BEFORE DELVING INTO MORE OF THE DEBATE ON GLOBAL WARMING, a brief comment on the role of the Republican Party in providing leadership on the issue. During President Obama’s first term — and continuing to the present day — the GOP developed a clear, coherent and well-orchestrated strategy to contest for the leadership role in American politics and policy. While comprehensive in its sweep, it can best be grasped in a simple, powerful and statesmanlike declaration: “NO! NO! and again NO!” Not for the Republicans the intricacies of any compromise with those who would undermine the foundations of the Republic by taxing entrepreneurs or by the invention of environmental myths of the future to stifle entrepreneurial success and financial rewards today!
In GOP Land, we have a choice between capitalistic freedom and tyranny; between the right of capital to multiply, unfettered by an interfering state or obligations to “environment” or some supposed “common good” through the continuation or initiation of crippling taxation and regulation — a “common good” that basically consists of feeding and giving succor to the indolent and creating myths of “environmental crises” to bring our society to its knees.
If you think the above an absurdity, the history of these past five years has been lost on you. The campaign of corporate power for crucial relief from the burdens of crippling taxation and environmental regulation is everyday fare — even as it masterfully games the loophole-ridden tax code and enjoys the greatest profits, dividends and salaries in history! And that today’s surrender to the demands of that power contributes to the destruction of tomorrow’s environment for all of humanity is brute reality. That this is even in dispute is a measure of our extremely perilous plight.
It is truly remarkable that the Republican Party, a party that historically placed high value on environmental protections, would have so lost touch with its forebears that the science and practice of such protection is rejected as some warped, self-interested and highly suspect enterprise. Yet whatever immediate or short-term political dividends might accrue for such rejection, it is a form of societal suicide.
For dramatically contrasting views of environmental realities, problems and demands confronting our world and our time, I provide two perspectives. For the first I begin with the two designated leaders of the Republican Party, John Boehner and Mitch McConnell.
We have this from Boehner in 2009 on ABC’s “This Week with Geoge Stephanopoulos,” just after the EPA declared that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases pose a danger to public health, paving the way for regulation of their emission.
STEPHANOPOULOS: So what is the responsible way? That’s my question. What is the Republican plan to deal with carbon emissions, which every major scientific organization has said is contributing to climate change?
BOEHNER: George, the idea that carbon dioxide is a carcinogen that is harmful to our environment is almost comical. Every time we exhale, we exhale carbon dioxide. Every cow in the world, you know, when they do what they do, you’ve got more carbon dioxide. And so I think it’s clear …
Given the level of Boehner’s scientific sophistication, what possible response is available to those who might differ?
Next, from a report filed July 6, 2012, of Mitch McConnell talking with a Louisville (Ky.) Rotary audience, we have the following when McConnell was asked by a member of the audience about global warming, noting the recent record-setting heat and forest fires out West:
“As recently as 30-35 years ago we were worried about the globe getting too cold,” McConnell replied. “I suppose over decades and maybe centuries we’ll figure this out.” (I thought this particularly brilliant — centuries! By then we will indeed!)
Yet going back a few years, from a Think Progress piece by Ali Frick dated Jan. 12, 2008 we find McConnell heralding himself in a campaign ad as the “Godfather of Green!” and an environmental champion (!) in taking credit for several hometown park projects (otherwise known as constituency payback) — including a Mitch McConnell Loop Trail!
He may be the champion of hometown pork but McConnell’s record with the League of Conservation Voters during the 109th Congress was zero. His lifetime rating is 7 percent. His record of both votes and leadership with respect to environmental issues is one of the most abysmal in the Senate. Among these we have his leadership in helping to pass the 2005 Energy Policy Act, a bill the LCV called “the most anti-environmental piece of legislation signed into law in recent memory.”
We also have his repeated attacks on Senate bills recognizing global warming, including a “sense of the Senate” amendment expressing “the need … to address global climate change.”
By way of contrast and reconnection to a reality-based world, I want to review a few highlights from the life and times of an extraordinary scientist, Sherwood Rowland, whose achievements and whose profound views on the environment relate very directly to what is, I believe, the most crucial issue of our time.
The following is from the New York Times, March 12, 2012, “F. Sherwood Rowland, Cited Aerosols’ Danger, Is Dead at 84” by Felicity Barringer:
F. Sherwood Rowland, whose discovery in 1974 of the danger that aerosols posed to the ozone layer was initially met with disdain but who was ultimately vindicated with the 1995 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, died on Saturday at his home in Corona del Mar, Calif. He was 84.
