I was thinking about The Breakfast Club this past weekend, mulling over the format (for the editions I author), mulling over how interesting it may or may not be to readers and had some interesting ideas. Let’s face it, we all get our news 20 ways til Sunday from a million different places, and by the time you read TBC, you’ve probably heard most of it anyway. So it really is kind of just another news feed in a world of 24 hour news feeds.
So I was thinking, instead of doing just a bunch of short news stories and blog clips for The Breakfast Club, I would do something shorter and more narrow, whatever it was that intrigued me, moved me, surprised me, made me laugh, or pissed me off that day. So from now on on the days that I author, I’m going to do something different.
Without further adieu, here is poli’s Morning Musing…
That there are Climate Change deniers drives me absolutely batty. I’m the kid who loved weather. The first book I ever bought was on storms when I was all of 7 years old. I grew up in SoCal, where there really was no weather other than endless sunshine, so I remember most of the very rare storms that we experienced. I would make my friends sit by the window if we were out somewhere, just so I could see. To this day, if there’s an awesome storm, I, and if I’m with family, then either my ma or my sister cuz they’re both kind of weather freaks too, will get a good vantage point just to watch. Hell – one of the draws of the south for me was storms.
All this week on MSNBC’s “All In with Chris Hayes,” the host of the series “Cosmos,” Neil deGrasse Tyson sat down with Chris to talk about life, the universe and everything. Here are the first three segments.
Cosmic, man
Chris talks with renowned astrophysicist and host of “Cosmos,” Neil deGrasse Tyson, about the future of science and the possibility of extra-terrestrial life.
Neil deGrasse Tyson on climate change
Chris Hayes speaks with legendary astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson about the rhetoric and reality of climate change.
Neil deGrasse Tyson on ‘Cosmos’ and creationists
Chris Hayes and renowned astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson discuss the often heated responses to the television show “Cosmos” from creationists.
The findings, which focus on the Amundsen Sea sector of West Antarctica, were published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.
The glaciers’ grounding lines – the points at least one thousand feet below ice where they first lose contact with land – are moving further inland, and as that happens, the glaciers’ flow speeds accelerate. And the faster they flow, the more they thin- that means their days are likely numbered.
Only one of the six glaciers they studied, the Haynes Glacier, had an obstruction upstream to slow down these changes, but even its retreat is moving as quickly as the others, the scientists found.
Given these changes, glaciologist and lead author Eric Rignot, of UC Irvine and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, stated, “The collapse of this sector of West Antarctica appears to be unstoppable.”
The sunny-day flooding was happening again. During high tide one recent afternoon, Eliseo Toussaint looked out the window of his Alton Road laundromat and watched bottle-green saltwater seep from the gutters, fill the street and block the entrance to his front door. [..]
Down the block at an electronics store it is even worse. Jankel Aleman, a salesman, keeps plastic bags and rubber bands handy to wrap around his feet when he trudges from his car to the store through ever-rising waters.
A new scientific report on global warming released this week, the National Climate Assessment, named Miami as one of the cities most vulnerable to severe damage as a result of rising sea levels. Alton Road, a commercial thoroughfare in the heart of stylish South Beach, is getting early ripples of sea level rise caused by global warming – even as Florida’s politicians, including two possible contenders for the presidency in 2016, are starkly at odds over what to do about it and whether the problem is even real.
The fact that the earth is warming even faster than expected and the cause is an increased level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and humans are adding to it with our reliance on fossil fuels, there are still those in seats of power who are denying that this is happening. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), who is one of those possible presidential candidates, is one of them. Sen. Rubio, when was asked about climate change in an interview for ABC’s “This Week,” stated that he didn’t think there was anything that could be done to slow climate change that wouldn’t destroy the economy.
Rubio – who expressed deep skepticism about whether man-made activity has played a role in the Earth’s changing climate – told Karl he doesn’t believe there is action that could be taken right now that would have an impact on what’s occurring with our climate.
“I do not believe that human activity is causing these dramatic changes to our climate the way these scientists are portraying it … and I do not believe that the laws that they propose we pass will do anything about it, except it will destroy our economy,” he said.
