Plan B Forum

I am aghast.


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1. IGNORANCE: HOUSE COMMITTEE VOTES TO OVERTURN NATURAL LAW.
The price of gasoline at the pump is at the highest level ever for this
time of year. That’s not all bad; raising the price is the only effective
way to reduce consumption, thereby improving the environment and delaying
the dreaded Hubbert peak. There are, however, two ways to raise the price
to the consumer: increase the profit margin of the oil industry, or levy a
large consumption tax. The revenue from a heavy consumption tax would help
to pay the crushing costs of the Bush economy. You will not be surprised,
however, to learn that the Republican Congress overwhelmingly prefers the
first method, which will embodied in the Energy Tax Prevention Act of 2011,
in preparation. But first they had to amend the Clean Air Act to eliminate
the authority of the Environmental Protection Agency over greenhouse
gases. According to an editorial in last week's Nature, the Republican
disdain for climate science was evident in the "anger and distrust directed
at scientists and scientific societies." The widespread melting of snow
and ice, and rising global average sea level, is unequivocal evidence of
global warming, http://bobpark.physics.umd.edu/WN11/wn020411.html.
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When facts contradict your ideology ... change the facts!

http://climateprogress.org/2011/03/16/n ... e-science/

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Nature editorial, “Into ignorance,” slams GOP for “vote to overturn an aspect of climate science”
March 16, 2011

It is hard to escape the conclusion that the US Congress has entered the intellectual wilderness, a sad state of affairs in a country that has led the world in many scientific arenas for so long. Global warming is a thorny problem, and disagreement about how to deal with it is understandable. It is not always clear how to interpret data or address legitimate questions. Nor is the scientific process, or any given scientist, perfect. But to deny that there is reason to be concerned, given the decades of work by countless scientists, is irresponsible.

That’s from a strong editorial in the journal Nature, “Into ignorance” (subs. req’d). Here’s more:

As Nature went to press, a committee of the US Congress was poised to pass legislation that would overturn a scientific finding on the dangers of global warming. The Republican-sponsored bill is intended to prevent the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) from regulating greenhouse-gas emissions, which the agency declared a threat to public welfare in 2009. That assessment serves as the EPA’s legal basis for regulation, so repealing the ‘endangerment finding’ would eliminate its authority over greenhouse gases.

That this finding is scientifically sound had no bearing on the decision to push the legislation, and Republicans on the House of Representatives’ energy and commerce committee have made clear their disdain for climate science. At a subcommittee hearing on 14 March, anger and distrust were directed at scientists and respected scientific societies. Misinformation was presented as fact, truth was twisted and nobody showed any inclination to listen to scientists, let alone learn from them. It has been an embarrassing display, not just for the Republican Party but also for Congress and the US citizens it represents.

It is tempting to write all of this off as petty partisanship, a populist knee-jerk reaction to lost jobs and rising energy prices by a well-organized minority of Republican voters. After all, US polling data has consistently shown that, in general, the public accepts climate science….

… the legislation is fundamentally anti-science, just as the rhetoric that supports it is grounded in wilful ignorance. One lawmaker last week described scientists as “elitist” and “arrogant” creatures who hide behind “discredited” institutions. Another propagated the myth that in the 1970s the scientific community warned of an imminent ice age. Melting ice caps on Mars served to counter evidence of anthropogenic warming on Earth, and Antarctica was falsely said to be gaining ice. Several scientists were on hand — at the behest of Democrats on the subcommittee — to answer questions and clear things up, but many lawmakers weren’t interested in answers, only in prejudice….

That this legislation is unlikely to become law doesn’t make it any less dangerous. It is the attitude and ideas behind the bill that are troublesome, and they seem to be spreading. Fred Upton, the Michigan Republican who chairs the full energy and commerce committee, once endorsed climate science, but last month said — after being pinned down by a determined journalist — that he is not convinced that greenhouse-gas emissions contribute to global warming. It was yet another blow to the shrinking minority of moderate centrists in both parties.

