Coal and the 2010 Election

Posted on by

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 [...]

Land Hurricane Over Midwest is Writing on the Wall

Posted on by

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 [...]

Weather Extremes Are On the Way

Posted on by

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.

‘Reconsidering Futurism’ conference in Boston

Posted on by

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

Share/Bookmark