environment Politics: idiots Tea Party
by Warren
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Month 10, Day 21: Idiocracy, Here We Come
The New York Times runs a scary scary scary article on Tea Partiers and their “Skepticism” on climate change. Misleading word, that. These people aren’t skeptics. Skeptics look at evidence. These people are dogmatic, cocksure idiots. Big difference.
The Tea Partiers and their Republican enablers are of one mind when it comes to denying the impact of climate change on our country and the world. And what a mind it is. Joining a reflexive American distrust of intellectuals with an incoherent Biblical literalism into a word salad of libertarian tropes, their opinions on global warming don’t need no stinkin’ logic. Meanwhile, of course, they are thinking and doing exactly what their corporate funders want them to do: elect Republicans who will put the kibosh on any attempt to rein in greenhouse gas emissions. These frightened men and women have been suckered. The Koch brothers and other greedy and short-sighted oil barons are manipulating them into voting against everyone’s best interests — even that of the oil companies, which will surely experience a sharp drop in profits, should our species fail to survive the coming centuries of climate chaos.
Warren Senders
environment Politics: Art Robinson climate zombie idiots
by Warren
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Month 10, Day 16: Nyte Ov De Livveng Dedd
Recently I have just typed the phrase “climate change news” into my search bar to find topics. There’s a limit to how much you can find in the Times.
So I found a column in the Eugene, Oregon newspaper, the Register-Guard. The columnist concerns noted loony and Congressional candidate Art Robinson, whose spectacular flameout on Rachel Maddow’s program is worth a watch. Bob Doppelt notes Bjorn Lomborg’s reversal on climate change, then asks Robinson if this shift by an authority he’d previously cited would make him change his mind.
Ha.
Fortunately Robinson is very unlikely to prevail in this district. But it seemed like a good theme for a letter addressing the general rise of climate zombies.
Art Robinson is distinctive among the current crop of climate denialists running for public office only in that his academic background arms him with a repertoire of useful scientific phrases, the better to misrepresent and misinterpret the work of actual professional climatologists (who agree overwhelmingly on the human causes of global climate change). Other Republican candidates, for the most part, do their misrepresenting and misinterpreting without the benefit of advanced degrees in unrelated scientific fields. Robinson is an extreme example of an increasingly prominent national phenomenon, the “climate zombie” — a politician with an ideological commitment to ignore scientific evidence and expertise when it’s inconvenient. The number of such “zombies” running for office around the country is a disturbing reminder of how far the G.O.P. has fallen; Republican candidates now are unable to address an inconvenient reality: anthropogenic global warming is settled science, and we ignore it at our peril.
Warren Senders
environment: capitalism climate negotiations Climategate idiots IPCC
by Warren
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Month 10, Day 14: Yet Another Installment of “Why Capitalism Sucks.”
The Wall Street Journal never misses an opportunity to mislead.
A fairly even-handed discussion of the most recent round of climate negotiations was derailed by a paragraph of heavy-handed editorializing, including allegations of “flawed science” in the IPCC reports and yet another reference to the so-called “climategate.” Let’s get this straight, starting with the second item: there have thus far been three separate and independent investigations of the leaked emails, and each investigation has completely exonerated the scientists involved. Completely. If the print and broadcast media had any sense of responsibility, this fact would have received as much publicity as the original non-scandal. With regard to the flaws in the IPCC report —in a document thousands of pages long, mistakes are inevitable. If a miscalculation of glacial melt rates invalidates the entire report, then by analogy, an error of fact anywhere in the Wall Street Journal must invalidate everything in that day’s edition, including the stock market reports.
Warren Senders
environment: Deepwater Horizon Department of the Interior idiots Ken Salazar offshore drilling
by Warren
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Month 10, Day 13: Grrrrrrr.
Dear Secretary Salazar — The Department of the Interior may have set some higher safety and environmental impact standards for offshore drilling, but will this translate into increased enforcement of these standards? If the moratorium on drilling is lifted, we need to significantly increase the budget for inspectors and regulators who will be a powerful presence on each and every drilling rig.
During the previous administration regulations were first gutted, then flouted, then ignored, leading inexorably to the catastrophic Deepwater Horizon disaster. It won’t make a bit of difference if the regulations are toughened unless the enforcement environment is made much, much, much more stringent.