One can only assume that Congress will find its way at some point, pressured by voters who expect more from their public servants. In the meantime, as long as it can fend off this and other attacks on the EPA, President Barack Obama’s administration should push forward with its entirely reasonable regulatory programme for reducing greenhouse-gas emissions where it can, while looking for ways to work with Congress in other areas. Rising oil prices should increase interest in energy security, a co-benefit of the greenhouse-gas and fuel-efficiency standards for vehicles that were announced by the administration last year. The same advice applies to the rest of the world. Work with the United States where possible, but don’t wait for a sudden change of tenor in Washington DC.

One of the scientists testifying before Whitfield’s subcommittee was Christopher Field, director of the Carnegie Institution’s global ecology department in Stanford, California. Field generously hoped that his testimony at last week’s hearing took place “in the spirit of a genuine dialogue that is in the best interests of the country”. Maybe one day that hope will be justified.

Maybe one day, but not one day soon.

Related Posts:

* National Journal: “The GOP is stampeding toward an absolutist rejection of climate science that appears unmatched among major political parties around the globe, even conservative ones.”

* Nature: “Scientists must now emphasize the science, while acknowledging that they are in a street fight.”

* Anti-science House Republicans reject amendment that says climate change is occurring

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After all, that is how Christians held humanity back for centuries.

yrs,
rubato

Regardless of the (presumed) science, our legislators are well advised to prevent an unelected branch of government with its own agenda from putting a huge hurt on our manufacturing and transportation bases, pursuing a pipe dream that anything the U.S. does can have any effect whatsoever on the "climate" at any time in the foreseeable future.

What the EPA is trying to do - considering what China, India, and the rest of the developing world are doing - is analogous to trying to bail out a boat with a coffee can while there is a huge, gaping hole in the hull. The only conceivable result will be to hamper U.S. economic development in the midst of a severe recession.

In short, It's a typical Liberal initiative.

So instead of setting the standard that the rest of the world can look forward to, and developing technology that we can sell to the developing countries to help with their emissions, we should instead just wallow in our own filth?

Good alternative there.

"Wallow in our own filth"?

What do you think comes out of automobiles, factories, and power plants? Sunshine and rainbows?

We've been polluting this planet for a long time now. Why are attempts to not spew as much filth seen as being so dangerous? Did you not get told as a child to clean up after yourself? When did it become acceptable to stop doing that?

Even if the rest of the world doesn't follow with us, which is highly unlikely, when did that become the guiding principle for whether or not we should do the right thing?

People claimed that better environmental regulation would be 'too expensive' back in the 1970s and they were proven wrong. That is still true today.

Allowing industry to pollute just externalizes their costs to the rest of the world who pay in shorter lives, more disease, lower quality of life, higher taxes (to pay for all of the above), loss of trillions of dollars worth of real estate to flooding, or paying trillions to build dykes and levees to protect said real estate, &c.

The "it just costs too much" argument is stupid and provably false.

The highest-level people in China are all trying to come here because they are suffering an environmental disaster there. In other words they are paying a high price for stupidity which DGS would like all of us to pay as well. Dumb dumb dumb. A race for the bottom.

yrs,
rubato

W

O

W!

American pollution is leading to, "...shorter lives, more disease, lower quality of life, higher taxes (to pay for all of the above), loss of trillions of dollars worth of real estate to flooding, or paying trillions to build dykes and levees to protect said real estate, &c.)

Amazing.

Care to back that up? Where, exactly, are they paying "trillions to build dykes and levees"? Or would that be future costs due to the myth of sea levels rising?

"It costs too much," is provably false? Would the proof be somewhere in the fact that millions of American factory jobs have been lost because it is cheaper to make stuff overseas where the environmental laws are less stringent? Have you visited a foundry recently?

Naaaaah.

The "high level" people in China are coming to the U.S.? (BALONEY!). Why would they come here when our pollution laws are too lenient? BTW, how do you quantify, "high level"?

