Irene Update: Early Saturday

Not much has changed since Friday afternoon.  Irene has weakened (this photo was taken from space before the eye deteriorated) and it is expected to make first landfall in North Carolina as a weak category 2 or strong category 1 hurricane.  But Dr. Jeff Masters notes that this is deceptive because " Irene is such a huge storm--tropical storm force winds extend out up to 290 miles from the center--it has set a massive amount of the ocean's surface in motion, which will cause a much larger storm surge than the winds would suggest..." 

On Friday afternoon the potential storm surge damage was still rated at what "a typical Category 4 hurricane would have."  Though the storm will likely weaken further as it moves up the coast, storm surge will still be higher than the wind speed would usually indicate.  There is an additional factor: tides will be especially high anyway on Saturday night and Sunday morning due to the new moon.  Masters writes: " I continue to give a 20% chance that a 3 - 4 foot storm surge high enough to over-top the Manhattan flood walls and swamp the New York City subway system will occur on Sunday."

What noone knows is what the duration of the winds will mean. Because of the storm's size, some places will get high winds for 12 to 24 hours straight.  Given the population increase, difference in the built environment, etc. since the last big storms on the Atlantic coast, and given the hugeness and eccentric internal behavior of this storm, nobody really knows what the effect on tides, rivers, buildings, infrastructure (especially electricity) etc. will be.  And then there are the nuclear power plants.  

Fortunately both officials and the general population are taking this storm seriously. President Obama will be monitoring events from the White House. Evacuations and precautions and emergency efforts (see previous post) should help everyone get through this.   

What Matters

The good news concerning Hurricane Irene is that it is no longer a category 3, and is unlikely to intensify.  The bad news is that it is the size of Europe.  According to Dr. Jeff Masters' latest post, it is likely to make first landfall in North Carolina as a category 2, and decline to a category 1 by the time it reaches New England.  He expects flooding to be the major threat rather than wind damage.

Media coverage can't seem to be anything but excessive--either ignoring the storm or as now, filling the airwaves with simulations that make it seem that the storm damage is already a fact.

But the coverage is bringing home one important message: what matters.  What turns out to be important is the disaster planning and drills that hospitals, schools and municipalities have been working on.  Kim Kardashian's wedding does not matter. It never did. Disaster planning, the dedication of public employees, of nurses, police and fire, teachers and civil servants at all levels of government--they matter.  They always do. 

Irene Update: Early Friday

Early Friday from Weather Underground:

"Irene is forecast to make landfall on the North Carolina coast Saturday afternoon. It will likely be a Category 3 storm, with windspeeds around 115 mph. As Irene moves northwards through the mid-Atlantic region it will weaken considerably. On Sunday, Irene's center will pass through the Tri-State region of New Jersey, New York, and Connecticut, with impacts spread over a wider region due to Irene's size."

Note that landfall is not by any means the first effect.  Strong winds will start hitting North Carolina coast on Friday. The "weakening" also doesn't mean the threat of catastrophic effects is over.  Even a category 1 or tropical storm can cause considerable damage, especially with the amount of rain associated with this storm.  Flooding is a big worry. "Six to ten inches of rain are possible along Irene's track from the Carolinas northward, with 15 inches possible in isolated areas. As a result, flooding is very likely...The Hydrometeorological Prediction Center (HPC)... thinks that river flooding in eastern Pennsylvania and New Jersey is likely, while flooding along the rest of the northeastern US is possible."

Earlier Dr. Jeff Masters warned: "I am most concerned about the storm surge danger to North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, New Jersey, New York, and the rest of the New England coast. Irene is capable of inundating portions of the coast under 10 - 15 feet of water, to the highest storm surge depths ever recorded."

According to an early Friday morning story, CBS News hurricane consultant David Bernard says Irene could still strengthen to a category 4 before it hits North Carolina.  The CBS story quotes an official suggesting that the storm will likely cost billions in damages, enough to affect the U.S. economy.

As for the storm itself, "It is a massive storm - spanning as wide as 700 miles - with tropical-force winds extending almost twice as far as normal. Irene is about the same size as Katrina, which devastated New Orleans in 2005."  Although Katrina was a category 5 hurricane at its most intense, it was a category 3 when it hit New Orleans.

Murky as Tar

Update: This TPM story clarifies the situation better than anything on the enviro tar sand sites.

I just signed a petition urging President Obama to deny permission for the tar sands oil pipeline from Canada.  I've followed the issue cursorily, but the "game over" statement by James Hansen opened my eyes to the full import of the decision.  He feels it will release such a quantity of carbon that the future will be lost.

The President is expected to make the yes or no decision before the end of the year.  But opponents have been demonstrating in front of the White House this week, some inviting arrest.  Bill McKibben was one.  He spent 2 days in a D.C. jail.  He had about 15 seconds to say why as a guest of Chris Hayes on Thursday's Last Word, and he used it well.

However, I can't say the same for the associated web pages on this issue, such as this one.   Now I admit that I am behind the curve on new informational techniques that younger folk use, particularly the reliance on Facebook, Twitter and texting.  But I still think I'm right about the ineffectiveness of this site, which is crammed with insider information and so many arguments that it looks like the usual environmental advocacy technique of throwing charges against the wall to see which ones stick with various constituencies.

