Tag Archives: environment

The Worst Threat

Rational Americans have been spending every day since January 20th freaking out as report after report details new assaults on the Constitution, the rule of law, science, poor people, minorities and women…basically, on the fabric of modern society. As justifiable as those reactions are, however, there is one assault that is easily the worst–because it poses an existential threat to all of humanity. As damaging–indeed, as terrifying– as all the other assaults are, history teaches us that they will eventually be overcome. (Granted, not necessarily in our lifetimes, and not without a lot of pain.)

But that return to sanity faces an unprecedented challenge. Overcoming social and political dysfunction requires residence on a habitable planet.

The single most dangerous and damaging aspect of the MAGA movement is its refusal to occupy reality–a reality that requires co-ordinated efforts to combat climate change.

As Cass Sunstein has recently written,

With the deluge of executive orders in the initial weeks of the second Trump administration, an important directive flew under the radar. It requires the federal government to consider abandoning “the social cost of carbon,” potentially undercutting all climate policymaking.

That is a technical way of signaling something simple and false: Climate change is not real. If the social cost of carbon is treated as zero, then greenhouse gas emissions inflict no damage. Regulations that reduce those emissions have no benefits, which suggests that those regulations should be eliminated.

The social cost of carbon has often been described as the most important number you’ve never heard of. The metric is meant to capture the harm caused by a ton of carbon emissions, making it a foundation of national climate change policy. A lower value would justify weaker regulations, while a higher one would warrant more aggressive policies.

The MAGA movement is hell bent on rejecting science, evidence and reality. Whether MAGA Neanderthals believe that their God will protect them, or cling to the belief that fossil fuel companies’ bottom lines are more important than the lives of their grandchildren, or share the fanciful beliefs of the world’s Musks and Trumps that they are demigods safe from the possibility that ignorance and viciousness won’t bring us all down, the consequences will be the same.

And those consequences are inevitable.

Trump and Musk attack every structural barrier they encounter in exactly the same way: they declare that it has been “politicised” and “weaponized.” So the Department of Justice has to be turned into an agency directed by Trump against his perceived enemies, the press must be cowed into a “balance” favoring euphemistic coverage of Trump’s lawbreaking, efforts to overcome systemic discrimination must be characterized as departures from competence (a particularly ludicrous accusation considering the incredible ignorance and lack of relevant skill of Trump nominees) –and the science of climate change must be demonized and dismissed as some sort of liberal myth.

As Sunstein concludes after his rather technical explanation of the social cost of carbon, “climate change is real. No president, and no federal agency, has the authority to pretend otherwise.”

Americans are currently under the thumb of madmen so arrogant they believe they can defeat reality by the simple act of denial.

Rational people, of course, recognize that belief as insanity. It is one thing to fall short of compliance with global efforts to counter–or at least slow–global warming; it is another thing entirely to reject science and simply refuse to accept the undeniable and mounting evidence that is now all around us.  

The average global temperature has increased by about 2°F (1.1°C) since 1850. The rate of warming has increased in recent decades. Glaciers are shrinking, and the amount of Arctic sea ice is decreasing.  Sea levels are rising at an increasing rate. Rainfall events are becoming more intense. Snow is melting earlier, and spring is coming earlier; plants are leafing out and spring migrant birds arrive earlier each year. The amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is increasing. More land areas are experiencing more hot days and heat waves. Wildfires are starting more easily and spreading more rapidly (as Californians can attest). Etc. Etc.

Trump’s insistence that none of this is connected is undoubtedly motivated in part by his close relationship with fossil fuel magnates, but the motivation is irrelevant. As he and Musk continue their slow-rolling coup, they are destroying more than the Constitution and rule of law. They aren’t just waging war on the legal and philosophical framework of the Founders; they are virtually guaranteeing that much of the Earth will be inhospitable to human life–and sooner, rather than later.

Musk thinks Mars will be a viable substitute. This Earthling begs to differ.

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Resistance And The Environment

If even a small percentage of Project 2025’s proposals–or Trump’s fever dreams– are implemented, Americans will suffer. Times will be very dark, and very unAmerican. So it may seem Panglossian to predict that we can and will emerge from those dark times, not unscathed, but essentially intact.

That said, however, there is one element of the coming assault on reason and evidence that poses a truly existential threat, and that is the denial of climate change– the likely withdrawal from global efforts to combat it, the resumption of reliance on fossil fuels, and the termination of federal green energy incentives. We humans can recover from bad governance. We can (and undoubtedly will) learn from the experience of being governed by corrupt and profoundly ignorant people.

But we are unlikely to survive a failure to take climate change seriously.

