President Obama Twitting about Global Warming and Future of NBA
Goes to show most of the people who follow professional basketball aren’t aware of the treats global warming has on their sport. Gee, maybe Governor Scott Walker ought to have thought this through before encouraging the locals and state decision-makers to entering the deal for building the half-billion dollar arena in Milwaukee with the billionaires who will own the team and arena?
President Obama took to Twitter to talk about global warming after a briefing at the National Hurricane Center. Obama, using his freshly minted @POTUS Twitter handle, took questions on climate change after receiving his annual briefing on its effects at Miami’s National Hurricane Center.
But when he weighed in on the NBA Finals, Twitter lit up.
Most of Obama’s answers focused on climate change, though they got far fewer retweets.
His tweets on climate change after a briefing at the Miami National Hurricane Center were not as popular as his basketball tweets.
His tweets on climate change after a briefing at the Miami National Hurricane Center were not as popular as his basketball tweets.
“More severe weather events lead to displacement, scarcity, stressed populations; all increase likelihood of global conflict,” he said, explaining why he views climate change as a national security issue.
“The science is overwhelming but what will move Congress will be public opinion. Your voices will make them open to facts,” he said when asked how he handles “climate deniers” in Congress.
The Q&A was the first real engagement Obama had made with the public since he got the Twitter handle 10 days ago.
Flashback to Thursday, November 21, 2013, when senior representatives from four of the most influential professional sports leagues in the United States assembled at a closed door meeting of the Congressional Bicameral Committee on Climate Change. Officials from Major League Baseball, the National Football League, the National Basketball Association, and the National Hockey League, joined by a representative of the U.S. Olympic Committee, testified that worsening climate change poses risks to the future of their sport. They all described some of their league’s many environmental initiatives and, in particular, the work they do that is focused on reducing their contribution to global warming.
While November 21st is now known as an historic day in Congress because of changes made to the Senate filibuster rule, that date now also represents a watershed in our national debate about climate change: On November 21st, 2013, senior representatives from the major professional sports leagues in the United States testified before Congress for the first time about their organizations’ belief that climate change is real and, as Kathy Behrens of the NBA stated, “will only worsen if we do not address the air pollutants that are driving it.”
It is notable when senior officials from MLB, the NFL, the NBA and the NHL, all speak before a Congressional committee about the need to address climate disruption. While climate deniers in Congress and elsewhere might think they can attack the U.S. EPA or the United Nations with impunity, surely they would think twice before trying to impugn the integrity of those who lead the professional sports industry. All of the premier U.S.-based sports organizations are among the most culturally influential and highly regarded businesses in the world, and all of them, even including NASCAR, have now stated publicly that climate disruption is real and that we must act to do something about it.
Over Two-thirds of Americans are Cowards When it Comes to Standing Up to the Threats of Global Warming
Over two-thirds of Americans polled answered they were not concerned about global warming and climate change, according to a Gallop poll released last Wednesday and published by The Washington Times. Thirteen percent of Republicans are concerned about global warming and climate problems compared to 52 percent of Democrats polled.
A “coward” is any person who lacks the courage endure dangerous or unpleasant things. Global warming is the most dangerous natural disaster our civilization will have ever had to face and endure, and it is human-caused.
The majority of Americans worry about only one environmental issue, however. Fifty five percent are concerned about the pollution of drinking water. Next in line: 47 percent fret over lake and river pollution, air pollution (36 percent) and the loss of tropical rain forests (33 percent).
In general, Americans are more positive about the environment these days notes Gallup analyst Jeffrey Jones, with negative sentiments now at the “low end” of what the polling group has measured in the last 25 years.
“The nature of the environmental agenda may indirectly be influencing Americans’ concern. The primary focus of the environmental movement has shifted toward long-term threats like global warming – issues about which Americans tend to worry less than about more immediate threats like pollution,” writes Mr. Jones.
“Importantly, even as global warming has received greater attention as an environmental problem from politicians and the media in recent years, Americans’ worry about it is no higher now than when Gallup first asked about it in 1989”, according to Jones.
Source: From an article by Jennifer Harper in The Washington Times, Wednesday, March 25, 2015.
Merchants of Doubt – Documentary on Tactics of Global Warming “Deniers”
There is a difference between a “global warming denier” versus a “global warming skeptic”. The deniers are those who have been conducting brain-washing campaigns to lobby Congress and citizens into believing global warming is either not occurring or, if it is occurring (it most definitely is) that it is not caused by human actions because earth’s climate has always been changing (never as fast before like it is now).
