About the deadline thing
This piece appears on my feeds today:
We don’t have 12 years to save the climate. We have 14 months.
Since when did climate experts become experts on "political reality"? At any rate, Joseph Romm is a prominent climate expert, and his thesis is:
November 3, 2020 — the U.S. presidential election — is the deadline for Americans who do not want to destroy the health and well-being of current generations, their children, and future generations. If Trump is reelected, the prospects for the necessary national and global cuts in carbon pollution by 2030 will be gone.
The first thing to understand is that the idea of a deadline ("do it by this date or we're DOOOOMED!") is a logical extension of the mainstream approach to climate change -- i.e. an approach which hasn't worked and which won't work.
Let's start with the concept of "carbon emissions." "Carbon emissions" are part of an end-of-pipeline approach which places the onus on "carbon emitters" without really saying anything serious about carbon extractors, the nice folks who take the stuff out of the ground. Here's how Camila Moreno described the problem back in 2006:
At the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, a ‘silver bullet’ was found to tackle climate change: reducing CO2 emissions. Accordingly, the goal was to make cars and household appliances, power plants and entire industries more efficient. This ‘end of pipe’ approach (by which contaminants are removed at the end of a process) deflected political attention away from the causes of climate change and allowed policy makers to deal only with the symptoms in the form of emissions.
We have to make those emissions cuts, you see -- with no reference to the context of capitalist extraction and production in which global oil production (for instance) steadily increases from year to year. So you see, some nice authority figures will institute "emissions cuts" and we are all supposed to imagine that the fossil fuel industries will magically disappear. At some point, then, what we are going to see is an admission of defeat -- absent a comprehension of the reality of the matter, the nice authority figures are going to admit that they really don't know what to do. Congratulations f*ckups! You've substituted "carbon metrics" for a genuine political apprehension of the problem, and so nothing will be done.
Back to Romm's argument:
Back in October 2018, the nations around the world unanimously approved a landmark report from scientists warning that we must make rapid reductions in global carbon dioxide emissions by 2030 in order to have any plausible chance of averting catastrophic climate change.
Of course, the scientists are correct in assuming that we must do something. Yet neither scientists nor nation-states are experts in politics. Romm continues:
For instance, climatologist Michael Mann told ThinkProgress via email in January, “Projected impacts look especially bad beyond 2°C or so of planetary warming.”
“And there is no scenario for stabilizing warming below 2°C that doesn’t require rapid reductions in carbon emissions over the next decade,” Mann added.
Perhaps on a really simplistic level Michael Mann, and his quoter Joseph Romm, are correct. But where's the scenario for how society is really going to reduce carbon emissions, as opposed to the production of a crop of politicians who say "we'll reduce carbon emissions" while at the same time same said politicians find political reasons to avoid restraining the fossil fuel interests?
Romm is, however, a responsible arguer, and so he does address an opposing opinion: a group-authored paper in Nature Climate Change (August 2019 issue) titled "Why setting a climate deadline is dangerous." Unfortunately, however, Romm does not represent the argument of this paper fairly. What does the paper say?
Whereas policymakers are urged to take policy actions to meet the deadline, they might instead be motivated to extend the deadline.
This is the core argument of the Nature Climate Change paper. Here's how Romm represents that argument:
Also, the new article’s concerns about deadlines are mostly hypothetical. For instance, one of the biggest problems they allege is that: “A more fundamental problem with deadline-ism is that it might incite cynical, cry-wolf responses and undermine the credibility of climate science when an anticipated disaster does not happen.”
But the people using the 2030 deadline aren’t saying any specific disaster will happen immediately after missing such a deadline. They are saying if we don’t make deep cuts by 2030, then we can’t stop catastrophic climate change in the ensuing decades.
All of what Romm is saying in the above quote is beside the point. If politicians are urged to extend proclaimed deadlines, regardless of the scientific basis of said deadlines, they'll do so for political reasons. To solve the problem, then, you've got to change the politics of the problem, not just get out there with a loud proclamation and assume that, ceteris paribus, your proclamation will solve the problem.
And, as for Romm's conclusion:
If the world is to have any plausible chance of saving the climate, we need the strongest possible action by 2030, and that means we need to elect a president in 2020 who understands the urgency, and who understands that deadlines matter in the face of irreversible catastrophe.
