Education environment music Personal Politics Warren's music: inspiration parenting
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A Song When Hope Dims: Pete Seeger And The Napalm Ladies
I think I was twelve when my parents gave me a new Pete Seeger lp. They knew I loved his music; I’d listened over and over to “We Shall Overcome: The Carnegie Hall Concert” and knew most of the songs, or at least their lyrics, by heart. I’d memorized most of the songs on the “Children’s Concert at Town Hall,” and forty years later I can get a good laugh from any kid by singing “Where have you been all the day long, Henry my boy?” with its gross, lugubrious “greeeeeeeeen and yeller” chorus.
But this was a new disc, and I’m quite sure my folks just went into the store and grabbed something off the shelf. After all, Pete had a lot of albums, and they were all pretty much the same, right?
Well, actually, no.
environment Politics: Alaska Even a blind pig finds a nut Sarah Palin
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Month 12, Day 4: She Did WHAT?
The Juneau Empire (AK) runs an AP article on a just-issued report on Alaska’s strategy for preparing itself to deal with climate change. Buried in the article is this gem:
The report is an outgrowth of an effort launched by former Gov. Sarah Palin, who formed a climate change task force to prepare a climate change strategy for Alaska.
Heh.
As if we needed another demonstration of the disconnect between political “reality” and the facts of the world, along comes the news that Alaska’s Fish and Game Department has been working to quantify the effects of climate change on the state’s wildlife. While the Department remains mum on the causes of this change (pssst! It’s human beings and their increasing emissions of greenhouse gases!) they have taken the brave step of acknowledging that the phenomenon exists and will have grave consequences for Alaska’s natural resources. It is thought-provoking to realize that this report is the outcome of a process initiated by former Governor Palin, who appeared to recognize climate change as a threat in her bureaucratic incarnation while vociferously denying it in her role as Tea Party rabblerouser. Even the willfully ignorant will eventually recognize global warming’s dangers — by which time they may be too late to protect themselves.
Warren Senders
environment Politics: assholes Ed Markey idiots John Boehner
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Month 12, Day 3: It’s Not Just A River In Egypt.
Naturally, they’re going to discontinue the Committee on Global Warming, since the world is getting cooler and stuff. Also.
The Republicans’ decision to disband the Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming is unsurprising but disappointing. As the warning signs of climatic tipping points steadily accumulate, the anti-science, anti-reality GOP has found denial a fine coping mechanism. Too many disturbing statistics about the facts of global climate change? Defund the organizations producing the statistics. Too many highly qualified climatologists pointing out that the scientific consensus on human-caused global warming is essentially unanimous? Eliminate the congressional forum where scientists can provide testimony. It highlights the abysmal state of our country’s politics that Republicans consider ignoring facts and belittling expertise a sign both of political cleverness and moral fiber. Even as they continue to advocate funneling further billions of dollars in taxpayer subsidies to Big Oil, these hypocrites tout the elimination of one of the most important committees in the house as a sign of fiscal responsibility. They are financially, morally, scientifically, and ethically wrong — but that’s never stopped the Republican party before.
Warren Senders
environment Politics: fossil fuels Ken Salazar offshore drilling
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Month 12, Day 2: Get Me Two Packs of Marlboros. With Cheese.
Looks like we’re not going to keep drilling, baby, drilling after all, as the Times reports.
WASHINGTON — The Obama administration announced on Wednesday that it had rescinded its decision to expand offshore oil exploration into the eastern Gulf of Mexico and along the Atlantic Coast because of weaknesses in federal regulation revealed by the BP oil spill.
Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said that a moratorium on drilling would be in force in those areas for at least seven years, until stronger safety and environmental standards were in place. The move puts off limits millions of acres of the Outer Continental Shelf that hold potentially billions of barrels of oil and trillions of cubic feet of natural gas.
Well, that’s excellent, and worthy of praise. But I’m just a grouch, I guess.
While it’s certainly good news that the Obama administration has abandoned its plans for further exploratory oil drilling on the East coast of the U.S., it is also a demonstration of just how far we have to go in our long national struggle for an energy economy free from the environmental and fiscal impacts of fossil fuels. Like those of Big Tobacco, the extractive industries’ P.R. aims to persuade us that fossil fuels are clean, safe, cheap and desirable — and all the past century’s collapsed mines, moonscaped mountaintops, sunken drilling platforms, ruptured pipelines, exploded refineries and drunken tanker captains have failed to change our minds. In the light of American intransigence regarding any possibility of a meaningful greenhouse emissions agreement at the Cancun Conference, Secretary Salazar’s announcement reminds one of a morbidly obese person topping off a Supersized order of junk food — with a diet soft drink.
Warren Senders
environment Politics: Cancun The false tyranny of low expections
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Month 11, Day 30: Hope Is A Dodo.
The New York Times reminds us not to ask for more than we’re likely to get. A man’s retch should not exceed his gasp, or something.
As the Cancun conference gets underway, we are reminded by our country’s representatives not to get our hopes up, not to set the bar too high, not to ask for more than modest increments of improvement. Since multi-party negotiations have never yielded results that exceeded expectations, it is entirely sensible for us not to anticipate much. The problem we are facing, however, is not a sensible one. It seems inherently unjust, unreasonable, and unbelievable that all of us who have benefited from the complex consumer culture of the West should suddenly find ourselves complicit in the existential threat posed by global climate change. We don’t want to melt the icecaps; we just want to keep living the way we’ve been living. Alas, the greenhouse effect is unaffected by our desire for continued convenience; what the world needs from Cancun is not a sensible treaty but an unreasonable one.