Along with a colleague, Mario Molina, Dr. Rowland found that chlorinated fluorocarbons, the supposedly inert building blocks of aerosol sprays that were then common in deodorants, hair care products and grocery freezers had the potential to deplete the ozone layer to dangerous levels.
In a paper published in the journal Nature in 1974, the two scientists showed that when CFCs rise into the stratosphere, they are bombarded by powerful doses of ultraviolet rays. A single chlorine atom knocked free, they found, can absorb more than 100,000 ozone molecules (!). More disturbing, the atoms could linger in the stratosphere for up to a century.
Industry representatives at first disputed Dr. Rowland’s findings” (this is a very mild description of the frantic opposition. At one point Aerosol Age, a trade journal, speculated that Rowland was a member of the Soviet Union’s KGB, out to destroy capitalism!), “but his findings, achieved in laboratory experiments, were supported 11 years later when British scientists discovered that the stratospheric ozone layer, which blocks harmful ultraviolet rays, had developed a hole over Antarctica.
The discovery led to the 1987 Montreal Protocol, a landmark international environmental treaty to stop the production of the aerosol compounds known as chlorofluorocarbons, or CFCs, and other ozone-depleting chemicals and to eliminate inventories of them.
‘The clarity and startling nature of what Molina and Rowland came up with — the notion that something you could hold in your hand could affect the entire global environment, not just the room in which you were standing — was extraordinary,’ Ralph Cicerone, the president of the National Academy of Sciences and a longtime colleague of Dr. Rowland, said in an interview.
Rowland went on to further research in atmospheric environmental issues and was deeply concerned about the role of CO2 in global warming.
So the question is, whose example, commitments and insights do you believe should be guiding our society and our policies at this point — Boehner and McConnell, whose pitifully shallow, self-serving, abysmally ignorant and disastrous environmental views promise an America devoted to living large today while condemning the future? Or the many scientists who, like Dr. Rowland, daily make the powerful case for the dangers of our present course and for a science-based public policy?
To the point, in a very moving comment in his acceptance speech for the Nobel Prize, Rowland said: “What’s the use of having developed a science well enough to make predictions, if, in the end, all we’re willing to do is stand around and wait for them to come true?”
Jerome Page is a Benicia resident.
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Jerome, keep up the good work. Always a pleasure to read your latest. Cretins still populate the Congress where ignorance is well-paid bliss, plus benefits and the world pays the consequences…pb
Hey Jerome-
How about an article on Al Gore’s eco hypocrisy? I mean, fair is fair right?
NASA retracted big time on the science of the whole thing in August of last year or the year before siting that the data does not match the mantra. Volcanoes emit more crap into the atmosphere than the entire last 50 years of the industrialized world in one eruption and they have been going off for millions of years and we are still here. Face it, the planet ebbs and flows like the tides and it may take centuries to do so, but there is no such thing as global warming other than those like Al Gore who seek to make fortunes on the hysteria surrounding it. There are no legitimate scientists that are on board with this concept but there are tens of thousands that have spoken out against it. Then add to the debate the data doctoring that was exposed coming out of England (did you forget about that Jerome). Give me a break. Jerome, I want to believe you to be smarter than this. It is a hoax designed to make money and unfortunately, so far, it is working to some degree. Everywhere I see “GREEN” this and “GREEN” that. What a bunch of crap! I want to get one of those stickers for my big ass diesel trucks that says “I have a huge carbon footprint”. And then I want to put one on my airplane too … cause you know, the EPA hasn’t gotten hold of the whole emissions thing on airplanes yet. Ha!
Well said JLB. I’d be honored to ride in your plane anytime.
From EarthTalk and E/The Environmental Magazine…Greenhouse gas emissions from volcanoes equal less than one percent of those generated by human activities.
From Skeptical Science (“Two Attempts to blame global warming on volcanoes: Consequently, underwater volcanoes have little effect on atmospheric CO2 levels. The greater contribution comes from subaerial volcanoes (subaerial meaning “under the air”, refering to land volcanoes). Subaerial volcanoes are estimated to emit 242 million tonnes of CO2 per year (Morner 2002).
In contrast, humans are currently emiting around 29 billion tonnes of CO2 per year (EIA). In other words, human CO2 emissions are over 100 times greater than volcanic emissions. This is apparent when comparing atmospheric CO2 levels to volcanic activity since 1960.
