What crazy weather in the midwest today! If you look at a radar map, it looked like a giant hurricane over the upper U.S.,  and the winds were (still are) incredible.  Low barametric pressure levels have all been completely broken today.  The storm is called a “bomb” among scientists for it’s steep drop in low pressure and high winds,  and it’s also been described as an inland hurricane.  It’s the second storm in severity in history in the Great Lakes since the Edmund Fitzgerald sank.   So far, 300,000 are without power over several states.

Below is some weather and climate information from the rest of the country.  First, another Climate Files podcast for October talks about the connection between militarism and the environment, and some of the latest science from the ACC.  You can see more here. Some news highlights from SolveClimate and Sierra Club are below.

Who could live like this? Floods in Bangkok continue. This shows floodwaters in Nakhon Ratchasima province, northeast of Bangkok October 20, 2010. Reuters photo.

New Internet Site to Publish Fracking Fluid Information

The Okla.-based Ground Water Protection Council says its system will allow drillers to publish chemical recipes used in the new wells they have “fracked.” Disclosure will be on a voluntary basis only, it said, but the group is optimistic firms will participate.

India First to Quantify Economic Value of Natural World

The announcement is due to be made at a meeting of world governments in Japan to try to halt global destruction of biodiversity, and it is hoped that such a move by a major developing economy will prompt other countries to join the initiative.

Some landowners won’t allow land to be used for new dirty oil pipeline. In late September, SolveClimate News reporter Elizabeth McGowan traveled to Nebraska to find out more about the Keystone XL pipeline that TransCanada plans to build to carry crude oil from the tar sands of Alberta to Gulf Coast refineries in Texas. This is the sixth in a series. Read Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4 and Part 5 here.

BIG OIL and foreign companies influence our elections: A new report shows that BP and other big CO2-emitting European companies have contributed substantial funding to climate-change-denying Tea Party candidates in the 2010 midterm elections. The Guardian

Reappearing Act: Scientists conducting research in the Gulf of Mexico have found much oil residue on the ocean floor in a 140-mile radius around the Macondo Well, refuting claims that the spilled oil has largely disappeared from the Gulf. USA Today

Climate Victims: Holland Island is the latest Chesapeake Island to disappear under the Bay, where rising ocean levels, prompted by glacial melting and climate change, have all but erased life on the islands, and the islands themselves. Washington Post

Feds Approve Largest-Ever Solar Project in Calif. (AP)

The Obama administration has approved a thousand-megawatt solar project on federal land in southern California, the largest solar project ever planned on U.S. public lands.

Bloomberg Report Puts U.S. Solar Sector on Brink of Immense Growth (PV Tech)

A new report by Bloomberg New [...]

West Virginia coal mining

This is the political season, so crazy things are happening. Politicians are saying things they may or may not mean.  Energy and climate are more political than ever.  In fact, energy and climate change are such sensitive topics they didn’t even come up at the recent Congressional debate in my city.

More disturbing news is that Democratic candidates are promoting coal, only because coal mines employ people.  A lot of bad jobs employ people, but that’s not a good reason by itself to support bad jobs. Dangerous work that pollutes the environment is not good work, so it would be far better if politicians were looking for new green jobs for those people stuck in coal jobs.  Coal will be phased out anyway, so it would be better for those people to have other job skills, starting as soon as possible.

Coal itself seems to offer ‘comfort’ to people, believe it or not, which is a part of the problem in getting people to accept the end of coal use.  Coal is filthy and dirty and polluting from start to finish, but people consider it having a “warm, homely feel” as the summary for this report states. That’s a public relations report that Big Coal utilizes to manipulate public opinion. Sadly, this election season, it appears that politicians are using the same type of marketing data to appeal to voters, with the end result being a strong support of coal in certain states.

From Greenwire/EEnews:

LOGAN, W.Va.–Gov. Joe Manchin came here yesterday hoping to cement himself in voters’ minds as a supporter of the coal industry. But he was greeted by tea party opposition and left behind a trail of skeptics.

At a “Friends of Coal” rally in the Logan Grade School gymnasium, Manchin, the Democratic nominee in a special Senate election, promised a crowd of about 50 that he would be a voice for the industry and its miners.. . . .  But while that is enough to win a pro-coal label in Washington, D.C., it may not be enough for West Virginia.

Joe Manchin is not the kind of Democrat I’m familiar with.  He sounds more like a Republican to me.  Manchin even sued the Obama administration over coal mining policies.  Manchin accused Obama of trying to destroy the coal industry. I wish that were true, but it’s not.  Part of the problem is the pressure put on lawmakers and politicians by Big Coal itself, which started heavily last June.  Big Coal wanted to take advantage of the  U.S. Supreme Court decision loosening restrictions on corporate contributions to political causes.

Manchin’s Republican opponent John Raese, a business mogul and three-time failed candidate in statewide races, is telling voters that Manchin will sell out the industry when he gets to Washington. Raese says the governor will be a “rubber stamp” for the Obama administration’s attempts to regulate the industry’s mining and carbon emissions.

Those accusations yesterday followed Manchin to [...]