A lot more than dethroning Trump is going to have to happen. It would be nice if the climate experts would consider revolutionary approaches -- the dual power approach, for instance. Dethroning Trump and putting Biden in his place, for instance, might not accomplish anything, and everyone would still be stuck on the notion of "we can't do anything without a nice President," which is going to look a lot like learned helplessness soon.
Comments
Frankly, I do not see how any of this
Is going to happen in time given the general lack of awareness.
Stop Climate Change Silence - Start the Conversation
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Which deadline for the end of the world have we passed?
I forget, Aren't they supposed to come every seven days and unless we keep doing the proper rituals to appease the gods we will all suffer their wrath?
Oh right, this time it's based off absolutely proven science, and a scientific consensus, that agrees that both everything is awful and we're doomed, but we still need to repent. Then there's the opposite which is everything is great and drill baby drill.
It's true. The opposite of a bad idea is often another bad idea.
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G8ffkDf0ol4]
I do not pretend I know what I do not know.
First things first,
and since Trump is systematically rolling back any gains in environmental protection and progress on climate change from the O admin, we need to address that problem initially. A Biden at worst would probably restore us to the status quo auntie on cc and the environment, which would be an improvement over current trends.
I see Michael Mann on some YT podcasts, but doubt if he is invited to appear on the major cable news outlets, busy as they are with Russia and Mueller and devoting 15 minutes to the daily Twump tweets and hiring still more ex-CIA and Pentagon analysts.
I think it's going to take more than just some hot weather heat waves to shake up the establishment across the globe. Major crop failures in multiple locations in the US, Europe and Asia could trigger action, as might climate-related deaths counted in the hundreds of thousands. Some sort of massive Pearl Harbor event, or a few of similar nature, could force govts to take more drastic action to combat cc.
And . . .
Que the one-man Bernie Wan Kenoby Climate brigade in
3
2
. . .
The Bernie Brigade will have to wait
because the "Trump Is The Problem!" people will undeniably shove their way through the door first, led by Joseph Romm, who is clearly one of them.
Or, well, I suppose that won't happen here, but it'll happen most other places.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
Keyword
The keyword was "one-man" and yes, here, but Bernie as our only hope, not Trump is the reason. Though, we might have a couple who believe it's all Trump's fault.
So just fuck it
Hey Cass, many leftist political scientists are saying the same thing as those climate scientists.
But nah.. We don't need a political movement pronto to combat the 80 or so corporations who are responsible for 2/3 of carbon emissions.
And we have decades to wait for some terrible natural or economic catastrophe to bring people to their senses. And of course they will vote in governments that will do the right thing. No problemo.
Hey, btw, who publishes that journal you got that article from you're basing your arguments upon? They got an editorial board? Some kind of steering body? Where does the money come from to publish it? Add edit/ And Mike Hulme, really? I started to look to answer my question but when I saw that, it was enough to save me the time and effort.
Deja, ever hear of "Not me, Us?"
Yup
I heard similar renditions of not me, us in 2008. Be the change you want to see is one. Make me do it is another. Others that may come to me in time, but yeah, not me, us is just another election slogan. How will Bernie get any of his proposed legislation passed with a hostile congress working against him?
Obama also ran on climate change and then wasted 8 years doing absolutely nothing. Well okay, he did a few things, but nothing on the scale that was needed. And lots of things that people say he did were done just as he was walking out the door which gave Trump and the GOP ample time to roll them back during Trump's first 100 days. Gee, if only Obama had done them during his first term then they might not have had a chance to change it or just say "Nope, no way. Not on our watch"
Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.
I mostly heard I'm with Her - quite different
How will anybody progressive get any legislation passed?.
Maybe there's no reason to argue.
But Bernie would answer through a critical mass of activists who keep pushing. I'm willing to give it one more, and just one more, shot.
If you want to compare Bernie with Obama and Clintons Inc, you have a right to do so. I just don't see the point or validity of it.
I recall reading you a lot back in the day on DKos.