I find it hard to understand people who deny the reality of a warming planet–the captains of the fossil fuel industries who place a higher priority on their bottom lines than their grandchildren’s lives, the religious fundamentalists who are sure God will protect us (or perhaps is punishing us for our sins), the people who simply choose not to believe facts that might inconvenience them. In my own lifetime (and yes, I’m old) I’ve seen spring come earlier and earlier, and summer last far longer than it used to. As I write this, we are nearing the end of November, yet temperatures are in the 50s and 60s, flowers are still blooming and the leaves remain on most trees. When I was young, it was much colder at this time of year, and we’d typically already had snowstorms.

The rejection of science and evidence by Washington’s clown show is depressing, but those who have chosen climate as their resistance focus need to recognize how much impact is possible–and for that matter, necessary– at the local level, through actions both by local governments and the private sector.

Time Magazine recently had a story about the ways in which small business enterprises (SME’s) can fight climate change. The author reminded us that there are numerous ways to focus on “tackling climate change from the ground up—from cities cutting their own footprints to grassroots activists making changes in their backyards.”

Approximately 90% of the world’s businesses are SMEs; those firms are responsible for a significant share of global emissions. News headlines at the intersection of business and climate often focus on big companies with household names, but to achieve global climate ambitions, small firms need to be engaged….

For the small companies that engage, decarbonization can be rewarding. It helps them access new markets as Europe and many Asian markets have begun to impose sustainability requirements for imported products. Greener products appeal to consumers who are looking for sustainable products, too. And sustainability efforts make SMEs more resilient to climate risks like extreme weather.

The article noted a report from the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) that identified emerging mechanisms—from green loans to supply chain finance—intended to facilitate green practices at small businesses.

Local governments also have a number of initiatives they can employ to combat climate change–everything from installing new technologies to improve their own energy efficiency, to encouraging the construction of energy efficient buildings (including rooftop solar and/or green roofs), moving public transportation systems to clean energy and promoting other kinds of low-carbon transportation, creating pedestrian and bicycle-only zones  and enhancing urban green spaces…the list goes on.

Many of these projects also enhance the quality of urban and suburban life. Planting trees and expanding public parks are environmentally important steps that also provide recreation for citizens, for example.

There is an argument to be made that –if sufficient numbers of local jurisdictions engage in these efforts–the impact would equal or exceed the mechanisms currently employed (and endangered) at the federal level. In any event, most of the actions available to local businesses and governments cannot be stymied by the know-nothings in Washington.

As a recent article from the University of California explained,

Local government can play a unique and critical role addressing the climate crisis. Local governments have immediate impact on the daily lives of community members and personal connections to constituents. We have a clear line of sight to understand how climate change is impacting people on a daily basis. If leveraged correctly, local governments have the power to bring people together across party lines to address local issues with creativity and agility.

The article listed a number of successful efforts already underway. Consider them a “road map” for resisting Project 2025’s prescription for planetary disaster.

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The Climate-Denial Party

How, I wonder, do climate-denying Americans manage to ignore the mounting evidence of climate change? I suppose I can understand that people might once have dismissed the overwhelming majority of scientists who’ve been warning us for many years. After all, the changes we actually have experienced until recently–things like spring coming earlier each year–have been subtle. But you’d think our recent episodes of weather disasters, the fires following unusual droughts, and the hurricanes made more powerful and destructive thanks to their paths over warming oceans, would have convinced them.

Evidently not. At least not Hoosier Republicans.

Not only did Mike Braun and Jim Banks vote against added funding for FEMA, Braun and Rokita have opposed Indiana utilities plans to phase out their dependence on coal. According to the Capital Chronicle, Braun just sent a letter to the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission (IURC) opposing a coal plant’s proposed conversion to natural gas.

He urged commissioners to deny the conversion, and encouraged collaboration with policymakers to preserve coal’s role — “the most reliable baseload fuel” — while “looking to the future.”

Todd Rokita, Indiana’s embarrassing Attorney General, has been an even more avid protector of the fossil fuel. As another article from the Chronicle has reported, the Attorney general has urged utility regulators to deny early coal plant retirements.

Coal plants have historically had 50-year lifespans, according to a 2019 article published in Nature Communications. But they can last longer with fixes and upgrades.

U.S. coal plants are about 44 years old, in a capacity-weighted average, according to an analysis by the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Plants scheduled for retirement this year averaged 54 years of age: almost a decade older.

But coal plants decommissioned amid their expected decades-long lives have become a political flashpoint.

The IURC says it lacks the authority to prevent a utility from converting from coal–that the agency’s jurisdiction is limited to assessing the reasonableness of rates and other tasks spelled out in the legislation that established it. Rokita, however, argues that the IURC doesn’t need explicit authority. Meanwhile, Indiana’s Republican lawmakers have introduced a bill that would grant the IURC that specific authority. The article noted that the legislature might also require that such action be made mandatory and not discretionary.

