Category: Climate change

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Climate change Featured

It’s Just the Weather. Nothing to See Here, Citizens. Move Along.

No, it’s not the Apocalypse. That happened last November. This is just weather.

Just weather. And the earth. How quaint.

Three hurricanes, and a major earthquake that very few people outside of Mexico are paying attention to, are taking their physical and psychic toll on a country that does not need any more bad news. Add in a cleanup that will be expensive, daunting and political, and you’ll see more partisan bickering in addition to the usual American disaster response which will include astounding stories of bravery, generosity, and poignancy.

Coming on the heels of the anniversary of the September 11 attacks, the earthly events of the past few weeks are instructive and worthy of reflection. For as a much as we consider ourselves as the vanguard of technology, knowledge, wealth, sophistication and freedom, we need to remind ourselves that nature ultimately holds us to account. There’s just no way to stop a hurricane or to predict an earthquake in time to safely evacuate residents. We are really at the mercy of our own limitations and our uncanny hubris when it comes to assessing risk. Just as we overestimated our safety 16 years ago, and unconscionably put the New York disaster assessment agency in the World Trade Center, so have Houston and, I’m reasonably certain we will find out, South Florida, will find that they were unprepared for events that stretched the vocabulary of every weatherista in the media.

And the political lessons? Please. Just ask anybody in New Jersey who remembers the Texas Congressional delegation’s incomprehensible opposition to federal relief for Superstorm Sandy in 2012, how they view the Ted Cruz FEMA telethon and screechy request for funds to rebuild, and they’ll tell you quite a story. Just don’t stand too close. And I hope you’re not offended by salty language. There’s also more money to be spent on Florida, and in the end I expect that both states will get what they need.

What these storms ultimately should tell us is that we are pretty good at reacting to disasters (right, Brownie?), but we are terrible at planning, execution, building codes and, yes, infrastructure. We simply cannot continue this way. Other countries, such as the European low countries and Great Britain, have made adjustments and not simply rebuilt up the affected areas. Dunes on the New Jersey shore will help, but building more houses on stilts will just set up homes as field goal attempts the next time we are pummeled with a 100-year storm that comes 95 years too soon.

The last piece to all of this is how we react, long-term, to these challenges, and the main component is the effect our activity is having on our atmosphere. Climate change is real. It is being influenced by choices and actions that humans have made since the industrial age. You can’t believe in meteorology and astronomy and physics, but deny the atmospheric chemistry that is making the earth warmer and holding more moisture. It’s time that we realized that we need to make adjustments and to not put people in danger that is avoidable.

That will require leadership that, at present, we just don’t have.

For more, go to www.facebook.com/WhereDemocracyLives or Twitter @rigrundfest

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Climate change Featured

We’ll Always Have Paris

Of all the things that Donald Trump has done to make us weaker over the past 5 months, his withdrawing the United States from the Paris Climate Accord is the one that feels most like a betrayal.

Because it is.

His decision betrays common sense. The only reason to withdraw is because Trump and the rest of the conservative know-nothings simply don’t believe that human activity has led to a rise in greenhouse gases and a dangerous warming of the planet. All of the discussion about whether Trump believes in climate change is moot. He doesn’t have to say anything more about the subject. By throwing his lot with the deniers and hopelessly believing that coal and oil are the future of the country (and the world), he is overtly saying that we can continue to burn fossil fuels and nothing will happen to us. I guess he’s chosen not to recall the terrible air and water pollution that plagued the country until the EPA and the Clean Air and water Acts were passed.

Yes, there are some small business owners who believe that climate regulations will hit them harder than the large corporations that oppose the president’s (shudder) decision, But the Paris accord didn’t force anybody to impose strict regulations on anyone. Of course, that’s one of the main points of opposition from the right: if other countries could set their environmental bar low, it would mean that most of the regulations and sacrifices would have to be made by the major industrialized countries. And since the United States is the world’s number 1 polluter (are you tired of winning yet?), we would need to regulate ourselves more. Of course, this is hogwash, and not a reason to pull the country out of the agreement.