I'm curious. Are you supporting the Green Party now (which I've tended to vote for in Novembers). Or are you involved in some other movement or party?
i'd read your essay entitled
'bernie is our best and last last hope to combat climate catastrophe', and head wondered since US War, Inc. has the largest carbon footprint on the planet, why he'd voted 'aye' for the Defense of Nato bill (thus Africom, the two most raping and pillaging alliance on the planet), the result of a NYT whisper campaign by 'anonymous defense officials'.
ocasio/markey's 'deal' never mentions that major Corporate Carbon Emitter, either, but plays around with 'net zero carbon solutions', which are silly at best, corrupt at worst, allowing capitalist solutions (yes, businesses are springing up by the score to 'save the planet: trust us'! even bill gates is in on it, too, spraying (calcium?) particles in the upper atmosphere to 'block the sun' (what could go wrong?). other very sophisticated new tech to 'capture and store carbon', etc. to the tune of trillions for every one.
now the senate hasn't voted for the military budget yet, sanders may not vote vote it, or not vote at all, but here are those brave DSAs and justice dems who have voted for a $738 billion (publicly stated) war budget.
patrick martin, wsws.org
yeah, it can all make a cynic out of a person.
Maybe you can get the Zapatistas . . .
. . . to migrate to the US and make the changes we need. If not, despite all Bernie's shortcomings, I'll stick with him one more time.
I also take it with your frequent wsws.org citations, you're an old guard Trot? I was reading up on the major split in the 4th Internationale with the IdPol element taking over to some extent within the (former?) party. How many Trotskyite parties will be on the ballot in November and where? I'm genuinely curious. It's difficult for me to navigate through all the Trotskyite splits. Way back when, a good friend of mine was in the YSA back in the 1970s.
my point about bernie
being the last best hope for the climate was just the disconnect of military carbon footprints. i did try to find nato/africo's, but what a silly errand. foggy rasmussen just talks about it like ocasio's green new deal: as a force threat multiplier.
i don't mind that you'll vote for bernie, but i do like folks to think bout what and whom they're voting for, esp. when hope becomes 'belief', and facts don't really matter.
your diatribe about the zapatistas and my being an old guard trot do you no credit at all, wally. but i will say that wsws has some fine journalists around the world, and most of the time i find myself in agreement with them, and i love that they are the most supreme champions of both julian assange and chelsea manning. but yeah, i consider myself a global citizen and a socialist (not that i could define it): but both anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist. i'd vote for mike gravel if i could, but i'll likely vote green again this cycle.
terrible journalism if that's what it is
imo re.the trots. for them istm, it's all about belittling other socialists as if they have all the answers. but their own organization seems to have blown up in the past coupla months. oh well. we disagree about some stuff, not other stuff. Que sera, sera. If Bernie can't pull off a miracle, I will give up. But I won't celebrate it, feel good about it, and go on and on about it and pick apart others' arguments. I'll just enjoy a beer or two or a few now and them,
Can we BE Zapatistas?
That would solve that problem.
"there's something so especially sadistic about waving the flag of a country that you're actively destroying" -- Aaron Mate
Not necessarily a terrible idea in some respects
But in most ways, I'm afraid the Zapatistas are still much more besieged than us also with even less chance of success on the not distant horizon.
Hopefully (for the time being), Extinction Rebellion will really gain a foothold in the US and Bernie will win the Democratic nomination.
Maybe if we were Zapatistas --
the present-day Zapatistas wouldn't feel so besieged?
Okay, question for Caucus99percent: which one would be better, our current system of Constitutional government, or the caracoles and the juntas de buen gobierno used by the Zapatistas?
What sort of organization would attract fun go-getters and then get everyone else to do good?
"there's something so especially sadistic about waving the flag of a country that you're actively destroying" -- Aaron Mate
I probably "want" pretty much what you "want" Cass
But istm that's on the too far distant horizon. And I won't live to see and experience it.
(And we'll soon enough see how the Zapatistas manage to hold out against the Maya Train).
I see a present day critical mass in the US that's growing with the potential of pushing that boulder up the hill that'll move faster and faster as more and more people are pushing it. And less likelihood that it will roll down the hill crushing us. But as far as I'm concerned, if Bernie doesn't get the nomination this time around, our political hopes are crushed. And politics is the only way to challenge those 80 corporations responsible for the 2/3 of Earth's carbon emissions.
History happens far more quickly
than the bystanders would like to admit.
It raises a red flag when people say "it will never happen in my lifetime." It's code for "I don't want to do anything to make it happen."
"there's something so especially sadistic about waving the flag of a country that you're actively destroying" -- Aaron Mate
Is that you wearing the Hope hat?
Cool. It's not seen often in these here parts.
