Running Gamak: Warren Senders' Blog

Month 8, Day 10: He’s One Of The Best

My congressman said something great.

Rep. Edward Markey (D-Mass.) suggested a novel use Saturday for a 100-square-mile ice sheet that has broken off Greenland.

“An iceberg four times the size of Manhattan has broken off Greenland, creating plenty of room for global warming deniers to start their own country,” Markey said in a statement. “So far, 2010 has been the hottest year on record, and scientists agree arctic ice is a canary in a coal mine that provides clear warnings on climate.”

I figured I’d indulge myself tonight and send him a congratulatory letter. I imagine the poor guy’s always getting hammered by wingnuts. So here’s my Dear Ed letter:

Dear Congressman Markey,

Your remarks about the obstructionist approach of the Republican party on climate change issues are absolutely correct. I am sickened by the behavior of climate denialists, and fear its consequences for all of us.

It is a sad commentary on the present state of our politics that just about the only good news I’ve had on climate for a long time is the fact that you called them out for the selfish, sloppy, cynical sociopaths they have become. No words are strong enough to express my gratitude to you — or my outrage at the dysfunctional wreckage they have made of our system of government.

In the past, “climate change” was in the future. As the recent extreme weather events all over the world show us, the past is over. Climate change is now. And yet our media represent the subject as something still being debated, with a one-to-one ratio between climate scientist and industry shill. When they report on Russian fires, Connecticut’s storms and flooding, or the heat wave in New York, the connection with climate change is never made. It is a dangerously irresponsible omission.

In the battle for media attention, the best bumper-sticker wins. Climate-change advocates need better soundbites to prevail, in a media system that is rigged against us.

Ask your colleagues: if ninety-seven out of a hundred oncologists told you, “it’s cancer,” would you go to the hospital? Or would you choose to trust the three percent of them who said they “weren’t sure?” Why, then, do you choose to ignore the ninety-seven percent of climate scientists who are telling us we’ve got a serious problem?

Tell your colleagues: if a freak snowstorm in Washington, DC disproves global warming, then the swollen belly of a starving child disproves world hunger.

And I think we should start calling that iceberg “Inhofistan.”

These people have no shame, conscience or scruples. Keep speaking as strongly as you did today.

Yours Sincerely,

Warren Senders

Month 6, Day 15: Don’t Get Mad, Get Madder!

I have a houseguest & I’m really tired. I just opened up this piece on Daily Kos, read it, got outraged, and wrote Ed Markey and Henry Waxman a letter asking them to get a little tougher on the gang of criminals who are obviously in charge of British Petroleum.

You should read that piece, too. It’ll make you mad. Maybe you should get mad — and write a letter to someone!

Dear Representatives Markey and Waxman,

We need to understand a few things about what’s going on in the Gulf of Mexico right now. It is absolutely crucial that congressional hearings bring up some of the following questions:

1. Why is British Petroleum apparently giving orders to the Coast Guard — and why is the Coast Guard taking orders from BP? A recent CBS News clip documented an incident of local television journalists being turned away from taking photographs of dead and dying sea life, saying: “A boat of BP Contractors, with 2 Coast Guard officials on board, told us turn around under threat of arrest — explaining ‘This is BP’s rules — it’s not ours’ ” In my naivete, I had the impression that the Coast Guard worked for the people of this country, not a British-owned oil company.

2. Why is BP failing to do genuine cleanup work in threatened areas? Booms have been put in place in wildlife protection areas, but no follow-up or monitoring has been instituted. The result? The only thing actually being contained is bad publicity for BP. The oil, meanwhile, is killing birds, sea turtles, fish and dolphins, and it’s only going to get worse. Frankly, we need more bad publicity for British Petroleum.

3. Why is BP making cleanup contractors sign agreements not to talk to the media? This company blatantly ignored safety regulations, gamed the system to its benefit for decades, and now (through its own negligence and carelessness) poised to wipe out both unique local ecologies and unique local economies. They should not be in a position to dictate terms to their contract employees.

Reporters from the New York Daily News interviewed BP contractors, who took them to locations where dolphin carcasses were dead and rotting. The contractor interviewed said, “When we found this dolphin it was filled with oil. Oil was just pouring out of it. It was the saddest darn thing to look at. There is a lot of cover-up for BP. They specifically informed us that they don’t want these pictures of the dead animals. They know the ocean will wipe away most of the evidence. It’s important to me that people know the truth about what’s going on here. The things I’ve seen… They just aren’t right. All the life out here is just full of oil.”

4. Why is BP unable to handle calls from Gulf area residents? Shortly after the Deepwater Horizon disaster happened, BP set up call centers to handle questions and concerns. But according to a Houston television station, they’ve over 200,000 phone calls have been received…but they go nowhere. People whose lives and communities are under terrible threat are made to think their messages are being formally documented when in fact they are not even written down by call center operators.

