How Republicans (& Canadian Conservatives) Can Answer Obama’s Challenge To ‘Reduce The Threat Of Climate Change’

obama's state of the union.2013

Today’s blog post is courtesy of Citizens Climate Lobby:

In his State of the Union address, the President said, ‘If Congress won’t act soon to protect future generations [from climate change], I will.’  Republicans who wish to avoid more regulations should embrace the free-market approach of a revenue-neutral tax on carbon.

Saying that “for the sake of our children and our future, we must do more to combat climate change,’ President Obama used his State of the Union address to reaffirm his commitment to actions that will reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

“I urge this Congress to pursue a bipartisan, market-based solution to climate change,” said Obama. But with prospects appearing dim for legislation to price carbon, the President quickly added, “But if Congress won’t act soon to protect future generations, I will.”

While the President did not spell out “the executive actions we can take,” many observers assume the centerpiece of that plan will be to use the Environmental Protection Agency’s authority under the Clean Air Act to regulate greenhouse gas emissions. The EPA has already formulated rules for new power plants that will virtually rule out construction of coal-fired facilities. The President now intends to regulate emissions from existing power plants, a move that may require the closing of many coal-fired plants and produce howls of protest from GOP lawmakers.

Republican efforts to block such regulations are likely to be a waste of time and energy, given the Supreme Court has already ruled that the EPA has the authority to regulate greenhouse gases as pollutants.

Rather than curse the darkness, the GOP could light a solar-powered lamp. They can unleash the power of the marketplace to speed the transition away from fossil fuels and toward clean sources of energy. The mechanism to motivate that transition is a consumer-friendly tax on carbon that gives revenue back to households.

A number of conservative economists have endorsed this approach.

Art Laffer, President Reagan’s economic advisor has said, “By eliminating subsidies for all fuel types and making all fuel types accountable for their costs, free enterprise will make clear the best fuels for our future. Reduce taxes on something we want more of – income –and tax something we arguably want less of – carbon pollution. It’s a win-win.”

Greg Mankiw, economic advisor to President George W. Bush and presidential candidate Mitt Romney, also supports a revenue-neutral carbon tax, saying, “Economists have long understood that the key to smart environmental policy is aligning private incentives with true social costs and benefits.  That means putting a price on carbon emissions, so households and firms will have good reason to reduce their use of fossil fuels and to develop alternative energy sources.”

The concept behind the carbon tax is simple: Polluter pays. There are many costs to society not reflected in the price of fossil fuels. These include the health costs of respiratory problems induced by air pollution, military costs to secure the shipment of oil from the Middle East, and costs to repair damage from weather-related disasters that are becoming more frequent and destructive because of global warming. A tax on carbon begins to take these costs into account, ultimately making clean energy the cheaper and preferable option.

What would a simple and effective carbon tax policy look like?

  •   Start with a tax on coal, oil and gas of $15 per ton on CO2 that each fuel will emit when burned. The result at the gas pump would be an additional 13 cents per gallon.
  • Increase the tax by $10 a ton each year.
  • Implement the tax at the fuel’s first point of sale – the mine, wellhead or port of entry.
  • Take the revenue from the carbon tax, divide it equally among everyone in the U.S.,  and return it to consumers, preferably as monthly or quarterly “dividends.”
  •  To protect American businesses from unfair foreign competition, apply border tariffs on goods coming in from countries that do not have comparable carbon pricing.

The tax, which is imposed upstream at the first point of sale, will eventually be passed down to consumers. By returning revenue to households, we protect consumers from the economic impact of rising energy costs associated with the carbon tax. At the same time, these rising costs influence consumer choices, like making their homes more energy efficient or purchasing vehicles that are more fuel-efficient.

By motivating clean-energy investments in the private sector, federal subsidies to spur the development of solar, wind and other technologies will eventually be unnecessary. Yet another reason Republicans should want to embrace a revenue-neutral carbon tax.

The provision of border tariffs in such legislation does far more than protect American businesses. Republicans often reject national policies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions with the argument that our efforts will make no difference if other countries aren’t doing the same. Senator Rubio’s stance, reported in a BuzzFeed interview Feb. 5, is typical:

“Anything we would do on that would have a real impact on the economy but probably, if it’s only us doing it, would have a very negligible impact on the environment. The United States is a country, not a planet. If you did all these things they’re talking about, what impact would it really have?”