Nope
I have explained many times why I refuse to play in the voting games anymore. First off I'm in Utah so the electoral college nullifies that vote. People told me that I must at least vote for certain issues on the ballot so I did only to see the legislature turn around and tear up what was in the original bill making it worthless. Utah passed Medicaid expansion and medical marijuana and the Mormon church worked with its members in the legislature to nullify them. Even if the church doesn't directly interfere the church members know what the church wants from their weekly Sunday gatherings.
And today we learned that Trump will not allow Utah to do it's Medicaid plan so now no one knows what the f'ck is going to happen. Except that people in Utah will still die because they don't have health insurance. Then there's all the special interests groups that tell their congress members what they can and more importantly cannot do. Think that when you contact your congress critters that has any input? Check out corruption is legal and see how this has worked for us. I could go on, but ".... I've said it all before.
If you remember me from DK, cool. I was always riding Obama's butt and trying to wake people up over there to no avail.
Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.
I did appreciate your writings
Thanks for the explanation. I din;t know yo'ure there. Yea, Utah is about as politically fucked up as it gets. I'd say there are states where voting matters, though. At least one last try.
See my comment below
for one of the things Obama did for climate legislation.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
I don't get it.
Who are these political scientists? Can you cite sources?
Also, Nature Climate Change is pretty much the same source as Nature, which publishes important articles like this one.
Did I push a hot button?
"there's something so especially sadistic about waving the flag of a country that you're actively destroying" -- Aaron Mate
Indeed!
I knew you had, hence my comment. It's like Lenny Flank from dk, predictably swooping in to save Monsanto's reputation in a gmo diary.
The timing of it was impeccable, and right on que today.
OK so let's review.
What are my arguments?
1) Climate change mitigation deadlines are a bad idea because they originate in the wrong approach -- insisting that greenhouse gas emissions suddenly go down while everything else stay the same because I don't know, I'm a climate expert, I don't know much about politics or something.
2) Climate change mitigation deadlines are a bad idea because when politicians are faced with their politically-based inability to do anything about the problem, they will choose to postpone the deadlines.
Can anyone here address these arguments directly?
"there's something so especially sadistic about waving the flag of a country that you're actively destroying" -- Aaron Mate
Deadlines
I don't know the answers. I wish we could vote our way out of it, but do not have enough faith in our electoral system to believe we can. I'd be all in, if I thought we could. Forteen months or 40 years, either way, neither Bernie, nor any other candidate/official is capable imo of being our Obie Wan-Kenobi.
We have effectively screwed ourselves. I have no solutions, just the little things I try to do to be less wasteful in my daily life.
I'll give it a go...
Deadlines are bad because it makes it look like we aren't doing anything. Without a deadline we still won't do anything, but it doesn't have a label on it to make it obvious.
350.org was named because that was thought (I think it was Carl Sagan that came up with the figure) to be the absolute highest we could allow CO2 to go and still recover. They may have been right. We're at around 414.
The original drop dead level of warming beyond which we would have "irreversible" climate change was 1 degree (UN report back in the 80s). Now it's 1.5. Or maybe 2. It wasn't because the science said the original number was too aggressive, it's because it flew by and we didn't even blink. One degree was probably about right. BTW, we're at one degree plus. When we blow past 2 degrees there will be a new deadline at 2.5, or 3, or 5.
When the 5th Assessment was released in 2013 it said we had a 350 Gigaton (I'm not sure that was the number) carbon budget going forward. James Hansen threw a fit, pointing to his 2011 paper on aerosol masking showed that the carbon budget in 2013 was already ZERO. Subsequent papers indicate that the zero carbon budget point was reached decades earlier, does it really matter how long ago?
The deadlines hiss by my window, like waves upon the beach...
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MCB_LQOhqvw]
Insisting that emissions go down without changing anything is looking for a non-disruptive solution. Something like the Green New Deal is minimally disruptive. There was a time 30 years ago when well-informed people thought we would be able to continue industrial civilization, along with exponential economic growth, by replacing fossil fuel power plants with renewables, internal combustion cars with electrics, etc. Nobody has to suffer, nobody has to make any significant changes, the problem just goes away.
I've got this Green New Deal beside me, but it's out of reach...
