Climate Endgame — Beyond the ‘Tipping Point’
Filed Under Environment, Scratching Sounds | 1 Comment
Here in the wee hours of the last day of May 2011, the world keeps spinning, the rain keeps coming down (along the northern California coast) and bad shit keeps filling CBS’ early-morning-looped-news program, ‘Up to the Minute‘ — repeated stories that’s just flutter in the breeze compared to the horror coming via climate change.
All the evidence harshly points to the planet being near the midpoints or closer to the bad end of a catastrophic break down of the natural world enhanced by mankind’s arrogant, greedy desire for civilization’s tiny, tiny perks.
(Illustration found here).
One of the biggest differences between climate change and other worldly problems is about like the difference between a skeptic and a denier — one has room for change, the other no room at all.
Despite the overwhelming evidence from many divergent sources that indeed the planet is going through a shake-and-bake downsizing, there’s an enormous amount of denial, in other words, denying reality and truth, from a whole shitload of people.
A good look at the skeptic and the denier can be found at ABC News’ The Drum: Genuine skeptics consider all the evidence in their search for the truth. Deniers, on the other hand, refuse to accept any evidence that conflicts with their pre-determined views.
The horror of this: The biggest mouth can make the biggest impression on the enormous mob of unwashed masses.
Another good post on denying the undeniable is at Transition Voice, where Erik Curren now thinks even horrible, weird weather won’t change people’s minds about climate disruption:
When it comes to climate change “denial is still the dominant response,” writes Paul Gilding in The Great Disruption.
“We won’t change at scale until the crisis is full blown and undeniable, until the wind really kicks up speed. But then we will change.”
When I read Gilding’s book I thought it would take something like this year’s historic storms and floods in the Midwest and South to wake Americans from their stupor on climate.
But now I’m not so sure if even climate disaster will be enough.
Curren concludes: The weird weather is here. But the climate denial still isn’t gone. So we clearly can’t count on weird weather to do our political dirty work.
There is some light shining in the darkness.
In a Washington Post editorial earlier this month: Climate-change deniers, in other words, are willfully ignorant, lost in wishful thinking, cynical or some combination of the three. And their recalcitrance is dangerous, the report makes clear, because the longer the nation waits to respond to climate change, the more catastrophic the planetary damage is likely to be — and the more drastic the needed response.
Even as the denials are shown to be dumb-ass, assholes, the world continues to contort, rumble and get more, and more dangerous.
Next week is the annual World Oceans Day, which has been going on since 2003 in order to celebrate and honor the body of water which links us all, for what it provides humans and what it represents.
However, the oceans ain’t pretty anymore.
From the BBC:
Findings from a “natural laboratory” in seas off Papua New Guinea suggest that acidifying oceans will severely hit coral reefs by the end of the century.
…
The oceans absorb some of the carbon dioxide that human activities are putting into the atmosphere.
This is turning seawater around the world slightly more acidic – or slightly less alkaline.
This reduces the capacity of corals and other marine animals to form hard structures such as shells.
Projections of rising greenhouse gas emissions suggest the process will go further, and accelerate.
…
“The results are complex, but their implications chilling,” commented Alex Rogers from the University of Oxford, who was not part of the study team.
“Some may see this as a comforting study in that coral cover is maintained, but this is a false perception; the levels of seawater pH associated with a 4C warming completely change the face of reefs.
“We will see the collapse of many reefs long before the end of the century.”
And the situation is getting worse.
From AFP (via Raw Story):
“Energy-related carbon-dioxide (CO2) emissions in 2010 were the highest in history, according to the latest estimates,” the International Energy Agency (IEA) said in a statement.
After a dip in 2009 caused by the global financial crisis, emissions are estimated to have climbed to a record 30.6 gigatonnes (Gt), a five percent jump from the previous record year in 2008, when levels reached 29.3 Gt, the IEA said.
…
“This significant increase in CO2 emissions and the locking in of future emissions due to infrastructure investments represent a serious setback to our hopes of limiting the global rise in temperature to no more than two degrees C,” said Fatih Birol, the IEA’s chief economist.
The only skepticism I have about climate change is time.
Although in the goodly chunk of those scientific papers on climate there’s talk of real-real-bad shit coming in 2015, or 2020, or the end of the century, etc., but based on evidence outside my window, I think in my total-non-science brain this stuff is already here.
Yes, Virginia, Chicken Little is right on, the sky really is falling.
In a thorough post at the Daily Beast, Sharon Begley, science columnist and science editor of Newsweek, takes a mean-and-nasty look at climate change, taking in account the current freakish US weather — record tornadoes and flooding — and shit going down worldwide, from the heat wave in Russia, floods in Australia and Pakistan to a months-long drought in China.
