Opine away. Pine away. Pin away?
That’s in ‘honor’ of the dreadful NY Times special section on energy.
While I was looking for a cartoon of the day, I found this photo-shopped version of the above cartoon at the Oil Drum with an alternative ending that is, sadly, all too true as of the last election:
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE OR COMMENT
As always, comments and links on any topic are welcome.
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DESERTEC & HELIOS the Spearhead of the Energy Revolution takes up pace
Desertec wants to build huge solar power plant in 2012 in Morocco (500 MW)
http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=de&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&layout=2&eotf=1&u=http%3A%2F%2Fde.reuters.com%2Farticle%2FtopNews%2FidDEBEE79S04X20111029
Will a new Libya user the european energy revolution?
“The challenges of energy security and global warming demand bold solutions and Desertec certainly provides an ambitious vision.”
http://finance.ninemsn.com.au/newscolumnists/chris/8366728/will-a-new-libya-usher-in-the-european-energy-revolution
Greece in talks to repay debts with solar power
Debt-stricken Greece is in talks to see if it could repay debts to EU member states by providing them with solar energy http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/oct/25/greece-repay-debts-solar-power?newsfeed=true
Not so long ago the prospects for projects like Helios were mainly determined by the interaction of oil prices and climate policy, with strong global economic growth essentially a given. That proposition has recently been inverted, with oil prices, climate policy and energy development all being driven or constrained largely by economic factors. In this context Helios looks potentially useful as a development project that could provide some construction jobs and eventually generate some corporate tax revenue for Greece on the profits from exporting green electricity to the project’s effective owners in central Europe. That could give the Greek economy a bit of a boost. http://theenergycollective.com/geoffrey-styles/67988/repaying-greeces-debts-tomorrows-sunlight
Uh oh, it’s snowing. Time to cancel all that climate science again.
Troll Lenz:
more warmth means more water vapor means more precipitation means more snow.
I think he was joking.
CP posted on this topic on Oct 27:
NOAA Bombshell: Human-Caused Climate Change Already a Major Factor in More Frequent Mediterranean Droughts
but more most be said about the dynamic of the expansion of the tropical belt.
Widening of the tropical belt has been a prediction in climate models. It is possibly attributed to AGW in at least one of the papers I have read but not enough attention is being given to the topic.
I suggest Climate Progress look into this and perhaps lure scientists into the discussion here.
The following is an excerpt from one of the best reports I have found thus far:
GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH LETTERS, VOL. 36, L03803, doi:10.1029/2008GL036076, 2009
Cause of the widening of the tropical belt since 1958
Jian Lu,1,2,3 Clara Deser,1 and Thomas Reichler4
@ http://www.inscc.utah.edu/~reichler/publications/papers/Lu_Deser_Reichler_2009.pdf
There is growing evidence from a variety of data sources that the tropics have been widening, at least since the beginning of the satellite era (1979). For example,
Hudson et al. [2007] used the gradient in total ozone between the tropics and subtropics to track an expansion of the tropics in the northern hemisphere by _1.1_ per decade over the period 1979–1991.
Our measure of tropical width is based on
the thermal tropopause metric of Seidel and Randel [2007], namely the frequency of occurrence of a high-altitude tropopause characteristic of the tropics. Using this definition, we find that only under radiative forcing can the model replicate the observed tropical expansion, and that SST/sea ice boundary forcing produces a contraction of the tropics.
By design, the radiative forcing includes both natural and anthropogenic components and does not allow direct attribution
of the trend to anthropogenic causes.
Nevertheless, our understanding of the distinctive physical signatures of the different radiative forcing agents enables us to suggest that the anthropogenic component is the dominant cause of the widening.”
Yeah. I hope to do something on the tropical belt soon.
OMG … thank you so much for finding this cartoon! It’s one of my favorites from the old days.
Meanwhile, I just want to tell you about a very off-beat set of videos that were uploaded this week.
Like comment sections across the internet, YouTube is infested with climate deniers and their sock puppets. So someone created a two-part animation to poke fun at them. It’s British humor, borrowing from Monty Python, Benny Hill, etc.
It’s the Sun Stupid
Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fXkVpW2r0bQ
Part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dtzF2xnlvfY
That joke is so old that, the first time I heard it, the punch-line (Why is there no solar power industry?)was ‘Because Standard Oil doesn’t own the Sun’. The more things change, the more they stay the same.
Peru earthquake hits coast with 6.9 magnitude
Peru earthquake: a 6.9 magnitude earthquake wreaked havoc on Peru, causing a wider radius of action than the 2007 earthquake that killed 596 people.
http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Latest-News-Wires/2011/1028/Peru-earthquake-hits-coast-with-6.9-magnitude
Disaster in the making – climate change means less beer :(
You never know, that might strike a chord with some of those who haven’t yet accepted what’s happening.
Given the likely future droughts in southern Europe, California and Australia wine drinkers may also be in for a difficult time.
This blog is a great resource, but does Joe or anyone else have ideas about how to establish a media organization that won’t sell out to the oil companies?
Right now we have to show a little effort to find the truth in bits and pieces. Many Americans just don’t know what’s going on, through no fault of their own.
Decent online magazines tend to lack professionalism and good graphics. The ones that become successful tend to sell out (Huffpost, Wired, etc).
This is a niche waiting to be filled. Joe, you could be its flagship opinion guy, like Krugman at the Times, but surrounded by quality staff.
I think a new national online magazine would need about $80 million, most of it spent on quality staff. MSM has been firing their best reporters, so top people are available. Who knows, maybe a Climate Progress reader somewhere has that kind of money sitting around. It would lose money for a while, but so did USA Today.
Online mag won’t work. But don’t give up hope yet….
I’d be interested in hearing you expand on both of those thoughts, Joe.
You’re right that an online magazine focusing on science and environmental issues has yet to find a mass audience. I don’t see why it’s not possible, though. You’re getting better here with graphics and humor, which are key.