That wild weather I reported Tuesday night was actually the equivalent of a Category 3 hurricane over land. It easily broke low barometric pressure readings over land for the midwest, and the winds cut power, downed buildings, and closed runways at airports.  There are small tree branches all over my front yard.  The storm is still not over, and throughout the day the wind howled outside my windows. Watching the reporting of it on TV news last night and today, I was not surprised to hear no mention of “global warming” and no mention of “climate change”.  Thanks to the political right-wingers in America, these science-based phrases have become so politically-charged they are censored words, and the U.S. has no politicians at the moment willing to take a strong stand on climate change, despite the incredible weather of all of 2010. Not even our President is willing to say what needs to be said about climate change. Isn’t that remarkable?

Even well-known local  meteorologist Paul Douglas, usually such a measured and low-key guy, is getting upset about the lack of facing up to the real root cause of these now-common violent storms.   This is today’s report on the storm and quotes from an interview with Douglas,  from Think Progress.

“Fueled by fossil fuel pollution, an unprecedented, freak “land hurricane” swept through the continental United States, leaving a path of devastation from Saskatchewan to Texas — while the Republican Party has been taken over by a hurricane of science denial. Our destabilized climate system, supercharged with billions of tons of manmade global warming pollution, is unlike anything in the historical record. “Welcome to the Land of 10,000 Weather Extremes,” Minnesota meteorologist Paul Douglas gasped. “The storm is huge,” Peter Kimbell, emergency preparedness meteorologist for Environment Canada, said. “Much of North America is being affected by this storm. It’s covering millions of square kilometers.” Even the right-wing Anthony Watts called this storm — centered in Wisconsin — a “subtropical/tropically oriented monster.” Douglas found intensity of the “weather bomb” something “hard to fathom”:

Yesterday a rapidly intensifying storm, a “bomb”, spun up directly over the MN Arrowhead, around mid afternoon a central pressure of 953 millibars was observed near Orr. That’s 28.14? of mercury. Bigfork, MN reported 955 mb, about 28.22? of mercury. The final (official) number may be closer to 28.20-28.22?, but at some point the number becomes academic. What is pretty much certain is that Tuesday’s incredible storm marks a new record for the lowest atmospheric pressure ever observed over the continental USA. That’s a lower air pressure than most hurricanes, which is hard to fathom.

The storm front — also dubbed the “Chiclone” for the bizarreness of having a cyclone-like system over Chicago — drew its power from a sharp temperature contrast between record warmth in the southeastern United States and average cold in the north. Thus this record stormfront, though it exhibited hurricane-like power, is unlike actual hurricanes that derive their power [...]

I’m not a person who likes winter to begin with, and this winter will have even less for me to like, where I live.

The overall long-term trend in Earth’s climate is toward higher temperatures, as humans continue to pump carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. The temperature rise is evident on a scale of decades, but over shorter time periods, natural climate variations can accelerate or hold back the warming in different parts of the world — and one such variation is likely to dominate weather in the U.S. this coming winter.

Notice the dry conditions that are persisting in the southern U.S.  Thanks to La Nina, however,  it might even be colder in the Midwest than last winter, which was very cold in North America.  The problem with interpreting weather events in the winter in North America is that media people tend to think locally.  If it’s cold in their city, they tend to think the entire planet is just as cold.  Of course, that’s ridiculous.  Winter weather can be very cold in one spot, but overall average global temperatures can and do continue to rise.

From Climate Central: It’s La Niña, a periodic cooling of water in the equatorial Pacific that happens about every two to five years. As you can see in this Climate Center video, La Niña’s cooling effect could keep this year — the warmest on record globally so far — from holding onto that title.

It could also lead to a winter of weather extremes that differ from those seen last year. According to a new report issued yesterday by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), much of the Pacific coast, the northern parts of North Dakota and Montana, and central Alaska are likely to be cooler and wetter than average, while the South and Southeast are likely to be warmer and drier. This may have major implications for drought conditions, which have emerged in the Southeast and persisted in parts of the Southwest. Historically, La Niña events have been associated with noteworthy droughts in the Southwest.

Society for Italian Historical Studies 4

RECONSIDERING FUTURISM

Saturday, January 8, 2011: 2:30 PM-4:30 PM
American Historical Association Conference
Courier Room (The Westin Copley Place)

Chair: Walter Luiz Adamson, Emory University

Papers:

The Homosexual as Futurist: The Tavolato Case
Mauro Pasqualini, Emory University

Benedetta and the Creation of “Second” Fascism
Erin Larkin, Southern Connecticut State University

Heroes, Wings, Machines: Futurism, Propaganda, and the State, 1940–45
Christopher Adams, University of Essex

Filippo Tommaso Marinetti:The Futurist as Fascist
Ernest Ialongo, Hostos Community College, City University of New York

Comment: Walter Luiz Adamson, Emory University

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Opening Remarks of Derrick Jensen for Earth At Risk

“What is the problem?

