It's no coincidence that we've lost power (electric) three times in the last month due to "violent" storms. Since over 60% of the US is suffering from a severe drought, the corn and soybean crops even for the upper Midwest are in the process of being lost, and the west is going up in flames, we consider ourselves lucky.
Bill McKibben of 350.org fame, has pointed out that there is an easy way to explain our problems: through three numbers (Rolling Stone, 07/19/2012).
The one thing the failed environmental conference in Copenhagen agreed to in 2009, was that a global rise in temperature of more than 2 degrees Celsius had to be avoided. Considering that global temperature has only risen about 0.8 degrees Celsius, and we have seen dramatic changes already, that 2 degrees Celsius agreement looks overly indulgent.
It is the 327th month that global temperature averages have been higher than global averages in all of the 20th Century. In addition, the US had the warmest Spring ever recorded, by a huge margin, a third of Arctic summer ice has disappeared, the oceans are 30% more acidic (threatening much marine life) and the atmosphere over the oceans is 5% wetter, opening the world to severe flooding.
Yet the Rio environmental summit this Spring was not attended by any important national leader, and the issue of global warming, or "climate change," seems to be a non-issue in the Presidential and Congressional/Senatorial campaigns in the US, the second largest emitter of greenhouse gases driving global warming.
Two other figures sum up our global predicament. The first, McKibben identified is 565 gigatons of carbon, the amount the world can add to the global atmosphere with a four in five chance that we won't exceed the 2 C target. One in five chances, however, says that even this figure is too high. This may especially be true, since the amount of carbon already released has not yet been fully realized in the 0.8 degrees rise in global temperature. Global climate changes have a lag time. 565 gigatons means the amount of additional coal, oil, gas, methane and burning forests the earth might be able to sustain, before we exceed the 2C limit. Yet, except for the recession year of 2009, the world has been pouring out more and more carbon into the atmosphere every year.
The third figure, however, is the most devastating. It is 2,795 gigatons, the amount of carbon contained in the proven reserves of all the oil/coal/gas companies and countries, (Venezuela to Canada). Why devastating? This number represents the assets of producer countries and companies. If they're not allowed to burn it, their "investments" become worthless. That's why Exxon and others spend hundreds of millions to persuade us there is no global warming.
The economic system will destroy the planet for most humans--by orders of magnitude worse than the Roman Empire's desertification of the Mediterranean world in the fifth Century.
Showing posts with label climate change deniers. Show all posts
Showing posts with label climate change deniers. Show all posts
Monday, July 23, 2012
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
Foreign $s Promote Global Warming in US
Now, it's official: European corporations, including BP, are contributing funds to US Senate campaigns--for climate change deniers and candidates who vow to block the cap and trade bill. Total contributions: $240,000, more than Koch Industries pursuing the same agenda. So, BP, for example, having polluted our Gulf of Mexico and killed workers in a refinery fire, now wants to buy politicians--so they can do more of the same, with no government interference.
European corporations are meddling in US politics. That they can, has been made possible by the Supreme Court's decision opening the way for corporate money in campaigns, despite Justice Alito shaking his head when Obama asserted that it would: Obama stated that the Citizens United decision opened election campaigns to foreign funds. Clearly, it has.
The list of corporations revealed by Climate Action Network Europe (CANE), are: BP, Arcelor-Mittal (steel), Solvay (chemicals), LaFarge (cement), GDF-Suez (energy), BASF (chemicals), Bayer (pharmaceuticals) and EON (energy). They are concerned about pollution controls: all are large-scale polluters. Europe has been in the forefront combating climate change, and these corporations have been forced to comply with EC regulations to reduce emissions.
Their thinking: if they can help elect climate change deniers and anti-climate change legislators in the US, then the US will do nothing about climate change, and they can argue that Europe shouldn't handicap itself with "burdensome" and "anti-business" regulations, either.
