Dangerous Disclaimers
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Bluster and bullshit go hand-in-hand: Reportedly, there’s some kind of big game this weekend, don’t know myself, but a lot of hype out there about it — Sunday’s a good day to get some good sleep, though.
Of course, there’s so much chatter about that particular sporting event, but not much on really what’s happening in our country and the world — the future looks dumb: “Do you know the vice president of the United States?” Austin asks. “I don’t know who it it’s, it’s, it’s somebody….Bin Ladin,” one student responds.
Only gets worse as the days, months and years of tomorrow will only bring problems no amount of education can handle (with bad English).
(Illustration found here).
Despite the education, or maybe because of it, President Obama’s view of the earth’s environment has been toned down to the point even a Republican could understand — the words are less frightful and easier to swallow like a nice pat on the head.
In Obama’s state of the union last week, ‘climate change‘ was mentioned just once (not at all in 2011).
One must remember, the White House switched from ‘global warming,’ to ‘global climate disruption‘ because it’s much, much easier to pass on to the ignorant masses in the search for more politically palatable ways to put horrible news in a happy context.
From the Washington Post:
When he did utter the phrase, it was merely to acknowledge the polarized atmosphere in Washington, saying, “The differences in this chamber may be too deep right now to pass a comprehensive plan to fight climate change.”
By contrast, Obama used the terms “energy” and “clean energy” nearly two dozen times.
That tally reflects a broader change in how the president talks about the planet.
A recent Brown University study looked specifically at the Obama administration’s language and found that mentions of “climate change” have been replaced by calls for “clean energy” and “energy independence.”
Graciela Kincaid, a co-author of the study, wrote: “The phrases ‘climate change’ and ‘global warming’ have become all but taboo on Capitol Hill. These terms are stunningly absent from the political arena.”
…
There is power in how language is deployed, and people setting policy agendas know this well.
In 2002, Republican political strategist Frank Luntz issued a widely cited memo advising that the Bush administration should shift its rhetoric on the climate.
“It’s time for us to start talking about ‘climate change’ instead of global warming. . . . ‘Climate change’ is less frightening than ‘global warming,’ ” the memo said.
And the GOP is into fear, but only in the fear itself, not the root cause.
A good view of the most-immediate future lies in the past.
The Green blog at the New York Times on the so-called “Little Ice Age,” which started at the end of the 13th century and lasted well into the 19th century and how this small speck makes a huge wad.
Money quote:
Bette Otto-Bliesner, a co-author of the study and a climatologist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, suggested that the study has important implications for the modern-day climate change discussion.
“I think people might look at the Little Ice Age and think that all we need to save us from rising temperatures are some volcanic eruptions or the geo-engineering equivalent,” she said.
“But when you see what happened when global temperatures dropped by just one degree and you look at current predictions of six or seven degree increases for the future, you realize how precarious things are for life as we know it.”
“I don’t see a lot of hope that we can somehow compensate for the climate trajectory we’re on,” she said.
(h/t The Oil Drum).
On that big game, my store is way-looking forward to it — more booze!
In contrast, supposedly, or at least theoretically, every alcohol-drinking US person will consume at least seven beers on Sunday.
As we slowly die, we scream, ‘Drink Up!’
Harsh Realities vs ‘Optimism Bias’
Filed Under Cloud gazing, Environment, Madness | Leave a Comment
Meanwhile, beyond the SOPA blackout/back-peddle, and the nasty, bitch-slapping noise in South Carolina from GOP presidential nit-twits vying for richest asshole, there’s the non-stop horror of climate change.
Climate what?
Last year, despite all kinds of horrible weather/climate shit, the news media has way-down-played climate change as anything more than a storm in passing — coverage for the common folk has just “fell off the map.”
(Illustration found here).
Up here along California’s northern coast this early Thursday rain is beating down, bolstered by a pretty-good wind — most likely an off-shoot from that big storm blasting the northwest (via Wunderblog): Field reports late Tuesday already indicated lots of natural and human triggered slides ranging from about 1 to 3 feet deep. Avalanche warnings already in effect for high danger…and with warming…further winds and additional heavy to very heavy snow…some quite dense…avalanche activity should become larger and more severe on Wednesday.