Warren Senders
environment Politics: capitalism economics
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Month 11, Day 29: Vaporware
The Irish Times discusses the unlikeliness of anything happening at Cancun. While the notion of economic and climatic catastrophe as two sides of the same coin is not new (either to me or to this letter-writing project), it’s still very tricky to shoehorn them both in to a single short piece.
It is a measure of humans’ limitations as a species that the terrifying implications of climate change are barely registering on our societal alarm systems. While Frank MacDonald notes that people are preoccupied “more pressing issues” — presumably the unemployment and economic turmoil to be seen everywhere in the world, it is incorrect to assume our planetary economic woes are unrelated to climate problems. The economics of nation-states and global commerce rest on two demonstrably false assumptions: never-ending supplies of cheap energy, and the feasibility and desirability of continuous growth. Even were it actually unlimited, fossil fuel’s hardly cheap once we include ancillary expenses (cleanup, environmental destruction, geopolitical brinkmanship), and an ever-expanding economy is definitionally impossible on a finite planet. The price we can expect to pay for having a civilization built upon illusions will be disastrous economic upheavals in the short run and catastrophic climate change in the long.
Warren Senders
environment Politics: Cancun climatologists
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Month 11, Day 28: A Race Between CO2 and Stupidity
The Observer (UK) runs a piece of shrill alarmism (that is to say, sober, accurate reporting on science). We need a lot more of this, and a lot less of the other. Note that I used British spellings on this one.
A rise of four degrees C within the next four or five decades is now all but assumed by climate scientists. But what we are likely to see at Cancun, despite the warnings of climatologists, is rhetorical posturing accompanying tiny incremental improvements in environmental policy. This disconnect between political exigency and the facts of the greenhouse effect spells tragedy for a huge percentage of the world’s population, who can expect to lose their homes, lands, hopes and lives as the seas rise and arable water supplies fail. If we are to avoid a climate catastrophe, our news media need to educate readers, listeners and viewers about the scientific reality of climate change. Otherwise, it is unlikely that the world’s wealthiest countries will manifest enlightened self-interest in time to redirect planetary resources towards the essential decarbonisation of our society and our atmosphere — and we will all be the losers thereby.
Warren Senders
environment Politics: Cancun China European Union idiots Republicans U.S.A.
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Month 11, Day 27: Tie Me Kangaroo Down, Mate!
The Sydney Morning Herald runs an article by Connie Hedegaard, the European Commissioner for Climate Change, laying out the problems and prospects for any sort of agreement at Cancun. Grim.
Commissioner Hedegaard is correct in her analysis, however unfortunate its implications may be. Two of the world’s most significant greenhouse gas emitters are dragging their feet on a meaningful climate treaty. While China’s intransigence reasonably enough reflects its hopes of securing temporary economic advantages (a position it is well suited to exploit due to its recent expansion of investment in “green” energy resources), the United States’ paralysis is rooted in illogical political exigencies — the U.S. Republican party now considers it electorally fatal simply to acknowledge the existence of climate change, let alone consider doing something about it. The glorification of ignorance (and the dismissal of expertise) that began in earnest under Ronald Reagan has created a political party that is pathologically averse to facts and fact-based analysis. Schiller’s apothegm, “Against stupidity the gods themselves contend in vain,” is well and truly applied to many members of America’s political culture.
Warren Senders
environment Politics: Michael Moore
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Month 11, Day 26: It’s “Buy Nothing Day”
Watched Moore’s interview with Wendell Potter. Realized once again that we need him. Thought I’d send him a letter.
Dear Mr. Moore,
I just finished watching your televised meeting with Mr. Wendell Potter. It is extraordinary how much is packed into your short encounter. Congratulations. You have enacted Gandhi’s dictum, “the objective is to bring your enemy not to his knees, but to his senses,” through your work as a documentarian.
But I’m not just writing a fan letter, here. I want to urge you to train your cinematic sights on the massive smear campaign waged against climatologists and climate science; it’s not just filmmakers that giant corporate interests would distract, discredit and destroy.
Climate change is the ultimate health care issue, and climate scientists are as close as we can come to planetary physicians. James Hansen, Michael Mann and countless others have reported clear and consistent findings for decades. Just as a cardiologist tells a coronary patient: change your habits or die, these scientists’ conclusions are unequivocal and their implications identical. And the campaign against their integrity and their message is eerily similar to that against you.
Climate change is also the ultimate capitalism issue. By overspending planetary environmental resources by a huge factor, the consumerist engine has become a self-destroying economic system that will cause massive tragedy as it goes down. Now that they’re “people,” giant corporations should be expected to understand that the long-term survival of our civilization, species and planet is essential to their own. Are they going to sacrifice all the rest of us to preserve their margins and bonuses?
Looks like it.
Thank you again for what you’ve done already to influence our world. If we make progress in building a government and a society that embodies genuine generosity and truthfulness, it will be in large part because of your efforts.
Please make a film on climate. Your voice could make a difference in this debate, and we (all of us) need all the help we can get.
Yours Sincerely,
Warren Senders
environment humor Personal Politics: hatemail POH
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I’m Famous!
So back on November 12, I wrote a letter to the Newark Star-Ledger, pointing out Chris Christie’s utter idiocy when it came to the science of climate change.
They printed it, or at least ran it in their online edition.
What should appear in my mailbox a few days later but the following postcard:
I looked at the address side first, thinking, “WTF? I don’t know anyone in Dunellen, New Jersey, let alone someone named J. Alexander.” Then I turned it over.
My first hatemail.
Or is it?
As with POEs (Parodies of Evangelism), any sufficiently effective parody of hate mail will be indistinguishable from the real thing. What do you think? Is “Right-Wing Jim” spoofing Tea-party talk, or is he serious? I can’t decide.