Golly, that seems odd to me.

American pollution is leading to, "...shorter lives, more disease, lower quality of life, higher taxes (to pay for all of the above), loss of trillions of dollars worth of real estate to flooding, or paying trillions to build dykes and levees to protect said real estate, &c.)

Increased levels of pollution directly leads to increased levels of disease and lower quality of life. You really can't deny this without being more insane than the people who think the moon landing was a hoax.

Care to back that up? Where, exactly, are they paying "trillions to build dykes and levees"? Or would that be future costs due to the myth of sea levels rising?

And this is amazing. How can you deny an observable fact? How can you sit in direct defiance of what our instruments are measuring? This is like saying that despite all evidence to the contrary, the sun actually rises in the west.

"It costs too much," is provably false? Would the proof be somewhere in the fact that millions of American factory jobs have been lost because it is cheaper to make stuff overseas where the environmental laws are less stringent? Have you visited a foundry recently?

Wrong. It's cheaper to do stuff overseas due to also having to pay less taxes and having cheaper labor. It's not just the environmental laws. Of course they're eventually going to run out of places they can exploit, these businesses will have to grow up eventually.

Grim Reaper wrote:

American pollution is leading to, "...shorter lives, more disease, lower quality of life, higher taxes (to pay for all of the above), loss of trillions of dollars worth of real estate to flooding, or paying trillions to build dykes and levees to protect said real estate, &c.)

Increased levels of pollution directly leads to increased levels of disease and lower quality of life. You really can't deny this without being more insane than the people who think the moon landing was a hoax

Hello Grim

Well I'm fairly satisfied that global weirding is happening and I think it's a jolly good wheeze to bung up windmills all over the environment and regulate the heck out of pollution (or perhaps that reduces the wheeze but....).

However, your reply to dgs49 appears to me to be not a million miles short of inadequate. He asked for evidence that pollution itself is causing in the USA:
"shorter lives"
"lower quality of life"
"higher taxes" (I thought that was 'politicians' rather than 'pollution' although confusion is understandable there)
"loss of trillions of dollars in real estate" (where has this happened?)
"trillions of dollars" paid to build levees and dykes.

Does New Orleands count toward the above? I suppose the hurricane may have been a result of me driving the 300ZX rather than the minivan. Now if these statements are not (currently) true perhaps they will become true if sea levels rise sufficiently or if pollution becomes worse instead of decreasing as it is all the time.

He's wrong on the fact of sea levels rising; they are. But hey.... you know.... what do the stats show about a declining longevity in the USA? and what are the causes?

I'd be interested to know the same things. This is a very serious matter.
Meade

Actual data on sea levels indicate...

Global sea level rose by about 120 meters during the several millennia that followed the end of the last ice age (approximately 21,000 years ago), and stabilized between 3,000 and 2,000 years ago. Sea level indicators suggest that global sea level did not change significantly from then until the late 19th century when the instrumental record of sea level change shows evidence for an onset of sea level rise. Estimates for the 20th century show that global average sea level rose at a rate of about 1.7 millimeters per year. Satellite altimetry observations, available since the early 1990s, provide more accurate sea level data with nearly global coverage and indicate that since 1993 sea level has been rising at a rate of about 3 millimeters per year. Climate models based on the current rate of increase in greenhouse gases, however, indicate that sea level may rise at about 4 millimeters per year reaching 0.22 to 0.44 meters above 1990 levels by the period 2090-2099 (IPCC 2007).

From a typical pinko website (i.e., worst case), sea levels MAY rise about a foot in the next hundred years. Wowzer! What a fucking catastrophe in progress! Of course with all the other [mythical] problems our descendants will be wrestling with, like the heterosexual AIDS epidemic, global warming [what a fucking joke - they don't even call it that anymore because it is so obviously false], and radioactive fallout, they will not be too worried about the beaches shrinking by a couple feet. Christ, the people in The Netherlands wouldn't even be affected by such a slight change - even if it does occur, which is FAR from certain.