A border tariff would negate that argument. If companies doing business with the U.S. must pay a duty on carbon, trading partners like China and India will prefer that the revenue is deposited in their own treasuries rather than given to the United States. Carbon tariffs, thereby, become a strong incentive for other countries to follow the U.S. lead and implement their own carbon tax.

The President has made it clear that, one way or another, America will “respond to the threat of climate change.” The question is whether that response is through expansion of government regulations or through the power of the marketplace. Republicans, who abhor the former, should embrace the latter with a revenue-neutral tax on carbon.

Stop the phony ‘debate’ about climate science

Republicans would find it easier to discuss climate solutions if they accepted the conclusion of nearly every scientific study done on global warming: It’s happening, and human activity is the primary cause.

Senator Rubio, like a number of his colleagues, continually casts doubt on climate science with statements like this:

“Well, first of all, the climate’s always changing. That’s not the fundamental question. The fundamental question is whether man-made activity is what’s contributing most to it. And I understand that people say there’s a significant scientific consensus on that issue. But I’ve actually seen reasonable debate on that principle.”

Reasonable debate? Let’s direct the senator’s attention to the following pie chart:

Powell-Science-Pie-Chart

Jim Powell, who was a member of National Science Board for 12 years,[1] conducted a search of peer-reviewed climate change articles from 1991 to 2012. Of the 13,950 articles he reviewed, only 24 “clearly reject global warming or endorse a cause other than CO2 emissions for observed warming.”

The visual representation of Powell’s study should end all discussion. We must waste no more time debating the existence and cause of climate change. Attention must now focus on solutions.

Disasters awaken public to climate reality

At the beginning of the year, the U.S. government confirmed what most Americans already knew: 2012 was the hottest year our nation has ever experienced, shattering the previous record set in 1998 by a full degree.  That record heat contributed to a host of disasters that awakened many to the harsh consequences of a warming climate.

It started last year with wildfires in the West. Trees, ravaged by drought and insects thriving in warmer temperatures, became kindling for infernos that consumed more than 9 million acres across the U.S. In one horrific episode, a wall of flame swept into Colorado Springs and reduced 346 homes to ashes.

Then came the drought. At its peak last summer, 65 percent of the U.S. was experiencing moderate or worse drought conditions. The impact on the agricultural sector has been devastating, as corn crops withered and grass used to feed cattle fell into short supply. Deutsche Bank Securities Inc. estimated the drought reduced U.S. gross domestic product between 0.5 and 1 percent. Damage estimates range between $75 billion and $150 billion. Dust storms across the Great Plains conjure images of the Dust Bowl days of the 1930s.

More and more Americans became aware that something was wrong last spring when record-breaking high temperatures in early March gave way to scorching heat in the summer. Jaw-dropping images of the record ice loss in the Arctic (at left) provided further evidence that our world is heating up.

Climate change really hit home, however, with the arrival in late October of Superstorm Sandy, which inflicted damage in excess of $60 billion. Recovery and cleanup efforts continue months after the storm roared ashore. The influence of global warming was evident in Sandy’s intensity, size and path.

Hurricanes, floods, droughts, heat waves, and wildfires are all naturally-occurring phenomena that happened long before the current rise in global temperatures. What’s different is that our weather is now “juiced” – much like a baseball player on steroids – by a warmer climate, increasing the odds that severe weather will strike with greater intensity. Climate Central has an excellent series of short videos – “Extreme Weather 101” – explaining the impact of climate change on drought, heat waves, snowfall and rainfall.

If this is what our world looks like with barely 1 degree Celsius of warming in the past century, what hellish future awaits us if average global temperatures climb 4 degrees C or   6 degrees C (11 degrees Fahrenheit), as a number of studies have predicted?

The longer we delay action to address climate change, the more difficult and costly it will be to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to levels that prevent us from breaching the 2 degress C threshold of global warming considered manageable by most scientists. Despite the toxic atmosphere in Washington, Democrats and Republicans must work together to enact legislation that will put a price on carbon, one that will speed the transition from fossil fuels to clean sources of energy.

arctic ice. 1980 and 2012


[1] First appointed by President Reagan and then by President George H.W. Bush.