Mike, you’ve raised this issue before, an it is an important one. How about we start an OCCUPY The MEDIA movement. Attract on a pro-bono basis active journalists willing to focus some of their professional expertice, networks, research capability etc…
Good idea, David. The bad TV stations and newspapers need to be shamed.
A second thought; the movement needs a SUPER-PAC to run a political style campaign in support of the 99% and the reality of Global Warming. Use the secrecy of the donation process to protect the participant donors without jeopardizing their job or their standing in their communities. This would allow for robust participation in private. No need for a candidate. It would be the people’s campaign. Go after the BS in both political parties with political style advertising in all of the traditional media. We are the 99% and we’re tired of the bull shit.
Most decent journalists have been driven out of the MSM by ideological imperatives over recent decades. I can’t think of many in Australia who could be trusted to behave decently, and well remember the various sell-outs down the years that indicated that one journalist after another had ‘got the message’. Others just got on the turps to anaesthetise their consciences. I think it would be wiser to start from scratch with some youngsters, although, of course, a certain percentage of them will sell out too, and take the Murdoch (or Koch)shilling.
Mike, you need a TV station. People who read already have a heap of sources. You need to get to the TV people and get the climate science and consequences across in the same mindless way that the deniers have used so successfully, ME
http://www.worldwatch.org/world-watch-magazine
World Watch, amazing organization, a great read for years.
A 4 minute you-tube video on how to occupy Wall Street from your home. Good one.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2JlxbKtBkGM&feature=share
Bruce- sorry if my sarcasm wasn’t obvious enough for you. Let’s leave the name calling for the conservatives.
mea culpa. It’s hard to tell sarcasm from obtuseness these days.
I really should tag such comments with a sarc just to be clear. We’re all friends here.
At LittleGreenFootballs they have a “wingnut font” for such purposes – purple Comic Sans. Highly appropriate, when you consider the rendering of typical tea party email forwards.
And Bruce, trolls don’t use their real full name. What’s yours?
Step One of One Idea
We all know that The New York Times’ coverage of climate change has been dismal — grossly insufficient and confused, given the importance of the matter. CP covers that point well. But what to do about it? Apparently, Tom Friedman is a big fan of CP, judging from what he’s said that’s featured here: As we all know, Friedman has called CP “the indispensable blog”. Krugman is also, apparently, a fan of CP.
So then, how ’bout if CP runs a post that calls on Friedman and Krugman to appeal, firmly, to the New York Times’ leaders to get their act together? How ’bout if we ask Friedman and Krugman to march up to the top floor and demand that The New York Times step up to the plate and actually serve the genuine public interest — serve the public GOOD? We need more ideas that appeal to, and utilize, specific people to get big things started. Appealing to 100,000 people to boycott ExxonMobil, for example, is not an easy thing to do: nobody to appeal to directly, nobody to feel a responsibility to actually do it, and nobody specific to be disappointed in (to hold accountable in that way) if they don’t do something. But appealing concretely to specific people — in this case, Friedman and Krugman — to DO something — in this case, demand that The Times get its act together — has the advantages of concreteness, specificity (when it comes to the people involved), and a degree of accountability.
And so too does requesting that CP take the first step, i.e., to run such a post. Will CP ask Friedman and Krugman to make a firm appeal, hopefully an appeal with some leverage, to The New York Times’ leaders? It’s a concrete idea, it’s a concrete question, and it only takes three individuals — Joe, Friedman, and Krugman — to make happen.
More ideas to come.
Be Well,
Jeff
I fear that money is what talks at the Times, Jeff, and the oil companies and their investors are the ones who have it.
Hi Mike. I hope you are well and I understand your point. Yet I have a thought that’s not directed at you — you are an active person and a great advocate of action — but is intended for the audience’s sake, which is this: We need less fear and more action. In other words, whatever might or might not be influencing The Times, and to whatever degree, we still need to DO such things as I’ve suggested in this idea: call concretely on Friedman and Krugman to insist that The Times get its act together. If we don’t do such things, we won’t know what might have worked, or to what degree. And, Krugman and Friedman SHOULD feel such pressure. Indeed, if The Times doesn’t get its act together soon, the very best thing that folks like Krugman and Friedman could possibly do (for the genuine public good) would be to resign in a huff and explain to the public why.
All we can do here is to figure out the best ways to take action and then to take it. I only say this because of your use of the word ‘fear’ in your comment. But I understand what you mean.
Cheers for now,
Jeff
You’ve got a point, Jeff, and I admire your persistence. The Times still has a few good people around, and maybe a movement from within could wake them up. As difficult as it is to change their coverage, starting a popular competitor is tougher.
MSNBC ran a short piece on population this morning with a clip of Lester Brown discussing water issues. Of course, AGW was never mentioned or included in the story. It’s like focusing on all your new lung tumors as interesting new friends and never getting around to the fact you have cancer.
Re-mark-able! How do you think that they enforce this group-think? I mean, the sudden disappearance of climate destabilisation from polite discourse. I’m used to the MSM and its ‘spooky synchronicity’ of opinion on everything, but to anaesthetise the minds and consciences of thousands of media apparatchiki, with no known defectors or whistle-blowers (so far)-that takes some doing!I’m reminded of a story Chomsky told, of a representative of Pravda visiting the US in the 1950s, and observing the uniformity of US newspaper opinion (of course it’s worse today)remarking that, in Stalin’s day it took nail-pulling and other techniques to get journalists ‘on message’ and he was intrigued as to how a similar uniformity of opinion was achieved in the USA. His interlocutors’ reply has been lost to history.
Does anyone have direct contact with Lester Brown? Since he speaks fluently on climate issues, it would be interesting to to ask him how long the raw interview footage was & whether climate issues were edited out. In other contexts, I have been amazed at the way audio can be edited & seem seamless.
I’m curious about the status of codes for construction and fire safety for low-energy home designs.
I would also like to know if fire departments have been able to develop techniques for dealing with fire and other disruptions in such structures.
This seems to be an important step (or stumbling block) in development of house and commercial building insurance for low-energy structures. If we are going to cut back sharply on dependence on fossil fuels, this has to be part of the pathway.