And I'm still looking for the data on shorter lives, lower quality of life (caused by pollution) and so on.

And remember, this discussion is about the EPA ratcheting up air quality standards (with no demonstrable health problem as justification) and attempting to control CO2 emissions, which is both self-destructive and unwarranted.

sea levels MAY rise about a foot in the next hundred years.

A foot is a major change for places that are just below, or at, sea level now. Also, it's hilarious how you discount this figure because of the source when the earlier mention of .44 meters is actually equivalent to 1.44 feet. So your "worst case wargarbl" is actually lower than the figure you accepted earlier because it came from another source.

they don't even call it that anymore because it is so obviously false

Shock, horror. Something is redefined as we better understand that thing. Surely that means our better understanding must be completely false and we should just go back to our caves.

And I'm still looking for the data on shorter lives, lower quality of life (caused by pollution) and so on.

During the 96 Olympic games in Atlanta, the city forced residents to rely more upon mass transit to alleviate traffic congestion. The reduction in vehicle density led to a reduction in pollution. This resulted in a 41% drop in hospitalizations for breathing problems.

Air pollution is also estimated to cause nearly 2 million deaths worldwide per year.

And remember, this discussion is about the EPA ratcheting up air quality standards (with no demonstrable health problem as justification) and attempting to control CO2 emissions, which is both self-destructive and unwarranted.

Self-destructive? US companies just posted their highest profits, ever. They're not hurting. They're not even remotely close to hurting. They just want you to think so so you'll support them when they say that having to clean up after themselves will cause them to go under.

"They keep saying that sea levels are rising an all this. It's nowt to do with the icebergs melting, it's because there's too many fish in it. Get rid of some of the fish and the water will drop. Simple. Basic science."

Karl Pilkington...

dgs49 wrote:"...
And I'm still looking for the data on shorter lives, lower quality of life (caused by pollution) and so on.

And remember, this discussion is about the EPA ratcheting up air quality standards (with no demonstrable health problem as justification) and attempting to control CO2 emissions, which is both self-destructive and unwarranted.

Anyone with a genuine interest in the truth can within 5 minutes pull up data about the negative effects of pollution on health and how that has driven higher emissions standards and gross changes in technology over the past 70 years.

Two of the early events:

London 'killer fogs' caused by burning coal:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Smog
"Great Smog
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search
Nelson's Column during the Great Smog of 1952

The Great Smog of '52 or Big Smoke[1] was a severe air pollution event that affected London, England, during December 1952. A period of cold weather, combined with an anticyclone and windless conditions, collected airborne pollutants mostly from the use of coal to form a thick layer of smog over the city. It endured from Friday 5 to Tuesday, 9 December 1952, and then dispersed quickly after a change of weather.

Although it caused major disruption due to the effect on visibility, and even penetrated indoor areas, it was not thought to be a significant event at the time, with London having experienced many smog events during the past, so called "pea soupers". During the succeeding weeks however, medical reports estimated that 4,000 had died prematurely and 100,000 more were made ill because of the smog's effects on the human respiratory tract. More recent research suggests that the number of fatalities was considerably greater at about 12,000.[2]

It is considered the worst air pollution event of the history of the United Kingdom,[3] and the most significant in terms of its effect on environmental research, government regulation, and public awareness of the relationship between air quality and health.[2] It caused several changes of practice and regulations, including the Clean Air Act 1956."


History of air pollution in Los Angeles:

http://www.arb.ca.gov/html/brochure/history.htm

"... 1943 First recognized episodes of smog occur in Los Angeles in the summer of 1943. Visibility is only three blocks and people suffer from smarting eyes, respiratory discomfort, nausea, and vomiting. The phenomenon is termed a "gas attack" and blamed on a nearby butadiene plant. The situation does not improve when the plant is shut down. See video clip. ... "


yrs,
rubato