Hurricane Sandy Reminds Us We’re All Paying The Price For Politically-Created Climate Of Doubt

Image credit: Earth – The Operator’s Manual

The PBS Frontline program “Climate of Doubt” masterfully exposed the strategies and tactics that climate denialists have used to delay, if not undermine meaningful action in reducing greenhouse gas emissions and addressing climate change in the US. Perhaps the #1 strategy they have pursued involves denying the scientific consensus on human-caused global warming.

The number one strategy this shadowy, well-financed group has pursued involves denying the scientific consensus on human-caused global warming.  As Myron Ebell of the right-wing think tank Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) put it,

We felt that if you concede the science is settled and that there’s a consensus…the moral high ground has been ceded to the alarmists.”

Republican Congressman from Wisconsin and climate denialist James Sensenbrenner explained the importance of the public awareness of the scientific consensus:

JOHN HOCKENBERRY:Do you think this will ever be settled scientifically, if 97 percent consensus doesn’t settle it for you?

Rep. JAMES SENSENBRENNER:Well, I — you know, I think that it’s up to the scientists and their supporters to convince the public that this is the right thing to do. And the supporters of that side of the argument in the Congress have been a huge flop.

Driving the climate denialism movement are some of the same people who over the last four decades have greatly benefited from the reversal of the “New Deal” and astronomically rising economic inequality. Thanks to what political scientists Jacob Hacker and Paul Pierson describe as “Winner-Take-All Politics” financial markets were deregulated leading to the Great Recession of 2007/2008, while environmental deregulation and inaction on climate science led to aggravated droughts and hurricanes, which climate scientists like NASA’s James Hansen has been warning of for many years:
“My projections about increasing global temperature have been proved true. But I failed to fully explore how quickly that average rise would drive an increase in extreme weather. In a new analysis of the past six decades of global temperatures, which will be published Monday, my colleagues and I have revealed a stunning increase in the frequency of extremely hot summers, with deeply troubling ramifications for not only our future but also for our present.” Dr. James Hansen, Washington Post, Aug. 3, 2012
I don’t know about you, but I’m really hoping that Fred Singer, Myron Ebell, and James Sensenbrenner, and James Inhofe and the rest of the “free-market conservatives” all have sea-front homes on the U.S. East Coast. What complete a**h%%*&s!!
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source: 350.org

Mark Ruffalo On Opposing Keystone XL Pipeline: I Look At My Kids and I Say I Can’t Betray Them

I’m looking out the window of my home office today, rejoicing at the sprinkling of snow on the ground. Yesterday rain fell outside, while a confused fly that should have been hibernating buzzed around inside. Both are examples, along with the temperature that has been 8 – 10 degrees Celcius above normal, of the growing climate destabilization we humans have brought on with our unrestrained pollution of the atmosphere. So while the snow outside doesn’t change that long term reality, it still allows me to feel that maybe things aren’t as bad as they are, which I haven’t been able to over the last weeks of unseasonably warm weather. This is northern Ontario, and we should be experiencing winter by now!

There’s been a lot going on in the world besides the warm weather in my corner of it. Saturday was “Move Your Money” day, a day for people “invest in main street, not wall street” by placing their money in local credit unions or small banks rather than large Wall (or Bay) Street banks. I already have an account with a credit union (although this has become more difficult since they closed their local branch – the closest branch is now an hour down the road). Our family’s experience with credit unions has always been more positive than with banks, so if you haven’t considered doing this before, please do so now. For more information, check out MoveYourMoney.org or find the Move Your Money project on Facebook.

On Sunday in Washington, there was a historic gathering of 10,000+ people who made a human chain three rows deep around the White house to send President Obama a message that it’s time he lived up to his campaign promise to act on climate change, and say no to the Keystone XL pipeline. The controversial pipeline, which is to carry tar sands oil from Alberta to Texas, is to be built across the American heartland, including the Ogalala aquifer which supplies drinking water to millions. Actor and activist Mark Ruffalo gave an impassioned and well-informed interview on CBC television yesterday. Here’s some of what he had to say, but please follow the link at the bottom to hear the interview. It gave me chills. If only every parent was inspired to take action like Mr. Ruffalo!

