environment Politics: assholes denialists idiots
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Year 3, Month 3, Day 3: Dumber-est-est-est…er.
The Washington Post wonders:
IS THE FIGHT against global warming hopeless? It can seem so. The long-term threat to the climate comes from carbon dioxide, which lingers in the atmosphere for hundreds of years, locking in higher temperatures for generations. After decades of effort, only about one-tenth of America’s energy mix comes from renewable sources that don’t produce carbon dioxide.
But two policies can buy the world more time to allow carbon-free technologies to catch up. One is aimed at greenhouse substances that clear out of the atmosphere after a few years, months or even days. Cutting back the emission of soot and ozone gases such as methane would reduce the world’s warming by as much as a half degree Celsius over the next few decades, according to a study in last month’s Science. Adding hydrofluorocarbons — another class of short-lived pollutants — to the list would help even more to delay the approach of temperature thresholds beyond which global warming could be catastrophic.
Reducing these emissions is relatively cheap, especially when the benefits to health are factored in. For example, primitive cooking stoves in developing countries produce much of the world’s soot; using more efficient ones would prevent perhaps millions of deaths from respiratory illness. Methane, meanwhile, is the primary component of natural gas — a commodity that pipeline or coal-mine operators could sell if they kept it from escaping into the atmosphere. Researchers have even concluded that global crop yields would rise.
Global warming will be easy to conquer, compared to stupidity, against which the gods themselves contend in vain. Sent February 26:
While the struggle against runaway planetary warming is not completely hopeless, the outlook for the next few centuries can seem pretty bleak. The unifying thread in climatologists’ forecasts of the likely impact of climate change has been that they’re far too conservative; virtually without exception the environmental consequences have been worse, and earlier, than predicted. It’s hard to look at the accumulated evidence and remain cheerful — unless, of course, you’re a climate-change denialist, in which case all that extreme weather everywhere around the globe is proof of a giant conspiracy to bring about a New World Order (don’t forget compulsory re-education camps for SUV owners!).
It’s an unfortunate irony that those conspiracy theorists are the ones stymieing the revamped energy economy and upgraded infrastructure that would bring hope to the fight. The ignorance of climate-change deniers may be blissful, but it carries grave consequences for the rest of us.
Warren Senders
Education environment: denialists Heartland Institute idiots Peter Gleick
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Year 3, Month 3, Day 2: One Of These Things Is Not Like The Other
The Hudson Valley Media Group runs a piece from the Saint Louis Post-Dispatch with the title, “Heartland Institute: Not a think tank, just in the tank.”
Oh, my, yes:
The purported Heartland Institute internal documents leaked to media outlets last week were not exactly revelatory.
Collectively, the 100 or so pages describe an advocacy group going about the business of pushing its agenda and raising money to help it do so. Chicago-based Heartland has been doing that since it was created in 1984 “to discover, develop and promote free-market solutions to social and economic problems,” according to its current mission statement.
Still, the leak and Heartland’s response to it are useful reminders to anyone seeking hard information about controversial issues: Words such as “institute,” “center” and “council” in an organization’s name do not necessarily signal impartial inquiry or dispassionate investigation. Any organization can call itself a “think tank,” but sometimes spin is just spin.
When the documents first appeared on the Internet last week, Heartland quickly confirmed that some of its materials had been “stolen.” On Wednesday, Heartland declared one two-page memo to be an outright fake but said the rest of the material had not yet been reviewed to see if anything had been altered.
By Thursday, Heartland chief executive Joseph Bast wrote in a blog post that the organization still didn’t know if any documents had been modified. And in a letter sent Saturday to some Internet sites that had posted the documents, Heartland’s general counsel said the group still was investigating whether the documents had been altered.
Authenticating the documents isn’t that difficult. Heartland created and possesses the originals, after all. If it could discredit them, it would.
The first comment triggered this letter, which was sent off on February 25:
When confronted with Heartland Institute’s plans to disseminate climate-science denialist curricula, conservatives quickly invoke the “climategate” emails. The disagreements over statistical methods between scientists at the University of East Anglia are somehow equated to a heavily funded anti-science program affecting public schools nationwide, presumably because both involved documents obtained outside normal channels.
Well, no.