The overall impression of BP is one of a malicious and often criminal incompetence made possible by a feeble regulatory environment. While congressional hearings cannot get the oil back into the earth, they can be a big step towards ensuring that such a disastrous failure of regulation never happens again.

I’m hoping to see British Petroleum executives testifying under oath, with jail sentences available for any who are in contempt or who are proven to have perjured themselves. There is no need to be nice to these people; they’ve destroyed one of our country’s most important natural resources, and the full extent of the damage they’ve caused won’t be understood for years.

Their incompetence and criminality are yet another set of very good reasons to end our national dependence on oil; it makes these people wealthy and powerful, and they don’t deserve wealth or power — they deserve jail time.

Yours Sincerely,

Warren Senders

Month 5, Day 6: Variations on a Theme

Haven’t written to Ed Markey in a while; didn’t feel as much of a need, since ACES passed the House. But in the wake of this awful event, I thought I should tell him to raise a little hell.

Dear Representative Markey — I write as one of your constituents, and as an American citizen who is hopeful that in the wake of the Deepwater Horizon disaster, the Earth-destroying systems that comprise the fossil fuel industries may finally be brought to bay. The recent tragedy in a West Virginia coal mine showed us again the ugly face of the coal industry (personified exactly by the avatar of greed, Mr. Don Blankenship); the catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico shows us again the utter unconcern of British Petroleum (and the rest of Big Oil) for the environmental effects of their activity.

The objection raised to renewable energy is invariably that it is “too expensive.” As we can see in the last two months’ news, it is actually oil and coal that are too expensive: too expensive in lives, in environmental destruction, in cleanup bills, in the costs of war, in health effects, in contributions to global warming.

I write this letter to ask you and Representative Waxman, as the “point people” for energy and climate issues in the House, to stand up and tell the American people that we need to confront our deadly addiction to fossil energy head on; we must educate ourselves about the true costs of oil and coal.

We have to start learning, and stop burning.

There is no time to lose, and none to waste.

Yours Sincerely,

Warren Senders

cc: Rep. Henry Waxman

Month 4, Day 4: I’d Loooove to See George Will Under Oath!

I thought I’d ask Ed Markey to hold some more hearings on all the industry-funded denialists we keep seeing on the boob tube and in print. I’d love to see George Will get quizzed, wouldn’t you?

And this piece at DK is the other part of the puzzle. Who’s giving the denialists all their funding? Koch Industries, that’s who.

Dear Representative Markey — Thank you for all you have done so far on the crucial issue of global climate change. The Waxman-Markey legislation is an excellent start on a realistic approach to this greatest of all threats.

Unfortunately, the Republican opposition and their enablers in the print and broadcast media are continually disseminating misinformation that serves to confuse the public and to render the debate unintelligible to the average person. This is tragic; since the effects of climate change don’t differentiate between Republicans and Democrats, the denialists are simply making their own futures more uncertain and terrifying.

Now that the so-called “Climategate” or “Climatehack” scandal has been conclusively debunked by the British House of Lords, can we ask you and Rep. Waxman to hold further public hearings on the industry connections of prominent climate change deniers? These people are mendacious in the extreme, and they’re doing it in large part because they’re paid well, often by Koch Industries, as Greenpeace’s recent report makes stunningly clear. Theirs is a malign combination of cupidity and stupidity that has done incalculable damage already (George Will comes immediately to my mind. How about you?)

It is up to the Democratic leadership in the House and Senate to expose these frauds and corporate shills for what they are. Without clearing the air of their misleading statements and deliberate obfuscations, genuinely robust climate legislation will be terribly weakened. And there is no time to waste.

Yours Sincerely,

Warren Senders

Month 3, Day 14: It’s PI Day!

Heavy rain brought down our landline and FIOS internet last night. I’m piggybacking on my neighbor’s wireless at the moment. No time to write anything original; I’m sending my Senators and my Rep a version of yesterday’s letter, opposing the Tongass logging bills.

Dear Senators Kerry & Brown / Representative Markey,

This letter is to request you to oppose S. 881 and H.R. 2099, legislation addressing usage considerations with regard to land that is currently part of Alaska’s Tongass National Forest. These bills will permit Sealaska, an Alaskan Native corporation, to log 80,000 acres of the Tongass. While it is important to secure economic benefits for Native Americans, it’s crucial to recognize that the Tongass is one of the country’s top “carbon banks” (carbon-storing forests).

Pacific Northwest forests, including the Tongass, store one and a half times as much carbon as this country burns in a year. It is an act of profound environmental irresponsibility to allow such a carbon bank to be logged off. Sealaska may need to cut 80,000 acres of trees to maintain their balance sheet, but our country’s environmental balance is far more endangered than theirs.