“There are no legitimate scientists that are on board with this concept but there are tens of thousands that have spoken out against it.”
Interesting comment. In point of fact every major scientific organization in the US and eighty world wide are “on board with this concept.” That includes 97% of the most published and distinguished climate scientists in the US. But its possible that you have a source of which I am not aware and am always open to new data.
More recent information on global warming for the deniers to contemplate and the community to consider…
http://www.desmogblog.com/2013/05/15/climate-denial-s-death-knell-97-percent-peer-reviewed-science-confirms-manmade-global-warming-consensus-overwhelming
Thank you, Will…when all the cretins and druids are lined up and they salute their Dinosaur Flag of this species, I suspect their names will be well known. Those against progress can hold onto their oil buck stocks and Halliburton profits with both hands and wish for another “profitable” war…”Take us backward to a napping Ronnie and Nancy’s dancing Ouija Board…Throw in LBJ and Nixon’s escalation of the war in Viet Nam, too…” And the Keystone pipeline and Frakking into the earth, who needs clean groundwater?” Personally, I’m going out to hug another tree….Good luck, America…Mental mediocrity must be bliss…PB
More on climate change and hydraulic fracking for the community to consider…
From the article below:
“If our elected officials refuse to visit the fracking fields, then we will bring the fracking fields to them.”
–Dr. Sandra Steingraber
http://www.yesmagazine.org/planet/pro-fracking-greens-called-out-in-sandra-steingraber-s-new-manifesto
Go, Sandra! I support her fully! It’s time for the immoral Frakkers to abide by some public health rules like the rest of us. Unlimited freshwater as a resource down into the earth with unknown, undisclosed “Dick-Cheney chemicals” to release WHAT into our air and groundwater and what else? What kind of Cretins and Druids are in charge of this charade? The FINANCIAL HEADS OF THIS COUNTRY SACKED THE ECONOMY, NOW the PetroMoguls are willing to risk groundwater resources and what else to pursue their PETROBUCKS? AT WHOSE EXPENSE? I SAY NO! Count me in, Sandra.– NO, to the Keystone pipeline also. Let Canadians pipe it across their country to their own ports if they love it so much! How about that??? Peter Bray, Benicia, CA
They atre
should be are, sorry
I’m supporting Dr. Sandra Steingraber anywhere she wants to speak and am totally against the Keystone Project Pipeline also…If the Canadians love their bitumen oil slop, why don’t they pipe it across their country to their own ports? Because they know better than to contaminate their own country? GO, SANDRA!–pb
I think I know a lot about fracking. You call me cluless, absolutely clueless is a personal attack. I watch it very closely and will continue. What I see here is just a difference in opinion. We all do research and come up with different opinions. If there is contamination it would be at the drilling site which is in Alberta Canada. Vetry little contamination on moving it to another destination. The refining of the product is another issue to be regulated at the point in California and already is. Just ask Valero.
Livesay:
NONE of your tar sands or fracking “expertise” lessens Global Warming…Go back to Square One, Do Not Collect $200…Get out of your “non-science” Republican box for a change. Check the oil stains on your driveway…did migrating locusts deliver those?–pb
The title for Mr. Page’s article is: “Our choices for shaping the future.” With that noted,
I thought Mr. Page and the community might appreciate a Special Report titled: ” Fracking our future.” How unconventional Gas Threatens our Water, Health and Climate.
Source: De Smogblog: “Clearing the PR Pollution that Clouds Climate Science.”
An excerpt from the executive summary for academics as well as lay people to ponder:
” Now the companies that brought us the Exxon Valdez spill, the BP blowout in the Gulf of Mexico, Chevron’s destruction of the Amazonian rainforest in Ecuador and countless other pollution examples, want the public to blindly trust them– with zero federal oversight–as they pursue drilling for much riskier unconventional gas throughout the country.”
” The question is, given the oil industry’s track record of environmental and health disasters, can the public trust them to get it right with the more challenging unconventional gas?
http://www.desmogblog.com/fracking-the-future/
WILL: Those clowns can’t even maintain their Richmond Chevron facility without a blow-out fire and explosion or keep leaks from the Shell Martinez refinery from polluting the Carquinez Straits… or blasting up a “flaring” cloud over Benicia whenever they damn well choose to—I don’t trust any of them with a nickel or a dime or with public health in general…I support any form of alternative energy including walking my monkey legs to work whenever I can. “Non-science” thinking is turkey gas and the human race has had enough mogul mental-mediocrity to last a lifetime…pb
How about the 60 years California has been doing Fracking?. Give me a report on that and I might listen.