And what about that white stuff in Algeria, as …an unusual sight in the North African country, with scenes of palm trees surrounded by snow.
What, me worry?
You betcha.
One terrible aspect with the science on climate change is the re-occurring situation of shit being worse than originally proposed, as this little snippet from two years ago: We now know that, without effective action, climate change is going to be larger and more difficult to deal with than we thought.
And now, a new one, bringing extreme weather events into focus with climate and the speed of change, all done by math nerds.
From PhysOrg.com (h/t The Oil Drum):
Swiss mathematicians have shown that the risk of extreme climate events is largely underestimated.
They are developing a model for better understanding the impact of climate change.
…
For several years now, the scientists have noted that the increase in extreme events associated with climate change appears to be having much more of an impact on society than the increase in mean temperatures.
Natural disasters are accompanied by a significant human and economic cost.
In the case of exceptional heat waves, the mathematicians found that, based on global warming predictions, the probability of an event at least as severe as the 2003 heat wave will be six times greater in 2050 than it was in 2003.
This doesn’t seem to matter, however, if the MSM keeps pushing climate change away from A1 and onto the society pages without much ado, leaving people to fend for their mental selves — a horror story in itself.
The standard thought from the standard brain: ‘Somebody will figure out something, they always do.’
This line I’ve heard from countless folks, some more intelligent than others, but all have some kind of gray matter stored in their skull caps.
Since climate change is such a huge, way-out-there subject, a thing one “believes” (like it’s a religion or something), and not like a ball-bat up-side the head, people tend to skip away from really getting down and dirty with our one and only environment.
People seem to have a need to feel better than the reality — one has to have hope in order to work through tomorrow, right?
In view of this, a lot of problems that don’t literally face us each minute/hour/day are pushed aside and placed in a giant petri dish called the “optimism bias” — also known as the “positivity” illusion.
A paradox of that ain’t gonna happen to me.
From a discussion at CNN Health:
“It is a natural human inclination to see our situation and our future through rose-colored glasses,” says David Ropeik, author of “How Risky Is It, Really?: Why Our Fears Don’t Always Match the Facts.”
“We tend to see our prospects as being far better than they may actually be — and particularly when compared to the next guy.
This optimism lets us deal with hardship and take chances in life.”
…
Most people are mildly optimistic and that’s a good thing, observes Dr. Tali Sharot, author of “The Optimism Bias: A Tour of the Irrationally Positive Mind.”
“The 20 percent or so of people who do not have an optimism bias are clinically depressed.
In fact, when things go really bad, people become more optimistic, not less, because that’s when we need it most.”
According to Sharot, there is even more reason to celebrate our inclination toward hope.
“Optimism is better for your mental health – it eases your mind and actually lowers your stress.”
…
At the end of the day, “the bias toward optimism is helping you cope to some degree, but it can also be deceiving you into ignoring a danger,” notes Ropeik.
“To the extent we are less worried about something than we should be, that clearly raises our risk.
If optimism bias is letting us deny that our stressed lives are bad for our health, that harm far outweighs the measure of relief optimism can bring.
“Two things to keep in mind: you want to be aware of the risk and you want to be clear about the psychology behind the way you read and assess the risk.
When you know both, you will be better equipped to take action.”
Unless it’s done too late — optimism without reality won’t travel far.
‘Bluster’ — Oil and Water Mix
Filed Under Bullshit, Energy, Environment, Madness | 1 Comment
A few days ago, I put another $20 worth of gas in the old Jeep, and this time the pump price had dropped six cents since the last gas-station visit, down to $3.83 a gallon for regular.
Although prices here in northern California have dipped a bit, it’s still freakin’ high compared nationwide — the national average for regular this week is $3.258 a gallon, still more than 20 cents higher than the same time last year.
Meanwhile, in California the statewide average hit $3.576, up 2 cents since Dec. 19, according to the Energy Department’s weekly survey of service stations. That shattered — by 28.9 cents — the old record of $3.287 a gallon set in December 2007 and was tied in December 2010.