The real damage in all of this is that by leaving the pact, the United States gives up a great deal of credibility and power. When the US signs an agreement, we need to abide by it, especially when every other country in the world, save for Nicaragua and Syria, is a signatory. Pulling out sends the message that we are no longer to be trusted.  Of course, most of the negative reactions by the rest of the world have been aimed at Trump himself. Most of the rest of the world knows that the majority of the country supports the science behind global climate change and sees Trump’s decision as representing a minority view meant to appeal to his limited, and shrinking, support base.

And really, if you’re another country, why would you renegotiate an accord that took years to come to fruition with a president who could step back from it at any time? And if Trump is only going to agree to deals that are advantageous to the US, why would any country agree to negotiate with him?

In the end, America First and isolation will only serve to highlight the selfish and short-sighted nature of the Trump administration. The United States needs to be a leader and a role model in this world. We need to call out dictators and leaders who abuse press freedoms and commit human rights abuses. Trump has sent the message that we will not be doing that to the extent that we have in the past. His is a transactional administration, which basically means that if you give us money, we’ll pay attention to you, but if you don’t, we won’t honor our commitments as robustly as before.

This is terribly dangerous and can only lead to other powers, such as China and Russia, filling in the space that we should be occupying. And as China and India confront their pollution crises, which they will absolutely need to do, they will find that wind, solar and even nuclear power will be cheaper and healthier for their billions of people. Meanwhile, the administration is asking the country to go back to the 1950s when workplace safety requirements were few and polluted air and water was everywhere. Especially in Pittsburgh.

We’ve just taken two steps backward and none forward.

For more, go to www.facebook.com/WhereDemocracyLives or Twitter @rigrundfest

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Climate change Politics

Record Breaking – 2015 Was Hottest Year Ever Recorded

Republicans are always talking about the world they want to leave to their kids and grandkids. But these same Republicans will go to war with anyone claiming that climate change is happening, and that man is the biggest contributor to that change.

Scientists reported Wednesday that 2015 was the hottest year in recorded history by far, breaking a record set only the year before — a burst of heat that has continued into the new year and is roiling weather patterns all over the world.

In the continental United States, the year was the second-warmest on record, punctuated by a December that was both the hottest and the wettest since record-keeping began. One result has been a wave of unusual winter floodscoursing down the Mississippi River watershed

Although there are physical, tangible and scientific evidence to back up a warming atmosphere, Republicans continue to doubt the facts because they are deeply entwined with the special interests that make billions from the elements contributing to global warming.

And although the records go up and up each year, Republicans continue to bury their head in the sand as these special interests grease their pockets.

Cheers to our kids and grandkids!

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Climate change Politics

Bill Nye ‘The Science Guy’ Explains The Reason for The Warm Weather – Video

Have you been outside lately? Today is December 24th, and here in the Northeast average temperatures should be in the 20’s or if we’re lucky, in the 30’s. But today, December 24th, we’re expecting temperatures to be well into the 70’s. That’s like… summertime temperature!

Well Bill Nye went on MSNBC and tried to explain the science behind the warmer temperatures, and yes, it has something to do with “Climate Change,” something Republicans refuse to acknowledge although the signs of climate change are blowing down their front door!

Video

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Climate change Politics

Rush Limbaugh Cooperates with Government to Save his Property from Climate Change

On the radio Rush Limbaugh has a job to do. His job is intentionally designed to keep his listeners ignorant, and he does that job extremely well.

But Rush Limbaugh knows the truth. He knows that something is happening wuth the weather, with climate change.  And Rush Limbaugh is doing everything he can to secure his beachfront home from the effects of Climate change, even if that means working with the Obama administration.

Limbaugh just signed off on a plan to cooperate with the US Army Corp of Engineers to use his property to store sand and then spread it along the beach where he resides. In his easement deal with the Corps obtained through the town of Palm Beach, Limbaugh is allowing the use of his 2.5 acre compound on the extreme north side of the island to “enhance shoreline management” and provide “storm protection in safe guarding coastal properties”.

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Climate change Politics Stupid

Mike Bloomberg – Ted Cruz “says some of the stupidest things I’ve ever heard”

In an interview on CNN, former New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg, was asked about Climate Change and the Republican’s position on the issue – you know they say the science behind Climate Change is false, and although records are being broken on a yearly basis suggesting a warming trend, Republicans insist this warming is a figment of our imagination.