On why he is involved in protesting the pipeline:

“The days are gone when we could stick a straw in the earth and pull up beautiful concentrated carbon-based fuel. We’ve entered a time of “extreme energy”…all of which are accelerating our demise by climate change.”

These people [the fossil fuel industry] throughout our history have lied to us..When the system is gamed as much as these people have gamed it, why would should we decide to trust them now?

To the limitations of current renewable energy technology:

...When they mobilized for World War II, they did things very fast. Climate change is happening faster than any scientist imagined it. It is happening here. It is happening in the United States. We are seeing the extreme weather. It is time for us to stand up and start to make make these changes. We can do this by 2030. I’ve talked to Professor Mark Jacobson from the Stanford. He has the plan. This is easily do-able. We can be completely off carbon-based fuels in the next 40 years.

We just need to do it. Mainlining toxic polluting oil from Canada down to the Gulf coast so it can be put on boats and be sent overseas is not the way to do it. The way to do it is to start calling ourselves off of these extractive methods that are extreme and poisonous and accelerating climate change. We have to be responsible about this. This is an serious issue. For us to keep throwing out this idea like “we can’t get there”, “how are we going to get there?”, whining about having to take responsibility so our children can actually live in the world that is safe for them.

On “ethical” oil:

If you want to start talking about ethical, let’s just talk about the poor people in the world who are being made to suffer already immediately. In Pakistan 500,000 people have lost their homes because of the flooding there. You want to talk about ethics? The real ethical thing right now is to start Canada, all the western countries, to start stemming off their use of oil. Last year, we jumped 6% in our use of carbon-based fuels – 3% was the U.S. and 3% was China. If we are serious about being a world leader, we need to be a leader in this…Those indigenous people who are being displaced, talk to them about “ethical” oil. You cannot use that particular term, because it is not ethical, what is happening.”

On the economics of the pipeline and the jobs the oil companies say it will create:

There’s 10,000 people descending on the White House today to give Obama the “hug of support” that he needs to stop this. A huge contingency from Nebraska, from the Midwest, huge contingency from Texas.

TransCanada started with 250,000 jobs, now they’ve whittled that down with the pressure of people looking into their “jobs program”..Now it’s only 6,000 jobs. Let me put this into perspective for you. In New York state alone the solar jobs bill would put 22,000 people to work alone. That is in one state…For some reason, we have accepted the oil and gas industry’s constant talking points as truth. It’s insanity, it’s time that we start questioning these economics. 100 billion dollars these corporations are going to make, and we’re still subsidizing them at six billion dollars a year.

On what it is that motivates him:

My kids, my neighbours’ kids. Have we gone completely gone insane? Do we not see the writing on the wall?  I mean, its happening. I live in upstate New York, we’ve had the 50 year flood, the 100 year flood, the 250 year flood, and the 500 year flood in FIVE years. We have tornadoes here in places that don’t have tornadoes. We have hurricanes in places that don’t historically have hurricanes. It is happening. I look at my kids and I say I cannot betray them.

Watch the full interview on CBC.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z7tcxuQ6dII]

U.S. Senator: Washington’s Failure To Act On Climate Change Is Blameworthy & The Consequences Profound

Senator Sheldon Whitehouse gave a powerful speech in the U.S. Senate last week, making a thorough  and well-supported argument for immediate comprehensive action to mitigate the effects of human-caused climate destabilization and ocean acidification:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=k6VQ0vYfrAw#!]

Here are some excerpts from the transcript:

Mr. President, I am here to speak about what is currently an unpopular topic in this town. It has become no longer politically correct in certain circles in Washington to speak about climate change or carbon pollution or how carbon pollution is causing our climate to change.

   This is a peculiar condition of Washington. If you go out into, say, our military and intelligence communities, they understand and are planning for the effects of carbon pollution on climate change. They see it as a national security risk. If you go out into our nonpolluting business and financial communities, they see this as a real and important problem. And, of course, it goes without saying our scientific community is all over this concern. But as I said, Washington is a peculiar place, and here it is getting very little traction.