House Bill 1382, introduced last session, would’ve spelled that out. It also laid out conditions utilities would’ve had to meet in order to apply for permission to close any “fossil fuel fired” plant. The proposal never got a hearing and died.

The Hoosier Environmental Council said that bill would slow Indiana’s transition away from coal, a dirty fossil fuel, to greener energy sources.

“Besides adding an unnecessary burden to the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission, this bill encourages our public utilities to keep their current energy generation sources running as long as possible, which are majority fossil fuels,” the council said on its website.

Indiana’s GOP characterizes concern for the environment as an attribute of “far Left liberalism.” 

The digitally-altered Braun attack ad against Jennifer McCormick is telling. (It was also illegal…) That altered ad was intended to demonstrate to Hoosier voters that McCormick is “unacceptably liberal.” The evidence for that assertion included her prior support for Hillary Clinton and her current support for Joe Biden, a purported attack on gas stoves, and her intention to create a state office that would focus on environmental issues.

The altered ad was visually and textually dishonest. McCormick had never even mentioned gas stoves, and has made it clear that she’s concerned with weightier matters–like women’s reproductive rights. But that accusation was clearly intended to buttress the case for her “unacceptable liberalism.”

What is truly notable about that bit of egregious dishonesty is the obvious assumption that voters will agree with its premise: the only Americans who take climate change seriously are “far Left”–  that people who care about the environment are by definition “too liberal” for public office.

According to Indiana’s GOP, basic scientific literacy–not to mention common sense–is disqualifying. 

I don’t understand when climate change became a culture war issue. I don’t understand people who dismiss knowledge and expertise as some sort of phony elitism. And I really don’t understand how anyone even remotely aware of Hurricanes Helene and Norman can continue to ignore the evidence of their senses.

The Republicans’ rejection of fact, science and evidence does explain the party’s animosity toward education, and GOP support for the vouchers that encourage parents to send their children to schools that will “protect” them from “theories” like evolution and climate change.

It’s just another example of Republicans’ rejection of reality. Hoosiers need to vote Blue.

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Why And How Women MUST Vote In November

As some Indiana readers of this blog probably know, one of my volunteer activities is with a relatively new organization, Women 4 Change Indiana. The organization was founded in the wake of the 2016 election that put a mentally-ill, racist misogynist in the Oval Office. It works to improve Hoosier governance, opposing gerrymandering, engaging in a variety of civic education efforts, and–in the weeks and days leading up to elections–to get out the vote.

Recently, I was tasked with producing brief–but hopefully compelling–messages about the importance of women’s votes. Women 4 Change highlights those reasons on its website, and (in case you’ve missed them) I’ve compiled them below.

For women, especially, the upcoming election is about one over-riding issue: what is—and isn’t– government’s business? The Dobbs decision did more than allow legislatures to eliminate women’s reproductive rights; it challenged the longstanding constitutional doctrine that there are certain things individual citizens get to decide for ourselves. That doctrine—called “substantive due process” or “the right to privacy” prevents government from making decisions that should be left up to the individual: what you read, who you marry, whether, when and to whom you pray, what political opinions you hold. In answer to the question “who decides?” the current Supreme Court says “government.”

In the upcoming election, women especially need to vote for candidates who will support the return of America’s traditional, non-partisan judiciary. When ideological or corrupt judges are on the bench, women and minorities suffer, and the public loses respect for the legal system and the rule of law.

Since polling shows that large majorities of Americans—especially women– care about gun violence, women should take care to explore candidates’ positions on guns and gun ownership. What do the candidates say about the “right” to own and carry assault weapons? Do they support “red flag” laws that keep guns out of the hands of dangerous individuals and perpetrators of domestic violence? Do they oppose reasonable background checks?

Americans are already experiencing the effects of a warming planet. Women who worry about the livability of the world we’re leaving to our children and grandchildren need to vote for candidates who support government’s efforts to combat climate change, and need to oppose candidates who are trying to slow the transition from fossil fuels to clean energy.

In order to leave our children and grandchildren a better world, women need to withhold support for candidates giving aid and comfort to racism, anti-Semitism, misogyny, homophobia and all the other “isms”–the bigotries that divide Americans into armies of “us” and “them.” Real Americans understand that people should be evaluated on the basis of their behavior, not on the basis of their gender, religion, sexuality or skin color. (When I sent this particular part of the text to the organization, I suggested additional language to the effect that every group is a mixture of good people and assholes, but for some reason, they didn’t include that language…)

Mothers and fathers both have important stakes in the operation of their public school systems—especially in maintaining and protecting the professionalism of teachers and librarians. Women are disproportionately harmed when religious fundamentalists take control of school boards and libraries, because the books that are censored when that occurs are most often those that portray “non-traditional” families in a positive light, but everyone is harmed when teachers are told what they can and cannot teach, and the entire student body is prevented from accessing library books that may offend some citizens.

