Sunday Roundup December 28, 2014 - Closing Time

"There is no way to peace. Peace is the way."

- A.J. Muste

This is the last post at The Left Bank Café.  For those of you who've stopped by over the years, thank you.

I started this blog in November 2010 - outraged at the distortions of truth and at the right-wing propaganda that led to the Republican victories that year. Since the blog's inception, I've tried to separate fiction from fact in the events of the day and, from time to time, to share my thoughts and passions on non-political topics.

Three hundred posts and four years later, it's now closing time at The Left Bank Café.  

Here are some thoughts, inspirations and sentiments that have informed this blog.

The universe is a wondrous, vast place.  The Earth is home to the only known intelligent life in that universe.  This is an awesome responsibility.  As the Native American proverb has it: "Treat the earth well.  It was not given to you by your parents.  It was loaned to you by your children."

The peoples of the world are our brothers and sisters.  The children of the world are our children.  Let's always remember that.  "I wonder how foreign policies would look if we thought of all children everywhere as our own. Then we could never wage war anywhere, because wars, especially in our time, are always wars against children, indeed our children." - Howard Zinn, A People's History of the United States

Government has a responsibility to develop just policies and provide for the common good. Given the complexity and scale of today's issues, government plays a vital and necessary role. To say that the richest nation on Earth cannot afford the common good, that it cannot provide for the vulnerable in our society, is a lie.

Racism, militarism, and all forms of oppression must be protested and resisted at every turn. Pacifist and activist A.J. Muste spoke of a "revolutionary pacifism" that confronts the injustice that lays at the heart of wars: "We cannot have peace if we are only concerned with peace. War is not an accident. It is the logical outcome of a certain way of life. If we want to attack war, we have to attack that way of life."  A pacifist, Muste was, of course, speaking figuratively.  Without justice, there is no true peace.  We must address, resist, and correct the causes of injustice built into the system.

Violence and force of arms are the easy but soul-damaging means to achieve certain ends. Diplomacy is more difficult but, in the end, produces more lasting and more satisfying results.

The distorted "exceptionalism" that places our nation above international law and in violation of our own democratic principles is a repudiation of our values. Our country, if it chooses, can play an "exceptional" role in making the world a better place. What nation is better equipped to address the poverty, disease, and hunger that plague so many?

The American experiment in democracy is in danger - not from any external threat or from foreign terrorists but from within. Racism, militarism, and a distorted concept of American exceptionalism pose, each in its own way, a threat to America's highest ideals. Political spending, given corporate "personhood" and an unlimited ability to influence elections by the Supreme Court, provides an amplifier for the voices of the powerful while muting the voices of the less advantaged. Special interest groups influence domestic laws as well as foreign policy. Legislation for the common good is blocked by right-wing extremists. Laws protecting the rights of all are dismantled by an ideological judiciary, and the essential right of democracy, the right to vote, has been subverted. Such is the state of affairs and such is the degree of disillusionment that, in our last elections, two out of three voters chose not to exercise their most basic democratic right.

Until money is removed from the political system, until the concept of the Other is banished, and until, in the words of President Kennedy, "the conscientious objector enjoys the same reputation and prestige that the warrior does today", inequality, injustice and war will be with us. That should not stop us from trying or caring or working for peace and justice. We need to take our victories when and where we can.

As the outlook for action at the national level becomes bleak, activism and initiatives at the state and community levels become necessary. Already we are seeing the effect of some of the successful state ballot initiatives from the November 4 elections.  For example, just two days after a successful California ballot initiative reclassified some non-violent offenses from felonies to misdemeanors, people were being released from detention.

Where do we go from here?  There is now a website that contains references and resources for the topics covered in the blog - where to go for further information, if you want to become active in an area, etc. The website also has The Left Bank Café posts indexed by topic, which I hope will be helpful.  I'll periodically update the website as new information becomes available. The address of the website is https://sites.google.com/site/leftbankresources/ .

Peace.

