Open Thread - Friday, February 12, 2016
Good morning fabulous citizens of C99.
“Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge: it is those who know little, not those who know much, who so positively assert that this or that problem will never be solved by science.”
― Charles Darwin
The Supreme Court's Devastating Decision on Climate
However worrying Tuesday was for the success of xenophobic politics in America, it might have been more worrying for the planet’s climate.
In the early evening, the Supreme Court temporarily blocked the implementation of the Obama administration’s Clean Power Plan, a set of Environmental Protection Agency regulations which would limit greenhouse-gas emissions from the power sector.
Issued last summer, the rules are the centerpiece of the White House’s climate-change-fighting agenda, and they play a big part in the recent, tepid optimism about global warming. Without the proposal of the plan, the United States couldn’t have secured the Paris Agreement, the first international treaty to mitigate greenhouse-gas emissions, last December. And without the adoption of the plan, the United States almost certainly won’t be able to comply with that document. If the world were to lose the Paris Agreement—which was not a total solution to the climate crisis, but meant to be a first, provisional step—years could be lost in the diplomatic fight to reduce climate-change’s dangers.
Around the time that polls started closing in New Hampshire and Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders became the big political stories of the week, the Supreme Court issued a decision that raised the stakes of the presidential election and injected some uncertainty into one of the most significant developments in the global fight against climate change.
On Tuesday night, the court ruled 5-4 to halt the implementation of the Obama administration’s Clean Power Plan until the lower courts can hear challenges to the program’s legality. The Clean Power Plan was announced last August as a centerpiece of President Obama’s Climate Action Plan – it works by setting state-specific goals for reducing carbon emissions from existing power plants and granting states flexibility in devising their own plans for meeting those targets. Fossil-fuel power plants are the biggest emitters of greenhouse gases in the country, which means the Clean Power Plan is a critical tool for curbing carbon emissions. It also lends credibility to the U.S. as a participant in the Paris Climate Accord and as a global leader in the fight against climate change.
The Supreme Court’s decision throws all of that into question. The Clean Power Plan is now frozen in place as it maneuvers its way through the legal system to its inevitable date with the high court. “The court’s announcement doesn’t necessarily shut down the Clean Power Plan,” Wired notes. “But it could send a signal to recalcitrant states, manufacturers, and energy companies that they can keep dragging their feet on climate change.” The more immediate political impact is to make clear that the United States’ success in the fight against climate change, which is critical to the global campaign to reduce carbon emissions, will be determined both by the next president and the Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court puts the Clean Power Plan on hold
AMERICA’S most ambitious effort to cut carbon-dioxide emissions from power plants is in danger. On February 9th the Supreme Court, divided 5-4 along partisan lines, put the brakes on the Clean Power Plan: a move that surprised many. Barack Obama’s flagship environmental policy, the Clean Power Plan forms the core of America’s recent commitments to cut emissions made at UN climate talks in Paris. By staying the rule, the court heeded the concerns of more than two dozen mostly red states and energy companies that oppose it. It is now on hold until the Supremes decide on the legal merits of the case this summer.
Power plants are America’s largest source of greenhouse gases, accounting for just under a third of all emissions. The Clean Power Plan, under the authority of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), gives orders to each state that, when considered together, should amount to removing 870m tonnes of CO2 from emissions by power stations by 2030 (as measured against 2005 levels). The regulations give states some flexibility over how and when to cut emissions. But each one is required to submit plans by 2018 and to show some progress on them by 2022. If the goals are met, the reduction by 2030 will be akin to taking 80m cars off the road—helpful but not revolutionary.
States, utilities and mining companies have declared the Clean Power Plan too much, too soon. And more than half of the Supreme Court justices seem to agree. “We are thrilled that the Supreme Court realized the rule’s immediate impact and froze its implementation,” trilled the attorney-general of West Virginia, one of the states leading the suit, after the court issued its stay. Greener types argue that the delay flies in the face of larger trends toward clean energy: across America far more people already work in the solar industry than do in coal.
Researchers: Exxon, Koch Family Have Powered the Climate-Denial Machine for Decades
Right now, nearly every leader of nearly every country in the world is gathered in Paris for perhaps the most ambitious and meaningful negotiations humanity has ever undertaken. But if you haven’t heard much about it, you’re not alone. Summing up the climate change conference’s first day for the New Republic, Jonathan Katz was understandably dispirited:
That the build-up to these negotiations to assure humanity’s continued survival on Earth were overshadowed in the U.S. by the latest battle between jihadists and everyone else, the interminable presidential primary, Thanksgiving, the college football playoff draw, and on and on tells you a lot about how we got to this point.