The same process is going on in California, which has an initiative on its ballot to nullify Schwarzenegger's widely acclaimed climate law. Money pours in from everywhere to nullify the law, but from energy companies especially.
It's fascinating to identify the allies of the Tea Party's American "patriots."
It's also fascinating to see that, so far, participants like stridently "patriotic" Fox News, have made no issue of foreign participation in our elections. In fact, it has been widely reported, but not fully substantiated, that many of the millions spent by the Chamber of Commerce and various other Tea Party groups like Rove's American Crossroads, come from foreign corporations.
It can be argued that this is only fair, since the US, and American corporations have spent money in foreign election campaigns for decades. But it is against US election laws, and it should be an issue in this campaign. Do Americans really want foreign corporations to help decide who governs us, and what policies we pursue?
Further, the funding revealed by CANE is "climate sabotage:" it is aimed at stopping any action to combat, or ameliorate climate change. And it is motivated by one thing only: corporate profits.
America is beginning to look, not so much like a declining empire as a Third World country, where all the (foreign and domestic) corporate heavies make the rules and select the players, for their own global profits.
European corporations are meddling in US politics. That they can, has been made possible by the Supreme Court's decision opening the way for corporate money in campaigns, despite Justice Alito shaking his head when Obama asserted that it would: Obama stated that the Citizens United decision opened election campaigns to foreign funds. Clearly, it has.
The list of corporations revealed by Climate Action Network Europe (CANE), are: BP, Arcelor-Mittal (steel), Solvay (chemicals), LaFarge (cement), GDF-Suez (energy), BASF (chemicals), Bayer (pharmaceuticals) and EON (energy). They are concerned about pollution controls: all are large-scale polluters. Europe has been in the forefront combating climate change, and these corporations have been forced to comply with EC regulations to reduce emissions.
Their thinking: if they can help elect climate change deniers and anti-climate change legislators in the US, then the US will do nothing about climate change, and they can argue that Europe shouldn't handicap itself with "burdensome" and "anti-business" regulations, either.
The same process is going on in California, which has an initiative on its ballot to nullify Schwarzenegger's widely acclaimed climate law. Money pours in from everywhere to nullify the law, but from energy companies especially.
It's fascinating to identify the allies of the Tea Party's American "patriots."
It's also fascinating to see that, so far, participants like stridently "patriotic" Fox News, have made no issue of foreign participation in our elections. In fact, it has been widely reported, but not fully substantiated, that many of the millions spent by the Chamber of Commerce and various other Tea Party groups like Rove's American Crossroads, come from foreign corporations.
It can be argued that this is only fair, since the US, and American corporations have spent money in foreign election campaigns for decades. But it is against US election laws, and it should be an issue in this campaign. Do Americans really want foreign corporations to help decide who governs us, and what policies we pursue?
Further, the funding revealed by CANE is "climate sabotage:" it is aimed at stopping any action to combat, or ameliorate climate change. And it is motivated by one thing only: corporate profits.
America is beginning to look, not so much like a declining empire as a Third World country, where all the (foreign and domestic) corporate heavies make the rules and select the players, for their own global profits.
Tuesday, October 5, 2010
Risk a Catastrophe?
"Oh, it will never happen!"
They all say that, about the possibility of one as a consequence of what they do--they being all of us. Whether it's a cat hunting mice and braving the threat of coyotes--they eat cats--or JP Morgan buying derivatives of uncertain value, or BP drilling offshore, or MAL Zrt, the Hungarian Aluminum Production and Trade Company, stockpiling the sludge byproduct from producing aluminum from bauxite.
In each case, after many times when disaster did not strike, after many times when disaster was possible, but did not happen, after many times when "experts" said it couldn't happen, it struck and struck hard, in the last two cases with huge environmental damage.
When will we learn?
