Let's Burn More Coal, NOW!

The United States has the biggest reserves of coal in the world. We have so much coal we can ship it off to other countries. That's right. We are a net exporter of the dirty rock. And here we are wringing our hands over our dependence on foreign oil, peak oil, and high gas prices (okay, not half as high as Europe, but higher than Americans want to pay). Why don't we convert our vehicles to run on coal?

Okay, I'll grant you that according to the Union of Concerned Scientists, burning coal is a leading cause of smog, acid rain, global warming, and our toxic air. In an average year, a typical coal plant generates:

• 3,700,000 tons of carbon dioxide (CO2), the primary human cause of global warming--as much carbon dioxide as cutting down 161 million trees.
• 10,000 tons of sulfur dioxide (SO2), which causes acid rain that damages forests, lakes, and buildings, and forms small airborne particles that can penetrate deep into lungs.
• 500 tons of small airborne particles, which can cause chronic bronchitis, aggravated asthma, and premature death, as well as haze obstructing visibility.
• 10,200 tons of nitrogen oxide (NOx), as much as would be emitted by half a million late-model cars. NOx leads to formation of ozone (smog) which inflames the lungs, burning through lung tissue making people more susceptible to respiratory illness.
• 720 tons of carbon monoxide (CO), which causes headaches and place additional stress on people with heart disease.
• 220 tons of hydrocarbons, volatile organic compounds (VOC), which form ozone.
• 170 pounds of mercury, where just 1/70th of a teaspoon deposited on a 25-acre lake can make the fish unsafe to eat.
• 225 pounds of arsenic, which will cause cancer in one out of 100 people who drink water containing 50 parts per billion.
• 114 pounds of lead, 4 pounds of cadmium, other toxic heavy metals, and trace amounts of uranium.

Peace negotiations with a coal seam

I say “so what!” Who listens to scientists, anyway (certainly not Republicans). Our energetic Republican Congressmen hurriedly passed a "Stop the War on Coal" bill (H.R. 3904) just before adjourning so that America can continue to enjoy the benefits of coal without all those burdensome EPA regulations (you know, the ones that protect air and water quality). Of course, the Senate won't pass the bill, and President Obama has promised to veto it in any case, so the House bill is for naught. But it's the thought that counts, right? [So what the fuck are they thinking?]

Our Republican congressional representatives, who some people have the temerity to accuse of being obstructionist, have voted an astonishing 302 times this year to hamstring the Environmental Protection Agency, weaken clean water and air rules, undermine protections for public lands  and coastal areas, and block action to address global warming – all while seeking to make the regulatory climate as favorable as possible for the oil, gas and coal industries. And why not? It’s these folks who are paying "their" congressmen to watch out for their interests.

Robert Semple reports in the September 20th edition of the Washington Post that Russell Train, a lifelong Republican and one of the country’s foremost conservationists of the last half-century, died this week at the age of 92. He served Richard Nixon as the first chairman of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, and later as administrator of the fledgling Environmental Protection Agency – helping shape landmark statutes like the Endangered Species Act, the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act. His death serves as a reminder of the G.O.P.’s historic tradition of environmental stewardship, a tradition stretching as far back as Teddy Roosevelt, which the party has now repudiated.

Indeed, it's hard to associate today's Republican Party with anything remotely responsible in so far as the environment is concerned. These Republican heroes are all about job creation and job creators (those are the people who buy their votes). If those "purple mountains" have to have their tops removed to get at coal, so be it. If coal ash removal is a problem, don't remove the shit, just store it behind dirt damns and pray for the best. If acid rain is turning forests brown, it's time to clear cut. And please don't even mention global warming; what a hoax!

Coal ash sludge flood at Kingston plant in TN

Unfortunately the Republicans war on the environment (can I use that term?) makes some people mad, like Philip Bump, who wrote that, "The Republican leadership in the House of Representatives could not care less about the legacy it is leaving for its party, its districts, or the United States. They can’t draw a straight fucking line between the worst drought in decades and the coal plants that, day in and day out, belch out pollution." Now, now, Philip. Try to look at it from the other side of the aisle. If the fossil industry was paying your salary, wouldn't you say and do whatever they told you to? Damn right! Well, unless you had integrity, that is. No worries. We're talking about Republicans.

Purple Mountains Majesty
Mountain top removal coal mining -- there ain't any majesty to it

We Can Do This

Only entrenched interests and their ability to buy votes prevents it.

Is Climate Change Hell Now Inevitable?