Maintaining and expanding our national forests is a crucial element of our national environmental policy. Not only are these forests crucial carbon banks (and therefore one of our first lines of defense against CO2 emissions), they possess inherent value as places of beauty, peace and respect for the natural world. When our country learns to stop thinking of them as commodities worth so much per board foot, we will have, perhaps, grown up a little.

Please oppose this legislation.

Thank you,

Warren Senders

Month 3, Day 8: When the Methane Hits The Fan…

Stickin’ with the North Pole farts for the time being. I’m on my way out to a gig, so my brain is pretty close to empty. When I’m tired and distracted I write workmanlike letters that address the issues without rhetorical flourishes. This is one of them.

Dear Representatives Waxman and Markey,

I write to urge you to initiate action on the extremely troubling news of Arctic methane release. According to a recently-published article in the journal Science, billions of tons of methane under the sub-sea permafrost in the Arctic ocean is now entering the atmosphere. This is certain to accelerate the greenhouse effect even further, since methane is 25 times as powerful as carbon dioxide in trapping heat,

Climatologists’ prediction models haven’t yet been revised to account for the new data, but it’s pretty clear (unless you’re a FOX News commentator, a Republican, or George Will) that our current “worst-case” scenarios are hopelessly optimistic.

While this news is sure to trigger a round of fart jokes from Sean Hannity and his colleagues, it is a sad fact that while some of us strive to ensure humanity a safe and sustainable future, our corporate sector is heavily invested in denying the nature of the threat. With the recent Supreme Court decision in Citizens United opening up the floodgates to corporate influence in elections, we can look forward to thinly disguised climate denialism saturating our airwaves in the months leading up to November’s election.

Will the American public fall for it? Will our nation’s citizens believe it when they’re told that “Carbon Dioxide is life,” or “Methane is good for you?” Given the precipitous decline in scientific literacy in our country over the past several decades, I think it’s all too likely that this latest news won’t be treated with the respect it deserves.

I urge the two of you to initiate action in the House of Representatives. A sub-committee needs to study the problem and make recommendations for legislative action. America has to lead the world in addressing these crises.

There is no time to waste; no time to lose.

Yours sincerely,

Warren Senders

Month 2, Day 19: Consumption Used to Mean You Went to Switzerland or Arizona

This one goes to both of my Elected Representatives. I had the germ of an idea about providing more useful environmental information on the things we buy. I know my purchasing habits would be very different if I knew how much ecological devastation had gone into the manufacture of some geegaw I was ogling, or how many thousands of miles a package of strawberries had to travel. Why not get that information, apply some sort of scoring algorithm, and incorporate it into product labeling?

Dear Representative Markey and Senator Kerry — I write as a citizen concerned about the looming climate crisis. It is my belief that many ordinary people would like to do more — both to help forestall the disastrous effects of climate change, and to help make our culture more environmentally conscious in general. I have a suggestion for a program which could have an impact on the way Americans think about the environment and our role in transforming it.

Our national purchasing habits could be dramatically altered if Environmental Impact information was displayed on product labels. We require such statements for large-scale construction and civil engineering projects; the “Energy Star” labeling program has had a demonstrable impact on consumer buying habits for household appliances — why not make this part of our purchasing equation for foodstuffs and consumer goods? An “Environment-friendly” scoring system would take into account the amount of waste involved in production, packaging and shipping; the sources of raw materials involved, and the likely lifespan of the product. A negative rating would describe an overpackaged product that used many toxic or ecologically detrimental raw materials, which required extensive transport before arriving at the point of purchase or warehousing, and which had a short expected lifespan before disposal; a positive rating would reflect minimal packaging, sustainable use of raw materials and efficient use of transport.

A measure such as the one I’ve suggested will help change attitudes and purchasing habits. Ultimately, of course, that won’t be enough. Our national habits must change profoundly. To be a “consumer” can no longer reflect a positive American value, because the word implies a “taking out” without a corresponding “giving back.” In the nineteenth century, “consumption” was a euphemism for tuberculosis: a wasting disease, almost always fatal. For the long-term health of our planet, human beings in general (and Americans in particular, since we are the examples held up to the rest of the world) must stop taking out without giving back. We have seen the results of ungoverned consumerism emerge in the catastrophic synergy of environmental degradation, oceanic acidification, soaring GHG levels and an ecosystem under assault from thousands of varieties of toxic trash — and we can no longer afford it. Granted, our population may not be emotionally ready to end consumerism as it exists today…but make no mistake, if we don’t end it, it will surely end us.

Thank you for your consideration.

Yours Sincerely,

Warren Senders

Day 29: To Ed Markey

After reading this over at Dkos, I was moved to send a fax to Ed Markey’s offices. Maybe you should do something similar?