Some highlights:
From these and other extreme-weather events, one lesson is sinking in with terrifying certainty.
The stable climate of the last 12,000 years is gone.
Which means you haven’t seen anything yet.
And we are not prepared.
…
The game of catch-up will have to happen quickly because so much time was lost to inaction.
“The Bush administration was a disaster, but the Obama administration has accomplished next to nothing either, in part because a significant part of the Democratic Party is inclined to balk on this issue as well,” says economist Jeffrey Sachs, head of the Earth Institute at Columbia University.
“We [are] past the tipping point.”
The idea of adapting to climate change was once a taboo subject.
Scientists and activists feared that focusing on coping would diminish efforts to reduce carbon emissions.
On the opposite side of the divide, climate-change deniers argued that since global warming is a “hoax,” there was no need to figure out how to adapt.
“Climate-change adaptation was a nonstarter,” says Vicki Arroyo, executive director of the Georgetown Climate Center.
“If you wanted to talk about that, you would have had to talk about climate change itself, which the Bush administration didn’t want to do.”
In fact, President Bush killed what author Mark Hertsgaard in his 2011 book, Hot, calls “a key adaptation tool,” the National Climate Assessment, an analysis of the vulnerabilities in regions of the U.S. and ideas for coping with them.
The legacy of that: State efforts are spotty and local action is practically nonexistent.
“There are no true adaptation experts in the federal government, let alone states or cities,” says Arroyo. “They’ve just been commandeered from other departments.”
…
So what lies behind America’s resistance to action?
Economist Sachs points to the lobbying power of industries that resist acknowledgment of climate change’s impact.
“The country is two decades behind in taking action because both parties are in thrall to Big Oil and Big Coal,” says Sachs.
“The airwaves are filled with corporate-financed climate misinformation.”
Maybe, the only thing we can actually do now is “hold on to your butts.”
Or be like the next US president, Sarah Palin, blubbering nonsense again this past weekend while astride a big, ole Harley, “I love that smell of the emissions.”
Memory
Filed Under Bullshit | Leave a Comment
My standard for Memorial Day:
“Lord our Father, our young patriots, idols of our hearts, go forth into battle — be Thou near them! With them — in spirit — we also go forth from the sweet peace of our beloved firesides to smite the foe.
O Lord our God, help us tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells; help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead; help us to drown the thunder of the guns with the shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain; help us to lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane of fire; help us to wring the hearts of their unoffending widows with unavailing grief; help us to turn them out roofless with their little children to wander unfriended in the wastes of their desolated land in rags and hunger and thirst, sports of the sun flames in summer and the icy winds of winter, broken in spirit, worn with travail, imploring thee for the refuge of the grave and denied it –
– From The War Prayer, by Mark Twain.
(Illustration found here).
Right now, on this particular day, there’s more than 100,000 US troops in Afghanistan and another 50,000 or so still in Iraq, supposedly waiting for the end of this year when ALL US military personnel are scheduled to leave (operative word here,”scheduled“).
And the killing’s not going away.
Eight US GIs were killed in Afghanistan just this past week — nearly1,600 killed in the nearly decade-long conflict, the big chunk of that total, 650 in all, just in the last two years alone — and in Iraq 25 killed so far this year.
And for what…?
The scream this Memorial Day should be for those who did return home — those veterans are in bad shape and despite all the flag waving, memorials, parades and barbecues, the future looks shitty for them.
In a post at antiwar.com, aptly titled, Memorial Day in Wartime, Kelley B. Vlahos, touches upon this post-conflict situation while war continues apparently unabated.
This on the veterans:
In September 2009, researchers were predicting that 35 percent of returning veterans could be diagnosed with PTSD in the coming years.
Meanwhile, the suicide rate among veterans is about 6,000 a year, a rate veterans organizations say is at “epidemic proportions” and “out of control.”
According to a report last week, the VA’s suicide hotline logged a record 14,000 calls in April alone.
…
And yet, how many people know, as they’re flipping their burgers and watching their parades today, that on May 10, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled that “unchecked incompetence” by the Department of Veterans Affairs has led to poor mental health care and slow processing of disability claims for veterans?
Thus, the majority wrote (.pdf), the VA was violating veterans’ Constitutional right to care in return for their service.
Seems that “gearing up” of capacity at the VA never happened.
Veterans For Common Sense and Veterans United for Truth filed the lawsuit against the VA in 2008, alleging that due to backlogs, waiting lists and inadequate services, “hundreds of thousands of men and women who have suffered grievous injuries fighting in the ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are being abandoned.”