   Here in Washington we feel the dark hand of the polluters tapping so many shoulders. And where there is power and money behind that dark hand, therefore, a lot of attention is paid to that little tap on the shoulder. What we overlook is that nature–God’s Earth–is also tapping us all on the shoulder, with messages we ignore at our peril. We ignore the messages of nature–of God’s Earth–and we ignore the laws of nature–of God’s Earth–at our very grave peril.

There is a wave of very justifiable economic frustration that has swept through our Capitol. The problem is that some of the special interests–the polluters–have insinuated themselves into that wave, sort of like parasites that creep into the body of a host animal, and from there they are working terrible mischief. They are propagating two big lies. One is that environmental regulations are a burden to the economy and we need to lift those burdens to spur our economic recovery. The second is the jury is still out on climate changes caused by carbon pollution, so we don’t need to worry about it or even take precautions.

   Both are, frankly, outright false.

…Unless action is taken now, the consequences of our activities are at a high risk of causing, through the combined effects of climate change, overexploitation, pollution and habitat loss, the next globally significant extinction event in the ocean.

   The laws of physics and the laws of chemistry and the laws of science these are laws of nature. These are laws of God’s Earth. We can repeal some laws around here but we can’t repeal those. Senators are used to our opinions mattering a lot around here, but these laws are not affected by our opinions. These laws do not care who peddles influence, how many lobbyists you have or how big your corporate bankroll is. Those considerations, so important in this town, do not matter at all to the laws of nature.

   As regards these laws of nature, because we can neither repeal nor influence them, we bear a duty, a duty of stewardship to see and respond to the facts that are before our faces according to nature’s laws. We bear a duty to shun the siren song of well-paying polluters. We bear a duty to make the right decisions for our children and grandchildren and for our God-given Earth.

   Right now I must come before the Chamber and remind this body that we are failing in that duty. The men and women in this Chamber are indeed catastrophically failing in that duty. We are earning the scorn and condemnation of history–not this week, perhaps, and not next week. The spin doctors can see to that. But ultimately and assuredly, the harsh judgment that it is history’s power to inflict on wrong will fall upon us. The Supreme Being who gave us this Earth and its abundance created a world not just of abundance but of consequence and that Supreme Being gave us reason to allow us to plan for and foresee the various consequences that those laws of nature impose.

   It is magical thinking to imagine that somehow we will be spared the plain and foreseeable consequences of our failure of duty. There is no wizard’s hat and wand with which to wish this away. These laws of nature are known; the Earth’s message to us is clear; our failure is blameworthy; its consequences are profound; and the costs will be very high.

To read the full transcript, go to the PDF of the Congressional Record (Senator Whitehouse’s address starts in the 3rd column of  S6477) or projectquipu.net

If you’d like to send Senator Whitehouse a note thanking him for his courage in standing up to powerful polluters, his address is:

Senator Sheldon Whitehouse
Hart Senate Office Building
Room 717
Washington, D.C. 20510
Phone: 202-224-2921
Fax: 202-228-6362
(and by the way, today – October 20th – is his birthday, if you want to include that in your message!)

“We Are All Downstream”: Tar Sands Protests Go Global

Yesterday, 144 protesters were taken away in police vans from the front of the White House, bringing the total number of people arrested for peacefully expressing their opposition to the Keystone XL Pipeline to 843. Solidarity demonstrations sprang up yesterday at U.S. and Canadian embassies and consulates on six continents, including Durban, South Africa where visiting Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had to cross a picket line thrown up by climate justice campaigners. And speaking of Ms. Clinton, here’s a video via DeSmogBlog, featuring her and her “State Department Oil Services”. The animation is by Mark Fiore:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mtr1kU0b_Gw&feature=player_embedded]

I’ve been extremely busy over the last few weeks with out-of-town guests, family celebrations (congratulations again on your 50th wedding anniversary, Mom and Dad!) and saying goodbye to our daughters as they head off to another year of university (you’ll be missed, girls). Here’s a few stories/websites that caught my eye yesterday as I surfed the Net to see what I had missed. Have a great Labour Day weekend (and yes, Canadians spell it with a “u”)!