(Illustration found here).
The price of oil — beyond the natural-technical problems — has been influenced by more swinging bullshit centered around Iran, which, in the face of new efforts by the US and the European Union to halt Iran’s nuclear program, has threatened to close the most-vital Strait of Hormuz if the shit gets too deep.
Some experts Iran is bullshitting.
Maybe not — the two-mile-wide strait is much closer to Iran than just the physical: After boasting yesterday: “Shutting the strait for Iran’s armed forces is … easier than drinking a glass of water,” Iran’s navy chief Admiral Habibollah Sayari said: “Today, we don’t need [to shut] the strait because … it is completely under the control of the Islamic Republic of Iran.”
A nasty set of circumstances, though, it doesn’t seem to ruffle many feathers.
The US, however, will not be intimidated, and pooh poohed the possible action as an empty gesture:
However, playing down the threat, State Department spokesman Mark Toner called it as nothing more than mere “bluster.”
According to Toner, this was just another attempt by Iran to draw attention away from the key issue, that of their habitual “non-compliance with international nuclear obligations,” he added.
A lot of drama is being played out with this Iranian deal — the US claims it has certain “red lines” (kind of like those famous, ‘line in the sand’ routines) that if crossed would justify a preemptive strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities, and then, the shit would really hit the fan.
Israel is the most concerned.
Jason Ditz at antiwar.com:
Officially, of course, both sides would insist such an attack was about Iran’s nuclear program.
But since both nations have been claiming Iran is within striking distance of acquiring nuclear weapons since the mid-1980s, the excuse isn’t going to really fly internationally, so both nations are hoping to settle on something which could be the “trigger” for the attack.
This ‘trigger’ ain’t no horse on some happy trail.
Bluster or not…
From liveoilprices: In London, Brent crude oil futures for February 2012 delivery was trading at $107.90 a barrel, 08.03 GMT this morning on the ICE Futures Exchange.
And WTI: US Light crude oil futures for February 2012 delivery was trading at $99.53 a barrel, 07.42 GMT this morning in electronic trading on the NYMEX.
The quickly approaching new year signals even higher prices to come.
Humanity is fatally blind.
Seeking oil for energy is akin to eating poison — it tastes good and makes us feel good all over, but will kill us in a horrible, twitching death.
Talk about bat-shit crazy — the intake of this crude is making an environment already stunned near-beyond recovery even worse and apparently the glutton forces are stronger than self-preservation.
Even the so-called ‘saving grace’ of the Canadian tar sands oil creates a horrible future:
Extraction of Alberta’s energy-intensive tar sands has expanded steadily in recent years, with about 232 square miles now exposed by mining operations.
That expansion is expected to double over the next decade, which could mean the destruction of 740,000 acres of boreal forest and a 30 percent increase in carbon emissions from Canada’s oil and gas sector.
And in perspective (via DeSmogBlog): The latest tally (2008) puts Canada’s GHG emissions at “only” 1.8 per cent, which is swell as long as you don’t think about Canada’s population amounting to just 0.004 per cent of the world’s total. That makes Canada the fourth worst polluter per capita. It also makes our 34 million inhabitants the seventh largest source of CO2 among all the countries in the world – that’s seventh from a list of 216 countries and jurisdictions.
And the end result?
From TreeHugger:
A new study in the Journal of Glaciology shows that the glaciers in Peru’s Cordillera Blanca mountain range are melting so quickly that the water they supply to the arid region is being threatened 20-30 years earlier than expected.
Lead researcher Michel Baraer, from McGill University, told IPS News that the time needed for the region to adapt to the coming water shortages, previously thought to be decades off, “those years don’t exist.”
Baraer said that the glaciers feeding the Rio Santo watershed are now too small to maintain past flows of water.
During the dry season water availability is expected to be 30 percent lower than historic levels.
In the 1930s glaciers in the Cordillera Blanca covered 850 square kilometers.
Today they cover less than 600 sq km.
