To the Asshole Who Couldn't Be Bothered to Douse a Campfire

You deserve to be tied to one of the Ponderosa pines in the path of your fire.

My stepmother forwarded me some photos taken of the Schultz Fire.  It's horrific.

This is the area where the fire reportedly started.  It used to look like this before some fucktard decided he or she didn't need to extinguish a campfire in dry country:

This is what it will look like now:



Wayne Ranney has a lot more shots of the fire at Earthly Musings, including a sequence that shows just how incredibly fast these fires blow up in Arizona.  The motherfucker who caused this apparently didn't stop to think about that, even though summer after summer, some other motherfucker's managed to demonstrate the principles of super-dry pine trees + sparks + strong hot summer winds = armageddon.  And for those who believe good Mother Nature will heal all wounds, consider how fucking long it takes to heal on steep slopes in dry country.  Here's Mt. Elden, which suffered a horrific fire in 1977 that nearly took out Flagstaff:

Its scars are still clearly visible today:

Over thirty years, and you'd think it happened yesterday:

That was another campfire started by a dumbshit, in this case a runaway girl.  Not that age is an excuse anymore.  When I was in elementary school, they showed us the burn site, showed us a film of the fire, and explained just how fucking important it is to stamp out every little spark.  They even told us to crush our smokes, just in case any of us had started smoking at the tender age of 5.  But hey, maybe it's different now.  Maybe the AZ Cons decided we don't need no stinking librul fire-safety education, and little kiddies aren't taught how to avoid burning the forest down anymore.  Maybe the fucktard who left a campfire burning in a tinder-dry wilderness never learned not to play with matches, or never to turn their back on a fire until it's cold and dead.  Maybe the dumbshit didn't have a fucking television and lived locked in a dark, windowless room where they couldn't see the forest burn year after year because of other stupid fucktards.  Maybe there's some kind of excuse.

Or maybe there's just someone who needs to learn that when you play with fire, it's not just the forest that gets burned.  I hope the little shit ends up in prison.

Utah Can't be Serious

I saw this over the weekend, and meant to highlight it, but then there was the Telepalmer incident and afterward my characters dragged me away.  But as far as outrageously fucking insane stupid shit pulled by legislators, you can't get much more outrageously fucking insane as the Utah House:

On Thursday, the Utah House Natural Resources Committee passed a resolution expressing the legislature’s belief that “climate alarmists’ carbon dioxide-related global warming hypothesis is unable to account for the current downturn in global temperatures.” The resolution, which now goes to the full House for a vote, urges the EPA to not regulate pollution blamed for climate change “until a full and independent investigation of the climate data conspiracy and global warming science can be substantiated.” When some members of the committee questioned the “conspiracy” wording as “pretty inflammatory,” Rep. Mike Noel (R) claimed that climate change is “in fact a conspiracy to limit population not only in this country but across the globe”...

I'm struggling to describe just how seriously fucking insane this shit is.  I don't think we can call these people unhinged - they don't appear to have ever been hinged to begin with.  My own dear mother was more coherent back before she got diagnosed and treated for her bipolar disorder, and the toaster was telling her that people were going to come take her away.  I mean, at least the toaster was right.*

And then we had the raving bunch of nitwits who were oh, so delighted by D.C. getting snowed in, and continue to crow that it means global warming isn't happening.  Listen: you may be playing dumbfuck games in the snow.  Out here in Seattle, we're experiencing one of the warmest winters in memory.  Haven't seen so much as a flake of snow.  And we're going to have some seriously fucked frogs if things return to normal, because they've gotten all excited and think it's late March.  Here's how global warming works, you fucktards:

In reality, winter snows do not invalidate the reality that the planet just experienced the hottest decade on record. Scientists have been warning for decades that global warming would increase the severity of winter storms. 

This past January was the warmest January on record for the planet. And as National Wildlife Federation climate scientist Amanda Staudt notes, winter storms are getting fiercer even as the season gets warmer. “The last few years have brought several unusually heavy snowstorms as warmer and moister air over southern states has penetrated further north, colliding with bitter cold air masses,” she explains.

But that's probably too sciency for these fucktards.  So, here's some helpful analogies for the terminally hard-of-thinking:

You visit the casino every month for a year.  You lose $5,000 in January, February, March, April, May, June, and July, then win a $5,000 jackpot in August, lose $5,000 in September, October, and November, then win a $20,000 jackpot in December.  You've still lost $25,000 fucking dollars, and on average, you are a fucking loser.  Just because you win big a couple of times doesn't mean you're beating the fucking house.

Or, try this: you spend January, February, March, April, May, June and July in a drunken stupor.  In August, you get thrown in jail for public indecency with a farm animal.  Then when you get out in September, you spend the next three months in a drunken stupor before spending two weeks in December sober because you got hospitalized for falling down the stairs while drunk, after which you are released and spend the final week in December guzzling down liquor.  Yes, you had six weeks of sobriety, but you're still a fucking alcoholic.

Understand?  No?  Sigh.  Well, some people do get beaten to death by the stupid stick at birth, and there's just not that much we can do about it.  But shame on the shitheels who do know better, and play this "it's snowing so it can't be global warming!" game so that their polluter buddies can go on polluting, and so that they can get votes from the reality-oblivious.

