environment Politics: Boston Herald idiots
by Warren
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Month 3, Day 24: Straight to Fishwrap
Not much to say here. This one’s barely about climate at all…just a nod to Lindsey Graham at the end of the first graf. I sent it to the Boston Herald, because maybe they’ll print it, since it’s angry and barely coherent.
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.
Hard on the heels of the triumphant Democratic passage of health-care legislation, Republican lawmakers are demonstrating the passive-aggressive behavior typical of seven-year-olds. Vowing “no more cooperation,” Mitch McConnell and the rest of the Senate Republicans are now refusing even such ordinary courtesies as unanimous consent resolutions to allow Senate hearings to continue in the afternoon. Lindsey Graham, who claims to “get” the importance of global climate change, has been working on climate legislation with Senators Kerry and Lieberman, but his pique at a Democratic success outweighs any sense of obligation he may feel to the long-term health of the planet. The rest of the GOP caucus, of course, knows that climate change is a hoax, since Senator Inhofe tells them so.
That our government is held hostage by these buffoons is intolerable. The Republican Party is no longer a viable political entity, but a gang of irresponsible hooligans.
Warren Senders
environment Politics: Nancy Pelosi
by Warren
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Month 3, Day 23: Loving Nancy
I was inspired by Nancy Pelosi last night. She’s done a fabulous job. Even though a climate bill has already passed the house, I thought I’d send her a letter letting her know that at least one American Democrat is hoping for more from this Congress on climate issues.
Dear Speaker Pelosi,
Congratulations on your extraordinary efforts and your extraordinary success in bringing the Health Care bill to passage. My wife and I were glued to the screen last night, and as the final vote total reached 216, we both cheered, clapped, wept and embraced. Your advocacy and passion were integral to bringing this about. I look forward to seeing the reconciliation fixes go through the Senate in a few days’ time, and to cheering, clapping, weeping and embracing my wife again!
This letter, though, is not simply a congratulation. I write to urge you: apply similar passion and strength to the passage of meaningful climate legislation in the coming years. Waxman-Markey is an excellent start, but it’s only a start. We are going to need much stronger and more robust approaches to the climate crisis in the next few years, or the consequences to our nation and our planet will be unimaginable.
This is a harder sell, I know. Persuading members of an elected body to support legislation that addresses problems which are only beginning to happen is contrary to the usual practice of American politics, which is to wait until things are at crisis point until doing anything. Unfortunately, that won’t work with the Earth’s climate, which doesn’t care about the exigencies of American politics. By the time things are at a crisis point, it will be too late.
For a century we’ve heard from timid politicians and pundits that “it’s not the right time to fix health care.” Yesterday, you proved them wrong. We’ve also been hearing that it’s not the right time to address climate change, for there are so many other priorities that occupy our political attention. But it will never be “the right time” to address climate change, because the lag between climate action and climate response is greater than the electoral cycle of a U.S. Senator (let alone a member of the House of Representatives).
While it may not be “the right time” to tackle the climate crisis — it’s the only time we’ve got. I’m glad you’re the Speaker of the House right now, for this problem can’t be kicked down the road for a future Congress to handle.
Thank you for all that you have done for our nation.
Yours Sincerely,
Warren Senders
environment Politics: Joe Lieberman John Kerry Lindsey Graham methane
by Warren
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Month 3, Day 22: More Fart Jokes, Please.
I’m listening to health-care debate, so I’ve only got a small fraction of a brain. Here’s the latest terrifying news: more on polar methane. I really wish I could remain ignorant of all this.
Dear Senators Kerry, Lieberman and Graham,
I write to urge you to include language in your proposed climate legislation that specifically addresses the problem of polar methane release. A recent study reported in Science News* indicates that microbes living under ice sheets in the polar regions may be churning out huge amounts of this powerful greenhouse gas. If this wasn’t bad enough, we already know that methane is already entering the atmosphere as the permafrost cap that’s been keeping it underground melts, due to increased atmospheric temperatures.
Climatologists’ projections of global warming haven’t yet taken this methane into account, which means that even the worst of the worst-case estimates are undoubtedly too optimistic. We need a world-wide Manhattan Project, bringing together the top scientific minds of the planet to address these multiple interlocked problems.
