environment: Ban ki-Moon corporate irresponsibility false equivalence Hollywood media irresponsibility
by Warren
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Year 2, Month 3, Day 6: Ban Ki Goes To Hollywood
I just finished reading Will Bunch’s “Tear Down This Myth,” and I was already thinking about the disaster that Reagan’s Hollywood presidency was for the country. Then I read this article in the LA Times, about Ban Ki-moon’s heavy lobbying of Hollywood bigwigs on climate change, and was struck by a line midway through.
This is a site-specific version of the generic media irresponsibility/false equivalence letter. Enjoy.
Mailed February 26:
The key sentence in your description of Ban Ki-Moon’s plea to Hollywood figures for support in combating climate change is director David Carson’s remark, “You don’t want to offend your sponsors.” That is to say, television is fed by big oil, and people who work in TV shy away from biting the hand that feeds them. Ban Ki-Moon’s initiative may yield tangible results; one can only hope that America’s entertainment media will contribute constructively to our species’ ongoing struggle with the greenhouse effect, since the nation’s news media have virtually without exception abdicated their responsibilities in this arena. Yes, we need movies and TV to get people thinking about global warming, just as we need good, accurate news on the subject. But as long as those who provide entertainment and/or facts cannot depict climate change as both scientific fact and imminent threat without offending their sponsors, it’s unlikely.
Warren Senders
environment Politics: assholes denialists false equivalency idiots Koch Brothers RGGI
by Warren
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Year 2, Month 3, Day 5: We Don’t Need No Steenkin’ Evidence!
The Nashua Telegraph (New Hampshire) discusses the move in that state to stop participating in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative. They’ve got climate zombies in the state house and misleading robo-calls from the Koch Brothers. What could possibly go wrong?
Americans for Prosperity, an conservative group with financial support from the oil industry, made automated robocalls over the long holiday weekend, attacking RGGI as guaranteeing further increases in electricity bills.
Studies had concluded that RGGI has added 6.5 cents per month to an average consumer’s bill.
Rep. Sandra Keans, D-Rochester, attacked AFP’s calls as “sleazy” and deliberately false.
“I have never seen such a cowardly perpetration pulled on the citizens of New Hampshire,” Keans said.
AFP Executive Director Corey Lewandowski defended the group’s lobbying against RGGI.
“Constituents should be able to call their elected officials to register a concern. Nobody forces people to run for office if they don’t want to hear from those who elected them,” Lewandowski said. “We’re delighted by the strong House vote for consumers.”
Rep. Beatriz Pastor, D-Lyme, said that even if there were questions about climate change science, it’s wise for the state to take preventive measures like RGGI.
“Noah got intelligence (that) a natural disaster was about to occur,” Pastor said of the Bibilical account. “He could have looked out the window and said ‘it doesn’t look like it is going to rain’.”
But Deputy Majority Leader Shawn Jasper of Hudson disagreed.
“Neither man nor cow is responsible for global warming,” he added.
Mr. Jasper seemed like an excellent hook upon which to hang a letter. Sent February 25:
Representative Shawn Jasper is an excellent example of an increasingly prevalent species of Homo Politicus: the “climate zombie,” a politician whose denial of the facts of global climate change is so ideologically rooted that no amount of factually-based argument will change his mind. Our nation used to regard scientists with respect; after all, they were responsible most of our major technological advances and noteworthy achievements (the Apollo program, anyone?). There should be nothing unusual about the idea that when you need expertise in a particular area, you ask experts and take their advice very seriously. But in the world of today’s Republican party, scientists are only to be listened to when their opinions are ideologically convenient. Representative Jasper’s pronouncement that “neither man nor cow is responsible for global warming” has no factual foundation, as author Kevin Landrigan could have ascertained with a few minutes’ worth of research. The fact that this “climate zombie” has been given an unrefuted last word in a supposedly objective article about the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative is an unfortunate dereliction of journalistic responsibility.
Warren Senders
environment Politics: assholes coal EPA idiots
by Warren
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Year 2, Month 3, Day 4: And The Straw Boss Hollered ‘Well Damn Your Soul!’
The Courier-Press (KY) runs an article about another House Republican who’s gunning for the EPA. Because Kentucky is a coal state, this guy is in their pocket, and he wants to remove the EPA’s authority to regulate emissions in order to make the lives of the mining companies easier. Easier for Kentuckians who’re part of the profit chain from Big Coal, too — at least in the short run. In the long run? Don’t even ask.