Three separate independent inquiries completely exonerated the UEA scientists, and other climatologists all over the world support their conclusions. The hackers who obtained the “climategate” emails have never revealed themselves, let alone apologized.
Conversely, the Heartland Institute’s climate-change denial curricula are produced by someone with no training in the field. While Heartland’s position is disputed by the overwhelming majority of climate scientists, their work is supported by corporations hoping to protect their profitability by delaying environmental regulation. The lone individual who obtained the Heartland documents almost immediately identified himself.
The two cases are emphatically not equivalent.
Warren Senders
Education environment Politics: assholes corporate irresponsibility denialists Heartland Institute Peter Gleick
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Year 3, Month 3, Day 1: Remixed.
The Silicon Valley Mercury-News, on Gleick:
For the past two decades, Peter Gleick has earned a reputation as a nationally known expert on water and climate issues, winning a MacArthur “genius award,” penning a long list of scientific articles and testifying before Congress.
But over the past two days, the 55-year-old Berkeley resident has found himself at the center of a national maelstrom of his own making: using a false name to obtain confidential documents from a pro-industry think tank known for minimizing the risks of global warming.
The issue has riveted the environmental community and the energy industry, raising questions about whether the damage will extend past Gleick’s reputation and harm scientists’ efforts to convince the public that climate change is real and largely caused by humans.
Gleick, president of the nonprofit Pacific Institute, in Oakland, wasn’t talking Tuesday.
But Monday, he stunned the scientific community when he admitted — via his blog in the Huffington Post — that he obtained confidential fundraising and strategy documents from the libertarian Heartland Institute in Chicago by using someone else’s name, and distributed them on the Internet.
Heartland/Gleick — the gift that keeps on giving. Sent February 24 (putting me six days ahead of the game):
Yes, Dr. Peter Gleick was naughty. Misrepresenting himself to the Heartland Institute in order to verify the provenance of some documents was indeed an ethical lapse — but when measured against the wholesale mendacity of Heartland’s climate-change denialist curricula, Gleick’s offense is about as serious as a parking ticket.
But unlike Gleick, Heartland Institute didn’t have an “ethical lapse.” You can’t lose what you don’t have, and all the evidence suggests that this secretive right-wing think tank never had any ethics in the first place.
Misrepresenting the overwhelming scientific consensus on climate change is bad enough when it’s done in politics and the media, for it fosters inaction in the face of a serious (and steadily worsening) global threat. But misrepresenting climate science in our nation’s classrooms is a form of intellectual child abuse; a gross violation of the public trust; a lie so big it beggars the imagination.
Warren Senders
Education environment: assholes corporate irresponsibility denialists Heartland Institute Peter Gleick scientific consensus
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Year 3, Month 2, Day 29: Let’s Play “Let’s Pretend!”
The Toronto Star addresses the Heartland scandal:
Is Peter Gleick a heroic whistleblower or a climate scientist in disgrace?
Gleick, president of the California-based Pacific Institute, placed himself in the middle of controversy this week after admitting he had assumed a false identity to verify the authenticity of documents he says he received anonymously through the mail.
The documents in question reportedly came from within the Heartland Institute, a right-wing, libertarian U.S. think tank that disputes the consensus scientific view of climate change: that the planet is warming and human activity is the primary cause.
Critics say Heartland, under the guise of serious debate, has put great effort into planting doubt and sewing confusion around climate science, with the intention of delaying or halting government action aimed at reining in greenhouse-gas emissions.
The package of documents Gleick obtained backed up such criticisms. “It contained information about their funders and the Institute’s apparent efforts to muddy public understanding about climate science and policy,” he wrote this week in a Huffington Post commentary.
Here we go again. Notice the absence of Thomas Jefferson! Sent February 24:
To save time, let’s all agree that in a perfect world, Dr. Peter Gleick would not have misrepresented himself to the Heartland Institute’s office staff as a way of obtaining their proprietary documents. Shame, shame! But in a perfect world, the Heartland Institute would not be misrepresenting climate science to the public. Shame, shame, shame, shame!
On the one hand, a single scientist of impeccable reputation; on the other, a secretive right-wing think tank with a multi-million-dollar budget. On the one hand, the scientific facts of the greenhouse effect and its catastrophic consequences; on the other, a program of climate-change denialism masquerading as a neutral “teach the controversy” curriculum. On the one hand, an overwhelming scientific consensus; on the other, David Wojik, an epistemologist who is being well paid to foster confusion and uncertainty.
