Ok, let’s start over again.
This works surprisingly well, given current conditions.
And don’t speak too soon
For the wheel’s still in spin
And there’s no telling who that it’s naming
For the loser now will be later to win
Cause the times they are a-changing
Bonus track below:
Greatest crisis since Pearl Harbor.
Now.
We can at least thank Putin/Trump admin for clarifying things.
Time to let your rep know that those standing with Trump are standing with Fascist Dictator Vladimir Putin, against Freedom, and the next 10,000 generations of human beings. Ask them what side of history they are on.
Below: Further clarification on Russian Hack Attack on Democracy from Kurt Eichenwald. Anything sound familiar?
No surprise that enemies of democracy and humanity are using, and may be the inventors of, fossil fuel hack attack on scientists.
For those that followed the so called “Climategate” non-scandal of 2009-10, this tactic may sound familiar.
..Russian hackers obtained emails from the DNC that were then sliced into small bits and put out on the internet through participants in the propaganda effort. In many of these instances, the real documents were misrepresented. For example, WikiLeaks released a number of May 2016 emails on the eve of the Democratic convention that made it appear as if the DNC was solely pulling for Clinton; in many online postings, the date was removed so readers would have no idea unless they searched for the original document that was written at a time when Sanders could not possibly have won the nomination.
“When I used to come to Antarctica in the 1990s, it never used to rain,” said Rodolfo Sanchez, director of the Argentine Antarctic Institute (IAA).
“Now it rains regularly—instead of snowing,” he told AFP during an Argentine government visit to King George Island, off the tip of the western Antarctic peninsula.
Scientists monitoring conditions at the base say the average temperature here has increased by 2.5 degrees Celsius (4.5 degrees Fahrenheit) over the past century.
“The glacier used to reach all the way to the shore,” Sanchez says. “Now there is a 500-meter (550-yard) wide beach.”
Dark scars of rock are showing through what were once spotless sheets of white snow on the glaciers’ flanks.
“Antarctica is a thermometer that shows how the world is changing,” said Adriana Gulisano, a physicist at Argentina’s National Antarctic Directorate.
“There is no place where climate change is more in evidence.”
Wildlife signs
Local wildlife also appears to reflect to the change.
Scientists at the Carlini base say a pair of yellow-throated King penguins have swum up to mate nearby for the past three years.
Although the theory is not confirmed, they suspect another sign of climate change. The species had previously been thought to be restricted to warmer spots on the Falkland Islands and the Argentine mainland.
Technician Luis Souza, 56, has divided his time since 1979 between Buenos Aires and the Carlini base, where he has studied migrating birds: cormorants, gulls and penguins.
More crucially, scientists say melting ice is disrupting the breeding of krill, a shrimp-like creature that serves as food for numerous species.
“Less ice means fewer krill for the whales, penguins and seals,” said Sanchez. “The whole food chain is affected.”
There is, right now (as of Jan 12th), the least area of sea ice on our planet that we've ever measured—probably the lowest in millennia. pic.twitter.com/6LrUKxBEOF
— Eric Holthaus (@EricHolthaus) January 14, 2017
Rep. Mike Pompeo (R-Kan.), President-elect Trump’s pick to head the CIA, appeared before the Senate Intelligence Committee on Thursday, during which he refused to answer whether he accepts the overwhelming evidence that climate change is occurring, let alone that it represents a threat to global stability.
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Pompeo has previously referred to the Paris Agreement as a “radical climate change deal” and heavily implied that terrorism and climate change are separate issues. That’s a view that is not in line with the Pentagon, which has said that climate change poses “immediate risks.”
Pompeo has also cast doubt on the findings from the vast majority of climate scientists.
“Look, I think the science needs to continue to develop,” he said during a 2013 C-SPAN appearance. “I’m happy to continue to look at it. There are scientists who think lots of different things about climate change. There’s some who think we’re warming, there’s some who think we’re cooling, there’s some who think that the last 16 years have shown a pretty stable climate environment.”
These statements stand in stark contrast to reality. The global average temperature has risen roughly 2°F since the start of the Industrial Revolution, and an overwhelming majority of the world’s scientists agree that’s due to human carbon pollution. All 10 of the world’s hottest years have occurred since 1998.
By standing by his statements, Pompeo is signalling that climate change is unlikely to be a priority at the CIA if he’s confirmed. That could leave the CIA without crucial context as it evaluates threats around the world.
“Climate change has contributed to the emergence of civil war, refugee flows and other elements of instability,” Marc Levy, the deputy director of the Center for International Earth Science Information Network, told Climate Central last year.
Later in Thursday’s hearing, Harris pressed Pompeo on if he would accept the science of climate change when presented with evidence.
“Will you . . . defer to that evidence even if it requires you to change a previously held position that may have been politically helpful to you?” she asked.
“Senator, you have my commitment to that. I’m an engineer by training,” he replied. “Facts and data matter, and you have my assurance if I’m confirmed in my role as CIA director, I will look at the evidence and give a straight-up answer to you and all the policymakers to whom I have a responsibility.”