The recent Republican attempts to defund or defang the Environmental Protection Agency are examples of short-term, politically-driven thinking at its most egregious. Rep. Whitfield knows perfectly well that the current Congress will never pass any legislation addressing the threat of global climate change, since a majority of its members were elected with the help of money from the petroleum and coal industries. The problem that we face is that the greenhouse effect is a result of the laws of physics and chemistry; climate change is inherently long-term and non-political. While muzzling the EPA may benefit Kentucky’s economy for a few years, does anyone seriously believe that the coal companies will really care about the state and its citizens once the coal’s all gone, the mountains are leveled and the streams poisoned? By carrying out the bidding of his corporate masters, Rep. Whitfield is doing a disservice both to his constituents and to the country as a whole; by treating the environment and its advocates as enemies, conservatives make a livable future for our descendants more and more unlikely.
Warren Senders
environment: allergies asthma extreme weather pollen
by Warren
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Year 2, Month 3, Day 3: A Cashew? A Tissue? A Fichu?
The Sonoma County Press-Democrat reprints a story from the LA times on the likelihood of an increase in asthma from global warming (hotter, wetter weather equals more pollenaceous plants).
Sent February 22:
A person racked by sneezes and coughs, eyes and nose streaming, is a convenient figure of fun for those who don’t suffer from allergies. Global climate change’s effect on the atmospheric pollen count has similar humorous potential — as long as we avoid looking at the ways in which all of us are affected. And it’s not just asthma and allergies. As planetary warming changes our environment in unpredictable ways over the next decades, we can anticipate some of its effects: hotter temperatures will help spread tropical diseases; unpredictable and extreme weather may destroy local infrastructure (impassable roads, unsafe drinking water, rolling blackouts); agriculture will suffer (and food will get more expensive). Any of these by itself is a mere inconvenience. Collectively they are the localized face of a threat that’s planetary in scope, existential in nature. Environmentalists seek to limit the damage; Republican politicians, by contrast, are investing heavily in antihistamines.
Warren Senders
The title references Ogden Nash’s poem “Allergy in a Country Churchyard.”
environment Politics: assholes Bobby Jindal denialists idiots IPCC volcano monitoring
by Warren
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Year 2, Month 3, Day 2: Eruptions of Ignorance
Missouri Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer is the guy who introduced the amendment to kill funding for the IPCC, which (given our all-new teabagger-friendly House) passed handily. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch has the story.
The guy’s a moron, but is that news? Anyway, I started remembering Bobby Jindal for some reason, and generated the following letter, sent 2/21:
Those of us who still recall Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal’s disparaging remarks about “something called ‘volcano monitoring,’ ” back in early 2009 will also remember that only a few weeks later, a real live volcano erupted in Alaska — and that the Government’s Volcano Monitoring service was credited with giving essential warnings that saved lives and property. Blaine Luetkemeyer is in a position analogous to Jindal’s; his hostility toward the I.P.C.C. has nothing to do with its essential work on the likely effects of global warming and everything to do with short-term political exigencies. As the scientific evidence mounts, climate-change deniers use multiply-debunked arguments to delay and weaken any action on the most significant threat humanity has faced in millennia. The smoke from Mount Redoubt made Governor Jindal’s mockery of volcano monitoring an embarrassment; one wonders: what sort of environmental catastrophe will bring Representative Luetkemeyer to regret his similarly ignorant grandstanding?
Warren Senders
environment Politics: false equivalency media irresponsibility scientific consensus
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Year 2, Month 3, Day 1: We Need More Like This
The Aurora Sentinel (Aurora, CO) addresses the problem directly, in a very well-done and strongly-worded editorial.
How much more proof is needed to persuade skeptics that humans are warming the planet to dangerously high temperatures?
Scientists released not one, but two reports on Wednesday showing definitively that human-caused temperature hikes in Earth’s atmosphere are producing increasingly harsh, wet storms across the globe.
The studies should counter arguments by skeptics that climate change is a “victimless crime,” said Myles Allen of the University of Oxford, one of two authors of a study associating flooding and climate change in Britain. “Extreme weather is what actually hurts people.”