Let me just say one last thing, and it's to those who, like Inhofe's press secretary, think their own dumbshit "jokes" are funny.  Let me tell you something: it's not a fucking joke.  Especially not for those whose nations are literally vanishing beneath rising seas.

We could do with a lot less crazy, a lot less "joking," and a fuck of a lot more legislators actually acting like responsible adults.

*For those of you worried I'm disrespecting me mudder, she laughs hardest at that joke.  She's not afraid to have fun at the expense of the bad old days.

The Teabaggers of Easter Island

George asks,

Do you suppose there were Easter Island “conservatives” who said; “All this talk of sustainability is ridiculous!  The Big Giant Head will provide for us!  Let us build more monuments to the Big Giant Head!!!”  Were there equivalents to James Inhofe, Sarah Palin, or Glenn Beck?

You betcha!  *wink*

Global Warming Dumbfuckery Abounds

My darlings, I have the solution to our energy woes.  We can stop global warming in its tracks by tapping into a source of infinitely renewable energy.  All we have to do is tap into the endless dumbfuckery of the global warming deniers.  We can heat our homes with their fevered imaginations.  We can run our industries on with the dynamos of their denial.  We could recharge our electric cars by holding memos and emails just out of their reach on treadmills.  We'll never need oil, gas or coal again.

They're so fucking desperate they've turned to a life of crime in a pathetic attempt to discredit the science:

Burglars and hackers have attacked the Canadian Centre for Climate Modelling and Analysis at the University of Victoria in British Columbia, apparently in an attempt to further the “Climategate” intimidation of global warming researchers. The Climategate smear campaign rests on the release of thousands of emails illegally hacked last month from the British Climatic Research Unit (CRU). The National Post reports that the Centre for Climate Modelling, a government institution, is also the victim of repeated criminal attacks:

Andrew Weaver, a University of Victoria scientist and key contributor to the Nobel prize-winning work of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, says there have been a number of attempted breaches in recent months, including two successful break-ins at his campus office in which a dead computer was stolen and papers were rummaged through.

As the United States — led by President Barack Obama — prepares to join the world in the fight against global warming, the opponents of reform are resorting to criminal desperation, harkening back to the amoral extremes of Richard Nixon.

Oh, yes.  That certainly adds to their credibility.  That puts them right up there with ALF and murderers of abortion doctors as fighters for truth, justice, and the American way.

But just in case their thefts don't destroy the science, in case all they can find is evidence for global warming as they rummage through scientists' effects, they've got a backup plan:

"Biased thermometers" are to blame for scientific data documenting a precipitous rise in global temperatures, according to Marc Morano.


Morano was Rush Limbaugh's former producer and a columnist at the rightwing "news" site, Cybercast News Service, before becoming denialist-extraordinaire Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK)'s top aide on the U.S. Senate Committee on Environmental and Public Works. In 2003, Inhofe described global warming as "the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people," a statement which he stills stands by today.

Morano now runs the climate denialist website ClimateDepot.com and is, essentially, the very heart of the entire climate change denialist echosphere.

[snip]


Here's the too-short debate between Morano and Balog, as hosted by CNN's Rick Sanchez, where Morano argues that the earth is actually cooling, despite scientific evidence --- based on "biased thermometers," as Morano argues, "placed near air conditioner outlets, near asphalt" --- showing this decade to be the warmest on record. We'll leave it to you to decide whose got their facts straight, the science photographer or Rush Limbaugh's former producer:

Wow.  "Biased thermometers."  That's novel.  And I suppose the "biased thermometers" are causing the melting of the Arctic sea ice, the drastic loss of Antarctic ice sheets, retreating glaciers, forest fires, droughts, and rising sea levels, because the earth's just that gullible.  It's all a psychosomatic effect.  Brilliant!

But "biased thermometer" man and the happy gang of smash-and-grab goobers aren't the only ones fighting the science of global warming.  Billionaire right-wing fucktard David Koch is pouring tons of cash into the fight:

In an op-ed in the Boston Globe yesterday, I observed that Koch has manufactured a positive image for himself by giving to laudable causes, while at the same time, quietly “funneling tens of millions of dollars to more subterranean efforts that reflect his conservative politics.” Despite his funding of the Smithsonian, Koch has done more to politicize and and undermine the public’s understanding of science than any other single person. Koch has funded the leading groups dedicated to spreading skepticism of climate change:

– Koch’s Americans for Prosperity, the right-wing tea party group which Koch founded in 1984 and continues to finance, has just announced that it will send a team of political operatives to Copenhagen for the United Nations Climate Change Conference. AFP intends to hold a press conference to attack any climate change solution the President promises as a mistake that will “kill jobs here” and “infringe on our personal and national freedoms.”

– Koch has funded the Competitive Enterprise Institute, which has been the most aggressive conservative front group heralding hacked e-mails as proof that climate change does not exist.

– Koch funds the “Hot Air Tour,” a campaign led by lobbyists stopping in cities across the country to call into question the science underpinning climate change. The tour also features an actual hot air balloon to illustrate their beleif that climate change science is just “hot air.”

The National Academy of Sciences, the US Global Change Research Program, and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change have all come to the same conclusion: “that carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuel use and the loss of carbon-sink capacity in heavily timbered forests are increasing temperatures and making oceans more acidic.” David Koch’s Koch Industries derives much of its profit from its oil refineries, one of the major emitters of carbon dioxide, and from its George-Pacific timber subsidiary, one of the largest contributors to the loss of carbon-sink capacity.