Of course, a major reason the world has delayed meaningful action for 21 years has been a single political party in a single country: the GOP.
Sanders: GOP thinks climate change isn't real because of Kochs
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said late Wednesday that Republicans think climate change isn't real because of the billionaire Koch brothers and other big energy interests.
“When you look at the Republican Party today, you know, which is reactionary in so many areas ... most of these guys deny the reality of climate change or they say, ‘we’re not sure,’ ” the Democratic presidential candidate told host Chris Hayes on MSNBC’s “All In.”
“How do you think that happens?” Sanders asked. "It happens because the Republican Party is significantly funded by the Koch brothers and the big energy companies.
“And the day after some Republican gets up there and says, ‘you know, I read this stuff here, I think climate change is real [and] we’ve got to do something,' their funding is gone, and they’re going to be primaried,” he added.
Koch Pledge Tied to Congressional Climate Inaction
When President Obama unveiled his program to tackle climate change last month, he deliberately sidestepped Congress as a hopeless bastion of obstruction, relying completely on changes that could be imposed by regulatory agencies. A two-year study by the Investigative Reporting Workshop at American University, released today, illustrates what might be one of the reasons why he had to take this circuitous route. Fossil fuel magnates Charles and David Koch have, through Americans for Prosperity, a conservative group they back, succeeded in persuading many members of Congress to sign a little-known pledge in which they have promised to vote against legislation relating to climate change unless it is accompanied by an equivalent amount of tax cuts. Since most solutions to the problem of greenhouse-gas emissions require costs to the polluters and the public, the pledge essentially commits those who sign to it to vote against nearly any meaningful bill regarding global warning, and acts as yet another roadblock to action.
The investigative study tracks the political influence wielded by the billionaire Koch brothers, who have harnessed part of the fortune generated by their company, Koch Industries, the second largest private corporation in the country, to further their conservative libertarian activism. Charles Lewis, the Executive Editor of the Investigative Reporting Workshop explained that the I.R.W., a non-profit news organization attached to American University, spent two years focussing on Koch Industries because, “There is no other corporation in the U.S. today, in my view, that is as unabashedly, bare-knuckle aggressive across the board about its own self-interest, in the political process, in the nonprofit-policy-advocacy realm, even increasingly in academia and the broader public marketplace of ideas.” Formerly head of the Center for Public Integrity in Washington, Lewis has focussed for years on the way money affects American politics. “The Kochs’ influence, without a doubt, is growing,” he believes. A spokeswoman for the Kochs declined to comment.
Charles Koch "Expects a Return" on Political Spending, and Gets It
Billionaire mega-donor Charles Koch admitted that the handful of billionaires who bankroll political campaigns are doing it because they expect something in return.
Yet the outsized influence of the .00001% doesn't threaten democracy, he said, as long as a fellow billionaire thinks those big donors have the right intentions.
Koch appeared with his brother David on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" this week as part of a PR blitz to soften the Koch brothers' image ahead of the 2016 elections, where the Koch network plans to spend $250 million on direct electoral activities and a total of nearly $1 billion on broader political work.
The fawning interview followed months of positive Koch coverage from the "Morning Joe" hosts, who attended a Koch donor confab earlier this year and have praised the Kochs as "awesome" and a "godsend." (Neither MSNBC nor the Kochs will say who covered the hosts' travel and other expenses to attend the summit.)
SCOTUS Conservatives Give the Kochs What They Want and Ruled Against Humanity
It is curious that although America generally has pathetically poor voter participation in elections, a couple of state primary elections are more than sufficient to distract the public’s attention from extremely important news. Tuesday night, or Wednesday, were no different and while people were intent on the results of one small state’s primary results, they missed the news that the Koch-surrogates on the Supreme Court issued a ruling that reveals their contempt for the Earth’s population; like typical Koch Republicans.
In a five to four decision, the conservatives on the High Court put an immediate stop to President Obama’s restrictions on new coal plants. The President’s action was an important step toward combatting climate change that experts in several disciplines attest it necessary to preserve the human race. The conservatives’ “orders” were particularly telling about their service, obedience, and devotion to the Koch brothers’ fossil fuel industry because they went outside of normal federal judicial system procedure to give the Koch brothers what they likely paid for during the latest “secret Koch policy seminar.”