In the new documentary Merchants of Doubt, filmmaker Robert Kenner (of Food, Inc.) shows how professional climate-change deniers like Marc Morano profit by making that desired belief an easy one simply by cultivating uncertainty. “I’m not a scientist, but I play one on TV,” he says in the film, referring to his appearances on cable news shows as a talking head. There he “debates” scientists, often on Fox News, as a form of pandering to viewers who want to believe that legitimate people will tell them what they want to hear. He traffics in doubt, he admits in the film. That is all it takes to lead to legislative inaction: Let everyone keep burning fossil fuels until there is more evidence that this is a bad thing. Even though there is abundant evidence; more than there is for most things we do to protect and preserve our health and general continued existence.
From: “How the Most Important Glacier in East Antarctica Is Melting
New evidence of potentially enormous consequences as rapid ice loss continues”
BY JAMES HAMBLIN MAR 20, 2015 – posted in “The Atlantic.com”.
Merchants of Doubt Official Trailer 1 (2014) – Documentary HD
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John Kerry Calls Out Florida’s Ban On Saying ‘Climate Change’
Secretary of State John Kerry, challenging climate change deniers to face reality, not-so-subtly called out Florida Gov. Rick Scott’s (R) administration on Thursday for banning the term “climate change” from all government communications.
“We literally do not have the time to waste debating whether we can say ‘climate change,'” Kerry said in a speech hosted by the Atlantic Council. “We have to talk about how we solve climate change. Because no matter how much people want to bury their heads in the sand, it will not alter the fact that 97 percent of peer-reviewed climate studies confirm that climate change is happening and that human activity is largely responsible.”
News of Florida’a ban, which also extends to the term “global warming,” came to light over the weekend in a report by the Florida Center for Investigative Reporting.
Scott in May declined to say whether he believed in climate change, but has said repeatedly that he is is not convinced by the science.
Such thinking is far too prevalent in Washington, and politicians who ignore the facts will not be remembered favorably by those who will face global warming’s worst perils, Kerry said in his speech.
“If we fail, future generations will not and should not forgive those who ignore this moment, no matter their reasoning,” Kerry said. “Future generations will judge our effort not just as a policy failure, but as a collective moral failure of historic consequence. And they will want to know how world leaders could possibly have been so blind or so ignorant or so ideological or so dysfunctional and, frankly, so stubborn.”
Kerry called for transitioning away from “dirty sources of energy.” But, as Politico noted, he didn’t mention whether he would approve the proposed Keystone XL oil pipeline, which would link Canada’s oil sands to the U.S. Gulf Coast. The project, which needs State Department approval to cross an international border, has been awaiting Kerry’s decision since early February. He will hand his recommendation to President Barack Obama, who will make the final decision on the project.
Environmental groups opposed to the pipeline said Kerry’s failure to mention it may be a positive sign.
“While Kerry didn’t bring up Keystone, he sure brought up more and more reasons why it should be rejected,” Sierra Club legislative director Melinda Pierce told Politico. “And he’s absolutely right: Burning fossil fuels has long-term costs that have to be at the front of our minds when evaluating both the pipeline project and development of the tar sands.”
The Huffington Post | By Lydia O’Connor
Emperor Walker Wearing No Clothes When It Comes to Wisconsin’s Natural Resources
Actually, this emperor has no clothes.
Wisconsin citizens have got to realize that Wisconsin’s governor has not had the best interests of the state at heart when it comes to natural resources issues, including the effects of rising greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere’s significance to Wisconsin’s natural, economic and human resources in the absence of timely action by their governmental officials.
This politician looks only ahead to the next election. Our part-time governor has his attention turned to Iowa, New Hampshire and any road leading to Washington, D.C.
His tracks are the proposed budget that will leave scars on the state.
For a state with the legacy of people like Aldo Leopold, John Muir, Gaylord Nelson, and Warren Knowles, it is an embarrassment that Gov. Walker would submit a budget that:
• Strips the Natural Resources board of its authority, making it advisory only to the DNR – leaving all decisions up to the DNR secretary;
• Eliminates 18 research scientists from the DNR Sciences Services Bureau;
• Eliminates environmental education programs;
• Places a moratorium on land buying through the Stewardship Fund.
The problem is that politicians care about money brought into their campaigns, and getting re-elected.
That is why the Natural Resources Board was established originally: to keep natural resources governance at arm’s length from politicians. The NRB (citizens who in the past came together to put natural interests foremost), can make decisions taking into account biological and sociological information.
The NRB was also charged with hiring a DNR secretary, but Tommy Thompson and Jim Doyle looked to their self-interest and changed a system that worked well since 1927.
Now Scott Walker has manipulated the system, put politicians in charge of the DNR, silenced scientists, and changed agency priorities from natural resource protection to job creation.
How long can people who hunt, fish, trap, bird watch, hike, camp, and enjoy the state’s scenery, sit on their hands while the governor trashes our state?