(The most recent update of The Left Bank website was on January 19, 2018.For more recent news, comments, and articles please visit the What in the World? website.) 

Environmental Developments

The much-publicized but little-watched Senate "all-nighter" to raise awareness on the environment has come and gone.  Let's face it.  No non-local election is going to be decided on a candidate's position on global warming or any other environmental issue.  But elections definitely are decided by money, and, as reported in the New York Times on Monday, "Among the biggest recent changes is the injection of hundreds of millions of dollars to support candidates who make climate change a priority. The California hedge fund billionaire Tom Steyer has pledged to spend up to $100 million in this year’s midterm elections to help elect candidates who support strengthened climate policy." 

So in preparation for Earth Day, here are some environmental actions, study results, and recommendations from the last six months or so. 

• In September, the United Nations Commission on Trade and Development issued a report on the link between climate change and food security, "Trade and Environment Review 2013: Wake Up Before It's Too Late".  "The report links global security and escalating conflicts with the urgent need to transform agriculture toward what it calls “ecological intensification" and concludes that what is needed is "a rapid and significant shift from conventional...industrial production toward ...sustainable, regenerative production systems that also considerably improve the productivity of small-scale farmers.” [Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy blog, Sep 20]
• Stymied by a Republican-controlled House and -filibustered Senate, President Obama promised, in his State of the Union address, executive actions on the environment and other issues. A week prior to the SOTU, Colorado State's Center for the New Energy Economy listed over 200 executive actions for his consideration.  Among the items suggested by the report are energy-saving performance contracts (ESPCs) for greener federal buildings, new efficiency standards for appliances, tougher greenhouse gas emissions standards for power plants, increased oversight of "fracking", and offering incentives for companies and individuals to bring new energy ideas to the market.  [New Republic, January 21]
• Some executive actions already in place include ordering "the development of tough new fuel standards for the nation’s fleet of heavy-duty trucks,... creation of seven regional 'climate hubs' to help farmers adapt to the impact of climate change, like drought and increased pests,...E.P.A... rules requiring automakers to double average fleet economy standards for passenger cars to 50.4 miles per gallon by 2025,... new rules cutting carbon pollution from future coal-fired power plants, a move that has effectively frozen construction of new coal plants." [New York Times, Feb.18]
• Apple CEO Tim Cook was questioned at a shareholders meeting by a spokesman for the conservative National Center for Public Policy Research on Apple's declared intent to use renewable energy sources for 100 percent of its buildings.  Brian Chaffin writes at The MacObserver website about the exchange: "In an emotional response to the National Center for Public Policy Research (NCPPR), Apple CEO Tim Cook soundly rejected the politics of the group and suggested it stop investing in Apple if it doesn't like his approach to sustainability and other issues....What ensued was the only time I can recall seeing Tim Cook angry, and he categorically rejected the worldview behind the NCPPR's advocacy. He said that there are many things Apple does because they are right and just, and that a return on investment (ROI) was not the primary consideration on such issues.  'When we work on making our devices accessible by the blind,' he said, 'I don't consider the bloody ROI.'  He said the same thing about environmental issues, worker safety, and other areas where Apple is a leader."

• Mother Jones in a Climate Desk collaboration with The Guardian reported on an Oxford University study "enlisting citizen researchers to help study the role of global warming in the United Kingdom’s record-breaking wet winter."  The study "will determine in the next month or so whether global warming made this winter's extreme deluge more likely to occur, or not....The weather@home project allows you to donate your spare computer time in return for helping turn speculation over the role of climate change in extreme weather into statistical fact."  The so-called "attribution debate" has been reignited by the devastating winter weather and the flooding and storm damage it wrought...The research that links global warming to particular extreme weather events...has already notched up notable successes." The Oxford team has previously proven the case for the 2000 flooding in England, the killer heat waves in Europe in 2003 and 2010, and Hurricane Katrina.

