environment Politics: idiots Lisa Murkowski Scott Brown
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Month 6, Day 10: Our Descendants Will Be Too Busy Ducking Catastrophic Storms To Spit On Our Graves…But They Would If They Could, You Betcha!
Lisa Murkowski’s appalling amendment is coming up for a vote on the Senate floor tomorrow. John Kerry is leading the charge against this breathtakingly stupid piece of legislation. Scott Brown?
Dear Senator Brown,
I write to urge you to vote against the “petition of disapproval” introduced by Senator Lisa Murkowski. Despite what the voices of Fox News say, the climate crisis is very real and very dangerous. At this point in our nation’s history, do we really need head-in-the-sand denial of something that’s been overwhelmingly affirmed by scientific research, over and over again?
The proposal to reverse the EPA’s Endangerment Finding with
respect to greenhouse gases would essentially bar further EPA
regulation on climate change. What we need is stronger climate legislation; what we need is to transform our economy so that we’re no longer burning fossil fuels and pumping carbon into the atmosphere. Senator Murkowski’s amendment is a cynical piece of short-term political self-gratification that serves the needs of no one save the energy industry.Senator Brown, I am not a corporation. I am a human being. Despite the Supreme Court’s ruling in Citizens United, there is a difference. I am a human being and one of your constituents; although I know that many Republican politicians feel responsible only to those who agree with their positions, the fact remains that you are my Senator.
Let’s say you’re buying a house, and ninety-seven home inspectors tell you it’s a dangerous property, while three tell you that they’re not quite sure. Would you buy? Let’s say you’re choosing a restaurant, and ninety-seven food inspectors tell you it’s unsafe, while three tell you they’re not quite sure. Would you eat there? Let’s say you find a lump, and ninety-seven oncologists advise you to start chemotherapy immediately, while three think you should wait and do some more tests. Would you wait?
Ninety-seven percent of climate scientists agree that global warming is real, it’s dangerous, and it’s caused by human emissions of greenhouse gases. Three percent of climate scientists aren’t quite sure yet. Somehow it doesn’t strike me as a coincidence that the smaller group includes scientists who are on the payroll of the American Petroleum Institute.
The last thing we need is to eliminate one of our last remaining regulatory authorities in the face of a planetary crisis. Vote against the Murkowski amendment — for all our sakes.
Yours Sincerely,
Warren Senders
environment Politics: Harry Reid idiots Kerry-Lieberman
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Month 6, Day 9: Rightly Is They Called Idiots.
When Harry Reid became Minority leader back when Democrats were in the minority, I knew he was trouble. It’s unbelievable how regularly he manages to snatch policy defeat from the jaws of legislative victory.
And now he’s getting ready to do it again. I sent a copy of this letter to Chuck Schumer, as he appears to be involved in this scam, too.
(facepalm)
Dear Senator Reid,
It’s true that the Gulf of Mexico disaster strengthens the case for a new and better energy policy. But replacing the already weakened Kerry-Lieberman bill with the completely powerless American Clean Energy Leadership Act (ACELA) is a terrible mistake.
ACELA is filled with giveaways to polluters. Some analysts believe it will actually increase carbon emissions. This may be a tiny stepping stone towards a new energy policy — but the real lesson of the Gulf catastrophe is that climate change is coming, and it’s coming faster than anyone thought (the climate for sea creatures in the waters off Louisiana has changed pretty drastically in just a few days, hasn’t it?). America needs to take this seriously.
The type of legislative sausage-making that was a source of entertainment in less critical times is no longer an option. To think that further weakening legislation that has already had all its teeth pulled will entice Republican votes is the height of naivete.
If any climate legislation (such as “cap-and-trade”) is offered as an amendment to ACELA, it will be defeated, and the narrow window of opportunity opened by the crisis in the Gulf will have been wasted — just like every other window of opportunity that has opened for Democrats in the past few years.
A climate bill must be offered as part of a linked package: climate-and-energy. There can be no compromise on this; I am asking you to look beyond political exigencies and consider the fact that the scientific evidence is overwhelming: the planet is warming, humans cause it, and everyone who is paying attention knows this to be true. What we really need is a carbon tax. If what we can get in a climate bill is cap-and-trade, we’ll start there.