The former mayor mentioned two current Republican presidential candidates, Ben Carson who made a living in the Science field, and Ted Cruz, once called the smartest student in his class by a Harvard professor.

After dismissing “right-wing crazies” who reject mainstream climate science, Bloomberg was asked by CNN’s Christiane Amanpour what he made of the GOP field.

The billionaire media mogul, who has championed the issue of climate change, first criticized retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson.

“There’s one of them who was a surgeon, unfortunately at Johns Hopkins, who doesn’t believe in science,” Bloomberg said. “Somebody said that’s like a business executive that doesn’t believe in profits.”

Bloomberg then said that Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas had said some of the “stupidest” things about climate change despite his intellect. He noted that Cruz’s intelligence had been praised by Alan Dershowitz, a prominent attorney who was once Cruz’s Harvard professor.

“You’ve got a guy like Ted Cruz — who I think Dershowitz said was the smartest law student he ever had — and he says some of the stupidest things I’ve ever heard,” Bloomberg said. “The only explanation — the only explanation — is he doesn’t believe it; he’s just saying it.”

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Climate change Climate Change Domestic Policies Education Energy News Politics

Mrs. MacDowell 1 Exxon 0: Why I Knew in 1970 What Big Oil Still Denies

OK, let’s go back to the halcyon days of the 1969-70 school year when I was in fourth grade. My teacher was one of those cool, hip, young people who knew how to reach children, to excite them to learn, and to inject a bit of reality and responsibility into them as they began to navigate the world. She was the kind of teacher that every child has, I hope, at least once during their schooling. I was lucky enough to have her as a teacher twice.

One of the great activities I clearly remember from that school year was a unit we studied on pollution that included not only classwork on the issue but an assembly in front of the school. We made posters. We wrote skits. We listened to CCR’s Who’ll Stop the Rain  (lyrics).

And we wrote songs.

One of them was based on the Pepsi Cola jingle, “You’ve Got a Lot to Give.” Sing along with me:

It’s the pollution generation
Comin’ at ya, goin’ strong.
Put yourself behind pollution
If you’re livin’
You won’t for long.

I also seem to remember a pollution song based on the Marseillaise, but I can’t seem to recall the words.

We were a cheeky group. She was a great teacher.

And Mrs. MacDowell also knew a heck of a lot more than Exxon did, if contemporary news reports are believable. How is that possible? Because Exxon and other energy companies are not telling the truth about what their scientists were telling them about air pollution and the environment. Even in 1970, as a ten-year old, I had heard about the “Greenhouse Effect” and how pollutants in the air were being trapped and were causing the planet to heat up.

But Exxon? They say they didn’t know. I don’t blame the scientists who work(ed) for the company. I’m going to assume that they stuck to science and dutifully reported what they knew to the best of their ability. To believe otherwise would call into question their credibility and morality. I’m going to blame the company because it has shown time and time again to be on the wrong side of propriety, from the Valdez tragedy to employee protections to today’s allegations about covering up what it knew about the effects of fossil fuels on climate.

I certainly understand that institutions will do whatever they need to do to survive, and the oil and gas industry is no exception. After all, this is the group that came up with the oxymoronic term “clean coal” to try and make the world’s greatest pollutant and killer of far too many miners sound acceptable. It’s also an industry that probably sees low gas prices as a short-to-medium-term good for its survival since many Americans have moved away from hybrid cars in response to lower prices. We even seem to be acting irrationally by taking the savings we’re seeing in low prices and buying slightly pricier premium fuel.

And then there’s the political angle. President Obama’s rejection of the Keystone XL Pipeline project became a formality because of the low price of oil, the glut in the very refineries and storage tanks that the Canadian oil was supposed to occupy, and the plain fact that the promised jobs from the pipeline project were not going to approach the economy-saving levels that many conservatives, and labor unions, envisioned. Plus, the Canadian oil is actually getting to the United States through other means, so destroying the Midwestern landscape for a pipeline was not necessary. Obama rightly measured the impact on the environment and cannily waited until a great Labor Department employment report materialized, then mercifully killed the proposal.