Images
Earth from Space is from NASA.
Car driving through floodwater on the Somerset Levels appeared in The Guardian.  Photograph: Matt Cardy/Getty Images

Yup...it's still warming

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Quote of the Day

“We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors; we borrow it from our children”
― Chief Seattle



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Semi-relevant intro: The extremists who control the Republican Party have forced a government shutdown over the Affordable Care Act, which, incidentally, is the law of the land upheld by the Supreme Court of the United States.  How long the Tea Party shutdown will continue and how much damage it will do is anybody's guess.  By now, we are all tired of the relentless distortions and fear-mongering around the Affordable Care Act, aka "Obamacare".  (The Huffington Post has a slide show list of the thirteen worst lies and distortions about "Obamacare" if you are interested in refuting the know-nothings and liars.)  Moving on then, maybe we should turn our attention to another area of right-wing and special interest misinformation - climate change.  Last week's release of the fifth Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report provides stronger evidence than ever that human activity is seriously impacting global warming.

The right-wing has not been nearly as successful in shaking people's understanding of human-induced climate change.  An April 2013 Gallup poll indicated 62% preferred the statement "most scientists believe that global warming is occurring," while just 28% preferred "most scientists believe that global warming is not occurring."  Nevertheless, in spite of all the data, the climate change deniers and their allies in the media and Congress are keeping up the attack.  Perhaps the most egregious recent example is one noted by the Director of Penn State's Earth System Science Center, Michael Mann.  In a Huffington Post September 27 post, Mann notes that, prior to the release of this most recent report from the IPCC,  "Fox News even sought to mislead its viewers with a bait and switch, focusing attention instead on a deceptive, similarly named report that calls itself the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC), which simply regurgitates standard shopworn denialist myths and erroneous talking points."

Photos: Mother Jones Article: "This is What Global Warming Looks Like".  The photos were taken just 2 years apart.

Compiled from data obtained by hundreds of scientists, authored by dozens of climate change experts and based on improved global climate system models, the real IPCC report presents a sobering picture of global warming and its impacts.  Here are a few key ones:

•  "Warming of the climate system is unequivocal, and since the 1950s, many of the observed changes are unprecedented over decades to millennia."  
• "Human influence on the climate system is clear..." [and] "has been detected in warming of the atmosphere and the ocean, in changes in the global water cycle, in reductions in snow and ice, in global mean sea level rise, and in changes in some climate extremes."
• By the end of the century, global surface temperature change is predicted to exceed the 1.5 degree Centigrade maximum target in all but one of the studied scenarios.  (1.5 degree Cent. is the maximum temperature rise vs. the period from 1850-1900, above which serious effects will be experienced globally.)
• "The rate of sea level rise since the mid-19th century has been larger than the mean rate during the previous two millennia. Over the period 1901–2010, global mean sea level rose by 0.19 ... meters." Global mean sea level will continue to rise during the 21st century.  Under all scenarios the rate of sea level rise will "very likely exceed that observed during 1971–2010" due to increased ocean warming and increased loss of mass from glaciers and ice sheets.
• "Continued emissions of greenhouse gases will cause further warming and changes in all components of the climate system. Limiting climate change will require substantial and sustained reductions of greenhouse gas emissions."
• "Cumulative emissions of CO2 largely determine global mean surface warming by the late 21st century and beyond.  Most aspects of climate change will persist for many centuries even if emissions of CO2 are stopped. This represents a substantial multi-century climate change commitment created by past, present and future emissions of CO2."

Because of the improved computer models and data since their last report in 2007, the IPCC's conclusions are stated with more confidence than ever.  Climate change will continue just like Obamacare whether Republicans deny it to or not.

Whether the world's nations will find the political will to reduce greenhouse gas emissions enough to reduce the effects of global warming is debatable.  Failing that, plans need to be made and actions taken to develop the infrastructure (dikes, sea walls, water removal pumping systems, etc.) that could protect low lying cities and coastlines.  Attacking the problem from another direction, NGO's and non-profits are developing projects that increase the "carbon sinks" available (simplest example I can think of is planting a tree).

