The New York Times Green Blog is shutting down:
But we will forge ahead with our aggressive reporting on environmental and energy topics, including climate change, land use, threatened ecosystems, government policy, the fossil fuel industries, the growing renewables sector and consumer choices.
By doing less of it.
Maybe they’re starting a new Oscars blog?
Climate change is disturbing the pattern of atmospheric flow around the globe, says the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK):
“An important part of the global air motion in the mid-latitudes of the Earth normally takes the form of waves wandering around the planet, oscillating between the tropical and the Arctic regions. So when they swing up, these waves suck warm air from the tropics to Europe, Russia, or the US, and when they swing down, they do the same thing with cold air from the Arctic,” explains lead author Vladimir Petoukhov.
“What we found is that during several recent extreme weather events these planetary waves almost freeze in their tracks for weeks. So instead of bringing in cool air after having brought warm air in before, the heat just stays. In fact, we observe a strong amplification of the usually weak, slowly moving component of these waves,” says Petoukhov. Time is critical here: two or three days of 30 degrees Celsius are no problem, but twenty or more days lead to extreme heat stress. Since many ecosystems and cities are not adapted to this, prolonged hot periods can result in a high death toll, forest fires, and dramatic harvest losses.
I know I don’t like when my flow is disturbed; It’s tough out there for a planet.
As in the late Washington Post columnist David Broder, who made a real name for himself with the kind of ‘both sides do it’, why can’t ‘Obama and Boehner have a drink and settle this like Tip and Ronny used to’ false equivalence Villager-ism that makes anyone paying attention from outside the beltway feel like they’re picking up a signal from Venus on the state flower satellite dish. Anyway, this is a bizarre turn but because it’s right there in the paper of record (and elsewhere) we would be remiss in not mentioning it. Dave Roberts, via LGM:
Self-proclaimed moderates like to lecture anti-Keystone XL activists that they are “distracting” and “counterproductive,” without spelling out what the hell that means, yet they seem bewildered when that makes the activists in question angry.
Let’s review. This weekend, close to 50,000 people gathered for the biggest rally ever against climate change, a threat Revkin acknowledges is enormous, difficult, and urgent. Revkin and his council of wonks took to Twitter to argue that the rally and the campaign behind it are misdirected, absolutist, confused, and bereft of long-term strategy. They had this familiar conversation as the rally was unfolding.
As a result, Revkin suffered the grievous injury of a frustrated tweet from Wen Stephenson, a journalist who has crossed over to activism. This gave the wounded Revkin the opportunity to write yet another lament on the slings and arrows that face the Reasonable Man. He faced down the scourge of single-minded “my way or the highway environmentalism,” y’all, but don’t worry, he’s got a thick skin. He lived to tell the tale.
This is all for the benefit of an elite audience, mind you, for whom getting yelled at by activists is the sine qua non of seriousness. The only thing that boosts VSP cred more is getting yelled at by activists on Both Sides.
Read the whole thing. This is happening on the NYT Green blog. As Loomis explains, the most important thing for Revkin is compromise with the big polluters, no matter how wrong they are or how much their industries are the cause of it all and their lobbying keeps any solutions from being considered much less implemented.
In the land that offers the best healthcare system in the world and where the sun provides us with more than enough power to spark massive creativity and love affairs alike, we also have the fastest, cheapest and freedom-est internet access know to man.
Okay, I fudged that first second last part every single verse of the anthem. But Susan Crawford doesn’t here. And Moyers, never.
Update: Video plug-in kaput; here’s the link-y.
Watched this terrific, if brutal, documentary recently. Strongly suggested.
Dr. K brings the Platinum wrath:
[President Obama] will, after all, be faced with a choice between two alternatives: one that’s silly but benign, the other that’s equally silly but both vile and disastrous. The decision should be obvious.
For those new to this, here’s the story. First of all, we have the weird and destructive institution of the debt ceiling; this lets Congress approve tax and spending bills that imply a large budget deficit — tax and spending bills the president is legally required to implement — and then lets Congress refuse to grant the president authority to borrow, preventing him from carrying out his legal duties and provoking a possibly catastrophic default.
And Republicans are openly threatening to use that potential for catastrophe to blackmail the president into implementing policies they can’t pass through normal constitutional processes.
Enter the platinum coin.
I don’t get what kind of machine you would drop such a coin into but, as is well documented, I don’t understand a lot things.
