Our Climate Future

I am fortunate enough to have a more or less monthly column in my local newspaper, the Morgan Hill Times. In a Green Talk submitted for publication on Nov. 30, I explain why I see the future of climate action to be at the local level, since Tea Party backed Republicans are pledged to ignore reality in favor of a near religious zeal to destroy all environmental controls that impinge on either personal or corporate freedom to screw the rest of us. Click Read more! for full column. In my previous column, I asked our three mayoral candidates to answer a few questions regarding their attitudes about climate change. On the basis of those answers, I came to the conclusion that only one, Steve Tate, was perceptive enough to deserve my vote. Even if your reasons were not the same as mine, thankfully enough of you agreed on that choice to re-elect Mayor Tate.

Yet, this goes against the prevailing voter response for most of America. In state after state, voters have elected champions of small government, free enterprise, reduced taxes and no regulation of business, backed by a loose coalition of organizations known collectively as the Tea Party. Almost universally, they echo the refrain that climate change is a hoax, isn't happening or could not possibly be caused by human activity. After all, we are too intelligent to do something like that... or are we?

Maybe the most extreme is Illinois Representative John Shimkus. His position is one of Biblical faith holding fast to the promise of Exodus where God told Noah that he would not destroy the earth again. The Bible says nothing about God preventing man from doing the job himself.

I would not be concerned about the Rep. Shimkus were it not for the fact that he could become the next Chairman of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce. If he gains that position, he will the ability to shape energy policies for all of us, determining which bills will come up for a vote and on what schedule. In that position, he would be dangerous.

It would seem that all of the Tea Party is following the scientific thinking of Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh and Sarah Palin, a trio of media personalities who will say anything to make sure that Obama will be a one term president. It has come to the point where Limbaugh has aimed his rant at Motor Trend Magazine for daring to name the Chevrolet Volt as their Car of the Year. Any deviation from the orthodoxy of revealed truth can not be tolerated.

If the Volt can be named car of the year, then you might have to agree with at least some of what the Obama administration is attempting to do and that can not be allowed. Motor Trend has even responded with the reminder that “driving and Oxycontin don’t mix.”

It does not take much effort to understand that the great hoax is really being perpetrated by those often labeled as climate deniers. Even when they do find errors in any of the science, the correction of those errors has only served to strengthen that case for climate change. When they proudly proclaim that the Arctic Sea Ice is expanding again, they fail to note that it is also thinning, having less “old ice” or volume than ever before. When emails between scientists were hacked and then leaked last year, the further investigation has shown that it was all much ado about little; that the claims of the deniers that the were proof of some perfidy were as bogus the various lists of names of scientists who supposedly oppose the idea that human activity is changing the climate. (Many of the names on that list were already dead before the list was first published, almost all of the others had never given their permission for that use of their names. Yet still, Sen. Inhofe has continued to publish it at government expense.

While Inhofe, Shimkus and their minions are all set to determine climate policy for this country, the Chinese have a different goal. They are investing heavily in Green Energy, even to produce the same forms of electric cars that Limbaugh feels in Un-American and the first step to something that he calls Socialism.

Which brings me back to the rational for why I made it into a local election issue. If the leadership of the Republican Party, especially those with Tea Party backing, have decided that rationality has no place in national policy decisions, then the future depends on what we do here, in California, in Morgan Hill. Make of it what you will.

Green Talk on Climate Change

The following is my latest submission as the Green Talk Column in the Morgan Hill Times (publication date 10/27/09). Tomorrow is an international day of action for climate change. This post explains why I think we are losing the battle for the minds of America.

Click on Read more! for the entire OpEd.


Two events this week prompted me to return to the subject of climate change. The first that I became aware of is the fact that the heads of 18 leading scientific organizations sent a letter to each of the United States Senators urging them to take significant action regarding climate change. While the entire letter can be read on-line from the American Association for the Advancement of Science, it is worth quoting from that letter.

“Observations throughout the world make it clear that climate change is occurring, and rigorous scientific research demonstrates that the greenhouse gases emitted by human activities are the primary driver. These conclusions are based on multiple independent lines of evidence, and contrary assertions are inconsistent with an objective assessment of the vast body of peer-reviewed science.”

The make it very clear that there is no doubt about what is currently happening and the conclusions regarding what will happen are unavoidable.