In a global context, the World Glacier Monitoring Service recently has said that 90 percent of the glaciers studied in its latest Glacier Mass Balance Bulletin are losing mass.
In the Himalaya, 75 percent of the glaciers there are melting; the USGS fully puts the blame on this on global warming and not other factors.
My underline for some way-emphasis — and that, my friends, ain’t bluster.
Mid-Week Wonder
Filed Under Cloud gazing, Madness | Leave a Comment
“Holy shit it’s only Wednesday.”
– George Carlin
(Illustration found here).
In surfing the news this morning, a lot of Dookie spills off the rim of the Net, but the world’s bat-shit crazy goings-on continues unabated, although with a flourish of zero finesse.
One of the titular events that would drive a Wednesday’s slurping up a quart of Jack Daniels, is major bullshitter Leon Panetta’s double-lying bullshit on the happy-wonderful state of the horror of Afghanistan.
Panetta, the US defense honcho, was in country to spread goodwill via bullshitting, in this particular case, to American troops at a base near the Afghan border with Pakistan.
From Aljazeera English:
“We’re moving in the right direction and we’re winning this very tough conflict,” he said.
…
Panetta told reporters that Washington would continue to back Pakistani efforts to secure its border regions.
“This has been a difficult and complicated relationship as all of you know, but it is an important relationship, and it is one that we have to continue to work at,” he said.
The dispute between the US and Pakistan is also beginning to raise some concern from the Afghani government, Smith reported.
Panetta also played down concerns about Afghanistan’s future, saying 2011 had been a “turning point” for the country, citing lower levels of violence and the successful turnover of portions of the country to Afghan control.
“Clearly I think Afghanistan is on a much better track in terms of our ability to eventually transition to an Afghanistan that can govern and secure itself,” he said.
However, in the same story:
Al Jazeera’s Bernard Smith reported from Kabul that while the US and its allies are arguing that progress has been made ahead of the 2015 withdrawal, UN statistics that violence has peaked in 2011 contradict this assertion.
“In the east of Afghanistan, NATO’s own figures say there’s been a 21 per cent increase in what it calls enemy attacks,” he said.
However — again!
Leon makes no mention of the possibility of Afghanistan might spiral into a similar situation Iraq blundered through five years ago — the horror of sectarian violence.
Especially after this week’s suicide bombing of a shrine near Kabul.
At least 56 people were killed in a blast in Kabul on the Shia holy day of Ashoura. A second near-simultaneous strike killed four people and injured 21 in the northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif as a convoy of Shias was driving past.
It was not immediately clear who carried out the attacks but suspicion centred on Sunni armed groups based in neighbouring Pakistan.
“Without any doubt, the enemies of Afghanistan are trying to separate the Afghan people,” Karzai said in a statement.
He did not blame any specific group, but when he uses the phrase “enemies of Afghanistan,” it is widely believed that he is referring to countries, including Pakistan, that he suspects are backing fighters in Afghanistan.
Until now, the decade-long Afghan war has largely been spared sectarian violence.
Although the US (and its NATO allies) are supposed to be out of the country in two years, there’s considerable evidence, some troops will remain until maybe 2025 — the Afghan war may never have an end.
A couple of other events seem noteworthy this morning — horrible violence in places that usually don’t encounter such things — one in Belgium, the other in Italy.
First, in Liege, Belgium, where a guy lobbed hand grenades and fired indiscriminately into crowds near a Christmas market, killing four people, wounding more than 100 and creating panic before killing himself.
Police later discovered a woman’s body at a storage facility used by the shooter/lobber, which raised the death toll to six — including an 18-month-old baby.
Meanwhile, in Florence, Italy, another guy opened fire in a crowed market, killing two Senegalese traders and injuring three others — this guy also apparently killed himself later, his body found in an underground car-park.
The mayor of Florence: “These are the actions of a lone killer – a lucid, mad and racist killer,” Matteo Renzi said, adding that such behaviour was out of character for the city and had shocked it to its core.
No doubt.