CP readers are likely to have at least looked at experimental building designs, like cob, adobe, straw bale, bagged earth and others that reduce a building’s dependency on fuel, so I hope that others may have looked into the code and fire safety at more depth than I have at present.
I’ve already seen Mike Roddy’s preference for steel buildings (at least we were talking about homes), which is a familiar material to fire companies and insurance underwriters. However, the Trade Center catastrophe showed that using steel is not in itself enough for fire prevention, so building codes can continue to evolve for any structural material.
Usually the web, magazine and book descriptions of the building designs come with cautions about meeting code requirements.
A scant internet search turned up California’s gradual development (1995, 2002) of code for construction of straw bale houses.
It seems like supporting research by fire departments, building engineers and fire underwriters would help move the US towards huge savings in energy costs.
The research is not inexpensive, as it would be likely to include testing many sample structures in extreme conditions like high wind, freeze-thaw, heavy precipitation, earthquakes, and fire.
Is there an expert on building and fire codes for energy-efficient housing?
Joan; you ask alot. I don’t think that fire departments are decision makers when it comes to fire resistence of construction assemblies. There is a Standard, ASTM E 119 that testing laboratories use to determine fire resistence ratings. From these laboratories, assembly details are accepted into various building codes.
Single family residential construction, typically wood frame is combustible structure and generally unprotected. You don’t really get into fire rated construction until multi family oo separation of different uses.
While not an expert in the alternative construcion systems you mentioned, there are other concerns like load bearing capacity and moisture control that also need to be addressed.
I don’t think that these are necessarily energy efficient solutions to building a house. They arrise from the desire to use cheap locally available materials. My professional opinion is that to build extremely energy efficient housing it is best to stick with more typical construction materials and possibly build in such a way that materials used could be eventually dis-assembled and re-used (Ctadle to Cradle) for some other purpose in the future.
Thanks very much for the ASTM E 119 information. I haven’t found that level of detail (yet) at the Architecture2030 site mentioned by Wes Rolley, but it might be there.
What got me going on this matter was seeing a couple of lovely (not amateur) homes, one that used straw bale (R-40 and up) under lime wash on the interior face, and the other with a shake exterior, wall insulation made of clay-coated straw, and a slowly breathable interior-facing surface.
It may be unusual, but my local fire department has some clout when it comes to establishing code, as they have rigorous training on various kinds of fires and buildings. [The Syracuse Fire Department holds an ISO class 1 rating, the only department in New York State to do so. There are approximately 30 departments nationwide that have a Class 1 rating.]
Thanks also including with your name the link to your webpage, with its many examples of small solar-powered structures.
Joan, you should spend some time with Architecture 2030. They have been through this again and again. http://www.architecture2030.org/
Thanks to architect Ed Mazria, they have been doing the right things. You can get good data about just how much the building sector can contribute to the solution.
I first heard Mazria several years ago where he followed James Hansen at a “teach in.”
Wes,
I’m a fan of Ed Mazria’s work and have pored over his classic, “The passive solar energy book: A complete guide to passive solar home, greenhouse, and building design.”
The Architecture2030 webpage yielded a white paper on needed code changes.
Materials-testing for the duress of climate change conditions, or testing novel materials for fire resistance did not show up in a search of the site.
Maybe LEED could be an alternate source of the info, still wondering.
Joan- David is right about multifamily, which requires 2 hour fire ratings between units, achieved with two layers of type X gypsum wallboard.
Reinforced concrete is the best for fire, but it’s too spendy, especially in earthquake zones.
We have a house fire mortality rate that is about 10 times higher than other countries’, strictly because we build houses and even trailers out of two by fours. It’s a sick habit.
As for energy efficiency, that is a function of siting, sealing, window design, and insulation. The main things needed are motivated architects and building departments. Building for energy efficiency is not that expensive- insulation bids on new houses are less than $2 a foot, for example.
As a builder, I can tell you from experience that straw bale and cob are hippie solutions that appeal to intuition, not reality. Straw doesn’t have any structural value, is not that good an insulator according to Oakridge lab tests, and increases costs for finishes. Cob has similar problems. Adobe is a nice material with better thermal properties than any of them, including concrete. The problem with adobe is that it has no lateral strength, and won’t meet code in structural areas. It’s also far harder to reinforce adobe than it is with concrete. You can only make it work in seismic areas by building three foot thick walls (AKA the slenderness ratio).
For practical purposes, wood, steel, and concrete are the choices, when it comes to cost effective finishes, trade compatibility, and installed cost. I prefer steel to concrete, since it’s far cheaper in California. The problem with steel is lack of support from the steel industry, which will not fund serious research or builder outreach. Like a lot of mature industries, they are reactive, and would rather sell steel to existing customers like commercial builders, Ford, or GM.
Mike, I’m shocked by that fire death statistic.
Having seen a straw bale (combined with post and beam) house and a clay-slip insulated post-and- beam structure that looked like conventional buildings (escaping that “hippy” amateur ignomy), I’m not so skeptical about using local materials.
I still want to know how they stand up in either a fire or other extreme conditions that are in the offing with climate change.
Thanks for your very informative and thought-provoking reply.
Actually, thanks to all three of you for the collective responses from David, Wes and yourself.
Joan, please see my info/lead @33, which I started as a reply? Not sure how we would connect to pass along a German Bau-biologie insurance backgrounder.
Lester Brown was discussing aquifer depletion in the piece.
A heads-up for any hunters or anglers who read Climate Progress. Several of us in the sporting/conservation community have been working on a new organization called Conservation Hawks. The title and tag are Conservation Hawks: Hunters & Anglers Defending Our Future. Our purpose, as stated in our articles of incorporation and our bylaws, is “to pass on a healthy natural world to the next generation of sportsmen, to defend our sporting heritage and traditions, and to educate hunters and anglers on the challenges and threats we face in the future.” As you might imagine, foremost among those challenges is climate change.