Almost concurrently, the Pew Center for Research released the results of a survey that show a declining percentage of the public who believe that climate change is happening, or that it is in any way connected to human activity. They summarize it as follows:

“The latest national survey by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, conducted Sept. 30-Oct. 4 among 1,500 adults reached on cell phones and landlines, finds that 57% think there is solid evidence that the average temperature on earth has been getting warmer over the past few decades. In April 2008, 71% said there was solid evidence of rising global temperatures.

Over the same period, there has been a comparable decline in the proportion of Americans who say global temperatures are rising as a result of human activity, such as burning fossil fuels. Just 36% say that currently, down from 47% last year.”

You begin to wonder what factors are at play when the scientific opinion is becoming increasingly certain and the public opinion is becoming less so. Conjecture on this question is now a popular blogging topic. Many rationales are given and most of them are too simplistic to be the whole story.

To begin with, these are times when our current economic problems have people fearful of their own future. Those who stand to gain by not doing anything about climate change were quick to play on these fears, making the connection between regulation of industry to prevent climate catastrophe and the loss of the very jobs that people are fearful of losing to begin with.

It was most clearly stated an OpEd by Don Blankenship, CEO of Massey Energy, a large coal mining company.

“Many times I’ve sat in meetings with executives who admit privately they doubt the certainty of the science behind global warming claims. And they acknowledge that global warming legislation will have a devastating effect on their companies in the form of lost jobs and lower output.”

It is very clear that one of the companies most affected would be Blankenship's. The OpEd was published in The Hill where every Washington insider would be sure to see it.

Those journalists whom one hopes would lead us to a version of the truth have put on ideological blinders and proceeded to publish erroneous information again and again. Writers like George Will will misquote sources and cherry-pick data to justify their false conclusions that nothing really bad is happening. In Will's case, it is especially troubling in that he steadfastly refuses to acknowledge his errors to the point where other Washington Post writers have had to apologize for him.

Professional rabble-rousers like Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh have a great reach into the minds of those who will not look at the data for themselves. When NY Times, reporter Andrew Revkin suggested that there was a link between population and energy use... and therefore climate change, Limbaugh suggested that Revkin solve the problem by killing himself. Beck makes light of the issue, equating the weather today with the functioning of climate over decades and playing to his audience with statements like “The earth and the environment are the progressive replacement for God...” Would we be the people about whom it was said “In as much as Ye Have Done It unto One of the Least of These..."

We are all in this together. That is why I talk of ecology rather than the environment. We have learned to apply systems thinking to the management of our businesses. Why have we not taken the next step to apply similar systems thinking to the way we live; not alone but in communities; not just communities of people but communities of other living things.

I don't know how many of you have visited the magnificent groves of sequoias that we have. Their fate, locked as they are into micro-climates along the Sierras, is in our hands. I don't know how many are still around who fought in Vietnam, but that country's fate is also in our hands as the most productive agricultural regions, the Mekong Delta will be inundated and tens of millions of people will need to find new homes. I don't know how many of you follow the California water crisis. But here again, for all the special sessions of our legislature, they have not even begun to deal with the fact that those famous pumps will eventually be pumping salt water.

Do we care so little about this world that we would would risk it all on the words of Don Blankenship, Glen Beck or Rush Limbaugh?

More Van Jones info

When I first went through the list of "fans" of Draft Van Jones at facebook, I saw mainly the familiar names that I would have expected. Today, I saw another name that I did not expect but it does give me hope. That name is Kelpie Wilson. Not only did she list her name as a fan, she also wrote a great post on her own web site: Thomas Paine Would Have Loved Van Jones.

Not only does Wilson defend Jones, she takes a hammer to the convoluted illogic of Glen Beck.

They say Van Jones is a Marxist, anarchist, Communist, socialist revolutionary. Now, we are getting closer to the real grip Beck and company have on this country and the president as well. McCarthyism has never been far from the skirmish line in post WWII American politics. McCarthyism is based on a string of lies that tie Stalinism to Marxist theory, to socialism, to the labor movement and, finally, to modern liberals. It's like saying all Christians are torturers and pedophiles because the church burned women at the stake, tortured heretics and harbored child-abusing priests.

We need a new Murrow, but it is easier to expose a politician than to have the courage to expose the rants of a new McCarthy embedded in the media.

Your assignment, if you choose to accept it, is to get 10 more people to become Fans of Draft Van Jones... today. Then go read some more of Kelpie Wilson. You won't be sorry that you did.