environment: Ban ki-Moon Pacific Islands
by Warren
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Year 2, Month 3, Day 12: Arkansas Traveler Edition
Sort of groping today. I stumbled across an article in the Solomon Times (Pacific Islands) about a regional conference to address climate change’s impact on the fish economy. Not really inspiring stuff, frankly — but I was too tickled by the thought of writing to an outlet in the Solomon Islands. Then I read this:
4 March 2011 – Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today pledged United Nations support to help Pacific Island States mitigate the impact of climate change, noting that many of them are “on the front lines” of the battle.
“As you know, the clock is ticking. We must do whatever we can, wherever we can, as quickly as we can, to protect the most vulnerable,” he said in a message to the Ministerial Regional Conference on Climate Change in the Pacific, which is being held in Port Vila, Vanuatu.
“It is critically important for the Pacific Island countries to continue to raise their voices on climate change. Your communities are on the front lines of this global threat. Small island developing States are among those that are most vulnerable to climate impacts. You know first-hand the destructive potential of rising sea levels, more intensive storms and other hazards.”
And that triggered the following letter, ostensibly sent WRT the Fish/Climate Change Conference, but actually addressing the UN committment.
Sent March 4:
Ban Ki-moon’s vow of United Nations support for Pacific Island States is welcome news. At this point, the juggernaut of climate change cannot be stopped; it may only be slowed — and island economies and cultures are among the very first to feel its consequences. It is grimly ironic that the nations which contribute least to the atmospheric greenhouse effect are the ones most affected by it. Unfortunately, in many industrialized countries the political climate has made reality-based discussions of global warming difficult, and actual policies impossible. For nations protected by geography from climate change’s initial impacts, devaluing scientific expertise in favor of short-term political exigencies is a luxury that the Pacific Island States can ill afford. The committed engagement of the United Nations is essential; the world’s industrialized nations must recognize the climate crisis as a universal threat and take immediate steps to transform their energy economies. But as long as the oil industry maintains its stranglehold on the world’s governments, such action is unlikely. Ban Ki-moon has his work cut out for him.
Warren Senders
…and as of March 11, you can find this letter online at the Solomon Times website.
environment: extreme weather media irresponsibility scientific consensus
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Year 2, Month 3, Day 11: Never Bet Against The House; The House Always Wins
The Bangkok Post runs a story detailing some of the unambiguous links between global warming and our crazy weather. Newspapers in Asia are overwhelmingly more likely to just print the actual facts without a lot of he-said/she-said false equivalence to muddy up the argument.
*
Climate change is not only making the planet warmer, it is also making snowstorms stronger and more frequent, US scientists said on Tuesday.
“Heavy snowstorms are not inconsistent with a warming planet,” said scientist Jeff Masters, as part of a conference call with reporters and colleagues convened by the Union of Concern Scientists.
“In fact, as the Earth gets warmer and more moisture gets absorbed into the atmosphere, we are steadily loading the dice in favor of more extreme storms in all seasons, capable of causing greater impacts on society.”
Steadily loading the dice. Yup. And we are a species of inveterate and thoughtless gamblers. Hoo boy.
Sent March 3:
The scientific evidence linking global warming to the world’s increasingly unpredictable and extreme weather is accumulating almost as fast as the record-breaking snowfalls that brought large parts of the United States to a standstill over the past six weeks. But it is increasingly clear that there are some whom mountains of incontrovertible evidence cannot convince. With the world’s richest and most powerful corporations in positions of influence in print and broadcast media, a huge array of persuasive technologies is used to undermine the scientific truth of global climate change. It is both a tragedy and a crime, for the sooner the citizens and leaders of all nations are able to take meaningful steps both to slow global warming and to mitigate its effects, the more likely we (all six billion of us) are to survive. In their thirst for short-term profits, these corporate giants may ultimately doom themselves as well.
Warren Senders
music vocalists: beauty genius joy reasons to carry on
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Thomas Quasthoff and the Alchemy of Song
As a singer and a singing teacher, I have spent decades listening to voices. Voices meek, voices strong. Voices constricted by fear and insecurity, voices filled with exaltation, voices once robust but now vitiated by age or illness. While I’m not an expert on vocal anatomy, I can understand what’s going on inside the voices of anyone I hear.
I’ve listened to more different types of vocal music than most people know exist. Quiz me sometime and I’ll tell you about Sardinian quartets, about Tuvan throat-singing, about Ainu bear ceremonies. I’ve been knocked out by greatness in more genres than you can shake a stick at. I’ve heard vocal geniuses at close range and at a distance.
And today I’d like to tell you about one of them. This guy:
environment Politics: assholes idiots Renewable Energy Republican obstructionism
by Warren
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Year 2, Month 3, Day 10: An Insult to Clowns Everywhere
The Christian Science Monitor runs a pretty good article pointing out that the Republicans’ economic alarmism about environmental regulation is utter bullshit.