  • From Daily Kos.com: Tar Sands Scam: 5,000 Jobs Over 3 Years Is Worth Risk To People, Economy, Wildlife & Water? (Although I do wish Daily Kos would stop posting ads featuring Tim Hudak, the Ontario PC Leader who is campaigning to cancel our province’s progressive Green Energy Act. It’s especially jarring to see him linked to articles about the importance of clean energy. Feel free to send them a note, as I have, asking them to remove these and stop promoting Hudak’s anti-renewables agenda)
  • Powering a Nation.org has put out an amazing interactive film. Check it out at Coal: A Love Story: It’s more than a rock. It’s power. It’s people. It’s a relationship.
  • A new report says that only 1 in 8 insurers are planning for climate change, despite the fact that insurers generally acknowledge the problem of climate change and the effect it can have on their business:

“Even those insurers with no formal climate policy, no climate risk management structure and a stated belief that the company is not vulnerable to the effects of climate change still name perils that may be affected by climate change 20 percent of the time,” Ceres said in its report. Read the full article on Reuters.com

More links:

DeSmogBlog’s Tar Sands Action Page


Tar Sands Pipeline Provokes Americans To Civil Disobedience

photo by Shadia Fayne Wood,via Tar Sands Action

Saturday August 20th marked the start of the largest act of civil disobedience for the climate in U.S. history. Over 2,000 people from across the U.S. and Canada are arriving in Washington, D.C. to send a message to President Obama that our children’s future is more important than oil profits. Obama will be deciding the fate of the massive new Keystone XL Pipeline that would bring Alberta tar sands oil across the U.S. to be refined in Texas. NASA scientist James Hansen has described the Canadian tar sands as a “carbon bomb” and warned that if they are fully developed it will be “game over” for the climate.

The police moved in within a few minutes of the 50 or so participants lining up at the White House fence. Several participants held two large banners that read “Climate Change is Not in Our National Interest: Stop the Keystone XL Tar Sands Pipeline” and “We Sit In Against the Keystone XL Pipeline. Obama Will You Stand Up to Big Oil?” while the rest of the group sat-in on the sidewalk  in front of the fence. More than 50 people were arrested on Saturday, and they remained in jail on Sunday as 45 more people were arrested as they stood peacefully in front of the White House. Today, 50 more people are planning to stand there to remind Obama of what is at stake in his upcoming decision (it is his, and his alone to make – Congress doesn’t have a vote in the pipeline decision).

Not all of us concerned about climate change can be in Washington this August. I considered it, but prior commitments to family and friends won out; I also will admit to being nervous about being arrested in a foreign country. As well, I don’t think this will be the last time that those of us deeply concerned about our children’s future will be asked to participate in civil disobedience, so I will have other opportunities to act.

There are some things that those of us watching those courageous souls in Washington can do to support them:

  • 350.org is asking for messages of support for the participants in the Washington action. Write a short message of support, hold it up and take a picture of it, and send it as an attachment to photos@350.org with Tar Sands Action Solidarity from (*Wherever you live*)” in the subject. These pictures will be projected on the walls of the training spaces for everyone who is preparing to for the sitting-in to see. For more info, go to 350.org.
  • The coalition organizing the protest, Tarsandsaction.org, is accepting donations and new sign-ups for the sit-in throughout the next two weeks.
  • Email or write President Obama asking him to defuse the tar sands carbon bomb by refusing permission for the Keystone XL pipeline.
    E-mail address: (5000 character limit) http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/
    Mailing Address: The White House
    1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
    Washington, DC 20500

[slideshow]

More links:

NYTimes: Protest Makes Canada-To-U.S Pipeline Project Newest Front In Climate Clash

70 People Arrested In Opening Day of Tar Sands Action

Send Your Messages of Support to 2,000 Brave Souls Sitting In At White House

Koch Industries: The Dirty Business Of Climate Denial

A short animation by by Australian filmmaker Taki Oldham which details the efforts of billionaire oil barons Charles & David Koch to undermine belief in climate change and prevent legislation that threatens their profits. By pouring money into bogus scientific studies and funding third parties such as Think Tanks and Front Groups (posing as everything from Seniors groups to Women’s groups), the public is led to believe a genuine scientific debate is raging. In truth, as one climate denier candidly admits, those doubting the science are just a small, if brilliantly coordinated, minority.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IaKm89eVhoE&feature=player_embedded]

Oldham incorporates footage from his 55 min. documentary The Billionaires’ Tea Party (2011).