As a motivational tool for policy makers, deadlines are useless. They only respond to money, and we ain't got none. Deadlines don't seem to phase the general public. "When is this supposed to happen?" Well, Bucko, it's already happening, it just ain't happened to you YET. Count yourself lucky.
There won't be a critical mass of popular outrage until the water taps run dry (already happened in Chappai, India) or the grocery shelves are empty. When does it happen to ME? That's the only deadline that matters.
They've got a plan, though. Put the cops in body armor, armored vehicles, give them automatic weapons, lots of ammo, and wait for the food riots to start.
But what happens when they can't feed the jack booted thugs?
Can't hear my baby, though I call and call...
Zero population gets us to zero emissions, doncha know?
EDIT: Let's talk a little about El Trumpo, yes? OMFG, if he's re-elected it's THE END, THE END I tell you!
The US accounts for something like 15% of global emissions. On a per-capita basis that's pretty shocking, but still, 85% of the problem has to be solved by the rest of the world. We could drop our emissions to zero tomorrow (we can't, really) and it wouldn't matter. We're in a situation where the rest of the world has to shoulder 85% of the burden. While we've got a fossil fuel shill as President, El Trumpo or practically anyone else, the rest of the world will have to shoulder 100% of the burden. Yet the rest of the world isn't doing jack shit. The Paris agreement? Hopelessly inadequate if followed, practically ignored. You, you over there, Country Zed, you were going to drop your emissions by six percent this year? Well, until we can replace El Trumpo with someone who will stand up to Big Carbon (HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA (catches breath) HAHAHAHAHA) maybe you need to do about seven percent. How hard can that be? Oh, right, it's a disaster. But is it really a bigger disaster?
"The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function." -- Albert Bartlett
"A species that is hurtling toward extinction has no business promoting slow incremental change." -- Caitlin Johnstone
The US accounts for only 15% of "world emissions"???
I find that very, very hard to believe as a total.
Which emissions are you referencing?
https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/global-greenhouse-gas-emissions-data
Per capita is very different than total.
Can you back up your claim?
according to a pie chart on that page you
just linked to, in 2014, the US contributed 15% of global emissions of CO2. (More, precisely, the paragraph says, "These data include CO2 emissions from fossil fuel combustion, as well as cement manufacturing and gas flaring. Together, these sources represent a large proportion of total global CO2 emissions.")
As "gotchas" go, that was a pretty weird one.
The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.
What about multi national corporations . . .
. . . predominantly controlled by the US?
Just because the emissions are attributed to a particular country doesn't mean that country is entirely or even primarily responsible for those emissions.
Borders aren't a big thing when it comes to US capital in contrast to migration of people.
Also consider: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/american-consumption-habits/
hey, i wasn't making an argument, other than that
yours was ... peculiar.
if i were to make an argument, it might be that transnational corporations, regardless of their "flag", are indeed transnational, and accounting the carbon emissions of any given corporation to its nominal home country isn't terribly informative.
the question of addressing supply or addressing demand is not as straightforward as it might seem at first. only a handful of nations -- the US being one of them -- can reasonably attack the supply side, because a handful of nations are responsible for most of the oil and coal that gets taken out of the ground. every national government, however, can reasonably attack the demand side, not by "encouraging efficiency", but by requiring replacement of fossil fuels as fast as possible in all economic sectors.
The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.
As long as the military continues its destructive actions
the chances of finding a solution for climate change are slim in my opinion. It's not just the amount of crap that is blown into the air every time we drop a bomb, it's the amount of fuel that jets and other military equipment use per hour. I recently read that it costs $30,000 per jet per hour. I live close to an air force base and watch the jets do fly arounds for hours each day and usually after they come back from flying in the southern desert.
Then we have Canada and its tar sands extraction and then add in the asswipe in Brazil that is cutting down the rain forest. Really smart for him to allow cutting down the planets lungs.
The arctic is melting and the tundra areas are on fire which is adding lots more crap into the atmosphere. And for over 4 decades the oil and gas industry has known that their actions are leading to climate disaster. And still no one is really doing anything about it. But then I'm wondering if it's because they know that they can't slow it down? How else to explain the way they aren't doing anything? So what good will deadlines do when they continue doing stupid stuff?
Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.
Untimely: Interesting points but allow me to quibble
Edit: I meant to reply to Untimely Ripped here, not Cass . . .