But cap-and-trade is not analogous to a “public option” — something that we good progressives will eventually abandon in order to get a bill passed. We must have robust climate legislation.
If we fail, our descendants will curse us. We owe it to them to get this right. Any bill that has incentives for dirty energy and puts no price on carbon is a failure.
Yours Sincerely,
Warren Senders
environment: Conservatives idiots Time Magazine
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Month 6, Day 6: Grandpa, What Did You Do In The War On The Environment?
Time Magazine ran a column by Strobe Talbott and William Antholis basically pointing out that there are many wonderful and intellectually consistent reasons for conservatives to agree that climate change is a threat and we should do something about it. Of course, conservatives never will.
Talbott and Antholis are entirely correct that climate change upends the notion of bequeathing prosperity to our posterity. Our money and possessions will be useless on an uninhabitable planet. Alas, there are two reasons why conservatives cannot follow their advice. First is the fact that conservative politicians have allied with fundamentalist religious leaders who uniformly embrace both Young Earth Creationism and the notion of an Apocalypse, a relationship exemplified by Reagan’s Interior Secretary James Watt, who memorably said, “We don’t have to protect the environment, the Second Coming is at hand.” The second is simply that it is essentially impossible for a conservative politician to admit error in matters of policy (personal behavior is a different story). This inability to recognize the need for a change in position may well prevent passage of climate legislation, thereby leaving a heritage of ignorance and environmental devastation to our grandchildren.
Warren Senders
environment Politics: idiots legislation Scott Brown
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Month 5, Day 29: In The Warmer Climate, ALL Our Senators Will Be Nude
I was having dinner with friends tonight and one of them mentioned a campaign called something like “Make Brown Green” — aiming to persuade Massachusetts’ junior senator to jump Republican ship on climate and energy issues. I don’t have much hope of that happening (if he were capable of careful thought on climate issues, he wouldn’t be a Republican), but it made the hook for a fun letter. I brought back the Kwashiorkor analogy for a little cameo.
Dear Senator Brown – I write to urge you to make a firm commitment to supporting meaningful, strong climate/energy legislation.
On energy: the disaster in the Gulf is a clear indicator that our current energy policy is fatally flawed; we cannot sustain our present level of oil consumption without risking more and more Deepwater Horizons. How much of the ocean are we going to kill in order to continue powering our SUVs, manufacturing disposable plastic commodities and blowing leaves into our neighbors’ yards?
On climate: despite what Republican leaders wish to believe, global climate change is a reality, and a terrifyingly dangerous one. An anomalous blizzard in Washington, DC no more disproves global warming than a starving child’s swollen belly disproves world hunger. Your party leaders’ readiness to ignore factual scientific evidence when it conflicts with their ideological agenda would be humorous if it were not hindering our national effectiveness in contending with the gravest threat humanity has ever faced.
If ever there was a time to break ranks with Republican orthodoxy, now is it. There is no time to waste and none to lose.
Yours Sincerely,
Warren Senders
environment: idiots Ken Cuccinelli washington post
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Month 5, Day 9: Kicks and Kisses as Deserved
The Washington Post does the right thing every so often. This letter is a combination of orchid and onion.
The Post is to be commended for its editorial rebuking the Virginia Attorney General for his anti-science demagoguery. Ken Cuccinelli’s bogus crusade against climate scientists will undermine the reputation of the state’s many excellent universities, along with making it much more difficult for them to recruit professors and students. And, of course, as you correctly note, Cuccinelli has “declared war on reality.”
It’s good to see the Washington Post siding with science, which has been taking quite a beating recently. Unacknowledged in your editorial is the fact that the Post has been extremely active in confusing the debate over the validity of climate science, publishing the misleading and deceptive work of people like George Will, Bjorn Lomborg, Sarah Palin, Robert Samuelson, and Dana Milbank, among others. Dare we hope for a change in the Post’s editorial approach to the gravest existential threat humanity has ever faced — or is Friday’s editorial just a cameo appearance by actual reality-based thinking?
Warren Senders
environment: acoustic switch Bush Administration Dick Cheney idiots Murdoch
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Month 5, Day 8: You Can’t Use Murdoch Papers for Fishwrap, Now That All The Fish Are Dead
This one went off to the Boston Herald, which ran a McClatchy piece about (mostly Republican) attempts to politicize the Deepwater Horizon disaster.
