _Time Bandits_ when the people in the little house argued, and fought, and haggled until the giant’s foot came down.
There are a handful of conservatives on the right side:
http://www.rep.org/
http://www.climateconservative.org/
I still think Joe should include them in his Links list. RC did.
Just tell him that liberals are strongly against eating arsenic – you will see the “Mandatory Arsenic Food Supplement Act” within a month.
I am not surprised by this news. The GOP opposes even trying to invest and maintain existing infrastructure. How could we expect that they would ever agree to invest in adaptation which would require new investments.
By the time most Americans wake up to the reality of climate change and what it will mean in their lives and those of their children and grandchildren I am afraid the “ending” to the story will have already been written. What the GOP is insisting on is unilateral disarmament in the face of the threat that climate change poses to American security at every level.
There is a term for chemicals that can cause birth defects in succeeding generations. The term is teratogenic. We need a term for people who cause death and suffering in succeeding generations. We have a term “crimes against humanity” for killing masses of people. In that light we need to start talking about people who commit crimes against future generations. There would be no statute of limitations for this type of crime just as murder has no statute of limitations.
It’s getting just as bad here in Australia. The opposition shadow minister for Industry, Technology and Commerce was today reported in national media (responding to the announced carbon price move) as saying:
“If Ms Gillard believes Australians want to pay higher electricity and higher petrol prices she is as deluded as Colonel ‘my people love me’ Gaddafi”
As my local member, I’m appalled and have written to her to say so. It’s bad enough that a shadow minister with her portfolio is anti-science. To have her inciting violence, as in the subtext of her message, is ominous.
I fear that if we are already having politicians inciting violence over climate action, what will happen when things get really bad?
I neglected to link the reference for my previous post:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011/03/02/3152798.htm
@4 Mike, thanks for the conservative climate links! I’m thinking a couple friends might actually read this.
Read Thomas Frank’s The Wrecking Crew.
Its your wrecking crew at work, 24/7.
Really raging stuff down under….death n taxes…
Windsor calls for calm after death threats
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011/03/02/3152798.htm
GW has gone to peoples heads.
It really is cooking and stewing clear thinking.
There are only a few alternatives left to explain this behaviour. They are Mencken’s ‘downright morons’ in full flight. They are so poisoned, intellectually, by ideological hatred of the ‘Left’ that they oppose everything, no matter if it is rational, or they actually want to see the disaster occur. The last looks more and more plausible to me, which invites the question ‘Why?’
By the time they’re done American Republicans may cause more damage for more people for a longer period of time than any other political movement ever.
Thanks, looks like it’s time to pull off any regular investments off US.
The GOP strategy indicates clearly how close to the End they think it is. Theirs is a scorched earth policy, typically followed by a strategic withdrawal to a mountaintop lair. The peasantry are expendable, it’s every Billionaire for himself.
@Mulga Mumblebrain
Because for many people, 44% of Americans, the end of times = a good thing.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJnvx07rdbU&sns=em
Its one of humanities biggest failures, putting aside our fears and superstitions for the reality that the only heaven any of us will ever experience is right here, right now. Its a miracle that we are able to ponder our existence, and as far as we know, we’re the only living beings that can or ever have. No, we want to throw it all away. We don’t really deserve any better than we are going to get.
Ben Lieberman, tracking past GOP behavior, I know how they will react when climate change really starts hitting. They (establishment GOP) will blame the Democrats for not acting on climate change. Currently they are blaming Dems for not passing a 2011 budget when the GOP filibustered that budget. The evangelical GOP wing will say it’s an act of god for treating gays equally. The new Beck/Palin/TP GOP will say that liberals are trying to fake climate change with HAARP or cloud seeding…
It is time to stand up and demand an immediate end to fossil industry.
They have the most money
They control the republican party
They invest heavy into LNG – a major source for heat trapping gases.
They get tax payer funds for updating their infrastructure a tid more energy efficient
They make record breaking business with high oil prices
Fossil companies act like it is 1960 and do exactly nothing to change our situation
If we do not change that the human species will go extinct in the next 100 years and anarchy will riddle throughout the entire world beginning now.
If you’re a real patriot stand up and demand change from A FEW DIE HARD CEO’s!
Labor with environmentalists may be the most effective course of immmediate action for now with current demonstrations offering some encouragement. How was it ever allowed that these were considered special interest groups?
The No- nothing American People, have voted into power the No-Nothing Republican T Party.The plans by the far right to slash any spending that does not include more subsidies to oil companies will of course lead to disaster. Mitigation and adaption? Not needed- according to the GOP T Party- since AGW Is a socialist plot.
This sort of reminds me of the laissez faire economy of the period from 1880-1929; when there also lack of safety nets for Americans and the idea of regulation was considered ‘anti American’.
The republicans seem intent on duplicating the same kind of outcome again, not only in economics and health well being for its people but their ignorance of a looming environmental disaster of incredible ramifications.
As some have commented the increasing ill effects of climate change will likely begin by the end of the 2020′s– C02 by 2030 at 445ppm and rising at 3ppm a year. What a horrendous and tragic mess awaits us.
