Tag: global warming

Xposted to Agent Orange, My Left Wing, …

I have been following a “problem” with the stimulus, involving the “break ground in 3 months” guideline. That is, since we have had an eight year assault against public transport from the White House, with special focus on rail projects, we don’t have a lot of energy-saving public transport projects that can break ground in 3 months.

Robert Cruickshank discusses this on the California HSR blog: Obama and Congress to Screw Up the Stimulus.

However, Matthew Yglesias has a smart answer to this: Fast-Acting Transit.

More detail, after the fold.

Even Bush said if you repeat the propaganda enough people will believe, or didn’t somebody say that earlier in history, like maybe Herman Goebbels?

In a time of year when it can be hard to go into public

without being overwhelmed by Christmas carols, the sound of jingling bells can sicken many of us. And, it is hard for many to associate this season and carols with any form of religiousity due to the mass commercialization of across the spectrum of holidays of Christmas, Hannukah, Kwanza, and …  

And, basically every single religious song has been parodied or spun off in multiple ways so that any idea of purity seems dead.  Thus, it surprised me that I was shocked at the latest parody of a set of Christmas Carols courtesy of the coal industry’s mouthpiece, the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity (ACCCE): the “Clean Coal Carolers” with a set of lyrics that take their truthiness and deception to a whole new level of depravity.

For much of this year, the US Chamber of Commerce has been engaged in a public campaign related to energy issues.   Early in the year, the Chamber aligned themselves with the National Association of Manufacturing in battling against any meaningful action on global warming, including running ads against action strongly reminiscent of the infamous Harry and Louise anti-health care advertising.  In mid-2008, the Chamber’s Institute for 21st Century Energy, under the direction of General James Jones, USMC (retired) began to take a more prominent role in energy discussions.

To put it simply, the USCOC’s 21st Century Energy’s work lays out a path and recommendations that are recklessly dangerous in the face of the energy, financial, and global warming perfect storm.

Do you love those displays of Christmas (or Hannukah or Kwanza or …) lights?  Are you awed by those so impassioned that they string up 1000s of lights in awesome displays worthy of a city center? I once did, pausing on cold winter nights, white clouds issuing from my mouth, enjoying being in the glow of beautiful displays.  And, in a way, I was inspired that they would spend $1000s (or $10,000s) on displays and the electricity to power them so that others could enjoy the sight on those cold winter nights.  

But … no longer … not for awhile. Far too often nowadays, my winter evenings I can wear short sleeve shirts rather than bulky coats and gloves. And, energy is no longer a question simply of money. I’ve reached the point of feeling like a Scrooge; feeling outrage over the tons of C02 going into the atmosphere via neighbors’ 10,000 light displays rather than feeling ‘joyous’.

But, a compromise does exist; a path to cut sharply those CO2 emissions while still putting out those lights:  LED lights.  But, far too many are unwilling to spend the money upfront to cut their electricial use, reduce their pollution, and — actually — save quite a lot of money.

In his second substantive, issue-focused discussion since the election, President-elect Barack Obama spoke to the bipartisan governors’ meeting on climate change, with an extensive international audience. I recommend reading the speech (after the fold) and watching the video, but there are some key points worth calling out and perhaps just one important issue to raise.

This is a clear statement that Barack Obama’s discussion of energy and global warming issues during the campaign will translate directly into the White House and is core to the Administration.

I promise you this: When I am President, any governor who’s willing to promote clean energy will have a partner in the White House. Any company that’s willing to invest in clean energy will have an ally in Washington.

Obama makes a strong point about science and the view of it from the Oval Office come January 20th: “The science is beyond dispute and the facts are clear.”   In the new ‘bipartisan’ era, can we hope that denialists need not apply?

More on Obama and clean energy below…

This is, in short, a book review of Sing C. Chew’s new book Ecological Futures: what history can teach us.  Chew is important because he wants to incorporate ecological data into historical discussions of the rise and fall of civilizations; his most recent book attempts to use this “ecologized” version of history to make a solid (if somewhat scary) prediction about the future of the human race.  Chew doesn’t mean to scare us, however; what’s scary are the implications of his naturalistic point of view when it comes around to analyze the disastrous course our civilization has taken in its relations to the natural world.

I will end with a short set of prognostications of my own, related to reflections in the book review.

SING C. CHEW is Associate Professor of Sociology at Humboldt State University and editor of the Humboldt Journal of Social Relations.

(crossposted at Big Orange)

This afternoon, newly minted Senator-Elect Energy Smart Jeff Merkley (D-OR) took the time to reach out to the netroots with a blogger conference call.  “The Netroots were critical to my election … It is 40 years since an incumbent lost in Oregon and only the second time in 100 years that a Republican incumbent lost … the Netroots put the campaign over the top.”  

But, more important than any plaudits for bloggers (“Netroots Nation was one of the best things that I did during the campaign.”) and promises to remain engage for the future, was Merkley’s evaluation as to the election’s mandate and visions for moving forward.

We have a very strong mandate for a progressive agenda. We have had two cycles in a row with winning six [at least] seats in the Senate.

Bush claimed a mandate when he didn’t even win the popular vote.

We absolutely have a mandate and we should not be shy in anyway in claiming it.

If not now, when?  Our people need us, our planet needs us …