Has Dr. Gleick’s fib helped the truth emerge? He has nothing to be ashamed of.
Warren Senders
Education environment: assholes corporate irresponsibility denialists Heartland Institute idiots Peter Gleick scientific method
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Year 3, Month 2, Day 28: You Know You Know
More pearl-clutching over the fib heard round the world, this time from the San Francisco Chronicle:
The latest national uproar over climate change science has damaged, if not ruined, the reputation of one of the Bay Area’s most prominent scholars and raised serious questions about ethics during what has become a roiling political and ideological debate.
Peter Gleick, a MacArthur Foundation fellow and co-founder and president of Oakland’s Pacific Institute, admitted Monday that he had posed as someone else and obtained confidential internal papers from the Heartland Institute, a libertarian group that has questioned the reality of human-caused global warming.
I used yesterday’s letter to the WaPo as a model. Sent February 22:
Let’s all shed a few tears in sympathy for Heartland Institute. Massively subsidized by some of the world’s most powerful corporations, these industrial-scale liars have finally been exposed as, well, liars. Who wouldn’t cry victimhood under such circumstances? And who cares that Heartland’s massive misrepresentations of scientific fact have been a core component of conservative obduracy on addressing climate change? It’s more fun to pillory climatologist Peter Gleick, who used a single strategically-targeted misrepresentation to expose Heartland’s mendacity.
Heartland’s plans to teach climate-change denial in our nation’s schools are profoundly unpatriotic. Remember Thomas Jefferson’s vision of a “well-informed citizenry,” and ask yourself: would the Sage of Monticello (a man who loved scientific truth as much as he loved his country) be outraged by Peter Gleick’s fib, or by the institutionalized anti-science pseudo-education that prompted it?
Warren Senders
India Indian music music: genius
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78 rpm Records of Indian Music: Ravi Shankar Needs No Introduction
Raga Hemant
“Bengali Kirtan”
I will be posting more 78s in the next couple of days.
environment India Indian music music November 11 Action: Carnatic music veena
by Warren
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Strings Against Climate Change: Durga Krishnan’s Set
I am finally getting it together to post the videos from last fall’s Climate Concert. The sound from the video camera was cruddy, so I had to replace it with the recording from my digital recorder. This took more time than I had anticipated — no excuse, of course, but an explanation, anyway.
Here’s Durga Krishnan’s wonderful set, with Gaurishankar Chandrashekhar on mridangam.
Mahaganapathim Manasa Smarami – Raga – Nattai – Tala – Chathusra Ekam, Composer – Muthuswami Dikshitar
Steve Elman reviewed the concert in ArtsFuse, and wrote this:
Durga Krishnan’s performance was a rich and satisfying introduction to the veena, perfectly assembled and marvelously executed. Her improvisations were structured as beautifully as Sonny Rollins saxophone solos, with motifs introduced casually, then brought back over and over for cumulative effect. And Gaurishankar Chandrashekar’s mrindangam solo showed off some very impressive chops.
Link
Needu Charanamule – Raga Simhendra Madhyamam, Tala – Misra Chapu, Composer – St. Thyagaraja
The Boston Globe’s Andrew Gilbert interviewed Durga before the concert and included her thoughts in his article:
Durga Krishnan, another tireless educator who has collaborated widely with jazz musicians, is also committed to working across genres. Performing in a duo with Gaurishankar Chandrashekhar, an expert on mridangam (a two-headed drum), she’s presenting a set of heavily improvised Carnatic music on the veena, a plucked lute that plays an essential role in the classical South Indian tradition. Eager to participate in Playing for the Planet, she feels that environmental consciousness is inextricably linked to her music.
“I belong to the Hindu religion where we worship the five elements of nature as god,’’ Krishnan says. “One of the pieces we’ll be performing is from a group of compositions that are prayers to these five elements. There’s a deep connection between the kind of music that I perform and nature. It’s very important to do whatever we can.’’
Raghuvamsasudha – Raga – Kathanakuthuhalam, Tala – Adi, Composer – Patnam Subramanya Iyer.
