Open Left - global warming

Tell Obama: We need a strong climate bill

daveschwab — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 21:14:48 GMT

Recently, world leaders announced some deeply disturbing news: they gave up on reaching a binding climate deal at the upcoming Copenhagen conference. [1]

A major impediment was the refusal of President Obama and Congress to enact tough cuts in greenhouse gas emissions.

We've got to turn that around. Immediately.

Tell Obama and Congress to commit to a 40% reduction in greenhouse gases below 1990 levels by 2020.

Right now, the most ambitious target that Obama has endorsed is a 3.5% reduction in emissions by 2020. [2]

That's pathetic, compared to the 25-40% reduction that we need to have a 50:50 chance of avoiding disastrous runaway global heating, according to the International Panel on Climate Change. [3]

The United States ought to lead by example. We can do it with strong emission reductions.

Tell Obama and your Members of Congress to commit to tough emissions reductions today.

Climate Change Deniers' Smear Campaigns Exposed

jamesboyce — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 19:32:11 GMT

With all due respect to Don Draper sometimes the best way to sell a message isn't a clever campaign but the truth. A recently exposed whopper conjured up by climate change deniers highlights exactly what is behind the fight against climate change solutions: lies. The site Fight Clean Energy Smears has been tracking the attempts by a very small minority of deniers out there who are using, quite simply, lies to protect their interest in the status quo
In this vain attempt, a small group of Heartland Institute enthusiasts petitioned the American Physical Society's stance on acknowledging global warming and the causal links of human activity. The 206 signatures on the petition challenged the 47,000 member strong stance on the merits of scientific fact. Now the funny part... Not only did the APS reject this lame attempt at spreading propaganda, but it issued a 128-page report debunking the science, exposing the petitioners qualifications, diagramming the how the "gaggle is not a consensus" group try to distort the truth of science.

When is enough going to be enough with this type of public distraction. This is not a trial of public opinion. And if it were Mother Nature would have all the expert witnesses on her side saying, "Global warming exists and it is caused by human activity". End of story.

Truth in advertising is usually the domain of the Better Business Bureau, but one of the Smears of the Week comes straight from the Edward Bernays playbook on manipulating public opinion. A Washington Post ad taken out by the oil funded Citizensenergy.org group claimed that the Kerry-Boxer Bill on climate change will cause the loss of 2-million jobs. Fear monger! The source of their research - studies by the climate change denier National Association of Manufactures and the Exxon funded American Council for Capital Formation. Fortunately, a group with more legitimate research credentials known as The University of California, Berkley produced a study showing conclusive data that adopting clean energy and climate legislation could produce 1.9-million jobs.

It is so concerning that in an age where infinite information lays at our finger tips, there are still such a tolerance for purveyors of lies and deceit. These are not even the elaborate concoctions from Lost writers. They are just plain ole' "tell the opposite of the truth and hope nobody fact checks" lies. Climate change is real and without action it will continue to have serious consequences on humanity. Yes - our very existence is riding on the truth that science has unequivocally provided. There is no need for doomsday fear mongering. Facts are facts. The good news is there is hope. There is hope the climate bill will pass. There is hope that the economy will recover on the back of new jobs provided in the clean energy sector. And there is hope that smear campaigns will be abandoned.

If you come across smears denying climate change exists or its connection with human activity expose it. Post it to Fight Clean Energy Smears and we can end the nonsense and get to the real work of solutions.

Vice Admiral Dennis McGinn (Ret) On Global Warming & National Security--An Open Left Interview

Paul Rosenberg — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 18:00:43 GMT

This past week, the Senate Environment & Public Works Committee held three days of hearings on global warming (Day 1,
Day 2, Day 3), with a wide range of panels. While much of the testimony was simply an advancement of lines of debate that have been heard for over a decade, there were some relatively new developments, particularly in two panels on Wednesday
, one dealing with adaptive strategies and thinking, the other dealing with the national security implications of global warming. Arguably the most compelling and knowledgeable testimony and followup comments on the national security panel came from Vice Admiral Dennis McGinn (Ret) (written testimony here), who has twice served on the Military Advisory Boards for the reports on global warming from the Center for Naval Analysis.

In his testimony, Admiral McGinn stated:

We are just beginning to emerge from one of the most serious global financial crises of our lifetimes. This understandably focuses our attention on near term fiscal issues. However, after several years of examining climate change and the United States' energy use, it is clear to our Military Advisory Board that our economic, energy, climate change and national security challenges are inextricably linked. And it is also clear that our past pattern of energy use is responsible, in a significant way, for our economic situation today. For these reasons, we must take a long range, comprehensive view to develop effective national policies and make real and positive changes to the ways in which we power America. A business as usual approach, continued over reliance on fossil fuels, or small, incremental steps, simply will not create the kind of future security and prosperity that the American people and our great Nation deserve. The time to act, and act boldly, is now.

I interviewed Admiral McGinn on Friday, in order to get a better understanding of how the military has come to see global warming as a major national security concern, and what we all can learn from their perspective. The complete interview transcript is on the flip.
Open Left: I first want to ask a few questions about the long-term background of how you came to testify. So let me take a moment to frame this, to make my questions more clear in context, and you can feel free to roam once it's laid out.

The issue of global warming began to emerge almost simultaneously with the end of the Cold War, and there were some environmentalists who early on made the connection that this was our next great national security challenge. But it's one thing for environmentalists to see things this way. It's quite another for military leaders themselves to reach a similar conclusion-and to speak out about it.

In your testimony, you said that the board you sit on found that "our economic, energy, climate change and national security challenges are inextricably linked."

Can you tell me how you first came to see global warming as a national security threat, how this awareness has spread throughout the military community, how the awareness has changed or evolved over time?

Take those one at a time. First, how you first came to see global warming as a national security threat?

Vice Admiral Dennis McGinn: Sure. I and the other 11 members of the Military Advisory Board all came from different backgrounds, all four services, literally centuries total of service in uniform in combat, war, peace, etc. and we came from these diverse backgrounds together with the common experience [interruption]

We came from four different services, all different backgrounds, specialties in the service, so we all had a common culture, if you will, of being able to deal with somewhat ambiguous information form time to time, and be able to come to some conclusions to take prudent actions, based on indicators, trends and warnings.

And during the course of probably 15 or 16 months of study, preceding both military advisory reports, we were exposed to a tremendous amount of material, written material, experts, economists, climate scientists, folks form politics, environmental community, a very broad and diverse background. Technical folks, people from energy industry, etc.

And basically came to the conclusion and consensus depicted in the two reports.

The one in 2007, called "Climate Change and the Threat to National Security," and then the one in May of 2009, just this year, called "Powering America's Defense: Energy and the Risks to National Security." So it wasn't any "Aha!" moment. This understanding occured over time. It was, particukarly in the case of the second report, in the context of the global recession. That's why we realy had to consider how did the economy relate to the challenges of energy security and climate change as they related to national security....

"To the extent that we can, we prevent the effects of climate change. But where we can't prevent, where things are in that way, we have to mitigate them, where we can neither prevent nor mitigate we have to adapt to them. And the sooner start doing this, the more options you have available, and the less expensive those options are. And I think that's right in the military principle, that guiding military principle of avoiding harms way whenever you can. Take prudent measures now, so that you don't have to take extraordinary measures later on, just to be able to survive."

OL: How about before that, before you came to serve on the board? Had you thought about this at all before then? Was it something you had thought of but hadn't focused on?

VADM McGinn: Well, Personally, I have been concerned about the link between energy and national security for literally decades. I remember as a young Lt., in the Navy during the 1970s oil embargo, you know, the lines at gas stations, shortages, I really made the connection, you know energy is so critical to our national security not just in the military sense, but in an economic and a quality of life sense, that we really need to be taking a look at how we go about getting energy, and I've always been concerned about the progress that we were making, or lack of progress, in achieving some sense of robustness or flexibility to not be dependent on foreign oil, especially.

So, I had a chance in, oh gosh, 1990-91, to be on a Chief of Naval Operations strategic studies group for a year. We talked to a lot of smart people there, the Chief of Naval Operations at the time said, "Hey, I want you to take a look at the future security environment out 20 years, and tell me what the trends are. And take a look at not just economy politics and diplomacy, and the military aspects of national security, but look at environment, look at religions, look at technology, just as broad a swath as you can possibly come up with. And that also exposed me personally to a lot of smart people. I learned a lot more about energy, the environment and other factors that were kind of non-traditional, if you will, when you normally think about military strategy.

After that, as more and more was written, I was pretty much focused on national security. And energy, but as more and more was written from fairly credible sources about global warming, I started to take a harder look at that.

Initially, when I first heard about it, I said, "Gee, that's..." I was very skeptical of it. I just thought, you know, you take a look at what inputs into the air in terms of greenhouse gases, carbon or whatever, it just really doesn't make sense. Then I started looking at data, and started considering that world population, and the per-capita use of fossil fuel is just going up enormously, and I was able to visit with a bunch of scientists, analysts, and had some interactions with colleagues at the Joint Global Change Research Institute at the University of Maryland, associated with Pacific Northwest National Lab. And I really took a look at some of the models they were using. Took a look at the IPCC report, talked with people that were associated with National Academy, and I just came to the conclusion that this is real. And while we may not know precisely in terms of effect, how it was going to affect our national security, it was going to have an effect on our national security. So that's how I personally came to where I am now.

"I think the approach has to be one of recognizing that there is this inextricable link between the economy, energy and climate change, and security, and to recognize that you have a large complex problem, it requires large complex solutions. You can't just incrementally do this."

OL: Next, how this awareness has spread through the military community?

VADM McGinn:It has in many different ways. Informally, people in the military are pretty smart and well-read, for the most part. As the subjects of energy security and climate change have been more and more widely reported, they just started to question on an individual basis how it affects their mission.

Institutionally, there've been a couple of key catalysts.

One was in the 2008 Defense Authorization Act. The Department of Defense-and by extension the services-were directed to take a look at the effects of climate change and energy security onroles, missions and installations. And that process is under way. The Quadrennial Defense Report will be delivered to Congress by the Secretary of Defense, probably in February of next year. And that has caused a lot of formal internal analyses, and discussions and that has thrown off a whole bunch of better understanding, institutionally by the services and various agencies in the DOD.

The other factor, though goes to the business of national security and energy. 2008 was an unbelievable year for defense budgets, for example, well, for family budgets. For the United States economy Because we saw oil spiking as high as $140 a barrel. We spent, I think it was $386 billion went out of our economy for oil to be imported into the country. Every time oil goes up by 10 bucks a barrel, it costs DOD anywhere between $1.5 and $2 billion, for every $10 increase. So you can imagine the terrible effect that had on DOD and service budgets that were trying to execute during the year.

This has been something that, the Department of Defense and the services have trying to deal with: "What can we do to try to be more energy efficient? Because it costs less to save energy and to do other things." So people really got it in terms of national security and energy security. As I said, as the climate change factor came in and people saw the ways in which we see energy security, that level of sophistication is rapidly growing now.

"I think the clock is running on climate change. The clock is running as the energy supply demand curve will get more and more divergent. As I say in my testimony as well. You know, when the recession's hopefully beginning to end, and when we start getting really recovered, we're going to be subject to very. very high volatility of fossil fuel prices. It's going to go inexorably up."

OL: Finally, how the awareness has changed or evolved over time? You've touched on that somewhat, but if there's anything more you'd like to add to that.

VADM McGinn: I think it's really come very, very rapidly along this overall awareness as individuals in the national security community, and the institutions, the services, the agencies, have really, really come along. I think the latest two IPCC roports were pretty definitive. People looking at things like the National Intelligence Assessment by the CIA last year, which used a lot of the work that we had done in 2007 and 2009, in the Military Board reports, [from] CNA. I think that the overall debate in Congress has really raised awareness.

A couple of examples of how far we need to go, I would cite two conferences. One held in August convened by Commandant of the Marine Corps, General James Conway, was called the "US Marine Corps Energy Summit". And said, 'Hey look, we're in a place like Afghanistan, we have to lighten the load on our expeditionary forces. We are having to truck in so much fuel, water, and other critical supplies, but mostly fuel and water, we've got to take a different look at how we can reduce that load so that we can be more flexible, more combat effective, and less vulnerable to attacks on our convoys.'

He actually deployed energy audit teams over to the combat theater of operations and they're reporting back, and those reports are being analyzed and acted on, by the Marine Corps, ways that they can reduce some of that load on the expeditionary force of fuel and water.

The other conference I would cite was on the 14th and 15th of this month, the Department of the Navy held the Department of the Navy.. Naval Energy Forum. The commandant of the Marine Corp, Jim Conway, the CNO Chief of Naval Operations, Gary Roughead, and Secretary of Navy, Secretary Ray Mabus all gave terrific speeches in which they talked about the role and missions of the Navy and Marine Corps. In the context of energy security and climate change. In fact, I'd recommend the Secretary of the Navy's speech to you, as citing some very explicit and far-reaching goals for the Department of the Navy that are going to happen over the next ten years..

"At what point does the pain get so bad that we have to do something about it? What I'm saying is that if we act boldly now and take large measures, because we recognize it's a very complex problem, and it's a large problem, it's getting worse every year we delay action. If we do things now, we can look back in ten years or twenty years and say, 'Boy, are we ever glad we did that.'"

OL: It's long been a precept that the best battle or the best war is one you don't have to fight in order to win. I believe that goes all the way back to Sun Tzu, if not farther, who said something about that. To what extent is that sort of thinking involved in military thinking about global warming and its threat multiplier aspect?

VADM McGinn: That's a great insight you have, and I agree with it entirely. It's a big driver. To the extent that we can, we prevent the effects of climate change. But where we can't prevent, where things are in that way, we have to mitigate them, where we can neither prevent nor mitigate we have to adapt to them. And the sooner start doing this, the more options you have available, and the less expensive those options are. And I think that's right in the military principle, that guiding military principle of avoiding harms way whenever you can. Take prudent measures now, so that you don't have to take extraordinary measures later on, just to be able to survive.

OL: In your testimony, you went on to say, "A business as usual approach, continued over reliance on fossil fuels, or small, incremental steps, simply will not create the kind of future security and prosperity that the American people and our great Nation deserve. The time to act, and act boldly, is now."

The tendency in Washington is to go the other way, to water things down in the name of "pragmatism". Do you see a danger in that? Is it really pragmatic? And-on the flip side-is there a particular significance and value in taking a national security perspective?

VADM McGinn: I'll answer the second one. I think the national security perspective is very, very powerful.

It has to be carefully considered by the folks in Washington, both in the Administration and on the Hill. Because, for years, for decades it seems to be the dialogue-I'll oversimplify this, but-between environmentalists on one side accusing big business of ruining the globe for our generation and future generations, to come. And on the other side the business community saying the environmentalists all have this idealistic world, but you can't do that, and simply forget about the economy, and our economy and how we achieve that.

And it's been this back and forth tension. So enter some folks with a perspective that considers both of those aspects, but adds to it the real dangers posed by a business-as-usual approach, in terms of both production of greenhouse gasses as well as continuing reliance on fossil fuels. So, I think the approach has to be one of recognizing that there is this inextricable link between the economy, energy and climate change, and security, and to recognize that you have a large complex problem, it requires large complex solutions. You can't just incrementally do this.

