environment Politics: Barack Obama James Hansen Sophie Prize
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Month 4, Day 10: Saturday POTUS
I figured I’d send the President a letter urging him to take James Hansen more seriously. I mean, now that he’s won the Sophie Prize and all.
Dear President Obama,
I write to urge you to extend public recognition from your Administration to Dr. James Hansen, the eminent climatologist who has just been awarded the Sophie Prize. Especially given that Dr. Hansen was subjected to flagrant censorship by the Bush administration, it would be a significant gesture for you and your environmental experts to acknowledge the value and relevance of his work. It would be even more appropriate for you to offer Dr. Hansen a place in your administration’s climate-science team; his work is of the highest possible quality and the greatest possible significance.
The Bush Administration’s suppression of Dr. Hansen’s results is shocking and shameful (although it was a foregone conclusion that it would do no good, I wrote them letters at the time protesting this terrible behavior). The appalling fact is that our national politics has been infected with a virulent and pernicious form of stupidity; George W. Bush and his anti-science cohort were (and are) symptoms of this disease, and because his conclusions failed to fit their predetermined narrative, Dr. Hansen had to be censored.
While your administration is an enormous improvement on its predecessor, I am still waiting for signs that you can address global climate change with the degree of urgency that is needed. One such sign would be a public acknowledgment that Dr. Hansen was shamefully treated by the previous administration — and that he is a scientist of immense value to the fight against catastrophic climate change.
Such an acknowledgment would be both morally appropriate and scientifically sound. We need James Hansen’s voice, now more than ever.
Thank you.
Yours Sincerely,
Warren Senders
environment Politics: biomass burning house bill 4458 pat jehlen paul donato
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Month 4, Day 9: MA State Business
The people at StopSpewingCarbon asked me to write/call to my State Legislators in support of MA House Bill 4458. I didn’t know much about it, so I did a little research (just a little; it’s getting late).
It sounds like a good idea to me:
The Massachusetts Medical Society, The American Lung Association of New England, The Massachusetts Sierra Club, and the Stop Spewing Carbon Campaign…offered very powerful testimony this Wednesday in Boston supporting House Bill 4458.
The next 2-3 weeks are critical to getting something done in the Legislature. The American Lung Association of New England and the Massachusetts Sierra Club have committed to making House Bill 4458 a high priority for their organizations in the upcoming weeks. We do need your backup to be effective. Each Representative and Senator must receive many calls on House Bill 4458 if we want them to do the right thing.
Oddly, a teabagger group in Western Massachusetts posted this on their website, with the bizarre comment:
Why must this bill reduce CO2 why can’t it just end the subsidies?
Because CO2, as we all know, is life. (warning: link goes to the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a right-wing climate denialist thinktank).
Dear Representative Donato and Senator Jehlen,
I write to ask you to support House Bill 4458, “An Act to Limit Carbon Dioxide Emissions from Renewable and Alternative Energy Sources.” Massachusetts will do well to prevent burning wood, construction waste and other debris in power plants.
Despite the “green” label given by supporters of biomass burning, this form of power generation is anything but:
Burning biomass releases even more particulate matter into the atmosphere than a coal plant, with concomitant impacts on the health of our population.
Burning wood and biomass causes increased CO2 emissions. While trees will be planted to replace those burned, it will take several decades for a growing tree to absorb anything close to the amount of CO2 emitted; the carbon balance may be maintained in the long run, but right now it is imperative that we drastically reduce atmospheric CO2 in the short-term if we are to insure a habitable planet for us all.
Because biomass plants are water-cooled, many Massachusetts rivers will face massive water withdrawals year-round, as well as heat discharges. The pressure on wood sources will adversely affect headwater and tributary streams to many of our state’s most beautiful rivers.
The new biomass plants proposed for central and western Massachusetts are projected to consume more wood than we have in the State’s forests, and they’ll eventually be forced to burn construction debris, animal waste, and municipal trash.
It is important that our state be engaged in the struggle to develop robust alternative sources of energy. But this form of biomass burning is a bad idea.
Please support House Bill 4458.
Thank you,
Warren Senders
environment: James Hansen Sophie Prize
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Month 4, Day 8: James Hansen Is Recognized!
Dr. James Hansen has won The Sophie Prize.
The Sophie Prize is one of the world’s most generous environment and sustainable development Prizes. The Sophie Prize is established to inspire people working towards a sustainable future.
The Sophie Prize is an international award (US $ 100,000), for environment and sustainable development, awarded annually. The Sophie Prize is established to inspire people working towards a sustainable future. The Prize was established in 1997 by the Norwegian author Jostein Gaarder and his wife Siri Dannevig.
I was getting tired of writing doomy gloomy letters, so I sent Dr. Hansen a note of congratulations for a change.
Dr. James E. Hansen
Columbia University
Armstrong Hall
2880 Broadway
New York, NY 10025 USAApril 8, 2010
Dear Dr. Hansen,
Congratulations on receiving the Sophie Prize! I am pleased and happy to see that your work is recognized and valued, and I hope this means that you will have more influence with policy-makers here in the United States and in the world. I’m a music teacher by profession, a private citizen with no climatological expertise, but my parents are scientists, in consequence of which I acquired a modicum of scientific literacy. When I first read reports of your work they immediately rang true.