Rubio said he didn’t know of an era when the climate was stable.
“The fact is that these events that we’re talking about are impacting us, because we built very expensive structures in Florida and other parts of the country near areas that are prone to hurricanes. We’ve had hurricanes in Florida forever. and the question is, what do we do about the fact that we have built expensive structures, real estate and population centers, near those vulnerable areas?” he asked. “I have no problem with taking mitigation activity.”
When asked by John Amato of Crooks and Liars what he thought of Sen. Rubio’s remarks, Rep. Alan Grayson (D-FL) said, “It’s insane, but that’s what passes for political discourse these days. It’s a complete rejection of facts, evidence and logic – the ‘Endarkenment‘.”
On HBO’s “Last Week Tonight,” host John Oliver pointed out just how out of touch with reality these denialists are.
What Sen Rubio and others with this attitude, don’t want to admit is that by 2060 if most of the eastern shore of Florida is under water there won’t be an economy there at all.
After over a two year investigation in campaign finance corruption, Representative Michael Grimm (R-NY11) was indicted on Monday, with charges including mail, wire, and healthcare fraud, filing false tax returns, perjury, and employing undocumented immigrants. Grimm, with a history of bad behavior made headlines most recently when he threatened to throw a NY1 reporter, Michael Scotto, off the balcony of the Capitol rotunda when he lost his temper over Scotto’s commentary.
The district that Grimm represents, Staten Island and part of Brooklyn, was hard hit by super storm Sandy in October 2011 and is still has not fully recovered due much to the lax distribution of funds by New York City, a problem that newly elected Mayor Bill De Blasio is working quickly to remedy. Grimm is also, or was, a climate change denier. In episode 3 of the Showtime series on climate change, “Years of Living Dangerously,” Grimm sat down with MSNBC’s Chris Hayes to discuss the devastation, recovery and climate change. In that segment which was taped in August 2012, Grimm revealed that he had changed his mind about climate change and said that the storm was a major factor in his decision. However, he also said that there is nothing that he could do to change the conversation in the House.
This was news to his constituents since since Grimm has consistently voted with his Republican colleagues to block any climate change solutions. He even told Hayes “I don’t think the science is there to tell us what’s causing it…. I don’t want to get into the political debate of what’s causing it.” Ironically, the segment aired on Sunday, the day before Grimm surrendered to authorities to face the 20 count indictment.
Monday night, Hayes revisited his interview with Rep. Grimm where the conversation turned to the environment.
After all this Grimm is not resigning his house seat and he is still the GOP nominee for that district. But even if the Staten Island GOP wanted to replace him, they are hard pressed to try and their choice to replace him is a former congressman whose career ended with a DUI arrest that exposed an affair, Vito Fossella. If you thought the Republicans in the midwest and south were ignoramuses, you haven’t been to Staten Island, the last stronghold for the GOP in New York City.
Grimm’s constituents deserve better. They deserve someone who will stand up and fight for them.
The globe cozied up to the fourth warmest January on record this year, essentially leaving just the eastern half of the United States out in the cold.
And the northern and eastern United States can expect another blast of cold weather next week. [..]
Almost all of Africa, South America and Australia and most of Asia and Europe were considerably warmer than normal. China and France had their second warmest Januaries. Land in the entire Southern Hemisphere was hottest for January on record.
While more than half of America shivered last month, it was one of the few populated spots on Earth cooler than normal. The opposite happened in 2012, when the United States had its warmest year ever and the globe was only the eleventh hottest on record.
Winter is not over yet for the US Northeasteners and Midwesteners. Another blast of Arctic air is expected next week after teaser temperatures in the 50’s over the weekend. The extended outlook is for warmer temperatures in the Southwest starting in March, spreading to the entire South in April and May.
The drought in the West is expected to continue as the snow fall in the mountains was half the normal leading to worries about crops and wild fires.
The state to be in next week, Alaska. Just keep in mind that the sun passes over the Equator, re-entering the Northern Hemisphere, bringing spring with it on March 20, at 12:57 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time.