Derrick Jensen

There’s a sense—a very real and overwhelmingly devastating sense—in which you could say that the problem is that this culture is killing the planet. One hundred and twenty species were driven extinct today. Another 120 will be driven extinct tomorrow. And the day after. And the day after. Ninety-seven percent of native forests are gone. Ninety-nine percent of native grasslands. Amphibian populations are collapsing, migratory songbird populations are collapsing, mollusk populations are collapsing, fish populations are collapsing, and so on. Nearly all rivers in the US (and world) are dammed. Dams are the death of rivers. There are two million dams in the United States alone: with 60,000 dams over 13 feet tall and 70,000 dams over 6 and a half feet tall. If we took out one of those 70,000 dams every day it would take two hundred years to remove those dams. And the salmon don’t have that time. Sturgeon don’t have that time. Ninety percent of the large fish in the oceans are gone. There is six to ten times as much plastic as phytoplankton in much of the oceans. The oceans are being acidified. The oceans are being murdered. Big cats are going. Great apes are going. Vertebrate evolution has effectively been ended by this culture. The world is being poisoned: there is dioxin (and many other carcinogens) in every (human and nonhuman) mother’s breast milk. More than half of the fish in many rivers are changing genders because of endocrine disrupting chemicals put out by this culture. And of course humans have grotesquely overshot carrying capacity, and are committing unparalleled drawdown.

And our response is utterly incommensurate with the multiple crises we face.

There’s a sense, however, in which the fact that this culture is killing the planet isn’t so much the problem as it is the ultimate expression of this insane culture’s deeper problem, which is that it is omnicidal. It doesn’t “just” destroy every nonhuman community it encounters, but it also destroys other human cultures: human languages are being driven extinct at an even greater relative rate than nonhuman species. It dispossesses or otherwise destroys indigenous cultures. It harms women: the gold standard studies reveal that 25 percent of all women in this culture have been raped in their lifetimes, and another 19 percent have had to fend off rape attempts.

Not every culture has destroyed its landbase. The Tolowa Indians, on whose land I live, lived here for at least 12,500 years, if you believe the myths of science. If you believe the myths of the Tolowa, they lived here since the beginning of time. Likewise, not every culture has had such extraordinarily high rates of rape, in fact many cultures, prior to conquest by this culture, have had either extraordinarily low rates of rape, or have been rape free. The same is true for child abuse.

Why do [...]

This summer, a guy named Dan Gray submitted a video to Planet Forward about the Nissan Leaf and because of that, he got to test drive the newest electric car.  This Thursday, Oct 21, the “Nightly Business Report” on PBS stations will feature Dan’s video and the test drive. In the video below you can see  the Nissan Leaf, a “pure zero emission” car.  It doesn’t even have a tailpipe, and it raises the “cool” factor of an electric car to a new high.  See it on the Nissan site here.

Interested in a new Leaf EV? I sure am. It looks like a fantastic car. Reportedly, there are big government incentives to buy an electric car right now. I don’t know the details, but according to the video, it would cost you about $25,000 in the end. Do electric cars make sense to buy? Yes, if people invest in this technology, and they become more affordable, and that will happen.  We can’t keep using oil and gas. (That’s obvious, since it’s already running out.) Here is a preview of the car.

You can see more on Thursday, October 21 on PBS.

Below is a related story from Yale’s e360:

Rising Hopes that Electric Cars  Can Play a Key Role on the Grid

Will electric cars one day become part of a network of rechargeable batteries that can help smooth out the intermittent nature of wind and solar power? Many experts believe so, pointing to programs in Europe and the U.S. that demonstrate the promise of vehicle-to-grid technology.

Yale e360 article by dave levitan

The United States now has more than 35,000 megawatts of installed wind energy, enough to power close to 10 million homes. Close on the heels of this ongoing renewable energy revolution is another green technology: By next year tens of thousands of Nissan LEAFs, Chevy Volts, and other electric vehicles will start rolling off assembly lines.

The electricity generation and transportation sectors may seem like two disparate pieces of a puzzle, but in fact they may end up being intimately related. The connection comes in the form of the vehicle-to-grid concept, in which a large electric vehicle (EV) fleet — essentially a group of rechargeable batteries that spend most of their time sitting in driveways and garages — might be used to store excess power when demand is low and feed it back to the grid when demand is high. Utilities and electricity wholesalers would pay the EV owners for providing that power.

Vehicle-to-grid, or V2G, is not a new idea. In fact, it’s been floating around environmental and green tech circles for a decade at least. But it has always had the tough-to-shed image of a utopian technology. Now, though, V2G — as well as simpler schemes based on smart-timed charging of the vehicles — is slowly becoming reality, evolving in quiet synergy with the worldwide push for renewable energy….

Those generators can handle [...]

“When I asked him what has stayed in his mind most . . . . he  said that when they were burning the oil off the surface of the sea, he remembers on the edge of the flames seeing a pod of dolphins, side by side by side by side, watching, simply watching the ocean burn.”

It’s been six months since the BP Deepwater Horizon oil platform explosion in the Gulf of Mexico.  This morning I heard a shocking episode of the DemocracyNow show, which included an interview with Terry Tempest Williams, who had a lot to say about the condition of the water and wildlife in the Gulf of Mexico.

