Uncategorized: assholes denialists EPA idiots
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Year 2, Month 2, Day 11: What The Hell’s The Matter With Kansas?
WASHINGTON — Legislation that would limit the regulatory power of the Environmental Protection Agency regarding greenhouse gases has been introduced by Sens. Pat Roberts and Jerry Moran, R-Kan.
The legislation, also sponsored by Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., would require the EPA to seek congressional approval before regulating greenhouse gas emissions for the sole purpose of addressing climate change.
Called the Defending America’s Affordable Energy and Jobs Act, the legislation seeks to pre-empt existing rules and prohibit future federal restrictions on greenhouse gases in the absence of congressional authorization.
The Obama Administration vows a veto. Good. But these people are not going to quit. Climate Zombies. I used to think the term was metaphorical. Now I know better.
Mailed on February 4:
The blinkered condition of Republican climate denialists notwithstanding, the facts on global climate change have been in for a long time, and the scientific consensus on the human causes of global warming is universal (absent only the dissenting voices of petroleum-funded professional contrarians). Senators Murray, Moran and Barrasso, in attempting to prevent the EPA from doing its job, are motivated by a dangerous combination of electoral exigency, fiscal avarice and scientific ignorance. The recent snowfalls that have immobilized much of the country are an early manifestation of the kind of weather chaos we can expect to experience over the coming years, as the gradually warming atmosphere becomes ever more disruptive to our ways of life. Greenhouse gases need to be regulated right away; our dysfunctional Congress certainly won’t do it. Before the Senators drastically weaken the EPA, let them find a better way to protect Americans from environmental dangers.
Warren Senders
environment Politics: Al Gore assholes Bill O'Reilly denialists false equivalency idiots media irresponsibility
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Year 2, Month 2, Day 10: Just Stop It. Stop It. Right Now.
Under a snarky and dismissive headline (“Al Gore’s Snow Job”), Lorrie Goldstein of the Toronto Sun talks about Al Gore’s futile attempt to educate Bill “the tide goes in, the tide goes out” O’Reilly and his audience about how global warming is linked to all this f***ing snow. As snarky and dismissive pieces go, it’s not that bad, pointing out that all Gore’s claims are correct and all of O’Reilly’s statements are stupid…but it nevertheless treats the 2000 popular vote winner as a vaguely comic figure. Our media is so, so, so, so damned lazy.
Sent on February 3:
Lorrie Goldstein notes that Al Gore’s name now triggers reflexive skepticism among people who are anxious to dismiss the very real threat of global climate change as somehow chimerical. But her column inadequately addresses the reasons for this. The former vice-president and Nobel laureate has done his homework; his prescience on the issue of global warming is, or should be, a foregone conclusion by now. Instead, many media outlets dismiss his hard-won expertise, either through a simplistic Bill O’Reilly-style confusion of weather and climate, or through the marginally more sophisticated tactic of false equivalency, in which a statement by a genuinely worried climatologist (or a former VP) is “balanced” by pronunciamenti from petroleum industry mouthpieces. Yes, it’s true that the climate debate has become politically polarized — but environmentalists haven’t been doing the politicizing. That responsibility belongs to the Republican party and its sponsors, Big Oil and Big Coal.
Warren Senders
environment: assholes denialism idiots scientific consensus Storms
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Year 2, Month 2, Day 9: Auntie Em?
The Kansas City Star takes on the big storms & crazy weather by acknowledging that, as the headline puts it, “Some scientists believe extreme weather events becoming the norm.” The comments on this article are what prompted the closing sentences in my letter (mailed 2/2/11):
The phrase “some scientists” is misleading; it’s just about impossible for the scientific consensus on human causes of global warming to get any stronger. Barring a few petroleum-funded contrarians, the overwhelming majority of climate specialists agree: anthropogenic greenhouse emissions are warming the atmosphere, and the results are going to bring us a world of hurt in the coming decades. The current crop of freak weather events all over the world is just a preview of coming attractions; for decades climatologists have been predicting a worldwide increase in anomalous weather as a consequence of the greenhouse effect. Now their predictions are coming true from Queensland to Kansas as hundreds of millions of lives are disrupted by severe storms, flooding, snow, and drought. But climate-change deniers cannot admit they’ve been misled; their ideologically-driven rejection of global warming’s factuality is not susceptible to actual evidence, no matter how much of it piles up on their doorsteps.
Warren Senders
environment: media irresponsibility snowstorms
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Year 2, Month 2, Day 8: Whiteout!
