environment Politics: idiots National Research Council Republican obstructionism scientific consensus
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Year 2, Month 5, Day 24: Just Put It On The Pile, OK?
USA Today notes a new report from the National Research Council makes the point that we need to act soon on climate change — and if we don’t, we’ll really be sorry about it:
A report released Thursday by a National Research Council committee cites “the pressing need for substantial action to limit the magnitude of climate change and to prepare to adapt to its impacts.”
Since the effects of greenhouse gases can take decades to come about, and then persist for hundreds or even thousands of years, waiting for impacts to occur before taking action will likely be too late for meaningful mitigation, according to the report.
Beginning emissions reductions soon will also lower the pressure to make steeper and costlier cuts later. “It is our judgment that the most effective strategy is to begin ramping down emissions as soon as possible,” said committee chair Albert Carnesale of UCLA.
A perfect hook for a letter about how stupid our Congress is. Sent May 13:
Sigh. That just-released report on climate change — the one that says the longer we wait to reduce greenhouse emissions, the worse things will get — you know the one? In a world where reason, factuality and expertise actually played a role in American politics, such a study would have a seismic effect on our Congress. Legislators would move to incorporate its recommendations into law, providing companies with governmental incentives to shrink CO2 footprints, providing states with funding to develop programs of their own, honoring individuals who developed new strategies for environmentally conscious energy usage. Why, if we lived in such a world, the NRC report could make an enormous difference in all our lives!
Unfortunately, in the world we actually inhabit, logic and factuality are political anathema — and the NRC study will likely join other similar studies in the Congressional dustbin. And the Earth gets hotter and hotter.
Warren Senders
environment: Arctic Arctic ice melt black carbon Hillary Clinton Ken Salazar soot
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Year 2, Month 5, Day 23: Dark As A Dungeon
Hillary Clinton and Ken Salazar are going to the meeting of the Arctic Council, and are expected to contribute toward an agreement on the mitigation of “black carbon,” which is contributing significantly to Arctic ice melt, reports the Washington Post.
Much of the policy debate over global warming has focused on the role of carbon dioxide emissions, which are caused by fossil-fuel burning and remain trapped in the atmosphere for hundreds of years. But, with its initiatives to curb greenhouse gas emissions stalled in Congress, the Obama administration has been compelled to explore alternative ways to slow Arctic warming that do not require United Nations-brokered treaties or complex cap-and-trade scenarios.
At this week’s meetings in Greenland, attended by diplomats of the Arctic Council, Clinton will be joined by Interior Secretary Ken Salazar. Aides said they plan to highlight the role played by “black carbon” — essentially soot from inefficient combustion, such as natural gas flaring, wood stoves and the controlled burning of agricultural waste.
Such pollutants play an outsize role in Arctic warming, scientists say, essentially causing ice to melt faster than can be explained by rising temperatures alone. But instead of an international treaty, Arctic Council nations will be encouraged to adopt measures unilaterally to control emissions of soot as well other “short-term drivers” of Arctic warming, administration officials said.
Sent May 12:
The rapid losses of Arctic ice provide a sobering confirmation of the reality of global climate change, and reinforce the crucial fact that the time for meaningful human intervention is rapidly dwindling. The presence of Secretaries Clinton and Salazar at the Arctic Council meeting is a positive sign of engagement from our government; while “black carbon” is only one piece of the puzzle, it’s something that doesn’t require the acquiescence of the Republican-run House of Representatives. The GOP’s decades of anti-science advocacy, coupled with the profound innumeracy and scientific ignorance of many media figures, has created a political culture in which acknowledging reality is fatal to Republicans’ electoral opportunities. Eventually, of course, the greenhouse effect and the laws of physics will win; they always do. We are fortunate that at least a few members of our government recognize the danger and are prepared to act before it’s too late.
Warren Senders
environment: agriculture biodiversity monocropping
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Year 2, Month 5, Day 22: Factory Farms Are Not Going to Last Much Longer
The Spokane Register-Guard (WA) runs the same AP article on the new study of climate change and farming.
This time I went with the biodiversity theme. Sent May 11:
The past half-century saw farmers all over the world devoting more of their resources to monocrops, seeking greater profitability through economies of scale. Now, however, as the specter of climate change looms ever larger, it appears that we will need to reclaim the benefits of biodiversity. Single-crop farming is a sure thing only when the local and regional weather is entirely consistent from year to year. Since even relatively minor fluctuations can have huge impacts on crop yields, it’s no wonder that careful studies of the likely impact of climate change are essential if our agricultural sector is to survive and prosper. It is a sad commentary on our contemporary political situation that so many of our legally elected representatives are unwilling to face the bare and unambiguous facts of climate change; denial of reality is a bad long-term strategy, as any farmer can tell you.
Warren Senders
environment: agriculture Department of Agriculture
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Year 2, Month 5, Day 21: Shootin’ Crops
The Boise Spokesman-Review notes a new study on the agricultural effects of climate change in the Inland Northwest, funded by the Department of Agriculture and based in the University of Idaho:
Temperatures in the Inland Northwest are already up about 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit on average in the past century, and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is predicting that the temperature will increase another 3.6 degrees by 2050, Eigenbrode said.