“In 2010 Megi peaked at 180mph winds but killed only 35 people, and did $276m in damage. But Bopha, which hit the southern Philippine island of Mindanao on 3 December, 2012 , left 1,901 people dead and was the costliest natural disaster in Philippines history at the time,” said Jeff Masters, director of meteorology at US-based Weather Underground in his daily blog.
According to the Philippine government, the area’s typhoons have been getting stronger. “Menacingly, the Filipino typhoons are getting stronger and stronger, especially since the 90s,” said Romulo Virola, head of the government’s national statistics board. “From 1947 to 1960, the strongest typhoon to hit us was Amy in December 1951 with a highest wind speed recorded at 240kph in Cebu. From 1961 to 1980, Sening was the record holder with a highest wind speed of 275kph in October 1970. During the next 20 years, the highest wind speed was recorded by Anding and Rosing at 260kph. In the current millennium, the highest wind speed has soared to 320kph recorded by Reming in Nov-Dec 2006. If this is due to climate change, we better be prepared for even stronger ones in the future.”
The steady warming of the oceans is likely to lead to fewer but stronger tropical typhoons, said scientists from the intergovernmental panel on climate change in a special report on climate extremes this year. “The average tropical cyclone maximum wind speed is likely to increase, but the global frequency of tropical cyclones is likely to decrease or remain unchanged,” it said.
A record seven typhoons developed across the west Pacific during October, beating beat the previous record of six in 1989. Nearly one-third of the world’s tropical storms form within the western Pacific and many track due west to the Philippines archipelago, the first major landmass they meet. In a normal season, only three or four typhoons develop.
Naderev “Yeb” Sano’s emotional appeal was met with a standing ovation at the start of two-week talks in Warsaw where more than 190 countries will try to lay the groundwork for a new pact to fight global warming. [..]
Scientists say single weather events cannot conclusively be linked to global warming. Also, the link between man-made warming and hurricane activity is unclear, though rising sea levels are expected to make low-lying nations more vulnerable to storm surges.
Nevertheless, extreme weather such as hurricanes often prompt calls for urgency at the U.N. talks. Last year Hurricane Sandy’s assault on the U.S. east coast and Typhoon Bopha’s impact on the Philippines were mentioned as examples of disasters the world could see more of unless the world reins in the greenhouse gas emissions that scientists say are warming the planet. [..]
On the sidelines of the conference, climate activists called on developed countries to step up their emissions cuts and their pledges of financing to help poor countries adapt to rising seas and other impacts of climate change.
Tense discussions are also expected on a proposed “loss and damage” mechanism that would allow vulnerable countries to get compensation for climate impacts that it’s already too late to adapt to.
Though no major decisions are expected at the conference in Warsaw’s National Stadium, the level of progress could be an indicator of the world’s chances of reaching a deal in 2015. That’s the new watershed year in the U.N.-led process after a 2009 summit in Copenhagen ended in discord.
The death toll from the devastation has been placed at around 10,000. That is an very early estimate and could very well climb drastically as rescue and relief workers reach areas that have been cut off.
Typhoon Haiyan sent huge waves that inundated towns, washed ships ashore and swept away coastal villages. More than 600,000 people have been displaced, and many still have no access to food, water or medicine. The city of Tacloban was described as a scene of massive devastation, with bodies scattered in the streets and buried under flattened buildings.
In the second segment, Jeff Masters, director of meteorology at the Weather Underground, and Maria Madamba-Nunez, spokesperson for Oxfam in the Philippines, join the conversation.
UN secretary-general urges global response to clear message from scientists that climate change is human-induced
World leaders must now respond to an “unequivocal” message from climate scientists and act with policies to cut greenhouse gas emissions, the United Nations secretary-general urged on Friday.
Introducing a major report from a high level UN panel of climate scientists, Ban Ki-moon said, “The heat is on. We must act.”
In their starkest warning yet, following nearly seven years of new research on the climate, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) said it was “unequivocal” and that even if the world begins to moderate greenhouse gas emissions, warming is likely to cross the critical threshold of 2C by the end of this century. That would have serious consequences, including sea level rises, heatwaves and changes to rainfall meaning dry regions get less and already wet areas receive more.