…
“I was on CNN in 2006. At the time, the number of (Iraq and Afghan) patients at the VA was 200,000.
I said it would hit 400,000 and (CNN host) John Roberts looked at me as though I had a horse with wings and had just flown in from fairy land,” said Sullivan (Paul Sullivan, executive director of VCS).
“We are now at the rate of 10,000 patients a month; we are at 650,000 as of December 2010.”
He predicts 1 million patients by 2014, and “more than 50 percent will be mental health patients” with a total cost of $1 trillion to meet all the health care and benefits over a lifetime.
The war, he said, is “costing a fortune.”
“You know what?” he said when asked about the prospects for prolonged war overseas, “ bring the troops home and take care of them.
We will not abandon our veterans again, no, no, no, no, no.”
War is bullshit.
Death never, ever takes a holiday, just ask Maj. Erica Iverson, a casualty assistance officer for the 2010 death of Staff Sgt. Adam Dickmyer of Winston-Salem, North Carolina:
Iverson’s voice choked as she recounted how Dickmyer’s mother fell off her chair in grief when her son’s body returned to the U.S.
His widow chased after the casket, screaming: “Don’t leave me!”
“His wife has an empty house,” Iverson said.
“His entire unit came home today, and he didn’t come with them.”
A memorial to…what?
Bring! Them! Home!
Down is really Up
Filed Under Energy, Environment, Scratching Sounds | Leave a Comment
Yesterday, I put $20 worth of gas in my Jeep, this time at $4.29 a gallon for regular, a shocking $.15 drop in price in just more than two weeks, the last time I put fuel in the old Comanche (I don’t get out much).
All this in time for the infamous Memorial Day Weekend in which many, many US peoples take to the road, although this year the traveling might be light — although gas prices are now lower, they’re still $1.05 more than at this same time last year and the Energy Information Administration reports prices will be hiked 40 percent more during the upcoming summer.
Although the price at the pump appears to be decreasing, the price of crude oil is moving back upward again.
According to liveoilprices this morning: Brent crude oil futures for July 2011 delivery ended the week’s trading session at $114.98 a barrel on the ICE Futures Exchange yesterday evening, $2.55 higher than last week’s closing price of $112.43 a barrel.
Adding this caveat that those oil prices could be too conservative.
And WTI: US Light crude oil futures for July 2011 delivery ended the week’s trading session at $100.70 a barrel on the NYMEX, $0.88 higher than last week’s closing price of $99.82.
Crazy, and, crazy.
Although the portion of my monthly income going to Jeep fuel is way-dinky, that’s not the case for regular, ordinary peoples, who do have a life out there — some folks get out more, or have a fairly-decent commute to work (I live just a mile from my store) and these pump prices bite down hard on them.
And if they have kids at home, the situation has got to be even worse (mine are all grown, and for most of the time, are pretty self sufficient).
US family budgets are taking a big pop — nearly one dollar out of every $10 in a typical household budget now goes toward vehicle fuel, 40 percent higher than normal.
Households spent an average of $369 on gas last month.
In April 2009, they spent just $201.
Families now spend more filling up than they spend on cars, clothes or recreation.
Last year, they spent less on gasoline than each of those things.
…
“These increases are not something consumers can shrug off,” says James Hamilton, an economics professor at the University of California, San Diego, who studies gas prices. “It’s a key part of the family budget.”
…
The median household income in the U.S. before taxes is just below $50,000, or about $4,150 per month. The $369 that families spent last month on gas represented 8.9 percent of monthly household income, according to an analysis by Fred Rozell, retail pricing director at Oil Price Information Service.
Since 2000, the average is about 5.7 percent.
For the year, the figure is 7.9 percent.
Only twice before have Americans spent this much of their income on gas.
In 1981, after the last oil crisis, Americans spent 8.8 percent of household income on gas.
In July 2008, when oil price spiked, they spent 10.2 percent.
Average hourly earnings, meanwhile, have risen just 1.9 percent in the past year.
That’s only just enough to keep up with inflation.
Not getting ahead, but just staying even.
Despite those domesticated woes, fuel for the machinery of war is beyond horror, on all counts.
In order to get precious $400-a-gallon fuel into Afghanistan, one mega-dangerous route is via Pakistan.
Today, another attack on a NATO tanker there has resulted in at least 15 dead, mostly civilians, one a nine-year old kid.
From AFP: “Suddenly the fire erupted again and at least 15 people including five young boys who had been collecting oil in their buckets were burnt to death,” he said…They were collecting petrol to be sold later in the open market where one litre fetches around 100 rupees (about 1.2 dollars), he said.