Winter precipitation is predicted to increase by 5 percent, but summer rainfall could drop by 5 to 20 percent, he said.
Warmer summer temperatures could spell problems for grains and other crops that will face increased heat and water stress.
The comment thread on this article is a gold mine of denialist stupidity.
Sent May 10:
The scientific evidence keeps piling up, confirming and reconfirming both the reality and the threat. Although human-caused global warming was rechristened “climate change” by Republican strategist Frank Luntz (who reasoned that it didn’t sound so scary that way), Luntz’ term is more accurate. Atmospheric heating doesn’t automatically make everything get hotter; it makes the weather get weirder and weirder all over the planet. Tornadoes, hailstorms, unseasonal snows and heavy rains, droughts — you name it, it’ll be coming at us in the decades to come. No wonder farmers everywhere are trying to figure out how to prepare for a world with radically unpredictable weather patterns; the University of Idaho study is just one of many. As we examine ways to keep our agriculture thriving, let’s remember how we got in this fix to begin with — and begin a concerted effort to reduce our country’s wasteful overconsumption of fossil fuels.
Warren Senders
environment Politics: assholes Citizens United corporate irresponsibility denialists irony Koch Brothers
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Year 2, Month 5, Day 20: Ha ha. Ha ha. Ha ha.
The Koch Brothers were pranked by “Youth For Climate Truth,” a low-budget Yes Men group which sent out some phony press releases in the name of Koch Industries a while back, claiming the Bircher billionaires had seen the light on climate change and were no longer going to fund denialism in the media. Ha ha. The Kochs then proceeded to sue YFCT. Ha ha.
The suit has now been laughed out of court. Ha ha:
A federal judge in Utah on Monday tossed Koch Industries’s lawsuit against the pranksters who set up a fake website and sent out a bogus press release saying the company had found religion on climate change.
In a case being watched for First Amendment implications, Judge Dale Kimball of the U.S. District Court in Salt Lake City also said Koch can’t disclose the identities of the “Youth for Climate Truth” members or use any other information obtained via subpoena from two Utah-based domain hosting companies.
The ruling is a major one as courts navigate the intersection of the First Amendment with anonymous speech and computer hacking on the Internet. Koch’s claims included charges of trademark infringement, unfair competition, cybersquatting and breach of the company website’s terms of use.
Ha ha. Ha ha. Ha ha.
Sent May 9:
Koch Industries’ lawsuit against “Youth For Climate Truth” was a mother lode of irony. That one of the world’s most egregiously irresponsible corporations trotted out such massive legal firepower in response to a small group of internet pranksters suggests that these notorious tea-party funders and climate-change denialists are, perhaps, a wee bit sensitive about it. Well, Judge Kimball has laughed them out of court, and rightly so. “Youth For Climate Truth,” the online activists who tweaked the corporate titans with a phony press release, merit our thanks and applause. Given their huge role in delaying and derailing meaningful political action on climate change, the Kochs and their cronies in the fossil-fuel industry have perpetrated a grotesque practical joke on all the rest of us; the American public deserves a few laughs at their expense before the coming decades’ likely ecological collapse strips all humor from the situation.
Warren Senders
environment: agriculture denialists
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Year 2, Month 5, Day 19: Crops Again
The Times reports on the same study on climate change and agriculture that’s already triggered several letters over the past few days.
I figured I’d harp on the “Americans are scary dumb and deluded” aspect of this.
Sent May 8:
One of the scariest aspects of the research linking global warming to rising food prices is simply that the planet’s environmental transformation has only just begun. The orchestra of climate chaos is still tuning up, and already we are observing crop losses and decreased yields in many of the world’s great agricultural regions. Between increasing droughts, heavy floods and other forms of anomalous extreme weather, there are farmers everywhere whose lives have been gravely disrupted. Well, almost everywhere. It’s grotesquely ironic that the United States, for decades Earth’s largest per capita greenhouse emitter, has experienced comparatively little agricultural damage from the climate change it has helped make possible. America has, however, seen a different failure — a failure of imagination and understanding that has many of our fellow citizens preferring Byzantine conspiracy theories to scientific facts. While the world’s harvests suffer, the United States reaps a bumper crop of ignorance.
Warren Senders
environment: agriculture American exceptionalism denialists
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Year 2, Month 5, Day 18: “PDB: AGW Determined To Strike US”
The Des-Moines Register reports on the same study noted yesterday, which published May 5 in Science Magazine:
Washington, D.C. – Climate change already is cutting into grain yields, and likely increasing food prices, in most of the world other than the United States, scientists say.
While U.S. farmers have enjoyed a relatively favorable climate, yield gains in other regions over the past three decades have been partially offset by temperature increases, according to a study released Thursday in the journal Science.
The comments are worth a look — if you crave a dose of denialist stupidity.