Source: original article by Tim Eisele, Wisconsin Outdoor News, February 28, 2015
Note: “Emperor’s New Clothes” is an old children’s story by Hans Christian Andersen about an emperor who pays a lot of money for some new magic clothes which can only be seen by wise people. The clothes do not really exist, but the emperor does not admit he cannot see them, because he does not want to seem stupid. Everyone else pretends to see the clothes too, until a child shouts, “The Emperor has no clothes on!”
Prominent Climate Change Denier Funded by Koch Brothers, Energy Companies: Reports
A prominent climate change denier and researcher quietly took more than $1.2 million in payouts from the energy industry, including the Koch brothers and other oil lobbyists, for the past 14 years, newly released documents have shown.
Wei-Hock “Willie” Soon, a researcher at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, accumulated a total of $1.25 million from ExxonMobil, the American Petroleum Institute, Southern Company, and a Koch brothers foundation, according to documents obtained by Greenpeace through Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) filings.
For years, Soon’s work has been a go-to source for politicians angling to block climate change legislation, such as Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK), who has called climate change a hoax. Soon has also testified before the U.S. Congress and appeared on numerous conservative news shows to claim that greenhouse gases are not harmful and that recent global warming trends are not caused by human activity, but by variations in the sun’s energy.
Soon’s acceptance of oil lobby money was previously known, although he has denied that it influences his work. However, the documents reveal the full extent of his ties to the industry, which was not public knowledge. His single biggest funder was Southern Company, an electricity provider which relies on coal-burning power plants and has lobbied heavily against climate legislation. Southern Company gave Soon a total of $409,000.
He also received at least $230,000 from the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation.
In addition, the documents confirm that Soon neglected to disclose his close ties to the fossil fuel industry in most of his academic papers on climate change. At least 11 papers published since 2008 do not state any connection to the companies who paid him, and at least eight of those papers may have violated the ethical guidelines of the journals in which they appeared.
In correspondence with his funders, Soon called his research papers and Congressional testimony “deliverables,” which he completed in exchange for the money.
The Guardian reports:
“The question here is really: ‘What did API, ExxonMobil, Southern Company and Charles Koch see in Willie Soon? What did they get for $1m-plus,” said Kert Davies, a former Greenpeace researcher who filed the original freedom of information requests. Greenpeace and the Climate Investigations Center, of which Davies is the founder, shared the documents with news organizations.
“Did they simply hope he was on to research that would disprove the consensus? Or was it too enticing to be able to basically buy the nameplate Harvard-Smithsonian?”
While energy companies have long funded the work of useful allies, the new documents shed light on the role of scientists like Soon who help fuel the debate over climate change and its causes.
The New York Times writes:
“The whole doubt-mongering strategy relies on creating the impression of scientific debate,” said Naomi Oreskes, a historian of science at Harvard University and the co-author of “Merchants of Doubt,” a book about such campaigns. “Willie Soon is playing a role in a certain kind of political theater.”
… Charles R. Alcock, director of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center, acknowledged on Friday that Dr. Soon had violated the disclosure standards of some journals.
“I think that’s inappropriate behavior,” Dr. Alcock said. “This frankly becomes a personnel matter, which we have to handle with Dr. Soon internally.”
Davies told the Guardian, “The company was paying him to write peer-reviewed science and that relationship was not acknowledged in the peer-reviewed literature.
“These proposals and contracts show debatable interventions in science literally on the behalf of Southern Company and the Kochs.”
The Center for Astrophysics does not require its scientists to disclose their funding sources. Both Harvard University and the Smithsonian have acknowledged that climate change is caused by human activity. Harvard remains invested in the fossil fuel industry, despite long-running calls for the university to pull its money from those companies.
Republicans in the U.S. Congress Remain Unconvinced that Earth’s Recent Warming is Human Caused
Despite big data to the contrary, the Republican-controlled U.S. Senate, while conceding that climate change is real and not a “hoax”, as Senator James Inhofe of Oklahoma formerly claimed, still refused to admit that humans are responsible for the current warming of the planet. A series of votes publicly tested Republicans’ stance on global warming just days after two federal agencies declared 2014 the hottest year on record and hours after President Barack Obama called global warming one of the greatest threats to future generations. The votes were held over a debate over a bill on the Keystone XL pipeline.
Carbon dioxide (CO2), the most abundant of the greenhouse gases in Earth’s atmosphere, began rising in concentration, as measured in parts per million (ppm), in the atmosphere as fossil fuels began being burned for energy around the time of the Industrial Revolution (about 1800). CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere were 70% lower than present levels, which are presently close to 400 ppm. Today’s concentrations of CO2 and other increasing greenhouse gases in the atmosphere are largely the result of emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases from human activities. These activities include burning fossil fuels and changes in land use, such as agriculture and deforestation, according to Center for Climate and Energy Solutions.