The question is this; will there be a leader around like an FDR to pick up a nation that begins to splinter into favored climatic geographic locations? A dangerous and fascinating period of history- eclipsing everything in the past.
medengineer says@ #7:
“There is a term for chemicals that can cause birth defects in succeeding generations. The term is teratogenic. We need a term for people who cause death and suffering in succeeding generations.
generationocide?
Ex-Purdue plant man touts Roundup’s risks
New pathogen discovered?
http://www.jconline.com/article/20110302/NEWS0501/103020322/1001/NEWS/Ex-Purdue-plant-man-touts-Roundup-s-risks
@catman36
Notice the letter is long on jargon but does not cite any published work.
@medengineer
May take some digging through something like this:
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Category:Ancient_Greek_derivations
But my suggestions as a place to start:
a hybrid of the terms teratogenic, phenology, and genocide.
Phenoteratogenicide? Almost rolls of the tongue, don’t it?
The world as we know it is melting before our eyes…
http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2011/mar/02/thomson-thomas-cook-fuel-surcharges-flights
The modern habit of taking annual family holidays abroad is under further threat after the UK’s biggest holiday companies announced fuel surcharges that could add as much as £160 to the price of a long-haul trip.
“It is a lot of money to find for just getting to your destination. With all the uncertainty surrounding Libya and whether the unrest could spread to Saudi Arabia and other big oil producing countries, the price of oil could easily escalate further.
People might find they won’t be able to travel anywhere, never mind just going on holiday.”
@ Mike:
Here’s a link to a better story about Huber so you’ll find links to real papers here.
http://www.motherearthnews.com/natural-home-living/pathogen-in-roundup-ready-soy-corn-could-lead-to-calamity-scientist-warns.aspx
Mother Earth News is not a science journal. There are no links to published scientific papers or even technical reports to be found there. Huber’s letter does not cite any documentation. Indeed it seems his colleagues do not share his views: http://www.jconline.com/assets/PDF/BY17112531.PDF (This link was on the page you linked to. Read it.)
#23, GENERATOCIDE is easier to say.
I was going to write that I had reached a new level of cynicism regarding deniers, but I Googled the term and realized it is too optimistic of a word.
I have known for years that the paid professional deniers are monsters that secretly gloat about the death and destruction their actions will cause. Whether or not the people who hire their services know this, I don’t know. I can honestly picture the Koch brothers being just as deceived by the professional deniers as the rest of them.
Stuart @ 5: You probably have suggested the best course of action. It would have to be something lethal that would play to the denier belief system, but not something that the deniers would want to drag the rest of us into in order to “show us there is no danger.”
For example, the Mandatory Arsenic Food Suppliment Act would wind up targeting liberals because they obviously have low levels of arsenic since they are against eating it. When liberals start dying due to arsenic poisoning stay the course until the death rate drops, which it will do due to all the liberals dying off. Problem solved! (At least in their mind.)
Don’t think in terms of one mistake, think in terms of mistakes piled on mistakes piled on mistakes. To use your Arsenic suggestion, what you should have said is “Liberals are against Conservatives eating Arsenic.” Leaving open the question of whether or not the liberals are eating Arsenic. Conservatives will view this as liberals trying to deny them their right to eat Arsenic and beginning eating as much Arsenic as they can in order to show those liberals that their rights will not be taken away from them!
Where did these particular politicians get their cultural values? It’s quite a puzzle.
In most electoral cycles there is a kind of 60/40 to 40/60 shift back and forth that continues to include some projects of both parties but with change in emphasis. It has not felt this repressive or as dogmatic in a long time.
To categorically exclude climate-change-related projects is way too much like the Stalin-era Soviet government’s treatment of geneticists who dared to disagree with Lysenko, Stalin’s favorite.
To even suggest a law that could forbid a legislature to bring up a topic in the future is an shocking affront to our freedoms of speech and debate.
I still agree with Mike @4
Mike says:
March 1, 2011 at 8:22 pm
There are a handful of conservatives on the right side:
http://www.rep.org/
http://www.climateconservative.org/
I still think Joe should include them in his Links list. RC did.
Interesting story:
Wording Change Softens Global Warming Skeptics
New research finds Republicans scoff at “global warming,” but are much more receptive to the notion of “climate change.”
Are you convinced climate change is real? What about global warming?
Yes, that second question is redundant: Both terms refer to the same troubling phenomenon. But new research finds the two labels, which are widely used interchangeably, evoke remarkably different responses among self-described Republicans.
Writing in the journal Public Opinion Quarterly, a research team led by University of Michigan psychologist Jonathon Schuldt reports Republicans are far more skeptical of “global warming” than of “climate change.”
See: http://www.miller-mccune.com/science-environment/global-warming-skeptics-believe-in-climate-change-28772/
[JR: I think the media are misinterpreting this study. I'll have to do a post.]
Washington DC is in the tidal area of the Potomac River. I wonder what the R’s are going to say when sea level rise starts affecting the low areas of DC, like the Lincoln Memorial.
#17 But the billionaires lifestyles depend on peasants to provide for them. Perish the thought that they should get their hands dirty.