Written and sent to the Chicago Tribune on February 1, as Chicago is getting ready for its own massive snowstorm. Typically, the article is all about municipal preparations, ignoring the webs of causality that link this weather event with all the other crazy stuff that’s coming out of the sky elsewhere in the world.
As Chicago braces for a “once-in-a-decade” snowfall, it is easy and tempting to think of it as an isolated phenomenon. But this blizzard, like the multiple winter storms that are hammering the East coast, is part and parcel of the same complex set of phenomena that gave us the floods that have inundated Pakistan, the cyclone that’s headed for Australia, and the drought that devastated Russia last summer.
If we wish to build a future for our children and their children in turn, we must face the reality of global climate change. While no single weather event can be blamed on the greenhouse effect (science doesn’t work that way), there is no longer any serious doubt among experts: anthropogenic climate change makes extreme weather overwhelmingly more likely. The fact that the phrase “climate change” does not appear at all in this article is an unfortunate abdication of journalistic responsibility.
Warren Senders
environment Politics: assholes denialists idiots teapartiers
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Year 2, Month 2, Day 7: (facepalm)
Paul LePage, the new governor of Maine, is an asshole of the first order:
“I believe in real, strong environmental laws,” Gov. Paul LePage announced to a room full of environmentally-minded Mainers a little more than a week ago. “I would never challenge a strong environmental law that’s based in science.”
Four days later, LePage launched a broadside against Maine’s environmental protections, targeting for elimination virtually every state environmental law and regulation in existence, regardless of their scientific merit, importance to Maine’s economy and citizen health, or even their bipartisan support.
The changes he proposed to the regulatory reform committee would rezone 3 million acres of wilderness for development, allow toxic chemicals back into children’s toys and baby bottles, lower air and water pollution standards, reduce fines for polluters, eliminate the Board of Environmental Protection and shift the burden for recycling electronic waste away from manufacturers and onto the people of Maine.
Actually that’s probably an insult to assholes everywhere. My letter to the Sentinel:
Paul LePage’s proposed changes in Maine environmental protections are examples of the kind of nihilism that should have no place in politics. The Tea-Party governor apparently feels beholden only to his ideological allies, rather than to the long-term good of the state. Furthermore, the anti-government zealots who voted for him are themselves being manipulated by cynical and destructive big-business forces whose best interests are nowhere aligned with Maine’s. Unfortunately, ruined natural resources cannot be instantly remedied in the next election cycle; LePage is proposing to spend the state’s environmental capital for the benefit of his corporate sponsors rather than steward it wisely. One suspects that some part of the governor’s anti-nature crusade is simply gleeful “hippie-punching” — political maneuvers taken for no other reason than to offend people who actually give a damn about some of the most beautiful places in the country and the world.
Warren Senders
environment: media irresponsibility
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Year 2, Month 2, Day 6: Rule, Britannia!
The Guardian notes that in England, the citizenry continues to be concerned about the climate, to the tune of 83 percent — even in the wake of the various non-scandals that have captivated low-information Americans.
I write to the Guardian often. They write on this subject often, which makes them relatively rare in the world of major media outlets. This letter is just a fairly standard “American media sucks, big-time” screed — not that that diminishes its relevance, of course.
Britons’ comprehension of the dangers posed by runaway climate change is a powerful contrast to the state of affairs in the United States, where a media system heavily influenced by Petrodollars has made a reality-based discussion of climate issues essentially impossible. The irresponsibility of American broadcast and print media is astonishing; given the likelihood of major infrastructural disruptions from worldwide sea-level rise and increased storm activity, it would seem only reasonable for our public figures to treat this threat as a threat, rather than a political football. But at this point, the notion of a responsible American media establishment is oxymoronic; US citizens are offered stenography in lieu of reportage, specious false equivalence instead of hard facts and expert analysis. It’s unsurprising that despite the drastic uptick in storms and extreme weather events, ever fewer Americans accept the actuality of climate change. Why confront an expensive reality when illusions are cheap?
Warren Senders
India Indian music music vocalists: genius Kirana gharana
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Sureshbabu Mane
This recording of the Bhairavi thumri “Baju band khul khul jaa” is really exquisite. Sureshbabu’s vocal quality is very much like that of his father Abdul Karim Khan, but there is a relaxed sweetness that is unique.
Sureshbabu Mane (1902 – 1953) was a prominent Hindustāni classical music singer of Kirānā Gharānā in India.