As for the Republicans running for president, their views on the environment, climate and energy policy are, to be kind, ignorant. They see no reason to act on what is clearly happening to the earth, preferring to stick their heads in the sand and wait for the Montana banana industry to flourish (catchy as the jingle would be). Forget about Carson and Trump, who will not be elected president in 2016. Certainly, Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio have seen the devastation wrought by climate change on eco-sensitive Florida, and Chris Christie, who used to be somewhat reliable on the issue, certainly saw what happened during Sandy and the October snowstorm of the previous year. All of them are in favor of more drilling, more oil company benefits and, most tragically, more United States involvement in the Middle East, which is rapidly coming undone by climate, politics and religion. For these reasons alone they are unelectable.

So thank you Mrs. MacDowell for being one of the early few who knew about the climate problem and doing what terrific teachers do: Telling your students, waking them up, getting them to act.

If only Exxon, other energy companies and the Republican party were as smart as you are.

For more, go to www.facebook.com/WhereDemocracyLives or Twitter @rigrundfest

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Climate change Politics

Rush Limbaugh Blames ‘Liberals’ for Science – Video

Let’s take a moment to hear what the mouth of the Republican Party has to say about science. Ladies and gentlemen Rush Limbaugh.

Video
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Climate change Politics

Watch – President Obama Explains his Trip to Alaska – Video

Such a beautiful place, you wonder why no other president even considered making the trip. President Obama took the time to travel and even went behind the camera to talk about his recent trip to Alaska, and why it’s necessary to recognize the effects of Climate Change.

Video

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Climate change jeb bush Politics

Oh My – Jeb Bush Believes in Climate Change?

Republicans are known for criticizing climate and climate change. They call climate change and the science that backs it up a liberal conspiracy. And now this, the Republican savior for the 2016 election, Jeb Bush, is signaling that he too believes in climate change.

Oh the calamity!

Bush (R) acknowledges human activity contributes to climate change but cautioned against actions that would harm the U.S. economy. In written answers to Bloomberg BNA, Bush said the Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean Power Plan is “irresponsible and ineffective” and “oversteps state authority.” He also tells Bloomberg BNA reporter Anthony Adragna that phasing out the renewable fuel standard “over time” is the “proper thing to do.” Bush, who served as Florida governor from 1999 to 2007, also called approving the proposed Keystone XL pipeline a “no brainer.”

Bloomberg BNA:Is climate change occurring? If so, does human activity significantly contribute to it?

Bush: The climate is changing; I don’t think anybody can argue it’s not. Human activity has contributed to it. I think we have a responsibility to adapt to what the possibilities are without destroying our economy, without hollowing out our industrial core.

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Climate change Politics

Gov. Jerry Brown on Ted Cruz – He’s “unfit to run for office”- Video

The California Governor went on this week’s Meet The Press and spoke at length about Climate Change, and the fact that California is going through its own version of Climate Change with a massive drought, when he was asked to respond to a claim by Ted Cruz.

Meet The Press host Chuck Todd played a clip of Cruz questioning the authenticity of global warming, where Cruz implied that scientists and other authorities on Climate Change are wrong. Todd asked the governor to respond. Governor Brown’s response was priceless.

“That man betokens such a level of ignorance and a direct falsification of the existing scientific data. It’s shocking and I think that man has rendered himself absolutely unfit to be running for office.”

Cruz is expected to announce his intentions to run for president tomorrow.

Video

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Climate change Climate Change

Congressional Republicans Admit – “Climate change is real and is not a hoax”

But don’t worry Republican voters, this coming to their senses is only temporary. When they campaign in their next elections, these same Republicans would tell you all that climate change is a hoax, and like the faithful sheep that you are, you will love them for it.

Lord help us all!

The Senate on Wednesday voted that “climate change is real and is not a hoax” as Democrats used the Keystone XL pipeline debate to force votes on the politically charged issue ahead of the 2016 elections.

The “hoax” amendment to the pipeline bill from Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) passed 98-1, with only Mississippi Sen. Roger Wicker, the chairman of the campaign operation for Senate Republicans, voting “no.”

In a surprise, the Senate’s leading skeptic of climate science, Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), voted in favor of the amendment — but made clear he doesn’t believe humans are the primary driver of climate change.

The GOP “yes” votes also included three of the GOP’s leading contenders for the White House: Sens. Ted Cruz (Texas), Rand Paul (Ky.) and Marco Rubio (Fla.).

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