In response to the report, the US secretary of state, John Kerry, said in a statement: “This is yet another wakeup call: those who deny the science or choose excuses over action are playing with fire.”
“Once again, the science grows clearer, the case grows more compelling, and the costs of inaction grow beyond anything that anyone with conscience or commonsense should be willing to even contemplate,” he said.
As their erroneous efforts to discredit the ‘Hockey Stick’ curve reveal, sceptics are tying themselves in knots to maintain denial
The original 1999 Hockey Stick study (and the 2001 Third IPCC Assessment report) concluded that recent northern hemisphere average warmth was likely unprecedented for only the past 1,000 years. The 2007 IPCC Fourth Assessment extended that conclusion back further, over the past 1,300 years (and it raised the confidence to “very likely” for the past 400 years). The new, Fifth IPCC Assessment has now extended the conclusion back over the past 1,400 years. By any honest reading, the IPCC has thus now substantially strengthened and extended the original 1999 Hockey Stick conclusions. [..]
The stronger conclusions in the new IPCC report result from the fact that there is now a veritable hockey league of reconstructions that not only confirm, but extend, the original Hockey Stick conclusions. This recent RealClimate piece summarizes some of the relevant recent work in this area, including a study published by the international PAGES 2k team in the journal Nature Geoscience just months ago. This team of 78 regional experts from more than 60 institutions representing 24 countries, working with the most extensive paleoclimate data set yet, produced the most comprehensive northern hemisphere temperature reconstruction to date. One would be hard-pressed, however, to distinguish their new series from the decade-and-a-half-old Hockey Stick reconstruction of Mann, Bradley and Hughes. [..]
The lesson here, perhaps, is that no misrepresentation or smear is too egregious for professional climate change deniers. No doubt, we will continue to see misdirection, cherry-picking, half-truths and outright falsehoods from them in the months ahead as the various IPCC working groups report their conclusions.
Don’t be fooled by the smoke and mirrors and the Rube Goldberg contraptions. The true take-home message of the latest IPCC report is crystal clear: climate change is real and caused by humans, and it continues unabated. We will see far more dangerous and potentially irreversible impacts in the decades ahead if we do not choose to reduce global carbon emissions. There has never been a greater urgency to act than there is now.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is set to issue its strongest warning yet that climate change is caused by humans, and that the world will see more heat waves, droughts and floods unless governments take action to drastically reduce emissions of greenhouse gases. The IPCC report, released every six years, incorporates the key findings from thousands of articles published in scientific journals, concluding with at least 95 percent certainty that human activities have caused most of Earth’s temperature rise since 1950, and will continue to do so in the future. “Drought is the number one threat we face from climate change because it affects the two things we need to live: food and water,” says Jeff Masters, director of meteorology at the Weather Underground. We also speak to Greenpeace International Executive Director Kumi Naidoo.
Climate scientist James Hansen has said that it is “game over” for the climate if the Keystone XL pipeline is allowed to be built as it would lock us into unsustainable use of the dirty tar sands crude for the foreseeable future. And climate activist and author Bill McKibben has written about Global Warming’s Terrifying New Math which states that we must leave the oil industries massive oil reserves in the ground if we are to have a chance at mitigating climate change.
Then why don’t these worthies do something about it? Are they on Exxon’s or the Koch Brothers’ payroll? [ A small bit of snark. I am sure they are not paid by the dirties but they surely work in their interests though they would deny it.]
Today mountains of solid waste are disposed of, at best, in landfills while they could be used to convert coal and natural gas plants to biomass burning plants with little modification. Natural gas may be dirtier than even coal for reasons that have been elucidated many times.
Years ago a car burning cow manure made a continental run. In that case the manure was converted to methane with anaerobic digestion but it is not necessary for vehicles to make any conversions to liquid or gaseous fuels with today’s technology derived from ancient times. Instead money is being wasted on electric vehicles with limited use and further pollution of the planet.