The attempt by Republican political operatives and their media to blame the Obama administration for a slow response to the Deepwater Horizon spill is absurd. The oil rig explosion and all that followed it is a direct consequence of a culture of corruption in the Minerals Management Service (the government agency charged with overseeing the oil industry) — corruption fostered by the Bush Administration. Members of the Executive Branch (including Vice President Cheney) encouraged MMS staff to weaken safeguards and regulations, directly contributing to the gulf catastrophe.
After secret talks with oil corporations, the Bush/Cheney administration dropped a requirement that offshore platforms be equipped with an acoustic switch, a remotely triggered mechanism that could have closed off the gushing pipe at the wellhead if the manual switch failed. Why? The switches, at $500,000 each, were “too expensive.” It’s safe to say that the damage done by the Deepwater Horizon spill is going to cost a lot more than a half-million dollars — a costly lesson for British Petroleum, and for us all.
Warren Senders
environment Politics: idiots Lindsey Graham NOAA
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Month 4, Day 25: Special Jackass Edition
I read two posts at the GOS. First, the regular “State of the Climate” report summarizing NOAA data. And second, the news (which does not surprise me one whit) that Lindsey Graham is in a snit about the Senate’s taking up immigration reform all of a sudden…so he’s abandoning the climate bill. What a jackass.
Dear Senator Graham,
I understand you’re mad at the Democrats because they’re trying to work on immigration reform — so you’re going to refuse to be involved with the climate legislation you’ve been crafting with Senators Kerry and Lieberman.
Now, I’m not going to lump you in with ignoramuses like your Republican colleague James Inhofe, whose version of a climate/energy strategy appears to be “wait for the Rapture” — but I am endlessly amazed by the capacity of Republican politicians to pass off specious and illogical arguments as if they were irrefutable fact.
So the Senate is going to work on immigration reform? Does that affect the work you’ve been doing? Apparently the United States Senate can’t do two things at once?
Let me remind you of two things. First, according to NOAA analysis: The combined global land and ocean average surface temperature for March 2010 was the warmest on record; this was also the 34th consecutive March with global land and ocean temperatures above the 20th century average. Locations all over the world reported temperature anomalies this month, many of which were all-time record highs. The planet is getting warmer, and it’s doing so more rapidly than climatologists expected even a few months ago. We’re in genuine trouble, and inaction is not a viable option.
Second, the bill you’ve been working on is loaded with giveaways to the fossil fuel industry; from an environmental perspective it’s as weak as it could possibly be and still address climatic concerns at all. Which is to say, it obviously reflects your input.
So — why would you decide at the last minute to abandon support for a bill you helped write? Even though this bill is weak, it’s a start. Your readiness to run away from it looks more like a wounded ego — and what kind of man lets an insult to his pride stand in the way of fulfilling his responsibilities?
Pathetic. Yours is a singular combination of political and moral cowardice that bodes ill for the future of our country and our world.
Yours Sincerely,
Warren Senders
environment Politics: capitulations climate bill concessions idiots Joe Lieberman John Kerry
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Month 4, Day 24: Dammit, dammit, dammit.
Dear Senators Kerry and Lieberman,
I am close to despair. I’ve just finished reading the details of the upcoming climate legislation you’ve been working on with Senator Graham. It appears that, in your eagerness to bring big oil interests on board, you’ve given away the store. I was never particularly optimistic that we would get the bill we need, which is to say, a bill that shuts down the fossil fuel industry as quickly as possible — but I had hopes that we would get a bill that didn’t completely capitulate to the demands of our Corporate Overlords.
Seriously — removing the EPA’s authority to regulate CO2? That’s not just a concession, that’s abject surrender. Removing the ability of individual states to set tougher standards than the Federal government? This is specifically a measure designed to undercut California’s emissions requirements, and is in every respect a giveaway.
The whole bill is loaded with goodies for oil, gas and coal companies. And what’s there for the planet? For all of us whose children’s children are going to be struggling for survival on a planet rendered uninhabitable by our collective failure to act in our own best interests? Almost nothing.