The plain fact is that these big oil companies have been getting away with environmental crimes for decades — oil and coal extraction has severely damaged ecosystems around the world, many of them irrevocably. With our planetary system already in a state of shock from increased greenhouse gas emissions, there can no longer be any excuse for allowing fossil fuel industries free rein in their misuse of extractive technologies.
Any adjustment to safety and environmental regulations that assumes responsible behavior on the part of these organizations is hopelessly naive. I confess to grave disappointment; I had hopes that the present administration was prepared to recognize the grave environmental consequences of unbridled corporate sociopathy. I hope that I am proven wrong, but I am afraid that the Department of the Interior has just gotten played. Again.
Yours Sincerely,
Warren Senders
environment: corporations EPA idiots
by Warren
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Month 10, Day 9: The Immortal Billionaire Brats.
The Wall Street Journal notes that corporate groups are busy trying to sue the EPA to get its endangerment finding reversed or overturned, thereby making it even easier for them to go on polluting. These people are like bratty teenagers getting pissed off because their parents don’t want them sniffing glue.
In refusing to reconsider its endangerment finding on atmospheric carbon dioxide, the Environmental Protection Agency is acting entirely correctly. The bitter complaints and threats of legal action from corporate groups are reflective of a profound immaturity that pervades our nation’s private sector. It is immature to think and plan only for the short run, focusing entirely on profits while ignoring the deterioration of the infrastructure and environment. The whining of the business sector when faced with the fact that at some point they’ll have to clean up the messes they’ve helped create is disturbingly similar to that of a spoiled child refusing to pick up his room. Whether the corporate sector wants to recognize it or not, anthropogenic global warming carries a statistically significant probability of human extinction — which would definitely be bad for business. The E.P.A.’s policy of long-term responsibility is for the benefit of us all.
Warren Senders
environment: idiots Ken Cuccinelli Michael Mann
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Month 10, Day 8: Scientist Versus Idiot.
The Washington Post editorializes on Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, whose vendetta against climatologist Michael Mann has now reached obsessive dimensions. Read it and weep.
Virginia’s Attorney General is indeed an embarrassment, both to the State he nominally serves and to the legal profession. His posturings are representative of a virulent strain of know-nothingism which is profoundly damaging to the nation as a whole, despite its appeal to those politicians and voters who embrace the notion that expertise is inherently suspect. The Attorney General’s readiness to assert that this respected research scientist is engaged in a multi-year campaign of intellectual chicanery tells us a great deal more about Mr. Cuccinelli than about Dr. Mann. Unfortunately, American anti-intellectualism has resurfaced at precisely the time when scientific expertise is most needed, and willful ignorance has a profound moral dimension. With overall global temperatures rising and weather extremes increasing, the experiential evidence for climate change is no longer deniable. Another thing we can’t deny: Dr. Mann is a bigger asset to this country than the man persecuting him.
Warren Senders
environment Politics: Barack Obama climate change idiots
by Warren
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Month 10, Day 4: The President Says We’re Still Gonna Do It. How? I Dunno.
I wrote about my experiences in DC in this diary on Daily Kos.
And now…
The New York Times:
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Barack Obama said revamping U.S. energy policy would be a top priority next year and may have to be done “in chunks” rather than through one piece of legislation, according to Rolling Stone magazine.
In an interview published on Tuesday, Obama lamented that more progress to fight climate change had not been made since he took office, and blamed the economy for that failure.
“One of my top priorities next year is to have an energy policy that begins to address all facets of our over-reliance on fossil fuels,” Obama told Rolling Stone.
My letter:
The fact that President Obama’s first two years in office were focused almost entirely on health care and financial reform rather than on climate change is a reflection of the damage that decades of Republican malfeasance and media collusion have done to our country. If we had a responsible “opposition party” instead of the aggregation of nihilists who’ve made progress impossible, the health care debate would have ended by June 2009; financial reform would have passed by September of the same year, and we’d be having a rational discussion about the pros and cons of regulating carbon emissions. If we had a responsible media, our national conversation would be just that — a conversation. Instead, we’ve heard delusions of “death panels,” blathering about “bailouts,” and a readiness to deny the overwhelming scientific evidence regarding the most serious existential threat humanity has ever faced. President Obama’s task is a formidable one.