Contrast that with the simple, clear message conveyed by the Exxon ads in favor of tar sand oil exploitation, which in that good ol American way, happened to run on MSNBC within seconds of McKibben's appearance.

There is no simple, clear, compelling argument that hits the eyes of anyone going to this site.  There is no sense of what is of greatest importance about this.  It's all a bunch of acronyms and political social networking, plus access to a bewildering ton of information.  It's a site for activists--but where is the site for those not yet converted? 

Emergency

The new predicted track is in and it's the "worse." (See previous post.) Though Hurricane Irene failed to achieve category 4, after battering the Bahamas it has reconstituted as a strong category 3 and is headed up the eastern seaboard of the U.S.

Hardly a blip on the news last night when I posted, this is now the dominant story.  Why?  Well, the media centers of New York City and DC are threatened, but it's otherwise warranted as well: this storm could affect areas where 55 million Americans live, including 20 million in the New York City area, and 2 million on the New York/New Jersey shoreline alone.  In Manhattan, Ground Zero (the World Trade Center site) is particularly vulnerable.

Six states on or near the eastern coast have declared emergencies.  Mayor Bloomberg of NYC has ordered the evacuations of hospitals and nursing homes in low-lying areas, and will consider larger evacuation by Friday morning.  He suggests the city's subway system, pretty much a lifeline for New York, may shut down on Saturday.

As of Thursday afternoon, Irene was an "unusually large" storm, spread 250 miles in every direction.  As it moves up the U.S. coast it will cross the warmest waters ever recorded off New York and New Jersey.  "Irene's middle name is Global Warming," said Bill McKibben on MSNBC.

Right now the storm is tracking to begin affecting North Carolina on Friday, as a category 3 hurricane. It would reach Virginia and Washington late Friday and Saturday, possibly weakening to category 2.   Then it moves up the coast from Saturday to Sunday and Monday, expected to weaken as it goes but still a category 1 when it reaches New York/New Jersey.  But even if it is down to tropical storm force winds, the damage could still be considerable.

  The population areas it could affect dramatically include Washington,   Philadelphia, New York City and Long Island, and possibly Boston.  Storm surges could flood New York subways and airports.  Heavy rain and wind are also expected with this storm.  "We could be looking at mandatory evacuations up and down the East Coast," said a Weather Channel reporter.  Already, commercial air flights and scheduled trains are being cancelled.  The scheduled dedication of the Martin Luther King memorial in Washington has already been cancelled as well.

But amidst what could be a catastrophic storm, affecting these areas for days and weeks, GOPer House majority leader Eric Cant's office is insisting that no federal emergency aid be rendered unless offset by budget cuts.

Hurricane Irene Update: Dangerous and Potentially Historic Storm

CBS News meteorologist says that Hurricane Irene could be an "historic storm."  He calls the two more likely storm tracks "bad" and "worse."

He outlines those two scenarios:

"The bad scenario cuts the hurricane across Long Island and into New England as a large and strong Category 2 storm. This scenario brings tremendous storm surge on the back bays of Long Island and from the ocean. Massive power disruption and tremendous wind damage will result.

The worse scenario has the hurricane hug the coast all the way to New York City. This would bring tremendous storm surge and wind damage affecting everything from Maryland, right up to the Hudson Valley and across New England."

Earlier on Wednesday, Dr. Jeff Masters:

Irene continues to be embedded in a large envelope of moisture, and wind shear is expected to remain low to moderate, 5 - 20 knots, for the next three days. With water temperatures very warm, 28 - 30°C, these conditions should allow for intensification to a category 4 hurricane (winds of 131 to 155 mph). The only reliable model that's not forecasting this intensification is the GFS, and this is likely due to its relatively course spatial resolution. The National Hurricane Center expects Irene to intensify to a category 4 tomorrow, with a decrease in intensity back to a category 3 on Friday."

Emergency management officials in the eastern states, and particularly FEMA director Craig Fugate are on the job.  Residents are urged to be prepared for storm effects as well as aftereffects (loss of power, infrastructure damage, etc.)  Evacuations from the area of the U.S. coast expected to be hit first,  North Carolina Outer Banks, will be underway Thursday.  The Bahamas will bear the brunt on Thursday.  This storm has already caused flooding in Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic, and killed two people.

The Dreaming Up Daily Quote

"We know what we are, but know not what we may be."

Shakespeare

Photo: the endangered mountain gorilla, mother and child.

Shake and Blow

Update: Hurricane Irene reached category 3 strength overnight Tuesday and is holding a track that takes it up the U.S. East Coast. 

The East Coast got rattled by an earthquake on Tuesday, but that may turn out to just be the beginning of a bad week.

As resident of earthquake central, I both sympathize and roll my eyes (TPM has a nice running account of the inflated reaction.)  Quakes do shake you up, and they are all different--though I did hear descriptions that remind me of the only non-California quake I've experienced, when I was watching TV in a college student union in Illinois where I was visiting, and I felt somebody grab the back of my chair and pull it sharply back.  But noone was there.  And a second later, the TV announcement of a quake from the New Madrid fault, which I soon learned is a very big fault indeed.

Unlike CA where our quakes come largely from lots of plates rubbing, the eastern half of North America is all one big solid plate, and (as several seismologists put it) a quake there is like ringing a bell--it reverberates a long way.