I think the clock is running on climate change. The clock is running as the energy supply demand curve will get more and more divergent. As I say in my testimony as well. You know, when the recession's hopefully beginning to end, and when we start getting really recovered, we're going to be subject to very. very high volatility of fossil fuel prices. It's going to go inexorably up.

At what point does the pain get so bad that we have to do something about it. What I'm saying is that if we act boldly now and take large measures, because we recognize it's a very complex problem, and it's a large problem, it's getting worse every year we delay action.

If we do things now, we can look back in ten years or twenty years and say, 'Boy, are we ever glad we did that.'

We can do that now. We can look back at 1999, for example, or 1989, and say, 'If we had only done X, Y or Z we would be in so much better shape, from an overall national economy and national security perspective than we are now.' So that was the driving rational behind my statements that you read.

"I use the example of one of the minority witnesses and I testifying as a Navy Admiral and an Army general 100 years ago probably, we would be opposing the transition from sail to steam in the Navy and from horses in the cavalry.in the Army to the internal combustion engines. But never-the-less we were able to do that. Thank goodness we were. Were at a similar point now."

OL: One of the minority witnesses in your panel argued the opposite perspective, saying that long-term projections were uncertain, so we should focus on short-term approaches instead, leading back to an argument for the dominance of cost-benefit analyses. What would you say in response to that?

VADM McGinn: I would say that if you take a short term view and there are problems that have long-term consequences, you're going to have to face them sooner or later. You can't simply confine your time horizon

This goes right to the heart of the military planning process. We build ships, for example, that are intended to be around 40 or 50 years, you know, combat vehicles, airplanes that last for decades. We have to be anticipating namy many years out in the future. And to the extent that we can help shape that future security environment, by prudent measures now-and it isn't simply short-term cost-benefit analysis to solutions, we need to apply cost-benefit and risk to it, but the time horizon can't be confined to the next fiscal year, or even five years. We have to think beyond that, because it takes a long time to change.

We did not get in this position of fuel dependence on fossil fuels and the amount of greenhouse gases that are being emitted overnight, and we're not going to get out of it [overnight]. But we have to dothings now with a far enough out time horizon that we recognize the things that we do now are going to have a substantially exponential positive or negative e4ffects up there in the future.

A good example of this would be oil drilling. Could we drill more oil domestically, off-shore and oil shale, what have you. Yep. we could do that. and it would require an investment of money, an investment of political capital, if you will. Cost to the environment, potentially, or risks certainly, if not costs. And, oh by the way, cost to extract oil from places that are harder, which is going to drive the price of the oil up. It's not free.

So, we could do that. And we'd be paying a tremendous opportunity cost for all the political capital, all of the money, all of the time and attention that we would be devoting to try to increase the runway a little bit for continued business as usual approach to reliance on.oil and fossil fuels. But eventually it's going to run out and what are we going to do then?

And what will we be wishing we had done when we reach that point of diminishing returns that we didn't do because of the opportunity cost of good old, just drill everywhere we can.

That is a short-term solution, Just drilling for more oil, domestically. It's very short term.

OL: Another minority witness argument centered around the need for jet fuel and other high-impact energy sources in order to maintain fighting capacity. As a civilian, this sounds like a very muddled argument, akin to confusing strategic and tactical thinking. But I'd like to know your opinion from a military perspective.

VADM McGinn:Well, we certainly rely heavily in the military on fossil fuel and on jet fuel, maybe, bunker fuel, etc. But once again, just like we have to consider overall in the nation, are we weeded to that forever? Is there a different way?

I use the example of one of the minority witnesses and I testifying as a Navy Admiral and an Army general 100 years ago probably, we would be opposing the transition from sail to steam in the Navy and from horses in the cavalry.in the Army to the internal combustion engines.

But never-the-less we were able to do that. Thank goodness we were. Were at a similar point now, where we can't say with any ;level of confidence, 'gee, there's always going to be enough oil to power our defense in the way we have for the past hundred years, or certainly the last 80 years. So we've got to look for different ways of doing it.

One example would be, potentially, bio-based jet fuel. There's a lot of research that's going on with algal-based fuel. The Navy is doing some work. The Air Force has been doing work for years, and until you get the kinds of legislative mandates that will not just the Department of Defense, but the civilian aviation industry, take a look with investments and scale up those initiatives, it's not going to happen in any significant way. So I think the contention that because we are so heavily dependent on petroleum-based products now to power our military that we always will, that's just illogical...

"I think we've got to get over this notion that we can't do anything related to climate change legislation until we have some sort of guarantees that others like China and India have got to do something. That's not leadership."

OL: Finally, I'd like to ask, how much progress do you think has been made in alerting people to the national security dimensions of global warming-among policy makers, and among the wider public, and what can be done to accelerate this awareness?

VADM McGinn: I think the awareness is growing. I don't think it's as sufficient as it needs to be yet to produce the kind of legislative mandates--putting a kind of price on carbon that we need to--but I do think it is growing, both in the public and in our elected officials. You see it manifested a lot at the local and state level.

I do a lot of traveling around the country, over the past several months. Places like Iowa, Indiana, Missouri, California Alaska, South Carolina, Florida. Kansas, just all over these various places having interactions with people in open forums, and the awareness of this national security thing is becoming like, 'I hadn't thought about it like that. I thought it was just like environmentalists, and business and all of that.' So it's starting to really take off and opportunities like having the witness panel on national security this week [before the Senate Environmental and Public Works Committee] is another way to get elected officials at the federal level, in the Congress, becoming more and more aware.

That was the third time I testified on this subject, and there have been many others as well as myself testifying on it. Back in July, I was before the same EPW Committee. And then earlier in July, I testified over at the Foreign Relations Committee on the same essential challenges. So it's growing, but it needs to progress further down the road.

The other thing I would say is its frustrating in a sense, because in many areas there is so much agreement between various parts of the political spectrum-on the need to do things. Some weighing in more heavily on energy dependence or energy insecurity, others on climate change, some are in the middle, a little bit of both, but there's so many, shall we say, policy prescriptions that could be put in place that would satisfy a fairly large majority of not just elected officials, but Americans, that we need to do it.

There's a tremendous fear of changing things in a time of economic downturn, but in some ways that's the best time to do it. Create new jobs, I've seen a lot of very credible studies on the economic benefits of clean technology. In fact, during the hearing, Senator Boxer cited-released, I believe on the 26th-that talked about the potential for clean technology, depending on what kind of legislative mandates came up. And take a look at any incremental, relatively small incrimental changes to the job base, if you will, if you stick with fossil fuels, compared to clean technology, I think it's like a factor of 4 or 5 to 1 in favor of investments and directed policy mechanisms in clean technology

OL: I always like to end my interviews by asking a person what question haven't I asked that I should have? And what's the answer?

VADM McGinn: I think you've been very thoughtful, Paul. I think you did a really good job taking a look at the testimony and all the witnesses, clearly. I just think I've said pretty much what would be on my mind.

OL: I just always want to give a chance, because I know the feeling when something pops up, and you want to say it and it's not really the right place to say it, so that was sort of a free shot, if there was anything that had surfaced that maybe you thought of and went and said something else, that if there's any lingering thoughts like that.

VADM McGinn: Well, I would say that one thing-and I addressed this briefly in my testimony-and that has to do with the role of the US as a global leader. I think we've got to get over this notion that we can't do anything related to climate change legislation until we have some sort of guarantees that others like China and India have got to do something. That's not leadership. That's basically risk aversion. And what we need to do is decide what makes sense for our nation and make some calculated assumptions of how the effect of those policies on other nations. Like China and India and Europe, and other key players on the international stage.

So, I would say we have key role to play as a leader, and we shouldn't shy away from it. We shouldn't be afraid of 'Well, gee, we can't do it because if we do it they might not do it.'

If we don't do it, if we don't assume that role of leadership, some visionary and bold policies related to climate legislation, and energy security legislation, they're not going to do it, and they're going to blame us. 'Well, we didn't do it because the United States didn't do it. And look at them. They're the folks that use 25% of the oil in the world every year, and have only at the best 3% of known reserves.'

That's not leadership.

So it's leadership by example. It's leadership by the United States in which we're not just talking the talking about climate change, but we're walking the walk ourselves, for our own national purposes. And others are going to see that it's in their national purposes as well, and we're going to have a much better chance for the kind of international cooperation based on the United States as leader and as partner than if we just confine our views to the near term, and confine our views to the extent of our borders.

OL: Thank you very much, this has been very informative.

The Trillion Dollar Cost of the Health Care Gap

Natasha Chart — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 12:00:00 GMT

In the middle of heated policy debates, projections of cost to industry and government fly thick and fast. If costs to citizens are mentioned, it's usually in their capacity as taxpayers, as though they weren't otherwise part of the economy. A couple examples from the global warming policy arena put this into sharp relief in a way that emphasizes the urgency of providing affordable health coverage to every American.

First, there's David Roberts' explanation (... with puppies!) of how the Congressional Budget Office undercounts the benefits of lower energy costs from efficiency. Their method counts the promotion of energy efficiency as a cost to the taxpayer, but not a savings to the ratepayer, as though you can make an absolute separation between people who pay taxes and people who pay utility bills.

That may make sense from the CBO's perspective, but not from the perspective of electricity-using members of the public trying to figure out whether new energy legislation benefits them.
Then there's another cost of our current electricity generation infrastructure, and here we're coming back more directly to the topic of health. According to the National Research Council, electricity production, transportation and heating in the US cost the public $120 billion in illness and early mortality in 2005, as reported by McClatchy's Renee Schoof. Half those costs came from the activities of the coal industry.

A report on the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity's (ACCCE) recent lobbying against climate legislation indicates that their 48 coal and utility company members made a combined yearly profit of $57 billion in 2007, or about the same amount incurred as public health losses in 2005. This analyst report republished on a message board (and if you have better data, please send it along) suggested that the entire US coal industry, who are not all represented by ACCCE, had a 2005 profit of $67 billion.

If you subtract health costs to society from profits accumulated by the coal companies, you're ending up with perhaps a slight net gain. Add in the $9 billion in federal subsidies to the coal industry for 2005, never mind the state and local incentives, the cost to the government and healthcare system of treating these illnesses, the loss in workforce productivity to other industries, and you may wonder if we can afford these 'profits', even if $60 billion worth of human suffering doesn't register as a problem.

If the coal industry is entirely financed by making people sick, where's the benefit to society?

Going back to Schoof's article on utility costs to health, here's what was said about the analytic methods: "The dollar amounts were mainly early deaths due to pollution, with the value of each life put at $6 million, consistent with other studies. More than 90 percent of the costs were the statistical cost of early deaths."

Finally, we arrive at a point where we can start fumbling towards some sort of human price tag on doing nothing about our failing healthcare system. This is the Harvard study on health insurance and mortality referred to by Rep. Alan Grayson (D-FL) on the floor of the House, the one finding that, "Lack of health insurance is associated with as many as 44789 deaths per year in the United States."

That $6 million dollar figure used in the coal study multiplied out by 44,789 deaths is in excess of $268 billion dollars.

While many people who managed to avoid an early death would have considerably more than a year to live, we can also guess at the economic benefits of each extra year of life for some perspective. Last year, Time reported that while many private and government run plans worldwide placed a value of $50,000 on a year of human life Stanford economists placed the value of an extra year at $129,000. So let's use those figures for more perspective.

At a value of $50,000, giving an extra year to everyone who dies in a year from lack of health insurance is worth at least $2.2 billion per year. At a value of $129,000 for that same extra year, it's worth $5.8 billion per year. Though realize, this would be cumulative and doesn't represent the whole yearly cost of early death. If someone loses a decade of life, their absence costs us between $500,000 and $1,290,000, at the very least. Every year until the end of their natural lifespan, the cost of their lost year must be added to the totals of those who die in subsequent years.

For comparison, an HCAN analysis puts the net profits of 10 major private health insurers at $12.9 billion. This Reuters article says the whole US healthcare system is worth $2.5 trillion. People who argue against changing the healthcare system are therefore arguing by their own estimates that the profits of a very few outweigh a toll of loss whose extra minimum yearly increment is somewhere between a tenth and a half of those profits.

If I wasn't already a bit nauseated talking about the value of human life in this way, well, it's worse now.

But let's get back to the lifetime costs, because at the point of death, those costs are locked in and lost one way or another. Summing up, our healthcare system lets another 44,000 people die every year, imposing a lifetime cost of $268 billion on American families and the rest of the economy.

Considering that we spend almost twice as much per capita as other developed countries to get these abysmal results, we've barely begun to total the costs.

Any healthcare reform measure that provides every American with access to affordable care while costing less than $268 billion per year is a net profit to the American public. The current versions of the healthcare bill have a target cost to the federal budget of $900 billion over 10 years - if it saved 44,000 lives per year, preventing the imposition of $2.68 trillion in early death costs, that sounds like an absolute bargain for citizens.

Also at OurFuture.org.

Attacking Veterans As "Traitors" Over Global Warming: Conservative Bullshit Epistemology In Action

Paul Rosenberg — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 15:00:00 GMT

Yesterday, I wrote a diary about global warming a national security threat ("Global Warming As National Security Threat--Is This What Will Finally Get Through To Them?") drawing on a 2007 report from the Center for Naval Analysis, National Security and the Threat of Climate Change, 2007. Though not the first to come from military authorities (in this case, 11 three- and four-star admirals and generals), it goes without saying that this report has gone virtually unnoticed in Versailles. But that's not the half of it.

In recent weeks--starting with Washington, DC kick-off just prior to 9/11--a coalition of progressive Iraq and Afghanistan veterans and others known as Operation Free has been holding public events to spread the word about protecting America from the security threat of global warming. Participants include VoteVets, VetPac, Veterans for Common Sense, The Truman National Security Project, The American Values Network, Veterans & Military Families for Progress, and Veterans for Green Jobs. An August story at Grist.org reported:

"As a former U.S. Army captain and a veteran of Iraq, I understand firsthand how our dependence on foreign oil is a threat to national security," said Jon Powers, chief operating officer at the Truman National Security Project, a sponsor of Operation Free. "We're looking to Washington to take this threat seriously and come up with policy that reduces the threat to national security."

This week, as noted by Think Progress, the vets with Operation Free were attacked as traitors (what else?) by a Pennsylvania legislator:

Upon hearing about the group's visit to Pennsylvania, State Rep. Daryl Metcalfe (R) blasted the veterans as "traitors" and compared them to Benedict Arnold:
"As a veteran, I believe that any veteran lending their name, to promote the leftist propaganda of global warming and climate change, in an effort to control more of the wealth created in our economy, through cap and tax type policies, all in the name of national security, is a traitor to the oath he or she took to defend the Constitution of our great nation!" Mr. Metcalfe's email reads. "Remember Benedict Arnold before giving credibility to a veteran who uses their service as a means to promote a leftist agenda. Drill Baby Drill!!!"

Rep. Metcalfe, who served in the U.S. Army from 1980-84, today defended the remarks, saying that "if the type of policies that an individual promotes undermines the Constitution and the law of the land in our country, then they are not patriots."