The price of fuel is relative.
Eight is Beyond Enough — How About Some ‘Peace’
Filed Under Bullshit, War & Politics | Leave a Comment
Apart from the natural horror seemingly occurring daily in the US midwest — 126 have been confirmed dead in Joplin, MO, while another 232 are reported still missing — another horror, the dumb-ass world on terror continues without rhyme or reason, but a whole-lot of dying.
Two huge IEDs exploded one-after-another in Afghanistan on Thursday, killing eight US GIs — an unusually large toll for a single incident — bringing bring the US death total in that back-assward conflict to 1,586 since George Jr. gave the trumpet call nearly a decade ago.
(Illustration found here).
The killing of Osama bin Laden should have been the wake-up call, and to some, it was.
In a recent USAToday poll 60 percent of US peoples think it’s time to pull the plug on the war in Afghanistan, though, other more important stuff remains well ahead of war as a vital factor: The conflict continues to take second billing for a nation more concerned with economic woes. Fewer than 1 percent of those surveyed call the situation in Afghanistan the most important issue facing the nation; 4 percent cite wars in general.
Even the US Congress is getting the hint.
In the House:
A measure requiring an accelerated schedule for taking back the 100,000 troops from Afghanistan and an exit strategy for the war won 204 votes in the 435-member House, falling just short of passage but spurred the hopes of its proponents.
Sen. Barbara Boxer, (D-Calif.), a senior member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, went even further in an op-ed in today’s LA Times, calling for the US to get the shit out of Dodge (or Afghanistan).
A couple of noteworthy nuggets:
As quickly as can be safely accomplished, American forces should be drawn down to a point where they are sufficient only to conduct targeted counter-terrorism operations, train Afghan security forces and protect American and coalition personnel.
Richard Haass, the president of the Council on Foreign Relations, has suggested that 10,000 to 25,000 troops would be adequate to fulfill this mission and that this level could be safely reached within 12 to 18 months.
We have to be realistic about what we can achieve in Afghanistan. The notion that the United States can build a Western-style democracy there is a myth. Instead, we should focus on what we can and must accomplish: preventing Al Qaeda from threatening the United States, and supporting Afghans as they determine the way forward.
…
The Obama administration has clearly defined our objective in Afghanistan: to defeat Al Qaeda, ensuring that it no longer poses a significant threat to U.S. national security.
We must not allow this goal to be distorted or expanded.
The truth is we can continue to disrupt and dismantle Al Qaeda with sophisticated intelligence and targeted counter-terrorism raids, as evidenced by the daring special forces raid that killed Bin Laden.
So there.
Although some assholes say the Afghan war is important and is going well, one UK soldier is not impressed.
Britain’s former ambassador to Afghanistan Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles says the Afghan war is not going too good at all and has heaped criticism upon Gen. Petraeus, the US commander.
From The Express Tribune:
Cowper-Coles, who also served as the United Kingdom’s special envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan, further commented on Petraeus saying “He has increased the violence, trebled the number of special forces raids by British, American, Dutch and Australian special forces going out killing Taliban commanders, and there has been a lot more rather regrettable boasting from the military about the body count”.
He added that the use of statistics was ‘profoundly wrong and not conducive to a stable political settlement.’
…
“Of course it produces tactical success in cleansing insurgents out of particular areas, but it’s essentially moving water around a puddle, and I think any general who boasts of the number of Pashtun insurgents he’s killed should be ashamed of himself,” he said.
He added: “Regrettably, General Petraeus has curiously ignored his own principles of counter-insurgency in the field manual, which speaks of politics being the predominant factor in dealing with an insurgency.”
Yes, shame indeed.
In an age where nature’s fury has become of prime importance, it’s just way-way-wrong to continue pouring US blood and treasure into a fruitless operation like Afghanistan, a conflict that’s beyond any need for so-called national security.
War nowadays appears to be total, not only in Afghanistan, but all over the world.
And fighting a vapor is more than stupid when there’s a ton of other stuff we should be concerned with instead of trying to fight something as mystical as terror.
We all long for peace and quiet.
In a post at Counterpunch, some noted words by Norman Solomon:
In one of Kabul’s poorest neighborhoods, when I spoke with a group of about twenty very poor women in the late summer of 2009, I asked what they needed most of all.
Their unanimous response translated as one word: “peace.”
Give it a chance, assholes.