After the BP oil leak stopped, the Obama administration was quick to claim that most of the oil was “gone” and in the process of being cleaned up by some magic natural process.   They were not being honest, to say the least.  The DemocracyNow report today contained the information that there are no fish in the water there for the fishermen, an entire fishing industry is disappearing, whales and dolphins have died in large numbers and been hacked up to hide their bodies; and more.  Illnesses from the chemicals and from the oil are being reported, including pneumonia. Whether that will get worse or better is anyone’s guess.  The point of the story is that though the oil is no longer leaking, the danger from toxic chemicals to people is far from over. This is still a public health hazard and it’s a very serious problem, as is the fact that so much of the wildlife and megafauna (like whales) have just disappeared.

The Gulf has been declared “open for business” by people in the government.  But there is very little media coverage of this, except the kind that emphasizes the positive, the “recovery” of the Gulf, while ignoring the deep and lasting wound this oil leak has inflicted on the area.  So leave it up to DemocracyNow to report on this from a totally different angle and tell the truth about the current conditions of the Gulf:  on life support.  No one knows if the fish will return. No one knows if the way of life of anyone on the Gulf Coast will return.  The environmental damage cannot be measured — teams of workers are still removing large amounts of oil from the beaches at night so the media doesn’t notice.   It’s really disgusting how this is being covered up.  And while this is ongoing, the Obama administration lifted the moratorium on deep-water OIL drilling, so this can all happen again some day.

Here is a large excerpt from the story today at DemocracyNow.  If you want to watch the video, it’s here.  This was an interview with activist and author/writer Terry Tempest Williams.  Her latest article on the BP Oil Leak can be found at Orion Magazine.  Her main question is, “Where is the outrage?”  I’d like to know that, too.

JUAN GONZALEZ: Well, Terry Tempest Williams, this [...]

On the final day of the Tianjin meeting, (October 9 2010) UNFCCC Executive Secretary, Christiana Figueres, and Mexican Foreign Minister, Patricia Espinosa, gave a joint press conference where they stated that governments have made progress in defining what can be achieved at the UN Climate Change Conference in Cancun. Ms Figueres pointed out the critical importance of “turning dry texts into a set of keys that unlock a new level of climate action – among rich and poor, business and consumers, governments and citizens.” Minister Espinosa said that “the outcomes of this year’s conferences can truly be the start of a new era of cooperative global climate action.” She added that Cancun can and should be a very significant step forward.

See the entire webcast here.

There is no reason to give up on Cancun’s upcoming climate meeting yet. As this video illustrates, they are making progress, even if it’s very very slow.  As Figueres says, they are closer to a set of agreements for Cancun. The possible results of a Cancun outcome was well-received by the involved parties and is being revised in light of further progress.  She also said the governments have discussed each element in the lists and have commented on what is “doable”.  That should be interesting.  She enumerates the list of what needs to be done and agreed upon as:

1) A long-term shared vision
2) Adaptation
3)  Mitigation and the key operational elements of finance
4) Technology and capacity-building in addition to the future of the Kyoto Protocol.

Below is part of an article about what China is up to lately with green energy.

Scaling up. Solar and wind power are making huge strides in China. CREDIT: XINHUA/LANDOV

Climate Talks Still at Impasse, China Buffs Its Green Reputation

by Richard Stone , Science Magazine

TIANJIN, CHINA—Delegates to a United Nations meeting here last week made scant headway on a global strategy for reining in greenhouse gas emissions. But amid the pessimism and recriminations, one nation won praise from observers for its efforts to boost energy efficiency and invest in green technologies: the host,China.

Negotiators from 177 countries came to this port city near Beijing with low expectations for progress on a deal that could slow global warming, and thick smog that blanketed Tianjin further dampened spirits. Last week’s U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change meeting was a preparatory session for a summit next month in Cancun, Mexico, where countries will resume the Sisyphean task of crafting a successor to the Kyoto Protocol, in which 39 industrialized nations and the European Union committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions several percent from 1990 levels by 2012. According to the 1997 accord’s principle of “common but differentiated responsibilities,” developing nations, including China, have pledged to take voluntary steps to rein in carbon emissions.

. . .

With any progress toward a new accord elusive, the two biggest greenhouse gas emitters—China and the United States—fired broadsides at each other. The lead U.S. negotiator in Tianjin, Jonathan Pershing, criticized China and other [...]

'Either capitalism lives or Mother Earth lives' ... delegates wave flags at the World People's Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth, near Cochabamba, Bolivia, on 20 April 2010. These guys get it. by Dado Galdieri/AP

It’s hard not to feel bad for the people who live in the Gulf of Mexico.  Not only has Big Oil lured them into environment-destroying jobs, thus crushing their souls, but the BP oil leak’s lingering effects is still harming the fishing industry in the area.  In 20 years the entire Gulf coast could be deserted except for the tourism businesses that remain. But what will tourists go there to visit?

Worst of all, it’s still dangerous to peoples’ health, in a big way, to live near that Gulf of Mexico water.

(Newser) – Researchers have detected a 40-fold increase in potentially cancer-causing polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons off the coast of Louisiana’s Grande Isle. The study is especially scary because it only measured PAHs that could seep through a biological membrane, the Huffington Post explains. “This is a measure of what would enter into an organism,” says one professor, “and that means they can essentially be uptaken by organisms throughout the food chain.”