Quite obviously, these reasons to vote also apply to men–at least the ones who aren’t terrified of living in a world they have to share with females, gay folks and people of color…

Women4Change is non-partisan, so the organization confines its messaging to pleas to turn out– exhortations to vote for the candidates of one’s choice. This blog  most definitely does not operate under that constraint. Every one of the above reasons is a reason to vote Democratic. The Grand Old Party I once worked for has disappeared, and the cult that has replaced it is wrong on every single one of these issues–and plenty of other issues as well.

I’ve given up trying to understand the people who look at today’s Republican candidates– in thrall to a narcissistic ignoramus and his legions of bigots who want to return us to the 1950s — and say “Yep, those are my guys!” I only know that those of us who haven’t drunk the Kool Aid need to vote–and we need to drag our sane friends and relatives to the polls with us.

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Now For Something Different

I spend a lot of time on this blog bemoaning the negatives–and there are certainly plenty of negatives to bemoan and warnings that really must be issued and heeded. But it is also the case that–along with the seeming avalanche of threats and reminders of our collective deficits, many good things are occurring.

I get a weekly newsletter titled “Good News for Humankind,” which helps me balance out all the Bad News for Humankind. (I think the actual title is Spark of Genius, and I don’t have a link–but I assume a Google search will lead to a subscription opportunity.)

The most recent newsletter reported the following items:

Nepal has now become the first country in South Asia to recognize a same-sex marriage,  after issuing a formal recognition of a marriage from 1997.

The U.S., Czech Republic, Cyprus, Dominican Republic, Iceland, Kosovo and Norway all formally joined the Powering Past Coal Alliance. The Alliance was launched in 2017 by the U.K. and Canada. The new members have committed to not developing new unabated coal power plants and to phasing out existing unabated coal plants. I hadn’t previously encountered the term “unabated” in this context; according to Dr. Google, it means “the use of coal, oil and gas without substantial efforts to reduce the emissions produced throughout their life cycle.”

In other good news for the environment, a court of appeals in Brussels ordered Belgium to cut its planet-heating pollution by at least 55% from 1990 levels by 2030. Evidently, as of 2021, Belgium had cut its emissions by a bare 24%. The court rejected government arguments that minimized the importance of the country’s efforts, arguing that Belgium’s impact on the climate crisis was limited by its small size.

More good news for the environment–and for drivers–comes from a very promising experiment in Detroit. Detroit became first city in the United States to install a wireless-charging roadway. The experiment will begin with the use of a Ford E-Transit fitted with a receiver to gather data; that is part of a five-year pilot project intended to perfect the technology “in real-world settings” and to study its potential for public transport applications. The report said that there are also plans to open the electric road system to the public within the next few years.

Other “good news” items:

Massachusetts became the fifth state  to make prison calls free.

“Ensuring that individuals in state and county prisons can keep in contact with their loved ones is key to enhancing rehabilitation, reducing recidivism, and improving community safety,” Governor Healey said in a written statement.

There are also positive stories from the Good News Network. A small sample of items having an environmental impact:

In the Bay Area of California, home of San Francisco, San Jose, Santa Clara County, and Silicon Valley a famous Pacific resident is heading home for the holidays—up newly-cleaned creeks to spawn.

Who could have thought that the cradle of 21st-century civilization, with its problems and advancements, would have space for wild river ecosystems capable of supporting salmon runs?

But here they are, reports KTVU, as large as 30 pounds, as long as 35 inches, running up the Guadalupe River Watershed by the hundreds.

Google may be defending against anti-trust accusations, but the company with a former “do no evil” motto is also doing good.

An advanced geothermal project funded and developed by Google has begun pumping carbon-free electricity onto the Nevada grid to power the company’s data centers there.

Geothermal energy was once confined in theory to areas of geothermal activity, but if one drills deep enough, there’s extreme heat from the planet’s core essentially everywhere to be harnessed to make steam and drive turbines to create carbon-free electricity 24 hours a day when the wind isn’t blowing and the sun isn’t shining.

For this reason, Google made an early bet on this enhanced geothermal technology, and partnered with the Utah-based Fervo Energy, which uses drilling techniques from the oil and gas industry to create a first-of-its-kind power plant in Nevada.

GNN reported that initial tests in July showed that the technology was working, in which the hypothesized 3.5 megawatts were indeed being delivered.

When I am particularly depressed by political turmoil and climate change, I try to remember that there are thousands of people around the globe who are working to understand and hopefully solve our most pressing problems. We owe them not only our gratitude, but our own efforts to improve our political and natural environment–beginning with our votes for sane lawmakers next November.

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