The Bush Administration’s suppression of your results is shocking and shameful (although it was a foregone conclusion that it would do no good, I wrote them letters at the time protesting this profoundly stupid behavior). The appalling fact is that our national politics has been infected with a virulent and pernicious form of stupidity; George W. Bush and his anti-science cohort were (and are) symptoms of this disease, and because your conclusions failed to fit their predetermined narrative, you had to be censored.
While the Obama administration is obviously an improvement on its predecessor, I am still waiting for signs that our current President can address global climate change with the degree of urgency that is needed.
Congratulations again on your receipt of the Sophie Prize. You are a pivotal figure in this struggle, and I thank you not only for your tireless advocacy, but for being an honest and conscientious scientist. Please keep it up!
Yours Sincerely,
Warren Senders
Month 4, Day 7: A Comment to the EPA
Carrying on with my letter theme from yesterday, allow me to encourage YOU to send a similar letter to the EPA supporting the expansion of the CWA to cover CO2 emissions. You can use the address I’ve included below, or just go to http://www.regulations.gov and follow the on-line instructions for submitting comments.
This is important. Really important.
Clean Water Act Section 303(d):
Notice of Call for Public Comment on 303(d) Program and Ocean Acidification,
Environmental Protection Agency,
Mailcode: 4503–T,
1200 Constitution Ave., NW., Washington, DC 20460.It is absolutely essential that the Environmental Protection Agency begin using the Clean Water Act to regulate carbon dioxide emissions. Oceanic acidification, caused by increasing quantities of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, is a clear and present danger to humanity’s prospects for survival over the centuries to come. Huge numbers of marine species depend on coral reefs for food and habitat, and the world’s corals are dying, killed by changes in the acidity of seawater as it absorbs more carbon dioxide. These changes have the potential to radically alter the food chain for much of life on earth; the lives of billions of people depend on the bounty of the sea. Even more crucial is the fact that many species of phytoplankton will be unable to survive the increased oceanic acidity — and we depend on these tiny creatures for the earth’s oxygen supply.
Food for a huge part of the world, and breathable air for us all — that’s what’s at stake in this decision. The EPA must take strong action on oceanic acidification, and expanding the use of the Clean Water Act to cover carbon dioxide emissions is an important component of a genuinely robust approach to the threats posed by global climate change.
Sincerely,
Warren Senders
environment: Barack Obama oceanic acidification
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Month 4, Day 6: Horse, Horse, Tiger, Tiger
One day up, one day down. This is good news: President Obama has opened the door to potential regulation under the Clean Water Act (CWA) of CO2 that causes ocean acidification.
I’m now writing him twice a week, it seems.
Dear President Obama,
I am writing to applaud your initiative in considering using the Clean Water Act to regulate CO2. Oceanic acidification is one of the most pressing elements of the hugely complex conundrum that is global climate change, and it has not received as much attention as atmospheric greenhouse gas emissions.
Huge numbers of marine species depend on coral reefs for food and habitat, and the world’s corals are dying, killed by changes in the acidity of seawater as it absorbs more carbon dioxide. These changes have the potential to radically alter the food chain for much of life on earth; quite literally, the lives of billions of people depend on the sea. Furthermore, some species of phytoplankton will be unable to survive the increased oceanic acidity — and these tiny creatures are essential to the earth’s oxygen supply.
Food and breathable air for the world’s population. That’s what’s at stake in this decision. You’d think it’d be obvious, even to the Republican party (I’m afraid you’d be wrong). Please use the power of your presidential “bully pulpit” to make the case for strong action on oceanic acidification, and for increasing the power of the EPA and its use of the Clean Water Act.
Thank you.
Sincerely,
Warren Senders
environment: coal fossil fuels Great Barrier Reef Shen Neng1
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Month 4, Day 5: Sticker Shock
This is, plain and simple, horrible news.
I wrote the following letter to the Boston Globe.
While the Shen Neng disaster is tragic enough for its implications to the world’s largest coral reef and its unique ecosystems, it is also a warning: we need to understand the huge hidden costs of so-called “cheap energy.”
The Chinese coal ship could just as well be a picture of miners with black-lung disease, or a Tennessee village destroyed by a broken coal ash dam, for these tragedies are undeniable costs of the coal we burn. It could just as well be the loss of the polar ice cap, or the terribly devastating storms triggered by global climate change, for these are unacknowledged costs of our addiction to oil. Until our economic models include these factors in the price of our energy (along with the expensive wars we wage to protect our sources), we will be living obliviously and unsustainably. With catastrophic climate change looming on the horizon, it seems clear that our fossil-fueled paradise will soon be going the way of the dinosaurs.
Warren Senders
environment Politics: denialists Ed Markey George Will idiots
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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
environment Politics: EPA hardrock mining waste dumping
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Month 4, Day 3: SRSLY? WTF?