Warren Senders
environment Politics: Darrell Issa denialism idiots
by Warren
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Month 9, Day 24: I’m Going To Donate Some Money To Democrats Now, Thank You Very Much.
Darrell Issa is a terrible person and should not be allowed to gain control of anything beyond his TV remote control. But here he is, blustering that if Republicans take the House, he’s going to hold his very own inquisition into “Climategate.” Which, of course, would ultimately exonerate the scientists involved, as it’s been demonstrated over and over that they were guilty of nothing more than being human beings…but Issa doesn’t give a shit. He just wants to make things worse.
I sent this to the San Diego Times-Union, which services Issa’s district among others. I couldn’t find an article to hang it on, which probably means it’s doomed. Since it’s unlikely in any case that a California paper is going to print a letter from Massachusetts, this was probably a lost cause…but it felt better to say it.
Now I’m going to go and spread a bit of money around. While the Blue Dog Democrats have been absolutely infuriating and the Dems in general have been appallingly weak, the Republicans cannot be allowed to take control this November.
Should Republicans gain control of the House this November, Representative Issa is now threatening to hold hearings on the so-called “Climategate” scandal. Although three separate investigations have cleared all the parties involved of any wrongdoing, the California congressman apparently never got the news. Issa’s reflexive denialism is now the rule in the GOP, with almost every single Republican candidate in the nation embracing an agenda that, if enacted, would be terrible news for our country and the world. While an anti-science ideology is evident in the Republicans’ vehement opposition to evidence-based policies in general, it is in their readiness to reject and misrepresent the work of climate scientists that they put us all in grave danger. The laws of physics pay no heed to the obstructive political games of our feckless opposition party; as atmospheric greenhouse gases accumulate to dangerous levels, time is running out.
Warren Senders
environment: BP Deepwater Horizon idiots Tony Hayward
by Warren
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Month 9, Day 23: Variations on a Theme
The BP disaster was really the gift that kept on giving for a letter-writer. This goes to the New Orleans Times-Picayune in response to their article on BP’s inept handling of the spill.
Since BP’s low-ball estimates of flow rate were the ones accepted by the media and the Federal government, the profoundly inadequate response on both public and private levels is unsurprising. What is bizarre is how strongly Tony Hayward and the rest of the BP team appeared to believe their own misinformation, as if the power of a misleading number would somehow make millions of gallons of oil swiftly and suddenly vanish away. This global giant is either so incompetent it cannot measure its own work accurately, or it is so unethical that it would circulate misstatements and spin in order to avoid responsibility. That’s the choice, and it’s a pretty unappealing one. America needs an energy economy where citizens aren’t daily forced to support corporations whose behavior is stupid, malevolent or some combination of the two.
Warren Senders
environment Politics: EPA idiots
by Warren
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Month 9, Day 15: Bastards.
Your Dysfunctional Senate in Action. Another attempt to gut the EPA by cutting off its funding. This just makes my blood absolutely boil. The letter below will be faxed to all Democratic members of the Senate Appropriations Committee.
Dear Senators,
Voting to limit the authority of the Environmental Protection Agency is a profoundly wrong-headed thing to do. In the absence of genuinely robust legislation to address the looming threat of climate change (a threat already made real, for example, to the residents of Pakistan), the EPA is one of the last defenses against climate catastrophe.
The financial and environmental irresponsibility of large energy corporations is obvious to any thinking citizen — as is the fact that these entities are ready to invest staggering sums of money, not in cleaning up after the results of their incompetence, but in maintaining their own freedom to pollute. After BP’s astonishing demonstration of ineptitude and venality, is it really such a good idea to limit the EPA’s regulatory capacity? After observing the unethical and callous behavior of Massey Coal, can we really say with a straight face that the energy sector needs less regulation?
Given that the Senate is highly unlikely to provide the climate bill we need, a stronger EPA is all that’s left to protect this country’s ordinary citizens from the environmental depredations of the world’s largest polluters.
When the matter comes up in committee, please vote against any amendments which would limit the Agency’s scope or cut its funding.
Warren Senders