Good job, Jake.
For future reference, don’t back down on the “raise rates” BS.
Wind and Solar are currently the cheapest new resources for electricity, without subsidy, in most parts of the country.
Below, a forecaster for a major midwest utility talks about modeling future energy price and demand for customers, and how renewables consistently come out on top in projections.
Researching this topic right now – tough to understand, much less explain, but this video goes a long way, and I’ll be using this as a resource for the new Yale video I’m jamming on this week.
Below, compare current jet (6/22/19) with above vid, and Mike Mann’s diagram in Scientific American.
Clarifying moment, if we needed another one.
These folks are not interested in rule of law.
What they can’t win by suppressing voting and gerrymandering, the fossil fuel industry will take by force. It’s a sign that they know they’re losing, but also more evidence for who they really are.
Not a coincidence that while Putin cultivates neo-Nazi groups around the world, Donald Trump, the Koch Brothers, and the science denying Republican Party cultivate equally obnoxious allies.
Oregon is an ongoing case study.
Republican legislators have threatened to kill law officers if they are sent to escort them to the Capitol to do their jobs.
Continue reading “Credible Threat: Militia Groups Become the Armed Wing for Climate Deniers”Oregon Senate Democrats hastily cancelled a planned Saturday floor session late Friday afternoon, citing reports that right-wing militia members were planning to rally at the Capitol.
Sen. Elizabeth Steiner Hayward (D-Portland) posted on social media a text message from Senate leadership, stating that the Saturday session was cancelled.
“The State Police Superintendent just informed the Senate President of a credible threat from militia groups coming to the Capitol tomorrow,” the message says. “The Superintendent strongly recommends that no one come to the Capitol and President [Peter] Courtney heeded that advice minutes ago.”
Courtney’s office confirmed to WW that police had informed him of a threat.
“The Oregon State Police have advised us that there might be a militia threat tomorrow, so the Capitol building will be closed,” said Carol Alice McCurrie, Courtney’s communications director. “We don’t have any details beyond that one.”
The cancellation comes on the heels of right-wing militia members offering armed protection to Republican Senators who have denied Democrats a quorum by disappearing, probably across the Oregon border into Idaho.
Republicans left the Capitol on Wednesday, trying to block the passage of a cap on carbon emissions. Sen. Brian Boquist (R-Dallas) implied that he would shoot and kill any Oregon State Police officer sent by the governor to retrieve him.
That outburst seemed to embolden right-wing militia groups, which pledged Thursday to protect the Senate Republicans while they fled the Capitol. Those groups included members of the Three Percenters, an anti-government militia.
Senate Republicans repudiated that offer Friday morning.
It was not immediately clear this afternoon what rally was considered “a credible threat.” Freelance journalist Dick Hughes reported from Salem that the Marion County Republicans planned to occupy the Capitol building Saturday.
Senate President Peter Courtney (D-Salem) and House Speaker Tina Kotek (D-Portland) issued a late Friday afternoon statement condemning Boquist’s remarks.
“Law enforcement officers put their lives on the line every day in the name of protecting Oregonians and should never be subject to these kinds of threats, let alone from a public official,” Kotek and Courtney wrote. “His comments have created fear among employees in our workplace. We will always defend free speech and welcome frank policy discussions, but threats like these are unacceptable.”
It’s a mistake to believe everything can be explained by a grand conspiracy.
It’s also a mistake to believe that powerful people do not make alliances to further their interests.
The most powerful, and well-networked people on earth are in the fossil fuel industry, and their desire to remove all constraints on their power is the story of our time.
Continue reading “The Intricate Network: Climate Deniers, Neo-Nazis, Brexiteers”New evidence reveals how a tightly concentrated global network of politicians and corporations with close ties to the Trump administration is working on behalf of powerful US fossil fuel interests in Britain and Europe.
Several candidates who were in the running to become the next British Prime Minister — Boris Johnson, Jeremy Hunt, Dominic Raab, Michael Gove, Andrea Leadsom, and Steve Baker — are part of this pro-Trump network.