But there were no reported injuries and so far not much damage.  Things might be different by next week, though.  Hurricane Irene is heading north over very warm waters.  Predicted to be a category 3 or higher at its height, its track could take it across the North Carolina Outer Banks and up to Washington and New York, and even New England.  Stay tuned.     

The Dreaming Up Daily Quote

“We don’t see things as they are. We see them as we are.”

Anais Nin

Emerson for the Day

"There are men whose language is strong and defying enough, yet their eyes and their actions ask leave of other men to live."

Emerson

"Moon" by Robert Davidson at Lattimer Gallery

This is Government

One of the many pleasures of Congress not being in session is that CSPAN gets to feature some interesting people those of us outside the Beltway might not otherwise see.  I caught part of this presentation by Craig Fugate, who President Obama appointed to head  FEMA.  He previously worked for Republican governor Crist of Florida.  He is one impressive guy.

In this year of nine disasters costing over a billion dollars in damage each, and certainly as we look to the immediate Climate Crisis future, the role of emergency management, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency is going to be very important.  If Fugage can truly transform FEMA in the way he describes, it's a godsend, not just for now but for that future (assuming somebody like ol' Heckava Job doesn't get the job.)

Fugate is updating the agency, not only in terms of technology and streamlining bureaucracy, but in attitude.  In an article about him from about a year ago, he said: "We need to change this methodology that the public are victims, and realize they're survivors and that they oftentimes will contribute to greater success if we incorporate them into the plans and remember who we're working for," he said. "We're working for survivors."

Since this statement, the Joplin tornado happened, and Fugate was there immediately.  What he found was that a quite recently developed emergency plan created locally was working smoothly.  It not only coordinated local resources but allowed for improvisations.  Knowing that people were relying almost entirely on cell phones they were carrying--but that their chargers might well have been lost along with their homes--a local casino raided its lost and found cache of rechargers and donated them to the Red Cross.

As Fugate recognizes and asserts, most rescues in the first hours after disaster are by neighbors looking out for their neighbors.  Some may call this the Golden Rule ethic, but I prefer to describe it with the common phrase, "you'd do the same for me."  It is one of the most important bases for all human society. Emergency management must recognize it and liberate it, must coordinate and manage it.

Fugate has instituted other reforms that sound like common sense, like making sure that resources for infants and old people are in the mix in every batch of emergency supplies.  But it took an incisive intelligence, skilled in the vocabulary of business as well as government bureauracy to make the case and get it done.  This guy is a real bright spot, and rekindles my hopes for this difficult future we're embarking on.

This, by the way, is government.  This is what government is about, and government also attracts people with the commitment and smarts of Fugate.   

GOPer Racism Roundup

GOPer pols are so overtly racist so much of the time that noting each instance is beyond a poor unpaid blogger's resources or patience.  But Senator Tom Coburn at a town hall on Thursday made a number of outrageous and near-crazed comments, including a classic of GOPer racism that appeals to their racist base with a characteristic line of argument: blacks like Obama get all the benefit from "dependency" on government programs.

This is a dog-whistle reminder that the black President must be channeling government billions to fellow blacks, which is the usually unstated substructure of the "anti-government" argument.  (I'm sure the White House didn't fail to notice that this emerged the same day as stories and statements saying that Obama hasn't done enough for black Americans, who are twice as likely to be unemployed as the population in general.)

 It's also behind the frequent charges that Obama is not up to the job, which more than implies that he got ahead not because of intelligence or hard work but because of Affirmative Action. 

But while we're at, in case you missed them here are a couple of other recent GOPer racism examples:  a GOPer member of Congress who referred to President Obama as a "tar baby," and a commentator referring to him as "boy" (although Pat Buchanan's analogy was unfortunate, it could well have been just insensitive to the language he was using.)  All of these are followed by apologies and offstage winks.

The Dreaming Up Daily Quote

Keep true to the dreams of thy youth.
Friedrich Schiller

photo: meteor shower from above by NASA astronaut Ron Garan from the International Space Station.

The Billion Dollar Disaster

Well, there wasn't just one Billion Dollar Disaster in America this year.  There were nine.

Nine weather-related disasters causing at least a billion dollars in damage, which ties the 30 year record established in 2008.  But with hurricane season and the first part of winter to go.

There were two billion dollar floods, five billion dollar tornadoes and a billion dollar blizzard.  And assorted thunderstorms tacked on another $20 billion, double the normal.  And we're just heading into the traditional thunderstorm season in the East. 

GOPer Gawk: Thursday Edition

Government spending--baaaad.  Federal government spending--oooooh so very baaaaddddd.  Why hell, everybody knows that, right Cowboy Rick?

Cowboy Rick is runnin for president because he knows how to create jobs.  Just look at all the jobs he created as governor in Texas.  Well, not too closely.  The unemployment rate there is higher than any of the neighboring states.  And it turns out that   Texas lost 178,000 private sector jobs between 2007 and 2010.  But it gained 125,000 public sector jobs.  That's primarily GOVERNMENT JOBS.  It's a mirror image of our current jobs situation nationally in that regard, for the private sector is creating jobs, but government is shedding jobs even faster, which largely accounts for the weak job creation numbers last month, for example.

So how did Texas do it?  Shoot, that's easy.  The Obama Recovery Act!  You know, the one that got ol' Cowboy Rick so riled up he threatened to secede from the Union?  Then he took billions from that socialist stim to shore up and expand state and local government, and there were lots of federal jobs, too. 

