Ah, Political Satire

Reading this makes me really hope and look forward to some good comedy from Jib Jab.

At any rate, reported in Grist, the New York times satirizes the likely responses of some of the leading presidential candidates to the recently reported high mercury levels in bluefin tuna sushi.

Just one sample:

Romney:
"It's all that immigrant fish. We're not controlling our borders. I
promise you that on my watch we will not be a sanctuary for dangerous
foreign tuna."

Read the rest at Grist and NY Times.

Something Different

Don't get much straight politics around here very often, however, I was reading something about "state of the union" bingo (play bingo using words from the state of the union to fill in a bingo card) and came across this interesting pieces of statistical analysis at the NY Times of the contents of past State of the Union speeches by the current president. Interesting to search for things like 'ethanol, 'nuclear' (no, not nucular) and other words and see how often they occured and when in previous speeches.

Call To Action: Make GCC an issue for media to cover

If you want to raise the level of the conversation regarding global climate change in media coverage of the presidential election, consider this petition sponsored by the League of Conservation Voters. It asks those reporting on the election to include global climate change in their coverage as an issue that is important to the US population.

For derision of the level of reporting see these posts on Celsias and GristMill. (some duplication in the video, the Celsias is the better single read and has a Jib Jab video).

Earth: Harmless (Mostly)

With the doom and gloom predicted by some of the most panicked of the climate change predictors, the appellation given in Douglas Adams Hitchhiker's series may prove to be accurate, at least to an intelligent species not-based on earth, as we're not likely be here for much longer.

Seriously though, what people like James Lovelock, and others are saying isn't only that we've screwed the planet and its likely too late to do anything meaningful about it, they are also pointing out is we've altered almost every normal cycle on the planet with our demands for growth, comfort and consumption. The oceans aren't capturing CO2 at historical rates, CO2 is being released from topsoil, increased nitrogen is having a host of knock-on effects, ad nauseum.

Doom and Gloom is easy to preach, but it isn't enough. It must translate to a clarion call to everyone to effect change. Individuals need to reduce consumption and put policymakers on notice that they care. Enterprise needs to factor future profits and losses from environmental change into their current plans and projects. Policymakers need to grow a set and stand up and take the hard decisions, impose limits declaring things like, no new coal fired plants will be built until CCS is possible. We have the technology to generate power in sufficient quantities in other ways, even in the most rapidly developing economies.
Profits and business as usual can not continue, cooperation with developing countries must occur to enable them to not make the mistakes that the developed world made. And since we made the largest impact, and taught the rest of the world the method, the burden rightly should fall on the developed world to help everyone get through this.

Worldwide GHG emissions reductions targets over the next 20 years are a good start. But it won't be enough, the biosphere and natural cycles of the earth are already disrupted and need to be given a chance to recover. Stopping GHG emissions will simply stop the exponential growth curve of our contributions, not reverse the impacts we've already created or disrupt the new cycle that has started.

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e2, episode 5 - "State of Resolve"

Continuing the reviews of television episodes of e2, episode 5 documents the leadership that California has provided over the years in not only pollution policy making, but makes a nod to the ways in which California has led the way in finding ways to pollute.

When a state represents 10% of the automobile market, and is the 8th largest economy in the world, it is in a unique position to steer the US's policy, through leadership, or simply through being an obstinate customer in the capitalist-market system. As is pointed out by California assemblywoman Fran Pavley, companies generally aren't going to make a product for one state and a different product for the other 49 states.

Specific areas that the episode points out where California has or is making a difference are automobile emissions standards, in-state smoke stack emissions, and out of state energy emissions. Wondering how that last one will work? California has passed legislation that requires that electricity used in the state be generated cleanly, which is going to force power providers to find solutions.

The episode also spends some time focused on the disconnect between what California is doing and federal policies and leaves the viewer with the question: Does what California is doing matter? Is it simply an idiosyncrasy, or is it a meaningful campaign that will affect not only the US, but the world, by showing the way and what can be achieved when there is a political will?

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Amusing and Serious campaign to support the fuel efficiency standards

David Roberts posted an image from PewFuelEfficiency.org from their ad campaign in support of the proposed new CAFE legislation in the current energy bill.

I can't find the image on PewFuelEfficiency.org right now, but they do have a few others available:

Why are these men smiling (pdf)
Can't be done (pdf)

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Disingenuous Comparisons

I find this post by David Roberts, whom I normally enjoy, to be disingenuous, as is the graphic upon which he is commenting.

Money spent on the war, while I agree is a frightening large amount that could be better used in other ways, is not directly comparable to the money spent on R&D in any field or even the whole of all R&D. There is only so much money that can be absorbed into research organizations and be used in a meaningful way. The goals of the spending are at odds with one another, the war spending is paying salaries, for tangible goods, services and a host of other things, the goals of research is to refine ideas to the point that a product can be brought to market that is economically feasible, and part of the feasibility is the cost of the research itself.

I haven't read the source document to determine the authors position, but Solar Power Rocks, who Mr. Roberts links to, points out at least one way in which the money could have been spent otherwise: using existing technology to build non-fossil fuel electric generation facilities. Better yet would be to not go into even deeper debt as a country, but I'm not an economist and have no idea what the impact of more debt is really on the US and global economies.

They're of course dodging the issue, or assuming that the logical next step for Iraq is to pull out and spend almost nothing. A fine reward to that country for our leaders deciding to impose someone's interpretation of how the world should look and breaking it. Not that I have any idea that what we're doing now is better, just doesn't seem right to leave them to their own devices when its our countries fault that they're where they are now.

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