Rather than allowing that methane to enter the atmosphere and trigger incalculable damage to planetary ecosystems, we need to solve the problem of harvesting and collecting it for use as fuel. While burning methane also releases CO2 (which means that it is unsuitable as a long-term fuel source) this approach is vastly preferable to allowing it to trigger a greenhouse tipping point that would lead us much closer to the Venusian worst-case scenario outlined by Dr. James Hansen.
Any proposed climate legislation needs to acknowledge the magnitude of this problem, and outline steps to engaging the world’s scientific expertise and imagination on methods of ameliorating it.
There is no time to lose.
Yours Sincerely,
Warren Senders
* – (http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/57353/title/Methane-making_microbes_thrive_under_the_ice)
environment Politics: ancient sunlight Barack Obama
by Warren
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Month 3, Day 20: Wasting The Oldest Thing We Have
I was thinking about yesterday’s letter when I sat down to write, and then discovered that I had a philosophical point to make. I hope somebody reads this one.
Dear President Obama,
At the beginning of 2010, I made a resolution. Every day, I would write a letter to politicians, media outlets or important figures in our national discourse — focusing exclusively on climate change and related environmental issues. I’m proud to say I haven’t missed a day so far. And Saturdays are my day for a letter to you.
Today I’m writing/faxing/emailing to applaud your recent announcement that the U.S. Government will aim to cut its own emissions of greenhouse gases twenty-eight percent by the beginning of the next decade. That’s a great start.
But it’s just a start, and if we only get to 28 percent, it’s nowhere near enough. America needs to lead the world into a new energy equation, one where none of our energy needs are supplied by burning fossil fuels. A world without fossil fuels is as necessary to our long-term survival as a world without nuclear weapons.
We need to increase federal funding for all forms of energy research. I encourage research into so-called “clean coal” technology, but not because I think “clean coal” is technically feasible or economically sensible. I suspect that investigations of carbon capture and sequestration will yield other benefits that will positively impact our “footprint.” I would like to see funding for wind, solar and geothermal energy research increased geometrically. These sources rely on the energy our earth is receiving and generating right now — unlike oil and coal, which are ways of storing solar energy our earth received a very long time ago.
Taking carbon out of the ground and putting it in the atmosphere is irrefutably bad for the planet. There is no good side to an increase in GHG emissions; the possibility of a global climate catastrophe is a statistically significant risk. This alone should be enough to force us to drastically revise our energy usage. And yet, there is another and more philosophical element to this equation.
Human beings are awed by ancient things, yet we easily forget that in burning oil and coal we are wasting one of the oldest resources we have: the stored sunlight that fell on our planet hundreds of millions of years ago. We would not think of chopping down a thousand-year-old sequoia to make toothpicks; we would not dismantle Stonehenge or the Great Pyramid and grind their stones into gravel, for to do so would be to disrespect their antiquity. This should be our attitude towards the consumption of fossil fuels.
To burn oil and coal is to spend our principal, to eat our seed corn. Solar, wind, hydroelectric and geothermal energy sources are the ecological equivalent of a “pay as you go” policy. Ultimately, the only way human beings can survive is to stop wasting our inheritance.
Twenty-eight percent by 2020? A good start. But just a start. We need our atmospheric CO2 to be at 350 ppm or below if our grandchildren are not to curse us for our prodigality and irresponsibility.
Yours sincerely,
Warren Senders
environment Politics: 350 Nancy Sutley White House Council on Environmental Quality
by Warren
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Month 3, Day 19: Inside the White House?
Looking around for someone new to badger, I located Nancy Sutley, the Chair of the White House Council on Environmental Quality. She posted on her organization’s website (buried in the White House site) about President Obama’s proposed Greenhouse emission reductions for the US Government. I liked that, although the target numbers as mentioned don’t go nearly far enough.
So she gets a letter. She’ll get a fax, too, if I can figure out what the number is.
Dear Ms. Sutley,
I was delighted to learn of President Obama’s commitment to reduce the U.S. Government’s carbon emissions. A 28 percent reduction is indeed substantial. With a target date just ten years in the future, this will require swift and decisive action on retrofitting buildings, changing energy use strategies, and rewarding conservation initiatives within bureaucratic systems.