Apparently the conservative jurists were not impressed that the EPA’s regulations were intended specifically to, besides ameliorate the effects of climate change, “avoid thousands of premature deaths and thousands fewer asthma attacks and hospitalizations within 10 years and every year beyond.” What likely did impress the 5 Republican justices was that those new regulations are highly regarded as “representing the most significant thing America has ever done to combat climate change.” Since the Koch brothers and their Republican puppets say climate change is a liberal hoax, and campaign vigorously on neutering the Environmental Protection Agency, the Conservative Court stepped in and got proactive for the Kochs and their fossil fuel cohorts.
The High Court’s intervention is contrary to a unanimous panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Washington D.C. Circuit that has already denied several motions to stop the Clean Power Plan. This is following two months of briefings and several weeks of “careful painstaking review of the fossil fuel polluters’ claims.” It is important to consider that the conservative Court’s decision does not, and did not, address the merits of the Clean Power Plan; that is what Court of Appeals is considering, on an expedited basis no less.
In fact, the High Court butted in within a day of the “fossil fuel industry and its allies filing their final legal attacks on reply.” The industry wanted it stopped and no federal Appeals Court was going to interfere with the Koch’s plans leaving the High Court’s Republicans no choice but do exactly what the Kochs tell them to do.
Who put the billionaires in charge?
Here we go.
Comments
Nice to see how much "original intent" or "textualism" the
five conservatives on the Court seem to feel to be bound by:
"Our society is run by insane people for insane objectives. I think we're being run by maniacs for maniacal ends and I think I'm liable to be put away as insane for expressing that. That's what's insane about it."
-- John Lennon
It has nothing to do with law
And the lack of intellectual depth and honesty is appalling. Scalia is a tool. Roberts and Alito are slimey. Thomas is out of his depth. The SC is about as representative of the people as The House of Representatives. Or "not so much". I am incredulous that people tolerate Supreme Court justices participating in partisan, ideological driven, events like the Koch forums. The levels of graft and corruption are untenable.
The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself. - Friedrich Nietzsche -
And the Funk
The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself. - Friedrich Nietzsche -
NIRP Doom Loop
Europe's banks
Good Morning GJ
Does this mean the bankers don't get their bonuses?
The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself. - Friedrich Nietzsche -
It depends
It does here
But not at the world's most corrupt bank
More NIRP
NATO might formally go to war with ISIS
they are already there
It's gonna get crowded in Syria.
The definition of insanity
link
There was a time
I am thinking it was ~300 BC.
The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself. - Friedrich Nietzsche -
Syrian civil war: 470,000 killed
almost twice as much
you think there will be much "friendly fire"? /nt
Top Ten Kissinger quotes
a little evil
Amazingly, my favorite Kissinger quote didn't even make the list.
“Promise them anything, give them what they get, and fuck them if they can’t take a joke.”
1975, when abandoning the Kurds to be slaughtered by Saddam.
heh
The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself. - Friedrich Nietzsche -
The Art of the Deal: The Movie
NCTim, thanks for the great tags ...
and the music of course. I may read the articles too, but it looks like there is nothing profoundly new in them, right? We kinda knew all along or so it seems at least.
Good Morning, NCTim, I hope your days are passing by with human emotions all holding on to a little faith. Thanks for the OT news dump. Take good care of yourself and your loved ones. You are missed when you are not here.
Thanks Mimi
Our C99 community is aware of the billionaire petro-chemical military industrial complex banking pharmaceutical cabal. The Supreme Court intervention is new this week and has received surprisingly little attention.
It has really been a slog lately. Sweetie is in the final stages of ALS. We just started Medicare Hospice which comes with a portfolio of services that help.
Tags, I just like to see if people read them. I wrote the software specification for the control systems used for crank shaft and cam shaft grinders. The specification was to be reviewed by a bunch of engineers and I ran out of time before the review meeting, For the graphical user interface faults, I wrote, "It is too heavy and does not get any good stations". During the review meeting, none of the reviewers brought it up. So, I pointed it out and said, "You guys didn't even read the specification".
The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself. - Friedrich Nietzsche -
Your second paragraph just leaves me with no comment ...
too hard to just imagine the "slog". I read through the links.
You are such a kind soul to provide me even the links to words you know I might have difficulties to understand.
I thank you for all of it and have you and your sweety in a special place of my mind. Courage, mon ami.
EU ultimatum to Greece
it's greece's fault
I'm curious what they expect Greece to do?
Manwhile
italy having trouble too
nothing is fixed
Boomers getting into debt
How does one pay off mortgage debt on social security?
You don't
It is only enough money to keep from freezing and starving.
The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself. - Friedrich Nietzsche -
Huh.
Typical, quiet, back room decision..
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/dnc-allowing-donations-from-fede...