Our number one priority for the foreseeable future is to educate America’s 40 million sportsmen on the threat of climate change. If we’re successful, we’ll move the needle on our national climate conversation and change the realm of what’s possible in DC.
We’re a brand new organization. We are registered as a nonprofit corporation here in Montana, and we’ve received our tax exempt status from the state. We have not yet been designated as a 501(c)(3) by the IRS, but we’re working on that. Our website just went live, and while it’s not finished, it is functional enough to give you a feel for the organization. If anyone is interested in offering feedback, the site is http://www.conservationhawks.org. We’ll be adding to, and revising, the site as we go forward.
One final thing I’d like to mention. We’re currently putting together our “Science Advisory Board,” which is made up of wildlife biologists, fisheries biologists, climatologists, etc. The board’s purpose is to keep us up-to-date on the latest climate science and to answer questions from sportsmen on climate change and its impact on natural systems. If you know someone in the scientific community with impeccable credentials and a desire to help out, please have them contact us through our website.
Thanks, and I’ll look forward to any feedback or constructive criticism that the Climate Progress community might have to offer.
Todd,
I am glad to hear of your initiative. I have several hunter friends who might be reached from just such an angle, and I hope many others will be too. Us outdoor types see much change in nature and finding a way to engage the big picture is something I have struggled with. I will take a peak at your site.
Thanks, Richard. Let me know what you think. We’re always looking for constructive criticism.
Step One of Another Idea
CP, I believe, could do a very great deal (without all that much effort) to help ensure that the Republican contenders are asked pivotal, clear and concrete questions about climate change, in at least some of the upcoming debates.
Here’s the background and logic:
Last I checked, the contenders for the Republican nomination will be involved in the following upcoming debates, most of which are NOT hosted by Fox:
November 9 on CNBC
November 12 on CBS
November 15 on CNN
December 1 on CNN
December 10 on ABC
December 15 on Fox
December 19 on PBS
January 7 on ABC
January 16 on Fox
January 19 on CNN
January 23 on NBC
January 26 on CNN
March 5 on NBC
March 19 on PBS
Note that two of these are on PBS. Two are on NBC. Four on CNN. One on CBS. Two on ABC.
So then, how do we do our best to ensure that the Republican wannabes are asked the most basic questions, such as this: “Do you agree with the National Academy of Sciences, the AAAS, and virtually all major scientific academies around the world that climate change is real and is caused primarily by human activities that emit greenhouse gases into the atmosphere? If not, please tell us why.”
Presumably, supposedly, we think, we hope, that at least some of these members of the media are still halfway open to the truth and are still trying to serve the genuine public good. At least they tell us so. At least they want us to think so. And, according to their own coverage of climate change (insufficient as it has been) most of them DO understand that climate change is real and is a huge problem. Most of them ought to be able to see that the would-be candidates should be asked the pivotal questions about climate change, clearly, and that the public has a right and need to know their answers.
So then, how best to make sure that such questions are submitted to the media hosts of these debates and that those hosts feel a real and strong pressure to include such questions in the debates?
The best idea that I can think of, given what we have at hand, is that CP should do a post or two, or three, directly and specifically calling on the media hosts of these debates to include such questions. Also, those other folks who are involved with, or involve themselves with, the media coverage of climate change and science should also help write such posts, participate in them, and do their own, and generally call on the media outlets to include such questions. Here I’m talking about Curtis Brainard, Nisbett, and so forth.
So, a Step One would be this: CP should do a post on this very topic, calling on the media outlets (by name) to include such questions, listing the two or three pivotal questions that deserve to be asked, and also calling on others (Brainard, Nisbett, etc.) to do the same.
In my view, the scientific organizations (the AAAS, etc.) also ought to make a clear public request to the media outlets to include pivotal questions about the candidates’ views about climate change in the debates. For example, the same seventeen (or was it eighteen) scientific bodies that sent the joint letters to the Senate and House, a couple years ago, about climate change should send a clear letter to the media outlets, specifically making such a request. If this has the possibility of seeming “one-sided” — because it’s a request regarding the Republican debates — make the request apply to all upcoming debates, Republican and Democrat and the actual Presidential debates that will be between the Repub candidate and the Demo candidate. The seventeen scientific organizations should send a joint letter, and have a press conference, and be concrete and specific about it, requesting (demanding) that pivotal questions about climate change be included in upcoming debates. We ought to make it so that PBS, CNN, NBC, CBS, and ABC and etc. — and their specific news-celebrity hosts involved — would not be able to retain their own views of themselves as good news organizations and good news people if they fail to include such clearly vital questions.
Again, Step One: CP should do a post. The schedule of debates is listed above (although I’d check it against the official source).
Be Well,
Jeff
Jeff:
I love the idea of putting more substantive questions to all candidates for President, the House, the Senate, etc.
But I have to ask: What practical good will it do? I forget the exact quote, but I know candidate George W. Bush sounded rational on climate change, and we see how that turned out under President Bush. Similarly, candidate McCain seemed to have had an attack of reasonableness while running, only to revert to a more right-wing, blockading stance once he was back in the Senate full time.
Short of finding a way to implement my dream scenario — all candidates are shot up with Hollywood-esque truth serum — I don’t see what’s to stop them from finding a pragmatic, centrist sounding lie that doesn’t turn away their base, and then following marching orders from the Koch Brothers once in office.
Bush and McCain were running when the voters believed more in science than voodoo.
The desperate grasping for the free lunch promise of “tax cuts to put more money in your pockets” has led voters to listen to the conservatives who are selling them the tax cut tinker bell, if only they believe in make believe.
Five centuries of conservatives attacking science, democracy, and all the other trappings of liberalism has ended up with a small number of conservatives rounding up and leading the uneducated masses to vote. Jefferson warned of this, as did others.
“Whenever the people are well-informed, they can be trusted with their own government.”
Conservatives have succeeded in creating a misinformed people, so we must consider his further advice:
“All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent.”
And…
“All, too, will bear in mind this sacred principle, that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will to be rightful must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal law must protect, and to violate would be oppression.”