Sent March 2:
Given the gross fiscal irresponsibility of the current crop of Republican legislators, it should be utterly laughable to hear them pontificating that action on global climate change is somehow going to be a “job-killer.” Remember, these people recklessly squandered a massive budget surplus on tax breaks for the very wealthy and a completely unnecessary war — they couldn’t be less concerned about middle-class jobs. Their opposition to environmental regulation has nothing to do with any economic concerns; it is, rather, a long-standing political phenomenon known as “hippie-punching.” A favorite Republican activity, it’s also common among Democrats seeking to establish their conservative bona fides. In this case, however, those hippie liberals have a point. The scientific evidence is crystal-clear: if we don’t regulate greenhouse gases, we (all six billion of us) are going to face a world significantly less hospitable to our species. Republican obstructionists are playing a very dangerous game.
Warren Senders
environment: biodiversity lodgepole pine predictions scientific method
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Year 2, Month 3, Day 9: Maybe They Can Import Kudzu. Yeah. That’ll Work.
More on the soon-to-vanish Lodgepole Pine, this time from Eugene, Oregon Register-Guard. As opposed to a generic AP story, this one appears to be the work of a staff writer, and it’s pretty good.
Citizens of the Pacific Northwest can no longer say they weren’t warned. With the recent release of a study predicting that global warming will bring about a catastrophic decline in the lodgepole pine population over the next five or six decades, residents of the area can begin to imagine a very different-looking future. While the work of Richard Waring and his colleagues is region-specific, there can be no doubt that similar processes are underway around the world; hundreds of regional ecosystems will experience massive disruption, losing thousands of key plant and animal species. We must all work together to change our patterns of energy consumption; as Nobel Laureate Sherwood Rowland once said, “What’s the use of having developed a science well enough to make predictions if, in the end, all we’re willing to do is stand around and wait for them to come true?” We’ve all been warned. What will we do now?
Warren Senders
environment: computer models deforestation denialists scientific consensus
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Year 2, Month 3, Day 8: And We Shiver When The (Hot) Winds Blow
The Seattle Times runs an AP story detailing a new study co-authored by Richard Waring, a tree expert. Climate change is going to destroy the habitat of the lodgepole pine, one of the most important trees in the Pacific Northwest:
Scientists have developed a computer model that predicts the lodgepole pine – one of the most common trees at high elevations in the Cascades and Rockies – will be largely driven out of the Northwest by 2080 due to the warming climate.
A more extensive version of the same article can be found at greenwichtime.com. Sent February 28:
The “skeptics” who continue to obfuscate and deny the ominous realities of global climate change will respond predictably to the just-published study showing the decimation of Lodgepole pine habitat within the coming century due to increasing temperatures. Some will claim that computer models cannot be trusted, some will simply say, “Who cares about trees?”, and some will claim it’s part of a widespread conspiracy to imprison SUV drivers on behalf of a New World Order. A scientifically literate reader could respond as follows: 1 – we trust computer models all the time throughout our civilization, 2 – those trees form important habitat for thousands of animal and plant species and have played important roles in human history as well, and, 3 – aside from being a paranoid delusion, such a worldwide cabal of research scientists is exponentially more improbable than the idea that human greenhouse emissions are drastically affecting our atmosphere, our climate and our lives.
Warren Senders
environment: denialists media irresponsibility scientific consensus
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Year 2, Month 3, Day 7: Is Dis A System?
The Oakland Daily Tribune (that’s Oakland, Michigan, not Oakland, California) runs an article heavily featuring climate denialist Christopher Kobus, who makes a statement that is so wacko I cannot believe he believes it:
He believes the debate boils down to funding.
“(Advocates of global warming) are well-funded and have deep connections with the media,” he said.
“So-called skeptics (of global warming) are neither well-funded nor organized via advocacy organizations. It is a one-way debate.”
A little research on Kobus suggests that he was taken in by the “Climategate” non-scandal and has continued to base his belief system on this series of unfortunate events.
Sent February 27:
Professor Chris Kobus’ claim that climate change “skeptics” are poorly funded does not stand even a cursory examination. The few climatologists who dismiss the overwhelming scientific consensus on Earth’s climatic transformation are almost without exception supported by petroleum-funded “think tanks” and “institutes.” Conversely, many climate scientists face extraordinary obstacles, including smear campaigns, hate mail, death threats and legal harassment in addition to the ongoing struggles for funding that are part of every scientist’s daily work. Professor Kobus states that “climate-change advocates” have “deep connections with the media.” Which media? Surely not our TV, radio or newspapers, which inevitably “balance” every genuinely alarmed expert with an oil-industry spokesman. Meanwhile, there’s snow in California, golfball-sized hailstones in the Midwest, and freak rainstorms in Australia — an increase in freak weather events which climatologists have predicted for decades as a consequence of the greenhouse effect. Denying a problem won’t make it go away.
