The 2008 International Conference on Climate Change? WTF?

(Published March 5, 2008 Crossroads Chronicle, Cashiers, NC)

By the time of this publication, hopefully it will all be over. Sponsored by the euphemistically named Heartland Institute, the stated intent of this first supposedly annual conference is “to call attention to widespread dissent in the scientific community to the alleged “consensus” that the modern warming is primarily man-made and is a crisis,” to borrow directly from their website.

Scheduled from March 2 – 4 in Manhattan, the conference sounds like something the United Nations would put on. Don’t be mislead. The Heartland Institute is another “Astroturf” organization, which attempts to mimic the kind of spontaneous grassroots movement in which the populace gets behind an organization, such as Greenpeace. However, the Heartland Institute is merely a front for a number of corporate interests, with Exxon Mobil and Phillip Morris among its largest contributors. The organization does not currently reveal its sponsors.

The Institute is already threatening to descend upon the hapless city of London in 2009. Forewarned is forearmed.

Corporate America, bless its little heart, has figured out that to muddy the waters of an issue can be to corporate advantage. Witness the decades long effort by the tobacco companies to minimize the perceived negative health impact from smoking. The orchestrated campaign of lies continued up until the 1990s, insuring continued fat profit margins at the expense of public health. In fact, representatives from major tobacco companies lied directly to Congress regarding their knowledge of the ill effects of tobacco use, and got away with it. At the corporate level, crime absolutely does pay.

In 2000, the coal industry could well see the benefits of sugar coating serious problems, and started the Americans for Balanced Energy Choices campaign, another Astroturf organization that obviously claims to represent Americans. As a result of these efforts, and under the Bush administration, coal fired power plants have experienced a grand resurgence. If coal is clean, then so is crack cocaine.

It is apparent that these public relations and misinformation campaigns are an effective method for corporate special interests to advance their goals. Dozens and dozens of legitimate sounding non-profit front organizations have cropped up like so many dragon’s teeth, much to the chagrin of some people who happen to like something called the truth. With names like the American Enterprise Institute and the Competitive Enterprise Institute, to name two really big and influential ones, they espouse sound science and claim to be non-biased, which are two big fat lies right before they even get started good.

The following is an example of the sound science and sound logic promulgated by the Heartland Institute:

"Some environmentalists call for a "save-the-day" strategy to 'stop global warming,' saying it is better to be safe than sorry. Such a position seems logical until we stop to think: Immediate action wouldn't make us any safer, but it would surely make us poorer. And being poorer would make us less safe."

One cannot argue with such bullet- proof logic as that. It must have been spoken by one of their so called “scientists,” the word being used very loosely in this sense.

Someone from the Blue Ridge School or Summit Charter School could probably help here, but it seems like the process of science involves something along the lines of making a hypotheses, testing it, and drawing conclusions. I don’t seem to remember anything about getting paid money by Exxon Mobil or a tobacco or coal company and then making stuff up, but I may already be starting to slip.

The “scientists” from these so called think tanks may be under the influence of big corporate dollars, or they may just be really, really out there. Like Star Wars out there.
What was it that Obi-Wan Kenobi (Sir Alec Guinness) said to Luke before entering the cantina?…Oh yes,….”You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy. We must be cautious.” Sir Guinness could have almost been talking about this recent conference as well.

Still, it must have a spectacle to behold, the cast of characters similar to that as seen on Tatooine. I wonder if the hammer head guy made it to this conference? That guy was awesome!

http://www.heartland.org/
http://www.exxonsecrets.org/
http://www.sourcewatch.org/

Dr. James Hansen for President

(published by the Crossroads Chronicle, Cashiers, NC, October 29, 2008)

To anyone who is paying attention, we are in something of a sticky wicket.

That is, we are within a decade of oil production peaking over, for which we are unprepared. And we are witnessing ecosystems teetering on the brink of collapse, with the current extinction rate between 100 and 1,000 times the normal background rate. Climate change resulting from global warming is beginning to play a major role in these extinctions, not requiring a bulldozer or chainsaw to kill these animals in their pristine habitat.

We’ll get through current financial crisis, but these other two concerns have the capacity to collapse the global economy and kill the biosphere.

Inherent to both of these problems is one simple fact: the earth is a closed system. By burning a few hundred million years worth of hydrocarbons in a period of just a century or two, mankind is throwing the carbon cycle out of whack. What CO2 that is not absorbed by ocean or forest remains in the atmosphere. The oceans are becoming acidic, and carbon dioxide levels are 30% higher than anytime in the last million years.

Current CO2 levels, along with other greenhouse gases (GHGs), are melting the polar ice cap, Greenland and West Antarctica. As much of humanity lives within a few meters of sea level, there could be some economic, ecological and humanitarian consequences.

Recent warming trends are accelerating. Natural feedback cycles are reinforcing anthropogenic (man made) warming. And those feedback cycles, which were thought to be slow, such as the albedo flip of melting glaciers and sea ice, are happening at an alarming rate. Instead of reflecting 90% of solar irradiance, exposed deep sea reflects only 10% and absorbs 90%. This albedo flip is causing the poles to warm as much as five times the global average, which by the way is .8 degrees Celsius since the Industrial revolution.

Permafrost across Canada and Siberia is thawing, releasing CO2 and methane from decomposing organic matter. Roads, forests, train tracks and buildings are collapsing into sinkholes. Google it and see for yourself. Permafrost is thought to contain some 500 billion tons of carbon, which if allowed to thaw and decompose, is good for enough GHGs to cause tens of degrees warming.

So, current business as usual scenarios of capping off CO2 at 450 or 550 ppm, if implemented, are not going to be just dangerous. A warming of 3 to 6 degrees Celsius would be somewhere between calamitous and cataclysmic. Most species will not be able to adapt to a rate of warming which could exceed .4 degrees C per decade.

The United States, we must admit, has played a major role in GHG emissions. We emit about a quarter of emissions. We have set the example of a lifestyle most are trying to emulate.

Our rise as a superpower was largely shaped by our bounty of oil reserves. Up until the 50s or 60s, we were the Saudi Arabia of the world. Now, we know, the situation is reversed, with $700 Billion being sent annually to unstable regions.

There is now a narrow time window in which we can affect the changes required to save both this nation and this planet. For less than we are sending oversees, a recent Scientific American article illustrated, we could build the infrastructure for solar thermal power generation based in the southwest which would obviate our need for coal, and provide enough electricity to charge a nation of electric cars.

Oil is used as a feedstock to make over 300,000 products, including fertilizer and pharmaceuticals, so it might be wise to save some for those uses, as well as for future generations.

Both candidates have expressed a desire to cut dependence on foreign oil and expand renewable energy sources. Current efforts though, such as ethanol, are costing taxpayer dollars, exacerbating global warming, and causing children to starve.

Political expedience, and business as usual, are grinding the United States of America and the biosphere into oblivion. I say, let’s elect Jim Hansen of NASA, America’s top climate scientist. Its high time that logic, science, and compassion play some role in our decisions.

You never know, the planet we save could just be our own.