But hypocrisy isn't the only gold standard for the GOPers.  A study of TPers revealed what won't be news to readers of this blog: they are primarily Rabid Right, Christian Right white good ol' GOPers with deep suspicions of non-whites, and anybody not Rabid Christian Rightists.

Just what their agenda is--the agenda of Michele Blaughman and Cowboy Rick--is reportedly  a little something called Dominionism: "Put simply, Dominionism means that Christians have a God-given right to rule all earthly institutions. Originating among some of America’s most radical theocrats, it’s long had an influence on religious-right education and political organizing".

For believers in Dominionism, rule by non-Christians is a sort of sacrilege—which explains, in part, the theological fury that has accompanied the election of our last two Democratic presidents. “Christians have an obligation, a mandate, a commission, a holy responsibility to reclaim the land for Jesus Christ—to have dominion in civil structures, just as in every other aspect of life and godliness,” wrote George Grant, the former executive director of Coral Ridge Ministries, which has since changed its name to Truth in Action Ministries. “But it is dominion we are after. Not just a voice ... It is dominion we are after. Not just equal time ... World conquest.”

In case you're confused, dominion ain't about Canada.  According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary it means "supreme authority" and "absolute ownership."

Recent polls indicate that TPers are about the least popular political group in America, but then, nobody is very popular right now.  It's a very volatile moment.  Cowboy Rick is counting on that.  There was a brief flurry on Wednesday about Chris Christie getting into the race, though not a serious one.  But it tells you two things about GOPerville.  First, the Bush Gang really doesn't want Cowboy Rick to win the nomination.  Second, they are afraid he might.

Emerson for the Day

“Dreams and beasts are two keys by which we are to find out the secrets of our own nature.”

Emerson

photo: jaguar in Costa Rica, one of the recently released photos by Conservation International.  This jaguar is classified as near threatened.

On the Road Again

With a cloud of dust and a hearty hi-Beltway commentariat-yo mama, President Barack Obama took to the road again this week, starting in rural Minnesota and Iowa, and ending up today (Wednesday) in Illinois.

First of all, it is Escape from Debt Crisis Prison.  As E.J. Dionne correctly surmised, "Having done so, the White House now sounds liberated. Even a government shutdown would be a day in springtime compared with the economic Armageddon that default might have let loose. Obama has a margin for maneuver and action he didn’t have before."

Lest we forget, candidate Obama always said he was leading a movement.  At the crucial moment of the debt ceiling crisis, President Obama called for American voters to let Washington know they wanted a solution, and millions did.  This week he went back out there to ask them in person to help him gets a jobs agenda through Congress in September.

 Despite the grumbling from leftie pundits who work themselves into a lather by talking only to each other, he saw the opening: with members of Congress out of Washington, there was nobody else on the media stage.  Even if the commentariat is so much more interested in talking than listening, at least some of what he was saying might get through to audiences beyond the ones right in front of him.  (Although CNN had their faces analyzing what the President was saying while he was still saying it--after all, it is so much more important to promote your own personalities than to let the country see and hear their President.)

So I report to you from watching the C-Span videos of both recorded appearances on Monday, and his closing remarks at the Rural Economic Forum on Tuesday.  Some of the themes and languages had been tested in recent contexts that weren't even this well covered.  But others were fresh, and together these themes seemed remarkably polished and powerful.  America isn't broken, he said.  Government isn't broken.  Our politics are broken.  What we need now is for members of Congress particularly to put "country ahead of party."

Some of his more memorable lines were probably prepared, as when he took on the description of his healthcare package as Obamacare.  "I have no problem with folks saying 'Obama cares'," he told the crowd. "I do care."  Others were spontaneous, as when he declared, "  I make no apologies for being reasonable."

Progressives who could sit still and listen may have heard a lot they were clamoring to hear. In response to questions, he made a spirited defense of unions, and took on GOPers directly on the issue.  He declared "we're going to be monitoring voting rights all over the country while I'm President."  He defended government at every stop.  He had to start with noting that the debate too often was between those railing that government is bad and those insisting everything the government is doing is good.  "It's not either/or."  He defended education in very strong terms.

But most of all he talked about jobs.  He hammered away at his proposals already before Congress, including the infrastructure bank to get construction workers on the job to rebuild America's aging and failing infrastructure.  He promised to present a bigger agenda of economic incentives to Congress when it returns in September.  And nervous progressive take note--he also promised: "I will take my case to the American people that this is the vision to move America forward."

While pundits knowingly note that President Obama is riding his bus through states he needs to win in 2012, they've failed to note that there really arent' that many votes in the places he's going.  If this was purely political, he'd be in big cities.  But this is a deliberately rural tour, not just for the pretty pictures it produces, but because his administration has consistently bet on the role of rural America in the future.

At every stop, and particularly at the Rural Economic Forum on Tuesday, President Obama talked about the convergence of small business/rural America/the Internet/ clean energy.  The Internet provides small businesses with global reach, and so a bunch of stim money went to support bringing broadband and wireless technology to rural areas, where commercial outfits don't see the profit in doing it.  Rural areas, with lower costs, are prime for small businesses.  The wide open spaces are also perfect for large scale clean energy technologies, such as windpower farms and larger solar.  It's where the "bio" for biofuels is grown, and increasingly where it is turned into fuel--not just from corn either.  Small business with agricultural components are perfect for family farms, as is sustainable and organic agriculture that can be sold via the Internet.