And if you thought Bush's gang of nitwits were done fucking the country over when Obama took over the White House, think again.

Why are they all so frantic, you may ask?  Well, it could have something to do with the fact that world leaders are meeting in Copenhagen to hash out a game plan for dealing with the climate crisis.  And it could have something to do with the EPA's stark findings:

As expected, the Environmental Protection Agency is poised to formally declare that greenhouse gases are a dangerous public-health hazard and must be regulated by the government. The "endangerment finding" is the result of a study ordered by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2007 on the effects of greenhouse gas pollution on human health and welfare.

Whether Congress approves a cap-and-trade measure or not, the conclusion raises the specter of combating global warming through the regulatory process of the Clean Air Act. As you may have heard, business groups, to put it mildly, aren't fond of that idea.

[snip]

Today's EPA declaration should help crystallize the near-future for polluters: back cap and trade or the EPA won't have much of a choice. It's your call.

That's why they know their only hope is to destroy the science.  Alas for them, there's too much science.  And even if it weren't for the science, we're going to have a lot of Pacific Island nations underwater soon enough who will be happy to put a human face on the cost of global warming.

So, you may ask, what can you, as a person intelligent enough to realize we must do something about global warming, do?  Use your energies wisely.  And some genius inventor needs to get to work on that stupidity-to-energy conversion device.

"The Green Economy's Coming! The Green Economy's Coming!"

So says none other than Sen. Lindsey Graham:

Extensive coverage has been devoted to the fact that Lindsey Graham’s split on global warming and other issues highlights a rift in the Republican Party. While that’s true, another more important development has not been pursued: Graham’s departure from right-wing orthodoxy highlights the potential for conservative Democrats to follow in his footsteps.

Many conservative Democrats have questioned President Obama’s clean energy agenda. Now, a Republican is breaking with his party to talk sense. In a press conference yesterday with Sen. John Kerry (D-MA), the author of the Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act, and Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT), Graham rebuked senators unwilling to address carbon pollution. Saying that he has “seen the effects of a warming planet,” Graham called for the United States to “lead the world rather than follow the world on carbon pollution”:

The green economy is coming. We can either follow or lead. And those countries who follow will pay a price. Those nations who lead in creating the new green economy for the world will make money.

And that green economy's coming despite the best efforts of bleedin' buffoons to boycott it:

A major climate change bill passed out of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee amid a Republican boycott this morning, setting the stage for other panels to amend the legislation. The final vote was 11-1. Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT)--whose Senate Finance Committee probably have its own crack at the bill--was the lone hold out. No Republicans showed up to vote.

Baucus says he wants near-term emissions targets softened, and to prevent the Environmental Protection Agency from stepping in to regulate carbon emissions on its own, pursuant to a 2007 Supreme Court ruling.

After the vote, ranking member James Inhofe (R-OK) appeared on Fox News and, in predictable fashion, lambasted the legislation, calling the committee's actions "unprecedented." He also claimed that the bill is "dead."

Dunno 'bout that.  It's looking pretty lively to me.

Everybody got their green-collar shirts ready?  It should only take until, oh, say, late 2010, early 2011, to overcome Conservadem and Con foot-dragging, tantrum-throwing, and Teabag-army-leading hysterics.

Happy He Lost

You know, I love stories like this:

Former cattle rancher, Wyoming governor, and US Senator Cliff Hanson, was one of the leading voices against the expansion of Grand Teton National Park in the 1940s. In the mid-1960s, at a luncheon in New York, he said:

I fought against the establishment of the Grand Teton National Park as hard as I could and I lost and I want you all to know that I'm glad I lost, because I now know I was wrong. Grand Teton National Park is one of the greatest natural heritages of Wyoming and the nation and one of our great assets.

I'd love to hear some of today's opponents of health care reform say the same kind of thing in twenty years.

So would I. But I somehow doubt today's Cons have his wit or class.

The Forgery Fuckery of Not-So-Clean Coal

Well, my goodness me, whoever would've guessed that "clean" coal wouldn't come clean about forgery perpetrated for their cause?

The top coal lobbying coalition in Washington, D.C. hid its knowledge of “fraudulent grassroots lobbying” while Congress voted against clean energy legislation on June 26, 2009. A background document from the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity (ACCCE) reveals that it learned two days before the vote on Waxman-Markey that Bonner & Associates had sent a dozen forged letters opposing the American Clean Energy and Security Act to at least three members of the House of Representatives:

Due to reported misconduct by a Bonner and Associates employee (who the firm states was subsequently fired), it appears that a total of twelve falsified letters were sent by that firm to the offices of Congresswoman Kathy Dahlkemper, Congressman Christopher Carney and Congressman Tom Perriello.

Based upon information ACCCE received from the Hawthorn Group, it was Bonner and Associates’ own internal process that identified these falsified letters and it was Mr. Bonner who first brought this to the attention of the Hawthorn Group. ACCCE was then made aware of the situation by Hawthorn on June 24, 2009.

Two of the three members targeted by ACCCE — Rep. Kathy Dahlkemper (D-PA) and Rep. Chris Carney (D-PA) — voted against the bill on June 26th. However, despite its knowledge of this potentially criminal fraud, ACCCE said nothing until Rep. Perriello’s hometown paper, the Charlottesville Daily Progress, broke the story more than a month later on July 31st.