So global warming is "leftist propaganda," not only despite the complete consensus of the peer reviewed literature, but despite several years of recognition as a national security threat by high-ranking defense analysts. This is a classic example of Conservative Bullshit Epistemology, which I wrote about last weekend ("Bullshit Epistemology And Conservative Narcissism Run Wild"). In fact, it combines several different bullshit arguments all in one, which is what makes it such a perfect exemplar of how Conservative Bullshit Epistemology works.
Let's start by recalling the paragraph from On Bullshit that I picked up from Mark Matson's comment in an earlier diary:

The contemporary proliferation of bullshit also has deeper sources, in various forms of skepticism which deny that we can have any reliable access to an objective reality and which therefore reject the possibility of knowing how things truly are. These "anti-realist" doctrines undermine confidence in the value of disinterested efforts to determine what is true and what is false, and even in the intelligibility of the notion of objective inquiry. One response to this loss of confidence has been a retreat from the discipline required by dedication to the ideal of correctness to a quite different sort of discipline, which is imposed by pursuit of an alternative ideal of sincerity. Rather than seeking primarily to arrive at accurate representations of a common world, the individual turns toward trying to provide honest representations of himself. Convinced that reality has no inherent nature, which he might hope to identify as the truth about things, he devotes himself to being true to his own nature. It is as though he decides that since it makes no sense to try to be true to the facts, he must therefore try instead to be true to himself.

Conservatism is particularly prone to bullshit because it cultivates a sense of privilege--which it has for thousands of years--and because it cannot cope with modernity, with its science, progress and democracy, which has become increasing problematic for it since the Italian Renaissance. In short, over the past 700 years, reality has become increasingly threatening to conservatism, and conservatism has responded by becoming increasingly anti-realist.

The corporate anti-science stance is largely instrumentalist, rather than ideological. Corporations will exploit science they can use, they will even exploit the image of science to brand themselves as forces of progress, but they will do everything possible to deny any science that reveals any damage they do. The tobacco industry is a prime example.

The evidence of the deadly harm it does first emerged in the scientific literature in the late 1930s and 40s, and George Seldes began writing about the tobacco-cancer link in 1941 in his newsletter, In Fact. In 10 years of publication, Seldes wrote more than 50 articles on tobacco and cancer. The power of tobacco's advertising dollars were such that the story was effectively suppressed from the corporate media for over a decade--after which it merely downplayed and/or controversialized. The result has been nothing less than decades of legalized mass murder for profit, and big tobacco's success in getting away with murder has become the blueprint for all other corporate malefactors--including the fossil fuel industry, which is bidding to make the mass-murdering tobacco industry look like a bunch of Boy Scouts.

Due to a number of different factors, including timing (the emergence of global warming as an issue shortly after the Cold War ended) and the long-time connections between oil and military power, the fossil fuel industry's war on science took on a much broader, much more distinctly ideological flavor, with a much more organized support structure in the broader conservative movement. In part this paralleled the growth of the "creation science" fraud, whose premier status as an example of bullshit epistemology was highlighted by the Wedge Strategy, which sees evolution--and science, more generally--as a cultural/philosophical threat, and aims to fight back primarily through well-organized propaganda outside the field of science. Although the Wedge Strategy ostensibly had a scientific facet as well, it has never produced any actual science. The best it can point to is the fraudulent "science" of "Intelligent Design", which I wrote about DKos in 2004 in The ID Fraud: "Intelligent Design" For Non-Dummies.

Similarly, the global warming deniers have been unable to produce any actual science, either, as was revealed by historian of science Naomi Oreskes in an analysis of the scientific literature published in Science magazine in 2004, "Beyond the Ivory Tower: The Scientific Consensus on Climate Change". Oreskes examined the hypothesis that consensus documents on global warming might downplay dissenting scientific viewpoints:

That hypothesis was tested by analyzing 928 abstracts, published in refereed scientific journals between 1993 and 2003, and listed in the ISI database with the keywords "climate change" (9).
The 928 papers were divided into six categories: explicit endorsement of the consensus position, evaluation of impacts, mitigation proposals, methods, paleoclimate analysis, and rejection of the consensus position. Of all the papers, 75% fell into the first three categories, either explicitly or implicitly accepting the consensus view; 25% dealt with methods or paleoclimate, taking no position on current anthropogenic climate change. Remarkably, none of the papers disagreed with the consensus position.
Admittedly, authors evaluating impacts, developing methods, or studying paleoclimatic change might believe that current climate change is natural. However, none of these papers argued that point.
This analysis shows that scientists publishing in the peer-reviewed literature agree with IPCC, the National Academy of Sciences, and the public statements of their professional societies. Politicians, economists, journalists, and others may have the impression of confusion, disagreement, or discord among climate scientists, but that impression is incorrect.

In short, the claim that there's a scientific controversy over global warming is itself just more bullshit. The "leftist propaganda of global warming and climate change," is in fact the "leftist propaganda" of science.

Beyond the anti-science bullshit in Metcalfe's diatribe, there's also the corporate entitlement bullshit--"in an effort to control more of the wealth created in our economy, through cap and tax type policies, all in the name of national security". In fact, government power to tax and regulate businesses has been a fact of life for thousands of years. The right to even forbid business activity that threatens the state is equally well established. It is hardly "conservative" in the customary meaning of the word, to suddenly raise objections now. But American conservatives have never been terribly bothered by consistency. American corporate conservatism has always maintained a sacred right to use government as its personal valet, supplying whatever it might need. Any government action at odds with this role as manservant it deems "unconstiutional." Metcalfe takes it a step further by calling it "treason". It's all bullshit. The Constitution clearly establishes that it exists to promote the general welfare--not the personal wealth of any individual in particular. Promoting the wealth of a small minority at the expense of the general population is not the purpose of the Constitution. If anything, it is directly counter counter to the original intent of the Constitution. And conservative claims to the contrary are just another line of conservative bullshit.

Finally, what about the immediate crux of the matter? Responding to Metcalfe's attack, Jon Powers wrote a blog post at VetVoice, which read, in part:

While I respect Metcalfe's service at Fort Riley Kansas and in Germany as an Air Defense Radar specialist and I.F.F. (identification friend or foe) systems repair specialist during the early 1980's, I think veterans who have fought in the Middle East and Afghanistan have unique perspective on the way our energy posture and climate change affect our national security.
That is what Operation FREE is about, American security. That is why hundreds are joining the fight.
I would like to ask Rep. Metcalfe if he thinks Vice Admiral Dennis McGinn or Republican Senator John Warner are traitors.
When I testified with these two leaders to the US Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works about the threat that climate change poses to our national security were they disavowing their oath to the Constitution?
Several agencies of the United States government and non-partisan think tanks have issued reports or launched investigations on the national security effects of climate change...are they traitors to the Constitution?
The Pentagon will include a climate section in the Quadrennial Defense Review due in February and the State Department will include climate change in its new Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review. New York Times, August 8, 2009
In 2008, a National Intelligence Assessment from the National Intelligence Council said "global climate change will have wide-ranging implications for US national security interests over the next 20 years." Senate Testimony of Dr. Thomas Fingar, June 28, 2008
In fall 2009, the CIA announced plans to launch a center on climate change to examine the security risks of environmental issues. CIA Website, September 25, 2009
In 2007, 11 retired flag officers released a report that argued that "Projected climate change poses a serious threat to America's national security" and "climate change acts as a threat multiplier for instability in some of the most volatile regions of the world." CNA, National Security and the Threat of Climate Change, 2007
According to the American Security Project, "Addressing the consequences of changes in the Earth's climate is not simply about saving polar bears or preserving the beauty of mountain glaciers. Climate change is a threat to our national security. Taking it head on is about preserving our way of life." Climate Security Index, 2009
According to former Senator John Warner (R-VA), a veteran and former Secretary of the Navy, "Leading military, intelligence, and security experts have publicly spoken out that if left unchecked, global warming could increase instability and lead to conflict in already fragile regions of the world. If we ignore these facts, we do so at the peril of our national security and increase the risk to those in uniform who serve our nation." Testimony to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee

When confronted with the above list, Metcalfe's wild accusations are revealed as childish hysterics at best. Indeed, when confronted with any of the evidence I've referred to above, the result is similar. As is always the case with conservative ranting in today's America, the entire argument is fantastical, and fundamentally depends upon the suppression and denial of reality. It is anti-realist to the very core.

As the passage from "On Bullshit" quoted above concluded:

Convinced that reality has no inherent nature, which he might hope to identify as the truth about things, he devotes himself to being true to his own nature. It is as though he decides that since it makes no sense to try to be true to the facts, he must therefore try instead to be true to himself.

Unfortunately, as Metcalfe so ably demonstrates, the self that today's conservative strives to be true to is itself utterly bogus. It's "virtue" lies in scurrilous lying about others, in order to portray itself as uniquely noble and virtuous.

And that's the biggest bullshit line of all.

Global Warming As National Security Threat--Is This What Will Finally Get Through To Them?

Paul Rosenberg — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 22:30:00 GMT

Source: Online slideshow presentation accompanying the 2007 report, National Security and the Threat of Climate Change, Center for Naval Analysis, 2007.

On this international day of global warming action, it's quite clear that the US remains the biggest impediment to effective action to avoid catastrophic global warming. There are many reasons for this, not least is the failure of progressives to mount an effective counter-campaign against the massive flood conservative disinformation. If we want to fix the problem of America's Neanderthal self-destructive politics of global warming, then we need to look at this failure and how to correct it. One key to this is the blindingly obvious argument that global warming constitutes an overwhelming threat to our national security--which is the main thrust of this diary. However, that's just one basic point among several that should have been driven into the heads of every single American voter--no, every single American resident--as a basic pre-requisite for having a responsible debate about how to deal with global warming. Here is a sample of such points (more in the extended entry):

(1) There is no scientific debate about global warming. The peer-reviewed literature--which is where such a debate would happen if did exist--has virtually no papers questioning the basic logic of global warming. This unanimity dates back to the early 1990s.

(2) The purely economic costs of global warming will vastly exceed the economic costs of preventing it. This point was first made widely understood via the Stern Review.

(3) The threat of global warming goes far beyond economic costs, to threaten the very security of our nation. Natural disasters have threatened the stability and even the existence of human societies for thousands of years. In addition to direct threats, the stresses placed on one society can lead military invasions of others, as well as less dramatic results--such as mass migrations or prolonged political instability--which can place intense burdens on the military, police, and other security-related state functions. Because global warming will increase the impact of natural disaster on all nations at the same time over a period of centuries, the security impacts will be unprecedented in human history.

(4) Existing policies provide vast subsidies for fossil fuels and nuclear energy. Simply shifting those subsidies to clean energy--including conservation--would do an enormous amount to combat global warming. Thus, the debate has nothing to do with "free markets", since energy subsidies are widespread. The question is only who should be subsidized, and why.

(5) Government has repeatedly played a major role in the development and deployment of new technologies and infrastructure. Examples range from canals and railroads in the 18th and 19th century to auto-oriented transportation and the computer/electronics industry in the 20th Century. Government involvement in promoting the development of clean energy to reduce the threat of global warming is thus a very traditional type of activity.

(6) Even if there were uncertainty, the danger is so great that failing to take precautionary measures is a dereliction of duty to protect the national security. This principle was actually central to the Bush/Cheney misconduct of the war on terror, in the form of Cheney's "One Percent Docrtine":

If there's a 1% chance that Pakistani scientists are helping al-Qaeda build or develop a nuclear weapon, we have to treat it as a certainty in terms of our response. It's not about our analysis ... It's about our response.

Cheney's reasoning was flawed, because he ignored much more likely threats, because he was driven by guilt/denial and paranoia, and because was generally incapable of reality-testing. But to the extent that his logic had merit, it was much more applicable to global warming with the state of knowledge we already had back in the early 1990s. The entire foundation of the insurance industry is the principle that even improbably threats of disaster are well worth protecting against.

(7) Clean energy will be a necessity eventually, regardless of global warming.
There's only so much coal, oil and natural gas in the world. Eventually we're going to run out, even if global warming weren't a factor. Since these energy sources have other powerful downsides--pollution, resource wars, vulnerability to market and political manipulation, etc.--it makes sense to develop alternatives sooner, rather than later, even if global warming were not a concern.

On the flip, I dig deeper into just one of several reports in recent years that deals with just one of the points above--the national security impacts of global warming. The 2007 report from the non-profit CNA Corp. (Center for Naval Analysis), National Security and the Threat of Climate Change, included commentary and recommendations from an expert panel of eleven retired three-star and four-star admirals and general. Deatails on the flip.

In the online intro/interface to the report, CNA says:

Global climate change presents a serious national security threat which could impact Americans at home, impact United States military operations and heighten global tensions, according to a new study released by a blue-ribbon panel of retired admirals and generals from all branches of the armed services.
The study, "National Security and the Threat of Climate Change," explores ways projected climate change is a threat multiplier in already fragile regions, exacerbating conditions that lead to failed states - the breeding grounds for extremism and terrorism.
The CNA Corporation brought together eleven retired three-star and four-star admirals and generals to provide advice, expertise and perspective on the impact of climate change. CNAC writers and researchers compiled the report under the board's direction and review.
The report includes several formal findings:
* Projected climate change poses a serious threat to America's national security.
* Climate change acts as a threat multiplier for instability in some of the most volatile regions of the world.
* Projected climate change will add to tensions even in stable regions of the world.
* Climate change, national security and energy dependence are a related set of global challenges.

The report also made several specific recommendations:
* The national security consequences of climate change should be fully integrated into national security and national defense strategies.
* The U.S. should commit to a stronger national and international role to help stabilize climate changes at levels that will avoid significant disruption to global security and stability.
* The U.S. should commit to global partnerships that help less developed nations build the capacity and resiliency to better manage climate impacts.
* The Department of Defense should enhance its operational capability by accelerating the adoption of improved business processes and innovative technologies that result in improved U.S. combat power through energy efficiency.
* DoD should conduct an assessment of the impact on US military installations worldwide of rising sea levels, extreme weather events, and other possible climate change impacts over the next thirty to forty years.

The review board of admirals and generals is as follows:

* General Gordon R. Sullivan, USA (Ret.)
* Admiral Frank "Skip" Bowman, USN (Ret.)
* Lieutenant General Lawrence P. Farrell Jr., USAF (Ret.)
* Vice Admiral Paul G. Gaffney II, USN (Ret.)
* General Paul J. Kern, USA (Ret.)
* Admiral T. Joseph Lopez, USN (Ret.)
* Admiral Donald L. "Don" Pilling, USN (Ret.)
* Admiral Joseph W. Prueher, USN (Ret.)
* Vice Admiral Richard H. Truly, USN (Ret.)
* General Charles F. "Chuck" Wald, USAF (Ret.)
* General Anthony C. "Tony" Zinni, USMC (Ret.)
* Ms. Sherri W. Goodman, Executive Director and CNA General Counsel

More info on them can be found here.