As a result, greenhouse gases are accumulating in our atmosphere at unprecedented rates. According to the Scripps Institution of Oceanography,the concentrations of CO2 in the atmosphere are increasing at an accelerating rate from decade to decade. The latest atmospheric CO2 data is consistent with a continuation of this long-standing trend.
The upper safety limit for atmospheric CO2 is 350 parts per million (ppm). Atmospheric CO2 levels have stayed higher than 350 ppm since early 1988.
Many of today’s Republican have either denied the science of climate change or have distanced themselve from it, saying they don’t have the expertise to issue an opinion, according to the Associated Press’s Dina Cappiello in a January 22, 2015 article in the Wisconsin State Journal.
Little Support For Suing EPA Over Carbon Emissions
Wisconsin Public Radio reported results of a new poll this month that finds that nationally, only one-tenth of the public wants their state to file a lawsuit over a federal plan aimed at reducing carbon emissions from coal-burning power plants.
Governor Scott Walker said in his State of the State Address Wisconsin is planning to sue the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). “Top-down regulations and mandates from the federal government get in the way of innovation and growth in Wisconsin and states like ours. Therefore, I am working with our new Attorney General to prepare a lawsuit challenging the newly proposed federal energy regulations”, Walker said.
However pollster Barry Rabe of the University of Michigan says most people don’t support state lawsuits against federal EPA on global warming emission from power plant electricity providers.
The EPA proposal cuts emissions at coal-fired power plants and a move with major implications for Wisconsin, because coal generates more than half the state’s electricity.
The mandate cuts power plant emissions – the largest source of carbon dioxide (CO2) emission in the U.S. nationwide by 25% by 2030. Climate change, once considered an issue for a distant future, has moved firmly into the present,” the report said. “Summers are longer and hotter, and extended periods of unusual heat last longer than any living American has ever experienced, according to the World Health Organization.
White House and China Set Historic Greenhouse Gas Emissions Levels
Beijing (CNN) — At the end of the APEC trade summit in China, U.S. President Barack Obama announced a climate change agreement with Chinese President Xi Jinping that would cut both countries’ greenhouse gas emissions by close to a third over the next two decades.
Under the deal, the United States would cut its carbon emissions between 26-28% — from levels established in 2005 — by 2025. China would peak its carbon emissions no later than 2030 and would also increase the use of non-fossil fuels to 20% by 2030.
“As the world’s two largest economies, energy consumers and emitters of greenhouse gases, we have a special responsibility to lead the global effort against climate change,” Obama said Wednesday in a joint press conference with Xi.
Obama said he hopes the announcement will spur other nations to tackle climate change. “We hope to encourage all major economies to be ambitious — all countries, developing and developed — to work across some of the old divides, so we can conclude a strong global climate agreement next year,” Obama said.
The White House said the ultimate target is to “achieve deep economy-wide reductions on the order of 80% by 2050.”
A senior administration official calls the goals both “ambitious and achievable,” but also acknowledged that U.S. domestic politics could put a damper on the announcement. Saying “leading climate deniers” in the GOP might try to stop the initiative, the official hinted the President may act alone if necessary.
“Congress may try to stop us, but we believe that with control of Congress changing hands we can proceed with the authority we already have.” The official added, “This is really the crusade of a narrow group of people who are politically motivated and have made this a cause celebre, but we believe we will be successful.”
The administration hopes to sell the plan back home by touting the anticipated savings on energy costs. “Consumers and businesses will save literally billions of dollars” a senior administration official said. The plan offers initiatives and incentives to develop more solar and wind power across both countries, the official said.
Another official said the agreement “won’t all fall together in five minutes,” but hopes this will demonstrate to other nations that working together to reduce carbon emissions would prove that “we can work together to enhance deployment of sustainable clean technologies.”
The White House said the announcement marks the first time China has agreed to cut its carbon emissions, and said the Chinese are calling for “an energy revolution” that would include a broad economic reform program that would address air pollution.
China has agreed to provide an “additional 800-1,000 gigawatts of nuclear, wind, solar and other zero emission generation capacity by 2030, more than all the coal-fired power plants that exist in China today and close to total current electricity generation capacity.
During Obama’s visit, the Chinese government closed factories and gave employees time off to reduce car traffic and, ultimately, emissions in Beijing. The reduction of smog and the appearance of blue skies was noted by media throughout the APEC Summit.
Another senior administration official said that historically, the United States and China have often been seen as antagonists, so this “should send a powerful message,” and “will usher in a new day, where the U.S. and China can work as partners. We have a special responsibility to lead the global effort against climate change.”
On top of historic climate change agreement, Obama and Xi also agreed on the importance of cybersecurity, the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula, strengthening military relations and increasing trade.
By Matt Hoye, CNN Politics Senior White House Producer, 11/12/2014
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