Show me your stinking report, “Frakking in California”…what petro-idiots endorsed that?–pb
TO Bob Livesay and others: I’m studying “Frakking in California”–See for yourself, under-regulated and nobody knows adequately about it:
http://www.care2.com/causes/fracking-in-california.html
Watch my wake and better put on your raingear–pb
There are bills being drawn up as we write on recycling of water and chemical use in fracking. There has been no issue for over sixty yesars. The California legislature will make sure there will be many measures of precaution to make fracking clean and safe. It will be done with the cooperation of Silican Valley, California legislation and the enviros. Fracking will continue to go on. .It will be regulated and closely watch and improved all the time. That is what cooperation is all about. This is far to important an issue to just take a negative approach to. Just what are our scientist for. Things like this where they can help and not hinder.
Go here. http://climate.nasa.gov/ for an actual indication of what NASA is offering in terms of climate science.
I don’t see the GOP coming around to the concerns of the environment anytime soon. They either don’t believe it or don’t care. That said I don’t see so called environmentalist doing much more than finger pointing and talk. If they truly believe the doom and gloom then why do they continue to drive autos. They believe in a coming catastrophe but do little personally themselves. How many are moving closer to work, ride a bike to work, ride a bike to the store . The worlds coming to an end but they can’t be inconvenienced. except to complain and point fingers at the right.
RKJ:
Contrary to your assertion, some of us ARE doing something: We no longer commute to the City for three hours a day, consuming commuter’s fuel like we had to for 10 years, we stay local with our business. NO, I don’t serve Fairfield, Novato, and North Napa and the long, fuel-consuming commute to get there. Build me an electric or solar-powered truck and I’ll finance and buy it. Some of us are removing weeds and debris for reduced fire hazards and taking them to the dump, installing weatherstripping to reduce fuel consumption in the winter, repairing sprinkler, drain, and toilet dysfunction to conserve water. In the mean time reading every Dr. Hansen report from NASA available and NOT endorsing anything the chronic obstructionist, “anti-science” right-wing, Republican party has to say about anything. Good luck with your endeavors also.– PB
That’s good to hear Peter, I used to commute an hour to work then 20 years ago I had enough and moved six miles from work and could bicycle there often.
I was just trying to point out we need less finger pointing and more action such as yours.
I do believe most folks do what they can to help the enviroment. As I have said I self monitor. Guess what it works. Back in the 60’s where I lived is was mandatory to remove fire hazzard brush from your property. No one complained. We just did it as a responsible homeowner. Weather stripping was a no brainer. Homeowners did many of the things that Peter is talking about and always have. It is not a big deal and not new. We were not looking for a medal. Here is where I start to have some issues. My 1973 Buick 225 Electra got eleven miles to the gallon.,. Guess what, gas was about 33/38 cents a gallon. I now drive a car that gets 23/25 city and 28/35 on a trip and gas is at least $3.80 a gallon Now do the math and figure it out. That is not a Republican issue. It cost me and everyone else four times AS much to drive the same miles in a car that is not even close to that Electra. I assume everyone knows why. The gas tax is out of line. Come July 1st you will see another gas tax increase. It is not just this issue it is happening on every thing that the middle class does. Telephone, water, gas and electric, you name it the Dems did it. Nickle and dime them right out of the middle class.But at the same time they blame the Republicans for all of this added taxing of the middle class. That just is not the case. To me it is very simple. If the enviros are so concerned then just go out and pay for it yourself with a little help from Soros. If you love the arts, guess what you supoport it. It is time that global warming/climate change crowd takes on a responsibility of their own and quit blaming others. And by the way pay for it all by your lonesome.
BOB Livesay: No one said my ideas were new, they were just a reminder of what one individual can do. You are a chronically negative twit…Go support your Keystone Pipeline and your Frakking of groundwater across the US along with Dick Cheney’s non-disclosure of what chemicals they’re pumping into the ground…Who gives a fry about your Buick Electra?…Maybe with any luck you can re-elect Ronnie Reagan’s ghost and get back to Cretin-science and Mrs. Reagan’s Ouija Board to get you out of your “non-science” composure…Good luck–pb
RKJ you make some good points. Where I see the Republicans stepping in is in a compromise with enviros on some regulations to get the Keystone pipeline built. Autos, truck, buses etc and for sure industry are consider the biggest contributors to the Global Warming/climate change issue. The big issue is will the enviros go for a compromise? I think not unless it is heavlly weighted in their favor. There lies the issue. Compromise or no movement. The Republicans will just take their time till the moment is right and pass it. It is in the best interest of the enviros to go with a compromise. I hope they noticed what just happened in the state lof California State Assemby. Super majority the Dems have and they just lost on fracking issue.