Expanding on the above, from the executive summary of the report itself, here are the findings, un-edited:

FINDINGS
Projected climate change poses a serious threat to America's national security.
The predicted effects of climate change over the coming decades include extreme weather events, drought, flooding, sea level rise, retreating glaciers, habitat shifts, and the increased spread of life-threatening diseases. These conditions have the potential to disrupt our way of life and to force changes in the way we keep ourselves safe and secure.
In the national and international security environment, climate change threatens to add new hostile and stressing factors. On the simplest level, it has the potential to create sustained natural and humanitarian disasters on a scale far beyond those we see today. The consequences will likely foster political instability where societal demands exceed the capacity of governments to cope.

Climate change acts as a threat multiplier for instability in some of the most volatile regions of the world.
Projected climate change will seriously exacerbate already marginal living standards in many Asian, African, and Middle Eastern nations, causing widespread political instability and the likelihood of failed states.
Unlike most conventional security threats that involve a single entity acting in specific ways and points in time, climate change has the potential to result in multiple chronic conditions, occurring globally within the same time frame. Economic and environmental conditions in already fragile areas will further erode as food production declines, diseases increase, clean water becomes increasingly scarce, and large populations move in search of resources. Weakened and failing governments, with an already thin margin for survival, foster the conditions for internal conflicts, extremism, and movement toward increased authoritarianism and radical ideologies.
The U.S. may be drawn more frequently into these situations, either alone or with allies, to help provide stability before conditions worsen and are exploited by extremists. The U.S. may also be called upon to undertake stability and reconstruction efforts once a conflict has begun, to avert further disaster and reconstitute a stable environment.

Projected climate change will add to tensions even in stable regions of the world.
The U.S. and Europe may experience mounting pressure to accept large numbers of immigrant and refugee populations as drought increases and food production declines in Latin America and Africa. Extreme weather events and natural disasters, as the U.S. experienced with Hurricane Katrina, may lead to increased missions for a number of U.S. agencies, including state and local governments, the Department of Homeland Security, and our already stretched military, including our Guard and Reserve forces.

Climate change, national security, and energy dependence are a related set of global challenges.
As President Bush noted in his 2007 State of the Union speech, dependence on foreign oil leaves us more vulnerable to hostile regimes and terrorists, and clean domestic energy alternatives help us confront the serious challenge of global climate change. Because the issues are linked, solutions to one affect the other. Technologies that improve energy efficiency also reduce carbon intensity and carbon emissions.

We constantly hear the groundless paranoid ravings of Five Deferments Cheney about national security--an issue that he clearly has zero qualifications to discuss. Imagine what it would be like if the above findings had gotten that much attention over the past 9 months. Would we be about to pass truly path-breaking global warming legislation? It's impossible to say, but the odds would be well worth considering.

Here are the recommendations, also unedited from the executive summary (Obviously, I'm really not that interested in protecting American overseas bases from the impacts of global warming. I'd much rather see us stop being a global empire, and return to the ideal of being a democratic republic. But I'm including everything here for the sake of completeness):

RECOMMENDATIONS OF THE MILITARY ADVISORY BOARD:
1. The national security consequences of climate change should be fully integrated into national security and national defense strategies.
As military leaders, we know we cannot wait for certainty. Failing to act because a warning isn't precise enough is unacceptable. The intelligence community should incorporate climate consequences into its National Intelligence Estimate. The National Security Strategy should directly address the threat of climate change to our national security interests. The National Security Strategy and National Defense Strategy should include appropriate guidance to military planners to assess risks to current and future missions caused by projected climate change. The next Quadrennial Defense Review should examine the capabilities of the U.S. military to respond to the consequences of climate change, in particular, preparedness for natural disasters from extreme weather events, pandemic disease events, and other related missions.

2. The U.S. should commit to a stronger national and international role to help stabilize climate change at levels that will avoid significant disruption to global security and stability.
Managing the security impacts of climate change requires two approaches: mitigating the effects we can control and adapting to those we cannot. The U.S. should become a more constructive partner with the international community to help build and execute a plan to prevent destabilizing effects from climate change, including setting targets for long term reductions in greenhouse gas emissions.

3. The U.S. should commit to global partnerships that help less developed nations build the capacity and resiliency to better manage climate impacts.
As President Bush noted in his State of the Union speech, "Our work in the world is also based on a timeless truth: To whom much is given, much is required." Climate forecasts indicate countries least able to adapt to the consequences of climate change are those that will be the most affected. The U.S. government should use its many instruments of national influence, including its regional commanders, to assist nations at risk build the capacity and resiliency to better cope with the effects of climate change. Doing so now can help avert humanitarian disasters later.

4. The Department of Defense should enhance its operational capability by accelerating the adoption of improved business processes and innovative technologies that result in improved U.S. combat power through energy efficiency.
Numerous Department of Defense studies have found that combat forces would be more capable and less vulnerable by significantly reducing their fuel demand. Unfortunately, many of their recommendations have yet to be implemented. Doing so would have the added benefit of reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

5. The Department of Defense should conduct an assessment of the impact on U.S. military installations worldwide of rising sea levels, extreme weather events, and other projected climate change impacts over the next 30 to 40 years.
Many critical defense installations are located on the coast, and several strategically important ones are on low-lying Pacific islands. Sea level rise and storm surges will threaten these facilities. Planning and action can make these installations more resilient. Lack of planning can compromise them or cause them to be inundated, compromising military readiness and capability.

Obviously, national security is not the only framework for arguing for swift and strong action on global warming. It's just one part of a broader mosaic--but it's a vitally crucial one, and one that ought to be very well known to every single American. Because the future of country and our world depends on it.

350.org's MIT Climate Message To Obama / Demoracy Now! Previews International Climate Action Day

Paul Rosenberg — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 12:30:00 GMT

350.org co-founder Bill McKibben and Australian scientist Tim Flannery talked with Democracy Now! previewing an International Climate Action Day today (info here)--on the flip. The impacts of climate change in Australia have gone far past the point where denial is still possible.

Meanwhile, the Boston Globe Green Blog notes that 350.org took out the following full-page ad in MIT's newspaper yesterday, putting three question to President Obama as he addressed MIT on clean energy the day before the worldwide day of climate action taking place today (more in the extended entry):

Check the 350.org website for an action near you today. On the flip: an excerpt from Democracy Now! & some thoughts about the day.

The Democracy Now! interview is a chilling reminder of how deep is disconnect in which we live. McKibben's first book about global warming, The End of Nature was published 20 years ago.

Here's the intro:

JUAN GONZALEZ: President Obama is heading to Massachusetts today where he will urge the Senate to move forward on a climate change bill. The President's speech comes just seven weeks before the start of the United Nations Copenhagen Climate Conference. Next week the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee will hold three days of hearings to discuss the climate change bill proposed by Senators Barbara Boxer and John Kerry.
While the Obama administration has acknowledged no bill will be passed before the Copenhagen talks, pressure is growing from grassroots organizations to take action. On Saturday the group 350.org is organizing an International Climate Action Day. More than 4,500 events are scheduled to take place in 170 nations.
350.org is named after what scientists have identified as a sustainable target for carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere: 350 parts per million. We are currently at 387 parts per million.
While most climate scientists say the effects of global warming are happening far sooner than initially projected, many Americans appear to be dismissing the threat of climate change.
AMY GOODMAN: A poll released on Thursday by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press found that just 57 percent of respondents believe there is solid evidence that the world is getting warmer, down 20 percentage points in just three years. The poll also found only 35 percent of Americans believe global warming is a very serious problem.
Well, today we're joined by two of the major thinkers, writers, activists tackling climate change.
With us here in New York at our firehouse studio is writer and environmentalist Bill McKibben, co-founder and director of 350.org. Twenty years ago, he published The End of Nature, the first general audience book about global warming. Bill McKibben has described the talks in Copenhagan as, quote, "the most important diplomatic gathering in the world's history."
We're also joined by the Australian scientist Tim Flannery. He is the author of the international bestseller The Weather Makers. His latest book is called Now or Never: Why We Must Act Now to End Climate Change and Create a Sustainable Future. Tim Flannery is chair of the Copenhagen Climate Council. He is a mammalogist and paleontologist by training. As a field zoologist, he discovered and named more than sixty species. In 2007 Tim Flannery was named Australian of the Year.
We welcome you both to Democracy Now! And as we go to broadcast, Bill, the protests, rallies, actions around the country, in this largest day of global action in the history of the world, are already underway.
BILL McKIBBEN: People are jumping the gun a little bit, and we're getting amazing pictures beginning to arrive from places like Addis Ababa, from all across the Pacific, from New Zealand and Australia.
It's quite remarkable to think that the largest day of political action in the planet's history will center around a fairly arcane scientific fact, a data point. You would have said that it was too complicated for people or too hard for them to assimilate, but this is the most important number in the world. People are realizing that. People are realizing that their future, in the starkest terms, depends on the world's leaders understanding that this debate is not so much between the US and China and the EU, it's mostly between human beings, on the one hand, and physics and chemistry, on the other. And today and tomorrow, in 177 nations, people are standing up for this science, saying, "Pay attention to the real situation."
JUAN GONZALEZ: And yet, there remains this huge disconnect between the American public and the public in the rest of the world. As we said, only about 35 percent of the American people believe this is a serious problem. Your understanding why there is this huge disconnect?
BILL McKIBBEN: Two things. One, we're the most addicted country in the world, so it makes sense that we'd be deepest in denial, I suppose. The second is, we've never really had a popular movement about climate. We've left this to the experts, on the theory that if we keep repeating how bad the peril is, our leaders will take action.
Now we're doing the work of building the kind of grassroots movement that changes hearts and minds, that moves people to understand what the problem is. And hopefully those images flooding in from around the world will really open people's hearts, when they understand that people are protesting across Africa, across Asia, across Latin America, across places where people did nothing to cause this problem but are willing to take a real role in helping to solve it.

The most important thing here, for me, is McKibben's statement, "we've never really had a popular movement about climate." There's been a long sporadic lead-up, just as there was decades of civil rights activism before Rosa Parks sparked the Montgomery Bus Boycott. So we're not starting from nowhere. But we have to build momventum very quickly just the Civil Rights Movement did--even faster, in fact. It was less than 4 years from the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution to LBJ's announcement that he would not seek re-election, but instead would devote all his energy to ending the war in Vietnam. He didn't succeed, of course, due in part in Nixon's meddling. But it took less than 4 years of intense activism, starting from much less than we have today to reverse the course that we were on. Citizen mobilization can bring about dramatic changes that are also quite swift.

Or we could learn the hard way, as they're already learning in Australia:

AMY GOODMAN: Tim Flannery, you've been traveling the United States. Talk about the awareness in Australia and the awareness in the United States around global warming. What's your sense?
TIM FLANNERY: Well, Amy, you know, they're very different things. In Australia, it's impossible to avoid an understanding of climate change, because it's in our face every day. We have terrible problems with water security at the moment across southern Australia. Our fifth-largest city, Adelaide, may be out of drinking water next year. Our national water commissioner's said that he can't guarantee drinking water to that city as of the end of next year. We've had dust storms. We've had fires. We've had cyclones. We've had bleaching of the Great Barrier Reef. And so, no matter where you live in Australia, you become aware of climate change.
Here in the US, I think you've been a little bit buffered from those changes. There's certainly some impacts; particularly in the western forests here, you can see it. But Australia is a harbinger, I think, for what will happen in the United States.
But one of the big factors here that's so very different is that the population's views seem to be divided along political lines. It's a tragedy that, in a way, you know, the Democrats represent the proactive side, and the Republicans seem to represent a side that wants to ignore the issue. Elsewhere in the world, that isn't the case. In Britain, for example, the Conservative Party is a very green party.
So there's something about the political mix here and the sort of the relative insulation of the population from some of these changes that have made levels of awareness here much lower than elsewhere in the world. And that is such a problem for us, because unless the US can move forward with its cap-and-trade bill to deal with this issue, I'm afraid many other countries are going to take a less-than-adequate stance during these negotiations in December.
JUAN GONZALEZ: Tim Flannery, you mentioned the problems that you've had there. You recently had the wildfires that took about 170 lives there. And here in the United States, obviously, wildfires, especially in the Southwest, have grown dramatically in recent years. But again, there's like no connection that the public is making between these calamities and the overall change in the earth's climate.
TIM FLANNERY: That's very strange to me. And maybe it's just that in Australia the situation is so stark. You know, up until twelve years ago in southeastern Australia, we enjoyed a regular winter rainfall regime. And the rain still falls, incidentally; it just falls over the southern ocean, about 200 miles south of where it used to fall. And we can all see that. We all experience the impacts of it. And somehow or other, it's become widely understood in the Australian public that this is the result of a changing climate. You really have to live in our country a little while, I think, to understand just how profound these impacts have been. There's no getting away from them. It's not just one phenomena; it's a series of things that have changed. And everyone who takes an interest in this issue really does understand it.

The utter stupidity of GOP opposition to doing anything to save the planet for human habitation was also touched on:

AMY GOODMAN: Can we play for you recent comments by Republican senators on the Boxer-Kerry climate bill?
SEN. JAMES INHOFE: It can't be denied that this would be the largest tax increase in the history of America.

SEN. KIT BOND: The Kerry-Boxer bill is a giant new energy tax on families and workers.

SEN. KAY BAILEY HUTCHISON: And your electricity rates, your gasoline per gallon costs are going to go up. This is not the time to be adding costs.

SEN. JOHN BARRASSO: What we know, that it is going to raise prices for American families. It's going to make it much tougher for American families.

SEN. JOHN THUNE: All we know is that everything is going to go up. Electricity is going to go up. Diesel fuel is going to go up. Natural gas is going to go up. Fertilizer is going to go up.

AMY GOODMAN: Just an example of some of the opposition, Tim Flannery. Your response?
TIM FLANNERY: Look, there is no doubt that there will be modest cost increases across some of those areas, most of which can be dealt with, incidentally, by just some efficiency gains in very, very simple ways.
But, you know, unless we invest in the future now in that regard, American manufacturing and American industry is going to suffer greatly over the next decade or two. And the reason for that is that countries like China are now moving ahead with their eye firmly on that market of five billion people around the planet who can't get enough energy. We know that we can't deliver that energy to those people using traditional means; we'll pollute the planet out of existence. So the big gains to be had over the next decade or two or three are building a new energy economy, and America needs to invest in that, so its own manufacturers and its own chambers of commerce and businesses are in a good position to take a slice of that enormous market that's emerging.

"Dumb as a stump" is an insult to stumps everywhere.

How Feminism Can Also Save The Planet

Natasha Chart — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 19:00:00 GMT

It's true, Rush Limbaugh is a racist idiot and vicious propagandist. One of his recent exercises in inhumanity included telling New York Times reporter Andrew Revkin that he should "just go kill [himself]", as noted at Media Matters, after Revkin said that "probably the single most concrete and substantive thing an American, young American, could do to lower our carbon footprint is not turning off the light or driving a Prius, it's having fewer kids, having fewer children."

There is a wealth of material indicating that wingnut heads spontaneously explode when someone suggests that white Americans shouldn't have as many babies as possible in service to the noble goal of crowding out the lazy brown hordes coming to take our jobs. It's creepy, but not breaking news. When Revkin suggested, as a thought experiment, directing carbon credits towards discouraging people in America (and elsewhere, but we'll get to that) having children, Limbaugh's cranial pressure differential reached critical levels.