Biomass, whether from waste, forest slash and kindling for forest fires or even – the worst option – agriculture devoted to growth of biomass only, is fought tooth and nail by purported environmentalists like the above gentlemen.
Then again, the most potent and cheapest of all energy sources put together – Mother Earth herself – has an even harder time with the nitwit “environmentalists.”
Filling a summer news hole with news on earthquakes
The never ending story of scientific studies proving that geothermal activities cause earthquakes continue and it seems the recent wave of articles is simply another run at the same topic in this case likely to fill a news hole over the summer period.
Surely but it’s hard to top word that increased tapping of the vast geothermal potential of California’s Salton Sea area may start the San Andreas fault in motion with ginormous consequences beyond anything ever imagined.
Geothermal plants trigger small quakes near San Andreas fault
Geothermal plants on the Salton Sea cause tremors, study finds, but it isn’t clear if they could touch off a major quake on the San Andreas fault.
It’s not as if the Dirty Bunch, blasting away underground with abandon and pouring poisonous chemicals into the breech giving a whole new meaning to fire water for people with water wells, was the real threat drilling for water is.
The geothermal folks at the link above speculate the oil and gas drillers may have paid for the harum-scarum.
No need. It is impossible to plumb the depths of human stupidity.
At DeSmogBlog, Steve Horn summed up President Barack Obama’s Climate Action Plan as “drill, baby, drill” and “You can put lipstick on a pig, but it’s still a pig.” The president’s plan is a full endorsement of controversial hydraulic fracturing (fracking) to extract natural gas from shale rack using toxic chemicals and horizontal drilling. Steve points out that the president’s claims of providing clean energy and a “moral obligation” to protect the environment for future generations flies in the face of the facts about the dangers of fracking not only to carbon emissions but to clean water.
“The greenhouse gas footprint for shale gas is greater than that for conventional gas or oil when viewed on any time horizon, but particularly so over 20 years. Compared to coal, the footprint of shale gas is at least 20% greater and perhaps more than twice as great on the 20-year horizon and is comparable when compared over 100 years… These methane emissions are at least 30% more than and perhaps more than twice as great as those from conventional gas. The higher emissions from shale gas occur at the time wells are hydraulically fractured — as methane escapes from flow-back return fluids — and during drill out following the fracturing.”
The scientists analyzed 141 drinking water samples from private water wells across northeastern Pennsylvania’s gas-rich Marcellus Shale basin.
They found that, on average, methane concentrations were six times higher and ethane concentrations were 23 times higher at homes within a kilometer of a shale gas well. Propane was detected in 10 samples, all of them from homes within a kilometer of drilling.
“The methane, ethane and propane data, and new evidence from hydrocarbon and helium content, all suggest that drilling has affected some homeowners’ water,” said Robert B. Jackson, a professor of environmental sciences at Duke’s Nicholas School of the Environment. “In a minority of cases the gas even looks Marcellus-like, probably caused by poor well construction.”
The ethane and propane data are “particularly interesting,” he noted, “since there is no biological source of ethane and propane in the region and Marcellus gas is high in both, and higher in concentration than Upper Devonian gases” found in formations overlying the Marcellus shale.
President Obama has unveiled a climate plan that imposes the first limits on greenhouse gas emissions from new and existing power plants. The move will not require congressional approval, meaning Obama can bypass expected Republican-led opposition. In his address, Obama also outlined a broad range of measures to protect coastlines and cities from rising sea levels, and vowed to promote the development of renewable energy. In a development that has led both opponents and supporters of the Keystone XL oil pipeline to express optimism for their side, Obama said approval of the project will be contingent upon assuring it “does not significantly exacerbate the problem of carbon pollution.” Just how successful Obama will be in carrying out his sweeping plan to address climate change – and whether it goes far enough – is a matter of debate. We assess his speech with two guests holding differing views: Dan Lashof of the Natural Resources Defense Council and Tyson Slocum of Public Citizen.
In the wake of the tornado that left Moore, OK a pile of rubble and killed 24 people, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) took to the floor of the Senate to take the climate denying Republicans to task.