Is Climate Change Hell Now Inevitable? | Common Dreams

We know from the geologic record that runaway methane releases have occurred several times in the past.  Some 55 million years ago, during what geologists call the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum, temperatures soared, as clathrates (or as they are sometimes known, hydrates) released massive amounts of carbon, mostly in the form of methane.  Many scientists believe this was triggered by volcanic releases of carbon.  Other factors may have been at play, but the key takeaway is that methane releases caused runaway warming that lasted for more than 150,000 years, and that today, humans are releasing carbon at ten times the rate that is thought to have triggered the releases.

CLASSIFIED: TOP SECRET

As Mother Jones reported recently, the CIA's Center on Climate Change and National Security has been keeping a low profile, probably because Republican members of Congress have been trying to ax the program. But apparently the CIA is going so far as to keep all information about the program highly classified. But leave it to the Obama Administration to leak classified documents to further its nefarious political aims. Here's the latest.

_________________________________________

For additional details, please refer to the extended report.

Although the "leaked" document is fake, the threat of abrupt climate destabilization isn't.

Angry White Guys

A sea of white faces at the 2012 Republican National Convention

"We're not generating enough angry white guys to stay in business for the long term." (Senator Lindsey Graham, R-SC).

Why Did Mitt Romney Say This?

"There are 47% of the people who will vote for the president no matter what. All right, there are 47% who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you name it...These are people who pay no income tax, 47% of Americans pay no income tax. So our message of low taxes doesn't connect. So he'll (President Obama) be out there talking about tax cuts for the rich. I mean, that's what they sell every four years. And so my job is not to worry about those people. I'll never convince them that they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives."

This is an excerpt from remarks made by Mitt Romney to attendees of a $50,000-a-plate dinner at the home of private equity manager Marc Leder, in Boca Raton, Florida, May 17, 2012. The whole thing was surreptitiously videotaped and passed on to Mother Jones Magazine, which published portions of the video, and then published the whole thing, with transcripts. It's worth reading the transcripts, as well as watching the video (only Part 1 of the video is included here).

Much has been made of Romney's remarks almost all of it focusing on his perceived disdain for the working class, the poor, the elderly, and the disabled. Paul Krugman, for example, says that Mr. Romney's comments really reflect his and his party's values and beliefs, "What people are now calling the Boca Moment wasn’t some trivial gaffe. It was a window into the true attitudes of what has become a party of the wealthy, by the wealthy, and for the wealthy, a party that considers the rest of us unworthy of even a pretense of respect."

But on a Washington Post blog, Campaign 2012, Karen Tumulty may have hit the nail on the head when it comes to Romney's motive for saying what he said, "[His line] most likely played well with the audience to which Romney delivered it." In other words, he was pandering to rich donors. He was saying what he thought they wanted to hear, because he wanted their money.

Reliably conservative columnist David Brooks writes of Romney’s comments, “As a description of America today, Romney’s comment is a country-club fantasy. It’s what self-satisfied millionaires say to each other.” As for Romney himself, Brooks writes, “I think he’s a kind, decent man who says stupid things because he is pretending to be something he is not — some sort of cartoonish government-hater.”

Mr. Romney's tailoring of his comments to his wealthy audience would certainly be consistent with the way Mr. Romney has comported himself throughout his numerous campaigns. Depending on his calculation of the audience, Mr. Romney produces positions and counter positions to his positions with a bland innocence that has caused a number of interviewers to fall silent in awe.

• He was pro-choice in 1994 when a candidate for the Senate and again in 2002 when he was running for governor. Now he is “firmly pro-life.”
• He favored allowing gays to serve “openly and honestly” in the military in his run for the Senate in 1994. But in a 2007 GOP debate he  opposed repeal of the military's “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy.
• He was a strong supporter of “tough gun laws” while running for and as governor of Massachusetts stating that, "Deadly assault weapons have no place in Massachusetts." By 2008 he was saying, "I don’t support any gun control legislation, the effort for a new assault weapons ban, with a ban on semi-automatic weapons, is something I would oppose."
• In the summer of 2011, Mr. Romney was a true believer in anthropogenic global warming, but by October he'd changed his mind saying,"My view is that we don’t know what’s causing climate change on this planet. And the idea of spending trillions and trillions of dollars to try to reduce CO2 emissions is not the right course for us."

Whether Mr. Romney is truly dismissive of almost half of all Americans, or simply an unprincipled opportunist may be moot. In either case, he most certainly lacks the character to be president of the entirety of the United States of America.

The American Taliban Courtesy of "The Newsroom"

The Newsroom, a new TV show written by the inimitable Aaron Sorkin (creator of The West Wing), took on the Tea Party last Sunday and gave them a good going over. Here's the clip.
What do you think, did Sorkin get it right?