President Obama’s proposed reduction is commendable, and an excellent step in the right direction. But it’s not enough.
America needs to lead the world in achieving genuine and total “energy independence.” That phrase is often used to mean “energy we don’t have to buy from OPEC,” or “non-oil energy.” What it should mean is “independence from fossil fuels.” Whether it’s oil or coal, it’s the same thing in the end: taking carbon out of the ground and putting it in the atmosphere. And that, quite simply, is no longer sustainable.
The scientific evidence is clear and unambiguous: we need to bring atmospheric CO2 down to 350 ppm or below if we are to prevent a climate catastrophe of unimaginable proportions. It is time for the Administration to address this issue clearly and unambiguously; there is little time left if our actions are to have any effect.
A 28 percent reduction in GHG emissions is a laudable but inadequate target. I hope that in the months to come, you and the White House Council on Environmental Quality will be advocating forcefully for much stronger policies on sustainability, and towards the ultimate elimination of fossil fuels from our government’s energy diet.
Thank you,
Warren Senders
environment Politics: Lindsey Graham whining
by Warren
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Month 3, Day 17: Graham is a Cracker
Read earlier today that Huckleberry Graham was getting his knickers in a twist because the Democrats were going to pass Health Care Reform through reconciliation. If they do this, he whined, why, it’ll jus’ make it impossible for anythin’ to get done afterwards.
This is the Republican who’s working with Kerry and Lieberman on a climate bill. Ick. It sure sounds to me like he’s preparing to abandon the process.
“Now that those dreadful Democrats have gone and ruined bipartisanship, I just can’t bring myself to associate with any of ’em!” (sobs, dabs temples with eau de cologne)
What a jackass. So I wrote him a letter.
Dear Senator Graham,
I’d written to you, Senator Kerry and Senator Lieberman recently on the issue of your work on climate change legislation. It is self-evident to any thinking person that global climate change is the most important existential threat that humanity will face in the coming century.
I was distressed to learn of your recent statements on ABC’s “This Week” to the effect that if Health Care legislation is passed using the reconciliation process, it might “poison the well” as far as creating any sort of bipartisan initiative on another issue.
Really? This sounds to me like you’re not as serious about climate legislation as your previous statements would indicate. If you agree that the future of this country and of the planet we all inhabit is at stake, then it is terribly immature to allow pique at being legislatively outmaneuvered to stop you from doing productive work elsewhere.
It is too important for all of us that the U.S. Senate gets meaningful climate legislation passed this year. There is no time to waste, and there is a lot more at stake than Senatorial ego.
Thank you for your attention.
Sincerely,
Warren Senders
Education environment Politics: Brian Baird energy use habits USA Today
by Warren
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Month 3, Day 16: Personal Habits and Public Policy
This one goes to the National McNewspaper. Some days I just look through the big publications to find something worth writing about. USA Today had a good interview with retiring Rep. Brian Baird (D-WA), and he made a lot of excellent points about the need for changes in our energy use patterns. Read the comments if you’re a fan of idiocy. Climate-change news seems to bring out a particular kind of mindlessness that is absolutely resistant to information or logic.
So USA Today heard from me. Plus which, I put this letter up in the comments, which should earn me a bunch of derision from the clueless denialists who’ve stunk the place up. What fun.
Brian Baird has the right idea. We need to make big changes in our habits of energy use if we want to avoid the worst effects of global climate change. Shorter showers, better equipment maintenance, more careful driving — all of these can go a long way to reducing our national level of greenhouse emissions.
But it’s not enough. Why? Because some of the worst offenders aren’t individuals. A massively polluting corporation cannot reduce its carbon footprint by taking a shorter shower or driving at the speed limit. As long as energy conservation leads to a lessening of profit in the short run, no corporate entity can be expected to go along with it. If wasting energy becomes more expensive, corporations will find ways to conserve. Which is why we need laws and enforcement mechanisms.
Neither voluntary behavioral changes nor legislative strategies are sufficient by themselves. Once America recognizes the severity of the crisis, we will have a genuine national response to the looming climate emergency — bottom-up (from the citizenry) and top-down (from the government). There is no time to waste. All of us need to change our habits, and all of us need meaningful climate legislation on the President’s desk.