And Carlin’s note from above was aimed at drinking booze: “And this should go without saying. That’s why I’m going to say it: Drinking and driving don’t mix. Do your drinking early in the morning and get it out of the way. Then go driving while the visibility is still good.”
Oh, yeah.
Now or Later — The Clock Ticks Loudly
Filed Under Cloud gazing, Energy, Environment, Madness | Leave a Comment
US peoples should hide in great-confused and frightful shame.
In facing the greatest threat to humanity, maybe in all of recorded history, Americans still can’t decide whether they should give a shit or not on climate change.
The latest Gallup poll revealed 53 percent of US peoples see global warming as a very or somewhat serious threat, down 10 percent from two years earlier – “We have got a big problem, domestically, in terms of climate reality,” said Alden Meyer, director of strategy and policy at the Union of Concerned Scientists.
(Illustration found here).
Christiana Figueres, the UN’s chief for managing climate talks, considers the US a way-dangerous slacker, and could lead the planet into destruction.
Via Climate Progress:
“The U.S. is hamstrung.
And I wonder how long it’s going to take the U.S. civil society … to realize that climate change is affecting them directly — it’s not just affecting somebody else.
I really think the … U.S. population needs to understand that this is not just their historical responsibility, but this is their future that they’re compromising.
And when that awareness is raised, then I think the government will make more ambitious decisions.
I think there’s no public pressure in the United States to take any more ambitious decision.”
And the woman is most-passionate about the coming climate calamity.
Last year, Figueres nearly broke down and wept while addressing some young people during the Cancun climate talks: “The fact is, I’m the mother of two women about your age, and I realized many years ago that I had inherited a planet that was a diminished planet. And that if I didn’t do something about it, my daughters would grow up in a planet that had been severely diminished by what we’re doing. And I just can’t look at my daughters in the eyes and not do whatever I can.”
Yes, ‘whatever I can,’ not to be confused, of course, with the infamous failed, ‘Yes, We Can.’
The major problem in the US is loud-mouthed assholes.
One big dip shit is Sen. James Inhofe, the Oklahoma climate-change denier who is so f*cked he can’t see his own state boiling in its own juices.
Even after stating in 2003 global warming “the greatest hoax ever,” Inhofe now claims he’s “doing the Lord’s work” in fighting this massive falsehood.
Talk about one hypocritical sonofabitch.
And these assholes are in it for the cash.
From The Atlantic yesterday:
Republicans have long had close financial ties to the fossil-fuel industry, of course.
Between 1998 and 2010, the oil-and-gas industry gave 75 percent of its $284 million in political contributions to Republicans.
But the 2010 Supreme Court decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, which allowed unlimited corporate spending on campaign advertisements, opened up a whole new avenue for interest groups to influence campaigns by flooding the airwaves with ads that support a political candidate or position.
In the 2010 elections alone, the top five conservative and pro-industry outside groups and political action committees—including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Karl Rove-backed PAC American Crossroads, which have close ties to fossil-fuel interests—spent a combined $105 million to support GOP candidates (compared with a combined $8 million that the top five environmental groups spent to back Democrats).
Both sides could double those numbers in 2012.
Humans are stupid, irrational and playing mind games: Our species’ irrational side adds to the genuine, inescapable complexities of forging sound climate policies. But I suspect the more immediate obstacle to climate progress isn’t cultural cognition so much as it is political cowardice.
All this shit on the heels of two different studies, one last month, the other just this week, which reveal worldwide ‘emissions of carbon dioxide from fossil-fuel burning jumped by the largest amount on record‘ in 2010.
Time keeps moving right along, which is something the planet can’t handle.
One must keep in mind that all these scientific papers, studies, surveys and whatnot show bad shit coming, but yet all this supposed knowledge is still limited most-likely by what’s called ‘educated guesses,’ though on a most-advanced level, thus, no one truly understands how fast this shit is traveling.
The concept, “abrupt climate change” has been banged about, but no one seem to know what tipping point will set-off domino-like, chain reactions where the whole shebang goes pop real quick.
In that case, time is so a-wasting and gotta make more money — the lottery, maybe.