Warren Senders
India Indian music music vocalists: genius Jaipur Gharana khyal
by Warren
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Singing Is Nothing But Joy: An Appreciation of Mallikarjun Mansur
The first time I heard the music of Pandit Mallikarjun Mansur was in 1978, very early in my study of Hindustani music. I’d taken a survey course on Indian music at the Harvard Extension, and the professor gave me an assortment of vocal music that included Mansur’s rendition of a beautiful rainy-season raga, Gaud Malhar.
It was strikingly different from the other music on the tape. More than any of the other singers represented, this vocalist really seemed to be enjoying himself. There was a rhythmic playfulness that spoke to my jazz-loving self, integrated with the serene aesthetic flow that characterizes Hindustani music. His voice was a high, slightly raspy tenor; his range was relatively narrow; his breath control preternatural.
I asked other people about Mansur. This was the late 1970s, and most of the people I knew in the Indian music community had never heard of him; as it turns out, he had not been performing widely for decades and had only recently returned to the notice of the concertgoing public in India. Over the next few years I gradually acquired tape recordings of his LP records, whetting my appetite for more of this remarkable singer’s remarkable music. Nobody I knew on the Indian tape-trading network had any concert recordings, and the Internets hadn’t been invented yet.
environment: Ban ki-Moon corporate irresponsibility false equivalence Hollywood media irresponsibility
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Year 2, Month 3, Day 6: Ban Ki Goes To Hollywood
I just finished reading Will Bunch’s “Tear Down This Myth,” and I was already thinking about the disaster that Reagan’s Hollywood presidency was for the country. Then I read this article in the LA Times, about Ban Ki-moon’s heavy lobbying of Hollywood bigwigs on climate change, and was struck by a line midway through.
This is a site-specific version of the generic media irresponsibility/false equivalence letter. Enjoy.
Mailed February 26:
The key sentence in your description of Ban Ki-Moon’s plea to Hollywood figures for support in combating climate change is director David Carson’s remark, “You don’t want to offend your sponsors.” That is to say, television is fed by big oil, and people who work in TV shy away from biting the hand that feeds them. Ban Ki-Moon’s initiative may yield tangible results; one can only hope that America’s entertainment media will contribute constructively to our species’ ongoing struggle with the greenhouse effect, since the nation’s news media have virtually without exception abdicated their responsibilities in this arena. Yes, we need movies and TV to get people thinking about global warming, just as we need good, accurate news on the subject. But as long as those who provide entertainment and/or facts cannot depict climate change as both scientific fact and imminent threat without offending their sponsors, it’s unlikely.
Warren Senders
environment Politics: assholes denialists false equivalency idiots Koch Brothers RGGI
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Year 2, Month 3, Day 5: We Don’t Need No Steenkin’ Evidence!
The Nashua Telegraph (New Hampshire) discusses the move in that state to stop participating in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative. They’ve got climate zombies in the state house and misleading robo-calls from the Koch Brothers. What could possibly go wrong?
Americans for Prosperity, an conservative group with financial support from the oil industry, made automated robocalls over the long holiday weekend, attacking RGGI as guaranteeing further increases in electricity bills.
Studies had concluded that RGGI has added 6.5 cents per month to an average consumer’s bill.
Rep. Sandra Keans, D-Rochester, attacked AFP’s calls as “sleazy” and deliberately false.
“I have never seen such a cowardly perpetration pulled on the citizens of New Hampshire,” Keans said.
AFP Executive Director Corey Lewandowski defended the group’s lobbying against RGGI.
“Constituents should be able to call their elected officials to register a concern. Nobody forces people to run for office if they don’t want to hear from those who elected them,” Lewandowski said. “We’re delighted by the strong House vote for consumers.”
Rep. Beatriz Pastor, D-Lyme, said that even if there were questions about climate change science, it’s wise for the state to take preventive measures like RGGI.
“Noah got intelligence (that) a natural disaster was about to occur,” Pastor said of the Bibilical account. “He could have looked out the window and said ‘it doesn’t look like it is going to rain’.”
But Deputy Majority Leader Shawn Jasper of Hudson disagreed.
“Neither man nor cow is responsible for global warming,” he added.
Mr. Jasper seemed like an excellent hook upon which to hang a letter. Sent February 25:
Representative Shawn Jasper is an excellent example of an increasingly prevalent species of Homo Politicus: the “climate zombie,” a politician whose denial of the facts of global climate change is so ideologically rooted that no amount of factually-based argument will change his mind. Our nation used to regard scientists with respect; after all, they were responsible most of our major technological advances and noteworthy achievements (the Apollo program, anyone?). There should be nothing unusual about the idea that when you need expertise in a particular area, you ask experts and take their advice very seriously. But in the world of today’s Republican party, scientists are only to be listened to when their opinions are ideologically convenient. Representative Jasper’s pronouncement that “neither man nor cow is responsible for global warming” has no factual foundation, as author Kevin Landrigan could have ascertained with a few minutes’ worth of research. The fact that this “climate zombie” has been given an unrefuted last word in a supposedly objective article about the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative is an unfortunate dereliction of journalistic responsibility.
Warren Senders