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The United State’s top climate scientist, Dr. James Hansen, believes it is still feasible to avert climate disasters, but only if the next administration’s policies are consistent with the actions the science indicates to be required. The solutions demanded by science are as follows: a moratorium and phase-out of coal plants, a rising price on carbon emissions, and urgent R&D on fourth generation nuclear power.
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January 3rd, 2009
For a rocket scientist who holds seven degrees, NASA Administrator Michael Griffin sure doesn’t seem to get the basic concept of cause and effect.
First, he refused to cooperate with the Obama transition team because they were “not qualified” to judge his pet project.
Now, worried that his job might be in jeopardy, Rebecca Griffin has decided to launch a public marketing blitz to help her husband keep his plum position at the top of NASA.
Is anyone really surprised?
After all, Mr. Griffin may have a scientific background, but as any lackey in the Bush knows, spin always trumps science, no exceptions allowed.
Remember when Mr. Griffin sacrificed his integrity by secretly editing the NASA mission statement to exclude the phrase to “protect the home planet” so he could later claim that his agency’s work did not include fighting global warming.
Hmmm, and what about his very unscientific comments on NPR’s Morning Edition.
In an interview broadcast yesterday on National Public Radio’s “Morning Edition” program, Griffin was asked by NPR’s Steve Inskeep whether he is concerned about global warming.
“I have no doubt that a trend of global warming exists,” Griffin told Inskeep. “I am not sure that it is fair to say that it is a problem we must wrestle with.”
“To assume that it is a problem is to assume that the state of Earth’s climate today is the optimal climate, the best climate that we could have or ever have had and that we need to take steps to make sure that it doesn’t change,” Griffin said. “I guess I would ask which human beings — where and when — are to be accorded the privilege of deciding that this particular climate that we have right here today, right now is the best climate for all other human beings. I think that’s a rather arrogant position for people to take.”
Right, nothing could be more arrogant than trying to maintain a planetary climate which sustains about 6.7 billion people, countless ecosystems, and wildlife. Talk about elitism.
If Obama truly wants to put science at the top of his agenda and “restore America’s place as the world leader in science and technology” then political hacks like current NASA administrator Michael Griffin have to go.
No exceptions.
December 31st, 2008
Why are newspapers dying? Could it be that reading the paper is a lot like paying for yesterday’s news at today’s prices.
Don’t believe me. Check this out.
The Seattle P-I’s environmental blog Dateline Earth just discovered a real 52-mpg car which they breathlessly describe as the “car of the future”.
Of course, anyone who spends less than five minutes with the google will soon discover the car of the future has been available in Europe and Japan for many years now.
This turned up on my very first search in an article entitled Why automakers don’t sell a car that gets 50mpg from an article printed in Newsweek on April 4, 2008.
So gas just hit another miserable milestone. Unleaded regular is averaging a record $3.30 a gallon and seems likely to blast past $4 by Memorial Day. Wouldn’t it be great if you could drive a car that gets 50 miles per gallon? Well, you can. Just hop on a plane and fly to Europe, where all new cars average 43mpg, or Japan, where the average hits 50mpg. Here in the United States, we’re stuck at 25mpg in our considerably larger and more powerful cars, trucks and SUVs. So why can’t we do better? Here’s the dirty little secret: we can. “If you want better fuel economy, it’s just a question of when auto companies want to do it and when consumers decide they want to buy it,” says Don Hillebrand, a former Chrysler engineer who is now director of transportation research for Argonne National Labs. “Auto companies can deliver it within a year.”
Ouch. Just because Detroit refuses to build cars that get 50 MPG, doesn’t mean they don’t exist.
Intrepid reporters for Dateline Earth, please take note.
December 31st, 2008
Coal, not so clean after all.
Parts of Tennessee remain buried under toxic sludge today after a major disaster at a coal plant. A forty-acre pond containing toxic coal ash has collapsed, spilling out millions of gallons of coal ash. Environmentalists say the spill is more than thirty times larger than the Exxon Valdez, but the story has received little national attention.
And what exactly makes coal ash so toxic:
RICK HIND: Well, you’re talking about heavy metals like arsenic, mercury, lead, cadmium, chromium, and all of these metals are actually bioaccumulate in the environment. You saw pictures—in fact, if you go to The Tennessean website or the TVA website, you’ll see just these amazing aerial and on-site photographs of the damage. It reminds me of a volcanic eruption, if you remember the mudslides from Mount St. Helens. It’s just uprooting and moving houses off their foundations. As you said, sludge piling up six feet high, 400 acres covered, as well as fish kills. And now, much of that slug of toxicity, the heavy metals, mercury, for example, can bioaccumulate in fish 60,000 times. So you could see long-term damage from this particular disaster, as well as any leakage that’s been going on.
That’s why we’re calling for a criminal investigation, because really under the Clean Water Act, there’s supposed to be a contingency plan that anticipates this and prevents this kind of disaster. What happened here could happen again right on site at several other of the ponds still holding this toxic sludge. And every other coal plant in the country has a similar problem.
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December 24th, 2008
Mr. Johnson has had quite a year.
He killed the plans of 17 states to implement clean car standards by refusing to grant California’s waiver request, decided it was better to let polar bears dies than regulate carbon dioxide, and prefers more coal-fired power plants heating up the earth’s atmosphere.
This is your chance to vote Bush’s most loyal environmental destroyer, Stephen L. Johnson, top eco-villain of 2008 with a simple mouse click.
Let’s send global warming’s BFF packing with this award at the top of his sorry resume.
December 23rd, 2008
No one is a bigger Bush Administration tool for corporate polluters than Stephen L. Johnson. This last minute decision proves it.
Therefore, in order to commemorate the tenure of our soon to be replaced administrator of the EPA, I would like to nominate Mr. Johnson for the special honor of dick-head of the year.
Officials weighing federal applications by utilities to build new coal-fired power plants cannot consider their greenhouse gas output, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency ruled late Thursday. Some environmentalists fear the decision will clear the way for the approval of several such plants in the last days of the Bush administration.
The ruling, by Stephen L. Johnson, the administrator, responds to a decision made last month by the Environmental Appeals Board, a panel within the E.P.A., that had blocked the construction of a small new plant on the site of an existing power plant, Bonanza, on Ute tribal land in eastern Utah.
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December 20th, 2008
Gee. I didn’t think Bush or any of his toadies believed in evolution. My bad.
From Think Progress:
Dobriansky also praised Bush for his “evolving” position on climate change action, claiming Bush has moved toward multilateralism at the end of his term:
She added: “President Bush said very early on in his administration, ‘we will act, we will learn and we will act again.’ And our approach has been an evolutionary one. I think you have seen an evolution from the beginning of the administration to the present time.”
There has been virtually no evolution towards climate change multilateralism under Bush. In March 2001, Bush unilaterally repudiated Kyoto and has repeatedly rejected international climate agreements. Today is no different. The U.S. is continuing to stall progress at Poznan, still opposing a global cap-and-trade system because it is allegedly “too costly.”
December 11th, 2008
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