I am shocked, I tell you, shocked.

Who would've expected such cowardice from a front group that only has Appalachia's best interests at heart?

The coal industry front group embroiled in an Astroturf scandal is now arguing that mountaintop removal coal mining helps communities “hampered because of a lack of flat space.”

See how caring they are? It wasn't about raw, nekkid exploitation and environmental devastation, after all! So I'm sure they have a really good explanation as to why they kept their mouths shut on the forgeries.

Let's hear it, ACCCE!

Arizona's Stupidest State Senator

Via PZ comes news of the latest Arizona politician to make an utter ass of his/herself:

Arizona State Senator Sylvia Allen (R-Snowflake), arguing in favor of a bill to allow uranium mining north of the Grand Canyon, casually says that the earth is 6,000 years old, and therefore a little uranium mining isn't going to hurt anything.

[snip]

Outside of this fuckwit insisting (not once, but twice, in the course of 40 seconds) that the Earth is only 6,000 years old, I think my favorite part was when she said of the uranium mine, "and you'll never even know the mine was there when they're done."


You want to take this:




And replace it with this:

Midnite Mine
An otherwise scenic view is scarred by the remains of uranium mining.

By Elly Hale, EPA
Midnite Mine
Wellpinit, Washington

And tell me we'll "never even know the mine was there when they're done"? Really? Because, you see, the research I found on uranium mining in the Grand Canyon area begs to differ.

Ms. Allen, you are a dumbshit. I'm ashamed my beautiful home state contains a state senator as stupid as you, and I do hope your district wakes the fuck up and cleans up that blight ASAP.

No Wonder There's Global Warming

Shorter Joe Barton: Coke has carbon dioxide in it. Polar bears drink Coke. Therefore, carbon dioxide isn't dangerous. Whee!

Ladies and gentlemen, I do believe Joe Barton wants to win the Most Fucktarded Congressman of the Year award:

Yesterday, the House Energy and Commerce Committee began its markup of the American Clean Energy and Security Act. The work is expected to continue through the week, as Republicans plan to stall movement on the bill by offering more than 400 amendments.

Discussing the bill on C-Span’s Washington Journal this morning, Rep. “Smokey Joe” Barton (R-TX) defended his head-in-the-sand approach to climate change by fundamentally misunderstanding the science, misstating the reality of carbon dioxide emissions, and mocking fuel-efficient cars. Some highlights:

– “I would also point out that CO2, carbon dioxide, is not a pollutant in any normal definition of the term. … I am creating it as I talk to you. It’s in your Coca-Cola, you’re Dr. Pepper, your Perrier water. It is necessary for human life. It is odorless, colorless, tasteless, does not cause cancer, does not cause asthma.”

– “And something that the Democrat sponsors do not point out, a lot of the CO2 that is created in the United States is naturally created. You can’t regulate God. Not even the Democratic majority in the US Congress can regulate God.”

I'm at a loss for words. All I can say is, with reps like this, it's no wonder we've got global warming problems. The burning stupidity alone is enough to raise the Earth's temperature by at least 1° C.

Glenn Beck's Contribution to Global Warming

I hope scientific studies demonstrate Beck's a source of global warming pollution. It would be fun to see him shut down as an environmental hazard:

On his Fox News show today, comedian Glenn Beck interviewed Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY) to mock the danger of global warming. In what he billed as an “Inconvenient Segment,” Beck argued that a “smoking gun” memo proves that the proposed Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) finding on the threat of global warming pollution is based on politics instead of science.

“It turns out, the truth that’s inconvenient is that it’s not like any of this stuff is based on, you know, science. It’s all politics,” Beck said of the danger of carbon pollution. He concluded:

By the way, just so you know, this show has won so many science awards, sometimes we get talking about high-falutin science things like this, and people are like, “What are you talkin’ about?” So let me break it down. Carbon dioxide is basically this. (Exhales.) Look at how much pollution I just put out.

Unless you eat fossil fuels, spewing hot air from one’s mouth is not a major source for pollution…except for Glenn Beck.

Indeed.

John Stossel Sez, "Endangered Species - It's What's For Dinner!"

John Stossel's Plan to Save the Animals

John "Deny Young'ns the Vote!" Stossel once again competes for the title of World's Biggest Dumbshit:

It's been quite awhile since I've seen a right-wing meme as gobsmackingly stupid as the one John Stossel was promoting last week on Fox, notably on Glenn Beck's Friday show.

At ABC, the headline read:

John Stossel Says Killing Endangered Species Would Protect Them

Now, if you go read the text, it is a somewhat thought-provoking piece suggesting that the way to save certain endangered species -- such as the tiger, which is a victim of poaching for its prized body parts -- is to begin farming them. It's worked with a handful of other species, such as the bison and the rhino.

But the headline -- and the meme that Stossel pushed on Fox -- was that the way to save endangered species is to farm and consume them.

Which is, perhaps, one of the most monumentally stupid ideas anyone's ever proposed. The logical outcome of Stossel's argument is that ultimately we need to begin farming all the planet's wild animals.

Of course, the vast majority of endangered species are inedible and not particularly desired by humans to begin with, so that leaves them out of the farming equation.

Moreover, human consumption of a number of species -- most notably sharks -- is primarily responsible for their endangerment in the first place.

