Sarah Palin is a frightening moron

Author: martin

9 Oct

From the Guardian:

“It’s worth reading the transcript of the encounter, where it becomes

clearer how bizarre much of what she said was. Here, for example, is how she

responded to Biden’s comments about how the middle class has been

short-changed during the Bush administration, and how McCain will continue

Bush’s policies:

Say it ain’t so, Joe, there you go again pointing backwards again. You

preferenced [sic] your whole comment with the Bush administration. Now

doggone it, let’s look ahead and tell Americans what we have to plan to do

for them in the future. You mentioned education, and I’m glad you did. I

know education you are passionate about with your wife being a teacher for

30 years, and god bless her. Her reward is in heaven, right? … My brother,

who I think is the best schoolteacher in the year, and here’s a shout-out to

all those third graders at Gladys Wood Elementary School, you get extra

credit for watching the debate.”

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Filed under: Politics of Climate Change, Rants

The day in climate change and the future

Author: martin

1 Oct

Despite an unusually cool summer in southern California there has been a drastic upturn in the average number of very hot days during the past few years with more to come.

Microwaves can be used to turn bio waste like wood chips into charcoal, effectively sequestering their carbon. The charcoal can be used as fertilizer and for filtering. Burning it would just release all the carbon- yes, those of us who prefer charcoal grilling are dumping carbon straight into the atmosphere!

Sarah Palin apparently believes dinosaurs and men co-existed on earth at the same time: She has seen pictures of man’s footprints in dinosaur fossils. Sarah, there’s this thing called Photoshop…

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Filed under: climate change, global warming, carbon cost, Wacky but Interesting, Politics of Climate Change, Near Future Speculation

Super-spikes: They work both ways

Author: martin

14 Jul

Worldchanging has a great post on new terms coming out of the climate energy crisis. One of them, Super-spikes, refers to circumstances where change occurs very rapidly due to a cascading effect. In a previous post I talked about how rising gas prices were adding to indebtedness as large car and SUV owners see the value of their vehicles plummet. This an example of how a super-spike works, in this case rapid rise of energy costs doing a serious number on the economy. Another example is the implosion of financial markets as liquidity dried up due to fears about the viability of banks and mortgage lenders.

The problem with super-spikes is that they are often unpredictable in the speed and range of their effect. Given that we’ve been living with our heads in the sand, we’ve missed the window of slowing things gradually and easing into a new worldview. Instead we’re in the super-spike model where change will be catastrophic with no amount of wealth making any difference in our ability to change. We cannot throw dollars, technology or science at the problem and expect a neat solution. Instead we will be fighting trench warfare for the foreseeable future.

Another example of a super-spike is the current fire season in California. Already the worst season on record even though it is really just starting, there are hundreds of fires burning thousands of square miles of forest. This shows another characteristic of super-spikes: They are exponential- which means the effects multiply at very rapid rates once a critical mass is reached. It is literally a wildfire effect.

A big part of the problem is that politicians are very poorly equipped to deal with super-spikes as we saw with Katrina and 9/11. They stall, hoping to pass responsibility onto the next Congress, President or City Council. Unfortunately super-spikes require immediate, decisive action.

Finally, super-spikes force us into a reactive position where we are so busy responding to immediate threats that we have no breathing room to build a strategic response. The politicians currently in office and previous Republican Presidents back to Nixon, with their caving in to energy and automotive lobbies, have made it impossible to develop a strategic, long term response to climate change. Instead we are literally putting out fires.

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Filed under: climate change, global warming, economics, Feedback Loops, Near Future Speculation, Politics of Climate Change, Local Effects

Bush-Cheney Successfully Defies Supreme Court on EPA Emissions Policy

Author: martin

11 Jul

They believe they are totally above the law. And are completely willing to sacrifice the future of the planet and their own grandchildren for their own short term gain.

Criminal- I hope I see both of them in prison in my lifetime.

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Filed under: emissions, Politics of Climate Change

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Sarah Palin is a frightening moron

The day in climate change and the future

Super-spikes: They work both ways

Bush-Cheney Successfully Defies Supreme Court on EPA Emissions Policy

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Burner Trouble- global warming and climate change from a personal perspective

Archive for the ‘Politics of Climate Change’ Category

Sarah Palin is a frightening moron

The day in climate change and the future

Super-spikes: They work both ways

Bush-Cheney Successfully Defies Supreme Court on EPA Emissions Policy

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