Another piece of environmental insanity caught my eye yesterday. Read on and weep:
Dear President Obama ,
I’ve already written to you this week about your decision to include offshore drilling as part of your proposed energy legislation. That was demoralizing enough, but yesterday I learned that your administration has decided to defend in court a Bush-era regulation that allows unlimited dumping of hard rock mining waste on public land.
Earthworks et al. v. Department of the Interior et al. is currently before the U. S. District Court for the District of Columbia. This suit challenges two decisions by the Bush administration that allow private mining firms to dump waste on public land without compensating the government for any environmental damage.
Worse, the filing indicates that the White House has had an opportunity to either reverse the rule or study its effectiveness, but instead has chosen to defend it in court.
This is incomprehensible. Your admininstration has no business continuing rules from the previous administration that represent a huge liability to the taxpayer, and a massive gift to the hardrock mining industry.
The EPA has identified hardrock mining as “posing the highest financial risk for taxpayer cleanups,” noting that:
* “[T]he hardrock mining industry has experienced a pattern of failed operations, which often require significant environmental responses that cannot be financed by industry.”
* The hardrock mining industry “releases enormous quantities of toxic chemicals”—according to the 2007 Toxic Release Inventory, 28 percent of the total releases by U.S. reporting industries.
* EPA’s expenditure data shows that between 1988 and 2007, approximately $2.7 billion was spent on cleanup of hardrock mining facilities, with $2.4 billion going to National Priority List sites. The largest portion of these expenses has been incurred since 1998.
There is no excuse for your administration attempting to defend these rules, which prolong the inexcusable practice of waste dumping on public lands. Please heed the words of the EPA and reverse this decision, settling the lawsuit and revising the rule.
This would be both environmentally and fiscally responsible. The present course is anything but.
Yours Sincerely,
Warren Senders
environment Politics: Barack Obama Medford Transcript offshore drilling
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Month 4, Day 2: Recycling is Important!
I took my letter to the POTUS from yesterday, did a bunch of tweaking, added a little dig about leaf-blowers and wars, and sent it off to my local paper, the Medford Transcript.
I’d love to believe that President Obama’s decision to encourage offshore oil drilling is only a part of a more sweeping political strategy which will confuse the Republican opposition, leaving them no choice but to support policy initiatives which will ultimately focus much more on alternative and renewable energy sources. Our national addiction to cheap fossil energy means that in order to power our SUVs, flatscreens, leafblowers and wars, we’re taking carbon out of the earth and putting it into the atmosphere, causing potentially catastrophic warming effects, of which the recent flood-level rains are just one example. The last thing we need is to further expand oil and coal use!
The surprise announcement of this component of an Obama energy policy reminds me of the build-up to the passage of health-care legislation, in which Democrats abandoned progressive positions before negotiations began, stripping out many of the reforms we needed most desperately. The problem with basing climate legislation on strategic exigencies is that we need a policy that’s based on climatic reality, not political gamesmanship. The window of opportunity for our species is rapidly closing; there is very little “later” available.
While I appreciate the complexity of President Obama’s dilemma, I am dismayed by the latest turn of events. The President needs to focus our national attention on the requirements of sustainable energy, conservation, and the urgency of reducing our individual and national carbon footprints. There is no time to lose, and none to waste.
Warren Senders
environment Politics: Barack Obama offshore drilling
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Month 4, Day 1: April Fools!
Yesterday’s news that our President wants to allow offshore drilling motivated me to generate a mid-week blast.
Dear President Obama – I certainly hope that your decision to encourage offshore drilling is part of a larger political strategy that will culminate in a vastly expanded program of investment in alternative and renewable energy.
I’m willing to accept that an energy program can include increased extraction of oil resources, but those resources won’t last for long. If humanity is to have a chance of surviving the coming climate crisis, we must find ways to meet our energy needs that do not involve taking carbon out of the earth and putting it into the atmosphere. We are already killing our planet. Burning oil and coal is accelerating the process.
Perhaps this component of your energy program is part of a strategy which will confuse the Republican opposition, leaving them no choice but to support policy initiatives which will ultimately focus much more on alternative and renewable energy sources. I certainly hope so. I am afraid, however, that it is a repeat of some of the worst things that happened during the build-up to the passage of your health-care legislation — giving away a progressive negotiating position before negotiations have begun, whittling away at what’s left until hardly anything remains, then passing legislation that’s been gutted of almost everything we need with enormous ballyhoo.
Sound cynical? I’m afraid I am. While passing health legislation was an enormous triumph, the fact is that many of the reforms we needed most desperately were stripped out well in advance. When this happened to health-care legislation, we (your progressive supporters) were able to adjust, saying, “we’ll fix it later.”
But Mr. President, the problem with climate legislation is that there is not much “later” for us to work within. The window of opportunity for our species is rapidly closing.
Please focus more of your attention on the requirements of sustainable energy, conservation, and the urgency of reducing our individual and national carbon footprints. There is no time to lose, and none to waste.
Yours Sincerely,
Warren Senders