The evidence comes thanks to a network map produced by independent investigative media outlet DeSmog UK, exposing for the first time the astonishing array of connections between President Donald Trump, right-wing lobbies in the US, and far-right parties in the UK and Europe.
Published after a leaked recording showed US secretary of state Mike Pompeo threatening to interfere in British democracy to block opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn, the map unveils the extent to which US corporate lobbies with a direct line to senior Trump officials are backing both mainstream British politicians and European far-right extremists.
The map released by DeSmog UK exposes how UK Conservative politicians competing for leadership of the party — and of the country — are embedded in a Trumpist lobbying network with funding from US oil and gas companies.
The connections go through a nexus of hardline pro-Brexit lobbying groups campaigning for the break-up of the EU, concentrated around a single, unremarkable-looking road in London, Tufton Street. The Tufton Street network not only works closely with well-known British politicians, it also has extensive ties to far-right parties in Europe with roots in neo-Nazism, from the Sweden Democrats to the Brothers of Italy. Tufton Street groups have received $5.6 million from anonymous US donors since 2008.
The network map uncovers how this nexus of British groups around Tufton Street is being used, through funding and personnel, by the Atlas Network, a neoconservative non-profit based in Washington DC. Funded by the Kochs, Exxon and other fossil fuel giants, Atlas’ main London partner is the Institute for Economic Affairs (IEA), which has lobbied key UK government ministers including several competing to become the next prime minister.
Working on a new jet stream explainer that I hope will be ready soon. Have chatted with Mike Mann, Jennifer Francis, and others.
Meanwhile,..
Michael Mann in Scientific American:
During the extreme events I noted, the jet stream acted strangely. The bends went exceptionally far north and south, and they stalled—they did not progress eastward. The larger these bends, the more punishing the weather gets near the northern peak and southern trough. And when they stall—as they did over the U.S. in the summer of 2018—those regions can receive heavy rain day after day or get baked by the sun day after day. Record floods, droughts, heat waves and wild fires occur.
My collaborators and I have recently shown that these highly curved, stalled wave patterns have become more common because of global warming, boosting extreme weather. But we predict that the rising severity may level off for the next several decades. That may sound strangely “good”—the bad spells will continue, but at least they will not get worse. We also predict that the extreme events will start becoming much more severe, beginning around 2050 or so—particularly in summer. Threats to people’s health and safety will increase, storm damage will get more extensive and crops needed to feed a rising population will be ruined.
How do we know? Wave mathematics and quantum mechan- ics tell us. Yes—the mathematics that characterize the behavior of electrons at the smallest scale help us describe the behavior of our atmosphere at global scales. They indicate that the rise in dangerous weather, the coming plateau and the subsequent surge are driven by a curious trade-off between greenhouse gas concentrations from fossil-fuel burning and sulfur pollution from industrial smokestacks. And that trade-o raises the question of whether cutting emissions will prevent the jet stream from wreaking havoc.
As more and more Republicans dare to admit the obvious, that climate change is happening, we hear assurances that we’re simply going to “adapt”.
One adaptation often suggested is to “be more like Holland”, build dykes and seawalls, and, poof, no more problem. Next time you hear that from your GOP rep, ask him how exactly the “free market” economy is going to finance those sea walls.
Another example of privatized profit and socialized risk. You’ll pay for all of this.
Extreme weather events are becoming increasingly common in the United States with the National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration listing 14 separate billion-dollar incidents in 2018 alone. With coastal communities at high risk from rising sea levels and storms caused by global warming, a new report shows just how desperate the situation has become.
Even though estimates about rising sea levels vary, the Center for Climate Integrity has published an analysis which estimates that the U.S. will have to invest $416 billion in constructing seawalls between now and 2040. At state level, Florida is expected to have to spend $76 billion on seawalls over the next two decades with while Louisiana will have the second-highest bill at $38 billion.
When it comes to the cities at the greatest risk, Jacksonville in Florida will have to spend $3.5 billion improving its storm-surge defenses while New York will have a $2 billion outlay and Virginia is expected to pay $1.7 billion. Galveston in Texas will have the fourth highest bill of any city with $1.1 billion which equates to $21,282 for each of its residents.
That begs the question: who is going to pay for half a trillion dollars worth of seawalls? It quickly becomes obvious that most cities will have trouble paying, particularly considering Galveston’s hefty bill per inhabitant. That means many will have to turn to federal funding, with Staten Island setting a recent example. It is building a five-mile seawall which is supposed to withsand a 300-year storm. It is expected to cost $615 million with $400 million being covered by federal funding. Considering the devastating impact of Hurricane Sandy which caused 13 deaths and $19 billion in economic losses, an expensive but effective seawall can prove a wise long-term investment.
But seawalls don’t save Miami, because South Florida is built on porous limestone & the water just bubbles right up through it.
Watch this video
Tony Rice is justly famous for blazingly tasteful 6 string mastery, but he shines on this soft ballad.
For an example of the fiery stuff, see below.
Continue reading “Music Break: Tony Rice – Streets of London”Above, John Fabian, a farmer from Rosebush, Michigan, makes a heartfelt plea to the Isabella County Board to approve the state’s largest wind farm.
As you’ll hear, his words are heartfelt, and grounded in harsh personal experience of the cost of wars for oil and energy.
Are we heading down that tragic and expensive road once again?
In the lead to the Iraq war, Americans were told war would be a “cake walk”.
Below, according to a Fox News talking head, a war would be just like a “video game”.
..is apparently no vice.
The message that the Fossil dominated Trump administration is sending to congress is that we, the instruments of the wealthy and powerful, are not subject to your puny laws and constitution.
In Oregon, a legislator takes it up another notch.
The current chaos in global politics is a direct outgrowth of the fossil fuel industry seeking to prolong its destructive reign of greed, from Texas to Moscow.
Oregon is poised to become the second US state after California to impose a cap and trade program aimed at reducing industrial carbon emissions.
But ahead of a vote on the legislation Thursday, all 12 Republican state senators fled the capitol in a bid to delay the process. Several claimed to have left the state, beyond the reach of state troopers dispatched by the governor in order to get the legislative session back on track.
Senate Republican leader Herman Baertschiger Jr wrote in a statement that the walk-out was “exactly how we should be doing our job”. In a speech on the Senate floor, a visibly frustrated Senate president Peter Courtney begged his colleagues to return. “This is the saddest day of my legislative life,” he said.
If passed into law, the clean energy jobs bill would place a cap on emissions from power, transportation and other industries in the state, and establish a system to auction and trade them.
The program would begin in 2021, with the goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions to 45% of 1990 carbon levels by 2035, and 20% of 1990 levels by 2050.
Continue reading “Extremism in the Defense of Big Fossil…”Tensions were already smoldering in the Oregon Senate Wednesday, when Sen. Brian Boquist, R-Dallas, poured gasoline on the situation, suggesting he would shoot and potentially kill any state trooper sent to haul him unwillingly back to the Capitol.
After Senate Republican Leader Herman Baertschiger Jr. said Tuesday that his caucus was “prepared to take actions” to prevent passage of a major climate change bill, Gov. Brown announced on Wednesday that she was ready to answer Republican stonewalling by calling lawmakers back for a special session.
Brown hinted that she would be willing to send state troopers to round up Republicans if they walk out in the final days of the regular legislative session, saying in a statement that she is “in close communication with Oregon State Police.” That’s an option Democratic senators and the governor did not use earlier this year, when Senate Republicans first brought the Senate to a standstill by walking out and preventing the necessary quorum.
The governor’s hint that she would consider sending troopers in the event of a second walkout triggered an aggressive response from Boquist, which was captured by a KGW news team at the Capitol.
“This is what I told the superintendent,” Boquist said, referring to OSP Superintendent Travis Hampton. “Send bachelors and come heavily armed. I’m not going to be a political prisoner in the state of Oregon. It’s just that simple.”
A spokeswoman for the Oregon State Police did not respond to an inquiry Wednesday afternoon about whether the agency is investigating Boquist’s threat. Baertschiger’s spokeswoman also did not respond to a request for comment. Senate President Peter Courtney’s spokeswoman said she might have a comment, but had not responded by 6 p.m.