Education environment: denialists Heartland Institute science
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The mouths of babes…
…watch this:
Education environment: assholes corporate irresponsibility denialists Heartland Institute idiots Peter Gleick
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Year 3, Month 2, Day 27: Because The Water Hyacinths…Had Clogged The River
The Washington Post weighs in on “Denialgate.” Pearl-clutching:
Legislation to fight global warming has disappeared from Washington’s policy agenda, but the battle over climate science continues to escalate.
The latest skirmish culminated in the admission Monday night by Peter Gleick, a climate scientist and author, that he assumed a fake identity to obtain documents that would expose the inner workings of a climate skeptic group.
“My judgment was blinded by my frustration with the ongoing efforts — often anonymous, well-funded and coordinated — to attack climate science and scientists and prevent this debate, and by the lack of transparency of the organizations involved,” Gleick wrote in a post on his Huffington Post blog.
Gleick’s admission “is the latest in an escalating spiral of polarizing warfare between self-described ‘Climate Hawks’ and so-called Climate Deniers,” which leaves the majority of scientists and the public “caught in the crossfire,” American University professor Matthew C. Nisbet, who studies the issues, wrote in a blog entry.
What Gleick deserves is pretty far removed from what he’s gonna get. Sent February 21:
Heartland Institute’s claim of victimhood in the wake of the release of its confidential documents is absurd. They are heavily funded by some of the most powerful corporations in the world, with an agenda built around the wholesale propagation of falsehoods in the public sphere. When a single individual (the justifiably infuriated climatologist Peter Gleick) carries out a specifically-targeted sting operation (a “retail” falsehood, if you will) that exposes a massive infrastructure of mendacity, he deserves the thanks of the nation, not a fusillade of obloquy.
Given that climate change deniers routinely distort the truth in grotesque and massively harmful ways, why should Gleick’s fib give us the vapors? Heartland’s “educational” programs undercut the Jeffersonian ideal of a “well-informed citizenry.” Gleick’s actions, conversely, reflect a deep and abiding patriotism that our third President, a man whose love of scientific truth matched his love of country, would surely recognize and applaud.
Warren Senders
Education environment: assholes denialists Heartland Institute idiots media irresponsibility Peter Gleick
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Year 3, Month 2, Day 26: Won’t Somebody Please Have Pity?
The Kansas City Star reprints the LA Times editorial on Climate Denial In The Classroom.
Fortunately, if we’re about to enter a battle over classroom instruction on climate change, it won’t go on for decades, because the impacts of global warming are already patently obvious. Seven of the 10 warmest years since global record-keeping began in 1880 have occurred in the 21st century. Despite an intense campaign to discredit his work, Pennsylvania State University professor Michael Mann’s “hockey stick” graph, which shows that temperatures in the latter half of the 20th century soared to their highest level in 1,000 years, has been validated repeatedly. Last year set a record for the most climate-related disasters in the United States costing more than $1 billion in damage each – drought-fueled wildfires in Texas, Hurricane Irene, and Mississippi River flooding were among the 14 cases.
These are facts, not philosophical or religious dogma. Another fact: Sophisticated climate models show that things are going to get a lot worse. It’s bad enough that we’re gambling our children’s futures by doing so little to fight this problem; let’s not ask their teachers to lie to them about it too.
Now that Peter Gleick has emerged as the whistleblower in the Heartland case, let’s watch the poor bastard get pilloried, shall we? Sent February 21:
When the Heartland Institute claims the mantle of victimhood in the “denialgate” scandal, they are continuing a pattern of cynical manipulation of the media and public opinion. There is no doubt that Heartland’s role in muddying the debate on climate change is a crucial one; the organization has been active in promoting conservative causes across the policy spectrum, and has long done so through the dissemination of half-truths, strategic omissions, and (when necessary) outright lying. Their faux-outrage at finally being caught with their mendacious pants down as laughable as their attempts to undercut necessary action on climate change are deplorable.
Dr. Peter Gleick’s act of courage in blowing the whistle on these heavily-funded hoodlums will, of course, not go unpunished. We can anticipate hearing the morality of his actions debated endlessly in the media, while Heartland Institute’s mendacity and duplicity are ignored and minimized. While the world grows steadily hotter.
Warren Senders