 
The GlobalFloodMap.org website has an interactive map that shows the extent of flooding for a given rise in sea level.  I plugged in 18", a reasonable estimate based on the IPCC report.  More than 40 million people live in the areas that would be flooded.

An existentialist philosopher (not sure who) was considering how to judge the morality of an act.  To paraphrase him: "Act as if everyone in the world acted as you."  In other words if everyone did as you do, what would be the effect?  So, what can we do as individuals besides petition our governments to do the right thing or contribute to effective NGO projects? Reducing our individual and household carbon footprints would be one place to start.  There are a number of websites that allow you to estimate your carbon footprint and the impact of various changes in lifestyle. (Links to a few of these carbon footprint calculators are given below.)  And there are many webpages that list some actions that you can take.  Here are a few.
COTAP.org lists "14+ ways to your carbon footprint"
This New York Times article has suggestions for saving energy in the home
CarbonFund.org "ways to reduce your carbon footprint - also has a section on carbon offsetting

Note: I've not researched any of the NGO's or non-profits mentioned or linked in this post for effectiveness and/or administrative costs.  They were selected solely on the usefulness of their information.

Carbon Footprint Calculators
The Nature Conservancy's Carbon Calculator
U Cal at Berkeley Calculator (Cool Climate Network)
US DOE Calculator for Electric Cars and Hybrids - neat tool -  savings are significant but the tool is a good reminder that much of our electricity is from fossil fuels - some of which (e.g., coal) are more CO2-producing than gasoline



Highlighted IPCC 2013 report comments extracted from the "Summary for Policymakers"
1. Warming of the climate system is unequivocal, and since the 1950s, many of the observed

changes are unprecedented over decades to millennia. The atmosphere and ocean have warmed,

the amounts of snow and ice have diminished, sea level has risen, and the concentrations of

greenhouse gases have increased.
2. Each of the last three decades has been successively warmer at the Earth’s surface than any preceding decade since 1850.  In the Northern Hemisphere, 1983–2012 was likely the warmest 30-year period of the last 1400 years.
3. Ocean warming dominates the increase in energy stored in the climate system, accounting for more than 90% of the energy accumulated between 1971 and 2010. It is virtually certain that the upper ocean (0−700 m) warmed from 1971 to 2010, and it likely warmed between the 1870s and 1971.
4. Over the last two decades, the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets have been losing mass, glaciers have continued to shrink almost worldwide, and Arctic sea ice and Northern Hemisphere spring snow cover have continued to decrease in extent.
5. The rate of sea level rise since the mid-19th century has been larger than the mean rate during the previous two millennia. Over the period 1901–2010, global mean sea level rose by 0.19 [0.17 to 0.21] meters.
6. The atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide (CO2), methane, and nitrous oxide have increased to levels unprecedented in at least the last 800,000 years. CO2 concentrations have increased by 40% since pre-industrial times, primarily from fossil fuel emissions and secondarily from net land use change emissions. The ocean has absorbed about 30% of the emitted anthropogenic carbon dioxide, causing ocean acidification.
7. Natural and anthropogenic substances and processes that alter the Earth's energy budget are drivers of climate change. Radiative forcing (RF) quantifies the change in energy fluxes caused
by changes in these drivers for 2011 relative to 1750. Positive RF leads to surface warming, negative RF leads to surface cooling. Total radiative forcing is positive, and has led to an uptake of energy by the climate system. The largest contribution to total radiative forcing is caused by the increase in the atmospheric concentration of CO2 since 1750.
8. Human influence on the climate system is clear. This is evident from the increasing greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere, positive radiative forcing, observed warming, and understanding of the climate system.
9. Climate models have improved since the AR4 [the last IPCC report]. Models reproduce observed continental-scale surface temperature patterns and trends over many decades, including the more rapid warming since the mid-20th century and the cooling immediately following large volcanic eruptions. Observational and model studies of temperature change, climate feedbacks and changes in the Earth’s energy budget together provide confidence in the magnitude of global warming in response to past and future forcing.
10. Human influence has been detected in warming of the atmosphere and the ocean, in changes in the global water cycle, in reductions in snow and ice, in global mean sea level rise, and in changes in some climate extremes.  This evidence for human influence has grown since AR4. It is extremely likely that human influence has been the dominant cause of the observed warming since the mid-20th century.
11.  Continued emissions of greenhouse gases will cause further warming and changes in all components of the climate system. Limiting climate change will require substantial and sustained reductions of greenhouse gas emissions.
12. Global surface temperature change for the end of the 21st century is likely to exceed 1.5°C relative to 1850 to 1900 for all [climate change] scenarios except one. It is likely to exceed 2°C for [two climate change scenarios] and more likely than not to exceed 2°C for [one additional scenario]. Warming will continue beyond 2100 under all RCP scenarios except [one]. Warming will continue to exhibit interannual-to-decadal variability and will not be regionally uniform,
13. Changes in the global water cycle in response to the warming over the 21st century will not be uniform. The contrast in precipitation between wet and dry regions and between wet and dry seasons will increase, although there may be regional exceptions.
14. The global ocean will continue to warm during the 21st century. Heat will penetrate from the surface to the deep ocean and affect ocean circulation.
15. Global mean sea level will continue to rise during the 21st century.  Under all scenarios the rate of sea level rise will very likely exceed that observed during 1971–2010 due to increased ocean warming and increased loss of mass from glaciers and ice sheets.
16. Climate change will affect carbon cycle processes in a way that will exacerbate the increase of CO2 in the atmosphere (high confidence). Further uptake of carbon by the ocean will increase ocean acidification.
17.  Cumulative emissions of CO2 largely determine global mean surface warming by the late 21st century and beyond.  Most aspects of climate change will persist for many centuries even if emissions of CO2 are stopped. This represents a substantial multi-century climate change commitment created by past, present and future emissions of CO2.