(And speaking of biofuels, President Obama mentioned the U.S. military initiatives I mentioned in this recent post, that were either started or supported by his administration.  It's been getting noticed elsewhere as well.)

President Obama's roadtrip comes when last week's poll numbers look grim.  But watching him out there, I wouldn't bet against him.  There are other numbers much more significantly in his favor--like his 70% support for reelection among Democrats, about 15 points higher than Bill Clinton's towards the end of his first term.  The poll numbers for GOPers are much worse, and the TPers are fading fast.  He's sounding themes that resonate.  He talks about an America that is "big and bold and generous."

It is that America that he sees here, and on Tuesday he said why: Not only do I continue to have absolute confidence in you, but you’re what gives me strength. As I was driving down those little towns in my big bus -- (laughter) -- we slowed down, and I’m standing in the front and I’m waving, I’m seeing little kids with American flags, and grandparents in their lawn chairs, and folks outside a machine shop, and passing churches and cemeteries and corner stores and farms -- I’m reminded about why I wanted to get into public service in the first place.

Sometimes there are days in Washington that will drive you crazy. But getting out of Washington and meeting all of you, and seeing how hard you’re working, how creative you are, how resourceful you are, how determined you are, that just makes me that much more determined to serve you as best I can as President of the United States."

GOPer Gawk

The only way to view GOPer politics these days is with your mouth hanging open.  This stuff makes Barry Goldwater in 1964 look like a socialist, a real one.  But don't let the far far far far far far far far right cast of the remaining presidential candidates who are given any chance at the GOPer nomination for (gulp) President obscure what they really have in common: they are liars.  Maybe ideological liars or tactical liars or religious zealot liars or stragetic political liars.  But just about everything Boogieman, Wrongney or Cowboy Rick say of attempted significance is a lie.

Lying has been successful for GOPers, so why not?  G.W. Bush lied his way into the White House, and promptly abandoned his center-right "compassionate conservative," Climate Crisis affirming campaign statements for his centralized and militarized right wing agenda.  All those GOPers who won in 2010 on platforms of job creation haven't paid any attention to jobs, but a lot to stripping union rights, voting rights, women's right and minority rights, slashing support for education and the poor, and giving more tax breaks to their corporate and super-wealthy masters.

His first day out, Cowboy Rick tried to modify some of his most outrageous stands, but old habits die hard, and by calling the chairman of the Fed a traitor, he showed his true colors as well as getting the Bushies to show their cards.  He was immediately castigated by Karl Rove, who also desperately suggested that other candidates could still get into the GOPer race.  The Bushies aren't letting Texans bygones be gone.  Before Cowboy Rick gets to Washington, he's going to have to escape ambush by the Bush Gang first.

GOPers may seem hard to figure out, but I've got some suggestions for what their political calculations might be.  Obviously they're going after public sector unions to cut off funding for Democratic candidates, and they couldn't more obviously be going after minority voting rights because minorities vote Democratic (Scott Walker rammed through a law in Wisconsin that says voters must have drivers licences, and then he closed a bunch of places that issue drivers licenses--in minority areas.)

But they haven't written off minorities entirely.  There are fundamentalist Christian zealots in all races and nationalities, and in particular, homophobia remains to a greater extent in minority working classes.  By the way, cutting money for education, which GOPer governors are doing, has several political effects for them: corporations are called upon to take up the slack and they inject their own agendas along with their "help;" and they help keep people ignorant and out of college, which lessens the likelihood that they will choose to become Democrats.  When your strategy is lying, it's important that people not be likely to know the truth.             
    

The Dreaming Up Daily Quote

"For every poet it is always morning in the world. History is a forgotten, insomniac night; history and elemental awe are always our early beginning, because the fate of poetry is to fall in love with the world, in spite of history."

Derek Walcott

The Dreaming Up Daily Quote

"I am here to live out loud."

Emile Zola

Showerless

Hope you had better luck seeing the Perseid meteor shower Saturday night/Sunday morning.  All we got was the full moon and lots of luminous clouds.  Not that I've ever seen "a hundred an hour" in any meteor shower anywhere.  But maybe someday (night)...

Big Green

This U.S. military aircraft flies on 50% biofuels

The U.S. military is huge--it's annual budget is larger than all other discretionary spending put together.  So when the U.S. military does anything, it does it big.  And when the U.S. military changes anything, it is apt to have big effects.

  As a recent Sierra Club Magazine article noted, its energy use is huge, especially petroleum: "The Department of Defense uses more petroleum (and energy) than any other organization on the planet—$13 billion to $18 billion worth a year, depending on who does the math. That accounts for more than 80 percent of the federal government's energy tab."

But there are problems, apart from expense. Petroleum is heavy and must be transported over long distances.  That a particular problem in combat zones.  Here's a fact I'll bet you didn't know: half the U.S. casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan are suffered while guarding fuel convoys.

The majority of that fuel moreover isn't used for vehicles but for electrical power: for generators that are usually very noisy, and attract unwanted attention in the field.

So slowly but surely, the U.S. military--including the Air Force and the Navy--are going green, with lighter and quieter solar power, and with airplanes flying on biofuels and hybrid ships.