You wrote:
I think it would be very informative. It would allow us to identify who profits from the carbon emissions. And when 80 or so corporations are responsible for 2/3 of the emissions, we're not obscuring or relocating responsibility for the problem.
You continued:
And so where is the US ranked in terms of extraction? First? Maybe China is 1st. But then my guess is that there's a considerable drop after that.
Re. the demand side, it may not be so easy for countries dependent on IMF and World Bank assistance to push against fossil fuels. Again, the politics and economics involved in the situation allow a handful of countries to hold a hegemonic sway against doing what obviously needs to be done.
My point of pushing back against the 15% calculation is that the method of measurement employed, to me, seems to obscure unequal power and economic relationships between countries and unfairly shifts responsibility to countries who are dependent upon countries who control the supply.
We've got to have capitalism you know.
No, wait, we don't. We don't run capitalist regimes in emergencies, and this qualifies as one. Declare an emergency (this certainly is one, except under capitalism the people don't count in emergencies -- certainly this is the lesson the disaster in Puerto Rico can grant us) and have everyone help out in building the new regime, in which caring replaces extraction as a core value.
"there's something so especially sadistic about waving the flag of a country that you're actively destroying" -- Aaron Mate
Do you know anything about Hulme?
I'd count folks like Noam Chomsky and Naomi Klein as political scientists even though they do not have degrees in that field per se. Indeed, imo, their publications and commentaries put them on a level above and beyond most political scientists.
Hulme, an evangelical Christian, is now associated with the Heartland Institute which Klein discusses right up front in chapter one of This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs the Climate. Their shtick is essentially that we needn't worry coz capitalism (and/or God) will save us.
Chomsky discusses their ilk here.
BTW, the 14 months reference did not come from the IPCC.
Omigod the baddies!
If only we could organize a credible opposition to their bullsh^t. No, wait, we CAN do just that!
"there's something so especially sadistic about waving the flag of a country that you're actively destroying" -- Aaron Mate
14 months?
Is it just me, or have political arguments jumped the shark? Back in 2016 the Democrats argument was essentially vote for HER or risk having a Gestapo like army pull you out of your bed at 3:00am. Now the Democrats argument is vote blue or risk having the world come to an end?
There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it. ~ Minnie Aumonier
Maybe the world will come to an end anyway.
The key question is one of whether or not the human race can do anything proactive about it between now and the times of dying.
"there's something so especially sadistic about waving the flag of a country that you're actively destroying" -- Aaron Mate
Voting blue helped a lot
the last four times we did it.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
I'm not quite sure I understand your objection,
nor the attitudes of other commenters here. I'm not even sure who thinks deadlines are a good idea and who thinks they're a bad idea. The one observation -- which is that if the US reelects Trump, it will necessarily set back any possible progress by at least 4 years, and that's probably too much -- says nothing at all about any other deadlines.
As far as other discussions of deadlines go, well, sometimes reality doesn't give a fuck about the exigencies of human politics. If the politicians push to extend the deadlines because that's what works in their world, well, then we're all fucked. Is the objection that we shouldn't have deadlines because they encourage procrastination, and the politicians need to understand that procrastination of any kind is not an option?
The announcements of the climate change scientists have been plagued for at least 2 decades with fear of making short-term dire predictions that aren't borne out, and then losing all credibility, leaving us at the mercy of the pro-carbon propagandists. The difficulty is that their fear is absolutely justified, and they know -- in a way that the rest of us simply do not know, because AGCC is the reality in which they dwell all day every day, while the rest of us only have to live there in the evening, browsing political news and freaking ourselves out -- that humanity simply cannot afford for climate scientists to lose their credibility, because they know what is coming our way.
I'm really unclear at the moment where everybody stands on this.
The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.
One could argue that we already elected Biden, twice
And it did no good whatsoever.
Are we supposed to think that the problem was that he was VP and didn't have the Presidency? In that case, the only logical conclusion would be that Barack Obama being president was the obstacle to good climate policy. They obviously aren't saying that.
Or I suppose they could fall back on the old canard that mean Republicans in the legislature stopped Barack Obama and Joe Biden from getting responsible climate policy--of any stripe--passed. I guess the mean Republican senators stopped Harry Reid and his caucus from bringing up HR 2454, the American Clean Energy and Security Act, in the committees they ran. Not that that was a good bill--it was an abysmal bill that was big enough to have some good things tucked away in it (unfortunately, also tucked away in it was the notion, probably borrowed from NAFTA, that if the law ended up costing companies too much, it would become null and void).