“So, you may have a question for me,” Whitehouse said. “Why do you care? Why do you, Sheldon Whitehouse, Democrat of Rhode Island, care if we Republicans run off the climate cliff like a bunch of proverbial lemmings and disgrace ourselves? I’ll tell you why. We’re stuck in this together. We are stuck in this together. When cyclones tear up Oklahoma and hurricanes swamp Alabama and wildfires scorch Texas, you come to us, the rest of the country, for billions of dollars to recover. And the damage that your polluters and deniers are doing doesn’t just hit Oklahoma and Alabama and Texas. It hits Rhode Island with floods and storms. It hits Oregon with acidified seas, it hits Montana with dying forests. So, like it or not, we’re in this together.” [..]
“You drag America with you to your fate,” he continued. “So, I want this future: I want a Republican Party that has returned to its senses and is strong and a worthy adversary in a strong America that has done right by its people and the world. That’s what I want. I don’t want this future. I don’t want a Republican Party disgraced, that let its extremists run off the cliff, and an America suffering from grave economic and environmental and diplomatic damage because we failed, because we didn’t wake up and do our duty to our people, and because we didn’t lead the world. I do not want that future. But that’s where we’re headed. So I will keep reaching out and calling out, ever hopeful that you will wake up before it is too late.”
There is a bit of snark in claiming Tom Harkin’s dictum that failure to reform filibuster rules in the Senate ends any hope meaningful accomplishment for the Obama Administration is supported by Krugman’s analysis that says it was all over anyway with Republicans owning the House – but not nearly as much as sane people would hope.
Not that there was much to hope for from the Obama Administration in any case.
From what we think we know (humans know very little but we are all sure we know a lot) global warming [I prefer that nomenclature to the weasel wording of “climate change”] is a potent threat to all life on the planet akin to the Great Dying 250 million years when all life was nearly exterminated.
Five networks interview Chris Christie about Hurricane Sandy — and they’re all afraid to mention global warming
The imaginary Robin Hood could not have shot an arrow straighter or truer to pierce the heart of the frivolity and hypocrisy of the mass media than David Sirota did with this paper missile. Little wonder Sirota has so many enemies even among the negligible number of actual liberals.
Is there any hope then?
– Sure there is.
On the day you die, you can hope you won’t if you are still at all sentient.
Not likely it will do much good but you are always allowed hope.
As anyone but a but Fox viewing Republican knows climate change is real and happening now and not 100 years from now. While not widely reported by the American media in the last 4 years the Koch brothers and the associated groups they fund have been forced into the light of day by those willing to investigate the agenda these funds support.
The Donors Trust, along with its sister group Donors Capital Fund, based in Alexandria, Virginia, is funnelling millions of dollars into the effort to cast doubt on climate change without revealing the identities of its wealthy backers or that they have links to the fossil fuel industry.
Remember “Climategate”? Think Charles and David Koch
The Knowledge and Progress Fund, whose directors include Charles Koch and his wife Liz, gave $1.25m to Donors in 2007, a further $1.25m in 2008 and $2m in 2010. It does not appear to have given money to any other group and there is no mention of the fund on the websites of Koch Industries or the Charles Koch Foundation.
The Donors Trust is a “donor advised fund”, meaning that it has special status under the US tax system. People who give money receive generous tax relief and can retain greater anonymity than if they had used their own charitable foundations because, technically, they do not control how Donors spends the cash.
Anonymous private funding of global warming sceptics, who have criticised climate scientists for their lack of transparency, is becoming increasingly common. The Kochs, for instance, have overtaken the corporate funding of climate denialism by oil companies such as ExxonMobil. One such organisation, Americans for Prosperity, which was established by David Koch, claimed that the “Climategate” emails illegally hacked from the University of East Anglia in 2009 proved that global warming was the “biggest hoax the world has ever seen”.
Global warming is the biggest hoax of all that’s why its taking place in our lifetime and not in 10,000 years as these fools would have you believe.
You would never know that if you live in the upper Midwest and Northeastern US but according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration the earth was