  In 2007, one out of every 24 fuel convoys in Afghanistan, and one out of 38 in Iraq, led to a military fatality, according to an Army study examining the link between casualties and energy. The 6,000 fuel convoys that year imposed such a huge cost in lives, manpower, and money that the Pentagon could no longer ignore it, Browning says. "We call them convoys, but we might as well call them targets," says James Valdes, an Army scientific adviser and designer of a prototype trash-to-energy system for combat zones. Adds Paul Skalny, director of the Army's National Automotive Center in Detroit, "This is the number that matters: For every 1 percent of fuel we don't have to burn, 6,444 fewer soldiers have to be involved in convoy operations. And those are sons and daughters and husbands and wives who get to go home to their families someday."  

In addition to mortality statistics are some grim budgetary realities. Getting fuel to combat troops in Afghanistan costs between $25 and $50 a gallon, and sometimes as much as $400. Even at the most peaceful outpost, it's never lower than $14 a gallon. Says Tom Hicks, the Navy's first deputy assistant secretary for energy (a post that didn't exist until last year): "We've realized that the best barrel of oil is the one we don't use."

So the Navy is embarked on building a "great green fleet."  These and other efforts sparked the suspicions of the Senator from Oil and consequent Climate Crisis denier, James Inhofe.  Apart from the Pentagon not having the luxury of denying reality (and so they take the Climate Crisis seriously), here's how Sierra explained the response:

 Just as President Barack Obama pushed renewables while avoiding the word "climate" in this year's State of the Union address, Mabus and other defense leaders downplay any connection between a sustainably powered military and fighting climate change. Sharon Burke, the new director of defense operational energy plans and programs—the closest thing to an energy czar that the Pentagon has ever had—used this strategy when confronted during her confirmation hearings last fall by climate-change doubter-in-chief Senator James Inhofe. Burke shrugged off his suggestion that she was making carbon reduction her priority, saying that her charge was to "improve the military's energy security" and make sure that the Pentagon factors in the true cost of energy for its equipment, purchases, and operations. But she acknowledged, "They are linked together. . . . If we do it right, that will be one of the results, cutting greenhouse-gas emissions. But that's not the role of this job."

What makes this a really significant story is the consequence of that first fact:  the U.S. military is really big.  Their growing commitment to green energy means a lot of money flowing into the clean energy economy, especially in research and development.  New biofuels, more efficient solar power transmission--the mind boggles at the possibilities.

Though it's hard to stomach, the truth is that historically, technological innovation and scientific discoveries have very, very often resulted from military funding, or the promise of it.  It goes back at least to Leonardo, and probably back a lot further than that.  So as odd as it might seem, this is one of the more hopeful stories of the year.

This Crisis Can't Be "Solved"

I don't know where this little audio clip is from, it sounds like a speakerphone, but it's clear Al has had enough of denialism and its cost.  It's going to sound hysterical to denialists but those who are equally frustrated with the pernicious effects of the heavy financed denialist campaign (carried out by the same people who ran the tobacco companies' campaign denying that smoking was bad for you, using the same methods--which is what Gore is talking about as this clip begins) can only identify with his anger.

Al Gore has done a lot to spotlight this crucial issue, and his Climate Reality Project kicks off in September.  He also did a lot to re-name this the Climate Crisis, which better communicates the urgency than the less than riveting "global warming," "greenhouse effect" or "climate change."  But he's also behind what I consider an unfortunate and inaccurate description of the task at hand.  He calls it "solving the Climate Crisis."  He started it, and even Bill McKibben has adopted it.  But it's wrong.

First of all, there's a category error.  You don't solve a crisis.  You address or confront a crisis.  You solve a problem.  This is more than just jarring to the ear.  It suggests that this crisis is just one problem.  It's much more than that.  Plus it suggests that it can be solved--that is, that it is a solution that will make it all go away.  There is no such solution.  There are problems responsible for the crisis that can be addressed, and some problems that can be solved.  But we are experiencing the Climate Crisis now, in its early stages.  We are going to be experiencing the acceleration of the Climate Crisis for years, and nothing will prevent it.  We must address the problems that arise because of it--the effects in the present and near future.  We must confront the worsening crisis in the farther future by solving the problems of how to maintain a civilization while radically reducing greenhouse gases emissions, and restoring the environment that sustains life on land and in the water, and perhaps even our atmosphere.

I call it dealing with effects and with causes.  Mark Hertsgaard calls it playing defense (in the short-term) and offense (for the long-term.)  The tonedeaf call it adaptation and mitigation.  But together they are the zones of activity to confront the Climate Crisis for the next century or likely more.  The problems involved in confronting this crisis are in such areas as flood control, public health, clean energy technology, economic reorganization--well, eventually just about everything.  Not exactly a range that makes "solution" or "solve" a very meaningful term. 

Those are multiple problems that can be addressed with varying degrees of success--with smaller problems "solved" along the way--by many people doing different things.  (If you're looking for good news, this is probably it--a lot of people will have something truly meaningful to do with their lives, and many kinds of talent will be needed.)  But we begin by recognizing, confronting and addressing the Climate Crisis.  While it's true that much can be done without even mentioning the Climate Crisis, it's unlikely we're going to be able to avoid confronting it for long.         