A 40X increase in cancer-causing chemicals!  How is that acceptable? It’s “acceptable” because so few people know about it.

People need to make a connection between their environment and fossil fuel use and the dangers involved.  It goes beyond mere “pollution” that we generally think of as more of a nuisance than anything else.  Abusing the environment and over-dependence on fossil fuels by large corporations is leading to life-threatening situations all over the world.  The media needs to cover all of this much better than they are. If there is mercury in the lakes and rivers, and cancer-causing chemicals in ocean water, where are we supposed to turn for safe, clean water?  These are big issues the public needs to be aware of, to weigh in on.

Sometimes we do need governments to protect the basics of life, and that’s why EPA action on regulating CO2 from coal-powered power plants is so necessary.  This is scheduled to happen early next year.  But nothing will change until we change our fundamental economic system that is based on growth, consumption, and waste. What steps are governments taking?

“Six weeks from now, in Cancun, Mexico, the world’s nations will gather under the auspices of the United Nations (the UNFCCC) to again discuss how to alleviate climate change. They’ll try to pick up the broken pieces from last December in Copenhagen, where we witnessed tortured dances by government leaders trying to avoid the realities of our time, and the profound conundrums we face as a society. They accomplished nothing, and may reprise that performance in Cancun.

Take the case of President Obama. He generally signals a serious desire to address climate issues, but, like the leaders of all the developed industrial nations, has been caught in a terrible dilemma. [...]

Where I live, we had a recent dry spell (until today) of 24 days.   This is nothing,  compared to some parts of the world where it has not rained in a year or six months.  Some places, like Central America, have seen unusually torrential rains this year.   Droughts, torrential rains, and violent storms are all part of the future as our climate changes due to human-caused global warming.

There’s a new report on the global drought situation.  The report is by Aiguo Dai, originally of China, and his report was published by the  National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR).  He also writes extensively about the water cycle and how global warming is affecting that.

Climate change: Drought may threaten much of globe within decades

October 19, 2010 — The United States and many other heavily populated countries face a growing threat of severe and prolonged drought in coming decades, according to a new study by National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) scientist Aiguo Dai. The detailed analysis concludes that warming temperatures associated with climate change will likely create increasingly dry conditions across much of the globe in the next 30 years, possibly reaching a scale in some regions by the end of the century that has rarely, if ever, been observed in modern times.

Using an ensemble of 22 computer climate models and a comprehensive index of drought conditions, as well as analyses of previously published studies, the paper finds most of the Western Hemisphere, along with large parts of Eurasia, Africa, and Australia, may be at threat of extreme drought this century.

In contrast, higher-latitude regions from Alaska to Scandinavia are likely to become more moist.

Dai cautioned that the findings are based on the best current projections of greenhouse gas emissions. What actually happens in coming decades will depend on many factors, including actual future emissions of greenhouse gases as well as natural climate cycles such as El Niño.

The new findings appear this week as part of a longer review article in Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change. The study was supported by the National Science Foundation, NCAR’s sponsor.

“We are facing the possibility of widespread drought in the coming decades, but this has yet to be fully recognized by both the public and the climate change research community,” Dai says. “If the projections in this study come even close to being realized, the consequences for society worldwide will be enormous.”

While regional climate projections are less certain than those for the globe as a whole, Dai’s study indicates that most of the western two-thirds of the United States will be significantly drier by the 2030s. Large parts of the nation may face an increasing risk of extreme drought during the century.

Other countries and continents that could face significant drying include:

Much of Latin America, including large sections of Mexico and Brazil
Regions bordering the Mediterranean Sea, which could become especially dry
Large parts of Southwest Asia
Most of Africa and [...]

I’m planning to visit the rainforest and coral reefs of Central America next month 2010 for an environmental and artistic study.  The plan is to investigate what is happening to one of Costa Rica’s biggest areas of coral reefs, rain forests,  and talk with indigenous people about their efforts to preserve the rainforest.

Read about a similar journey discussed here.  I am a self-employed artist and this trip is also for artistic reasons.  Here’s your chance to support the arts too, for a good cause.  It’s more important now than ever that the rainforest itself and everything in it is preserved in photos and video and artwork, because even in Costa Rica, the rainforest is succumbing to logging operations.

My artwork will be exhibited for the purpose of educating the public about the importance of the rainforests of central and South America. You can donate to this trip (or all expenses are mine) and all donations over $50 will receive a rainforest-inspired t-shirt (to be designed after the trip).  Your donations will also help me purchase carbon credits to offset my travel. Please donate below.  Donations help this website continue too.  I have server costs  and they are expensive, and the CO2 is offset by the server hosts, Greengeeks.com.

The area I’m planning to visit has changed based on cost involved. I’ll be going to the Cahuita National Park area, which is less expensive to get to, is still more in its original natural state, and you can read about it here.

The way to seriously start mitigating climate change is to stop doing this:

Smoke fills the sky as residents watch burning fuel tankers along the GT road in Nowshera, located in Pakistan's Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Province early morning October 7, 2010. Gunmen in Pakistan set fire to up to 40 supply trucks for NATO troops in Afghanistan on Wednesday, police said.