In the ensuing October 20th rant, the same one where he suggested Revkin off himself, we get to the meat of Limbaugh's damage:

We don't even have to talk about getting married. We don't even have to talk about being a couple. I mean men have no say now, really, in whether a child is born or not, legally I mean. So would a man have any way of benefiting from the carbon credit?

If men don't have control over something, and especially if they can't benefit from it, Limbaugh is opposed. If you needed an object lesson today on why feminism remains relevant, well, there you are.

However, the fact-on-the-ground that many men do insist on control and the greater share of direct benefits from everything within their purview, gets at the underlying problem with Revkin's thought experiment. Just because Rush Limbaugh doesn't like you, it doesn't make you right in all particulars.

Revkin closed his original blog post describing condoms as the ultimate green technology this way:

If anything, the population-climate question is more pressing in the United States than in developing countries, given the high per-capita carbon dioxide emissions here and the rate of population growth. If giving women a way to limit family size is such a cheap win for emissions, why isn't it in the mix?

Well, here's why. Because if you were really serious about reducing the birth rate, you'd be campaigning first and foremost for women's rights. If you aren't campaigning first and foremost for women's rights, then your push for greater contraception access will never get you where you think you want to go. Also, it can come off badly.
Maximal Returns

Developed nations have mostly reduced their birth rates to at or below replacement levels. Which is to say that population growth has already been cut close to the bone. Further, the rate of pollution produced by the most developed nations is entirely disproportionate to their population share.

As an example, Germany's per capita CO2 emissions are half those of the US, even though they have the highest manufacturing output per capita in the world. This year, Germany announced that they'd met their Kyoto targets three years in advance and are on track to reduce emissions to 1990 levels. They also had a positive balance of trade in 2008, according to UN economic figures, with an export:import ratio of 1.15.

Germans are not living in mud huts, suffering blackouts, or being otherwise miserable for economic reasons as compared to countries with equivalent standards of living. This would suggest that it's at least technically possible for the US to make drastic cuts in CO2 emissions equivalent to halving our total current population while both remaining prosperous and keeping our noses out of people's bedrooms.

Revkin has also been looking at UN data, from which he gathered "that meeting unmet need for family planning would reduce unintended births by 72 per cent, reducing projected world population in 2050 by half a billion to 8.64 billion."

There are approximately 300 million people in the United States. Our total population is only around 3/5 of these projected reductions.

There are unmet needs for family planning in the United States, but when you're talking about the sort of needs gap resulting in that level of population growth rate reduction, the conversation automatically shifts away from the US and the rest of the developed world.

I know. He said we have much higher per capita emissions, he didn't explicitly try to shift blame to poorer nations. But. The math of the situation is such that when population growth becomes the focus, that spotlight always shines brightest on the population segments growing the fastest. Yet if you were to make a chart that compared world population to per capita emissions, which you can see below, a person could be forgiven for thinking that population and emissions have little direct correlation. Not 'no correlation', but it's very obvious that other factors weigh more heavily.

Further, when contraception becomes the focus, that spotlight always shines brightest on women. Why? I don't know, I didn't do it, ats.

Women are held uniquely accountable for population increase and contraception use. You can see the pregnant belly, not so much the erect penis that was also involved. Indeed, women have long been the focus of most reproductive education campaigns, which is funny, ha ha, because they tend to have the smallest share of leverage over sexual encounters.

It's perhaps hard to convey to people likely raised in secular humanist surroundings, but a person needs to have a certain amount of overall leverage in a relationship in order to insist on condom use when the other partner doesn't want to use one. A woman who is a despised economic burden whose sexuality is perceived as the rightful property of her partner is unlikely to be able to insist on condom use. If her society is willing to let her die needlessly in childbirth, how much power can she possibly have?

We didn't lower the birthrate in the US by handing out condoms on every corner, but by improving basic health, expanding education and economic opportunities for women, expanding their rights and status, and then, later, contraceptives proved very effective in curbing the birth rate. It's also worth pointing out that still to this day there are women in the US are in relationships where their partners respect and consider their desires in this regard, or where they're encouraged to believe that their desires matter. Condoms could, in fact, be free on every corner and wouldn't lower the birth rate in a society where men had all the socioeconomic power and saw no reason to use them.

In terms of the global mean, it's inarguable that women have less economic leverage. They are most responsible for doing the universally unpaid work of caring for any resulting children, as well as other sick or elderly adults. In many countries, just keeping the bare necessities together for a family requires hours spent gathering fuel and water, which is yet more unpaid work. They work hard but the only thing it earns them is more poverty and abuse.

Women, mostly mothers, also make up the majority of the world's farm labor force. The cumulative effect of colonial-era inheritance policies and modern development incentives likely mean that our typical farmer doesn't own the land she works on and will be lucky to get even a small share of any profits from her work. And even so, they're probably better off than women completely excluded from the productive economy.

In sum, the people who would inevitably end up being the focus of well-meaning environmentalist population crusading are in fact among the poorest, most powerless people on the planet. No one who lives in the developed world has the moral standing to shift responsibility for our climate obligations in their direction, and yet if you're going to talk about population growth, that's where you're always going to wind up if you're chasing maximal returns.

They're Busy Dying, Thanks

The book Half The Sky, by Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl Wudunn, more fully catalogs the situation of the women who were, are, and probably will be the mothers of most of the world's children. From a review in The American Prospect, emphasis mine:

"It appears that more girls have been killed in the last fifty years, precisely because they were girls, than men were killed in all the wars of the twentieth century," Kristof and WuDunn write. They estimate that 3 million people, the vast majority of them female, are trapped in sexual slavery. More than half a million women die of pregnancy-related causes every year, a figure than hasn't improved in decades.

Addressing a United Nations meeting on September 23rd of this year, Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg pointed out that of the eight Millenium Development Goals, maternal mortality was the only one on which no progress at all has been made since 1990. None. And though progress has been made on child mortality, 230 of their infants die every hour from childbirth complications.

You could almost forget, living in the modern US, just how dangerous childbirth can be. That forgetting isn't possible elsewhere.

In sub-Saharan Africa, birth injuries known as fistulas are relatively common in regions where there may only be one health clinic for each of several dozen, or several hundred, villages. A fistula leaves a woman uncontrollably leaking waste, and perhaps partially paralyzed. While simple to either prevent or repair with proper medical treatment, many women suffering from fistulas are simply left to die. Either their governments don't care enough to make basic health services available, their families can't or won't spend the money to get treatment, or IMF/World Bank structural adjustments have priced basic care beyond the reach of the poor.

It's all about the money, you know.

Because women's labor is often unpaid or paid much less, they're routinely considered an economic drag on their families. In countries where there are school fees, daughters may only get to go to school if there's money left over after sending their brothers, and they're more likely to be taken out of schooling to marry early, help earn money to school their brothers, or help their mothers with unpaid household chores.

In countries where dowries are customary, a baby girl is a major liability, and that disdain carries throughout her life. I'm looking at you, Indian subcontinent. It's routine in Bangladesh, India and Pakistan to hear of women dying from 'exploding stoves,' which is code for a woman's in-laws killing her because her dowry wasn't big enough and they want to free their son to marry again. And plenty of ink has been spilled in the last few years over honor killings, which nauseate me and I'm not going to go into it now.

So again, because "more girls have been killed in the last fifty years, precisely because they were girls, than men were killed in all the wars of the twentieth century," I think a case could be made that anything translating into greater responsibility or unpaid effort on the part of the world's most impoverished and oppressed persons is ethically wicked.

Feminism To The Rescue

This is not to say, again, that population isn't an issue. While problematic in some ways, this Scientific American article outlines the very real problems of deforestation and agricultural pollution that are only going to increase with world population and also won't be much affected by slight changes in wealthy nations' birth rates.

Yet if you're very serious about slowing the global birth rate what you would do instead of adding up contraceptive costs would be to increase women's access to education and employment. If that seems like too big a leap, you would increase their access to basic healthcare through affordable, nearby clinics that can waive fees for the impoverished. If that's too big a commitment, you start training women as basic health extension agents who can advise their neighbors on day-to-day issues and know when to go for a doctor.

And if all that sounds like a daunting task, then start showing men that they need to take responsibility for their effects on the health and welfare of women and children. Start telling politicians that they need to act as though it matters to them that more women die needlessly of malice or neglect than men die in war.

It's always been the feminist stance that these blatant disparities were shameful, and that glorifying motherhood while neglecting actual mothers is the most perverse tenet of patriarchal belief systems. Now it turns out not only to be an embarassment, but a threat to human survival.

If you're worried about the planet, fight for women's equality. Fight for their dignity. Do that, and a lot of the little things will sort themselves out along the way.

By The Numbers

While I know these things to be true, it's better to show than tell.

After reading about the Revkin incident, I was curious to know how maternal mortality matched up with national, per capita CO2 emissions. I wasn't sure the data would even be publicly available, but it turns out to be easier to get some statistics from the UN than it is to navigate the US Bureau of Labor Statistics' freakishly obtuse website.

Using UN demographic data, and UN climate data made public via a Wikipedia compilation, I was able to pull together a chart that compares per capita emissions and the global share of emissions to maternal mortality and child mortality for under-fives.

There's also a column in the middle derived from taking US per capita emissions and dividing them by other countries' per capita emissions to determine how many people in those other countries it takes to emit the same amount of CO2 as one US resident. So for example it takes 4.5 Chinese, 15.52 Indians, 241.09 Ugandans, or 698.21 Afghans, respectively, to emit the same amount of CO2 as one US citizen.

The table is first sorted by share of global CO2 emissions. Only 23 countries emit fully one percent or more of anthropogenic CO2, the values for the rest were left blank because, literally, I don't have all day.

The 23 countries with a one percent or greater contribution to CO2 emissions account for 83.7 percent of emissions as of 2006. They also accounted for 60.6 percent of world population as of 2009, and 83.1 percent of global GDP in 2005.

If you take out the three countries with a maternal death rate of greater than or equal to 400 per 100,000 births, (India, Indonesia and South Africa), the remaining 20 countries produce 75.7 percent of global CO2 emissions. They also account for 40.6 percent of world population and 80.1 percent of world GDP.

See that? See how the GDP share hardly budges if you take out countries where women are so neglected by their societies that their risk of dying in childbirth is around 100 times greater than the risk in the nations that take the best care of pregnant women? Twenty percent of world population, three percent of global GDP.

The lowest it seems technically possible to get maternal mortality is 3-5 per 100,000 births. The US has an embarassingly high rate of 11 per 100,000, likely reflecting the breakdowns of our health care delivery system, but certainly rates in excess of that are obviously preventable.

The rest of the countries are sorted by per capita CO2 emissions. I found it very amusing to note the high rankings of what are essentially vacation paradises for the wealthy whose own native residents can't possibly be polluting that much.

Countries for whom very little data was available have been excluded from the table, somewhere around a dozen or so. If their 2005 GDP data was in the UN database I referenced, it was included in the global GDP table. Overall, I doubt the picture would change much with a perfectly accurate and complete data set.

Without further ado, the numbers ...