 
 

 

 

 

 

 



Past the Point of No Return

Climate change deniers are put on official notice.  Stating that greenhouse gas emissions had increased by 20% since 2000, a recent United Nations report indicated that it was unlikely that the goal of stalling global warming at the 2 degree Celsius level by 2020 could be met.  The temperature rise is more likely to be 3 to 5 degrees Celsius by the end of this century.  "So what?" you say - what's a degree or two more?  Well, the significance is that once above the 2 degree Celsius level, the projected costs for dealing with climate change escalate dramatically. 

After our own recent bout with climate change effects (aka Hurricane Sandy), the United States perhaps will awaken to become a leader in halting this doomsday march.  More than 110 deaths and an estimated $50 billion damage have been attributed to the storm that ransacked the East Coast in late October.  Sandy was dubbed a megastorm but it may soon become the norm.  Strong storms such as Sandy and higher level hurricanes will become more and more common because of the increasing global warming. 

Although China has now overtaken the United States in terms of total energy consumption, the United States remains the leading per capita energy consumer with neighbor Canada right behind.  Canada and the United States both are consuming energy at a rate over 8 tons oil equivalent (TOE) per person.  For comparison, other developed nations are generally in the range of 3 (Italy) to 6 (Finland) TOE per person.  China is below 2.   

A major UN climate change conference starts next week in Qatar.  Expect the conferrees to stress the need for drastic reductions in fossil fuels consumption and the development of alternate forms of energy.  Based on their current assessment, one would hope that they also start focusing on engineering solutions to minimize the damage that will surely come.

All of this will take money as well as cooperation among nations.  The time for narrow-minded nationalism and know nothing/do nothing attitudes is over.  The time to invest in the future of the planet, in sustainable energy and infrastructure, is now.

What can I do?
The web is filled with pages on energy conservation and stopping global warming at the personal level.  Here are three of them.
Global Warming Facts: 50 Tips
Power Scorecard: Twenty Things to Conserve Energy   
NRDC: How to Reduce Energy Consumption (This is a link to "Easy Energy Saving Habits".  On that page you will find links to Simple Household Tools and Gadgets, Long Term Efficiency and  Further Resources.)