We need to end the incredible environmental damage of war. Can any serious progress be made on climate change without ending our wars?

Soon there will be another UNFCCC climate conference, this year in Cancun. But despite events like Bill McKibben’s 10-10-10 “global work parties“, serious action on stopping greenhouse gas emissions remains elusive. And environmentalists have to contend not only with pushback from politicians and climate change deniers, but the U.S. military.  Wars and militaries do so much environmental damage every year that an individual’s contributions to climate change pales in comparison. That makes events like 10-10-10 very anemic.  It’s not individuals doing most of the greenhouse gas emissions and it’s not individuals who can stop climate change — it’s businesses and governments. Until the military’s  pollution and contributions to climate change end, our efforts remain negated.  Not entirely, but blaming the individual for climate change, as the video talked about here does,  is nonsense.  We can’t even keep up with the climate change and environmental damage the military does.

“The military is now using more and more of the high-powered and highly toxic JP-8 jet fuel for many of its vehicles. Along with emitting CO2, jet planes pump out a trail of nitrous oxide and sulfur and water particles, which, according to some toxicologists, may be three times more harmful to the atmosphere than CO2 alone.” — Barry Sanders

Remember the horrible video below? It’s based on the idea that individuals are to blame for climate change, and therefore should be the ones to solve the problem, which is exactly the wrong approach. As one writer put it in critiquing the message of the video:

The new promotional video for 10:10,. . . . has generated a fair amount of online reaction and discussion in the last day or two. It is perhaps the worst campaign video I’ve ever seen.

There is no indication that we may, in our millions, need to pressure the rich and powerful – and our elected representatives who tend to buckle to their interests – to deliver serious social and political action to avert environmental catastrophe. . . . . . It is deeply snobbish and reinforces the mistaken idea that the elite is already ‘on board’ with tackling climate change, but now ordinary people need to be similarly convinced.

Not only does it turn climate change into an individual responsibility issue, it reduces it to being simply about awareness. If only people understand the need to reduce their carbon footprint they will do so – and if they don’t then they are backward, irrational, selfish. . . . [...]

Adaptation to polluted air and global warming in Brazil? No, it's a 10-10-10 demonstration.

It now looks like the U.S. government is going to forgo efforts to try to stop greenhouse gas emissions and head straight to planning for adaptation to climate change.  As if that can even be done without drastically cutting emissions.

United States Must Take Steps to Adapt to Climate Change, Report States

From Science: A report requested  by the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy says the federal government needs an organized effort to develop effective strategies to adapt to a changing climate.  These approaches should include regional partnerships between scientists and local planners and resource managers as well as educational programs to train new experts in adaptation.  Sharing data is another priority.  But the efforts don’t require a lot of new money, the report said.

The federal government is way behind on efforts to develop effective strategies to adapt to a changing climate, a new report to the White House says [recently]

“Even with mitigation efforts, climate change will continue to unfold for decades due to the long atmospheric lifetime of past greenhouse gas emissions and the gradual release of excess heat that has built up in the oceans,” the report says. States, cities, and towns could use guidance from the federal government’s vast climate science effort on how to prepare for a warmer world, it adds.

What mitigation efforts?  They are giving up before they’re even seriously trying mitigation.

The other big factor is what we are wasting the fossil fuels on.  War is currently one of the biggest contributors to climate change-causing emissions, and the Obama administration shows little sign of stopping the war machine responsible for this.

Who else is waging big fuel-guzzling wars, other than the U.S.?  No one is doing this like the U.S.  No one even comes close.

Countries like India and China are at least using fuel to better their country and pursue renewable energy.  We waste our fuel on wars — to get even more of the same fuel we are wasting to get it.  Until that foolishness ends, there’s little anyone else can do that won’t be negated by a fuel-hogging bomber somewhere over Afghanistan.  These are older figures (see post below this for newer ones) but they still show staggering amounts of fuel use by the military:

Here is what a report from Office of Under Secretary of Defense says “Because DOD’s consumption of oil represents the highest priority of all uses, there will be no fundamental limits to DOD’s fuel supply for many, many decades.” [4]

American GI is the most energy-consuming soldier ever seen on the field of war

“The Army calculated that it would burn 40 million gallons of fuel in three weeks of combat in Iraq, an amount equivalent to the gasoline consumed by all Allied armies combined during the four years of World War I.” [1]

In May 2005 issue of The Atlantic Monthly, [...]

In the face of a changing global environment, knowledge is power. Advancing the Science of Climate Change, one of four panel reports from the America's Climate Choices project, maps out the realm of our accumulated knowledge regarding climate change and charts a path forward, urging that research on climate change enter a new era focused on the needs of decision makers. This video shows the highlights of their [...]

Earth at Risk could turn out to be quite interesting — Derrick Jensen, the author and environmental activist, is holding an event this weekend at Seven Hills Conference Center at San Francisco State University.  The entire title is “Earth at Risk: Building a Resistance Movement to Save the Planet”.  The website is here.