Sent May 7:
We in the United States have been sheltered by geographical good luck from the first ravages of global climate change — a state of affairs that may continue for another few years. Unfortunately, this means that environmentally responsible and forward-thinking policies will be hampered by resistance from people who prefer to embrace denialist conspiracy theories instead of facing the facts. America did not achieve greatness by avoiding unpleasant realities, but through our readiness to shoulder crucial responsibilities. These qualities are essential if we’re to respond properly to the threats posed by runaway climate change — threats for which we’ve had literally decades of warning from experts in the field. Let us not shirk our duty in the face of this implacable enemy; the greenhouse effect has no leader in a villa halfway across the globe, but it has the potential to cause far more damage than any group of jihadists.
Warren Senders
environment: agriculture
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Year 2, Month 5, Day 17: The Farmer Is The One Who Feeds Us All
The Houston Chronicle writes about a study led by some people at Stanford University that projects agricultural impacts from climate change. Oddly enough, the authors note that North America has not really gotten whacked by the effects of AGW. Yet:
“If we don’t adapt, I think we are just beginning to see the effects of climate change on agriculture,” said David Lobell, a Stanford University scientist who led the research published Thursday in the journal Science.
The authors of the study, one of the first to link climate change to agricultural losses, urged farmers to adapt by developing types of corn and wheat that can grow in warmer and drier climates.
That may be a tough sell for American farmers, who so far have been largely spared by climate change and in general remain skeptical about the threats posed by global warming.
(snip)
“My message to American farmers would be to be careful not to think that what you’re experiencing is going on in the world,” Lobell said. “In a sense our findings help me understand why farmers are so skeptical about climate change, because they haven’t been seeing it themselves. But when you look around the world it’s very apparent.”
Sent May 6:
It is an unfortunate irony that the country which has contributed the most to the greenhouse effect over the past half-century is being spared the most significant impacts of climate change. While people all over the world are daily grappling with the reality of global warming, Americans, protected by the exigencies of geography, are still able to pretend it’s not happening. For the time being, anyway. Eventually, of course, all that increased atmospheric CO2 will catch up with all of us, and the vehement assertions of climate-change denialists will be exposed as factually vacuous and scientifically dishonest. The question, of course, is whether this will happen in time to reverse, or at least partially mitigate, the terrifying consequences of a century’s worth of profligate fossil-fuel consumption. By that time, the reduced agricultural yields predicted by the Stanford scientists will be among the least of our worries.
Warren Senders
environment Politics: denialists idiots Renewable Energy
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Year 2, Month 5, Day 16: Wish We Could Burn Stupid, Don’t You?
A denialist bloviator named Thomas Mitchell opines in the Las Vegas Review-Journal that renewable energy is a waste of time and, well, energy. And furthermore, SOSHALIZM!
Our legislators, in all their perspicacity and foresight, have said, “Let there be renewable energy,” and gosh darn it, there will be renewable energy whether we need it or not and no matter the cost to the citizens of Nevada.
It’s good for us, and we’re going to swallow a full dose of it and turn “green.”
Um…okay. Sent May 5:
Mr. Mitchell’s asperity on the rising costs associated with renewable energy would be justified — if the scientific evidence didn’t show conclusively failing to transform our global energy economy away from fossil fuels will be exponentially costlier in the long run. Two of the many things he’s chosen to ignore are that the U.S. heavily subsidizes petroleum with massive tax breaks for oil companies (which means that we pay more for our oil without realizing it), and that the environmental and health effects of burning coal are enormously expensive (which means that we pay extra for coal in the form of cleanup costs and medical expenses). Even if we don’t need renewable energy right now, it’s certain we’ll need it soon — and just because China burns coal doesn’t mean America gets to evade its responsibilities to future generations and to the world; that’s adolescent petulance, not thoughtful analysis.
Warren Senders
environment Politics: Arctic ice melt arctic methane IPCC
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Year 2, Month 5, Day 15: Double Uh-Oh.
The Washington Post reports on the AMAP study:
OSLO — Global sea levels will rise faster than expected this century, partly because of quickening climate change in the Arctic and a thaw of Greenland’s ice, an international report said Tuesday.
The rise would add to threats to coasts from Bangladesh to Florida, low-lying Pacific islands and cities from London to Shanghai. It would also raise the cost of building tsunami barriers in Japan.
Record temperatures in the Arctic will add to factors raising world sea levels by up to 5.2 feet by 2100, according to a report by the Oslo-based Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Programme (AMAP), which is backed by the eight-nation Arctic Council.
I went with the “birther” analogy here. Sent May 4:
The AMAP report confirms what many of us have been suspecting and fearing all along: the projections of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change have been consistently wrong — too conservative by far. The likely effects of global warming will include sea-level rises that will devastate coastlines throughout the word; when the atmospheric release of methane clathrates is factored into the equation the resulting picture is increasingly nightmarish.
And yet fully fifty percent of America’s representative government can’t even admit the problem is real, preferring instead to believe in a grotesque and wholly improbable mishmash of paranoia, false equivalency, and scientific illiteracy. The assertions of climate deniers are weirdly reminiscent of another long-running conspiracy theory that has remained unaffected by common sense, logic, and evidence. If only global warming could produce a long-form birth certificate!
Warren Senders