Warren Senders
environment Politics: Ed Markey John Kerry Scott Brown Tongass National Forest
by Warren
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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
environment Politics: Barack Obama Tongass National Forest
by Warren
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Month 3, Day 13: Saturday POTUS — No Logging In The Tongass!
As usual, it’s Friday night and I’m hunting around for something on which to hang a letter to the President. And lo and behold, my old benefactor RL Miller provides the second piece in as many days: a bill enabling logging in Alaska’s Tongass National Forest. It’s an interesting toss-up between Native American welfare issues and environmental issues — one that needs a new underlying conceptual structure for resolution.
Dear President Obama,
As the long-awaited climate bill makes its way through the Senate, I’m gratified to observe your administration’s support for many initiatives which will reduce our nation’s carbon emissions and lessen our grotesquely disproportionate contribution to anthropogenic global warming.
This letter is to register my distress at legislation currently under consideration in both the House and the Senate. S. 881 and H.R. 2099 both address usage considerations with regard to land that is currently part of the Tongass National Forest, the largest such forest in the country. The Tongass, according to a recent study by the Wilderness Society, is one of the country’s top “carbon banks” (carbon-storing forests). The bill will permit Sealaska, an Alaskan Native corporation, to log 80,000 acres of the Tongass National Forest.
If S.881 and H.R. 2099 are passed in Congress, the bill will arrive at your desk for signature. Before you take out your pen, please consider this: the thick, wet forests of the Pacific Northwest, including the Tongass, store as much carbon as this country burns in a year and a half. Allowing 80,000 acres of such a carbon bank to be logged off would be an act of profound environmental irresponsibility. If America is ready to pay Indonesia and Brazil not to cut down their rainforests, why can’t we do something similar in Alaska?
It is time for us to set a good example for future generations, by maintaining and expanding our national forests. Not only are they 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 forests as commodities worth so much per board foot, we will have, perhaps, grown up a little.
Please veto any bill that provides for logging in the Tongass.
Thank you,
Warren Senders
environment Politics: Joe Lieberman John Kerry Lindsey Graham polluting industries
by Warren
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Month 3, Day 11: The Three Messketeers
RL Miller posted an excellent piece at Kos yesterday pointing out that the trio of senators responsible for generating climate legislation is busy meeting with representatives of the world’s biggest contributors to the current carbon situation.
John Kerry is my senator. Lindsey Graham may be a Republican, but he’s been making vaguely sensible noises about climate. After Lieberman’s grotesque behavior over health care it’s hard to take him seriously, but he is apparently much more resolute on climate than on HCR.
But I gotta say, it’s a sad day when two-thirds of my hope for substantial climate legislation rests with Lindsey Graham and Joe Lieberman.
Anyway, they got a letter.
Dear Senators Kerry, Graham and Lieberman,
I am a constituent of Senator Kerry’s, and a firm believer in the need to address the issue of global climate change immediately. America must regulate its emissions of CO2; once we commit ourselves, much of the rest of the world will follow suit. We cannot pretend to be a world leader if we wait for other nations to go first.
I’m glad that the three of you are developing a climate bill, and I hope that it is sufficiently robust to make a difference. But I was very distressed to learn that you had met recently with “hydrocarbon enablers” like the American Petroleum Institute, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, major electric utilities, the National Association of Manufacturers, the cement industry, and mining interests, and that (according to The LA Times) your message to these groups was, “Tell us what you need to support this bill. Be specific.”
It should be obvious to the meanest intelligence that the API, the Chamber of Commerce and the rest of these organizations will only support climate legislation if it does not affect them in the slightest. While I am in principle a supporter of “good faith” negotiations, there must surely be a point where the principle of good faith has been abused irretrievably. The world’s largest contributors to our CO2 dilemma are not interested in anything except gutting meaningful climate legislation; asking them for their support is an absurdity.
We need a totally new energy equation in this country, and we need it soon. The changes in the world’s climate are too huge and too potentially devastating to allow our country’s biggest polluters to stand in the way of action; “business as usual” is only a plan for profit, not a plan for the planet.
Do not allow industry representatives to weaken your climate bill. Make it stronger instead. Much stronger.
We’re counting on you.
Yours Sincerely,
Warren Senders