Just to be clear, that bill was not filibustered by the mean Republicans into non-existence. They didn't have to filibuster it. It simply was not brought up. Ever. In order to get that mostly crappy bill passed through the House, Henry Waxman literally worked himself into the hospital. "Who gives a shit?" said 90% of the Senate Democratic Caucus, and ignored his work.
Those who did give a shit, namely Kerry, Barbara Boxer, Joe Lieberman (which is really weird) and a few others, tried multiple times to get a Senate version of a climate bill passed. First, Kerry and Boxer tried. No soap. It didn't even get brought up in any committees but Boxer's, and got next to no support from the rest of the caucus. So they shelved it.
Next thing I know, the amazing spectacle of John Kerry, Joe Lieberman and Lindsay Graham together trying to get a climate bill passed through the Senate met my eyes. I didn't know Joe Lieberman cared about any policy, or any issue, so I was pretty flabbergasted. This was also the only time since about 1993 that I'd seen a Republican move left on policy to work with Democrats. (Healthcare policy written in part by the Heritage Foundation and first implemented by Mitt Romney does not count.) But the Democrats took care of that, characteristically. The White House created a press release about Lindsay Graham's support of the climate bill that included the phrase "raise taxes" 30 times. Soon Graham was facing Tea Partiers in town halls in South Carolina, asking him what the hell. They also said really neat things like "You know I want to support you, Senator, but I'm just really afraid that you're gay." What being gay has to do with supporting climate change legislation is anybody's guess, but the undeniable truth was that the Obama White House, noting that a climate bill was getting some traction in the Senate, set out to wreck it by punishing Lindsay Graham politically using the far right wing of his own party as the club. After that, it was unsurprising that no Republican, no matter how concerned he was about the coastal areas of his state going underwater, would take a step left again. It was also unsurprising that Lindsay Graham took every opportunity after that to make Obama's life hell. I am probably the only person on the left who appreciates the risk that he took, or even remembers it.
That is not to say that any of these bills would have been the way to prevent impending climate disaster. But if we're talking about politics, which Joseph Romm is, it makes no sense to ignore how the politics of getting a climate bill through the legislature has worked in the past. Unless of course, Joseph Romm is a fucking liar whose only interest is in protecting the Democratic Party from its own toxic history. In that case, his article is one more attempt to create the illusion that bad energy policy began in January 2017, emanating from Trump's head like Athena from the head of Zeus.
Thus, climate change joins election fraud, racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, the abuse of immigrants, political corruption, and a heightened risk of nuclear war in the pile of problems that only began two years ago.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
Excellent comment
You've reminded me, once again, the ways in which Machiavelli is alive and well in Washington DC.
There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it. ~ Minnie Aumonier
Thanks--
I felt bad, at the time, for those who were sincere. For all that many liberals and progressives hate them, Kerry and Graham were sincere. How do I know? There was absolutely no political or monetary gain to be made from proposing and promoting that bill.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
US #1 oil producer. Global heating? Obama: “That was me, people”
https://thegrayzone.com/2018/11/30/obama-wall-street-thanks-gala-james-b...
James fucking Baker.
Every time there's a Democratic president that I like at all, or have any respect for, he ends up arm in arm with James Baker.
FFS
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
Here is why nothing is going to change and it has nothing
To do with the fossil fuel industry.
Sometimes progressives can be so intransigent in their thinking. This is an hour video and it is worth every minute of your time.
I grow so weary of these global warming posts
Which is why I posted a video of a prominent astrophyscist and how he theorizes that it is the sun's solar wind that dictates our climate because the solar wind protects us from cosmic rays which cause cloud formation. Does anyone here think clouds don't affect climate?
There have literally been hundreds of published academic papers about the sun's influence on climate in the last 5 years or so. They might be up to a thousand. I have lost track. And the progressives just keep on playing Ostrich.
There's an easy way out of that.
Don't read 'em.
I get weary of people telling me that the Democratic party is redeemable. So what?