	% Total CO2	Per Capita Tons CO2	US Person Equiv	Maternal X per 100k live births	Children <5 X per 1,000 live births
Country	2006	2005	2005	2005	2005
China	21.5	4.28	4.55	45	25
United States	20.2	19.48	1	11	8
Russian Federation	5.5	10.53	1.85	28	17
India	5.3	1.26	15.52	450	77
Japan	4.6	10.17	1.92	6	4
Germany	2.8	9.72	2	4	5
United Kingdom	2	9.19	2.12	8	6
Canada	1.9	17.35	1.12	7	6
Korea, Republic of	1.7	9.91	1.97	14	5
Italy	1.7	8.01	2.43	3	4
Iran (Islamic Republic of)	1.6	6.28	3.1	140	36
Mexico	1.6	4.12	4.73	60	23
South Africa	1.5	8.53	2.28	400	65
France	1.4	6.47	3.01	8	5
Australia	1.3	18.01	1.08	4	6
Saudi Arabia	1.3	15.54	1.25	18	26
Spain	1.2	8.21	2.37	4	5
Brazil	1.2	1.87	10.4	110	24
Indonesia	1.2	1.46	13.31	420	36
Poland	1.1	7.95	2.45	8	7
Ukraine	1.1	6.97	2.79	18	17
Thailand	1	4.3	4.53	110	8
Turkey	1	3.41	5.72	44	29
Qatar	-	58.67	0.33	12	16
Kuwait	-	33.29	0.59	4	12
United Arab Emirates	-	33.06	0.59	37	9
Bahrain	-	27.16	0.72	32	11
Luxembourg	-	24.81	0.79	12	4
Trinidad and Tobago	-	23.38	0.83	45	35
Aruba	-	22.45	0.87	-	-
Netherlands Antilles	-	20.14	0.97	-	-
Falkland Islands (Malvinas)	-	17.25	1.13	-	-
Brunei Darussalam	-	15.8	1.23	13	9
Nauru	-	14.14	1.38	-	30
Singapore	-	13.76	1.42	14	3
Estonia	-	13.55	1.44	25	7
Norway	-	13.12	1.48	7	4
Oman	-	12.55	1.55	64	13
Kazakhstan	-	11.65	1.67	140	35
Czech Republic	-	11.26	1.73	4	4
Cayman Islands	-	11.02	1.77	-	-
Netherlands	-	10.72	1.82	6	6
Ireland	-	10.63	1.83	1	5
Belgium	-	10.52	1.85	8	5
Finland	-	10.45	1.87	7	4
Greenland	-	9.7	2.01	-	-
Israel	-	9.51	2.05	4	6
Libyan Arab Jamahiriya	-	9.28	2.1	97	19
Cyprus	-	8.97	2.17	10	5
Equatorial Guinea	-	8.97	2.17	680	155
Greece	-	8.91	2.19	3	5
Bermuda	-	8.8	2.21	-	-
Austria	-	8.78	2.22	4	5
Denmark	-	8.64	2.25	3	5
Turkmenistan	-	8.64	2.25	130	55
Seychelles	-	8.15	2.39	-	13
Slovenia	-	7.47	2.61	6	4
Iceland	-	7.39	2.64	4	3
New Zealand	-	7.35	2.65	9	6
Malaysia	-	7.15	2.73	62	12
Slovakia	-	7	2.78	6	8
Belarus	-	6.57	2.97	18	15
Bosnia and Herzegovina	-	6.54	2.98	3	15
Bahamas	-	6.52	2.99	16	15
Malta	-	6.43	3.03	8	6
Portugal	-	6.22	3.13	11	5
Bulgaria	-	6.07	3.21	11	13
Hungary	-	5.83	3.34	6	8
Palau	-	5.83	3.34	-	11
China, Hong Kong	-	5.82	3.35	-	-
Venezuela	-	5.71	3.41	57	21
Sweden	-	5.7	3.42	3	4
Switzerland	-	5.57	3.5	5	5
Fmr Yugoslav Rep. of Macedonia	-	5.53	3.53	10	17
Suriname	-	5.26	3.7	72	31
Croatia	-	5.19	3.75	7	7
Antigua and Barbuda	-	4.95	3.94	-	12
China, Macao	-	4.88	3.99	-	-
Guadeloupe	-	4.83	4.03	-	-
Serbia and Montenegro	-	4.77	4.08	14	9
Martinique	-	4.53	4.3	-	-
Barbados	-	4.51	4.32	16	12
Cook Islands	-	4.46	4.37	-	20
French Guiana	-	4.43	4.4	-	-
Lebanon	-	4.36	4.47	150	30
Romania	-	4.25	4.59	24	17
Uzbekistan	-	4.23	4.6	24	46
Azerbaijan	-	4.22	4.61	82	46
Algeria	-	4.21	4.63	180	39
Anguilla	-	4.19	4.65	-	-
Argentina	-	4.1	4.75	77	18
Lithuania	-	4.09	4.77	11	9
British Virgin Islands	-	4	4.87	-	-
Jordan	-	3.85	5.06	62	26
Jamaica	-	3.79	5.14	170	31
Chile	-	3.65	5.34	16	10
Korea, DPR	-	3.53	5.51	370	55
Syrian Arab Rep.	-	3.52	5.53	130	18
Mongolia	-	3.41	5.71	46	48
French Polynesia	-	3.34	5.83	-	-
Iraq	-	3.17	6.15	300	45
Latvia	-	3.07	6.35	10	10
Belize	-	2.97	6.56	52	26
Saint Kitts, Nevis	-	2.76	7.06	-	20
Mauritius	-	2.75	7.09	15	15
Botswana	-	2.46	7.9	380	44
Egypt	-	2.38	8.18	130	40
Ecuador	-	2.35	8.3	210	25
Saint Lucia	-	2.32	8.4	-	18
Maldives	-	2.3	8.48	120	36
Tunisia	-	2.26	8.63	100	24
Grenada	-	2.23	8.74	-	21
Cuba	-	2.21	8.82	45	7
Republic of Moldova	-	2.1	9.27	22	20
Dominican Republic	-	2.1	9.27	150	37
Guyana	-	2.02	9.65	470	63
Fiji	-	2.01	9.69	210	18
Panama	-	1.85	10.53	130	24
Uruguay	-	1.8	10.81	20	15
Saint Helena	-	1.72	11.33	-	-
Costa Rica	-	1.68	11.58	30	12
Dominica	-	1.68	11.62	-	13
Saint Vincent, Grenadines	-	1.63	11.94	-	19
Morocco	-	1.56	12.5	240	40
Marshall Islands	-	1.49	13.1	-	58
Gabon	-	1.45	13.45	520	91
Armenia	-	1.44	13.52	76	27
Albania	-	1.44	13.54	92	17
Peru	-	1.36	14.3	240	24
Namibia	-	1.35	14.44	210	78
Tonga	-	1.33	14.66	-	24
Colombia	-	1.32	14.8	130	22
Viet Nam	-	1.2	16.26	150	18
Honduras	-	1.14	17.1	280	28
Georgia	-	1.07	18.16	66	32
Kyrgyzstan	-	1.07	18.2	150	42
Bolivia	-	1.04	18.7	290	65
Yemen	-	0.96	20.37	430	79
El Salvador	-	0.94	20.64	170	27
Guatemala	-	0.93	20.86	290	43
Swaziland	-	0.91	21.49	390	98
Philippines	-	0.9	21.56	230	30
Tajikistan	-	0.89	21.98	170	74
Zimbabwe	-	0.88	22.13	880	101
Samoa	-	0.86	22.71	-	29
Pakistan	-	0.85	22.97	320	95
Nigeria	-	0.81	24.18	1100	194
Nicaragua	-	0.76	25.61	170	37
Papua New Guinea	-	0.76	25.63	470	68
Occupied Palestinian Terr.	-	0.73	26.61	-	28
Sao Tome and Principe	-	0.67	28.96	-	99
Paraguay	-	0.65	30.02	150	30
Bhutan	-	0.62	31.63	440	90
Angola	-	0.61	31.81	1400	158
Sri Lanka	-	0.61	32.13	58	21
Djibouti	-	0.59	33.12	650	133
Cape Verde	-	0.59	33.24	210	35
Mauritania	-	0.56	34.99	820	120
Western Sahara	-	0.54	36	-	-
Senegal	-	0.47	41.11	980	119
Congo	-	0.44	43.79	740	123
Cote d'Ivoire	-	0.44	44.33	810	129
Vanuatu	-	0.41	47.67	-	38
Solomon Islands	-	0.38	51.22	220	75
Ghana	-	0.33	58.75	560	114
Kenya	-	0.31	63.31	560	120
Benin	-	0.3	64.44	840	129
Sudan	-	0.3	65.35	450	110
Kiribati	-	0.28	69.82	-	65
Cambodia	-	0.27	73.04	540	95
Bangladesh	-	0.26	74.44	570	68
Lao PDR	-	0.25	78.36	660	79
Myanmar	-	0.22	89.23	380	105
Togo	-	0.21	90.82	510	106
Liberia	-	0.21	90.99	1200	140
Cameroon	-	0.21	93.25	1000	149
Zambia	-	0.21	94.56	830	174
Gambia	-	0.2	98.73	690	115
Haiti	-	0.19	102.47	670	84
Sierra Leone	-	0.18	108.34	2100	265
Guinea-Bissau	-	0.17	114.66	1100	204
Eritrea	-	0.17	117.28	450	78
Timor-Leste	-	0.16	118.13	380	105
Guinea	-	0.15	128.92	910	160
Madagascar	-	0.15	129.78	510	119
United Rep. of Tanzania	-	0.13	147.35	950	124
Nepal	-	0.12	166.64	830	62
Comoros	-	0.11	176.61	400	71
Mozambique	-	0.09	215.49	520	174
Rwanda	-	0.08	234.7	1300	137
Uganda	-	0.08	241.09	550	136
Malawi	-	0.08	245.65	1100	127
Niger	-	0.07	278.68	1800	190
Ethiopia	-	0.07	280.29	720	127
Burkina Faso	-	0.06	344.17	700	191
Central African Republic	-	0.06	347.86	980	176
Mali	-	0.05	398.36	970	202
Chad	-	0.04	503.36	1500	209
DR Congo	-	0.04	533.7	1100	166
Somalia	-	0.03	630.42	1400	148
Afghanistan	-	0.03	698.21	1800	257
Burundi	-	0.02	906.05	1100	181
Tuvalu	-	-	-	-	38
Liechtenstein	-	-	-	-	4
Lesotho	-	-	-	960	96
Micronesia	-	-	-	-	42
Monaco	-	-	-	-	5
Montenegro	-	-	-	-	11

Resources and Notes:

- United Nations Millenium Development Goal (MDG) statistics
- Carbon dioxide emissions, total, per capita and per $1 GDP (PPP), 2005; UN MDG
- Maternal mortality ratio per 100,000 live births, 2005; UN MDG, only year of useful data
- Children under five mortality rate per 1,000 live births, 2005; UN MDG
- List of countries by 2006 emissions, percentage of total; Wikipedia, compiled from UN sources, most complete accessible data set
- List of countries by population, 2009; CIA World Factbook, most accessible source
- GDP for 2005; UNStats database.

All figures are given for 2005 where possible, as this was the only year for which there was a relatively complete, country by country estimation for maternal mortality in the UN database. Emissions statistics for 2006 and population statistics for 2009 were used because getting at 2005 data would have required either access to paid data sources or retrieving the information a country or two at a time.

I arrived at my estimate for global GDP by putting the economic source data in a spreadsheet, sorting it by the GDP indicator, transferring that data to a separate sheet and adding it up. If there's a better way to have gotten it, I don't know what that would be.

Also, some of the UN data for certain countries is based on estimates. The notes on how those estimates were made is freely available in the source database.

Blog Action Day: Climate Change

The Opportunity Agenda — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 15:51:16 GMT

Today is blog Action Day. In the organizers' own words:

Blog Action Day is an annual event that unites the world's bloggers in posting about the same issue on the same day on their own blogs with the aim of sparking discussion around an issue of global importance. Blog Action Day 2009 will be the largest-ever social change event on the web. One day. One issue. Thousands of voices.

Although The Opportunity Agenda does not directly work on climate change, the problem is so pervasive that it impacts the issues we do work on. Climate change is not an abstract phenomenon when it comes the lives of everyday people in America. There is mounting evidence that greenhouse gases are increasing the potency of hurricanes, whose impact disproportionately affects those most vulnerable in our society. And as the climate does change, it will be the poorest among us that suffer in increased fuel costs. Finally, the polluting elements that cause climate change are also most common in low-income communities of color. As a result, the health of residents in these areas is worse than those in more affluent neighborhoods.

For these reasons, climate change isn't an issue simply to be addressed by environmental groups. Social activists, too, must see the connections and address this universal concern—a step in realizing the promise of opportunity for all.

Read more at The Opportunity Agenda website.

Time-Lapse Footage of Melting Ice

Michael Kwiatkowski — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 21:39:19 GMT

Thanks to Edger at Docudharma for posting about this. James Balog discusses TED, the Extreme Ice Survey, and why perception is the enemy in the fight to survive global warming. The following embedded video was "[r]ecorded at TEDGlobal 2009, July 2009 in Oxford, England."

Seeing is believing. This is why it was so important to pass meaningful climate legislation instead of the cap-and-trade scam, which appears to be stalled anyway. If we as a nation - indeed, if we as a species - are going to survive the coming catastrophes, we MUST do something NOW. Baby steps and fake reforms will kill us all, guaranteed.

Weekly Mulch: Companies Ditch Chamber for Climate Bill

The Media Consortium — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 17:49:46 GMT

By Raquel Brown, Media Consortium Blogger

Major utility corporations, like Exelon, California's Pacific Gas & Electric Co. (PG&E) and New Mexico's PNM have announced that they are leaving the U.S. Chamber of Commerce because of the organization's controversial stance toward climate change and opposition to a clean energy bill. The Chamber represents business interests, and according to a New York Times editorial, "no organization has done more to undermine [climate change] legislation."
Air America's Beau Friedlander explains that the three utility companies stand to win a lot from climate change legislation, as they produce electricity at nuclear power plants that release minimal carbon emissions. Yet their departure from the Chamber is still significant because Exelon is the nation's largest utility, and PG&E is the second largest utility in California.

Moreover, Jonathan Hiskes of Grist notes that PG&E's environmental values clash with the 97-year-old business advocacy group. PG&E is a leader in solar energy, and both PG&E and Exelon are members of the United States Climate Action Partnership (USCAP), an alliance of environmental groups and businesses that advocate for climate change legislation. Other companies like Johnson & Johnson, and Microsoft decided to continue their membership, but have expressed that they do not agree with the Chamber's position on climate change.

Chamber leaders tried to defend themselves on Tuesday, arguing that they have "mainstream, commonsense views" towards climate change. Thomas Donahue, the Chamber's president and CEO, explained that just because the organization opposes Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulations of greenhouse gas emissions and the Waxman-Markey bill, it doesn't mean that they oppose climate change action altogether. Yeah, right. Kate Sheppard of Mother Jones points out that the Chamber's recent claims are inconsistent with their track record:

"...The Chamber spent more than $17 million dollars in the first half of 2009 lobbying Congress, much of that in opposition to cap-and-trade policy. They've also threatened to sue the Environmental Protection Agency if they move forward on regulating carbon dioxide, and formally filed suit against the EPA for granting California the right to set higher automobile emissions standards."

Andrew Leonard also calls out the Chamber's contradictions in a piece for Salon titled "How to lie about climate change." In another statement for the Chamber, Eric Wohlschlegel said that the Chamber "never questioned the science behind global warming...[but] the science behind the EPA's recent finding that greenhouse gases pose a danger to public health and welfare." Leonard calls Wohlschlegel's assertion a blatant lie, recalling that the Chamber asked the EPA in August to defend their findings in court. The case is strikingly similar to the Scopes Monkey trial. Much like pitting evolution against creationism in a court of law, it's pretty ridiculous that the science behind climate change is still in question.

Finally, Senators John Kerry (D-MA) and Barbara Boxer (D-CA) revealed a draft of the new climate bill on Wednesday. Brian Beutler of Talking Points Memo notes that the new bill, called the Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act, is still a work in progress and is expected to change dramatically as it moves through the Senate.

"When that's all done, and the whole thing's stitched back together, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid can bring it to the floor. He's suggested that this may not happen until next year, but whenever it happens; expect a punishing debate and votes on amendments, which will culminate in a filibuster. If it can muster 60 votes to overcome that, then it may be in the clear. Bloodied and battered, but alive. But that's hardly a safe bet."

AlterNet's Brian Merchant outlines the pros and cons of the new draft and touches on how it differs from the House's climate bill. Key changes include steeper emission reduction targets, added incentives for nuclear power and more affordable carbon offsets. The new bill also gives the EPA the power to regulate greenhouse gas emissions and introduces a price collar on carbon, which limits how cheap or expensive carbon prices can be. The price collar will prevent prices from falling too low and stabilize costs.

"So while the bill appears far from ideal, I'm actually encouraged-this looks like a bill that has a real shot at passing, and it would at least set us solidly on the long-overdue course to start seriously reducing emissions," Merchant writes.

This post features links to the best independent, progressive reporting about the environment and is free to reprint. Visit Sustain.NewsLadder.net for a complete list of articles on the environment and sustainability, or follow us on Twitter. And for the best progressive reporting on critical economy, health, and immigration issues, check out Economy.NewsLadder.net, Healthcare.NewsLadder.net and Immigration.newsladder.net.

This is a project of The Media Consortium, a network of 50 leading independent media outlets, and was created by NewsLadder.

What's Spanish For Total And Complete BS?

jamesboyce — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 21:03:20 GMT

Sometimes it's hard to explain how the far-right and corporate lobbyists operate or how they view reality. It's much easier to understand their actions if you accept that first, they know the facts, but just choose, on the basis of business reasons, to completely ignore them and second, that they understand if they present, backed up with millions of dollars, absolute crap as fact, somewhere someone will believe them.
Recent estimates are that large energy companies, big oil companies and other interested groups are spending $1,000,000 every single day working to distort, deny and come up with reasons why we all shouldn't support clean energy.

I don't often disagree with Paul Krugman but when he recently wrote:

In a rational world, then, the looming climate disaster would be our dominant political and policy concern. But it manifestly isn't. Why not?
Part of the answer is that it's hard to keep peoples' attention focused. Weather fluctuates -- New Yorkers may recall the heat wave that pushed the thermometer above 90 in April -- and even at a global level, this is enough to cause substantial year-to-year wobbles in average temperature. As a result, any year with record heat is normally followed by a number of cooler years: According to Britain's Met Office, 1998 was the hottest year so far, although NASA -- which arguably has better data -- says it was 2005. And it's all too easy to reach the false conclusion that the danger is past.
But the larger reason we're ignoring climate change is that Al Gore was right: This truth is just too inconvenient. Responding to climate change with the vigor that the threat deserves would not, contrary to legend, be devastating for the economy as a whole. But it would shuffle the economic deck, hurting some powerful vested interests even as it created new economic opportunities. And the industries of the past have armies of lobbyists in place right now; the industries of the future don't.
Nor is it just a matter of vested interests. It's also a matter of vested ideas. For three decades the dominant political ideology in America has extolled private enterprise and denigrated government, but climate change is a problem that can only be addressed through government action. And rather than concede the limits of their philosophy, many on the right have chosen to deny that the problem exists.