“demands confronting our world and our time” Could not have said it better myself.
I believe Mr. Pages article to be an opinion piece. Comment contributors also have opinons. My opinion has always been that it is not the fault of the Republicans on global warming/climate change progress. Nor do I believe they are an obsticle. California is a very good example of progress in many areas of the enviroment. Remember when all this started California was not dominated by Democrats as it is now. California has been the leader in enviro advancement and we set the national standards in many cases. Being that the autos appear to be the big contributor I was trying to explain the hit taxes had on the middle class. Oil drilling and fracking will be a big part of our economy for many years to come. I have always said that regulations will change to make sure what chemicals used will be monitored and approved. Again none of this has anything to do with Republicans being the obsticle. California has many refineries. About third in the USA in amount of refineries. California again is setting the standards for enviro protection. So to say that Republicans are the obsticle just is not true. If that were the case why are the refineries still in California. Remember the politics of this state which does help to set national standard for the enviroment is a super majority controlled by the Democrats. Upper and lower state house, House of Representative from California and all elected state officials. Now maybe one could say it is the Democrats that are stopping the enviro progress in the state. If in fact it is stalled. The interesting thing is the State Assembly just defeated a bill for a moratorium on fracking. Even though the Dems had a super majority. It was not the Republicans. If politics plays a big part in the enviroment just who is right. We could discuss this for years and not get a firm answer. The important thing is we are making progress with Republicans being a big part of it. The Republicans look at in a much different way..It appears to me the Dems want to tax the rich but at the same time put everyday taxes on everything that all folks use and need. Who does that hurt the most, middleclass. Republicans want Corporate American to be taxed less and create more jobs. Which will bring in the needed tax dollars to move the envro issue along at a much faster pace. With that Republicans also think Corporate American has a responsibility to ensure the enviro advancement that is needed. .So as I have always said placing the blame on Republicans is not the answer. Compromise is a good start. Try it.
Livesay:
Besides obstructing Obama for the past 8 years, what have Republicans done or proposed anywhere on this planet to lessen Global Warming? McConnel, Boehner, Rush Limbaugh and that Twit-Gov. of Louisiana are their Team Leaders? My dog’s fleas are brighter than that collection, and I don’t have a dog. And as to the Sacto/politicians in California, how many can you point that might also be rocket scientists?–Good luck with that one. Since when do you support and not badmouth Democrats, Enviro-Socialists, and/or Greenies? Your local “quasi-legend” far precedes you, you can’t even handle Mayor Patterson civilly or your female adversaries on this Slumber-party/Editorial back-page partyline–You’re promoting “compromise?” Good luck with that one too. I’ll continue to listen to Dr. Hansen of NASA…and one day Cheney will be tried as an International War Criminal—pb
Staying on topic is important. I like anyone else support the folks that I believe will take any issue in the right direction. That is why I think this article in blaming Republicans in a very biased opinion. It is Mr, Pages opinion and not mine.
Livesay:
Republicans have earned their current criticism on all the issues—Everyone can discern a Jerome Page Editorial from yours…Not to worry—pb
It is interesting that the article is a complete put down of the Reblicans and some say they deserve and earned the criticism. Again that is an opinion. When Republicans hold over 55% of elected offices in the USA I find that being critical and biased of Republicans for sure just to be an opinion..
Livesay: So what’s your point? We’ve heard you carping about “Enviro-greenies, Liberals, Socialist-Democrats,” and Mayor Patterson until we’re all blue in the face..we KNOW that’s only your opinion and nobody else’s…So Republicans can get elected to office…somebody must believe in them for some reason, this is an Opinion Circuit, get used to others’ opinions beside your own. Free Speech is a two-way street, not a dead-end road—DUH?–pb
I do believe that is what I was saying,
Shell Predicts that Natural Gas or Solar will Become the No. 1 Energy Source
http://oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-News/World-News/Shell-Predicts-that-Natural-Gas-or-Solar-will-Become-the-No.-1-Energy-Source.html
https://fbcdn-sphotos-e-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash3/184472_495863977146777_1920112976_n.png