Sureshbabu was born as Abdul Rehmān to Kirana Gharana master Ustād Abdul Karim Khān and Tārābāi Māne. Tarabai was the daughter of Sardār Māruti Rāo Māne, a brother of princely Barodā state’s “Rajmātā” during the middle of the 19th century. Abdul Karim Khan was the court musician in Baroda when Tarabai was young, and he taught her music. The two fell in love and decided to get married; but Tarabai’s parents disapproved of the alliance, and the couple had to leave the state (along with Abdul Karim’s brother, Ustād Abdul Haq Khān). The couple moved to Bombay (Mumbai), and had two sons: Suresh or Abdul Rehmān, and Krishnā; and three daughters: Champākali, Gulāb, and Sakinā or Chhotutāi. In their adult lives, the five respectively became known as Sureshbābu Māne, Krishnarāo Māne, Hirābāi Badodekar, Kamalābāi Badodekar, and Sarswatibāi Rāne.
His pronunciation is very soft, a characteristic of many Kirana style singers who embodied the notion that clear articulation of the words detracted from qualities of intonation. This is a highly vowel-oriented style!
Sureshbabu was an avocational alchemist, a tragic hobby that may have contributed to his early death through exposure to toxic chemicals. It’s trite but accurate to remark that his real alchemy was in the realm of musical expression; I have rarely heard such a haunting version of this thumri.
I used to visit Hirabai Barodekar’s house in Pune fairly often when I was living there. She was a very old lady at the time; I sang for her once just after I’d arrived and she was kind and polite in her responses. Her grandson Nishikant Barodekar was on his way to becoming a very well-regarded tabliya.
environment: climate zombies denialism scientific literacy
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Year 2, Month 2, Day 5: Keep ’em Ignorant!
The Attleboro Sun-Chronicle (MA) runs a fairly standard “hey, it’s snowing! Does that mean global warming is bunk?” piece, replete with a quote from an Accuweather denialist at the end.
So-called “climate skeptics” are fond of pointing out extreme snowfalls as somehow “disproving” the whole notion of global warming, thereby demonstrating the dismal state of science education in our country. A warmer atmosphere means that more water evaporates and turns into precipitation, be it rain, snow, hail or any of the peculiar combinations for which Massachusetts is rightly famed. The science of evaporation is hardly controversial — and the science behind the greenhouse effect has been firmly established for many decades. One of the first predictions of climatic instability as a consequence of increased atmospheric CO2 appeared in Popular Mechanics — in 1953! — and climatologists have been refining their analyses ever since. But most “climate skeptics” are unworthy of the term; a skeptic is one who relies on evidence and understanding, while the current crop of naysayers wear their ignorance of basic scientific concepts as a badge of honor.
Warren Senders
Education environment Politics: good advice
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environment Politics: Ban ki-Moon corporatism Philippines
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Year 2, Month 2, Day 4: Actually, ALL Of Us Live On Islands
The Philippines Inquirer runs an article predicting that 2011 is going to have more weather anomalies — a prognostication that falls in the “utterly obvious” category. It’s a much better piece than you’ll find in the American media.
Of course, Filipinos and Filipinas are seeing climate change up close and personal:
Here at home, in Baguio City, millions worth of fruits and vegetables were ruined by heavy frost of an unseasonably cold weather.
More than a week of abnormally heavy rains left 33 dead last December. About 70,000 fled the flash floods and landslides in Davao del Norte, Compostela Valley and Albay.
Our people in those areas remain in turmoil—hundreds of hectares of rice lands, private property and infrastructure destroyed; a total of P431 million in newly planted crops and fertilized soil washed away; and contagious diseases and rat hordes added to their immense misery.
So the least I can do is add a voice in sympathy. As is all too often the case, finding the LTE link was an exercise in frustration.
Ban Ki-moon’s plea to the developed nations of the world is heartfelt and sincere. The unpredictable weather countless nations have experienced over the past year is only the beginning; the orchestra of chaos is only tuning up, and in the decades to come we are going to witness extreme weather events that are certain to shatter record after record. Unfortunately, the political system in the USA has been captured by (to use Theodore Roosevelt’s trenchant phrase) “malefactors of great wealth.” Operatives of the world’s biggest corporations wield almost unchecked power in the halls of American governance, and the notion of a national climate policy based on scientific fact now seems hopelessly unrealistic. The U.N. Secretary General is apparently now refocusing his attention and energy on an economic rationale for changes in the world’s energy economy. Let us hope that “profit” is a more effective motivator than “planet.”
Warren Senders