In Bad Times

Two observations about economic Bad Times.  The first is that for a lot of employers, bad times are good times.  When it comes to paying workers very little, and other forms of exploitation, they can get away with almost anything without worrying too much that either employees or government will object.  Maybe a union would, which is another reason that employers would like to destroy them all.  But employers can get around unions pretty easily, by employing part-time and freelance labor not covered by union contracts, and who don't get benefits.

This freedom to do what they want when people with any kind of job are afraid to lose it can easily lead to sadism in the workplace, as well as virtual slavery.  Especially since it cuts costs and adds to profits.  Even when employers must hire to replace workers who can't take it anymore, they get to cut more corners.  They are able to discriminate according to age, race, gender, or just arbitrarily in order to winnow down the pool and cut recruitment costs, and nobody is likely to do much about it.

On a more macro level,  Bad Times add a lot of loose emotion and power to the usual projections, denial etc. with more pressure from the unconscious, as anxieties, fears, resentments,etc. bubble up.  So you get violence, as in England now (although there are other factors involved.)  Or you get politics that's violently split.  That was clearly the situation in the Great Depression era.  There was a lot of support and agitation for real socialism and communism, on local and state levels as well as national.  FDR was to the right of all that, but he wasn't far enough to the right to satisfy a lot of other people.  American fascism was on the rise, especially among the corporate and monied elite.  Some were openly pro-Hitler and anti-Semitic.  There is even evidence of a high level conspiracy to stage a coup against President Roosevelt and take over the U.S. government, which involved a direct ancestor to the current Bushes.  So in Bad Times, a President doesn't have to be black to be hated by the Rabid Right.  And the extremes we're experiencing now aren't unprecedented. 

The Great Disruption

It was the melting of Arctic sea ice--much faster than predicted--that seemed to begin the change in what the writers on the Climate Crisis were saying, and how they were saying it.  The sense of urgency--we've only got 15 years, or 10 years, or 5 years left to act or a catastrophic Climate Crisis will be upon us!--faded, and was replaced by a more somber and careful tone.  Not because the predictions had been alarmist or wrong.  But because they had come true, a little faster than they hoped.

Probably the first signals came from one of the oldest and most eminent of the elders, James Lovelock in his 2009 book, The Vanishing Face of Gaia: A Final Warning, which said the Climate Crisis was inevitably escalating to such a proportion that human civilization was finished.  The only hope was reconstituting it from remnant populations huddled in the Arctic.  The book was mostly ignored as mad prophesy, though informed observers like Bill McKibben critiqued it carefully, and seemed relieved to find some of its assertions based on faulty or not provable science.

But it wasn't long before analyzes with almost as dour outcomes were becoming more typical than not.  Though couched in more careful language, inevitable catastrophe and challenge to the very existence of human civilization were the themes in David W. Orr's Down to the Wire (2009) and McKibben's own Eaarth (2010.)

Now this year there's The Great Disruption by Paul Gilding (Bloomsbury Press.) His point of view is similar: Our first truly human evolutionary test was whether we could anticipate the future catastrophe we were blindly causing, and act effectively in time to prevent it. Well, we flunked that one. Like other recent books on the climate crisis, this one asserts that the global catastrophe is unstoppable.

Gilding, an Australian former human rights and environmental activist as well as a businessman and corporate advisor, is forthright on the irrefutable factors besides the climate crisis that are converging: unsustainable population and economic growth outrunning and crashing resources. He says straight out what others have avoided for years: “I expect we’ll tragically lose a few billion people.”

Yet the buzz about this book is that it’s optimistic.

Gilding asserts that there will come a point, perhaps an event, when the crisis will be really obvious, and humanity will respond in its characteristic “slow but not stupid, late but dramatic” way, as for example when the West geared up to defeat Hitler.

There will be what he calls the Great Awakening: “an exciting and ultimately positive transformation, with great innovation and change in technology, business and economic models alongside a parallel shift in human development. It could well be, in a nonbiological sense, a move to a higher state of evolution and consciousness.” (Presumably that’s if you’re not one of the lost billions.) It’s humanity’s second evolutionary test—and if we blow this one, it’s pretty much over for civilization, because we will have kept on doing what will make the farther future even worse. This event and this transformation, he writes, could begin in this decade.

At least half the book is devoted to Gilding’s ideas of what must be done over the next 40 years to create a sustainable no-growth economy and the values that go with it--ideas tested so far in his speeches and peer-reviewed papers, but now available for wider scrutiny and participation. Though he uses big labels and inspirational generalities, he’s practical and subtle on the process and on as many details as he musters.

Gilding acknowledges the emotional impact of a future of earthquake-like disruptions, and a transition that “will shake us to the core, forcing a substantial rearrangement of human values, political systems, and our physical lives.” This has happened before, but perhaps never so intentionally. He writes that “Grieving is an appropriate response” for the world we’ve destroyed and the resulting pain, “but sustained despair is not.” Any chance for civilization surviving depends on “active, engaged and strategic hope.” Hope is not a response but a commitment. Optimism is “the most important and political choice an individual can make.”

This hope must be enacted partly by working to define the plans necessary to meet this crisis, so when society demands them, they’ll be ready. That makes this a book to keep. It takes awhile to absorb its information and the emotions it evokes. But there’s getting to be a consensus that the catastrophe “that will shake us to the core” is coming. It’s time to choose this way to be human, face the grief and think hard about the future.