He missed a fundamental point.

The money spent presenting fiction as fact over the past decade has had a real impact on the average American. Still, to this day, you will hear that there is debate about global warming, about whether it's happening at all.

All around us, there is massive evidence of global warming, and there is scientific consensus, but the money spent denying it gives an out to many people and many politicians.

So when something like the following happens, the tragedy isn't just that it is the effort of a few highly profitable companies who are putting profit before planet (their profit; our planet) but also that it is essentially a successful strategy.

The Institute For Energy Research, a group funded by oil companies, has paid for the author of a completely debunked study to come to the US and talk about the debunked study. What's in the study that is so wrong?

Essentially the study claims that spending money on clean-energy jobs costs an economy jobs.

Now, most of us would stop right there and say, hmm, doesn't make any sense. Of course, smarter people than me have debunked the study. Like the US Government, the Spanish Government, even the Wall Street Journal, not exactly the land of the far-left environmentalists, says, ah, no.

And yet, here is the author in the United States doing media interviews and getting press coverage on the basis of a study that is false. Unfortunately time and time again, the media takes something like this and creates a story when there is none.

That, Mr. Krugman, is also part of the problem.

The Canary In The Coal Mine: Climate Change in Time Lapse Photography

Edger — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 00:23:41 GMT

Crossposted from Antemedius

Time-lapse proof of extreme ice loss: James Balog on TED.com

"Ninety five percent of the glaciers in the world are retreating or shrinking... there is no scientific dispute about that"

Photographer James Balog shares new image sequences from the Extreme Ice Survey, a network of time-lapse cameras recording glaciers receding at an alarming rate, some of the most vivid evidence yet of climate change. (Recorded at TEDGlobal 2009, July 2009 in Oxford, England. Duration: 19:22)
James Balog and the Extreme Ice Survey were featured in a one-hour documentary on NOVA/PBS on March 24, 2009. The film follow[ed] James as he photographs spectacular landscapes in Alaska, Greenland, and Iceland and, with his team, collects images from his time-lapse cameras.

Priorities: Where Does Saving The Planet Fit In?

Paul Rosenberg — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 14:00:00 GMT

Earlier this week in Quick Hits, Xcroc pointed to this NYT graphic

Three things to note: (1) These are percentages, not total goods. The domestic economy is much larger than the military sector. (2) Just look at how recently the military increase really started to spike upwards. (3) The figure in the bottom table are half due to Bush, half to Obama.

As I looked at that graph, and those figures, I began to think, "What if that were spending on green technology instead? After all, global warming is probably the biggest long-term threat there is to our national security. What if we were spending all that money on that in the midst of this economic crisis?"
This is not just DFH intertubes me sounding off. The national security implications of global warming have been the subject of several Pentagon reports over the past five years, with the result that top military and intelligence officials now understand that the connection is very, very real:

2004

from The Observer:

Now the Pentagon tells Bush: climate change will destroy us
Climate change over the next 20 years could result in a global catastrophe costing millions of lives in wars and natural disasters...
* Mark Townsend and Paul Harris in New York
* The Observer, Sunday 22 February 2004 01.33
A secret report, suppressed by US defence chiefs and obtained by The Observer, warns that major European cities will be sunk beneath rising seas as Britain is plunged into a 'Siberian' climate by 2020. Nuclear conflict, mega-droughts, famine and widespread rioting will erupt across the world.
The document predicts that abrupt climate change could bring the planet to the edge of anarchy as countries develop a nuclear threat to defend and secure dwindling food, water and energy supplies. The threat to global stability vastly eclipses that of terrorism, say the few experts privy to its contents.
'Disruption and conflict will be endemic features of life,' concludes the Pentagon analysis. 'Once again, warfare would define human life.'
The findings will prove humiliating to the Bush administration, which has repeatedly denied that climate change even exists. Experts said that they will also make unsettling reading for a President who has insisted national defence is a priority.
The report was commissioned by influential Pentagon defence adviser Andrew Marshall, who has held considerable sway on US military thinking over the past three decades. He was the man behind a sweeping recent review aimed at transforming the American military under Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.
Climate change 'should be elevated beyond a scientific debate to a US national security concern', say the authors, Peter Schwartz, CIA consultant and former head of planning at Royal Dutch/Shell Group, and Doug Randall of the California-based Global Business Network.
An imminent scenario of catastrophic climate change is 'plausible and would challenge United States national security in ways that should be considered immediately', they conclude. As early as next year widespread flooding by a rise in sea levels will create major upheaval for millions.

2007

On tax day, 2007, the NYT reported:

April 15, 2007
Global Warming Called Security Threat
By ANDREW C. REVKIN and TIMOTHY WILLIAMS
For the second time in a month, private consultants to the government are warning that human-driven warming of the climate poses risks to the national security of the United States.
A report, scheduled to be published on Monday but distributed to some reporters yesterday, said issues usually associated with the environment - like rising ocean levels, droughts and violent weather caused by global warming - were also national security concerns.
"Unlike the problems that we are used to dealing with, these will come upon us extremely slowly, but come they will, and they will be grinding and inexorable," Richard J. Truly, a retired United States Navy vice admiral and former NASA administrator, said in the report.
The effects of global warming, the study said, could lead to large-scale migrations, increased border tensions, the spread of disease and conflicts over food and water. All could lead to direct involvement by the United States military.
The report recommends that climate change be integrated into the nation's security strategies and says the United States "should commit to a stronger national and international role to help stabilize climate changes at levels that will avoid significant disruption to global security and stability."
The report, called "National Security and the Threat of Climate Change," was commissioned by the Center for Naval Analyses, a government-financed research group, and written by a group of retired generals and admirals called the Military Advisory Board.
In March, a report from the Global Business Network, which advises intelligence agencies and the Pentagon on occasion, concluded, among other things, that rising seas and more powerful storms could eventually generate unrest as crowded regions like Bangladesh's sinking delta become less habitable.
One of the authors of the report, Peter Schwartz, a consultant who studies climate risks and other trends for the Defense Department and other clients, said the climate system, jogged by a century-long buildup of heat-trapping gases, was likely to rock between extremes that could wreak havoc in poor countries with fragile societies.
"Just look at Somalia in the early 1990s," Mr. Schwartz said. "You had disruption driven by drought, leading to the collapse of a society, humanitarian relief efforts, and then disastrous U.S. military intervention. That event is prototypical of the future."
"Picture that in Central America or the Caribbean, which are just as likely," he said. "This is not distant, this is now. And we need to be preparing."
Other recent studies have shown that drought and scant water have already fueled civil conflicts in global hot spots like Afghanistan, Nepal, and Sudan, according to several recent studies.

2008

Mike McConnell, Bush's Director of National Intelligence, January 21, 2008, interviewed by Lawrence Wright in the New Yorker:

I asked McConnell if he believed that Al Qaeda was really the greatest threat America faces.
"No, no, no, not at all," he said. "Terrorism can kill a lot of people, but it can't fundamentally challenge the ability of the nation to exist. Fascism could have done that. Communism could have. I think our issue going forward is more engagement with the world in terms of keeping it on a reasonable path, so another ism doesn't come along and drive it to one extreme or another. And we have to have some balance in terms of equitable distribution of wealth, containment of contagious disease, access to energy supplies, and development of free markets. There are national-security ramifications to global warming."

So why not a green Manhattan Project? Why not a man-on-the-moon-style effort? Heck, why not take all that money away from being wasted on missile defense, and put it where it could really protect us---by reducing the threat of global warming?

Obama doesn't have to sell it. Let the Pentagon do that.

Fix Derivatives, Save The World?

Natasha Chart — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 13:00:00 GMT

The people who run the finance industry are extremely smart. Says so on the label. That's how they were able to convince the government to make good on their gambling debts, though if they were a little smarter, they might have remembered that the house always wins.

They've created speculative bubbles in recent decades (and more than one had to be bailed out) over commodities like silver, unsecured loans, real estate, dotcom firms whose business plans hinged on sock puppet sales, real estate ... well, you get the picture. On to the next big thing.

That thing might well be carbon markets. Turns out, the companies that hold most of the current derivative risk will be able to ~~make ridiculous, unsupervised bets~~ sell dizzyingly complex derivatives against carbon offsets, too. Though no worries, the price of failure would only be the absence of a price signal that will push atmospheric carbon levels down, hastening catastrophic global climate disruption. No big:

... Well, Waxman-Markey had some good language regulating carbon and other energy derivatives.
... However, in the 300 pages of amendments added to Waxman-Markey just after 3.a.m on the night the bill passed, a few new sentences materialized that placed a big asterisk on those safeguards. The final text now says that the sections of the bill regulating carbon derivatives will be overridden by any derivatives legislation that the House passes later in the year. ...

Capital idea, there. Let's just keep the craps tables open for good.

In theory, decent derivatives regulations will come out of Congress later in the year, even if no one wants to put the Glass-Steagall protections back in full. We might get some good policing of the over-the-counter derivatives market, like Geithner is proposing, measures with real teeth.

Wait, what's that you say? Big companies don't like that idea? All right. Looks like Geithner's not such a fan of oversight anymore, either. In fact, he's in the news reports as having cussed up a storm against proponents of bringing greater oversight into what he sees as the Federal Reserve's private stomping grounds. (Shhh! No one tell Geithner that 75 percent of the public actually favors auditing the Fed itself. Horrors!)

Congress might still pull through. Maybe.

Rep. Collin Peterson, Agriculture Committee chair, is interested in regulating them, but he's not exactly Mr. Corporate Oversight. Does he just want his fingers in the pie so that, like Geithner, when it comes time for independent review, he can throw an expletive-laden tantrum and prevent serious reform? Or maybe he just wants to enshrine chemical no-till as a prime carbon offset early on, generate some extra revenue for farmers who end up using more herbicide than you can shake a stick at and then call it environmentalism.

Still, it probably hangs on the Senate, which is to say that it relies on the Senate passing tougher derivative regulations that would affect the carbon market than the House. Maybe Schumer will fix it. Maybe Boxer or Kerry, and their compatriots on the Environment and Public Works Committee. We'll see.

Pets.com wound up as just another of the Ozymandii of the Dotcom bubble. There were outfits who kept selling the company's trademark sock puppets after they folded, because it was the only money-making enterprise Pets.com ever came up with. Wall Street ate it up, though, until companies started folding and it all went to hell. Then the big investors and their cheerleaders eased into REITs, real estate investment trusts, because surely, nothing could really go wrong with the housing market.

Legislators should know by now, if they ever did, that common sense and restraint aren't the watchwords of Wall Street. They should get on the ball with providing those things if a carbon market is important to them. Otherwise, it'll be sock puppets all around.

A Three-Pronged Strategy On Global Warming

Paul Rosenberg — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 16:30:00 GMT

On July 11, Nick Berning, from Friends of the Earth, wrote a diary here, "Progressive Block Needed on Clean Energy Legislation in Senate". In it, he argued for the need to create a progressive block of Senators who demand a set of bottom-line objectives be met by any energy/climate legislation:

Because of the dire threat climate destabilization poses to our economy and quality of life, as well as global security and stability, we simply must do better than the House bill that puts a hard-to-change, ill-advised system in place. At a minimum, any bill the Senate passes should:
1. Maintain the EPA's existing authority to use the Clean Air Act to regulate coal-fired power plants, which the House-passed bill undermines. (Coal is the #1 source of global warming pollution in the world.)
2. Bring about a true transition to clean energy. One current Senate proposal (the bill that passed the Senate Energy Committee) would produce no more clean energy than business-as-usual scenarios. That's a disaster that must be fixed.
3. Prevent gaming by Wall Street. There's a reason Wall Street has 130 lobbyists working full time on climate change. Within years, the carbon trading system created by the House bill could become the biggest derivatives market in the world, subject to "subprime carbon" and speculation. This needs to be remedied.
4. Lay the groundwork for an international solution to global warming. A key phase of international negotiations under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change is slated to culminate in December in Copenhagen. The emissions reduction targets in the House-passed bill are so weak (and are further undermined by offset loopholes), and the bill's funding for international solutions is so meager, that the bill is incompatible with a fair, effective global agreement. Developing countries are rightly rejecting these proposals, which is why the G8 failed to agree on emissions reductions targets in Italy this week.

While I agree whole-heartedly with what Nick wrote, in writing an article for Random Lengths News, two other strategies emerged as compatible with and reinforcing this approach. The first is already well under way, the campaign for a global day of action on October 24 by 350.org. The second is only the germ of an idea, based on some comments, and some of the work done on working with local officials raising awareness and starting to shape policies below state level. I'll discuss both these strategies a little more fully on the flip.
350.org's Global Day Of Action

"Steal from the best," I always say. And if you can't do that, then steal from yourself. At least you won't get sued. And so, in that spirit, here's the sidebar from the story I wrote, explaining something about 350.org and their strategy:

Although there are other gases that contribute to global warming, carbon dioxide, CO2, is by far the most significant. The upper limit of atmospheric carbon considered safe in the long run is 350 parts per million (ppm)-and the first goal of 350.org is just to start driving that number home in order to begin moving the climate debate into a more realistic direction. The point of raising that awareness, 350.org explains, is to create "an equitable global climate treaty that lowers carbon dioxide below 350 parts per million."
To understand where we are compared to where we need to be, the current level of atmospheric carbon is 387 ppm, up from 320 ppm in 1958, and around 280 ppm from the time of ancient Greece until the start of the Industial Revolution. Prior to that, it had been stable at around 260 ppm for thousands of years, before taking 3,000 years to rise 20 ppm.
Using a decentralized web-based organizing structure, 350.org aims to generate thousands of "350"-themed events in over 100 countries around the world on October 24 to pressure elected officials to take significant action at the UN Climate Climate Summit in Copenhagen in early December.
Each event organizer is asked to take and upload an action photo that visibly displays the number 350. Everything else is up to them. Some events won't be easily photographed, though. McKibben was recently in Britain, where he met with church leaders, resulting in a commitment from thousands of churches to ring their bells 350 times during the day-an action reminiscent of the use of church bells in WWII to warn of invasion.
"It's a pot-luck supper," 350.org founder Bill McKibben told The Ecologist, a premier British publication now online. "We are saying, 'Here is the date, here is the theme, and you have to do the cooking, to self-organise'".
McKibben is a best-selling author-turned activist. His 1989 book, The End of Nature, was one of the earliest warnings of dangerous out-of-balance our relationship with nature had become. As an activist, McKibben began modestly with a statewide anti-global warming march in Vermont-the largest climate change demonstration ever seen at the time. He then went national with the Step It Up campaign, which generated 1400 local demonstrations across the country on April 14, 2007.
"We didn't need a march on Washington anymore, if we could have 1,400 marches wherever and, at the end of the day, bring all the images of them together in one place. Also, it's odd to tell people to drive across America to protest climate change," McKibben said.
Already, 350.org has 1134 actions registered at its website in 75 countries. These include several in Los Angeles, including a demonstration at the Westwood Federal Building and a "Climate Action Festival" at Del Rey Lagoon Park in Playa del Rey, but nothing yet is listed for the Harbor Area or Long Beach.
The 350 ppm target is significantly lower than most environmental organizations are currently aiming. "Most U.S. environmental organizations endorse the Waxman-Markey climate bill with the stated goal of keeping atmospheric greenhouse gases below 450 parts per million," climate activist Bill Ward wrote in a recent article at Grist.org. "The two numbers are not staging points on a gradual curve of escalating climate impacts.... Each goal is the product of an entirely different calculus. 300-350 ppm is derived by climate scientists working backwards from a definition of the problem. 450 ppm represents a consensus of U.S. environmentalists on what may feasibly be advanced within present political conditions."
350.org aims to change those political conditions. On October 24, you can help do that.