And the best part? I’m willing to bet that you won’t get more than a single Republican vote for this piece of craven capitulation. In fact, it would not surprise me if Senator Graham were to vote “No.”
But perhaps I’m wrong. Perhaps there are hidden gems buried in the fine print that will help us apply genuine regulation to CO2 emissions. Perhaps you’ve figured out how to persuade oil company CEOs that their companies will stop being profitable around the time the human race becomes extinct. Perhaps you’ve figured out how to persuade James Inhofe that waiting for the Rapture is not a viable energy policy. Perhaps you’ve figured out how to persuade Don Blankenship that we need to stop burning coal.
If you can do those things, I’m sure you can persuade me that the long-anticipated climate legislation is an excellent and honorable piece of work. I will await your response.
Yours Sincerely,
Warren Senders
environment: Bret Stephens idiots Wall Street Journal
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Month 4, Day 11: The Wall Street Journal – Fishwrap for Financiers
It’s 11 pm and I’m finishing this one up. I couldn’t think of what to write, so I checked out Media Matters, which had a good treatment of a recent op-ed in the Wall Street Journal. So I wrote them a letter (the WSJ, not Media Matters).
Speaking of Media Matters, I greatly enjoyed David Brock’s book “Blinded by the Right.” It’s always amazing to me that anyone can swallow the nonsense spewed by so-called “conservatives,” and Brock’s personal story was very revealing. I’m glad he came around and is now on the side of the right, rather than the Right.
Anyway, here’s my letter to the Journal:
Bret Stephens’ April 6 column suggests that recent scientific research shows that “global warming is dead.” Yet the climate scientists he cites explicitly reject this notion.
While Stephens claims that National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) data show that Arctic sea ice has not diminished significantly, the NSIDC disagrees, stressing that long term data (in contrast to data for a single month) indicate that “ice extent has shown a dramatic overall decline over the past thirty years.”
Stephens’ also discussed the “now debunked claim about disappearing Himalayan glaciers” in the context of the so-called “Climategate” scandal. Is he aware that scientists’ studies around the world unanimously support data showing significant glacier loss? And is he also oblivious to the fact that on March 31, the British House of Commons’ Science and Technology Committee completely exonerated Dr. Phil Jones and the CRU, confirming that their data are “consistent and independently verifiable”? Yes, the 2007 IPCC report included an erroneous citation about Himalayan glacier loss, but this no more invalidates the document’s conclusions than a mendacious op-ed about global warming invalidates the Wall Street Journal’s stock market reports.
Warren Senders
environment Politics: denialists Ed Markey George Will idiots
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Month 4, Day 4: I’d Loooove to See George Will Under Oath!
I thought I’d ask Ed Markey to hold some more hearings on all the industry-funded denialists we keep seeing on the boob tube and in print. I’d love to see George Will get quizzed, wouldn’t you?
And this piece at DK is the other part of the puzzle. Who’s giving the denialists all their funding? Koch Industries, that’s who.
Dear Representative Markey — Thank you for all you have done so far on the crucial issue of global climate change. The Waxman-Markey legislation is an excellent start on a realistic approach to this greatest of all threats.
Unfortunately, the Republican opposition and their enablers in the print and broadcast media are continually disseminating misinformation that serves to confuse the public and to render the debate unintelligible to the average person. This is tragic; since the effects of climate change don’t differentiate between Republicans and Democrats, the denialists are simply making their own futures more uncertain and terrifying.
Now that the so-called “Climategate” or “Climatehack” scandal has been conclusively debunked by the British House of Lords, can we ask you and Rep. Waxman to hold further public hearings on the industry connections of prominent climate change deniers? These people are mendacious in the extreme, and they’re doing it in large part because they’re paid well, often by Koch Industries, as Greenpeace’s recent report makes stunningly clear. Theirs is a malign combination of cupidity and stupidity that has done incalculable damage already (George Will comes immediately to my mind. How about you?)
It is up to the Democratic leadership in the House and Senate to expose these frauds and corporate shills for what they are. Without clearing the air of their misleading statements and deliberate obfuscations, genuinely robust climate legislation will be terribly weakened. And there is no time to waste.
Yours Sincerely,
Warren Senders