Combining a brief sketch of the depth and extent of catastrophe with a brief sketch of a program to get through it and make things better seems a proper enterprise, but it makes for a very weird book. The implications of living through the death of millions--as we're seeing right now in the climate-related starvation in the Horn of Africa--as well as the chaos, the fear, uncertainty (is this intractable recession the beginning of the permanent economic growth collapse?) and denial--seem to need more than a simple acknowledgement they are coming. A little reflection makes the rest of the book seem like whistling in the dark, and the occasional inspirational self-help book tone doesn't help. That's not to say that his program isn't a useful one, or that it won't work. It just makes for a schizoid reading experience. Also, its subtitle is so silly I can't even bring myself to use it. But all of that just has to be acknowledged--then the content of the book worked with and absorbed.

How far we are from engaging with these issues, let alone accepting and confronting them, can be gauged by how little influence on the public dialogue these books are having.  But for the relative few who are engaged, this book should remain of considerable interest for some time to come.

(By the way, the latest studies--despite some of the media reports--support and extend the notion that Arctic ice is melting very rapidly--and may be virtually gone by 2050 or sooner.)

The Will to Act

President Obama spoke about the S&P credit rating downgrade, and what needs to be done to get the U.S. fiscal house in order and to create jobs and economic growth.  After describing again the steps Congress can take immediately, he concluded: "Markets will rise and fall, but this is the United States of America. No matter what some agency may say, we’ve always been and always will be a AAA country... What sets us apart is that we’ve always not just had the capacity, but also the will to act -- the determination to shape our future; the willingness in our democracy to work out our differences in a sensible way and to move forward, not just for this generation but for the next generation.

And we’re going to need to summon that spirit today. The American people have been through so much over the last few years, dealing with the worst recession, the biggest financial crisis since the 1930s, and they’ve done it with grace. And they’re working so hard to raise their families, and all they ask is that we work just as hard, here in this town, to make their lives a little easier. That’s not too much to ask. And ultimately, the reason I am so hopeful about our future -- the reason I have faith in these United States of America -- is because of the American people. It’s because of their perseverance, and their courage, and their willingness to shoulder the burdens we face -– together, as one nation."

I might mention here that there's also been a flurry of political punditry about what President Obama must do immediately.  One prominent oped revived the oldest cry in the book: that President Obama has to make impassioned speeches promoting a new political narrative.  Maybe so.  But the same was said of President Kennedy (he needed to make "fireside chats") and President Clinton.  But here's the deal: the media spends more prominent time and space complaining about what President Obama doesn't say that presenting what he actually does say--which is one important reason that the strategy they demand probably wouldn't work as easily as they seem to believe.  The remarks above are a good example--covered live in the afternoon, but never heard from again.   Plus good proportion of stuff these bloviators complain that Obama isn't saying is stuff that he actually has said, but they weren't listening.  They were too busy listening to themselves, and each other.

Blue Monday

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Rachel gave a graphic portrait of Monday's stock market meltdown.  She pointed out that while S&P downgraded the U.S. as a credit risk, most of the money in the market fled private companies and went into U.S. government securities, the very T-bills that were downgraded, because they are the safest investment in the world.  She also pointed out that the S&P action was roundly criticized, and based on political, not financial considerations.  But she made the case that this political punditry had some basis in reality--that not only had the Tea Party insisted they were ready and eager to default, but all the R presidential candidates save one are saying the same thing, and the GOPer Senate leader promised that holding the debt ceiling as hostage (which were his words) created a "new template" for future debt ceiling debates.  So the Republican establishment as well as its radical faction has promised to do what S&P said they feared would happen.  Rachel's analogy was that the U.S. must pay more for its fire insurance because it has an arsonist in the family.  That arsonist is the GOP. She closes this opening segment with the reason the market sold off private companies stock as fear that nobody seems capable of reviving the U.S. economy, of creating jobs for Americans.    

Earlier on MSNBC, Lawrence O'Donnell gave a spirited analysis of why the S&P action was wrong, the product of a "Confederacy of Dunces that is S&P," and was proven wrong by the market moving to Treasury bills as the safest investment.  Unfortunately, the complete video of this opening isn't posted at MSNBC and the transcript isn't available yet.  But it's worth a look and/or a read when it is available.

The Dreaming Up Daily Quote

"Fantasy is the dominant force in a life."
James Hillman

The Tea Party Downgrade

How Hot Was It?

From NOAA: "How hot was the month of July in 2011? So hot that just by plotting the location of each daily heat record that was broken, a nearly complete image of the contiguous United States is visible. Almost 9,000 daily records were broken or tied last month, including 2,755 highest maximum temperatures and 6,171 highest minimum temperatures (i.e., nighttime records). It should be noted that the tally of records collected so far is not complete – more are expected to come in as station data from across the U.S. is mailed to the National Climatic Data Center. The statistics reported here only include weather stations with real-time electronic reporting, which accounts for about two-thirds of the locations. Final numbers should be available later in August.

This image plots how many times a heat record was broken or tied in a given location. Some cities reached daily high temperatures 19 out of the 31 days in the month. The largest concentration of these records occur in the southern Plains, Midwest, and Northeast U.S., which were gripped by a series of heat waves pushing heat indices well into the 100’s (Fahrenheit) for many days at a time."