Dear Representative Markey,

Muhammed al-Sabban, a senior economic adviser to the Saudi oil ministry (and head of the Saudi delegation to U.N. talks on climate change) recently stated that international agreements to penalize carbon emissions are “one of the biggest threats” to Saudi Arabia’s economy. In light of the Supreme Court’s go-ahead to allow corporations unlimited access to the American electoral process, al-Sabban’s words are especially disturbing. How many nominally American corporations are at least partially owned by individuals or consortia aligned with the Saudi government? And can we have confidence that these companies will use their newly granted powers of monetized “speech” for the betterment of our nation and the global environment? At a time when the world desperately needs meaningful forward motion on climate change issues, the likelihood of OPEC countries interfering in American elections through American-owned shell companies is a virtual guarantee that no progress will take place. Please co-sponsor Rep. Alan Grayson’s “Save Our Democracy” legislative package, and please look into developing further legislation to block the consequences of the extremely damaging and misguided decision by the Bush-appointed majority of the Supreme Court.

Thank you for all you do.

Yours sincerely,

Warren Senders

And y’know, I think I’ll tweak that bit about Grayson’s legislation and send a version of it over to John Kerry as well. A double-header!

Day 14: Ed Markey Hears From Me Again

Last night I was doing bookkeeping for 2009, so I didn’t write anything. This morning I’m strapped for time, so this letter came out kind of blunt. I also included some footnotes for the first time. This was prompted by the scariest thing I have ever read, over at Daily Kos.

January 14, 2010

Dear Representative Markey,

Thank you for your work in the area of climate change and environmental protection. As we are now discovering, the predictions of climate scientists have been profoundly erroneous. Without exception, climatologists’ projections of the rate and severity of climate change are turning out to be too timid. The world is heating up faster than they expected. Much faster. Much, much faster.

The latest news reveals that we face what is surely the most pressing existential crisis in humanity’s history. The recent discovery of atmospheric methane levels over the Arctic ocean ranging between a hundred and a thousand times normal is a terrifying augury of things to come (see below). Once the gigatonnes of frozen methane locked in the tundra begin to melt, climatic tipping points are going to arrive faster and faster, and the best-case scenarios will look like dystopian nightmares. The worst-case scenarios can be summed up in one word: Venus.

Unless we can learn to set aside international and intra-national differences of opinion and personality conflicts, the outlook for coming generations is dire. Your leadership is needed now more than ever.

Thank you again for your efforts in this field.

Yours sincerely,

Warren Senders

1. “Scientists have uncovered what appears to be a further dramatic increase in the leakage of methane gas that is seeping from the Arctic seabed.”

(http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8437703.stm)

2. “Fairbanks, Alaska—A team led by International Arctic Research Center scientist Igor Semiletov has found data to suggest that the carbon pool beneath the Arctic Ocean is leaking.

The results of more than 1,000 measurements of dissolved methane in the surface water from the East Siberian Arctic Shelf this summer as part of the International Siberian Shelf Study show an increased level of methane in the area. Geophysical measurements showed methane bubbles coming out of chimneys on the seafloor.”

(http://www.iarc.uaf.edu/highlights/2008/ISSS-08/)

January 6: A Fax to Ed Markey

I woke up ahead of the alarm this morning, with thoughts of Arctic methane bubbling in my head. The notion of planetary life being extinguished by a massive global fart banished sleep entirely. (Warning: if you wish to retain peace of mind, do not click on that link.)

After I dropped my daughter off at preschool I came home and started to write a note to my Representative, Ed Markey. Here’s what scrolled through his fax machine this morning:

Dear Congressman Markey,

I live down the street from your Medford Square office; a few days ago my daughter and I walked past, and I pointed out your name on the window. “That’s Mr. Markey’s office,” I told her, “he’s a good man and he works to help people and the planet. She nodded her not-quite-five-year-old head solemnly, and resumed her happy chatter a moment later.

And yes, I do want to thank you for your leadership on the critical issue of global climate change. But it is a sad commentary on the state of American public discourse that the most visible political leadership on the most crucial issue facing our country and our planet is building arguments based on science that is over a decade out of date. Waxman-Markey, if I understand it correctly, would aim to stabilize atmospheric CO2 at 450 ppm; as I’m sure you’re aware, the current scientific consensus is that the absolute maximum target needs to be 350 ppm. Furthermore, I have waited in vain for you, or any elected representative, to address the grave threats posed by the impending melt of megatons of arctic methane due to higher temperatures — and the terrifying consequences of ocean acidification. Is confronting scientific truth more than We The People can deal with? I hope not.

Yours Sincerely,

Warren Senders

Washington, DC office: 202-226-0092
Medford, MA office: 781-396-3220
Framingham, MA office: 508-370-8165

I’ll put the fax in an envelope and mail it to the DC office later today. I tried to email the damn thing, but Markey’s email form just gave me a 404 error. Grumble, grumble.