I wish I could say John Stossel is an endangered species, but alas, total fucking dumbshits are all too plentiful.

Good for Duke Energy

It's nice to see a utility company stand up for the planet:

The National Association of Manufacturers is a right-wing trade organization that refuses to address — or even acknowledge — man-made global warming. Last month, it protested the EPA’s decision to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, stating that the “clean air laws” are supposed to only focus on “local pollutants.” It has also funded climate change denier groups and heavily lobbied against any efforts to curb emissions.

The organization’s resistance to change is getting to be too much for its members. Today, Bloomberg reports that Duke Energy Corp., which owns utilities in the Southeast and Midwest, announced that it won’t be renewing its membership with NAM, in part because of NAM’s refusal to address global warming:

“We are not renewing our membership in the NAM because in tough times, we want to invest in associations that are pulling in the same direction we are,” Duke Chief Executive Officer Jim Rogers said last month in an interview. The association, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and Republicans “ought to roll up their sleeves and get to work on a climate bill, but quite frankly, I don’t see them changing.”

Charlotte, North Carolina-based Duke is a founding member of the United States Climate Action Partnership, a coalition of business and environmental groups that seeks to influence legislation on greenhouse gases linked to global warming. The National Association of Manufacturers has opposed mandatory controls, arguing they will harm the economy.

A Duke spokesman also said that the company would like to see cap-and-trade legislation “happen this year if possible.”

I like this utility company.

Mother Nature Bitchslaps Cons

Global warming sucks, dunnit? But it does seem to have a poetic sense of timing this week.

In California, wildfires are demonstrating to Cons that fucking over California's budget may not have been a wise thing to do:

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger started the week promoting Wildfire Awareness Week in events with fire officials, during which he suggested he might have to cut 1,700 firefighting jobs if voters reject the May 19 ballot measures.

He had another such event scheduled Thursday in Riverside. But an actual fire broke out midweek in Santa Barbara, forcing a change of plans.

Schwarzenegger appeared Thursday at the Jesusita fire in Santa Barbara instead. Instead of warning about firefighting cuts, he began reassuring Californians that the state would find the money to protect people.

Guess where they're going to find that money. Go on, guess.

The governor said that because he declared a state of emergency this week for the Jesusita fire, the federal government would reimburse 75 percent of the state's costs.

That federal government sure comes in handy when the piper demands his pay, doesn't it just?

But that isn't the most poetic of justice dealt this week. Mother Nature has a special place in her heart for Sarah Palin:

Because of a climate disaster, global warming skeptic Gov. Sarah Palin (R-AK) has been forced to cancel her attendance at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner. The Wall Street Journal reports that an “unusually warm spring thaw in Alaska is causing some of the state’s worst flooding in decades, with rising rivers wiping out an entire village and bombarding another town with ice chunks as big as houses”:

Gov. Sarah Palin on Thursday was scheduled to fly over the stricken areas after canceling a planned trip to the East Coast for primarily state business. The governor on Wednesday had declared a disaster for the flooded areas, including the Susitna River, which runs through her hometown of Wasilla near Anchorage.

The floods resulted from “a rare combination of unusually heavy winter snow and a spring warm-up over the past week that saw temperatures soar into the 70s — a good 20 degrees higher than normal for this time of year.”

Smell that schadenfreude. Mmm-mmm.

My heart goes out to the disaster victims. Here's hoping it won't take too much more of this before Cons start realizing that action to get global warming under control and programs in place to mitigate disasters are vitally necessary. What science, reason and general human decency couldn't accomplish, perhaps embarrassment and personal impact will.

They Lied. Imagine That.

Heh. I'd like to see the pollution industry try to spin this one away:

The New York Times exposes an internal document (PDF) from the Global Climate Coalition, a group funded by the oil and auto industries, that shows that their own scientists were confirming the reality of human-caused global warming and the effects of greenhouse gasses as early as 15 years ago even while publicly trying to dispute that reality.

The document is from 1995 and it was a "primer" on the various issues being sent around to the auto companies for approval. It essentially admits that global warming is real and human-caused, that many of the counter-arguments are false and that we don't yet have good enough predictive technology to know the full effects, especially in local areas. It begins by saying:

The scientific basis for the Greenhouse Effect and the potential impact of human emissions of greenhouse gases such as CO2 on climate is well established and cannot be denied.

[snip]

The contrarian theories raise interesting questions about our total understanding of climate processes, but they do not offer convincing arguments against the conventional model of greenhouse gas emission-induced climate change. Jastrow's hypothesis about the role of solar variability and Michaels' questions about the temperature record are not convincing arguments against any conclusion that we are currently experiencing warming as the result of greenhouse gas emissions.

In other words: global warming's real, humans are the main factor in causing it. Suck on that, bitches.

Of course, it won't change Big Pollution's behavior. The polluters will still lie and moan and try to deny the science. They'll still find greedy fucks willing to sell their souls for silver, and stupid fucks eager to believe. But it just got that much harder.

Kerry to Will: "Bring it on, Bitch!"

Welcome to Science Sunday, wherein we will deconstruct denialists, pummel presuppositionalists, and cap it off with Neil deGrasse Tyson's absolute awesomeness.

First, the denialists.

George Will stands by his thoroughly-debunked column, and so does "editor" Fred Hiatt (can you really call someone an editor who refuses to edit?). In fact, Will's spewing more lies, and Hiatt's throwing down gauntlets, demanding people debate rather than decry his dear Georgie.

Be careful what you ask for, bitches:

Sen. John F. Kerry (D-MA), chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, is the first member of Congress to weigh in on George F. Will’s egregiously mendacious “global cooling” columns. In a Huffington Post column, Kerry delivers a withering critique of one of his “favorite intellectual sparring partners,” stepping up to the plate on behalf of science and scientists everywhere, including Secretary of Energy Steven Chu and White House Science Adviser John Holdren..

And if you think this column is some mealy-mouthed, polite political pablum, you've got another think coming. Kerry's breathing fire. I swear he's channeling Val Kilmer's Halliday: "I'm your Huckleberry. That's just my game." Oh, hells, yes:

Don't get me wrong. I'm happy to see Will embracing the idea of recycling, but I'm very troubled that he is recycling errors of fact to challenge the science on global warming.

[snip]

Dragging up long-discredited myths about some non-existent scientific consensus about global cooling from the 1970s does no one any good. Except perhaps a bankrupt flat earth crowd. I hate to review the record and see that someone as smart as George Will has been doing exactly that as far back as 1992. And it's especially troubling when the very sources that Will cites in his February 15th column draw the exact opposite conclusions and paint very different pictures than Will provides, as the good folks at ThinkProgress and Media Matters for America have demonstrated so thoroughly.

[snip]

No matter how the evidence has mounted over two decades -- the melting of the arctic ice cap, rising sea levels, extreme weather -- the flat earth caucus can't even see what is on the horizon. In the old Republican Congress they even trotted out the author of Jurassic Park as an expert witness to argue that climate change is fiction. This is Stone Age science, and now that we have the White House and the Congress real science must prevail. It is time to stop debating fiction writers, oil executives and flat-earth politicians, and actually find the way forward on climate change.

[snip]

"Facts are stupid things," Ronald Reagan once said. He was, of course, paraphrasing John Adams, who could have been talking about the science on global change when he said, "Facts are stubborn things."

Stubborn or stupid -- lets have a real debate and lets have it now.

Oh, George Will, you've been served.

Hilzoy Takes WaPo to the Woodshed

This, my darlings, is a thing of beauty. To briefly recap: George Will, fact-challenged Washington Post columnist extraordinaire, recently penned a climate change denialist column so egregious in its errors that it nearly defies description. Days went by as we waited with baited breath for the WaPo to publish a correction. None was forthcoming. And then, a response!

I have also been following the various requests for comment from the Washington Post, and wondering when the Post might respond. Now they have:

"Thank you for your e-mail. The Post's ombudsman typically deals with issues involving the news pages. But I understand the point you and many e-mailers are making, and for that reason I sought clarification from the editorial page editors. Basically, I was told that the Post has a multi-layer editing process and checks facts to the fullest extent possible. In this instance, George Will's column was checked by people he personally employs, as well as two editors at the Washington Post Writers Group, which syndicates Will; our op-ed page editor; and two copy editors. The University of Illinois center that Will cited has now said it doesn't agree with his conclusion, but earlier this year it put out a statement that was among several sources for this column and that notes in part that "Observed global sea ice area, defined here as a sum of N. Hemisphere and S. Hemisphere sea ice areas, is near or slightly lower than those observed in late 1979,"

Best wishes,

Andy Alexander

Washington Post Ombudsman"

Until I read this, I had been under the impression that newspapers didn't do as much fact-checking as magazines, because of deadline pressure; and I had imagined that the inaccuracies in George Will's column might result from applying standards designed for reported stories to columns. But on reading that Will's column had been subjected to a "multi-layer editing process", and that this "process" had checked the facts "to the fullest extent possible", I realized that I had been wrong. Naturally, I clicked the link Mr. Alexander provided, and read it. Did he? I don't know what would be worse: that he did, and takes it to support Will, or that he didn't take his job seriously enough to bother.

Hilzoy takes Mr. Alexander's link, and beats him thoroughly with it. Then she continues the beating by reading the Science article Will quoted in defense of his indefensible position. Go witness. It's a classic in the annals of correction, destined to go down in history as one of the most merciless trips to the woodshed in blogging history. She does the job that the WaPo's "multilayer editing process" somehow found impossible.

It's incredible to me that a national paper could not only publish something so insanely wrong on every level, but then claim they'd fact-checked it. Were I the Post, I'd be claiming an unprecidented breakdown in the editing process - it would be far less embarrassing than demonstrating that multiple people failed to read so much as the two most easily-accessed papers cited in Wills' column, both of which take a howitzer to his conclusions.

Alas, one trip to the woodshed, even one as epic as this, will not be enough for the WaPo team. They need to be set back a grade and placed in special education for the clueless on climate change. Thankfully, a class is available, and it has a proven track record helping the climate change challenged wake up and smell the CO2.

Let us hope it can rescue the WaPo before they become the identical twin of the Moony Times.

Corporations Must Not Have Been Interested

After nearly a decade of enthusiastic environmental rape, Bush brings the battered victim some flowers:

Coral reefs worldwide are in peril. Marine species, protected by ineffective regulations, are being fished to extinction. Ocean pollution has our seas nearing cataclysm. Fortunately, there's one group that's doing something about it.

The Bush Administration.

It's true. On Tuesday, President Bush, whose environmental policies have not exactly been the hallmark of his administration, designated three new marine monuments in the Pacific Ocean, an act that will protect some of the world's most pristine places and give ocean ecosystems a chance at recovery. Together, the Mariana Trench monument, the Central Pacific Islands monument, and the Rose Atoll monument in America Samoa (PDF map and images here), will encompass over 190,000 square miles, roughly the size of the states of Oregon and Washington combined. The protected areas include the habitats for several threatened species, rare underwater geological formations, and some of the oldest known life forms on the DNA tree.

"The amount of time federal officials put into managing any one section of water is basically nil," says Jay Nelson, Director of the Global Ocean Legacy, a project of the Pew Environment Group. "But it's like a national park. If you draw a line around it, all of a sudden it's somebody's responsibility to take care of it."

My goodness. That sounds almost like the right and responsible thing to do. I guess none of his corporate buddies found anything worth exploiting in those areas.

There's a "but" coming. You knew there'd be a "but," didn't you?

But that previous experience [with the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument] illustrates what can go wrong with the monuments created on Tuesday. Nelson admits that the funding for the 2006 monument is not adequate. Though it is cleaner than it was in 2002 or 2003, it is not clear it will be cleaner in 2009 than it was in 2008. Ocean currents bring thousands of pounds of garbage to the shores of the islands within the protected area every year, mostly dropped over the side of ships or brought to sea by polluted rivers. Serious questions exist about the clean-up efforts' ability to keep pace.

Requests for research permits in the monument shot up the year after it was approved, which defied the central purpose of designating it a protected area: decreasing human traffic. "It was because scientists heard about it. They read the newspapers like you and me," says Nelson. Likewise, the newly designated monuments, which currently see little human contact, may become sought after research destinations.

Another factor hampering the protection of marine habitat has been a lack of inter-agency coordination. "There were numerous indications and reports, all off the record, that the three principle agencies responsible for the northwest Hawaiian islands monument—NOAA, the Fish and Wildlife Service, and the state of Hawaii— had a great deal of trouble working together," says Dennis Heinemann of the Ocean Conservancy. In fact, the final management plan for the 2006 monument, delineating the division of responsibilities between the three agencies, was just released over the 2008 holidays.

What, you're surprised that Bush gives national monuments nothing but pocket change for a budget and then creates such a buffoonish bureaucracy that bugger-all gets done?

So no. I'm not going to applaud Bush for finally doing something nice. It's far too little, far too late. It would be like thanking an arsonist for rescuing the dog after setting fire to a house full of cats, kids, and elderly folks.

No Fucking Comparison

President-Elect Obama once again reduces me to tears of joy:

President-elect Barack Obama’s reported selection of Dr. Steven Chu as Secretary of Energy is a bold stroke to set the nation on the path to a clean energy economy. Chu, a Nobel Prize-winning physicist, is the sixth director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, a Department of Energy-funded basic science research institution managed by the University of California. After moving to Berkeley Lab from Stanford University in 2004, Chu “has emerged internationally to champion science as society’s best defense against climate catastrophe.” As director, Chu has steered the direction of Berkeley Lab to addressing the climate crisis, pushing for breakthrough research in energy efficiency, solar energy, and biofuels technology.

At Berkeley Lab, Chu has won broad praise as an effective and inspirational leader. “When he was first here, he started giving talks about energy and production of energy,” Bob Jacobsen, a senior scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley Lab, told the San Francisco Chronicle in 2007. “He didn’t just present a problem. He told us what we could do. It was an energizing thing to see. He’s not a manager, he’s a leader.” In an interview with the Wonk Room, David Roland-Holst, an economist at the Center for Energy, Resources and Economic Sustainability at UC Berkeley, described Chu as a “very distinguished researcher” and “an extremely effective manager of cutting edge technology initiatives.” Roland-Holst praised Chu’s work at Lawrence Berkeley, saying “he has succeeded in reconfiguring it for a new generation of sustainable technology R&D, combining world class mainstream science with the latest initiatives in renewable energy and climate adaptation.”

[snip]

It’s hard to decide if the selection of Dr. Chu is more remarkable for who he is — a Nobel laureate physicist and experienced public-sector administrator — or for who is not. Unlike previous secretaries of energy, he is neither a politician, oil man, military officer, lawyer, nor utility executive. His corporate ties are not to major industrial polluters but to advanced technology corporations like AT&T (where he began his Nobel-winning research) and Silicon Valley innovator Nvidia (where he sits on the board of directors). Chu is a man for the moment, and will be a singular addition to Obama’s Cabinet.

Phenomenal. And he's not the only excellent choice - Obama's putting together a Green Dream Team that's showing in no uncertain terms that he's serious about getting global warming under control and transitioning us to a green economy. Carol Browner, who may be heading up a new National Energy Council and will definitely be part of the Administration, sees environmental regulations as market opportunities. Lisa Jackson, who may head up the EPA and is co-chair of the energy and natural resources transition team, is more of a mixed bag, coming highly recommended by some environmentalists and condemned by others, but New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine has no doubts she's be awesome. Alas, I know nothing much at all about the women he's chosen to become Secretary of Energy and the chair of the President's Council on Environmental Quality, but the fact that the Chamber of Commerce is screaming bloody murder tells me we're probably looking at emerald green choices:

"What you've got are people who are committed to moving forward with regulation of greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act, which we believe is a huge mistake," William Kovacs, vice president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, said in an interview.