More links:

The Billionaire’s Tea Party

Koch Industries: Still Fueling Climate Denial

Climate Scientist Heidi Cullen On The “C-Word”

Climate Quote of the Day:

But even though we don’t have all the answers — and maybe never will — we do know enough to act. And that is really the bigger point, the one I try to bring home when the phone rings. The recent National Research Council’s “America’s Climate Choices” report advised Congress that we know enough to get started on preparing for climate change and preventing the most severe consequences, and we need to get started right away. Almost anything we do to protect ourselves in the future from this hotter world we’re creating, will also protect us right now from many of the extremes Mother Nature throws at us. We can’t afford to wait.

Heidi Cullen, Climate Scientist in an article in today’s Huffington Post, The C-Word

Joplin, Missouri tornado damage

More links:

Climate Central

Climate Change Is A Liberal Hoax

In this video from the series “Peak Oil and a Changing Climate” from The Nation and On The Earth Productions, linguist, philosopher and political activist Noam Chomsky talks about the Chamber of Commerce, the American Petroleum Institute and other business lobbies enthusiastically carrying out campaigns “to try and convince the population that global warming is a liberal hoax.” According to Chomsky, this massive public relations campaign has succeeded in leading a good portion of the population into doubting the human causes of global warming.

Known for his criticism of the media, Chomsky doesn’t hold back in this clip, laying blame on mainstream media outlets such as the New York Times, which will run frontpage articles on what meteorologists think about global warming. “Meteorologists are pretty faces reading scripts telling you whether it’s going to rain tomorrow,” Chomsky says. “What do they have to say any more than your barber?” All this is part of the media’s pursuit of “fabled objectivity.”

Of particular concern for Chomsky is the atmosphere of anger, fear and hostility that currently reigns in America. The public’s hatred of Democrats, Republicans, big business and banks and the public’s distrust of scientists all lead to general disregard for the findings of “pointy-headed elitists.” The 2010 elections could be interpreted as a “death knell for the species” because most of the new Republicans in Congress are global warming deniers. “If this was happening in some small country,” Chomsky concludes, “it wouldn’t matter much. But when it’s happening in the richest, most powerful country in the world, it’s a danger to the survival of the species.”

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJUA4cm0Rck&feature=player_embedded]

More links:

The Nation.com

10-Year-Old Challenges Canadian Politicians and Big Oil: “Protect Our Coast From Oil Spills”

Meet Ta’Kaiya.  She’s a ten-year-old girl from North Vancouver who, while learning about sea otters in her home-school, became concerned about the devastation oil tankers would cause to B.C.’s coast.

When she learned about Enbridge’s proposal to build an oil pipeline from the Alberta Tar Sands to the Great Bear Rainforest, bringing more than 200 oil tankers per year to this pristine coast, she got really worried.  Then she took action. This amazing young woman wrote a letter to Canadian politicians as well as a song that became a music video. Here they are:

March 24, 2011
Open Letter to Canadian politicians,

My name is Ta’Kaiya Blaney. I am 10-years-old. I live in North Vancouver and am from the Sliammon Nation. My name means “special water.”

I am writing to you because the Enbridge Corporation is planning to build a pipeline from the tar sands of Alberta to Kitimat, BC. I thought it would be very risky for our coast so I wrote a song, called “Shallow Waters” about an oil spill happening in the shallow waters.

You will be debating Bill C-606 soon, if an election is not triggered, which would ban oil tankers from our northwest coast. I am sharing my song’s music video and a personal message to encourage you to vote in favour of the bill.

Today is the anniversary of the Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska. Even today, 22 years later, oil still remains a few inches under the surface of the water.

With this song, I hope to encourage government officials, people of British Columbia, and people across the world will realize the dangers of oil pollution, replace jobs that destroy the environment with jobs that help the environment. I ask government and corporate officials such as yourselves change your plans stop oil tanker traffic on BC’s coast and in waters around the world.
Please feel free to share my letter and video with others.

All my relations,
Ta’Kaiya Blaney

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d9dBrlDXVsk]

Join Ta’Kaiya and TAKE ACTION:

More links:

Why Enbridge is Afraid of Ta’Kaiya Blaney

Enbridge Tar Sands Pipeline Threatens Canadian Wildlife

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