The environmentalist policies in the past became popular when the lack of protection for the minorities were made clear to the majority.
What Wall Street has argued is the minority do not matter that much and must be sacrificed for the greater good of the majority.
To provide liberty to drive everywhere, the Gulf coast resort owners, the fishermen, the health of the people must be sacrificed. For a good economy, workers must die bringing producing coal and oil for the majority. To provide cheap electricity, the minority living and vacationing in the mountain forests must give up their right to their scenic property so it can be turned into moonscape for the greater good of millions of city dwellers.
Wall Street hates capitalism because capitalism would value the beaches and fisheries and mountain forests for the future centuries of returns on capital. Wall Street is in the business of pillage and plunder which destroys and consumes capital for profit. Your property is a target for pillage and plunder, especially if it has oil or coal or is down stream from a mine or downwind of a power plant or refinery, or in the valley floor of a high flow river.
Wall Street has turned the protectors of individual rights into mindless tree huggers who are hell bent on destroying the American way of life. And environmentalists have let this happen by letting Wall Street define who the victims are: Wall Street has defined the majority as the victims of the environmentalists.
At one level, the coal miners who saw the environmentalists as the enemy got their reward in hell: their health destroyed, their lives destroyed, their homes destroyed, their futures destroyed. But “I told you so” isn’t even a small win for environmentalists.
Step One of Yet Another Concrete Idea
Yesterday, I wrote about an idea involving these four folks, and also ClimateProgress:
Dr. Drew Gilpin Faust (Harvard)
Steve Ellis (Bain)
Orit Gadiesh (Bain)
Count Jacques Rogge (the IOC)
The idea ultimately has to do with Romney.
I’ve already described the idea, in full, in my comment yesterday under the post about Romney. The comment is titled: “Four Specific Names and Some ACTION (please!)”. So please refer there for the whole idea. Here, I’ll just highlight the fact that a First Step would be involved, hopefully involving Joe and ClimateProgress.
Joe/CP would do a post specifically calling on (requesting) the four folks mentioned — Dr. Drew Gilpin Faust, Steve Ellis, Orit Gadiesh, and Jacques Rogge — to jointly write and send a simple letter to Romney regarding climate change. The letter would be sent to Romney, of course, but also made public. An “open letter”, if you will. It’s a simple and easy idea. There are compelling reasons why it SHOULD be done and why these are the folks who SHOULD do it. And again, it’s explained in more detail in my comment yesterday.
Be Well,
Jeff
I would be very happy to sign my name, for what it is worth, for CP in your face action. Surely the CP audience is vast by now even by Occupy Wall Street standards. Many of us get daily nourishment from CP and have been doing so for years. Joe has been doing a commendable effort here, but things are still the same. Time to pull the plug and go for the throat. The time is now. The people are awakening. Dictators are falling. Wall Street has been alerted, do not let them regroup. The world’s real dictator is the Capitalistic/Corporate structure that greases the wheels for all the rest to happen. Let the Sun Shine on Wall Street Vampires! Sound bites they want… “We are 100% of the poor.”
Make capitalism humanity friendly…
Leif, capitalism cannot be ‘humanity friendly’. Once the welfare of humanity as a whole becomes the imperative, once equality and fraternity become universal goods, capitalism cannot function. Capitalism is inequality and social division between insatiably greedy ‘haves’ and ‘have mores’ and the ‘losers’ now approaching 99% of humanity.
And Finally (a repeat)
And finally, I still think — more than ever — that CP should do a post that airs and considers the question, including the pros and cons, of what stance would be most effective to take with President Obama regarding Keystone XL.
I’ve taken, and am in favor of, this stance: If President Obama wants my vote in the upcoming election, he must say ‘NO’ to Keystone XL. If he approves Keystone XL, I won’t vote for him. Period.
I know of a growing number of people who are taking such a stance, and I also know of many people who have decided, at this point, not to vote again for Pres. Obama either way, even though they voted for him last time based on promises that he hasn’t even tried hard to fulfill. But that’s not the point. The point is more like this: There are good reasons to think that such a stance makes sense from standpoints having to do with actually maximizing the chances that Obama will say ‘NO’ to Keystone XL, as he should. If we are to believe Jim Hansen and others, the issue is a vital one.
I think, as I’ve said before, that CP should air the question and host the discussion of pros/cons, allowing people to come to their own conclusions, of course. Enough said.
That’s it for today.
Be Well,
Jeff
Jeff:
Please don’t take this as an attack or criticism; I have a lot of respect for you and all of my other fellow members of CP-ville.
But I think that approach in an election where there are only two viable candidates amounts to handing an advantage to the candidate you’d least like to see in office for the next four years. Am I really suggesting the “hold your nose and vote for your guy” strategy, which people on our part of the political spectrum detest? Yes, I am.
I approach every election the same way: For each office, which candidate with a reasonable chance of winning would I most want to see win? That’s the person I vote for.
This time around, that means I will be voting for President Obama, as there’s virtually no chance the Republicans will nominate anyone than him on the issues I care about.
Yes, this approach strangles the third parties from growing into a significant political force. I don’t like that any more than I like voting for a candidate who has approved KXL (and I think the odds of Obama approving it are about 95%, for the obvious political reasons). But it’s still preferable to not voting at all or voting for a third-party candidate who will wind up with less than 1%, which would be a net gain for whoever the Republicans nominate.
Put another way, if you were to ask the Koch Brothers what they’d like to see people like us to do (assuming voting Republican were off the table), their first choice would be not vote, and a close second would be to vote third party. If that’s what they want, we should do the opposite.
Hi Lou, thanks for your comment, and thanks for the civility you always show. Yet I disagree with your net conclusion and with much of your reasoning on this one. That said, my aim (and request) has been to get CP to at least air the question, specifically, so the listing and discussion of pros and cons can reach a larger audience. In other words, as much as I’d like to respond, it would be quite a long dialogue if we both went back and forth and listed our reasoning. I’ve written a proposed guest post on this very matter, including my reasoning, but CP doesn’t want to run it. Yet I can’t afford the time to repeat all the logic here, in individual comments. (If you’d like to read it, pls send me your e-mail address and I’ll send you a copy.)