Yup. Definitely on the right track.

So, we've got a Nobel Laureate and several people who are dead-serious about making green a go. They're the real deal.

Contrast this with Bush's buffoonery, and you'll see there's no fucking comparison:

Currently, representatives from 190 countries are meeting in Poznan, Poland for an international climate change conference to work on the successor to the Kyoto Protocol, which President Bush refused to ratify in 2001.

In an interview with AFP in Poznan, Paula Dobriansky, the chief U.S. delegate, said that she has no regrets on the Bush administration’s climate change record. If she could change anything, Dobriansky said a better job could have been done in articulating Bush’s “message”:

I think this issue (climate change) is important, we care about it greatly. Looking back, if there was anything that maybe I would have hoped, it’s that we could have done a more effective job in getting our message out, in other words, (in) public diplomacy.

Spin couldn’t have saved Bush’s record on climate change. In fact, according to the annual Climate Change Performance Index published today, the U.S. is ranked as having the third worst record of 60 countries in tackling greenhouse gas emissions.

[snip]

It is shameful — but not surprising — that the U.S.’s chief climate representative believes that Bush’s biggest mistake on climate change is bad PR.

Somehow, methinks Obama's Green Team is going to be a lot less talk and a lot more action. Finally, America will be ready to lead the way on containing climate change and taking care of this gorgeous planet.

Awesome.

Backing Bush Down

Sometimes the environment wins:

Here's some unexpected good news. The Bush administration has decided to back down on its last-minute efforts to loosen a pair of environmental regulations:

The Environmental Protection Agency yesterday abandoned its push to revise two air-pollution rules in ways that environmentalists had long opposed, abruptly dropping measures that the Bush administration had spent years preparing.

....The proposal on parks would have changed the rules for new plants being built nearby....Clean-air advocates had protested that this might allow parks such as Virginia's Shenandoah — where the famous mountaintop views are already obscured by smog and haze — to become even dirtier on certain days.

....The other rule dealt with the agency's New Source Review process, which dictates when existing power plants must implement additional pollution-control measures....John Walke of the Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental advocacy group, said the rule would have allowed plants to operate for longer hours and produce more overall pollution.

It'll be interesting to see what prompted the sudden reversal. Is Bush so concerned with burnishing his image that he's caving on a few environmental rules so that he can later prance around saying what a good green boy he was?

Note to Bush: you can't put a shine on shit. But if it helps stop your destructive new rules, by all means, keep trying.

Corporate Responsibility: BoA Gets It Right

Sometimes, just sometimes, corporations do things that make me proud:

This summer, after months of conversations, some top executives from Bank of America agreed to accompany NRDC staff on a fact-finding trip to Appalachia. In July we flew them over moonscaped mine sites in West Virginia, took them to Kayford Mountain for a closer look at mountaintop mining, and introduced them to several local residents/activists who are fighting to save their beloved homeland from reckless coal mining companies.

Today, BofA released its revised coal policy, which will have the immediate effect of curtailing commercial lending to companies that mine coal by blowing off the top of mountains in Appalachia. The policy states, in part:

Bank of America is particularly concerned about surface mining conducted through mountain top removal in locations such as central Appalachia. We therefore will phase out financing of companies whose predominant method of extracting coal is through mountain top removal. While we acknowledge that surface mining is economically efficient and creates jobs, it can be conducted in a way that minimizes environmental impacts in certain geographies.

Why is this so important? Bank of America still stands as a pillar of our country's shaky financial system. In fact, the trying economic crisis has only served to strengthen this behemoth bank unlike other once proud and stable institutions. All the more reason to engage BofA in using its investment power and influence to affect positive environmental change.

There are some corporations that realize you can run a successful company without being a total ratfucking bastard, who don't believe that "good corporate citizen" is just a useful lie to tell the citizens you hope to suckerpunch. I saw that in action with Target, which does more charity work than I've ever seen another company do and also runs a forensics lab that helps out police agencies without charge:

Turns out Target has one of the most advanced crime labs in the country at its headquarters in Minneapolis, Minnesota. It was initially set up to deal with things like theft, fraud, and personal injury cases in their stores. Now, Target also helps law enforcement agencies nationwide solve crimes, even murders. Target has worked with the Secret Service, the ATF, and the FBI, to name a few.

Target does the work for free, seeing it as a kind of community service. It doesn't advertise its crime lab services, but word started spreading and law enforcement agencies started asking for help. Some government agency labs aren't as well-equipped as Target's. In other cases, Target can get results faster because of logjams in agency labs.

I've seen the pictures. The place is straight out of CSI, and if it wasn't in a frozen, landlocked city like Minneapolis, I would've been getting my forensics degree and joining the lab. It was pure awesome. They also had safe communities programs running that had an enormous impact in some dangerous areas. I've had jobs I enjoyed more - taking phone calls from angry credit card customers isn't fun no matter how great your company is - but I've never been prouder of the company I worked for than I was with them. They truly did put a huge effort into making a positive difference.

I'd love to see more of this. Most corporations do just enough community service to make themselves look nice, but it's the rare few that actually devote substantial time, resources, and attention to doing right by the world.

Bank of America looks to be on its way to true good corporate citizenship. It's much appreciated. Here's hoping others will follow these companies' leads.