There is a difference between the chances for profit and the chances for disaster. Some call this asymmetrical risk. You can risk profit, and if you lose, you lose your money; if you win, you gain money. But there are other risks, like those environmental disasters. The costs are borne by a much larger number than capital investors. In the case of the Hungarian sludge disaster, which just happened, not only did people die--of alkaline burns--whole areas of Hungary will have to be dug up, the soil replaced, towns have been abandoned, and in rivers like the Raba, most of the life in them may have been killed. The sludge may reach the Danube, which flows through other countries.
Who pays for all that? The offending corporation should, their investors impoverished if necessary, but you know that won't happen. BP has been assessed damages for its Gulf oil disaster, and for its earlier refinery disaster, as well--peanuts compared to its profits--but it isn't paying the cost of restoring the Gulf to its pre-blowout condition. It won't be. So, everybody else is: the fishermen whose livelihoods have been lost, for example, the hotel owners and workers, whose businesses have been destroyed, and so on.
In most capitalist enterprise, in fact, there are huge asymmetrical risks, some of which we are only beginning to be aware, like the possible links between earthquakes and mining or deep drilling--huge spaces are evacuated underground, in both cases: there could be consequences. Again: who pays?
Our market system is engaged in the most asymmetrical risk of all: profit in the short run for the risk in the long run of a climate so destabilized that most of the human population won't survive.
Who pays?
At least, when the Roman Empire fell in the west, the whole planet was not affected: only Western Europe and western North Africa. When our industrial system poisons itself, the whole planet will suffer; it already is.
But the climate change deniers, beloved of "conservatives" and the tea party, and funded by corporations, want us to take on that risk--so that Exxon, Peabody Energy and General Electric can earn even greater profits than they do right now.
Are humans rational?
They all say that, about the possibility of one as a consequence of what they do--they being all of us. Whether it's a cat hunting mice and braving the threat of coyotes--they eat cats--or JP Morgan buying derivatives of uncertain value, or BP drilling offshore, or MAL Zrt, the Hungarian Aluminum Production and Trade Company, stockpiling the sludge byproduct from producing aluminum from bauxite.
In each case, after many times when disaster did not strike, after many times when disaster was possible, but did not happen, after many times when "experts" said it couldn't happen, it struck and struck hard, in the last two cases with huge environmental damage.
When will we learn?
There is a difference between the chances for profit and the chances for disaster. Some call this asymmetrical risk. You can risk profit, and if you lose, you lose your money; if you win, you gain money. But there are other risks, like those environmental disasters. The costs are borne by a much larger number than capital investors. In the case of the Hungarian sludge disaster, which just happened, not only did people die--of alkaline burns--whole areas of Hungary will have to be dug up, the soil replaced, towns have been abandoned, and in rivers like the Raba, most of the life in them may have been killed. The sludge may reach the Danube, which flows through other countries.
Who pays for all that? The offending corporation should, their investors impoverished if necessary, but you know that won't happen. BP has been assessed damages for its Gulf oil disaster, and for its earlier refinery disaster, as well--peanuts compared to its profits--but it isn't paying the cost of restoring the Gulf to its pre-blowout condition. It won't be. So, everybody else is: the fishermen whose livelihoods have been lost, for example, the hotel owners and workers, whose businesses have been destroyed, and so on.
In most capitalist enterprise, in fact, there are huge asymmetrical risks, some of which we are only beginning to be aware, like the possible links between earthquakes and mining or deep drilling--huge spaces are evacuated underground, in both cases: there could be consequences. Again: who pays?
Our market system is engaged in the most asymmetrical risk of all: profit in the short run for the risk in the long run of a climate so destabilized that most of the human population won't survive.
Who pays?
At least, when the Roman Empire fell in the west, the whole planet was not affected: only Western Europe and western North Africa. When our industrial system poisons itself, the whole planet will suffer; it already is.
But the climate change deniers, beloved of "conservatives" and the tea party, and funded by corporations, want us to take on that risk--so that Exxon, Peabody Energy and General Electric can earn even greater profits than they do right now.
Are humans rational?
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