Politics is a battle of ideas; in the course of a healthy debate, we’ll prioritize different goals, and the different means of reaching them. But without some common baseline of facts; without a willingness to admit new information, and concede that your opponent is making a fair point, and that science and reason matter, we’ll keep talking past each other, making common ground and compromise impossible.
Isn’t that part of what makes politics so dispiriting? How can elected officials rage about deficits when we propose to spend money on preschool for kids, but not when we’re cutting taxes for corporations? How do we excuse ethical lapses in our own party, but pounce when the other party does the same thing? It’s not just dishonest, this selective sorting of the facts; it’s self-defeating. Because as my mother used to tell me, reality has a way of catching up with you.
Take the challenge of climate change. In just eight years, we’ve halved our dependence on foreign oil, doubled our renewable energy, and led the world to an agreement that has the promise to save this planet. But without bolder action, our children won’t have time to debate the existence of climate change; they’ll be busy dealing with its effects: environmental disasters, economic disruptions, and waves of climate refugees seeking sanctuary.
Now, we can and should argue about the best approach to the problem. But to simply deny the problem not only betrays future generations; it betrays the essential spirit of innovation and practical problem-solving that guided our Founders.
– Barack Obama, Farewell address, 1/10/17
As progressives lament the impending inauguration of an administration that rejects the idea of human-caused climate change, a newly launched group says we should stop holding our breath waiting for politicians to embrace science. Instead, scientists should become politicians themselves.
The group—named 314 Action after the first three digits of the number pi—has a mission to encourage politically engaged scientists to run for office at all levels of government, to connect them with traditional sources of campaign funding, and to get as many scientists elected during the 2018 campaign cycle as possible. The hope is that with more politician scientists speaking sense on issues such as climate change, they will serve as a counterbalance to the anti-science policies that have arisen mainly on the right.
“Running for Congress in 2014 as a chemist and a breast cancer researcher, I felt like I was locked out of a lot of the traditional networks of Democratic donors,” Shaughnessy Naughton, the board president of 314 Action, told me. “It’s a hinderance for people coming from nontraditional political backgrounds.”
The last literate President?
In Science’s Policy Forum column, President Barack Obama has penned an article arguing that the world is quickly replacing fossil fuel-based energy with clean energy. That momentum, he asserts, will not be stopped by “near-term” policy changes from Donald Trump’s incoming administration.
The current president writes that, although climate change is undeniable, the incoming administration might do nothing about it. That would be a political mistake, but it might not effect on the economics of clean energy, Obama argues. “Mounting economic and scientific evidence leave me confident that trends toward a clean-energy economy that have emerged during my presidency will continue,” he wrote, adding that “the trend toward clean energy is irreversible.”
Barack Obama in Science (paywalled):
Perhaps the most compelling example is energy efficiency. Government has played a role in encouraging this kind of investment and innovation: My Administration has put in place (i) fuel economy standards that are net beneficial and are projected to cut more than 8 billion tons of carbon pol- lution over the lifetime of new vehicles sold between 2012 and 2029 (10) and (ii) 44 appliance standards and new building codes that are projected to cut 2.4 billion tons of carbon pollution and save $550 billion for consumers by 2030 (11).
But ultimately, these investments are being made by firms that decide to cut their energy waste in order to save money and invest in other areas of their businesses. For example, Alcoa has set a goal of reducing its GHG intensity 30% by 2020 from its 2005 baseline, and General Motors is working to reduce its energy intensity from facilities by 20% from its 2011 baseline over the same timeframe (12). In- vestments like these are contributing to what we are seeing take place across the economy: Total energy consumption in 2015 was 2.5% lower than it was in 2008, whereas the econ- omy was 10% larger (2).
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Continue reading “Obama’s Parting Words on Climate and Energy”
The dangers of appointing sentient beings.
During the presidential campaign, Donald Trump dismissed the risk man-made climate change poses to society, saying in March, “we have much bigger risks” facing the country.
But the president-elect’s choice to head the US Securities and Exchange Commission, attorney Jay Clayton, has done just the opposite, advising companies to come clean to investors about the risk that severe weather and other consequences of climate change will have on their bottom lines.
Last week, Trump announced he will nominate Clayton to chair the federal agency tasked with enforcing the nation’s securities laws.
“Jay Clayton is a highly talented expert on many aspects of financial and regulatory law, and he will ensure our financial institutions can thrive and create jobs while playing by the rules at the same time,” Trump said in a statement. “We need to undo many regulations which have stifled investment in American businesses, and restore oversight of the financial industry in a way that does not harm American workers.”
For at least the past six years, Clayton’s law firm, Sullivan & Cromwell, has advised businesses to disclose the “impacts of climate change” in documents they file with the SEC, according to a 2010 memo. The law firm listed Clayton as one of handful of attorneys that clients can turn to for advice on climate disclosure.
Continue reading “Trump Appointee Warned of Climate Impacts”