Well, as you know, the climate bill in the U.S. Senate is “dead” (for now at least) and it wasn’t very good to begin with*.    There is also another climate conference coming up in December, this time in Cancun.  It will amount to lots of arguing and probably very little decided, just like in years past.  There are other alternatives like a potential clean energy bill (like Germany has!)   which I will write about later, so don’t give up hope yet.  Something will happen soon.  It’s just that political systems are probably a bad place turn to when trying to solve complex world-wide problems of a scientific nature.

There are three main reasons  that the Senate failed to pass a climate change bill in 2010, according to the article below.  I would add a fourth:  that they were never committed to being honest with the public about climate change and what must be done, so there was lack of public support for doing anything about something so vague.  Politicians droned on and on about “green jobs” that never materialized, or at least didn’t materialize in an obvious, widespread, public way that could be used as good examples. That has to change next year.

We still have time to do enough about climate change to matter, but just barely.  The worst case scenarios seem to be what the government of the U.S. is now planning for:  “adapting” to climate change, and ultimately, geoengineering.

This is a cross post by Center for American Progress’s Daniel J. Weiss.

School children planting trees on 10-10-10 in Thailand. From 350.org

October 12, 2010– President Barack Obama took office with four major domestic agenda items: a plan to prevent the recession from growing worse and launch recovery; health care reform; financial reform to avoid future meltdowns; and clean energy and global warming legislation to create jobs, reduce oil use, and cut pollution. The president succeeded with the first three items. But clean energy legislation died in the Senate after passing the House.

The October 6, 2010 New Yorker has a “behind the curtain” dissection of the rise and fall of climate legislation in the Senate. It provides an interesting insider view of the always messy legislative process.

Reporter Ryan Lizza details some senators’ admirable willingness to stretch beyond their comfort zones on some energy issues to cement an agreement that would establish declining limits on carbon dioxide and other global warming pollutants while allowing more offshore oil drilling and subsidies for nuclear power. He also notes the critical miscommunications and different approaches by senators and the Obama administration that reduced prospects for success.

Lizza gives short shrift, however, to [...]

I’m planning to visit the rainforest and coral reefs of Central America this winter 2010 for an environmental and artistic study.  The plan is to investigate what is happening to one of Costa Rica’s biggest areas of coral reefs, forests,  and talk with indigenous people about their efforts to preserve the rainforest.

Read about a similar journey discussed here. Mine will be individually designed, since I am a self-employed artist and this trip is also for artistic reasons.  It’s more important now than ever that the rainforest itself and everything in it is preserved in photos and video and artwork, because even in Costa Rica, the rainforest is succumbing to logging operations.

My artwork will be exhibited for the purpose of educating the public about the importance of the rainforests of central and South America. You can donate to this trip (or all expenses are mine) and all donations over $50 will receive a rainforest-inspired t-shirt (to be designed after the trip).  Your donations will also help me purchase carbon credits to offset my travel. Please donate below!

The area I’m planning to visit has changed based on cost involved. I’ll be going to the Cahuita National Park area, which is less expensive to get to, is still more in its original natural state, and you can read about it here.

Dimmer than a 30-watt bulb.

Climate change action still faces an uphill battle in the U.S. due to an uninformed public, just when efforts to step up mitigation need to happen!  Here’s a small example.

Levi Johnston, pop culture curiosity, was recently interviewed again by a real journalist.  He said he does not believe climate change is caused by human activity, according to this interview, which was on MSNBC.  This is unfortunate, because there is no reason to air his uninformed views, yet they’re out there. The interview illustrated that he doesn’t know much about anything else, either.  Even the evolution question stumped him.  Thankfully, he’s only running for mayor of Wasilla, not President, (like aborted governor Sarah Palin, who also thinks we’re victims of “natural solar cycles”).  Levi is typical of other people at his age and educational level, people who seem to be everywhere online.  Many of these people think that  “solar cycles” or “sunspots” are causing climate change.  These myths have been debunked over and over again, but the deniers don’t notice, don’t read, or don’t care.

If solar cycles or sunspots, etc.  were to blame, we’d be in very serious trouble, since we can’t control those things.  Luckily, we can still control our own destiny and survival, because we can control our own activities which are causing climate change. What’s needed is simple. We need to lower our carbon emissions and find ways to absorb the CO2 already in the air.

You won’t hear this news from the mainstream media, because they are funded by companies who depend on our current way of life continuing as is. This way of life is built on capitalism, growth, intense use and disposal of resources, expansion and accumulation of wealth, and heavy pollution; all of which are going to have to be replaced by a sustainable way of life very soon.  These facts are not even debatable, at this point. (Sorry, Levi).

The UNFCCC’s new executive secretary, Christiana Figueres, recently said that the hot and violent weather of this summer was only a taste of what’s to come if carbon emissions are not cut by governments world-wide. Here is a video of her recent statement.  Download the statement here.

Pakistan’s deadliest floods killed 1,800 people, ruined crops worth at least $3.3 billion and ripped out 4,000 kilometers (2,500 miles) of roads this year. In Russia, record temperatures and fires caused by drought destroyed grain crops this summer. . . . . “Such impacts on society and economies are but a mild taste of what science says will come if we do not continuously raise our ambitions for environmental protection as each year passes,” Figueres said.