Can’t wait to see the comments in a couple of days…
Sent 2/21:
Your editorial hits the nail squarely on the head. The current inability of our major media outlets to address global warming without false equivalency would be hilarious if it were not tragic. By equating the expertise of thousands of climatologists with a few paid shills from the oil companies, the true nature of the climate crisis is disguised, and millions of people are lulled into a false sense of security. Add to that the constant stream of virulent anti-environment rhetoric from right-wing talk radio and you have a recipe for disaster — since we can’t deal with the problem without recognizing its existence. Not only is America the planet’s largest per capita emitter of greenhouse gases, its media pollute the public discourse with some of the most egregious and irresponsible mendacity the world has ever seen. And don’t even get me started on Republican politicians, who are appallingly ready to sacrifice the long-term future of their constituents on the altar of short-term political exigencies of the most cynical and willfully ignorant sort.
Warren Senders
environment Politics: assholes denialists idiots mountain pine beetle
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Year 2, Month 2, Day 28: How Do You Handle A Hungry Man?
The Victoria Advocate (TX) runs an article on Joe Read,the loony in Montana who’s introduced a bill declaring global warming beneficial.
Imagine reading a few decades ago that a lawmaker had introduced a bill which not only designated tobacco as a foodstuff, but also defined lung cancer and emphysema as signs of overall health. It’d be pretty clear that the politician in question had either been paid off by the big tobacco firms, or had been fooled by them; looking back with the benefit of hindsight, we would have to choose: what motivated him — cupidity or stupidity? A few decades from now, exactly the same question will be asked about Rep. Joe Read, whose attempt to renegotiate the facts of climate change shows a similar unwillingness to remove ideological filters. A few seconds’ research on the phrase “mountain pine beetle” will demonstrate one of the many dangers posed to Montana by global warming. But perhaps Rep. Read is too busy eating a cigarette sandwich to care. Mmmmmm. Yummy.
Warren Senders
Education humor photoblogging Politics: snap
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environment: flooding methane permafrost scientific consensus
by Warren
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Year 2, Month 2, Day 27: Some Days These Letters Are No Damned Fun At All
I’ve never written to the National Geographic before. Strange, since that magazine was an important part of my childhood and the general growth of my environmental awareness. They ran an article on the Zwiers study which triggered this letter. In addition, I mention the NSIDC report on melting permafrost, which you should not read if you want a good night’s sleep; this is about as bad a piece of news as we’ve had in quite a while, which is really saying something.
Mailed Feb. 18:
The Zwiers study confirms the link between global warming and extreme weather events worldwide, but this is unlikely to change many minds among the climate-change deniers, who are now so ideologically wedded to their position that no amount of evidence will suffice. Especially in light of the recent reports from the National Ice and Snow Data Center indicating rapid and irreversible melting of a majority of the Earth’s permafrost (with consequent release of massive amounts of CO2 and methane into the atmosphere), such a failure of understanding is a tragedy. The next centuries will witness unimaginable disruption of ecosystems, agriculture, and infrastructure; to deny reality at this moment is to lose our last chance of mitigating some of the damage before it overwhelms us. Once, our nation honored scientific achievement and inquiry. Now, it seems, we enshrine delusion and magical thinking, to the detriment of the lives of future generations.
Warren Senders
environment: computer modeling denialists scientific consensus
by Warren
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Year 2, Month 2, Day 26: SunSpots..
The Sun (UK) reports on the Oxford studies establishing a definite link between England’s severe flooding and climate change.
Sent February 17:
The results of the Oxford studies are unsurprising to those who’ve been paying attention to the threat of global warming; climatologists have predicted almost exactly these results for several decades, with greater and greater precision as their computer modeling tools became more sophisticated and the data they were analysing became more extensive and precise. And yet it is precisely the nature of the research tool that now has climate-change denialists sputtering and fuming. “Why,” they ask, “should we trust computer models of something as complicated as the earth’s climate?” At first blush, the question seems valid, but there are many reasons for using these tools — the first being, simply, that if we wait until the Earth itself displays incontrovertible evidence, it will be far too late to do anything about the problem. The second reason is that we trust these same technologies in countless other areas of our lives; apparently computer modeling is invalid only when it will negatively impact the profit margins of the world’s biggest oil companies.
Warren Senders