Thanks for your comment, through, and I do agree that it’s not an easy question.
Cheers and Be Well,
Jeff
I have to agree.
So might Allan Lichtman, the author of 13 Keys to the Presidency, who like it or not has correctly predicted outcomes of presidential elections for decades.
Lichtman contends several factors about political party performance are important, along with fewer factors regarding individual candidates. A primary fight within an incumbent party is a point against the incumbent party, regardless of whether the incumbent candidate survives the challenge. A third party challenge is also a point against an incumbent party.
I suspect that the GOP and the Tea Party strategists have read Lichtman.
I see no need to give them points.
Joan Savage, you’re trying to solve the wrong problem.
The problem isn’t “How can we get Obama to win?” Getting Obama re-elected is not, and should not be, the be-all and end-all.
The problem is “How can we get policies enacted that protect the 99% and the environment they live in?” That is the key question.
– frank
Frank,
I believe the best way to push Obama on environmental issues is through rebuilding momentum for the topics in the House of Representatives and Senate. That means some hard work winning back districts in 2012 election, preceded right now by pressure on congresspeople about what they are going to have to do for us immediately if they want to get re-elected.
The Tea Party figured out it was cheaper to work at the state level, so they went after governors and the House of Representatives.
And that’s where the policy reversal has to come.
If Obama doesn’t get re-elected, we have a worse problem.
Lou, This is probably too late in the cycle for anyone to read, but I still want to take issue with your hold your nose and vote Democratic position. That is exactly what the Democratic party counts on.
There are three basic ways to create a new political party in the US. (1) The leaders of one party may break away to start the new one. That worked with Lincoln and the Republicans. It did not work with Theodore Roosevelt and the Progressives. (2) Someone with a lot of money can throw it around and build a following. It worked well enough for Ross Perot and the Reform Party to help elect Bill Clinton. But when Perot’s money disappeared, the national Reform Party did also. (3) A party can build itself from the ground up. This is much harder to do. However, when the ruling meme is to hold your nose and vote for the lesser evil, it will never work because there will always be a greater evil to fight.
My guess is that the Green Party presidential candidate will be Dr Jill Stein from Massachusetts. Her positions are much closer to mine and, by doing so, I will be doing my part to at least try and make the Green Party viable.
anyone who votes for obama if he does say yes to the tar sands pipeline is not an environmentalist; is a betrayer of the generations following us; and is mired in a mindset which has given us the tweedledee, tweedledum political choices we have had for decades. what is the diagnosis for doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different outcome? insanity? idiocy?
almost 7 of 10 americans who respond to polls do not believe their gov’t represents them. half of americans don’t vote.
can’t cp readers start thinking of some solutions for our future that are aimed at us? knowledge and handwringing are getting us nowhere, if directed at those in power now, whether dem or repub, with the expectation they will change course.
An integral feature of Plan Obama was, in my opinion, that he so disillusion the ‘Hope Fiends’ with his constant betrayals and service to the money power that they would be put off political involvement for years, hopefully forever. The plan is working nicely, as the low turnout in 2010 showed. However, Obama is proving so useful, so completely loyal to the money power and the Republican hopefuls so hopeless, that I suspect that the Bosses will grant Obama another term in which to serve their interests servilely.
Just finished reading the jeers about BEST and Anthony Watts and I wonder:
Do you folk have *any* inclination that you are not pushing science at all, but only a political agenda?
Is there any repeatable science you would support? Would you fight to have “climate scientists” funded by NSF to archive their data — as the law compels?
Has anyone here looked at thorium? ….moved beyond the drumbeat of cap and trade, a global agreement to slice and dice carbon chits?
Does that not seem like a political agenda to a one of you? ….Lady in Red
Huh? It is Watts and folks like you that dispute all “repeatable science” and just push falsehoods and misinformation and unrepeatable science.
The rest of your comment is incoherent. A carbon price would benefit all carbon-free sources, including nuclear. Your opposition to a carbon price is what has doomed nuclear.
I’m afraid I don’t understand how opposition to carbon chits has doomed thorium in the US, either.
Will you explain? ….Lady in Red
I just explained it. No carbon price, no nuclear — it’s just too damn expensive. Peddle your ignorance elsewhere, please.
Ms. Lady in Red, thou dost protest too much, methinks.
“As the law compels” you say? I’m quite sure that
(1) the blatant acts of plagiarism by Edward “I wrote a Congressional report criticizing the Hockey Stick” Wegman and his student Yasmin Said violates copyright law;
(2) the unauthorized hacking and release of CRU data violates copyright law and a whole host of other laws; and
(3) rape threats targeted at climate scientists, climate campaigners, and their families are against all sorts of laws, besides being morally repugnant in every way.
If you truly have no “political agenda” as you portray yourself to be, then I’m sure you’ll wholeheartedly support the investigations of these crimes, eh?
– frank
Fascinating how the denier troll doesn’t have the guts to reply to your post. So typical (From Troll Tactics 101: “Just got your ass handed to you? No problem! Ignore that comment entirely and drop different troll turds upon the thread.”)
As for this bit of weapons-grade stupidity:
…the IMAX corporation would pay handsomely for such expertise in projection.
I assume she meant ‘inkling’ rather than ‘inclination’. Her own inclination, to the semi-coherent Dunning-Krugerite Right, was pitifully plain to see.
Well, for all intensive purposes, I subject she could care less. If you really want to understate her meaning, then you could wait with baited breath until the cows commune.
I know climate deniers can be aspirating, but if you try to extract retonical revenge, it’s like wrestling with a gassed pig, and you wine up cutting off your nose despite your face.
New studies on Thwaites Glacier in Antarctica
http://www.earth.columbia.edu/articles/view/2904
During the 2008 campaign, there was an organized effort to hold a “Science Debate”. One of the organizers was Chris Mooney (Science Progress blogger, author of the Republican War on Science as well as Unscientific America). It had support from congressional members of both parties. It had the support of a very large number of university presidents.
It was totally ignored by all of the campaigns. The candidates
handlerscampaign advisers would probably not allow their candidates near any microphone if such questions were to be asked.It is interesting that the sites which, ostensibly, support “science” restrict speech, comments.
Is that fascistic?
Do you/can you reconcile that with truth?
….Lady in Red
Pretty much all websites restrict comments, across the political spectrum. Nice try, though. Also, restricting comments isn’t restricting speech, as anyone can start their own blog. The disinformers, however, post disinformation and back by the fossil fuel industry have willfully misled millions. Indeed, it’s clear that the disinformers work hard to gang up the comments section and “shout down” everyone else as WUWT has urged.
That “backed by the fossil fuel industry” mantra is one I see over and over and over, but it’s never backed with any numbers.
[JR: That is just an outright lie, of course. I linked to a piece just today in the Koch post that spells out some of their funding. We detail their funding and Big Oil's quite regularly. But you don't read this site, you just come to spread disinformation.]
I would take a guess that *any* support fossil fuel industry dared to expend paled by many many orders of magnitude the dollars flushed to researchers by NSF, NASA, ONR, NOAA, DOE, EPA, etc. funding CAGW research.
I also suspect that NSF will no long fund independent climate research, but restricts all funding merely to further proof of CAGW or mitigation.
I don’t know, but suspect…. And, I think that is very sad. ….Lady in Red
[JR: How sad it is that you think funding of science by NSF, NASA, NOE, etc is very sad.]
Is your nickname inspired from this flick?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MXQozTxQSiE
ps.
I would remove post of the obvious concern troll.
Is there any chance that this is some sort of ‘performance art’, parodying the Dunning-Kruger tendency of the more down-market end pf the denialist moronosphere? If authentic, I know what is really sad, really tragic actually, and that is that this ‘scarlet woman’ has a vote, and no doubt will cast it for some denialist possibly even more imbecilic than herself, but probably simply just more cynical and opportunistic.
do the Koch brothers have another planet to move to once this one is destroyed and are not telling us? How else to explain their behavior?
There seems to be a portion of the population who have lost their basic survival instinct, clouded out by other concerns. The unusual fact that some of these individuals are in leadership roles does note bode well for humanity.
They’ll be safely on Planet Dead, deceased, no more, gone to God, extinct, paid their debt to Nature, gone before, expired, returned to the carbon cycle, hence completely unconcerned over the immense human suffering that will be raining down on those whose lives they destroyed.
Whiskey Tango Foxtrot… this does not bode well for humanity.
– frank
fascinating…thanks for article!
you’ve pointed out an important fact re our country’s leadership, frank. recently the whoever-are-in-chargers have eliminated “narcissism” from the list of psychiatric labels (probably because of overuse in mainstream print and conversation). an unforgettable book, “the culture of narcissism” by christopher lasch, should be read by anyone interested in what’s happened to our country. it’s discouraging, but necessary in order to know what we are dealing with, both as environmentalists and activists.
More bizarre weather. Here in New England, snowing to beat the band. Some places here in CT up to a foot or more.
Totally strange. Never in all my 54 years here as far back as I can remember have I seen anything like this.
Looks like something out of late November- and even then it would be still unusual.
Once again a strange anomaly. Precipitation enhanced by that ‘extra’ water vapor.
A good advise is to stock up on food for the next 3-4 month. We can expect icy and snowy conditions. Anomalies observed the last 2-3 winters may repeat this year as well.
On the east cost there are 600k people already without electricity.
‘Dangerous’ Snow Causing Major Power Outages
BOSTON — The unusually early snowstorm bringing heavy, wet snow to the East Coast has knocked out power to nearly 580,000 customers. By early evening in Massachusetts, more than 77,000 were in the dark. October snowfall records could be broken. http://www.thebostonchannel.com/r/29623411/detail.html
A great cartoon by Mike Peters of Dayton Daily News.
He also draws Mother Goose & Grimm.
It dates from at least 1979 and is as true now as then. But that situation is changing fast!
http://ceramics.org/ceramictechtoday/?s=solargas&submit=Go
over 400,000 without power in Connecticut. Heavy wet snow on a late date for leaves to change and fall= a disaster.
Up to 550,000 expected to lose power- 2 months after 665,000 lost power from tropical storm Irene..
Climate change is a bitch.
Barack Obama: Incredible Campaign Speech!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R83xMWtEp7k&NR=1
Obama’s Interior Department going after climate scientists with criminal investigation. (missing routing slip? Miscount of polar bears?)
http://www.peer.org/news/news_id.php?row_id=1527
What does he need to do for us to decide his and his administration’s problem goes well beyond a “messaging” problem?
The politicians are slaves, the media are slaves the people are slaves. The owners of the country are not happy having 90% of the wealth, they want it all.
My four friends are not slaves and they are saddling up. They cannot be brought.
Suffering is not avoidable we have gone far past the possibility of a painless transition, even with mitigation and adaption. Our doom was avoidable, and just maybe still is.
Extinction is forever.
Did you know that here in British Columbia we allow fracking of natural gas, which is then piped to Alberta to be used in the extraction of the tar sands?
http://www.canadiangeographic.ca/magazine/oct11/fracking.asp
In the meantime TVA continues to build an NPP, has signed a contract to finish another and is starting the NRC approval process for yet a third. Somehow TVA power economists and planners don’t find NPPs too expensive to construct.
Also, from a Southern Co. website one can find pix of Vogtle #3 socalled pre-construction taking place this month. It seems they (and also another utility in the Old South) don’t find NPPs too expensive to construct. [By Southern Co's analysis in their justification documentation to the South Carolina utility regualtory commission Southern Co finds an LCOE of US$0.076/kWh for Vogtle #3 less than the LCOE of recent wind turbines here in the windy Pacific Northwest.]
Joan, perhaps some leads on the niche information you want would be available from the Bau-biologie movement in Germany. You are current in this reseach & if BB doesn’t yield central information sources – I have friends who built to most exacting BB standards in Germany, a McKinsey Director = “we help our clients avoid/manage risk.”
Edith,
The Bau-biologie page has topics that I hadn’t integrated with the structural materials questions so I’ll look into it further, but for the moment am appreciating the other features.
Routinely checking a house with a Gauss meter for electromagnetic fields still seems progressive, though the enthusiasm to use electricity as the delivered energy for so many tasks might make it seem an obvious thing to do in hindsight.
http://hbelc.org/courses.html
I agree with Lou Grinzo’s comment about the choice between Obama and the Republican nominee. Not voting or not voting for the better of the two candidates on issues one cares about is self-defeating. As disappointed as I am in Obama, I am not under the illusion that a Republican president would be better. I think you, Joe Romm, should address this topic in a post-there is a lot of anger against Obama expressed in comments. This is understandable of course but do we want to let that anger possibly aid the victory of an even worse President? Better to exert as much pressure on Obama as possible. And for doing that I am very grateful to Joe and Bill McKibben among others.
Max, important comment.
Add the fact that 23 Senate Dem seats are up for reelection and, in some races, the incumbent dem is retiring. Senate rethugs will have only 10 seats up for reelection.
If the Senate goes to the rethugs and the rethug wins the White House you will watch America being unpeeled right before your eyes.
Gone will be Voting Rights law, Brown v Board of Education, affirmative action, Roe v Wade, EPA, Dept of Education, Davis-Bacon. Add your own fears.
A rethug signing those congressional acts (assuming the few remaining Senate Dems can filibuster from here to eternity) will be cause for celebration in the kroch bros hq.
Yes, we are disappointed in our President and yes, Jeff makes good points about the pipeline but the sad fact remains there are many vital parts of America that will be lost if the rethugs take over and likely we’ll never get back those rights and freedoms.
Every enviro that stays home on election day or votes for their idiologic candidate is another vote for the rethugs. It’s that simple and they have already figured out how to win in 2012 and thereafter.
John McCormick:
How much is that different from the current situation, where laws are being ignored wholesale even while they’re still on the books?
Yeah, a Republican administration will repeal laws… while a Democratic administration will just allow laws to be ignored. That’s a whole lot of difference indeed…
I say, the US citizen deserves much better than a President who’s only “a bit better than the Republicans”. And that’s not going to happen if people keep sending the message that “a bit better than the Republicans” is good enough.
– frank
lou. max, john: you fall into a trap when you let your fear determine your vote. i never urged not voting. find a candidate who has exemplified concern about GW and put your vote there. tell every pollster, phone call, email, or post from the dems what you will do if obama votes for the pipeline or continues to ignore GW.
start checking out the occupiers (there are some near everyone) and support them. there is a movement growing that needs every one of the 98-99%er’s support. what will you say to the next generation when they ask why you put up with a gov’t which ignored GW until it was too late? “i was afraid of the republicans, who seemed worse”?
that will impress them. not only did you doom them, you are a coward.
Curry attacks Muller -
But today The Mail on Sunday can reveal that a leading member of Prof Muller’s team has accused him of trying to mislead the public by hiding the fact that BEST’s research shows global warming has stopped.
Prof Judith Curry, who chairs the Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at America’s prestigious Georgia Institute of Technology, said that Prof Muller’s claim that he has proven global warming sceptics wrong was also a ‘huge mistake’, with no scientific basis.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2055191/Scientists-said-climate-change-sceptics-proved-wrong-accused-hiding-truth-colleague.html#ixzz1cFkpxwHJ
UK economists call for change of government policy with a New Green Deal as part of the programme
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2011/oct/29/george-osborne-plan-b-economy?newsfeed=true
You, CAP really should alter your advertising contract. I am getting, “Shell, Let’s build a better energy future” on the side-bar today.
No excuses. This is wrong.
It is a rotating ad set that I don’t have any control over. I nixed the BP greenwashing. But I’m not going to lose any sleep over this. Unlike, say, the NY Times, no one is ever going to think for a minute that our content is influenced by the occasional fossil fuel ad. Equally important, unlike NY Times readers, CP readers aren’t going to be taken in by such ads.
A lot of content about the environment has ads from fossil fuel companies. I recently saw an ad from chevron on a big news site video, which message was, they want to care for the environment. This is so sick, orwellian advertising i say.
This is an interesting read about possible reasons for the supposed flattish temperature recently.
However, it does read a bit like the joke about the doctor, the lawyer and the priest solving a problem (by surgery, through the courts, and prayer respectively). (No disrespect to the scientists intended.)
The Curry-Attacks-Muller (and BEST) Article in The Mail
Joe, I just read the article that Colorado Bob points out (his comment presently numbered 35), in The Mail, in which Judith Curry critiques BEST, Muller, and etc. and claims that there’s no scientific basis (temperature-wise) for saying that the increase in temperatures hasn’t stopped, or at least substantially paused, in recent years. If your time allows, could you please consider that article in a post, head-on, and let us know what parts of the matter she has wrong, and what parts right, and why?
Be Well,
Jeff
The Second Gilded Age
Has America Become an Oligarchy?
The Occupy Wall Street movement is just one example of the sudden outbreak of tension between America’s super-rich and the “other 99 percent.” Experts now say the US has entered a second Gilded Age, but one in which hedge fund managers have replaced oil barons — and are killing the American dream.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/spiegel/0,1518,793896,00.html
A long opinion piece by Daniel Yergin was in the WaPo Friday concerning energy security. It was completely dismissive of environmental concerns related to oil consumption, and made the assertion that “well to wheels” CO2 emissions from Tar Sands is only 5-15% higher than conventional oil and therefore comparable to many other sources. This statistic is apparently based on a study from his consulting firm. Can anyone shed some light on how they came about this figure? It is very difficult for me to believe at face-value.
Bavarian power grid has solar PV woes:
http://www.germanenergyblog.de/?p=7409