Jeremy Irons, talking about the new feature-length documentary on trash he produced:
San Francisco has actually reached 80% diversion or Zero Waste this year. New York, which creates 1.5% of total global waste, currently recycles only 15% of it. State and federal government should provide legislation which designs a waste management policy right across the country. In the UK there is a similar situation in that, depending where you live, the waste management policies and goals differ greatly. I believe that most people would like to cooperate in reducing waste, but to encourage them the national policy should be clear, well advertised and consistent. Even within Greater London there is a huge discrepancy between council policies. I believe a national waste management initiative should be designed and implemented by government. Not to burn it or bury it, but to design and encourage its reduction and recycling. This time of rising unemployment seems ideally suited to the creation of a new and forward-thinking industry that could be profitable and create new jobs. If we became world leaders in recycling technology, then that expertise could be exported around the world.
I like the concept of zero waste, and/but it’s going to take a while to get it into the zeitgeist-y lexicon all the kids are slinging these days.
And it’s hard to believe we’re still talking about incineration – I was canvassing for MassPIRG on that issue in 1988.
Title coined by Pierce; this is just a riff on it.
All of the talk about deficits is just that – talk. To distract any who might be concerned that anything is in the offing but cuts to so-called entitlements. Get insulted about that word. It’s a pejorative for the idea of taking care of old and poor people, whom we should feel ashamed for caring about or fretting over. The word is meant to do exactly that, make us think others feel entitled to something not theirs. With them undeserving, we can feel justified in cutting the programs that keep taxes low for the extraordinarily wealthy.
And speaking of, we need better rich people, better educated with better parents who birth in them at least the semblance of a conscience for the world. Our current crop are inadequate and will not do. We need better politicians who are not afraid to talk about gun violence or climate change, who are not so craven as to use all available oxygen in the media hothouse to grow concern about a non-existent problem. We need better doctors, physicians who have gone into medicine for some reasons other than making as much money as they can. Sorry, the truth hurts. But it’s why our conversations about health care are as contorted and unrecognizable as they are. They aren’t talking about helping people, or healing sick people. And these are personal failings of the people who have chosen to become doctors. We need one more question on the test, one that lets them off the ride, with dignity if need be, before it ends.
Because these issues won’t go away any other way. Bradbury was being precise when asked whether he was trying to change the future: “No, I’m trying to prevent it!”
Spiritual, not religious.
Loves, not wars.
Open, not resigned.
Passionate, not passive.
Giving, not trading.
Attentive, not grating.
Elevated like consideration, a discussion or even a plain, from where we all might see.
When Republican Senate candidate Richard Mourdock talks about rape and what God intends, is there any difference between that and rationale claimed by those who deny global warming? Aren’t the Kochs and BPs of the world spreading doubt about the effects of their/our actions on the planet as a way of justifying our/their right to pollute? After all, they don’t dispute global warming with science, but with ideology.
Another example is when Mr. Phillips discusses his take-no-prisoners strategy on Republicans who stray from the fold by talking about alternative energy sources.
Mr. Hockenberry: You said “We’ve made great headway.” What it means for candidates in the Republican side is, if you buy into green energy or you play footsie on this issue, you do so at your political peril?
Mr. Phillips: You do. Absolutely. And that’s the big change, and it is important. Again, I remember four, five or even three years ago, John, a lot of Republicans, they would play games with this. They’d say: “O.K., oh gosh, I think I need a green energy agenda. But I won’t go all the way and support cap and trade.” They did. They tried to walk down the middle. And that’s wrong. I think it’s philosophically inconsistent, but it’s also politically disadvantageous. And we’ve worked hard to make that so, by the way.
Legitimate rape? There is a very direct link between overt religiosity and not worrying when bad things happen to people or planet (though interestingly, the fate of profits are exempted from this formulation: evil visited upon profits is somehow the fault of government or other secular forces, by definition against God and thereby completing the circle) because it is somehow ordained by God. Otherwise, it wouldn’t be happening. You’ve got your Ipso in my facto. That is how they are defining their own logic. The consistency is startling.
Okay, back to videos. I’m doing some prep for two interviews next week and one led me this Matthew Collings video series. I used to read him in Modern Painters and he’s a very funny writer. Then Modern Painters stopped having any painting in it. I tried to read nothing into it, and I hope they didn’t either when I cancelled my subscription.
Anyway, here’s one part of this cool series he did that’s now on YT.