Not Shocked at the Nasty
Filed Under Bullshit, Lying, Politics | Leave a Comment
One of the very, very few people who have emerged on the national scene the last couple of years with not only intelligence and competence, but also more than a semblance of compassion, is financial expert, Elizabeth Warren, the presidential adviser in charge of establishing ground-plans for the newly-created Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection (CFPB) and former watchdog for the notorious TARP program in 2008.
Warren is outspoken, direct and don’t pull no punches when it comes to financial bullshit — which makes her a most feared person by the two-faced, nasty GOP: Ms. Warren actually represents a much more nuanced view -– arguing that transparency and simplicity, from the perspective of customers, creates a more level playing field and is good for the industry.
An industry of long, bony fingers in the pants of Republicans.
(Illustration found here).
As been seen the last couple of years, Republicans will say anything, from factual though-non-factual statements to just pure hog shit, and when Warren appeared Tuesday before the US House Oversight subpanel at a hearing devoted to the CFPB, Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.) kept his GOP credentials.
From The Hill:
After an hour of questions from lawmakers — including several spirited back-and-forths with Republicans — the panel attempted to recess so members could attend floor votes.
Warren got up to leave, but was told by McHenry that two members, including full Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), still had questions for her.
Warren responded that she understood she was free to leave after the hour, as she had other appointments on her schedule. It went downhill from there.
“That was never the pledge,” said McHenry.
In response, Warren accused Republicans of making repeated changes to the schedule late into the previous day.
“Congressman, when you asked to change the time four times in the last 12 hours, including waking people up at home last night to change the time again — ” she began.
McHenry interrupted, saying, “Let me be direct with you, I never made a single phone call about this.”
“I never heard you had to leave at 2:15,” he added.
“Congressman, you might want to have a conversation with your staff,” responded Warren.
McHenry then refused to recess the hearing as members left for votes.
Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), the ranking member of the full committee, pressured McHenry to allow Warren to leave.
“She kept her side of the bargain and now it’s time for you to keep yours,” he said.
McHenry maintained that GOP staff never promised Warren she would be free to leave after an hour, and would merely try to accommodate the request.
“I’m not trying to cause you problems, Miss Warren,” he said.
“Congressman, you are causing problems,” she responded. “We had an agreement. … I committed to you based on representations of your staff.”
“You had no agreement,” responded McHenry.
“We had an agreement,” she rebutted.
“You’re making this up, Miss Warren,” said McHenry.
In other words, the turd-faced McHenry was calling Warren a liar.
Cummings then told the Mac: “Mr. Chairman, you just did something that — I’m trying to be cordial here, but you just accused the lady of lying,” he said.
You can’t be cordial with the GOP nowadays, and if you do, it’s at your own peril.
And Daily Kos has a good post up about the incident, including the video of the encounter between McNasty, oops, I mean, McHenry and Warren, including the Internet video-clip-spawn of Warren’s astonished face at being called a liar.
Kos also added this: This how the only person in DC tasked with protecting consumers gets treated on Capitol Hill. If only she’d had the foresight instead to blow up an oil rig and dump millions of gallons of crude into the sea, she might be able to expect an apology from the Republican Chairman.
Via Crooks and Liars, this shot from among a load (numbering maybe in the thousands) of angry retorts against McHenry on his Facebook page: How much does a Wells Fargo prostitute get paid these days?
Political discourse in the US has degenerated into a clownish clone of decency.
The lost Tuesday in an upstate special election by the GOP — based strictly on the backlash of Paul Ryan’s budget proposal, which includes eliminating Medicare as we know it today — will make Republicans even more scared, and when lying dogs get scared, they holler.
And on the Oversight committee’s Facebook page: Obama advisor Elizabeth Warren is the latest example of Obama Admin arrogance: she tried to bail on a hearing, claiming she didn’t know she’d have to stay to answer questions. Here’s proof she did, but her boots kept right on walkin’ all over your right to know. It’s our job to hold gov’t accountable, but the Obama White House doesn’t think you deserve answers.
Hahahaha — aaaaah!
And to the real reason the GOP hates Warren — the bottom line: Warren appears to understand the financial chaos, pain and uncertainty of this uncertain age, keeping memories of the past focused on the future:
“I’m still very connected to my family, to the world I grew up in,” says Warren.
“I understand what it means to be afraid that you can’t pay a doctor’s bill.” Her voice drops.
“Or to have to make the choice between buying a band uniform for a seventh-grader and making the insurance payment on time.
That will never leave me.
It was how I lived until I was well into my adult years.
And I understand the basic, hardworking goodness of people whose ambitions are to do right by their kids and make it through retirement without being a burden to others.”
The nasty GOP hates that kind of talk, especially from someone not given to fibbing — scares the shit outta ‘em.