Source of story: Bloomberg and the UNFCCC.  And similar news:

As Arctic Sea Ice Melt Season Ends, Sharp Downward Trend Continues

by Andrew Freedman, Climate Central

After a false alarm earlier this month, the 2010 Arctic sea ice melt season has come to a close, with sea ice extent reaching the third-lowest [...]

“A major ecological catastrophe — The reservoir of an alumina plant in western Hungary burst, flooding several towns with towering waves of red sludge. Hungary declares a state of emergency, one day after a torrent of toxic sludge tears through local villages, killing four people.” — ABC News.

From Russian news:

Hungary declared a state of emergency in three western counties on Tuesday due to spill of toxic alumina sludge which has killed three people and injured more than 100 others, the news agency MTI reported.

The counties of Veszprem, Gyor-Moson-Sopron and Vas counties were covered by the state of emergency [and by the sludge]. . . . the dam of a sludge reservoir burst at the huge Ajkai Timfoldgyar Zrt plant, owned by MAL Zrt., flooding parts of three villages.

The National Disaster Unit (NDU) denied a report that the sludge reservoir’s dam had broken at a second point, saying crews were pouring plaster into a nearby river to help neutralize the spill.

Apparently there is no proper word, yet, for this material; a wave of toxic fluid escaping from a holding pond or container. So “sludge” is what it’s called, although this looks rather thin to be true sludge, like  that from a coal ash holding pond for instance.  (In Tennessee it was called sludge and slurry.)  The point is that it’s toxic, it’s deadly, it contains lead, and it is burning the skin of all who are unfortunate enough to touch it.  It may also be toxic to breath the fumes from this material.  Time will tell if those who came in contact with it will die from exposure to it.  According to CNN International, the red color is from iron oxide, and yes, it contains heavy metals such as lead.  It’s caustic, and interestingly, slightly radioactive. Reportedly, inhaling it can cause lung cancer.  So, you want to avoid this sludge at all costs, which is difficult to do when it’s  thundering down your street like a tsunami.  In true form, the alumina plant owner said this stuff is “not hazardous waste.”    It’s just radioactive waste that contains lead and causes cancer. My condolences to the people of that area, who are in for an unclear and unhealthy future.

What is clear is that it’s already been deadly to plants, trees and animals. According to ABC and Russian News, four people have already died, presumably drowned or swept away. Many are hospitalized with toxic burns. As always, those who suffer the most from environmental disasters are usually the poor or middle class. They don’t put toxic sludge ponds or containers near wealthy neighborhoods or gated communities.  Do they.

EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson is sticking to her guns on the Clean Air Act.  I hope she is as tough as she is portrayed to be.  So far, the Jackson EPA has disappointed me a bit, even granting a permit for mountaintop removal in one case.  West Virginia’s Governor is suing the EPA over denial of other MTR permits, and that’s an attitude shared by politicians in coal states, which brought Jackson to this point:

“. . . at an event last month celebrating the Clean Air Act’s 40th anniversary, Jackson swung hard at industry groups, offending some officials in the room and potentially adding fuel to claims the Obama administration is anti-business.

In an interview this week with POLITICO, Jackson showed no indication of backing down.

“It’s definitely anti-lobbyist rhetoric,” Jackson said. “It’s definitely meant to reflect the fact that, when I go around the country, people want clean air. They are as passionate about clean air and clean water as any of a number of issues; they want protection for their families and their children.” . . . . Jackson said EPA is taking a “series of modest steps” in writing climate-themed rules under the Clean Air Act, despite bipartisan efforts in Congress to block them and about 90 different lawsuits in federal court.

Read more at Politico. Of course people want Clean Air and Clean Water though! They want clean air and water to magically exist,  despite the constant burning of huge amounts of fossil fuels. It’s absurd, but as you probably know, America has a culture where everything, even the environment itself, is politically-charged.  We get the message from politicians that values are important.  What more important value is there than to protect our environment so we can all survive?

And West Virginia

Also interesting, Jackson is traveling to China this month to talk about a variety of environmental issues.

“Jackson will travel to China from October 9 through October 14. This is the administrator’s first official visit to China, where she will highlight and build on a wide range of joint efforts aimed at addressing current and emerging environmental challenges, from sustainability to greenhouse gas pollution.

During the trip, Administrator Jackson will sign a Memorandum of Understanding with her counterpart from China’s Ministry of Environmental Protection, open the Regional Air Quality Meeting in Beijing; visit the world’s largest electronic waste site; and host a town hall meeting with students at Sun Yat-sen University.

For 30 years, the United States and China have engaged in a wide range of cooperative activities aimed at increasing energy efficiency; reducing emissions of pollutants, toxics, and greenhouse gases; limiting threats to public health caused by pollution; and creating a foundation for long-term environmental sustainability. EPA and MEP have been at the forefront of environmental collaboration and are looking to build on past successes to jointly address environmental challenges.

More information about EPA’s work with China.

More information about EPA’s International Priorities

“A window has slammed shut in Washington, [...]