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
and do remember the carbon PPM
ain't the only measure:
it's also the hot seas (the map), an the fact that they're getting so acidic that their viability as a carbon sink is declining rapidly, although i have no idea of the accuracy of this page about it.
on edit: also the plastics in the ocean, smothering the coral reefs, the corexit from the deepwater horizon and other offshore drilling platforms blowout, as well as the radionucleitides mixed in, esp. in the northwest via hansford waste disposal station in the northwest.. the good news is: 'science' can be bought.
The Supply Side
Is an angle I’ve been thinking about morbidly. I mean is it a bad thing if the strait of Hormuz becomes impassable?
We can’t save the world by playing by the rules, because the rules have to be changed.
- Greta Thunberg
it would surely be bad
for those folks around the globe who have no alternatives to oil. i will offer that you're not the only person at c99% who's asked or implied the same thing. it may be a virtuous position to take, but with all due respect...awfully callous in its failure to imagine what hell it would create for so many of our brothers and sisters around the globe.
and i type this while gazing at your thunberg quote. sigh.
Rapid change hurts people
But we are getting rapid change either way. I don’t know how to choose between them. If we don’t disrupt the fossil fuel industry at once, larges numbers of people will suffer and die from lack of resources, including water (over half of the world gets its fresh water from the melting Tibetan plateau). Dehydration is a terrible way to go. But as you say, disruption has its own costs, mostly in transportation of things like food.
As someone who works in tech, I tend to opt for working on the transitions. EVs, batteries, modeling, whatever because that’s where my talents lie. But maybe I should just start gluing myself to planes? (That’s not a facetious question - I’m seriously considering it.)
Which is what Cass is asking us to think about. We have no good alternatives left, so maybe we should try to pick the least bad ones.
We can’t save the world by playing by the rules, because the rules have to be changed.
- Greta Thunberg
I know how to choose
simply because one of the choices creates a permanent state of famine and dehydration, as opposed to a horrible temporary condition.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
to my mind
you're totally minimizing 'global dependence on oil' to 'transportation of food'? how about freezing in the dark in winter? not being able to travel by car, by bus, or rail? just an inconvenience?
not everyone can afford an EV, but even if one can: the source of the electricity is whatever the source is (most always carbon based), the source of the rare earth minerals for batteries? central africa and china. we can't greenwash our way out of this mess, but people of the comfortable capitalist class love to imagine it.
is there any time left to turn it around by now? the emergency was 30 years ago, which the ecosocialists in the global south have long known. with the permafrost melting, methane is not only rising from the ground, but from the ocean floor itself, causing hellacious feedback loups that equal: more warming.
yes, i'd spend the trillions of bucks on mitigation rather than high tech solutions like carbon capture and storage, or false solutions like 'carbon offsetting', 'carbon trading', etc. locally, yes, stop pipelines, as when they leak, and they always do, more groundwater is polluted. stop fracking projects, same reasons, and more. grow more trees, farm ecologically/organically as one is able, stop uranium mining, and so on.
shore up levies on the coasts, move people to higher ground as the seas are already rising,
etc., but there's a whole world out there that runs on oil, natural gas, and coal, even though even china is leading in production of solar panels, which also have their own carbon footprints (as do their battery storage systems).
i know cass and i, and many of you disagree with me, and that i'm an extreme outlier, but i believe it's already too late to hit those magical numbers (that er...evolve as the 'targets' are missed over and over).
also, you don't seem
to mind that 'the USian oil' under "Their Deserts" would cause total devastation to the iranian (already under trumptista's sanctions) citizenry and economy, and other non-opec nations would suffer cruel fates in your "short run"? allow me to disagree. but keep on virtue-signaling as you will.
@Hawkfish Or since you are a
Or since you are a tech person and can presumably review the periodical literature you might start looking up all of the papers on the sun's influence on climate that have been published in the last five years or so. Maybe you might come to a less dire conclusion than gluing yourself to a plane. Start with Svensmark and the video I posted above as a point of reference.
@davidgmillsatty
Take a look at the cosmic radiation since 2000. If cosmic rays cause clouds you can see how they can effect climate.
Please stop spamming us with counter-propaganda
ONE message was enough. No one is replying because no one believes you.
Per the most recent scientific findings, the sun's activity is actually on a down-trend - yet the planet keeps heating up. Countersplain that!
There is no justice. There can be no peace.
Yeah. But so would not having anything to eat
and no potable water to drink. Which is, for most humans, the problem with global warming.
They can take the hit now, or they can take a worse hit later.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver