Today’s guest blogger is Jon Gensler, a former U.S. Army captain, LEED accredited professional, and a dual MBA/MPA Candidate at MIT Sloan and the Harvard Kennedy School (a repost).

September 11th is both a difficult and honorable day. Difficult because eight years ago we were woken to threat of terrorism on our shores as thousands of Americans lost their lives in the attacks. And yet honorable because it is now a day we use to honor those whom we lost not only on that day, but in the years since 2001, fighting abroad to secure our safety. However, this is not about the four hijacked jets of September 11, 2001. This is about my response to them.

I am lucky enough to be a native of the great state of West Virginia a graduate of West Point, and a former Army officer and veteran of the Iraq War. I remember clearly the plane that took me to Iraq as a platoon. That first year in Iraq, many good soldiers gave their lives for the rest of us, including my good friend and former football teammate, Joe Lusk, USMA ’01. Be thou at peace, brother. I wish I had space to list all of those who gave the last full measure, and I honor them here.

The next plane I want to mention is where this story starts to change. My plane was riding lower over the ground, coming into its landing strip. Looking out the window, I could see desolation all around. Truly the Waste Land of the poet T.S. Eliot. But this was not Iraq or some God-forsaken land in Central Asia. This was me flying home to West Virginia, and those wastelands used to be a beautiful stretch of Appalachia, blasted and laid bare by our coal-hungry economy. My thoughts jumped rapidly from those whom I had lost in the war to future generations of Americans, of West Virginians. What will we call the Mountain State when all of the mountains are gone?

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Our guest blogger is Jon Gensler, a former U.S. Army captain, LEED accredited professional, and a dual MBA/MPA Candidate at MIT Sloan and the Harvard Kennedy School.

September 11th is both a difficult and honorable day. Difficult because eight years ago we were woken to threat of terrorism on our shores as thousands of Americans lost their lives in the attacks. And yet honorable because it is now a day we use to honor those whom we lost not only on that day, but in the years since 2001, fighting abroad to secure our safety. However, this is not about the four hijacked jets of September 11, 2001. This is about my response to them.

I am lucky enough to be a native of the great state of West Virginia a graduate of West Point, and a former Army officer and veteran of the Iraq War. I remember clearly the plane that took me to Iraq as a platoon. That first year in Iraq, many good soldiers gave their lives for the rest of us, including my good friend and former football teammate, Joe Lusk, USMA ’01. Be thou at peace, brother. I wish I had space to list all of those who gave the last full measure, and I honor them here.

The next plane I want to mention is where this story starts to change. My plane was riding lower over the ground, coming into its landing strip. Looking out the window, I could see desolation all around. Truly the Waste Land of the poet T.S. Eliot. But this was not Iraq or some God-forsaken land in Central Asia. This was me flying home to West Virginia, and those wastelands used to be a beautiful stretch of Appalachia, blasted and laid bare by our coal-hungry economy. My thoughts jumped rapidly from those whom I had lost in the war to future generations of Americans, of West Virginians. What will we call the Mountain State when all of the mountains are gone?

Which brings me to my last plane: a short, small flight from grad school in Boston to Washington, DC, where I would join 150 other veterans with Operation Free in order to meet with our senators on the Hill. We would give voice to the national security threat that climate change poses. You see, this isn’t merely about saving our mountains; this is about preserving our way of life, about reasserting our national place as an international leader.

Who will respond when storms of growing frequency and intensity batter the shorelines of the world? Not the Chinese. Not India. We will. The US military. And beyond the count of humanitarian missions that will rise with rising seas, we must not for a moment underestimate the threats that will increase as populations are displaced, as drinking water becomes ever more scarce. Misery and scarcity will spread, creating breeding grounds where terrorists can and will gain a foothold.

And yet there is still time to act. Legislation before the Congress now can give us a chance to avert the worst of climate change, preserve our environment, create new jobs in a clean economy that will last into the next century, and perhaps most importantly, mitigate the threat to our national security posed by unabated climate change. But the time is now. Join Operation Free and call your senators and support strong legislation that will secure our nation for the future.

[I welcome your thoughts on what lessons, if any, this episode of Wilsonian democracy might tell us about the state of US politics and the implications for dealing with global warming, an issue where conservatives brandish even more denial and false charges.]

The organized disinformation campaign by conservatives got a tad disorganized after Rep. Joe Wilson (R-SC), shouted “you lie” to Obama’s face during the president’s big speech on health care reform.  Yet imagine what most GOP members would have been thinking (and possibly shouting) if this had been Obama’s big speech on global warming.

CBS News Chief Legal Analyst and Legal Editor Andrew Cohen blog:

Much in the same way that we live in denial about the long-lasting failures of our leaders to address long-term problems (health care, Social Security insolvency, global warming, energy independence, etc.) we live in denial about””and tolerate””an astonishing level of phoniness and mean-spiritedness in the political discourse over such matters. America is like the smiley, happy family that has all the bodies buried in the cellar.

Well, one party lives in denial, that is for certain, which is the primary reason we haven’t addressed those problems.

Cohen fails to mention that the President and Congress are attempting to address three of the four problems he lists by name right now, and conservatives are doing everything they can to block action, as they have for decades.  Cohen fails to mention that it is only when Democrats have the presidency and large majorities in both houses that our political system even attempts to do the right thing on those long-term problems — which is why I titled my Salon piece celebrating the June House vote for the clean air, clean water, clean energy jobs bill, “One brief shining moment for clean energy.”

I think Wilson did Obama and progressives a favor, by providing a face, a video clip, for moderates and independents to see how who is to blame for the lack of bipartisanship.  And he certainly did a favor for the late night comics:

On a day of remembrance for that epic tragedy to hit New York, here’s a story about how New York is preparing for the tragedy ever knows is coming.

New York City Braces for Risk of Higher Seas

When major ice sheets thaw, they release enough fresh water to disrupt ocean currents world-wide and make the planet wobble with the uneven weight of so much meltwater on the move. Studying these effects more closely, scientists are discovering local variations in rising sea levels — and some signs pointing to higher seas around metropolitan New York.

Sea level may rise faster near New York than at most other densely populated ports due to local effects of gravity, water density and ocean currents, according to four new forecasts of melting ice sheets. The forecasts are the work of international research teams that included the University of Toronto, the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo., Florida State University and the University of Bristol in the U.K., among others.

Scientists are laboring to make their predictions more reliable. While they do, New York has become an urban experiment in the ways that seaboard cities can adapt to climate change over the next century. For their part, the city’s long-term planners are taking action but are trying to balance the cost of re-engineering the largest city in the U.S. against the uncertainties of climate forecasts.

“We can’t make multibillion-dollar decisions based on the hypothetical,” says Rohit Aggarwala, the city’s director of long-term planning and sustainability.

Still, prompted by a possibility of floods from higher seas, some university-based marine researchers and civil engineers are debating whether New York ought to protect its low-lying financial district, port, power grid and subways with storm surge barriers like the mobile bulwarks that safeguard London, Rotterdam, Netherlands, and St. Petersburg, Russia. Engineering concepts for multibillion-dollar barriers around New York harbor were discussed here this week during the H209 Water Forum, an international conference on coastal cities and climate change, held by the Henry Hudson 400 Foundation at the Liberty Science Center.

EU Environment Chief Sees 100% Chance Of Deal In Copenhagen

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Climate change is a major threat to U.S. Security.  The clean air, clean water, clean energy jobs bill would enhance our security by reducing oil dependence and environmental harm.  That’s why the conservative Virgina Republican, John Warner, is pushing hard to pass the bill — because he is a former Navy secretary and former Senate Armed Services Committee chair and because he is a former Forest Service firefighter now “just absolutely heartbroken” because “the old forest, the white pine forest in which I worked, was absolutely gone, devastated, standing there dead from the bark beetle” thanks in large part to global warming (see interview below).

So it’s no surprise the deniers and delayers spread disinformation to try to undercut this core message.  As Brad Johnson reports at Think Progress:

Congressional investigators have discovered that the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity’s (ACCCE) astroturfing effort has impersonated American military veterans in a forged letter sent to Congress. Thirteen other forgeries purporting to be from organizations representing blacks, Hispanics, women and senior citizens. This latest letter, sent in June to influence a swing Democratic legislator on his vote on the American Clean Energy and Security Act, impersonates a local American Legion official in Rocky Mount, VA:

As the Washington Post reported:

The letter, sent to the office of Rep. Tom Perriello (D-VA), asks Perriello to “make sure the Waxman-Markey bill includes provisions to promote American energy independence, while protecting already cash-strapped constituents from increases in electricity prices.” It concludes, “Thank you for listening to concerns of vets in your district.”

Download the forged letter.

Also yesterday, we saw Alstom quit the scandal-ridden coal industry front group, ACCCE, joining Duke and Alcoa.

Real veterans of the  Iraq War explain their support for the American Clean Energy and Security Act in this new advertisement from VoteVets.org:

Yesterday, more than 150 veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars — real ones — visited the White House and the Congress to argue that “climate change legislation is absolutely critical.”   E&E Daily (subs. req’d) has the full story:

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