The idea of an global day of grassroots activism around a common, well-defined theme is a powerful one, and one well worth supporting. I expect to write more about this as October 24 approaches.

Think Globally, Act Locally: This Time It's Personal

My third line of strategy was suggested by the words and work of Bob Doppelt, director of the Climate Leadership Initiative at University of Oregon. Doppelt is a social scientist working on climate change. He caught my attention with a couple of comments in the discussion of a post at the RealClimate blog, "A warning from Copenhagen".

In his first comment, Bob wrote:

Bottom line: we must rapidly mitigate emissions but the world must now equally prioritize rapidly preparing for the consequences of rising temperatures. The term adaptation should thus be used much judiciously than in the past. Its not likely that most societies can adapt to 2 C in one century or less, unless you call constant crisis management adaptation. We can, however, prepare for the consequences much like we now prepare for natural disasters. My experience in the U.S. is that by focusing on preparation people become more interested in mitigation-which is quite the opposite of what was first thought. {Emphasis added]

In his second comment, he wrote:

We have long know that information alone-no matter how credible- is not sufficient to motivate fundamental change. In fact, too much information without the other keys to successful change (which I think can be summarized as sufficient tension, efficacy and benefits) often triggers the reverse-people deny, ignore, or rationalize away a problem. If we are to make significant progress in addressing climate change we need to make a major investment in cognitive, behavioral, economic and other factors that motivate change. This does not mean that the biophysical sciences are less important-of course they remain essential. However, I think today that the emphasis is out of balance given the challenges we face. {Emphasis added]

I followed up and did a brief phone interview with him for the piece I wrote, and I looked some of his work documented on his website, particularly the report, "Preparing for Climate Change in the Rogue River Basin" (pdf). The end result of all this is that I came away with the impression that if we could engage local officials in processes similar to the Rogue River Basin study all across the nation, we could make huge progress in changing how people think about the problem, and create the foundations for a bottom-up strategy within the structures of government, as well as making the realities of climate change very concrete for people in terms of what it will mean for their immediate communities and way of life.

As progressives, we all know that we have not paid enough attention to politics at the state and local level. This is a clear example of how we can bring about significant global change by focusing more attention at the local level. I believe that it can play an absolutely crucial role in changing the political climate around climate change, and I think that Doppelt is absolutely right about the importance in changing how people think in order to solve this problem.

Conclusion

These three strategies are all conceptually independent from one another, and focus on different levels and modalities of action. Each is powerful on its on. Combining them together holds real promise of creating the sort of major shift that all knowledgeable participant observers know is necessary if we are to avoid the worst of what is staring us in the face. I'd like to know what you think.

Progressive Block Needed on Clean Energy Legislation in Senate

Nick Berning — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 15:00:00 GMT

Senator Barbara Boxer, who chairs the Senate's Environment and Public Works Committee, announced this week that her committee won't mark up energy and climate legislation until after the August recess. That's a good thing. It means progressive groups and activists have more time to coordinate their efforts to support the emergence of a progressive bloc of senators on these issues.
Two weeks ago, a deeply flawed ("counterfeit" even, as NASA's top climate scientist put it) energy bill passed the House. The lack of a strong progressive block in the House was disastrous. Almost no progressive members of Congress were willing to draw a line in the sand and vote no when the bill was weakened (Reps. Peter DeFazio, Pete Stark, and Dennis Kucinich were courageous exceptions). The result was a bill that did little to promote clean energy and failed to solve the climate crisis. While many special interests -- from Dirty Coal to Big Oil to Corporate Agribusiness to Wall Street -- were served, the public interest was not.

Because of the dire threat climate destabilization poses to our economy and quality of life, as well as global security and stability, we simply must do better than the House bill that puts a hard-to-change, ill-advised system in place. At a minimum, any bill the Senate passes should:

1. Maintain the EPA's existing authority to use the Clean Air Act to regulate coal-fired power plants, which the House-passed bill undermines. (Coal is the #1 source of global warming pollution in the world.)

2. Bring about a true transition to clean energy. One current Senate proposal (the bill that passed the Senate Energy Committee) would produce no more clean energy than business-as-usual scenarios. That's a disaster that must be fixed.

3. Prevent gaming by Wall Street. There's a reason Wall Street has 130 lobbyists working full time on climate change. Within years, the carbon trading system created by the House bill could become the biggest derivatives market in the world, subject to "subprime carbon" and speculation. This needs to be remedied.

4. Lay the groundwork for an international solution to global warming. A key phase of international negotiations under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change is slated to culminate in December in Copenhagen. The emissions reduction targets in the House-passed bill are so weak (and are further undermined by offset loopholes), and the bill's funding for international solutions is so meager, that the bill is incompatible with a fair, effective global agreement. Developing countries are rightly rejecting these proposals, which is why the G8 failed to agree on emissions reductions targets in Italy this week.

The only way we're going to get a better bill out of the Senate is if a progressive bloc of senators demands it, the same way 10-15 Democrats told Majority Leader Reid that without a public option in health care reform, they'd vote no. With action in the Environment and Public Works Committee delayed until after the August recess, that means progressive activists and organizations have time to press senators to take such a stand. Let's get to work!

By the way ... President Obama doesn't have to wait for Congress. His administration should stop dragging its feet and do more to use its existing authority under the Clean Air Act to fight global warming. Doing so would reduce pollution and increase pressure on the Senate. More on this in a future post.

NOTE: I direct public advocacy at Friends of the Earth. For the next several months, we will be sponsoring OpenLeft. That means you'll see our button on the top right side of this page, and it also means we'll be involved in putting up front-page posts about once a week. I hope you find our contributions to be useful. We look forward to your comments.

Emissions Reduction Targets Miss The Point

Natasha Chart — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 12:13:12 GMT

Does this tedious gibberish about UK emissions cuts make any sense to you?

... Our analysis suggested that a 42% cut in 2020 was sufficiently ambitious to put us on the path to an 80% cut in 2050. We argued that we should plan for a 42% cut, but should enact a lower but still ambitious cut of 34% before a global emissions reduction deal is achieved. We argued that only when other countries are fully committed to tackling climate change should we move to the higher level of ambition; this is the same approach adopted by the EU. We set out a range of measures to meet the 34% cut that would facilitate the transition to the 42% cut at the appropriate time. ...

It goes on and on like that. Here are the real silly bits:

... sufficiently ambitious ... still ambitious ... only when other countries are fully committed ... should we move to the higher level of ambition ... facilitate the transition[ ]at the appropriate time ...

Is this a self-esteem building exercise? A 'keep up with the Joneses' plan? Are we easing an 8 year old into a new school?

Appropriate time, my toenails. Have they seen the latest report on thinning Arctic ice? Well, have they?

It'd be more straightforward, and much more in line with the pressing necessities of the time, to say that we need to zero out our emissions and set about figuring out the fastest possible way to do so.
Even if we only got a 50% reduction out of that, it'd still be better than the ACES bill. Though it might at least put things in perspective.

Current policies are nibbling around the edges, trying to prop up doing things that our rapidly warming globe tells us we should not be doing at all. Here in the US, we still want to dig up all our coal. In Canada, they want to exploit the tar sands. I'm sure all the other oil producing countries want to pump those wells for the very last drop.

Every one of those practices is heavily subsidized, both in cash and the cost to the public of worsening quality of life.

We need to be doing other things with our energies.

If we were serious about global warming, we'd be identifying activities that need to come to an end and plotting a course to replace them with all possible speed.

The huge task of fixing this terraforming disaster we've created is going to require new industries, new manufacturing and installation capacity, whole new ways of structuring our communities. Phasing out fossil fuels is an enormous task on its own. Taken all together, it's an infrastructure project that dwarfs the national highway system.

Some phases could even be largely financed out of energy savings:

... Pay As You Save is designed to address this problem. Firstly, the upfront cost of measures, for example £10,000, is put up by a third party (such as a bank, retailer or local authority), not the consumer.
... Then, from the savings on energy bills, a "standing charge" is repaid, every month, until the original lump sum (plus some interest) has been paid off.
... The other key part of the package that enables this to work is that the monthly charge is attached not to the person, but to the property itself and would be paid off over a period of 25 years. ...

How fast could such a system be put in gear to radically crank down household emissions such that polluting energy industries had less of a hold on our economy? We should try it and find out.

How fast could we possibly get to the goal of having a carbon-free electricity sector? Judging by the past performance of the electric utility sector, probably pretty fast.

And if government officials want to make this about a contest between nations, they should be competing to see who can lower greenhouse gas emissions the fastest. Whoever does best at that won't only have bragging rights, flourishing new industries, and better public health, they'll be acting in keeping with the best understanding of the scientific data.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the IPCC, lowballed it. They didn't mean to, the only wanted to be cautious and thorough, but they did, in part because global emissions projections have been wild underestimates. (And even the IPCC recommended making deep cuts in emissions as quickly as possible, not leaving most of the work to unidentified parties in the future.) Warming is going to be worse and faster [pdf] than they predicted and we are already past a dangerous tipping point.

What we need are actually net negative emissions to prevent what Dr. James Hansen described as being necessary to "preserve a planet similar to that on which civilisation developed and to which life on Earth is adapted". Also, we need to eat.

The game our national leaders are playing, double dog daring each other to 'Go first,' 'no, you go first,' 'I'm not going until Sally goes, but if she does, then I'll really show you,' is just Nero-worthy and it's wasting our potential as a civilization.

[Update: link added.]

Collin Peterson Objectively Pro-Flooding

Natasha Chart — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 15:00:00 GMT

This is the crux of the problem with federal climate change action. Collin Peterson (D-MN), one of the chief architects of the weakening of the ACES climate bill, recently said the following regarding global warming:

"We've just had the biggest floods and coldest winters we've ever had. They're saying to us [that climate change is] going to be a big problem because it's going to be warmer than it usually is; my farmers are going to say that's a good thing since they'll be able to grow more corn."

He said this in spite of the fact that the projected warming would be disastrous for corn pollination, and hence, yield. Worse, he says so in spite of the fact that global warming is going to engender a lot of local flooding in many of the world's farming regions.

Scratch that. Global warming is, right now, already increasing flooding in many areas, as it is projected to do in Peterson's Minnesota, as well as the districts and states of many other staunch opponents of getting this country on the path to carbon neutrality. A taste ...
- 700,000 flee floods in China as they approach the peak of the wet season. Part of China's problem is deforestation, which they're doing a lot of work to combat, but the Himalayan glaciers are melting and then it's going to be dry times - flood, then famine.

- Speaking of the Himalayas, nearly 500,000 Indians are now homeless from recent floods.

- Thousands of Zambians have already become climate refugees in their own country due to global-warming induced flooding.

- Here in the US, unprecedented flooding in Alaska has started an expensive chain of disaster declarations. The state is so far seeing the most obvious effects of climate change anywhere in the country.

- Oxfam also warns that 50 years of development gains in poor countries could be wiped out completely. Caught between droughts and flooding, hundreds of millions of the world's poorest people could be put in even greater jeopardy.

- And if Oxfam's not Serious enough, the insurance industry has weighed in on climate change, with "the CEO's of 80 (statutory maximum) of the world's largest insurers and reinsurers" meeting in the offices of Lloyd's of London this month to say they don't think it's going to be a picnic:

... The insurance industry representatives called for "international cooperation to reduce CO2 emissions," he said, and they endorsed a "leading role" for the industry in achieving that goal.
... Lloyd's Director of Franchise Performance Rolfe Tolle followed Butt with a ringing endorsement of the 2007 report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC - www.ipcc.ch).
... Tolle went on to describe the effects of higher temperatures - possibly an increase of up to C6° [F 10.8°] - which would impact property in low lying areas and river valleys, as fires, floods and tidal surges cause increasingly heavy losses. He also warned of increasing liability claims, not only against architects, engineers and builders, but also against major industrial firms, who produce pollutants.

Maybe this year Minnesota corn farmers escaped the worst effects of flooding that devastated Midwestern agriculture in several states. But Homo sapiens petroleus is going to become extinct and no one's going to care how virtuous or bipartisan were the people who failed to stop the hard landing we will face in a business-as-usual climate scenario.

We might not need Congress to come around to see sense on this issue, but to try to get them to be as forward thinking as the international insurance industry, we have to get past people who think epic flooding is a joke and a leadership that coddles them.

So. ... Local governments, then?

Why We Can't Wait on Solving the Climate Crisis

Andrew Davey — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 16:49:08 GMT

(Proudly cross-posted at OC Progressive & My Silver State)

New Orleans may sink into the sea by 2100. Much of Florida may also be underwater by then. Drought will likely become the norm out West, meaning California could no longer provide the food we depend upon. Las Vegas may become downright inhabitable.

No, I'm not fabricating any of this. These will be the consequences of inaction if we continue to delay implementing the solutions we need to solve the coming climate crisis. But for some reason, may of our supposedly wise lawmakers in Capitol Hill are either willfully ignorant of the facts or downright lying about our future.

Seriously, we can't allow any more of this.

The denialism and downright insanity that's plaguing most Republicans and even some Democrats in Washington today may ultimately kill us tomorrow. This is why we barely passed a flawed and watered down bill in the House, and this is why we must act before we get an even worse bill out of the Senate.

What may be nearly as dangerous as the outright denial of climate change by the far right is the acceptance by the squishy centrists of half-baked, half-assed measures that don't do enough. I know, I know, we always hear from these Washington Centrists that "this is what's politically feasible". But frankly, I'm done with "political feasibility" today. That won't matter one bit if we're all dead tomorrow.

President Obama promised us swift and bold action. So did Democratic Congressional leaders. And while much of the blame for past inaction goes to the "Party of No" Republicans that would rather profit today than ensure human survival tomorrow, we need for Senate Democrats to stand up for real action to prevent any more weakening of the climate bill.

No matter where we are, we all need to speak up and contact our Senators now! Also make sure to leave a note for the Senate Environment & Public Works Committee, letting them know that we will fully back their efforts to craft a strong bill. We can't wait any longer to solve the climate crisis, and we can't afford to settle for anything less than real solutions.

The people are on our side. Time, however, isn't. We need to act now, before it's too late.