Article- Related Links
Huffington Post Nov 23 Article
Common Dreams Nov 21 Post
Per Capita Energy Use
Total Energy Use

Rio + 20

Twenty years ago, the United Nations held a major conference in Rio de Janeiro to address various ecological and development issues - among them, global climate change, alternatives to fossil fuels, the development of public transportation and the growing scarcity of water.  Several framework documents came from this "Earth Summit".  The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change led directly to the Kyoto Protocol of 1997.  Another was the Rio Declaration on Environment and Development which proposed 27 principles to guide sustainable development through the coming decades.

While most are familiar with the Kyoto Protocol (and the United States' shameful non-signatory status), the principles of the Rio Declaration are more general and not as well known.  Two of the key principles from the 1992 Earth Summit are: Principle 1 ("Human beings are at the centre of concern for sustainable development. They are entitled to a healthy and productive life in harmony with nature.") and Principle 25 ("Peace, development and environmental protection are interdependent and indivisible.") 

The "Rio + 20" conference on sustainable development will be held in Rio de Janeiro from June 20 to June 22.  Whether this Rio conference will have more success than the first on changing the behavior of nations is debatable.  The UN recently assessed progress on 90 of the most important environmental goals.  The bleak results: just 4 of the goals showed "significant progress" (the ozone layer, the removal of lead from fuel, increasing access to improved water supplies, and boosting research to reduce pollution of the marine environment.)  Little or no progress was detected for 24 of the goals.  This "little/no progress" list included climate change. 

Put that assessment beside a study reported in the June 6 issue of Nature.   The study warned that we are approaching a climatic tipping point with irreversible consequences.  As summarized in a blog by Beth Buczynski:  "The researchers say a combination of variables are forcing the planet toward irreversible biological changes, including exploding global population, rapidly rising temperatures and the clearance of more than 40 percent of Earth’s surface for urban development or agriculture. They also warn that ignoring these changes, and our role in fast-tracking them, is a dangerous gamble."

This is what is at stake and this is Rio + 20's challenge.  Hopefully the climate change deniers, the "drill-baby-drillers" and the bright lights such as those North Carolina legislators that are proposing legislation to tell scientists how to perform science will some day get the message before it really is too late. 

Earth Day

"Treat the earth well.  It was not given to you by your parents.  It was loaned to you by your children."

Native American proverb

Ever since mankind first orbited our planet more than 50 years ago, "Spaceship Earth" has been a popular image.  Viewed from the near reaches of space, the Earth is seen as the oasis that it is - fragile, life-supporting, an integrated whole without boundaries or divisions.  In all of the 6 trillion trillion square miles of the solar system, it is the only place intelligent life has ever evolved.

It wasn't long after the first manned moon landing that 20 million Americans took to the streets on the first Earth Day - April 22,1970.   Coming at the end of the turbulent '60's, Earth Day was the brain child of Wisconsin Senator Gaylord Nelson.  After witnessing the damage done by the 1969 Santa Barbara oil spill, Nelson announced his idea of a national "teach-in" on the environment.  Inspired by the student anti-war movement, he realized that if he could infuse that energy with an emerging public consciousness about air and water pollution, the enviroment could become part of the national political agenda.  (The Earth Day Network website has a great clip on the NBC news report of the first Earth Day.)

Earth Day went global in 1990 and remains as relevant as ever today.  Climate-change deniers and environmental-regulation reversers are out in full force.  The ongoing economic crisis has shunted environmental concerns to a lonely siding. 

As species die out and rain forests are cleared and glaciers melt, we should consider what kind of planet we are returning to our children and grandchildren.  Will they work and play pollution- and toxin-free in a sustainable world filled with natural wonders and free of all phony divisions?  I hope so.  I hope we find the political will to make it so. 

By mid-century, the world's human population will reach 9 billion souls - four times what it was a century before.  Without some amazing technological breakthroughs, market-driven capitalism dependent on non-sustainable growth simply will not work.  A new model is needed - perhaps that of "Spaceship Earth".